Still Thinking of You Read online

  This wedding was good news for Lloyd. He hadn’t heard from the gang for such a long time. It would be good to catch up with all the guys and spend some real quality time with them. Sure, they texted one another reasonably regularly. Sure, they called occasionally, and they even made plans to meet for dinner or to go away together for a weekend from time to time. Invariably, though, those plans were cancelled at the last moment. Everyone worked so hard. People had come to expect a blowout because of a meeting running late or a sudden and urgent request to put a report together for 8 a.m. the following day. He was possibly the worst culprit of all for last-minute blowouts.

  Sophie used to grumble about that all the time. She used to say that he ruined her social life. He never understood that. Why, if he had to work late, couldn’t she go along to Kate and Ted’s without him? When he used to ask her that she would reply that she’d rather spend an evening with her own friends, and then he’d ask, ‘Well, why don’t you?’ She’d always argued that she never planned to see her own friends because they always had plans to see his, plans that he always cancelled at the last minute.

  He could replay these rows word for word. She must have plenty of time to spend with her own friends now. She never understood just how demanding his work was. Bitch. At least Greta got that about him. She knew that he, and what he did, was important.

  Lloyd thought it was peculiarly poignant that the gang used to call him ‘Checkers’ because everything in his life was black and white, and he was always a step ahead of the crowd. Since he and Sophie split up, everything was a blurred, indistinguishable mass of greys. He felt he was way off-track. If life was a race, he was falling behind.

  Sophie had kicked Lloyd out of his home one year, one month, two weeks ago. She’d shouted that he was useless, neglectful and hurtful. She’d yelled that she was sick of trying to win his attention, let alone his approval. She’d cried she was exhausted, sick of doing everything for the baby on her own, while still trying to keep her own career afloat. He’d pointed out that things were easier for her in her career than they were for him in his because she worked at home and for herself. She argued that this just made things scarier; there was no such thing as a coasting day. She’d also argued that she was the biggest breadwinner and therefore what she did was important. She never actually said more important, but she thought it. He knew she thought it.

  For fuck’s sake, she organized parties.

  It was supposed to be a little part-time something-to-do job that would fit around their future family. Who would have thought that the vol-au-vent eating population was so greedy? There seemed to be a party every night, which left Sophie little time to support Lloyd in his career. She knew that was what he expected of her. They’d talked about it at the beginning of their relationship, way back when. A civil servant needed a wife that supported him, not one with her own career. When he’d argued this, Sophie had said, ‘I have two words for you, Lloyd: “Cherie Blair”.’ Very funny. The last two words she’d flung at him were not as considered.

  Soon, it wasn’t just the staff and catering that Sophie organized, but the flowers and photographers. In some cases she helped the hostess to find the perfect outfit. The company grew so fast and efficiently that she was able to franchise the name and take a cut of four more companies doing the same thing in different areas of London. In her third year, Sophie made a profit of over £170,000. Just for throwing parties. It didn’t seem right.

  There was no way that Lloyd would ever earn that much in his field. Civil servants earned next to nothing. While he missed the money that Sophie had earned, he didn’t miss the fact that Sophie earned it. Greta didn’t earn much, but she worked as a research assistant in his department, so she saw that what Lloyd did was important. He was involved in real issues – management of funding in retirement homes for the elderly, the overhaul in the nursery voucher system, for example. Sometimes, he paper-shuffled and argued about a change in the days that the bin men collected the rubbish, but everyone had to start somewhere. Greta saw he was powerful, authoritative and significant. Greta knew that she didn’t buy a big share of voice in their relationship, and it suited them both.

  Lloyd didn’t regret his affair with Greta. He didn’t even regret Sophie finding out. Most of the time, he thought he was much better off without Sophie. Greta was younger, better groomed, more accommodating. Bigger breasts. She came from a wealthy Austrian family. As she was foreign, any miscommunication could easily be dismissed as a language barrier.

  Rather than a heart barrier.

  He preferred the sulking to the rows. Greta was less work than Sophie. Lloyd constantly reminded himself that he was in a better position now that he was a man with a girlfriend, rather than a man with a wife. So why did he continue to make these constant comparisons?

  Lloyd sighed. Why did he feel perpetually tired? He wondered if he should be taking a vitamin supplement. He’d have to ask Sophie… No, he meant Greta.

  ‘Well, I just wanted to touch base. I have to go now. My taxi is just pulling in at the Indian Embassy. I have a meeting there. I’ll be in touch. I have your e-mail address. I can’t wait. It’s going to be so exciting,’ said Mia, interrupting Lloyd’s thoughts. ‘All the old gang back together. My oldest and bestest friends.’ Mia liked to give all her friends the title ‘best’, or ‘old’, or both. She hoped that it gave the impression that she was a nice person, even though she, and even her oldest and bestest friends, often had occasion to doubt that this was the case. She was a clever, funny, sexy, extremely bitchy person, but, then, that was often better than being nice in the circles in which she mixed.

  ‘Absolutely,’ agreed Lloyd, but he wasn’t sure if Mia heard, as she’d already rung off.

  9. Tash’s Reaction to the Dublin Trip

  ‘No. Absolutely not.’

  ‘Why not?’ asked Rich, somewhat surprised by Tash’s response.

  Tash hesitated. She wasn’t sure why she did not like the idea of Rich and his friends going away for a stag weekend to Dublin, but she didn’t, not one bit.

  ‘Don’t you trust me?’ asked Rich. After all, he had told her about that time he’d done a stripper, for a bet, at some debauched stag weekend or other. It was a complicated male ego thing that Tash didn’t get, but she hadn’t seemed at all concerned about the incident either. In fact, she’d been pleasantly curious. Her questions had been agreeably erotic. She’d just commented that no one should be defined by their work and had been a bit bra-burning brigade about Rich going on about bedding a stripper, rather than noticing the woman for herself.

  ‘Of course I do,’ said Tash, raising an eyebrow and a grin.

  ‘So, what is it?’

  Tash wasn’t sure she could articulate her objections to the trip. Was it that Mia was going along? Was it that the gang would be building more memories, memories from which she would be excluded? Was it that her hen party was destined to be a much lower key affair? Her friends didn’t earn the type of salaries that made rushing off for party weekends a viable option. They’d be opening a few (admittedly, quite a few) bottles at someone’s flat and, by way of celebration, to distinguish the evening from numerous other Friday nights, they’d order pizza and garlic bread.

  ‘It will cost a fortune. Do we have that type of money to squander just before the wedding?’ Tash’s speciality was squandering money – that was why she didn’t have any form of savings. Rich knew this and consequently looked baffled. ‘The boarding trip to the Alps isn’t going to be cheap,’ she added.

  ‘Damn right, it isn’t,’ said Rich. ‘It’s our wedding, and I’m not planning on cutting any corners. It may be a small wedding, but it’s still the biggest day of my life.’ Rich put his arms around Tash and drew her towards him. ‘We can afford it, baby,’ he assured her.

  ‘My brother’s girlfriend, Celia, is expecting her baby that weekend.’ Tash knew she was now grasping at straws.

  Rich looked stunned. ‘I’m not birthing partner material,’ he pointe
d out. ‘I’m sure that event can go ahead with or without me. I’ll wet the baby’s head in Dublin.’

  Tash searched around for another objection. ‘But it seems silly if more people go to the stag party than the actual wedding,’ she insisted. Tash didn’t actually believe this either. She’d never placed too much importance on etiquette, conventions, customs or rules. These traditional measures – which kept most people motivated, law abiding and supported – were unimportant to Tash. She followed her gut, worked with her instincts and, while she had little interest in deliberately shocking or rebelling, she had never seen a need to conform either. She wasn’t intending to be wilfully dishonest, she was just finding it surprisingly difficult to be entirely honest with herself.

  ‘Maybe that’s the answer,’ said Rich. He beamed at Tash. ‘You genius. You’ve just given me a great idea.’ He kissed her forehead.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ll invite the gang along to the boarding trip, and you can invite some of your friends, too. It will be great fun. Mia talked about all the cool stuff we used to do.’

  ‘The good old days,’ interrupted Tash.

  ‘Exactly,’ grinned Rich, not catching the sarcasm in his fiancée’s voice. ‘And I have to admit that she did paint an irresistible picture.’

  ‘I bet she did,’ deadpanned Tash.

  ‘She reminded me about how close we all used to be. Work and stuff gets in the way as you get older. We don’t catch up as often as we ought, but she pointed out that my wedding had to be marked somehow.’

  ‘Our wedding,’ said Tash tetchily.

  ‘Of course, of course,’ assured Rich. He looked at Tash, and tried to gauge her reaction. Tash tried to hold her face in a neutral expression. Tash definitely wanted to stick to the original plan of stealing away alone. But weddings did funny things to people. Normally, she was an intelligent, independent woman who pretty much did her own thing, and she was more than comfortable with that. She had not thought it necessary to marry in a white dress, in a church, in front of all her friends and family. The wedding, and more importantly the marriage that followed the wedding, was just about Tash and Rich. It was all about Tash and Rich.

  She also accepted, however, that weddings came loaded with expectation, tradition and a probability that you’d never get away with doing exactly what you wanted.

  ‘But if you really want to stick to the original plan, I’ll do whatever you want, whatever makes you happy. We could still keep it to the two of us and a couple of witnesses, if that’s really what you want,’ said Rich.

  Tash wished that she could hide from the excitement in Rich’s eyes at the prospect of his friends joining them, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t be so selfish as to deprive him of his big day, standing up in front of his friends who all meant so much to him.

  And next to nothing to her.

  ‘OK,’ she said. And she must have said it with more enthusiasm than she felt because Rich looked delighted.

  10. NFI and RSVP

  Tash felt miserable as she crossed the final name off her list of friends and family that she’d invited to the wedding. Really, thoroughly, inconsolably miserable. No one could make it. Not a soul. Tash couldn’t understand her disappointment. She’d wanted a very tiny wedding and had not been worried whether her friends and family would see her become Mrs Tyler. But now – now when she’d invited nearly a dozen people, now when they had turned down her kind invitation – now she desperately wanted someone from her side to be at the ceremony.

  Tash caught her breath and felt instantly guilty for thinking in terms of ‘sides’. It wasn’t a battle; it wasn’t even a football match. There were no sides. It was just that all of the guests Rich had invited had said yes, that they would love to come to the wedding, and none of the guests Tash had invited had been able to.

  Her parents had been gutted that she and Rich had chosen to marry on the slopes. Neither of them had ever been on skis in their lives. The most adventurous holiday they’d ever had was taking the caravan to France, on a ferry. They were insisting on throwing a party on their return. Rich and Tash had agreed because they realized it wouldn’t have made any difference if they’d disagreed; Mrs Richardson had already invited about forty close friends, family and neighbours. Few of whom Tash would recognize in an identity parade. Tash had given in to the inevitable. Her brother and Celia were extremely regretful that they couldn’t join Tash and Rich on the slopes. They both enjoyed boarding, but Tash could see that it was impossible so soon after the birth of baby number three. Celia magnanimously suggested that Tash’s brother go without her, and he magnanimously turned down the opportunity. He couldn’t leave Celia behind to manage three kids under the age of four.

  Her pal George was a single parent and also had to say no because she couldn’t find childcare for a week. Mandy, David, Eliza and Greg all apologized, but pointed out that January was not a good month to try to go on holiday because their plastic was pushed to the limit after Christmas. They promised, however, to show up at the party. And her best friend in the whole wide world, Emma – her dead cert, her final hope, who had sworn that nothing would keep her away from Tash’s wedding – had just called to say that she’d broken her leg and wouldn’t be able to make it after all.

  Tash had found it extremely difficult to be sympathetic. She put the phone back in the cradle just as Rich opened the door to the flat.

  ‘Hello, gorgeous. How has your day been?’ Rich asked the question, but didn’t give Tash time to answer before he bore down on her. His lips pushed against hers, and his hand was already weaving its way up under her fleece, searching for her nipples. Tash impatiently pushed him away. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked. He knew it wasn’t his greeting. Normally Tash liked him coming in and jumping her bones. In fact, generally she defied stereotype and insisted on being just as randy as he was. ‘Are my hands cold?’ Rich rubbed his hands together.

  ‘No,’ sighed Tash. ‘Well, yes, it’s December; you’re freezing. But that’s not a problem. Emma has just been on the phone and she’s had an accident at work, fallen off a ladder and broken her leg.’

  ‘Oh, poor thing,’ said Rich. ‘Is she a window cleaner?’

  ‘No,’ Tash snapped impatiently. ‘She’s a PA. She was fixing a blind in her boss’s office.’

  ‘I bet that’s not in her job description. She’ll be able to claim compensation.’

  ‘You are missing the point, Rich,’ said Tash crossly. ‘She won’t be able to make it to the wedding. That means no one is coming from my side.’ Tash corrected herself, ‘None of the guests I’ve invited can make it. Not one.’

  ‘Oh, I am sorry, Tash. That’s a bummer.’ Rich walked through to the kitchen to put the kettle on to make Tash a cup of tea, then he thought better of it and opened the fridge to hunt out a bottle of wine. Tash was clearly very disappointed.

  ‘Still, look on the bright side. All my gang can make it, and what’s mine is yours. There are plenty of friends to go around,’ he smiled, as he passed her a glass of wine. Tash accepted the wine, but not the words of consolation.

  Over the past few months, Tash had spent more time in the gang’s company. Ted and Jase were decent enough guys. Ted was a little dull and Jase a little blasé, but Tash was aware that it seemed churlish to grumble that one of Rich’s friends was overly earnest and the other not earnest enough. Tash had yet to meet Lloyd – she wondered if he would fall somewhere in the middle of the earnest stakes. But Tash wanted a girlfriend on the holiday. Someone she could giggle with, swap lipsticks with, someone who would stay up until the early hours to discuss the meaning of life. Tash knew that neither Kate nor Mia could offer that.

  She and Kate had settled into a polite acquaintance. Not a friendship, exactly, but the early strands of one, maybe. But it had not been easy. Whenever they spent time together, Tash found herself struggling for topics of conversation they could share. Tash had very little interest in school league tables, while Kate had none in the pop charts. Tash
did not have access to the waiting list for Harrow or St Paul’s School, so could not do any favours for Kate. Kate was not a member of any of London’s trendy nightclubs, so could not save Tash from having to queue or plead with bouncers. Tash found Kate overly serious and sensible to the point of boring. And she was aware that Kate probably found her rather frivolous and perky to the point of giddy. Still, Kate was easier to like than Mia, but then Tash suspected that Attila the Hun would have been easier to like than Mia. Mia was cold and self-consciously clever. It seemed that she had taken an instant dislike to Tash and that she’d nurtured the dislike into something much stronger. Tash was disconcerted that Kate still called her Natasha and not the more familiar Tash that all her friends used, but then Mia called her ‘Barbie Babe’.

  ‘Is Lloyd bringing his girlfriend?’ Tash asked. Maybe Greta would be an ally, she thought hopefully. She took a huge slurp of wine and mentally chastised herself for again using vocab more suited to a war room. Maybe Greta would be a friend.

  ‘I didn’t actually invite Greta,’ admitted Rich. He loosened his tie and sat on the sofa with Tash. He started to massage her feet with one hand, holding his wine in the other.

  ‘You didn’t?’

  ‘No. I’ve never met her. None of us has. If Lloyd wants her to come along he only has to ask, but he hasn’t asked. I’m not sure how serious he is about her. If he was very serious, then he’d have made the effort to introduce her to the gang.’

  It felt like another blow. Tash pulled her feet away from Rich and tucked them under a cushion out of reach. It was a silly and pointless gesture, as she’d been enjoying the massage, and it wasn’t Rich’s fault that her friends weren’t coming to the wedding – but it was his fault that his were.