‘Not my cup of tea, darling,’ she crooned and took his hand across the table, barely able to reach because her huge baby bump was keeping her pinned back on her seat. ‘But right up Beth’s street isn’t he? You know, the charming, dynamic businessman.’
It took a huge effort on my part to keep my smile pinned in place. I wasn’t even sure they’d met Peter but they’d clearly heard all about him. And what did it say about me, that they thought he was my ‘type’.
I plopped down on the worn velvet cushion of the armchair, hoping that would be an end to the conversation, what with them knowing I was on a date now, but they weren’t nearly done.
‘Will you be moving back up to London then?’ Ben asked. ‘Village life too dull now you’ve had a taste of the bustling metropolis?’
‘No plans to at the moment.’ God, I’d thought it was going to be awkwardbefore. Now I was going to have an audience too. I should have insisted on getting my own drink. It would’ve been quicker for one thing and for another it would have delayed this happy coincidence. Did this come under the definition of irony? I’d crashed into Nick in an effort to avoid Ben and Rachel yesterday, and now they were going to be sitting in on a date between me and Nick’s brother. No, that wasn’t irony – that was like evil karma or something.
‘D’you remember the last time we were here?’ Ben turned just enough in his seat, so he was facing my way as well as towards Rachel. ‘We were all still at uni. We’d met up for a reunion with a bunch of others hadn’t we? Joe and Lauren and that lot.’
‘That’s right. You were trying to convince Vic to let bands play in here or at the very least get a juke box weren’t you?’ Rachel tucked her blonde hair behind her ear.
I did remember that night. Or most of it. We’d been twenty and I’d been very drunk. It was an on-going argument Victor and I used to have, and it always ended the same way, because I knew he couldn’t fit a band in there really and he always offered for me to go solo. I wasn’t a solo person – I only ever wanted to play for an audience as part of a band. Too many examinations and performance gradings while I was training had made it feel like work to play on my own and I just wanted music to be fun, lifting people up and joining them together.
Playing when I was alone was different – often that felt like a private conversation between me and my dad, explaining how I was feeling through the music. I missed my guitar. I don’t think I’d ever gone so long without playing.
‘Yeah, that was fun,’ I conceded.
‘Vic is doing his New Year’s Eve party again – you could come along and meet us. A bunch of others will be here too – it’ll be like another reunion,’ Ben said.
‘I’ll have to let you know. My friends are having an engagement party in London on New Year’s Eve too.’ I rolled up the sleeves of my jumper, feeling hot and itchy from the wool. I looked around the room to see if Stephen was on his way back yet but was blocked by a sea of knitwear. I caught a flash of bright red hair not far away – was that Noelle? But the crowd shifted again, and I lost sight of her.
‘Of course, an engagement party is a once-in-a-lifetime thing.’ They exchanged one of their patented lovey-dovey gazes as they reminisced telepathically abouttheirengagement party.
‘Supposedly,’ I muttered and then heard it back to myself. Wow, I really was turning bitter and into a complete party pooper. It was suddenly hitting me hard though, that Peter was supposed to be here with me now, sitting in this warm, noisy pub, enjoying the fayre. Ben and Rachel should have been meeting him, not Stephen, and we would have been making arrangements for how we wanted to celebrate the New Year together.
That was how I had imagined it anyway. The truth as to how it really would’ve gone? It would’ve been far more likely that he’d have been annoyed at me for something I couldn’t fathom – because he still hadn’t told me about his business folding – and I’d have been struggling to cheer him up and put on a front to my old friends, so they didn’t worry about what his problem was.
‘How long have you got left again?’ I nodded at Rachel’s stomach, trying to turn the conversation around.
‘Oh, two weeks.’ She smiled and gave the curve of her belly a gentle rub. ‘Two more weeks of growing.’ She blew out a shaky breath and shifted around on her seat a bit. ‘Hard to believe he – or she – could get any bigger.’
‘Well, you look amazing. You’re glowing,’ I told her and it wasn’t really a lie. Okay she looked enormous and knackered too but very happy – if a little scared. And who could blame her? The prospect of giving birth was terrifying to me and I didn’t have an eight-pound baby sitting on top of my cervix.
‘Thank you.’ She bit her lip and looked over at Ben. He mouthed the word ‘beautiful’ and his thumb rubbed reassuringly over hers where they were still holding hands. I simultaneously wanted to barf and cry. Where was Stephen with that whisky?
‘Great, you found the table.’
Ah, wonderful, there he was.
Oh, crap, there he was.
He moved in between our table and Ben and Rachel’s and took the seat opposite me, setting two glasses and a bottle down and sending one of his toothpaste-commercial smiles in my direction. ‘Is this okay?’ He lifted the bottle, displaying the label to me as he unscrewed the top.
‘I’m sure it’s great, thanks.’ If he’d wanted me to choose, maybe he should’ve let me go buy my own. I’d asked for one drink and he’d bought a whole bottle of what looked like very fancy, expensive stuff, not to mention that he’d paid the price based on the number of shots in the bottle. That was a lot of money. It needled me. Maybe I didn’t want to drink whisky all night? And Icertainlywasn’t going to feel obligated to because he’d made that decision for me and spent a ridiculous and unnecessary sum to look flash. Peter used to do things like that all the time – buy expensive clothes for me that I didn’t really like and then I’d feel like I had to wear them, or I’d seem ungrateful.
Or, you know, maybe I was being hypersensitive, Stephen had just bought the bottle so we didn’t have to keep going up to the crowded bar and he was trying to impress me a bit.Thiswas the reason trying to date people too soon after the end of a relationship was a bad idea. You couldn’t give people a fair go; you were too effed up still with all your old relationship junk.
‘Ooh, that’s the good stuff.’ Ben let out an appreciative whistle and then dropped a wink at me. ‘There’s a man who likes to treat his lady companions well.’
I wanted to die. No. I wanted to take the bottle of whisky and run. Maybe go drink it by one of the bin bonfires, like a grizzled old vagrant in a film.
‘Thank you,’ Stephen managed to sound only slightly perplexed at Ben’s intrusion and then his charm was back on a full-frontal assault. ‘Would you care for a glass?’
‘That’d be fantastic, if you’re sure?’
‘Of course. See it as a thank you for saving the table for us.’
