Honeymoon For One Read online

  I’d say Eva was more my friend than Daniel’s – she’s more of a frenemy, if I’m being honest. She used to go out with Daniel’s friend Paul. After they broke up, when Paul moved to Canada, she somehow stayed in our friendship circle. Neither of us are that close to her though. Definitely not ‘fraught-looking conversation, hidden in a maze less than an hour before a wedding’ close.

  ‘What did you think was going to happen?’ he asks her.

  ‘I thought… well, I don’t know what I thought,’ she replies. ‘But I didn’t think this would happen.’

  ‘I’m about to get married,’ he reminds her.

  I’m sure she knows or she wouldn’t be here in that trampy dress. I catch myself. There’s nothing wrong with her dress. I’m just getting defensive because I can’t get my head around why she is here with him, now.

  ‘Don’t marry her,’ she says.

  My eyes narrow angrily as my mood darts from one end of the spectrum to the other, from Buddhist to barbarian. I want to grab her by her fiery red hair and drag her into the fountain. Who the hell does she think she is, telling my fiancé not to marry me? But as much as I want to confront her, I can’t, because I want to hear everything she has to say first.

  ‘I said I would leave her for you, months ago, but you told me not to,’ he snaps back.

  What?

  ‘Because I wasn’t going to tell you to leave her. It wasn’t my call. You should’ve just left her,’ she replies.

  ‘Eva, this wedding has been booked for months. I can’t just cancel it – we’ll still have to pay for everything. Why are you telling me this now?’

  ‘Because I love you and I can’t let you marry her,’ she replies, folding her arms. ‘I won’t let you marry her. I know it was only supposed to be a bit of fun at first but…’

  I urge myself to exhale, but I can’t. I can’t breathe, I can’t move, I can’t scream at them…

  ‘I love you too,’ he replies. ‘But I can’t back out now.’

  Tinnitus deafens me. All I can hear is a screaming in my ears – a sound I wish I could make myself, but I can’t. I feel as if I’m going to pass out, but I can’t. I can’t afford to look away. I need to see this.

  As Eva takes him by the hands and pulls him in for a kiss, I’m not really sure why, but my immediate response is to take my phone from my pocket and snap a picture. I check the shot, to make sure it’s in focus – I do everything but put a bloody Instagram filter on it. Well, I did say I wanted to capture every last second of today, didn’t I? This is one hell of a Kodak moment.

  Eva, the scarlet woman, grabs my fiancé’s arse as they kiss, and finally my fight or flight reflex kicks in. As I flee the scene I drop Ruby’s flower crown (it hardly seems important now) and place my hands over my mouth, to stop me crying until I’m out of earshot, and to stop me throwing up all over the flowers.

  I run through the hotel without any of the care or attention I left it with, barely fifteen minutes ago. I unlock my phone and the picture is still there on my screen – it doesn’t matter, it’s all I can see. I see it in the art on the walls, in the pattern of the carpet. If I blink, you’d better believe I see a freeze-frame of the two of them together.

  I call Ali and ask her to get rid of my mum and sister. I simply tell her that we need to talk. By the time I get to the hotel room, I’ve stopped seeing them kissing and started imagining them in the bedroom together, tearing off each other’s clothes, her flinging him onto the bed before climbing on top of him, her long red hair cascading down over his body as she leans forward and…

  ‘That lying, cheating bastard,’ I rant as I burst through the door.

  ‘Don’t worry, your three-year-old niece has left the room,’ my friend jokes awkwardly. Ali is the wild one, the one constantly caught up in drama, the one who has a weekly (if not biweekly) meltdown, over some man or other.

  ‘That liar! That fucking liar…’ I continue.

  Ali grabs me by the shoulders and sits me down on the bed.

  ‘Talk to me, girl.’

  ‘Daniel…’ I start, but then I get that sick feeling again. It rushes up from my stomach, burns up my oesophagus and reaches my mouth, but by the time it leaves my lips the only thing that pours out of me is emotion. I scream and I cry – and it’s an ugly cry, none of that ‘single tear on the cheek’ movie bullshit. Wailing, sobbing, eyes pouring, nose running. I’m just a gross, ugly mess and the only thing stopping me from completely falling apart is my best friend, blindly rubbing my shoulder and wiping my nose. She still has no idea what’s going on.

  ‘Daniel is cheating on me,’ I sob. ‘He was, he maybe still is…’

  ‘I’m sorry, Daniel is mugging you off?’ she asks in disbelief. ‘He’s been punching since the day you met. You are an absolute babe.’

  I squeeze Ali’s hand. A compliment like that, from someone as gorgeous as Ali, goes a long way. If I told you Ali was a Playboy bunny, you wouldn’t have a hard time believing me. I think she’s in her late thirties, but she doesn’t look it. I tried to look at her passport once and she didn’t speak to me for a week. From her ridiculous hair extensions to her absolutely massive fake boobs to her lip fillers, Ali has spent a lot of time and money on her look and it’s flawless. I am not quite so perfect.

  I hate to be a cliché, and I really wish I could say that I hadn’t done this, but I went on a very strict diet in the run-up to my wedding. My hard work paid off though (apart from going down a cup size, to which Ali immediately said she’d give me her surgeon’s card) and I felt sure I was going to walk down the aisle as the most confident version of myself I have ever been. It hasn’t stopped my fiancé cheating on me though, has it? Now, my self-confidence is so low, it’s downstairs in the lobby.

  ‘Who the hell would have an affair with him?’ Ali asks, quickly adding, ‘no offence.’

  ‘Fucking Eva,’ I tell her.

  ‘Eva?’ she squeaks. ‘She’s honestly the stupidest bimbo I’ve ever met.’

  She is stupid. When she was with Paul, we all got together for a game night, and Eva was so certain that Wales wasn’t a part of the United Kingdom.

  ‘And didn’t Paul move to Canada, just to get rid of her?’ she continues.

  ‘Well, it seems like she got over him, by getting under Daniel,’ I reply.

  ‘That bastard,’ she says. ‘How did you find out?’

  ‘I just… happened upon them in the gardens, having a sneaky chat. They went into the maze to get some privacy I imagine, but they barely went inside. Absolute morons.’

  ‘They were probably worried they wouldn’t be able to find their way out,’ she says with a half-smile.

  ‘They said they were in love with each other,’ I start weakly, my voice still wobbling. ‘She said she wasn’t going to let him go through with the wedding, he told her he had to. Then they… they kissed.’

  Ali wipes my eyes with a tissue.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ she asks me.

  ‘I’ll tell you what I’m not going to do,’ I start, substituting a little of my sadness for some anger. ‘I’m not going to marry him.’

  ‘Well, that’s fortunate,’ Ali says with a smile. ‘Because your make-up is fucked.’

  I can’t help but laugh, and it feels good, despite the painful feeling from the sucker punch to my chest.

  ‘I can’t face anyone,’ I whisper.

  ‘And you don’t have to,’ Ali replies.

  ‘Can you take care of it? Can you tell people the wedding is off? I… I don’t even know where to begin.’

  ‘This isn’t my first rodeo,’ she says. ‘I’ve called off a few weddings in my time.’

  She really has.

  ‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘I just want to get out of here, but I don’t know where to go. I can’t go home, back to the house… What happens with the house?’

  ‘Don’t get ahead of yourself,’ Ali insists. ‘We can sort all of that.’

  ‘I just want to get out of here, out of Lon
don…’

  ‘You need a holiday,’ Ali says.

  ‘I’ve already bloody paid for one, haven’t I? My stupid honeymoon that isn’t going to happen now.’

  I cock my head as a wild idea occurs to me.

  ‘I could still go on honeymoon,’ I say.

  ‘What, like a make-up holiday?’ she asks. ‘Because I don’t think that’s a good idea.’

  ‘No, I could go on my own,’ I say. ‘I could go, chill out, try and work out what I’m supposed to do now – I’ve put off writing my book, because I’ve been so caught up planning this wedding. I could treat it like a sort of writer’s retreat.’

  It was never my intention to write on my honeymoon. I have been neglecting my work in favour of planning and (almost) executing my wedding, but safe in the knowledge that I have a few weeks after we get home to finish my book before my deadline. It would be a pretty full-on few weeks though, so I may as use this bonus free time to write without the clock ticking in my ear.

  Ali smiles widely.

  ‘So, you’re just going to go to Italy on your own?’

  ‘Why not?’ I reply. ‘I planned this whole wedding – including the honeymoon. The tickets are at home, the hotel is booked in my name, because I booked it, because… now that I think about it, he hasn’t wanted any say in any aspect of the wedding planning. I thought he was just being a typical bloke, not really caring about silly wedding stuff…’

  ‘Bastard,’ she says.

  ‘Yep.’

  My wedding dress, hanging on the wardrobe next to us, catches my eye. My absolutely jaw-dropping, Vera Wang wedding dress. I didn’t want anything too big and poufy, but I did want something special. My white dress is strapless and fitted, right down to the thigh. The bottom third is handcrafted, with over seventy yards of bias-cut organza tiers, ruffled into a rosette shape at the front and the back. It is just the right amount of poufy and I’m absolutely devastated I’m not going to get to wear it.

  ‘I’ll put it somewhere safe for you,’ Ali says.

  ‘No you won’t, you’ll take it home and take photos in it,’ I joke.

  ‘Maybe I’ll do both,’ she replies. ‘Are you really going to go to Italy on your own?’

  ‘I think I am,’ I reply. Am I? ‘Can you cancel things here but, maybe make sure I have enough time to get home, get my bags and go?’

  ‘I can’t think of a job I’d be more perfect for,’ she says as she hugs me tightly. ‘Maybe Tom Hardy’s wife.’

  ‘You’d be great at that,’ I tell her. ‘And you’re an amazing friend.’

  ‘And you are going on your honeymoon on your own,’ she squeaks, unable to believe the words coming out of her mouth.

  ‘I am,’ I say, unable to believe the words coming out of mine.

  I am, though. I am going on my honeymoon, completely on my own.

  3

  The first thing I do is tear down the ‘Welcome Home Mr & Mrs’ banner that is hanging above our front door. At best it’s bloody embarrassing, at worst it’s serving as a sort of weird celebration of my heartbreak, which I just don’t need right now.

  I cast my mind back to when we bought this house, two years ago. We’d been together for a couple of years so I (thought) knew we were happy together, but this was my first big, real, adult thing, and I was terrified.

  I wouldn’t say my twenties were the finest example of maturity. I met Ali through mutual friends when I was twenty-one. I believe she was twenty-eight at the time, but she says she’s twenty-eight now and, as her best friend, I will always swear it’s true. I had a few friends, but I didn’t have a best friend. I know that sounds kind of immature, but I don’t mean it like that. I mean, I had plenty of people who I could call friends, people I could hang out with and have fun, but I didn’t have that one special person I could rely on, who I could tell anything to. No one I could count on in times of crisis, like needing a shoulder to cry on when you catch your lying, cheating, bastard fiancé kissing one of your least favourite friends inside a maze on your wedding day. You know, pretty standard stuff.

  Before I met Daniel, we used to spend almost all of our time together. We rented a flat together, we’d shop together, lunch together – we’d enjoy wild nights out and girly nights in. Of course, all that had to change when I met Daniel – it’s just all part of growing up, right?

  Making more time for my boyfriend meant less time for my friend, but no less than your average person would have taken for their friends. And while Ali didn’t mind that I had a boyfriend, she did mind that it was Daniel. I figured they just weren’t really each other’s cup of tea. Ali is a wild-child party girl with a penchant for short skirts and shorter relationships. Daniel works in recruitment and spends his spare time playing golf or watching football. Perhaps I should’ve trusted my friend’s judgement when she said he wasn’t right for me. That just because he was safe and didn’t mess me around, he wasn’t a smart choice for marriage. But life isn’t a rom-com. I didn’t expect to have everything in common with him, or for him to come home from work with massive bouquets of flowers, or to whisk me away on romantic weekends. That’s not reality, is it? I just loved him, and that was all that mattered to me. It doesn’t sound as if Dear Daniel was as content as I was; he had to go out and find more.

  I stuff the banner into the wheelie bin and push it to the end of the drive. As I get there, I curse myself. Why did I do that? I mean, I know why I did that, and it was definitely on autopilot, but I did it because in the back of my mind I know that I’m going away and that the rubbish collection is this afternoon, and that Daniel will forget to put it out, because he clearly forgot this morning.

  I shake my head as I walk back towards the house, a house that was supposed to be my dream house.

  We bought our cute little semi in the suburbs with big ideas. We were going to extend it, which would usually come up when we talked about having babies, when we’d talk about what names we liked and laughed about what kind of parents we’d be. Daniel said he’d turn one of the rooms into a massive office for me, where I could hang my book covers on the walls and glide around on my ergonomic desk chair to reach the different ends of my massive desk. We haven’t got round to it yet, because after we bought the place (spoiler: buying houses is expensive) and started doing up the rooms we already had, like the kitchen and the bathroom that were both in desperate need of work, my office wound up quite low down the to-do list.

  I pause for thought.

  We hadn’t got around to doing my office yet, not haven’t. I forgot to change the tense because in all the crap buzzing around in my head, I temporarily forgot that, as well as no longer having a fiancé, my home situation is going to drastically change too. One of us needs to leave, and I don’t want to give up my home that I’ve been working so hard on, but then again, I don’t know if I can handle the financial burden of a house still in need of renovations, a mortgage, all the bills – not on an author’s salary, which cannot be predicted from one month to the next.

  Inside the door, our suitcases are waiting for us. I look at Daniel’s suitcase with all the disgust I’d give to the man himself. I begrudge every second I spent booking this honeymoon for him. Every trip to the shops to buy him the things he needed. I’m so pissed off that I packed his case for him. Not just because I’m realising that I did everything for this wedding, but because of the implication. I thought he was just lazy or out of his depth. Instead, it seems as if he just really, really didn’t care. That he was too caught up in Eva to even think about what the rest of our lives together was going to look like.

  I turn my nose up and snub his stupid suitcase, heading into the dining room (where my tiny work desk is squashed in) and retrieve my laptop and charger. I place them inside my carry-on bag, just in case I need a distraction on my solo flight. Then I head into our newly finished bathroom – and when I say newly finished, I mean the grouting around the bath wasn’t even dry when I wanted to have a bath last week.

  Looking in the
mirror gives me a fright. Who is that person staring back at me? That sad-looking woman with the bright red eyes (they’re usually green, I swear), with make-up smeared all over her face and snot still running from her nose – because, honestly, I don’t even know what to do about it, it just keeps coming and coming.

  People always tell me that I don’t look my age. I’ve always wondered whether it’s just down to the unique sense of style that may be exclusively mine. I have a real fondness for strange accessories – kooky stuff that you don’t find on the high-street, like necklaces with a doll’s eye hanging from the chain (which actually closes when you lie down) or earrings made to look like fairground fish in bags of water. It’s hard to look your (nearly) thirty-two years of age when you have fairground fish earrings.

  I’m an above average 5´ 6˝ and thanks to my pre-wedding diet I managed to rein in my curves a little, which left me feeling more confident, but still suitably ‘thicc’, as the kids say. I was so full of confidence this morning, so excited to have my picture taken in my beautiful dress. Now I’m just looking at this crying monster in the mirror and wondering whether, without the make-up, the long blonde hair and all the distracting accessories, I really do look my age, whether the little lines I’m starting to notice around my eyes are beginning to show, whether my natural boobs are lower than they used to be. God, I could look in the mirror and find fault with myself for hours right now if I had the time.

  I grab a face wipe and begin to remove the 150 pounds face I had carefully applied by an incredibly skilled make-up artist just a couple of hours ago. At some point, during my initial hysterics, I have turned myself into a Picasso portrait. I have eyeliner on my chin, lipstick on my forehead – the oh-so-subtle shimmer that was applied to my eyelids has somehow bred, covering every inch of my face, making me look like a sad red disco ball. My hair still looks flawless, at least, with my beautiful, long blonde fishtail plait still in place, hanging down from one side of my face. So not a complete waste of money, hey?