Life and Soul of the Party (26 page)

From the moment that Cooper said that about Chris loving Paul like a brother I had found it impossible not to keep the turmoil I was feeling in any more. I wasn’t the only one. Sounds of grief were audible all around the church, from both men and women. I had never felt sadness like this before. It felt different. Sharper. More real. And the fact that I was sharing it with so many others made the emotion more intense.

As Cooper returned to his seat the vicar waited a few minutes for people to compose themselves before he stood up to address the congregation again. On behalf of Paul’s family he thanked everyone for coming, gave out the address of the cemetery and signalled with a nod to the undertakers standing at the rear of the church to come to the front and remove the casket containing Paul’s body. I didn’t want to think about him lying in a box. I didn’t want that to be the last image in my head so much that I kept my eyes fixed to the ground until I was sure the coffin had gone.

The vicar announced the final hymn, ‘Amazing Grace’, and as one we all rose and sang. When the vicar asked everyone to remain standing for a final prayer I said my own. I talked internally about how much I missed Paul; how I felt his absence like an ache in my heart that would never be relieved; about my regret at not having told him how much I loved him the last time we had seen each other and finally how much I wished that he was still there to talk to. As the vicar concluded his prayer with an amen I said a loud amen of my own.

I was so wrapped in thought that I wasn’t even aware that the service had finished until Naomi touched my arm. Startled, I shook my head as though trying to clear a fog but it didn’t seem to want to go. People were moving around. The collective volume of a hundred separate conversations rose to deafening proportions.

I looked over to Cooper’s empty seat and wondered where he could’ve escaped to so quickly.

‘Where’s Cooper?’

‘Outside,’ she explained. ‘He said he needed some air. His eulogy was amazing, wasn’t it? You could feel the whole church hanging on to everything he said. I think it was incredible for him to step after what happened with Chris and Vicky.’

‘Why, what’s happened to them? Haven’t they come back yet?’

Naomi seemed reluctant to say anything further. ‘I don’t mean to be rude, Melissa. But it’s not really my place to say what’s gone on.’

‘Vicky’s my oldest friend. Just tell me what happened.’

‘Maybe you should ask Cooper. He should tell you. Not me.’

I began making my way to the exit to find Cooper. Every few steps I was stopped by people I knew, people who were my friends as well as Paul’s. They all said the same thing: how shocked they were by the news, how they couldn’t believe he was really gone, how difficult it must be for me given the circumstances. And all I could think was, ‘I need to get out of here. I need to make sure Vicky’s all right.’

Eventually I made it through the rear doors and outside. Chris, Cooper and Vicky were nowhere to be seen. Standing out of the way of the stream of mourners I pulled out my phone and switched it on, conscious of its inappropriate polyphonic chime as it started up. I dialled Vicky’s number but it just rang out several times before switching to her voicemail. I left a short message telling her that I loved her and asking her to ring me back when she had the chance.

I looked up at the midday sky. The grey start to the day had vanished and it was now a beautiful summer’s afternoon. The sun felt warm against my skin and for a few moments I enjoyed the sensation but then a huge wave of sadness crashed over me and the tears started to fall once more. The angrier I got with myself for letting go, the more furiously they came until I took a deep breath into my lungs and held on to it with a determination that surprised me. By the time I had no option but to gasp for air, the tears had subsided.

Desperate to conceal all traces of my grief I headed towards the ladies’ toilets inside the church lobby to fix my make-up. When I was a few feet away the door opened and out stepped Hannah with a well-dressed woman in her fifties. The resemblance between them was so strong that it could only have been her mother. Hannah seemed lost in a world of her own but then she met my gaze and I saw the same anguish and despair that I felt in my own soul. I wanted to say something that might alleviate her pain. But I couldn’t. I stood back and watched as Hannah’s mother continued with her tale of some long-forgotten relative as she guided Hannah towards the exit. I hoped Hannah might stop and turn round, might acknowledge my existence, but she didn’t. As I stood there with tears of guilt welling up in my eyes, I acknowledged that had I been in Hannah’s shoes I would have behaved in exactly the same way.

Ed and Sharon’s New Year’s Eve Party

For a long time after the funeral I felt as though the ‘off’ button for my grief had been broken or that a gear somewhere inside me had snapped. All I wanted to do was shut myself off from the world. Things with Billy weren’t going well, either. I convinced myself that telling him about sleeping with Paul would hurt him too much to justify easing my conscience. So I tried to get on with the business of being a couple as best I could and for a while things were okay. We went away for a weekend, we spent time with his friends as well as mine and we even managed a trip to Ikea to buy a couple of table lamps. But whether it was my burgeoning sense of guilt or the fact that I felt wrong pretending to be happy when I quite clearly wasn’t, I gradually found myself sabotaging everything good that we had. It started out with small arguments but soon progressed to whole days where I would barely say a single thing. We would’ve probably carried on like that for months because even though I was being horrible to him Billy was always gentle, kind and understanding, explaining away my mood swings by saying that I had been through a lot and that it was completely understandable that I wouldn’t be myself for a while.

At the beginning of November, however, in the middle of a row that had started with my refusal to accompany him to a family wedding because of essay deadlines, I’d finally had enough and before I knew what I was doing I told him I’d slept with Paul on the night of Laura’s party. His look of hurt is something I’ll remember for the rest of my life. His first words as he recovered from the shock of my confession were: ‘But I thought you were different’. It was those words that hurt the most. He was right. I’d given him the impression that I was different. I’d let him believe that I was something that I wasn’t. But I wasn’t different. I wasn’t special. I was just like everybody else. I moved out the next day.

As for Ed and Sharon’s party that year, none of us made it. Vicky and Chris were going through their separation so the last thing they wanted to do was go to a party; Cooper took up Naomi’s offer to spend a few days at her uncle’s cottage in Cornwall and as for me, my New Year’s Eve was spent looking out of the window of my childhood bedroom watching other people’s fireworks while Mum and Dad sat downstairs watching TV. When midnight came around, and rockets and explosions filled the air, I thought of the previous New Year’s Eve and how hopeful it had made me feel. Suddenly I missed my friends, I missed what we all had together and I wanted to let them know how much they meant to me. I typed out a group text message on my mobile saying everything I wanted to share. But before I could press ‘send’ an idea hit me that made me add a final PS – after a year spent going to other people’s parties, whatever my circumstances come the summer when the weather was warmer, when we’d all feel better and above all when we’d all be together, I’d finally throw a party of my own.

Melissa’s Party

It was Saturday and I was sitting on the sofa in the living room typing out a text message: ‘Am throwing a party tonight. Would love for you to come. Feel free to bring Seb and Bri and a bottle! Let me know if you’re up for it and I’ll send details. Xxx Mel’ The text was to Billy as he’d been on my mind ever since we had run into each other in town a few weeks earlier. It had been midday, on the day after the last exam paper of my degree, and I’d been leaving Costa Coffee near Piccadilly station, enjoying the freedom of life without exams hanging over me when I practically bumped into him. It was the first time that we had seen each other since splitting up and at first I was a bit embarrassed.

‘Melissa,’ he said, appearing almost equally stunned, ‘how are you?’

‘I couldn’t be better. I finished my exams yesterday.’

‘I’d forgotten about your finals otherwise I would have sent you a good luck card or something.’

‘There’s no need but thanks anyway.’

‘How did you get on?’

I shrugged. ‘I did my best and that’s all you can ask, isn’t it?’

‘Well, congratulations anyhow. I’m sure you did brilliantly. Any plans about what you’re going to do next?’

‘I’m going to work full-time at Blue over the summer to get some money to make a dent in my overdraft but otherwise I have no idea.’

‘How about doing a Masters?’

‘I think I’m done with education for now,’ I laughed. ‘I don’t know . . . I’ll find something.’

I told Billy I was sharing a flat in Chorlton with Laura and filled him in about Vicky, Chris and Cooper too. Billy had just been promoted to senior designer and was back living with Seb and Brian but he was getting tired of living like a student and planned to move on to something better by the end of the summer at the latest. There was no mention of him seeing anyone new and I had nothing to say on that score. Even so, there was something about his manner that made me think that he had moved on and I considered asking about Freya, but then thought better of it. At best he was being nice by not rubbing my nose in it and at worst probably didn’t consider it to be any of my business whether he was seeing anyone or not and I couldn’t really argue with that.

As the conversation came to an end I kept telling myself to invite him to my party. Explain that it wasn’t a date and reassure him that he could bring whoever he wanted. I had a whole speech prepared if he asked what I was celebrating. ‘It’s sort of an all-purpose party,’ I’d say. ‘A house-warming party for me and Laura; a belated New Year’s Eve for those who hadn’t felt like having one back in December; and a last get-together for some of my university friends now that we were about to graduate. Above all it’s a moving-on party: a party where everyone will put the past in the past and look forward to a brand-new future.’

I didn’t say any of that of course. I tried a couple of times but I couldn’t actually get out the words. Partly, I didn’t want to come across like some kind of stalker, but mostly I was scared of him turning me down.

In a bid to take control of the situation I looked at my watch and said that I had to go even though I easily had another twenty minutes.

‘I’d better be off too,’ he said. ‘It’s not like my lunch is going to buy itself.’

Then with a complete lack of self consciousness, he kissed my cheek. The gesture lasted no more than a few seconds and felt as natural as breathing. Something had changed inside me. A light had been switched on. The coldness I’d felt since Paul’s death began to thaw. It was as though I was springing back to life. And I felt the beginning of a sensation that I hadn’t experienced for the longest time: hope.

It was just after half past ten and I was in bed in Cooper’s spare room staring at the ceiling and contemplating my life. The thoughts that were my constant companions had done their usual tour of duty around my head one after the other: about the new baby and when it might arrive; worries about how living apart from William might affect him in the future; excitement at seeing Vicky and William for our afternoon in the park; sadness at knowing that these few precious moments would be over all too soon. But of all the thoughts that went through my mind the main one was always the same: how much I loved Vicky and how much I wanted her back.

Things had been tough since the split, there was no doubt about that. On the night of Paul’s funeral, with nowhere else to go, I ended up on Cooper’s doorstep. Without making a single comment about what I’d done he invited me in and told me I could stay as long as I wanted. We talked a lot that night, staying up until the early hours. We talked about the funeral and how much we both missed Paul; we talked about the women in our lives and the mistakes that we felt we’d both made; and then finally, as the night sky that we had sat watching through the bay window in the living room began to lighten, we talked about our relationship with each other: stuff from the past when we were kids; long-held misconceptions; secrets shared. The evening was a revelation and changed for the better not only my opinion of Cooper but my relationship with him too.

Over the months that followed, Vicky and I met up regularly. We tried couples’ counselling for a while but for every occasion that I felt as though we were close to making a breakthrough there was another when it seemed like things were irrevocably broken. The turning point was Christmas. Now that William was four, Christmas had taken on a new significance. He was getting excited about Father Christmas. He had a role as an angel in his pre-school nativity play. Christmas was no longer just a ritual to be endured but something in which he actively participated and might remember for the rest of his life. Neither Vicky nor I could stand the thought that the first Christmas he could remember would be the one that we spent as a family torn apart. So we both doubled the effort we were putting into making things work and this resulted in my moving back temporarily over the Christmas period.

And now, even though I was back living with Cooper, things were good. Not great. But good. I saw Vicky and William regularly during the week and Saturday and Sunday were always spent as a family. There were times when I felt as though we were on the verge of getting back together again, the baby growing inside Vicky drawing us closer together with each passing day, but still there was something keeping us apart, one indefinable piece of the puzzle missing. I had no idea what it was. But as I climbed out of bed, sorted out my clothes for the day and made my way to the bathroom for a shower I determined that today was going to be the day I found out.