Life and Soul of the Party (11 page)

‘But I’ve given you a card and a present to give to her – what more does she want?’

‘You, to come out tonight, instead of festering in that bedroom of yours like you have been all these weeks. I bet you’re even tucked up in bed right now watching one of those ridiculous celebrity talent shows that are always on.’

I picked up the remote and switched off the TV.

‘Look, none of this matters as I don’t actually want to come out. Why can’t you just let me be?’

‘Because I don’t understand why you’re still letting him rule your life like this. You aren’t coming tonight because you don’t fancy it, you’re not coming because you think that Paul’s going to be there. And it’s not like I blame you because it must be awkward. But things are always going to be like this when the two of you have so many friends in common. So what are you going to do to escape them? Move back to Swindon? Cath and Simon are your friends as well as Paul’s. He doesn’t own them so I don’t see why you’re handing them over to him on a plate.’ Vicky sighed as though coming to the end of her argument. ‘Come out, Mel. You know it’ll be a laugh. I’ll personally make sure that they play
Abba: Gold
from beginning to end so that we can dance all night if you’ll say you’ll come. Think about it. When was the last time we all went dancing?’

‘I’d love to, babe, I really would, but I just don’t feel up to it.’

‘But you’ve done nothing wrong, Mel,’ pleaded Vicky. ‘It should be Paul avoiding you, not the other way round. It was his mistake, not yours.’

‘But that’s not really fair, is it?’

‘I’m not trying to be fair. I’m trying to be a friend. And if Paul really was trying to be a friend to you he wouldn’t come tonight anyway.’

‘But that’s not what I want either. You, Laura, Cooper and Chris are his friends as well as mine and he’s not been in contact with any of you since it all happened. And I don’t want him to feel like he’s alone in all this. That’s not what I want at all.’

‘So what do you want?’

‘I don’t know,’ I sighed. ‘And that’s why I think it’s probably best if I don’t come tonight. If I see him I don’t know what I’ll do or say so I think it would be best for all of us if I stayed away.’

It was just before seven and Vicky and I were in our bathroom getting ready to go to the party. William was in bed, Vicky’s mum was downstairs watching TV and we were both standing at the sink brushing our teeth when out of the blue, her mouth full of toothpaste, Vicky said to me, ‘I love this, you know.’

I spat my toothpaste into the sink. ‘You love what exactly?’

Vicky spat her toothpaste into the sink, rinsed her mouth and then dried her face on the hand towel behind her.

‘You’ll think I’m stupid.’

‘Try me.’

Vicky grinned shyly. ‘We were just brushing our teeth in time with each other.’

‘Were we?’

‘It was just a nice moment, that’s all.’

‘You’re easily pleased tonight.’ I glanced in the mirror at the freshly shaven skin on my chin. I looked old. I barely recognised this haggard-looking version of myself. ‘What’s brought this on?’

‘Nothing really . . . It’s just . . . you know . . . having someone brushing their teeth in unison with you . . . it’s nice. And I’m just glad I’m me and that I’ve got you and William, that’s all.’ She paused again and looked up to see if I was following her argument. ‘Does that make any sense?’

Yeah,’ I replied. ‘It does.’

Vicky had been saying stuff like this about ‘being happy’ and ‘how lucky she was to have me and William’ in her life on a regular basis since the night when I’d lost the plot coming back from Charlotte and Cameron’s. I explained it away at the time by telling her I was really stressed at work, which wasn’t hard to be convincing about as I
was
really stressed at work. Looking back, I can sort of see that the real reason for my episode came down to a simple truth of life: you can only manage a certain amount of holding in of things before the pressure builds up, finds a weak spot to exploit and finally makes an exit.

Sitting in the darkness staring out of my bedroom window at the passing traffic, I thought about what Vicky had said about hiding myself away from my friends all this time. She was right. It was true. I was hiding. I wasn’t sure that I could face seeing him and Hannah. Not enough time had passed to ease the pain I felt. The memories of the night we split up were still my constant companions.

Returning alone to my flat that night I’d felt as though my whole world had ended. I just hadn’t known what to do with myself. I called Vicky and told her the vague details and in a matter of minutes she arrived in her car at mine insisting that I came back to hers so that she could look after me (even though, as I later learned, she’d had a few problems of her own to deal with that night.)

I came home the next day and set about writing the essay that I was supposed to hand in on the Monday but I didn’t get further than the title before I gave up, decided that a change was as good as a rest, packed a bag and caught the train to Swindon to see my mum and dad. I only stayed there a week. Just long enough to get myself together and try to put Paul out of my mind for good. It was wishful thinking of course. The second I arrived back at Piccadilly he was everywhere I looked, from places we’d been together that I passed in the taxi on the way home right through to the unread newspaper that lay on my bedside table, which he’d left the last time he had stayed over.

The thing that surprised me most was that he hadn’t tried to get in contact. From the moment that I’d left him standing alone in the middle of the street that night I’d expected a phone call or a text at least to try to bring me round but there was nothing. News about what he was up to was impossible to come by as even Chris, the closest thing he had to a best friend, hadn’t heard from him despite leaving dozens of messages on his voice-mail. None of us knew whether he and Hannah had got back together or whether they had split up for good. We were all completely in the dark. Then at the beginning of February, a few days before my thirty-fifth birthday, as I sat on a bench in Chorlton Park with Vicky and William attempting to enjoy the first signs of spring, I got a text message from Paul out of the blue. All it said was: ‘You deserve better.’

I didn’t text him back.

Thinking about that message now as I sat looking out on to the street, it occurred to me that he was absolutely right. I did deserve better. Much better. And that was the moment I decided that my first step towards my goal of getting ‘much better’ would be to stop hiding from both Paul and the world at large. Vicky had been right. It was Paul’s mistake, not mine. He should be avoiding me, not the other way round. I picked up my mobile and dialled Vicky’s number. She didn’t pick up so I left a message.

‘It’s me,’ I said. ‘Listen, I’m sorry about earlier. You were right. I do need to get out more. So if there’s still room in the car, there’s nothing I’d rather do than join you, Laura and anyone who is up for it in some of the cheesiest dancing the world has ever seen.’

As I put down the phone, I suddenly remembered that thanks to my focus on avoiding Paul, one particularly important fact about Cath and Simon’s party had slipped my mind: it was fancy dress. And now that I’d agreed to go I had exactly an hour and ten minutes to come up with something roughly approximating a costume that fitted the theme of the party: ‘Hollywood or Bust’.

Paul’s mobile was ringing.

‘Aren’t you going to answer it?’ I asked when after four rings he hadn’t moved off the bed.

‘No need,’ he replied. ‘It’ll only be Chris to see if we’re coming tonight.’

‘So why not put him out of his misery and tell him that we are?’

Paul shrugged, picked up his phone from the bedside table and switched it off. ‘Job done.’

‘He’s probably just worried about you, that’s all.’

‘Well, I’m fine, so there’s nothing to say to him, is there?’

I could tell that Paul wasn’t in the right frame of mind for this conversation, so I walked over to the long mirror on the wardrobe to examine my costume: a black dress and cape, red striped tights and a pair of flat red shoes. Paul had guessed ‘The Wicked Witch of the West’ the second I’d shown him what I was wearing but made no mention of the rather obvious joke that this was how his friends thought of me now that I had succeeded in taking him away from both them and Melissa.

Paul and I had been back together for a while now. He’d called me the evening after I’d told him I was pregnant and we’d talked on the phone for nearly three hours. He told me that he and Melissa had split up although he didn’t offer me any details and I hadn’t pressed him for any either. I said that it made no difference to me one way or another: I hadn’t contacted him with the idea of us getting back together, that I had contacted him because I thought he had a right to know.

Not once that night did he ask me if I was going to go through with the pregnancy. And not once did I seek to reassure him either way. The truth was I hadn’t known myself. I just wanted to do the right thing, whatever that might be, and to do it with as much dignity as possible given the circumstances.

I told Paul that I needed time alone and that I was going to stay with my parents in Malvern. I suggested that we meet up when I got back, by which time I hoped to have made my decision. Paul didn’t say much in reply. He told me that whatever my decision, he’d guarantee his support.

My parents were taken aback at having their eldest daughter back home again so soon after my recent Christmas visit and I could tell they sensed that something was wrong but they didn’t pry much beyond a small amount of cursory questioning.

It was good to be home. When I wasn’t helping Dad in the garden or being shown off to nearby relatives and friends by Mum, I wandered around the house in which I’d grown up, deliberately trying to evoke memories of my own childhood: the chipped figurine of a horse in the hallway damaged when my younger sister Jessica and I knocked it over during an impromptu wrestling match; the football stickers I’d stolen from my brother Tim and secretly placed on the rear of what used to be my bedside table; the sad-looking pink glazed piggy bank that I’d got for Christmas the year I turned eleven that I’d found abandoned in the garden shed.

By the time I was ready to leave I was in no doubt that I would continue with the pregnancy. I told my parents the real reason for the visit and although I could see that Mum was disappointed that I hadn’t done things ‘the right way round’, I felt that by the time I was due to get the train back home to Manchester they had come to terms with the idea that whether they liked it or not their little girl had finally grown up.

Paul came round the evening I arrived back in Manchester and we talked until the early hours. He admitted that he had made a lot of mistakes in his life and hurt a lot of people along the way. He said he wanted all that to end and that the baby would be an opportunity for a new beginning for the both of us. I told him that although I’d decided to keep the baby, we shouldn’t try to make any promises now but deal with each day as it arrived. Not once in all the time we spoke, did he mention Melissa. I guessed that he had his reasons and although I wanted us to talk it through I feared that somehow this would be a step too far. I could see that Paul genuinely wanted to make things right between us. Maybe we could be like we were before, I told myself. Maybe we could fall in love all over again. Either way I owed it to myself at least to give him the opportunity to try.

I turned to face Paul who was still lying on top of his bed: ‘Do you think I make a good witch?’

He got up from the bed and put his arms around me from behind so that we could see each other in the mirror.

‘I think you make the best witch.’

I studied our reflection. We looked happy. We fitted together like two parts of a jigsaw puzzle. Maybe things would be different this time.

‘Let’s not go tonight,’ I suggested. ‘Let’s just stay in. Just the two of us. What do you think?’

Paul tried hard not to show the obvious relief he felt.

‘That’s a great idea,’ he replied. ‘Let’s order in something to eat, watch a bit of telly and get an early night.’

It was just after eight as Laura and I pulled up outside Cath and Simon’s house in Altrincham having not said a single word to each other since Laura had raised the subject of us going travelling together. For most of the evening until we went out I sulked in the living room under the guise of listening to music. And the more I sulked, the more Laura stomped around the house as if she was in a bid to shake it down to its very foundations.

Laura turned to look at me.

‘Are we okay now or what?’

‘What do you think?’ I snapped.

‘I think you’re being a complete and utter idiot about this.’

‘Cheers, thanks for letting me know.’

Laura tutted under her breath. ‘I hate it when you’re like this.’

‘When I’m like what? You mean not giving in to your every whim?’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Nothing.’

‘No, go on. Cooper. If you’re going to have a go at me at least be man enough to say it to my face.’

I really didn’t want to go there. It was time to defuse things like I always did.

‘Look,’ I began, ‘I’m sorry, okay? I was just a bit annoyed, that’s all. I thought I was doing what’s best for us but you’ve obviously got other ideas.’

‘And that’s your idea of an apology?’

‘Well, it’s all you’re going to get.’

‘Fine.’ Laura climbed out of the car and slammed the door behind her. ‘Just so long as we both know where we stand.’

The second I saw Cooper and Laura through the window of Chris and Vicky’s car I could tell that they had had some kind of row. We all kissed our hellos and I watched as Vicky and then a few moments later Chris picked up on the tension between Cooper and Laura. In a bid to lighten the mood I suggested that we all try to identify each other’s costumes, so we started with Laura who was wearing a cropped checked shirt, tied up high over a red bikini top, home-made denim hotpants and a pair of seventies-looking wedge heels.