I was suddenly reminded of an out-of-the-ordinary night a few months ago. Alex had taken me to dinner in this new restaurant in town, he’d just received a bonus at work and wanted to treat me, something that hadn’t happened in ages. We drank cocktails in a bar which overlooked the whole of the city, ate melt-in-your-mouth steaks with all the trimmings, followed by the best tiramisu I’d ever tasted. Embarrassingly, I’d even considered running to the kitchen to persuade the chef to let me have the recipe so that I could pass it to our wedding caterers. The wine flowed and we’d actually had a few non wedding-related conversations as he uncharacteristically showered me with clunky compliments. I remembered that his phone had seemed to buzz more than usual as it lay on the white linen tablecloth, but he took my hand and dismissed it as a problem with work, not even glancing to look at the persistent caller before placing it back in his pocket.
The alcohol had affected my thinking; Alex works for an accountancy firm, which doesn’t open at weekends, let alone 9.30pm on a Saturday night. It must have been her. Maybe she had just taken the test; maybe those two blue positive lines had just appeared. The start of a new life and little did I know, the end of ours.
I massaged my temples as my mum reappeared. Glancing down at her watch she gave her husband a sympathetic look: ‘We have to be going soon to get your dad to this appointment. They fine you if you’re late.’
‘Oh OK.’ I looked at their faces, creased with worry and pain for their only child. I remembered when Alex and I had got engaged (retelling the fake story of course); smiles all round, Cava corks popping and wedding chatter over the dinner table. They were so pleased that I was settling down and was being taken care of by a good man from a wealthy family. As parents they couldn’t have wished for more for their only daughter, even if I knew at times that they felt inferior compared to the very different social circles that his parents mixed in. My dad had shrugged it off, telling me they didn’t need to be bezzie mates with my in-laws, just as long as I was happy, and that hopefully longed-for grandchildren wouldn’t be far behind. Another disappointment.
‘You going to be OK, pet?’ my dad asked.
I shook myself together and plastered on a pathetic smile. ‘Sure. I’m fine. Like you’ve all said, I’ve had a lucky escape. Better to be a jilted bride than a divorcee at 28, eh?’ My joke fell flat as my dad gave me another bear hug.
‘You deserve better than him. This will be the making of you I’m sure of it. Look after yourself, kid,’ he whispered as tears pricked my eyes.
‘I will, Dad. Good luck at your appointment. I’ll call you later.’ I waved them off, my mum’s heels clacking on the tiled floor as she brushed the crumbs from the sleeve of my dad’s jumper.
‘Shit, I can’t believe it, what a bloody bombshell.’ Marie shook her head, flicking through Alex’s official papers which now had coffee ring stains on them. ‘Still, imagine his mum’s face when he comes clean about an illegitimate grandchild, they certainly won’t like that at the polo club.’ She looked up at my pale face. ‘Sorry. But you have to admit Ruthless Ruth will be having kittens at this. Right, I’m going to get a later train as we need a drink, or retail therapy or both.’
I let out a deep sigh. ‘No, no, don’t do that. You can’t be late for your new role, as much as a vat of vodka has my name on it I’m not going to be jumping off into the nearest canal or anything. Have a safe journey and call me when you get there, OK?’
Marie nodded uncertainly. ‘You sure? I really don’t want to leave you after that.’
‘Positive. He’s managed to screw up enough things and your acting career is not going to be one of them.’
‘You sure you don’t want to track him down and give him a piece of your mind?’ she asked, looking fired up for a fight. When we were in Turkey she’d tried to teach me how to master snappy comebacks and fierce confrontation, an area that I was useless at. I’d always leave a fight kicking myself over the things that I should have said. Marie had even written down a list of blush-inducing insults, telling me I needed to be confident, stay calm, and that above all ‘If you hesitate, you lose. Think like Eminem in his 8 Mile rap battle.’ She’d gone into acting-teacher mode, telling me to see confrontation as an invite to play then walk away with dignity, firmly instructing me that under no circumstances was I ever to repeat what the other person had said in a funny voice.
I’d tried coming up with my own putdowns including the corker: ‘Have you been on holiday to Greece, as you’re so greasy,’ but even I could tell that wasn’t going to be a classic. She’d even made me download the word a day app, hoping to extend my vocabulary with feisty retorts. But I was nowhere near ready to go all Slim Shady on Alex’s ass, my thoughts were too twisted up to be able to condense what I wanted to say to him into an eloquent put-down. Realising what a lost cause I was Marie had changed tactics, asking, ‘What’s the most powerful way of getting a man’s attention or driving him wild?’
I looked at her blankly.
‘Ignoring him. Moving on. Silent but deadly,’ she said wisely, ignoring my protests that that was also the name of a fart. Unfortunately, I had to agree with her. Realising that if Alex was getting on with his life then I had to get on with mine, I suddenly knew exactly where I needed to go.
Lobally (adj.) Lout, stupid, rude or awkward person
‘Totally Awesome Adventours’ travel agent was just opposite Kendal’s. Its bright lights beamed like a beacon of sunshine nestled next to a drab charity shop and boarded up pharmacy. The cluttered, colourful window display of a tropical beach scene complete with wooden deckchairs, hats with corks hanging from the rim carelessly tossed onto the striped fabric alongside a blow-up kangaroo, looked out of place on the grey Manchester street. ‘Learn Spanish in Argentina’, ‘Peace out at the Taj Mahal in India’, ‘Trek the Inca Trail in Peru’, ‘Go raving in Thailand’, an array of signs called out, each promising a new experience and adventure. I wistfully thought back to sitting in the sun writing out my travel wish-list, then finding my memory box full of trips I’d wanted to take for so long. This shop offered me the chance to go and see these places for real, and now I had the money to do it.
Taking a deep breath I pushed open the door.
Two guys in their early twenties wearing matching neon orange T-shirts looked up from computers on their kidney-shaped desks, took one glance at me then quickly looked back down again. Huge comfy-looking acid yellow and lime green beanbags were scattered in the corner next to a packed bookcase with stacks of glossy travel brochures, each containing hidden gems, exotic cultures and new worlds inside. I felt a shiver of excitement – until I took in the rest of the room, which made me feel ancient, out of touch and out of place. There was a map of the world with flags where customers could pin the countries they had been and their top tips. I could only add a sad flag to Portugal; my mum had found a cheap deal one year, but moaned constantly that it was too foreign. There had also been nauseating ferry trips to France, that my dad promised would be culturally enlightening but actually turned out to be a quick booze cruise to sell on nice bottles of plonk at mates rates in the local pub car park.
Music I vaguely remembered blasting out from the bedlam of bars in Turkey played with an irritating repetitive beat. Tacked to the colourful walls were photos of nubile-looking women with wet hair excitedly waving to the camera, bar tout Manic Mel could easily have been one of them. My determination vanished as fast as those bikini babes’ morals. Maybe this was a stupid idea; these sorts of places were for carefree students, baby-faced backpackers sharing a manky hostel dorm, not a nearly-30-year-old career woman, if you could even call me that. Without Marie’s unwavering support I suddenly felt foolish being in here; maybe I’d have a look online first from the safety of my bedroom, or maybe this was just an idiotic thing to do in the first place. I tried to sidle my way to the