The Chocolate Run (33 page)

Our friendship was getting more and more tenuous. Ethereal. We weren’t even like two Twix, separated before consumption, any more. We were more like Dairy Milk and Caramel. Two chocolates made by the same people, but so different you couldn’t put them together under any similar category. We contained approximately 50 per cent sugar, 25–30 per cent milk solids and 20–25 per cent cocoa solids, but there was something intrinsically different. We melted at different temperatures, we felt different, we tasted different, we were different. Now, nothing but our source linked us.

‘I’m doing really well,’ she replied and placed a half-pint in front of me.

What the hell is going on?
My sensibilities screamed at me as my eyes took in the squat drinking implement. We’d agreed a long time ago that women who drank halves might as well check in their right to vote too. It smacked of those times when women couldn’t get served pints in pubs, and when barmen would serve women a pint in two glasses – which had actually happened to us a couple of times when we were in college. I bad-temperedly picked up my
half
and glanced at Jen. She was drinking what looked suspiciously like a gin and tonic.
Don’t blame me if you start sobbing into your glass
, I almost said. We’d also agreed any woman who drank G&T was clearly looking to spend the rest of the night crying because some guy had chucked her when she was fourteen.

Bloody hell
, I thought as I sipped my mini pint.
I have no idea who this woman is
.

‘Guess who I saw the other day?’ Jen said about an hour later.

‘Hitler,’ Matt said.

‘Xena Warrior Princess,’ I offered.

‘Halle Berry,’ Greg contributed.

Jen rolled her eyes and sighed in her usual irritation. We always did that when she said that, and it always riled her. Didn’t stop us, though.

‘Sean,’ she said. A trio of blank faces greeted her. ‘
Sean!
’ she repeated, as if emphasising the word a bit more would make it any clearer. She tutted, sighed, rolled her eyes. ‘Sean, Amber’s ex, Sean.’

‘Ohhhh!’ the three of us said, finally getting it. Then we reacted thus:

Matt (Mr Selfish Gene) lost interest and stared into his pint.

Greg (Mr New Boyfriend) became all interest and stared into his pint.

I (hadn’t seen Sean since we split up) felt my entire being leave my body as I wondered if Jen was about to land me in it with Greg by telling them why I’d really finished with Sean.

‘How is he?’ I said, aiming for a tone of little interest. Little interest, not total disinterest, which Greg would see as me faking it.

‘Fine. Great. Looking rather sexy, actually.’

This sparked Matt’s interest, this did involve him. ‘Oh?’ he said.

‘Chill out,’ Jen reassured him. ‘He’s not my type.’

Matt glanced across the table at Greg, who I hadn’t felt move since we’d found out it wasn’t Sean Connery Jen had seen. ‘You all right, mate?’ Matt asked.

Greg glanced up, noticed we were all looking at him, pulled a smile across his face. ‘Yeah, fine.’

‘Anyway,’ Jen continued, ‘Sean lives a few streets down from me and Matt now.’ Great, not only did I have to look out for muggers and rapists in Alwoodley, I’d now have to beware the ex, too.

‘Of course, he was asking after you, Amber.’

‘Really,’ I said.

‘Oh, come on, girl, show a bit of enthusiasm, this man was the love of your life.’
Thanks, Jen
. ‘He asked if you were seeing anyone, so I lied, said you were seeing a friend of Matt’s. Didn’t want him thinking you were the sad single type.’

Heat rose in me. ‘I’m not the sad single type. And, anyway, I don’t care if he thinks I am.’

Jen pulled a little face ‘Well, he doesn’t, thanks to me. Even now he’s still into you. His eyes lit up when he was talking about you. Then he started saying he still couldn’t understand why you backed out of marrying him.’

Matt sprayed a not very fine mist of beer across the table; Greg froze.

‘You almost got married?’ Matt said, swiping a sleeve across his mouth to mop up the beer he’d wasted.

I said nothing, seeing as I couldn’t move. Or breathe. Or believe we were talking about this. We didn’t talk about it in private, let alone in the bloody pub.

‘Yeah. Didn’t you know?’ Jen said.

‘No!’ Matt said. ‘Did you?’ he asked Greg.

Slowly, deliberately, Greg shook his head.

‘Neither of you knew?’ Jen asked, incredulous.

‘No, Jen, neither of them knew,’ I said through clenched teeth. ‘That’ll be because I said to you, “Don’t tell anyone.”’

Jen’s eyes widened and her mouth formed a silent ‘O’ of understanding.

‘So how close did you come to doing the deed? Did you pick out rings? Or a dress?’ Quite obscurely, this was from Matt.

‘She had the ring, we made an appointment to see dresses, then she and Sean finished and she didn’t explain why.’ Quite annoyingly, this answer was from Jen.

‘Must we talk about this,’ I said flatly.

‘Yeah!’ Matt said. He was suddenly and inexplicably excited. ‘It’s like, suddenly, Amber has hidden depths.’
Look who’s talking
. ‘I knew you weren’t as anti-settling down as you made out, and now I’ve got the proof.’

‘You’ve spent time wondering if I’m into settling down?’ I asked, surprised that I didn’t leave Matt’s mind the second I left his company.

‘Yeah, course. Me and Peck even talk about it sometimes. We’ve all come close to it, except you. Except now I know you have.’

‘I didn’t come close to it.’

‘But you said yes to him and that’s as good as.’

‘I did
not
say yes to him. I didn’t even say I’d think about it. If you must know, he had to prise open my fingers to put the ring box into my hand because I was so shocked I couldn’t move or speak. I never wore the ring. I was so freaked out that I didn’t tell anyone And didn’t want my blabbermouth friend telling anyone either.’

As I spoke, Greg’s feelings emanated from him loud and clear. To put it mildly, he was not happy. To put it more realistically anger and jealousy instead of blood flowed through them there veins of his. He was definitely going to leave me this time.

‘So, were you going for the meringue or the pavlova in wedding dresses?’ Matt asked.

Jen smirked.

‘You seem to know an awful lot about the wedding business, Matt, something you want to tell us?’ I asked. ‘Or Jen, got any more announcements? Any secrets you want to share with the group? Come on, don’t be shy.’

As a person they clammed up. Matt got to his feet. ‘Right, my round,’ he said. He must be feeling guilty about something to be willingly reaching into his pocket.

‘Not for me, mate,’ Greg said, standing. ‘I’m off to see a woman about a dog.’

‘Your mystery lady, eh?’ Jen said.

Greg half shrugged, half raised his eyebrows. ‘Actually, she’s not my mystery lady any more, she’s my girlfriend.’

‘Things must be going well,’ Matt commented.

‘Yup, and you know why?’ Greg said. ‘Because she’s totally honest with me. Your relationship’s nothing if it’s not based on honesty. See ya.’ And he left.

He’d left the three of us sat there, but I
knew
he’d walked out on me. AGAIN.

chapter twenty-seven

lady in waiting

I never thought Greg would find out about me and Sean – that’s why I’d left out the small detail of Sean’s proposal.

And he’d never have found out if Jen wasn’t being a complete and utter stick of carob. Not even a real chocolate. That hideous substitute that nobody could ever pretend was good enough to compare to chocolate.

I’d sworn her to secrecy. She’d promised we’d never talk about it, not with anyone else, not with each other. And now look what she’d done. Only Sean, Jen and I were meant to know. I didn’t go running my mouth off in front of Matt and Greg about her pregnancy scare because I understood that it was the kind of thing that you didn’t share. Or drag up in the pub. Jen was an alien to me. The old Jen would never do anything like that. Ever. The new Jen felt no way about calling me fat and bringing up my secrets in the pub.

I was going to have to deal with this at some point. I was going to have to do more than say Jen was an alien, a stick of carob, someone I didn’t particularly like. It wasn’t going to sort itself out. I was going to have to address the issue of why our friendship had changed. Maybe even have it out with her. Ice trickled down my spine. Have it out with Jen? Shout at her? I was more confident, I’d almost stood up to my mum, but Jen? No way. I had to do something, though. Something.

However, Jen wasn’t the most pressing problem in my life. Greg was.

I turned into my road. Brownberrie Walk, my road. My home. The place where Greg was waiting to chuck me.

From a few yards down the end of my road I saw him sitting on the wall outside my flat. He must’ve been there for at least half an hour because I’d stayed that long after him in the pub.

Greg was hitting his heels against the brickwork of the wall when I arrived in front of him. He didn’t say anything, just looked up, held my gaze, then looked down again.

‘I, erm, suppose you should come up,’ I whispered. I cleared my throat and repeated the sentence.

I found my keys and, with trembling hands, opened the doors to my flat. I was scared. Scared of Greg. Of what he was feeling. Of how pissed off he was. If he was angry enough to leave.

He entered the flat, went straight to the sofa and sat down.

‘Tea?’ I asked from the corridor.

‘Thanks,’ he said, without tearing his eyes away from the off TV.

I filled the kettle, plugged it in.

He was angry. So angry he couldn’t even turn his gaze in my direction. I was such a coward; had a yellow streak a mile wide when it came to him leaving me. To anyone leaving me. But, right now, I was dealing with only one imminent departure.

I leant forward over the counter, stared into my Gary Larson cartoon mug. In its belly nestled a tea bag.
Things could be worse, I reasoned, I could be a tea bag, minding me own business, blissfully unaware that I was about to be drowned in boiling water
.

This wasn’t fair. It was on par with being told I was allergic to chocolate. That the one substance I loved more than any other would kill me the next time I slipped it into my mouth. I went cold at that thought. No Greg, no chocolate. They’d be scraping my body off the M1 about ten minutes after I made that hideous discovery.

The kettle boiled, billowing steam up at me. ‘Sorry,’ I said to the tea bag, then doused it in water. We were both going the same way but the tea bag was going on to a higher purpose: it was about to offer refreshment. When my relationship met its demise, there’d be nowt purposeful about it.

I put one sugar in Greg’s tea. Picked up the cup, stopped, scooped in another heaped teaspoon of sugar. Good for shock.

‘Here we go,’ I said, and handed him the mug.

He moved his face in thank you, took the cup, but didn’t otherwise acknowledge me.

‘I, erm, haven’t got any biccies, sorry.’

He nodded slightly.

My head was throbbing, each temple pounding out its own ache; my eyes were heavy; gravity seemed to tug at each part of me as I sobered up. My mind had been frightened into clarity but my body was struggling to catch up.

I took my place beside him on the sofa.

What was I supposed to do? Leave him to start? Or start explaining why I hadn’t told him? Not as easy as it sounded because I couldn’t for the life of me remember why it seemed a good idea not to tell him.

This waiting, this was what it was like when I was younger. Waiting for my parents to flip out about something. Waiting for one of them to say something slightly off-key to the other and then for the shouting and smashing and sadistic silence to start. The arguing was never as bad as the waiting for the arguing. Because at least with the fighting it was tangible, something to be afraid of. With the waiting I could imagine myself up a lot more bad scenarios than the actual row. I could never relax, either, because I knew the second I did that’s when the first angry word would be lobbed into the atmosphere and it would start. Waiting was hideous.

Greg drank his tea.

Sip.

Sip. Pause.

Sip.

Sip. Pause.

Pause. Sip.

Sip. Sip.

Is he deliberately torturing me? Is he trying to drive me mad? Does he get off on making me wait for my punishment?

He hoisted himself off the sofa and spun to me. ‘So, Amber almost got married but forgot to tell me,’ he accused.

I stared up at him.

‘It’s understandable really. We all forget about our plans to get married, don’t we?’

‘It wasn’t like that,’ I protested in a small voice.

‘Oh? What
was
it like?’

I opened my mouth, made a few hand gestures in a genuine attempt to explain, but found I was mute. No words would come out. Eventually I shrugged, defeated.

‘DON’T FUCK WITH ME!’ he screamed and hurled the cup. It flew across the room, its contents spilling through the air until it slammed against the wall and exploded, sending pieces across the room.

I’m eight. I’m sitting in the back room, my pencil pressing hard into the page of my exercise book as I write my twelve times table. The pencil makes black-grey grooves in the page, and my mind concentrates really hard. Really hard. So hard I can’t hear something hitting the wall of the living room and smashing into a million pieces I’ll have to sweep up later. I can’t hear voices screaming at each other. I can’t hear hand pounding flesh, cries being choked back. All I can hear is twelve times four equals
. . .

I stared at Greg, wide-eyed, breath caught in my chest, muscles rigid, waiting for what came next. More smashing. Overturning furniture. A punch in the face. A kick in the stomach. Holding me down as he pummelled my features flat . . .

He stopped. Startled still by something. ‘I’m not going to hurt you,’ he said.

I nodded.

He stepped forwards, I flinched back.

‘No, really, Amber, I’m not going to hurt you.’ He looked confused, concerned, and probably loads of other things beginning with C. ‘I’m pissed off, but I won’t hurt you.’