The Love Island: The laugh out loud romantic comedy you have to read this summer

Octavia stepped in to distract us both. ‘You look lovely tonight, Alicia. Your mum used to have a miniskirt like the one you’re wearing. In fact, believe it or not, we both did.’ The tension in her eased as Octavia went on to describe my leg warmer phase and penchant for putting my hair into hundreds of tiny plaits overnight so that the next morning I looked like I’d accidentally stuck my finger in a socket.

When we got to the front steps, Jonathan ushered me forward. I’d noticed before that black tie made men more chivalrous, and Jonathan was no exception. One of the Filipino staff – ‘Patri’s Fillies’, as he called them with a cavalier disregard for political correctness – answered the door. Cher tottered across the marble foyer looking as though she was fresh from a performance in the Big Top. A feather boa curled round her neck and her long dress was slashed almost to the waist. Her taut face contrasted with a décolleté that had spent too many summers frying in baby oil on the Costa Smeralda.

‘Happy New Year, everyone. Hi, Alicia. Go on up, Loretta’s upstairs with a few friends. They’re on the karaoke machine.’

I waited for Alicia to ask me to come with her but she gave me a little wave and headed off across the hallway, long limbs under her miniskirt like a baby giraffe.

Cher launched into a stage whisper. ‘So glad you came, Roberta. I told that husband of yours to sling his hook. Us girlies have to stick together, don’t we, ladies?’

I hoped Scott wasn’t sitting on his own working his way through his collection of single malts. Perhaps he’d have gone out with the chaps from the rugby club. I hadn’t spent a single New Year’s Eve away from him since we met. I wasn’t sure I wanted to start a new tradition now. I forced my thoughts away from next door.

Gold bangles jangled as Cher swept us into the drawing room. About ten other couples were already standing among clusters of red and silver balloons. Several Filipino maids were weaving about with platters of goat’s cheese crostini and trays of Kir Royale. It felt so odd to be here without Scott, I almost baulked at the door. He was the one who dived into social situations, shaking hands and sweeping me into the centre of things. Octavia gave me a little wink and walked ahead. I braced myself for a chorus of ‘Where’s Scott?’ but Cher had already rescued me on that front. Sometimes indiscreet friends were an advantage.

Patri came striding over, sunglasses balanced on his head, quite the ageing rock star with his velvet jacket and greying shoulder-length hair. ‘All right, Octavia, Jonathan? Roberta, darling. You look gorgeous, not a day over twenty-one. A lot to celebrate in the coming year, then?’ He took my hands in his.

‘Celebrate?’

Frankly, I felt like throwing myself on the log fire that was crackling away behind me.

‘Yeah, getting rid of that husband of yours. Never did like him. Couldn’t understand what a classy girl like you saw in an oik like him. My granddad was a peasant, worked the fields. Me dad was a brickie, but we was brought up to treat women nice. You’ll find someone who deserves you now.’ He took a big drag on his cigar and blew a smoke ring upwards. He stopped a waitress. ‘Here, have some bubbles.’

‘He had his good points, Patri. It was as much my fault as his.’ I wondered if my desire to defend Scott would ever wear off. How many more people were going to come out of the woodwork now and say they’d hated him?

‘Don’t do yerself down, girl, I know what that Scott was like, his way or the highway. He should of recognised his good fortune when he had it. Anyway, cheers, doll. All the best to you.’

He raised his glass to me and off he went, slapping the blokes on the back and the women on the bottom.

I clinked glasses with Octavia and Jonathan, and tried to contain the gathering force of sadness wrenching its way up my chest. Jonathan, with a rare flash of empathy, tried to help me out. ‘I know Scott had his moments, but he could be great company when he was in the right mood.’

Octavia couldn’t quite contain herself. ‘Yes, but the right mood had become rarer and rarer of late.’

I forced my lips into something like a smile and dabbed my little finger at the tears stinging my eyes.

Octavia shook her head. ‘I’m not going to be nice to you in the interests of your mascara.’ Before I could escape to the loo, the Lawsons from a couple of doors down spotted us. Michelle’s two topics of conversation were the catchment areas for good senior schools and her IBS. On the upside, if we were locked into a discussion about too much or too little fibre, there would be less airtime for anyone to investigate the demise of my marriage. We were soon in a kissy-kissy bump-noses-and-cheeks fiasco that the British never mastered properly.

Michelle said, ‘How are you?’ as though I’d been through a gruelling operation to have an embarrassing lump removed and was on the road to recovery. After a cursory greeting, Michelle’s husband, Simon, a forceful man who thought he was wittier than he was, turned to Jonathan to rant about government cuts in the health sector.

Before we became too engrossed in the merits of rice milk, Cher banged a huge brass gong and waved us through into the dining room, where an enormous oak table shone with crystal and silver. She searched me out and showed me to my seat. ‘Roberta, I’ve put you next to Patri. He’ll look after you.’ It hadn’t occurred to me that I wouldn’t be next to Octavia. I resisted the urge to cling to her and make everyone swap places.

‘Lovely, thanks.’ I took another gulp of champagne and waved to Octavia as she took her seat down the other end of the table.

I kept my hands in my lap, staring at the pattern on the elaborate silver cutlery. I didn’t want to look up in case people were whispering about me. I wasn’t sure I could even pick up my wine glass without knocking everything over and shattering Cher’s finest Waterford.

Michelle sat opposite me. As always, Patri – who loved a bit of pomp and ceremony – had had menus printed up. The waitress handed one to Michelle, who immediately called her back. ‘Has the mushroom soup got cream in it? I can’t eat venison. It’s barbaric. Did Cher organise any alternatives? Butternut squash risotto? Rice doesn’t agree with me. Could you see if they could make it with quinoa?’ The poor girl backed out to the kitchen, promising to see what she could do.

My heart sank as Simon plonked himself next to me. ‘Patri on the other side of you, is he? A rose between two thorns.’ He looked over at Michelle. ‘Alright, Miche? Better bring a packed lunch for you next time. Don’t want you eating the wrong thing and farting us out of the room.’

Simon looked round at Patri and me for approval. Patri clicked his tongue and frowned. Michelle hissed back at him whilst I concentrated on buttering my roll.

He turned to me, nodding at the bread in my hand. ‘Nice to see a girl with an appetite. Better not overdo it, though. Being back on the market and all that. Don’t want to get too chubby. Men like a bit of flesh, but not too much.’

I looked down at his stomach. It bulged out like a cushion between his braces. I slathered on a little more butter and ignored him, although I soon realised he was like a dog that creeps out from under the table to mount your leg as soon as the owners aren’t looking.

‘So. Approaching the New Year as a single girl, then.’

‘It’s early days. I’m still coming to terms with it.’

‘Must be a bit lonely.’

Patri saved me by banging his spoon on a wine glass with a satisfying ching. ‘Before I get too piddled, Cher and me would just like to welcome you all to our New Year’s Eve dinner. I did too much waiting on tables when I was younger, so I’m not doing it any more. In this house you’ve got to help yourself, or ask one of the Fillies.’ He pointed his cigar at the rows of wine on the sideboard. ‘On the plus side, you can have anything you want. If you go home saying, “Christ, that was a dry old do,” then you’ve only got yerself to blame. Buon appetito!’

Patri sat down, stubbing out his cigar on his side plate. ‘It’s me lucky night tonight, doll, sitting next to you.’ He lowered his voice. ‘You doing OK? Where you living?’

‘I’m staying with Octavia at the moment. I discovered Christmas Day wasn’t a terribly good time to look for a house to rent.’

Simon was practically dipping his chin into my soup to catch the conversation. He stuffed a large piece of bread into his mouth. ‘Come and sleep in my spare room any time. You can pay me in blow jobs. Haha.’

He guffawed away, specks of olive ciabatta landing in wet blobs on my bare arms. I didn’t dare look at his wife. I tried to think of a suitable response, if such a thing existed.

But Patri wasn’t having any of it. ‘Simon. Shut up. Have a bit of respect.’ He’d put his spoon down and turned towards him, elbow on the table.

That familiar queasy feeling started to rise, panic that confrontation was on its way. I smiled, blocking Patri’s view of Simon. I caught sight of Michelle’s pursed lips out of the corner of my eye. ‘It’s fine, it was only a joke, Patri, come on.’

Simon patted my arm, not the slightest bit abashed. He drained his glass. ‘Roberta knows how to have a bit of fun, don’t you, sweetheart?’

Patri settled back in his chair, but his gold signet ring tapped out irritation on the surface of the table. I glanced over at Michelle. She touched her spoon to her lip before pushing the bowl away. It was going to be a long evening. I looked down the table for Octavia. She had her head thrown back, laughing at some new friend’s joke. Even Jonathan looked jolly for once, though he usually cheered up when he was drinking other people’s Pouilly Fumé rather than his own supermarket special.

By the time the main course arrived, my fragile brave face was cracking. Patri had devoted himself to listing Scott’s shortcomings, waving his forefinger about to make his point.

‘Never liked the way he spoke to my dog, porco cane. Never trust a bloke who drinks that bloody Mexican beer. Madonna, should’ve been doing a thank-you dance to the love gods that you was prepared to put up with him.’

That took him through seconds of venison and thirds of celeriac – or ‘cheleriac’, as Patri called it. There were moments when Patri was so accurate about Scott’s failings – ‘Only saw the good in himself, that one’ – that I had to smile. I knew he meant well, but the communal need to lambast him at every opportunity made me feel a total idiot for marrying him in the first place. I was terrified that a laugh might turn into a sob at any moment. On the upside, Simon was finding himself fascinating elsewhere, recounting anecdotes about going on a deer shoot to some bored faces opposite. Michelle had sucked in half of her face with disapproval, but I couldn’t decide whether that was related to Simon’s hunting stories or whether her entire life was failing to live up to her expectations.

Just when I thought I might be able to guide Patri away from me and onto the other guests, the pecan pie arrived and he changed tack, sifting through his social network for replacement husbands. ‘Maybe Sharky. Bit old for you, early fifties. Good bloke though. Spends his summers in Antibes. Got a nice pad in the Bahamas.’ Now and again, he’d shout down the table to Cher. ‘Oy, doll. Freddie got divorced yet from Queenie? How about him for our Roberta here?’

Then Cher would call him a daft old bugger and tell me to take no notice. ‘Half of them are ex-cons, Roberta. Don’t you be getting mixed up with them. You’ll have to dig up the cash in the back garden before you can go to Waitrose.’

Then she cackled at her own joke while Octavia mouthed, ‘Are you OK?’ at me.

I decided to take some respite from smiling by escaping to Cher’s downstairs cloakroom. It was like something out of a Parisian hotel with gilt mirrors, feathers and fairy lights. I killed a bit of time working my way through her range of creams, starting with the lavender hand balm and finishing with a rub of spider lily body lotion into my elbows and calves. Smelling like a florist’s stall couldn’t be worse than Patri’s cigars. I examined the various perfumes and aftershaves. Cher’s favourite, Poison, gave me a headache. Charlie reminded me of my teenage years. Issey Miyake Pour Homme. Very fresh.

No homme to buy it for.

I picked up a smoky purple bottle. Soul. Hugo Boss. Scott’s favourite. I sprayed some on my wrist. A picture of Scott getting dressed, clean-shaven, shirt open, flashed into my mind. I banged the bottle back down. I needed to stop feeling sorry for myself and get back to the party. Michelle was waiting as I came out. ‘Sorry. Didn’t realise I was holding everyone up.’

‘How’s it going, Roberta?’

‘Fine. I feel a little strange on my own, but Patri and Simon are looking after me.’

‘I suppose we’ll have to keep an eye on our husbands now you’re single. Simon doesn’t like Sloaney brunettes anyway.’

I looked at her to see if she was joking, but her eyes were all squinty and suspicious. Everything about her was sharp and jutting, like an aggressive toothpick. Inappropriate jokes were obviously the uniting factor in the Lawsons’ marriage.

Scott had always schmoozed Simon and Michelle for Simon’s City connections. It dawned on me that I didn’t have to toe the couple line any more. ‘Don’t worry. You’re safe. I don’t like fat bullfrogs.’

I click-clacked back across the foyer without waiting for her reply. I detoured to Octavia on the way back to my seat and whispered that I would slip off home after coffee. ‘Don’t do that. You’ve got to see New Year in. Anyway, Patri’s given all the youngsters some sparklers and Chinese lanterns to set off. Alicia’s having a ball. We’ll leave straight after twelve. Come and sit with us.’

I glanced around at her company. All couples. One woman was telling everyone how amusing her husband was; another man was gently untangling his wife’s hair from her necklace. Even Jonathan was resting his arm round Octavia’s shoulders. I hadn’t appreciated what a luxury it had been to have a husband at my side for all those years.

‘I will in a moment, just going to find a cup of coffee.’

Octavia nodded vaguely and joined in a joke about men and their inability to change loo rolls. I could have said I was off to trap a mountain gorilla in the back garden and she wouldn’t have noticed. Compassion fatigue and red wine had set in.

Patri was holding forth about the merits of Sardinian cheese on the other side of the table and I couldn’t face Simon on my own. I slipped into the hallway and out into the orangery. I loved that room. Cher was brilliant with plants. She was the only woman I knew who’d managed to grow an avocado tree from a stone. I bent down to admire her amaryllis. Shouts, laughter and the sound of Cher doing her Dolly Parton Jolene, Jolene, Jolene party piece drifted through from the dining room. I peered through the windows into the garden. Moonlit sky. Perfect night for romance.

I couldn’t imagine kissing anyone other than Scott.

‘Waiting for me, were you?’

I swung round. Simon.

‘What’s a gorgeous girl like you doing all on her own?’

‘I was just going back to the party.’ I started to move towards the door. He was heavy on his feet, staggering.

‘Come here, give me a New Year’s Eve kiss.’

He lunged towards me, managing to land his big fat lips on my bare shoulder. I could smell the wine on him. I pushed him away.

‘No, stop it, Simon. Don’t be silly. Get off.’

‘Playing hard to get now? You girls knocking forty can’t afford to be too choosy.’

He made a grab for my breasts. I shoved him off and he blundered into a shelf of spider plants. They went smashing to their death, earth and terracotta slithering across the floor. I snatched up the Yucca plant next to me and held it in front of me like a sword. I cursed my long dress, which kept catching on the heels of my stilettos.

‘You don’t know what you’re missing. You frigid bitch. Bet Scott was playing away if this is the sort of welcome he got at home.’

‘Simon. Here’s some free advice. Get lost. And never speak to me again.’ Brave words that might have been more effective if my voice hadn’t come out all tight and strangled.

He stepped towards me again, sweat shining on his forehead. ‘You’ll be begging me for it in a few months.’

I was debating between pushing the spiky Yucca in his face or hurling it at him and making a dash for the door when the whole orangery lit up, leaving us blinking like a pair of moles. I didn’t have time to say anything before Patri marched in, grabbed Simon by his jacket and dragged him across the hall.

‘Porca miseria. You prick. Get out. Get out now. And take that miserable bitch of a wife with you.’

Patri flung the front door open and hurled him out. Simon was concentrating too much on shouting ‘Prick tease!’ and not enough on the frosty steps outside. His behind caught the edge of them with a dull thump. Well-cushioned as it was, it would still have hurt. Patri was bellowing in the hall, not caring who heard, instructing one of the Fillies to find Michelle and get rid of her now. Or rather ‘NOW!’ Within moments, Patri was thrusting Michelle’s cashmere wrap into her arms and propelling her outside. For a chap in his late sixties who’d be snapping his fingers for another glass of brandy on his deathbed, he didn’t mess about.

He slammed the door. ‘Bastardo. Roberta, what can I say?’ He spread his arms open wide. ‘You’re my guest, you come to my house and a guy, a friend, thinks he can have a go with you?’

My heart was slowing down. I wanted a hot flannel to scrub at my arms and chest where Simon’s fat fingers had manhandled me. I used to be a person who could see the funny side of everything, always laughing when I shouldn’t have been. ‘I’m so sorry about the mess. Look at Cher’s poor plants.’

‘The plants? No one cares about the plants. Bloody bloke. He won’t come here again. Tell me how I can make it up to you for having such stupid friends.’

‘You don’t have to make amends. He’s not your responsibility. I can look after myself.’ I pressed my fingers into my eyes. I didn’t know whether that was true.

‘No, I want to do something for you. What do you need?’

More than anything, I needed a house, but I didn’t want to involve him in my life to that degree. I knew Patri, he wouldn’t just keep an eye out for properties, he’d make it his life’s mission. Scott was always telling me how we ‘owed people dinner’ or he ‘owed them a favour’. I didn’t want to owe anyone anything any more. But Patri wouldn’t take no for an answer.

I glanced through the doorway to Octavia, hoping she might come to my rescue. But she was in full flow, recounting a story that required much flapping about of hands. No one would ever know she was worried sick about money.

I turned back to Patri, suddenly inspired. ‘There is one thing you could do for me.’ I explained about Jonathan’s redundancy. ‘He works really hard. He could fix or set up any computer systems you need.’

Patri nodded. His dark eyes narrowed. ‘OK.’

I wanted to ask, ‘OK what? OK you have something for him? OK you’ve heard me?’ I was desperate to run over to tell Octavia some good news, but no hopes were better than false hopes.

Patri took my hand and led me back into the dining room. ‘Come on. Nearly midnight. I’m going to get the kids down for the Chinese lanterns.’

Marvellous. That meant it would soon be time to go home. Octavia hurried over to me. ‘What was all that kerfuffle about? I didn’t realise you were out there.’

‘Tell you later. Let’s watch these lanterns, then I’m definitely going to call it a night.’

We thronged out into the garden. Patri, Jonathan and the teenagers crowded round, all vying to take charge. Alicia was joking and laughing. One boy with a messy shock of blonde hair seemed to be paying her special attention. I listened hard. No swearing. Well-spoken. He took off his scarf and tied it round her neck. Her face lit up. Loneliness sucked me down somewhere dark.

The buzz of interest faded as the lanterns refused to light. Patri threw down his matchbox and dispatched various Fillies to find torches and lighters, the ratio of Italian to English increasing with his frustration. Octavia and I went to sit down by the fence. She turned her face to the sky, her words slurring.

‘Whenever I see stars, I think of Xavi. There were so many of them in Corsica. I wonder if he can see what we can see. Prob’ly better cos they don’t have all the light pollution. If he’s there. Could be anywhere.’ Her head lolled onto my shoulder. I couldn’t believe that after nearly two decades, Octavia was still going on about Xavi. She hadn’t mentioned him in ages. She should have whitewashed him from her memory after what he did.

‘Sshhh. Jonathan’s coming over.’

Octavia wasn’t to be derailed. ‘I still don’t know what I did wrong. I loved him. Why do people leave if they love you?’ She stabbed a drunken finger in my direction.

I had no answer for Octavia’s romantic catastrophes from years ago. My own disaster was so fresh, oozing agony into the darkness. I was the last person to claim insights on relationships. I shivered, huddling up to her under her faux fur wrap, the cold of the wooden bench creeping into my thighs. Octavia didn’t seem to need a response.

I caught a familiar sound on the other side of the fence. Throaty, lusty laughter. Not broken-hearted, brave-faced laughter.

Scott’s laughter.

Octavia was swaying, slumped on the bench, her eyelids drooping. I was bolt upright, ears straining for voices.

One high-pitched one. One deep teasing one. The clunk of the cover from our outdoor hot tub. The gurgle of bubbles. Playful screams. Loud splashes. Giggles. Silence. More silence.

My stomach lurched. He knew I was here, next door. I realised I’d imagined that Scott would be devastated, plotting how to get me back. But that wasn’t his style. Far easier to find someone else to impress with his big-man talk, and punish me into the bargain. After all these rollercoaster years, all the times I’d longed to walk away, I was still hoping there was a little ember of love left, waiting to be fanned. I reminded myself of Octavia’s words: ‘What man puts a woman he loves in a police cell?’ She was right. He didn’t deserve for me to miss him. But I did.

I wanted to pole-vault the fence and see what was happening. I wanted everyone to stop talking so that I could listen. My mind was searching, craving innocent explanations but coming up blank. A cheer went up as the first Chinese lantern struggled into the air, hovered over the summer house, skimmed the branches of the sycamore tree, then disappeared high into the sky, a tiny glow against the universe.

I hugged my arms around myself and offered up a wish for a time when my whole life didn’t seem rotten from the inside out.

Octavia

January passed in a flash. After Jonathan had exhausted the job opportunities within a 10-mile radius of where we lived, I’d encouraged him to apply for jobs abroad. The more I thought about it, the more excited I became. The idea of exploring somewhere new made me want to rush to a map of the world and draw up a wish list of destinations. Italy. Barcelona. Paris. I’d love to introduce the children to a different culture and watch their minds expand: it frightened me that Immi thought Scotland was the capital of England but knew Jack Wills and Superdry were far more must-have than anything from Asda. When I was with Xavi, I’d dreamt of having bilingual children. Maybe I still could. And yet, despite my best efforts highlighting jobs in Tokyo, Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur, by the time Jonathan’s birthday rolled around at the beginning of February, he was still fixated on jobs within half an hour’s commuting distance.

Birthday cheer, then, was in short supply. Obviously, I’d known he was going to be thirty-nine for the last three hundred and sixty-four days – but that hadn’t stopped me racing from the nursery to the supermarket for fillet steaks on the very eve I needed to cook them. We’d been living on an economy diet of lentils, chickpeas and turkey mince, so I was glad of an excuse to splash out. I’d just arrived home and was bunging the meat in a sherry and mustard marinade when Roberta turned up.