And then he leans a bit towards me and I lean a bit towards him and we air-kiss incredibly distantly. When Callum turns and walks over to Thea, I turn and walk towards Rob and Izzy and Azim’s brothers.
And that’s that.
I might practise some better fake chat before the next time I’m forced to see Callum.
19
CALLUM
Three months later
Wow. I blink. I think it might take some time for my eyes to recover. I’ve just walked into a pink fluffy bunny alternate universe. It’s Rose’s first birthday party, in a church hall in Putney that’s been decorated with pink and bunnies to within an inch of its life and is filled with people who have very much bought into the pink theme. Many of them have also adopted bunny motifs. I am very underdressed, in a green shirt and blue jeans, entirely bunny-free.
I wish Thea was here because I think she’d love it, but she had a party of her own to go to today so couldn’t make it.
‘Callum.’ Becca rushes towards me carrying Rose on her hip. Rose is wearing a blue dress with pink bunnies all over it and a fluffy bunny headband thing. Given the way everyone else is dressed (some of the adults have gone full head-to-toe bunny), I’m genuinely surprised to see that Becca is not wearing any kind of rabbit costume; she’s just wearing a regular (although pink) dress that you could wear in a normal, non-bunny environment.‘So lovely to see you,’ she says and gestures around with her free arm. ‘We have a bunny-themed party. Rose likes bunnies.’
‘I would never have guessed.’
Becca rolls her eyes at me and laughs, and I immediately see why she and Emma get on so well.
Emma.
I haven’t seen her since the christening and I didn’t ask Azim whether she’d be here today, but I’ve been operating on the assumption that she will be.
That is to say: I’ve been periodically panicking about seeing her and then pushing all thoughts of the possible meeting out of my mind and throwing myself into work, exercise and spending time with Thea. It’s almost worked. I’d say I haven’t thought about her more than maybe a hundred times this week, and it’s been three months since I last saw her.Totallyover her,totallynot missing her.Totallynot behaving like a love-sick juvenile.
I try to scan the room without Becca noticing and I can’t see Emma anywhere. I very much want to ask whether she’s coming but I’m not going to.
I am not that pathetic.
Maybe Emma’s one of the bunny-costumed adults. She’s a loyal friend; she’d do that for Becca.
One of the bunnies is a lot shorter than the others; maybe it’s her.
I’m about to casually ask who the bunnies are when Rose makes a lunge for freedom, leaping out of Becca’s arms in my direction.
I catch her, laugh with her for a moment, and then put her down on the floor, and she toddles off holding Becca’s hand, which is ideal as I can now scan the room more thoroughly for Emma.
My eyes have adjusted now to all the pink and fluffiness and I can’t see her anywhere. I think I’m going to have to go and checkwhether the small bunny’s her. Then I can relax and just watch the door like an obsessive hawk.
I make my way over to Azim (who’s wearing a pink shirt with navy jeans but nothing bunny-related) on a route round the edge of the room that takes me past the smallest bunny. Nope, not Emma. Even though I can’t see her face I just know that it isn’t her; whoever this woman is, she holds herself differently.
It’s always good to see Azim, and I take an immediate liking to the (pink-clad) cousins of Becca’s he introduces me to.
As we chat, I position myself so that I can see the door, and as the minutes tick by, I begin to relax. I was a little bit late and perhaps three other guests have trickled in after me, but there have been no more arrivals for a while, so I don’t think Emma’s coming. I’m relieved. I’m also something else – maybe disappointed, I’m not sure. But mainly, I’m relieved. Definitely.
I relax so much into the conversation that when the door suddenly opens and a woman in pink hurtles through – and I realise very quickly that it’s actually Emma – I physically start and almost spill my glass of (pink, naturally) prosecco.
‘Sorry, sorry, very clumsy of me,’ I say to Azim.
I begin to move forward towards the door, forgetting momentarily that Emma has not come here to meet me and that it isn’t an automatic thing that we’ll greet each other before she speaks to anyone else.
And in fact she’s now surrounded by people but I’ve already started to approach so if I don’t keep on walking towards her I’m going to draw attention to both of us and I don’t think we want to do that. We don’t want Azim and Becca to feel awkward inviting us to things together (Emma pointed that out to me at the christening and she was definitely right) so I just keep on walking anyway and wonder when the last time I felt this gauche was. Possibly never.
So a few seconds later I’m interrupting a group of hugging, pink-clad women to say hello to Emma. And to all of the others. I need to greet them all, otherwise it will look weird.
‘Hi, hello,’ I say around the little group. A couple of the women areveryeffusive with their greetings and I wonder if I’m coming across as the kind of person who’d be on the pull at my god-daughter’s first birthday party.
