After Hello Page 6

  ‘Esther asked you,’ I interject, bitterly, not knowing I was going to say this and realising I’m not in control.

  ‘Esther asked me,’ Ben agrees.

  My blood is hot and full of small jagged particles.

  ‘And naturally you end up in the corner of a late bar alone, draped all over each other, whispering intimately in each other’s’ ears?’

  Ben doesn’t flinch.

  ‘As if you could do any “whispering” in that place. If I was leaning in, it was because of the din. Four of us went to that bar …’

  ‘Double date?’ I say, mouth running away with me again.

  ‘John and Andrew aren’t a couple. Four of us went to that bar and got a round and they couldn’t hack the noise and left before us. All you saw was me finishing that drink before I found a taxi.’

  ‘Oh, really. It looked like you were both about to find a hotel.’

  ‘Jesus, Rachel! Are you seriously accusing me of an affair?’

  ‘You see how this looks, though? It looks like you were flirting with someone you know has an interest in you, while turning your phone off? The only reason you’re having to own up to it is because I caught you.’

  ‘It didn’t look great, I agree, but I’m telling you that nothing was going on. I thought we trusted each other.’

  ‘If it was innocent, why did you look so shocked and guilty?’

  ‘I was shocked because you were supposed to be in Portugal! I wasn’t aware I looked guilty. I mean, yes, given we’d argued about Esther before, I knew it probably wouldn’t go down well.’

  ‘You didn’t think you were encouraging her?’

  ‘I wasn’t. I told you, there were four of us. She didn’t ask me out on a date.’

  ‘Yeah, she did, in an underhand way. I’m sure that was the aim from the start, and you obviously didn’t have much of a problem with it.’

  Ben gives me a profound look of regret and disgust and right now I’m unsure whether this damage is permanent. I hate how bitter I sound, but I can’t stop. I tap my finger against my lips, faux-thoughtfully.

  ‘What did Esther describe my existence as: your “imperfection”?’

  Ben rubs his forehead. ‘I was unimpressed she said that, I told you at the time.’

  ‘Did I come up?’ I say, and for the first time, Ben looks flustered.

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Not really?’

  ‘I said you were on a hen do and she asked a few things about it, that’s all.’

  ‘Great,’ I say. ‘Checking I was definitely out of town.’

  Ben says: ‘No,’ but I can see he’s embarrassed. ‘OK, look – how do you think I feel when you’re quoting Owen to me all the time, telling me about your drinks together, your private jokes at work. When your phone’s pinging away with WhatsApps from him all evening, because some stories are so important you need to be discussing them at seven at night and yeah, thanks, I have spotted he puts kisses on those messages? You don’t think you ever give me cause to be jealous, just because I don’t complain?’

  ‘The key thing here is I’m telling you about these things. Not switching my phone off and sneaking around.’

  ‘The bloody phone again! If I was sneaking around, I’d have my phone on, wouldn’t I?!’ Ben says. ‘You weren’t in the city, I thought. Surely a cheat would call you and say “Oh hey, yeah, I’m playing pool,” and then go back to his cheating?’

  He has a point, I suppose. Still, I know what I saw. What I felt.

  ‘You can reason me out of this all you want, but we both know what was happening when I intruded,’ I say, and part of me is silent-screaming DON’T SAY THIS.

  ‘And what’s that?’ says Ben, folding his arms, expression murderous.

  ‘I saw that moment before she talks you into going somewhere else quieter for one last one, and you end up slumped on each other on a Chesterfield sofa somewhere with a nightcap, pretending you’re not building up to a big oh dear how did that happen moment where she crosses the line that you’ve been subtly implying might not be there all night.’

  I’m far too worked up to conceal how much I’ve thought about this.

  Ben rakes at his hair as though he’s about to pull it out.

  ‘No. Completely wrong. I had no intention of doing any of the above. There was no flirting.’

  ‘Being there with her was flirting!’ I near-shout.

  ‘Oh, God,’ Ben says, ‘I can’t defend myself against hypothetical scenarios that have only occurred in your head.’

  ‘I can’t believe you’re playing dumb about something like this.’

  ‘I can’t believe you think so little of my character.’

  Check mate. Silence.

  ‘… I’m going for a run,’ Ben says eventually, shrugging, and thumps upstairs to get changed. After he slams out, I sit in an empty house and realise I want to be out of it, too.

  13

  I text Caroline and ask to join her and Mindy’s carbohydrate-heavy recovery session after all. Fifteen minutes later, a mini cab is depositing me back in town.

  ‘Can you use your spare keys to let yourself in?’ Caroline texted on the way. ‘Mindy and I can’t move unless it’s for the Deliveroo man.’

  In the end, the laden, tortoise-like bike boy and I arrive simultaneously, so I relieve him of his Pizza Express bounty.

  It helps in making my arrival welcome.

  ‘I confronted Ben over Esther,’ I say, dropping my bag and coat, after handing them the boxes.

  Two sets of wide eyes look up from their American Hots.

  ‘Oh, kay.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘I think I might’ve made a mess of it.’

  Caroline says: ‘Uh, huh.’

  ‘I pretty much accused Ben of infidelity. Or pre-infidelity.’

  ‘What’s pre-infidelity?’ Mindy asks, brow wrinkling.

  ‘The stage where you’re working up to it. Engineering high-risk situations.’

  Caroline smooths her ponytail with her as-always immaculately manicured hands. ‘How does this pre-cheating look different to not going to cheat?’

  ‘It involves bad decisions, such as being alone and flirting with sexy women who fancy you in sexy bars. Sexy women, who, by the way, are a ringer for Ben’s ex-wife.’

  ‘It’s like the pre-cogs in Minority Report? When you know there’s going to be a crime so you arrest them before they can do it?’ Mindy asks. This is a ridiculous but also essentially accurate summary and I open my mouth and close it again.

  ‘What did Ben say?’ Caroline asks.

  ‘He said there was a group of them out after work and they were the last two left, and when I saw him he was on the verge of going home.’

  ‘Do you have any reason to think that’s not the truth? You honestly think there was a boffing in the offing?’

  I nearly wail. ‘Who knows!’ Then I force myself to dig deeper than the mortification of seeing them in that bar, to a more rational assessment. ‘… No.’

  ‘Doesn’t seem the greatest strategy to accuse him, then,’ Caroline says gently, standing up. ‘Hair of the dog? We’re on the Chambord. Take a seat.’

  I sit down next to Mindy and lean my head on her shoulder. She puts her arm round me and I’m done for. Thirty-something deep-blue hangover plus anxiety of last two days plus giant ugly fight equals inevitable tsunami of tears.

  ‘I know I’m being stupid but it just hurt, seeing them together like that,’ I gasp, wiping my eyes on my sleeve. ‘I convinced myself he was talking to her in a way he talks to me. They looked so … confidential. Like they were discussing things I had no part of, in a place Ben and I never go to. It was like seeing a different Ben.’

  ‘Work-place stuff though, you know how it is. You get out on a Friday and it’s shop talk gossip non stop,’ Mindy says. ‘I go to Ivor’s computer club nights and they could be talking in literal Canadian.’

  ‘Literal Canadian is English,’ Caroline says, handing me a flute of b
lush-coloured fizz.

  ‘I know,’ I say, wiping my eyes. ‘To both things.’

  ‘Are you and Ben having problems otherwise?’ says Caroline, and if I was her I’d be looking for displacement too, only I say: ‘No. We’re great otherwise. Never happier.’

  A brief, contemplative silence descends.

  ‘I think you might have Dave Stewart’s Paradise Syndrome,’ Mindy says eventually.

  ‘What the hell is that?’

  ‘The beardy one out of The Eurythmics. He has an illness where life is too perfect so he gets sick.’

  I start laughing, weakly.

  ‘… I’m sick of perfection?’

  ‘No, not sick, I mean. But maybe it’s all so good with Ben, you were looking for the problem? Coldplay explained it all in their song “Warning Sign.”

  I laugh and then I consider, in that peculiar Mindy way, she might be on to something. Despite my fears, Ben and I didn’t find the transition from friends to lovers to co-mortgagees and cat parents difficult. We can haggle about mislaid socks and worming tablets and still fall into each other’s arms with as much passion as we did outside that café two years ago.

  What if it isn’t that Esther’s a problem, it’s that I was subconsciously looking for one, and decided it was her? What if I mistook my fear building for a threat building?

  It’s like the sun breaking through the clouds only for the clouds to return and give me a good dousing.

  ‘Have I wildly overreacted?’ I say to Mindy and Caroline after a long pause.

  They are both mid-bite, but both do the fatal hesitation where you try to modify a ‘yes.’

  ‘Oh God!’ I cry. ‘I’m Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City 2! I think I have problems because my husband got me a television as an anniversary present!’

  There is another pause and then sudden, loud, relieved laughter, and not for the first time I think, I don’t know what I’d do without you two.

  Caroline wipes her mouth on some kitchen roll and says: ‘I don’t think you doubt him, I think you doubt yourself.’

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘Yes. You talk about how much this girl looks like Olivia, forgetting it’s irrelevant. It’s you he wants.’

  Mindy nods. ‘He looks at you the way I look at peanut KitKat Chunkys on fast days.’

  I lie prone with Mindy and Caroline and let their chatter about the wedding-day plans wash over me. I idly check Facebook on my phone. Ben’s friend Jim had posted on his wall, at 5 p.m. on Friday, saying sorry work was overrunning and he had to cancel. Ben responded half an hour later by asking him if he wanted to join the solicitors’ pub crawl instead, when he got out. I’ve been a right tool.

  I text Ben.

  I’m at Caroline’s btw. x

  OK. Are you staying there tonight? x

  I’d prefer to come home. x

  I would prefer that too. X

  When I get in, I have conciliatory opening words planned. Ben’s in his running gear, feeding the cats, bickering with them as one of the Ronnies tries to take his hand off.

  I say ‘Hello,’ and suddenly I can’t stop stupid tears welling at the sight of him.

  It’s like we’re right back in that halls of residence queue, that incredible once-in-a-lifetime moment when we met as strangers who somehow knew each other already.

  He puts down the Whiskas tin and says: ‘Ah, God, don’t, it’s OK,’ steps forward and puts his arms around me. However much I might deserve more furious reproaches and sulking, I appreciate the fact he’s not the resentful type so much right now.

  He shushes me and says: ‘I’m so sorry if I upset you, Ron. Nothing’s going on.’

  Whenever he calls me Ron, we’re instantly eighteen again. Me in my Doc Martens and him in his silly always-brand-new trainers.

  ‘I know,’ I mumble.

  ‘Do you?’ Ben says, pulling back and looking at me.

  ‘Yeah.’ I wipe my eyes. ‘I was freaked out but deep down, I know you wouldn’t mess around. I mean, even at uni …’ I smile weakly, ‘Even when you were ladding about, you weren’t a liar.’

  ‘I’ve never given you any cause not to trust me, have I?’

  ‘No. I got completely paranoid, thinking about how different we were at university …’

  ‘First of all, that was a long time ago. Second of all, I believe I was the one who spent that time in love with you, waiting for you to come round to the idea of going out with me?’

  I wet-face smile. ‘True.’ Amazing how you construct your worst-case scenarios by being so selective.

  ‘I do worry that maybe I’m too …’ Ben pauses and I say ‘What?’ as he hesitates.

  ‘… I worry you’re used to big ups and downs and making up and breaking up with Rhys and you find our life slightly too steady and boring. I know you didn’t have the full picture on Friday, but it still seems …’

  ‘Go on,’ I say, as I can see Ben biting his lip and wondering if he’s about to recklessly pluck defeat from the jaws of victory, now I’ve calmed down.

  ‘I can’t quite see why you’d go to Def Con Five and assume I’m shagging about on the basis of one unfortunate coincidence. At first I was insulted, but having thought about it, I’m just confused.’

  I’ve wondered about this in my Uber home, while enjoying some Heart FM and I know I have the answer he needs – we need.

  ‘It’s not because we’re boring. At all. Fighting-drama is grim, I had enough of it with Rhys. When I saw you talking with Esther, I was scared she was me. The new me. Or the old Rachel, if you know what I mean. In a way, Esther is exactly what I deserve.’

  Ben and I gaze at each other and through the transformative power of telling the truth, I know we perfectly understand each other at last. I understand myself a bit better.

  After a long pause, Ben says: ‘Yeah. Do you know what, I suppose I worried Owen was being a mate in the way I was once your mate.’

  ‘Haha! Seriously?’

  I simultaneously can’t believe Ben could get it that far wrong, while realising I’ve done the same. I always assume Ben is seamlessly confident, but it’s selfish: it allows me to think I’m the only one with doubts and fears.

  ‘I mean, university-era-Ben. A shit Ben. A really early clumsy prototype.’

  We both laugh.

  ‘The story of my life is that there is only one you for me,’ he says. ‘How is worrying about Esther what you “deserve”? Liv and I didn’t split up because of you, you know that.’

  ‘I was the best friend who became the girlfriend. It’s like what they say about the Other Woman who becomes the wife, creating a vacancy. I made a vacancy.’

  ‘But you haven’t. You’re still my best friend,’ Ben says.

  This moment, and some that follow, almost make up for all the fraught moments that directly led to it.

  14

  One week later …

  You know when people say a bride walked in wearing their gown and the onlookers burst into tears? I used to think that sounded ridiculous too. However nice somebody looks, it’s a dress.

  Caroline and I have had our floral hair decor and make-up done and have wiggled into our narrow black off-the-shoulder dresses, praising Spanx to the skies, in our room at Didsbury House. It’s a boutique hotel, a short drive from the venue and however much piss we took out of Mindy for her matrimonial monomania, we’re reaping the benefits in her attention to detail. The three of us tried not to stay up too late last night in its lovely plush drawing room bar, reminiscing about university years and fizzing with excitement.

  There’s a gentle knock at the door, I answer, and there’s Mindy, in her finery. She insisted we weren’t allowed to know anything beyond the fact she was wearing white, so this is the first time we’ve seen her. She’s wearing a look that says she has anticipated our reaction.

  ‘Oh my God!’ I cry and Caroline, round the corner in front of the mirror still, shouts ‘Oh no, what?!’ because PassportGate is a little too fresh a memory.
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br />   Mindy is a – well, the word is ‘vision’. The dress is scalloped vintage lace, cream with delicate gold edging, 1920s flapper feel that suits her hair style, which is the usual mirror-shine black bob. She’s gone for an Indian touch with a necklace in her hair, a teardrop pendant in the centre of her forehead.

  Caroline collides into the back of me in her hurry to see, and then we look at each other and have to hop around to stop ourselves blubbing and making our make-up run.

  ‘You look ridiculously beautiful,’ I say.

  ‘So grown up!’ Caroline chokes out. ‘How can this be Mindy?!’

  ‘Well I am thirty-three,’ Mindy says, grinning. ‘I’ll do?’

  ‘Mindy,’ I say, in a bit of a gasp, ‘you look incredible.’ I grab one of her hands. ‘We’re so proud of you. Your happiness is our happiness too. We’re stealing it.’

  ‘Ah, Rach!’ Mindy says, as her face collapses in emotion.

  ‘Oh for God’s sake!’ Caroline shouts at me, as tears are now flowing for everyone. ‘What she said!’ Caroline nods at me and runs to the mirror to check the damage.

  ‘Don’t worry, Liz is still here,’ Mindy says, unperturbed, and with that she rustles off to find the make-up artist in her room. She seems to have gone through a year of frenetic hysteria to achieve this Zen-like connection with her inner Buddha on the big day. She’s exhibiting no nerves whatsoever.

  When we pile out of the vintage cars at Victoria Baths, and embark on that strangely harrowing period where you hover outside the door of the ceremony, she’s as calm as can be.

  Her dad is much more antsy, and keeps absently patting her hand in the crook of his arm.

  ‘You’re meant to say if I don’t want to go through with it, it’s OK,’ Mindy says.

  He looks startled. ‘Don’t you?!’

  ‘Of course I want to. But you’re meant to ask. It’s tradition.’

  ‘Do you want to go through with it?’ her dad asks.

  ‘Now you’ve asked, I’m not sure,’ Mindy says.