All the Single Ladies (2 page)

‘Don’t what?’ She pushes her glasses up her nose.

‘Look at me like that. With such . . . morbid pity.’

She frowns. It’s an expression you’ll rarely see on Ellie because she’s permanently in a good mood. At five foot three, my best friend is four inches shorter than me and has
porcelain skin, full lips and a pretty-geek look that – despite being twenty-eight, the same age as me – means she still has the air of the girl everyone fancied in chess club. She also
has the best hair in the world, bar none. I cannot describe how much I covet Ellie’s hair. It’s long, mahogany-coloured and so lustrous and glossy that the first words out of her mouth
every morning could reasonably be: ‘Because I’m worth it.’

She teaches English Literature in one of the roughest comprehensive schools in the city, a job which requires her to be one tough cookie and no mistake. Although I’m pretty sure that
it’s her permanently upbeat disposition that wins them over, rather than the karate skills she honed on a six-week course in 2006 and has since used precisely never.

‘What else do you expect, gorgeous?’ she says softly. ‘I’m hardly going to congratulate you on the wonderful evening you’ve had.’

The fact that Ellie can still call me ‘gorgeous’ when I look as attractive as road kill is yet another reflection of my best friend’s generous personality. I press my back
against the wall and feel my face crumple, without having any control over the matter. ‘I’ve turned into a crying machine. I hate that.’

She shakes her head and opens her arms wide, wrapping them round my shoulders and pulling me in. ‘Stop being silly. And cry. That’s what you’re supposed to do.’ I bury my
head in her hair and breathe in the full force of her Herbal Essences.

‘Tell that to the AA man,’ I manage. ‘I don’t think he was counting on Gwyneth Paltrow’s acceptance speech when he came to look under my bonnet.’

She snorts with laughter, but I know it’s the last coherent sentence she’ll get out of me for a while, as a twist in my stomach prompts another violent wave of tears.

We make it into Ellie’s living room, where she sits me down on one of her sofas, the big one she’s had since we were students, with huge, squashy seats and gaudy, mismatched scatter
cushions.

I don’t know how Ellie’s house manages to look stylish when it’s full of such unapologetically eccentric stuff. The stripped floors and ceiling-high bookshelves help, but she
and Alistair – her boyfriend – wilfully turn their noses up at anything trendy and opt simply for what they like.

The result, thanks to the weird trinkets from the Gambia, the Queen of Hearts door knobs and the debris of toys courtesy of her two-year-old, Sophie, is a home that has their individual stamp on
it, and no mistake. It’s lovely.

She disappears from the room to get some wine and I find myself gazing at the screensaver on my phone – a photo of Jamie and me in Abersoch last year. It isn’t a great shot of me, in
all honesty. My bright green eyes, which can be one of my best features, look nearly grey in the sallow light and the wide smile I’m often complimented on just looks wonky. But I still love
the photo. I love the way Jamie’s squeezing my shoulders, the way he’s gazing at me proudly as if telling the world: ‘She’s mine.’

Ellie returns with a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc and a glass for me. She tops up her half-empty glass and pours another so full to the top I almost spill it as I lift it to my lips.

‘Start from the beginning,’ she instructs, tucking a maroon-legginged limb under her backside as she sits on the sofa opposite. ‘What did he say? And what did you say? And when
did he leave? And how did he leave?’

I take a deep breath and my lip wobbles. Recounting how the love of your life has left you isn’t easy, no matter whom you’re telling.

‘We were supposed to be having a romantic dinner tonight,’ I reply, hearing the tremor in my voice. ‘I had it all planned. I was making chicken cacciatore.’

‘Nice choice.’

‘I couldn’t tell you,’ I shrug. ‘It was never eaten.’

I take a mouthful of wine. ‘When he came in he had a funny look on his face. Nothing over the top. Nothing that gave me a clue as to what he was about to say. He looked like he’d had
a bad day, that’s all. You know what men are like when they’ve had a bad day.’

‘A bear with haemorrhoids,’ Ellie nods.

‘I just assumed he’d had a bollocking from the boss, or failed to hit his monthly targets or there’d been an unpleasant customer in the shop or . . .’ My voice drifts
away, bereft of steam.

‘When did it become clear something was really wrong?’ Ellie asks.

‘He said nothing at first. I walked around babbling about the tennis event we’re organizing and what Natasha Munn in accounts did today and . . . I didn’t see it
coming.’

She bites her lip.

‘Then I realized he hadn’t said anything for ages. So I asked if everything was all right. And as he started speaking . . . I wasn’t taking in what he was saying. All I could
hear were words going round the room and . . . urgh!’ The memory makes me shudder.

‘What words? What did he say?’

‘That he loves me more than anything. That it would kill him to be apart from me. That he’d do anything for me and I’m everything he could ever want in a woman.’

She scrunches up her nose. ‘Are you sure you’ve been dumped?’

‘He added that sometimes he thinks he’d rather die than be without me.’

‘Wow. I mean . . . what? I don’t get it.’

‘Me neither. Well . . . except I do.’

‘I’m lost,’ she continues, shaking her head. ‘How can he think all that and then split up with you?’

I frown, and for some unfathomable reason feel the need not just to explain, but to defend his position. ‘Because of what I’ve known about Jamie since the first day we
met.’

‘What’s that?’

‘He’s a free spirit. He doesn’t want what I want. He doesn’t want the marriage, the kids, the Victorian terrace with sash windows and hanging baskets. He might want me .
. . but he doesn’t want that.’

She closes her eyes at this moment of clarity – one that makes perfect sense to both of us, horrific as its consequences are.

‘But you’ve never been one of those women obsessed with marriage and kids and all that stuff,’ she argues. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever heard you mention it . . .
not to him, anyway. Clearly, what goes on between you and the girls on a Friday night is another matter. Besides, you’re perfect for each other. I’ve never met a couple so made for each
other. You sparkle together. I know that. Everyone else knows that. It even sounds like Jamie knows that.’

‘Well, it hardly matters,’ I sniff. ‘I’ve little choice on this issue.’

‘Oh I don’t believe that,’ she says dismissively, leaning over to grab the bottle and top up our glasses again. ‘He’ll be back in days. I know it. He’ll move
into one of his mates’ houses and within a week of eating slimy takeaways and living with each other’s farting and dirty pants on the bathroom floor, he’ll be on the doorstep. I
guarantee it.’

I gaze into the middle distance, feeling my tears well up again. ‘He won’t, Ellie.’

‘How do you know?’ she challenges.

‘Because he’s got a ticket to South America. And it’s not a return.’

She opens her mouth wide. ‘What? When?’

I swallow. ‘He flies out in five months. To Peru, apparently. He’s got some job with an environmental monitoring project that starts in December.’

‘But he’s dumped you now?’

I shrug. ‘I guess if you know you’re leaving someone it’d be difficult to live a lie for such a long time.’

Ellie shakes her head incredulously. ‘Has this come totally out of the blue? He gave you no indication before tonight that he was planning this?’

I let out a deep breath. ‘Things weren’t perfect. But are they in anyone’s relationship? Honestly, Ellie – I never expected this.’

She goes to answer, but the beep of a text interrupts her. I pick up my phone with trembling hands.

I know how it sounds. The man’s dumped me. So, assuming there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with me (and you’ll have to take my word for that), he must be a
selfish prat, a loser or an emotional fuckwit. Or – worse than all those – a wonderful guy who happens to have fallen out of love with me.

The stupid thing, though, is that none of those apply.

Despite the circumstances, I know he loves me – and not only because he’s told me. That’s not to say that I don’t feel like throttling him, because I do. But more than
anything I want to kiss him. The thought of never kissing that man again makes my insides ache.

I knew within a week of meeting Jamie that he was ‘the one’. It was a fact so obvious it practically leaped out and grabbed me by the heart with both hands. I never thought he was
perfect, although he was without question the most charismatic and unique person I’d ever met. I simply thought he was perfect for me – which is all that counts.

Even after six years together, we had that indefinable something, the X factor that makes couples live with their differences, put up with the odd row and know that they’re simply meant to
be together. We had chemistry, at least as far as I was concerned.

Six years. Quite a while by the standards of some relationships. Yet, now he’s gone, it feels as though that time has passed in a flash. I can still conjure up a replay of when we met, as
agonizing and gorgeous as it is to do so. We were in Koh Samui, Thailand, and it was January 2006 . . .

I’d been an irrepressible tomboy when I was little and even now, when I should know better, there’s a part of me that fancies myself as an Action Girl type. I love
the idea of being sporty, adventurous – capable of everything from mountain climbing to white-water rafting.

Sadly, the notable lack of mountains and fast-flowing rivers in south Liverpool, where I grew up and still live means this image has never been fully tested. Plus, as I constantly discover
whenever I give such things a whirl, they’re harder than they look. Still, I’m bloody good at Boxercise, if I do say so myself.

During my gap-year trip round the world with Ellie and our friend Jen (which turned out to be a gap seven months round Asia thanks to our less-than-meticulous financial calculations), I leaped
at the chance to unleash the go-getter side of my personality.

I’d have loved to scuba dive. But not being in possession of a PADI diving qualification, or the trust fund required to gain one, we went for second best: snorkelling. What was good enough
for Ursula Andress was good enough for us.

‘God only knows where this has been,’ said Jen, glaring at the end of her mouthpiece. It looked as though it had been chewed by a Rottweiler.

While she grumbled, those in Jen’s presence, as ever, gazed upon her with expressions that fell into one of two camps: mild envy (in the case of the women) or unrestrained lust (in the
case of the men).

That remained the case even though her hair – usually cheerleader-blonde to bring out her Coppertone-advert skin – wasn’t looking its best. The dreadlocks she’d had
installed on Chaweng beach a week earlier now resembled the rotting intestines of a dead squirrel – and were starting to smell similar too. Not that anyone was looking at her hair. When
Jen’s in a bikini, nobody looks at her hair.

‘You worry too much,’ I said, pulling on my flippers and plunging into the water. The manoeuvre was delivered with less aplomb than I’d hoped and I spent the next ten seconds
adjusting my bikini top so that the triangles were covering the correct appendages instead of my armpits.

Ellie, in a polka dot bikini like the ones on old-fashioned postcards, tore off her oversized glasses and jumped in. ‘Come on, Jen! It’s lovely in here.’

We’d arrived at the secluded beach on one of those traditional Thai fishing boats – the wooden ones featured in every brochure, resplendent with ribbons at the front. The scenery was
breathtaking: a crystal sea, verdant landscape and sand so fine and white it looked like something you’d sprinkle on a baby’s bum.

Aside from our guide, the boat’s captain and the five other tourists, there wasn’t another soul. Not another person, not another boat. It was just us, a coastline full of coral and
total tranquillity.

We dipped our faces underwater and began swimming above the coral, overwhelmed by what we saw. There were fish of every colour imaginable, coral in every shape and size, and as sunlight streamed
through the water, we were dazzled. The further we swam along the coast the brighter and more beautiful everything was.

I was vaguely aware of the growing distance between us and the boat, but it would be impossible to lose our way: all we had to do was follow the coast back to where it had been anchored.

That was the theory. The practice, nearly an hour later, diverged somewhat.

I don’t know why Ellie popped up her head at that precise moment; frankly, it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that she thrashed her arms and legs, walloping my back until Jen and
I looked up. The issue was immediately apparent.

The distance we’d covered couldn’t have been more than a mile, but as we’d swum along in blissful ignorance, a crucial factor had changed: we were no longer alone.

Stretching the length of the coast were so many boats they would have made the Spanish Armada look like pedalos at Center Parcs. They were all identical. What followed was a frantic few hours of
splashing, panting and panicking, all of which did precisely nothing in the quest to locate our vessel.

We couldn’t get anywhere near the island because of the coral and, of course, there was no way we were going to ask anyone on the other boats for help. We might have been desperate, but we
were also British. The embarrassment would’ve been too much. But there comes a point when your sense of hopelessness overtakes your sense of self-respect – and it came to us in a
flash.

Our thighs and our arms ached. Our eyes and our skin stung. Our stomachs cramped, our feet hurt and our heads throbbed.