There Goes the Bride

by Holly McQueen

  “Understandable.”

  “Exactly!” He’s the second person in the last few minutes not to pick up on my sarcasm. “And like I said, it’s not something I’m too proud of. Not something I’d ever go around talking about!”

  “Even to your girlfriend.”

  “Even to my girlfriend,” he agrees solemnly. He sits down on the bed and pats it for me to sit next to him. For some reason, I do. He puts an arm around my shoulders. “Anyway, I’ve been waiting all day to apologize to you about it, let you know how bad I feel. But I hope you notice that I’ve done my best to help you out today—you know, pull my weight with your mum and stuff.”

  “That’s what you’ve been doing?” I blink at him.

  His chocolatey eyes blink back at me. “Absolutely! You deserve a nice Christmas, Bells. You deserve the best.”

  I can’t help myself. I lean into the crook of his arm, letting my weight fall against him. It feels so nice. Gorgeous Jamie, big and strong, with his arms around me. It’s the kind of feeling that could make me start to wonder why I’d ever risk giving him up in favor of adopting a child. Or rather, trying to adopt a child. Let’s face it, even if I didn’t have an ex-convict for a boyfriend, there’s no guarantee that my adoption would work out. There could be all kinds of other reasons why I’d be turned down … all right, nothing as concrete as failing the police checks, but you never know, do you? If there’s one thing I should have learned from my life, it’s that the best-laid plans have a nasty tendency to go pear-shaped. I could end up without Jamie and without a child.

  Wouldn’t it be better just to settle for Jamie?

  “So, happy Christmas, babe.” He hands me the tiny, flat parcel. “Go on! Open it,” he adds, in a can’t-wait-to-see-the-look-on-your-face kind of voice. “I really hope this is something that’ll make you realize how committed I am to our future together.”

  I pull at the tape, unfold the red-and-green wrapping, and look at the present inside.

  It’s a red plastic two-card wallet, a bit like the one I used to have for my Oyster card before I stopped going on the tube and started going everywhere in my van.

  “It’s … for credit cards?”

  “No!” Jamie laughs, grabs the wallet from me, and flips it open. “It’s your very own Manchester United season ticket!”

  So it is. Inside the wallet, on the left-hand side, is a small plastic card featuring the club’s famous red crest and the words Manchester United Football Club, 2011–2012 Season.

  “And don’t worry, I’ve got one for myself, of course! Oh, and before you start worrying that I’ve spent too much, I got the pair of them for only eight hundred! From that new mate of mine over in South Kensington. Small problem, they’re not seats next to each other—actually, they’re eighteen rows apart—but I didn’t think you’d mind that, Bells. Gorgeous girl like you, you’ll make a load of friends at Old Trafford before you’ve ever taken your seat! Anyway, we’ll be traveling up and down together, of course, and we can meet for a drink at halftime …”

  “But most of the matches are on weekends.” I’ve pulled out of his embrace now, and I’m staring at him.

  “See? You’re learning more about football already!”

  “Weekends when I work. When my clients have their parties, and their lunches, and their buffet suppers. Saturdays and Sundays.”

  “But you’re your own boss, Bells! You can take off one day every other weekend, can’t you? Especially now you’re not going to have to be worrying about fitting in your working hours around a small kid.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, it’s like you said yesterday, isn’t it? We don’t stand all that much chance of adopting, what with my past history.” There’s a slightly hopeful tinge to his voice; I can’t believe I didn’t notice it there when he talked about the adoption before. Because it was there. It was definitely there, all along. “I mean, you would have had a lot less time for work if you’d had a kid to look after, anyway. Why not just look at it that way?”

  I take a long, steadying breath. “So what you’re saying is that a bimonthly trip up the M6 to Manchester is just as good a way for me to use my time as looking after our child?”

  “Well, we could take the M1, if you preferred. Stop off at this nice pub I know in …”

  “And that after a decade of me wanting a child, and years of planning to adopt a child, I should drop the dream just like that, without so much as a backwards glance? Because my boyfriend has a criminal record he didn’t tell me about, and because he thinks a few trips to Old Trafford are a good substitute for parenthood?”

  Jamie shuffles his feet. He stares at the floor sheepishly. “Well, I thought I was your fiancé, not just your boyfriend,” he says. “But if you’re having second thoughts about that …”

  I let out a giggle. It takes me by surprise as much as it obviously takes Jamie by surprise. I mean, let’s face it, this is no laughing matter.

  Or is it?

  “Hey, this isn’t funny, you know,” Jamie says indignantly.

  “It is a little bit funny.” I’m still giggling. “You buying a United season ticket for someone who could barely tell you the difference between football and rugby. Me buying you a Filofax for your nonexistent gardening appointments and a photo frame for pictures of a child you never wanted.”

  “I never said—” He stops. “I’ll get gardening appointments, you know,” he mumbles after a moment. “These things just take time.”

  I feel a sudden rush of affection for him. Because he hasn’t denied everything I just said; he hasn’t contradicted what I said about a child. It’s probably the most honest he’s ever been about it. It feels as if some kind of pressure valve inside me has been gently, carefully released, leaving me about a ton lighter in the process.

  “That wasn’t my point,” I say, putting my hand lightly on his knee. “I wasn’t meaning to be rude about your gardening business. I only meant that we were buying presents for the wrong people. You bought a present for a woman who’s happy to spend her weekends traveling to football games and drinking in pubs. And I bought presents for a man who wants a nice steady job and a tight little family. But the trouble is, J, that I’m not that woman. You’re not that man. And I just think,” I carry on, as he finally turns to look at me, “that both of us would be better off trying to find that woman and that man. Or even going it alone. Rather than stumbling on together and both missing out on the things we really want in our lives.”

  Jamie’s full, soft mouth falls open, just slightly. “Are you dumping me?”

  “No, Jamie, I’m not. I’m freeing you. And I think you need to free me. Because honestly, as Christmas presents go, it’s the best thing we could possibly give each other.”

  There aren’t any tears; no recriminations. OK, there aren’t all that many more giggles either. But as breakups on Christmas night go, I think this one is about as civilized and painless as it comes.

  If anything—if I weren’t still feeling the pressure-valve relief and the sudden loss of all the weight I’ve been carrying (metaphysical, sadly, not actual; my demolition of Brian’s roast goose has ruined any possibility of that)—I might even be a tiny bit insulted that Jamie has shuffled out of my life without much of a fight. But I’ve no right to be insulted, seeing as I’m the one who gave him the push to set him shuffling. And seeing as Jamie shuffles into pretty much everything he does, without an agenda, or real commitment, or that much enthusiasm. He’s taken his leave of me with pretty much the same I mean, why the fuck not attitude with which he suggested our engagement.

  He has at least, bless him, tried to put the faintest patina of respectability on things by disappearing to the pub to “drown his sorrows.” Even though I think he’ll hardly be surprised to find that his sorrows are excellent swimmers, practically Olympic gold-medal-standard at the backstroke and butterfly. He’s said he’ll sleep on the sofa when he gets back and move in with one of The Boys tomorrow.

 
I feel like I could do with a long, strong drink myself—Brian’s leftover booze is calling to me—but first I wash my face, scrub off my mascara, and change into my pajamas. My old, comfy, checked ones with the loose elastic and missing buttons, that is, rather than the slippery black satin ones Mum’s just given me as my Christmas present. Mum’s choice of nightwear looks more suitable for greeting gentlemen callers at the door of a Shanghai whorehouse than for drinking a schooner of cream sherry in front of rubbish late-night Christmas TV, which is how I intend to spend my first couple of hours as a singleton.

  I’ve assumed that Liam has accompanied Jamie to the pub, because I heard the two of them exchanging a few inaudible words in the living room, followed by lots of heavy footsteps to the front door, followed by total silence.

  I set one foot outside my bedroom door before I realize that I’m wrong.

  Liam is half-crouched right outside, in the act of setting down a tray of something.

  When he sees my (grotty, unloved) bare feet, he straightens up so fast that I’m surprised he doesn’t get the bends.

  “Hey! Sorry! I wasn’t lurking out here or anything … I was just leaving you that.”

  That refers to the tray he’s put down—my favorite slatted wooden one, loaded up with a mug of tea, Jamie’s new bottle of whisky, a wodge of holly-print napkins, and the ceramic basin containing the remains of Anna’s Christmas pudding.

  “I wasn’t sure,” he carries on awkwardly, “if you wanted a hot drink, a forty percent proof drink, a good cry, or a food blow-out. I mean, I haven’t been dumped by anyone in a very, very long time, so I’m afraid I’m not too sure of the protocols.”

  I stare at him. “Jamie said he’d dumped me?”

  “Er … yeah.” Liam muses on this for a moment, scratching his head. “But then, come to think of it, Jamie also once said that our school football coach told him that if he’d not messed up his ankle when he was thirteen he would have been talent-scouted by Manchester United and had a career on the left wing to rival Ryan Giggs. So he does have a tendency to talk a vast amount of incredible bollocks.”

  “That he does.” And I sort of don’t really care. About what Jamie said about who dumped whom, that is. I’ve far more important things to think about right now than my pride.

  Like the fact that Liam seems more concerned about taking care of me than going out for a pint with his newly single mate.

  Like the fact that being in such close proximity to him in the boxy hallway is for some reason making my chest go all thuddy.

  Like the fact that my own chest—at least, one side of it—is making a bid for freedom from between the two halves of my pajama top where there aren’t any buttons to fasten it. Which must be why Liam’s gaze has traveled twenty centimeters south of my chin, and why he’s turning rather red.

  “Oh, crap!” I yelp, covering myself up the moment I realize I’m accidentally flashing him. “God, I’m sorry …”

  “Don’t be.” He takes a couple of hasty steps backwards. “I’ll just … er … leave you to select your refreshment …”

  My heart, which was the thing causing all that thudding a moment ago, has sunk. I’m just so disappointed that we’re back here again: an awkward, uncomfortable encounter, once more featuring naked body parts. And it’s not even as if Liam looked at all … well, at all pleased to encounter my left boob. Though why would he, I suppose, given that it’s always been the droopier of the two, and that it’s not exactly flattered by the grungy gray of my ancient pajamas?

  “… and I wasn’t looking, by the way,” he’s carrying on, turning more red than ever. “Well, I did look—I mean, obviously it caught my eye—but I wasn’t staring. I wouldn’t want you to think that I was, you know, eyeing you up. Especially not under the circumstances.”

  “The circumstances?”

  “Yeah. That you’ve just broken up with someone. Which means, of course, that you’re available. Not that it would have been OK to stare at your breasts if you weren’t available!” he adds frantically. “It’s just that … well, it’s different, of course, now that you are.”

  “Now that I am … er … what?”

  He stops backing away. “Available,” he says.

  There’s a bit of a silence. It isn’t an awkward one this time. It’s filled, after a moment or two, in my head at least, by the return of that thuddy noise.

  Because now he actually is staring at me. And I’m staring right back at him.

  “Do you really,” I ask, through a weirdly dry mouth, “think I’m available?”

  “Oh, God, I’m sorry, Bella, I didn’t mean to offend you. Look, I know you’re not really available. You’ve only broken up with Jamie fifteen minutes ago. And he’s a mate of mine, of course.”

  “But if he weren’t. And if I’d broken up with him longer than fifteen minutes ago.” Jesus, I really don’t know what’s happening to me. Even the Sahara-like sensation in my mouth isn’t stopping me from talking. “Then would you think I was available?”

  He doesn’t reply for a moment. Then he says, slowly, “You’re asking me if I wonder if you’re available to me.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then yes. Yes, Bella. I am wondering that.”

  “I see. Well, that’s … significant.” That’s significant? How have I managed to turn this into what sounds like a business negotiation?

  “And what about me?” Liam puts one arm up against the wall in what is probably an attempt to look casual. Actually, it makes him look rather sexy. “I mean, I don’t know if you’ve ever wondered about my availability.”

  Oh, good, so it’s not just me, then. He’s as bad at the slushy stuff as I am. If I’ve just made it sound like a business negotiation, he’s just made it sound as though he’s putting out a tender for some kind of unpleasant job that I need doing. Having the drains unblocked, perhaps, or scouring the oven.

  “Actually you don’t need to answer that.” He takes his arm down from the wall, giving up any attempt to look casual and looking as though he feels rather foolish all of a sudden. “I know I’m not all that much of a catch. There’s my girls, and there’s Kerry—well, there was Kerry—and I still don’t have a job to my name over here, although the signs were really good from that second interview at Google, and I know I’m not exactly an Adonis, especially when I leave it too long without getting my back waxed … Kerry always used to nag me about that …”

  “Liam, stop. Body hair or no body hair, you’re a catch, OK? You’re a serious catch.”

  He catches his breath. “Well, so are you. I mean, not that you need to worry about body hair. Not that you need to worry about your body at all, in fact. It’s perfect. You’re perfect.” He takes a step in my direction. “I don’t know if I should say this, Bella. You’ve only just broken up with Jamie. You’re vulnerable. The last thing I want is to take advantage.”

  “Well, say it anyway.” I grin at him. “Then we can debate whether I’m too vulnerable for it or not.”

  He takes another, bigger step, so that he’s right in front of me. “OK, small confession.” He smiles now, too. “It’s not so much something I wanted to say as something I wanted to do.”

  OK. This is it. I turn my face up to him.

  But he doesn’t kiss me. He leans down, wraps his arms around me, and holds me for a long, long moment in the warmest, most comfortable hug I’ve ever had in my life.

  Then he kisses me.

  I honestly don’t know how much time passes before I realize that behind us in the bedroom, my phone has started to ring.

  I wouldn’t answer it—nothing on earth could be more important than Liam’s kisses right now—but it’s Polly’s ringtone. And under the circumstances, I’m going to have to make an early exception.

  “I’m so sorry, I have to get that.” I pull reluctantly away. “It’s my sister.”

  “No problem.” He grins down at me. He looks—and the expression has never felt more apt—as if all his Christmases have come at once
. “There’s plenty more where that came from.”

  Now that I like the sound of. Because the early round of kisses was fantastic enough to make me a tiny bit trembly as I grab my phone. “Poll?”

  “Bella?”

  “Polly, I’ve been trying you all day! Look, are you OK? Brian said you told him you were going to friends for the day, but I didn’t think you’d have gone to Grace’s, not after yesterday, and I couldn’t think who else to …”

  “I spent it with Dev.”

  I almost drop the phone. “With Dev?”

  “Yes.” She giggles, sounding like the years have fallen away, and like she’s eighteen again. Sounding like Polly again. “Or should I call him …” She pauses, dramatically. “My fiancé?”

  “What?”

  “We’re getting married, Bella! On New Year’s Eve, just like we planned. You had to be the first one to know.”

  Is she joking? She doesn’t sound like she’s joking.

  “But Polly, how … I mean, when …?”

  “He called me last night, after your party, and I wasn’t going to pick up, but then I did, and we talked. We talked for hours and hours, and … look, all that matters is this. Everything’s OK.” Her voice cracks, ever so slightly, with joyful, almost disbelieving tears. “Everything’s OK, and we’re getting married after all!”

  Grace

  Wednesday, December 30

  I did give Robbie and Hector the choice of whether to come with me to Wiltshire for Polly’s wedding tomorrow, or whether to spend the time at Vanessa’s. Though they were quite excited by the idea of getting to see Auntie Polly “looking like a beautiful Christmas angel,” and sorely tempted by the prospect of seeing the donkeys in the fields near Mummy’s old house, eventually staying at Vanessa’s won.

  This isn’t, I hardly need to say, anything to do with the lure of Vanessa herself. It’s because they’ll get to spend another couple of nights worshipping at the altar of Percy, plus the chance to play with their baby sisters. Sorry, their baby half sisters.