Jill Steeples - Let's Call The Whole Thing Off

‘It’s cosy,’ I said, only now noticing the overflowing piles of papers and magazines, the dirty cups and plates. ‘Is this where you do your painting?’

‘I have a studio out the back. I’ll show you in the morning, if you like.’

I nodded, feeling a surge of gratitude for Ben’s easy, reassuring presence. I’d been quick to blame him for being part of the web of deceit, but what would I have done in his shoes? It was an impossible situation he’d been put in. None of this was his fault.

‘I’m sorry that you’ve been caught up in all this.’ I ran my fingernail along the groove in his table. ‘I won’t stay for long, I promise. A couple of days at the most and then I’ll be out of your way.’

‘You can stay as long as you like. As long as it takes.’

I sighed, grabbing fistfuls of hair at my temples. Sitting chatting to Ben I could almost forget what had happened, for a moment, but then the shocking memory of those words written with such casual abandon in Sophie’s diary came back to hit me with a renewed vengeance.

‘What do you think I should do?’

‘Oh, I don’t know, Anna.’ He sighed and mirrored my action with his hair. ‘I think only you can decide on that. But a good place to start would be to talk to Ed. Hear what he has to say.’

The warmth and softness in Ben’s voice brought tears to my eyes again, and I wondered that I had any left to cry. Despair swept over me, my bones aching with tiredness.

‘Ed’s the master salesman, you know that. He’ll have all the answers, he always does. I don’t want to talk to him because I know already what he’s going to say. I don’t want to look into his eyes and hear his excuses. I think it might break my heart.’

‘I know. ’ Ben reached his hand across the table, taking hold of mine. ‘But he loves you. And you love him. You can get over this if you want to. All those hopes and plans you had for the future – you can still have those. You don’t have to throw everything away just because of a silly little mistake.’

‘Hardly a little mistake. They’ve been seeing each other for months, according to Sophie’s diary. He told her he adored her. That sounds pretty serious to me. And hardly forgivable. What I don’t understand is why he did it. If he wanted Sophie then why didn’t he just leave me to be with her?’

Ben splayed his fingers on the table.

‘That’s not what he told me. He told me it was you he loved. You, he wanted to share his life with.’

I shrugged my shoulders, unswayed by Ben’s words of comfort.

‘Honestly, I’m not sure Ed and I can come back from this. Even if we postpone the wedding, put if off for another day, how can we ever forget what’s happened? How could I look forward to my wedding day in the same way now? To spending my life with him. It’s all been ruined. It was supposed to be the happiest day of my life with Ed on one side of me and Sophie, my best friend and bridesmaid, on the other. If it wasn’t so bloody tragic it might be funny.

‘This is the sort of thing you might be unlucky to have happen to you when you’ve been married for years. Finding out your husband’s having an affair. Then you might be able to find a way to work through it; to come out the other side, but it’s not something that should ever happen before you actually get married. If he didn’t love me enough to stay loyal then can there be any future for us? Besides, I’m not sure that I’d want that now. I don’t know whether I want to be married to a man capable of that kind of deceit.’

I took another glug of wine as Ben observed me thoughtfully, nodding his head in all the right places.

‘Can you ever imagine forgiving someone for doing that to you, Ben? Can you?’

‘I’m hardly the right person to ask. I don’t have much of a track record when it comes to successful relationships. But I’m guessing if you love someone enough you could probably forgive them anything, within reason. Enough at least to give them a second chance.’

‘You’re obviously more forgiving than I am. I’m not sure I want to give Ed a second chance.’ The act of saying the words aloud clarifying the fact in my own mind. ‘Or perhaps I don’t love him enough. Not enough to let him lie and cheat on me. One thing’s for sure: he didn’t love me enough.’

‘Come on.’ He stood up, looking as though he’d really had enough of my self-pitying wailing. ‘You need to get some rest. I’ll show you where you’ll be sleeping.’

***

Ben’s guest bedroom had clearly not seen any guests in a long while. There was a single bed, or at least I think it was a bed beneath an impressive collection of cardboard boxes overflowing with stuff. To the side of the bed was an exercise bike, presumably in case I got the urge in the middle of the night, and a bare light bulb hanging forlornly in the centre of the room.

‘Lovely,’ I said, looking around and smiling as though I’d just been shown into the Presidential Suite of the Waldorf Astoria.

‘I’ll just clear these,’ said Ben, tackling the boxes and moving them onto the floor where they spilled out into the hallway. I helped with the removal job or else we might still have been there at dawn.

‘I’m only in the room next door,’ he said, giving me an awkward hug when we’d finally finished. ‘Just give me a shout if there’s anything you need.’

I don’t think he means room service , I considered with a rueful smile. I sank down onto the bed with a sigh. If I wasn’t depressed before I arrived then I soon would be if I had to spend any length of time here. It wasn’t Ben’s fault; he’d been a complete star taking me in like this, but my shabby surroundings only seemed to highlight the neglect and loneliness I was feeling.

I pulled off my jeans and T-shirt and slipped beneath the covers, knowing that I had as much chance of falling asleep as I did of getting married at the weekend.

Weariness washed around my body, but my mind was still buzzing with the events of the day. When was their first time? How and when had it happened? Was it at the flat? I shuddered at the thought. Or was it at Ed’s place? And what the hell was I doing when my fiancé and my best friend were getting to know the intimacies of each other’s underwear?

I couldn’t imagine it. Being with another man. There’d only ever been Ed, and Brian before him, and then that unfortunate one-night stand with Russell after my Halloween party. In my defence, his usual pasty demeanour had been transformed by a pair of fangs, some blood-red lips and a liberal application of hair gel, which had given him a dangerously glamorous air that only lasted for as long as the plastic cape, made from a black bin liner, that swept over his shoulders.

But I’d been single then and that was fair game. Sophie and Ed were playing by their own dirty rules. For goodness’ sake, it was like me making a pass at Ben! It was totally off bounds.

The sound of Sophie’s laughter tinkled around my head, tormenting me. Sophie laughed a lot. When she wasn’t grumping about wearing her bridesmaid dress, that is. Thinking about her laughing with Ed was almost worse than imagining the pair of them in bed together.

Sophie was spontaneous and adventurous and glamorous. Not to mention treacherous! In fact, there were infinitesimal ‘ous’-ending adjectives that could be applied to Sophie.

Maybe if I’d been a little bit more ‘ous’ like Sophie and a little less like … less like sensible, good old Anna, then maybe I wouldn’t be in this mess now.

I tossed and turned in my bed, a restless energy pumping my veins. I wouldn’t be able to spend the night in this God-awful room. It was too easy to conjure up the feeling of Ed’s arms around me, the warmth of his embrace, his breath against my cheek, making my whole body tingle with frustrated anticipation. And sadness. I wondered if all those times he’d held me, he’d been thinking of Sophie instead, wishing he could be with her rather than with me.