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Three Hours After I Didn’t
‘So where do you live in London?’ Audrey asked Fred, grasping for the safety of small talk. She had to say something, or people would notice and think it strange.
On the opposite side of the round table, Clara took her seat between Lawrence and Hillary. She had deposited the twins in a bedroom with her mother and was nipping out at tactical moments to check on them. As she arrived at the table, Audrey saw in her friend’s unblinking gaze the full horror of the seating arrangement sandwich she’d found herself in.
‘I live in Muswell Hill,’ Fred replied, his body tilted towards her. She remembered so much of what they had spoken about that day, but she knew so little about the basic details of his life. Audrey glanced up at him and saw the familiar faint scar by his eyebrow, the wild blond hair, the quizzical look in his green eyes. She breathed in the intoxicating smell of his skin. He really hadn’t changed at all.
‘Josh mentioned you restore old things?’ Audrey said.
‘Yes, I run a small museum in north London, the Museum of Obsolescence. I collect and restore all sorts of technology that’s now fallen out of use – floppy disk drives, typewriters, photo booths. I like to rescue things that might otherwise be destroyed, the casualties of progress. You should come and visit.’
‘It sounds intriguing.’ Audrey paused. ‘We actually hired a vintage booth for tonight.’
‘I love those old machines. They always make me think of you.’
‘Shhh,’ she hushed him. ‘Don’t.’
Audrey’s eyes darted around the faces at their table, as she checked that no one was listening. Hillary reached across Fred to top up her champagne glass. He seemed uncharacteristically relaxed about having been demoted from his place beside her. Vivien was sitting between Brian and Lawrence, which now did not feel like an accidental seating arrangement. On Josh’s right, Miranda leaned a cheek on her fist and gazed doe-eyed up at Paul, who was amusing her and Josh by doing a puppet show with the bread rolls. Was everyone at this table fawning over someone they didn’t come with?
‘So, Audrey, do you think the universe is trying to tell you not to marry Josh?’ Jay called across the table, giving Josh a wink to let him know he was joking.
‘Hello to you too, Jay,’ said Audrey, feeling herself blush. ‘And no, I think the universe has got better things to do. Like making sure your hair stays perfectly vertical at the front.’ They made playful faces at each other across the table.
‘Jayson, how’s your coffee business going?’ Vivien asked, and people went back to their individual conversations.
Fred turned to her and asked, ‘How are you feeling? Is your head okay?’
‘Fine,’ she said with a wry smile.
‘Do you believe in things happening for a reason?’ he asked quietly, and she didn’t reply. How was she supposed to get through this conversation? ‘Because I think I do. And last night I didn’t want to say anything, to make things harder for you, but now with the wedding not happening, I have to say, I feel like I was meant to come here, meant to find you. I don’t think you were supposed to get married today. You don’t have to go through with this just because you said “yes”.’
‘So, books?’ Audrey asked loudly. ‘Read anything good lately?’
‘Audrey...’
‘What are you two sounding so serious about?’ Josh asked, leaning into their conversation as he tore a bread roll in two.
‘Books,’ said Audrey.
‘Love. Life. Destiny. The eternal, unending and ultimately futile search for meaning in this fragile plane of existence,’ said Fred.
Josh laughed, reaching behind Audrey to pat Fred on the back. ‘I can see why Miranda thought you two would get on.’
Audrey wanted to shrink to the size of the bride figurine on top of the cake, wrap herself in a lilac napkin and hide inside it for the rest of the day. Preferably with a miniature bottle of champagne and a few giant crumbs of wedding cake to keep her going.
Josh turned to the waiter, who was offering him wine, and Audrey glanced back at Fred, who was observing her with soulful eyes.
‘I didn’t tell you the whole story last night, about that day I didn’t come.’
‘Okay, is this book fiction or non-fiction?’ Audrey asked, trying desperately to get him back on to the topic of books.
‘Non-fiction,’ he said, bowing his head slightly, taking her cue. ‘It’s the story of a guy who had this one amazing afternoon with an incredible girl. He should have said something at the time but he was seeing someone. Technically he was not free, and he didn’t want to see her again until he was. He was cycling to break up with his girlfriend the morning after they met, and that’s when he got knocked off his bike.’ He paused. ‘He should have tried harder to call straight away, but his girlfriend came to look after him at the hospital, and he couldn’t break up with her then, it felt too cruel.’
Audrey was listening, but also checking to see that Josh was not. Luckily, he was now engaged in conversation with Brian across the table.
‘He was seeing someone, and he didn’t think to mention it once that whole afternoon?’ she said, quietly.
‘I know it’s no excuse, but she was the Photo Booth Girl. She’d held a place in his imagination for so long, and he felt this immediate connection with her. He didn’t plan to deceive anyone.’
‘You said the number he had didn’t work. Did it smudge?’
Fred looked perplexed by the question. ‘No, he called and got through, but the person he spoke to said he had the wrong number, that no one by that name lived there. He tried it several times.’
‘The person he spoke to. Does he remember anything about them?’
Fred thought for a moment, trying to recall. ‘It was a man, with a South African accent. He remembers because it was a distinctive voice, and the man got angry the third time I tried the number.’
Fred had called. He had spoken to Benedict, probably on the day Benedict was packing his things to leave. Audrey’s skin prickled with cold at the thought. Of course he wouldn’t have taken a message. The cruelty of karma.
‘Well, I don’t feel like I need to read the book now you’ve told me the whole plot,’ Audrey said, feeling her throat tighten. If she had not said anything to her mother, if she had got Fred’s message, would she be sitting here now?
