There Goes the Bride

by Holly McQueen

  I stop talking as, quite suddenly, he gets up and leans right out through the window toward me. I feel something being placed around my shoulders. It’s warm, and it smells oddly, but nicely, of ginger snaps. It’s his hooded top.

  “Should have offered you this earlier. With the cold, and all that.”

  “I don’t need it.” I start to shrug it off, but he stops me.

  “Just for once in your life, Bella, let somebody else be the judge of what you might need.”

  I think it’s the first time he’s ever called me by my name.

  It sounds weird, hearing it in a Cork voice that isn’t Jamie’s.

  But OK weird. Not … weird weird.

  “And can I just ask,” he’s carrying on, “how your sister is pretending to be a lesbian? I mean, it’s not like charades, for Christ’s sake. Don’t the other lesbians suss you out when, oh, I don’t know, you carry on fancying men, or something?”

  I can’t help smiling. “Oh, God, I don’t know. It’s just … well, there’s this woman, Julia, back in New York, who Polly’s always emailing. Talking to on the phone a lot as well.”

  “So? Maybe she’s just a friend.”

  “Polly doesn’t talk to her like a friend. It’s always just about her problems, and how much she needs Julia’s help, and they obviously used to meet up once a week in New York, in secret, it sounds like …”

  “Are you sure it’s not some kind of counselor?”

  “What?”

  “A counselor. Shrink, maybe, if it’s a New York thing. I mean, if all your sister talks about is her problems, and if they used to meet once a week …”

  It’s weird—and weird weird this time—but with sudden, blinding clarity, I know that he’s right.

  Now that I think of it, they don’t have the tone you’d expect of emails to a friend. No questions about how Julia’s life is going, no mention of any ordinary stuff, like films just seen or clothes just bought. Just endless monologues of Polly tortuously trying to work through her problems. And then there are all the weirdly specific scheduling arrangements for times to call …

  “I mean, I should know,” Liam is continuing. “It sounds a lot like the kind of relationship I had with the counselor I saw back home, after Kerry … well. You know. I’d go for a session once a week, and talk about my feelings, and I always felt a bit bad that we were only talking about me.” He lets out an awkward chuckle. “Anyway, I still drop the bloke an email every now and then, just to let him know what’s new in my life. That I’m doing OK.”

  The question flashes into my head, weirdly and totally irrationally, whether Liam has mentioned anything to his counselor about me. Just as something new in his life, that’s all.

  “But look, Bella, for what it’s worth, I don’t think your sister is a lesbian. On the other hand, she might well be having a nervous breakdown.”

  “But that would be great news!”

  He stares at me.

  “Nervous breakdowns can be cured, can’t they? Unlike being a lesbian. And all these bonkers things she’s doing—dumping Dev, canceling the wedding—they can all be turned around if she just gets better!”

  “Well, yeah, maybe, but it’s hardly an exact science …”

  “Nothing is an exact science.”

  “True. Oh, apart from nuclear physics. And molecular biology. And inorganic chemistry.”

  “I mean these types of things are not exact sciences. Relationships. Mental states.” My own mental state is, quite possibly, a little bit altered right now. Because the possibility of getting Polly and Dev back together—of being responsible, in some small way, for their opportunity to have a life and build a proper family together—is making me feel slightly giddy. After all, right now Polly needs Dev more than ever, doesn’t she? And wouldn’t she be better off trying to solve her demons from within a happy marriage rather than miserably on her own? Rather than feeling, as well she might if she’s in the middle of a nervous breakdown, that she doesn’t deserve to be married. As Dev said himself, he’ll do anything to get her back—and if he’s even entertaining the possibility of giving up the idea of children, the mere act of helping Polly recover from whatever emotional crisis she’s experiencing will be easy. “If I could just get her to talk to him, face-to-face, make her realize that he’s the one she needs to lean on, not push away …”

  “Hmm. I wouldn’t meddle in this kind of thing. Leave things to sort themselves out on their own, maybe.”

  “Do you have a sister?” I demand.

  “I have three brothers.”

  “And would you just leave them to sort things out on their own? If you honestly knew what was best for them? And thought they were at risk of making the biggest mistake of their lives?” I don’t give him a chance to answer before I’m getting to my feet. “Thanks for the hoodie, Liam,” I tell him, pulling it off my shoulders and handing it back to him.

  “Where are you going?” he asks as I force him back through the window, climbing inside myself. It would risk being a tangle of arms and legs if I weren’t so short and stubby-limbed. Not to mention determined not to make physical contact.

  “Just to bed. And I have an important call to make.”

  To Dev, to ask what his plans are for Christmas. And to suggest that, if he hasn’t got anything else going on, he comes over to my place …

  “But it’s half past one in the morning,” Liam points out.

  “Text messages, then. Emails.” Maybe have another sneaky look at Polly’s emails, too, try to get a sense of exactly why it might be that she’s seeing a counselor. “It was good to talk to you, Liam. Thanks for everything.”

  “Actually, Bella, I’ve been meaning to thank you for everything. Letting me stay, and …”

  “You’re welcome.” I’m already on my way to my bedroom, where—unless The Boys have got hold of it and started downloading Internet porn—I’ll be able to shut myself away with my laptop. Start on the road to getting at least one Atkins family fuckup sorted out, once and for all.

  From:

  PollyWollyDoodle@hotmail.com

  To:

  Julia247@yahoo.com

  Date:

  December 8, 2011

  Subject:

  Phone session

  Julia,

  Any chance at all we could move our call forward by a few hours? I think we’d agreed on four thirty in the afternoon, your time, but if there’s any chance at all you could squeeze me in before that, I’d really really seriously appreciate it.

  I’ve just had a bit of a … well, a thing, with my sister. I don’t know if you could call it a row, really. She was pretty drunk, which she almost never is, drowning her sorrows because her wretched boyfriend hadn’t bothered to show up for a meeting with their adoption agent. So I started blurting out a ton of stuff about how she should ditch him, and how she’d be better off alone if she ever wanted to have the child she deserves … I got a bit more emotional about it than I thought I would. But then, talking about this adoption of hers is difficult for me. I mean, I’ve had this chance at a perfect life, with the perfect man, who I’d never have met if it hadn’t been for the accident that took away her womb. I never know whether Bella thinks about this. If it has occurred to her, and she still wants nothing but the best for me, she’s a better sister than I’ve ever been.

  Anyway, once I’d given her my piece about bloody Jamie, she started on at me about Dev and what she called the “real reason” I broke up with him. Not that I think she knows the “real” reason. Obviously we’d have been having quite a different conversation if she did.

  In fact, the more I think about it, the more I start to think that maybe I should just let myself marry Dev—inflict myself on the poor innocent guy, warts and all—if it would mean I never had to tell Bella the truth.

  What I’m saying, I think, is that I’m thinking about the halfway house you suggested. I’m thinking of talking to Dev. Trying to explain why it is, exactly, that I feel so utterly, totally u
nworthy of marrying him. Seeing if, like you said in our session the day before I left New York, it’s just enough for me that he forgives me. So that nobody else has to forgive me. So that I don’t have to forgive myself.

  Anyway, we can talk about this in our phone session. I’m right here, Julia, whenever you can fit in the call.

  Thanks as always.

  P x

  Grace

  Friday, December 18

  I could lie here in bed, with Saad’s arms wrapped tightly around me, for the rest of my life.

  Except that I can’t, of course. Because I’ve got to get up any minute now and start making my way home to Fulham for Robbie’s end-of-term carol concert.

  Oh, and because I’m married to another man. That’s the other reason I can’t stay here with Saad for the rest of my life. But it’s easier, and much less painful, to concentrate on the small practicalities and inconveniences for the time being.

  “Do you have to go?” Saad groans, waking from the half-doze he’s been in for the last hour.

  “I really do. Duty calls.” And not just the carol concert but, later this evening, after what’s bound to be a manic dash getting the boys back from school, fed, bathed, and put to bed, back to St. Martin’s for Chief Miranda’s blessed silent auction. For which, by the way, I still haven’t come up with an acceptable “donation.” Chief Miranda has made it quite clear that the offering I’ve been forced to go with—almost bankrupting myself to buy two tickets for a production of Cosi Fan Tutte at the Royal Opera House—is very low down on her list of Things to Be Impressed By.

  Saad entwines his other arm around me and pulls me, only half-joking, back down onto the bed. “How do you feel about a bit of voluntary kidnapping?”

  “How would that work, exactly?”

  “Well, seeing as you’d be cooperating ever so nicely, I’d make things really comfortable for you. Set you up in a lovely prison on the top floor. Only chain you to the bedpost if you’d been really, really naughty.”

  “Tempting though that sounds”—and it does sound really, really tempting—“I think a few people might have objections. Thomas, for one …”

  Saad is nuzzling my neck. “I’ll double his salary. Hush money.”

  “… my children, for another.” It’s the first time I’ve mentioned Robbie and Hector since this affair started, and I’m not quite sure what makes me do it now. Is it because I’m so relaxed here with Saad—more relaxed, I think, than I’ve ever been in my life—that I feel like I can say absolutely anything right now? Still, I hold my breath to see if it ruins the flirty, jokey atmosphere.

  “See if you can talk them into the voluntary kidnap thing, too,” Saad suggests with a grin. “Kids are pretty easily bribed, aren’t they? Just tell them I’ll build them a whole separate prison, with a bowling alley and a sweet shop, and they won’t have to go to school ever again. They’ll be putty in your hands.”

  “Throw in a Fireman Sam screening room as well, and you’re golden,” I tell him, just as my phone starts to ring in my handbag.

  It’s Charlie.

  I would avoid the call, but if I don’t pick up, he’ll just keep ringing until I do. That’s Charlie’s usual style; it’s OK for him to be out of contact, but he doesn’t like it if I am. Anyway, I need to know what he’s calling about, because I have a horrible suspicion that he’s about to tell me he can’t make it to Robbie’s carol concert. Which will be even worse than it sounds, because Robbie came home from school last night with the excited announcement that the appointed soloist for his class’s rendition of Little Donkey at this afternoon’s carol concert has been struck down with illness—hurray for the winter vomiting bug!—and Robbie has been lined up to take his place. I triple-checked this morning with his class teacher, and my most up-to-date information is that Little Donkey will be a “go” at exactly halfway through the carol concert, at 3:20 p.m. So Charlie has to make it out of the office no later than 2:50 if he’s going to make it in time for the all-important solo, at the very least.

  “It’s Charlie,” I say flatly to Saad. “I need to get this.”

  Silently—tactfully?—he gets out of bed and goes into the bathroom, closing the door behind him.

  I pick up the ringing phone. “Charlie, hi.”

  “We have a big problem,” says Charlie.

  Shit.

  Does he know?

  Has someone at the office realized that Saad must be having an affair? I mean, he’s taken so much time off work these past couple of weeks, it would hardly be unlikely for someone to have worked it out. And even though I think I’ve been incredibly careful and discreet, I haven’t accounted for the possibility of someone following Saad home from the office, seeing me arrive in a cab, and emerging a couple of hours later looking flushed of cheek and mussed of hair.

  Oh, God, Charlie is going to kill me. He is literally going to kill me. Or just kick me out of the house and take custody of the boys, which means he might as well just kill me anyway …

  “It’s about Percy,” he says.

  “Percy?”

  “Yes, Grace, Percy. My son?” There’s a particularly snarky edge to his voice that comes out when he’s stressed. “His term finishes today and Vanessa thought I was meeting him from the train at Paddington, and I thought she was meeting him from the train at Paddington … Did you forget to write it down on the calendar, Grace?”

  This is typical. One of the rare things that can bring Charlie and Vanessa closer these days is blaming me for stuff.

  But I’m so relieved not to have been caught out about Saad—this time—that I don’t really care.

  “No. I didn’t forget to write anything down. Vanessa told me to expect Percy from the weekend onwards. Not this evening.”

  He sighs, the way he does when he doesn’t like an answer. “Nevertheless, a mistake has been made. Vanessa is in surgery all afternoon, and I have back-to-back meetings …”

  I knew it. “And what about Robbie’s carol concert?”

  There’s the briefest of pauses. It’s all I need to hear to know that he’s forgotten.

  “Obviously I’m still hoping to make it to that. But Robbie might just have to learn that his dad has bills to pay, school fees to earn. It’s a good lesson in life.”

  “When you’re six years old? And you’re singing a solo?”

  “Great idea, Grace. Lay a guilt trip on me. Maybe you’d like to be the one to slave away in the office every day, while I get to be the one to go to the carol concert, and drink coffee with my friends, and go shopping.”

  This is such an unfair assessment of my average day that I’m too astounded to speak. On the other hand, a good deal of my time lately has been spent in a far more pleasurable way than I imagine Charlie’s days are at the office, so I don’t really have quite as much of a leg to stand on as I’d like.

  “Look, Charlie, I’ll just call Percy and tell him to get a taxi at the station. He can come straight to meet me at the school, and I’ll take him back to Vanessa’s from there …”

  “Are you crazy? It may have slipped your mind, but Percy was suspended from school recently for getting involved with drugs. I don’t need Vanessa on my back about letting him wander the streets of London on his own. No, look, you’ll just have to slip out of Robbie’s concert early or something. Percy’s train gets in at quarter to four. Meet him on the platform, will you, Grace? The last thing I want is him going AWOL.”

  And that’s it. The call is over. Charlie hangs up.

  I stare down at my silent phone.

  “Everything OK?” It’s Saad, appearing in the bathroom doorway. He’s wearing his robe and a concerned expression.

  “No, everything isn’t OK.” I can feel my throat burning with the effort of holding back furious tears. “My pig of a husband has decided to fix his own screwup about forgetting to collect his son by getting me to miss my son’s first ever carol concert solo. And I’ll do it, too, because I always feel so guilty about Percy growing up withou
t his dad, and because I don’t want him to feel he isn’t Charlie’s top priority, and because I’m too scared of Charlie’s ex-wife to risk letting Percy get a taxi, just in case he hightails it to some opium den or something … and because I feel so guilty about everything I’m doing here, with you … but the only person that really suffers is poor Robbie.”

  The thought hits me of Robbie, proud as a peacock in his freshly pressed school uniform, standing up to sing his solo and searching the rows of parents to see neither me nor Charlie there for his big moment …

  “Oh, Grace, don’t cry. Please don’t cry. We can fix this.” Saad walks up and puts his arms around me. “Look, why don’t you call your stepson—Percy, right?—and tell him that a man called Thomas will be meeting him off the train at Paddington. Thomas can drive him right over to meet you at the school. And if you’re worried about what Percy might say about it to his dad, I’m sure we can come up with some kind of decent explanation.”

  Actually, I’m far more worried about what Thomas might say to Percy. “I don’t know …”

  “Look, Thomas doesn’t even have to mention that he works for me. And Charlie wouldn’t have a clue what my driver is called even if the news did get back to him. And you could always just bribe your stepson to keep quiet about who picked him up. OK, it might take a bit more than a sweet shop and a Fireman Sam screening room, but …”

  “I can’t bribe Percy, Saad. I can’t put him in that position.”

  “Then just tell him Thomas is a friend of yours. It’s kind of true, after all.”

  I give him a look. “It really, really isn’t.”

  “So it’s a white lie. Thomas will be perfectly happy to go along with it. He feels bad, Grace, about that prank with your clothes.”

  “So he bloody should!”

  “Then this is a chance to let him make up for it. Look, this way you get to see Robbie’s solo, and Percy gets to take a ride in a top-of-the-line Bentley, and everybody’s happy. Come on.” He slides his arms around my waist and looks into my eyes. “Let me help, Gracie. Please.”