You Had Me At Hello, How We Met: 2 Bestselling Romantic Comedies in 1. Katy Regan

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СКАЧАТЬ my God, blast from the past. Teenage Fanclub?’ Ben asks, tuning into the music amid the chatter. ‘You would’ve laughed at mine and Liv’s first dance.’

      Probably not laughed, I think.

      ‘Why do you say that?’

      ‘In the first big compromise of married life, I let her have what she wanted.’

      He mouths ‘Coldplay’ to me and grimaces.

      ‘Oh, well. I was wedding planning myself not so long ago. Glad you resolved the DJ/live band divide. It was the Gaza Strip for me and Rhys.’

      I discover a yearning, of some considerable proportions, to tell Ben what happened. Talk about my real life – not the sort of things you discuss as bullshit icebreakers – with a real friend.

      ‘The thought of getting married brought everything to a head for us,’ I say, and Ben nods. ‘The way they call it the happiest day of your life – well, it cuts both ways. If you’re not happy, it’s hard not to notice.’

      ‘Was it a sudden thing? Or had you been unhappy for a while?’

      ‘Hmm. Well. We muddled through our twenties. We had the pressure valves of his band and my friends. But your thirties – it’s decision time, the wedding, kids. I realised we weren’t happy enough to make the next stage work. Does that make sense?’

      ‘Some,’ Ben nods again. ‘You seem to be coping really well.’

      ‘On and off,’ I say.

      He gives me a sad, sweet smile, and looks at the floor.

      ‘Which Coldplay song was it?’ I ask, trying to lighten the mood. ‘Oh no, hang on, let me guess. Does it go, “Dum dum dum da dum dum … Sorry, all our operators are busy at the moment. Please keep holding, your call is important to us.”’

      Ben’s eyes crinkle up appealingly as he laughs. ‘You’ve not changed! So arsey …’

      ‘You egged me on, you have to admit.’

      ‘Egged Rachel on how?’ Olivia says, as she and Simon join us.

      ‘She was cruelly mocking our bedwetter indie choice of music for the first dance,’ Ben says.

      ‘No! You said—’ I can’t repeat the fact that Ben was mocking it first, that’s even more incendiary. I know this insult is going to be taken in entirely different spirit by Olivia. Thanks Ben. ‘I like some Coldplay …’ I finish, lamely.

      ‘Yeah, right!’ Ben says, making it worse.

      ‘What would you have as your first dance?’ Olivia asks me, sharply.

      Ben glares at her, presumably to communicate that you don’t ask someone who recently broken off an engagement what their first dance would have been.

      ‘Rhys said he wanted “What Have I Done To Deserve This?” by the Pet Shop Boys. So I dodged a bullet there.’

      ‘But what would you choose?’ Olivia persists.

      ‘Liv …’ Ben’s dismayed, failing to understand why she’s being so insensitive, whereas Olivia and I understand each other perfectly.

      ‘The way things are going, it’ll probably have to be Etta James, “At Last”. And some sort of young volunteer helping me and my bridegroom get out of our seats.’ No laugh. ‘We’d chosen “May You Never” by John Martyn for our first dance,’ I concede.

      Ben nods, impressed: ‘Lovely choice.’

      ‘Never heard of it,’ Olivia snaps.

      Ah well, it must be rubbish then.

      ‘Slightly, just slightly too fast tempo?’ Ben says. ‘I’d go for “Couldn’t Love You More”, of his.’

      I nod back. Not much to say to that, other than for my pupils to dilate and to continue drinking until my liver resembles a twenty-ounce, pepper-rubbed sirloin.

      ‘Why didn’t you ask for it then?’ Olivia says to him, waspishly.

      ‘I wanted you to have what you wanted,’ Ben says.

      ‘I think you should have something you love as your first dance, not something cool,’ Olivia says in my direction, pointedly, not ready to forgive me.

      ‘No one could accuse you of choosing Coldplay to be cool,’ Ben laughs. He’s going to be in so much trouble when they get in, and he doesn’t even know it. Olivia folds her arms and doesn’t take her eyes off me. I stare at the ice in my drink.

      ‘Now, I know this,’ Simon says, cocking an ear to the party soundtrack. ‘“Unfinished Symphony”.’

      ‘“Unfinished Sympathy”,’ I correct him.

      ‘That’s what I said.’

       38

      ‘Which side do you normally sleep?’ Caroline asks, once we’ve put a severely impaired Ivor to bed on the sofa. When taxi time arrived, he was slumped in some sort of cocktail coma and we took a call that it was best to accommodate him. We tucked him up with a towel underneath him, a washing-up bowl at his side and numerous tea towels round his head. He had a deathly pallor and his hands crossed on his chest, like an Egyptian funeral for a pharaoh who owned shit things.

      ‘There isn’t a normally yet. I haven’t been here long enough.’ What I really mean is, there isn’t a side to choose now the bulwark of Rhys’s bulk is absent.

      ‘You in the middle, then,’ she says, flicking a corner of the duvet back. ‘I’ll go here, Mindy the other side.’

      Mindy comes back from brushing her teeth, clad in beautiful scarlet Chinese pyjamas. Next to Caroline’s black strappy lace-edged floral slip, I’m rather glad I left the toothpaste-stained Velvets t-shirt behind.

      ‘Ivor woke up,’ Mindy announces. ‘He made a noise like: BWORK. BWORK. BWOOORK. Then he ran off to the loo.’

      ‘Anything on the soft furnishings?’

      ‘No, I totally got behind him and pushed him faster than the speed of sick.’

      ‘Good, good.’

      We arrange ourselves, then click the bedside lights off.

      ‘How did Rupa get a mattress this big up those stairs?’ I ask.

      ‘She had it winched in one of the windows, I think,’ Mindy says.

      I feel my muscles relax against the springs.

      ‘What’s the deal with you and Ben then?’ Caroline says.

      All the tension returns. And then some.

      ‘What СКАЧАТЬ