Sharon Griffiths - Time of My Life

‘News?’ Caz and I immediately sat up straight and took notice.

‘We’re getting married!’ said Jake. ‘Or civil partner shipped anyway. Midsummer’s Day. Old Shire Hall. Marquee in the rose garden. Lots and lots of champagne. Lovely music. Lovely people too, if you’ll come.’

Caz and I jumped up and hugged and kissed them both. Will and Jamie stood up and shook their hands in a manly sort of way, clapped them around the shoulders and said, ‘Well done’, ‘Great news’, and that sort of thing.

‘Can I get you a drink to celebrate?’ asked Will.

But no, Leo’s parents were waiting. They didn’t want to be late, and didn’t want to be too drunk when they told them. It was an important day.

‘Good luck!’ we yelled as they went out, all pleased and excited.

‘Well,’ said Jamie, after they’d gone, ‘what’s the form for a woofter wedding then? Do we have to wear pink?’

‘Don’t be so silly,’ said Caz. ‘And patronising. It will be good fun. And it’s good they can do it. Makes sense with tax and money and all that sort of thing.’

‘But that’s not just why they’re doing it,’ I said. ‘I think it’s lovely. Public declaration and all that.’

‘Do you really?’ asked Will, and the sharpness of his tone surprised me.

‘Well, yes,’ I said, ‘I mean they’re obviously devoted to each other and it’s great that now they can tell the world.’

‘Yeah, guess so,’ said Will, but he looked as though he wanted to carry on grumbling. Then our food arrived and we got stuck into eating. Drinking too. Afterwards we walked around to Caz and Jamie’s place.

‘Yes!’ went Will as soon as we walked in. ‘Oh that is just beautiful!’

Jamie laughed, ‘Pretty neat, isn’t it?’

I was behind them, pulling my boots off so couldn’t see at first what all the fuss was about. Then I padded into the sitting room and saw it was a TV set, one of those huge plasma jobs. It was hanging on the wall like a picture. Caz raised her eyebrows in a ‘Don’t blame me, it’s one of his toys’, sort of expression.

‘That is just mint!’ said Will, standing in front of the set with his tongue practically hanging out. Jamie switched on some motor racing. It looked as though the cars were racing from one end of the room to the other. Impressive, but too much. Much too much. I went through to the kitchen to help Caz dig out some ice cream she’d got from the farmers’ market. More wine too.

‘It’s his latest toy,’ she said.

‘Don’t you mind?’

Caz shrugged. ‘It’s his money.’

‘Gerrrin there!’ Will was yelling at the TV like a kid, he was so excited.

We took the wine and the ice cream back into the sitting room and I curled up on the sofa. My throat was a bit scratchy so I could kid myself the soothing ice cream was medicinal. Then Will said, ‘I think we should get one of these TVs, Rosie.’

‘In your dreams. We haven’t got that sort of money. If we had, we’d be living in a bigger flat.’

This was a sore point. Our flat was actually mine, and it was tiny, which is why I had been able to buy it. When Will – and all his stuff – moved in a few months ago the plan had been we’d try and save to buy a bigger flat together. But you know what it’s like, prices just keep going up and up … Money comes in. Money goes out.

I’m not quite sure on what. But we needed more space. We didn’t need a couple of thousand pounds’ worth of television.

‘Don’t even think about it,’ I said crossly.

Suddenly a row was in the air. Will had that slightly sulky expression that he has when he doesn’t get his own way. But then Caz came downstairs, holding a photo and giggling.

‘I was sorting out some stuff at my mum’s, Will,’ she said, ‘and I found this.’

‘Oh my God!’ said Will. ‘The outdoor activities week in Year Eleven!’

Oh yes. Will and Caz were in school together. They even had a bit of a fling at one time. About the time that picture was taken, long before I knew either of them.

Actually it was quite a funny photo. They must have been sixteen years old and on an outdoor week in the Yorkshire Dales – all climbing, canoeing and gorge walking. Caz was wearing one of those enormous geek-like cagoules. But she had the full make-up on – three different shades of eye shadow, blusher and lip gloss. Never a girl to let her standards slip is Caz.

In the picture she was gazing adoringly up at Will. Jamie snatched the photo from him. ‘I bet you were hell for the teachers,’ he said – and he should know, he teaches in the local comp – ‘sneaking off to the canoe store for a quick snog. They all do.’

Caz and Will looked at each other very quickly and almost blushed.

Caz grinned. ‘Thank goodness you don’t choose your life partners at sixteen,’ she said. ‘Bad enough working with you, Will, let alone having to live with you. Don’t know how Rosie manages it.’

‘With difficulty sometimes,’ I said, laughing. But I felt a small pang. I had fallen for Will the moment I’d arrived at The News , where he was already a senior reporter. He had to show me around on the first day and I knew, just knew, that he was the one for me. We were both slightly involved with other people at the time and as soon as we untangled ourselves, that was it. We were an item. It was as if we had always been together.

But we hadn’t. And Caz had known him since they were eleven years old. They had a past, experiences, memories, daft jokes I couldn’t share. And sometimes, just sometimes, I felt a twinge … of jealousy, I suppose. Silly. He was with me now.

Jamie and Will started playing on the PlayStation.

‘What about Leo and Jake then?’ asked Caz, passing me some wine. ‘I bet that will be a brilliant day.’

I laughed and started to say something to Will, but he was still gazing at that bloody television.

‘Look, Will, you’ve only just got your new car,’ I said. ‘That’s a nice new toy for now.’

‘Well, you’re the one who wanted to go to New York.’

‘And you’re the one who spent a fortune in Nieman Marcus,’ I snapped back. ‘How many cashmere sweaters does one man need?’ A bit of a cheek coming from me, I know, being no slouch in the cashmere sweater department myself.

Things were getting snippy.

‘Children, children,’ said Jamie. You can just hear him with Year Seven, though at school he probably wouldn’t have the lager can in his hand.

‘Have you not thought,’ Jamie went on, ‘that perhaps if you didn’t buy new cars and fly halfway across the world for a long weekend and a shopping habit, you might just be able to buy a bigger flat, or even a nice little house? Unless, of course, you don’t really want to. And your subconscious is telling you to spend your money on fun and toys instead of being grown-up and sensible and salting it away for your future.

‘Strange, isn’t it,’ he went on, ‘that the only people in our group who are getting married are Leo and Jake? Takes a pair of gays to set the rest of us loose-living reprobates a good example.’

‘Me, I don’t see the point of being married,’ said Caz. ‘We’re fine as we are, aren’t we sweetie?’ she said, patting Jamie’s knee. ‘We don’t need a posh frock and a piece of paper. It might be different if we wanted kids, I suppose. But Jamie sees enough of kids in work. He doesn’t want to come home to them as well.’

‘But what about you?’ I asked.

‘Not a maternal bone in my body,’ she laughed. ‘Anyway I’d be an absolute disaster as a mum. I’d probably leave the poor little bugger’s pram outside the pub. No, my unborn baby should be very grateful to me for keeping it that way.’