The Stag and Hen Weekend (26 page)

The very idea that Yaz and Simon had separated unsettled her greatly. While they were hardly anyone’s idea of a perfect couple (Helen had lost count of the number of times she had watched Yaz mercilessly bully Simon in order to get her own way or observed Simon flip from normal to sullen over the smallest comment from Yaz) Helen had always felt that they worked. Somehow Yaz’s volatility cancelled out Simon’s own, leaving behind two reasonably decent people who loved each other a great deal even if they didn’t always show it. To know that it was all at risk for something as intangible as one half of the unit needing ‘space’ upset her world view.

‘So all of that stuff you said to me this morning . . . ?’

‘Lies.’

Helen found it impossible to hide her surprise. Before this moment she would have described Yaz the worst liar she had ever met.

‘I know,’ said Yaz as if reading her thoughts, ‘it’s funny how good you get at lying once you’ve run out of options.’

The buzz of conversation and laughter alerted the friends that they were no longer alone – lured by the beauty of the river a number of the hotel’s guests were on their way down to the water’s edge. Helen looked at Yaz and sighed.

‘Do you want to go somewhere else?’

‘No, I’m fine, really I am. Let’s just try and get the evening back to where it was.’

The first sign that the evening might not be the washout Yaz had feared came as they arrived at the restaurant and spotted the girls sitting at a table for eight.

Delighted on Yaz’s behalf, Helen quizzed the girls as to how this had come about.

‘Yaz was right,’ Kerry explained handing them each a glass of champagne. ‘She had booked a table for eight. After you guys left Dee made a bit of a fuss and asked to speak to the manager and he double-checked the booking. Turns out the girl who took Yaz’s call made a mistake and rather than amending the old booking she’d simply made a new one and made things worse by writing down Yaz’s name as Mrs Cole so there was a whole table for eight sitting empty which was ours anyway. He was massively apologetic, promised to halve the bill for the evening and chucked in two bottles of Moët for our trouble!’ Kerry raised her glass. ‘I know we’ve gone a bit mad for the toasting tonight but who cares! Here’s to Yaz, always right even when they try to tell her she’s wrong!’

A Thai prawn noodle starter and mouthwatering steak main later, Helen was sitting in front of an empty coffee cup laughing as Lorna wheeled out the story of the time she and Dez had met David Bowie at Heathrow Airport and was so completely and utterly star-struck when he agreed to sign an autograph that she passed out, cracked her head on the floor and knocked herself unconscious. The girls loved Lorna’s story, even those like Helen who had heard it before, and had it not been for Dee’s suggestion that they all retire to the Silver Lounge for another drink, the conversation would no doubt have turned to other embarrassing celebrity encounters.

‘Absolutely,’ enthused Ros, ‘I’ve been dying to sample some of those lovely cocktails you all had earlier.’

The other late arrivals, Heather and Carla, nodded in unison and en masse the girls went straight to the Silver Lounge where they commandeered a corner of the now bustling bar. The waiter distributed drinks menus, which they all studied – apart from Kerry, who seemed preoccupied.

‘What’s up?’ asked Helen noticing her young friend’s distraction.

‘Look over there,’ said Kerry pointing as subtly as she could to a tall, handsome man in a dark suit and tie who stood talking with a group of men who had their backs to her.

Helen was none the wiser. ‘Who is he?’

Some of the other girls looked up to see what was monopolising their friends’ attention.

‘Is that who I think it is?’ asked Lorna.

‘Depends on who you think it is,’ said Helen. ‘I have no idea.’

‘I don’t know his name or anything,’ said Kerry. ‘But I’m pretty sure he’s that Man United player. What’s he doing here?’

‘Same as us, probably,’ said Helen. ‘Having a weekend away with his mates. Which means that the last thing he’ll want is a group of women on a hen weekend gawping at him.’

Kerry wasn’t convinced. ‘Have you actually looked at him? He’s absolutely beautiful.’

‘And you’re engaged!’

‘And I wouldn’t do anything! You know that but . . .’ Kerry emitted what was intended to be a wistful sigh but which came out much closer to the low groan of a pervert. As one the entire table burst into peals of laughter.

Kerry was mortified. ‘He heard you lot laughing and he looked over! I’ve got no chance with him now!’

Chuckling, Dee reached into her purse and slapped down ten pounds on the table. ‘I’ll give you a tenner if you talk to him.’

Lorna shook her head in mock dismay. ‘Dee, don’t be so cruel. Can’t you see the girl’s not up to it!’

‘Kerry, ignore them, they’re just jealous that you’re still young and pretty not old and wizened like the rest of us!’ defended Helen. ‘Don’t stoop to their level!’

Kerry contemplated the note on the table. ‘What would I have to say?’

‘Are you really going to do it?’ screamed Dee in delight.

‘I’ll give you twenty pounds not to,’ said Helen fearing the only way this escapade could end was badly.

‘Like it’s about the money!’ chided Dee. ‘She’d do it for free, that one!’

‘You’ll get us chucked out! And what if he’s here with his girlfriend? She’ll have your eyes out!’

‘I’m only saying hello!’ protested Kerry. ‘There’s no harm in that is there? I don’t know . . . I was thinking maybe I might tell him that my Dan’s a huge fan!’

Lorna cackled. ‘Is that before or after you slip him your room number?’

Peering through her fingers Helen watched in horror as Kerry smoothed down her skirt and sashayed towards the footballer, her stomach tightening with her friend’s every step. At the last moment Kerry lost her nerve and comically spun around one hundred and eighty degrees before the footballer had even noticed her.

Howling with laughter as Kerry returned to her seat, the girls all congratulated her bravery and even Dee declared that Kerry deserved the money.

Relieved that things hadn’t got too out of hand, Helen called the waiter over to take their order and excused herself to use the loo, making sure to take the route furthest away from the footballer and his friends.

Emerging some moments later with freshly reapplied lipstick and hands that smelt of expensive moisturiser, Helen was about to head back to the bar when she was suddenly struck with the need to hear the voice of her fiancé. As anticipated, this thing with Simon and Yaz had disturbed her and she wanted Phil’s reassurance that what had happened to their friends wouldn’t happen to them too.

Helen searched her bag for her phone but then recalled her earlier decision to leave it in the bedroom in the spirit of freedom. She reckoned she had plenty of time to make a quick call and return to her friends before they sent out a search party and in a matter of minutes was breathlessly pushing her key card into her bedroom door.

Picking up her phone from the bedside table she called up Phil’s number to the main screen and wondered if she was doing the right thing. He was supposed to be on a boys’ weekend. What if he was annoyed that she was disturbing him or, even worse, think that she was checking up on him? She decided it would be okay as long as she told him why she had rung before he could say a word. If ever there was a justification for her call, the break-up of their friends’ marriage fitted the bill. She pressed the call button and waited. There wasn’t even a ringing tone. Instead, after a series of indeterminate clicks, she was directed to his voicemail.

Unsettled, she tried again but the same thing happened. Setting down the phone on the bed next to her she gave herself a good talking to as she began to worry. There were a million and one reasons why Phil’s phone might have been switched off and none of them had any bearing on their relationship. He was no doubt in a pub or a club with the rest of the boys and had deliberately left his phone behind so he could concentrate on having a good time much like she had planned to do. She told herself she would see him soon enough anyway. She made one last attempt and this time she left a message: ‘Hey you, it’s just me saying a quick hello. Arrived safely, the hotel is amazing, and the girls are all here now and we’re having a lot of fun. Obviously I’m not looking to cramp your style in front of the boys but I thought you might like to know that I love you madly! No need to ring me back, okay? Love you, bye.’ Satisfied that she had done the right thing, she returned her phone to the bedside table and made her way downstairs to the lobby.

In the bar it was as though she had stepped into another world. The music that had previously been little more than aural wallpaper was now loud enough to be a feature in itself and that, combined with the buzz of a hundred different conversations, gave the room a whole different atmosphere.

Keen to avoid the footballer and his friends, Helen kept her head down as she passed where they had been standing and as she wove her way back to the girls Yaz looked up and waved. She raised her hand to wave back but felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned around to see a face, which – even though she hadn’t encountered it in person for what felt like a lifetime – was instantly recognisable.

6.

In her professional life, Helen dealt exceptionally well with the unexpected. There was the time she was producing the breakfast show in Sheffield and the presenter, Jamie Toddington, fainted live on air in the middle of a phone interview with an MP who was trying to justify the closure of a local hospital. Before the MP had even become aware of the problem Helen had dropped her bowl of muesli, raced from her position at the control board to check that Jamie was still breathing, cued a traffic report and ran down to security requesting the assistance of someone with first aid training, while simultaneously placating the MP who was hanging on a second line wondering what was going on.

On another occasion working an afternoon shift during one of her early stints as a presenter, her producer had somehow failed to notice that the two main guests, a couple of former soap star heart-throb actors promoting a new production of
Waiting For Godot
at the local arts theatre, had turned up so drunk that they couldn’t form a coherent sentence, unless it was to ask Helen if she had a boyfriend and to make crude sexual allusions. Helen had kicked both the actors out of her studio, called up the theatre press officer live on air to complain about their behaviour and then filled the remaining twenty-five minutes of the show getting listeners (a heady mix of retired ladies and mums gearing up for their second round of the school run) to nominate their top British actors most unlike the two reprobates who had contaminated her studio. As she passed over to the news desk and faded out her mic, she was besieged by co-workers congratulating her on a job well done.

In fact throughout her career both as producer and presenter she had not only managed to turn negatives into positives, but also to disguise the fact there’d even been a problem at all. That’s how good Helen was at dealing with the unexpected. But professional Helen and private Helen were two very different creatures.

‘You look like you might need to sit down.’

Helen stared at Aiden Reid, her former fiancé, the nation’s most popular radio DJ and the only man to have broken her heart, with a look of utter disbelief. As is often the case with the least deserving, the intervening years had been kind to Aiden and though the ageing process had begun to take its toll around his eyes and around the temples, he was, Helen noted with some bitterness, even more handsome now than he had been when they were together.

Helen exhaled. She wanted this to be over. She wanted this to be over right now.

‘My friends and I are just about to leave.’

Aiden grinned. ‘And hello to you too. I’m sure you don’t care what I think but you look great.’

‘You’re right,’ said Helen pointedly, ‘I don’t care.’

‘Don’t be like that,’ pleaded Aiden, ‘I didn’t come over to fight. I just wanted to say hello, that’s all. I couldn’t believe it when I saw you just now. Even though I could only see the back of you I knew straight away who it was. What are you doing here?’

‘I’m here for a friend’s hen weekend.’

Aiden laughed.

‘What’s so funny?’

‘You’ll never believe this but I’m actually here on a mate’s stag weekend. What are the chances of that? The two of us here at the same time celebrating two different sets of impending nuptials.’

‘Coincidences happen,’ said Helen. ‘It’s not exactly what you’d call newsworthy, is it?’

‘Maybe not,’ replied Aiden. ‘It’s just that . . . I don’t know . . . it’s taken me by surprise seeing you here like this. And I’m guessing by the way you reacted that it took you a little by surprise too.’

Helen had no interest in confirming his suspicions. ‘Who is it getting married?’

‘Karl Peters.’

‘The Five Live guy?’

Aiden nodded. ‘Getting hitched to Ally Fallon. Really nice girl. She used to do a Saturday-morning kids’ thing back in the day. Now she’s mostly in radio.’

‘I think I might have caught her show once but she was so awful I had to switch her off. Karl though, I like him a lot, he’s good. Very sharp, very strong, always on the ball.’