It's Not You, It's Them

by Portia MacIntosh

  I’m definitely not perfect, Mark might not be perfect, and our relationship probably isn’t as perfect as I thought it was, but that’s OK, because nothing and no one is perfect. That’s why I can’t let this silly awkwardness go on a second longer. Work can wait; I need to go find Mark and talk to him.

  Just outside the study, I bump into Kerry on her way to the bathroom.

  ‘Hey, have you seen Mark?’ I ask her.

  ‘Yeah, he’s playing Sardines with Auntie Val, Millie, Bea and the kids,’ she tells me. ‘I know, right? Lame.’

  ‘I really need to talk to him.’

  ‘Well, he was hiding first, so you might as well join in and start looking,’ she laughs, closing the bathroom door behind her.

  I guess that would be the quickest way to speak to him, and if he’s hiding first, I know exactly where he’ll be – in the secret half of his wardrobe, where he used to hide when he was a kid.

  As I walk into Mark’s bedroom, I’m sure I can hear the sound of the twins outside. I glance out of the window into the back garden, where I see Lisa and Louise playing in the snow with Val and Millie. So I guess they decided not to play Sardines after all, which is good, because that means I can talk to Mark immediately.

  I’m heading for his bedroom door when I realise I can hear muffled voices somewhere in the room. Curiously, I follow my ear, only to wind up next to Mark’s wardrobe. I slowly open the door and the talking gets louder. It’s Mark’s voice. He’s hiding in his wardrobe. He must not realise the game is over.

  I’m just about to tap on the panel he’s hiding behind when I overhear what he’s saying.

  ‘So, are you seeing anyone at the moment?’ he asks.

  I freeze, my hand just millimetres from the panel he’s behind, waiting to hear the answer to his question before I let him know I’m here.

  ‘No one serious,’ Bea replies.

  ‘When you said you’d only slept with two people…’ Mark starts, but his sentence fades out, like perhaps he doesn’t know how to finish it.

  ‘That was true,’ she replies. ‘There was someone after you, but it didn’t work out.’

  ‘That’s a shame,’ Mark replies.

  My heart is pounding so loudly I’m surprised they can’t hear it. My breathing is a little on the noisy side, too, probably because I’m holding my breath slightly so I can hear better without my short, sharp breaths echoing in my ears.

  ‘Well, it all worked out OK for you, didn’t it?’ she replies. ‘You have Roxie, you’re going to get married and have babies and live happily ever after.’

  ‘I’m not so sure about that,’ Mark replies.

  Thwack! His words hit me like a punch to the stomach.

  ‘Oh?’ Bea replies softly, so obviously trying to coax more information out of him.

  ‘It’s seeming more and more like we want completely different things from life.’

  ‘Have you never spoken about it? We used to talk about it all the time,’ she reminisces.

  Crouching to fit inside this wardrobe is beyond uncomfortable, but I have to keep listening – they’re talking about me, so of course I have to keep listening.

  ‘Our plan was to go and work abroad, wherever our help was needed the most at the time, and then come back, settle down and start a family of our own here. Remember how we talked about converting one of the old barns into a house?’ Bea asks. ‘Someone has done one not too far from here; it looks beautiful.’

  ‘I remember,’ he says, sighing deeply. ‘Had it all figured out, didn’t we?’

  I’m not sure if I hear him laugh or not after he says this.

  ‘Look, tell me if it’s none of my business,’ Bea starts, and I so want to yell at her that of course it’s none of her fucking business, but I need to hear this. ‘Obviously there’s something between you and Roxie. She’s clearly very fun and carefree… but is that really the kind of girl you marry? One who won’t follow you wherever your dreams take you? Whether it’s all the way to Uganda or just home to Yorkshire to give you children…’

  I listen to the silence closely, waiting for Mark to jump to my defence, to tell her how much he loves me…

  ‘We were lucky that we wanted the same things in life,’ Mark starts.

  ‘We were,’ Bea replies quickly. ‘Breaking up with you was the biggest mistake of my life.’

  What? She broke up with him? I thought he broke up with her to move to London…

  ‘And, after you left, when your mum told me you were going to propose to me…’

  I jump to my feet, forgetting I’m inside a wardrobe, banging my head on the top of it.

  ‘Fuck,’ I say to myself. ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck.’

  ‘Roxie?’ Mark calls out. ‘Is that you?’

  I don’t answer him, I just climb out of the wardrobe and head for the door.

  ‘Wait, Roxie. Hang on a sec,’ Mark insists as he clambers out of the wardrobe, hot on my heels.

  ‘Just leave it,’ I snap. I know that running away from the problem probably isn’t the best course of action, but I can’t have this conversation right now, because I don’t know what to say.

  I head downstairs, with Mark a few feet behind me, pleading with me to talk to him.

  ‘What’s going on here?’ Valerie asks, rushing in from the kitchen, still in her coat.

  ‘Where were you?’ he asks her, annoyed. ‘You stopped playing and didn’t think to tell me? Bea was the only one who found me and we were just stuck in there together like…’

  ‘Sardines?’ Val laughs.

  ‘Mum, it’s not funny. Roxie is upset.’

  ‘I’m not upset because you were playing Sardines. I’m upset because of what I overheard,’ I tell him.

  The sound of the downstairs toilet flushing is closely followed by Kerry, finally emerging from the bathroom.

  ‘I really need to stop drinking stout,’ she muses, before detecting the awkward situation currently playing out in the hallway. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Ask your cousin,’ I tell her, my voice cracking a little. Please, God, don’t let me cry in front of these people.

  ‘I will,’ Kerry replies. ‘Mark, come with me.’

  ‘No,’ he says firmly. ‘I need to talk to Roxie.’

  ‘Do you want to be rugby-tackled by a girl in front of all these people?’ she replies. ‘Thought not. Come on.’

  As Kerry frogmarches her cousin towards the family room, Valerie ushers me towards the study.

  Once we’re inside the study, Val sits me down on the broken bed, taking a seat next to me.

  ‘Gosh, this is low down,’ she says as she lowers herself. ‘OK, tell me what happened.’

  I don’t feel like Valerie is the kind of person I can confide in, but I have no one else to talk to right now.

  ‘I overheard Mark and Bea talking about when they were together, their break-up, and then they started talking about whether Mark and I were right for each other.’

  ‘And?’ Val prompts.

  ‘And neither of them seemed convinced,’ I say sadly.

  Valerie wraps her arm around me and gives me a squeeze.

  ‘It’s not your fault, my love,’ she says sympathetically. ‘They have history together. Bea’s mum and I have been best friends for years; it was only natural our kids gravitated towards one another, and we always knew they’d get married some day. I knew that if they wound up alone together, they’d get talking about how perfect they are for each other – I’m just sorry you’re a casualty in all this.’

  I wiggle free from her embrace.

  ‘What do you mean, you knew this would happen if they wound up alone together? Is that why no one was looking for them? You wanted them in a small space together?’

  ‘Roxie, calm down. You’re a nice girl and you’ll make someone a perfectly fine wife. But not Mark. Mark and Bea are meant to be together, they just needed a little push. As soon as he realises this, he’ll move back home and life can go back to how it was before London turned
his head.’

  ‘Does Bea know you’re doing this?’ I ask her.

  ‘Yes,’ Bea replies from the doorway. ‘Sorry, I thought I should listen in.’

  ‘So your parents…’ I start.

  ‘Yeah, they’re not stuck at the airport, they’re still on holiday,’ she replies. ‘We didn’t know you were coming – we didn’t mean for you to get caught up in this. I’m not a bad person, Roxie. We just want Mark back. When I found out he was going to propose to me before he moved to London, I knew I had to win him back. He was trying to get me to go with him and I threatened to finish with him if he accepted the job. I had no intention of doing so, but he called my bluff, so I called his. I knew he’d be back, and that as soon as he was, he’d realise that we’re meant to be. It’s taken a while, but here we are.’

  I feel my eyes welling up with tears. It’s taking all my strength not to let them fall, but I will not cry in front of these scheming bitches. Bea might think she’s a good person – and she might well be a better person than I am – but good people don’t do things like this.

  ‘We didn’t want you to get hurt,’ Val tells me, as though that’s going to be of some comfort. ‘We thought Mark was coming here alone.’

  ‘So, what, I’m supposed to just go back to London and leave Mark here to live happily ever after with you?’ I ask.

  ‘I know things aren’t that straightforward,’ Bea replies. ‘But he’ll come back to me eventually. It’s better for you if it’s sooner rather than later.’

  I stare at a speck of something on the otherwise immaculate floor, tuning out from Bea and Val. Do they really think I’m just going to admit defeat and hand my fiancé over to them? That I’ll just give up life as I know it, move out of my flat, go back to being single, and write the past year off? Then again, if that’s what Mark wants, what choice will I have?

  I’m snapped from my thoughts by a knock on the door.

  ‘Only me,’ Kerry says cheerily. ‘Can I have a word with Roxie, please?’

  ‘Sure,’ Val replies, pulling herself to her feet.

  Once she and Bea have left the room, Kerry slams the door shut behind them and jumps on the bed next to me.

  ‘OK, we’re going to talk about this, but first you’re going to get dressed up and come to the pub with me.’

  ‘I don’t really feel like going out,’ I tell her weakly.

  ‘Well, I don’t really feel like carrying you there against your will, so one of us needs to back down,’ she laughs.

  ‘I can’t believe this is happening,’ I say as a tear escapes my left eye.

  ‘Oi, nothing is happening,’ she insists. ‘I’m going to get you a banging outfit, and then we’re going to go, and I’m going to tell you what Mark just told me, OK?’

  ‘OK.’

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  It’s starting to seem like the Wright family might be the wrong family for me. Growing up, just me and my parents, things weren’t exactly sitcom-perfect. My parents weren’t strict with me, and they’re both so eccentric, I never knew what I’d be going home to after school each day. Sometimes they’d be in costume when I arrived with my friends; other times they’d be in their usual clothes, but bellowing out ‘Magical Mister Mistoffelees’ as they cooked dinner. Sometimes my mum would cook, sometimes my dad would, and sometimes I would, because neither of my parents were especially talented chefs.

  I always felt like I faded into the background a little, which I liked. When I was seven, my parents pushed me into dance lessons, so I could star in the local pantomime with them, but I didn’t like being in the spotlight.

  Mark’s family is a lot more traditional. His mum does the cooking, his dad made the money. He and his sisters are still considered the kids, and treated as such. There’s a hierarchy, for sure. It’s weird, to see Mark flit from being the strong man I know him as, to being just like a little boy around his parents.

  It’s funny, though, speaking of pantomime, because I’m starting to feel a little bit like I’m stuck in one. Well, it is Christmas, after all. Valerie is your typical wicked stepmother character, selfishly and cruelly doing whatever she needs to, just to get her own way – I feel like I should ‘boo’ whenever she enters the room. Oscar, on the other hand, is like the typical panto dame, with his camp, bubbly personality. Mark is like every embodiment of every Prince Charming I’ve ever seen, but I’m not sure I’m his princess… Bea is like the perfect princess and the wicked witch rolled into one. I’m constantly being reminded ‘she’s behind you’, because she’s creeping up on me, trying to take my place. Millie and Alex are like two parts of the same cow, bumbling through their relationship, making loads of mistakes, but you can just tell that they’re supposed to be together. I don’t know what character Mel would play but we all know Ste would be a tree. As for Kerry, well, she’s Buttons, because she’s my comic relief, but she’s also my fairy godmother because tonight she’s going to magic me a dress so that I can go to the ball – well, the pub.

  In the comfort of Kerry’s old bedroom, I suddenly feel a lot like my old self again – not like the person I was before I arrived in Yorkshire, but the person I was fourteen years ago. Kerry’s bedroom is basically a shrine to the mid noughties. Her walls are covered with posters of cheesy pop bands, everyone from the likes of Blue to not-so-smash hit makers like Phixx – remember them? I do. Although I wouldn’t say I was a huge fan, not like Kerry clearly was. She’s got a poster of the blond one (Mikey, I think his name was – the one who had a look of David Beckham) on the wall above her bed.

  Everything in this room reminds me of my teenage years. It’s nice, hanging out in here, and lovely that her parents have preserved her room like this. When I moved out, my parents couldn’t wait to turn my bedroom into an office. As much as I wanted to move out, at the time I was horrified. I asked them what would happen if I ever needed to move back home and they said they were confident that would never happen. If I have to move out of the flat I share with Mark, home is exactly where I’ll end up. What a terrifying thought, to be moving home at twenty-nine…

  ‘Ooh, smell this,’ Kerry commands, spraying me with something very sweet-smelling. ‘This is from so long ago.’

  ‘What is it?’ I ask, my question broken up with coughs.

  ‘It’s Spice Girls Impulse. Remember that?’

  ‘Oh, God, I do,’ I laugh. ‘It smells exactly how I remember it, too.’

  ‘We’ll be covering you in that,’ she laughs. ‘And here’s some make-up to spice up your outfit.’

  Kerry dumps out a bag of cosmetics in front of me. Most of the products no longer have labels on them because they’ve faded over time. If memory serves me right, it’s a mixture of Barry M and Miss Sporty stuff – it all just looks so familiar.

  ‘Should we be using make-up this old?’ I ask with a chuckle.

  ‘Yeah, definitely,’ she replies. ‘Barry M cosmetics are like fine wine – they get better with age.’

  I pick up a small jar and open the lid. It’s almost full to the top with loose, rainbow-coloured glitter.

  ‘It’s all very glitter-heavy,’ I observe.

  ‘Good,’ Kerry replies. ‘It matches your outfit.’

  I glance down at the Leeds United tracksuit I’ve been wearing over the past few days, then back at Kerry. Trackies and glitter are not exactly a fashion match made in heaven.

  ‘Not that outfit,’ she laughs. ‘This one.’

  ‘Oh, my God,’ I reply. ‘I can’t wear that.’

  ‘You can’t wear what you’re wearing if we’re going to drink in the pub.’

  ‘I already have – twice.’

  ‘Tonight is different, though; tonight we’re having a girls’ night out.’

  Kerry is holding up a very small-looking pink and purple dress. It’s patterned to look like a mermaid tail, with gold laced throughout it. It’s very pretty, but definitely not for an adult, human female.

  ‘Is that yours?’ I ask.

  ‘It w
as – when I was a teenager,’ she laughs. ‘It’s the perfect sexy dress for you to wear tonight.’

  I stare at it thoughtfully. There’s something so familiar about the style.

  ‘Is that from Tammy Girl?’ I ask.

  ‘You’ve got a good eye,’ she replies, throwing it at me. ‘Now put it on.’

  ‘This is for kids,’ I tell her.

  ‘Naaah.’

  ‘Kerry, the size is in centimetres. It’s definitely a child’s dress.’

  ‘Try it on,’ she insists.

  I do as instructed, and she was kind of right. It does just look like a really slutty dress in this context.

  ‘Beautiful,’ she replies. ‘Next step: use these.’

  Kerry plugs a pair of straighteners in and switches them on. They’re not a new pair of GHDs, they’re yet another thing she’s had knocking around here for the past fifteen years, but I’m so beyond grateful.

  ‘Thank you so much,’ I squeal. ‘You’re a life saver.’

  ‘Well, there is a reason I’m getting you all dolled up. I just had a word with Clare, who is working behind the bar, and she’s told me we’ve got an army of soldiers – literally – who are spending their evening here. They’ve been drafted in to help with the weather or something, but these lads are off duty. So we can play with them.’