‘Oh, Very, you wouldn’t understand,’ Nina had said sadly. ‘A life without passion is a life half-lived.’ Then she’d opened the window and told Gervaise to bugger off.
Posy was right. Compared to Gervaise, Johnny was a prince among men. But still, Johnny came with so much carry-on baggage.
‘I keep asking myself “What would Elizabeth Bennet do?”’ Verity told Posy. ‘And Elizabeth Bennet would definitely be too smart to—’
‘Say that again!’ Posy demanded.
‘I didn’t even get to finish saying it once before you interrupted me!’
‘Never mind that, Very. What did you say about Elizabeth Bennet?’
‘You know what I say about Elizabeth Bennet,’ Verity reminded Posy with a touch of exasperation because sometimes it felt as if no one listened to a word she said. ‘Whenever I’m faced with a difficult problem I think, “What would Elizabeth Bennet do?” It’s surprisingly helpful.’
‘Well, it would be.’ Posy had a glint in her eye that Verity had come to recognise only too well over the last few weeks. ‘“What would Elizabeth Bennet do?” Genius, Verity. It would look amazing on a tote bag.’
‘I’m not letting you order any more tote bags until we’ve sold at least fifty per cent of the tote bags you’ve already ordered,’ Verity reminded her. ‘But yes, when we’re ready to reorder, you may use my life philosophy.’
Later that day Verity had an email from Emma, Dougie’s sister, about the housewarming party she was having on Saturday night. ‘I know you, Very, and I bet you’re thinking of an excuse to bail out of the party. If it’s any consolation, I was joking when I said I was hiring a karaoke machine. It will be a karaoke-free zone so you HAVE to come and you’re not to turn up and immediately say you can’t stay very long. Also, bring this Johnny that Merry’s told me about. I can’t wait to meet him.’
Immediately and reflexively, Verity started to think of a bulletproof way to wriggle out of this Saturday night socialising. Then she stopped and forced herself to look deep within, to even seek counsel from Elizabeth Bennet. She was a grown woman and she really shouldn’t need a fake boyfriend to get her through life – she could go by herself. Also, technically, it wasn’t a housewarming but a boatwarming as Emma’s boyfriend Sean had inherited a dilapidated houseboat complete with mooring and Verity was curious to see their new floating living space.
So, come Saturday, Verity was more or less content to head party-wards with Merry and Dougie, who had a rare Saturday night off from commis chef-ing.
They caught the bus to Great Portland Street station and then, because it was a hot, sticky July night, decided to walk through Regent’s Park to get to the Regent’s Canal – almost the same route that Verity had taken with Johnny to get to the brunch in Primrose Hill.
Verity hadn’t heard from him since she’d got out of his car on Sunday afternoon almost a week ago. True, Verity had said that she’d be in touch but if Johnny had really been that keen to see her, to carry on their arrangement, he could just as easily have contacted Verity. He hadn’t.
And Verity was fine with that. Really fine and not even a passive aggressive ‘I’m fine.’
Meanwhile Merry was not fine with Con who was now having second thoughts about the hog roast for her wedding reception. ‘If the wind’s blowing the wrong way all you’ll be able to smell is roasting pig,’ she’d complained via Skype the previous evening even though it had been the only item on a list of roughly two hundred items that she’d reached a decision on.
Dougie’s solution was to hand out shower caps in Constance’s signature wedding colours (‘Yeah, when Madam has decided what those signature colours are’) so that people’s hair wouldn’t reek of hog roast.
‘We have to wear hair nets at work,’ he mused. ‘Though that’s more of a health and safety thing.’
‘I’m surprised they don’t make you wear a beard net too. It can’t be very hygienic when you work in food services,’ Verity said. Over the last few months Dougie had cultivated a luxuriant, hipster-issue beard. It had turned out far more ginger than anyone had expected and though it wasn’t really long enough, Dougie liked to tug on it when he was deep in thought. Also, Merry said it was very, very scratchy when they were kissing.
Now Merry piped up: ‘Very, do you think Dougie should shave his beard off?’
Verity didn’t even have to think about it. ‘A thousand times yes.’
‘You don’t think it makes me look distinguished?’ Dougie asked.
‘No,’ Merry said wearily, as if they’d had this conversation many times before. ‘It makes you look like you’re hiding a weak chin. And your chin isn’t weak. From what I can remember, it’s very strong and manly.’
‘Don’t you find that you get crumbs caught in it? What happens when you eat spaghetti?’ Verity peered at Dougie’s facial growth to see if the remains of his breakfast were still lodged in there somewhere. His hand shot up to cover it.
‘Don’t gang up on me!’ he protested. ‘Honestly, I expected better from you, Very. You’re meant to be the sensitive one.’
‘She’s sensitive, not blind,’ Merry spluttered. ‘And any fool can see that your beard does nothing for you.’
Merry and Dougie continued to bicker about his beard all the way to the Regent’s Park Canal. When they got to where the Scarlett O’Hara (Emma loved a romantic novel as much as Verity did) was moored, it was to discover that Emma had set up a rota system for touring the vessel because there was a distinct possibility that it might capsize if there were too many people on board all at once. It didn’t inspire much faith in Scarlett’s seaworthiness so Verity and Merry decided to stay on the firm ground of the canal path until the party retired en masse to the beer garden of a nearby pub.
Verity snagged a corner table with Merry and Dougie, who had finally stopped bickering about his beard and were now arguing about whose turn it was to go to the bar.
‘Or Very could go?’ Dougie asked hopefully.
Merry and Verity both gave him pitying looks. ‘I never go to the bar,’ Very said. ‘Too many people in my personal space bubble.’
‘But Very always gets her round in,’ Merry said loyally and Verity had just taken a twenty-pound note out of her purse when Emma and Sean arrived from locking up the boat.
‘Are you all right?’ Verity asked Emma, because fierce patches of red adorned her friend’s cheekbones and throat. ‘You’re not going down with something, are you?’
‘I’m all right,’ Emma said and she looked at Sean and he looked at her and then they both smiled. It was a smile that was solely for each other and not for the benefit of anybody else.
Then Sean sniffed. ‘I thought Scarlett had sprung a leak but it turned out someone had spilt their lager.’
‘But we’ve had worse Saturdays,’ Emma said and thrust out her hand. ‘Look!’
There was a gorgeous antique ring on the third finger of her left hand. It was a perfect match for the smile on Emma’s face. She was lit up and glowing and it was obvious why, but Sean still said, ‘I asked Emma to marry me.’
‘And I said, God, yes!’
It was all a blur after that. Thirty-odd people surged over to offer their congratulations and a lot of hugging. Then Merry cried because she’d introduced Emma to Sean, the cute research assistant who worked in the lab next to hers, and Verity got all choked up because Merry was crying and the assembled company decided it was so soon after payday that they could all club together to buy a few bottles of something fizzy to toast the happy news.
The giddy mood slowed down a little after the toasts but most of the girls still gathered around Emma as Merry tried on her ring for size, held it up to the light and then, rather uncharitably, said, ‘Will you have an engagement party? Do we have to buy engagement presents? God, I’m going to be bankrupt before summer is over.’
Verity was going to have to have another talk with Merry about the difference between thoughts it was OK to say out loud and thoughts that i
t was best to keep to oneself. Then Verity caught the look that Dougie gave Merry. It was a thoughtful though slightly wary look as if Dougie might not be immediately planning on proposing to Merry but he was thinking about it. A lot.
And all of a sudden, Verity felt a pang for something she’d never known but could see on the faces of her friends. Three years ago, after a disastrous minibreak in Amsterdam with Adam, when Verity had searched her soul for answers, and decided that she wasn’t the loving kind, it had all seemed very clear. Simple. Precise. But a lot had happened in those three years. Verity looked around the five tables that they’d annexed and confirmed her worst suspicions. Somehow, while she’d been busy needing alone time and inventing imaginary boyfriends, everyone else she knew had coupled up. Become units of two. Verity was the only singleton in attendance. Actually, the only singleton she knew. Even Posy, who’d rarely shown any interest in boyfriends, had skipped the whole dating thing and simply got married instead. Nina was never without a boyfriend, no matter how skeevy that boyfriend might be, and Tom? Who knew what Tom got up to? He played his cards so close to his chest that, for all the staff of Happy Ever After knew, he could have a wife and four children stashed away somewhere.
Then there was Verity. Happy to be single. And being alone wasn’t the same as being lonely, but there were times, like right now on a Saturday night surrounded by her loved-up social circle, when one really did feel like the loneliest number.
Her phone was just sitting there on the table in front of her. It was a simple matter to pick it up and send a text message.
Am at houseboat warming party, which has relocated to Rutland Arms in Primrose Hill, if you fancy it? Very
Verity then knew sixty-five seconds of dread and turmoil and what-on-earth-had-possessed-her, before her phone beeped.
Be there in 30. Johnny
How lonely did Johnny have to be that he had nothing better to do at half-past eight on a Saturday night than immediately agree to meet up with a woman who’d cold-shouldered him for a whole week after he’d confessed, under duress, his deepest secrets to her?
Pretty bloody lonely.
Verity strived to appear casual as she waited. She didn’t even tell Merry that Johnny was coming because Merry would seize on the news and grill Verity to within an inch of her life about this development. Instead, she clutched her glass and nodded and smiled brightly as Emma talked about a possible winter wedding until Merry gave a low whistle.
‘Isn’t that your fake fella, Very?’ she hissed under her breath and Verity looked up to see Johnny, standing at the entrance to the beer garden. He was wearing jeans, a heathery blue T-shirt and a quizzical expression, which transformed into a smile when he caught sight of Verity. ‘Why didn’t you tell me he was coming? Sisters don’t have secrets!’
‘But are you really my sister? Con and I still reckon you were found on the church doorstep and Farv and Muv didn’t have the heart to tell you,’ Very hissed back, because she and Con had been tormenting Merry with their changeling theory for years and it still remained one of the most effective ways to stop Merry in her tracks.
‘That wasn’t funny the first thousand times I heard it,’ Merry grumbled as Johnny reached their far-flung corner and squeezed through to reach Verity’s side. He leaned over as if he were going to kiss her cheek, thought better of it, then settled for the patented Verity Love finger waggle.
‘Hello,’ he said. ‘I’d given up all hope of ever hearing from you again.’
‘Sorry, I’ve been very busy,’ Verity mumbled as Merry snorted derisively into her glass. ‘Wasn’t sure you’d be free at such short notice.’
‘You had me at houseboat.’ Johnny smiled and ran a hand through his thick hair which then fell back into its usual artfully tousled shape, so that quite a few of the girls present stopped what they were doing so they could have a good stare at him. ‘I can’t resist a houseboat.’
‘It is quite an amazing houseboat,’ Verity said as Merry coughed ‘Get a room’ into her glass and Emma turned round with a smile.
‘That’s so sweet, Very, when it’s not even a little bit amazing. But it is mostly watertight so there’s that.’ Emma turned her attention and an even broader smile on to Johnny. ‘You must be Verity’s new boyfriend. Hello. I’ve heard absolutely nothing about you.’
Introductions were made and though Johnny was a little older than Verity’s friends and he was better dressed than them even in jeans and a T-shirt, he seemed to fit in with ease. He also insisted on buying a couple of bottles of champagne when he heard about the engagement then taught Sean and Dougie a nineteenth-century drinking toast. ‘Champagne for my real friends, real pain for my sham friends,’ they kept hooting at regular intervals until Emma cuffed Sean and handed the keys to the houseboat to Verity.
‘Why don’t you give Johnny the guided tour?’ she suggested then raised her eyebrows at Verity in a very unsubtle manner, which Verity chose to ignore.
Verity stuffed her hands into the pockets of her gingham smock dress as she and Johnny walked to the mooring. Why was it always so hard to find the right words to say?
It was Johnny who broke the silence first, but then he always did. ‘I was convinced you hated me,’ he said as they navigated the stone steps down to the water. ‘I’ve replayed the conversation we had in the hotel room after the party again and again and I come across as either a callous marriage wrecker or a delusional lovesick fool.’
‘Yes, well, I’m sure I came across as some kind of bitter recluse, which I’m not. Well, I am, but only for an hour after work while I decompress,’ Verity said, because she didn’t want to dredge up what had happened last weekend, though she did think that Johnny was a little callous, a little delusional to be in love with someone for so long with no hope of a reprieve. But then, she was hardly in a position to judge him. ‘We both have our own reasons for staying single and being in need of a fake other half.’
‘That we do,’ Johnny agreed and he sounded relieved that Verity didn’t have anything further to say about their own respective shortcomings.
They’d reached the Scarlett O’Hara. Verity deigned to let Johnny take her hand as she was wearing her ancient Birkenstocks, which weren’t designed for clambering on board. Then she unlocked the door and they went inside.
‘I told you about my pirate ship treehouse, didn’t I?’ Johnny asked Verity as he looked around the cabin. ‘Ever since then I’ve always wanted to live on a boat.’
‘I don’t mind the odd pleasure cruise but actually living on the water would not float my boat,’ Verity said in the flat way she always delivered a joke but Johnny must have got it because he smiled.
Most of the space in the cabin was given over to a kitchen diner cum lounge with a small separate bedroom and shower room. It was liveable but decorated in a tired, seventies chic; mahogany and brass as far as the eye could see.
‘Sean inherited the boat from his uncle, who lived on it for forty years or so. Apparently, there were pigeons roosting in the engine room,’ Verity said as Johnny took out his phone. For once, there was no urgent text or phone call that he had to deal with; he wanted to take pictures of the fixtures and fittings.
‘There’s so much they could do in here,’ he said and started talking about a simple design scheme, clean but cosy, with all sorts of clever, space-saving features. ‘I take on two post-graduate trainees every year who run their own project. This would be perfect. Also, their services would be free. Do you think Emma and Sean would be offended if I nominated Scarlett O’Hara?’
‘Offended? I think they’d be delighted. Emma will probably make you sign a legally binding contract on the back of a beermat,’ Verity said because ever since Emma had qualified as a solicitor, the power had gone to her head.
‘Are you all right?’ Johnny was on his knees investigating a cupboard built into the bottom of the corner seating, when he glanced up and saw that Verity was swaying slightly and grimacing. ‘You look like you’re about to keel ove
r.’
It was a still night, not even the faintest breeze, but it felt to Verity as if the boat was pitching this way and that on storm-tossed water. No wonder she was so churny of stomach. ‘I don’t have … sea legs. I thought I’d be all right on a stationary barge but apparently not,’ she said. ‘I need to be on dry land … um, now!’
Verity sent up a silent prayer: ‘Please Lord, don’t let me throw up in the Regent’s Canal or anywhere else for that matter,’ as Johnny swiftly bundled her out of the cabin, across the deck, then all but lifted her back onto the bank.
She sank down on the stone steps, took a couple of deep shuddering breaths and waited for her tummy to stop roiling. ‘Are you feeling better?’ Johnny called out as he locked up the boat.
‘I think so. We Loves generally don’t travel well.’ The twins, Chatty and Immy, got travelsick if they sat too near the front on a bus.
They headed back to the pub to return the keys and present Emma and Sean with Johnny’s proposition, which was received with unconfined joy. Verity thought they should stay for at least one more drink though she was beginning to flag – far too much social stimulation and almost puking would do that to a girl – but Johnny gestured to the gate, which led back to the street.
‘If you’ve had enough, I’ll see you home,’ he said.
Verity had had enough. She’d also had enough of Merry smirking every time she looked at the two of them. They’d be having words about that later too. Verity made do with a retaliatory pinch when Merry said loudly, ‘Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,’ as Verity and Johnny said their goodbyes.
‘What’s it to be?’ Johnny asked once they left The Rutland Arms. ‘Cab, bus or shall we walk for a bit?’
‘Walking’s always good,’ Verity decided and because it was nearly ten and Regent’s Park was now closed and Camden High Street was best avoided on a Saturday night, they skirted through the back streets.
There were things they should probably discuss but Verity hardly knew where to begin and Johnny wasn’t inclined to talk either as they walked through Camden. The streets were a little rougher, less fragrant; more kebab shops and all-night convenience stores, and quite a few drunken hordes of youths lurching at them.
True Love at the Lonely Hearts Bookshop Page 12