Love Lies (4 page)

5. Fern

‘Darling, you are a wonder,’ gushes Ben. ‘I am so pleased with the gigantic order that Bridezilla placed that I’m giving you the rest of the afternoon off. I’m a marvellous boss, I know. Don’t thank me,’ he waves his arms theatrically. ‘I’m embarrassed by my own generosity,’ he adds with a wink.

I love Ben, he’s such a laugh to be around and I know his offer is kind but I’m reluctant to accept it. I’m going out with Jess and Lisa tonight and if I’m not working I am unsure how to kill the time in between. Time alone and without tasks means I might have to think about the sorry state of affairs my life has become. Not a favourite option right now.

I definitely don’t want to go back to the flat; the air there is stale with disenchantment and anxiety, and I’m too broke to waste time in shops. No matter how much I kid myself to the contrary, I know that window-shopping will lead to an impulse purchase today. No woman can resist the lure of a cheer-up top/pair of shoes/new bag (‘it’s a classic/basic/essential, will come in handy/be perfect for that special occasion/is in the sale and therefore a bargain’). The reality is, of course, it’s an impulse purchase, bought in order to bring cheer, that just makes things worse. Then you’re down and broke, with a constant reminder of your own financial and emotional frailty.

At the risk of Ben thinking I’m insane, I tell him I’d rather stay at the shop until it’s time to meet my friends. I get through the rest of the afternoon by comforting myself with the fact that I’ll soon be getting out of my head with Jess and Lisa. The bonus being that while doing so, they might offer me some sound advice – or at the very least a shoulder to cry on.

I love Jess and Lisa. I really do. I met them at tech college; our eyes met across a crowded registration hall. That was fourteen years ago. We hit it off immediately and have been proper mates to one another ever since. In Jess I saw a soulmate, a partner in crime. In Lisa I spotted a calming influence, someone who might help me fill out the forms correctly and get me into the right classroom at the right time. I needed them both. Need doesn’t always turn to affection; often it sours. But we worked well together as a unit, a team. We watched each other’s backs and still do.

Jess is funny, witty and careless (bordering on the reckless). She is the perfect person to call if you’ve ever done anything stupid that you regret (she can usually trump the stupidity or at least knows someone else who can). She is fabulously non-judgemental, which has been important to me throughout my twenties.

Jess chose to attend tech college rather than stay on at school because she was dating a boy who was also studying there at the time. The boy who gets the title ‘Her First Love’, but no more mention in this story because she fell out with him the summer before we started our courses, which was predictable but inconvenient. Jess changed vocation three times before the Christmas holiday that first year. She knew that she didn’t want to be a beautician, a nanny or a dental hygienist but she didn’t know what she did want to do. I was studying for my qualifications in floristry and working at the local florist at the same time. Jess envied my reasonably regular jaunts to Top Shop and the lure of the pay packet eventually became too much for her to resist. Actually, Jess isn’t the resisting sort. Jess applied for a job at the bookshop chain in the high street and has worked there ever since. She really enjoys it. She’s a romantic but her own love life is often a disaster. By working in a bookshop she gets to read about other disastrous relationships – like that of Cathy and Heathcliff – and she does this at a ten per cent discount. It’s some sort of comfort.

Lisa is also funny and witty but she’s altogether more aware of consequences than either Jess or me. She’s always been great to have around to flash up a big amber light, if any of our single-girl antics threatened to get out of hand. Obviously, since I’ve been with Adam, Lisa hasn’t had to play the role of babysitter with me quite so much, but Jess still manages to get into her share of scrapes. Lisa’s common sense is as invaluable as her frequent cry of ‘I told you so’ is irritating. Lisa loves a plan. Even back in college she kept meticulous spreadsheets on everything – from her savings account (including target figures, short-term and for twenty years on) to number of sexual partners (she ranked performance and cross-checked against income – more of this to follow).

I’ve always hovered somewhere between total awe and absolute horror at Lisa’s level of control in every single aspect of her life. Lisa studied secretarial skills and book-keeping. She is really sharp and she could probably have done A levels and gone on to university if she’d wanted to, but she had a game plan. She wanted a rich husband. And she wanted him as quickly as possible.

Lisa is not a natural beauty; she is a girl who makes the best of herself. Even fourteen years ago when she didn’t have a spare penny to toss she always looked a million dollars. She works out, she’s always immaculately dressed and I’ve never, ever seen her without makeup. Reportedly she didn’t relax this rule even when she was fully dilated and the midwife was asking her to push.

Lisa’s plan was to get a job in the City, as a PA. In the financial district there are about thirty men to every woman and every last one of them earns a salary the length of a telephone number. Lisa wanted one of them. There were times I worried she wanted any one of them – which isn’t a nice thing to think about a pal – but there were occasions when I really had to question her quality control. She didn’t seem too fussed if the guy was dark, blond, tall, short, fat, thin, funny or a git. She just wanted a large stone from Tiffany and ultimately a large house in Esher. There were loads of details in between about where they’d honeymoon and which restaurants they’d go to and stuff, but I used to tune out when Lisa itemized every single strategic particular in operation ‘Bag a Rich Guy’. It was bad enough that Jess and I, acting as wingmen, had to trail all the way out to Docklands to visit noisy bar after noisy bar, night after night (just to be hit upon or patronized by turn).

Her plan came together. By the time Lisa was twenty-three she was the proud owner of an Amanda Wakeley wedding gown, Jimmy Choo wedding slippers, and a full set of Arthur Price cutlery (including grapefruit forks).

Charlie is a nice enough guy. Considering the lack of direction on the brief, I think Lisa did well. He’s clearly intelligent (although a bit dry), he’s handsome enough (the sort of looks my mum would approve of but not the sort of look that turns heads or flips stomachs). The important thing is Charlie clearly adores Lisa. He is always showering her with expensive gifts, especially when he’s had to work late.

I ache to see both Jess and Lisa this evening. Although I share a flat with Jess, my early starts and her late dates have meant that we haven’t had a chance to catch up since Friday. I need to tell them about my row with Adam. Jess will assure me that while issuing an ultimatum to Adam was a dumb idea, she knows someone who… oh, I don’t know… who has done something even more silly to back their lover into a corner, causing him to growl and spit and claw. Right now, I can’t think of exactly what might be sillier but that’s the point of Jess – she will be able to do so. And Lisa will tell me to take a deep breath. She’ll understand why I need a game plan. Why I ache to move this relationship to the next level and she will confirm that I am within my moral rights and in my right mind. She’ll find me a solution. A dignified way of moving this on. That’s what friends are for.

6. Fern

Lisa staggers back from the bar carefully balancing a bottle of Chablis in an ice bucket and three glasses on a tray. She weaves her way precariously through the boisterous crowd; her face is tight with concentration. I hope she’s thinking about my dilemma with Adam but it’s more likely that she’s thinking about not upsetting the glasses. Not that we need more glasses – we already have them – as this is our third bottle of the night. Bugger. How many units is that? Too many.

‘I’ve got to stop drinking,’ I mumble.

‘Why?’ asks Jess, who rarely stops drinking until she falls over.

‘Because it’s not helping me think straight,’ I say.

Plus I can’t afford to do this. If I’d known we were going to drink this much I’d have suggested that Lisa come over to our place. You can buy this exact same brand of wine for less than half the price in the supermarket. But I always feel like a killjoy if I suggest a night in. Lisa looks forward to her up-town bids-for-freedom, as she jokingly calls our decreasingly frequent gettogethers. But then, Lisa has no concept of watching the pennies, although she does think the pounds look after themselves as her cash appears like magic. Charlie gives her an enormous allowance, plus he unquestioningly pays off her credit card at the end of every month. Lisa gave up her job as soon as she and Charlie got engaged and is entirely dependent on him financially. This can cause contention in some families but Lisa is delighted with the arrangement – she likes to see a plan coming together.

I remember Lisa pointing out that her job as a PA paid less than they’d have to shell out for a wedding planner, so there was no point in her working in the run-up to the wedding since she could save some cash by organizing the wedding herself. Lisa’s reasoning seemed logical, once I accepted that real people actually have wedding planners. I thought they were something Hello! magazine had invented to torment brides-to-be who were suffering at the hands of their interfering mothers. Although the odd thing was that Lisa employed a wedding planner anyway, so that she had someone to discuss lace and stationery with ( Jess and I had a very limited interest in the subject at the time). After the wedding Lisa was flat out remodelling the house (apparently managing interior designers demands a lot of time), and now they have the children no one would dream of suggesting that Lisa ought to go back to work, she’s busy enough – even with the help of a nanny and a cleaner. And somehow, knowing all of this makes me a little shy about admitting to Lisa that I’m a bit short cash-wise; I don’t think she’d understand.

‘Plus binge drinking is V fattening,’ I add aloud.

‘Oh, don’t worry about that, you’ll lose weight without even trying soon,’ says Lisa as she starts to pour the wine.

‘Why, because Adam is going to leave me and I’ll be too heartbroken to eat?’ I wail, with a touch of melodrama that I just can’t resist.

Lisa tuts. ‘No, because as soon as you are engaged you’ll turn into a weight-obsessed freak and go all “nil by mouth”. Everyone does.’

‘You think he’ll ask me to marry him?’ I ask excitedly. I want a confirmation from Lisa that my plan is on track.

‘Probably,’ she says with more honest caution than I want. Why couldn’t she have said certainly? ‘He should do, if he knows what’s good for him. You’re gorgeous, the best thing that ever happened to him. He’d be mad to let you go. You two are so brilliant together.’

‘One of the happiest couples I know,’ confirms Jess with a small hiccup.

‘But?’ I can hear the ‘but’ hanging in the air.

‘Well, men…’ Lisa trails off.

It’s an articulate enough comment. Men don’t know what’s good for them. Men don’t always recognize the best thing that ever happened to them. Men don’t always do the right thing. Men make mistakes. We all do.

‘It’s not in the bag, is it?’ I ask drearily.

Sadly, my best friends shake their heads. I know they love me enough to want to lie to me and enough not to do so. We all take another gulp of our wine and gaze around the bar. It’s noisy and busy. The bar we are in is not the usual sort of place we meet up. Normally we grab a bite to eat at the local Italian. The waiters know us there; the service is perfect – attentive but not over-bearing. The Italian restaurant is always full of other groups of gossipy women, the music is piped out at a reasonable volume and the conversations are conducted at a reasonable pitch. Tonight we’ve tried War Bar in Clapham High Street because Jess is newly single again (it didn’t work out with the hot banker, she said he had protruding teeth that got in the way when they were kissing) and she wants to use tonight to scout for talent. Lisa and I are fine with this. We’d both do anything to help Jess in her endless search for the perfect man. Plus Jess is a great multi-tasker; she can talk to us and flirt with the man on the next table without anyone feeling neglected.

Besides, I fancied a change too. A minuscule part of my brain seemed to want to remind the rest of my brain what it’s like being ‘out there’ again. Something was compelling me to take a cursory glance at the scene in case, God forbid, the worst came to the worst with Adam and the ultimatum. The War Bar is the perfect place to conduct a study of this sort. Jess assured me it’s a ‘cool and happening’ bar. It might just be my jaded view of things right now, but while the War Bar may be cool and happening, it isn’t a very happy place. At least not for anyone over twenty-five. Most of the punters look a little despairing or bewildered. I watch as people fight to be in one another’s physical and mental space. No one wants to go home alone. It all seems feral and desperate. At least the place is well named; everyone does appear a little shell-shocked. Jess is always telling me that the competition is tough, ‘out there’. She’s always telling me that because I haven’t been single for years, I have no idea.

Jess must be reading my mind because she asks, ‘What will you do if he doesn’t produce a ring on Friday?’

I shrug. ‘Leave, I guess.’

It’s hard to know if I mean this because my head is morphing into lots of different shapes and my tongue feels bigger than it did at the start of the day. I must say no to that next glass of wine. I have that thought at the exact moment that I reach for the bottle and fill up my glass.

‘Really?’ my friends chorus, shrilly.

‘Yeah, I have to.’

‘No you don’t, not because of some crazy ultimatum that you issued after you’d had too much to drink,’ says Jess.

‘Not because of the ultimatum, no. But because I do believe what I said to Adam. I don’t have any more time to waste. I’m thirty. I want a husband and a family and a home of my own. I want the next stage. If he can’t give it to me then I have to find someone who can. While I stay in this going-nowhere relationship I’m letting any other chances at happiness float by.’

‘But you love him,’ says Lisa. One of her eyes is wandering around the room. It’s not because she’s deciding whether there is anyone more interesting she’d rather talk to. It’s just the effects of the Chablis; it really is time to get a cab.

‘I do but I’m not sure it’s enough.’

‘Then what is?’ asks Jess.

I don’t know how to answer the question so I change the subject; none of us seem too comfortable with this one.

‘Anyway, during our momentous row, Adam also let slip that you two have arranged something for my birthday. Thanks, girls. Obviously you knew he’d never get his act together.’

Jess and Lisa exchange wary looks. They seem unsure what to say. I know they both like Adam and would defend him if they could but they can’t. Sensibly, they don’t want to elaborate on the theme of what a jerk he’s being either, knowing I’ll remember their scathing words if we make up after this. Prudent but a bit annoying. Right now, I could do with some hard abuse of my commitment-phobic boyfriend in the name of female solidarity.

‘So what’s going down? What should I wear?’ I ask. ‘You might as well tell me now the cat’s out of the bag.’

‘Can’t tell you what’s planned,’ says Lisa.

‘Won’t,’ giggles Jess. ‘But wear your dark jeans and get a really pretty top.’