Happy Endings (5 page)

‘I do,’ I said, and then we hung up.

A week away from Jack was going to be tough. Since we’d started dating five years ago, and moved in together a year later, we’d barely been apart. I was excited though. A week with the cast at a mansion in the Berkshire countryside, it was the stuff of dreams. A week to bond, drink, talk about acting and finally, after all the years of struggle, be an actress. A tear suddenly leaked out and down my face. It felt like my life was just starting and the first person I wanted to tell was also the person I was most afraid to. Jack would be fine though. He knew what it meant to me and what it could mean for us. He would come around. He had to.

Kate

I always thought I’d go travelling much earlier. In my head I was about twenty-one, fresh out of university, the world at my feet, carefree, confident and unaffected by the rigours and strains of adulthood. Backpacking was meant to be the last bastion of my childhood before the reality of life outside of education began. I hadn’t ever considered I’d be teetering on the edge of my twenties, timidly tip-toeing into the big beyond with a whole life behind me and more baggage than I could carry.

On the plane and once I’d stopped crying, watched my second film and tried my best to sleep, the realisation that I was totally on my own began to hit me. The enormity of what I was doing started to hammer away at me and it was then I really wished I was a happy-go-lucky twenty-one-year-old instead of a tightly wound, scared-shitless almost-thirty-year-old. I wished Ed was there too because despite his many faults one of his biggest strengths had always been to make me feel safe and secure.

After touching down in Bangkok and going through the roulette of baggage claim, I found myself standing outside the airport. I was tired, sweaty and had nowhere to stay. And it was really bloody hot. The sort of scorching heat I’d never felt before. Without even moving I was dripping in sweat. I’d been so caught up in leaving and dealing with Ed I hadn’t had time to think about what I’d do when I actually arrived. A mass of swarming local guides had already offered me numerous lifts, choices of hostels, tours and trips, but none of them seemed remotely trustworthy or part of a legitimate company. As it turned out that was just how things were in Thailand and I was being far too Western and English about it. Thankfully, just as I was beginning to feel the heavy pull of panic tug me towards tears, a voice came out of the blue.

‘You OK?’

I turned around and there was a man, well, more of a boy really: early twenties, English, and wearing a pair of camouflage shorts and a white T-shirt with a picture of The Beatles on the front. He was tall and quite gorgeous actually, with long chestnut-brown hair and sparkling blue eyes, but that should have been the very last thing on my mind.

‘Umm . . . well . . . no, not really.’

I almost started to cry, but somehow kept myself together. I didn’t want the first memory of my trip to be me blubbing like a baby outside Bangkok airport. I also didn’t want my first travelling friend to think I was a stereotypical girlie mess who couldn’t handle life on the road.

‘I’m Jez,’ he said, offering me his hand. ‘Jeremy really, but everyone calls me Jez.’ His wrist was full of different coloured bands, which made me feel about a million years old. I used to wear the same friendship bracelets at sixth form and university before the corporate suits and expensive dresses filled up my wardrobe. ‘You must be fresh off the plane and a first-time traveller if I’m not mistaken?’

‘Is it so obvious?’

‘People that white don’t tend to have spent the last year somewhere warm,’ said Jez and we both laughed. He was right. I was hideously pale while he was the colour of golden syrup. ‘I just dropped a friend off, but I’m heading back to my hostel if you want to join me. I know how daunting the first day can be.’

‘Thanks, I’d really love that.’

The next minute Jez and I were on the Skytrain heading into Bangkok. He took me to his hostel on the Khao San Road, helped me check in and luckily I managed to get a bed in his dorm, sharing with two Canadian girls, a Scottish couple from St Andrews who never seemed to be there and an Australian called Scott, who always was. From feeling the loneliest I’d ever felt and like I wanted to head straight back home, tail between my legs, I became happy, relaxed and, with Jez by my side, I toured Bangkok for the next week.

We went to the Chatuchak market, the biggest market in Thailand, which was a crazy maze with tiny bunnies dressed like burlesque dancers, fried maggots and cockroaches, and a myriad of other interesting and repugnant stuff. We visited temples, the reclining Buddha at the Wat Pho Temple, had incredible, if painful, Thai massages and spent time in Patpong, the red-light district. It certainly opened my eyes to a few things you don’t see back in London.

However, the best part of the week wasn’t the touristy stuff, but the evenings Jez and I would spend in bars, drinking, chatting, meeting other backpackers and generally not doing much. I was almost thirty and had spent the last eight years working hard, forging a career and growing up, but suddenly every day felt like Freshers’ Week. Admittedly, I did feel a bit like the weird mature student I used to try and avoid, with the countless stories about her ‘experience’ in India, but, being around all these younger travellers, life felt fun again and as if anything was possible. It was during one of these nights that Jez first asked about Ed.

‘And he didn’t want to come?’

‘Not really his thing.’

We were at a bar on the Khao San Road. It was late and we’d had quite a few already. Despite it being almost ten o’clock, the air was stifling hot, almost like a heavy mass that sat upon us. We were smoking one cheap cigarette after another, an old habit that had somehow come back to me rather easily, and drinking bottles of Singha lager. Jez had on a black Rolling Stones T-shirt and I was wearing a light green dress I’d bought in the market for next to nothing. We looked like all the other backpackers and I loved it. I loved that I felt like a small part of something so much bigger than myself. I was part of a community, a small band of laid-back people experiencing the world together. My stresses in London felt like something from a different lifetime altogether.

‘I don’t understand. Why would he not want to come travelling? It’s the greatest thing in the world. We have our whole lives to make money, settle down and be as boring as our parents. This is the only time we have to really live, experience life.’

‘Because Ed loves his job and thinks travelling is essentially a waste of time. Something graduates do to avoid work for another year.’

‘And you’re going to marry this man?’

I smiled, but inside I was confused and insecure. Even when I said it, I knew it sounded terrible. I was in love with a man who I felt loved his job more than he loved me. I loved a man who didn’t want to travel, experience new things and was happier staying in London and being a weekend person forever.

‘One day,’ I said, but my voice lacked any real conviction.

‘Is that like when you say one day I’m going to learn Spanish, or as in one day we’re all going to die?’

‘As in, one day soon,’ I snapped, but more out of embarrassment than anger.

Maybe I should have defended our relationship more, but something inside of me knew I couldn’t. Not at that moment and definitely not to Jez. Jez the free spirit who played a beat-up old guitar and wrote songs and who one day wanted to be a singer. Handsome Jez who made me feel like I did when I was twenty instead of almost thirty. Jez the musician who unfortunately made me think of my father.

‘You know, Ed wasn’t always so annoyingly pragmatic. After we met at uni, he used to love going on minibreaks. We probably hit every European capital during the first few years of our relationship.’

‘Then what happened?’

‘Then what happened’ was a good question and one, if the truth be known, I didn’t really know the answer to. I met Ed during the last term at university and he literally had me at hello. We went from strangers to dating, to living together in a rented flat within six months. Recently though, the magic had started to fade. During the previous year, as his job became more and more demanding, Ed seemed to stop wanting to do anything and our lives ground to a depressingly settled halt. He used to scoff at the obnoxious middle-aged bankers as much as me, but like everyone who starts making six figures before their thirtieth birthday, he changed. The Ed I loved definitely wasn’t the Ed I’d fallen in love with.

‘Life, I suppose.’

‘And that’s it? Life is boring and that’s OK?’

‘No, but it happens,’ I said, before I added swiftly, and rather condescendingly, ‘You’ll understand one day.’

‘What, so because I’m only twenty-two, I can’t possibly understand?’

I hadn’t meant to say that. I hated people who said things like that. Old people. Boring people. People who had long since accepted that life just became a bit of a slugging match and that’s the way it was. Nothing to see here so go home, pop the kettle on and watch the telly.

‘I didn’t mean that, I’m sorry.’

A pang of anxious fear suddenly clamped itself to my chest, threatening to cause me untold pain until I surrendered. I could feel its razor-like teeth tearing into me. Luckily, before it had a chance to really grab hold, Jez smiled.

‘It’s OK, old lady, you’re forgiven. And speaking of life, I have something to ask you,’ Jez said before he looked away for a moment, his normally caramel-brown cheeks turning a bright shade of red.

‘Sounds interesting.’

‘Please say no if you want, but I’m heading down to the islands for a few weeks and I was hoping you’d come with me. I’ve been in Asia for nearly four months, Thailand for almost two and it’s time to move on, but I fancy a few weeks in the sun first. It’s incredible down there. We can scuba dive, snorkel, visit proper desert islands and I know this great little place. It’s so chilled out. What do you say?’

Maybe I should have said no. Jez and I were getting too close. I could feel the thing that starts to happen when you spend every day with someone of the opposite sex – the inevitability of something sexual. Jez was handsome, fun to be around and I knew he sort of fancied me. I wasn’t being arrogant, but it was fairly obvious. I should have said no, but I couldn’t. Jez was my only friend in Thailand and I couldn’t face being alone. I made the excuse that I’d planned on heading down there anyway, so I might as well go with Jez, but the truth was I was sort of excited about it. I wanted to spend more time with him and see where it went. It felt dangerous and for the first time in years life felt anything but inevitable.

‘I’d love to,’ I said, and with those three words we started planning the next two weeks. We drank, smoked and spoke about nothing but the present and the future. It felt like I had no past and had just begun to live in that moment with Jez. I’d been in Thailand for less than a week and yet my life back home felt like it no longer existed.

I did end up thinking about one moment from my past as Jez and I walked back to our hostel that night through the warren of market stalls, late-night food stands and neon lights. I thought about the day I asked Ed to come travelling with me.

I’d made us a special meal, bought a nice bottle of red and had everything ready for when he came home from work. He was obviously suspicious as soon as he walked in. It was, after all, a normal Tuesday evening. I was usually camped on the sofa in my pyjamas watching television, not propped up in the dining room, glass of wine in hand and looking creepily nervous.

‘Shit, is it our anniversary or something?’ he said as soon as he walked in.

‘We aren’t married, Ed, and we got together in May. No, it’s something else. Here have a glass of wine.’

I handed him the wine and made him sit down.

‘Are you . . . pregnant?’ His face lit up and I could see he already had the next twenty years planned out in his head.

‘I’m not pregnant. Listen . . . there’s something I want to say and I want you to take it seriously.’

‘OK,’ said Ed, taking a sip of wine.

‘I know we have a great life here, good jobs, a nice house and friends, but I’m not happy and haven’t been for a while.’

‘I don’t understand, Kate. Are you breaking up with me?’

‘I’m not breaking up with you, Ed, you idiot. I love you.’ I took a deep breath and then a large mouthful of wine. ‘I want us to take a gap year and go travelling.’

There, I’d said it. It was out there. My hopes and dreams were hanging tantalisingly by the merest of threads. I waited for his response, which came quickly and resolutely. I’d been thinking about travelling for years, but it took Ed only seconds to stoically squash my dreams.

‘We can’t. It’s impossible.’

‘Why?’

‘Because it just is.’

‘But I have that money from Nan. We could rent out the house for a year to cover the mortgage. Please, Ed, just think about it. We could go to Asia, Australia, South America, wherever we want. Just you and me having the time of our lives . . .’

‘We can’t.’

‘That’s not good enough, Ed. I need more than that. I want us to do something incredible and life changing and you don’t. I need to know why.’

‘Because I have my job. You think they’ll just give me a year off? I’ve worked too hard and too long to give it up, Kate, and honestly I don’t think travelling is that important. We’re not teenagers anymore, we’re almost thirty. It’s time to put down roots.’