The Story of You. Katy Regan

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СКАЧАТЬ that I didn’t understand them. She said I don’t listen to them properly when they call and …’

      The starters came, and he was still going on about it. Then, suddenly, mouth stuffed full, he started waving his hand in front of my face.

      ‘Oh, my God, I completely forgot to tell you! I’ve got a surprise!’

      ‘A surprise?’ My stomach lurched. I’d psyched myself up now. Don’t start being perfect boyfriend now.

      ‘Yep,’ he leaned forward and put his hand on mine. ‘I haven’t got the girls next weekend – their mum’s taking them on some sort of girly shopping extravaganza; my idea of a living hell, as you know – so I thought we could go away together.’ He patted my hand and grinned at me. He did have a lovely smile, the most unusually blue eyes. ‘Well, actually, I just thought to hell with it and I’ve booked somewhere.’

      I forced a mouthful of food down my throat. ‘Oh,’ was all I could manage.

      ‘Well, aren’t you pleased?’ he said, disappointed. ‘Robyn, come on, you could look a bit more excited.’

      But I wasn’t excited, I was irritated: irritated by his having delayed our dinner by twenty minutes to have an argument with the Ex; irritated by him talking about nothing but his ex-wife; irritated and bored to tears with the whole divorce saga. No, I’d made my decision. The fact I didn’t feel even a smidgen of excitement about the prospect of a mini-break (and I’d been hankering after a mini-break for absolutely ages) cemented it.

      I sighed. ‘Oh, Andy, I’m just a bit bored of it, that’s all.’

      ‘Of what?’

      ‘Of always talking about you and Belinda and the girls and the divorce.’

      He looked genuinely hurt and shocked and, for a second, I felt bad.

      ‘But it’s the biggest thing that’s ever happened to me, Robyn, you know that. I can’t just switch my emotions off when I see you. Like a tap!’

      ‘Really?’ I tried not to say it unkindly. ‘Because I’d like you to try, Andy, just a little bit.’

      He frowned, his shoulders slumping, genuinely deflated. ‘But you’re so good at listening.’ The innocence with which he said it killed me. ‘I thought you were interested.’

      ‘Andy, I am interested, to a point. All I’m saying is, just, it would be nice to be asked how I am, occasionally, and to be allowed to reply in more than one sentence before you start talking about you again.’

      ‘But you don’t like talking about yourself.’

      I kind of laughed. This was true. I had said that.

      ‘But, I didn’t mean like never, ever, ever!’

      Andy searched my face. It was at times like this that I worried he might be on the spectrum. He just really did not get it.

      ‘Your relationship with Belinda and the girls, it’s becoming like a chronic ailment,’ I said. ‘Like a boil on your bum, or sinusitis. It never goes away, and yet, I get a daily update, whether I like it or not. And whenever I suggest anything that might help, you’re not interested. Sometimes I feel like you just want to moan.’

      ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I see. Well, can I make it up to you? Will you come away? I’ve booked a lovely hotel in Watford.’

      ‘Watford?’

      ‘That’s the nearest town – it’s actually on the outskirts of Watford. It has a spa, a golf course. I could play a round whilst you get pampered. Have a facial or a massage – one of those treatments all you girls like to have?’

      ‘Andy,’ I said, and as the words left my mouth, I did feel reassuringly sad. ‘I don’t think it would be a good idea to go away together. In fact, I think we should break up. I’m really sorry, but I just think this isn’t working any more.’

       Chapter Two

       March

      Robyn,

      I hate to do this on Facebook, but I haven’t got your number and the email address I tried doesn’t work any more. I’ve got some really bad news: my mum died suddenly on Tuesday. She was fine, went out for a curry with Dad, then came home and had a heart attack. I can’t believe it. I know what people mean now when they say, ‘I keep expecting her to walk through the door.’

      I’ve never seen my dad like this. I know this won’t have rocked his faith in the long run, but he’s struggling. I think he realizes it’s different when it happens to you, you know?

      Personally, I am enraged: I mean, fifty-nine? WTF. Thirty years of service and that’s how he repays my dad? If one more person tells me he works in mysterious ways, I’ll punch them. I remember you saying that to me once, after your mum died. I remember exactly where we were, too – down the cricket ground. I probably gave you a cuddle, then tried to slip my hand up your top … God, I’m sorry, Robbie. Going through all that at sixteen, with only a sixteen-year-old me to talk to. I had no idea. Now I do.

      The first person I thought of calling was you, because I knew you’d understand but, like I say, I had no number, so here I am telling about the death of my mother on f**ing Facebook!

      The funeral’s a week tomorrow (1 April) at 3 p.m. at St Bart’s, Kilterdale obviously. (Dad says he’s giving it, but I’ll believe that when I see it. He’s a mess.) I’d love you to be there. I know Mum would too. She was talking about you just days before she died, about that time we all went on a barge holiday to the Norfolk Broads and she had one too many Dubonnet and lemonades and fell in. Hey, she wasn’t a typical vicar’s wife, was she?

      Anyway, my number’s below. Hopefully see you there.

      Hope you’re well, darl X love Joe X

      I smiled as the memory floodgates opened … The barge holiday and the night of Marion’s ‘Dubonnet Splash’. My God, I’d completely forgotten about all that. Joe and I had only been seeing one another a month and were still in the unhealthily obsessed stage when, against their better judgement, Marion and the Reverend Clifford Sawyer (Joe’s dad) decided to take us with them. A rev he may have been, but Cliff loved a tipple, as did Marion, and a major plus point of a barge holiday, they soon found, was the number of pub stops one could make along the way.

      We’d all been in the pub this one afternoon, but Joe and I had offered to go back to the barge to make a start on the carbonara for tea. But we hadn’t made a start on tea, we’d just made out. Marion had come back tipsy and, seeing us suckered against one another (thank God, fully clothed), surrounded by chopped raw bacon, because that’s as far as we had got, she’d dashed off in desperation for fish and chips, falling, as she did, in between the canal bank and the boat. She’d done this Carry On-style dramatic scream. Oh, how we’d laughed …

      ‘Robyn, if you could tear yourself away from Facebook and whatever is so funny just for a second, then perhaps you could fill us in on last night? By all accounts, it was an СКАЧАТЬ