72
Roisin picked up a black satin court shoe from the box with tissue paper, examining it with resentful suspicion. The heel was like a chopstick. She pushed her foot into it and noticed how awkward and less comfortable she was, and how nice the silhouette of her leg looked with her calf muscle tensed.
Bloody women’s fashion.
She’d booked a room at The Midland to get ready for/crash out after the Doshi nuptials, and if she was honest, have a place of retreat from the party if it got too much. The electrics at the apartment were playing up – she couldn’t bring herself to call Cormac – and the whole place smelled of paint.
She didn’t know if Matt was bringing a date. It would be a bit much, a fortnight after they parted ways, but equally she didn’t expect his dating patterns to follow earthbound rituals and he didn’t owe her not to.
Roisin had completely failed to find a dress for tonight, which was unsurprising, given she was looking for a magical suit of armour for £150-200 max. She wanted the beholder to see a stylish, confident, yet not tits-forward woman who could rise to the occasion without actually trying, because she was too cool for that.
After approximately seventeen online options were returned, Roisin went with a black sequin minidress she’d had since forever, teamed with black opaques, which would have Lorraine saying, I do wish you’d try a pop of colour instead of this Worst Witch thing.
The new footwear, at least, was a way of announcing she was still battle ready.
Roisin appreciated the irony that she’d never once worried about what Matt McKenzie thought she looked like in clothes, until after he’d seen her out of them.
Sharing a ballroom with him was what Wendy Copeland would, again, call NFI. That she quivered at the thought of locking eyes with him was ethically and practically irrelevant, however!
Roisin couldn’t expect her attraction to him to vaporise overnight, so she’d simply have to wait for it to catch up with her intellect. She was likely to find exceptional forgiveness for someone beautiful she’d spent the best night of her life with. Who could say.
I don’t know how you’re making someone who received an unwanted phone call, and Joe, the same person. One of these things is not like the other.
She increasingly found it hard to deny the truth of this.
Was she disappointed? Yes. But … did Matt have rights to be disappointed in her, for not seeing through Joe for so long?
As Roisin checked her eye make-up for the fifth time in the unstinting magnification of the circular, barber’s shop mirror in the hotel bathroom, an inner voice whispered that now the anger with Matt had largely gone, what remained, might not be disappointment, so much as fear.
Her head knew that Joe Powell was a rare aberration, her heart wasn’t so ready to accept it. The thought that Matt might hide things from her …? Trying not to flinch when his phone rippled with messages from admirers? Forcing herself to never ever check he’d deleted the dating apps?
So … you won’t give him another chance because you like him too much? said the inner voice. Roisin told it to shut up.
Her phone pinged. Meredith, Gina and Aaron were here and waiting for her in the lobby.
As she descended in the lift, gibbering terror took over. What if Matt HAD brought a date? What if it was High Ponytail Ivy Legs from festa?
Roisin, she said to herself sternly. In the words of Lorraine, a grip should be fucking gotten.
Downstairs, she greeted the group and could quickly see that Aaron was a delight: a slim, curly haired lad in a navy suit who smiled broadly at everyone. He must adore Gina, to walk the plank of meeting all her friends this soon, Roisin thought.
‘Wow. You’d never know that Dev and Anita had days to prepare this?!’ Gina said, as they entered a hotel ballroom full of white balloons, white flowers and two huge lightbulb-illuminated letter initials.
Meredith whispered, ‘That’d be a thing called money,’ to them.
‘WOMEN. Notice, A&D, not D&A, very important to me,’ said Anita, seizing hold of them. She was in a sapphire-coloured gown with a waterfall cape attached to it and looked like the benevolent queen in a science fiction film. Screaming with delight at the sight of her ensued.
‘Come see this,’ Anita said, beckoning them over to a corner display of photographs of her and Dev as kids, on their first date, foreign holidays. Roughly in the centre was the one of the Brian Club, ten years ago, and the one at Benbarrow Hall.
Roisin gazed at it and thought about the distance between those two images for her. She looked at Joe, hiding his face, and Matt, both pushed out and keeping a distance, and thought, it was always all there from the start, if you looked for it.
The riddle of Joe Powell wasn’t Then Joe turning into Now Joe. He didn’t change; their circumstances did.
Meredith found her hand, without anyone noticing, and squeezed it.
‘Fancy finding a drink, Miss Walters?’ Meredith said, and Roisin said, ‘Fuck, yes.’
An hour after the do started, Roisin saw him from a distance. He looked fashionable as always in a fawn, needlecord suit that would have had Terence remembering why he hated coming into Manchester. The room was large enough for them to keep a respectful distance and Roisin gathered they’d do that, rather than speak.
At one point, chatting with a good-looking cousin, she caught Matt’s eye across the room and they shared a look that Roisin couldn’t really decipher beyond a hard, mutual ouch.
* --> As the night entered its later hours, she sensed Matt had gone. Occasional little heart-stopping glimpses of him dwindled to none.
Sod these shoes, Roisin thought, she was going to switch to the flats she had in her room. Her inner voice said, he’s not here, nobody to impress, huh? and she internally thundered, SHUDDUP.
As she stood by the lifts and fumbled for her key card in her bag, she heard, ‘Can I have a quick word?’
She looked up to see Matt. Being booze-worn didn’t make it easier: she had no idea what to say.
He led her through the foyer, beyond the revolving door, onto the hotel’s front step by the Hackney rank. She rubbed her arms in the nocturnal chill. Autumn was coming. Other than that, she had no idea what was coming.
‘I won’t keep you a minute,’ Matt said, hands in suit trouser pockets. ‘OK, so – I’m telling you this not because I expect it to change anything, or because I think it casts me in a better light. It’s honesty for honesty’s sake. I asked myself why I didn’t tell you. You know, the reason behind the reasons I’d told myself at the time. I don’t think I really, deep down, thought you’d ditch me as a friend. You were right to call bullshit on that. It’s not in your nature. It was because I didn’t trust my motives.’
‘I see,’ Roisin said, not yet seeing.
‘… I’d wanted you to leave Joe from day one, so here I was, being handed a way to make that happen. I couldn’t be sure what to do because it was so clouded by my own interests. I told myself therefore that stepping back was the pure and noblest route.’ Matt drew breath. ‘You’re absolutely right that my decision making was all about me, not you. Once again, my ego and self-image were running the show. I should have put you first, asked myself what you’d want me to do, and I didn’t. And I should’ve told you what I knew when you finally said you had your fears. I wanted to look better in your eyes, as you said. I’ll always regret that.’
Roisin nodded.
‘… But it wasn’t in hope of any reward. You can hate me for everything else, but don’t hate me for that. I was a long way past thinking you’d ever see me as anything but a friend. That’s the truth.’
Roisin had nothing prepared in reply. ‘OK. Thank you,’ she said. ‘I believe you.’
In the ensuing silence, Matt added, ‘Night, Roisin.’ He turned and walked away without Roisin knowing what to say to stop him, or if she should.
She went back into The Midland, forgetting she was going to change her shoes or even that they’d pinched as she wandered back into the ballroom.
‘Hey, there she is!’ Dev said, at sight of Roisin at the door. ‘Can I have this dance, Miss Walters?’ he said. Even in the melee at his own wedding, Dev was displaying his extraordinary emotional sonar that could detect someone feeling a little lost. Roisin had never been so grateful to be wrapped in a Dev hug and spun around.
After a few turns to Joe Cocker’s ‘You Are So Beautiful’, Dev said, ‘Listen,’ leaning in. He checked behind them to be sure they weren’t being overheard. ‘I know I’m not supposed to know about this. I’m not going to tell anyone else; I’ve not even told Anita. He didn’t intend to tell me – your name came up and he got upset. Feel free to tell me to piss off out of your business for saying this much, Rosh. But I met up for a drink with him and we had a massive heart to heart. He’s absolutely head over heels in love with you and so sorry he hurt you. He’s a very good person, you know. I know I tend to see the positives about people, but he really is. If you gave him another chance, I can’t see you regretting it. That’s all.’
‘That’s so nice of you, Dev,’ Roisin said. ‘But the thing about Joe is, he’s really skilful at being the person that the situation demands. I promise you that whatever he’s told you, it’s tons more complicated and more ugly in reality. I don’t want you to feel you have to take sides, but trust me, we’re better off apart.’
Dev smiled. ‘I’m talking about Matt.’
Someone else cut in, and Dev left Roisin standing on the dancefloor, looking comically stunned.