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As promised, I am wearing the dress of my dreams. No fancy dress for me this time. Cate helped me choose it (with guidance from the palette app, of course). A-line. Silk and elegant. Ocean green, that falls to the floor, a split up one side. A far cry from my frame-head catsuit (which now hangs in my own wardrobe, for memories’ sake).
‘Baby,’ says Lin, coming up behind me. ‘I mean – can we just .?.?. Twirl for me.’
I laugh and twirl, the skirt of the dress lifting a little, as I do.
‘You look incredible. Like, a Hollywood star. But, also, I’m going to have to break your legs. One at a time.’
‘Why?’ I laugh.
‘Pet says you’re leaving. You’re not, are you?’ asks Lin, feathers from her grapefruit-pink dress brushing me in the face.
‘I am,’ I say with a smile. ‘End of the month. I’m going on holiday with my friends, Alexis and Cate. Just for a week. And then, to visit my brother Kieran, in Michigan, and then .?.?.’ I trail off.
‘You don’t know?’ asks Lin, smilingly.
‘Nope,’ I say. ‘And I’m fucking terrified, but I also can’twait.’ And it had felt like a slow, but fast decision all at once. I’d sat on a bench by the estuary with Cate, watching Ralph swim with his group, scarves and hats and takeaway teas, and watched boats in the distance disappear, watched clouds morph and change and skid by in the sky, and I’d just known. It unravelled in front of me. I’m ready for change. And on Monday, I’d given notice in the same boardroom I was reprimanded in just months ago. Petra had clapped excitedly as if on fast-forward, Paul Foot had told me warmly I would ‘certainly be missed’, like a true jolly post-man, and Michael of course, had extracted a nose hair.
Lin hugs me and says, ‘I’ll miss you, you weird, bad bitch. Plus, who will I moan to once you’ve gone? Cherry won’t let me whinge. Brings her vibration down, apparently.’
‘Write it in an email,’ I say, ‘and just don’t send it.’
Lin throws her head back, laughs, feathers whacking me in the face, once more. ‘The thing with me, though, Millie, is Ialwaysfucking send it.’ And I think, perhaps, that’s the best way after all.
I drift around the party, a cocktail in hand. This one is named Paul My Finger after Paul Foot. (Yes, really.) Only marginally better than last year’s, ‘The Foot Spa’. (Which was made so much worse by being swampgreenin colour!)
I drift around the room, gaze at the people I have shared time and space with for the last five years of my life. Despite it all, I am out the other side and everything is OK. And like my parents, like my friends, like Chloe and Owen and every single person on this planet, they all have their own shit going on behind closed doors. Nobody is perfect. Nobody has it all figured out. We all have shadow parts, as Ralph said. I just happened to show mine. And now there’s a website out there, inspired by the moment light was shone on my shadow parts where everyone feels safe shining a light on theirs. And there’s safety in vulnerability. If you show yours, the right people are inspired by it and feel safe to show theirs. Like Jack had shown me his.
I wish so much Jack was still here.
But he’s gone. He’s in Quebec with Enam. There is a part of me, though, that hoped he’d be here tonight, somehow. Coming back, like my family did, around that table. Like Alexis did. Like Cate, who came back to herself. Stupid, I know. But, I allowed myself a little daydream. Jack, in a tux, under the glow of Christmas lights, that gorgeous smile, his safe, safe arms .?.?.
‘Well, hello,’ says a voice. And I wish so much it was his voice. But it’s not. It’s Fundraising Steve in a suit that looks too small for him. ‘No picture frame for your head tonight? Heard about that.’
‘Maybe if you’re lucky I’ll stick it on my head later,’ I say, as a Mariah Carey remix erupts from the PA and someone cheers. ‘Give you all something to talk about.’
‘You just need your partner in crime,’ he says. ‘Jack Dawson, wasn’t he?’
I nod. A warm, sweet sadness spreads across my chest.
‘Good for a laugh, is Jack,’ says Steve.
‘Strange without him here,’ I remark.
Steve shakes his head, one of his weird, gelled prongs moving like an insect’s feeler. ‘Do you know, I saw him at the airport.’
‘Really?’ Oh my God. Is he – was he coming back? Everything lifts in me. As if I’ve suddenly been attached to a thousand helium balloons.
‘My Mary. She was coming back from Krakow. Some hen do thingy with her mates. I went to pick her up. And there he was.’ Steve holds his hands out in the air, carrying an invisible boulder. ‘Backpack as big as his body, the lot .?.?.’
My heart sinks. Sinks so much, it’s like it’s in my feet, turning to liquid. I knew he’d gone. But hearing about him actually leaving is harder.
‘It was nice to see him actually. Say goodbye. Offered to buy him a pint, but he had to go. Flight to catch. Such a lovely fella, that one.’
I nod, feel tears collect in my throat. Someone pushes past me, says sorry. ‘Right. Yes. He is.’
Gone. Backpack as big as his body.
Gone. I wish he was here. I wish so much he was here. But the truth is, he’s as far away from me as he could possibly be. I haven’t heard from him. He talked about roaming packages for his phone, new SIM cards, how he often switches his phone out when he’s camping and in hostels, to something more robust. But then, I don’t blame him not contacting me even if he can.
