The Importance of Being Married (2 page)

My flatmate Helen screwed up her nose. “Why do I get the feeling you’re not taking this entirely seriously?”

“I have no idea,” I said innocently. “Because I’m taking it very seriously indeed. In fact, I’m thinking about going to the library and researching marriage over the past two thousand years. You know, to glean top tips.”

Helen rolled her eyes. “Come on, Jess. This isn’t a joke. Are we doing this or not?”

I sighed. “Look, maybe we didn’t think this through properly. I could just call the lawyer. Come clean. Apologize and then forget all about this ridiculous idea.”

“Is that what you want to do? Really?” Helen demanded.

I went red and shook my head. There was no way I was calling up the lawyer and admitting the truth. It would be too awful, too humiliating. It just wasn’t an option.

Helen shrugged. “So then tell me exactly what you’ve got to lose, Jess. I mean it.”

“My dignity,” I said immediately. “My independence. My…”

“Debts?” Helen suggested. “Your nonexistent social life? Come on, Jess, when was the last time you went out?”

“I don’t want to go out. Going out is highly overrated. As are marriage and relationships.”

“How would you know? You never have relationships. And anyway, this isn’t a relationship; it’s a business proposition.”

I bit my lip. “Anthony won’t know it’s a business proposition. You’re saying you’re going to make him fall in love with me, but it’s never going to happen. This really is a huge waste of time.”

Helen narrowed her eyes and stared at me. “You’re not scared, are you?”

“No!” I said defensively. “Of course I’m not scared. I just think it’s a crazy idea.”

“I don’t believe you,” Helen said, shaking her head. “You’re scared. Jessica Wild, Miss ‘I Hate Marriage,’ is scared of rejection. Admit it.”

I rolled my eyes, irritated. “I’m not scared of rejection,” I said, pointedly. “I just know Anthony is never going to fall for this…this project. Or me, in fact. And I don’t particularly want him to, either. I’ve got better things to do with my time than go chasing after some womanizing man.”

“Better things to do than inheriting four million pounds? Don’t be silly. Anyway, I think it would do you good to have a boyfriend.”

“I bet you do,” I said. “But I’m afraid that’s neither here nor there. Contrary to your belief system, I don’t think that men are the answer to everything. I don’t want a boyfriend. Don’t need one to validate me. I’m perfectly happy on my own.” The words came out like a mantra, I’d said them so often. And I believed them, too. Marriage was fine for pretty young things who were happy to depend on a man, but it wasn’t for me. I knew better.

“On your own and broke, you mean. So, fine, you’re happy on your own. But if this works out, you don’t just gain a gorgeous husband; you make four million pounds. I mean, come on. That’s got to be worth a shot, right?”

I shrugged uncomfortably. She had me there. Four million was huge. It was a life-changing amount of money. “I’d still be married,” I said.

“You could always get divorced.”

I frowned. Sure, I didn’t believe in marriage, but I didn’t much like the idea of divorce, either. It smacked of failure, of having made a bad choice. Maybe Anthony and I could separate, I found myself thinking, then kicked myself. I was beginning to believe Helen’s hype. I wouldn’t be separated or divorced, because I wasn’t getting married. I might be humoring Helen, but Project Marriage was never going to actually work. “I guess.”

Helen smiled at me. “So you’ll do it? You’ll give it a go?”

“I’ll give it a go,” I said hesitantly. “But I’m not doing anything I’m not comfortable doing. And I still think it’ll never work.”

“Well, if it’s not going to work, you’ve got nothing to worry about,” Helen said. “Have you?”

I sighed. “You think this is funny, don’t you?” I said accusingly. “You think this is just a game.”

“It is a game.” Helen grinned. “It’s a game show. And the prize is huge. Come on, Jess. Lighten up.”

I caught her eye and frowned. I didn’t want to lighten up. I wanted this all to go away. But I knew it wasn’t going to. So instead I shrugged. I knew when I was defeated.

“Yay!” Helen clapped her hands together. “So, then, let’s go and get your hair cut,” she said, handing me my coat. “Before you change your mind again.”

Chapter 2

I SHOULD PROBABLY EXPLAIN
about Project Marriage. And the four million pounds. The lawyer, too. I mean, you’re bound to have a few questions. Just promise not to judge before you’ve seen the whole picture. And even then, I’d appreciate it if you’d cut me just a little slack.

The story started a long time ago, in the tradition of all good fairy tales. Not so long ago that goblins were roaming the earth, but long enough for it to have gotten a little bit out of hand—two years, two months, and six days ago, to be precise.

In fact, it started the day Grandma died. Well, not when she died so much as when she installed herself in a retirement home because, she kept saying, no one—meaning me—was going to be able to look after her properly if she didn’t. Grandma and I didn’t always get on so well. She got left with me when I was two, when my mother died in a car accident, and as she regularly told me she could have done without another child to bring up, at her age. And once I was brought up, I did my best to be suitably grateful, to look after her, to visit her regularly and check everything was okay, but every time I saw her she found a new thing to criticize me for—my hair, my job, my friends, my car…I mean, sure, I was used to it—I’d grown up with her raising me, but when she mentioned the retirement home idea, I have to confess I jumped at it.

It seemed to suit her, too. She had new people to criticize, new reasons to complain. The staff hated her, the other residents were scared of her, and her venom for them meant that when I visited her we actually had something to talk about, which meant that we had the odd conversation that didn’t focus on my failings, which was very novel and incredibly welcome.

But that wasn’t when the story starts. The story starts when Grace Hampton, Grandma’s next-door neighbor in the retirement home, happened to pass her room one day when I was visiting, and poked her head around the door. I was just telling Grandma about a new job I’d gotten at Milton Advertising, working for Anthony Milton, the golden boy of the advertising world, and in walked Grace and offered us both a cup of tea. Which was pretty surprising since Grandma had only had bad things to say about her skittish neighbor who read “stupid” romance novels and watched far too much television (Grandma preferred long, turgid books that gave her headaches). Grace didn’t seem to notice Grandma’s wide eyes, or her slightly brittle tone when she arrived back a few minutes later with three cups of tea, sitting down on the sofa with me and asking me all about my new job. Actually, for a sweet old lady she had very thick skin, and before I knew it she was always there when I visited Grandma, smiling expectantly at me, asking me about my life, like she was actually interested.

Then, a few months later, Grandma died and everything changed. Suddenly I was free. Suddenly I was completely on my own. Suddenly I had a funeral to organize. And pay for. Actually, it wasn’t the only thing I had to pay for. Grandma hadn’t thought to mention her failing heart to me; she also hadn’t thought to mention that she’d run out of money and owed Sunnymead several thousand pounds for her care. Grace was there when they told me, when they delicately put Grandma’s final bill in front of my nose. I did my best not to go white as I gripped it rather too tightly; as my eyes swam at the figures in black and white. Twenty-five thousand pounds in total. And right then Grace put her hand on mine, and she said, “You know, Jess, I wonder if you would do me a favor.” To be honest, I wasn’t really in the mood to do anyone a favor—I was seeing my life flash before my eyes, a life of debt, of being broke. But I didn’t say that; I just smiled and said, “Sure.” And then she said, “I wonder if you’d let me pay for your grandmother’s funeral. It would make me so very happy.”

I said no, of course, but she had a way of not taking no for an answer, and I knew that really it was her doing me the favor, but she was adamant all the way that it was the other way around. The funeral was beautiful, too—far more beautiful than it would have been if it had been left to me. Grandma might have been a strict Presbyterian, but Grace managed to turn the stark church into a beautiful place; turned a serious service into a huge celebration of Grandma’s life. She turned up in a pale pink suit, smiling at me and telling me that no one should ever wear black to a funeral, and she held my hand through the whole thing, giving me a handkerchief when to my own surprise I started to cry. “She loved you,” she whispered as Grandma’s body was lowered into the ground. “When you weren’t there, she couldn’t stop talking about you. She was so proud.” And I wasn’t sure if she was telling the truth or not, but it was nice to hear.

Obviously, I offered to pay Grace back. But she always said no. She said that money didn’t matter, that what mattered was people, and company, and laughter and love. And that’s when she said that if I wasn’t too busy, she’d love it if I’d visit her from time to time. So I told her that of course I wasn’t too busy; I’d love to come and see her. Which was why, just days after Grandma was buried, I found myself back at Sunnymead. And the week after that, too. You see, Grace wasn’t much like Grandma, and visiting her didn’t seem like a chore at all; more like popping in to see a friend. All of a sudden I found myself looking forward to walking down Sunnymead’s corridors, to sitting beside Grace as we watched television and read magazines together, and discussed her favorite books. She’d tell me about her childhood—about Sudbury Grange, the house she grew up in, the house that had been in her family for generations. It was a large, rambling house in the country, she told me, full of little passages and surrounded by a huge garden where she and her brothers used to play all summer long.

I’d listen wistfully, wondering what it must have been like, to live somewhere like that with brothers and dogs and friends and trees to climb and places to hide. Even without Grandpa, who left a week after I arrived—he’d been having an affair, Grandma told me later at his funeral (he’d only survived a year without her, she pointed out victoriously, as though he’d brought his cancer on himself), but it was my arrival that sent him over the edge—Grandma’s house had been small and cramped. The few toys I’d owned weren’t allowed to leave my bedroom, weren’t allowed to clutter what little space she had. It wasn’t a house for children, she’d tell me in a way that let me know I had intruded. It wasn’t a house that could cope with laughter or shouting or games or loud music, either. It appeared to be a house for reflection, for sitting quietly. Solitude, Grandma would tell me, was something to be valued. Friends couldn’t be trusted, men would always let you down, but you could depend on yourself. If you were happy on your own, then your life would always be satisfactory. And satisfactory was a good state of affairs, she’d add. Satisfactory was as high as one should aim for.

Grace, on the other hand, didn’t believe in solitude one bit. She loved people and noise and gossip. And I came to love her. Every time I went to see her, I left feeling slightly happier, slightly more comfortable in my skin. She always seemed to be interested in what I had to say, remembered things I said from one week to the next, and she never made me feel like I was inadequate or a failure; in fact, she made me feel like anything was possible. She was one of those people who assumed that everything would be a success—as opposed to Grandma, who assumed that things would fail. And if she was rather too fixated on my love life (or lack thereof), it wasn’t a big deal. At least I thought it wasn’t.