The Man I Didn't Marry

by Anna Bell

  We arrived at the pub before Cameron and his friends, so we ordered drinks and took them out onto the terrace. We managed to find a recently vacated table on the edge, still covered with empty glasses.

  ‘Will you take my photo?’ I said, looking over at the view over the Thames towards St Paul’s on the other side.

  I didn’t bother to wait for a reply; I simply held out my phone to Ben and struck a pose.

  ‘Is this for your Instagram? I see you’re doing really well. Over 500 followers?’ he said.

  ‘I know. Can you believe it?’

  ‘I told you I had a good feeling about it,’ he said, snapping a couple of shots. He checked his work before handing it over with a nod. ‘Not bad.’

  I had a look myself and was suitably impressed.

  ‘Perfect, I can post that later with all the appropriate hashtags.’

  ‘Move over Zoella,’ he said sipping his drink.

  ‘I don’t think I’d ever be that big, it’s just nice doing something creative again. And you never know, I could perhaps try and make the move into marketing or PR by showing agencies that I understand how to build a brand.’

  ‘Still having no luck on the job front?’

  I shook my head. I took a job as a copywriter for an advertising agency that specialised in medical products straight out of university. I thought I was going to have a glittering advertising career and that it would all be cocktails and swanky parties à la Mad Men, only the reality was far from glamorous. I didn’t mind when I was younger, when it was all about the pay cheque and where the next party was, but as I’d got older I wanted to start focusing on my career. Only five years writing copy about haemorrhoid creams had left me pigeonholed in the medical sector and longing to do work that people didn’t read in desperation because they had piles.

  ‘Well, I think you’re onto something with the Instagram thing. From what I’ve seen on your feed, you’re a natural. I’m sure you’ll be making a living out of it in no time.’

  I laughed hard. ‘Do you have any idea how hard it would be to get to that stage?’

  Ben shrugged. ‘I know you could do it. You know, I’m proud of you for giving it a go.’ He chinked his glass against mine.

  ‘And I’m proud of you, finally getting married. Can I see the ring again?’ I said, clapping my hands together.

  He looked around to see if anyone was watching and he leant down into his bag, which he had looped around his leg. He pulled the little ring box out and flipped it open, holding it out to me.

  ‘Oh, it’s even more beautiful than I remember it being,’ I said, looking at it longingly. ‘Can I try it on?’

  ‘I guess so, it’s probably safer on your finger than it is in my bag,’ he said as I picked it up and slipped it on.

  I held my hand out and it felt complete again. The table next to us burst into applause. I looked around to see what they were clapping at and it took me a good few seconds to realise they were all staring at me and Ben.

  ‘Congratulations,’ one of them shouted whilst raising their glass.

  ‘What the… Oh no, it’s not what it looks like. He’s my brother,’ I said in slight horror as I tried to slip the ring back off my finger but it didn’t want to budge.

  The clapping petered out and they all looked a bit embarrassed.

  ‘I was just trying it on,’ I said, feeling ridiculous and yanking it even harder, but it wasn’t moving in the slightest.

  ‘Well, I hope the actual proposal goes better than that,’ said Ben, taking a large sip of his drink.

  ‘Um, that’s if I can give you the ring back,’ I said, holding up my hand. My finger looked like a plump sausage and it was at least double its normal size.

  ‘You’re joking, right?’ he said, laughing a little awkwardly before he realised I wasn’t laughing back. ‘Izzy!’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, wincing. ‘It won’t come off.’

  I tried to pull it as hard as I could.

  ‘Don’t do that,’ he said, screwing up his face. ‘You might break it.’

  He took an audible deep breath before he stood up.

  ‘Ice, you need to put it in ice. Your hand will shrink,’ he said.

  ‘I can put it in my cider,’ I said, about to plunge it in.

  ‘Don’t you dare, it’ll get sticky. Hold tight, I’ll get some from the bar.’

  Hold tight, I muttered to myself as I sat there looking at my ever-increasing sausage finger.

  ‘Izzy,’ shouted a voice and I looked up to see Cameron and a few of his work colleague friends heading across the pub terrace, glasses in hand. ‘I didn’t realise you’d already be here; I would have got you a drink,’ he said as he sat down next to me and gave me a quick kiss on the lips. ‘So how did the engagement ring shopping go?’

  ‘Really well,’ I said holding my hand up. ‘I decided I’d save us the trouble and get the ball rolling.’

  I’d been about to laugh, thinking he would too, when his whole face started to crumple.

  ‘Er, Izzy, I don’t know what you were thinking but I really don’t think we’re there, are we? I mean, we only live together because you were living in Balham and I don’t go further out than Zone 2. I mean, you know how much I care about you and all—’

  ‘Prosecco on the house,’ said a woman, cutting Cameron off mid-flow. ‘For the happy couple, I hear you just got engaged!’

  Cameron looked up at the barmaid in absolute horror, his face turning pale. I risked a glance at his work colleagues who were all trying to look anywhere but in our direction. All except Tiffany, who was giving me her usual pursed-lipped, narrowed-eye look. I’d long suspected she fancied Cameron, even though he denied it.

  ‘Actually, we didn’t,’ I said, mortified. ‘It was all just a misunderstanding. I was trying on a ring for my brother and it got stuck.’

  ‘Oh well,’ said the woman, looking unbothered. ‘You might as well have it now anyway, it’s been written off by our boss.’

  She placed the tray with the bottle and glasses on the table and I muttered a thank you.

  ‘Here’s the ice,’ said Ben, rushing over and putting it down in front of me.

  He grabbed my hand and plunged it into the water.

  ‘Bloody hell, that’s cold,’ I said, wincing in pain as my hand started to go numb. ‘How long have I got to keep it in there?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said, still panicked. ‘Until it comes off?’

  He turned and noticed Cameron, who was sitting there mute.

  ‘Cameron, this is my brother Ben, Ben this is my boyfriend Cameron, or at least I think he’s still my boyfriend, but he’s definitely nowhere near being my fiancé,’ I said.

  They muttered a hello and shook hands, both distracted: Ben by the ring stuck on my finger, Cameron by the conversation we’d just had.

  I pulled my hand out of the glass and, much to my and Ben’s relief, the ring came off my finger.

  Ben cradled it like a newborn baby, wrapping it up in his T-shirt and drying it carefully before depositing it back in the box and in the safety of his backpack.

  ‘So it’s your ring?’ Tiffany said to Ben, with obvious relief.

  ‘Yes, and I think I’d better take it home before anything else happens to it,’ he said, downing the rest of his cider. ‘Do you mind, Izzy?’

  ‘Of course not,’ I said lying.

  I got up and gave him a quick hug and he said a quick goodbye to the others before leaving, clutching his bag.

  It was the last time I ever saw him.

  Two weeks after the pub incident I was on my way to work when my phone rang. My mum’s number flashed up and at first I thought she’d phoned me by mistake because it was so early. When I picked up there was a rustling sound on the line, and I was about to hang up when I realised it was Mum sobbing. Eventually my dad took the phone from her, and when he spoke I barely recognised his voice. It was so quiet and soft, nothing like his usual boom.

  ‘Izzy, are you sitting d
own? Something awful’s happened to Ben.’

  I’d immediately started to witter on about an accident and asking if he was in hospital when Dad went quiet. He didn’t need to tell me the next bit; I knew from his tone that Ben had died.

  The world started to spin and my body and mind seemed to drift away from each other. I could hear Dad telling me details and words jumped out at me – cardiac arrest… arrhythmia… in his sleep – but I couldn’t absorb any of it. I was too numb to take it all in, too numb to be able to say anything other than I was coming home.

  I was near Paddington, and so I jumped on a train to Reading in the hope of changing from there to Basingstoke. It’s not a route I’d usually take going home but I couldn’t face travelling across London in rush hour. I went into some sort of a survival mode, putting one foot in front of the other and was amazed to find myself on the right train.

  I managed to hold it together until I got to Reading and then it hit me – like slapped me in the face as if a freight train had hit me – and I found myself stranded at the station not knowing how I was going to find my connecting train. All I could think was that Ben was gone and that I’d never see him again.

  My legs started to wobble and my phone slid out of my hands, and I couldn’t stop myself from falling.

  ‘Whoa, there,’ said a man, catching me under my arms and keeping me upright. ‘Are you all right?’

  My head was throbbing and my legs had gone to jelly.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he said again, but it felt like it was coming from somewhere distant.

  He continued to hold onto me and I took a moment to look at him. He was dressed in a smart blue shirt that matched his eyes.

  ‘Do you speak English?’ he said, elongating every word and speaking very loudly.

  ‘I, um, yes,’ I said, confused.

  ‘Sorry, you weren’t answering me and I thought… Look, are you OK? Is there someone I could call?’

  I shook my head. There really wasn’t. Cameron was on a business trip to New York, I’d planned to call him when I got to my parents’ house. There was no rush; it was the middle of the night there and it wasn’t like he’d be able to do anything from there. I thought back to the one and only time that Cameron had met my brother and my heart started to ache about it – my last afternoon with Ben. ‘I’m on my way to my mum and dad’s and I… I don’t know where the platform is for Basingstoke.’

  A breeze whistled through the station and my curls blew into my face. I’d left the house with them wet, I’d planned on putting my hair up at some point on my journey, but I’d forgotten and they’d dried out of control.

  ‘Your mum and dad,’ said the man kindly, ‘in Basingstoke. OK, OK, we can do that.’

  He looked up and scanned the departures board. I couldn’t believe that I’d been standing so close and I hadn’t noticed it. My mind felt full of fog.

  ‘OK, so Platform 4 at 9.52, you’ve got ten minutes. I’ll take you there,’ he said.

  I closed my eyes and I was flooded with relief.

  ‘Thank you, I…’ I took another deep breath. ‘Just thank you.’

  ‘It’s no problem, really. Um, OK, can you stand on your own, do you think? You look a bit unsteady.’

  ‘I think so,’ I said, focusing on breathing in and out.

  He pulled his arms away from me slowly and I successfully proved that I could stand on two feet, much to both our amazement. My hair blew in my face again, and I scraped it out of the way the best I could, but curls kept getting stuck on my tear-stained cheeks.

  ‘Now,’ he said, pulling the hair band off my wrist. ‘This looks like it’s bothering you.’

  He scooped my curls up into the messiest topknot ever, but in that split second I was just so grateful that he’d got them away from my face. I stared down at the red ring the band had left on my wrist, wondering why I didn’t remember I had it there in the first place.

  He bent down and retrieved my phone and wrinkled his face.

  ‘It’s a little cracked,’ he said, handing it to me. I slipped it into my handbag without looking.

  ‘Least of my worries,’ I said, and he nodded.

  ‘Let’s get you on that train.’

  He steered me by the elbow towards a platform, taking care not to rush me, as I tried desperately to hold the floodgates of emotions shut.

  The man walked me halfway along a platform and he continued to hold my elbow until the train arrived, like he was propping me up. It was only when he escorted me onto it that I noticed he wasn’t leaving.

  ‘Your train,’ I said in protest. ‘You don’t have to take me to Basingstoke.’

  He guided me to a seat, and sat down on the one next to me.

  ‘It’s fine, I can catch a later one. I just want to make sure you get there safely. That’s all.’

  ‘But really, I’ll be fine,’ I said, trying to hold back the tears.

  ‘You’re not fine, and you don’t have to be either,’ he said. ‘I’ll make sure you get to your mum and dad’s. Do they live near the station, or do you need a taxi?’

  ‘Taxi,’ I just about managed. His kindness was starting to make me choke up.

  ‘OK, then I’ll make sure you get in one.’

  I stopped protesting and nodded and then the tears started to fall. I cried all over his blue shirt and he sat there patiently passing me napkins that he’d nabbed from the buffet trolley.

  I didn’t even realise we’d reached our final destination until he gently guided me out of the seat and led me out of the doors. I walked down the stairs into the tunnel to the main entrance, not caring what an absolute state I must have looked like.

  I found my ticket and put it into the machine on autopilot and he followed me through the barrier using the ticket he’d purchased on the train. Then he led me to the black cabs waiting outside the station.

  ‘Are you OK from here?’ he asked, helping me inside the cab.

  I nodded back, ‘I am.’

  He leant into the front of the cab and handed the driver a £20 note, asking him to take me to where I needed to go.

  ‘She hasn’t been drinking, has she? I don’t want to clear up any sick,’ said the driver.

  ‘No,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘She’s just had a really awful start to the day.’

  He turned to me and smiled with his head tilted.

  ‘I’m so sorry for whatever’s happened to you,’ he practically whispered.

  ‘Thank you. Thank you for everything,’ I stuttered. It didn’t seem adequate for what he’d done.

  He shrugged his shoulders. ‘It’s what anyone would have done.’

  ‘I don’t even know your name.’

  ‘Aidan,’ he said softly.

  ‘Thank you, Aidan,’ I said.

  ‘You take care,’ he said, stepping out of the car and gently closing the door.

  ‘Where to, love?’ asked the taxi driver.

  I gave him my parents’ address and he pulled out into the road. I turned back and looked at Aidan standing there on the pavement. He waved and I waved back. But then I remembered that Ben had gone and the rest of the journey became a blur.

  About the Publisher

  Australia

  HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.

  Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street

  Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia

  http://www.harpercollins.com.au

  Canada

  HarperCollins Canada

  Bay Adelaide Centre, East Tower

  22 Adelaide Street West, 41st Floor

  Toronto, ON, M5H 4E3, Canada

  http://www.harpercollins.ca

  India

  HarperCollins India

  A 75, Sector 57

  Noida, Uttar Pradesh 201 301, India

  http://www.harpercollins.co.in

  New Zealand

  HarperCollins Publishers (New Zealand) Limited

  P.O. Box 1

  Auckland, New Zealand

  http://www.ha
rpercollins.co.nz

  United Kingdom

  HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  http://www.harpercollins.co.uk

  United States

  HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

  195 Broadway

  New York, NY 10007

  http://www.harpercollins.com

  Dublin

  HarperCollinsPublishers

  1st Floor, Watermarque Building, Ringsend Road

  Dublin 4, Ireland

  http://www.harpercollins.co.uk