Best Served Cold, page 25
‘What?’ I think I might have squealed this.
‘Everyone called her Jo, but her name was Joanna. That inscription in your book. The one you wrote for Rose. For Mama Anna and baby Lara? What if Anna is Jo? Listen, we need to contact Harry. Right now. We need to send him your photo of Jack to see if he recognises him.’
We send Harry the photo, and then we have to wait. Harry is seven hours ahead, or is it behind? If it’s three or so in the morning, it doesn’t matter. It might take him a while to see it. We’ve left a not so cryptic message: ‘URGENT! Do you know who this is?’
‘Fancy a snack? I’ve still got loads of food left over.’ I motion at the kitchen. I think it’s more that we need food to counter the wine. I know we both drink too much and should stop, but now is not that time.
‘Sure. Stress eating is always a winner.’ She holds out her glass for a top-up as she trails me into the kitchen. ‘What do we know for certain about either of them?’
‘That’s it, isn’t it? How do we know any of what they said is true?’ I pause and nearly pour all the wine over Alice. ‘Oh, for God’s sake! We’re such numpties! What was the first thing Rose said to us about her Harry?’
Alice stares at the ceiling for a moment. ‘That if he fell off a cliff, she’d clap.’
‘I remember she said ‘we’ because I wondered at the time who else she was talking about.’
‘Rose Briar? We fell for that one. Should have known. Are you okay?’ Alice rubs her hands over her face. ‘I know you’re not, obviously, but are you hanging on in there?’
‘I don’t know. I think I’m still in shock. One thing’s for sure – I am never, ever going to trust a man ever, ever again.’ I stuff a piece of Turkish Delight into my mouth but can’t swallow it and start to choke. I spit a chocolatey mouthful into the sink and begin to cry.
Alice hugs me again. ‘I’m so sorry, Lily. Did you love him?’
I sniff loudly. ‘Do you know what? I think I knew there was something off, except I didn’t want to explore it, as I believed it’d come back to me and my trust issues. I liked the Jack I’d met. He was funny and caring and sweet, but that’s not the man he is. That’s a lie, a projection. He was an actor. So no, I don’t love him. In fact, I’m afraid of him. And of her.’
‘Come to think of it, so am I. What are we doing here if we think they have access to your flat? Can we bolt your front door from the inside?’
We both rush to the front door and double lock it, leaving the key in the lock. Wedging a chair under the handle, we stare at it for a few minutes.
‘Should we call the police?’ I ask.
‘And say what, exactly? We have no proof.’ Alice rolls her eyes. ‘In reality, we have no idea what is going on. Can you imagine the call?’
‘Yeah, I suppose you’re right, though this is nerve wracking.’ I glance at my phone sitting on the table. ‘I hope Harry gets our message soon.’
And then the fall. I don’t want to go where my mind is leading. This memory has always been buried deep and for a very good reason.
Surprises, eh? Well, even though the surprise was meant for Harry, I was the one who got the biggest surprise. I’d not arranged anything, but I thought I’d pop into the Mexican restaurant where Harry worked. I was waiting for my next commission and had time to spare. A rarity by then, as I’d thrown myself into my work. I’d recognised I’d not been easy to live with. Six months after my mum passed away, I finally felt as if I could raise my head. I thought I owed it to Harry to now make an effort to live and be alive.
I was halfway through the main doors when I spotted him. He had his arms around one of the waitress’s waists, and there was body language that spoke of more than just friends. She had her back to me, and I could see piled deep burgundy hair and lots of silver bangles on her thin arms. A flash of memory seared into my mind: my twenty-first birthday. That so-called drunken misunderstanding. Could I be mistaken? I darted back outside, aware of heat spreading up my neck and cheeks. I had to slow my breathing. What should I do? Run in, shouting accusations and making a complete arse of myself if nothing was untoward between them? All trust would be totally broken. Wait until later and ask him outright if he was seeing someone else as well as me? How would I word that?
‘Hey, Harry? You shagging that waitress I saw you with then?’ Lead balloon sprang to mind.
I was startled by a customer pushing past me with an, ‘excuse me’. I followed him in, stepping out from behind him as I neared the bar. The waitress was nowhere to be seen. Harry looked momentarily shocked, and then he came round the bar to give me a kiss.
‘Wasn’t expecting to see you here, Lily.’
I stopped myself from retorting, ‘I bet!’ and simply said, ‘Surprise!’ I stared up at him. ‘I know your shift ends in a little bit, and I wondered if you’d like to go for supper with me?’ I wanted to saw the top of his head off and have a look inside for dirty little secrets. But then, whose fault was that? Mine?
‘Yeah, sure. I’ll be off in ten. Do you want a beer while you wait?’
I nodded. A beer was placed in front of me with a small bowl of nachos. I couldn’t believe how cool he was, how unutterably unshaken, so much so I believed I had imagined the whole thing. While gazing around the bar, I caught Harry frowning towards the door, and he had a weird look on his face. He made a slight motion with his head. It looked as though he said ‘no’ to someone. I turned quickly but not fast enough. A figure was already pushing out of the door. I saw the glint of silver. Had I misread that too? Now, all I wanted to do was run after whoever she was and demand an explanation, or more like, throttle the truth out of her.
Harry acted as if nothing was wrong as we walked, arm-in-arm. Skirting Covent Garden, we headed down Henrietta Street towards our favourite Italian restaurant, Ave Mario. It was packed with skinny young things with money to burn. Did I have money to burn? Harry didn’t, and if he did, it was the first I’d heard of it. I would be paying, of course. The place had a funky vibe and was kitted out like a peacock of colour and glitter, with splashes of blood red and dark stripes as you slid into your individual booth. There were so many glowing bottles of liquors on the shelves around the curved bar and arrayed down one wall, the colours practically hurt your eyes. The staff were accommodating and friendly. The year before, they had even let us bring our own birthday cake for Harry’s birthday and gave us free shots of tequila. They know how to lure a customer back.
The food was delicious, as it always was, but I could hardly taste it. Who was that girl? Why couldn’t I ask him? Was I so terrified I could break what we had with a question? That our relationship was so fragile? The answer was obviously, yes.
By the time we got back to the house, it was as it had always been. We laughed and talked and mucked about. That may have been due to the amount of wine and shots we’d had, though it didn’t matter. We made love for the first time in ages, and it felt so good. How could I ever have doubted him? How indeed?
It was inevitable, I suppose. There’s only so long before a secret is outed.
I’d arranged to go into the centre of town with Alice to visit Tate Modern. Sometimes you just need to get a bit of outside inspiration. Alice and I intended to spend the day roving around, submerged in art and culture, waffling utter pretentious shite at each other, and then go for a late lunch somewhere snazzy nearby. We weren’t expected back until the evening. Of course, Harry knew this. And made good use of this time. Oh yes!
It started off well. Blackfriars underground was busy, but we navigated through, walking the half a mile towards the iconic building. As we entered each section we were excited about the exhibits, and I wanted to go home and start painting something bold and intriguing no one would understand, that would make people think they understood. So, in a way, I was quite pleased when Alice turned to me and said, ‘I need to go home.’
‘Okay,’ I said jauntily, and then I saw her face, a pasty off green with a side helping of sweat. Oh dear, she didn’t look good. At all.
‘I feel quite ill.’ Alice paused in a doorway, clutching at the frame as people pushed past us, chattering or silent in awe. ‘Oh, bollocks! Lily? Which way are the loos?’
I got my bearings fast, and we practically ran to the women’s toilets. Alice charged in ahead and luckily managed to find an empty cubicle. As I entered, I could hear her loudly throwing up.
I tapped on the door. ‘Alice? Have you eaten something, or, God forbid, you’re not pregnant, are you?’
‘I had a take-away with my mate last night—’ There was another bout of ghastly noises. I could hear women tutting from other cubicles and while washing their hands behind me. In the mirrors, I could see a great deal of waggling eyebrows and snotty looks. Sod the lot of them!
Alice continued, ‘There was something that tasted wrong, really—’ I cringed at the sounds. ‘One bit tasted really sulphurous, but by then, I’d swallowed it.’
‘Food poisoning? Oh, Alice. Right, I’ll call a taxi, and we’ll get you home as fast as possible and hope you don’t hew all over the back seat.’
‘Okay. Just give me a moment. I don’t think there’s much left in my stomach, but we’d better be quick.’
I’ve never run out of a building the way we did that day. It’s a wonder no one called the police. We must have looked as if we’d robbed the place. A little something worth millions stuffed under our sweaters.
Alice held a bag under her chin throughout the whole taxi ride.
‘Oy,’ said the taxi driver, ‘she’s not gonna be sick, is she? ‘Cos, if she is, you’ll have to pay to have the cab cleaned.’
‘She’s all right,’ I lied. ‘Just a bit queasy. Morning sickness, you know. You wouldn’t refuse to take a pregnant woman home, now, would you?’
The look the taxi driver gave me in his mirror should have turned me to stone, but he was caught. You know, rock and hard place. Alice made it home and legged it to the front door while I paid. I was following her up the stairs when Harry emerged from his room.
‘What the…?’ He turned quickly, and half shut the door, so I couldn’t see in, although I’d seen enough. He was in his boxers, and there was a mound in the bed that was person-shaped… no… woman shaped. It was a drip-feed, drip, drip, drip. I was expected to be away from home for most of the day. Drip. Harry was home in the middle of the day wearing only his boxer shorts. Drip. There was a shape in his bed that shouldn’t in any scenario be there.
‘Harry?’ I felt my legs buckle, as I grabbed at the wall to keep me up. I remember shaking my head. This did not compute. At all. Oh, yes, it did, didn’t it? That girl in the bar? The one he had his arms around. As I pushed into his room, he tried to block me, and then I saw who was in his bed. Jo. Jo? His bat-shit crazy ex-girlfriend?
She rose out from under his duvet like the Queen of fucking Sheba! Naked breasts pert. Her beautiful face was no longer marred by anger and hate. Now she wore a beatific smile, a triumphant smile.
‘Hello, Lily,’ she grinned. ‘I said Harry was mine, didn’t I?’
‘Shut up, Jo,’ snarled Harry. ‘God! Lily, I never—’
I said it very quietly, ‘Fuck you, Harry.’ Then I turned and walked down the stairs, grabbed my bag, dropped only moments before yet seemingly a million years ago, and walked out of the front door.
‘Lily! Lily, wait…’
But I didn’t wait. What would I be waiting for? An excuse. It was all a misunderstanding like last time. I’d been mistaken. Been jealous. Been silly…
Christ-on-a-bike! He was shagging Jo? Mad as a hatter Jo? There was no world where this should be happening. All those things he’d told me about her, how scared he’d been of her, how unpredictable, how aggressive she was. And the fact she’d frightened me so badly. Me. His actual girlfriend. All of it meant nothing, then?
How long had this been going on? Did it start when my mum died? Did the bastard jump between the sheets with her because I was off selfishly grieving? No, it must have been after I’d lost the baby. Was my head going to explode?
I suppose it was automatic pilot, but I found myself in Clissold Park, weaving through the ancient gravestones towards the old church. This was a place that scared the Bejesus out of some of my friends, yet I’d always found it restful. Funny how the last time I’d felt terrible about Harry, I’d ended up here. The inscriptions on the headstones, weathered and sometimes indecipherable, were testament to the passing of time, which was what I needed right then. That time would pass, and it would be sometime in the future, and this pain I felt as a vice across my chest would be transmuted to a dull ache. Although I couldn’t face it, I had to. Harry, my beloved Harry, was not only shagging another girl, but that girl was Jo. The breath juddered out of me, and I think I howled. It was a sound to scare away any spirit who might still haunt this place. Wasn’t I just so dumb? So trusting. Well, that was going to change now.
With my back against the same tomb as the last time, I let my emotions wash over me. When I eventually focused on what was in front of me, I knew it was getting late. Dusk was fast approaching, and the light was trickling from the sky. A figure stumbled through the trees.
‘Fuck!’ said Alice, landing in a heap next to me. ‘I would have been here earlier, except I was too busy turning inside out.’ She grabbed me and pulled me into a tight hug that bordered on painful. ‘I’m so sorry, Lily. I have no idea what to say.’
‘You don’t have to say anything, Alice.’ I pulled apart from her grip. ‘You didn’t know about…’ I swallowed, except the spit stuck in my throat.
‘Of course not. I’d have told you…’ She was shaking.
‘But he’s also your cousin?’
‘Blood may be thicker than water or whatever that stupid quote is, but when your blood is a dumb-arse dickwad, then that’s a different matter.’
‘Thanks. I like the sound of dumb-arse dickwad. It has a ring to it.’
‘Sorry… I need to—’ Alice lunged sideways, and I heard her dry retch. ‘I caught a glimpse of her. Please tell me she wasn’t Psycho Jo?’
‘Yep. She who he’d never touch with a bargepole.’
‘What the actual fuck!’ She retched again.
‘You don’t need to be here, Alice. You need to be home in bed. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you coming to find me, considering how ill you are.’ The tears were streaming down my face, though I didn’t care.
‘No problem. I would say any time, except I never want to be here with you like this ever again.’ Her hand trembled as she wiped her mouth. ‘Maybe we should swear off men? How does that sound?’
‘Like a bloody good idea.’ I hugged my arms around myself. ‘I don’t want to go home. It’s just I don’t know where else to go. I can’t face him. I don’t want to see him.’ I started to sob. ‘And I really, really don’t want to see her. You should have seen her face. Gloating!’
‘She said she’d get her own back on us all. What a clusterfuck!’
‘I wish I still had my bedsit.’
‘Can you go home to your dad and Sophie?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. I don’t want to burden them.’
‘That’s kind of what they do?’ Alice’s smile was sad. ‘They are always there to pick us up. We’re their family, and they will be there for us no matter what happens. Think about it, eh?’
‘Yeah. At least I can go to my own room and shut the door in his face. Come on.’ I stood and hauled Alice to her feet. ‘Let’s get home.’ She did look spectacularly green, with purple bands around her eyes, and she was shivering. ‘Do I need to call a doctor?’
‘No. It’s only food poisoning. You don’t die of food poisoning.’ She looked at me. ‘Do you?’
‘No. Never,’ I lied.
Harry was gone by the time we got home.
Grovelling. Shouting. Pleading. Accusations. Anger.
‘I get it, Harry. It was my fault you accidentally fell and slipped your dick into the woman you professed to hate?’ I ground my teeth. ‘Well, sorry for that.’
‘I didn’t mean it like that.’ He deflated. ‘She tracked me down and got the job at the bar.’
‘I thought she was a teacher in Edinburgh?’
‘She was, but she told me she’d taken a few months off and gone travelling.’ His words were rushed, breathless. ‘She told me she’d gone to some sort of retreat, an Ashram or whatever in India, to sort out her head—’
‘Good for her, but what’s that got to do with this? With us?’
He was squirming. ‘She said she’d got over her childhood trauma—’
‘You mean you dumping her by text and within minutes, snogging her mate? That childhood trauma?’
‘All of it. All the shitty stuff she’d done. Her godawful family. She said she’d put it all behind her.’
‘So what, Harry?’
‘I tried my best to avoid her, and then you were kind of absent after… after…’ He swallowed loudly. ‘She kept telling me she’d changed and she said you weren’t acting as my girlfriend should—’
‘Sorry, my mum’s and the baby’s deaths got in the way—’
‘I couldn’t handle it, Lily. I couldn’t cope with losing the baby. You were in such a state, and I felt useless. It was as if you weren’t here anymore. I mean here with me.’
‘Do you not understand what grief means? It’s not something you click your fingers at, and it disappears. I needed you to be there for me. It’s what partners do for each other. I needed you to have a bit of patience. I needed you to look it up on the internet, so you had a clue what I might be going through!’
‘I know that now. I was hurting and confused—’
‘And I wasn’t? I know you thought I’d lost the baby on purpose. How do you think that made me feel? That you could even contemplate I could do something like that?’
‘I know that now.’
‘And how could you think the best way to deal with this was to shack up with a woman who’d made your life and the life of your family hell for years? A woman who’d tried to attack me twice? You thought that was a good idea, Harry?’
