28
‘Where to start … alright, so. By the time of the wedding, I’d been with Kit nearly three years.’
‘Can I ask a stupid, minor question,’ Harriet said, ‘When I met Kristina she told me she was always Kristina, “never Kris or Krissy”, but you and Sam call her Kit?’
‘Haha, did she? Well, there you go. That’s Kit in what she calls her “corporate psychopath” mode. Telling you that you had to call her by her full name was power play, that’s all. Making it clear she’s in charge. She’s Kit to everyone.’
‘Ah. Carry on.’
‘OK, so. Eighteen months ago, we went on holiday to Portofino.’ Cal paused. ‘Have you been to the Italian Riviera?’
There was a beat of silence and then Harriet, knackered, pissed, near-shrieked before collapsing into incapable laughter.
‘What?!’ Cal said, laughing because she was laughing.
When she got the power of speech back, Harriet gasped: ‘“Have you been to the Italian Riviera”, ahahahaha!’
‘WHAT?! I didn’t know if you had!’
‘Literally only you would pause to ask that. Before I go on, have you tried the divine spritzes at Caffe Florian in Venice …’
‘Your disrespect here is staggering,’ Cal said, but she could see he was enjoying himself too. ‘Look, I asked because I didn’t want to mansplain Liguria to you but clearly, I will be mocked either way.’
Harriet gurgled.
‘My point is: Portofino is like falling into an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel or something. When it’s lit up at night in shades of soft blue and you’re on a pink bougainvillea-filled terrace carved out of the mountain rock … I’m setting the scene to explain that, even though I knew things between Kit and I were going badly wrong, and I didn’t feel what I should feel – when she asked me to marry her, it seemed like the greatest idea that evening. Watching yachts coming into the harbour, drinking cold wine, it’s like crack cocaine for romantic feelings. There should be laws against accepting proposals on that terrace. There should be a cooling-off clause.’
Harriet was reminded of Lorna’s Day Three of Glastonbury rule. Is it their company, or is it all the trappings?
‘The ridiculous thing is. I agreed to get married because I knew we were going wrong. The fabled Elastoplast. Yeah, what this failing relationship needs is a big act of committing to it!’
He looked at her and Harriet nodded, with an expression of sympathy. If he thought so I went along with it half-heartedly thanks to her proposing on a nice holiday was much of an excuse, however …
‘Kit took over the wedding planning. She’s one of those hyper-effective ruthless types in business … Out of laziness, out of my ambivalence, I let her run the show. Which is why I never met you, I guess.’
‘Right.’
‘But, after we got engaged, something else was going on. There’s this guy at her work, Sebastian, Seb, who she starts mentioning all the time. She doesn’t realise she’s mentioning him, as people with crushes generally don’t. Or that she’s getting a silly look on her face, telling me banal stuff. Oh yes, Seb said that restaurant gets busy, and so on. I’m not super-suspicious, but I have registered it.’
Harriet sat up straighter.
‘Kit goes off on a week’s training course in Gloucester. Kit wears a Fitbit. The Fitbit is linked up to the iPad we both use, that’s still at home.’
Harriet said quietly: ‘… Oh … God.’
‘Yeah,’ Cal said, taking a swig of beer. ‘My fiancée gets back from Gloucester. The biggest chump you’ve ever met, me, says entirely not intending anything: “The hotel had a twenty-four-hour gym then? Useful.”’
Harriet hissed, ‘fuuuuuuuu—!’ under her breath.
‘Kit said: “No, why do you say that?” I said: “You were clocking up some seriously athletic heart rates after ten every night?”’
‘Oh my God!’
‘It would be incredibly funny if, at the time, it wasn’t also so awful. She stands there looking absolutely mortified as I catch on to what strenuous activity was actually winning her gold medals. I said let me guess, the person next to you on the nocturnal cross trainer was called Sebastian? Then she burst out crying. Howling-crying.’
Harriet could only make murmurs of astonishment. Fair to say this rivalled accepting and then un-accepting Jon’s proposal.
‘Another beer, before I continue?’ Cal said. Harriet nodded. If ever there was a two-beer-worthy story.
Cal returned with the beers and flopped back onto the sofa, next to her.
‘Where was I? Oh yes. It was a mistake, she had commitment nerves, one last fling before decades of marital monogamy. She’d never do it to me again! Please, please don’t leave her, not now. The wedding would be the best day of both our lives.’
‘Oof.’
‘By the by, Seb is “obsessed” with her and has begged her to call off the wedding but she won’t, because I’m The One.’
Cal swigged his beer and sighed, picked at the label.
‘That was it. That was the moment any remotely sensible person would say, no, let’s not, eh? The writing is on the wall, Banksy-sized. She prostrated herself on the floor and wept on my feet. It was as if holding her to account for the affair would be an act of great cruelty on my part.’
Harriet gritted her teeth. She had seen for herself that Kit had some strange and powerful charisma. Like the tractor beam pull for an enemy spacecraft.
‘You already know the next part of KitBitOnTheSide Gate: we stayed together. The wedding was paid for and planned out. Do you know why I didn’t call it off? Apart from that cancelling it would’ve been a social ordeal and a lot of spending down the drain?’ He sighed. ‘I wanted to win. I’m so fucking ashamed of that. Above all, that is the part I hate myself most for.’
‘Win …?’
‘Seb wanted her to leave me. If we’d split up, he’d be right in there. He’d know he caused it. I have absolutely no excuse for myself here other than I was in a state of shock. But still. Bit of toxic masculinity intruded. I wasn’t going to have a bloke who wears Oakley sunglasses call my wedding off for me.’
‘Then on the day, you couldn’t go through with it?’
‘Oh no. I’d have actually gone through with it. A thought that chills my blood.’
Harriet frowned in confusion.
‘I’m stood there, in the church, wondering how to psychologically handle this completely hollow, grotesque sham that my stupidity, weakness and vanity has got me into. You know when you realise you want to get off the ride, but it’s right after they’ve slammed the safety bar down? It’s started moving, and it’s dangerous to let you off? It was that. I finally came to my senses at the point of no return. I got dressed that morning, feeling sick. Then who should swagger in and take his place in the pew in church, but Mr Skyscraper Climb Badge himself, Sebastian.’
‘What?!’
‘Yep. She invited him. Her piece of ass. And yes, the invites to her colleagues went out after Hotel Fitbit. It’s not as if I double-checked with her he wasn’t being invited, because who would DO that?!’
Harriet gasped.
‘Quite,’ Cal said. ‘I saw Sebastian, and in that instant, I truly knew Kristina. I mean, I already knew Kristina, but that was so sociopathic as to be unreal. I never wanted to be near her again, let alone marry her.’
Harriet genuinely couldn’t find the words.
‘The universe had already offered me a respectable and eminently intelligent moment to walk away. What moment do I choose instead? The one that’s a huge fucking public disgrace and when my aunt and uncle have wasted the price of a Travelodge. When everyone thinks I’m the ice-cold shit. Sam – who never liked her – said “look mate, you don’t have to do this, you know.” Half in jest. He didn’t know Sebastian had arrived. But that was it.’
There was silence in the sitting room as Harriet absorbed this. That Cal Clarke could’ve had a reason for doing what he did, a sound reason, was a huge adjustment. She had declared it impossible. She thought Jacqueline was dreadful for cherry-picking her facts, stripping it of context and making Harriet a two-dimensional brute, yet it turned out Harriet was capable of this too.
‘That is … I don’t know what to say, Cal. Unreal.’
‘One for the grandkids, as they say.’
Harriet was still trying to make sense of Kit’s machinations.
‘What was her excuse for inviting Sebastian?’
‘Oh, she’d drawn up the invites before the cheating, forgot to set it aside when she was posting them out. I don’t think as you’re merrily putting the stiffy in the envelope – no pun – you forget that it’s The Other Guy? Laughable.’
‘Why invite him at all?!’
‘I’ve been over and over this in my head. I think it boils down to this. Kit is a narcissist. She wanted to bait Seb, to see if he’d turn up on her big day, witness her marry his rival. She thrives on inhabiting a diva spotlight.’
‘She must’ve known you’d be incandescent?’
‘Yeah, but Kit thought, when Cal clocks him, by then, we’ll be Mr and Mrs Clarke, or very nearly. She didn’t think I’d have the nerve to walk out.’
‘She’d designed a trap. Like Jon did with my proposal,’ Harriet said.
‘Exactly! Perhaps she thought I was so in her thrall, it’d only mean a sulky couple of days on the honeymoon? Truth be told, I’ve stopped trying to work out how she thinks. Bear in mind if it wasn’t for the technology fail, I’d never have known about the infidelity. She’s … brutal.’
Harriet nodded, wincing. ‘Exceptionally so.’
‘That’s my type, I’m afraid.’
‘Is it?’
‘Yeah. I have form for picking Hot Thatchers.’
She choked on her mouthful of beer. ‘Hot what?’
‘Sam says every girlfriend of mine is, I quote, “Margaret Thatcher’s personality in the body of a babe.”’
Harriet started laughing again. ‘This isn’t my fault,’ she gasped out, pointing at herself. ‘You need to be less funny while telling me terrible things.’
‘I mean it’s finding a balance, isn’t it? Equally I’m not inclined to go for girls who buy ornaments of moon-gazing hares or try crafting with cat hair,’ Cal said, throwing her an I’ve cheered up now, serious bit’s over smirk.
‘Smart arse,’ she said.
‘True. Ugh, I am so wasted,’ Cal said, rubbing his eyes. ‘Mind if I lie on the floor?’
‘Pardon?’ Harriet said.
‘Remember in school, the laminated safety poster with fire bell procedure? If there was a room full of smoke, you’re supposed to get underneath it? That’s how I feel when pissed.’
He wriggled off the sofa and lay down on the carpet, hands on his stomach.
‘Better.’
‘Really?’
‘Try it. You won’t go back.’
Harriet put her beer aside and lay down next to him, heads alongside each other. They both stared at the star-shaped ceiling pendant, its bulb the only illumination in the gloaming.
‘I still feel drunk,’ Harriet said, after a minute.
‘That’ll be the alcohol.’
‘Why did Kit leave all the house stuff? And the house, for that matter?’
‘Because I paid for it all.’
‘Oh.’
‘A sizeable inheritance from my gran, right after I met Kit. It was too soon for joint mortgages, but she was all “put it into property!” I had the credit card and she had the vision.’
‘Did you pay for the wedding?’
‘Yup. Twenty-five grand to remain single.’
‘Ouch.’
‘Worth every penny when her dad came to see me afterwards. Imagine owing it to your Not-In-Laws.’
‘Ouch.’
‘Did you tell them why you cut and ran?’
‘No. Beyond some “ask your daughter” enigmatic stuff that went down like a lead balloon. I told my parents, who to be fair, said I was well off out. Might’ve helped that they already couldn’t stand Kit.’
Cal sat up, back against the sofa, and picked up the remote for the karaoke.
‘Remember being bright, shiny and hopeful about love and relationships, thinking we’d not make the same messes our parent’s generation did?’
Harriet remembered Sam calling Cal a hopeless/hopeful romantic. She still couldn’t quite see it, though it made more sense than it did before.
‘Did your parents make a mess?’
Cal checked his watch. ‘Another time. For tonight, pass. Did yours?’
‘Pass.’
They sat up together, backs leaning against the sofa, time starting to stretch and blur as Cal scrolled the karaoke options in indifference. They knew they should go to bed and they were too tired to move.
As they listened to a percussion-only version of ‘Dancing In The Dark’, Cal fell asleep on her shoulder, his phone dropping from his hand and rolling onto the carpet.
Harriet picked it up for him. The lock screen bore opening lines of WhatsApp messages from multiple women: Ashley, Bonnie, Mia, Frances. They mostly looked to be apologising for ‘running out’ and she would bet they were designed to discover if Kit was back in his life. She laughed out loud. Cal twitched at the sound and opened his eyes.
‘You filthy womaniser,’ she said, handing it back. ‘It fell out of your hand. I didn’t grab it.’
Cal blinked blearily at the handset.
‘I know you won’t believe me, but my encouragement is non-existent. I’ve got no appetite for any of it,’ he said.
‘I don’t believe you, you’re right,’ Harriet said, and Cal gave her a lazy-drunk seductive well what can I do about that half smile.
Annoyingly, she totally believed him.