Rosebank 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
www.penguin.com
First published 2001
21
Copyright © Adele Parks-Smith, 2001
All rights reserved
The moral right of the author has been asserted
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subjectctext to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
ISBN-13: 978-0-14-192523-3
For my Significant Exes
1
‘What an inauspicious start to married life,’Josh comments.
‘Is there such a thing as an auspicious start?’ I ask. He grins at me and Issie scowls.
‘Josh, what’s the proper name for a squashed cube?’ I ask, pointing to the little blue box of confetti. ‘They should redesign this packaging,’ I add.
‘No!’ Issie looks horrified, as if I’d suggested exposing my bikini line to the vicar. ‘Weddings are about tradition.’
‘Even if tradition means tacky and predictable?’ Two big sins in my book.
‘By definition,’ she defends. Then she leaps forward to jostle for a front position to catch the bouquet. She nervously hops from one foot to the other, her sleek, blonde, shoulder-length hair brushing her right shoulder, then her left, then her right again. Issie is a fidget. I am a still person. She continually rubs her hands together, taps her feet, jerks her knee. She once read that this constant nervous activity uses thirty calories an hour, more than a Mars bar a day, pounds in a year, a whole dress size in a lifetime. Her constant unfocused activity strikes me as a fairly accurate metaphor for how she lives her life.
I don’t try to catch the flowers. I don’t try for two reasons. One, Issie will lynch me if I catch them. She’s spent the entire reception spiking the drinks of single women, in the hope that this will diminish their coordination. And two, it’s bollocks.
No really, the whole marriage thing is bollocks. I mean I’m as happy as the next one to have an excuse to wear a hat and drink champagne. Generally, wedding receptions are a laugh, a big, fun party. But that’s as far as it goes for me. Beyond that, it’s bollocks. I’m not a man. And I’m not a lesbian. I’m not even a man hater – Josh is one of my best friends and he’s a man. I’m a single, successful, attractive, 33-year-old, heterosexual. I just don’t want to get married. Ever.
Clear?
Issie doesn’t catch the flowers and she looks as though the disappointment will break her.
‘A drink, Cas? Issie?’ asks Josh, in an effort to cheer her up. He doesn’t wait for a response but turns back to the hotel and heads directly for the bar. He knows that we’ll willingly join him for a drink Martini-style: any time, any place, anywhere. We elbow through the elegant crowds. This morning they sat demurely in church pews but they have now abandoned any semblance of civilization. The exit of the bride, the groom and the oldies leaves the rest of the guests free to indulge in what brought us to the wedding in the first place. The opportunity for some hedonistic, no strings attached, unashamed sex.
I selected my target in the church, before the ‘I dos’. I relocate him. He’s tall, dark and handsome. Admittedly, he doesn’t look that bright. Rather too in love with himself to allow room for anyone else. Perfect. Deep and meaningful is an over-rated phenomenon. Shallow and meaningless but well endowed gets such a hard press.
It’s important to pick out a target early on in the proceedings and it’s important to let him know he’s it. I smile. Directly at him. If at this point he looks around and tries to locate the recipient of my smile, I’ll instantly go off him. I like my men to be arrogant enough to know that I’m flirting with them.
He passes the test by grinning back at me. Only turning to catch his reflection in the mirror that hangs behind the bar. He grins again. This time at himself. The difference in appreciation is fractional. I don’t mind. Vanity is a safety net. I flick my hair and turn away. Job done.
Issie and Josh are still fighting their way to the bar. I call them back.
‘What? I was nearly at the front,’ Issie complains.
‘Don’t worry, drinks are on their way,’ I assure.
‘Oh.’ She relaxes into the chintz chair. Josh lights a fag, trusting me. We are all familiar with my routine. Josh and Issie know all about me.
Josh is like a brother to me. We met aged seven over our suburban fences. It is this meeting that makes me believe in fate. We met when our families’ stars were crossing. His in the ascendant. Mine spiralling downwards.
That summer we shared Rubik’s cubes, cream soda and an uneasy sense of impending change. Our childish sixth sense told us that we were both powerless in the face of adult whim. The five-bedroom detached, in Esher, Surrey, that my mother and I had thought was a dream home turned out to be a temporary residence. That summer my father announced that he was in love with another woman and couldn’t live without her. My mother showed rare wit and emotional honesty by asking whether he’d prefer cremation or burial. My father moved out immediately following his announcement. I was to see him three more times in my life. A week later when he came to collect his records and he brought me a Lundby doll’s house (presumably to replace the real home he was destroying). A month later when he took me to the zoo (I cried the entire afternoon, saying that the animals behind the bars upset me. In fact, they didn’t, but I was determined that both my father and I would have a terrible afternoon – after all, my mother and I were having plenty of them). And the following Christmas (when I refused to open his present or sit on his knee). After that, he just sent Christmas and birthday cards, which petered out before I was ten. Josh’s seventh summer wasn’t great either: he was told that he was to be wrenched from his comfortable local primary school and prepped at the hallowed ground of Stowe. Thinking about it, perhaps it wasn’t so much a sixth sense. The prep-school prospectuses and the endless rows were a giveaway. Although very nearly entirely submerged in our own terror, we settled into an uneasy mutual sympathy that passed as companionship. Sulkily learning to rollerskate and eating raw gooseberries has an enormous bonding effect. I still think he got the best deal. At that time we had lived in identical homes, distinguishable only by the colour of the Formica on the kitchen units. I was never to live in anything so spacious again. He, in anything so compact. As a child I identified the difference. His father kept quiet about his affairs.
I suspect that our childish friendship, although intense in a sharing gobsmacker type of way, would have petered out except that we met again, aged twelve, at a county tennis tournament. Josh recognized that knowing a girl, any girl, would improve his standing at Stowe. I was attracted by his rounded vowels, and even at that early age had recognized that competition was healthy, a challenge that the boys at Westford Comprehensive rose to. It turned out that we still liked each other. We liked each other so much that Josh insisted on disappointing his
