by Mike Gayle
Tapping her engagement ring (a platinum four-claw mount with a single carat diamond ring that Phil had surprised her with the weekend after she proposed) on the side of her glass, Helen rose and called the girls to attention.
‘I just wanted you all to know how much it means to me that you’ve come this weekend. We’ve all got such busy lives and hardly a scrap of time for ourselves, so the fact that you’ve all arranged baby-sitters, put off spending time with husbands and partners for the weekend just to be here means a tremendous amount to me. And, well, I think you’re all amazing!’
A tearful Helen sat down while the girls all applauded, Yaz joking that secretly they had only come for the pampering, and as they raised a glass for yet another toast the waiter arrived to inform them that their table was ready.
‘I know we’ve got lovely treatments and everything booked for the weekend,’ said Yaz, as the girls finished off their drinks and gathered their things, ‘but do you think it’s wrong for me to be looking forward to this meal most? I’m tingling with excitement at the prospect of a nice meal that I didn’t cook!’
Herded by Yaz, the party made their way into a large modern dining room where various tables of diners were already eating. One of the waiting staff checked their reservation and showed them to their table, which Yaz noticed immediately was too small.
‘I think there must have been a mistake. This is a table for six.’
The waiter nodded, returned to his station to pick up the reservation book and then consulted it in front of her.
‘You are?’
‘Mrs Collins.’
‘And the number in your party is?’
‘Eight.’
The waiter turned the book sideways to show Yaz what number was written down next to her name. There was no doubt about it. It was a six.
‘But that can’t be right! Yes, initially it was only going to be six tonight but then about three weeks ago I called and changed the number of guests to eight. Whoever took the call must have forgotten to change the booking.’
The waiter smiled apologetically. ‘I’m so sorry about this Mrs Collins but I’m afraid I can only go with what’s down in the book.’
Yaz looked as if she might explode. ‘Okay, fine, can you at least find us another table?’
‘I am afraid I can’t do that madam as we are fully booked this evening.’
Helen stepped in. ‘Okay, so we can’t have another table. How about if we all squeeze up a bit? Do you think you could get in another couple of chairs and two extra settings?’
The waiter offered what Helen hoped would be his last conciliatory smile. ‘I’m afraid, madam, that’s not The Manor’s dining policy. Might I suggest that you divide your group into two sittings?’
This suggestion was the final straw for Yaz. She glared at him and barked loudly enough to grab the attention of half the room: ‘What a stupid idea! We’re on a hen weekend, not a school trip! We’re not going to eat in two sittings, we’re going to eat all together at a table for eight because I don’t care what’s in that book of yours, that’s what I asked for!’
Helen quickly put her arm around Yaz. ‘Look, I’m really sorry. As you can see my friend’s quite upset by all this. We’ll just do the two sitting thing, okay?’
‘No, we will not!’ yelled Yaz. ‘You all think that I’ve cocked up somehow, well I didn’t! I booked a table for eight!’
‘It’s fine, babe, honestly,’ said Helen quickly, ‘No one blames you for anything.’
‘But that’s not the point!’ snapped Yaz, ‘The point is that I called and altered the booking three whole weeks ago and they told me there would be no problem and lo and behold there is one! It’s just so typical! You do everything to have things planned out and through no fault of your own it all falls apart! I’m absolutely bloody sick of it!’
Yaz was always forceful but this was far from being her normal behaviour. Helen drew her aside. ‘Listen, let’s go outside and take a breather for five minutes.’
Yaz didn’t reply. She pushed past the waiter and stormed out leaving Helen and at least half the dining room wondering what in the world was going on.
5.
Helen exchanged glances with the rest of the girls. There was something about the way Dee, Lorna and Kerry avoided her gaze that indicated they had more than an inkling of what was really going on.
‘Okay, which one of you is going to tell me?’
Dee reluctantly met Helen’s gaze. ‘She made us promise not to say anything.’
‘About what exactly? Has something happened?’
Dee’s face fell and she bit her lip.
‘She’s fine and I’m sure you would have been the first person she told had the circumstances been different.’
‘What circumstances?’
‘The wedding. You getting married.’
‘What’s that got to do with her storming off like that?’
‘Simon’s moved out.’
Helen couldn’t believe what she was hearing. ‘No! When?’
‘Three weeks ago.’
‘Are you sure?’
Dee nodded. ‘She told us all a few days ago but swore us to secrecy.’
‘But that doesn’t make any sense. Only this morning she was telling me this long and involved story about how disorganised he was today getting his stuff together to pick up Phil. Why would she make that up?’
‘Maybe she wanted to protect you,’ said Lorna. ‘Maybe she didn’t want you worrying about her on what’s supposed to be your special weekend.’
Helen’s mouth felt dry and she wanted to sit down. ‘Is he seeing someone else?’
Kerry shrugged. ‘We don’t know. She wouldn’t give specifics. She talked about it like it was a trial separation so I’m guessing there’s still hope.’
‘A trial separation? Why would they do that? They’re happy. I know they are. I’ve got to go and find her. I’ve got to find out exactly what’s been going on.’ She looked over at Lorna. ‘I’m probably going to be a while and I’d hate for you girls to just be sitting around all night. Can you make sure that everyone gets fed and if there are any more problems . . . I don’t know . . . order room service and get them to put it on my bill.’
Leaving them to smooth things over with the waiter Helen rushed out of the dining room and frantically scanned the lobby. Hazarding a guess Yaz might have gone for a cigarette she made her way outside and finally caught sight of her friend heading along the path to the river. Helen called out at the top of her voice drawing the attention of a number of people sitting out on the terrace but she didn’t care what they thought of her. All she cared about was Yaz.
‘You okay?’ asked Helen when she finally caught up with her friend.
Without acknowledging her question Yaz gazed up at a flock of Canada geese flying overhead. ‘This place really is amazing isn’t it?’ she said. ‘How great would it be to wake up every morning and see this from your bedroom window?’
Helen put her arms around Yaz and held her tightly. ‘It’s perfect. You were so right when you chose here.’
Arm in arm they began walking along the river’s edge and then out to the sun-bleached jetty where they stood watching the dying embers of the day’s light dancing on the water’s surface.
‘The girls told you then,’ said Yaz. She pulled out a lighter and a pack of Silk Cut, lit one up and took a long, deep pull on it then exhaled, sending a plume of smoke up into the air.
Helen nodded. ‘Don’t be mad at them. I practically had to drag it out of them.’
‘I was going to tell you,’ said Yaz, ‘ . . . it was just . . . I don’t know . . . I really wanted this weekened to be special. I didn’t want anything to spoil it. The last thing I wanted was to turn a weekend that was supposed to be all about you into a weekend that was all about me. I just wanted you to be happy.’
‘And I will be. You’ve already done such a fantastic job that it will be one of the best weekends of my life. But I really wish
you hadn’t kept this from me. We’re friends. We take the good with the bad. That’s how it works.’
‘You’re right and how I ever thought I’d keep it from you for the whole weekend is anybody’s business. I suppose I thought if I crossed my fingers and tried to keep a lid on it everything would be okay.’
Helen smiled. ‘And how’s that plan working out?’
Yaz’s weak smile faded to nothing. ‘You must have been mortified to see me go off like that. And in front of all your friends.’
‘Don’t even think about it. They’ll all be fine with it. I promise.’ She hesitated unsure whether to say more. ‘Did you see it coming?’
Yaz began to cry. ‘I had no idea,’ she sobbed. ‘It just came out of nowhere.’
Helen felt awful for making her relive the moment but now Yaz had confessed, the dam seemed to burst.
‘I’d just finished putting the boys to bed when he came in and asked if he could have a quick word downstairs. I could see something wasn’t right so we went into the kitchen and he just came out with it – he wasn’t sure he wanted to be married any more – those were his exact words. It was horrible Helen, really horrible. And all the time he was talking I kept thinking to myself, “Please let me wake up and this just be a dream.” ‘
Through her tears Yaz continued to pour her heart out. Simon had gone to live in the empty flat of one of his work colleagues who had just moved in with his girlfriend and had yet to get around to renting it out. They hadn’t told the kids, so every morning he’d come over to help get them ready and every evening he’d come over to help tuck them into bed.
Helen was stunned. It didn’t sound like the Simon she knew. She wondered if Phil knew and had been keeping it a secret all this time. The thought made her stomach tighten and she squeezed her eyes shut until the sensation faded.
The very idea that Yaz and Simon had separated unsettled her greatly. While they were hardly anyone’s idea of a perfect couple (Helen had lost count of the number of times she had watched Yaz mercilessly bully Simon in order to get her own way or observed Simon flip from normal to sullen over the smallest comment from Yaz) Helen had always felt that they worked. Somehow Yaz’s volatility cancelled out Simon’s own, leaving behind two reasonably decent people who loved each other a great deal even if they didn’t always show it. To know that it was all at risk for something as intangible as one half of the unit needing ‘space’ upset her world view.
‘So all of that stuff you said to me this morning . . . ?’
‘Lies.’
Helen found it impossible to hide her surprise. Before this moment she would have described Yaz the worst liar she had ever met.
‘I know,’ said Yaz as if reading her thoughts, ‘it’s funny how good you get at lying once you’ve run out of options.’
The buzz of conversation and laughter alerted the friends that they were no longer alone – lured by the beauty of the river a number of the hotel’s guests were on their way down to the water’s edge. Helen looked at Yaz and sighed.
‘Do you want to go somewhere else?’
‘No, I’m fine, really I am. Let’s just try and get the evening back to where it was.’
The first sign that the evening might not be the washout Yaz had feared came as they arrived at the restaurant and spotted the girls sitting at a table for eight.
Delighted on Yaz’s behalf, Helen quizzed the girls as to how this had come about.
‘Yaz was right,’ Kerry explained handing them each a glass of champagne. ‘She had booked a table for eight. After you guys left Dee made a bit of a fuss and asked to speak to the manager and he double-checked the booking. Turns out the girl who took Yaz’s call made a mistake and rather than amending the old booking she’d simply made a new one and made things worse by writing down Yaz’s name as Mrs Cole so there was a whole table for eight sitting empty which was ours anyway. He was massively apologetic, promised to halve the bill for the evening and chucked in two bottles of Moët for our trouble!’ Kerry raised her glass. ‘I know we’ve gone a bit mad for the toasting tonight but who cares! Here’s to Yaz, always right even when they try to tell her she’s wrong!’
A Thai prawn noodle starter and mouthwatering steak main later, Helen was sitting in front of an empty coffee cup laughing as Lorna wheeled out the story of the time she and Dez had met David Bowie at Heathrow Airport and was so completely and utterly star-struck when he agreed to sign an autograph that she passed out, cracked her head on the floor and knocked herself unconscious. The girls loved Lorna’s story, even those like Helen who had heard it before, and had it not been for Dee’s suggestion that they all retire to the Silver Lounge for another drink, the conversation would no doubt have turned to other embarrassing celebrity encounters.
‘Absolutely,’ enthused Ros, ‘I’ve been dying to sample some of those lovely cocktails you all had earlier.’
The other late arrivals, Heather and Carla, nodded in unison and en masse the girls went straight to the Silver Lounge where they commandeered a corner of the now bustling bar. The waiter distributed drinks menus, which they all studied – apart from Kerry, who seemed preoccupied.
‘What’s up?’ asked Helen noticing her young friend’s distraction.
‘Look over there,’ said Kerry pointing as subtly as she could to a tall, handsome man in a dark suit and tie who stood talking with a group of men who had their backs to her.
Helen was none the wiser. ‘Who is he?’
Some of the other girls looked up to see what was monopolising their friends’ attention.
‘Is that who I think it is?’ asked Lorna.
‘Depends on who you think it is,’ said Helen. ‘I have no idea.’
‘I don’t know his name or anything,’ said Kerry. ‘But I’m pretty sure he’s that Man United player. What’s he doing here?’
‘Same as us, probably,’ said Helen. ‘Having a weekend away with his mates. Which means that the last thing he’ll want is a group of women on a hen weekend gawping at him.’
Kerry wasn’t convinced. ‘Have you actually looked at him? He’s absolutely beautiful.’
‘And you’re engaged!’
‘And I wouldn’t do anything! You know that but . . .’ Kerry emitted what was intended to be a wistful sigh but which came out much closer to the low groan of a pervert. As one the entire table burst into peals of laughter.
Kerry was mortified. ‘He heard you lot laughing and he looked over! I’ve got no chance with him now!’
Chuckling, Dee reached into her purse and slapped down ten pounds on the table. ‘I’ll give you a tenner if you talk to him.’
Lorna shook her head in mock dismay. ‘Dee, don’t be so cruel. Can’t you see the girl’s not up to it!’
‘Kerry, ignore them, they’re just jealous that you’re still young and pretty not old and wizened like the rest of us!’ defended Helen. ‘Don’t stoop to their level!’
Kerry contemplated the note on the table. ‘What would I have to say?’
‘Are you really going to do it?’ screamed Dee in delight.
‘I’ll give you twenty pounds not to,’ said Helen fearing the only way this escapade could end was badly.
‘Like it’s about the money!’ chided Dee. ‘She’d do it for free, that one!’
‘You’ll get us chucked out! And what if he’s here with his girlfriend? She’ll have your eyes out!’
‘I’m only saying hello!’ protested Kerry. ‘There’s no harm in that is there? I don’t know . . . I was thinking maybe I might tell him that my Dan’s a huge fan!’
Lorna cackled. ‘Is that before or after you slip him your room number?’
Peering through her fingers Helen watched in horror as Kerry smoothed down her skirt and sashayed towards the footballer, her stomach tightening with her friend’s every step. At the last moment Kerry lost her nerve and comically spun around one hundred and eighty degrees before the footballer had even noticed her.
Howling with laughter as Ke
rry returned to her seat, the girls all congratulated her bravery and even Dee declared that Kerry deserved the money.
Relieved that things hadn’t got too out of hand, Helen called the waiter over to take their order and excused herself to use the loo, making sure to take the route furthest away from the footballer and his friends.
Emerging some moments later with freshly reapplied lipstick and hands that smelt of expensive moisturiser, Helen was about to head back to the bar when she was suddenly struck with the need to hear the voice of her fiancé. As anticipated, this thing with Simon and Yaz had disturbed her and she wanted Phil’s reassurance that what had happened to their friends wouldn’t happen to them too.
Helen searched her bag for her phone but then recalled her earlier decision to leave it in the bedroom in the spirit of freedom. She reckoned she had plenty of time to make a quick call and return to her friends before they sent out a search party and in a matter of minutes was breathlessly pushing her key card into her bedroom door.
Picking up her phone from the bedside table she called up Phil’s number to the main screen and wondered if she was doing the right thing. He was supposed to be on a boys’ weekend. What if he was annoyed that she was disturbing him or, even worse, think that she was checking up on him? She decided it would be okay as long as she told him why she had rung before he could say a word. If ever there was a justification for her call, the break-up of their friends’ marriage fitted the bill. She pressed the call button and waited. There wasn’t even a ringing tone. Instead, after a series of indeterminate clicks, she was directed to his voicemail.
Unsettled, she tried again but the same thing happened. Setting down the phone on the bed next to her she gave herself a good talking to as she began to worry. There were a million and one reasons why Phil’s phone might have been switched off and none of them had any bearing on their relationship. He was no doubt in a pub or a club with the rest of the boys and had deliberately left his phone behind so he could concentrate on having a good time much like she had planned to do. She told herself she would see him soon enough anyway. She made one last attempt and this time she left a message: ‘Hey you, it’s just me saying a quick hello. Arrived safely, the hotel is amazing, and the girls are all here now and we’re having a lot of fun. Obviously I’m not looking to cramp your style in front of the boys but I thought you might like to know that I love you madly! No need to ring me back, okay? Love you, bye.’ Satisfied that she had done the right thing, she returned her phone to the bedside table and made her way downstairs to the lobby.