Pru was wearing a tiny gold suede mini-skirt with a backless black top held in place with criss-crossing gold chains, and thigh-high platform boots, and if anything she looked even more amazing than her sister.
My long-sleeved black dress, which had felt fashion-forward when I put it on in my bedroom, now made me feel underdressed and drab.
Still, the two of them welcomed me like a long-lost third sister, kissed me on both cheeks, told me I looked stunning and filled a glass for me from the inevitable bottle of pink champagne.
‘So, tell me about this date you’ve got tomorrow,’ I said.
‘Oh my God,’ Pru gushed. ‘He’s really, really hot. He went to Eton. Divides his time between London and Dubai. He owns six polo ponies and he collects vintage Aston Martins. He’s called Phillip, but I can get past that.’
‘Nice work, little sis,’ Felicity said. ‘And speaking of hot, look over there.’
Carefully, so as not to seem to be looking, we did.
And of course, it was Renzo. Tall, tanned from skiing, still wearing his work suit but with no tie and his shirt undone. Sipping a cocktail and laughing the way he did that made you want to laugh too, even if you didn’t understand the joke.
My Renzo. Seeing him literally took my breath away. I felt sick, my heart pounded in my chest and I could feel sweat snaking down my back under my too-warm dress. I couldn’t look at him and, also, I couldn’t not.
But I forced myself to turn away and I manufactured a casual laugh. ‘That’s my ex, the one I told you about.’
‘Oooh, really?’ Felicity said. ‘Well! I can’t believe you let that one get away, Tansy! Are you going to go over and say hello? Invite him over for a drink, maybe?’
‘Go on, babe, take one for the team,’ Pru urged.
‘I don’t think I can,’ I replied. Literally, I didn’t think I could. If I stood up, I thought my knees would give way and I’d collapse on the floor in an embarrassing heap. It was all I could do to keep the air going in and out of my lungs on a semi-regular basis. ‘You know, it’s awkward sometimes, with exes.’
‘Looks like you might not have to,’ Felicity said. ‘Don’t look, but he’s coming over here.’
I didn’t look. I picked up my glass and drained the lot in four big gulps, then instantly worried I’d get hiccups.
Pru filled it up straight away like the good woman she was.
‘Hello,’ I heard Renzo’s voice, right above my head.
I swivelled round on the faux-crocodile skin seat, ever so slowly, looked up at him and smiled, my heart hammering so hard I was certain he could hear it. I didn’t stand up, or try to kiss him hello.
I just said, ‘Renzo! Hi! It’s so great to see you. These are my friends, Felicity and Pru.’
Amazingly, my voice sounded quite normal. Renzo aimed the floodlight beam of his smile at Pru, then at Felicity, and I saw them both bask briefly in its heat.
Then he said, ‘Tansy, could we talk for a second?’
Shit. I was going to have to stand up.
‘Of course.’ But I didn’t move, because I couldn’t.
‘Come on, babe,’ Felicity said to Pru. ‘I’m dying for a wee. And maybe a sneaky fag. Shall we?’
As far as I knew, neither of the sisters smoked. I sent desperately grateful vibes in their direction as they slithered out of the booth and vanished into the crowd.
Renzo took Pru’s place next to me.
‘How are you?’ I asked. ‘I mean, how have you been? Since…’
‘I’m okay. I’m fine. Work, travel, same old. I’m good. But I saw you, and I thought we should talk.’
Once again, my heart went from zero to a hundred in seconds, like Renzo’s Lamborghini.
‘Go on,’ I tried to say, but no words came out.
‘Last year, last time we saw each other,’ he went on, ‘I said some things I shouldn’t have. I’m not proud of it. I don’t believe in treating people like that, especially people I care about. So I wanted to apologise.’
In my heart, a whole squad of cheerleaders were doing somersaults and waving pompoms. But my head wasn’t quite there yet.
I said, ‘Okay. It wasn’t the best. But it wasn’t your fault, not at all. It was my fault. I should have been honest from the beginning. I should be the one apologising. That’s what I’ve been trying to do. I’m sorry about all the texts and everything. I hope you don’t think I’m a nutter. I—’
Renzo reached over and touched my hand. I could feel that it was icy and damp and I hoped that was why he didn’t take it and wrap it in his warm, dry one. I was gazing up at him, transfixed by his hazel eyes and wondering how they managed to be clear and opaque at the same time.
‘That’s what I wanted to say,’ he said. ‘Just that I behaved badly, and I’m sorry.’
I said, ‘Does that mean we… That we can try again?’
He paused a beat. If I drop dead right now, I won’t care, I thought. I’ll die happy and full of hope.
‘I’m not sure, Tansy. I don’t know how to feel about you now. What to think. Not after… You know.’
I don’t know how I did it, but I managed not to break down. I didn’t cry. I didn’t beg him to change his mind and give me another chance. I didn’t even apologise again. I just sat there and looked at him for a long moment, and he looked back at me. And then he smiled – a sad, intimate smile that was like an invitation to fall in love with him all over again – before standing up.
I gathered my dignity close like a warm coat on a cold night, and I said, ‘Okay. I’ll wait for you to decide. I won’t contact you again.’
Renzo paused, and I wondered whether he was going to say something more, something that would offer me a crumb of comfort. But he just said, ‘Thank you.’
Then he turned and went away, back to his friends. Without his warm body next to me, I felt suddenly cold.
Seconds later, Felicity and Pru returned. They must have been hovering close by, wanting to know what happened but also not wanting to leave me sitting alone like a loser. They slid into the booth, one on either side of me.
‘What gives?’ Felicity asked.
‘Are you okay?’ Pru said. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’
‘Are you getting back together?’ Felicity demanded.
I said, ‘No, we’re not. We were just chatting, clearing the air a bit. You know how it is.’
Again, I was relieved how normal I managed to sound.
‘Well. Time for another bottle, I feel,’ Felicity said.
For a moment, I considered making my excuses and leaving. But then I thought of Renzo watching me go, knowing that it was our conversation that had made me run off. Knowing that he still had that power over me. Maybe even suspecting that I’d only been there in the first place in the hope of seeing him and having the conversation with him that hadn’t turned out quite the way I wanted it to.
So I didn’t. I stayed, I drank, I danced. Occasionally, in my peripheral vision, I saw Renzo looking at me, but I didn’t look back. I talked to a man called Charlie and a man called Ed and a man called Simon, and danced with them all and even tried to flirt a bit, although my heart wasn’t in it. I drank some more. A lot more.
I watched Felicity dancing with a tall blond man in a red shirt, and laughed when she came back to our table and said, ‘Married. He didn’t even bother to take his wedding ring off. What a doughnut.’
After that, we drank and danced some more, and then it was three in the morning and chucking-out time, and Renzo had left without me noticing, and I realised with a hollow, sick sense of loss that I might never see him again. We paid our bill and because it was payday I put it on my normal bank card, not my credit card, and only winced a bit at the total. We got our coats and said goodbye in the freezing drizzle, and Felicity and Pru got a black cab to take them home to west London while I waited for an Uber to take me back east. But it was surge pricing and the wait was almost ten minutes and I was cold, so I started walking, thinking I
’d get the night Tube, but then I went the wrong way because I was pissed, and I found myself walking and walking, aimless and numb.
Some kind of internal GPS must have kicked in, because after a while I realised I was almost halfway home and might as well keep going.
And so I walked, my feet automatically moving and my mind far away. The image of Renzo was so clear it was almost as if he was there next to me, although of course he wasn’t. I couldn’t allow myself to imagine that he ever would be again – that I’d ever feel his warm arm around my shoulders or hear his laugh, or lose myself in his greeny-gold eyes.
It was half past five when I eventually unlocked the front door. I didn’t feel drunk any more and I was very conscious of how cold I was and that my feet hurt almost as much as my heart.
I went straight upstairs, took my clothes off and slipped under the duvet, shivering and veering between hope and despair until finally I fell asleep.
Six
The next day I slept until almost midday, occasionally drifting awake and then forcing my eyes closed again so I could carry on with the muddled dream I was having in which Renzo had told me he still loved me, but he told me over the phone and he was somewhere in a Tube station and I kept going from one of the six exits to the next, unable to find him, and when I ran I almost tripped over in my high heels and my feet hurt more and more.
It was that that finally woke me up. My feet were throbbing, and the duvet cover had actually stuck to my right heel where a blister had burst. Also, my head was pounding, I was hungry and I had a WhatsApp from Mum.
One thing at a time, Tansy, I told myself. So first, I got up, had a shower and got rid of last night’s make-up. I put plasters on my feet and swallowed two paracetamol with water.
I put on jeans, trainers and a grey Gucci sweatshirt of Renzo’s that had ended up in my suitcase when we were packing after our last, idyllic holiday in Switzerland. I’d like to say it still smelled of him but it didn’t, although it had until I put it through the wash a week before because it was getting downright rank.
Then I went downstairs and scrounged in the kitchen for food. Since he’d been gainfully employed with unlimited access to smoked salmon, rare roast beef and sushi in the work fridge, Adam had been buying even less food than he used to. Apart from one tin of tuna, a box of teabags and some porridge oats, the cupboard was basically bare.
But it was okay – I’d just been paid. So I could treat myself to a proper coffee and brunch at the Daily Grind. I put my phone in my bag, reminding myself to read and reply to Mum as soon as I’d eaten. Then I shrugged on the lovely warm shearling coat that had been one of last winter’s samples from my favourite supplier, and strolled up the road.
Last night’s clouds had cleared, and it was one of those radiant, crisp winter mornings that make you think spring isn’t far away, even though you know there’s another two months of lip-chapping wind and horizontal rain to get through first. Parents were out with their children, all wrapped up in bright fleece jackets as they scooted along the pavement. Joggers had their sunglasses on for their lunchtime runs, even though they still wore gloves and beanie hats. Dogs in their cute little dog coats were dragging their owners in the direction of interesting smells.
The Daily Grind, predictably, was rammed. It was owned by Luke, our next-door neighbour, who also owned Adam’s cat friend Freezer, and I instinctively glanced behind the bar to see if he was there, knowing he’d find a table or at least a stool for me, before I remembered that he and his partner Hannah, a teacher at the primary school up the road, were away.
But Yelena, the waitress, clocked me as soon as I walked in. She smiled, waved and gestured, and soon I was sitting on a stool at the end of one of the long tables in the centre of the room with a double espresso she’d brought without me having to ask. I used to drink cappuccino all the time before I met Renzo, but he told me off very sternly and said that no proper Italian would drink anything other than espresso after eleven o’clock, and now Yelena knew it, too.
‘Avo smash on wholemeal, Tansy?’ she asked.
‘Yes, please,’ I said automatically, then realised that wasn’t going to cut it. ‘Actually, no, I’d like a sausage sandwich with a fried egg.’
Yelena smiled. ‘Heavy night?’
‘You could say so.’ We laughed, and I drank some coffee and flicked through a magazine that someone had left on the table. Normally I’d have been checking my phone, but right now, in this warm, safe space, I didn’t want to.
I was frightened of what I’d see, and what I wouldn’t.
There would be no message from Renzo, that was for sure. The idea made me feel sick and hollow with sadness. There wouldn’t ever be again. There was no point in hoping. And the WhatsApp notification from Mum made my phone feel like an unexploded bomb in my handbag.
Don’t get me wrong, she’s my mother and I love her. And I love my younger sister Perdita and her husband and their two kids, and when the baby Perdita was due to have in a few weeks was born I knew I’d love him or her too.
It’s my dad I can’t stand.
Every bit of happiness and stability I remember from my childhood was created by Mum, or later by Debbie. Everything else was down to him. The rows, the fear. The bailiffs turning up at our door and taking away the iPod Nano Perdita had saved up her babysitting money for months to buy.
Dad was what I guess you’d call a problem gambler, although I just called him a selfish bastard. Mum called him her husband, and so she stayed with him, even though it broke her a tiny bit more every year that she did.
‘Sausage sandwich and eggs. Enjoy, my darling.’ Yelena placed the plate in front of me, aligning a napkin and cutlery alongside it. ‘Anything else?’
‘This is wonderful, thank you.’ I knew that I needed to eat quickly, before I thought more about what Mum might be asking me for and my throat closed up and my stomach started to churn. So I pushed her from my mind and focused on my breakfast.
‘Anything else? Another coffee?’ Yelena asked when she came to clear my plate.
‘Nothing thanks, just the bill. That was amazing.’
Yelena came over with the machine and I passed her my Visa card and waited while she tapped it on the screen. There was a pause, and then she said, ‘Sorry Tansy, there seems to be a problem here. Let me try again. Sometimes our system goes down and…’ She shrugged. ‘No, it’s not going through.’
But I’ve just been paid! My mouth was suddenly as dry as paper, and tasted sour from the coffee.
‘Shall we try another one?’ I took my credit card from my purse and handed it to her. I could see my hand shaking, and I felt an awful, familiar sense of fear and shame.
‘There we go,’ Yelena said. ‘All done. Thank you darling, come again soon.’
‘Have a good rest of the weekend,’ I said.
I walked back out through the glass doors into the sunshine and breathed in great lungfuls of cold air. It didn’t help. I felt as if my head was floating above my body, and my legs didn’t seem to be working properly. I looked down at my trainers and forced them to move, one in front of the other, again and again until I was home.
I made it up the stairs and into the bathroom before I was sick.
When I’d cleaned my teeth and drunk some water, I felt a bit better. I went into my bedroom and closed the door, sat hunched on the bed and took out my phone.
What to do first: check my online banking, or read Mum’s message? Each would hold equally bad news.
The banking app won. It was as bad as I feared. My salary had gone into my account yesterday as it should have done. But, as they should also have done, a bunch of direct debits had gone out. My rent, council tax, the gas and electricity, my phone subscription and gym membership. And, of course, my share of the bill from the previous night.
‘Two hundred and twenty-nine pounds,’ I whispered in horror. It was fun money to Pru and Felicity, and I had no doubt Renzo had spent even more. But to me, it was a big deal – a
seriously big deal.
What were you thinking, Tansy? Were you even thinking?
I hadn’t been, of course. At first I hadn’t been thinking about anything except Renzo, and then I’d been too pissed to think about anything much at all.
And my credit card payment from the previous month. Another six hundred and ten pounds. How had I even done that? How had I spent that much?
But I knew how. The night out at Annabel’s. The clothes I’d bought. The pizza with Adam. The times I’d been to the supermarket and casually bought extra stuff to donate to the food bank, because it was the right thing to do and there were so many people worse off than me. Even the carrot soup I’d had for lunch yesterday, which I’d stuck on my credit card because I wasn’t sure my salary would have reached my current account yet.
Desperate to escape from the horror of the numbers in front of me, I swiped to Mum’s message.
Hello love, hope all is well with you. We’ve had a lot of rain here but at least it’s got rid of the ice on the pavements. Gwenda next door had a nasty fall and we thought she might have broken a hip, but it was just badly bruised. I’ve been walking Pebble for her while she rests up. Perdy’s not got long to go now – will you be able to come down for a few days when the baby comes?
No, not a chance, I thought glumly. A train ticket to Cornwall at short notice would be a hundred pounds at least, and it was a hundred pounds I didn’t have. Last week, yesterday even, I’d have stuck it on a credit card, along with presents for my sister and the new baby. Now, that seemed reckless to the point of craziness.
I scrolled further down Mum’s message. I could tell from her stilted, formal tone what was coming, and sure enough, there it was.
Your father’s been bad again.
‘Bad’ – I knew she meant it not in the sense of wicked or misbehaving, but in the sense of poorly, like an illness.
He’s been so much better since Christmas, really trying hard. He promised things would change this year, so I haven’t been as careful as I should have been.
It's Not You It's Him: An absolutely hilarious and feel-good romantic comedy Page 6