The Chocolate Run

by Dorothy Koomson

  I turned to Greg. Course he has. There are few women he’s met who he hasn’t shagged.

  ‘No, I haven’t shagged her too,’ Greg spat. ‘But then, I could’ve done, the amount of time I spent with Françoise, covering for you. You know, like the time I had to drop everything and go to Paris because she was distraught that you’d disappeared and she couldn’t find you. I could’ve shagged her then while I was busy not telling her that you’d gone to Los Angeles with Jen. And, that time Françoise turned up out of the blue and you and Jen had gone to Prague for a week, I could’ve shagged her then, couldn’t I? Or, I could’ve kept your secret and looked after her and when I saw Jen’s best mate in town not mentioned that the woman beside me was your wife.’

  I’d met her? Matt and Jen went to Prague at the end of last year. I feverishly racked my brain. I’d bumped into Greg a few times in town around then. And the day I saw him when Matt and Jen had gone away . . . It came flooding back to me. Greg had looked so jumpy that day I saw him in Albion Place, outside WHSmith. I hadn’t understood why he was so shifty. He’d introduced the woman beside him really stiffly, but I was rubbish at names. I was better with faces . . .

  Cold tingling flooded my body. She was slight, her face angular from being so thin. Her blonde hair was cut into a stylish bob that sat just above her cheeks. She wore chic, designer clothes, Prada shoes, dusky pink lipstick. That’s who New Jen reminded me of – Françoise, Matt’s wife.

  ‘You turned Jen into your wife,’ I said to Matt incredulously. ‘That’s why she lost weight and hacked off her lovely hair and wears that ridiculous lipstick. You wanted to spend day after day living with a version of Françoise in Leeds.’

  ‘What are you on about?’ Jen was half laughing.

  ‘I met Françoise when she was with Greg. And Matt’s turned you into her. You were right when you said he preferred you so thin your hipbones poke through your clothes and your hair so short you look fifty, because that’s what she looks like.’

  Jen looked to Greg; he glanced away. She swung round to Matt. ‘Matt?’

  Matt said nothing.

  ‘You said I’d look better with short hair, with less weight. And all along you wanted me to look like your wife? YOU BASTARD!’

  She ran at him, started scratching at his eyes and face, while her feet tried to kick him. He put his hands up to protect himself. Greg and I watched them struggle until Matt managed to grab her wrists, stand up and fling her onto the bed. She bounced unceremoniously beside me a couple of times, then glared up at him.

  ‘At least I didn’t shag Amber, eh, lover?’ Matt shouted at her.

  ‘Like you’d ever get the chance,’ I said.

  ‘You’re comparing you living a double life, lying and screwing with my mind to a drunken mistake? You’re unbelievable,’ Jen shouted back.

  ‘HE’S UNBELIEVABLE?’ I suddenly screamed, turning on her. I hadn’t known I was going to shout until it was coming out of my mouth. ‘What about you? Matt has always been a twat. I knew that from the second I clapped eyes on him. I thought it was because he was boring, but no, it’s because he’s clearly the village idiot’s Neanderthal brother. But you, Jen, you were meant to be my friend. And you’ve done nothing but put me down and treat me with contempt. Tonight was the icing on the cake.’

  ‘You’re blaming me?’ she asked, aghast.

  ‘Yes, I’m blaming you. You just couldn’t leave it, could you?’ I snarled. ‘You saw that Greg and I were happy, and you couldn’t bear it. You like to keep me in your little box. Little Single Amber who you can take out and set up on hideous blind dates, or impose upon when your relationship’s rocky or your lover’s gone away – to see his wife, as it turns out.’

  ‘Greg slept with me too. I didn’t force myself on him,’ Jen said.

  ‘Yeah, and why bring it up tonight when it’s likely that I’ll overhear? I’ll tell you why, because you saw that he might possibly care about me so you couldn’t wait to go rushing in there to remind him that you were the prettier one, the sexier one, the one he had first. The one he really wanted.’

  ‘But he’s no good for you,’ Jen said, tears in her voice. ‘He really is no good for you.’

  ‘What you mean is, I’m not good enough for him. You couldn’t stand it, you couldn’t bear it that messy, plain, fat Amber could sleep with good-looking Greg and keep him. While you, sexy, feminine, thin Jen could only get a shag.’

  Jen wiped at her mascaraed eyes with her fingers. ‘That’s not fair, Amber.’

  ‘FAIR!?’ I screamed. ‘FAIR? And this is all fair, is it?’ I stopped as my chest heaved, tears blossomed in my eyes. I was damned if I was going to sob in front of them. I got up, went to the wardrobe, took out my jacket.

  ‘You disgust me. You all disgust me,’ I said. ‘And you make me disgust myself.’ I shoved my hands into my pockets and felt it – the extra special pressie I’d bought for Greg. I’d rooted it out last night, ready to present it to him after I asked him to move in with me. I removed it from my pocket, sneered at it for a second. ‘I think this belongs to you,’ I said, then tossed the soft, leather-bound black book at Greg’s feet.

  He looked at it, then his horrified eyes flew up to my face.

  Without another word, I left.

  I opened the door, not particularly quietly because I knew Greg would be long gone. My heart lurched when I saw his outline sitting in a chair, half turned to the window, his feet resting on the wall. Along the window sill were a line of minibar bottles. Oh yeah, sure, now he decides to stop walking out on me. Now he decides to stay and sort things out. Or maybe he’s just waited for me to come back – no point walking out on someone if they’re not there to witness it.

  I stood in the doorway. Should I pack and go home? Or pack and go get another room?

  Another tidal wave of exhaustion crashed through me. Sleep. I needed to sleep. I hadn’t done that properly in two weeks. Longer, if you counted the run-up to the Festival. I just wanted to sleep.

  ‘I hoped you’d come back tonight,’ Greg croaked. He moved and the moonlight on his face showed his puffy eyes, each one ringed with moisture.

  My heart jumped. I wanted to put my arms around him, hold him. Then I remembered, he’d brought this on himself. You reap as you sow.

  And I’d brought this on myself. I knew what he was like. I knew he hadn’t met a woman he wouldn’t have at some point tried to bed. What else did I expect? Of course he’d done the unthinkable and slept with the one person in the whole world I wouldn’t, no, couldn’t accept him sleeping with.

  ‘Didn’t come back to talk,’ I said. ‘I’m so tired. Just want to sleep.’

  Greg nodded. Raked his hands through his hair. In his lap was the little black book and his mobile. While I’d been out walking, he’d been setting up the next week’s shagging. Good for him. It’s best to get back on the horse as soon as possible.

  I grabbed a T-shirt and jogging bottoms from my bag, which had my clothes spewing out of it. Having only had two days to pack, I’d done so in a bit of a haphazard way. ‘I’ll buy you clothes in France,’ Greg had said when I’d told him I didn’t have time to do any washing before the holiday. I’d never thought I’d meet a man who’d say tha— No, stop it. That’s over. It’s all over.

  I went into the bathroom and removed myself from my Holly Golightly costume: taking all the pins out of my hair, stripping my face of make-up. Piece by piece I dismantled my film star persona until there she was in the mirror. The old Amber. The pre-ball, pre-Greg Amber. Plain old Amber.

  By the time I vacated the bathroom Greg was lying on the far side of the bed, almost on the edge. His clothes were neatly folded on the chair. No walking out was scheduled for tonight, then.

  I climbed between the cool white sheets, careful not to get too far into the bed, and lay on the edge of my side of the bed facing away from him. An ocean of silence separated us.

  ‘It was before you,’ Greg said from his side of the bed. ‘The second it wa
s over, I regretted it.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have done it,’ I replied.

  ‘I know. But I’ve felt awful ever since.’

  ‘YOU. SHOULDN’T. HAVE. DONE. IT.’

  Greg started breathing heavily, tiny vibrations from his body rippled across the bed.

  He was crying. I wanted to shuffle across the bed, put my arms around him, love him better. Wanted to. Couldn’t. It wasn’t my job any more.

  ‘i’d try therapy if chocolate wasn’t quicker and sweeter’

  chapter thirty-two

  the runaway

  A week passed in a flash, thus disproving all theories about the relativity of time and fun.

  When I’d left the hotel I hadn’t known where I was going. I had a week off work, a bag packed with clothes, but I couldn’t face my flat. I’d asked him to move in with me, had spent so much time there in the past seven months with him I couldn’t face going back there. But I had nowhere else to go. In the end I’d made a hysterical call to Eric asking what I should do. Eric, even though he was going through his own hell, said to get on a train to Edinburgh and that he’d be waiting at the other end.

  I’d never spent a whole week, well, nine days, with Eric and Arrianne before. Had it been under better circumstances it would’ve been fun. Unless you knew it, you couldn’t tell that they weren’t getting on: there was no leaping into each other’s arms, but they weren’t being off with each other. Or shouting. Or even the dreaded being polite to each other. They were normal with each other. As normal to each other as they were to me.

  Eric and Arrianne, being proper psychologists, let me sleep in for the first day. And for the first two days I was allowed to mope around, stare into space, stay on the edge of tears. Day three, I was dragged from my bed at 8 a.m., and told I had to earn my keep: bring in coal and wood – they stopped short of making me chop it up, wash up – cook, vacuum, clean. And it helped. I didn’t have time to think about Greg and Jen. Jen and Matt. Matt and Françoise. Matt and Greg for all I knew. Those thoughts were saved for the still of the night. For those moments between sleep and consciousness, when I couldn’t chase away my memories with a big stick. Most evenings, to help me sleep like you would a hyperactive kid, Eric would take me for a long walk into the countryside where they lived. Up hills, down vales. Arrianne came with us once, decided we wussy English folk walked too slowly and didn’t come again.

  On my last day, I said bye to Arrianne at the crack of dawn because I was getting the first train to Leeds and Eric drove me to the station.

  ‘I’m going to miss having an unpaid maid around,’ he said as I prepared to board the train. ‘Our house has never been so clean. Not even when Mum comes to stay.’

  ‘You don’t do all that every day?’

  ‘Course not, we do have a life. And a cleaner, but he’s on holiday for a couple of weeks. You arrived at the perfect time.’

  ‘Duped by my own brother. Is there no end to my betrayal?’

  ‘It was good for you. Stopped you spending so much time thinking. And as we all know, you think too much as it is.’ My face must’ve registered something because Eric added: ‘That’s what he used to say to you, right?’

  ‘Before anything happened. When we were friends.’

  ‘Friends who become lovers. Probably the most fraught kind of relationship there is. You always start off knowing far too much about each other. And a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. Come on, Gerbil, on the train.’

  As I stepped through the doorway, Eric said, ‘Remember what I said.’

  This is what my brother, my peanut-brittle-looking, but caramel-hearted brother had said:

  On the last of our nightly walks we stopped on a hillside, sat side by side on the dewy (read: wet) grass. From that distance, all you could see were the lights from the houses of the villages below. And they looked like reflections of the stars above. The heavens mirrored on earth. Heavens below.

  Silence closed in, wrapping us up so tight I felt stifled, suffocated. I had an urge to start saying random words to loosen its hold around us.

  ‘I can’t believe Greg slept with that slut,’ Eric said out of the dark. He and Arrianne hadn’t brought it up since I first told Eric what had happened. And now he was bringing it up, he was starting with this.

  ‘Jen’s not a slut,’ I replied, almost as a reflex.

  Eric shook his head sadly, sighed. ‘As I suspected, you’re willing to forgive Jen anything, but Greg is confined to hell.’

  ‘Are you really that surprised? He’s a man and that’s what men do, anything for a shag, no matter who it’s with. Or who it’ll hurt.’ I turned to Eric. ‘Even you were having an affair.’

  Eric’s blue eyes narrowed and eyed me suspiciously. ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Oh, come on, Ez, this is me. My real dad did it, I’ve known other men do it. I used to think I had a radar for it. Until Greg. And I know you, the way you were when you came down to mine, it was obvious. So, how long did it go on for? How long did you cheat on Arrianne? How long did you do to the woman who is practically my sister what my dad did to my mum? Or are you still doing it?’

  Eric shook his head. ‘Nothing happened. I didn’t even kiss her. When I came to Leeds I was thinking about going beyond just flirting but then you said that thing in the pub and I couldn’t stop thinking about it . . . Besides, it’d be over with Arrianne if I did. It’d never feel the same with her again. And if she ever found out she wouldn’t ever forgive me or let me back. I remembered that, thankfully. It was a stupid flirtation that was over before it began . . . Anyway, we’re not talking about me. We’re talking about why you’ve condemned Greg and let Jen off the hook.’

  ‘And I answered your question.’

  ‘Uh-huh. Do you want to know why I dislike Jen?’

  Not particularly, I thought. But if I said no, Eric would never tell me, no matter how much I begged. Even if my curiosity wasn’t piqued, I had to find out now or never find out. I’d learnt that the hard way. ‘Why?’ I asked flatly.

  ‘Because that time I met her in the pub, we’d been sat there ten minutes when she put her hand on my thigh.’

  What? Shock petrified my body, every muscle became rigid with horror.

  ‘She didn’t stop there. She kept touching me, even though I kept shoving her hands off me. When you went to the bar, she started this stream of filth about me and her. I reminded her I was married and she said it’d be our secret.’

  WHAT?!

  ‘It wouldn’t have been so bad if I thought she genuinely liked me, but she didn’t. She clearly didn’t. My guess is she wanted to damage my relationship with you. I knew if I’d fallen into sex with Jen you would’ve found out about it at some point.’

  ‘Why? Why did she do that? She’s my friend.’ Standing on the outside, that sounded pathetic. But I was on the inside. Right on the inside, pathetic was all I had to offer.

  ‘Jen has an unhealthy obsession with you. And you’re unable to see what she’s really like. Plus, the way she was so odd with Mum and Dad, I reckon she has a lot of parent issues to resolve . . . But what I’m trying to tell you is, Jen isn’t the perfect friend you seem to think she is. Meaning you shouldn’t assume that Jen was the one who was seduced, the one who deserves instant understanding. And don’t assume that Greg was the one who was seduced. Unless you speak to them, don’t assume anything.’

  I nodded absently. Not really listening. I was replaying that weekend Jen met my family. She had been tense around Mum and Dad2, but since I was always tense when I met people’s parents, I hadn’t thought much about it. It didn’t even occur to me that she’d try something on with Eric. My brother. No wonder she never asked why he didn’t like her. She knew perfectly well why. Did I know Jen at all?

  ‘What are you going to do when you go back tomorrow? How are you going to sort things out?’ Eric asked.

  I took in the air. It was so fresh and pure it almost burned as it worked its way through my respiratory system
. I hadn’t really thought about it. Not properly. What with being worked to the bone and only thinking about what had happened, the future hadn’t cropped up in my thoughts. Besides, I wasn’t exactly known for planning for the future, was I? I shrugged at Eric.

  ‘Be honest with me,’ Eric said, ‘did you love Greg?’

  Nobody had asked me that directly. Not even Greg. And, whilst I knew how I felt, it was a different kettle of fish admitting it out loud.

  ‘I thought he loved me,’ I said, ‘but all along he was with me to get to Jen.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Eric said sympathetically. ‘Bummer, isn’t it? Greg wore a suit to meet your mother; put up with you calling him your “boyfumnd”; drank whisky to please me and Dad even though he hates the stuff because he wanted Jen.

  ‘And when we went to get the rice via the pub, he told Dad that his intentions towards you were entirely honourable and that he was hopelessly in love with you . . .’ My head snapped round to stare at Eric. He nodded. ‘Oh yes, he said that. Those exact words. It was one of the funniest moments of my life because it completely freaked Dad out. But aye, Greg said all that to get to Jen. Oh aye, and I think he wanted to move in with yea after three months because he wanted Jen.’