The Man I Didn't Marry

by Anna Bell

  ‘And I found a Burberry onesie for the baby today that brings out the colour in my eyes,’ says Anneka.

  ‘Always what I look for in a baby outfit, to be honest,’ says Helen with grin.

  ‘You see, Ellie, you’re not dominating anything, we’ve not got a lot to say at the moment,’ says Polly.

  ‘Exactly,’ says Helen. ‘That’ll change when the little ones are born, but right now, unless you want to have an in-depth conversation about Stranger Things or me not having sex – which are my two specialist subjects at the moment – then I think we’re absolutely fine to talk about what’s going on with you.’

  ‘OK.’ I feel reassured and I tell them edited highlights of our trip. When I reach the bit where we have our perfect ten kiss they sigh collectively.

  ‘That was worth the wait,’ says Helen, reaching out for another biscuit. ‘I am suitably jealous.’

  ‘Sounds wonderful,’ says Polly.

  ‘It does,’ says Anneka, her hand hovering over the biscuits momentarily before she thinks better of it. ‘So, I was wondering: did you ever look into that Anne woman?’

  ‘No,’ I say, ‘I haven’t really given her much thought since I saw Sarah.’

  ‘Oh,’ says Anneka. She seems surprised. ‘You’ve not been tempted to look her up on Facebook?’

  ‘No, I’ve been so busy.’

  ‘Yeah, all that sex you’re having,’ says Helen wistfully.

  ‘I couldn’t do that,’ says Anneka. ‘If I had the name, I’d have to look them up.’

  ‘What’s with you and exes?’ says Helen.

  ‘I just like to know, that’s all.’ She gives me a look with a raised eyebrow that says she’s not going to drop it anytime soon. I pick up my iPad from the coffee table.

  ‘Fine, I’ll look her up, although I don’t know how I’d know which one she is – I bet there are loads of Anne Summers.’

  ‘Bring it over here,’ says Anneka, patting the chair and making Polly and Helen shift along to make room. There’s no point trying to argue with her, so I squeeze in on the sofa until we’re wedged in like sardines.

  I bring up Facebook and type Anne Summers in the search bar.

  A big list comes up and we all peer at it. The first few are photos of women in skimpy underwear, but then come the women in actual clothing who seem like real people.

  ‘She could be any of them,’ I say, scrolling down.

  ‘Mmmhmm,’ says Anneka, ‘I was hoping that Max would have still been friends with her and then she would have been listed more prominently.’

  ‘Probably a good sign that he’s not, though, right?’ says Polly, and I nod.

  ‘Didn’t you say she worked with Max? Maybe she has her workplace listed?’ says Helen.

  ‘Maybe, but look, you have to click on the person and on the “about” section to see their past workplaces, if they even list them at all,’ I say, demonstrating on a random Anne Summers who lives in Canada.

  ‘Maybe if we all looked,’ says Anneka, pulling her phone out of her bag.

  ‘I don’t think you need to—’ I’m thinking this has probably gone too far as it is, but no sooner does Anneka start tapping than she gasps. ‘My friend is friends with an Anne Summers,’ she says, pointing to the top of her list. ‘Ah, it’s Ninny Collins, she’s got thousands of Facebook friends – you only need to make eye contact with her and she’s tracked you down and befriended you.’

  Anneka clicks on the about her section of the profile of the pretty blonde woman.

  ‘She’s listed her previous companies too. Walsh Knightly Associates, Hemmingfield Brothers, PDCA,’ says Anneka, rattling them all off.

  ‘Wait, Max works at PDCA.’

  My heart starts to pound in my chest as I find the same woman on my list. I click on the profile photo, taking in her surroundings – a glamorous-looking roof-top bar surrounded by high-rise buildings.

  ‘Do you think it’s her?’ asks Helen.

  ‘Seems a bit coincidental not to be,’ I say, staring at her perfect white smile and mane of perfectly blow-dried hair. ‘Max’s firm only has an office in London. And Sarah said she moved to America, and this one lives in New York.’

  ‘Is her profile unlocked?’ asks Polly.

  ‘No, I can only see her profile picture changes. They’re of her looking swanky in New York. Look, there she is on a boat in front of the Boathouse in Central Park,’ I say. ‘And there she is running on the Brooklyn Bridge.’

  ‘Wait,’ says Helen, scrolling back up, ‘that’s not the Boathouse. I went to a wedding there once; it looks familiar, though.’

  Polly and Anneka lean over.

  ‘That’s the bar at the Serpentine,’ says Anneka.

  ‘Yes,’ says Helen, ‘that’s where I recognise it from.’

  I click on the photo that’s a recent cover photo change.

  ‘Oh shit,’ I say.

  ‘What?’ says Anneka, leaning in and reading over my shoulder. ‘That’s right, bitches, I’m moving back to Blighty.’

  ‘When was it dated?’ asks Polly.

  I look on the screen.

  ‘Two months ago. A month before Max lost his memory.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean anything, though, does it?’ says Polly.

  ‘No, but this does,’ I say, pointing to the comments underneath.

  * * *

  Gemma Hartley

  OMG! Can’t wait to see you. Are you back in London? X x

  Anne Summers

  Yes! In Chiswick. Let’s meet for a drink soon x x x

  * * *

  My blood runs cold.

  ‘Max lost his memory in Chiswick,’ I say slowly. ‘What if he was meeting her? Maybe that’s why there are no messages about his meeting on his phone. Maybe he deleted them as he didn’t want me to find out.’

  I suddenly feel sick at the thought. In all my imaginings of what he was doing in Chiswick, I’d never thought of him having a clandestine meeting with an ex.

  ‘And maybe it’s a coincidence,’ says Polly, only she doesn’t sound convinced, and neither are Anneka and Helen, judging from the looks on their faces.

  Max walks into the room and we all stare up at him.

  Anneka quickly turns the iPad on my lap face down.

  ‘Um, hello,’ he says, awkwardly. ‘Sorry, did I interrupt?’

  ‘No,’ says Polly a little too quickly. ‘We were just, um…’

  ‘Looking at birth videos,’ says Helen. ‘You know, preparing ourselves for the mental scarring.’

  ‘Oh right, um… I might just leave you to it then. That sounds very…’ He pulls a face and doesn’t finish his sentence. ‘I’m going to go and get Sasha from nursery.’

  He comes over and leans down to give me a quick kiss on the top of the head and I find myself flinching.

  ‘You OK?’ he says.

  ‘Yes, sorry. Birth videos. Traumatised,’ I mutter.

  ‘Must have been bad,’ he says, heading out the door. ‘I’ll see you in a bit.’

  I raise my hand to wave and just about keep a smile on my face, but when he walks out it falls.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ asks Polly as the front door slams.

  ‘I don’t know. I mean it still doesn’t really help us, does it? Even if it was her that he was meeting, it doesn’t really explain why he lost his memory. And Max can’t help us as he has no memory of her in the first place,’ I say, standing up and exhaling loudly.

  ‘You could talk to my friend Ninny. She’ll be at my baby shower on Saturday.’

  ‘Oh yes, I can just imagine that. Hello Ninny, do you know if my husband was meeting one of your thousands of Facebook friends,’ I say a little too snappily. ‘Anneka, I’m sorry, I—’

  ‘Don’t apologise, this is all my fault in the first place for suggesting it. I honestly didn’t think…’ I’ve never seen Anneka look sheepish before.

  ‘There’s still nothing to think,’ says Polly. ‘I’m sure that if he was meeting her it would have been
for something entirely platonic.’

  I do love Polly, but I don’t buy it for a second. The more I think about it, the more I think that Anne is connected to Max and his memory loss, and I’ve got to find out more.

  Chapter 21

  Max pops his hand on my thigh as I’m driving.

  ‘You OK?’ he says. ‘You’ve seemed distracted over the last couple of days.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ I lie. I don’t feel I can mention Anne to him just yet, not until I find out the truth myself. Mainly because I don’t know how I’d explain that I’d found out. Well, you know, Max, I was casually stalking your ex-girlfriend on Facebook… It doesn’t exactly scream ‘trust’.

  We’re heading down to the New Forest for a family day out. I love going there at this time of year when the leaves have started changing to autumnal colours, but what I’m most excited about is spending some proper time together as a family. It was lovely and romantic with it being just Max and I in Paris, but I really do love it when it’s just the three of us, and I get to watch the bond between Max and Sasha become stronger and stronger each day.

  But before we could start making our way down there, we needed to stop off at Judy’s to pick up the camping chairs that were so handy at the festival and the big cool box.

  ‘You know, we really must buy all this outdoors stuff, now that we’ve got a house to put it all in,’ I say, pulling up onto the drive.

  ‘I guess so. Is that how you know you’re a proper grown-up? When you own a plug-in cool box.’

  ‘Probably,’ I laugh. It’s then that I notice that the curtains are still drawn. That’s odd as Judy is normally an early riser. ‘Do you think your mum’s up?’

  ‘Oh yeah, she’s always up at the crack of dawn. She’s probably left the curtains closed because Dad is still asleep. I’ll just use the keys, rather than knock, so I don’t wake him.’

  I watch Max go, and I turn and talk to Sasha who’s repeating ‘Gran-Gran’ over and over, as that’s what she calls Judy. I’m chatting away to her when Max knocks on the window. It makes me jump and I wind it down.

  ‘You’ve got to come in,’ he says in a panic. ‘Bring Sasha.’

  ‘OK,’ I say, trying my best to leap out as spritely I can. I unclip Sasha and carry her across to Max, who’s hovering at the open front door.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I ask.

  ‘It was Graham. He was walking down the stairs when I opened the door.’

  ‘Oh right,’ I say, keeping my tone neutral. ‘Perhaps he had a late night and stayed over.’

  ‘He was wearing Mum’s frilly pink dressing gown.’

  ‘Oh,’ I say again.

  ‘And he came out of their bedroom. Oh my God, Ellie,’ he says, turning to me. I brace myself. I guess this is the moment that the truth is finally going to come out. ‘I think my parents were having a threesome with Graham.’

  ‘What?’ I say, wondering how he put two and two together and got ten, not to mention giving me mental images that I now can’t unimagine.

  ‘It’s the only logical explanation. He’s here all the time and the three of them hang out together. They went to Paris as a three. Graham’s single and oh… do you think they’ve always been doing it?’

  He’s contorting his face in all manner of strange ways.

  ‘Don’t jump to any conclusions,’ I say, knowing the truth. ‘There’s bound to be a logical explanation.’

  ‘I can’t think of one,’ he says with a bit of panic. ‘They were all teenagers in the sixties; maybe all that hippy stuff still goes on. But the three of them, at their age—’

  ‘Max, I don’t think—’ I stop because I can’t explain it without telling him the truth.

  ‘How am I supposed to look them in the eye when I see them all?’ he says with a panic. ‘Do you think we can go? We’ll stop and buy chairs and a cooler on the way.’

  ‘Max,’ says Judy, poking her head out of the kitchen and peering down the hallway. She’s dressed in a nightie with another floral dressing gown. Her hair that’s usually framed neatly around her face is sticking up to one side and she’s squinting in the hallway light.

  Sasha toddles over the threshold and down towards her and I notice Judy wince as she bends down to give her a kiss.

  ‘Are you OK?’ I say, walking towards her, not used to seeing her in a dishevelled state. Max hesitates in the doorway, before eventually he joins us as we follow Judy into the kitchen.

  ‘Yes, fine, just um, a little too much port last night,’ she says, breathing slowly and deliberately.

  ‘Oh,’ I say, relaxing that it’s just a hangover.

  ‘Coffee?’ she says. ‘I’m just making a big pot. And then I thought I might try and eat a fry-up, if you want one?’

  Max looks like he’s still processing the thought of Graham and his parents.

  ‘We weren’t really going to stop; we just popping in for—’

  Judy’s hand flies up to her mouth.

  ‘Oh, Ellie, I’m so sorry I forgot. I’ll head out to the shed and get it sorted.’ She walks towards the back door slowly. ‘It hurts to move, after last night.’

  Max looks at me and I’m worried his eyes are going to pop out of his head.

  ‘She probably means because of the hangover,’ I say, trying to calm him down.

  Mick walks into the kitchen, clutching his head.

  ‘Bloody hell, Judy, I didn’t think you still had that type of night in you,’ he says, before he looks up and sees us. ‘Max? Ellie? What are you doing here?’

  ‘We just popped in for the camping chairs. You feeling a bit worse for wear too?’ I ask.

  ‘Yeah,’ he says, groaning. ‘Big night.’

  ‘You, Mum and Graham,’ says Max.

  ‘Ah, yes, it got a bit wild.’

  Poor Max. He’s practically going purple.

  ‘Are you two staying for breakfast? Judy’s doing us a fry-up.’

  ‘No, we’re not staying,’ says Max, keeping himself firmly in the doorway.

  Graham walks into the kitchen and he barely looks in our direction.

  ‘I, um, I had to stay over as it was late and I, um, couldn’t drive home,’ he says hastily.

  As Judy has forgotten we were popping in, she clearly hasn’t prepped him with an explanation.

  ‘No taxis?’ says Max, folding his arms.

  ‘Oh, um, taxi, yeah, I guess I could, but then I’d have had to get the car today and, um…’

  Judy walks back in carrying the camping chairs and the cooler and Graham rushes to help her.

  ‘You want to watch that with your back, after last night,’ he says. ‘Are you in any less pain?’

  ‘It still hurts, I shouldn’t have bent over like that, it’s been a while.’

  ‘We’ve got to go,’ says Max, clearly flustered. ‘We’ll leave you to whatever you’re all doing.’

  ‘Stay, have some eggs and coffee. You’ll only get stuck in rush-hour traffic,’ says Judy, leading Max over to the table and steering him into a chair.

  Graham fills a glass of water from the tap and drinks a sip, for a second I wonder if he’s going to be sick, but then he drinks some more.

  ‘It was a bit of a session last night, wasn’t it, Graham?’ says Mick.

  I can see the vein in Max’s neck starting to throb.

  ‘Certainly was. I can’t take it like I used to. We were so much better at it when we were younger.’

  ‘We certainly were. Remember how we’d be up all night?’ says Judy with a cackle, and Mick and Graham conspiratorially join in. Something’s changed between the three of them; the ice has melted.

  ‘So, what are your plans today?’ I say, steering the conversation on to more neutral territory before Max explodes.

  ‘To be honest, I expect we’ll all be recovering from last night,’ says Mick with a wink.

  Max pushes his chair back, causing it to screech across the laminate flooring, and stands up.

  Everyone turns to look at him and he ope
ns his mouth once or twice before closing it, but before he can say anything the doorbell goes. Judy sighs, pressing down on the table to push herself up like it’s a huge effort.

  ‘I’ll get it, shall I?’ I say, relieved to be retreating out of the kitchen.

  I open the door and now it’s my turn for my jaw to drop. There standing on the doorstep is the last person I am expecting to see. Dressed in athletic gear and a cropped sweatshirt that hangs loosely off one shoulder and clutching a little carry-on case is Ruby.

  ‘Ellie,’ she says, looking equally confused to see me. I’ve only met her once, but occasionally I speak to her when I’m skyping Mick. ‘Look at you. Aren’t you massive?’

  She seems to stand up a little straighter, showing off her bare midriff, making me feel even bigger.

  ‘Hmm, well, I am due at the beginning of November,’ I say through gritted teeth. I’ve always tried my hardest to like Ruby, but she doesn’t make it easy.

  ‘Are you sure it’s not twins?’ She stares hard at my stomach with disbelief.

  ‘Yes, pretty sure,’ I say, wishing I could slam the door in her face. Instead I walk out on to the doorstep and pull the door almost all the way shut behind me. ‘Does Mick know you’re here?’

  ‘No. I’ve been trying to get hold of him for days and he won’t return my bloody calls.’

  ‘Right, OK, well, I’m sure he’s told you about Max and that he doesn’t know about you yet. So, I think you turning up here is more than a little awkward.’

  ‘Perhaps Mick should have thought of that before he decided to play happy fucking families then, shouldn’t he?’

  She goes to push past me and for once my bump comes in handy as I block her path and she doesn’t dare push me around.

  ‘Ruby, I understand why you’re upset. If I was you, I’d be livid, but Max is the innocent party in all this. Whatever issue you’ve got with Mick, please can you take that up with him alone?’

  ‘Mick’s left me no bloody option.’

  ‘Look, I’ll go and get him for you,’ I say, and she looks relieved. ‘On one condition.’

  ‘OK, what?’ she says, crossing her arms over her chest.

  ‘I want you to promise that you will not let Max know who you really are. I want Mick and Judy to tell him gently.’