The New Mrs D (20 page)

‘But he says it’s over, finished. He said you told him there was no chance of any reconciliation. Is that right?’

‘Yes,’ I lied. The truth was, I wasn’t sure after reading the contents of his envelope. But I wasn’t ready to tell anyone until I’d spoken to David.

‘Well then, here is the thing,’ he continued. ‘I’d be a complete and utter liar if I said I was sorry about that . . . altogether.’

I was stunned. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Oh, Christ, Bernice, I’m just going to come out and say it. I did stop talking to you because of David, but not because he told me to. It was because I love you.’ As he finished his speech, he looked away from my face and down at the ground.

I’d been waiting for the ‘You should take David back’ speech. This knocked me sideways.

‘You . . .
love me
?’ I stammered.

‘Yes. I’ve loved you for as long as David has; maybe even longer.’

My face turned crimson. I could hardly believe my ears.

He swallowed hard, his own face getting redder by the minute. ‘I’d fallen for you in a big way,’ he went on, ‘and David was my best friend! It was all so bloody hard.’

‘Did he know? Did you tell him?’ I asked.

‘No. How could I tell him that? He’d think I was a right arsehole saying that to him – and he’d be right,’ he replied.

‘This is . . .’ I started, ‘a bit of a . . . shock. I don’t know what to say.’

‘You’re the reason I came to Greece,’ he went on. ‘I had to get on with my life, away from you. Every time I saw you and David together, it killed me.’

‘Really? But you hardly spoke to me towards the end,’ I said.

‘Bernice, I’m not talking about some schoolboy crush here, that would’ve been easy to cope with,’ he explained. ‘When I told you I’d had my heart broken in the past, it was true. It was you who broke it, without ever even knowing it.’

‘But why on earth are you telling me now?’ I asked.
After having just shagged Ginger,
I thought.

‘Because now that you and David are over . . .’

‘What, you thought you and I could just waltz away into the sunset?’ I said, my initial shock starting to turn to rage.

‘No, no. Jesus, no! David is my best friend,’ he said. ‘I’m telling you now because I know we’re never going to see each other again after you go home. I just had to tell you. Not to give myself any hope of us being an item, I would never do that to David. He adores you. I just need you to know that I don’t hate you. That in fact, I love you.’

I could hardly get my breath. It was all too much to take in. ‘Chris,’ I said, finally. ‘I really like you; I always have. I wanted us to be friends and felt bereft when you drew your friendship back. That hurt.’

‘I know,’ he replied. ‘And I could have gone on for the rest of my days never telling you all of this if I was safe in the knowledge that I would still see you sometimes. Ludicrous, I know. Why am I offloading this on you now? I don’t know. I just had to tell you. Call it my parting shot if you like. The truth is it killed me to have you go away thinking that I hate you. I’m never going to see you again, because the only thing that connected us was David and I can’t be your friend,
because . . .’ He stopped and put his head in his hands.

‘You love me,’ I finished for him.

To my surprise he began to sob. This was the real thing. I could hardly get my head around it.

‘I’m so glad to have got that off my chest,’ he cried. ‘Because sometimes the truth can be bloody heavy. I’ve never met a more beautiful woman in my life that quite clearly has no idea she’s beautiful. You’re an amazing and lovely person, Bernice. Whatever David did, he’s a bloody fool! But, God help me, there isn’t a day that goes by when I don’t wish that I had met you first.’

Yes, the truth is heavy, I thought.
Like having an affair with someone’s wife.
I wanted to pity him; to thank him and put my arm around him and say everything would be alright. But, I had just heard him having sex with Edvard’s wife. Suddenly, I hated the dishonesty that seemed to live in all men.
Why was he really telling me this now?

‘You got one thing wrong there, Chris,’ I said icily, standing to go. ‘But you can be forgiven because it was once true. Not anymore.’

‘What’s that?’ he asked, looking up at me with red eyes and a hopeless expression.

‘I know I’m beautiful,’ I said. ‘Now let’s go to that party.’

We pulled up to the village square having not spoken for the entire journey. Chris looked mortified that he had opened his heart to me and I had simply swept him and his feelings aside. But I was so angry. He was a cad and worse than that, he had professed his love for his best friend’s wife just as she prepared to split up with him. Once upon a time, I might have thanked him, given him a hug and told him that had I met him first I would certainly have dated him. There was no denying he was a bright, funny, good-looking guy and from the off we had got on famously. He appeared to be quite a catch and my love for and commitment to David hadn’t prevented me from seeing that. Everyone who was wonderful deserved to be told so, I knew that much. Yet, all of a sudden, I realised I didn’t know him at all.

The usually quiet cobbled streets were heaving with people. I’d never seen it so busy. Out in the open square a band was playing and the singer had a voice I recognised; (although I almost didn’t recognise him with his clothes on) Adonis – belting out Madonna’s
Holiday
. He waved to me as I ambled past, trying to hide myself amongst what seemed like a hundred dancing people. It was a last night fiesta.

Hughie and Greta were already up dancing the evening away, although Hughie did pause to eye up my cleavage as I passed and gave me his signature, dirty old man wink.

Chris led me to a table where Linda was sitting beside Michaela, Edvard and Ginger, who were all singing and clapping along to the music. I was none too pleased to see Ginger, although she embraced me excitedly as I approached her to say hello.

‘Binnie, how lovely to see you, and also how sad it’s our last night!’ she gushed. Like the cat that got the cream.

She hugged Chris too – right there in front of Edvard, as though they hadn’t been at it like rabbits all afternoon behind his back. She waved to Hughie and Greta to join us, flashing glasses of champagne for them and handing me one. ‘And now we are all together,’ she said. ‘Edvard my darling, there is something Chris and I must tell you.’

Jesus, surely they weren’t going to come out now, in front of us all?

Chris pushed the covered canvas he’d been carrying into her hands and she smiled at him. What a rotten cow!

Edvard looked puzzled. ‘What have you done?’ he asked.

I almost couldn’t watch.
So, you love me do you, Chris?
I threw him an angry look and he peered back, seemingly perplexed.

‘I had started this by myself,’ she began, taking the cover off the huge canvas, ‘because I wanted to do this for you. But time began to run out, as did my excuses for sneaking away,’ she laughed, looking conspiringly at Chris. She unwrapped the canvas – and revealed a portrait of a rather regal-looking older woman. A lady that had Edvard’s eyes. ‘So,’ she went on, ‘Chris had to finish it off for me this afternoon. This is for you, my darling.’

‘Oh, Chrrrrisssss! That is so good!’
She had been looking at the painting!

Edvard stood up with tears in his eyes and pulled her to him. ‘I can’t believe it,’ he cried, almost sobbing with joy. ‘It’s beautiful!’

Linda and I looked at each other guiltily as Edvard shook Chris’s hand.

‘This is wonderful, Chris,’ he said. ‘You’ve both captured my mother perfectly. I’m just . . . so . . . overcome. I don’t know what to say. Thank you. Thank you!’ he sobbed.

‘You’re welcome, my friend,’ Chris said, patting his shoulder.

‘It’s incredible,’ Edvard continued. ‘And my wife painted it!’

‘With Chris’s help,’ Ginger added.

‘Och, it’s braw,’ Greta agreed.

‘All I did was a few finishing touches,’ Chris smiled. ‘Ginger did a wonderful job. Although, of course, that had everything to do with your bloody marvellous teacher.’

‘What a beautiful thing to do, Ginger,’ said Michaela. ‘Now I can almost forgive you for cancelling our riding session the other day.’

‘You only missed getting your tits out,’ Linda laughed.

‘So that’s whit ye were up to, Mrs McAteer!’ said Hughie, poking his wife’s ribs. ‘Now,’ he whispered to me, with a wink, ‘where’s the photies?’

As we laughed at Hughie, a waiter appeared at our table with four more bottles of champagne.

‘These are compliments of my friend, Adonis,’ he said, turning to point to the singer who was now gearing up for another song, looking straight at me.

Oh, holy hell, please God, not again.

But it wasn’t me he was going to call up to sing.

‘I have a request!’ he announced, pointing directly at me. ‘It is for a lady with a beeyoooutiful voice.’

Linda looked at me, stunned. ‘How does he know about your singing?’ she asked.

‘I kind of sang the other day, on the beach with him,’ I said.

‘Him?’ she replied, looking surprised. There was some commotion from behind Adonis as he waved somebody to the stage.

‘The nudeoke guy?’ Michaela said.

‘The very same.’

‘Go Bernice!’ Greta shouted.

As I smiled broadly, my eyes met Chris’s. He was grinning back at me but I thought I saw sadness behind his eyes. All of a sudden, I felt terrible.

‘Bernice,’ he called out to me. ‘Look at the stage!’

I turned to look again at Adonis, who had stooped to offer his microphone to someone a fair bit shorter than he was. Before I could see who it was, a voice boomed out across the square. There was no accompanying music, but I recognised the song and the singer. It was David, reading the lyrics from a piece of paper.

I wrote these bars,

For this song to be ours,

Forever, always and a day,

Even when your skies turn grey,

Like the stars, you will shine,

Always remember, you were mine,

And live forever, Baby, Baby, Blue,

Because eternity began from you,

Baby, Baby, Blue,

Forever, always and a day,

In my soul, come what may,

Your pretty smile filled my soul,

Take my love, take it all,

And live forever, Baby, Baby, Blue.

It was cringe-making; and wonderful. As silence fell over the entire place, there were tears in my eyes and not all from rubbing them with disbelief at his terrible singing of my favourite movie classic. It was seeing before me the man I loved, only different, partaking in a moment of complete and utter cheese that the old David would have balked at.

Adonis and the band were all staring at each other wordlessly. I had no doubt they hadn’t heard the song before and nor were they ever likely to hear it again on a party night! Perhaps only the fact that he spoke to me next saved David from being thrown from the stage and branded a drunk and a weirdo.

‘Binnie,’ he said into the microphone, looking right at me. ‘
Bernice
. I love you. Please be my wife.’

All of a sudden, seeing everyone gawping at him made me come over all protective. He was a weirdo. But he was my weirdo. I needn’t have worried though. Thinking there had been a regular, first time proposal, the silence from the crowd was at last broken, as the whole square erupted into applause. They weren’t to know we were married already.

‘Aha!’ Adonis cried, clasping his hands to his mouth before taking another microphone from the stand. ‘Where is your lovely lady? Come here Bernice!’

I held my breath for a moment, my head telling me to save him but my feet staying planted on the spot. What should I do now? As everyone watched me, clapping in time; waiting to witness that magnificent, romantic movie moment when I screamed ‘yes’ and crowd surfed up to the stage, lifted by many hands to be at the side of my true love, I balked. Ugh.

Sod that.

But this was
David
. The actual love of my life, yes. But being with him meant having to be stronger; perhaps work harder at rebuilding my sense of worth – I knew that now. Should I give my marriage one more chance? If I rebuffed him in front of all these people, he would just be left looking stupid. I was in danger; danger of jumping to save another person when I should be protecting myself. Again.

Everywhere I looked people were smiling at me, waiting expectantly. I started to walk away and I wanted to walk towards him. My heart hurt. God, I’d missed him . . .

‘Wait!’ I shouted and turned my head to find Chris before pointing him out to all and sundry. ‘Er,’ I continued. ‘I need to ask his friend something!’

There was a peal of laughter but the crowd carried on clapping and there was some whistling and cheering, everyone thinking this was all good, spirited fun and I would still say yes. Chris ran over to me, grinning like a Cheshire cat. At once, I knew David’s being here had been arranged with his help. I felt disappointed. I thought he of all people understood. Chris expected me to fall back into David’s arms now too.

‘Aren’t you going to go to him?’ he asked. ‘You can’t leave the poor guy waiting.’

‘Have you been sleeping with Ginger?’ I shouted into his ear.

He stopped smiling and stared back at me, clearly astonished. ‘No, of course not!’

‘I heard you this afternoon. Ginger shouted out your name! I thought . . . I thought . . .’ Tears rolled down my cheeks. I was so choked up with emotion and confusion, I could hardly breathe.

‘You thought we were having sex?’ he said, looking more perplexed than ever. ‘Hah, that’s almost funny.’

I turned back to see Adonis still frantically beckoning me forward and David smiling but looking decidedly agitated as he waited for me to make a decision.

‘But why do you want to ask me at a time like this?’ Chris went on.

I turned back to him. ‘There’s something I want to say.’