Tales From a Hen Weekend (39 page)

‘I said goodbye to him yesterday,’ she mutters as he makes his way over to our table.

‘Well. Now you can say it again,’ I encourage her. I get up, nodding to Greg to take my chair, and move off to talk to the others at the bar.

‘Get her another drink,’ says Lisa, who’s been watching. ‘She’s just polished that one off and she looks like she could do with at least another six.’

In the event, she actually has about another eight before the evening’s over. I’ve never seen Helen quite so drunk. I like it. It’s an improvement.

‘You’re all my
very
dear frrrriends,’ she tells the whole population of the pub, very loudly, at about half past ten. ‘I love you
all
. You’re my
family
.’ She’s standing, swaying slightly, holding her glass aloft as if in a toast. ‘I’m going to miss you, every one of you. Miss you like hell. Katie, my dear, dear friend!’ She sways towards me, spilling vodka down her jeans. ‘I’ll miss you
so
much! You’ve been the best friend…’

I hug her, quickly, worried that she’s going to break down and cry. Greg’s got to his feet. He’s mumbling something about it getting on a bit, having to drive back, not wanting to make it too late. For God’s sake! Boring old man. Helen hears him and turns, almost overbalancing.

the bar. Everyone turns to watch her.

‘It’s my
party
!’ she tells him, plaintively, in the silence. ‘My leaving party! I’m going all the way to Australia, in the morning, Greg! And do you know why?’

I can almost hear everyone holding their breath.

‘Helen,’ I warn her, touching her arm gently. She shakes me off.

‘I’m going to
Australia
,’ she continues relentlessly, taking hold of one of Greg’s arms and shaking it roughly as if she were fluffing up a pillow, ‘because of
you
.’

‘Helen!’ I hiss. ‘Come on! You’ve had a few drinks… come and sit down!’

She doesn’t even bother to look at me.

‘You don’t even know, do you? You’ve never even noticed!’ she carries on. Poor Greg’s staring fixedly, miserably, at her hands gripping his arm. ‘You have
no idea
how I feel about you!’

She stops, flops against him for a minute as if she’s run out of steam. Phew, thank God for that.

And then, suddenly, with no flicker of warning whatsoever, she’s grabbed him round the back of his neck and is kissing him forcefully, desperately, on the lips. His hands flail uselessly in the air for a minute as he’s pinned against the wall and everyone gasps, giggles, whispers, and then a cheer goes up from the back of the room and everyone joins in, wolf-whistling, stamping, clapping, chanting:
HeLEN, HeLEN, HeLEN
as if she were a football player heading for the goal of the match. And then Greg’s hands come round her waist and he pulls her closer. And he’s not resisting any more. And the football chant dies down, and everyone turns away and gets back to their drink, and their own conversations.

I’m talking to Lisa about Mum. But out of the corner of my eye I can see Greg, finally, after what seems like too long to be good for his health, gently disengaging himself, holding Helen by the shoulders as if to steady her, stepping away from her backwards, mumbling something about a parking meter and stumbling awkwardly, hurriedly, out of the door.

She’s watching him go, her eyes lit with love and alcoholic idiocy. She’s smiling to herself. She’s going to collapse into bed happy tonight, thinking that he’s finally seen the light and is poised to fall in love with her. I’m glad she’ll have one night of happy, drunken, sleep.

Tomorrow morning she’s going to wake up with an almighty raging hangover. She’ll remember tonight with horrible, cringing embarrassment and be thankful that she’s putting several oceans between her and everyone else in the pub. Because, at the end of the day, he’s still not asking her to stay, is he?

And now life has to go on. Without Helen in the office, Greg and I maintain an uneasy, uncomfortable balance. It feels unnatural, like trying to put your weight on a stool that only has two legs instead of three. We’re off-centre. Wobbly.

Obviously I’m uncomfortable around Greg anyway; have been ever since Helen told me all that stuff, in Dublin. But now that she’s gone, I’m really wondering again if she had it wrong. He’s so obviously missing
her
! He’s moody, and miserable, and he keeps looking at her desk as if by staring at it for long enough he can conjure her back up again.

By the end of the week, I can’t stand it any more. He’s getting on my nerves.

‘What’s the matter?’ I ask him, trying not to snap. ‘You’re like a bear with a sore head.’

He sighs, shakes his head, stares out of the window.

‘I shouldn’t have let her go,’ he says.

Jesus! Understatement of the year, or what?

‘So why didn’t you try to stop her? You could have done. You must have realised! Even if you didn’t before, you must have realised at her leaving party that it would only have taken one word from you.’

‘I’m not a complete idiot,’ he responds tersely. ‘I knew she liked me.’

OK, so you don’t have to love someone back, just because you’re aware of their feelings. No one can make another person love them – it’s what stinks, sometimes, about falling in love.

I bring him a cup of coffee and try to give him a sympathetic smile to show I understand, but as I’m turning to go back to my own desk he catches my arm.

‘Katie…’

Shit. Please don’t let him start coming on to me. Please, please, let Helen have been wrong. I couldn’t bear the embarrassment.

‘Katie, I’ve never told you about my ex-wife, have I?’

Well, that’s a relief, anyway. As long as he doesn’t talk about me, he can tell me his whole life history if he likes. I sit down and turn my chair to face him.

‘Only that you weren’t married to her for very long. And her name was… Dawn, wasn’t it?’

He nods, looking away and sighing again.

‘We were only married for three years. She was so lovely – bright and funny and popular with everyone – I couldn’t believe my luck when she agreed to go out with me, let alone marry me.’

‘Don’t be silly. I’m sure that’s not true.’

‘Of course it is. Her friends all found me boring. I must have been a novelty for her. She used to say all the other men she’d been out with were football-mad and always down the pub.’

‘
Very
much like her,’ he continues, as if he’s talking to himself. ‘When you first came to work for me, you reminded me of Dawn instantly.’

‘So what happened? With Dawn?’ I prompt him, wanting to turn the conversation away from myself again as quickly as possible.

‘What do you think? She got bored with me – obviously. In the beginning I think she was a little in awe of me. She used to pick up the typescripts I brought home to read, and turn them over in her hands as if they were … I don’t know – some sort of rare specimens! When we went out for meals with my colleagues she’d sit like this –’ he rests his chin on his hand, gazing across his desk at me – ‘listening to our conversations, laughing at my jokes, making me feel clever. When I was with her, I didn’t feel dull and socially inept, like I normally did. She made me feel as bright and attractive as she was. What an illusion!’

‘You’re not socially inept,’ I murmur. I feel sorry for him, despite myself. ‘Of course you’re clever, Greg.’

He ignores this.

‘The trouble was that she thought she wanted to be part of my world: stuffy cocktail parties and pseudo-intellectual debates over smoked salmon and caviar. We all called each other
old chap
rather than
mate
, and called our partners our
good lady wives
. I hate myself for introducing her to it. It was like … well, like throwing a beautiful jewel into a muddy pond. Wasted. I should have gone with her to watch West Ham or Westlife instead.’

‘But that wouldn’t have been right for
you
, would it. Maybe you just weren’t really suited. These things happen; people make mistakes …’

I’m trying, desperately, to say the right thing here. How did I get myself into this? The last thing in the world I want is for Greg Armstrong to pour out his heart to me. Christ, Helen – thanks a million. Before you buggered off, he apparently used to confide in
you
! I do
not
want to become his new best buddy. However sorry I feel for him. God, he didn’t have to marry someone he so obviously had nothing in common with, did he?

‘What an idiot I was!’ he says, rubbing his head as if the memory is hurting him. ‘I’d bathed in her admiration for so long that I didn’t even notice the light going out of her eyes.’

And I’ve known Greg for all this time without realising he could wax so lyrical. Or even speak more than a couple of sentences about anything other than physics or engineering.

‘She left you?’

‘I found out, eventually, that she was seeing someone else. A DJ, who went by the name of Dog, had several studs in his nose and lips, and a very large tattoo on his arm. It involved daggers and spiders’ webs – apparently something to do with an obscure heavy metal band.’

I’m trying to imagine this.
Dog.
Poor Greg.

‘So – you threw her out?’

‘No. She asked me for a divorce, and went to live with Dog. She was … the worst thing, for me, was that she was expecting his child.’

A case of a bitch having a puppy Dog.

‘That was hard on you.’

‘Yes. I suppose I had a kind of breakdown after she left. Nothing dramatic. I was brought up not to indulge in crying, or shouting, or anything unsavoury like that.’

I’m thinking that probably he would have been a lot better for a few bouts of crying and shouting. Maybe he should have gone for therapy.

‘How did you get over it?’

He looks embarrassed.

‘I stayed in bed for several days, and then … well, I had difficulty leaving the house. When I did manage to go back to work, I found I couldn’t talk to people. I couldn’t answer the phone. I started to shake if anyone got too close to me.’

‘Greg, you needed help! You should have seen your doctor.’

He shrugs.

‘Too proud, I suppose – but you’re right. I should have done. Eventually, one morning, standing on the platform waiting for my train, I came so close to throwing myself on the railway line that I had to force myself to back away from the edge of the platform. I was sweating and shaking. I staggered out of the station, got a taxi home and stayed there. I lost my job.’

‘That’s terrible! Your doctor should have signed you off sick. You should have been referred for therapy. Your firm should have paid you and kept your job open …’

‘Yes, yes. All those things are true, Katie, but it was my own fault – I refused help. I just stayed at home and mouldered away. Anyway – in the long run it wasn’t a bad thing. I was good at the job, but I never enjoyed it. And I was fortunate – I didn’t really need the money. I’d inherited my parents’ house, rented it out for years and then made a killing on the sale. My investments were good, and – ’

‘You told me once that you started Bookshelf as a hobby,’ I interrupt him, not really wanting to hear all about his personal finances any more than his broken heart.

‘That’s right. It was just an idea I had – something to get up for in the mornings. To begin with, I worked at home on my laptop. I knew the idea had potential because I’d been watching the phenomenon of Amazon, and the share of the book-buying market it had taken. I worked on it day and night, and gradually I realised I was enjoying myself.’

‘So you never regretted leaving publishing.’

‘Absolutely not. Especially not the scientists whose books I published – half of them irritated the life out of me. And I certainly didn’t miss commuting into London.’ He pauses and looks at me thoughtfully. ‘It took very much longer, but eventually I didn’t miss Dawn any more either.’

‘You’ve never spoken to me about her before.’

‘No.’ Again, he hesitates. ‘The thing is, Katie – by the time you joined me, it’d been about three or four years since the divorce. I was almost over it.’

‘Well, that’s good, then.’

‘But being around
you
stirred it all up again.’

Help. Helen, come back! Where are you now when I need you?

I don’t want to be part of this conversation. In fact, I’m out of here. I’m going, right now, to stand up and leave the room. And I might even get on the next plane from Heathrow and come out and join you in Australia.

‘Right. I’ve … er … got to go and … um … go to the toilet now.’ I grab my bag from under my desk.

‘Katie, don’t go.’

‘Sorry, Greg! Nature calls, as they say!’

‘Listen. I’m not going to embarrass you. Please. Katie!’ I’m halfway out of the door. ‘I know Helen’s probably given you the wrong impression.’

I stop.

‘Go on,’ I say, flatly, without turning around.

‘It isn’t you. Look, I’ve tried to talk to Helen about all this – about Dawn, about Dog, about the baby. Helen and I … we seemed to be able to talk to each other about almost anything. I always found her … no disrespect to you, Katie, but I found her easier to talk to. We’ve got similar views. Similar personalities, I think.’

‘But you couldn’t talk to her about Dawn?’

‘Yes – I did. I did talk to her, and she listened; but … I know this sounds ridiculous, but …’

I turn back to look at him. He’s squirming with embarrassment.

‘I think she was jealous,’ he admits, going slightly red.

‘Of course she was!’ I laugh. ‘You fool!’