October was not messing about.
The day after the christening the weather turned completely and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen a full day of sun. The last lingering leaves fell from the trees and near-constant drizzle had turned their autumnal gold into brown sludge. By the middle of the month, everything looked as grey and miserable as I felt and not even the pumpkins and skeletons gathering on the lawns up and down my street could raise a smile. Liv hated Halloween. She claimed it was a money-grabbing non-holiday but really, I knew it was because she hated scary things: horror movies, skeletons, spiders. She couldn’t even drive past the cemetery without shivering. That was my Liv, brave enough to get on a plane and fly to Japan but too much of a wuss to watch a scary film with her boyfriend.
‘What do you think your mum is up to now?’ I asked Not Daniel Craig, the small, stuffed toy tortoiseshell that sat on the end of my settee. ‘Reckon she’s having a good time?’
Not Daniel Craig did not answer. I’d tried to fight for custody of the real thing but David wasn’t having any of it. Liv had left him in charge of my fluffy son and he had made it quite clear he was prepared to go full War of the Roses over it if need be. I’d considered an elaborate Ocean’s Eleven-style heist but then I remembered I wasn’t George Clooney and I didn’t know any Chinese gymnasts and gave up before I’d even started. I did watch Ocean’s Eleven, but that didn’t really help.
I pulled my dressing gown tighter around myself as the wind howled outside the window. It was too cold to be in the workshop today and anyway, I was so far ahead on work on the bar – guilt and embarrassment driving me onwards – that I could afford a day off. And it was too cold to do anything today other than watch TV, drink hot toddies and talk to Not Daniel Craig. Only I didn’t have any of the ingredients for a hot toddy other than whiskey and there was nothing I wanted to watch on TV, so really, I was drinking neat whiskey at eleven a.m. and talking to a cuddly toy. It was not my finest hour.
Shuffling the contents of my boxers, I forced myself into the kitchen, filling Liv’s mug to the brim with Jack Daniel’s and padding back into the living room, pausing when I saw a shadow at the front door.
‘Adam?’ a voice called through the letterbox. ‘Is that you?’
‘Not today thank you,’ I called back. ‘Now’s not a good time.’
‘Then you probably shouldn’t have given me a key for emergencies,’ the voice replied and as I heard it turn in the lock, I realized it was Tom. He pushed open the door and stepped inside, giving me the once-over and shaking his head. ‘Christ almighty, mate.’
‘You look nice,’ I said, raising my mug. ‘Tom Ford suit?’
‘Topman,’ he replied, following me into the living room. ‘I’ve been calling you all morning. I was up in Edinburgh for a couple of days, wanted to see if you fancied getting lunch on my way home?’
‘Really?’ I looked around my mess and couldn’t see my phone. I’d given up carrying it with me morning, noon and night when Liv’s phone stopped connecting a week after she left for Japan. ‘It must be on silent.’
‘In your pants in the middle of the day?’ Tom hovered over an armchair for a moment before sitting down. ‘Are you ill?’
‘Nope,’ I replied. ‘Couldn’t be arsed to get dressed.’
‘My favourite thing about you is your unrelenting honesty,’ he said. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Not much.’ I looked into my mug and then took a deep drink. ‘You?’
‘Are you drinking?’ Tom asked, taking off his suit jacket.
I nodded. ‘Yes but not out of the bottle so I’m making progress.’
‘The first time I met Mads, she was sitting under a tree drinking out of a bottle, talking utter bollocks. Maybe that’s why I liked her so much, reminded me of you.’ He stretched out his legs and leaned back in his chair. ‘I don’t know if you ever actually told me how you met Liv?’
‘We were in the supermarket,’ I said, swirling the dark liquid around in my mug. ‘I was with my mum and dad and my mum was looking for something random to put in one of her rancid juices, I think, and my dad pointed Liv out and said “Nice pair of legs” or something equally embarrassing.’
‘He said that to her?’ Tom asked, laughing loudly. ‘I’m surprised she didn’t slap him.’
‘No, he said it to me.’ I started to smile. ‘It might have even been “That’s a fine filly.” That’s one of his favourites. I do remember it was mortifying. I ignored him, obviously, then my dad picks up a box of pasta and basically lobs it across the aisle, right at Liv.’
‘Class act, your dad.’ He stood up and crossed the room to take a glass out of the drinks cabinet and poured himself a double from my granddad’s decanter. I’d forgotten I had glasses. I’d forgotten there was whiskey in the decanter. Why had I wasted so much time walking into the kitchen? ‘That’s a vintage move, right there.’
‘She thought he’d dropped it so she picked it up, brought it over and then that was it, we were talking.’ I pressed my sweaty palm against my eyes. ‘I wouldn’t have said anything, I would have given her a nod, and then gone about my day.’
‘Imagine that,’ Tom said. ‘You might never have met her.’
‘Doesn’t feel like that bad an idea right now,’ I replied. ‘I hate everything.’
Tom considered the statement for a moment. ‘So you haven’t spoken to her?’
‘I left about twenty-five voicemails and sent half a dozen emails.’ I picked up a tiny screwed-up piece of paper, one of my abandoned letters of apology, and attempted to toss it into the cup in the middle of my coffee table. I missed by a mile. ‘She isn’t answering.’
My friend scooped the ball of paper up from the floor and took a shot. ‘I can see you’ve been keeping yourself busy though, that’s good.’
‘It is essential,’ I replied. ‘I’m almost done with the bar, waiting on the electrician to do some work before I can finish. Nothing else on at the moment.’
‘It went well?’ he asked.
I gave him a so-so gesture. It had actually gone amazingly well, but it was very hard to look at it with pride when I knew how many sleepless nights had gone into the project, and not because I was so desperately concerned with doing a good job.
‘And you’re clearly hustling like a pro.’
‘I’m waiting for inspiration,’ I replied. ‘How’s Maddie?’
‘Amazing,’ he said, leaning across the floor to pick up another ball of paper for another shot. Swing and a miss for Mr Wheeler. ‘Everything’s amazing.’
‘Bully for you,’ I muttered. ‘When’s the wedding?’
‘Hopefully next summer.’ He reached into his pocket and pulled out a ring box that housed a stunning diamond ring. ‘Do you think she’ll say yes?’
‘Fuck me, mate, I would say yes,’ I shot up in my seat and instinctively reached out for the ring, pausing for his approval. He nodded and I took it between my thumb and forefinger, holding it up to the window, trying not to blind myself. ‘This is amazing. I thought global warming was melting all the icebergs? If you squint, you can actually see the polar bear tracks.’
‘Ha ha.’ He took the ring and placed it back in the box. ‘It’s not that big. Is it? Do you think it’s ostentatious?’
‘Don’t start second guessing yourself,’ I warned. ‘Ask her sooner rather than later, before you talk yourself out of it.’
‘Won’t happen,’ he assured me. ‘I’m going to ask her on Friday, it’s her birthday. We’re going for dinner and I’ve booked a hotel, whole nine yards. I wasn’t going to say anything, what with everything you’ve got going on, but quite frankly man, you need a kick up the arse.’
I looked over at the vase on the mantelpiece where my grandmother’s ring was still hiding. I hadn’t even been able to look at it since Liv left.
‘How did you know?’ he asked, considering his ring before snapping the box shut and putting it safely away. ‘How did you know she was the one?’
‘How does anyone know?’ I countered, scooping up as many balls of paper as I could reach without getting off the settee. ‘What made you decide to do it?’
‘It was my dad’s birthday last week.’ Tom picked up one small ball and took aim. ‘He would have been sixty-five this year, you know. I always call my mum on my dad’s birthday, even though I sort of dread it. I hate knowing how upset she’s going to be. But for whatever reason, this time she wasn’t. She was so happy.’
‘High?’ I suggested. ‘You’re never too old for it.’
‘Maybe,’ he admitted. ‘But what she told me was she’d spent all day looking at photo albums, remembering all the happy times they had together rather than upsetting herself with what they’d missed.’
‘Oh.’ I watched him throw the paper, just barely missing its target. Sometimes I forgot Tom had lost his dad. I felt stupid and selfish and tossed him one of my balls to take an extra shot. ‘Well, that’s nice.’
‘I’ve always felt guilty about the idea of putting Mum through a wedding,’ he said. ‘I didn’t want her to have to do it all without my dad, I didn’t want everyone telling me how proud he would have been. But talking to her put it all into perspective. I could keep putting it off and leave things how they were or I could go and buy a bloody ring and tell Maddie she’s the person I want to be with.’
I pulled back my arm and tossed another ball of paper, overthrowing this time and missing the coffee table entirely.
‘I bought a ring the next day. I just knew.’
‘Fair play mate.’ Tom took his turn and missed again. ‘But seriously, what difference does getting married make? As far as I can see, these days all that happens when you get married is you turn into Chris and Cass and everyone hates each other.’
Tom rolled up his sleeves and drew his eyebrows together in concentration. ‘If that’s how you feel, why were you going to propose to Liv in the first place?’
I shook my head slowly, stood up and walked over to the fireplace. Holding my breath and half expecting not to find it, I pulled my grandmother’s sapphire engagement ring out of the vase.
‘It was a couple of months ago,’ I said, dropping it into his open palm. ‘We were supposed to be going out for Cassie’s birthday dinner and I said I’d pick her up after she finished work. You know Liv, she’s always early for everything, so I pulled into the car park at the surgery, expecting her to be waiting already and she wasn’t there. I waited a minute and then I called her and she didn’t answer. That’s when I started to panic because that girl is never more than two feet away from her phone.’
‘Maddie’s the same,’ Tom nodded as he placed the ring carefully back in my hand. I slipped it back into the box and laid it on the mantelpiece, open, where I could see it. ‘At one point, I even thought about texting my proposal, she’s on it so bloody often.’
‘Romantic,’ I said. He shrugged modestly. ‘So, I let myself into the flat and there she is, totally zonked out on the settee, all dressed up, make-up on, present wrapped, card written. The cat’s got a fresh bowl of Whiskas in front of him and she hasn’t even got as far as making herself a cup of tea. I mean, the teabag was in the mug and the kettle had boiled but she’d been so busy doing everything else she hadn’t even made a cup of tea before she fell asleep.’
‘That’s ridiculously adorable,’ he said, carefully choosing his next ball of paper and hurling it at the cup and just missing as I sucked in my breath.
‘Well done,’ I said with an approving clap as Tom grasped at the air in anguish. ‘I put the kettle on and made her a cup of tea and I was getting the milk out of the fridge and I thought, you do so much for other people, I am always going to make sure you’ve got a cup of tea.’
‘Adam,’ he glowed at me across the room. ‘You soppy old bastard.’
‘I’d been thinking about it for months, you know,’ I said, lying back on the settee and folding my dressing gown over my bare chest. ‘But that was when I knew.’
Tom picked out a large, scrunched-up wad of paper and tossed it to me.
‘You do know what I’m going to say, don’t you?’
‘It’s too late,’ I told him, closing one eye and sizing up my throw. The moment it left my hand, I knew it was going to miss. ‘I fucked up and she’s gone. Please don’t ask me to be your best man.’
‘Will you be my best man?’ he asked.
‘Of course, you tool. Maddie’s brilliant, I’m chuffed to monkeys for you both.’
‘To be honest, Adam,’ Tom said, hovering above me, ‘I’m a bit disappointed in you.’
He put his drink down on the floor and walked over to the window to look out at my garden. The lawn sorely needed mowing. I looked down at my whiskey and felt sick at the sight of it. How did people manage to drink so much in movies? Everyone was forever knocking back entire bottles of booze, I could only drink two shots and I was wankered.
‘You’ve never been afraid to go after what you want,’ he said. ‘But now, when it’s really important, you’re going to run away?’
‘I think you’ll find she did the running,’ I told him, examining my fingernails. It was days since I’d done anything that could be considered manual labour. They were clean and sparkling and, quite frankly, needed a trim. ‘Have I been in Japan for a month? No, I’ve been here.’
I looked at the ring on the fireplace and imagined the moment. Me on one knee, Liv smiling down at me, probably calling me a dickhead and then saying, hopefully, yes. How could I have messed all of this up so badly? And what could I do to make it better? Other than decapitate my brother and post his head on a pike outside her window?
A mad banging on the door interrupted my beheading fantasy.
‘Hello?’ I heard Cassie in the hallway. ‘Adam, are you home?’
I didn’t get it. Was she psychically attuned to any threat of violence against her husband?
‘In here,’ Tom called. I flashed him a look and sat up quickly, making sure all relevant body parts were covered.
I hadn’t seen much of Chris or Cassie since the christening. I hadn’t seen much of anyone other than the woman who worked the late-night checkout at the supermarket and my mum. It was a sorry state of affairs.
‘Oh, hello.’ Cassie walked into the living room, neat and tidy and not wearing a dressing gown. ‘What are you two up to?’
‘I was just visiting,’ Tom said, standing up. He was such a bloody gentleman it made me want to punch him. ‘Can I get you a cup of tea?’ He looked over at me on the settee. ‘Assuming there is tea?’
‘There’s tea but there’s no milk,’ I replied. ‘Sorry.’
‘No worries, I’m fine,’ she said, fishing around for something in her oversized fancy handbag. ‘I can’t stay too long, my mum’s got Gus. Only, I had to come over and show you something.’
I stared at her expectantly while Tom moved awkwardly from foot to foot before sitting back in his chair.
‘I’m sorry I told Liv you were going to propose,’ Cassie said, her forehead creased with apologies I’d heard before. ‘We were talking about your holiday and it just came out – I honestly wasn’t trying to ruin anything. I know she hates surprises and I wanted it to be perfect for you both.’
‘None of this is your fault,’ I assured her. Even though it bloody was. ‘Obviously we had bigger problems than I realized.’
‘They might not be as bad as you think,’ she said, looking at my TV. ‘Is that a Blu-ray player?’
I nodded. ‘Can you imagine my brother allowing me to have anything less?’
‘Last night we got all the raw footage back from the film-maker we hired for the christening,’ she explained. ‘Chris fired them after they submitted the first edit. He thinks he can do better – he’s got really into vlogging.’
‘Makes sense,’ I said as she slid the disk into the player. ‘Finally he’s been given his very own global platform. I’m surprised he didn’t start sooner.’
‘Yeah, I was a bit worried when I checked the internet browser history,’ she replied. ‘I mean, what’s a thirty-eight-year-old man doing watching Zoella?’
‘Could have been a lot worse,’ Tom offered.
‘Oh, I know,’ she said with a sigh. ‘He says he’s going to be the first big daddy vlogger.’
‘You know what he’s like once he puts his mind to something,’ I said. ‘What are we watching?’
‘This would be my husband and your girlfriend having a chat at the christening,’ she replied. ‘I didn’t realize you weren’t here for it all until I saw them playing back the footage.’
I grabbed Faux Daniel Craig from the end of the settee and sat him in my lap.
‘They are really going at it,’ Tom whistled as Liv laid into my brother.
‘If it’s at all possible, try to ignore everything your brother says,’ she replied, not looking especially proud of the man she had married. ‘He doesn’t mean any of it, you know that, don’t you? He was just very riled up.’
‘He means some of it,’ I corrected as I watched, my heart stinging and swelling at the same time. ‘But it’s a big brother/little brother thing. He’s not saying anything to Liv that he hasn’t said to my face.’
‘Really?’ Tom looked surprised while my brother and my ex went at it on the big screen. ‘It’s a bit harsh, mate.’
‘It’s very harsh,’ Cassie agreed. ‘He’s always bragging about you to his friends, you know. Telling everyone you’re a master craftsman.’
‘He told me I should put “master-bator” on my business card because wanking was the only thing I’d ever mastered,’ I said, not sure why but I was smiling. ‘It’s a brother thing, seriously.’
‘For someone who doesn’t love you, Liv was pretty quick to defend you,’ Tom pointed out gently.
‘She said I was amazing,’ I breathed. ‘She said she was proud of me.’
Cass was nodding. ‘It was the right thing, wasn’t it? Bringing it over?’
‘Yeah but I’m not sure how it helps,’ I said, watching as I appeared on the screen. My hair looked good, I really needed a trim. Eyebrows were insane, though. Not as mad as now but still, why hadn’t I trimmed them before a christening? ‘She’s gone.’
‘No,’ Cass replied with a nervous smile. ‘She was gone. She’s coming back.’
The clouds parted and choirs of angels sang in my dirty living room, shining down on me and my scabby dressing gown.
‘She texted Abi this morning,’ she said, not dwelling on the fact that Liv hadn’t sent her a message. ‘I don’t know when, exactly, but she’s coming back.’
‘Honest Cass, nothing happened with Jane,’ I said, jumping to my feet. There was no need to go into exact details for the moment. ‘I don’t know what Chris told you or what you told Liv, but it was nothing, ever. I swear on Chris’s life.’
‘Chris’s life?’ She looked dubious.
‘Gus’s life?’ I offered.
‘Good enough for me.’ Cassie clicked the mouse and froze the video right as Liv was questioning the size of Chris’s manhood. ‘I still feel horrible about it all. I feel responsible.’
‘You’re not,’ I assured her, eyes still glued to the screen. Liv looked even more amazing than I remembered, eyes blazing, fire in her cheeks, her hair flying out behind her as she gave Chris what for. ‘I’ve got to fix this.’
I stood up and walked over to the fireplace, grabbing my grandmother’s ring, determined. Slightly manic, desperately panicked but totally determined.
‘But I might need help.’
‘I thought you’d never ask,’ Tom said, raising his glass in his hand and taking a wild-eyed swig. ‘Maddie has staged some amazing proposals. What do you need? White stallion? An hour behind closed doors in Tiffany? Private dinner at the top of the Eiffel Tower?’
‘Five hundred boxes of penne and a pot of Yorkshire Gold,’ I replied as he lowered the whiskey in disappointment. ‘ASAP.’
‘I think the first thing you need is a shower,’ Cassie suggested. ‘Are you sure you’re OK? I don’t think Liv will have missed Italian food that much, Adam.’
‘Trust me,’ I assured her, casting off my dressing gown as she averted her eyes from my greying boxer shorts. ‘I’ll get in the shower. Tom, you get the pasta and Cassie, you don’t actually need to do anything but thanks for coming over and that.’
I looked at my assembled crew. Who needed Brad and George and Julia?
‘Seriously,’ I promised as Tom and Cassie exchanged an uncertain shrug. ‘This is going to be epic.’