‘It never occurred to me that he would come here,’ Matthew said, stroking my hair as I sat on the sofa. ‘We were going to come over but you didn’t answer the phone so I assumed you were asleep. You always reply if you’re not asleep.’
‘I did sleep,’ I said. ‘I’ll be all right.’
‘I know you will,’ he said. ‘Of course you will be. You’re well rid of that arsehole.’
Was I rid of him? Surely he was the one who had got rid of me? And I wasn’t an arsehole. I didn’t think.
‘You’re so going to be all right.’ Em was brewing enough tea to quench the thirst of Bristol. ‘How about a bath? A bath might feel good.’
‘I don’t know.’ How did someone not know whether or not they wanted a bath? Oh good, I’d gone mad.
‘Well, whatever you want to do, just tell us.’ Matthew kissed the top of my head and looked at me expectantly. ‘Or, you know, sit there in silence and we’ll just talk at you. Either way.’
The clock on the DVD player said it was 10.00 a.m. The Mad Men DVD has gone from the top of the DVD player. How could it only be 10.00 a.m.? Your life wasn’t allowed to go down the shitter before noon on a Saturday, surely. Simon must have taken the Mad Men DVD. I should get changed. I actually should have a bath. But a bath would make my foot hurt. I cut my foot. And what was I going to get changed into? Pyjamas would be too pathetic; clothes seemed too optimistic. Maybe I could go back to sleep. It was still early. If this was a normal Saturday and I hadn’t just been completely screwed over by the person I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with, I’d probably still be in bed.
‘Rachel, are you thinking things and not saying them out loud?’ Matthew asked.
Oh, I was.
‘He’s taken the Mad Men DVDs,’ I said eventually. My voice sounded thick and tragic.
‘Had you finished watching them?’ he asked.
I shook my head.
‘Fils de pute,’ Emelie breathed. ‘It’s one thing to take a girl’s toothpaste, it’s another to take her Don Draper—’
‘Right, bath first,’ he said, giving Emelie the nod. She immediately stopped refilling the kettle and hotfooted it into the bathroom. Taps turning, water running, Emelie swearing when she scalded herself on our hot tap just as she always did. ‘OK?’
I really couldn’t do much more than nod. It was like I was asleep with my eyes open. Somewhere between two and twenty minutes passed before Emelie called that the bath was ready. Matthew helped me up and gave me a gentle push towards the bathroom.
‘You’ll feel better, really.’ He shut the door before I could start stripping off. Amazing best friend though he was, Matthew was wildly uncomfortable around female nudity. He had been very clear from the outset that he had no interest in seeing so much as a boob from either of us. Emelie had, of course, flashed him within three weeks of living together, but I’d managed to retain my modesty. ‘Amazing what a bath can do.’
‘It’s ready.’ Em manoeuvred her way behind me in my tiny bathroom and pulled as much as my hair as she could into a ponytail on the top of my head. ‘Do you need anything?’
‘I’m good.’ I peeled off my vest and dropped it on the bathroom floor. Five more minutes and it probably would have crawled off my back itself. The skinny jeans were more committed to sticking with me. It took me a good couple of attempts to wrestle my way out of them before Em stepped in with one good hard tug and yanked them down over my knees. Hanging onto the sink, I watched her scoop them up, flash me a grin and then shut the bathroom door behind her. Standing in front of the mirror in my bra and pants, hair piled in a giant pineapple on top of my head, crying, with a bottom lip so low you could hang coat hangers off it, didn’t make me feel pathetic at all. Have a bath, Rachel. You’ll feel better, Rachel.
Tearing my eyes away from the sex bomb in the mirror, the actual bath itself looked amazing. It was full and overloaded with bubbles, and the steam scented the room with a relaxing, clean smell – lavender and something. All I had to do was get in. One foot, then the other and, soon, I’d smell clean and fresh too. My skin would be pink and soft, the bubbles would tickle the back of my neck and, whether I liked it or not, my muscles would relax and I probably would feel a bit better. Only, I didn’t want to feel better. I wanted to wallow and mope and run the events of the last twelve hours over and over in my mind. I didn’t want tea; I didn’t want baths; I didn’t want sympathetic friends. I wanted my boyfriend back. But if I didn’t get in the bath, a) Matthew and Emelie would know and b) I would smell. Couldn’t hurt to show willing. That was, of course, unless the bath was scorching red hot and took the skin off my foot.
Outside the bathroom, I could hear my friends’ emergency summit. The joys of cheap Nineties renovations: the walls in this place were paper thin.
‘Right, I’ll strip the bed and you take the photos of him down,’ I heard Matthew directing. ‘I’ll bloody boil-wash the bedding. I want every trace of that shit out of this flat before she gets out the bath.’
‘Done and done,’ Em replied. ‘I can’t believe he’s done this.’
‘I know,’ he said. ‘I really thought this one was going all the way.’
Me and you both, I thought. Me and you both.
‘Then thank god he’s done it now. Imagine if they’d actually got married.’
‘I know, I mean, how do you pretend you’re happy for someone marrying a knob-head?’
I sank back into the bath. My friends thought Simon was a knob-head? But we’d been together for five years and they’d never said anything. I knew I was never at risk of either of them trying it on with him – aside from the fact he had a penis, he really wasn’t either of their types, but still. They hated him so much they were pleased we’d broken up?
I held a bright pink foot out of the water and checked my toenail polish. It needed changing. Theme of the day. Turning on the cold tap with my toes, I tried to come up with reasons as to why Em and Matthew would dislike Simon so much. Admittedly, they didn’t have that much in common. Simon was pretty much a full-time bloke. He watched football, played video games, enjoyed the work of Will Ferrell, the body of Megan Fox and the music of Coldplay. That didn’t make him a bad person, just a straight 29-year-old man. Maybe he hadn’t always been completely comfortable around Matthew in the early days, but that was just because he didn’t have that many gay friends. And maybe he’d been a little too comfortable around Emelie on occasion, but she could hardly pretend she wasn’t flattered by his clumsy flirting. And he was a good boyfriend. He cooked, mostly because I couldn’t. He did all the man jobs, brought me flowers when he’d worked late, always remembered my birthday, never cancelled on plans, came to every last wedding, birthday and christening I dragged him to without complaint. He wasn’t selfish or greedy, he didn’t cheat or lie; he was a good man. We were happy. We had a routine. And apparently I wasn’t alone in thinking this was going to end in a ring and a white dress and a rousing rendition of ‘Oops Upside Your Head’ on the floor of a nice hotel somewhere in Surrey.
But no. No ring. No white dress. No group dance number. No explanation. Maybe if I spoke to him. Maybe if I got a real explanation, we could still talk this through. I could still get him back.
After what I hoped was a decent amount of time, I heaved myself out of the still-hot water and towelled down. Matthew wouldn’t appreciate the show of skin but, as my dressing gown was in the bedroom, this was the best I could do. I just wanted to put on some clothes, pick up the phone and get this sorted. Matthew and Emelie were standing