Married By Christmas (7 page)

‘So I suppose a goodnight kiss is out of the question?’ Miles had joked rather sweetly, Anna had thought, given that she looked like some fish-cum-hippopotamus nuclear fusion experiment that had gone awry. ‘I’m really sorry Anna, I didn’t know …’

‘It’s fine,’ Anna had said. ‘How could you, when I didn’t? Just bad luck that’s all.’

Or that least that’s what she’d said in her head. In reality it came out in a series of grunts and wheezes that Miles seemed to get the basic gist of as he smiled, and kissed her on her bumpy, red and swollen cheek.

‘Call me, yeah?’ That was the last thing he’d said to her as he’d gotten back into the car, and as Anna had pressed a packet of frozen peas to her lips and sat down in front of the telly, relishing being able to breathe again, she fully expected, hoped even, never to see or hear from him again.

But of course, yes,
of course
, after having discovered that Tom was still married to a showgirl he barely even knew, and deciding to fly to New York to try and do her best to salvage the situation,
of course
, fate had decided to sit her next to Miles Harker of the Kiwi Cocktail Near Death Date Debacle affair for seven hours.
Of course
it had. And now, like so much else in her life, Anna realised there was nothing else she could do but grin and bear it.

She tensed, bracing herself back in her seat, as the plane, now at the head of the runway, gathered speed, its engines roaring as they finally lifted into the air. Anna didn’t mind flying, but the taking off and landing parts she wasn’t so sure about.

‘So,’ Miles said, leaning dangerously close to her as Anna waited for the plane to stop climbing and banking and level out. ‘You look great, by the way. Really, really … smart. And your normal-sized lips really suit you, if you don’t mind me saying.’

‘Thank you.’ Anna breathed a sigh of relief as the plane settled into its journey. She tucked the magazine back in its pouch and decided that enduring twenty minutes of small talk now might mean she’d get the rest of the time to sleep or watch a film before escaping Miles, hopefully this time for ever.

‘And?’ she said, with her best effort at a smile. ‘Why are you going to New York? Business or pleasure?’

‘Destiny,’ Miles said, his eyes sparkling. ‘You know I write songs, right? Simon would have told you when he made you go out with me. Well, I write stuff, record it, and sometimes I stick it on YouTube – I’ve been doing it for donkeys – and then a few months back I wrote this song, “Fire Girl”, stuck it up there, thought no more about it, turns out it’s had like three hundred thousand hits or something. You might have seen it?’

‘No,’ Anna said, apologetically. ‘I don’t really know what YouTube is for, but then again if it was up to me I’d still use a pen to write a letter and then post it via pigeon, so …’

‘Fair enough,’ Miles said. ‘Anyway, there’s this New York band, not famous, not yet, but with a reputation, you know, a following. Their lead singer jacked it all in a few weeks back, apparently found God and decided to become a monk or something, and they need a new frontman. This morning in my inbox was a message from their drummer, asking
me
if I wanted to go and audition for them. And now I’m on a plane. To meet my destiny. Or crushing, expensive disappointment and bankruptcy, one or the other.’ Miles’s eyes, which Anna noticed were such a vivid blue they were almost violet, shone with a small boy’s excitement, crinkling pleasantly as he relished the prospect of what could be his big break. Anna wondered vaguely if he was still single, thinking to herself that if he was, she should introduce him to Liv. Liv would like him. In fact why had Simon never thought of setting him up with Liv in the first place? Oh that’s right, there had been the mysterious new man at the gym that Liv had been holding a candle for, whatever happened to him? After that one occasion Liv never mentioned him again, and if he’d been important Liv certainly would have told Anna about him.

‘Bankruptcy?’ Anna asked.

‘Well, maybe not quite that dramatic, but I had to sell some amps and pedals to get together the money to come, and I bought the ticket a few hours ago. I’ve got literally no idea where I’m going to crash when I get there, or what I’m going to do between now and the audition, but you’ve got to grab opportunities when they come, haven’t you? Roll with the punches, go with the flow, all that sort of stuff.’ Miles dropped his gaze for a moment to his hands, twisting a silver ring around and around the thumb on his right hand. ‘Of course, if I don’t get it, I’ll be stuffed. I’ve sold most of my gigging equipment and I can’t afford to replace it without work, which I won’t get if I haven’t got it. But well, I had to take this chance, didn’t I?’

‘Honestly, no,’ Anna pointed out, perhaps a little bluntly.

‘What do you mean?’ Miles asked her, baffled. ‘What do you mean I didn’t have to?’

‘Well, I mean that you didn’t have to gamble your equipment and your livelihood and come to New York at the last minute for something that most likely won’t work out,’ Anna said. ‘You could have said no, you could have kept your gear, and known that you’d at least be able to take the next gig that was offered to you, and keep on paying your bills.’

Miles stared at her. ‘But this is the New York Rock Department – the NYRDs – this is like the next big thing. This could be it, this could be my big break. What I’ve been working towards all my life. I’d be crazy not to go! You must see that?’

‘
Could
be,’ Anna said. ‘That’s the key word there.
Could
be your big break. I mean, no offence, but you’re thirty, and I think, from what I can remember, that Simon said that you have a pretty great career for a musician: regular session work, gigging, playing for all sorts of bands, travelling all over the world. That’s kind of amazing and in your business that
is
success. Think of the number of guitarists who don’t make any money at all, who work in Pizza Hut and dream about having the life you do.’

Miles shook his head. ‘No, no, no, Annie. You’ve got that all wrong. The reason I’ve made a career out of music is because I’ve never stopped following my dream, my ambition, never ever not for one second. And in the process, I’ve built up a career. I’ve never, ever got anywhere by taking the sensible option.’ He smiled at her, light dancing in those azure eyes. ‘And I’m sure as hell not going to stop taking chances now, not ever. That’s not what life is about at all. It’s about grabbing the moment, experiencing every single second to the maximum, without worrying about what comes next. Look at us!’

‘Us?’ Anna quizzed him. ‘There is no us, and it’s Anna, by the way. I have mentioned it before. Once or twice.’

‘Yes there is an us, Annie,’ Miles said, ignoring her. ‘There is an “us” right now on this plane, you and me, together. Both of us setting out on an adventure. Until this plane lands we are in it together, and who would ever have predicted that when I blew up your head to the size of a watermelon and almost killed you? That’s what I love about life, the unpredictable, the unforeseen. That’s what makes it so interesting. So, yes, if I get an incredible chance out of the blue, it’s yes. I’ll risk everything to take it.’

Anna thought about what he said, shaking her head with regret.

‘I hate the unpredictable,’ she said with a small smile, reaching up to undo her hair, which felt uncomfortable and tight. She shook it out over her shoulders, running her fingers through its golden waves, and added, ‘I hate being taken by surprise, not knowing what’s coming next. I hate curve balls and bends in the road. I like to know exactly how everything is going to be, always.’

‘Really?’ Miles said, turning away from her as she loosened her hair, as if somehow he was witnessing something he shouldn’t see. ‘I mean, really? Why is that though?’

‘There are a lot of reasons,’ Anna said wearily, faintly surprised to find how easy Miles was to talk to when he wasn’t forcing her to listen to heavy rock or poisoning her. ‘My mum, or sudden lack of her, the whole Regina Clarkson incident, but probably most recently the news that the man I am supposed to be marrying in my dream picture-book, Christmas fairy-tale wedding in two weeks’ time is already married to a stripper.’

In an instant the woman across the aisle was enthralled once again, and I Heart London closed the book she’d been pretending to read with an eager snap, resting it in her lap.

‘You’re engaged, and about to be married?’ Miles asked her, more surprised by that news than he was of Tom’s unexpected ex. ‘Blimey, your life really
has
moved on since I saw you. I mean of course it has. It’s just … married? That’s … really serious.’

‘Not quite married,’ Anna reminded him. ‘Actually, right now, very, very far from being married. And I don’t blame you for being surprised. I never thought anyone would want to marry me either. I mean I look OK, I scrub up quite nicely, but as soon as you get to know me you realise I am a nightmare. I don’t mean to be. I try pretty hard to be all the things that people like – funny, spontaneous, relaxed, easy-going, popular. But I’m just not that person. I’m controlling, obsessive, compulsive and I can’t dance … I overcommit far too early.’ Anna shook her head miserably, finding that now she’d started pouring her heart out to Miles, it was hard to stop, despite the many pricked-up ears all around them, whose owners had stopped watching the in-flight movies in order to listen to them. ‘You know what, I did think that our date was the worst date I’ve ever been on, but actually the fact that you tried to kill me with a kiwi is probably the only reason you are willing to talk to me now, because when you’ve got a tongue the size of a salami it’s hard to annoy a person. Any other man I’ve dated in the past who discovered me unexpectedly sitting next to him on a long-haul flight would either have paid to upgrade to first class or got off the plane before they locked the doors. See? Listen to me? I’m annoying.’

‘No you’re not,’ Miles said, looking a little baffled by Anna’s sudden gush of words. ‘Shaken up, and a bit insecure maybe. Verging on needy. But who wouldn’t be in your shoes. The dude asked you to marry him and didn’t mention a wife, man, that’s just bad manners.’

‘Exactly!’ Anna said, wagging a finger at him, enthusiastically. ‘Exactly, that’s what he is, he’s really,
really
rude. And it’s not like I chased him, he chased me. He turned up at Liv’s party, kept looking at me, made conversation with me, even though I mainly talked about food hygiene standards, kissed me on the stairs outside the flat, in this really unexpected way, because one minute I was asking him what he thought about organic versus free range and the next he had me pinned against a wall. And then
he
was the one who kept on going out with me, again and again, until I started to think of him as my boyfriend, and
he
was the one who asked me to marry him. The one who got a ring, and let me book the church, which to be honest we were always going to get because his dad is the vicar, and he’s supposed to be marrying us, but still it’s the principle, and the venue, and the dress and everything else I’ve been doing for more or less a whole year. And then,
then
he waits until now to remember to tell me he’d already got married before by accident.’ She found herself twisting in her seat, leaning forwards to look Miles in the eye. ‘You’re a man, what does that mean, do you think?’

Miles backed away from her a little, obviously rather taken aback by Anna’s sudden intensity.

‘I don’t think it means he doesn’t love you, if that helps,’ he said, squirming a little under Anna’s intense gaze. ‘I think he’d probably forgotten about it, or told himself it didn’t matter, or hoped it would work itself out somehow without him having to say anything.’This didn’t seem to placate Anna, whose otherwise creamy complexion was now sporting two bright red spots of colour burning furiously on either cheek, and whose eyes narrowed dangerously.

‘And,’ Miles added hurriedly, ‘when you think about it, the very fact that he has told you now, that says a lot.’

‘Yes, it says that he’s a—’ Anna’s fuming was swiftly interrupted.

‘In love with you enough to face up to your very considerable wrath even though he must have known that it could cost him your relationship,’ Miles finished for her. ‘That although he realises what a massive fuck-up he is, he cares enough to tell you the truth eventually, to face you down and do the right thing. Perhaps you are looking at this all wrong. After all, how easy would it have been for him not to tell you about the stripper at all, to just do nothing and let the wedding go ahead. I think the fact that he’s told you now shows that he truly loves you.’

Anna blinked at Miles, sucking on her bottom lip as she tried to take in what he was saying. ‘You’re one of those, aren’t you? One of those types. Liv is one too. Optimistic, romantic, idealistic. It’s because nothing really bad has ever happened to you so you don’t know …’

‘Know what?’ Miles asked her.

‘That you have to keep looking, waiting all the time for the next bad thing,’ Anna said. ‘It’s your only chance of stopping it from happening. Except that I didn’t see this coming.’

‘Maybe you need to start looking out for all the good things,’ Miles said, spreading his fingers as if he were casting a spell to illustrate his point. ‘Like the fact that the man is trying his best to do the right thing now, he hasn’t lied or run away, he’s just made a mistake.’

‘I suppose he
was
seeing a solicitor about it when I tailed him to Pizza Express,’ Anna said thoughtfully, causing the ‘I Heart London’ lady’s eyebrows to soar skywards. ‘I suppose he was
trying
to sort it out, in his own cack-handed, shambolic way. It was much too late and with frankly the sluttiest solicitor that I have ever seen, but still he
was
trying …’

‘There you go then.’ Miles smiled. ‘And did he get it sorted? An annulment or whatnot? Is this last-minute trip an all-expenses paid apology to help you calm down before the big day?’

‘No,’ Anna said, sitting back in her seat and looking around, as if she’d just woken from a dream or a trance, and was realising exactly where she was and what she was doing for the very first time. ‘No, he didn’t, he couldn’t. It would have meant postponing the wedding which is why … Well, to cut a long story short, I booked a last-minute ticket to New York to see if I could find his wife and get her to sign the papers in person.’