23
Harriet was still brushing her teeth when Lorna rang the doorbell at ten to twelve the next day – she wasn’t usually punctual, let alone early, and Harriet feared this was an ominous sign about Lorna’s fervour for her mission.
She heard Cal let her in, and decided that as Lorna was being attended to, she’d do her mascara and find her bits and pieces for their excursion.
Minutes later, as Harriet came down the stairs, Lorna was laughing, and – rather disconcertingly – it was Lorna’s real laugh, earthy and guttural. Harriet had been so sure that Lorna would disapprove of Cal, she’d not even considered it could be otherwise. God’s sake, did Cal Clarke’s ability to beguile never end? Well, yes. Once you were in a white gown, in sight of a vicar.
‘You’ve got a friend! Who hasn’t punched me!’ Cal said, ready for a run, headphones round his neck, looking as fresh in his white t-shirt as a cleanly cut apple.
‘I was thinking about it, I won’t lie,’ Lorna said, hands in pockets of her dungarees, and she and Cal giggled conspiratorially together again.
For fuck’s sake.
‘Just checking I’ve got it right. Otley Road? The green frontage with the bay trees?’ Cal said.
Why was she encouraging him to go to her restaurant?!
‘That’s the one. If you don’t see me when you’re in, mention to the wait staff and if I’m in the kitchen, I’ll come out and say hi.’
‘Sounds great. Expect me soon, in my special bib.’
‘Shall we get off, then?’ Harriet said pertly to Lorna.
‘Nice to meet you,’ Cal said, as Harriet shepherded Lorna out of the house.
‘Ooh he’s dare I say, rather acceptable, isn’t he?’ Lorna said, behind stagey raised palm, as they wove round Harriet’s car on the driveway.
‘Hmmm yes, he’s personable but also the bastard jilter who wants me out, remember?’
That was a point, she’d done next to nothing to expedite that. Cal didn’t seem bothered but if she let it drag much longer it’d look like an empty promise.
‘Is there any context we don’t have, that could make him not guilty-guilty of running out on his own wedding? I’m suddenly keen to find exoneration. Let us not rush to judgement. It is only Christian.’
‘The fact I can’t think of what that could possibly be suggests no, don’t you think?’
‘Dismaying,’ Lorna said. ‘Very hard to find non-problematic crushes these days.’
Harriet had thought on what Cal’s acceptable reasons might be, after that conversation with Sam at Zucco, and concluded: 1. Of course his best friend said he was a nice guy, that is really the job description of a best friend and 2. There couldn’t be something Cal didn’t know, regards his decision to wed, until minutes before the vows. Even if Kristina was a nightmare, he still chose to (almost) marry her. It’s not as if grooms are picking up their phone messages, at that point. It was a cold-feet, bolt-spooking that showed when push came to shove, behind the seductive façade, Calvin Clarke could be incredibly ruthless. I hate Cal Clarke. Who has hostile graffiti in their own house?
It was a temperate day and they passed many artisan bakeries and bistros, people lunching on folding tables. Lorna huffed and Harriet braced for the standard tirade.
‘I understand pavement café culture in Paris, or Barcelona,’ Lorna started, and Harriet suppressed a smile. ‘Even Soho at a push. Not in Leeds on an arterial route with an Eddie Stobart wide load rumbling past, and a load of fag ash flying into my Eggs Benedict.’
‘As soon as The Dive gets a licence for a few tables you’ll be right into it.’
‘Of course, but that’s capitalism, which has nothing to do with good taste.’
Harriet had been mildly dreading this talking-to, so a combination of Lorna’s humour, sunshine and light exercise had put her in an unexpectedly positive frame of mind.
‘How do you do this?’ Lorna said, flushed and frowning at Harriet’s face, after they’d gone two hundred yards into the park. ‘You look like roses and soft-serve vanilla ice cream and I look like a sex case having a coronary outside court.’
Harriet hooted with laughter and then said: ‘Wait, wait – this is to butter me up before you have a right go, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, it is. Alright, run me through why you think writing to Scott’s fiancée telling her not to marry him isn’t completely fucking mad?’
‘It’s a moral obligation. It’s solidarity with other women. And I’m not telling her not to marry him. I’m enlightening her about him, before she does.’
‘That’s not how she’s going to see it though, is it? Before we even get on to how he’ll see it. What are you going to say?’
‘I’m telling her my story. Telling her the truth of what happened between me and Scott. No one ever told me what he was like. She deserves the warning I never got. Because I don’t doubt there were ones before me.’
‘It’s not like the mysteries of the human heart can be solved by leaving a stinker on Trustpilot though, is it? You think you’re going to pen her a letter saying your fiancé is a monster, and she’s going to write back first class and say aw thanks for the heads-up, doll, consider him binned?”
‘No. Of course not. I think she’ll more likely be angry and hate me for a while.’
Lorna frowned. ‘Glad some reality is intruding.’
‘But once she gets over that, she might start matching up my description with her experiences. It might be the encouragement she needs. You should’ve seen her outside that wedding, Lorna. She’s a hostage. She was me.’
‘You know how advice works, don’t you? The only advice people ever take is the advice they want to hear.’
‘So she doesn’t take it. Maybe it’ll be a year, five years down the line, and she’ll remember my letter, and it’ll count. It’ll give her the back-up she needs to have faith in her own judgement. Honestly, I cannot emphasise how much he screws with that.’
‘I dunno.’ Lorna looked away and Harriet saw the pinched look of scepticism on her best friend’s face. ‘Look Harriet, I can’t argue with your strength of feeling and I admire you wanting to protect her. If I may be brutal, however, would such a letter have worked on you?’
She kicked at a stone underfoot. ‘I don’t know. I think so. Maybe not immediately. It would’ve by the end.’
‘The end was the end anyway. That’s why.’
They both reached a natural pause and had to hold fire to let a gang of students in activewear and jelly shoes past before they could resume debate.
‘You don’t think this is some scheme to split them up and get him back?’ Harriet said, with considerable difficulty. She didn’t want to ask this, but it had to be addressed to be dismissed. She didn’t want to know and yet couldn’t not know how badly compromised Lorna still thought she was. Her years with Scott had stripped her of credibility. ‘I promise you I’d not go near Scott Dyer again in a million more lifetimes.’
‘Uh …’ Lorna considered this, and Harriet squirmed, as she’d hoped for an emphatic of course not! The trouble with best friends who tell you the truth is that they tell you the truth. ‘I don’t know, to be honest. That whole period of your life was impenetrable to me. How hard you fell, how fast you fell. How impossible you were to reach during.’
Lorna welled up all of a sudden and Harriet put her hand on her arm. Lorna wiped at her eyes. ‘It was like the way people talk about loved ones in an addiction spiral. The addicts pass a point where you can’t help them, they won’t let you. All you can do is watch and wait and hope to God they decide to save themselves. It made me truly understand what it means to feel helpless.’
‘I’m so sorry for what I put you through,’ Harriet said, thickly, starting to tear up as well, and swallowing it back.
Lorna said brusquely: ‘Don’t be. You weren’t the one putting me through it. It took balls to get out. Right. Where were we …? No, OK, this isn’t about the risk of you falling for Scott again. It’s because this is one huge wasp’s nest and every instinct I have says don’t poke a stick in it, to no obvious benefit whatsoever. Is this revenge? I get it, if so, but it’s going to rebound. He has to live the rest of his life as Scott Dyer, that’s his punishment.’
‘It’s not revenge. Helping his fiancée, now I’m on the outside … it’s an exorcism for me.’
‘Could be more like a saviour complex.’
‘Courage calls to courage everywhere,’ Harriet said.
‘I know that’s a neat slogan on a Tatty Devine necklace but I’m not sure it has tons of practical application,’ Lorna said.
‘It’s from a Suffragettes speech!’
‘And this is the horse you’re throwing yourself under.’
‘Seriously, Lorna,’ Harriet stopped, to catch her breath, and to make sure the family with the young kids on scooters had passed. ‘Who stops these men? How do we stop them? Scott never hit me, he never physically attacked me or hurt me in any way where I can point to a scar. But he demolished me. If I could go to the police, I would.’
‘I think you can go to the police over what he did now.’
‘Not five years after the fact. Not with my job either, probably. “Associated with scandal” isn’t what people want from a wedding photographer. All we really have is warning each other. Who am I, if I don’t warn this woman? Ultimately, it’s as much for me as for her. If I leave another woman to suffer Scott Dyer because I’m frightened of intervening, then nothing has really changed. If I don’t do it, Lorna, then I’m still scared of him. That’s just a fact.’
Lorna exhaled, heavily, and a light breeze whipped at their hair.
‘I guess I see that. I also see you’ve made up your mind and it will eat away at you if you don’t do it.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Let’s say you send this letter, and his fiancée leaves him. You think if Scott knows you’re the cause, he’ll take that lying down?’
‘Maybe not, but what can he do? I don’t have a fiancé for him to cost me.’
‘Mmm. Does he have any photos of you that you’d not want posted publicly? Or videos?’
‘Oh, no! You know me, I like to take the pictures, not be in them. There was nothing like that at all. I’m glad to say that was never Scott’s thing.’
‘Good. I’m surprised you told me beforehand, by the way. You’re a victim of your own honesty. You could’ve posted your letter and said guess what! while I roared.’
Harriet laughed. ‘I’m honest and … to send it, I need your help.’
‘Oh for fu— I’m not a pigeon.’
‘It’s easy. I’ll only be able to find details for the fiancée through social media. I’m sure Scott is on Facebook and he’s got me blocked. He won’t have blocked you. If you can look him up, maybe you can find out her last name from what you can see on his profile?’
Lorna opened her phone and found the app. ‘Scott Dyer … D-Y-E-R, right?’ she murmured. ‘Here we go. Six Mutual Friends. Fucking hell. Six people who need to get a fucking clue … In A Relationship With … Marianne Wharmby.’
‘That’s her!’
‘This look like who you saw?’
Lorna held her phone up and Harriet inspected Scott’s profile photo – him and Leeds’ answer to Reese Witherspoon. They were in bowler hats, holding handlebar moustaches on sticks up against their upper lips, at some fancy-dress party or wedding photobooth.
‘Yup, that’s her.’
Nevertheless, the larky image gave Harriet a moment’s doubt. What if they were happy? She told herself: were the photographs online of you and Scott representative of any private truth? If they’re happy, Scott can spend an unpleasant evening owning up to his past, and they’ll move on. If nothing in the letter rings a bell for her, it’ll have hugely diminished impact.
Lorna frowned and did some more tapping. ‘Let’s see how much Marianne has set public …’
‘Remember not to accidentally Like anything,’ Harriet said, nervously.
‘I’m not going to accidentally Like anything, I am not a nana … Oh you are IN LUCK. Or completely unlucky, depending on the wisdom of your barmpot plan to contact her. She’s a senior stylist at Estilo. That new salon up on that side street by Waterstones, isn’t it?’
‘I think so … Roxy will know.’
‘I guess you book in for a style consultation and say, never mind choppy layers to create a sense of movement, your boy’s a cunt?’
They both laughed, and then Lorna’s face fell to deadpan.
‘Seriously though, I still think this is mad.’
‘You know what’s most likely to happen? Absolutely nothing.’
‘Believe it when I don’t see it.’