The Love of Her Life

‘“Thanks – thanks a lot”,’ Charly mimicked as Sue walked away. ‘You big suck!’

‘I know,’ said Kate, embarrassed. Charly rolled her eyes.

‘Well done,’ she said, after a pause. ‘Good one. I’m going to be really kind and take you out for a drink to celebrate tonight. And there’s a new club in Soho just opened. Virus, it’s called. We could go on there afterwards.’

Kate bit her lip. ‘I can’t, sorry. Steve and Zoe are having a housewarming party. Sort of engagement party thing too. It’s fancy dress. And especially not after last night.’

‘Ooh la la,’ Charly said. ‘Sorry I asked. How about just one after work instead?’

‘OK,’ said Kate. ‘Great.’ She swivelled happily on her chair. ‘The editor’s letter! Hurrah!’

‘Where shall we go?’ said Kate, as they left the office an hour later, striding out together in the dusk of the March evening. ‘The Crown?’

‘No,’ said Charly, firmly. ‘Anywhere but The Crown.’

‘Oh god,’ said Kate. ‘Who did you do there?’

‘Shut up!’ said Charly, glaring at her, but smiling. ‘I didn’t “do” anyone there, thank you very much. It’s just Phil and Claire …’ She trailed off, chewing a strand of hair.

‘What?’

‘They’re there tonight, heard them say it as they left.’

‘So?’ Kate liked The Crown. It had nice bar snacks, like mixed nuts, and though it didn’t have a quiz machine, it had a jukebox, a rarity in a central London pub. And it was by the Inns of Court, tucked away on a little side-street – she thought it was rather nice, like something out of a Dickens novel. There were barristers in there, sometimes in gowns. ‘Go on. I love it in there.’

‘No, come on, we’re going to the Atlas.’

‘Again,’ Kate moaned, like an unwilling child being forced to the shops on a Saturday. ‘What’s wrong with Phil and Claire?’

‘There’s nothing wrong with Claire,’ said Charly grimly, jabbing the button for the pelican crossing smartly. ‘Claire is great. I don’t have a problem with Claire.’

‘You – and Phil?’ Kate was aghast, not because she was surprised Charly had slept with someone, but because she hadn’t noticed. ‘When?’

The lights changed. Charly marched across the road, impossibly fast. Kate ran behind her. ‘Hey, slow down. When? Didn’t you know he and Claire –’

Of course she knew he and Claire were an item, it was the worst-kept secret in the office, two best friends at work, also having an affair. It wouldn’t have mattered either, except it was blindingly obvious Claire was mad about Phil and Kate could see he wasn’t that into her. He was a bit of a player; nice enough, but he was twenty-seven, he didn’t want to settle down yet.

But Charly didn’t answer, and they arrived at the pub. The welcoming smoky fug of the Atlas drew them in and, after they had settled down with their drinks (double gin and tonic for Charly, white wine spritzer for Kate), Kate said, tentatively,

‘Look, Charly, sorry. I didn’t know. What’s going on?’

‘Nothing’s going on,’ Charly said, and there was a tone to her voice Kate hadn’t heard before, dark, and bitter. She smiled; small, sad smile. ‘Just me. Fucking things up as usual, OK?’

‘So you –?’ Kate made a gesture with her beer mat, waving it around, hoping it would convey the phrase You’ve been shagging Phil?

Charly tutted, impatiently. ‘Yes.’

‘How many times?’

‘Jeez, Kate, do you want a tally?’

‘Oh.’ Kate nodded. ‘So more than once then.’

‘Yep,’ said Charly, and she gave a ragged sigh. ‘It started a few weeks ago, well, it started at the Christmas party. I went back to his, and we saw each other over Christmas, you know I’ll do anything to get out of Leigh.’ Kate nodded. ‘So I’d come down to London and stay the night with him, we’d wander round town, no-one around, all that shit. It was – lovely.’ Her voice cracked.

‘Oh my god.’ Charly never talked like this. Like a person with emotions. Kate watched her friend, she patted her arm. ‘You’ve fallen for him, haven’t you?’

‘No,’ said Charly furiously. ‘He’s a dick, OK? We were supposed to be meeting up last week and he called and said Claire was getting suspicious! He said it had been fun but we should call it a day, he couldn’t have two secret office affairs going on! What a –’

Her hand clenched into a fist and her lovely face crumpled. ‘Oh, Charly,’ said Kate, unhappily. She didn’t know what to say. She liked Phil, but she couldn’t understand why he was so secretive about his relationship with Claire, either. Was it that big a deal? Was it naïve of her not to understand why he was so weird about it? She put her arm around Charly’s bony shoulders, clad in slithery oyster silk. Charly sniffed loudly and caught Kate’s hand.

‘That’s why I don’t want to go to The Crown tonight. OK?’

‘Yes, that’s OK,’ said Kate, kissing her hair. ‘It’s always OK. Now, we need to plan our next move. Tell him he can’t get away with it.’

Charly looked at her in surprise. ‘Are you serious?’

‘Yes,’ said Kate, feeling incredibly protective of Charly, who was so screwed up in her own, weird way. ‘It’s Claire I worry about now, don’t you? He’s just going to mess her around like he has you.’ She got out her new mobile phone, her pride and joy.

‘What are you doing?’ said Charly.

‘I,’ said Kate proudly, ‘am now going to send my first text message.’ She keyed laboriously, for a minute. ‘God, this is annoying, scrolling through. There!’ she said, eventually. Charly peered over her shoulder.

I know what you did to Charlx. If you mess Claire arovnd we will tell her. Have a god eveming. K x

‘Hm,’ said Charly. ‘The typing’s a bit crap.’

‘So?’ said Kate, pressing ‘Send’.

‘Well, Kate Miller,’ said Charly, admiringly. She cleared her throat, and sat up straight. ‘You are turning into a bad girl, you know that?’

‘Hardly,’ said Kate.

‘Slept with your hottie flatmate yet?’

Everyone always thought she was having a torrid affair with Sean. ‘No!’ Kate said, and she blushed. ‘It’s not – there’s nothing going on. Shut up!’

‘Yeah right,’ said Charly, draining the last of her drink.

‘In your head there is. I don’t blame you, he’s gorgeous. Dull as fuck though.’

‘No he’s not,’ said Kate defensively, though Sean had in fact, this morning in the kitchen, droned on for five minutes about the new Microsoft enabling functions, while Kate held her hungover head in her hands and prayed for death. ‘He’s just passionate about his job, that’s all.’

‘Bor-ing.’

Kate thought back to the weekend before, how Sean had showed her how to use his new laptop, set her up with her own hotmail account and everything. They had sat side by side at the computer for hours, she listening, he explaining, their legs touching, neither of them acknowledging it. ‘No,’ she said, quietly. ‘Not all the time.’

‘He’s so not the one for you,’ said Charly. ‘Don’t shag the flatmate just because he’s there and you’re busy playing husband and wife. Textbook. I mean it.’

Kate was silent, uneasy all of a sudden. She looked at her watch. ‘Let’s get another drink, and then I’d better be off,’ she said, after a pause.

Charly sprang up, suddenly alive again. ‘These are on me, doll,’ she said. ‘Thanks. Thanks a lot.’ She sashayed to the bar, and every man in the vicinity glanced in her direction.

CHAPTER NINE

It was after eight when Kate got back, and she was two-white-wine-spritzers-drunk, which is to say not sober but not disastrous. Sean was watching TV as she barrelled into the sitting room.

‘I’m late!’ she cried loudly, hoping that by making a drama of it she’d get the guilt over quickly. Sean hated being late, it was the one area of flatmate life where they diverged wildly. If Kate said Sunday lunch at one p. m., she expected people to pitch up by two and to serve food by three. Sean meant lunch on the table at one p.m.

Sean didn’t look up from the TV. For some inexplicable reason (Kate said it was because she was being all grown-up), Zoe had decreed that tonight was to be evening dress, and Sean was immaculately dressed in black tie. He was that kind of boy, the sort who always had nicely shined shoes and owned his own dinner jacket.

‘Are you furious?’ Kate said, unwrapping her scarf and throwing her coat on the ground. ‘Sean, it’ll take me two minutes to change, I’m sorry –’

He looked up and she saw his face.

‘What’s wrong?’ she said.

His big blue eyes were curiously expressionless; but Kate knew him by now, knew him well enough to know something was up. ‘Jenna’s engaged,’ he said.

‘Oh.’ Kate sat down next to him, and took the remote out of his great big hand. She turned the TV off. ‘Oh, Sean, that’s – that’s crap.’

Jenna had been Sean’s girlfriend all through high school in Texas, and most of university, till they’d broken up before he came back to England for his third and final year. She was, as far as Kate knew, the only woman he’d ever loved, and the circumstances of their breakup were mysterious. Sean had been really unhappy. Kate had only met her once, in their second year, when she’d come to visit. She reminded her of a girl from a Seventies perfume ad: long, wavy brown hair, flicking out at the sides, endless long legs, the shortest skirts, the widest smile. And she was nice, which was the killer. Kate and Francesca had hated her.

She patted her unresponsive flatmate’s leg, feeling the hard muscle beneath the black cloth. ‘How did you hear?’

Sean cleared his throat, and flicked his eyes wide open, then shut them rapidly. He did this several times. ‘She called me. I was just leaving work, and she called me.’

‘Are you really upset?’ said Kate gingerly.

‘No,’ Sean said, sitting up and shaking his head. ‘Hell no!’

Rubbish, Kate thought. He reminded her, fleetingly, of Charly and her earlier bravado.

‘It’s just – hey, Jenna was my first proper girlfriend, and I was really into her, you know. She’s marrying some farmer guy called Todd. Ugh.’ He shook his head again. ‘He grows maize, has like thousands of acres. It’s such a fucking cliché, man!’

Kate looked round their warm, small flat, crammed full of mementoes of their happy flatmate life together. Sean followed her gaze and she nudged him, desperately wanting him to feel better, be happy. She hated seeing him like this, it hurt her too, and it was then she realized how close they’d become. ‘I know,’ she said, almost desperately. ‘Oh love.’ She clutched his hand a little tighter and he turned to look at her, with something like surprise on his face.

‘Kate –’

‘Who wants to be a bloody maize farmer, eh? Aren’t you glad that’s not you? Aren’t you glad you’re here instead?’

There was a silence as they looked round the flat again, together. On the floor was a Kentucky Fried Chicken box, five bottles of vodka forming a pyramid on a shelf, several really vile lads’ mags, several equally vile gossip mags, and pinned haphazardly on the wall were a poster of The Graduate, a panoramic photo view of New York, from Kate’s last trip to see her mother, and a series of photos of Sean, Kate and their friends stuck onto cork boards. At Kate’s feet were two empty beer cans. Their eyes met, and they burst out laughing.

‘You know what,’ Sean said, turning to her slowly, ‘you’re right. I am glad I’m here instead, Katy.’ He took her hand, and kissed it.

‘Don’t be sad,’ said Kate, and she gave Sean a hug.

‘I’m not,’ he said, and he squeezed her tight. His hand cupped the back of her head. ‘Bless you, darlin’. It’s just I thought she might be the one … you know? I thought she was the love of my life. So you can’t help thinking about it.’

‘I know,’ said Kate, though she didn’t. She had never thought Jenna was right for Sean. He needed someone … Well, not like Jenna, that was all, and she’d been glad when Sean had come back for their final year single, truth be told. She felt cross, all of a sudden, like the conversation was shifting out of her control. She rested her head on his shoulder, breathing gently.

‘Thanks, darling,’ he said, and she could hear his voice reverberating against her back. ‘I feel fine, god, it’s years ago now, but you can’t help having a little think when you hear something like that, can you.’

‘No,’ said Kate, stroking his back again, and feeling a little like Florence Nightingale, doomed to tend eternally to the romantically injured. ‘You can’t.’ She stood up briskly. ‘I’m going to get changed, OK? We’re going to get dressed up for the ridiculously-themed fancy dress party, we’re going to look a million dollars, and you’re going to have a great evening, I’ll make sure of that. Get another beer. I’ll be five minutes.’

‘Sounds perfect, darling.’ Sean settled back on the sofa. ‘What you wearing?’ he said.

‘The blue and gold dress,’ Kate yelled as she ran down the corridor to her bedroom. ‘It’s a special night.’

‘Sure is,’ said Sean, and Kate heard him cracking open another beer, as she took the blue and gold dress from the hook on her bedroom door where it was hanging. She stroked it happily.

Kate wasn’t a girly girl when she was a teenager, she was more into the old-fashioned, vintage dresses of years ago. She had her old stack of Vogue magazines, from the 1950s and 60s that she’d picked up in second-hand bookshops and school fairs, and she still loved flicking through them, staring with envy at the girls in their effortlessly elegant cocktail dresses, in completely inappropriate settings: posing with a bough of cherry blossom, or hopping off a suspiciously empty, clean Routemaster bus.

On her nineteenth birthday, she and her father were walking through Hampstead. After Venetia left, they would often go for long walks through London, mostly on Sunday afternoons, ambling without aim through the deserted City, or along the river, or through the parks. They’d just come off the Heath, and were looking for a place to have a cup of tea. As they crossed a little cobbled courtyard, deep in conversation about what utter bastards Daniel’s record company, who had just dropped him, were, Kate’s eye fell on a dress in the window of a rickety old shop. It was Fifties, blue silk, embroidered all over with gold silk thread roses. Kate gazed at it, helplessly. Her father, turning around and seeing his pale, lanky daughter peering shyly into the window, had looked at her quizzically, as if trying to work out why she was looking at the dress, why would she be interested in that? It was just a dress – Daniel had never been good at empathy. Then his expression had changed.

‘My god. I did get you a proper birthday present, didn’t I,’ he said, suddenly remembering, panic streaking across his face in case there was a repeat of That Birthday Which They Never Talked About, the one where Kate had gone to school the next morning and come back in the evening to find Venetia had left.

‘Yes you did,’ said Kate loyally. ‘You got me the new lens for my telescope, and that beautiful box of chocolates. It’s OK, Dad, honestly.’

(She had, in fact, bought the lens herself and he had given her the money, but to be fair, Daniel had actually bought the chocolates.)

Daniel breathed in heavily through his nose and pursed his lips, musing.

‘Do you want that dress, old girl?’

Kate looked amazed. ‘Dad! But it’s a hundred quid!’

Daniel looked quickly at his watch and put his arm round her. ‘Who cares! It’s your birthday, darling. Come on. Let’s go and try it on …’

Five years later, it was Kate’s most treasured possession. When she was answering those quizzes at the back of the Sunday supplements, the reply to ‘What one item would you rescue if the house was burning down’ was always, always the blue and gold dress. It had been her telescope, but she was a bit over that now, and it lay, gathering dust, in the back of her cupboard in the Rotherhithe flat.

She only wore the dress on special occasions. She’d worn it to her mother’s wedding, to her ball at college, and she was going to wear it tonight, for no other reason than that she suddenly felt alive with happiness. First Sue had given her the editor’s letter to write, and now she was off to Zoe and Steve’s housewarming party, and everyone was going to be there, and … who knows what might happen?

Kate was at her most beautiful that night, though of course she didn’t realize it. She was twenty-three, still young but much more confident, more relaxed than she’d been even a year ago, her skin clear and unlined, her dark brown eyes shining with excitement, her cheeks flushed. She was smiling as she entered the sitting room, forty-five minutes later, and as she cleared her throat lightly, and Sean sat up and tried to pretend he hadn’t been asleep, she grinned at him, her evening bag cupped in one hand, the other hand holding the skirt of the blue and gold dress, and Sean whistled.

‘Wow, Kate,’ he said, rubbing his eyes and standing up. ‘You look absolutely fucking amazing, do you realize that?’

‘Oh …’ Kate rolled her eyes. ‘Be quiet!’

‘I mean it,’ said Sean, still staring at her. He bowed, and gave her his arm. ‘Let battle commence. You’re going to hook up with someone tonight, I know it. I’m going to have to make sure no one takes advantage of you.’

They moved graciously towards the front door and he held it open for her.

‘Thank you very much,’ said Kate, stealing a glance at him. ‘You’re too kind.’

‘My pleasure, miss.’

‘People are staring at us,’ Kate said as they moved slowly down the high street towards the bus stop, Kate’s high heels making steady progress tricky. Rotherhithe High Street on a Friday evening was not especially accustomed to seeing men in black tie ambling down the street, accompanied by ladies in vintage silk and gold thread.

‘I know,’ said Sean, loudly. ‘Well let them stare. I have a broken heart and you look ravishing. Hello!’ he said brightly to an old lady in a thick purple coat who was gaping in open-mouthed astonishment at them. ‘Good evening.’

‘Evening!’ she replied. ‘Ooh. Do you know you take me back in time. Back to when I was twenty, you two.’

‘Madam,’ Sean replied, formally, in his rich American accent, ‘surely that time can only have been a matter of weeks ago.’ He smiled wolfishly at her, and she laughed, delighted.

Kate laughed too, and took hold of his arm again, and they continued their unsteady progress up the hill to the bus carrying them north of the river again.

‘So, Kate,’ Sean said, as they turned into Zoe and Steve’s road in the wilds of Kilburn, over an hour later. ‘Are you looking for love tonight?’

Kate stared at the ground. ‘Maybe. I’m going to take it easy this evening, anyway.’

‘Still hungover?’

She stifled a yawn. ‘A bit.’

‘That Charly’s a bad influence on you, girl,’ Sean said. ‘Are you feeling OK?’

‘I’m not feeling great I must say,’ Kate admitted. The excitement of what had happened at work, the drinks with Charly, comforting Sean, rushing to be ready – all had buoyed her up and now, nearly there at the end of the long journey across the city, she was starting to flag. She had had, after all, roughly four hours’ sleep the previous night.

Sean watched her as she rubbed her face.

‘You funny girl,’ he said. ‘Where’s the Kate I know from college who used to wear her hair in a ponytail all the time and sit in her room all night, studying?’

She met his gaze, boldly.

‘She grew up.’

Sean smiled lazily, looking her up and down. ‘You bet she did.’

He was flirting with her; he always did this; it didn’t really mean anything.

‘How about you?’ Kate said, bringing the conversation back on track. ‘You on the pull tonight then? Drown your sorrows?’

‘Oh, you bet,’ Sean said. ‘I’m hoping to break my ’98 Exam Party Record.’

On one heroic night after their finals, Sean had pulled the prettiest girl in the bar, and snogged ten other people – including the barmaid at the pub where they’d started off.

‘You’re such a tart,’ Kate said, as he fell into step with her, her gold high heels clattering on the ground. ‘But – hey. Good luck. Here we are.’

They stood at the garden gate to the house. Sean held out his hand, solemnly. ‘Hey, darlin’. Good luck to you too. May the best party-goer win. Who is Jenna, anyway?’

‘Exactly!’ Kate shook his hand firmly. ‘Definitely.’

‘And we’re sharing a taxi home, whatever happens,’ said Sean. ‘I’m not doing that bus thing at three in the morning, we’ll be taken to, like, Manchester without realizing.’

Despite the fact he’d lived in the United Kingdom for over four years now, Sean’s grasp of the geography of his adopted country was somewhat shaky. He sort of thought that because everything was much smaller than the US, ergo everywhere was literally five minutes away from everywhere else. That is, Edinburgh was a thirty-minute drive away, not an eight-hour drive away.

He released her hand. ‘Let’s go in, Katy-Kay,’ he said.

She was a bit flustered, and fumbled with her bag, but he took her elbow and, as they approached the front door, it flung open and there was Zoe, dressed in a Twenties flapper dress dripping with sequins, her glossy dark hair curled into ringlets.

‘Hooray! You’re here!’ she cried. ‘Now the party can really start! Woo hoo!’ She called out to Steve. ‘Steve, love. Kate and Sean are here. Turn the music up! I’m going to get you two a cocktail each. We’ve got Moscow Mules in the bath. Hurrah, you’re here! Come in!’

Steve appeared behind his fiancee, his dark eyes full of pleasure. ‘Well well well!’ he said, clapping his hands together. ‘Man!’ He slapped Sean’s hand. ‘Kate, you look like – like a dream.’ He kissed her. ‘I could eat you.’ His smile was enormous. ‘Seriously, you two. I kept saying to Zo, the party won’t really get going till you get here. And now you’re here! Yes.’

Sean and Kate smiled at each other on the doorstep, proud of their party-starting status, which was acknowledged and, in Sean’s case, well deserved. Sean rubbed his hands together and Kate smiled. They were good, and they knew it.

‘We’ll see you inside,’ said Kate, and she pushed Sean towards the door again, wanting to get inside, and as she stepped forward, following him in, someone came in from the other side and she stumbled across the threshold, into the house, almost falling into their arms.

‘So this is the famous Kate,’ the someone said, holding her by the arm to support her. She gazed up at him, helplessly, in the dull glow of the swinging lightbulb in the hall.

His open, handsome face, his dark eyes, his ready, wide smile … he looked strangely familiar and yet – she knew him, but she didn’t know him.

‘This is my brother, Mac,’ Steve said, a catlike grin on his face. ‘Finally! You’ve never met, that’s really weird.’

Mac. Of course. He looked like Steve, and yet he was totally unlike him. Steve was easy, open, laughed a lot, restless. Mac was taller, broader, his hair was the same light brown as his brother’s, but closely cropped. He had lines on his forehead, laughter lines by his mouth. Kate suddenly had the irresistible urge to reach out, touch them with her index finger. She stared at him. She was glad Zoe had gone into the kitchen.

‘No, we’ve never met,’ said Mac, still looking at her. He took her hand now, and shook it. ‘I know a lot about you though. A lot,’ he said.

‘Yeah, sorry about that,’ said Kate, recovering herself, her eyes still on him. His eyes were green, a strange, scrubby, sea-like green colour. ‘I know a lot about you too.’ When she was nervous she talked too much. ‘You’re a medical genius, and you live in Cricklewood, which is weird, because I never thought the two would go together, except we just did an article in the magazine about people who come from unlikely places. Did you know Cary Grant was born in Redland in Bristol and he was an acrobat at the Bristol Hippodrome.’

There was silence. Kate looked down at her feet, hating her high heels, which prevented her from fleeing into the night. She bit her lip, yelling at herself inside her head. What? How? Was she mental? This, this was why she hadn’t had a date in six months, she told herself.