Jill Steeples - Let's Call The Whole Thing Off

Furiously I hurled the silver box across the room, the lid parting company with the base and ricocheting off the wall, before spinning onto the carpet. I took a deep breath and returned the diary to its spot on the cabinet, before standing up, my legs wobbly like Sophie’s had been, but for entirely different reasons. My breathing laboured, I leant down and picked up the silver box, reuniting it with its lid, the familiar scent making me retch. I replaced it very carefully next to the diary.

Chapter Two

Somehow, despite my wobbly legs, I made it downstairs, ignoring the palpitations in my chest and the ringing in my ears until I realised that what I thought were brain cells playing Space Invaders in my head was actually a phone. Somewhere. Outside of my head, demanding attention.

I snatched up the handset, only registering at the last moment that I wasn’t sure if my mouth still worked. What if it was Sophie or, worse still, Ed? What words were there?

‘Hello?’

‘Oh hi, Anna, it’s Louise Bailey here.’ The woman chirruped, actually chirruped, like an annoying little bird.

‘Sorry?’

‘Louise Bailey from St Michael’s Manor. How are you?’ What did she have to sound so goddam happy about? Chirrup, chirrup, chirrup. ‘Not long to go now. You must be so excited?’

‘What? Oh yes.’ The slow realisation of who this annoying woman was spread through my veins as my mouth operated on auto-pilot.

‘I just wanted to confirm the final numbers for Saturday. I think we’d pencilled in three hundred.’

Oh shit. Oh bum. Oh bust.

I scrabbled for the ‘folder’, flipped open the cover and looked at the papers clipped to the front. A lifetime’s work. Well, not really, but at that moment it seemed that way. Eighteen months’ work, at the very least. The list of names ran over three pages, some had ticks against them, others had been scratched out and at the top I’d circled the magic number in red.

‘Two hundred and eighty-two,’ I said more to myself than to the tweetering bird on the other end of the phone.

‘Two … hundred … and … eighty … two,’ repeated Birdie, as though she was announcing the winner of the Golden Globe. ‘That’s fabulous. Well, just to reassure you that everything is in hand at this end. We are very much looking forward to welcoming you and Ed to the Manor this weekend and making sure your special day is as wonderful and memorable as it can possibly be. Now, if there’s anything else you need, any worries you might have, then just feel free to ask. We are here to help.’

‘Help?’

‘Yes. If there’s anything, absolutely anything, then you only need ask.’

I thought about it. She was so frigging organised and efficient. She probably had a section in her wedding bible for ‘dealing with cheating intendeds’. A master plan for such eventualities, but I had a feeling I was way beyond anyone’s help now.

‘The doorbell,’ I heard myself say.

‘Sorry?’

‘The doorbell. It’s ringing. I need to go.’

‘Oh right, yes, of course,’ Birdie said, losing some of her tweet. ‘I’ll let you go. And we’ll look forward to seeing you at the weekend.’

I put down the phone with a sigh, deciding to ignore the doorbell, but not knowing what, if anything, I could do beyond that. My whole body had gone into an elaborate non-functioning state. I should have been crying or screaming or throwing even more things across the room, but I had neither the energy nor the inclination to do any of those things. Instead, I keeled over on to the sofa, arms wide, sacrificing myself to the wedding God.

Only half an hour ago, my life had been perfect. My future mapped out like a Cath Kidston photo collage, full of impossibly cheerful moments in a perpetually sunny, floral vista. And now – well, it wasn’t.

‘Open the bloody door.’ A muffled voice wafted down the hallway.

I jumped up in my seat, fear racing through my body. I slipped the backs of my hands beneath my knees, bit on my lip and held my body tight with tension, hoping if I stayed like that for any length of time the annoying person ringing my bell would get the message and leave. Then I might think about breathing again. And decide what the hell I was going to do next.

‘Anna, I know you’re in there. Come on, open up. I need a coffee and a piss. Hurry up.’

Ben! After Ed and Sophie, he was possibly the last person in the world I wanted to see.

‘Ben!’ I wailed, putting on my most sickly, leave-me-alone, I-really-am- dying voice. ‘I’m on the sofa. Feeling rough. Really rough. Sickness, diarrhoea. Virulent and catching. Sorry! I can’t … I can’t … I’ll call you.’

‘Open the door, Anna.’

Aaargh, God. I prised myself off the sofa with a huge effort, my body suddenly taking on super-heavyweight proportions and lumbered towards the door.

‘You took your time.’ Ben breezed into the flat, looking like he just wandered in off a Boden menswear shoot. In fawn-coloured cargo shorts and hot-pink polo shirt, the collar popped, he cast his gaze over me, scratching his head distractedly. ‘Christ, you look rough. What’s up?’

‘Ill. Very ill.’ I braved a glance at his concerned expression and immediately wished I hadn’t. Ben represented everything that was familiar and reassuring in my life, only now he’d taken on an altogether different appearance. I’d known him for ever, or for what seemed like for ever, ever since we’d started senior school. It seemed only natural when we ended up at the same university too. We shared everything together, all those angst-ridden teenage traumas, all the highs and lows. I’d seen him through his break-ups with various highly unsuitable girls, and he’d seen me through all the boys I’d just been practising on before I met Ed. And then when I met Ed, everything fell into place and Ben seemed to like Ed, almost as much as I did. So much so that their bromance developed to such an extent that Ed asked Ben to be his best man. That had to be a good omen, didn’t it? But now, uncovering the secrets of that wretched diary, our merry little band was about to be blown into tiny smithereens.

‘You need to go,’ I said, clutching my stomach as though I might just die. ‘You might catch it.’

‘What? And leave you like this? No way. I’ll take my chances, thanks. Let me make you a cup of tea. It’s probably all the stress of the wedding finally catching up with you. Hey, I’d be throwing up all the time too if I knew I was getting married at the weekend. Back in a mo!’ he said, dashing off to the bathroom.

I jumped up, fired by an urgency to do something, anything, but most importantly to get Ben out of the flat. And me too, I decided, in that instant. I needed to get out of the claustrophobic confines of this God-awful place .

Just being here was suffocating me. I couldn’t be here when Sophie came back or if Ed turned up. Although that looked unlikely. They were probably holed up somewhere together, shagging each other senseless.

‘Hey, what are you doing?’ Ben was back, standing in the doorway, brandishing a mug of tea in his hand.

‘I’m just going to pack up a couple of bits, that’s all. I need to get away for a few days. Take a bit of a break.’

‘Whoa, whoa, whoa.’ He put the mug down on the coffee table and dashed over to where I was rooting through my handbag. ‘What’s this all about?’

‘It’s nothing.’ My whole body prickled with suppressed emotion. When he took hold of my arms, gazing deep into my eyes, I knew I couldn’t hold it together a moment longer. Tears rushed down my cheeks, short, shuddering breaths escaping my mouth. Ben peered closer, but I pushed him away, grabbing my bag.

‘Leave it, Ben. Don’t worry. I have to go. Please don’t say anything to Ed, will you?’