‘Right. Who needs more champagne?’ Freddie entered into the spirit.
Everyone stuck out their glasses. The beef was delicious, a credit to the butcher. But the triumph of the evening was a lopsided cake, decorated with jellytots and Smarties with the words, Happy Birthday Hol iced in very uneven letters. They put one candle on it and insisted on singing to me as they brought it out.
‘That is so sweet,’ Lisa said, giggling.
‘I’m not sure about sweet but you have made a wonderful effort,’ Max agreed.
‘It looks like a monstrosity,’ Francesca pointed out.
‘Yes, but at least we made it ourselves,’ Freddie said.
We cut the cake which tasted better than it looked. Then we kept on drinking and talking into the early hours when we were all too drunk to carry on.
I awoke on the second day of my thirtieth year with a monster hangover. I was so bad that I was actually sick. I knelt with my head over the bowl of the loo wondering why I hadn’t quite got the hang of being a grown-up. Then I smiled, because I was definitely happy. Being thirty was going to be all right after all, George or no George.
February turned into March, and it was time to go to court. Now I knew I would see him, whatever happened I would have to face him. I stood up, and brushed imaginary dust from my sensible navy outfit and went to the front door.
‘I have to go back to work, but call me the minute it’s over,’ Francesca said. I kissed her cheek and thanked her.
‘Let’s go Hol,’ Joe said, taking my hand.
‘Freddie?’ I asked.
‘I’m with you.’ He winked and took my other hand. With my two new men, I was as ready as I would ever be.
Chapter Thirteen
Love and Litigation
I felt like my old self for a while as I stepped into my suit. I was George Conway, the lawyer. I looked the part. In the legal profession, looking the part is so important. My suit was made to measure; charcoal grey, with three buttons on the jacket. A plain tie; I’ve always been a firm believer in plain ties. White shirt, crisp and straight from the dry cleaner’s. Plain black socks sitting snuggly in polished black brogues. I was ready and for the first time since I left New York, the adrenaline rush that my job gave me was revisiting.
I wasn’t proud of what I was doing, but I was proud of how I looked.
I know that if there has to be a villain, then that’s how I’ll be viewed. I’m sure that Holly sees me that way, and that upsets me. When there is someone special, someone you expect to spend the rest of your life with then you have to fight, with everything you’ve got, to get them. Love is such a rare commodity, that you have to do everything in your power to get it and keep it. That is simple common sense.
Of course, a few months ago I didn’t expect to be standing here, in my tailored suit, about to take the girl I love to court. But she left me no option, she had hurt me. She discarded my feelings. I believe that deep down I always knew that she was the one for me, I just forgot for a while but it all made sense now. Unfortunately, Holly was not yet as enlightened.
*
When I first met Holly, I hated her. She was always surly and she resented me because I was her friend’s boyfriend. I still remember Samantha, my first girlfriend, the first girl I snogged. I was besotted with her in an adolescent sort of way, but then she left to live in Australia and Holly and I became friends and we spent all our formative years together.
She was always with me. My family holidays (I was an only child), included her. School included her. Weekends included her. We spent so much time together; we were barely apart. But even though I was young and had lost my first girlfriend, there was never any question of Holly being girlfriend number two. I liked her as a friend, I liked her company. As we grew up, she became so important to me I wasn’t willing to jeopardise her friendship by becoming romantically involved. So we didn’t. We grew up, to be best friends.
Not that Holly was completely unattractive. At twelve, her eyes were too big for her face, she looked a bit like an alien. Her knees, sticking out of her white school socks were knobbly, her teeth, encased in a brace, were crooked. But still she was pretty, and I was no film star.
Then she certainly blossomed. She grew to about five foot six, she was slim, her teeth straightened, her face filled out and her dark hair was long and glossy. I did, at certain times in our life, think about her in ‘that’ way, but I suppressed my feelings. I was a man though, and I wouldn’t have been normal if it had never crossed my mind.
I remember a time when we were in France on holiday with my parents. We were fifteen and Holly was wearing a bikini and sunbathing by the pool of our villa. I noticed for the first time that she had boobs, small and pert. I was fifteen and being fifteen isn’t easy. Your penis seems to have a mind of its own and I remember having to stay in the swimming pool until I turned into a prune waiting for the boy to go down. I thought about kissing her then. I really did, and part of me wanted to, but then by the time we were alone she was in her jeans and top and we were messing around. No kiss but very close friends.
Then, when we were travelling in Thailand, we had to share a room and that was difficult. I exercised such restraint when I saw her half naked coming out of the shower, or getting dressed in the morning and undressed at night. I wasn’t sure if she was taunting me with her body or if she was just so comfortable with me that she didn’t think about it. I didn’t make a move, just in case it was the latter.
The last time I thought about it was when we were both broken-hearted, or she was broken-hearted and I was suffering from a bruised ego. She looked so vulnerable, her big brown eyes glistening with tears, that I just wanted to reach over and kiss those tears away. We made our marriage pact that night, and I half expected it to come true.
The thing that held me back, was the fact that I knew if I was to do anything with Holly, I had to be one hundred per cent sure that it would last, because there was no way I would ruin our friendship.
When I was offered my job in New York, the only thing that would have stopped me going was Holly. I knew I would miss her as much as I would ever miss anyone, but I also knew, as I think she did, that our friendship wouldn’t survive. Not in the same way. Not being able to see her every day, not being able to talk over all my problems with her. The only reason I didn’t invite her to visit was because I thought I might never let her go home, and I wasn’t sure if that was what she would have wanted, or if it was really what I wanted. She never asked to visit; I assumed she felt the way I did. We were so in tune, and I had never met anyone like her.
I had never been as close to anyone as I was with Holly. Friendships like ours aren’t normal among guys. At school I was teased by all the other boys, they couldn’t understand why I would want to hang out with a girl like Holly unless I was putting my tongue down her throat or my hand down her knickers. Close friendship with a member of the opposite sex that isn’t physical isn’t near the top of most teenage boys’ lists. But I ignored the teasing because being with Holly made me feel good.
I put all my energy into my career which flourished, and the only times I saw her after I left were a couple of Christmas visits. Even then I felt the gulf between us. Then I stopped going home, and only saw my parents when they visited me. I can’t explain why I let our friendship go the way I did; but I knew that friendships changed. Yes, Holly was the most important person of my youth; I would rather have lost her altogether than watched that friendship go wrong. It may not make sense, but that was the truth at the time.
I made my life in New York, and tasted success. I loved it: friends, girlfriends, gym membership, tennis lessons; I had it all. Skiing in Colorado, surfing in Hawaii. I lived a pretty good life out there.
Then I met Julia.
Julia was a truly amazing woman. Looks-wise, she was straight off the pages of Cosmopolitan. Intelligent, with a good job and a certainty about her that I’d never experienced with a woman—I fell in love.
We firs
t met at a work-related cocktail party. A friend of hers, who was a colleague of mine, introduced us. My first impression was that she was pretty sexy. She wore a trouser suit, I don’t remember the colour, but I do remember thinking she had a great body. She had long, thick, black, glossy hair and gorgeous lips, curled into a smile that captivated me totally. There was a definite physical attraction. We talked all night, first about work, then about us. We clicked intellectually. I was direct and asked her if she was seeing anyone. Thankfully she wasn’t. She asked me the same, I told her I was single. Technically that wasn’t true, but the girl I was seeing was only a casual fling. In my mind I was single. So at the end of the night I asked her for a date.
The following day I instructed my efficient secretary to book a table for me at one of New York’s hot spots. I wanted the full works: champagne cocktails, dinner, dancing. It was perfect.
We became a regular couple pretty quickly, with a hectic social life: dinners, parties, weekends away; we did everything together, apart from going to work. I fell head over heels in love with her very quickly. I believed she felt the same about me.
Before I met Julia, I had measured my girlfriends against Holly, and they couldn’t compete. It was confusing, often I wondered if I was in love with her. I often thought about whether we were going to end up together. There was always a doubt in the back of my mind where she was concerned. I thought she felt the same. The relationships she had when we were in London were never as important to her as our friendship. I felt sure that the reason for this was that she measured each man against me, and they didn’t compare favourably.
But then there was New York and then there was Julia. Julia and I had a fantastic relationship. The physical side was amazing; our conversation was always interesting. We had so much in common. Everyone around us thought we were the real thing. I thought we were the real thing, and she thought we were the real thing.
Everyone says that turning thirty is a real milestone in your life. That often it changed the way you looked at your life. Prior to my birthday last October, I thought about what I wanted in life. My career was going great guns, and the partnership I coveted was in sight. My life was firmly in New York, so the only thing left to do was to consolidate my relationship. I was done with bachelor life, although for the three years I’d been with Julia I could hardly call myself a bachelor, but we hadn’t made a commitment. We didn’t live together, we weren’t married. I realised then that that was what I wanted. I wanted to get married, but I had to be sure I was marrying the right girl.
I was pretty sure that Julia was the one for me, we were this dynamic couple, both successful, both had money, we entertained high-profile people, we went for weekends away with high-profile people. She was beautiful, sexy and intelligent. I liked to think I was a pretty good catch. All the ingredients were there but I had to be one hundred per cent sure.
Holly was my only doubt. So I decided to do the only thing I could to sort it out. I went to London for the weekend, not giving it much thought and taking a last-minute flight. I told Julia that I had to visit our London office; I told the office that I had to visit my parents. I didn’t contact Holly until I was in London, so she would have no choice but to see me, but she didn’t even protest. Typical Holly.
She had always been there for me. She’d never refused me anything. She was quite a girl, and I guessed now she was a woman she’d be quite a woman. I was terrified in my own way of what I might find. The complications of Holly being the one for me were vast. Would she move to New York? Would I have to move back to London? These were details that I didn’t want to contemplate. Being a lawyer I am attentive to detail; unfortunately there is no way you can be romantic about the whole thing. It all comes down to detail. Something I learned a long time ago.
If you’re in love you have to think like that. I was sure I was in love with Julia, but I wasn’t sure if I was more in love with Holly. When I was younger I used to be quite the fatalist. I used to tell Holly to look up at the sky because that held our fate. I thought that fate would give you clues and guide you in the right direction. I still believe that, but as you get older you realise you can’t leave too much to fate. I could have ignored Holly and just asked Julia, but because of that niggling doubt, I thought that maybe fate was giving me one of the clues I used to look out for. I determined that I would act on it, I had to get things right. Getting things wrong is something I would never contemplate.
So I arrived in London and booked myself into the St Martin’s Lane Hotel. I thought that as the rest of my life was being decided that very weekend, I would let it be decided in style.
I checked into the hotel, checked in with work, called Julia, then I e-mailed Holly. It was Friday, but because I told her that I was over on business I asked if we could meet on Saturday night. It meant one night alone in a hotel room, but that was necessary. Everything hinged on this one night, so I was prepared to spend an evening sitting in a bathrobe, enjoying room service, watching television. It wasn’t too much of a sacrifice, considering.
The following day, I walked around London, and noticed how little it had changed. There were some new bars and shops, but the atmosphere was the same. I tried to decide if I’d missed it, but I didn’t. There was no question, as I walked along the grey streets, that I loved New York. I went to get coffee and smiled to myself at the American-style coffee houses that had sprung up. There seemed to be more in London that in New York. There weren’t any when I had left, but now there were three to every street. It reminded me of the ‘Big Apple’. It was time to meet Holly.
I had to make sure that I looked the part. I wore beige slacks, and a light-coloured shirt. Brown brogues, fawn socks. It was the look I had cultivated in New York. It worked for me. I always looked smart, I was always expensively dressed. Always immaculate. That was something my job had taught me.
I sat at the bar sipping a beer waiting for her and my stomach was full of butterflies. I hadn’t seen Holly for what...five years? That’s a long time and I wondered what might have happened to her. I smiled to myself at the thought that maybe she was really fat now and her hair was totally grey, but I knew that five years didn’t do that to a person. No, I knew that I would recognise her the moment I saw her.
I felt, rather than saw, someone looking at me from behind, and instinctively I knew it was her. I decided to wait until she approached me, I didn’t turn round. When she reached my table and I stood up to kiss her, I realised that she was the same Holly I’d kissed goodbye all those years ago. She looked a bit older, but not really, she looked more confident, more sophisticated, but she was still the knobbly kneed twelve-year-old I knew and loved.
I ordered champagne and we talked about the past. I hadn’t thought about what conversation would be like, but it was weird that as soon as I saw her I felt a reluctance to talk about the present. As we relived our childhood everything was about what life had been like. And for some reason I didn’t want it to be any other way. I had an agenda, that I knew, but seeing Holly made me yearn for the old days, I guess when we were young and carefree. I know I sound like an old man, but it wasn’t like that, it was just that my childhood seemed so far away.
As we talked, I devised a plan. Thus far, I had no answers, or not the answers I’d come for. I did find Holly attractive, but she wasn’t as attractive as Julia. I found her amusing, but she was a bit scatty, which I had always teased her about. She wasn’t as self-confident as Julia. Holly had a tendency to jump from one topic to the next as if she was in a real rush, whereas Julia would speak in an orderly, methodical fashion. If I was being cold and calculated, I would have chosen Julia on the grounds that she was better for my image and my career, but that wasn’t why I was here. I was simply here to do the right thing, to ensure that the woman I married was the right one.
There was one other thing: Holly drank like a fish. Julia was always very controlled when it came to drinking. Holly wasn’t. She seemed to be drinking for England. I noticed she’d
given up smoking and I was a little disappointed. Holly had smoked, from the age of eighteen and I had always disapproved. Ironically I had taken up smoking. In my early days in New York I would sit in my tiny apartment, and light a cigarette because that’s what I always imagined she would be doing in her time zone, at the same time. It made me feel close to her. I know it’s crazy, but that’s how I felt. I wanted to ask her why she’d quit, but I didn’t in case she told me it was for a man. I took up smoking for her; I didn’t want her giving it up for anyone else. I only smoked occasionally though, and I hadn’t had any since I’d been in London. I probably could have done with one for my nerves, but decided to hold off a while.
After we finished dinner, she turned down coffee, so I suggested we go to my room and I invited her to drink the minibar. She agreed enthusiastically. She took my hand as we walked to the lift, and there was a distinct lack of electricity in the action. But it felt like the most natural thing in the world at that moment. It was then I realised that I was trying to decide between passion and security, when really I wanted both. I had booked a suite, so she sat on the sofa while I picked out the bottles from the minibar and lined them up. I challenged her to a drinking contest.
‘I won’t let you go until we’ve emptied the fridge,’ I joked.
‘You’re on,’ she replied, and I knew she meant it. Holly was definitely fun, always ready for a challenge, for doing something that would not exactly be seen as sensible in the morning. Julia, well Julia didn’t do anything that wasn’t sensible. Not that she was boring, she wasn’t, but her idea of fun was different. I knew that if I had suggested to her that we empty the minibar she would have looked at me as if I was completely mad, ‘Stop messing, George,’ she would have said, with her lips pursed together in case I meant it, and I’d pretend it was a joke and that I hadn’t meant it. Not like Holly. I pulled out the ice tray, and while I poured the drinks I called room service for a packet of cigarettes. Holly acted shocked and I felt embarrassed, I couldn’t tell her the real reason that I smoked, so I fobbed her off with some lame excuse.
Deranged Marriage Page 10