Love Lies (33 page)

Oh I do, I do, I do.

No I don’t, I don’t, I don’t.

I know what I need. Or rather who I need. I need Ben. If I ask him to, Ben will confirm that I was right in thinking Adam and I were treading water. Ben’ll remind me that I was fed up with Adam. That I left him because right now – and I’m sure that it’s the cocktails and wedding nerves – but suddenly I’m baffled as to how I could ever have thought Adam unchallenging and lacklustre. I’ve even started to look back at his magpie clutter with affection.

As I pick my way through writhing bodies I hope to hell Ben doesn’t have one of his honesty bursts and insist on reminding me that, up until about a week before my thirtieth birthday, Adam and I were perfectly happy. It’s bad enough that I’ve remembered this myself.

65. Fern

The house is no longer cool and calming, the party has spilt into here too; it’s noisy and chaotic. In the hallway I bump into a woman throwing up in our umbrella stand. I console myself with the fact that I never liked it much anyway. I call for one of the maids and ask her to get the girl a cab and hurl the hurl bucket. I also track down one of Saadi’s assistants and instruct her to get my mum and dad back to their hotel as quickly as possible. I suggest she uses blindfolds to get them into the car. She laughs but I’m not joking. Then, I wade through the grunts and moans of copulating couples and snorting singles as I start my hunt for Ben.

I haven’t seen him all day. He told me that he was going for a wax this morning; he said it was essential prep for the wedding. I thought he meant he was going to wax his car but in fact it transpired he meant he was planning on waxing his back, sacks and crack. Not an image I care to dwell on, no matter how much I love him. I’m at a loss as to why that is essential prep for the wedding; I suppose he’s hoping to get lucky.

I check his room but he’s not in there. A couple I’ve never met are making out on the pile of shirts he’s left sprawled across his bed; he’s going to be furious. I check the den but he’s not there either. Another couple are shagging on the footie table, Scott is going to be furious, I hope it holds their weight. I move on. I open door after door and soon discover that while there were plenty of semi-naked writhing bodies around the pool, many more have actually got a room, as there are endless naked bodies indoors too. At first I’m flustered and embarrassed but after a while I become anaesthetized to hairy bums moving up and down or bare breasts jiggling from one side to the next. It’s actually quite boring.

After a fruitless thirty-minute search I decide to find Scott, or Mark, or Saadi, anyone who can bring this party-stroke-orgy to an end. I want to go to bed. It’s been a long day and the skin around my eyes feels as though it’s been stretched on a rack. I’m getting married tomorrow morning and I desperately need my beauty sleep. I check the kitchens, the drawing-room and reception rooms, then I check Scott’s bedroom. I can’t find any of them. Where the hell are they? Have they gone out partying without me? It’s possible and irritating. Weary, I decide I’ll have to forgo Ben’s pep talk and take myself off to bed.

I left him. It’s none of my business what Adam does or who he does it with. The fact that the first surge of unfettered affection I’ve felt, or given, all day was when I folded him into a congratulatory hug is neither here nor there. The fact that I was actually excited to hear that his band was number forty-eight in the singles chart and in contrast relieved to hear Scott’s album was number eight in the album chart, isn’t significant either. I just know the wedding would be maudlin if Scott hadn’t made it to the top ten. I’m excited for Scott, of course. It’s just a different sort of excitement. I shake my head but Adam won’t slip from it.

I take a deep breath and remind myself that I’m very tired. And a bit drunk. And very emotional. I’m getting married tomorrow. Every woman thinks about her ex the night before her wedding; it’s tradition, like wearing something old, new, borrowed and blue. It’s simply what happens. It doesn’t mean anything.

Exhausted, I open my bedroom door. Immediately I sense there’s someone else already in here. Great, just what I need, a fornicating couple on my bed. I’ll have to change the sheets. There is no way I’m going to sleep on sheets used by strangers on the eve of my wedding. It’s probably bad luck or something. At the very least it’s unhygienic.

Sure enough, through the flickering candlelight (randies with a romantic streak, they’ve taken the time to light every one of my thirty-odd Molton Brown candles) I see another naked white bum.

‘Ben?’ As Ben makes a grab for a sheet to protect his modesty (and mine for that matter), I see who is in the bed with him. ‘Scott!’

66. Fern

I’m actually sick. I make the woman I just caught puking into my umbrella stand look restrained – I haven’t even got the self-control to find a receptacle for my vomit. It splashes on the marble floor. And when I run, my designer-clad foot slips on my own up-chuck.

‘Fern! Wait!’ It’s Ben’s voice I hear call after me down the corridor and I hear Scott say, ‘I’ll get Mark.’

Bastard.

Bastards.

Both of them!

I hate them!

I run through the house and out of the front door. The gravel of the drive scrunches beneath my feet. It’s a sound I’ve always associated with wealth and luxury but I will for ever more associate it with betrayal and pain. I look around me. Drivers are helping drunken guests into their cars; the party is well and truly over. I don’t know what to do. I’m surrounded by dozens of faces but I don’t know anyone well enough to ask if I can go home with them or even ask if they’ll give me a lift, and besides, where can I go? I just found my fiancé in my bed with my best boy mate, on the eve of our wedding. The thought causes my insides to turn to liquid again. I need to sit down or I’ll fall down. I start to stagger towards the lawn when I hear Barry, the driver who has ferried me on countless shopping trips in the last few weeks, call out to me.

‘You all right, Miss?’ His respectful question is part and parcel of service in the USA. Even checkout servers are polite here but even though I know that, I’m overwhelmed by the generosity of his enquiry and the quiet sympathy that seems to lie behind it.

‘Not really,’ I mutter.

‘Little too much celebrating perhaps?’ he asks kindly, as he offers an arm to steady my progress while I lower myself on to a step. My legs are shaking. My whole body is shaking. My whole world is. I crave something sweet but then maybe not, I think I’m going to be sick again.

‘No, not celebrating,’ I assure him.

Barry must catch something in my voice that explains more than I’m capable of understanding.

‘I’ve just driven some of your English friends to the Standard. I understand they are getting some chips. That’s what you guys call French fries, right? I’d suggest, Miss, that chips are just what you need.’

I don’t chat to Barry as he efficiently speeds off to Sunset Boulevard. I’m incapable of making small talk – usually my default setting. How could Scott have done that to me? How could Ben? I don’t know who I’m most angry or shocked with. I don’t know if I’m more furious or hurt. Let’s face it – I don’t know anything at all. A whole bundle of hideously painful thoughts are assaulting my mind and heart. I honestly thought Scott was going to try to make it work between us. I thought he wanted to be faithful. Is he gay? Am I just a beard? And Ben? How could he do this to me? Helplessly I run through the scene I’ve just witnessed and wonder, is it possible I’ve misinterpreted events? Were they actually having sex? Maybe they were just hanging out together. Maybe they were waiting for me. They were, after all, in my bedroom.

Aaghhh. They were in my bedroom. With candles. There’s no mistake; I haven’t misinterpreted anything. Ben got a wax today. His best Paul Smith boxers were discarded on the floor – his lucky pants. Oh God, this is all too vile to think about.

Barry drops me off outside the Standard and says he’ll wait for me until I instruct him otherwise. At this time of night I expect the restaurant to be quiet. Usually by now most of the action has moved downstairs to the Purple Lounge, the hotel’s chic but mellow cocktail bar; it has space for dancing and space for hanging around being hip. The restaurant is more of a coffee shop by design, the service is quick and efficient and the cuisine is renowned as comfort food. It’s the perfect hide-out. I imagine wandering into the restaurant and scanning the booths for Jess and Adam. I need a friendly face more than I’ve ever needed one in my life. The place will be deserted and I’ll spot Adam instantly, even though his back will be to me. I’ll fall into the booth and plonk myself down opposite him; without ceremony I’ll say, ‘Ben is sleeping with Scott.’

As I push open the door I am hit not by intense and meaningful silence but by exuberance and cheer. Far from the semi-deserted scene I imagined, I’m faced with a party, which in terms of energy and liveliness could rival the one at Scott’s place earlier on today. The difference being I can’t see any semi-clad waiters or wanabees, nor can I see any lines of powder on the tables – although there are lines of dominoes snaked across them – they belong to my dad, he’s playing with Uncle Ted. My mum, Aunt Liz and my sister, Fi, are gossiping with Lisa. They are huddled into one of the booths, ferociously guarding a large bowl of steaming, fat chips. I watch as one or two of my cousins swing by and try to pinch a chip; they are swatted away like flies. Adam and Charlie are sat in a second booth; they are deep in conversation too. I think they are talking about the beer because they keep holding up their bottles and examining them as though they contain all the answers to the mysteries of the universe. I can’t see my brother Bill and his family, I think they palled up with Scott’s brother; Bill isn’t one to miss a networking opportunity. Rick and a handful of cousins fill a couple more booths. They are drinking Coke, which seems deliciously innocent after this afternoon’s antics, when the only coke being consumed was quite another sort and I’m not talking caffeine-free. I needed a friendly face and here they all are. All my friends and family, and yet suddenly I feel peeved and lost.

‘No one said there was a party going on,’ I say petulantly as I squeeze into the ladies’ booth. Lisa budges along to make room for me. I try to shake the nagging feeling I’ve been left out, that I’m missing out.

‘Oh Fern, lovely to see you, do you want a chip?’ asks Aunt Liz, proffering the previously greedily guarded bowl of temptation.

‘She’s not allowed,’ says Mum, whipping away the bowl with unusual dexterity. ‘I was talking to her personal trainer this morning. I don’t want to be blamed if she can’t get into her dress tomorrow.’

‘Unlikely,’ says my aunt, dropping her gaze to my now flat stomach. ‘There’s not a picking on her. If she eats a chip, we’ll probably see it.’

‘I think she’s too thin,’ calls my dad from the next booth; I hadn’t realized he was listening.

‘Well, I’m having chips,’ says Lisa, ‘I’m starving. As lovely as canapés undoubtedly are, they don’t do much of a job at lining your stomach or quelling alcohol-infused munchies.’

‘That’s the problem with posh food, it’s always tiny portions,’ adds my uncle. ‘I’m knocking, no sixes, no fives and no threes,’ he adds, returning to the game of dominoes.

‘Lovely party though, dear,’ says Mum, no doubt noticing my silence and assuming I’m offended by their analysis of my party food.

‘Wicked,’ yells Rick. My cousins all nod their agreement.

‘So much champagne and cocktails, it must have cost a fortune,’ says my sis.

‘Great band,’ says Charlie. ‘It’s been years since we danced like that, hey Lisa?’

‘You are so off the scale lucky,’ says Rick.

‘You are living the dream, no doubt about it,’ adds my sister.

‘Who could have imagined such a thing?’ asks Lisa.

‘Ben is sleeping with Scott.’ That’s me.

‘What?’

It’s gratifying that everyone else seems as shocked as I am (although no one else throws up). On the drive over here I’ve been haunted by the idea that everyone knew about this, everyone other than me, that is.

‘I’ve just found them together, now, after you all left,’ I explain.

‘Ben wouldn’t do that,’ says Lisa. Notably, she does not put up a similar defence for Scott.

‘I caught them in the act,’ I say. Then I start to cry. Well, cry suggests an element of restraint – I sob actually, and howl.

‘I’ll get you a drink,’ says Charlie.

I gratefully gulp down the whiskey. I enjoy the warmth swirling around my stomach; it offers me some sort of comfort. Not enough comfort. Not as much comfort as beating Scott and Ben with a spiky pair of Jimmy Choos until they beg for mercy – but some comfort.

‘How long do you think it’s been going on?’ asks Charlie.

‘Do you think it was the first time?’ asks Lisa.

‘Do you think Scott is gay or experimenting?’ asks Rick.

‘Is this a fling or the real thing?’ asks my sister.

‘I don’t know,’ I wail. These are exactly the questions that have spurted around my mind on the journey over here but I haven’t got any of the answers. Another whiskey appears from nowhere. I register murmurs assuring me that ‘It’s good for the shock.’ I down it. It has a calming effect or at least a numbing effect and that’s as good as, right now. I still can’t process what I saw half an hour ago. I can’t begin to tackle the enormity of the situation.

‘I’m supposed to be getting married in the morning!’ I wail, placing my head on the table. The cold surface soothes my hot head. Mum bustles around to my side of the booth and evicts Lisa. She grabs me and pulls me into a hug. I close my eyes tightly so I can’t glimpse her appalled and aggrieved face. It’s bad enough dealing with my own disappointment.

‘What am I going to do?’ The whiskey loosens my tongue and I start to blather, giving voice to thoughts I hadn’t allowed to blossom fully. All my secret, difficult thoughts, that I’ve been working so hard to keep entombed.

‘Sometimes when I’m with Scott, I think that we are made for one another. At least, I did in the beginning. I really did. It was so exciting, overwhelming. I thought it was it, you know, everything you ever read about or dreamed about.’

Everyone is gathered around me now; all my loved ones, they nod and murmur their understanding. Only Adam has stayed in his seat and is silent. While every other face is twisted with concern or blazing with a ghoulish astonishment, Adam doesn’t change his expression from neutral. I keep peeking at him but I have no idea what he is thinking. Most likely he’s using every iota of self-control to resist yelling, ‘I told you so!’ In my effort to be honest, I’m probably really hurting him. Hurting him again. Which is shaming. Now I have a hint of how Adam must have felt when I left him. I try to explain my actions to him, under the guise of telling the whole crowd. I stare at the sticky condiments on the table and mutter, ‘I wouldn’t have left like that, unless I believed Scott was everything, do you see? That’s why I cut all strings. I’m sorry I was so – insensitive.’

The word is inadequate. No doubt Adam thinks so too but he still doesn’t move or respond. Everyone else bursts into another round of sympathetic grunts and someone orders more whiskey, I think it’s my third. I dip a chip into a small pot of ketchup. It splits and the fluffy white innards are exposed. I gobble it down in one bite. It tastes fantastic. I carry on talking.

‘But that feeling that we’re made for each other, that somehow we were destined for one another, I haven’t been getting it too much recently,’ I confess. How long have I known this? Why haven’t I said something earlier? At least to myself? ‘Truthfully, I don’t think I’ve had that feeling since we came to LA,’ I admit. ‘And we are never alone. It’s hard to stay connected when you have to shout above thousands of people just to ask him to pass the salt. And I don’t think I care enough about his records and his ambitions. And I don’t think he cares about anything else.’ And I do care about Adam’s band. I also care about where Adam is sleeping and who he’s sleeping with. Sensibly, even in my distraught state I’m aware I can’t confess this. I am however prompted to ask, ‘Where’s Jess?’

When I first came in I assumed that Jess was in the loo but she can’t possibly still be in there.

‘She’s downstairs, in the Purple Lounge,’ says Adam. It’s great that he’s finally entered into the conversation, although he still doesn’t budge from his seat.

‘Alone?’

‘No, this guy asked her to join his friends. He seemed really cool.’

‘You don’t mind?’

‘Mind? Why should I?’

‘Because. Well –’ I don’t know how to finish the sentence. Adam understands perfectly, without my having to do so.

‘I thought I told you Jess and I are just friends,’ he says with a shrug.

Oh thank God! Thank God! No, no, he hadn’t told me. Not as such. Not clearly. I wasn’t sure. Suddenly (and no doubt improperly) I’m filled with a dreamy sense of delight and relief. It swooshes around my body, causing my knees to shake.

Charlie claps his hands together and looks delighted. ‘Jess hoped you might think that there was something going on between her and Adam. Didn’t she, Lisa?’ Charlie has never been known for his subtlety and he’s had far too much booze today to compute whether his revelation is going to embarrass anyone. He lunges on. ‘Jess has this crazy idea that you and Adam shouldn’t have split up and she thought that if she could make you jealous you’d come to your senses. She bet Adam a tenner you’d beg him to come back to you; she was that certain.’ Charlie is suddenly struck by another thought. ‘Not that her view seems so crazy now. I mean, I was all in favour of you running off with a multi-millionaire, we all were.’ If that’s the case, my friends and family now look extremely unsure. They are clearly mortified at being made accountable for their opinions in front of Adam. ‘But since he’s playing for the other team, it doesn’t look like such a smart move, does it?’ finishes Charlie. The silence is deafening. Adam rescues us all from the awful embarrassment.

‘Jess has been a really good friend to me when, you know, I needed a friend,’ he says. The delight and relief are rapidly replaced with something more like shame and regret. I feel like the cow I undoubtedly am.

Rick asks, ‘Should I go and get Jess? She’ll be pleased to know that you were taken in by her little ploy. Even though it didn’t pan out exactly as she hoped. Part A worked at least. You did think she had the hots for Adam, even though you never begged him to come back to you.’

Why wouldn’t she have the hots for him? I ask myself this as I sit staring at Adam. Why wouldn’t Jess or any other woman, come to that, have the hots for Adam? My fingers are itching to scuttle through his long, scruffy hair. His heavy eyebrows are knit in concentration and his dark brown eyes ooze concern. His cheekbones are sharper than I remembered, his shoulders are broader.