Page 8 of The Woman Who Said Yes

‘Pretty soon, though,’ Eva adds.

‘Yeah, absolutely.’ Dom nods. ‘We just thought, why wait?’

Why wait? I can think of a few reasons! Like, to give Eva time to recover her senses. To remember that she has never wanted a husband – in the way that she has never wanted a salaried job with, y’know, security, a pension and healthcare provision. So why now? I’d be no more shocked if she announced, ‘I’d kill for some basic beige trousers from M&S’s Classic range.’

‘Well, that’s really exciting,’ Sam fibs – because we both know it’s not. Don’t panic, I transmit to him with a gentle nudge of my foot. Of course this is madness – but let’s just be happy for her and not freak out. She’s just got carried away, that’s all. The cruise, meeting Dom – it’s been heady and wonderful and she’s run away with it all. But no way on earth is Eva going to marry this man.

4

The sensible thing would be to go straight to bed because everything feels better in the morning. But naturally I don’t do that. Instead, I fight the ironing board – one of those detestable folding items (see also camp beds and laundry drying racks) that seems to take against me. It could have waited until the sober morning to be put away, but it seems crucial to wrestle the thing as it tries to snap shut on my arm during the simple operation of stashing it into the hall cupboard.

Still too agitated for bed, I wash up the mugs languishing in the sink and wipe down the kitchen surfaces, as if that will also cleanse away the bad thoughts currently bouncing around in my head. My uncharitable thoughts about Dom. I mean, he’s fine! Of course he is. And he definitely has his shit together with his property portfolio. And am I in any position to judge anyone, having just checked my bread bin and recoiled at the wodge of bluey-green mould?

Perhaps, I figure, I’m just worried that Dom’s arrival on the scene will change everything with our little gang. Not in terms of marrying Eva, as obviously that’s just a bonkers idea they’ve dreamed up together, still in holiday mode. Away from real life, doesn’t everyone cook up all kinds of crazy plans? Yet even so, things felt different tonight. We were still sitting around ‘our’ table, tucked away at the back, with candles flickering in jars. But the moment Dom walked in it felt as if someone had switched on the big dazzling centre light.

Feeling scratchy and restless, I curl up on the sofa, calculating that Sam will be home by now, and willing him to message me. I don’t want to be the gossipy one to kick things off. However, him being a thoroughly decent person, I know he’ll be diplomatic. For as long as I can remember, he has been my moral compass and the voice of reason: for instance, when my ex, Phil, started wanting to meet me for the occasional coffee. ‘What harm would it do, Andie?’ Sam asked. ‘Could be good for the family, don’t you think?’ (Don’t you hate it when someone is so measured and reasonable and right?).

‘Message me, Sam!’ I command out loud, lying stretched out on the sofa. At the same time I’m willing Eva to not message. I know she’d say, So what did you think??! and of course I’d have to claim to be delighted. Hopefully, she’ll be far too busy right now to start canvassing our opinions, as Dom was going back to her place.

Nothing comes from Sam. This is because he is a normally functioning human who’ll have mused, Well, that was a bit of a surprise, and gone to bed and thought nothing more of it. He is a practical man, highly capable because he’s had to be, having been a single parent since Theo was ten. As a dad and a friend – as everything really – he’s pretty amazing and I had quite the crush on him back in the day. Ever since I first walked into the knitwear shop to be greeted by this tall, lanky teenager with dark hair flopping into gorgeous espresso-coloured eyes, as he worriedly tried to stack a pile of diamond-patterned sweaters.

We became friends instantly and a few months in, he asked me out. ‘Would you like to go out with me sometime, Andie?’ Blurted out after a few beers on a night when Eva had had to zoom off somewhere else. I knew that he meant on a date, just the two of us. Oh-my-God-Sam’s-asked-me-out! And I loved him deeply, like no boy I’d ever met before. So naturally, I took the sensible step of babbling, ‘Oh, I love you, Sam, but I don’t think that’s a very good idea, do you? It might spoil things and I’d hate to do that.’

What was I thinking? I’d panicked, that was it. After small-town West Yorkshire, London still felt unimaginably huge and overwhelming at times. I wasn’t as brave as Eva, who’d plunged herself right into the heart of it. I was still calling home an awful lot, and writing letters to my parents, reassuring them that I was eating my prunes. What I didn’t mention was that my new friends from the shop were my lifeline.

We went out constantly. It was so cheap back then that, even on our paltry wages, we could afford our beer and vast bowls of spaghetti carbonara at one of the little places on Old Compton Street. We had yet to discover the joys of Niko’s. I’d never encountered Greek food (or tapas or sushi or any other fancy stuff) and I hadn’t had a proper boyfriend either. My virginity had been disposed of via a local lad back home who’d taken a keen interest as soon as he’d heard that I was leaving for London (presumably, he’d been reassured that he wouldn’t become entangled with me). And it was true that I was scared of messing up our precious little trio.

Friends were my everything then. Still are, obviously – but along the way came a husband and kids, and before all of that, my entire world had revolved around Eva and Sam. That night he’d asked me out, he’d agreed rather too heartily that I was completely right, and it was brushed under the rug and never referred to again. I chose not to tell Eva as I didn’t want her to feel that Sam liked me ‘better’ (of course he didn’t!) or that there was any danger of us coupling up and leaving her out. Like we were kids in the playground! Yet months afterwards I’d wanted to grab him and kiss his beautiful mouth and announce, ‘You know when you asked me out and I said no? I made a mistake. What I really wanted to say was “yes”.’ But I couldn’t do that. I’d caught the brief flash of hurt in his eyes and sensed him overcompensating for quite some time afterwards: being jokey and matey as if to reinforce the fact that everything was absolutely fine.

I got over it eventually. At least, that missed opportunity wasn’t entirely dominating my waking thoughts. I’d like to pretend that this was due to emotional maturity on my part, but in fact Sam fell headlong in love. With huge brown eyes and jutting clavicles, Bibi was all angles and poise and acres of swishy chestnut hair. A dancer, no less, in the chorus of a West End show. The presence of this new girlfriend reinforced my belief that it would have been a terrible error for Sam and me to get together in a romantic sense. Because Bibi was the one! Everyone could see that – how they adored each other and looked so right together.

I wasn’t even sure that Sam had been serious about me. He’d confused our friendship with sexual attraction, I decided, and had only asked me out because he’d had a few drinks and I was there. Like when you eat the crisps because the packet is open on the table. Now that he was with Bibi, I would never hurl myself drunkenly at him and have him gently peel me off him like an embarrassing sticker. So I convinced myself that saying ‘no’ had been the right thing to do.

Right now, I am still waiting for the infuriating man to message me and, as he hasn’t, I fire off:

You still up?

It sits there unread. That’s because it’s nearly one in the morning, I tell myself. Huffily, I change into my shabby old pyjamas and clamber into bed. Still too agitated to even contemplate sleep, I start scrolling through Vinted, which has become a bit of an addiction of late.

Eva finds amazing stuff on here. Somehow, her laser gaze cuts through the acres of brandless items hanging gloomily from scuffed doors, and lands upon the Anthropologie dress (RPR £285), £6.50 new with tags. Me, I play safe by going for basics as I have no fashion eye whatsoever. Recent purchases include:

Heel-lacerating boots.

Gathered skirt that appeared to triple the width of my hips.

Jeans with perpetually self-lowering zip.

Cashmere cardi, 98% bobble.

Black patent bag that was actually for a Bratz doll (admittedly bought after wine).

Red polo sweater with previously unnoticed zigzag edging to neckline, wtaf!

Tonight I’ve landed upon some plain navy blue Muji pyjamas. They’re not saying ‘sex’ to me. More, ‘I am pushing an office tea trolley in 1982.’ However, their rather stern, utilitarian vibe suggests that merely owning them would improve my living environment immeasurably. My sink would never block, my wobbly loo seat would stop threatening to jettison me across the bathroom, and all the random clutter strewn about my flat would magically melt away.

Anyway, I don’t give a stuff about looking sexy in bed. No man is likely to glimpse me in nightwear ever again. The last condom I saw in the wild was fashioned from the bladder of a goat (I exaggerate only slightly). What’s lured me in is the fact that, if I owned these pyjamas, my bread bin would no longer function as a mould incubator. Instead, it would contain one of those small, gnarly Scandinavian loaves from my local bakery which, weight for weight, work out at around the same price as gold bullion.

Having purchased the PJs, I also buy a maxi skirt in the palest pink to replace the one I scorched, plus a sheeny forest green dress without sleeves. So arrest me! Drag me to jail with my scandalous upper arms on public view! And then, with dopamine coursing through me now, I fire off another message to Sam.