I Heart London (23 page)

‘What are you doing?’ I pushed him away and hit him with my satchel. ‘What is wrong with you?’

‘What are you talking about?’ He covered his head with his arms and cowered behind the bonnet of the car. ‘I thought you wanted me to!’

‘Why would I want you to kiss me?’ I continued to beat him for fear of another attack of the lips. I paused to wave my left hand in his terrified face. ‘I’m getting married on Saturday, you fool.’

‘And you come out with me, all dressed up, with bloody make-up on.’ He spat out the word and waved a hand around in the general vicinity of his face. ‘And I’m supposed to think you don’t want me to kiss you?’

This was tricky territory. Because I did want him to
want
to kiss me, but I didn’t want him to follow through with it. I wanted him to think about it, then go home and have a little cry in the bath. Now he had created all kinds of fun problems. Now I had to tell Alex. Now I had to tell my mum. Now I had to pick up all the tampons and lip balms that had fallen out of my handbag. Who needed seven lip balms and only three tampons? Me, apparently.

‘Of course I didn’t want you to kiss me!’ I tried ever so hard to morph into the spitting dinosaur from
Jurassic Park
, but for some reason I couldn’t quite manage it. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘So what did you want?’ He smoothed out his shirt and shook out his shoulders a couple of times. ‘Apart from to mess with my head?’

It was all very Danny Zuko in
Grease
. I tried very hard not to shout, ‘You’re a fake and a phoney and I wish I’d never laid eyes on you.’

‘I wanted …’ My mind was completely empty. I couldn’t tell him I wanted closure. I couldn’t tell him I wanted him to feel stupid. I certainly couldn’t tell him I wanted him to go home and listen to whatever music boys listened to when they were sad and wish he’d never ever cheated on me. So I told him the biggest, stupidest lie I could think of.

‘I wanted to invite you to the wedding.’

‘I would love to,’ he replied through gritted teeth.

‘Wonderful.’ My eyes widened and my throat felt tight. Cockingtons. ‘I am so glad.’

‘Are you now?’ He smelled a rat. Or at least the busted bottle of Coco Mademoiselle that lay at my feet.

‘I would be honoured if you would attend,’ I said very slowly and clearly. ‘You and your lovely girlfriend.’

‘You want me to bring Katie?’ His eyebrows shot up so high it was a wonder they didn’t get caught in the engines of a passing plane. ‘To your wedding?’

‘Sod it, why not?’ I had already destroyed the happiest day of my life by inviting this bell end; I figured I may as well push it as far as possible. Besides, there was no way she’d come. Right? ‘The more the merrier. Please do tell her it’s a fancy occasion, though, so if she can keep her knickers on, that would be brilliant.’

‘I’m sure she’ll do her best.’ Mark continued to stare straight at me. ‘You really have changed, you know.’

‘Thank fuck for that,’ I said, stooping to gather my belongings as gracefully as I could without flashing my gusset to the world. ‘I’ll see you on Saturday.’

My dignified exit and refusal of a lift home meant that I had to get the train back. And having to get the train meant I had to get a Starbucks. Soothed by the globally recognized menu, I sipped at my venti latte and texted Alex to tell him we needed to talk weddings when he got home. And then I texted Louisa to tell her I needed to talk to her as soon as. And then I texted Jenny to tell her we needed to do some more work on the seating plan.

This had not been my most successful day. I got home and changed into my pyjama shorts and one of Alex’s T-shirts, hoping his common-sense DNA might rub off on me, and settled down to sort through the boxes my mum had left in the back bedroom. Self-inflicted punishment of the worst kind − I was going to have to confront the ghosts of fashions passed. Thank God Jenny was out.

The first box was easy to deal with. Lots of H&M strappy dresses I’d worn with lots of little greying H&M T-shirts underneath. The odd Warehouse shift, a couple of pairs of worn-through leggings. I pulled a huge fluffy jumper out of the pile and put it to one side. It held many happy memories of cuddling up on the couch with Louisa and half a pint of Ben & Jerry’s. The second box was full of books. I made a mental note to have them shipped before we headed back to the States. The last box was less easily dealt with. Instead of finding a pile of sad clothes or a stack of classics, I found everything else I’d left behind. This box was full of me. My
Little Mermaid
,
Bring It On
and
Buffy
DVDs. A collection of Benefit make-up catalogues, so often lusted after and rarely used. Half a dozen theatre programmes, my scrapbook of tickets and flyers of all the gigs I’d gone to. And underneath them, three large blue suede photo albums. The collected volumes of Angela and Mark. It hadn’t occurred to me that he would have packed these up with my things. These weren’t my things, they were our things. And I didn’t want them. I pulled them out and rested all three in my lap for a moment. They were heavy.

I pulled a hair-tie from around my wrist and twisted my hair up on top of my head before I opened up the first album. The first thing that hit me was how young I looked. And how terrible my hair was. I always thought I looked pretty good for twenty-eight − I stayed out of the sun, I wore sunscreen − but there was something in my face in these pictures that no amount of product could put back. I flicked through the pages, watching me and Louisa grow up. Dancing in the garden, dressing up as the Spice Girls, both of us on horses, Louisa on a horse and me standing beside one in a cast. And then the boys appeared. After a couple of pages, the pictures moved on to just me and Mark. Messing about for the camera at uni, our holiday in Seville where he proposed, the day we got the keys for our house. Slowly, as I moved on to the last album, I noticed that there were fewer and fewer photos that had been deemed album-worthy. The first few pages were crammed with photos of us with our cheeks pressed tightly together, arms thrown around each other like the world was ending. But by the end there were just one or two photos of us with strained smiles and no touching. This was what people meant when they said a picture spoke a thousand words. I just hadn’t been listening at the time.

Underneath the albums were stacks and stacks of cards. I leafed through them, occasionally flicking them open to see the faded inscriptions. It wasn’t until I felt the hot water dripping on to my knees that I realized I was crying. It wasn’t just the birthday and Christmas cards I’d collected over the years, it was everything. All the Valentine’s cards we had sent to each other. Every little love note. The anniversary cards, the postcards, the just-to-say-I-love-you cards. How did shared belongings automatically become possessions of the girl after a break-up? Why did we have to suffer the burden? I couldn’t believe he’d discarded all of this so easily. I’d spent hours writing out these notes, these love letters, and at the time they’d meant everything. I’d assumed they’d meant the same to him. Apparently not. Maybe Katie didn’t want them in her house. Or maybe Mark didn’t care to be reminded of his past mistakes. Either way, it was harsh.

I picked up a pale pink heart and stared at it. I didn’t need to open it to know what it said − I had the words memorized. This was the first Valentine’s card I’d ever sent. For a second, just a second, I wondered what would have happened if I hadn’t left England. If I hadn’t run away. Would we have worked things out? Would I have fought for Mark? Could we have been happy?

I piled the cards back in with the books and wiped away my tears with an unattractive sniff. Maybe inviting him to the wedding wasn’t a silly idea; maybe it was a downright stupid idea.

‘Hey girl.’ Alex knocked gently on the door and stood in front of me in last night’s rumpled clothes. ‘What’s up?’

I looked up, tears streaming down my face, grey traces of mascara staining the backs of my hands. ‘Hi.’ My voice was thick and sad, even though I was trying to smile.

‘You OK?’ His face creased with concern and he was on his knees by my side in moments. ‘What’s wrong?’

I wanted to hold it all together and tell him I was fine. I wanted to be completely reassured by his presence, by the fact that we were getting married in mere days, by the knowledge that Alex would be by my side for the rest of my life, but I couldn’t. I wasn’t. Seeing Mark, reading these cards, looking at ten years gone by wrapped up in blue suede had stolen my voice. They had stolen my faith. All I could do was press my lips tightly together and let my eyes burn.

‘What are these?’ Alex took the card out of my hands and opened it up. He read it, looked at me and read it again. Then he closed it and put it back in the box. ‘You getting cold feet on me, Clark?’

I shook my head and smiled but I couldn’t quite form the words I needed to. Instead I pressed my head into his chest and let out the last couple of whimpers while he stroked my hair.

‘This is all your old stuff,’ he asked, poking the box with his foot. ‘Yours and Mark’s?’

I noticed an edge to his voice when he said Mark’s name − just a very slight crispness that never really made it into Alex’s approach to life. There was a chance my news wasn’t going to go down especially well.

‘Yeah,’ I whispered, clearing my throat. ‘Mum asked me to go through the boxes but I didn’t know what was in them. Sorry, I just got a bit, you know, sad.’

‘You don’t have to be sorry for being sad.’ He kept stroking my hair and holding me close. ‘It must be weird to see all this stuff.’

‘Yeah,’ I agreed, scrunching up my face. I just had to bite the bullet. ‘And I saw Mark too.’

‘You did?’ The stroking stopped.

‘And I sort of invited him to the wedding.’

‘You did?’ Suddenly he wasn’t holding me quite so tightly.

‘It was stupid, it just came out.’ I pulled away and looked up at him but his expression was completely unreadable. ‘He called to see if we could catch up and I thought, you know, it’d be all right because we’ve both moved on and it would be good to see him and stuff.’

‘Right.’

‘But it was a bit weird.’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘So I invited him to the wedding.’

Alex rubbed his eyes and blinked a couple of times before setting his emerald eyes on me. ‘Just so I’m straight here − you hung out with your ex, it got weird and
then
you invited him to our wedding?’

I squeezed my nose and swiped my smudged eyes again.

‘Yes.’

‘Then did you call Solene and invite her along to completely destroy any chance of this wedding working out?’

Solene. AKA Le French Bitch. AKA Alex’s ex. AKA my nemesis. Well, one of them, along with Cici and Mark’s girlfriend. I hated having three nemeses at twenty-nine. It was too many for someone who wasn’t a master spy.

‘I did not call Solene − I don’t have her number,’ I replied. My joke fell flat. Besides, I did have her number. It was saved in my phone under ‘evilbitchfromhell’ just in case. ‘It was stupid, I know. It just came out. But I’m sure he’s not going to come.’

‘Did he say he’s not going to come?’

‘Not exactly,’ I admitted. ‘And I also invited his girlfriend.’

‘Angela.’ Alex leaned back against the spare bed, looking at me with tired surprise. The way a teacher might look at a pupil who has been eating the papier-mâché. Again. ‘Do you want him at the wedding?’

I looked at the photo albums, the scrapbooks and half of Clintons Cards’ warehouse piled up in the plastic storage box in front of me. ‘Well, it’s not like I want him to give me away.’

‘And it’s not my dream come true to hang out with your ex on our wedding day.’ He put his arm back around my shoulders and pulled me into his chest. His heart rate was definitely up, and not in a ‘let’s do it on the bedroom floor’ way. ‘We both know what happened when you met mine.’

We did know. The short version of that story was ‘nothing good’.

‘And I don’t want to come off as the jealous type,’ he said, kissing my hair and holding me tightly. ‘But I kinda am.’

I tilted back to drop a kiss on his lips. ‘Me too.’

This didn’t appear to be a good time to tell him about the attempted snog, and really, what was the good in him knowing? Mark had taken a kicking and it wasn’t like anything had really happened. This was definitely one of those better-off-not-knowing things.

‘This one is easy,’ Alex said, dropping the cover on the storage box and clicking it tightly closed, ignoring my sharp intake of breath. Was he going to suggest disinviting him? Had he forgotten I was English? ‘Just call him and tell him he can’t come.’

‘There’s no way he’ll come,’ I promised. ‘He’s stupid, but he’s not that stupid.’ I really hoped I was right. He was pretty stupid.

‘And all of this stuff? The cards, the photographs, all of it − ancient history,’ he said, pushing the box underneath the bed with his foot. ‘No more tears over the past. As of Saturday, it’s you and me for good. No ex-boyfriends, no ex-girlfriends, just me and you every single day, exactly like it should be.’

‘Just me and you.’ I bit my lips, trying to put some colour into my face that wasn’t a variation on grey. ‘Sounds nice.’

‘I guess I should add a proviso for the fact that we’re never going to get rid of Jenny.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘And I figure it’s only a matter of time before Craig ends up living on our sofa.’

‘And now you’ve given my dad some keys, I’m pretty sure he’s eyeing a move over,’ I added.

Alex laughed and unwrapped his arms from around my neck. He gave me a gentle push backwards and we looked at each other quietly for a moment.

‘I think you should wear that to the wedding,’ he said. ‘Suits you.’

‘Might have to if the dress doesn’t get here.’ I pulled the faded black T-shirt out and looked at it properly. Hmm. Mum wasn’t much for AC/DC. ‘Have you got your ensemble sorted?’

‘Your dad wants to take me to some place called Westfield?’ He stretched out a denim-clad leg and poked me with his Converse. ‘Is that a good thing?’

‘Westfield is a good thing,’ I confirmed. ‘Dad wanting to spend every waking moment with you is just adorable. Bromance of the century.’