How to Say Goodbye. Katy Colins

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      ‘Perfect for Grace then,’ Freddie said with a smirk, before Mum told him to be nice to me as it was my birthday.

      Neither Mum nor Freddie visited my home very often. In fact, Freddie had only been once for about five minutes, when he was waiting for his friend to pick him up for a football match and it was chucking it down with rain. Whenever Mum was back in England, she sporadically popped in for a cup of tea but preferred to stay at the hotel near the library as she could fill up her bag with all the miniature toiletries. A low-cut top was all she needed to get a discount on a room from the male receptionist.

      ‘Right, wow. Thanks.’ I forced a smile, running my fingers over the chubby bee radio. There was no doubt in my mind it would be destined for the Bag for Life too.

      ‘My gift is… on its way,’ Freddie muttered. Code for he’d completely forgotten.

      ‘It’s fine. My birthday was ages ago and I really didn’t expect anything anyway.’

      ‘Is there really no one on the scene?’ Mum pushed. Now presents were out the way she clearly hadn’t given up on the previous conversation.

      ‘No. I’ve told you. I’m fine like this.’

      ‘You not worried about, well, you know… tick-tock, tick-tock?’

      This usually happened after a bottle of wine. She would grill me about my lack of a nice young man. She would be slurring about missing out on grandchildren in another few glasses, mark my words.

      ‘Mum, please…’

      ‘I thought you said Grace were only twenty-seven? She’s got plenty of time for babies and all that.’

      ‘She’s thirty-three! And not getting any younger, may I add!’

      I could see Brendan doing the maths in his head, working out Mum’s real age, a fact as unknown as the location of Cleopatra’s tomb. She’d been clinging onto her early fifties for the past few years.

      ‘You’re ancient, Grace,’ Freddie unhelpfully joined in. ‘You may as well stop being so picky and go for the next bloke that walks in here.’ He never got a grilling, despite only being three years younger than me.

      ‘Ooh yes! It could be fate, bringing them together!’ Mum clapped her hands and the three of us glanced towards the door. Brendan still stared at Mum, looking utterly perplexed.

      ‘Wait – not them.’ Mum dismissed the group coming in with a wave of her hand. ‘That’s a bunch of women.’

      ‘Unless… ‘Freddie raised an eyebrow and gave an unsightly smirk.

      ‘I’m not gay,’ I said to my glass. No one else was listening. They all had their eyes trained to the door of the bar, like a dog waiting for its owner to return.

      ‘Him! That one!’ Mum squealed. Freddie collapsed into a fit of laughter. In walked a man who must have been there for his first legal drink. Angry red spots burst across a painful shaving rash.

      ‘I don’t think –’

      ‘Grace! Go and talk to him!’ Mum bellowed, yanking my elbow.

      ‘No, I –’

      ‘Go on. Go and talk to him, it’s not going to kill you!’

      ‘I said no.’ I roughly pulled away from her grip. ‘Can we leave it please?’

      ‘Ooooh! Touchy!’ Freddie’s voiced raised an octave or two.

      Brendan was gently rubbing Mum’s hand, frowning at me as if I’d intentionally hurt her.

      ‘Sorry, Mum, I said I didn’t –’

      ‘It’s fine, Grace. I just don’t want you to be alone for the rest of your life. But, whatever. I’m only doing it because I care. I’m going to the ladies’.’ She scraped her stool back and wobbled off.

      I was half listening to Freddie waffle on to Brendan about the outrageousness of United’s Premier League position, and half wondering what possessed a man in his late fifties to wear a single silver earring, when I felt my heart stop. I blinked hard to make sure my eyes weren’t deceiving me but when I opened them again he was still there.

      On the other side of the bar was Henry. My Henry.

      The air left my body.

      What the hell was he doing here?

      ‘Grace?’

      I heard my mum’s loud voice behind me, apologising to the couple of girls on the next table for spilling their drinks as I roughly knocked past them.

      Henry is here! I fought my way through the dancing crowd. The band had started up again with an energetic cover of a Bob Marley song. Elbows and hips were blocking me from getting to him. I stopped still and tried to hover on my tiptoes to get a better vantage point. Where had he gone? He was right there a second ago.

      ‘Grace! Where are you going?’

      Mum was still calling after me but I couldn’t stop. I had to get to him.

      Henry is here. Henry is here.

      My feet were moving without my brain thinking. What was he wearing? He didn’t own a stripy polo shirt; he must have bought it recently.

      Annoyingly, he looked good in it. He had always looked good in anything. Questions roared across my mind as I forged forward.

      ‘Alright, love!’ said a man with cauliflower ears and a receding hairline, smiling a toothy grin at me. ‘You won’t get served standing there.’ He’d spilt some of his pint onto his tan loafers. He wasn’t wearing socks.

      ‘I’m not trying to get served.’

      I craned my neck to see where he’d gone. He couldn’t have just disappeared. He was right there, I was certain of it. I felt funny, not sure if I wanted to vomit or cry at how overwhelming the feeling was.

      ‘You want us to hoist you up? You might have a better chance of catching the barmaid’s eye then?’ The man nudged me. His equally enormous friends turned round to see who he was talking to.

      ‘He was just here…’

      ‘Who? Who was here?’ I could see him pull a face to his mates out of the corner of my eye. A booming laugh and a meaty hand slapping his back. A waft of offensive BO. ‘You alright, love? You’ve gone a bit pale.’

      I shook my head.

      It wasn’t him.

      My eyes had deceived me. Henry’s doppelgänger, who actually didn’t look very much like him after all, was laughing with an older woman at the bar. The hair colour was almost the same but his face was all wrong. That cheeky smile, the cluster of freckles and the confident way he held himself were all missing.

      Waves of heat rose to my cheeks. It was much too hot in there with all those writhing bodies jostling around СКАЧАТЬ