20
Sam was fifteen minutes late and so they sat in the hubbub of the black-and-white tiled dining room with untouched menus, an Aperol Spritz and a Negroni. Harriet had expected this to feel awkward, but the buzz of voices and the residual hysteria from vanquishing the witch seemed to carry them through ordering and waiting for drinks to be delivered.
‘Dunno how anyone can drink those things. A Tizer-flavoured migraine in a glass,’ Cal said, affably, nodding to Harriet’s Aperol.
‘You suggested it!’
‘Ladies like ’em,’ Cal said, injecting enough irony into it to get away with it. ‘So,’ he added, ‘the real question is: did you really say yes to marrying that man and then change your mind?’
‘Oh,’ Harriet said, starting to sweat a little, ‘I didn’t change my mind.’ She’d not dwelt ’til now on the extent of what Cal had just learned. She outlined being Shanghai-ed in the Dales.
‘Gruesome. That’s not “will you marry me?” as a question. That’s someone who thinks your “yes” is a mere formality, if you’ve not even gamed a no.’
Cal had got it in one.
Harriet couldn’t believe it had taken until now to comprehend: had she agreed to a wedding under duress, and then felt committed to go through with it – newsflash – Jon would’ve been fine with that. That’s amore!
Harriet was yearning to ask about Cal’s proposal, and didn’t dare. For all she knew, it’d snap them out of the friendly mood like she’d fired a gun. She was quite enjoying becoming some variant of honorary, pretend friend to Cal Clarke tonight. She felt she knew why she’d scored an invite, despite his initial misgivings – it was the more surprising, interesting choice.
The funny thing about going to so many weddings is you got to observe society’s archetypes, and she instinctively felt she knew Cal’s – the social media Gatsbys. If they didn’t marry in Italy or Ibiza, they wed in their hometown in a repurposed brewery or swimming pool or cinema.
Glossily attractive, raucously fun, their gaggle of friends were always as upwardly mobile and photogenic as they were. They didn’t apparently operate a brutal caste system, they weren’t mean girls or boys, but equally they didn’t consort much with the ordinary.
Their attitude was ‘why not?’ They bowled into work straight off the Eurostar after weekend bacchanals, they asked unabashedly for promotions, took chances with reckless abandon and moved on without remorse. They had that knack for making life sparkle, for silvering its edges, as her gran used to say.
They usually had a large disposable income, but were a tribe distinct from the ex-public schoolies who dressed like young Royals. They weren’t the rich kids, they were high-profile through force of personality – gregarious, bright, ambitious.
You’d think parenthood would slow them down, but it usually didn’t: they’d be the couple at the wedding shoehorned into narrow designer outfits, who still looked twenty-seven, doing a sneaky line in the loos anyway and last on the dancefloor after obliging in-laws whisked Rafe or Coco back to the hotel for them.
Taking the lodger out to dinner and getting the lowdown on her romantic dramas – it was charming, it was gracious, and it might be entertaining. Why not? The one thing social media Gatsbys detested was being normie and boring.
When he arrived, Sam looked gratifyingly pleased at the sight of Harriet and she was similarly pleased, then recalled she was considered ‘fit’. She’d have to be wary: she liked the loose-limbed, garrulous Sam, but she didn’t want to be a notch on the spare room bedpost nor an unwanted complication to her landlord during her brief stay, either. A period of celibate wilderness suited her fine. Nil by woo.
But Harriet didn’t imagine she’d be an object of interest for very long. She was a shade too old, and a touch too Trad Yorkshire Lass dull, for either of these two. Cal had an upcoming birthday and Harriet had overheard Sam compiling an invite list which was full of hot girl names, like Ashley and Mia.
Over plates of fritto misto, pizzetta and lasagne, Sam got the tale of Hurricane Jacqueline. Even though Cal’s barging in had been a risk, it had perhaps been a more finely judged one than it initially looked. If Harriet had hotly objected to his interference in her private life – if it had struck the wrong note, backfired – Cal could’ve pointed to the fact he’d written off Jon’s assault as a favour, recently. She’d bet he was a very good political journalist. He probably had an incredible second-act career as a spin doctor.
‘Far be it for me to be the bluebottle in the carbonara,’ Sam said, and Harriet could spot the schoolfriend DNA with Cal in the way they sounded alike, ‘if you’ve insulted his mum, isn’t this making the likelihood he’s going to punch you again very high?’
Cal put his head on one side and chewed, nodding reflectively. How refreshing for his self-interest to come second.
‘I’d not actually thought of that,’ Cal said, after swallowing. ‘Harriet, do I need to hire a bodyguard? I’d quite like to turn up at the Post with a six-foot-four man in sunglasses called Trey.’
‘I think Jon’s going to be fuming, but I also raised legal action and job peril when I saw him after last time. On balance, I don’t think Jon will dare turn up again.’
The last week or so had proved that yes, Jon was capable of losing control, but not when his livelihood was at stake. That said something about how much of a loss of control it really was.
‘If you say so. I might check out the front window whenever the doorbell goes, all the same.’
‘Astute.’
Sam and Cal were from a nice bit of North Yorkshire, it turned out, but went to a comp. This satisfyingly confirmed Harriet’s assessment of them: more well-to-do than her, as implied by their lack of strong accents, but not otherworldly so. Sam worked in some sort of troubleshooting role for Leeds City Council.
‘Any weddings coming up, Harriet?’ Sam said, and Cal looked determinedly at the rubble of some deep-fried zucchini.
‘Danny and Fergus, this Friday, at Leeds Town Hall.’
‘Nice. Here’s hoping both grooms stay all day,’ Sam said, doing a fingers-crossed, teeth-grit gesture.
Harriet laughed, while not knowing if she should, and Cal rolled his eyes.
‘Oh, hah hah. We all know I’ve got the section of my Wikipedia subheaded Controversy covered. If the waiter comes while I’m in the gents, I’ll have an espresso, thanks.’
Timely call of the bladder, Harriet thought.
‘Notice that our Calvin assumes he’ll have a Wikipedia,’ Sam said, once Cal had gone, and Harriet properly laughed this time.
‘In fairness here, I should tell you he’s not that guy.’
‘What guy?’
‘The one who traumatised a woman for life, in public.’
‘Ah.’ Harriet didn’t know what to say and hesitated. ‘He kind of is that guy though?’
‘Technically yes, he IS that guy. But he’s not that kind of guy.’
Harriet felt this might be an argument of creeps the world over. Yes I Did The Thing But I’m Not Defined By The Thing, Like Those Other Guys Who Also Did The Thing.
‘The unfortunate thing is, he’s a hopeless romantic,’ Sam continued. ‘Or more of a hopeful romantic, I guess. He has cherished ideals.’
Oh sure. Seeing a wedding day through not among them.
‘Was he hopeless or hopeful that day?’
‘Heh. Both?’
‘I wouldn’t presume to know what went on, obviously,’ Harriet said, checking herself. She didn’t want to lose what was left of her bed and board.
‘You’re not curious?’ Sam said.
‘Erm … yes, of course, but also not really. It feels too much like glorying in the worst day of someone else’s life, to be honest.’
‘You’re very principled,’ Sam said. ‘Gossip doesn’t usually involve celebrating people’s best days.’
‘True. Except the story about a lad called Errol at my school who got caught in flagrante delicto with a Lollipop Lady in an empty office. She left her lollipop sign propped outside the door. STOP. Haha.’
‘There’s probably a joke here about being “hi viz” but I’m too classy to make it,’ Sam said.
‘I thought you were brave that day, for what it’s worth,’ Harriet added. ‘I’m not sure I could’ve done it. You’re a good friend to accept that being visited upon you.’
‘He did offer to stay and tell her himself, to be fair to him,’ Sam said. ‘I knew it’d be a hundred times worse if he did. I brought it on myself, to some extent.’
‘Oh right!’ Reality, as usual, turned out to be shade more complicated than it looked. ‘I thought Cal just informed you he was off?’
‘He did, once we’d agreed I was the better messenger,’ Sam hesitated. ‘I was probably keeping explanations brief, at the time. Have you met Kit?’
‘Only when she hired me and during the bridal shoot; she was pretty preoccupied.’
Sam glanced up, warily, and muttered, ‘Like Errol, we best stop.’
A second passed, then Cal pulled out his seat.
‘No espresso, and my ears burning. As I expected.’
Harriet smiled thinly and thought, you are a very unknown quantity. All in all, she was happy for him to stay that way.