Between the events on the sofa, the row, and a variety of drunken dickheads
jumping in front of my taxi at every given opportunity, it took me the best
part of an hour to get to the hospital after Emelie called. And by the time I’d
convinced the receptionist to tell me where they had stashed Matthew (I
wasn’t family and, she’d met him, he blatantly didn’t have a girlfriend) he
was already in a bed, wearing an attractive green smock and with a face like
swollen thunder.
‘Hi,’ I said cautiously, holding out the epi-pen. It was not going to be
sufficient defence if he decided to beat the crap out of me. ‘How are you
feeling?’
‘Ike I migh’ die,’ he lisped. His light blue eyes were red and puffy and
his tongue was huge. If I hadn’t been directly responsible, it would have
been quite funny.
‘He’s exaggerating,’ Em said. She sat on the other side of him, her legs
stretched out along the bed. ‘The doctor said it was a minor reaction, like
the factory that made the biscuits processed nuts rather than that the cake
had nuts in it. He’s not going to die. He didn’t even have to stay in
overnight, but he reckons A&E gets a lot of hotties at this time of night.’
‘Gay danthing injurieth,’ Matthew confirmed. His face was already
starting to calm down. Disappointing, since I hadn’t even taken a photo yet.
I settled into the hard plastic chair beside the bed and tipped my head
back, eyes closed. ‘Thank god. Honestly, I spent the entire taxi ride
convincing myself you were going to die. All the way here, all I could think
about was how I was going to explain to your mum that you died because I
can’t cook.’
‘Are you all right?’ Emelie asked, dropping her head on Matthew’s
shoulder, only to have it unceremoniously shoved away when a beautiful
boy in skinny yellow jeans and a neon pink T-shirt was wheeled onto the
ward, one leg propped up, the other clad in a matching pink Converse. ‘I
was worried you might have gone to find another supermodel to punch.’
‘That was you,’ I reminded her. ‘No, tonight I settled for nearly giving
Dan a quickie on the settee.’
Silence.
‘Thpill,’ Matthew demanded.
‘He came back to get …’ Bag? Keys? Couldn’t quite remember. ‘…
something and he sort of kissed me and then you called so I said I had to
leave and he kicked off.’
‘Because you had to come and visit your friend in the hospital?’ I
couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen Emelie so excited. ‘What a knob.
But more importantly, how was it?’
‘Weird, he was totally pissed off.’ I frowned. ‘Like, mad that I wasn’t
totally in love with him or something.’
‘Not the argument,’ she whined impatiently. ‘The kissing? Was it just
kissing? Do you love him?’
Matthew stopped checking out the neon fittie across the ward just long
enough to raise his eyebrows at me. At least, I was fairly certain he was
raising his eyebrows: it was hard to tell.
‘Of course not. It’s Dan. Remember, very tight jeans? Shags models? Is a
dick?’
‘Dumps supermodels for you? Turns up on your doorstep out of the blue?
Snogs your face off?’
‘Oh shut up,’ I said. ‘It’s still Dan. He’s hardly the father of my children,
is he? He’s the bloke you call after you’ve been to the doctor to ask if he’s
the reason you’re itching.’
‘Thath dithguthin,’ Matthew lisped. ‘Buh tru.’
‘I can’t believe I let it go as far as I did.’ I tried not to think about just
how far. Or how good. ‘I can’t believe I did it.’
‘Were you wearing the underwear?’ Em asked. ‘You were, weren’t you?’
‘Yes.’ I peered down the front of Dan’s sweater. Thankfully I was still
wearing it now. Just. ‘How did you know?’
‘That explains it.’ She held her hands out, as though whatever she was
getting at was obvious. ‘It’s the underwear’s fault. Men think with their
dicks because they’re outside their body, leading them around all day long.
They can’t not think about them.’
‘S’troo,’ Matthew nodded fervently. ‘S’juss there.’
‘We don’t because we’re all neatly tucked away. It means we can get on
with things without constantly thinking about sticking our genitals into
something. But once you’re wearing expensive, sexy lingerie? Game over.’
I liked this theory. It absolved me of all responsibility and explained why
I couldn’t shake the memory of Dan’s warm, strong hands around my waist.
We were past stomach flips. We were onto double somersaults from the top
diving board, right off into a swimming pool full of you-bloody-idiot.
‘That said, is he unbearably beautiful with his clothes off?’ Em, as usual,
completely ignored my request. ‘Are his arms like little tiny barrels?’
‘He’s not Popeye,’ I sighed. ‘But yes, basically yes. I don’t know, I just
cocked up. He kept going on about how he didn’t think I was “that kind of
girl”, and I was like, but you’re that kind of boy! And then he got all
defensive and angry and now I’m probably not going to Sydney.’
‘I’m not entirely sure where Australia came into this.’ Em tied her
massive hair up in a high ponytail. ‘And I know this is all new to you, but,
honestly, when you’re going to use someone for sex, you don’t actually tell
them you’re going to use them for sex.’
‘I wasn’t going to use him for sex,’ I replied, wildly offended.
‘He’ll get over it,’ she tried to reassure me. ‘I bet he’s already called
you.’
Ever the conscientious hospital visitor, I peeked at the iPhone I blatantly
hadn’t turned off when the nurse on reception had loudly reminded me I
had to. No missed calls, but there was a Facebook message.
‘No calls, new message from Ethan though.’
Lovely, uncomplicated, thousands-of-miles-away Ethan. Ahh, he said
he’d be having a much better weekend if I was there. As long as he didn’t
have a nut allergy, maybe.
‘Rach.’ Em gave me her best serious look. ‘This Dan thing. Are you sure
there’s nothing to it? You’ve been friends for years, after all, and he does
seem to be making an awful lot of effort just to get into your pants.’
I considered her point for a moment. We were friends, to a degree, and it
was true, things had been different since I’d told him about Simon and me.
And it wasn’t as though I didn’t think he was hot: getting up off that sofa
had been one of the hardest things I’d ever had to do in my life. But he
could be as funny and sweet and attentive as he liked – he was still Dan.
‘You thud go and get thum theep,’ Matthew lisped while I read. ‘You
muth be knackered.’
Realizing his attention was elsewhere, namely on the hot boy in the
opposite bed, I accepted he wasn’t just being kind and grabbed Emelie’s
hand. Time to leave.
‘Home, James. Let’s leave the invalid to it.’ I gave Matthew a gentle hug
goodbye. ‘Talk tomorrow.’
Em patted him on the head. ‘If you can talk tomorrow.’ She turned to me
with a wicked grin. ‘Seriously, tell me everything.’
After giving Em, half the lower deck of the number 205 and anyone we
happened to pass on Amwell Road a PG version of my assignation with
Dan, I was incredibly happy to collapse on my sofa alone. Em had gone
straight to the bathroom to brush her teeth for bed, the excitement of my
evening altogether too much for her. Lying on the sofa alone, still wearing
Dan’s jumper, wasn’t nearly as exciting as lying on the sofa wearing Dan.
More so than lying there with Simon, but Simon wasn’t exciting, he was
Simon. He was sweet and clever and wonderful and funny and he’d dumped
me on my arse because I ‘wasn’t the one’. A statement roughly translated
from boy into English to mean ‘I want to sleep around for a bit’ or, at least,
‘I want to sleep with someone else and I’m using this ridiculous
terminology to absolve myself of blame. It’s not my fault, it’s yours for not
being the one.’
I had been a brilliant girlfriend. I reminded him of his mother’s birthday
every year. I always made the bed. I shaved my legs every day. I dressed up
in nothing but stockings and a Liverpool shirt on his birthday, even though
my Man United-supporting dad would have spun in his grave if a) he’d
found out and b) he had been dead. What was his problem?
And what was Dan’s problem? He’d made all the moves. Surely he
should be happy that I hadn’t kicked him in the nuts and thrown him out the
door. And even Ethan, what was he playing at? All these flirty emails that
had no real intentions. Maybe I should invest my energies into something
more potentially productive, like inventing a time machine to go back to the
nineteenth century where I’d be married with four kids by now. Four kids
and cholera, maybe – but still. Eurgh. Boys.
‘Rach?’ Em poked me in the shoulder. ‘You’ve gone all quiet on me.
You’re not going to get hammered and start singing “All By Myself”, are
you?’
‘I’m not drunk and I don’t sing,’ I replied. ‘I’m just trying to work out
how all of this happened.’
‘Well, if you come up with an answer, remember to show the working
out.’
‘I think it’s more of an essay question.’ Ooh. I had an idea. ‘I’ll see you
in the morning.’
‘Night, beauty.’ She kissed me on the top of the head and vanished into
her room. She was ridiculously good to me. There was a perfectly
wonderful one-bedroom flat in West Hampstead with a giant king-sized bed
that had sat empty for a week now because she’d been sleeping on Ikea’s
second cheapest sofa bed just to make sure I didn’t top myself. Now that
was love.
Despite the fact that we were closing in on three a.m., I was wide awake.
I pulled my writing set from the drawer underneath the coffee table. When
my mum had bought me this two years ago, I’d responded by teaching her
how to use Facebook. I don’t know which of us was the stupid one. I hadn’t
written a letter since my Year Nine French pen pal decided to post me
pictures of his penis, but she couldn’t leave Facebook alone. And you can’t
defriend your mother. They get very, very upset about it. But this was a
genuine pen on paper situation, the full Basildon Bond.
Dear Simon.
I shuffled into a sitting position and held my favourite turquoise pen over
the paper. How to begin?
There are a couple of things I wanted to let you know that I really
couldn’t put into words the last time we spoke. Happily, I’ve had
all of an hour to think about it now so it won’t come out an
incoherent mess and you will get the considered, eloquent
response your recent actions deserve. You are a coward. A weak,
sad little coward who doesn’t deserve to be happy. You don’t even
deserve to be unhappy. You deserve to be miserable and alone and
one of those sad little men who die in a house full of shit because
no one cared enough to come around and check you were putting
the rubbish out, and then, when they break in because they can
smell your body from the street, they find bin bags full of
takeaways dating back to 1997. And loads of cats. You deserve to
die surrounded by angry cats.
I paused for a moment to breathe. This was coming out far too easily.
Writing angry letters was fun. Especially when you’d had a couple of drinks
earlier in the evening but definitely were not drunk. Definitely. I put the pen
back to the paper.
I’m not angry because you broke up with me; I’m angry because
of the way you did it. You said it was just a break, that we weren’t
breaking up. You said that. Generally, when someone tells
someone something, especially someone they love, who they live
with, who they own a house with, it’s what they mean. Of course,
this might not make sense to you because you have a penis and I
realize that confuses you. Especially where right and wrong and
telling the truth and telling lies is concerned. I should have made
it easier for you. But you, you horrible little cockweasel, were just
too spineless to tell me that you wanted to break up with me so
you just twatted around in that spare room, waiting for me to get
bored and break up with you.
Break for a quick fact check. Yep, all OK so far.
That’s pathetic. You’re pathetic. I’m angry because you’re
pathetic. I really thought that we had a future together. I thought
you wanted to have kids and be a family but, no, you want to shag
your way around London. I hope it really works out well for you
and I hope you don’t catch something horrible that makes your
knob rot off. It’s not OK to treat someone you say you love the
way you did. It’s not OK to say one thing and then change your
mind two seconds later. It’s not OK to expect someone to be a
mind-reader. It’s not OK to say come to Sydney or Toronto and
expect them to know what you mean.
I reread the last sentence. There was a slight chance I’d gone off topic, but I
didn’t have any Tipp-Ex so it was staying in. Did people still use Tipp-Ex?
Had the Conservatives looked into this? Was there a think tank on how we
could get people from Tipp-Ex factories back to work? Anyway …
Anyway, all I wanted was for us to be happy. I’m sorry that
wasn’t enough for you. I’m sorry you’re weak and emotionally
retarded and that you basically just made the biggest mistake of
your life but, let’s be honest, you probably did me a favour. I’m
pretty great. And pretty great is too good for you. Just so you
know, next time I see you in the street, I’ll be crossing the road
and not waving. We’re not friends. You’re a cockweasel. Would
you want to be friends with a cockweasel? No, didn’t think so.
Have a nice life,
Rachel
It was even better than my A level General Studies essay and that was
amazing. I folded the letter up neatly and slipped it into a corresponding
envelope, writing Simon’s name on the front and adding a flourish before
setting it on the coffee table. Before putting the pen away, I took the napkin
out of my handbag and crossed off ‘write a letter’. All that was left on the
list was to bungee jump, travel to a new country and find a date for my
dad’s wedding. It was like getting down to the toffee pennies and coffee
creams in a tin of Quality Street.
Definitely time for bed.
When my phone buzzed into life the next morning, I was still unconscious
and tangled in dreams involving chasing weasels through the woods near
my mother’s house while Dan followed, half-naked, waving a Canadian
flag. Understandably, it took me a couple of seconds to work out what was
going on when I opened my eyes.
I rolled across the bed to grab the phone off the floor and scream at
whoever had disturbed my much-needed beauty sleep. Except it was
Matthew.
‘You’re not dead then.’
‘I’m not but I nearly was.’ He sounded far too perky for, good god, seven
a.m. on a Sunday. I’d had less than four hours’ sleep. I wondered what
exactly they’d given him at the hospital. And whether or not he had any
left. ‘And my near-death experience got me thinking. This to-do list thing is
fine, but we need to step it up, Rach. I mean, any one of us could die any
day.’
‘Matthew, you’ve been allergic to nuts all your life,’ I yawned. ‘You’ve
been hospitalized five times, one of those times because you ate a Walnut
Whip on a dare. Besides, we’re very much down to the step-it-up section of
the existing list as it is. What do you want?’
‘Nothing,’ he lied. Matthew’s normally laconic tones always got squeaky
when he wasn’t telling the truth. It was a symptom of the gay gene; he just
wasn’t as smooth a liar as straight boys. ‘I just think we need to take more
chances in life.’
‘Can we take chances after I’ve had another three hours’ sleep?’ I gave
myself a desultory sniff. ‘And a shower?’
‘You need to shower and you need to pack.’ He sounded worryingly
excited. East 17 reunion tour excited. ‘I’ll be round for you in an hour.
We’re going away.’
‘What are you talking about?’ It really was far too early for his madness.
‘Away where? I’ve got to talk to my agent about getting back to work. I’ve
had a week off already.’
‘One more week won’t hurt,’ he said. ‘You haven’t had a holiday in ages
and I’ve already put the tickets on hold. I can’t save them for more than an
hour. Tell Emelie to get herself sorted as well. I assumed you’d make me
invite her. You need your passports.’
‘Matthew, I need to hang around here in case Veronica manages to get me
on that Sydney job, you know that,’ I whined. Sydney. Sun. Sand. Half a
planet away from Simon.
‘Yeah, because Dan is absolutely going to take you to Australia on a job
now, isn’t he?’
Ohhhh. Good point, well made.
‘Passports. One hour. I’m on my way.’
It took every ounce of strength not to remind Matthew that my estranged
dad, whom I hadn’t laid eyes on since I was two years old, hadn’t died
twelve months previously, leaving me with a gaping father-figure complex
and buckets and buckets full of cash. I had to work for a living and to pay
off my ever-increasing credit-card bill. But in the moment it took to decide
that, no, he needed to be told, Matthew hung up. And that was that.
I flopped back down against my pillows, taking a moment to enjoy the
massive empty bed before committing myself to standing up. Wherever we
were going, there’d better be lots of opportunity to lie down.
Em was already in the living room, eating a slice of pizza that had clearly
been left out all night after the party. She was disgusting sometimes. She
was also reading my letter to Simon.
‘Matthew just called telling me to get my arse into gear and not to forget
my passport,’ she shouted at me as I shuffled through to the kitchen for
coffee. ‘Did they give him the wrong drugs at the hospital? Has he got brain
damage? Have you given Matthew brain damage?’
I turned around to see her holding up her hand for a high-five. I shook
my head and she put it down again, disappointed.
‘Apparently he’s got some flight on reserve and he’s coming to get us in
an hour,’ I explained. ‘That’s all I know.’
‘It’s not that I don’t love being friends with an ex-trolley dolly,’ she
began. ‘It’s just that he never calls and says, I’m taking you to Honolulu,
does he? If it’s Düsseldorf again, I’m not going.’
‘Düsseldorf was OK,’ I reminisced privately over a particularly good
schnitzel. ‘I mean, as a place, it was lovely.’
‘Düsseldorf was OK?’ Emelie raised an eyebrow. ‘Whatever.’
‘I’m not really in a rush to go anywhere.’ I leaned against the fridge with
my coffee. ‘Especially not in the next hour. Can’t we just watch Hollyoaks
and then get twatted over Sunday lunch like normal people?’
‘Amen, sister,’ Emelie nodded. ‘You can tell him that when he gets here.
After you’ve finished apologizing for poisoning him.’
‘Hmm,’ I sipped the lukewarm cup of Nescafé. ‘Maybe I’ll go and pack
…’
When Matthew’s keys rattled the lock, I was sitting on the sofa, looking at
my mini-suitcase and glugging down a second mug of coffee. It was still
only eight a.m. and I wanted to be awake when Matthew announced we
were going to the arse end of Norway for a week. Em was in the other
room, screaming at a pair of ‘piece of shit Jimmy Choos’ that refused to fit
in her bag. I could have offered to put them in mine, but listening to her
yelling at inanimate objects while Simon Rimmer and two of McFly failed
to make a risotto on the telly was far more entertaining. It was terrifying
how much stuff she’d carted over here in the space of the last week. She
had more clothes here than I now owned. Which had made packing
something of a piece of piss for me.
‘Who’s ready for an adventure?’ Matthew threw himself on the sofa and
looked at me with wild eyes.
I pressed my lips together and gave him a narrow-eyed look. ‘You made
me spill my coffee.’
‘You poisoned me,’ he replied with an equally catty look. ‘Even?’
‘Maybe,’ I relented. ‘So where are we going?’
‘OK.’ He rubbed his palms on his jeans. ‘So, the whole nearly dying
because you don’t know how to make a cheesecake thing sort of got me
thinking. I know we’re trying to train you up to be a good single girl, but I
think it’s also important that we start taking chances. So we’re going to
Canada.’
‘We’re not going to Canada,’ I responded immediately. Almost as
quickly, Emelie’s head appeared around the door.
‘Canada? No way.’ She shook her head. ‘There’s no way we’re going to
Canada. I have a busy week.’
‘You, why not?’ he said to me. ‘And you, you haven’t had a very busy
week since 2003.’
‘I work very hard,’ she said. ‘Just because I work from home, doesn’t
mean I don’t work. I have to approve all the new Kitty Kitty products; I’m
developing new style-guide art; I‘m working on—’
‘Wah wah wah,’ Matthew made a very unflattering quacking gesture with
his hand. ‘Whatevs.’
‘Children, inside voices please. Matthew, we can’t go to Canada. Ethan
will think I’m a mental if I just turn up on his doorstep.’
‘We’re not just turning up on his doorstep,’ he sighed. ‘You’re going to
Vancouver for work, so you’re just stopping over in Toronto. See? I’ve
thought of everything.’
I looked at Matthew’s excited face. And then at Emelie’s angry face. I
wondered what face I was pulling. Who actually packed a bag and left the
country? OK, so I didn’t have anywhere I needed to be for the next few
days. And no, it wasn’t like anyone was counting on me doing anything.
And Matthew would have paid next to nothing for the tickets. No one could
deny that putting some distance between myself and the flat could only be a
good idea, and god knows Sydney was definitely off the books. A week
away and then back for Dad’s wedding, ready to start work again. Matthew
had definitely had worse ideas. Like Düsseldorf.
‘It’ll be a good break, get you away from all of this,’ Matthew promised.
‘It’ll be fun.’
‘It would be nice to get away,’ I admitted. Redhead Rachel was already
dragging her case down the street and hailing a cab. ‘And it is on the list.’
‘Seriously?’ Matthew looked as though he didn’t quite believe me.
‘We’re going? I’m not going to have to give you the rest of my very
convincing argument?’
I pointed at my suitcase and waved my suitcase at him. ‘Before I change
my mind.’
‘You’re not really going?’ Em pointed at me with a stiletto. ‘We’re not
really going to go?’
‘Right, either you admit that you’re wanted for murder over there or you
shut your face and get in the taxi that will be here in three minutes,’
Matthew snapped. ‘I’m not dragging you off to Guantanamo Bay, I’m
taking you on a first-class flight to a beautiful city to stay in a nice hotel for
a couple of days with your best friends. Or supposed best friends. Can you
please get over yourself for one minute and say thank you?’
Em pressed her lips into a tight line. I didn’t know what she was going to
say but I knew it wasn’t going to be good.
‘Rachel shagging some random from when she was sixteen isn’t going to
make Stephen come running back to you, you know.’
Oh, wow. The big guns.
Matthew didn’t have an answer for that. But his breathing became
audible and his grip on my Snoopy mug became dangerously tight. When
the doorbell rang, it seemed like the loudest sound I had ever heard.
Silently, Matthew stood up, pushed Emelie out of the way and headed to the
door.
‘I literally have no idea why you said that,’ I whispered. ‘Why, why
would you use the “S” word?’
Em’s face was completely white. ‘You need to talk to him about that.’
She shook her head. ‘I know he hasn’t told you.’
‘Hasn’t told me what?’ There was something I didn’t know? What? I was
missing something and I didn’t like it.
I heard the front door slam shut as quickly as it had opened and Matthew
marched into the living room, grabbed a pile of letters from the coffee table
and marched back out again. He was recycling my junk mail before we
went on holiday? And there was me thinking how mad my mum would be
if she knew I hadn’t bleached the toilet.
‘Matthew?’ I gave Em a quizzical look but she just shrugged, Jimmy
Choo still in hand. ‘Can you see him?’
‘I think he’s gone outside,’ she said, peering down the hallway. ‘He’s not
on the stairs.’
‘If he’s gone to set himself on fire or something, I’ll be well annoyed,’ I
muttered from the sofa. ‘Now, seriously, what’s going on with you two?
What don’t I know?’
But Matthew wasn’t giving her an opportunity to answer. He opened the
door, slammed it shut behind him and marched back up the hallway.
‘Emelie, stop bloody whining, put your shoe in your handbag and get
downstairs,’ he ordered. ‘Rachel, that was Simon.’
‘At eight in the morning?’ Em looked confused. ‘On a Sunday? Is he ill?’
‘He always gets up early on a weekend,’ I said blankly. ‘He’s got football
practice.’
‘He came for his post,’ Matthew clarified. ‘He has now got his post and
will not be bothering you again. He will also not be talking to estate agents
about selling your flat until you tell him he can. Now, the taxi’s here, shall
we leave?’
I stared, speechless. Matthew Chase. Man of action.
‘Better get a move on then.’ Em slipped her shoe into her handbag and
pulled up the handle to her suitcase. ‘Canada it is.’
There really was only one thing for it. I left regular Rachel with her exboyfriend,
her blonde hair and her Sky Plus box full of Glee repeats sitting
on the sofa watching Something for the Weekend and let Redhead Rachel
drag my suitcase down the hallway and out to the black people-carrier on
the street.
Canada, it was.
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