Sophie's Turn

by Nicky Wells

  I didn’t get any further as Tim emitted a strangled little laugh. “But Soph, that’s ridiculous. Cornwall is too far away from everyone. Are you breaking up with me because we’re not getting married in the right place? Like such a small detail really matters?”

  “Yup,” I said after a moment’s pause. “That’s exactly it. That, and the house, and the invitations, and the CD collections, and a hundred million other little things. I told you. It’s me, not you.”

  We had reached an impasse, and there was nothing more to be said. As Tim sat in mute, disbelieving silence, I called myself a cab and then sat with him in the lounge while I waited for it to arrive. We were like two people in a hospital waiting room, torn apart by grief at a mutual friend’s passing, yet unable to comfort each other.

  At the last minute, I remembered that I ought to return another ring to another man, and I dug this one out of a different pocket in my purse, where it had lain since this morning.

  “I think you should have this back,” I offered, but Tim just shook his head. So I placed it on the coffee table, where it sparkled merrily and quite innocently by the light of the little table lamp. Almost as an afterthought, I pried my set of keys to his house off my key ring and added them to the ring still life. Mercifully, the cab arrived just then, and I went out in the hallway to gather up my things. I hesitated for a second before I left, unsure whether I should say goodbye or simply leave. But there was no sound from the lounge, and I decided it was best to exit quietly. The front door gave the softest of clicks as I pulled it shut behind me, and then I was gone.

  I deposited my cardboard boxes in the back of the cab and then sunk into the deep leather seats gratefully. What a day. As the cab started hurtling through the familiar streets to take me south of the river, the accumulated tension of the past week suddenly overcame me. I finally found myself bursting into great big, hysterical sobs. The driver shot me a concerned look via his rear-view mirror.

  “There, there,” he started to soothe me, looking at me intently while swerving through a particularly sharp turn. I gasped and held on for dear life. “It’s all right, love,” he continued. “‘e’s a bastard, wha’ever ‘e’s done.”

  That set me off even more, and I howled out of control.

  “Oh,” I wailed, sounding mildly like a distressed wolf. “But you don’t understand…I’m the bastard in the relationship. I just ditched him. And the other one.” I took a deep breath, readying myself for another outburst like a baby throwing a temper tantrum. “Oh, no, no, no!”

  All the grief in the world seemed to have appeared within me and was streaming out unstoppably. I was vaguely aware that I lumped together despair over having given up Dan, self-loathing for having dumped Tim, worry about my Dad, and a massive amount of self-pity for being once more what every almost-thirty-something girl in London dreads—single.

  Flustered, the driver had shut his mouth and focused on the road ahead. He let me wail for a few minutes, but at length, when my sobs seemed to be subsiding a little, he ventured, “Well, I’m sure you had a good reason, love.” I had to smile despite myself. It was nice to get a vote of confidence, even if only from a stranger who had no clue about what I had just done and who probably acted purely out of self-interest, lest I should hurl on his back seat or, worse still, inflict some kind of injury on myself and bleed all over the upholstery. As I calmed down, I realized how desperately tired I was and I longed to get home and crawl into bed. The drive appeared to take forever but, in actual fact, the traffic was light for a Monday night and we got to Tooting in just over half an hour.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  The next morning I felt more dead than alive. My eyes were so gummed up and swollen I could only barely open them into tiny slits. Whatever light the opening admitted wasn’t enough to form a coherent picture, and although I knew I was at home, in my bed and my bedroom, the walls seemed to dance merrily around me as I stared at the ceiling. My limbs seemed to be encased in lead, and even though I tentatively tried lifting my right arm, it was too heavy and remained firmly lodged on the mattress. I was weary beyond belief. Oh for someone to come and make me breakfast.

  My tummy gave an impatient rumble. How was it possible, I wondered, that I could be at death’s door and yet my tummy demanded food? Yesterday’s self-pity had not entirely dried up, and I wanted to cry as I considered my situation.

  I was alone.

  All alone.

  I had no one. No boyfriend, no fiancé.

  I was single, again.

  I was doomed to going through life on my own. To going to parties on my own. No, scrap that. I was doomed not to go to parties at all. I would go to work every day and return to my little flat every night. I would spend weekends watching videos, eating pizza and ice cream, and slowly putting on stone after stone until the kids in the street would point out my waddling figure—that would be on the good days when I actually ventured out of the house—and call names after me.

  Plop, plop, plop… Big fat tears landed on my pillow and I wallowed for a while. But my tummy was not to be deterred. It wanted food, and it wanted it now. Reluctantly, and with super-human effort, I dragged myself out of bed and fumbled my way into the kitchen, still half-blind. The freezer surrendered some frozen croissant pastry and, lo and behold, there was honey and chocolate spread in the cupboard. I zapped the pastry, rolled it into makeshift little sausages that bore only a slight resemblance to croissants, doused the whole lot in honey and chocolate spread, and shoved the arrangement in the oven. While the dough started to rise and the honey-chocolate-mixture started to glaze, then burn, emitting the most delicious smells, I rummaged round another kitchen cupboard and unearthed some long-forgotten instant coffee. I didn’t usually favor instant, but I was too clumsy to brew myself a proper pot and this would have to do.

  Half an hour and three thousand calories later, I sat on my sofa, a little more content, and a lot more reconciled with life. So what if I grew fat all by myself? I gave a little burp. At least I could treat myself to such disgusting delights as I had just consumed without anyone judging me, or, worse still, wanting to share. As caffeine, fat, and sugar hit my brain in quick succession, I started to make a plan for the day. First line item: work. I was supposed to turn up and submit my column, wasn’t I? In my more awake state, I had registered that it was Tuesday, an official working day, and that I had slept way past office opening hours. I sucked at my pencil pensively. I didn’t particularly fancy going out, and the restorative efforts to make myself even halfway presentable would surely take until mid-afternoon. Even though my spirits had lifted, I wasn’t up to facing the world.

  I picked up the phone and put on my most croaky voice to call in sick. Rick wasn’t that surprised—plus he had, after all, promised me a few days off on my return, although he had probably envisaged that I should take them after the column was completed—and agreed happily for me to stay at home today, tomorrow even, just so long as I submitted the copy within the next two hours. Or three. I rubbed my forehead tiredly—ouch, that would be hard work, but I guessed I could pull it off.

  Right, plan for the day resumed. First line item: call in sick—done. Second line item: write column—in progress, sort of. Third line item: bathe. Fourth line item: call Mum. Fifth line item: call Rachel. Sixth line item: order takeaway dinner—again. Seventh line item: go back to bed. That sounded good.

  Four hours later, I had completed items one through five. My penultimate article for the Tuscq revival column had pretty much written itself, what with all the homely pictures and insights. That done and emailed to Rick, I had run myself a hot bath full of luxury bubbles and wallowed for a good while by candlelight. The dreary December day cooperated with my mood and the bathroom had turned into a heavenly sanctuary of steam rising from the bath, illuminated by yellow pools of light whose cheery glow contrasted nicely with the grey outside.

  My call with Mum was very comforting. She said all the right things, including congratulating me on
two very wise decisions. She swiped my concerns at being newly single—and at such an advanced age, too—away with the proverbial flick of the hand. I knew she was waving her arms about even though I couldn’t actually see her. Mum staunchly offered all the common clichés that I needed to hear—better to have known love and lost it than never to have loved at all, better off on your own than in a lonely relationship, plenty more fish in the sea, all the time in the world, and so on.

  Rachel was busy at work, so I just gave her the skinny low-down on events while she was sipping her morning coffee. She had a hot date with Jordan that night but promised to come round the following evening. I was immensely pleased for her. So the Jordan thing was still going on. This had to be the most serious relationship Rachel had ever had—apart from the thunderbolt-and-lightning story that she still owed me. I made a super-human effort to stand above the fact that she found happiness just when I had destroyed mine and reminded myself that Rachel had been searching far longer, and with a lot less success, than I had. At least to date. As Mum said, better to have known love…and all that. Even if I had decided that perhaps what I had wasn’t love, I had still known the utmost in romance, and no one could ever take that away from me. Yes, hold onto that thought, Sophie.

  I had my hand poised over the phone to order a takeaway when it shrilled, and the receiver fair bounced off the cradle and into my hands.

  “Hello?” I managed, somewhat surprised. Who would be calling me?

  “Sophie?” a female voice enquired. “Hey, it’s Dina.”

  “Dina,” I squealed with delight. I was genuinely pleased to hear her voice. Then a little wave of embarrassment hit me—I had told this stranger everything about me the previous day—but I ignored it. After all, she called me, so she couldn’t think I was a complete lunatic.

  “What’s up?” I asked, expectantly.

  “I just wanted you to know that I think Tim’s going to be all right.” She paused.

  “What’d he say?” I didn’t even know why I asked this question, but perhaps I just wanted to face the music.

  “Well,” she resumed, “he was ranting, raving, and spitting mad when I got back. He’d even hurled a vase against the wall.”

  “No,” I interceded. “He wouldn’t do that. Not in a million years.”

  “Oh yes, he did,” Dina confirmed. “It was a weird green-and-blue one, and it smashed into a thousand pieces.”

  I gasped in astonishment. “Are you telling me that Tim trashed his beloved heirloom because of me?”

  “I don’t know if it was an heirloom,” she confessed, “but he was very upset about that afterwards, too. In fact, I think half the night he cried because he’d smashed the thing. I thought it was pretty horrible, personally, but he was quite distressed.”

  I couldn’t help giggling. “It was horrible, truly. But he had inherited it from some aunt or other and it was supposed to have been valuable.” Then I sobered. “Oh,” I cried, “I must have hurt him more than I had thought.”

  Dina paused. “You know,” she said, “I’m not sure you’ll want to hear this, but…well, I’m not entirely sure. The way he went from ranting and calling you names to being distressed about that bloody vase…well…I think you might have hurt his ego more than his feelings.”

  I considered that for a minute. “That would figure,” I admitted slowly. “In fact, that would fit in beautifully with all the reasons why I decided we weren’t right for each other, after all. Perhaps…well perhaps I was right?”

  “Oh, I have no doubt,” Dina offered immediately. “Honestly, he was quite calm by the end of the night—with the exception of the little calamity of the vase—and he left for work this morning as usual. He’ll live. I’m not even sure…” She paused again.

  “You’re not sure what?” I had to prompt.

  “Well, I’m not even sure he’ll mourn. You know what I mean? I think he’ll just get on with things quite quickly. Which is,” she hastened to add, “a horrible thing to say, but he’s taking great consolation in being the injured party, and I think you’ll probably never be able to show your face around his friends again.”

  “Phew, that’s a relief,” I blurted before I could help it. Dina laughed.

  “I think they’re all quite nice, but…well…,” she trailed off.

  “You still love him, don’t you?” I came out suddenly. “You split with him way back then for all the wrong reasons and you still love him, don’t you?”

  She didn’t reply immediately.

  “Maybe…maybe I do. I had tried not to think about it. I tried to build a new life. Then I met Robert, and things seemed to be going so well. But when we bumped into the two of you in Paris…”

  “Wasn’t that just the weirdest thing?” I cut in. “I mean, running into you like we did?”

  “It was,” she confirmed. Too slowly.

  Pieces clicked into place rapidly.

  “No,” I exclaimed, befallen by sudden insight. “No, no…no. You’re kidding.”

  “I’m sorry,” Dina whispered in a small voice.

  “But how? How was that possible? How did you make it happen? Or did he?”

  A deep breath at the other end.

  “Well, we’d kept in touch loosely, every now and then. Of course I’d let him know about my engagement. I don’t quite know why. Maybe out of spite? Anyway, a few days after I’d sent him the announcement, he called and asked my advice. He wanted to take you somewhere romantic to make up with you for…well, you know. So I recommended Paris, and that hotel I knew. Robert had taken me there once before. And then…well then I thought I just have to see him one final time before I tie the knot with Robert. I just had to be sure. Can you understand that?”

  Could I? Of course I could. It wasn’t that dissimilar to the whole chain of events that had set the Dan romance in motion.

  “And so I arranged for us to be there the same weekend. When I saw him, with you…Gosh, I still loved him. But I could tell that he had utterly fallen for you. The perfect woman.”

  “What? Who, me?” I laughed sarcastically. “Now you’ve really got to be kidding. Even then Tim had already been trying to change me into all sorts of things I wasn’t. I just wasn’t aware. But I tell you what, I was thoroughly spooked by the impact you had on him. I had to keep reminding myself that you were happily, blissfully engaged to Robert…I was so jealous of you.”

  So the chance encounter hadn’t been a chance encounter after all. There had been someone pulling strings to get back into Tim’s life in the same way that Dan had been pulling strings to get into my life. The story had some kind of weird, poetic balance to it.

  Dina and I spent a few more minutes talking. I was grateful that she had called. In a lot of ways, she had let me off the hook for feeling bad about breaking up with Tim. Even though I hadn’t asked—hadn’t dared to ask—whether she and Tim might get back together, somehow, with two recently bruised souls that had never quite got over each other…well, it wouldn’t have surprised me if they were offering comfort and consolation to each other. But that was their business and I had no right to pry.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Wednesday morning saw me back at work, albeit somewhat at a loose end. I spent a good few hours checking emails and voicemails, and catching up with news stories that had happened in my absence. In retrospect, I was appalled at how little attention I had paid to the world while on tour. I picked up a few little leads that I could easily research and write in a day or two. Yet, I was aware that I would be out of the office again on Friday to cover the last gig, then out again for a few days to take the extra leave that Rick had promised me, and then again over Christmas, so it was difficult to take up juicy stories at this time. I had a meeting with Rick in which he discussed my progress and paid me lots of compliments to my face about the amazing work I had done. I had lunch with Rachel and generally tried to get accustomed to a desk-bound job again. But even after only three weeks away, it was hard. Perhaps I could consider a
future in the entertainment section after all…I had anticipated that returning to the relatively safe harbor of news writing would be a relief, but I was strangely bored.

  At lunchtime, the receptionist buzzed me to let me know that I had a delivery and did I want the guy to come up or did I want to come down? For three seconds, my heart beat faster as I recalled the previous instances where such announcements had heralded Dan’s arrival. But I put such thoughts firmly out of my mind. I had broken up with him. He had been hurt. We had agreed to lay off each other…There was no way that he would start the whole circle all over again. Or would he?

  He wouldn’t. I tried hard not to admit it to myself, but I was ever so slightly disappointed when the courier turned out to be just that, a courier. I had to sign a piece of paper that I had received the package safely, and then he was gone again. He definitely hadn’t been Dan.

  “What is it?” Rachel wanted to know, having crept up to my desk on her stealth boots. She startled me and I nearly dropped the parcel.

  “I don’t know,” I confessed. “I don’t even know who it’s from.”

  “Well, who’s the sender?” Rachel asked, ever the pragmatist.

  “I don’t know,” I had to admit. “I forgot to check.”

  “Do you think it’s from Dan?” she ruminated expectantly. “Or maybe some kind of hate mail from Tim?”

  “Gee, thanks very much. You’re not helping,” I admonished, now a little nervous.

  “Well, open it, then.” Rachel implored.

  I hesitated. I had no idea what might be in the parcel, or who it might have been from. But what if the contents meant that I would rather have opened it on my own? I turned the little box over a few more times. It seemed harmless enough. It might just be a promotional gadget of some sort. Or maybe an inventive job offer from another paper; after all, as Rick had promised, I had found quite a few advances in my inbox. Rachel still stood behind me and I decided it would be rude to send her away. She was my best friend after all, and we had no secrets from each other. I started tearing at the wrapping.