The Saturday Supper Club

by Amy Bratley

  ‘Eve?’ came Isabel’s voice through the letterbox as, dizzy with sleep, I staggered to the front door, only realizing just in time that my dressing gown was gaping open, revealing my naked body to the world.

  ‘Coming,’ I said. ‘Sorry.’

  I hugged it around me and opened the door, just a crack. Outside it was a gloriously hot day and Isabel was dressed in tiny shorts and a vest top. Disorientated, I blinked and yawned.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Isabel said in exasperation, pushing through the front door and into the flat. ‘Why are you wearing your dressing gown?’

  I closed the door behind her, stretched my arms up and yawned. She gave me a quick hug and rubbed my back briefly.

  ‘I’ve only just woken up,’ I said. ‘I’m so tired.’

  ‘What’s got into you?’ she said. ‘I’ve barely seen you all week. Have you been in bed the whole time?’

  I shrugged and shook my head.

  ‘No,’ I started. ‘I’ve just slept in later than normal. Without Joe here, it’s been strange, I don’t—’

  Isabel tipped her head back in exasperation.

  ‘This is all about Ethan, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘Even though Joe is, like, the nicest man on the face of the earth and he raised fifteen thousand pounds and you’ve known him for ever and he loves you so much, you’re still chasing after that fuckwit who ditched you like a ton of bricks three years ago because you’ve got some silly notion that what you had with him was true love. You’re one hundred per cent crazy and acting like a victim who can’t control herself. Well, I refuse to stand by and watch you fuck up—’

  I lifted my hands in the air to beg for mercy.

  ‘Slow down!’ I said. ‘Isabel, I’ve just woken up. Give me a break! Why are you so mad?’

  ‘Oh, Eve,’ she said, with a massive sigh. ‘I think you’re making a mistake. You’ve got to stop this.’

  Anger flashed into me. I knew Isabel had my best interests at heart, but this was too much. I was not the victim here. I was being brave, honest, true to myself, however uncomfortable that felt. How could that be a mistake? In my book, being true to yourself was the most important thing you could do in life.

  ‘I’m doing what I instinctively feel I should do,’ I said with hot cheeks, staring straight into her eyes. ‘It was true love with Ethan. I know it, in here. I can’t ignore that.’

  I held my hand against my heart and exhaled.

  ‘Then why did he go?’ she asked more gently, holding out her arms, the palms of her hands raised upwards. She let them fall against her sides.

  ‘Because . . .’ I began. ‘Maybe he got scared, or I was too full-on. You don’t just stop loving someone overnight like that, do you? It’s like now, I haven’t stopped loving Joe or anything, but right now, I can’t be with him. It wouldn’t be fair.’

  Isabel was shaking her head and muttering under her breath.

  ‘Cut that out, will you?’ she said. ‘You did nothing wrong. It was not your fault that Ethan was an arsehole who didn’t respect you enough to break up with you properly.’

  I took a deep breath. Isabel would never understand how I felt about this. I’m not sure I even understood.

  ‘But he wrote me a letter explaining why he left, which I never got,’ I said, exasperated. ‘So he did at least make an effort. Ethan is not an arsehole. He’s the most incredibly charming, most charismatic personality I’ve ever met. He wouldn’t just leave because he couldn’t be bothered to talk to me. Anyway, now he’s back and he thinks it’s fate. He thinks we’re destined to be together, and as stupid as it sounds, there’s a bit of me that needs to find out if we are.’

  Isabel combed her hands through her hair then pressed them over her eyes for a moment.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘But I think you’re wrong on every level. I can’t just stand here and watch you mess up your perfectly good life with Joe, in which, by the way, you were perfectly happy before Ethan rocked up, because you’re too pig-headed to let me remind you of what your relationship was like with Ethan. Already now that he’s back you’re not concentrating on the cafe properly and, Eve, the cafe is not just your dream, it’s mine too. I know I’m going to Dubai, but I still care about the place, I’m still working my arse off to make it work for you. I’ve spent this whole week virtually on my own, finishing the plastering. You’ve popped in a few times and done a few things, but nowhere near enough. Look at my nails.’

  Isabel’s voice was trembling. She thrust her hands out in front of her, showing me her chipped candy-pink nails. I could see from the contortion of her mouth she was furious with me. I panicked. In our ten-year friendship the closest Isabel and I had come to a row was her telling me she didn’t like the ethnic rug I’d bought from Camden market for the flat that we’d shared. In the end I’d thrown it out the window and onto the street. We’d both fallen about laughing.

  ‘I know. I’m sorry,’ I nodded, feeling utterly miserable. ‘But, Isabel, please try to understand where I’m coming from. I’m going through something really major and it’s all I can think about. Joe is looking for a big commitment from me, and I know he’s great, but I’ve never stopped thinking of Ethan. I’ve never stopped wondering what would have happened if he hadn’t got frightened or I hadn’t done whatever I’d done.’

  ‘Is that what he told you happened?’ she said. ‘That he got frightened? Because I’m seeing some parallels between Ethan and you, with you and Joe, just the other way around.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I asked.

  ‘You’re throwing away your chance of happiness with Joe,’ said Isabel, ‘because the kind of happiness you have with him is scary. It needs work, commitment, consideration and sacrifice. It needs you to be a grown-up and responsible. Your love for Ethan was all-consuming; you thought only about him, so you didn’t have to think about yourself at all.’

  My eyes filled with tears.

  ‘It was like an obsession,’ she said, her voice softer now.

  Isabel’s anger had disappeared. She put her arms around my shoulders and pulled me close for a hug. A tear slipped down my cheek and I angrily wiped it away.

  ‘I don’t know what I’m doing,’ I confessed. ‘I just know that I was very much in love with him and that’s an addictive feeling. I still am, but I miss Joe, too. Terribly.’

  It was the first time I’d admitted it out loud. A weight lifted from my shoulders. Isabel dropped her arms, reached for the carrier bag she’d brought with her and pulled out a bottle of wine.

  ‘It was infatuation,’ she said. ‘Not love.’

  For the next hour or so, though I was very aware I should have been at the cafe making up for lost time, Isabel and I sat in the garden propped up in deckchairs, drinking cold white wine. The neighbours were having a barbecue and we were cloaked in their smoke for most of the time, not that I really noticed. I was more concerned with our conversation. With her outburst over, Isabel confessed that she was unbelievably stressed about the move to Dubai and that she didn’t want to go. I asked her if she’d told Robert how she felt, but she shook her head, saying that he was excited about the move.

  ‘Part of me is tempted to tell Robert I don’t want to go at all,’ she sighed, before glancing at me. ‘God, I can’t believe I said that; but I was excited by the prospect to begin with, now I wonder what will become of me out there. I feel rather like I’m dragging along after him, just because he wants to go. I think you may have been right, before, when you realized something isn’t quite right with me and Robert. Nothing major.’

  She smiled apologetically at me, squinting in the sunlight.

  ‘You’re not dragging after him,’ I said. ‘You wouldn’t go if you weren’t excited by the change, I know you wouldn’t, and I’m sure Robert must understand it’s going to be tough on you both, but you especially. You can always come back, can’t you?’

  Isabel nodded and shrugged.

  ‘You were lucky with Joe like that. He understood what you needed i
n your life and was trying to help you achieve it, before . . . Robert is far more selfish. He’d never admit it, but I’m sure he thinks his job is far more important than anything I might do, which of course is bullshit. But let’s see what happens. Like you say, I can always come back on my own. All this change is unsettling.’

  I looked at her and thought how strange it was that our lives were about to become so different. We’d lived together, worked together, spent years meeting up in bars all over London to dissect our relationships and talk about our dreams, but that was coming to an end. I didn’t want to think about that now. The prospect of Isabel being thousands of miles away was awful. I told myself to concentrate on the night ahead instead. I opened my mouth, wanting to ask Isabel to advise me on what to wear to Andrew’s dinner party, but stopped myself just in time. Isabel had already made it quite clear she didn’t approve of me going. I would have been the same if this were the other way around. She checked her watch and put down her wine glass.

  ‘You can’t go in your dressing gown,’ she said suddenly, reading my mind. ‘So shall we go and rake through your wardrobe?’

  ‘I thought . . .’ I said, giving her a grateful smile.

  ‘I meant what I said, but . . .’ she said, with a deep breath. ‘But you need to look like you’re in control of your life, even if you’re far from it.’

  I grinned. We stood, stretching out our legs, picked up the half-empty bottle of wine and went into the bedroom, cool and dark after the bright sunshine. Isabel flung open the wardrobe door and stared at my clothes. I stood next to Isabel and pointed to my black dress with a white Peter Pan collar.

  ‘How about this?’ I said, lifting it out and rubbing the fabric between my fingers. ‘Not too showy?’

  ‘Are you going to a funeral?’ she said, scraping the hangers along the rack. ‘I think this is more like it,’ she said, pulling out a zebra-print jumpsuit I’d bought from eBay but never worn. ‘If you’re going to do this, you might as well do it properly.’

  I was dubious. I’d bought that jumpsuit in a mad premenstrual Internet-shopping binge, but never actually dared to wear it. Half an hour later, I had it on, my red hair blow-dried into position, my make-up firmly applied. I got ready in a trance-like state. I didn’t let myself think of Joe once. I focused on nothing.

  ‘Perfect,’ she said. ‘There’s no way you can be a victim looking like that.’

  ‘I’m not so sure,’ I said.

  Isabel and I walked to the train station together and at the ticket machines, before parting, she hugged me tight.

  ‘Be careful,’ she said. ‘Try not to get swept along by old infatuation. Look at him objectively. Listen to what he says with a critical ear. Watch him. Reflect. Think carefully. Please. It’s not too late for Joe, you know.’

  At the mention of Joe’s name, my heart ached. I’d gone through the entire afternoon avoiding thinking about him because, as more time passed, the space and time between us seemed to be taking shape and solidifying into something impenetrable, and that – despite everything I’d made myself think and believe about doing the right thing – made me panic.

  ‘OK,’ I told her. ‘I hear what you’re saying and I know that I’m not sure what I’m actually doing. I just know that it’s something I have to do, to find out, either way, how I truly feel. It doesn’t mean I don’t love Joe.’

  ‘But it might mean you lose him,’ Isabel said gently. ‘Tread carefully.’

  I nodded, sighed heavily and kissed Isabel goodbye. I stepped into the train station, where I had to remind myself where I was going. Andrew lived in Holland Park, so I needed to go to Victoria and then catch the Tube from there. I pulled my Oyster card out of my bag and, as I did so, Joe’s illustration of the cafe fell onto the floor. I bent down to get it, but it fluttered away in a sudden breeze and out onto the pavement, where people were waiting in a jumbled queue at the bus stop.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I said, elbowing people in the queue to get onto the pavement and retrieve the illustration. Just as I bent down to pick it up, someone in heavy boots stood on it, causing it to wrinkle and tear. I remembered the photograph of Ethan I’d dropped on the bus. When the person moved, I lifted it up and saw that his picture was filthy and creased.

  ‘Shit,’ I said, quickly stuffing it back into my bag. ‘It’s ruined.’

  I paced up the steps to the trains. Tread carefully, I heard Isabel’s voice in my head. Tread carefully.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Walking from Holland Park underground station towards Andrew’s address, I felt like my feet were following a well-worn track. There was a nagging sense of déjà-vu in my head, even though I’d never been to this street before. I suspected that was more to do with how I felt about seeing Ethan again. My stomach was in my mouth, my heart bumping in my chest at the prospect. I’d always felt like this, hadn’t I? That seeing Ethan was all that mattered, at the cost of all else. A voice in my head was telling me I was being pathetic, but I pushed it away. When it came to Ethan, I didn’t feel in control, and that was what had been so addictive. I’d liked that feeling. So much else in life, even relationships, felt predictable. Part of me wanted that excitement back. At the very least I wanted to hear what Ethan had to say, to find out if I could be that person I once was back then: so in love I didn’t care much about anything else. Aware that I was staring at the pavement, trying not to stand on the cracks – a childhood superstition to avoid bad luck – I looked up to check the house numbers. The Victorian townhouses were cavernous giants, most of them vast properties, single houses, and not divided up into fifty-five flats like just about all the really big houses near me. I glanced at a deli with cured hams hanging in the window, presumably Holland Park’s version of the corner shop. I frowned as I remembered reading that some properties in Holland Park sold for over £10 million. Who had that sort of money? And, I thought crossly, as I gawped in through the windows of houses so grand they were like Hollywood film sets, who needed so many things? Money. I hated that it dictated so much about life. If only I had £15,000, I could stop worrying about the cafe and make sure that it would be exactly what I wanted it to be. That amount would be nothing to these residents, but where would I get that now? I thought about Joe’s cheque and his ruined illustration and was struck by guilt, before I was distracted by the sound of running footsteps behind me. I turned and—

  ‘Hey, zebra legs!’ said Ethan, slowing down to a walk and resting his hand briefly on my shoulder, with an amused expression on his lips. ‘You’re on a mission there. Wow, you look wild.’

  He moved as if he was about to kiss my cheek, but thought better of it and stopped. He looked me all over, approvingly.

  ‘Do you bite?’ he said, with a wry smile.

  ‘Sometimes,’ I said, my entire body trembling. Ethan laughed. My mind raced. Oh God. We were flirting. I had to remember the point of all this: to find out why he had left, to discover whether that thing I’d thought was still there – that untouchable, superior, once-in-a-lifetime thing that had stopped me from committing to Joe – was real or imagined. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from Ethan, his black hair freshly washed catching in the breeze, his cheeks pink from running, his dark blue shirt hanging over dark brown trousers, at the bottom revealing his camel-coloured brogues. I was struck, again, by how handsome he was. Under his arm he carried a bottle of red wine like a newspaper. He shoved his hands into his pockets, the wine staying where it was.

  ‘I’ve missed you,’ he said, ‘since the last time.’

  ‘Only been a week,’ I said, blushing. ‘Doesn’t really compare to three years.’

  ‘No,’ he said, suddenly downcast. ‘You’re not wrong. But, Eve, it’s so amazing to see you again. I thought you might not come tonight after what you said about Joe—’

  What had I said about Joe? I resented the fact that Ethan knew anything about my relationship. That was my private life. This was something separate. Twisted logic, but that’s how I justified this to myself.
What was Joe doing now? I felt ashamed, thinking of how I’d left things with him. But ultimately, though I hadn’t told him about Ethan, I still hadn’t done anything really wrong, had I? I wasn’t being unfaithful, was I? I shook my head, convincing myself that infidelity amounted to secret liaisons for passionate sex in hotel rooms, not a stroll through Holland Park with an old boyfriend.

  ‘I know you said you love him,’ Ethan said, putting one hand up to my arm. ‘But you loved me too, before him.’

  ‘Does that give you some kind of claim over someone, then?’ I asked, disbelieving. ‘If you get in there first? Because if that’s the case, I’ve known Joe a whole lot longer than I’ve known you.’

  ‘Yes, but you weren’t in love with him before,’ he said. ‘We were in love, Eve, I know it and you know it. What we had was a one-off. Seeing you again has made me realize that, though I never really stopped thinking it. Are you in love with Joe? Because if you are, I’ll shut up and fuck off, but if not, I’m staying put.’

  Annoyed with Ethan for finding my weak spot and jumping on it with a pogo stick, I narrowed my eyes and bit my lip.

  ‘It’s none of your business,’ I said to Ethan. ‘Joe is wonderful, he’s my best friend and I do love him, of course I do. But . . . it’s just that seeing you has confused me and, oh Christ, I’ve messed up and wrecked my rel—’