‘Still no.’
‘I gave your boys Thanos gloves for Christmas, they’re under your tree.’
‘You did? I didn’t even know what they were going on about.’
‘Well, someone’s got to remain cool and relevant in their lives.’
A voice suddenly drifts in from the hallway. ‘Cool and relevant are the last words I’d use to describe you, Josie,’ Brett jokes, putting his hands to my shoulders and helping himself to a cupcake.
‘Bastards, both of you.’
‘Well, at least a new boyfriend will take your mind off everything else,’ Brett suddenly mumbles through cupcake crumbs. ‘How are you taking all of that? You do seem very calm.’
I scan both of their faces as the words come out of Brett’s mouth and I try to recount what he might be talking about. Tina grits her teeth and shakes her head at her husband.
‘Taking what? Wedding stuff? Well, you know me. I’m very good at organising, I don’t exude stress when I’m in planning mode,’ I jest.
Tina looks down to the floor, Brett realises he may have put his foot in it.
‘Or were you talking about something else? Is everyone OK? Please don’t worry me.’
Dad’s not ill, is he? Have my parents hidden that from me? Is Sonny OK?
Tina throws her arms up in the air in resignation. ‘You bloody spanner. You’d better tell her now.’
Brett looks hesitant but takes his phone and opens up a Facebook page. ‘It appeared last week. Someone forwarded it to me to let me know, I told your mum, but she said not to tell you. I thought that meantshewas telling you.’
‘Tell me what?’
He shows me the page. It’s Mike’s profile. Michael Dolman. My ex. I inhale sharply to see it. It’s a picture of him in a suit next to a woman with a white dress. They’ve just got married. He looks happy, so does she, but the telling part is that the photo has been taken against a London skyline. He’s not in Venezuela anymore. He’s back.
As I drive home that evening, the news still reverbing through my bones, I think about what that whole experience with Mike meant. We’re supposed to have our hearts broken so that they can mend and are thus stronger from the experience. We learn the different ways to be loved, what we really deserve in life, what makes us better people. Why is it then so mind-numbingly awful to experience those broken feelings? Why does it feel like time wasted? Energy poured into something that came to no good? That’s how I always feel about Mike.
At the time he disappeared, he also withdrew £18,000 that we’d saved together in a joint account, ready to put a deposit on a house together. You’ll survive without it, was the message he sent me after I tried to track him down. You have Mummy and Daddy. So never mind me totally misjudging someone I was going to marry, he was cruel. Really terribly cruel. And when I think back to him, I just feel like a complete idiot for having imbued all that trust, for letting him have any piece of my heart at all.
Mum knew about Mike, which means Dad knows. I wonder if it was that news which made him keel over on the tennis court and throw up his guts? I know why they kept it from me. Why dredge it all up when Cameron is in the picture? Protect me. But there are questions. Did Mike really go to Venezuela? I bet he didn’t. He was not an exotic man of travel. He didn’t even eat kebabs. I bet he just moved down to the coast. What did he do with all that money? Secretly, I hope he spent it on a penis-lengthening operation that went really badly. That made his penis shrivel up so now he can’t pee without pain or irritation. Or maybe a house that had bad foundations, termites even, that ate his face in the night. This is what I think about when I think about Mike and I don’t think that level of rage is healthy.
‘Is that you, Josie?’ I hear my mum’s voice sing across the hallway as I enter the house.
This was the house I came back to that evening he left and I spy my parents’ heads in the living room in exactly the same position they were on that day; watching some true-crime documentary, eating a takeaway off the coffee table, Dave nibbling on the end of a spring roll.
‘Have you eaten? How are the boys? You not seeing Cameron tonight?’ she asks.
I pop my head through the door, shaking my head.
‘How’s the Wi-Fi working now?’
‘Like a dream,’ Mum replies, winking.
‘Cameron’s busy tonight. The boys are fine. I’m not feeling great, so I’m going to get an early night,’ I say wearily.
‘You OK?’ she asks, studying my face, I guess expecting more of a charged exchange after our phone call before. I don’t want to know what happened. I don’t think my brain can process much more.
‘I just need to sleep.’
‘Maybe it’s the beginnings of a cold? I have some lemons in if you need a hot toddy.’
Ask them why they didn’t tell you about Mike. Go on. But that seems to be what life is built on these days – secrets, fragile little secrets. I don’t want to bring it up now.
