The Perfect Girlfriend(84)
I take deep breaths of sea air. I need to channel my anger constructively.
I phone the hotel where Bella and Miles are to hold their wedding reception and ask about waitressing jobs for large events. They give me the name of a local outside agency, so I locate them and register for work.
Back in my flat, I look at the photos of Bella’s room and study all her belongings. I take note of the brands of the numerous bottles of perfumes and creams.
I check on Nate. He is away, visiting an old uni friend in Leeds. Fresh anger hits at the thought of him out and about, enjoying his life with not a care in the world.
I can’t sit here any more and do nothing.
I rummage around in the kitchen.
I run over the Green and let myself in through the communal door. As I stride up the stairs, I remove a can of ant killer from my bag – I’ve read that it’s harmful to fish – and place it on the floor as I slide my key into the lock.
It is stuck. It doesn’t work.
Access denied.
I twist and turn the key left and right and continue trying, long after realization dawns that Nate really is determined to keep me out of all areas of his life.
29
Four days before Christmas, I receive a very formally worded letter from the office of James Harrington. Annulment proceedings are underway. Nate and I – now known as ‘the petitioner’ and ‘the respondent’ – are soon to be no more.
I sit on my bed for hours staring at the legal words, making it all sound so straightforward and simple, as though there is no emotion involved in the process. When I’ve memorized every painful word, I go to the kitchen, take out a lighter and, above the sink, I set the words alight. Burnt crisps flutter, fall and land, black curls against the white ceramic.
In the distance, I hear carol-singers launch into ‘Silent Night’.
Babs accompanies me on my Christmas trip to San Francisco on my free family-and-friends ticket. Taking her sightseeing provides a welcome distraction: Alcatraz, the Golden Gate Bridge, a cable-car ride, Fisherman’s Wharf; we embrace the whole tourist package.
Our Christmas lunch is non-traditional as we gather in a seafood restaurant, along with twenty other strangers – my crew and their fellow ‘cling-ons’. Boyfriends, mothers, friends. I eat mussels in white wine sauce and pick flakes off a crab shell. The restaurant does its best – there are crackers and Christmas music – but all this attempt at cheer, all this fun, is killing me inside.
When Babs is asleep in my room, on one side of my huge king-size bed, I torture myself by reading all of Nate’s cheery messages, back and forth, like tennis balls across the world. He is at home with his wonderful, loving family.
A woman – Tara – messages him to wish him ‘a wonderful Christmas’. She looks forward to seeing him soon. As does he, in his reply to her.
Bella, Nate, Miles, I can imagine them all sitting around the table, carving the turkey, sipping mulled wine, opening expensive gifts. Happy, living the lives that they believe they deserve.
I switch on the TV and pick a film, a romantic comedy, just to make myself feel worse.
On the return sector I have no patience, none at all. During boarding, a woman in her thirties, who tells me three times that she is the managing director of some large company I’ve never heard of, refuses to put her bag away for take-off.
‘Can’t you do it?’
My jaw clenches. ‘I’m afraid we’re not allowed to lift baggage. And if you don’t move it, I’ll be back in a few minutes to have it placed in the hold.’
Mid-flight my supervisor tells me that the woman has complained about my attitude. I try to look contrite. I’m too wound up to take a break. Instead, I sit in the galley and listen to a colleague, Natalie, who is full of chatter about her kitchen renovations for the forthcoming month. She is part-time and is not due back at work until February.
‘The fitters have said that they’ll keep the chaos to a minimum.’
Some people will believe anything. Actually, I don’t mind Natalie, and if she lived a bit closer to me – she commutes from Glasgow, which is too far for regular visits – I’d befriend her. I’ve realized that it doesn’t do me any good when I get too lonely.
After landing, once I’ve finished the passenger PA welcoming everyone to Heathrow, I feel a small twinge of unexpected optimism. A new year is imminent; always a good time for a fresh beginning.
I open the overhead stowage, above the alleged managing director’s seat, and offer to take her bag out for her. Before she can answer, I pull it out and drop it on to her feet.
Her face contorts in pain. ‘Ouch! Think what you’re doing.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ I say. ‘Personally, I always find it’s safer to travel light.’ I walk away.
She can complain all she likes, there’s no proof that it wasn’t an accident.
Three weeks later, I book myself into a hotel close to where Miles will end up ruining his life by tethering himself to Bella, and request a room overlooking the church.
Early afternoon, as guests arrive in their finery, it is – of course – a perfectly sunny winter’s day. I look out the window for Nate. When I spot him, standing next to his mother and a woman, no doubt Tara – a petite woman, with dark hair – a huge lump forms in my throat and I am unable to stop the tears.