The Armchair Bride (7 page)

Nine

Sharon is waiting at the bar and it crosses my mind that I never even mentioned the fact she returned after Christmas with a choppy short haircut. What sort of friend am I to not have the decency to say how much her new look works?
Memo to self. Stop being so self obsessed. Care a bit more about others.

She’s on her mobile and a invitingly huge vodka and tonic waits for me.

After Andy, she’s my closest friend. I’m God Mother to her daughter Bethany and seem to spend half my wages over compensating for being a rubbish friend by buying her expensive - though impractical - gifts. Sharon accepts them with good grace. ‘She’ll grow into it’ has become something of a mantra.

‘What a day!’  I grab the next bar stool.

‘You’re telling me,’ she says. ‘That
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
thing is madness. Finally, the marketing department are earning their keep.’

‘Actually,’ I say with a casual shrug. ‘I thought of it.’

‘Bloody hell Lisa! You ought to be upstairs demanding a rise.’

‘I don’t know about that.’

‘Well I do.’

She glances up as Brian walks in.

‘Here’s your chance,’ she says and my heart leaps into my throat.

‘It was only an idea,’ I say. ‘It could have gone either way.’

‘Rubbish. You deserve some reward. The least he could do is buy you a drink.’

‘Do we have to call him over? He’ll start talking shop.’

Sharon looks at me and then at Brian who seems to be making a big deal of hanging up his jacket.

‘I suppose so,’ she says glumly. ‘I thought we could tap him for a few rounds.’

‘Maybe later if he’s still here. So now, what about you? What’s going on in your life?’

‘Motherhood,’ she says in a voice I find hard to read.

‘You make it sound like a chore.’

‘Don’t get me wrong. It really is all I’ve ever wanted and I love Bethany to bits, but even just coming here for an hour after work has been like arranging a military manoeuvre. I had to sweet talk Bob into feeding her and making sure she has a bath. He wanted to play squash tonight, so now he’ll have one on him when I get in. The thing is we hardly ever see each other these days.’

‘Things have changed. You’re a mother now.’

‘I’m sick of people reminding me,’ she says and then looks fed up. ‘That makes me sound like such a bitch.’

‘You’re probably tired. I would be. I’m a complete cow if I don’t get eight hours a night.’

‘Eight hours ...’ She sounds wistful. ‘Eight minutes would be a treat.’

‘You’re right,’ I say to change the subject. ‘We ought to do more together. I’m the one who ought to be making more effort. I didn’t think how strange it can be when you’ve just had a child.’

‘Well now you come to mention it, you have been acting a bit strange.’

‘Strange?’

‘You’ve turned into a recluse. Every time I ask you say you’re too busy.’

‘That’s not fair. I thought we were going for a pizza later this week.’

‘When exactly? You keep saying we
should
go out together, but that’s as far as it goes. It never
actually
happens.’

I can’t think of anything to say. Sharon takes a deep breath.    

‘You said yourself you don’t know why you keep paying for gym membership. You haven’t been in months. Apart from Andy, nobody ever sees you outside of work. What are you doing with your time?’

‘You know how it is. It’s winter. Nobody feels like going out in the winter.’

Sharon’s face lights up. ‘You little devil!’ she cries. ‘You’re seeing someone aren’t you?’

‘No.’ I gasp and notice Brian heading our way.

‘You’ve gone bright red. You can’t fool me. You’re not spending every night on your own in front of that computer screen. Armchair Bride indeed.’

‘What?’

I’ve never told Sharon about Andy’s nickname for me. I’ve never told anyone.

‘The Armchair Bride,’ she says. ‘That’s what everyone calls you isn’t it?’

‘Not to the best of my knowledge. Who’s
everyone
anyway?’

‘Everyone at work, the people in the hairdressers, at least two of the girls at Latte-tude and my mum.’

‘Your
mother
calls me The Armchair Bride?’

Sharon sees the look of horror on my face and has the good grace to blush.

‘It’s just a nickname, Lisa. We all have them. Don’t think I don’t know you all called me the slug when I was eight months pregnant.’ She takes a sip of her drink. ‘I think that trying to find out what happened to the people you went to school with is perfectly normal, but you really ought to make sure you don’t lose touch with the real world.’

Sharon smiles, but her words sting. I want to stand and leave, but how will that look? She’s right. I
have
shut myself away. After my last boyfriend ditched me long distance, I feel like something inside died.

Gavin and I were, I thought, the perfect couple. We were together, but never on top of each other. I fought against my natural urges to monitor his every move. He was a DJ and one with an ever-growing reputation. Whenever I saw him chat to a girl after a gig, I managed to stop myself from rushing up and asking who she was. His work meant he had to mix with the beautiful people and I accepted that, from time to time , he might run into impossibly blonde girls in short skirts and too much make-up. It didn’t make any odds. He always made sure his perfectly proportioned gym-toned body was next to mine each night.

Gavin and Lisa became a brand. We were in huge demand, juggling party invites with dinners at swish eateries, and as his fame notched up, we got to share tables with soap stars and c-list musicians. I offered to mastermind his career, and used my theatre contacts to persuade skeptical promoters to take a punt on his talents. I talked ticket agencies into carrying flyers or posters for his gigs. When he went to DJ at the opening night for a new club in Ibiza, I thought nothing of it.

Until he phoned to say it had been fun, but he wasn’t coming back.

For a while afterwards I still went to the same places with the same people and told myself and anyone who asked that Gavin was busy in Ibiza until the truth began to spread. I pretended it didn’t bother me. It did. It bothered me deeply.

That’s when it all started. I’d been sitting at home, feeling sorry for myself and looking at photos on the computer when I decided to look up an old friend. I’d long since lost her phone number and all I had was her parent’s address. I typed her details into a search engine and found myself on PlaceTheirFace. And this time I stayed. It wasn’t just a site where you could giggle at how fat people had got or how sad their jobs sounded. Not that I was a super model with a high-flying career. It sparked off the need to know what everyone I once knew had made of their lives.

As I trudge towards forty, I
need
to know I’m not the only one making a terrible mess of things. It hurts to learn that by society’s standards, I more or less am.

Except for Helen, she’s always been my one salvation. Although she was dating Jamie, she insisted it was a bit of fun and that they were more like best friends. Her recent email telling me otherwise was a bolt from the blue.

It’s only now, in the bar with Sharon that I understand what has become of me. I’ve stopped going out. I’ve hidden myself away. I deserve the nickname.

I am The Armchair Bride
.

‘Can I get you two ladies a drink?’ Brian says.

Does he call me The Armchair Bride too? I can cope with a couple of people from the nearby greasy spoon having a chuckle at my expense, but not my boss. Was that disastrous dinner invite brought about by sympathy? Was it something they’d all cooked up together, something to get me out of the house on a Saturday night?

‘I’ll have a dry white wine and Lisa is on vodka,’ Sharon says.

I get down from my stool. ‘Actually I was about to go home.’

Sharon’s not having a bar of it.

‘Brian’s very kindly offered to part with some of his huge pay packet to treat two impoverished box office types. It’d be rude not to accept.’

I give a resigned smile and hold up my empty glass.

‘Let’s find a table,’ Sharon says and leaves Brian to order.

‘So what have you heard about him and Nina?’ she says when we sit.

‘As far as I know they
were
just friends.’

‘I’ve heard The Rottweiler is divorcing him. Chucked him out and put all his clothes in bin bags. He’s staying in some seedy hotel.’

‘The Travel Lodge is hardly seedy,’ I say without thinking.

‘How do
you
know where he’s staying?’

Shit! How exactly do I know? Oh that’s right, he told me over lunch in the Laurel Tree, in between telling me about how he was trapped in a loveless marriage with a woman who still talked to her dead child. Now I remember.

‘I heard Angela gossiping,’ I say. ‘She might be wrong.’

‘You know something don’t you?’

‘What?’

‘You went to their house last week for dinner. A couple of days later Audrey chucks him out. You must have noticed something was going on.’

Brian puts down our drinks and lets me off the hook, but Sharon’s expression assures me the conversation is far from over.

‘So what brings you two out on a Monday evening?’ he says.

‘I’m having an hour off from married life and she’s having time off being an old maid,’ Sharon says and holds up her drink. ‘Cheers.’

We clink glasses.

‘Actually that’s not true, I love married life,’ she says, ‘and what about you? What brings you here? Won’t Audrey be worried about where you’ve got to?’

‘I doubt she’s even giving me a second thought,’ he says with a simple shrug. ‘Lisa can tell you. The state of my marriage is hardly what you might call harmonious, is it?’

I want the ground to swallow me. Brian’s eyes appear glazed. This isn’t his first drink.

‘Really?’ Sharon says, determined to dig deeper.

‘You can tell her,’ Brian slurs. ‘I’ve got no secrets from my staff. I am an open book.’

‘I really must go to the loo,’ I say and run for the door, before Sharon has a chance to offer to join me.

Away from the others, I call Andy’s mobile.

‘Come and rescue me. I’m in the Stage Door with Sharon and Brian. It isn’t going well.’

‘Oh Lisa! Can’t you sort this out yourself ? I’m on a date.’

‘I need your help.’

‘You’re a big girl, you can look after yourself.’

‘I know about the Armchair Bride stuff.’

‘Oh! Well, sorry about that. It sort of slipped out.’

‘To everyone within a six mile radius of the theatre?’

‘You know how chatty I can be.’

‘You owe me.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Payback time is now.’

‘But I’m supposed to be meeting Gerry from Feast of Eden. He promised he’d show me how to butter baps.’

‘I’m not in a good place right now, so smutty jokes don’t help.’

‘Oh very well, I’ll be there in ten minutes. But only for one drink, then you have to come with me and apologise to Gerry.’

‘Just get here.’

I hang up as Sharon barges in.

‘That was Andy,’ I say. ‘Said he’s cooked dinner.’

‘I wondered where you’d gone,’ she said. ‘Brian’s in a right state. It’s solid gold some of the stuff he’s coming out with.’

‘It feels a bit mean to let him talk like that.’

‘When did you get a conscience?’

‘I know how it feels to split up with someone. He probably doesn’t want to talk about it.’

‘Gavin, right?’

Sharon hands me the perfect get out. I grab it with both hands.

‘Yes, I suppose so. Seeing Brian like that, reminded me of how I was back then. Denying it hurt, having a laugh when all I wanted to do was scream the place down.’

‘I’m sorry. I should have known.’ Sharon hugs me. ‘You go back out there and get to work changing the subject. I’ll be with you in a minute.’

‘Andy’s coming to rescue me.’

‘Good plan. I’ll escape with you. Nothing worse than a maudlin man, especially when it’s your boss.’

She grins and lets herself into a cubicle. I wash my hands, check my hair and take a deep breath.

Back at the table, Brian is slumped over his drink, but as I sit down, he looks up and belches.

‘Oops, sorry, Lisa. Not very polite of me.’

‘That’s OK.’

‘Sorry about before as well.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Making a bit of a twat of myself in front of Susan.’

‘Her name’s Sharon and don’t worry about it.’

‘But I
do
worry. I worry what people think. I worry what you think.’

He stares and I don’t know what to say.

‘You’ve had too much to drink. Shall I get someone to call you a cab?’

‘It’s still early.
We
could go out somewhere. I owe you dinner.’

‘It might be best if you go home.’

‘
Home?
Where exactly is that. She’s chucked me out. So what are you suggesting? Should I go back to the Travel Lodge and spend the night in my sad little room watching the porn channel?’

I’ve never seen this side of Brian. After lunch the other day and now this, I don’t know him at all.

Sharon returns and Brian grabs her hand.

‘Lisa here thinks it’s time for me to go, but I want to get us all one more round of drinks first. You don’t mind do you?’

She looks at me for an answer and I shrug, unable to force her to be the bad guy and break up the party.

‘Whatever,’ she says and he struggles to his feet to sway to the bar.

‘He is absolutely wasted,’ she says.

‘That’s what I was trying to tell him.’

‘We’ll make this our last one and then get him into a taxi.’

‘Right. Andy will be here soon.’

‘He can help us carry him.’

“He won’t be much use, his arm is in plaster.’

‘Why? What happened?’

‘Long story.’

‘Does it involve a man?’

‘Yes and a wardrobe.’

‘Best I don’t know. Speak of the devil.’

Andy drops his coat onto a chair and looks around. ‘Where’s the boss?’

‘He’s insisted on getting another drink,’ I say. ‘Quick, see if you can get to the bar and stop him so we can go.’

‘Is he
very
drunk?’

‘Off his face.’

‘Fabulous.’

Andy calls across the bar to Brian. ‘Pint of lager and a double whiskey chaser for me, gorgeous!’

Brian grins and waves. I fume.

‘How is the lovely Bethany?’ he says and Sharon rummages in her bag for a photo. I look up to see Brian struggle to balance a tray of drinks.

‘Here we go,’ he says. ‘Pint and a chaser for Adam, wine for the yummy mummy, a huge fuck-off whiskey for moi and last but by no means least a vodka and tonic for the Armchair Bride.’

Everyone stops talking and guilty looks are exchanged. Even my boss appears to know I’m an antisocial freak who spends her every waking hour tracking down classmates and fretting about the ticking of her biological clock. Sharon finds something interesting on the carpet and even Andy appears embarrassed.

‘Well, cheers everyone,’ Brian says and downs his whiskey in one.

‘Whoops, best get another, greedy me,’ he giggles and is off again to the bar.

‘Shouldn’t we say something, tell him he’s had enough?’ Sharon says.

‘Why not tell him the Armchair Bride thinks he’s had enough?’ I say.

‘Oh yeah, well about that.’ Sharon stares at the carpet again. ‘It sort of slipped out at the New Year’s Eve thing.’

‘What, you’d all had a few drinks and all of a sudden the topic of me being single came up?’