Still Thinking of You (5 page)

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 pointed 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.

They fell into a silence that Tash thought was uncomfortable and Rich didn’t notice. ‘Why did you ask if Emma was a window cleaner?’ asked Tash, suddenly.

‘Well, you said that she’d fallen off a ladder at work, and the first association I made was a window cleaner.’

‘Are any of your friends window cleaners?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Then is it likely that my friends are?’ Tash seethed.

‘Well, your friends have more varied careers,’ said Rich.

‘All my friends are lawyers or doctors or management consultants. Yours are musicians, designers or writers.’ In fact, a number of Tash’s friends were still waiting for their big break and therefore technically waitresses, temps or unemployed. Rich chose not to spell this out explicitly. He picked up a copy of the
Evening Standard
that Tash had discarded earlier, turning to the TV listings and starting to scan read.

‘My friends might not be as –’ Tash wanted to say ‘dull’, but chose ‘predictable’ instead. Both she and Rich knew the difference in vocab was indiscernible. ‘My friends might not be as predictable in their career choices as your friends are, but their careers are still important.’

‘I never said they weren’t,’ pointed out Rich reasonably. The very reasonableness of his tone further irritated Tash.

‘You were being derogatory asking if Emma is a window cleaner.’

‘I did not say anything derogatory about window cleaning as a career choice, and if any of your friends had chosen that line of work – which they haven’t, I note – but if they had, then I would simply ask if they could do mine for less than thirty quid, which is what I currently pay and I consider to be a rip-off.’

Rich’s reasonableness had slipped into sarcasm. Tash felt frustration and disappointment bubble over into ill-focused anger. She was surprised to acknowledge that she was hunting out a row. It would have been fortuitous if a telesales guy had called at that moment. Tash would have found a certain amount of satisfaction bawling down the telephone that, no, she wasn’t interested in health insurance, double glazing or completing a survey on her grocery-buying habits. But the phone stayed silent, so Tash chose to pick a row a little closer to home.

‘So you’d be comfortable with my friends working for you?’

‘And you’d be
un
comfortable with that?’ Rich finally lowered the newspaper and met Tash’s eye. He’d encountered enough women to identify misdirected anger when he saw it. He also knew that this type of anger could be as fatal as the more justified and honed variety.

‘Fuck you, Rich,’ spat Tash. She was stunned to hear the words come out of her mouth. She rarely lost her temper and had never lost it with Rich. She loved Rich. Totally loved him. And this was not his fault or his problem. If she could have, she would have swallowed back the words, but that was never possible. She waited for Rich’s reaction.

‘No, I’m going to fuck you,’ he said, and then he leapt on Tash. He started to pour kisses on her face, her hands, her head, her body, anywhere he could make contact. Tash shrieked with laughter and relief that Rich had chosen to ride out the tide of her strop. Her bad mood instantly vanished. She giggled, twisted and turned, and pretended that she didn’t want to be drenched in his kisses, but they both knew that she now lived to be soused in his love. And he in hers.

Slowly, slowly, Rich found a way to every inch of her body. He kissed her crossness away and sealed in reassurance. They discarded their clothes with ease and confidence, willingly exposing their bodies to one another and anticipating the great pleasures that were to come. Tash kissed Rich, too, and she stroked, sucked and licked him. When his cock was in her mouth she felt overwhelmed with the love she felt. As he moaned, slithered and shook, she began to feel ashamed of her earlier displays of irrational anger and her suppressed jealousy of his friends. Because it was when he slipped his glacial fingers inside her and touched her hot, drenched flesh that she was able to identify and admit that it
was
jealousy that she felt. She was envious and intimidated by their shared past. Yet at that moment when she dripped cum on to his hands – a piercing release that left her quivering and begging for him to climb inside her – at that moment she knew that no one had ever been so close to Rich, no one had ever shared so much.

As Rich climbed on top of Tash, he took a moment to admire her. He’d slid inside many beautiful women in his time, but never, ever had his thrusts brought him such untold delight. He adored making her happy. He loved the glazed, half-crazed look he brought to her usually serene face as he pushed, grabbed and pulled at her. She yelped with pleasure and desire, and begged him not to stop, even though her hair was wet with sweat and stuck to her back, her tits were wet with his kisses and her thighs were wet with her own cum. When it was impossible for him to hold back a second more, he exploded in her. Showering her with confidence and contentment. Rich collapsed inelegantly on top of Tash and stayed, paralyzed, until his breathing calmed.

For some moments there was silence between them. Tash listened to the sounds of the house. The printer, fridge and PlayStation quietly droned. The clock in the hall ticked softly, and Tash had left the radio on in the bedroom. She could just make out that it was the latest boy band crooning their latest predictable but palatable tune. She believed it was a cert as the Christmas number one.

‘What are you thinking, Tash?’ asked Rich.

‘I was wondering what will be number one when we get married and what music we’ll dance to at our fortieth wedding anniversary. What were you thinking?’

‘I was thinking that we should row more often if the making up is always that good,’ said Rich, and beneath him he felt Tash giggle.