How long should you wait outside a door when there’s a potential reconciliation going on which you may have to help with?
After two minutes, I look at Johnny, who’s leaning against the wall next to me under the sloping ceiling of the landing. ‘I’m guessing if Dan was going to get thrown out, he’d be with us by now.’ So I take it that’s a good sign.
Johnny frowns. ‘If it’s any help at all, he’s feeling very guilty for chickening out and not showing up sooner.’
If we’re swapping confessions, I’ll throw in my contribution too. ‘And possibly, deep down, Alice does see she’s been slightly exacting.’
He sighs and taps his fingers on the wall. ‘So there should be some common ground.’ After five minutes, when the door is still closed, he looks back at me again. ‘Maybe we’ve done all we can here. For now.’
‘They might need some privacy too.’ Thinking of the vanilla here and hearing their low voices on the other side of the door is encouraging. But the smallest sign of make-up sex noises, I’ll be out of here like a shot.
Johnny shakes his head. ‘Believe me, they’re a country mile away from that.’ Which sounds a lot less hopeful than I’d thought.
‘If they do make up, I’ll have to race across to Brides by the Sea to pick up some dresses for tomorrow.’ Hopefully Johnny will miss that Alice’s as yet un-chosen wedding dress is one of them.
‘I could run you into St Aidan now,’ he says. ‘So long as you don’t mind a van full of welding gear. I’d still be back in time to take Dan to the farm later.’
Given where my car keys are, it’s an offer I can’t refuse. I mean, it’s possible Alice and Dan may not come out of there until morning. And I’m torn between thinking I can’t stand a whole trip to St Aidan with Johnny, and thinking it might be the last chance I ever get to drive with him. Not that I’m wishing my life away, but three short days from now, whatever happens with the wedding, Christmas will be over. And we’ll all be saying our goodbyes and heading off back to our lives again.
‘How about we sing along to some Christmas tunes?’ I say, as we climb into his van. Singing seems like a suitably safe way to fill the silence. ‘If we don’t grab our chance to be cheesy, it’ll all be over for another year.’
He laughs. ‘I offered you a ride, I didn’t sign up for a singalong.’ But despite his protests, he’s soon happily hollering along to ‘Frosty the Snowman’ as we bump along the back roads into St Aidan. What’s more, he seems to know all the words to The Pogues’ ‘Fairy Tale of New York’. And ‘Christmas Wrapping’ by The Waitresses, too.
Just for a few miles I can pretend he’s how I used to think of him, before the awkwardness between us, before I found out he had a family. What’s weird is that for all those years, when I’ve thought about him, it’s always been as a single guy. Alone. Just like me. Somehow in my head, even though time moved on, he always stayed how he used to be. It never dawned on me he’d have a wife or a partner, let alone kids. Which shows how much I was dealing with daydreams. How much it was just me and my wishful thinking. As we pull up into the mews, the sparkle of the shop windows against the darkness of the street brings me back to real life.
‘I’ll be as quick as I can,’ I promise, flicking on the lights on the stairs up to the studio. ‘If you don’t mind coming up, I could use some extra hands for carrying.’
Just like everyone else, once we’re upstairs, Johnny heads straight across to the windows. ‘What a view.’
‘Everyone says that,’ I say, as I whisk along the slips and tops on the rail, pulling off the ones Alice liked and slipping them into dress covers.
He’s craning his neck to get a better view of the beach between the rooftops below. ‘The breakers look amazing in the moonlight. And you can see the lights of ships out at sea. I’m surprised you ever get any work done up here.’
I laugh as I pick out some sashes, ribbons and delicate diamanté belts. ‘I actually do my best work sitting on the beach.’
‘Fi.’ He’s staring at me. Hard. ‘Nice dress by the way. What happened to the shorts?’
I roll my eyes, but only because it’s taken him so long to catch up. ‘Alice sent them on a Christmas break, expect them back Monday.’
As his brief smile fades, he’s still lingering by the window. ‘Actually, I was thinking about what we were talking about before.’
Alice and Dan, Snowball, Christmas songs, Mickey Mouse…? ‘Right.’
‘About Jake.’
‘Oh that.’ I force out a smile. ‘I’d almost forgotten.’ No way am I going to say I’ve barely thought about anything else since this morning.
Johnny clears his throat. ‘He was born when I was at uni doing my first degree. His mum and I aren’t together. We went out briefly and she found out she was pregnant later. That was why I was doing the kind of post-grad degree where I got paid – so I could support them. And why it was vital I went straight on into a job once I finished.’ The words mount up in the silence of the studio.
‘You had a baby all the time I knew you at uni?’ And somehow managed not to say? I’m not sure which part I’m most shocked about. Both facts eclipse the relief that he’s not with Jake’s mum. Although that’s not to say he isn’t with someone else.
‘I didn’t broadcast it at uni. It wasn’t something twenty-year-old students related to. Some dads in my situation run a mile, but I wanted to be involved. Take full responsibility.’
I laugh. ‘So you were right. All that talking and I didn’t know you at all.’ Not that I should have, given I was just another girl in the downstairs flat.
‘I loved hearing about your dreams to see the world. It was like an escape. With a baby to support, I assumed I’d never get to go anywhere, ever.’
‘Shows how little we knew, doesn’t it? You were heading for an ace job that let you travel anyway.’ If my laugh was light before, now it’s got a bitter ring, which I really didn’t intend.
‘I know I didn’t tell you about Jake at uni, but I definitely mentioned him later. Didn’t you get in touch when you came back one time?’ He screws up his face, as if it’s a distant memory. Which, let’s face it, it is.
‘I’m not sure.’ Except I am. Because I only got in touch the once. That time I crashed back home a few months into my disaster gap-year trip, to be with Gran, pinning all my hopes on Johnny wanting to be with me. I’d never be that pathetic now. When he didn’t reply I threw my phone in the harbour. It’s probably still there.
‘Why I remember is Jake was in hospital with meningitis. I tried to ring later, but I couldn’t get through. So I texted back and obviously I mentioned him, to explain why I hadn’t replied sooner.’
I know zilch about kids, but I do know meningitis is every parent’s nightmare. ‘Shit, was he okay?’
Johnny shrugs. ‘There were complications, it was tough, but he pulled through.’
‘Phew, that’s good.’ It takes seconds to sink in. All those years ago, when I gave up on him because I thought he wasn’t interested, he was in hospital with his son. And he actually texted back? And tried to ring. If a steamroller had run over my stomach, I couldn’t feel any flatter. Or any more crushed. ‘I changed my phone shortly after I got back, but back then they gave out new numbers with every handset. So that would have been a text and calls I didn’t get.’ My voice trails off.
‘And I always assumed it was because of Jake that you didn’t reply.’ He rubs his head, then clamps his hands behind his head. ‘Well, who’d have thought?’
So we both spent the best part of ten years resenting the other for not replying. I’m not sure there’s any easy way back from that. It’s not even as positive as a clash of coincidences. It’s more like a complete mismatch of disconnections. You might think it would be whoop-di-do, what the hell, let’s pick up from where we left off. But it’s not like that. At all. I’m someone else now. I’ve moved on with my life. And so has he.
‘Well, now we’ve cleared that up, then. Thanks for sharing… I guess I need to think about bridesmaids’ dresses.’ The way I’m clapping my hands isn’t like me at all. But at least a real problem might blank out the frustration. The screaming futility at the way I misread the situation back then. Banging my head against a wall wouldn’t begin to put it right. It’s so long ago, there’s not even any point kicking myself for my mistake.
‘Bridesmaids’ dresses?’ Johnny looks as bemused as I felt when he leapfrogged to talking about Jake.
‘We need four.’ I’m rattling now and it’s helping. ‘Don’t ask why, it’s just another crazy fuck-up, in this whole arse-up mess of a wedding. I’m going to raid the rails in the Bridesmaids’ Beach Hut. Fingers crossed for variations on cloud grey tulle. If not, I’ve got a lot of sewing to do.’