My parents had never been ones for a big celebration. Major milestones passed the family by, celebrated with nothing more elaborate than a Viennetta and a bottle of Marks and Spencer’s own-brand sparkling wine. And only if the Viennetta was on offer. Mum and Dad’s idea of a wild time was opening a packet of Fox’s Crinkle Crunch and watching some Michael McIntyre or, if they were feeling terribly controversial, fifteen minutes of Graham Norton.
When I demanded a thirteenth birthday party, hot on the heels of Abi’s impossibly extravagant bat mitzvah, they did the best that they could. Five girls from my class in our living room, a Take That birthday cake, Dad playing DJ with my tape deck and Mum hovering in the doorway with a bin bag and a Dustbuster. Not so much as a crumb of that cake touched the carpet. It was better than a kick in the tits, but not exactly what I’d been dreaming about, especially compared to Abi’s live band, ice cream sundae bar and light-up dance floor. And so, given my birthday party was still the pinnacle of their entertaining career, I was naturally suspicious when my dad announced he was putting on a ‘proper do’ for his sixty-fifth birthday in the upstairs room in the pub and inviting half the village.
‘Olivia!’
Jeanette Riley, owner of the local newsagents and Persian cat enthusiast, greeted me with an over-familiar hug as I attempted to slink into the party. I thought I was early, but from the looks of it the half of the village that had been invited had brought the other half as their plus one. I wasn’t entirely surprised; my dad had lived here his entire life. He knew everyone and everyone knew him, a fact that had often come back to haunt me as a teenager. The last thing I wanted was to spend the evening making small talk with every Tom, Dick and Jeanette, knowing they would all ask about Adam and I had no idea what to tell them. It was Saturday and I still hadn’t heard from him. It was beginning to look more and more like things were over and I refused to believe there was a woman on earth who wanted to spend her first weekend as a potentially single thirty-something nodding and smiling over cheese and pineapple on a stick with the woman who refused to sell her Cosmo until she was twenty-one because it was ‘full of nothing but smut’ when she could be eyeball deep in Häagen-Dazs, watching Dirty Dancing and sobbing into her cat like a proper spinster.
‘Olivia Addison, don’t you look lovely,’ Mrs Riley said, eyeing my outfit as though she didn’t quite believe what she was saying.
‘Hello, Mrs Riley,’ I said, returning her once-over. I don’t care what anyone says, there is an age when you’re too old for hot pants. ‘How are you?’
‘I haven’t seen you outside of that vet’s in a dog’s age,’ she replied, ignoring my question and planting her fists on her hips. ‘Must be a relief to get out of those pyjamas you wear all day.’
‘They’re scrubs,’ I explained, allowing her to lead me directly to the bar without argument. ‘You’re be surprised, they’re very comfortable.’
I’d given up wearing proper clothes to work as soon as I found out you didn’t need to iron scrubs, it just made sense.
‘Comfort isn’t everything though, is it?’ she asked. ‘My eldest is the same, you know. Never thinking about how she looks, always running around, dressed like a man.’
‘Not really any point dressing up for what I do,’ I replied. ‘I hate being uncomfortable, don’t you?’
‘Hmm, your dad and your granddad always wore suits to work,’ she said, flicking her eyes up and down my polka-dot dress once more. ‘Now, would you mind having a quick look at this picture of my Hermione? She’s got some runny stuff in the corner of her eye and I can’t decide if it’s just runny or there’s an infection. I took it earlier, since I knew I’d be seeing you.’
‘Well, it’s hard to tell from a photo,’ I started but it was too late, her phone was pressed up against my nose before I could finish my sentence. ‘It would be better if you could bring her in.’
‘I’m sure it’s nothing,’ Mrs Riley said, waving her smudged phone screen back and forth, two inches from my face. ‘Just have a look. What do you think?’
‘I think bring her in on Monday,’ I replied as politely as I could. ‘And I’ll have a look at her for you.’
Slowly putting her tiny phone back into her giant handbag, Mrs Riley treated me to a long and accusatory scowl.
‘Your granddad always had time to look out for his friends.’ She squinted at me through her elaborate eye make-up. ‘He wouldn’t have had a poor old woman with bad hips trek all the way down to his office just for a cat’s runny eye.’
Jeanette Riley was forty-seven.
‘I can always come to you,’ I suggested with a bright smile. ‘Give us a call and we’ll set up an appointment.’
‘It’s a racket,’ she muttered, walking away. ‘That’s what it is. You’ll want an arm and a leg, all to look at a runny eye. It’s criminal, that’s what it is.’
‘You all right there?’ Abi emerged from the ladies while I stood at the bar, nodding and smiling politely to thin air. ‘You look like you’re about to cut someone.’
‘I’ve been here less than a minute and I’ve already been accused of running a pet protection racket,’ I explained. ‘This is why I stopped leaving the house, isn’t it?’
‘It’s funny,’ she replied, straightening my necklace. ‘No one ever asks me to diagnose their pet’s problems.’
‘That’s because the last time someone did, you told them it looked like their dog had herpes,’ I reminded her. ‘And then you told them to fuck off.’
‘What did they expect?’ she asked, ordering two glasses of wine from the barmaid. ‘I was at a christening.’
‘I know,’ I replied. ‘It was the vicar.’
‘Eh …’ Abi rested her elbows on the bar and checked out the guests as they swarmed from one end of the room to the other. ‘This is an awfully fancy do for the village. Is it really your dad’s birthday party or is he actually about to help us all ascend to the next reality? Is the punch safe to drink?’
‘He didn’t say anything about mass murder but you never know with my dad, he’s a taciturn man,’ I said, clutching my wine but not drinking. It had been a rough week on that front already and I was such a lightweight. The thought of even taking a sip made my stomach turn. ‘You’re right though, something’s up. They’ve actually spent money on this. They literally told me nothing about this evening – I thought it was going to be a bottle of Blue Nun and a bag of dry roast peanuts. But you know what my mum and dad are like, they never tell me anything.’
Admittedly, my mum had done a much better job of this birthday party than she had with mine. The room looked lovely. A dozen round tables covered with elegant white tablecloths and elaborate floral centrepieces filled half the room while gold and silver balloons floated above the dance floor, swaying out of time to the Sinatra that was playing over the PA system. It was all very swish and there wasn’t a single bin bag or handy vac in sight.
‘And I don’t want to scare you but it’s an open bar,’ Abi whispered. ‘Something’s definitely going on.’
‘Oh god,’ I said, gulping the wine straight down with a shudder. ‘Do you think he’s dying?’
She shrugged and nodded. ‘Or transitioning.’
‘It can’t be either,’ I said, peering into the crowds to search for my parents, just in case. ‘They bought a new car a month ago and there’s no way he’d waste money on a Volvo if he thought he was about to die and when I tried to explain Caitlyn Jenner to him, he said he was too old to bother with all that and left the room.’
I hadn’t seen Abi since our summit on Wednesday evening and we’d been playing telephone tennis ever since. To be fair to my friend, I really hadn’t felt like talking. It had been a long three days of ridiculously long shifts in the surgery followed by unwelcome paperwork sessions and, most evenings, I’d topped off the day with a fun cry in the bath. It was a mystery to me how Adam could even consider walking away from such a prize.
‘So, I’m going to ask you before everyone else does …’ Abi fiddled with the plunging neckline of her beautiful deep green dress. She was not dressed for the sixty-fifth birthday of a family friend, unless she was trying to finish my dad off. ‘Is you-know-who coming?’
‘Adam?’ I asked.
‘No, Voldemort,’ she replied. ‘Of course, Adam.’
‘I don’t know,’ I said, pushing up onto my tiptoes to peer over the crowd. ‘I really don’t. We still haven’t spoken—’
‘This is ridiculous, Liv.’ Abi’s face was a picture of empathy with just a hint of homicide in her eyes. ‘He’s your boyfriend, you can’t just rattle on like this. I’m going to call him.’
‘No, you’re not,’ I said, slapping her phone back into her bag. ‘I spent all afternoon trying to come up with excuses for why I haven’t heard from him that didn’t end with me crying and drinking vodka under a table. This is not the time to make that dream a reality.’
‘I would have been under the table with a bottle by Thursday night,’ she said, dropping her head onto my shoulder, giving me an unrestricted view of her rack. She had amazing boobs. ‘You’re my hero.’
‘Then I won’t tell you about the empty bottle of vodka under my dining table,’ I replied. ‘You still think it’s going to be all right, don’t you?’
Not even all the music and laughter and happy chatter that filled the room could fill the pause before she spoke again.
‘I’m trying to think of a way to make not hearing from him all week positive,’ she said. ‘But I’m struggling. Is this the part where I’m supposed to take you shopping then we both get makeovers and disappear on a life-changing holiday to Tuscany?’
Ooh, Tuscany.
‘Well, you’re shit out of luck.’ She emptied her wine glass into mine, filling it to the brim. ‘Because I haven’t got any money, I can’t take any time off until April, and your hair is really nice as it is. Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘You’re such a failure.’ A small smile worked a group of muscles in my face that hadn’t been used in almost a week. ‘I think you need to check your “best friend” job description, Abigail Levinson.’
‘They definitely sound like Cassie things to me,’ she replied. ‘Are they coming?’
‘Couldn’t get a babysitter,’ I told her, watching three teenagers huddled together on the back of a bench outside, passing a bottle of something underneath their coats. I wondered if they needed a fourth. ‘You’re stuck with all the BFF duties.’
‘I thought you were my best friend?’ Abi waved to David who was edging into the room with a total lack of conviction. He hated what he referred to as ‘old people parties’, especially when the majority of the attendees were the same old dears who asked him when he was going to find a ‘nice girl and settle down’ every time they came into the surgery. ‘You should take David to Tuscany. He’ll be better at it than me anyway.’
‘Better at what?’ he asked, giving me a fist-bump. It was always best not to start any rumours at a village party; gossip spread like wildfire in Long Harrington and the two women who ran the library would have me barefoot and pregnant with his triplets in under three minutes if they so much as saw a hug.
‘Olivia Addison’s Magical Break-Up Makeover,’ Abi replied with elaborate jazz hands. ‘I’m thinking haircut, boob job, burn all her clothes and then we move to Paris to live in a five-star hotel. Shenanigans ensue.’
‘I thought you said I had nice hair?’ I asked.
‘Or, we could move to Las Vegas,’ he suggested, one hand swooping in a wide arc in front of my face, painting an invisible picture, the other on Abi’s shoulder before she knocked it off. ‘And I meet a wonderful, gentle but feisty stripper named Harmony who is only dancing to earn money to pay for medical school, she takes us to her favourite blackjack table, Abi wins it big and we all live happily ever after in the high roller suite.’
‘And where will I be during all of this?’ I asked, taking one more sip of wine to confirm my hangover and putting it back on the bar. ‘How does that help me?’
‘Taking care of the lions at the MGM casino,’ he said, picking up my glass of wine and chugging half the glass. Great, now we’d all had a go at it. ‘Obviously.’
Abi reached out to take hold of my hand. ‘I know this isn’t easy and I know we’re taking the piss.’
‘We are?’ David said. ‘Oh. Shit.’
‘But you’ve got to look at the opportunities here.’ She grabbed a handful of peanuts from the bowl on the bar and shovelled them into her mouth. ‘Firstly, you haven’t actually properly broken up yet. And secondly, OK, things might not work out exactly as you thought. That doesn’t mean things can’t be great. If you could be anywhere right now, where would you be?’
‘Miami, on the beach, cocktail in one hand, Karlie Kloss in the other,’ David replied.
‘And back in the real world,’ Abi said, eyes on me. ‘What would you be doing, if you’d never met Adam? If you could be anywhere in the world, doing absolutely anything, what would it be?’
Once upon a time, I would have had a thousand answers tripping off my tongue but now I had nothing. It was too easy to get stuck in your own life, wrapping yourself in layers of the every day. I was too busy paying the electric bill, bingeing on the new series of something I wouldn’t remember in six months and making sure I always had milk to bother with dreams. I wasn’t just stuck behind my break-up blinkers, I’d built so many walls around myself, I could barely see the sky.
‘Japan,’ I said, scratching around in my brain for anything that had been parked on the ‘maybe’ or ‘not right now’ shelf. ‘I’ve always wanted to go to Japan but I haven’t suggested it because I knew Adam was worried about money and it’s so expensive.’
‘Three tickets to Japan!’ David said, easy as that. ‘What else?’
‘I’m not paying for all three of us,’ I corrected.
‘One ticket to Japan!’ David said. ‘What else?’
‘I always thought I’d end up somewhere other than here,’ I said, casting an eye over the room that was filled with faces I’d seen almost every day since I was a little girl. ‘I mean, Abs, we only made it fifteen minutes down the road for uni.’
‘I know,’ Abi said with a consoling sigh. ‘I thought we’d move to London afterwards. How come we’re still bloody here?’
I gazed out the window and indulged in a vision of myself skipping through a cityscape in heels I couldn’t possibly walk in and wearing a far too colourful outfit. This was why Carrie Bradshaw was a journalist and not a vet, I realized. Significantly more opportunity for glamour and significantly less chance of going home covered in something’s vomit. I really had made some poor life decisions.
‘You don’t have a mortgage, you’re not tied to anything.’ Abi gave me a tiny smile, even though I knew she didn’t love this chain of thought. ‘Nothing stopping you, babe.’
A tiny spark of something that could be lit up inside me, and it was almost too frightening to look at directly. I couldn’t even choose between two different flavours of ice cream, the idea of the entire world opening itself up to me was terrifying.
‘The world is your lobster,’ David waved a hand off into the distance. ‘As long as you promise to always send me and Harmony a Christmas card, wherever you end up.’
‘Liv, did your mum invite Adam’s parents to the party?’ Abi asked, taking the double glass of wine out of David’s hand and putting it back into mine.
‘Of course,’ I replied. ‘But they didn’t RSVP. I think his mum’s away.’
‘His mum is not away,’ she said, nodding across the room. ‘His mum is here.’
I followed her gaze across the room to see two older men, each hugging an older woman. My parents and Adam’s parents.
‘Oh god, they’re talking to each other,’ I whispered, desperately looking for an escape route. I wasn’t ready for this. I didn’t know what to say to them. ‘Is he here as well?’
‘I can’t see him,’ Abi said, craning her neck above the crowd, her boobs threatening to burst free as she went up on her tiptoes. ‘Do you want me to do a lap of the room?’
‘I’ll go,’ David offered. He leaned forward and took a slurp out of our group wine glass. ‘If I find him, I’ll signal.’
‘What’s the signal?’ I asked, a flush creeping up my chest and neck as both sets of parents continued to chat.
‘Oi Liv, Adam is here,’ he suggested, waving his arms around in the air. ‘Does that work?’
‘Perfectly,’ Abi said with a grim nod. ‘Now, let’s get you sorted out.’
Without another word, she bundled me backwards into the ladies, pushing our sixth form French teacher out the door in the process.
‘Pardon,’ she called as the door swung shut. ‘Je suis désolée.’
‘Why are we in the toilets?’ I asked.
‘We are in the toilets,’ she replied, turning me around and shoving me into a toilet stall, ‘because if Adam’s parents are here, Adam is probably here too and you are dressed for your dad’s birthday party.’
‘It is my dad’s birthday party,’ I replied as she yanked her obscenely low-cut dress over her head and tossed it over the toilet door, her hands on her hips in her bra and pants. They matched. I was impressed.
‘Abi,’ I said calmly. ‘You appear to have removed your dress.’
‘Take that off,’ she ordered, pointing at my delightful, very ladylike, navy-blue polka-dot ensemble. ‘Right now.’
‘But if I take it off, I too will have removed my dress,’ I replied. ‘I’m not sure what you’re going for here, Ab.’
She rolled her brown eyes and crossed her arms over her magnificent bosom. ‘You haven’t seen Adam since the car-park incident, correct?’
I nodded.
‘And regardless of his recent behaviour, you do still want to be with him, don’t you?’
I nodded.
‘Then take that bloody frock off, you look like you’re dressed to meet the queen,’ she commanded. ‘And then stuff your bra with bog roll. We’re going to need to pad you out a bit if you’re going to pull this off.’
My heart was pounding at the thought of seeing Adam and also at the thought of stripping half-naked in the lavs of the Bell. This was not standard Saturday night behaviour for me.
Any more.
We’d all done things we weren’t proud of as teenagers.
‘Do you really think wearing your dress is going to magically make our relationship all better?’ I said, yanking handfuls of Kimberly-Clark toilet paper out of the dispenser.
‘No,’ she admitted as she zipped me up. ‘But it will make you look amazing. And Liv, if you really love him and you really want to sort this out, looking amazing the first time you see him can’t hurt.’
The edges of my mouth began to flicker as I smiled at her. Abi had little faith in relationships and I knew she must be itching to call Adam everything from a pig to a dog. She’d always been protective of me, ever since we’d met.
‘I’m guessing he hasn’t said anything to his parents,’ Abi, ever the analyst, theorized while she dressed me. ‘They seemed awfully chummy with your mum and dad. If my boyfriend had packed me in and then his parents turned up to a family party, my mum would run them through with a chainsaw.’
‘Yes, but my parents are a lot more repressed than yours,’ I reminded her as she pulled my sophisticated dotty number over her head and attempted to restrain her chest so I could zip her up. ‘My mum is probably apologizing for raising such a disappointing daughter and offering to reimburse all the Christmas presents they bought me.’
‘What are you going to say to him?’ she asked, rolling her shoulders uncomfortably. This was a sacrifice that would not soon be forgotten. Mainly because she was unlikely to let me forget it. ‘If he’s out there?’
I looked down at my chest and my elevated rack looked right back up.
‘I’m not sure I need to say anything,’ I said, meeting Abi’s eyes.
I burst out of the toilet stall, prodding at my tissue boobs. They weren’t as impressive as Abi’s by any stretch of the imagination but I wasn’t used to seeing so much of them outside of my own bathroom. Adam wouldn’t know where to look which I supposed was the point.
‘He’s here,’ David shouted, bursting through the toilet door, making me, Abi and the hand-drier jump. ‘He’s here, Adam’s here.’
‘It’s definitely him?’ I asked, my heart pounding so hard I could actually see my bog roll padding move.
David nodded. ‘Yeah. I think so. I mean, yeah. Pretty sure it was him.’
‘It’s not that hard a question,’ Abi said. ‘You’ve met the man before.’
‘Well, I was trying to get to the vol au vents before your mother ate them all,’ he told her. ‘Then I saw a very tall blond man bothering Liv’s dad so I left the buffet empty handed and came straight in here to report back. You’re welcome.’
‘Such a martyr,’ she said.
‘Can I go now?’ David cast his eye around the pink tiled bathroom. ‘I really don’t like to spend too much time in the ladies unless there’s a BJ in the offing.’
‘Then you’d better go,’ Abi said.
‘You’ll succumb to my charms eventually, Levinson,’ he replied, waggling his eyebrows before slinking out the ladies’ loos. He was wrong, she wouldn’t. Other than being six years younger than we were (and Abi never dated younger men), he had once drunkenly informed Abi that she was his great white whale and asked if she would like to see his Moby Dick. He had more chance of getting Adam into bed.
‘You’d never know I spent all week weighing mouse spleens, would you?’ Abi asked, fluffing out my hair. ‘Right. Let’s do this.’
‘Do what exactly? I whispered, still staring at my boobs. There was so much boob.
‘That part is up to you,’ Abi said, patting me on the backside. ‘Remember, you can do anything you want to do.’
‘Go home?’ I asked weakly.
‘Anything but that,’ she replied, pushing me out of the bogs. ‘Go get ’em tiger.’
‘Olivia …’ My mum, neat and tidy in her navy blue Jacques Vert special, opened her arms to give me a very tiny almost hug. ‘What are you wearing?’
‘Nice to see you too,’ I said, hoisting up my plunging neckline as far as it would go. Across the room, over by the buffet table, I saw Adam’s dad leaning on his walking stick while his mum, unmissable in a fuchsia sari, repeatedly reached out for a canapé before frowning, shaking her head and moving along to the next platter. Wherever Adam was hiding, he was not with his parents. It felt ever so slightly as though there were a spider in the room but I wasn’t sure where it was lurking.
‘I was just speaking to Adam’s parents,’ Mum said, inclining her tasteful bob towards the Floyds. ‘His mother just came back from India. Did you know she’d been to India?’
‘Oh, India, that’s right,’ I replied, not sure I did know. Adam’s mum was always off somewhere. Wellness retreat in Costa Rica, watercolour lessons in the Lake District, wine-making course in the South of France – all while his dad sat at home, watching the snooker. And they were just about the happiest couple I’d ever met. ‘She looks well on it.’
‘Where is Adam?’
Someone was bound to ask sooner or later, I supposed I should have been thankful it was my mum.
‘On his way,’ I lied. I’d spent hours coming up with answers to that question, he was at work, he’d joined the army, he’d become a Scientologist and no longer believed in celebrating birthdays other than those of Tom Cruise and John Travolta. And that was the best I could come up with?
‘I’m sure he’ll be here soon,’ Mum said. Bugger me, it worked. ‘Is that a new dress, dear?’
‘Where’s Dad?’ I asked. Over at the bar, Abi and David raised shot glasses in my direction but I still couldn’t see Adam.
‘Oh, he’s about somewhere,’ she replied. ‘He’s been bouncing around all day.’
I nodded. No sign of any tall, blond men at all. David must have been seeing things.
‘Anyone would think it was his birthday,’ I said.
Mum placed a hand on my forearm and smiled. We looked so much alike, it sometimes scared me. Same round blue eyes, same small, upturned nose and, thanks to the good people at Nice ’n Easy, the exact same shade of soft, ashy blonde hair. It wasn’t difficult to look at my mum and see exactly where my life could go if I let it carry on running its untended course and that wasn’t an entirely comforting thought.
‘Olivia,’ she said, gently squeezing my arm. ‘You do know, your father and I love you very much, don’t you?’
I felt all the colour leave my face and the floor rushed up towards me.
‘Oh god,’ I whispered, steadying myself with a hand on her shoulder. ‘He’s dying, isn’t he?’
‘And of course, you know we adore Adam.’ Mum’s face brightened at the mention of my sort-of boyfriend’s name, ignoring my question and doing a good job of distracting me. They adored Adam? This was news. Even though they hadn’t exactly openly dismissed him, Mum never failed to remind me how well Darren McLachlan, my date to the Year Seven Valentine’s dance, was doing. Darren was a dentist in Australia, owned his own surgery as well as a four-bedroomed house, and flew his parents out to visit twice a year. Of course, Darren was also incredibly gay, something that seemed to have escaped their Facebook notice.
‘His business is going well, his dad tells me. He’s working on a big project?’
‘He’s designing a bar,’ I said, searching the room and still coming up empty. Why did David think he’d seen him? No one in the room topped five foot six, including himself. ‘Down in London.’
‘That’s …’ she rolled her gold locket around in her fingers while she searched for just the right word. ‘Nice.’
All that effort for ‘Nice.’
‘It’s huge,’ I corrected. ‘It’s amazing actually.’
Regardless of what was happening between us, I still felt defensive of him. Winning a job like this wasn’t nice, it was wonderful. He’d been up against so much competition and he’d worked so hard on his proposal. Adam had been working away on tiny projects and assisting other people for years. This was the first chance he’d had to really design something big, something impressive, and I was jump-on-the-table, shout-it-to-the-world-and-not-even-care-if-my-knickers-were-showing, proud of him.
‘If you say so,’ Mum said, such a mixed expression on her face. ‘I’m happy if you’re happy. Oh, Olivia. It’s all happening at once, isn’t it?’
And the rush of pride rolled away, leaving me alone in my uncertain relationship status, standing in the middle of my dad’s birthday party, wearing a borrowed dress with a fistful of loo roll shoved down my bra, defending a man who couldn’t even bother to dump me properly.
‘Hello, everyone.’
I looked up to see my dad on the stage wearing a smile and his best suit, leaning over a too short microphone stand. The last time I’d seen my dad anywhere near a microphone, he was three brandies over his Christmas limit, Abi was trying to teach him how to play SingStar and he was half-singing, half-sobbing along with a Benny and the Jets, while my mum took herself off to the kitchen with an unopened bottle of Baileys. Adam had been an absolute champion, sitting through three rounds of high-pitched ‘Bennys’ before joining in. I had rewarded him with a very quiet quickie in my childhood bedroom. My cheeks got hot at the memory and I gave myself a shake, turning my attention back to the stage.
‘I wanted to thank you all for coming along tonight, it’s lovely to see so many people in one place and it not be a funeral.’
Everyone in the room laughed uncomfortably while Mum gripped my hand tightly and began to shake. Bless everyone for not realizing he wasn’t joking.
‘I wasn’t terribly excited about being sixty-five,’ he went on, still leaning awkwardly over the mic stand. ‘That’s nearly nine and a half in dog years and I was very worried I might have to put myself down.’
Abi and David howled. Mum and I whimpered. The rest of the room fell silent.
‘Ah, bit of vet humour there,’ Dad added. ‘Anyway, I wasn’t looking forward to my birthday, wasn’t looking forward to becoming a pensioner. It’s not a sexy word, is it? Pensioner.’
‘Did he just say sexy?’ I asked.
‘He’s been watching Channel Four when I go to the WI,’ she replied. ‘It’s the only possible explanation.’
‘But just now I was talking to some friends, I’m sure you all know Mary and Clive Floyd—’ Dad paused to flap a hand at Adam’s parents who gave regal waves to the assembled guests. ‘And they reminded me of a very good point. Life isn’t over just yet. In fact, it really is just beginning, and Lesley and I have got a lot of adventures ahead of us.’
Adventures? Dad’s idea of being adventurous was to drive out to the big Tesco on a Saturday.
‘There are so many wonderful things ahead of us.’ He peered into the crowd, pushing his glasses up his nose, eyes finally settling on Mum and me. His face lit up and he straightened slightly. ‘I definitely owe Lesley a few holidays. And who knows what else, hopefully a few grandchildren eventually.’
A murmur ran around the room and I wondered how many text messages I’d get before the end of the night to congratulate me on the baby.
‘But before she runs off and makes me a granddad, I’d like to ask my little Livvy up to the stage. Come on, Dr Addison, don’t be shy.’
No one was ever going to refer to me as an attention-seeker but I’d definitely never been described as shy. I could hold my own at karaoke and that one time me and Cassie saw Helen Mirren in the street, I was the one who asked her for a selfie, but there was something decidedly terrifying about being hauled on stage unexpectedly by your dad, in front of a room full of people you’d known since birth. I’d rather be eloquently told to fuck off by any number of celebrities than stand on stage in front of my next-door neighbour, my former French teacher and the boy I’d forced my virginity upon at Abi’s eighteenth birthday party after one too many Bacardi Breezers. Or at least I was fairly certain I had, the memory was still hazy.
‘Go on,’ Mum said, pushing me gently towards the stage. ‘Let’s get this over with.’
‘Get what over with?’ I asked, forcing myself to put one foot in front of the other. ‘What’s going on?’
The crowd parted like a poorly dressed red sea as I made my way up to the stage.
‘Can you believe this is my little girl?’ Dad asked the crowd to a mixture of clapping, sniggering and one very inappropriate comment about my tits that came from Abi’s general direction. ‘As you all know, Olivia has been working with me at the surgery for almost, what is it now? Six years?’
I nodded, sticking to the edge of the stage. People always said the best way to handle a crowd when you were nervous was to imagine them in their underwear. Those people had never spent a great deal of time with my neighbours.
‘Six years.’ My dad took a couple of short sidesteps, grabbed my hand and dragged me to the microphone. There was nowhere to hide. ‘I can hardly believe it. I took over the surgery from my dad when I was forty-two and he was sixty-six. Before him, his uncle worked as a vet on the local farms. I’ve always been so proud that Olivia followed me into the family business and I’m sure you’ll all agree, she’s a wonderful vet.’
In the corner of the room, I saw Mrs Riley raise an eyebrow. She wouldn’t agree that I was a wonderful vet and neither would her scabby-eyed cat.
‘I’ve always thought of retirement as a bit of a cop out. Never saw the appeal but as my friends—’
He paused to tip a wink to the Floyds. Adam’s mum giggled behind her hands while his dad gave her a stern nudge. ‘As my friends the Floyds reminded me, there’s a lot of life to live and, as much as I love my job, I’ve decided it’s time for me to step aside. It’s time for me to step aside and let a younger, cleverer – and if I do say so myself – better-looking Addison take over.’
Oh. Oh dear god.
Polite applause rippled through the room, punctuated by David hammering on the bar and hollering his approval. Only Abi wore the same expression I felt on my own face. Complete and utter horror.
‘Very shortly, the only Dr Addison in Long Harrington will be Dr Olivia Addison!’ He wrapped me up in a huge hug, crushing me and my tissue boobs against his scratchy suit and peppering the top of my head with kisses, just like he did when I was five years old. ‘For as long as you are an Addison, anyway,’ he whispered in my ear. ‘My lovely Livvy.’
‘What?’
I stumbled backwards as he released me, stunned by the flashes of camera phones and the rousing chorus of ‘Happy Birthday’ that started somewhere near Adam’s mum and rolled around the room until everyone was singing.
‘I’m very proud of you,’ Dad said into the mic, feedback screeching out of the speakers. ‘I can’t tell you how happy I am to be able to pass on my father’s work into my daughter’s hands and I very much hope to see the next generation of Addisons working alongside her one day.’
The birthday chorus came to an end and the assembled guests began to clap and cheer. Dad was going to retire and I was going to have to run the entire surgery. I knew how to be a vet but I didn’t know how to run a business. I didn’t even know where the electric meter was. I couldn’t run the surgery, I didn’t want to run the surgery. Shit. Shitshitshit. Shit.
‘To Dr Addison!’ Dad cried into the microphone. ‘Our village vet.’
And as the entire village chorused their approval, I saw Adam charge through the door, sweaty and red-faced and wearing a far-too-snug T-shirt with a cartoon parrot making an obscene gesture on the front.
‘Olivia,’ Dad whispered, waving a hand in the general direction of my cleavage. ‘There’s something, um, just there in the front of your frock.’
I looked out into the crowd to see Abi manically grabbing her chest while David held his head in his hands before I eventually looked down to see one of my tissue boobs escaping from the front of my borrowed dress.
Because, of course it was.
None of this would ever have happened to James Herriot.