Married By Christmas (3 page)

‘Nonsense,’ Anna said. ‘You are a cooking genius. It’s only a matter of time before the world truly recognises your talent.’

‘Which is why you’d be a fool not to let me at least take catering off your hands. Who else in the world knows you like I do?’

Anna had crawled across the floor and hugged her. ‘Thank you. I’m so happy,’ she’d said, beaming. ‘I’m not used to being this happy. Normally when I’m happy something always goes wrong. Sometimes I think it’s better not to be happy, and then you are never disappointed. Oh God, what if everything goes wrong?’

‘Anna! Nothing will go wrong,’ Liv had reassured her. ‘Tom is one of the good guys. And he really loves you, anyone can see that. Now please put away your pens and your lists and let’s go out and have some fun! For one thing I’ve only got twelve months to find a date to your wedding.’

‘OK,’ Anna had relented. ‘But re the catering, could you do me a menu by the end of the week, and can we have monthly updates to check on progress?’

‘Anna, it’s not even January …’ Liv began, knowing it was pointless to argue.

‘I know, but can we?’ Anna asked her.

‘Yes, we can. And for God’s sakes, get a florist to do your flowers. What the hell do you know about flower arranging?’

Famous for being one of the few people in the world that Anna listened to, Liv had made her concede control of the reception flowers to the venue florist, saying she might as well make full use of the services she was paying for. And so this moment of supreme awkwardness was in fact all Liv’s fault.

‘So as you can see,’ Anna said, ever so politely, biting her lip, ‘I want roses, deep, dark red roses, fat ones, old-fashioned fat roses, with dark green glossy leaves, a hand-tied natural-looking bunch of those every three seating places and, in between, petals scattered across the table, and candles, exactly the same colour red, alternating with the flowers. So that’s not a problem, is it? To have it like that,
exactly
like that?’

‘Give the woman a break,’ Tom said, shaking his head, getting up suddenly and pacing to the full-length window, where he looked out across the grounds. Liv winced as Anna’s head snapped round to watch him, her blue eyes full of concern. That’s what all this nonsense to do with the flowers was about. She was trying to get Tom interested, to get him to take part. But for the last week or so he’d been anything but, all his apparent joy in his forthcoming nuptials seemingly seeping away. And Anna being Anna didn’t know how to ask him what was wrong, so instead she went into crazy Anna overdrive.

‘Look,’ Liv said, leaning forwards and smiling pleasantly at Jean, ‘you can get the fat roses, can’t you? In that shade of red, and the candles, can’t you? That’s easy these days, right?’

‘Yes, I can. I was just offering an alternative,’ Jean said, clearly still a little wounded. ‘That’s what I’m here for, to offer ideas …’

‘I know.’ Liv smiled warmly. She leaned forwards and added with a conspiratorial air, ‘And your alternatives
are
lovely, just not what Anna has in mind. Anna has had her table arrangements in mind since nineteen ninety-one. And you, of all people, know what brides are like, right? Mental.’

Jean said nothing, but her expression indicated that she’d seen more than one Bridezilla in her time.

‘Also about the specific type of ribbo—’ Anna began to interrupt, but Liv held her hand up to stop her, the only person in the entire world who could get away with doing that.

‘The thing that is so brilliant about you Jean, is that you do know more about this than anyone, so who better for Anna to trust her table-setting dreams to than you?’ Jean thought for a moment, and seemed unable to come up with any names. ‘So, we know we can leave you to do everything as per the email, down to the last letter, and everything will be just fine. It will be more than fine, it will be a dream come true. A dream that
you
made come true.’ Jean nodded and smiled, her hurt feelings instantly healed by a little of Liv’s diplomacy. ‘Great, now I need to have a look at your kitchens, and have a chat to your chef about your equipment, see if there’s anything I need to bring with us for the day. OK?’

‘Perfectly fine,’ Jean said pleasantly, smiling at Anna, whose eyes were fixed on the back of Tom’s shoulders. ‘I must warn you that Chef is not thrilled at being ousted from his own kitchen for the wedding.’

‘Well,’ Liv said as she got up, touching Anna briefly on the arm. ‘Chef can comfort himself with the knowledge that not catering this particular wedding will almost certainly extend his life by at least ten years.’

Liv paused, leaning close to her friend.

‘Anna,’ she said, ‘just try to relax, darling. If you don’t, all these months and years of planning will have been for nothing. It will all go by in a flash and you won’t have noticed any of it, not even the reindeer-pulled sleigh that’s taking you to the church, which you somehow managed to get Whipsnade Zoo to lend you for the morning.’

‘It wasn’t that hard. They don’t open on Christmas Eve, I gave a considerable amount of money to the Save the Tiger fund and I’m paying the reindeer keeper an extra bonus. Everyone is happy, even the reindeer, who get more of their favourite feed. And I know, that’s what everyone says, about it all flying past, but it won’t for me. I’ve made a list of times when I have to pause and take stock: just before the ceremony, during the vows, speeches, photos, first dance etc. I’ll be making mental memories!’

‘Are there any other kind?’ Liv asked her fondly.

Anna smiled at Jean. ‘Thank you. I don’t mean to be so demanding. It’s the nerves, you know. And I always expect the worst, it’s a bad habit of mine.’ Anna glanced anxiously at Tom.

‘Hey, Tom!’ Liv succeeded in getting him to turn back from the window. ‘Restrain your bride while I go and check out the kitchen, OK?’ she said. She met and held his gaze for several seconds, attempting to psych–ically add the message
And at least look like you’re having a good time
to the end of it, but Tom only stared at her blankly. It was clear that his mind had been elsewhere, somewhere very different from talking about wedding flowers. But where, or with whom and why?

That was the question that worried Liv.

Later that evening, after a long bath, and a large glass of red, Anna looked at Tom as he lay on his bed staring at the spot on the wall just above the TV. He’d said he had to go back to his place tonight, he had a big meeting in the morning, and Anna had accompanied him, unthinking. But now she was getting the distinct impression that he hadn’t really wanted her to come.

‘Hello,’ she said pleasantly as she buttoned up her cream linen pyjamas and got into bed. ‘Hello there? Anyone in?’

Tom smiled, albeit half-heartedly, and held out his right arm to her, which Anna gratefully scrambled into, resting her head against his chest and listening to the steady beat of his heart under his white T-shirt for a few moments.

For a while they had always gone to bed naked, or started out with clothes on, which during the course of their progress to bed would be discarded across the flat. Later, when Tom had drifted off, Anna would get up, pick up the clothes, hang, fold and pop them in the laundry as required, seeing it as a triumph of nature over nurture that she was able to be spontaneous even to that extent. But recently – was it recently? – a few months ago perhaps, they had started going to bed in nightclothes. And one night they had gone to bed without even kissing each other goodnight. Anna, who, before Tom, had limited experience of relationships that lasted longer than the seven days it normally took her to do some poor man’s head in, wasn’t sure if this was a normal thing, this cooling-off period, this calming down of passion. She would have asked Liv, but Liv had made her swear, soon after she started seeing Tom, not to tell her about anything she and Tom got up to in the bedroom.

‘Why not?’ Anna asked her, bemused. ‘Finally, I have something to tell you and you don’t want to hear it, why?’

‘Because …’ Liv had squirmed, looking like a restless little girl. ‘Because it’s been two years since I’ve had a proper boyfriend and, happy as I am for you, one of the main reasons I like you is because you always had a worse sex life than me. Now you have somehow lucked into a really great one, I don’t need to further heighten my personal inadequacies by hearing about it!’

‘That’s not the main reason you like me!’ Anna protested. ‘We met when we were nine! The main reason you like me is because I do all your laundry and pair your socks. Oh please, Liv. Who am I going to ask about sex if not you?’

‘Um.’ Liv bit her lip, her dark eyes narrowing. ‘You could try Mum? Call her. She’s constantly trying to talk to
me
about sex. “How much sex have you had, Olivia?” “Are you having any sex, Olivia?” “Are you sure you aren’t gay, Olivia? You know we wouldn’t mind at all. Ask your brother, he’s completely gay and Daddy and I love him just as much, Olivia!” You know, all the things that mums are not supposed to ask their daughters unless they want to mentally damage them for life. Give Mum a call, she adores
you
.
You
are her favourite.’

‘I think I know why you haven’t had a boyfriend for two years,’ Anna had said, gently. ‘Not because you aren’t beautiful. With those massive brown eyes, and incredible skin and that kick-boxing-toned body of yours, you are stunning. And not because you seem to insist on wearing boys’ clothes, and no make-up and having a hairstyle that looks rather like you accidentally wandered into a lawnmower. It’s because you behave like every man you meet is your mate, the bloke you want to go for a pint with. You need some mystery, some allure, some waxing, some eyeliner and some …’

‘Deep seated psychological flaws?’ Liv countered with a smile. ‘It does seem to have worked for you. Being mental.’

‘I’m just saying, you don’t realise how gorgeous you are,’ Anna said.

‘Thank you.’ Liv had hugged her. ‘But you still can’t talk to me about you sex life. And that’s final.’

And so Anna had gone on a journey of discovery with Tom without the aid of her best friend’s opinion, on which she usually relied on so heavily, even secretly making a list of sex things that she liked, and sex things that she thought Tom might like and doing her best to check them off every time they made love. Had the honeymoon period been too short, had Tom lost interest in her already? Had she lost interest in him? After all, if it wasn’t for his strangeness recently she would have been perfectly happy to curl up with her head on his chest and drift off to sleep and not mind at all that they hadn’t done anything on either of her lists in more than two weeks. Perhaps, Anna found herself wondering ever so quietly, almost in secret from herself, marrying a man with whom the fires of passion had already died out could be considered, in some quarters, a mistake, but she quickly hushed that particular thought and filed it away mentally in her secret but overstuffed drawer labelled ‘Now You Are Just Being Insane’.

Things that had been going so well, and so right, couldn’t just suddenly go so wrong. Could they?

‘What’s up Tom?’ Anna asked him quietly, after several seconds of silence during which they both pretended to watch TV.

‘Up?’ Tom asked vaguely.

‘Today at the Manor, you seemed really uncomfortable. Have you got cold feet? If you tell me now that you’ve got cold feet, then perhaps I will need only ten years of therapy, prescription drugs and alcohol abuse to recover.’

‘Me?’ Tom hugged her a little closer. ‘Why would I have got cold feet? I’m marrying you, the singularly most perfect woman I have ever encountered in my life. The only woman in the world who irons her PJs before getting into bed and, most importantly of all, the woman that I love.’ He kissed the top of her head reassuringly, but Anna noticed the forefinger of his left hand tapping insistently under the covers.

‘Look,’ she said, sitting up away from him and pushing her mass of hair off her face. ‘If you’ve changed your mind about marrying me, I completely understand. I am a terrible pain the arse. I know that. And you, you are a catch, Tom. Six foot two, with that body and those arms, and that chest … You’ve got a good job, you’re kind and funny. You could marry any girl you wanted. So if you’ve changed your mind about me, even though it will kill me, and I will never recover and will live the rest of my life utterly heartbroken parading around in my spectacularly expensive wedding dress, which by the way cannot be returned as it’s already had one set of alterations, like some modern day Miss Havisham until I eventually wither away and die, I
will
understand.’

Finally, Tom looked at her and the expression that Anna saw there didn’t do anything to reassure her. It was one of uncertainty and something else, something she couldn’t quite pin down. ‘I still want to marry you, Anna, nothing’s changed, I
promise
you.’ He clicked off the TV, leaving the room in soothing darkness. ‘Now come on, come here and give me a cuddle. I’ve got a six a.m. start in the morning and I need to get some sleep.’

But something had changed, Anna thought anxiously, as she lay awake staring into the dark, as Tom’s breathing eventually relaxed and evened out. Tom had changed and for the life of her Anna couldn’t work out why.

Chapter Two

‘Which is why we need to follow him,’ Anna told Liv the next morning, with some urgency.

‘I beg your pardon?’ Liv stared wide-eyed at her best friend. She was holding a colander rather defensively, Anna noticed, as if she might feel the need to whack her near-hysterical friend over the head with it. ‘Anna, what on earth are you talking about?’

They were standing in the exquisitely appointed basement kitchen of an oligarch-owned Kensington mansion, where Liv was in the early stages of preparing a very seasonal dinner party for their clients in the last job that they had to do before closing up shop to make final preparations for the wedding. Anna didn’t often come on site: usually she’d be in the office, keeping on top of the finance and administration side of their partnership, as well as the marketing and PR. While Anna could cook – and cook well – her natural domain was the office, while Liv only really felt at home in the kitchen. Normally, she would arrive first to get a feel for the kitchen and then their small but loyal team of sous chefs would arrive some time later, a well-oiled Liv-trained machine of military precision, which had so far pleased all of their clients without fail, bearing in mind they had yet to cater Anna’s wedding. So Liv had been surprised to see her when Anna turned up barely an hour before preparations were due to begin in earnest, ranting on about following her boyfriend.

‘Aren’t you listening?’ Anna persisted. ‘Tom, he’s changed. He’s not happy-go-lucky, “sure, whatever you say” Tom any more. There’s something really, really wrong, Liv. And I know you’ve noticed it too. I saw the way you were looking at him at the venue yesterday. It was like everything was perfect, everything was going to plan, right on schedule and then the one thing I didn’t think about, the one thing I didn’t make a contingency plan for has happened! Liv, I think he’s gone off me. I think he’s met someone else.’ Tears sprang into Anna’s eyes as she voiced her darkest fear. ‘Someone normal.’

‘No!’ Liv protested automatically. ‘No, not Tom. He just wouldn’t. He’d do a lot of very stupid things, but he wouldn’t ask you to marry him unless he really wanted to marry you, he wouldn’t. I know him too, remember, he’s besotted with you.’

‘You see, I knew it,’ Anna said, not really listening to Liv’s attempts at reassurance, she was so caught up in her anxiety. ‘I knew that it wouldn’t last, that it would all go wrong. I tried really, really hard to think of everything that might go wrong, but I never thought of this, Liv. I
really
thought he liked me, I let myself believe it. But what was I thinking? Why would Tom want
me
? I’m weird, and constantly anxious. I write lists
about lists
, I never let my hair down and just enjoy life … and I can’t dance.’ Anna looked miserably at her neat little feet, which were shod in expensive-looking brown suede boots. It was true. Although with her body Anna looked like she should have the lithe grace of a ballerina, combined with the heated rhythm of a South American salsa dancer, whenever she attempted to take to the floor it was like watching a car crash in slow motion. Even people who didn’t know her covered their eyes and looked away. And Anna had been pretty sure that at their last wedding dance tutorial, Ivan the Argentinian tango expert had been very, very drunk. ‘Liv, do you think he’s calling off the wedding because I am so terrible at dancing? I mean I made the teacher actually cry at our last lesson. He actually cried, Liv. In
despair
.’

‘OK,’ Liv said, putting down the colander and gripping Anna firmly by the shoulders. ‘First of all, Tom has not called off the wedding. All he’s done is be a bit moody.’

‘You see!’ Anna said, pointing at Liv accusingly. ‘See, you
have
noticed it too. And the thing is there is so much to do if I’m cancelling the wedding. I mean we need to stop that food order, before it’s too late, and, well, we can kiss goodbye to the deposit on the venue, and the dress, Liv – what am I going to do with the dress? It’s a
Christmas
wedding dress … Have you got a pen, I need to make a list.’

‘Shush!’ Liv said, putting her arms around Anna and doing her best to physically calm her. ‘Anna, come on, get a grip. This is me you are talking to, me. Your voice of sanity, remember? If I thought that something was really wrong, I’d tell you, wouldn’t I?’ Mutely, Anna nodded into her shoulder. ‘Look, I’m sure you are wrong about this. I’m sure you are,’ Liv said with a conviction that Anna could not know came just as much from her refusal to believe that Tom could do such a thing to Anna, or to her in a weird kind of way, because, well, she could stand him being in love with her best friend, but anyone else? Liv wasn’t at all sure she could stand that.

‘But he is being moody,’ Anna said, pulling back to look Liv in the eye. ‘And for Tom that’s massive, isn’t it? He never worries about things. For him to be moody, then something has to be really wrong.’

‘Look … I … He … The thing is …’ Liv tried, starting several reassuring sentences, but the truth of the matter was she agreed with Anna. Tom hadn’t been able to look Anna in the eye for days, which could be put down to pre-wedding jitters, but, more than that, he hadn’t been able to make eye contact with Liv either, not even one of his usual fond ‘what is she like?’ rolling glances that he occasionally sent Liv’s way when Anna wasn’t looking.

‘You think it too, don’t you?’ Anna said, always able to read Liv like she was an open book, with one marked exception.

‘No,’ Liv said firmly, tightening her grip and looking Anna in the eye. ‘No, I don’t. I think that whatever it is, it won’t be another woman. That’s just not Tom.’

‘But look at this!’ Anna dipped into her bag and showed Liv Tom’s archaic and battered Filofax, which he kept on because he was forever losing his phone in the back of taxis, and on the tube, and also because Anna enjoyed buying him pre-organised inserts for it, detailing things like family birthdays, holiday dates and most recently the times and places he had to be for the wedding.

‘You stole his diary?’ Liv gasped, her expression a mix of impressed and horrified. ‘You, Anna Carter – who never ever does anything wrong – stole your boyfriend’s diary!’

‘I didn’t steal it,’ Anna said, thumbing to today’s page. ‘He left it lying around, in his bag, which was under the stairs … behind his mountain bike. Anyway, look!’

Liv took the bag, and read the entry that Anna was pointing to.

‘Martha, 2 p.m. PE KHS’.

‘Right,’ Liv said slowly. ‘So? It’ll be a meeting, something to do with work.’

‘So? What do you mean “so”? Who is Martha?’ Anna asked her. ‘Never in the whole time that we have been together has he ever mentioned a Martha, not once. And now suddenly he’s having a meeting with Martha. How many people called Martha work in football journalism? I’ll tell you how many, none. I know. I Googled it. Martha,’ she spat. ‘It’s a typical slut name, if ever I heard one.’

Liv paused for a moment, taking a breath, resisting, only just, the impulse to slap the hysteria out of her friend. This was typical Anna, it always had been ever since Liv had first gotten to know her at school. Anna was like a swan: on the surface she appeared beautifully serene, calm and in control, but just underneath everything was working frantically away, trying to keep her life from clattering over a waterfall. Both the truth, and the tragedy, was that Anna did not need to be so afraid. Even when she and Liv had first met, and Anna was sharing a room at the children’s home with a girl who bullied and stole from her, the worst of her life was behind her, because what could be worse than being abandoned by your mother when you were a little girl? And since then she’d worked so hard, done so much to drag herself away from that precarious existence, excelling at school, and at university, at the expense of making a wide circle of friends, of meeting men, or being much like any other twenty-something, until she had a home, a business, a rock-solid best friend and fiancé all before thirty, and all bang on or ahead of schedule for her life list. And yet whatever Anna did to secure herself a future, it was never enough. It would never be enough to make her feel safe, and Liv was the only person in the world who really understood that.

‘Anna!’ Liv demanded her friend’s attention. ‘Remember the Regina Clarkson incident?’

Anna nodded, chewing anxiously at her peach-coloured lips. ‘Right, well, if you were wrong about Regina Clarkson, then you can be wrong about Tom too. And besides, Google isn’t God you know, it doesn’t know everything. And seriously, I am fairly sure that in the history of the universe there has
never
been a slutty Martha.’

‘Well, there is now,’ Anna said, calming down a little. Although the Regina Clarkson incident had surely been one of the lowest points of her life, it was proof that she was sometimes spectacularly wrong about everything. ‘Look, I know I’m not famous for being intuitive, but I just know it in my heart that something is terribly wrong with Tom. And I don’t know why I’m surprised. I’ve always known that I could never be this lucky. And now I’ve got to prove it, otherwise I will literally explode. I’ve got to know, Liv. You know I can’t stand not knowing what is going to happen.’

‘I know, I know,’ Liv said, making Anna look her in the eye, ‘but Tom isn’t your mum. He’s an amazing guy, I know he is. And whatever is going on, it won’t be the end of you and him. I know it won’t be.’

‘But I don’t,’ Anna said quietly. ‘And I need to. So will you come with me, to spy on him? Like any best friend of a woman who wants a relationship based on trust with her future husband would do. Please?’

Liv sighed heavily. ‘Right, well, even if this Martha is his secret girlfriend, which she isn’t, how on earth do we find out what PE KHS means?’

‘Pizza Express near Kensington High Street,’ Anna told her quickly, reacting to Liv’s expression of surprise at her rapid decoding skills. ‘What? I made a list of all the possible and most likely combinations it could be in order and then made a few calls. Pizza Express was third on my list. I called to confirm the booking, and his name was right there.’

‘You are wasted in catering,’ Liv said. ‘When all this is over you need to start up another business as a private detective. Or a spy. MI5 would kill for you.’

‘The point is,’ Anna said, ‘I know where we have to follow him to because he’s taking his tart for a cheap lunch before shagging her in some motel room. Oh!’ Anna gasped, her imagination running away with her. ‘What if she’s a prostitute! What if Tom’s got a secret hooker habit? Or what if Martha is code name for Martin. What if he’s secretly gay! Oh my God, we haven’t sex in weeks; I think he’s secretly gay!’

‘Regina Clarkson!’ Liv shouted what had become their ‘safety phrase’ in her best psycho-chef voice. ‘Tom hasn’t got a secret hooker habit, gay or otherwise. This is Tom we’re talking about. He doesn’t have to pay for sex! He can have any girl he wants … not that he wants any girl but you, and even if girls constantly do throw themselves at him, he wouldn’t even look at one. I mean he told me, a couple of days ago in the pub, that night you stayed in to do the accounts, that even when they had all those glamour models at the footballer’s book launch, practically getting their chests out for him, he didn’t even …’ Liv took one look at the expression of horror on Anna’s face. ‘OK, fine then. Let’s go and spy on him.’

‘I’m pretty sure that’s not entirely necessary,’ Liv said, folding her arms as Anna flattened herself against the wall outside Pizza Express, the collar of her raincoat turned up and her shades on, despite the distinctly overcast December day, which had an air of gloom that couldn’t even be lifted by the strings of brightly coloured lights that criss-crossed the busy street, packed with last-minute Christmas shoppers.

‘Get here!’ Anna mouthed at her, gesturing at her watch, as Liv reluctantly joined her at her side, her hands in her pockets. ‘It’s five to two, they’ll be arriving at any moment. If we stand behind this column, we can get a good look at them, before they see us.’

Obediently, Liv stood behind Anna as she peered out behind the column, scanning the mass of faces that crammed the street for the one face that belonged to her, or that at least she had thought belonged to her. Racked with an increasingly familiar anguish, she waited for that glimpse of Tom’s reddish-blond hair that always rose above a crowd like a beacon, that particular gait he had, one of total self-ease, the confident roll of the shoulders that had always made Anna feel so reassured. That she, Anna Carter, could be loved by someone so normal, so established and at ease in the world, made her feel much better about herself, and gave her hope that after ten or twenty years of marriage a little of Tom’s normal would rub off on her.

‘Maybe we should just go,’ Liv said, her chin resting on Anna’s shoulder, as the pair watched the thickening mass of people. ‘Maybe Tom’s changed his plans, his mind even, and anyway I’m pretty sue that you and me hiding round the corner in wait to catch him up isn’t going to help matters when …’

‘When what?’ Tom said, appearing behind them. Ever so slowly Anna and Liv turned around to meet his gaze. It had never occurred to either of them that he might approach from the other direction.

‘Tom!’ Anna said, whipping off her glasses. ‘What a lovely surprise! What you doing here?’

‘I think you mean what are
you
doing here?’ Tom said, frowning uncertainly. ‘What are you two doing lurking behind pillars outside the place where I am meeting …’ Tom trailed off as if he’d only just remembered that he was the one with the secret.

‘We’re checking up on you,’ Anna said unhappily, because there didn’t seem to be any point in lying any more. ‘We here to find out what you are up to, Tom, because we both know it’s something, something big, that’s giving you second thoughts about going through with the wedding.’ When Tom tried to speak Anna held up her gloved hand. ‘No, don’t deny it. I’ve tried asking you what’s wrong, but you won’t tell me. So I had no other choice but to try and find out myself.’

‘Wait a minute.’ Tom ran his fingers through his hair as he tried to take in what was going on. ‘How did you find out about this? Did you steal my diary? Anna, have you been spying on me?’