The Love of Her Life

by Harriet Evans

  ‘Yeah, right,’ Charly said drily. ‘He pissed me off by dressing as a baby at our party. No, look, darling.’ She sat up on the sofa, blowing her fringe out of her eyes, and curled her long, coltish limbs beneath her. ‘I’m just being a bitch. I’m sure I’m just jealous, or something. OK? He’s nice, I’m very happy for you.’

  ‘He’s nice,’ Kate repeated slowly.

  ‘He’s nice,’ Charly said again. ‘But I don’t see you with him for ever.’ She said slowly, ‘I’d have thought you’d be living together by now, and you’re not, are you?’

  ‘That’s –’ Kate fluffed out her hair. ‘We need to talk about it.’

  ‘Right,’ said Charly. ‘It’s been over two years now, doll-face. What’s holding you back?’

  ‘Shut up,’ said Kate, determined not to let Charly annoy her today. ‘I like being your flatmate too much, that’s what’s holding us back. He keeps begging me to, and I just can’t face life without you.’

  ‘Oh haha,’ said Charly, falling over and waggling her legs in the air. She seemed more cheerful. ‘OK. I’ll try with him I promise. I hope you’ll be buying some godawful house in the suburbs sometime soon. Is that it?’

  ‘OK,’ Kate said. She didn’t want to say what she was thinking, which was that she kind of pitied Charly, actually, for simply not getting it. She didn’t know how to explain it to her. But Charly’s glare told her the discussion was over, and Kate kind of loved her for admitting she was a bitch, that she was jealous. Perhaps, after all, that was all it was.

  The doorbell buzzed. Charly bounced to her feet. ‘Come on, Katy,’ she said, throwing her arms around her. She took the hairbrush out of Kate’s frenzied grip. ‘Your hair’s fine. Let’s go, OK? We’re going to be late for Mr Loverman. I promise I’ll be nice. Why would I spoil the Millers’ big day, eh? It’s going to be great.’

  Kate wasn’t so sure. Not long after she had arrived at Holland Park, Kate realized her father’s wedding wasn’t so much a celebration of the sanctity of marriage as an excellent networking opportunity for all of Dad’s acquaintances and the spurious semi-celebrities he’d met now Lisa was by his side managing his second climb up the slippery slope of fame. From the moment their car drew up ouside the Orangery, the restaurant where the reception was being held (Daniel and Lisa having been married that morning, with only Lisa’s sister and brother-in-law present), Kate was assailed by old friends of her father’s looking for other old friends of his.

  ‘Kate darling! Where’s Boris, have you seen him?’

  ‘Hello Kate! How are you dear? Have you seen Elizabeth?’

  ‘Do you know if it’s true she’s moved to the Beeb?’

  ‘I hear Michael Ball’s coming, is that true?’

  ‘Woo,’ said Charly, as they tramped across the still-soft grass in the blazing April sunshine. ‘Michael Ball, how will I contain myself.’

  ‘This is hilarious,’ said Steve, who had his arm round Zoe. ‘Kate, all these years of me thinking you were the world’s squarest girl and now look at you. You’re the daughter of a sleb. You’re going to be in OK! talking about your boob job soon if you’re not careful.’

  ‘She’s not square,’ Sean said, loyally defensive. ‘She’s gorgeous.’

  ‘You are a bit square,’ said Zoe, not unkindly.

  ‘Thanks, oldest friend,’ said Kate. ‘That’s nice.’

  Zoe smiled at her. ‘I didn’t mean it, you know what I mean.’ Kate looked down at her friend, tidy and chic in a green dress that made her bump look even bigger. She was due in a fortnight. Zoe smoothed her hair behind her ears.

  ‘Where did that come from?’ said Kate, pointing to her stomach.

  ‘I know,’ said Steve, turning his hands palm outwards, as if in total amazement. ‘Seriously, it seems like only last week her stomach was almost entirely flat, and now – look at it!’ He stroked his wife’s bump. ‘I think it’s a boy.’

  Anything Steve told you was always pretty unreliable; they all laughed. ‘I’m sure it’s a girl,’ said Zoe.

  ‘Me too,’ said Kate. Sean shifted his weight from one leg to the other.

  ‘Me too,’ said Charly. She lifted her hair with one hand and threw it carelessly behind her, as if it were a separate entity. ‘You’re carrying quite low. That’s what that means.’ Kate looked at her quizzically. ‘Yes, I do know what I’m talking about,’ Charly snapped. ‘OK?’

  There was a pause; they all nodded, as guests drifted by. Steve clapped his hands together. ‘Anyway! So, Kate’s really square. I remember, the first time I met Kate in our college bar, and –’

  ‘This story is complete rubbish,’ said Kate, crossly. ‘You always tell it and it’s rubbish! I never said that!’

  ‘She told me that she was only going to stay for one drink, because she had to go back to her room and rearrange her cassette collection,’ Steve finished triumphantly, smiling fondly at Kate. He rubbed his face with delight, his green eyes flashing mischievously, and Kate shook her head at him.

  ‘God, you look just like –’ she began, and then stopped, quickly.

  ‘Who?’ Steve said. He was looking at Zoe, his hand still protectively on her stomach, as someone pushed slightly against them.

  ‘No one,’ said Kate. Sean nudged her.

  ‘Go on, who?’ he said, curious.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Kate. She noticed Charly, opening her mouth and shutting it, with desperate gratitude. ‘Anyway. I deny that story ever happened, and Charly, I certainly don’t need any input from you on this.’

  Charly nodded. ‘Yeah,’ she said, smiling at Steve. ‘Do you know we won the inter-company pub quiz two years in a row when Kate was on our team. There was this question about some totally obscure medievalist poet or something, and no one had ever even heard of him, but Kate knew when he’d died!’

  ‘George Herbert was Elizabethan,’ Kate said. ‘And he isn’t obscure.’

  ‘Oh my god,’ said Charly, as Zoe and Steve laughed. Sean came to her defence.

  ‘Hey,’ he said crossly, not quite looking at Charly. ‘Don’t be mean. I don’t have a square girlfriend.’

  ‘Hello, hello hello!’ came a ringing voice from behind them. ‘Well, what’s all this!’ Daniel appeared, between Sean and Charly. He slapped Sean on the back. ‘Welcome, welcome!’ he cried, cheerily. Several people turned towards him, and smiled.

  ‘Hello, Daniel,’ said Charly politely, kissing him. ‘Congratulations.’

  ‘Ah, thank you Charly,’ said Daniel, appreciatively, running his eyes over Charly’s black, sexy form. Kate rolled her eyes. ‘How’s my beautiful girl?’ He kissed Kate.

  ‘Dad,’ she said, kissing him back. ‘What a lovely day.’

  Through the great glass windows of the restaurant the sun poured in as the guests spilled out onto the lawns and manicured gardens. Around her, men in linen suits and women in little jackets, their best chiffon and high heels chattered, laughed, drank – it was like something out of a lifestyle magazine, Kate thought; she could have used all of it in the magazine, no models required. Most of the people here were perfectly coiffed. And if they weren’t, they looked ‘distinguished’, like they could get away with it.

  Sean shook Daniel’s hand and Daniel slapped his back again smartly and slipped into his wedding patter.

  ‘Ah, Mr Lambert. Sean! Good man. Good to see you, thanks for coming.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Miller,’ Sean said, slapping his hand in a bear-like grasp.

  ‘Sean, I’ve told you before. It’s Daniel.’

  ‘Of course, Daniel,’ Sean said, smiling. ‘Sir.’ He slid his arm around Kate’s waist, and she caught his hand in hers. Daniel watched them.

  ‘So proud of you, darling,’ he said, with a catch in his throat, and Kate thought how far they’d come, and what he might be thinking of on this day, and she kissed him again.

  ‘I’m proud of you, Dad, darling,’ she said.

  Kate watched Daniel, smiling at someone over her shoulder. His thick, greying
dark hair was swept back like a lion’s mane, his great hulking body tailored and tucked in a navy blue suit, immaculately cut, with a pink silk tie and pink rose buttonhole. He looked exactly how Kate knew he’d want to: sleek, sophisticated, attractive, young for his age; no trace of the poor little Polish boy who’d arrived here after the war, who remembered having no shoes (or claimed to), whose parents changed the family name so Daniel would escape persecution from his peers at school. Kate watched him, with pride, trying to feel happy for him on this day.

  After the ceremony, and as the day wore on, Kate realized she was having fun, and she blessed Lisa, for once, for her thoughtfulness in letting her bring some of her own friends. There was only one cloud on the horizon, though: that afternoon, a few drinks down, Charly really did make an effort to talk to Sean, but Kate could tell it was a lost cause. Kate realized, as she watched the two of them inside the Orangery, that the reason she didn’t like him was simple – Sean didn’t like her. And Charly was used to everyone liking her, especially men. She fought them like a cat, treated them like dirt – but they still wanted her. Kate was used to seeing men’s eyes glaze over when she was together with Charly, and it was never because of her. Charly’s pert little breasts, her tousled hair, her snub nose, her look of disdain: they fell for it, like so many toy soldiers.

  But Sean just didn’t get it. During the party, Charly flicked her hair and tried her best to charm Sean. She even told some of her best jokes about the magazine, including the one about the lady who’d turned up with her collection of knitted dolls stuffed with fluff, embroidered ‘Kate’ on the front.

  ‘She’d been writing to Kate, ringing her up, she was a complete nut-job, and only Kate was nice enough to speak to her … And there she is, with these stuffed dolls, but Kate’s out of the office, and Josephine, that’s the new editor, just said, “You’d better take care of it, Charly. Kate’s your best friend after all. When’s her birthday? You can give them to her as a present!” And –’

  ‘Good grief,’ Zoe said under her breath, rolling her eyes, and Steve laughed and stepped back. He put his arm round Zoe, who patted his chest, and they walked away. Charly watched them, her eyes narrowing, an indefinable expression on her face, and Kate knew how much it hurt her, other people’s happiness. Because being Charly was a great thing, of course it was, it had to be, but sometimes it must be pretty damn miserable.

  Kate had thought about it a lot, especially since they’d been flatmates. She thought Charly must get pretty lonely at times. She wasn’t as hard as she liked to think she was. Charly herself didn’t realize the ways in which she was strangely kind – making endless cups of tea and bullying Kate into wearing clothes she wouldn’t normally dare, or strangely funny – her impressions were uncannily accurate, and she had a pitch-perfect recall for people’s idiosyncracies of speech which made Kate helpless with laughter. It was weird, these days, though. Charly was still at Woman’s World, and Kate didn’t know the people she talked about sometimes. They had less in common, less to talk about, than before. Sometimes it felt as if their bills at home were what bound them together most, that they were growing apart, and Kate hated that.

  ‘Kate!’ Charly hit her on the arm.

  ‘Sorry, I was listening, really,’ Kate said. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I said, he’s nice, isn’t he?’ she said, jerking her head at Steve.

  ‘Yes, very nice,’ said Kate severely. Sean’s hand snaked around her waist, and she leaned into his embrace. ‘Very nice indeed.’

  ‘Oh, get over it,’ Charly said crossly. ‘He’s totally vanilla, I wouldn’t go there, Kate.’ She tossed her hair, remarshalling herself. ‘Hey, you two? Fancy some champagne? I’ll get us some more drinks.’

  She went towards a waiter, but turned back, a smile frozen on her face. ‘Kate!’ she hissed. ‘She’s coming!’

  There, gliding over to them in a haze of cream chiffon and silk, was Kate’s new stepmother, Lisa, with a smile like a Cheshire cat and a forehead smooth as a new apple, entirely wrinkle-free.

  ‘Hellooo,’ she said graciously, holding out one hand to Sean, who took it, rather bemused. ‘Hi Kate,’ she said more quickly. ‘Having a good time?’

  ‘Yes thanks,’ Kate said. She kissed Lisa on the cheek. ‘Congratulations, Lisa.’

  ‘Ooh,’ Lisa said, stepping away. She batted Kate lightly with her hand. ‘Don’t get makeup on me! Look at my ring!’

  Steve rolled his eyes in amazement at Zoe, who hit him sharply on the arm. He turned towards Lisa. ‘Hey, Lisa. You look absolutely beautiful.’

  ‘Thanks, Steve!’ Lisa said, pleased.

  ‘Thanks a lot for having us,’ Steve said, in his easy, polite way. ‘It’s been so great.’

  ‘Well, congratulations to you, too!’ Lisa stroked Steve’s shoulder; he looked a little alarmed. ‘I haven’t seen you both since you got married. Bringing back memories, eh?’ She looked across at Kate, then back at Steve and Zoe, whose mouth was set in a straight line but who was nodding, fervently.

  ‘Well,’ Steve said. ‘We got married in a registry office and had a knees-up in the pub round the corner, so not really. The whole thing cost about fifty quid. So for us, this is like a dream wedding.’

  Absolutely none of this was true, but he couldn’t have said anything better. Lisa looked absolutely over the moon. She grasped Kate’s hand, and Kate took her cue from that.

  ‘Congratulations,’ she said, admiring the peanut-sized diamond on her finger with the new band next to it, studded with smaller diamonds.

  ‘It’s white gold,’ Lisa said proudly. ‘It’s very original.’

  ‘Yes, very,’ Kate said.

  ‘Ooh, look. There he is!’ she cooed, and Kate looked up to see her dad approaching.

  ‘Hello again darling,’ he said to his daughter.

  ‘Darling,’ Lisa said. She fingered his tie, and then patted it, proprietorially. ‘Want you to come with me and say hi to Gabi. She’s here with Cole, you know, from Funicular, the production company? She says you’ve ignored her all day …’ she ran her hands down the front of his shirt, stood up on her tiptoes and bit his bottom lip and Kate gazed at her, literally speechless that she thought it was OK to do that in front of Kate, in front of everyone.

  ‘Sure,’ said Dad, squeezing her bottom, creasing the silk in his hands. He turned away amiably. Kate shook her head at her friends.

  ‘Man …’ Kate began, but Zoe, rubbing her friend’s back, said quickly,

  ‘Shush. No point crying over spilt milk.’

  Kate watched her father and his new wife walk across the lawn, him genially following her as she held him by the hand. Lisa’s sister Clare, who was the babysitter for the day, handed Lisa sixteen-month-old Danielle, decked from head to toe in white taffeta and lace, like it was her own wedding day. They stood under a tree, the three of them, and some people started snapping photos, this perfect little family unit, so happy and beautiful, on this lovely day. Kate knew it would hurt in a little, small way, but she was surprised by how winded she felt as she watched them. She recalled her parents’ wedding day photo, the one she still had, her mother so fresh and free, her father so tall and virile, both of them looking so young, as if they were on their way to dinner, not to the registry office. It was so easy to imagine the whole thing had never happened, now. That her mother, that she, had never existed. That this was the real wedding, the white wedding, and she, Kate, was a ghost girl.

  ‘You OK?’ said Sean, softly in her ear.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, turning to face him. He wrapped his arms around her.

  ‘I love you,’ he said. ‘You look beautiful.’

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, wishing they were alone again, but as Sean pulled her towards him and they stayed like that, clinging to each other, she was watching her father and Lisa, with Danielle.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Charly and Kate climbed the stairs to their flat wearily. Charly was carrying her shoes in her hand, and Kate was more
than a little unsteady on her feet. It was one-thirty, and Kate reckoned they’d been drinking for nearly twelve hours. She stabbed ineffectually at the lock with her keys, and finally the two of them fell into their sitting room. Kate put the door on the latch. The smell of the dusty flat, filled with sunshine all day, washed over her. She sneezed, flopping onto the sofa.

  ‘There’s a message,’ said Charly, grabbing a sticky, old bottle of Limoncello from the fridge. She neatly shut the door with her bum and sashayed back into the room, carrying two glasses as well. ‘Woah,’ she said, pressing ‘Play’ on the flashing answer machine with her elbow. ‘Here you go.’

  She handed her a drink. Kate lay horizontally on the sofa. Her eyes were tired, they felt sticky. The cotton of her dress was creased, it fluttered on her stomach as Kate breathed in and out. She watched it.

  There came from the machine an indistinct crackling sound, then murmuring, then the sound of people talking, glasses clinking, all very Ambassador’s Reception.

  ‘Darling … … … Darling Kate, hello darling. Hello!’ A whisky-smooth, low woman’s voice floated across to her on the sofa.

  ‘Oh, fuck,’ said Charly, moving back into the kitchen. ‘First wife alert.’

  ‘Sssh,’ Kate said wearily, sitting up.

  ‘Darling girl. It’s your … What? No, Oscar. I won’t sing. You are awful! Darling. Stop it! I’m talking to Kate. No, no more to drink for me thanks Dick. Oh, go on then, just one.’

  ‘Argh,’ Kate said, running her hands through her hair. ‘Argh. I can’t bear it.’

  ‘Darling, how are you? It’s your mother, wanting to know how you are.’

  ‘Why does she refer to herself in the third person?’ Charly said. She was leaning against the kitchen door, swigging Limoncello and trying not to laugh. Kate smiled fondly at the answering machine.

  ‘And why does she call me “darling girl”? I haven’t seen her for nearly a year and I’m twenty-seven. Bless.’