by Laura Kemp
Kate did the rounds half-heartedly, with a smattering of small talk, letting the others in her group do the chit-chat: after all, she wasn’t here looking for love - it would forever be out of bounds judging by Jack’s dignified replies to her texts to ask for space while he considered their future.
There was Aled, a trendy BBC Wales thirty-something in a shirt buttoned all the way to the top; Stuart the red-faced trainee fishmonger from two shops up, drinking far too quickly; and, hang-on, wasn’t that silver-eyed beauty of a brunette beside them that electrician who’d been here that day she’d met Vee?
She was Beatrycze, spelling it out when Kate asked her to repeat it, ‘just call me Bea’, who had come to the UK ten years ago from Poland where one in four people - including her - were unemployed. ‘Electrics, I always love them, since I was a kid, but was no place at home for lady sparkies. Good money here, so I come and I can live without my parents and so I stay.’
‘And you’re single?’ Kate asked before she could stop herself. Because here was a gorgeous and intelligent woman who could’ve turned up in her boiler suit and still be head and shoulders above everyone else.
‘Of course! I see the sign for tonight when I came here to fix his lights. He say they flickered then poof, but all he needed was new bulbs. Has happened quite a lot lately what with one job and another.’ A huge grin and a wink that told Kate all she needed to know – Pierre was inventing jobs to get her here and Bea was playing along!
Talking of whom, he appeared by Bea’s side, concentrating on everyone else but this beguiling woman, as if he would explode if he locked eyes with her.
‘Wine and cheese, the perfect partners,’ he began. ‘Astringents are rough and dry in the mouth, while fats are slippery. Having them together balances them,’ he said, groping the air with his hand.
‘Is maybe all about the, how you say, “mouthfeel”, the way it sits on your tongue,’ Bea said not suggestively but it sounded indecent now that Kate knew there was something going on.
Pierre looked up from nosing his glass. His frown fell in a facial landslide and his eyes went from impervious rock to sticky toffee pudding.
‘Fascinating,’ he said, breathily, as Aled and Stuart clocked their attraction and started talking rugby leaving Kate to feel like a prize gooseberry.
‘Tell me, do you have oscypek? Is my favourite.’ My goodness, how could she make cheese sound erotic? Kate thought, searching for someone to come to her rescue. She caught Vee’s eyes and widened her own which Vee answered immediately.
‘Are you okay? You’ve done so well lasting until now, go if you need…oh, I see!’
Vee had followed Kate’s slight nod to the right towards Pierre and Bea and a smile broke out on her face, contagious as it moved to Kate's mouth.
‘Blinking heck,’ Vee whispered. ‘Fast work! Come with me a sec, I’ve got to get some more wine.’
‘Anyone you like?’ Kate asked as they went into the stockroom, trying to keep the mood light because she was managing to enjoy herself despite everything.
‘No,’ Vee said, her back to her, as she retrieved some bottles. Then she sighed, turned around and revealed, ‘Not here anyway’, as a twitch of her lips became a soppy grin. Which she then tried to rein in out of empathy for Kate.
‘Sorry,’ she said, shaking her head, ‘Crap timing.’
‘Please…don’t apologize. It makes me happy that you're happy.’ And she meant it because Vee deserved something good, someone good. Just because Kate was black and blue form losing the love of her life didn't mean everyone else should suffer. ‘So who is he? Because it’s quite sudden!’
‘Kind of,’ Vee said, shyly, ‘But still, unexpected.’
Kate was intrigued as Vee’s beam came out again.
‘I don’t want to say any more in case I jinx it, but it’s… it’s blown my mind, to be honest. And it might just be because we’re both in weird places and we’re kicking against where we are.’
‘He’s nice though?’
Vee’s eyes drifted off into space. It was bittersweet for Kate: she remembered feeling that way when she’d got together with Jack, when he’d completed her.
‘Yes. Very.’ She gave a sloshed smile. Then immediately she apologized. ‘Sorry, sorry. God, here I am not even asking how you are…’
Her ever-threatening tears came and she gave a sudden sob. ‘Battered, broken.’
‘Oh, love, it must be so hard.’
‘It’s awful,’ she said, with a shivery voice, ‘to have lost him. Us. Our future.’
‘Has he been in touch?’
Kate shook her head. ‘He’s the type who needs to hide in his shed. I’ve messaged him but he wants to be alone to work things out. It makes me feel helpless but I understand.’
‘Does your mum know? And Griff?’
‘Not yet. I’m just giving myself a bit of recovery time before I have to tell her. Probably in a couple of days. Then Charlie and me will sit down with Griff.’
Vee reached out to her then. ‘You did the right thing, you know.’
And there it was. The reason why she was in this position. Why she was pillaged and plundered but why she wasn’t on her knees. Why her misery wasn’t all-consuming. Why she had been able to get up, get dressed and get in the car to drive over here. Because living with Charlie had brought her under the same roof as Griff, where she could watch the very best thing that had happened to her. As much as she needed Jack, loved him with everything, her son was her lifeblood. The way he jigged when he was offered ice cream, his sleepy eyes when he claimed he wasn’t tired. She would move out as soon as something came up at work; she was on the lookout already. A flat somewhere quiet but near a playground and a cafe where she could take him. But Charlie, her husband Tom and Kate had discussed late into the night how they would nurture their son, how Kate would be there as a second mother without having to be ashamed.
Kate’s spine straightened and her shoulders went back as she spoke. ‘I can live with myself now. I might be down, but the truth is beautiful.’ A calm washed over her. ‘If Jack doesn’t come back to me, then I will survive.’
Vee hugged her with all her might and they returned to the tasting session with a variety of bottles to keep up with demand. A happy chatter rose above the background of world music – Pierre’s choice obviously – and there were a few couples who had retreated into corners to get to know one another better.
She looked for Pierre to see how his coupling was going. But he was by the door, talking to someone outside. Bea was doing her best to engage in conversation with another man but her eyes were flitting back and forth to Pierre. She hoped something would come of it because Pierre was a lovely man: she’d seen him lose himself over and over to crazy women whom he was drawn to but let him down. He was too wonderful to be treated badly again. But she had a feeling about Bea, no lady friend of his had ever shown so much interest in cheese before.
Vee had returned to her group so Kate felt it was time to slip away. She found her mac and then manoeuvred her way around the edge of the room, her head down, not wanting to be asked ‘going so soon?’.
But when she reached the door, when she looked up, the question didn’t just come at her, it pinned her to the spot.
Jack was standing there, barring her exit; unintentionally his body filled the frame.
‘I was just going if you wanted to come in,’ she said, looking him right in the eye because she had done her apologizing. But that didn’t mean her heart wasn’t swirling with love. And her stomach churning because he'd turned up for a singles’ night, hoping he had turned up to support Pierre in the way she'd been here for Vee.
‘I was here to see you, actually’ he said, backing out to give her room to leave the deli.
So this was it: he would tell her now that he had had a good think and he thought it would be best if they went their separate ways.
She nodded, ready to take it.
‘I think we need to formally cancel the weddin
g,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ she said, as concrete poured on her soul.
‘And, um, if it’s okay with you, maybe we could go to tell your mother together if you haven’t already?’
His decency that she wouldn’t take both barrels alone was breathtaking.
‘Thank you,’ she said, ‘but I’ll be fine. It’s what I need to do. To stand up to her. Really.’ By this, she wanted him to see that she understood what he had meant when he'd told her to take on her mother, rather than laying herself prostate at his feet in a last bid to win him over. It was obvious it was too late for that.
‘No, I’d like to. Because… I’ve been in the shed and Boris agrees with me…’ he said, earnestly.
Here it came, the noble end and she steeled herself, thinking of Griffy.
‘…that you and me should cancel the wedding. And start planning our own happy ending instead.’
His eyes were watery now and he was holding out a hand to her.
This was absolutely the opposite of what Kate had anticipated and she was dumbfounded, silent. She couldn’t let herself believe it: if she’d had more than one glass of wine she'd have thought herself drunk.
And then he was bending down on one knee, looking up at her, smiling.
‘Will you marry me, Kate?’ he said. ‘On our terms? No one else’s?’
Stunned, she gasped and blinked and sized up this magnificent man gazing up at her. It couldn’t be real. But he was waiting. For her.
As the reality swept through her, Kate’s pulse began to boom in her ears.
‘Yes,’ she whispered, then louder still because there was no room for ambiguity. ‘Yes, yes, yes!’ she said, throwing herself into his arms as he stood up, ‘I’ll never keep anything from you again.’
And as Jack spun her round, she saw a carousel of faces and heard a chorus of cheers from a standing ovation outside the deli.
Chapter Twenty-One
M
Cardiff City Centre
Murphy actually caught himself whistling as he got ready.
Fucking hell, he thought, stopping with one leg in his shorts, this is embarrassing. This is mental. This is… amazing.
Falling on to his king-size bed like a cliché, he thought he’d been on the cusp of it with a couple of girls but he realized now that he’d been nowhere near. Not even close.
Sighing, it was as if he’d been walking around with shades on the entire time – but since his kiss with Vee, the blinkers were off and the world wasn’t dark and nasty. It was bright and in technicolour with surround sound. Like a film. Too good to be true. Then insecurity seemed to multiply like a parasite, feeding on his happiness.
This was how it had been since Saturday night. Huge ups and skydiving downs, wondering if he had made a massive mistake. Taken advantage of her. Or allowed himself to be manipulated. Got himself in deep shit. Opened up old wounds. Walked into a mess which was only going to get messier. How was he going to handle the Kat situation with Vee? Ignore it? No, he would have to tell her eventually. And it would not end well. Better to nip this in the bud now.
But, but, but… He was happy. Fucking on one. Buzzing. It was the lamest, naffest counter-argument ever. Too simple, too uncomplicated, too clear and too pain-free. Yet that was the bottom line.
When he thought of their kiss, their hours of kissing in the darkness, it turned him on in every way. Just her lips on his, nothing more, which in itself told him just how different this thing with Vee was to everything else he’d had. His mind replayed the scene, having trouble doing up his shorts because he was feeling himself stiffen at the moment when the hug turned into something more. The long, slow night ending at dawn when, flushed and smiley, she’d gone. He’d snatched a couple of hours of sleep, enough to stay on some kind of dopey buzz for the rest of Sunday. As if he was walking on the moon, chilled.
His T-shirt on, he puttied his hands on autopilot and did his hair, remembering how he’d worried about whether he should message her or not, to apologize or make a joke of it. Normally, he’d leave it until the girl contacted him. But he couldn’t stop himself. Nothing major, just a few pings along the lines of needing a roast to get him through the day, feeling tired, and trite shite like that. But she’d been on his exact wavelength – moaning about her parents asking where she’d been all night, as if she was a teenager. Then the exchange of messages about maybe catching up…
He laughed at how he’d tried to play it cool with the woman he’d known since she was a girl. The to and fro of ‘could do…’, ‘wicked, free Wednesday? My day off’, ‘yeah, Roath Park?’
That was where he was heading; Melanie was on her way, Dad was up in his chair, watching daytime crap until the racing started.
‘I’m off now, Dad,’ he said. ‘You sure you’ll be all right? Melanie will be here in a minute.’
Dad turned his head to him. ‘Might go and get the papers later.’ He was lucid now, the confusion came and went, he’d learned.
‘Great. The exercise will do you good.’ The doctors had all said Dad needed to push himself. The brain was a muscle like any other. ‘And it’s a lovely day.’
Murphy threw up the sash window and sniffed the air: it was sweet and summery. Like Vee. This was how it was with her: she was everywhere. He couldn't wait to see her.
So he left, stopping off at the shop, wondering if he should get some fresh bread and cheese, but what if she was sick of the sight of it from the deli? He eye-rolled himself for being what Orla would call ‘sensitive to a person’s needs’ and settled for some beers and posh crisps. There was a cafe at the park if they wanted anything else or they could get a take-out.
As the bus pulled up beside the park, he saw her. The familiarity of how she stood, alert but relaxed, ready to move, with one hand on her hip, the other checking her phone, looking up and around her. But there was also the unfamiliarity of who she was now: how he’d always known what she was thinking but that was before they’d crossed a line. Friendships were all about opening up, but when it was more than that, you kept a hold of your feelings until it was safe.
Suddenly he realized this was the challenge: how he’d be able to protect himself. Because she didn’t know everything and it sent him into a spiral just as his feet touched the pavement. What was he doing here? He was going to hurt her because the ugly would have to come out. Fuck. Fuck.
‘What’s up?’ Vee said, smiling coming towards him. ‘You look like you’ve sucked a lemon.’
See? She could tell from the set of his jaw and he hadn’t said a word yet. This was the worst thing he’d ever done, getting involved with her. What was he going to do? He could make up an excuse, yes, that’s what he’d do.
‘Just work,’ he lied, feeling the blow of betrayal so soon into this.
‘Oh, right. What’s happening?’ she said, her face crestfallen, instinctively withdrawing from his personal space. Thank God they both had sunglasses on because it’d kill him to see her hurt – and she’d see his eyes were cold.
He walked off, towards the path which ran around the lake, feeling a bastard.
‘Just stuff.’
‘Oooo-kay.’
Silence apart from the hissing of wild geese and swans which behaved as though the park belonged to them.
‘I’m not stupid, you know,’ Vee said. Bollocks – she’d seen right through him. Of course she would.
‘No, I know…’
‘Like, just because I don’t spend my life staring at a screen doesn’t mean I’m not able to listen to your technical woes.’
His heart stood down – he thought she’d been about to start on the deeper issues between them. There was relief, then the realization that she’d disarmed him yet again. And he was a bit stressed out with his latest project.
‘Right, well, it’s complicated, you know? So I design apps, yeah?’
‘I’ve got that bit already,’ she said, sarcastically, getting him right back.
He couldn’t help but defrost a bit.
‘I’m having to rewrite some code, it’s long, boring, heavy-going, I’ve got to incorporate testing feedback.’
‘Who’s the client?’
‘Can’t say. Breach of contract. But it’s a massive American company, relaunching its iOS app.’
‘Lots of pressure then?’
‘Yep. FaceTime meetings at stupid o’clock so it’s convenient for Pacific Time and for the office in Tokyo. I should be in London doing it, helps being with the others at Kode, ideas and specifications and stuff.’
‘Wow. I thought I had it bad having to keep on top of the Stinking Bishop.’
He laughed, she was good at defusing the bomb.
‘But it’s not just that. The bigger issue is that the language is changing all the time, you’ve got to keep up to date. Then it’s the corporate crap too.’
‘Could you go back to doing games? What was that one you did again?’
‘Smash The Suburbs. Was a sort of zombie game.’
‘And?’ Oh, she was going to make him tell her.
‘It was set on a new estate where the brain-eaters came out of conservatories and got shot at by the heroine.’
‘Heroine? A girl? Wow,’ she said, impressed and thankfully not dwelling on the setting.
‘Yeah…she was a punky gun slinger.’ Named after you, Victorious, he didn't say. ‘Anyway, games are in the past, and what I'm doing now seems to be heading that way too. It all just feels a bit… wrong. Basically, I’m having a few doubts about my direction.’
‘In what way?’
‘Like, with Dad being ill, it’s made me see there’s a health market there, or something for the elderly, because the population is ageing and living longer and…’ He had to check himself – the , words had flowed from nowhere, he hadn't even known this idea was in his head let alone talk to colleagues about it – and it was all pie in the sky, he’d done no research. How was it all coming out of him? ‘…I’m talking out of my arse, aren’t I?’