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Cover design by Simon Avery www.idobookcovers.com

Editing by Amy Griffin Books

Proof reading by Amy Griffin Books

Formatting by Cara Devaney www.caradevaneyva.com

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual pe3rsons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

ISBN: 9781483530529

Chapter One

They say you should never make big decisions around Birthdays or Christmas. It can only lead to trouble. The reason for this, says my friend Jamie, is that whether you are delirious with festive joy, or so depressed at the passing of another year you are ready to kill yourself with a carving fork, no one is in their right mind.

Small decisions are fine. Things like having another glass of champagne, for example, because of course you would like another glass of champagne, who wouldn’t? It’s the big decisions you want to avoid. The ones about quitting your job and moving to Paris. Or getting your hair cut on a birthday whim and spending the next nine months trying to grow it out. Or deciding if you should leave the man you have loved for the past four years or stay and keep trying, hoping that you can save it.

‘Birthdays and Christmas’ says Jamie, shaking his head somberly ‘A lot of mad urges. No good can come of it’

They also say that a phone call in the middle of the night is never good news. But this happens to me on such a regular basis that it takes more than a pre-dawn ringing to make me clutch my heart with panic and steel myself for a visit to A&E. I am half afraid that the day (or night) a midnight phone call comes and it actually is bad news that I won’t bother answering at all. I’ll roll over and go back to sleep, safe in the assumption that it’s just Jen wanting to borrow a pair of shoes, or Mum wanting to know if I am coming home for the weekend and if she should take an extra lasagne out of the freezer.

Jen is spending this morning standing in a primary school gym, swearing under her breath, putting tiny stickers on plates of cup cakes. I know this because I told a whopping lie to get out of helping her, something about having to go to work and tie up my month end reports. On a Saturday. So when the phone rang jolting me out of my happy slumber before the pink dawn had even thought about breaking through my bedroom window there was only one other person it could possibly be.

‘Ellie, I have news!’

‘Hi Mum’ I yawned, sitting up in bed and checking my clock. 7.36am, not too bad for Mum actually, not too bad at all.

‘Are you just waking up?’ she demanded

‘Normal people are not awake at this time on a Saturday, Mum’

‘Jen always is’ Mum said in protest

‘I said normal people’

‘Anyway, listen, I have news! But it’s a secret so you must pretend I didn’t tell you’

‘If it’s a secret then don’t tell me’ I reasoned

‘It’s a family secret so it’s doesn’t count’

‘Right’ I nodded, unconvinced

‘It’s Chrissie’

She was talking about my sister, Christine. I was born at the beginning of April and Chrissie was born, nine years later, at the end. Jen says she was an accident. Mum and Dad say she was a nice surprise. Either way she is by far the cleverest person I know. She is in her final year of an endless medical degree at Bath University. After this she gets to be a junior doctor and go on studying for another seventy-four years but pretty soon it will all be worth it.

First, because as a junior doctor she gets to assist in operating on real live people, ‘So far they’ve all been dead’ Chrissie grumbled the last time I saw her. And second, because eventually she is going to be a real bona fide doctor and save the family by being the long hoped-for high achiever among us. Chrissie deals with the heavy weight of expectation very well. For years now I have been expecting her to crack under the pressure and fly off the rails but she takes it all in her calm, sensible, high achieving stride. She always has done.

She was so busy being a calm, sensible, high achiever that she was something of a late bloomer in the romance department. I was too, if I’m honest, I was sixteen before I even had my first kiss. So when Chrissie turned out to be an even later bloomer it was nice to know it wasn’t just me, nothing personal, just an odd kind of family gene. But Chrissie was such a late bloomer that before she went off to Bath to embark on her twelve decades of medical study Mum made me sit her down and talk her through the birds and the bees.

‘But why me?’ I protested, sitting at the kitchen table that fateful autumn day trying to ignore the pleading look on Mum’s face

‘Because you are her older sister. You are closer in age. It’s better coming from you. And you are probably the only one in the family regularly doing it’ Mum said mouthing the words dramatically.

This was back before I had even met Adam, back when I was seeing people and dating and doing all the normal things healthy twenty-eight year old women do. Back before the time when the mere mention of people having sex sent a cold, hard steel arrow of loneliness shooting into my gut.

‘Didn’t you have this chat with her already? You told me when I was fourteen. You bought me that Talking Sex with Teens cartoon book’ I shuddered

‘You remember that do you darling?’ said Mum her eyes misting over at the memory of what, to my mind, can only be described as the most awful, awkward-as-arse proceedings that anyone could ever be subjected to at the hands of their mother. Ever.

‘It was burned into my defenseless young brain Mum. I couldn’t close my eyes at night for weeks without seeing that sodding thing. You insisted on turning the pages for me and everything’

‘Don’t say sod, darling. And of course I had the chat with Chrissie’ Mum said, ignoring my agony ‘but it was two years ago already and as far as I can tell she hasn’t, you know, acted on it since. She has probably forgotten we ever talked about it’

‘Half her luck’

‘And things might have changed, you know . . . out there’ said Mum waving a hand towards the world outside her English farmhouse kitchen window.

‘Out there? Has there been a sexual revolution in Hardwicke in last four years, Mum? Free love? Threesomes at the post office? I must have missed it on NewsNight’

‘You never know. Except you do know, Ellie. Precisely my point. You’re a girl about town. So you’ll do it?’

I did it. Chrissie laughed, then took me to the pub to ease my humiliation. She said I should thank Mum for the thought but, as she was the one studying medicine, she’d thought she’d be ok without the cartoons. Then much to all of our surprise she came home for Christmas after her first semester at Bath with a very handsome young Canadian in tow. And judging by the sounds coming from her bedroom they had no need for the sex cartoon book at all.

That was five years ago, the Canadian didn’t last but Chrissie has carried on making up for lost time ever since. More power to her, at least one of us has been getting some action. Then one day, a couple of years ago now, she came home for the holidays with someone who we knew from the offing was not just a nice healthy shag partner. Callum was a whole lot more than that. They might only have been twenty-three but it seemed Callum might just well be the one for Chrissie. In my bedroom I pulled the duvet up around me against the early morning chill.

‘So what’s the news Mum? Is Chrissie ok?’

‘She’s fantastic darling, she just fantastic, she’s . .’ Mum hesitated

‘What? Graduated early?’

‘No’

‘Invented a bionic brain?’ I yawned trying to tuck my fringe behind my ear, wishing I hadn’t cut it so short in a fit of frustration last week.

I have an ongoing love-hate relationship with my fringe. Ever since the day of the spontaneous birthday hair cut that left me looking like Princess Diana I have not dared cut it short again. But my focus had to go somewhere and it went to my fringe. Every now and then I cut it short, so short it sits right on my eyebrows, very Parisian, and love it madly for three whole days. Then I hate it madly for three months and spend the whole time trying to grow it out and tuck it behind my ear, like now. Then, just as it is long enough to rejoin the rest of my normal length hair I get a glance of myself in a fitting room mirror and wonder what I was thinking. I can’t pull off the no-fringe look; something is needed to break up my heart shaped face. And so I cut it short again. This cycle has been going on for about ten years now.

See, what did I say about Birthday decisions? Best given a wide berth. Jen thinks I am demented, but then Jen has a beautiful long face with almond eyes and thick straight gorgeous hair like Salma Hayek. She doesn’t understand the fringe/no-fringe dilemma.

‘Bionic Brain?’ said Mum ‘God no. Way better than that’

‘I think the people at MIT might disagree with you on that’

‘Who?’

‘Never mind. Tell me the news’

‘Callum proposed!’

‘He what?!’ I sputtered into the phone ‘They’ve only just met!’

‘You sound just like your father, Ellie. They haven’t only just met, they’ve been courting for over two years’

‘Courting? What century are we in Mum?’

‘Dating then. Either way, they have not only just met. They have been serious for a long time. I knew it, the first time she brought him home, after the Canadian and that strange fellow from Bristol, I knew that Callum was different. It’s the Scottish blood, fine people the Scots. . . ’ Mum chattered into the phone

Outside my window the Spring morning sky was turning a milky, hazy blue. The kind of blue that doesn’t let you know what the weather has in store. Should I get up and go about my day or stay in bed and try to salvage my happy slumber, I wondered. That’s the problem with an interrupted lie in, there are no guarantees you can get back into it again. And the harder you try the more elusive it becomes. Which is a fitting metaphor for Adam and I too, but I’ll tell you more about that in a bit.

‘Can you believe it Ellie? She’s getting married! She is going to call you this morning and you have to pretend you don’t know but I just couldn’t wait to . . . ’ Mum’s sentence trailed off ‘. . . oh Ellie, I didn’t think. Are you ok?’

‘What? Oh you mean . . . yes Mum, I think it’s great’

‘Really?’

‘Really, it’s great news, brilliant. I’m fine’ I said, pushing back the covers and swinging my legs out of bed

I padded down the polished floorboards of my hallway towards the kitchen and flicked on the kettle. There was no way I was going to recover my lie in now. I was up. I might as well surrender to it.

I hunted for the good coffee, while Mum filled in all the minute details, tuning out for a while to marvel at the fact that my little sister is twenty-five and she is getting married. Twenty-five and getting married. It was more than my brain could cope with pre-eight am on a Saturday.

‘. . . then he got down on one knee’ Mum said ‘Chrissie thought he had something lodged in his esophagus. . . ’

I don’t think I have ever once heard Mum say esophagus, I am pretty sure that up to now she has always just said throat, like the rest of us. Chrissie’s medical terminology must be rubbing off on her. I am not entirely convinced that this is a good thing.

‘I hope she wasn’t about to crack his chest with a fork and perform an emergency procedure’ I said, not because I was being mean spirited but because Chrissie is forever looking for a reason to crack someone’s chest and perform an emergency procedure.

Apparently it’s just not the same practicing on donor corpses, Chrissie says she needs a live one for the experience to be authentic. Dad is too frightened to even cough around her these days.

‘. . . and then he took her hand in his and told her that he wants to spend the rest of his days making her happy’ Mum sighed happily

Puke.

‘Lovely’ I murmured, nodding to my reflection in the kitchen window because, fair play to Callum, that would have been hard to turn down.

‘Isn’t it?’

I could practically hear Mum clutch a tea towel to her chest in rapture and as the kettle came to a boil I watched the neighbours’ kids playing in their garden in the early morning sun, merrily oblivious to all of this lying ahead of them in their lives. Lucky bastards.

Chapter Two

No sooner than Mum had spilled the beans and reminded me to act surprised when Chrissie called with the big news, I called Jen. In the background I could hear a gang of five year olds fighting over a plate of cup cakes.

‘Jesus, she can’t be getting married. She’s eighteen! It’s practically illegal’ said Jen

‘She’s twenty five Jen’

‘She is?! When did that happen? She was eighteen two minutes ago!’

‘I guess it happened over the last seven years. And might I remind you that twenty five is two years older than you were you when you got married’

‘You may not remind me, no. But that was quick maths for this time on a Saturday morning. Impressive’

Jen is a primary school teacher, and the most unlikely candidate for a primary school teacher you could ever meet, but she knows quick maths when she sees it. Although she doesn’t always know correct maths when she sees it.

‘It's a shame you’re not here putting those arithmetic skills to good use, like figuring out how to split three hundred raisin oatmeal cookies between seventy six plates’

‘Shame’ I agreed nodding like a traitor

‘So are you ok?’ Jen’s voice was twinged with something which, if I didn’t know Jen and didn’t know better, I would swear was concern.

It must be something to do with standing in a primary school fete under a string of bunting on a fine Spring morning; even the hardest of hearts would have to be a little softened by those surroundings.

Was I ok? I wasn’t really sure. I hadn’t really had time to stop and think about it. I realized now I wasn’t skipping around the room in excitement. But it was ten to eight on a Saturday morning, no normal person would start skipping around rooms until at least ten.

But I also realized that I wasn’t jack-knifed over in pain the way I was six months ago when I heard that a distant cousin had just met the man of her dreams who was, by some cruel twist of fate, also called Adam. I wasn’t in shock. I wasn’t numb. I didn’t have an undeniable urge to pour a whole bottle of vodka down my neck, or cry, or ring Adam and call him a fuckwit - which can only be a good thing on so many different levels - I didn’t feel cheated, I just wanted to speak to Chrissie and act surprised when she told me her news. I was, for the most part, genuinely ok.

‘You know what, I really am’ I said, faintly surprised

‘You’re sure?’ Jen sounded unconvinced but didn’t stop to give me time to answer incase my heart suddenly changed its mind and left me bereft on the kitchen floor while she was stuck at a school fete fifty minutes north of London ‘Good’ she decided ‘And you know what the good news is?’

‘Apart from the fact that Chrissie is getting married?’

‘The good news is that now you’ll have to come home every weekend’

‘Sweet Jesus, will I? I’m home practically every other weekend as it is. Between you and my Dad and some ill informed belief that I am about to top myself I’m never off that commuter train’

‘Ellie, it’s not about you topping yourself, it’s about Chrissie having a wedding to plan. There’s the venue, the dress, the reception, the cake, the flowers . . . surely you haven’t forgotten? You’re the bride’s sister, you’ll be home every weekend between now and the big event, I guarantee it. You better buy yourself a multi trip rail pass’

‘I’ve got to get off the phone to the likes of you then, this could be my last weekend of London- freedom. There’s shopping and galleries and bars a-waiting’

‘Don’t you have to go to work?’

‘Exactly’ I said back pedaling wildly from the huge lie I had told not twenty four hours earlier ‘Time is ticking. There’s shopping and galleries and bars a-waiting after I have been to work and finished my month end reports’

‘Good. You go do your pivot tables or whatever it is you do and I will throw these oatmeal carob cookies that no-one is ever going to buy in the bin. Seriously what were they thinking, carob at a primary school fund raising fete . . .’

Jen was babbling, it must have been all the sugar. That’s the problem with manning a cake stand at a school fete. When there is nothing but cupcakes and a bunch of five year olds to entertain you, you’re going to go with the cupcakes every time.

‘. . . and then I am coming down to London. Tonight’ said Jen ‘This is the last weekend I get you to myself until Chrissie is safely on her honeymoon. And I just spent seventy pounds on a new pair of Karen Millen peep toe stilettos and they need a night out somewhere other than Hardwicke’s Ye Olde Jug'

*** *** ***

Jen settled herself into an impossibly high stool, raised her glass to the view of the Thames from the rooftop bar and toasted ‘To Chrissie. And all who sail in her’. Then she drained half a glass of champagne and re-filled it again in one fluid move.

‘I can’t believe they are getting married’ I said, clinking my glass to Jen’s ‘I sincerely hope they’ve been having sex’

‘Who doesn’t have sex before they get married anymore? You want to try that on before you buy. If they’re not doing before getting married they have no hope afterwards. Me and Nick never stopped having sex, even if he did turn out to be a total arsehole’

‘Regular sex with a terrible man has to be better than no sex with a lovely man’ I nodded

‘You should know’ Jen said with a grim smile

This is the beauty of being best friends since primary school, you know each other inside out, like a favourite pair of well worn old socks. Jen and I were destined to be best friends since the first day we sat next to each other in the playground and opened our lunch boxes, heart in mouth, waiting to see if we had the same brand of crisps. It was either going to be Walkers or supermarket own brand. Not the no-frills brand in the embarrassing packaging, not that bad, but still supermarket own brand. In that moment we would know if we would be friends or foes forever.

The relief as we opened our lunchboxes was palpable. Supermarket own brand. Our fate was sealed and our happiness complete. To this day Jen credits me with the one thing that has made the biggest difference in her overall happiness in life: the day I introduced her to the crisp sandwich.

If you have never in your life eaten a crisp sandwich then allow me to digress just a moment because I promise it is the greatest thing on earth and it will change your life just like it changed Jen’s. This is how you do it. Take two slices of soft white bread with a chewy crunchy crust, a Farmhouse round or - if you want to go posh - a good ciabatta are the best for the job. Add lashings of butter (it has to be salted butter, unsalted butter isn’t real butter if you ask me) and add two layers of crisps. Squash down the sandwich to crush the crisps, open it up again, add another layer of uncrushed crisps, carefully flip the one side back to the other side and . . . eat. Heaven.

My favourite crisp sandwich is Smokey Bacon. Jen’s is Cheese and Onion. That’s the beauty of a crisp sandwich, it is impossible to get wrong. I was staggered that Jen could have got to the ripe old age of seven without ever having eaten a crisp sandwich but I guess there were bigger fish to fry in Jen’s house that year.

‘So’ I asked savouring a mouthful of champagne ‘how was the fete?’

‘Oh you know, pure hell. Plus I kept telling them we can’t call it a fete if it’s in a gym and not outside but they didn’t listen to me. I think we raised about six hundred quid. How was work?’

‘Umm, yeah, good, I got everything done’ I said looking at my heels, the rooftop deck, the London eye twirling gracefully in the distance, anywhere but Jen.

‘Oh fuck off Ellie Foster. I know you weren’t at work’

This is the downside of being best friends since primary school, you know each other inside out, like a favourite pair of well worn old socks. And you know exactly how smelly and holey those socks are. Jen knows in one look when I’m hiding something, she is much better at it than me. But in my defense I haven’t had much opportunity to practice. Jen never hides anything, she pretty much says what she thinks no holds barred. She is also much better at saying no than I am.

For example, if I had been Jen, and my oldest friend in the world had asked me if I would get up at the crack of dawn and come help her man a stall at a school fete surrounded by a swarming gaggle of hyped up five year olds I would have just smiled my most brilliant smile and said ‘God, I can’t think of anything worse, but best of luck, hope it’s a brilliant success’ and everyone would go off utterly charmed by me and I would be safely off the hook.

But I’m not Jen, I’m me. And I’m not so good at saying no. I have a deep rooted sense of duty and obligation to things, even if they end up being at my own expense. I know this now because Jeremy told me in one of our counseling sessions.

I know what you’re thinking – counseling, really? I know, I thought it too when the topic first came up but sometimes you find yourself in situations you never thought you’d be in and doing things you never thought you’d do. And in my defence, I didn’t amble in on some idle Tuesday, it was pretty much the last place I had to turn. Anyway, so when the counselor said that I tried to keep everyone happy at my own expense it turned out he was absolutely right. I had never realized it before and then I could see it with blinding clarity. No one else in my family seems to have this affliction so I have no idea where it came from.

‘Ok’ I fessed up under Jen’s steely glare, she must frighten the crap out of the kids in her class ‘you got me, I wasn’t at work. But I did spend the afternoon watching City of Angels which can only have been some kind of karmic punishment for not helping you because it was the worst film ever’

‘Ever?’

‘Ever. I would have rather gone to work’

‘So why didn’t you just turn it off?’

This is the other fundamental difference between me and Jen. I say the other, like there are no more after this one. There are hundreds. But this is another one for now: Jen doesn’t see the point in prolonging painful or rubbish things. If she finds herself halfway through something, could be a film, could be a meal, could even be a marriage, and the realization dawns that it was a bad idea, she has no qualms at all about calling it a day. And more to the point no one and nothing can make her stay.

Since her Mum died and Jen came to live out her remaining high school years with my family, I haven’t seen Jen take shit from anyone. A particularly uppity air steward at Heathrow and several over amorous men have found this out the hard over the way over the years. All of this is quite out of keeping from her soft primary school teacher image but as Jen always says if there is one place you really can’t take shit from anyone it is in a class full of five years olds.

‘I can’t turn a film off half way through’ I moaned ‘you know that, I have to see it through to the end. But I was tricked. It was in a box set with You’ve Got Mail so naturally I thought it was a Nora Ephron film. I had settled in this afternoon for a When Harry met Sally meets Sleepless in Seattle type thing . . ‘

‘ . .. wry romantic hope triumphs over our flaws. . . ’ Jen nodded

‘Exactly. And instead Meg Ryan and Nicholas Cage slapped me in the face with a smelly fish. A really boring smelly fish’

‘You was cheated’ Jen frowned

‘I was cheated. I should have known when no one made any witty life observations in the first three minutes. She’s like you, is Nora Ephron’ I said waving my drink in Jen’s direction ‘She doesn’t mess about, just gets straight to the good stuff, says what she means ’

‘Well there’s no point messing about in this life Ellie, not even with Nicholas Cage’

‘Christ, I can’t think of anything worse than messing about with Nicholas Cage. What is going on with his teeth? They’re terrifying. He looks like Mr. Ed the talking horse’

‘I know. I don’t care how much money he’s got, I wouldn’t kiss that’ Jen shook her head in final judgment and sprung on Jen-style to another topic altogether ‘So tell me about Chrissie’s wedding. Are you going to wear the worst bridesmaids dress in the world? Will it be peach? With huge sleeves? Will she make you wear your hair in ringlets? Will there be gloves? Oh please let there be gloves!’

For a moment I considered the horror of all the possible bridesmaid dresses before me and hoped that in this, as in everything, Chrissie’s common sense would prevail. But weddings do all sorts of funny things to the most level headed people. It was a lottery.

‘Maybe she’ll customize some mint green scrubs’ Jen said ‘add a few bows and frills. Could be lovely’

‘Mmm, mint green. Just your colour’

‘My colour?’ Jen put her glass down with a horror stricken thud ‘I’m not being an effing bridesmaid’

‘Of course you are. You’re proxy-family’

‘No!’

‘I don’t think you get a choice to be honest’

‘She won’t ask me’ Jen tried, unconvincingly, to convince herself

‘She’s going to ask you’ I said, matter of fact

‘She will not’

‘She bloody will’

‘She bloody will not’

‘Jen’ I held her wild-eyed stare ‘She will’

Jen's eyes flicked from side to side. She was thinking at high speed.

‘Ah well, you see, The thing is, as much as I love Chrissie I will have to politely decline, on the basis that I can’t be a bridesmaid’ she tried

‘Why not?’

‘I’m married’

‘You’re not married, you’re separated. And anyway, that’s not a rule’

‘Isn’t it? It bloody should be. Ok then, I can’t because I don’t want to'

‘You have to’

‘Fuck it, I knew coming to live with your family would come and bite me on the arse one day’

‘Anyway, I’m going to need a drinking partner for moral support’ I pointed out

For a brief moment the pain of the memory of Adam and I flickered across my face and the pain of having to watch me go through it all flickered across Jen’s.

‘You did the right thing’ Jen read my mind ‘You had no choice. It was like putting down a rabid dog. Essential but heart breaking’

Then she hopped off her industrial-look brushed metal stool and elbowed her way through the crowds to the bar. Five minutes later she was back.

‘So. . . ’ said Jen

I watched with fascination as she wriggled and hopped, trying to hoist herself back onto her stool in a lady-like fashion. Usually Jen would take a running jump and leapfrog herself into position but tonight, for the first night in a very long time – possibly even since her own wedding day – and in honour of her new Karen Millen peep toe stilettos, Jen was wearing a skirt. Springtime in the city causes all sorts of unusual things to take place.

‘So tell me, how did Callum do it?’ she asked, ready to pass scornful judgment

‘Last night, after dinner, he got down on one knee and . . . ’

‘Wait . . last night? On her birthday?’ Jen interrupted ‘I sincerely hope he got her a birthday present as well. Engagements rings do not take the place of birthday presents, Ellie’ Jen wagged her finger at me as if I were the guilty party here ‘How’s the ring?’ she asked with high suspicion

‘Haven’t seen it yet’

‘Hmm. Must inspect next weekend. A wedding, eh?'Jen cocked her to one side in a barely perceptible movement, like a dog hearing the faint echo of a far-away howl on the other side of the mountain, stirring some primal intrigue inside of him but he doesn’t quite know why.

I nodded staring quietly off into the night sky. I couldn’t decide if the fact that it was Chrissie’s wedding made it infinitely better or immeasurably worse. We sat for a moment letting the night breeze waft over us. In the distance the little pods on the London Eye turned like planets around the sun, each little pod with its own little story inside, a capsule of life moving in slow motion across the night sky.

‘The first wedding back was always going to be the hardest’ said Jen, breaking the silence ‘Anyway, I thought you weren’t supposed to make major life decisions around Christmas or Birthdays’

‘I know’ I nodded ‘Apparently no one told Christine’

Chapter Three

Two Years Earlier

Adam and I arrived at the Grand Hyatt Club Lounge private reception like a pair of movie stars. We pretended that we were barely tolerating the boredom of the private check-in process and that we stayed in the Grand Club Suite all the time. In reality I had been planning my checking-in outfit for weeks, it was not something to be taken lightly. I settled on my favourite dark wash jeans, the ones that lift my bum and lengthen my legs, tan strappy stilettos to show off my fresh-that-morning French pedicure and a cream fitted cardigan bought specially for this very purpose. Adam even put on that voice you put on when you are checking in to a posh hotel. You know the one, a slightly deeper, slightly more aristocratic version of your normal day to day voice.

‘Room 305, Sir. River views, as requested. You are staying with us for two nights, lovely. Cocktails and canapés are served in the lounge from 5pm. Your dinner reservation at the restaurant is confirmed for 8pm. Don’t hesitate to call if I can do anything for you. The bell boy will take your bags’

‘Very good’ Adam nodded and we took our leave from the Grand Club Lounge with gracious smiles. We ascended elegantly, silently in the extravagant gold trimmed lift to our floor, murmured a restrained acknowledgment of the splendid view of the river and the cityscape beyond and serenely entered our Grand Club Suite.

‘Just next to the wardrobe will be fine’ said Adam, raising a Sean Connery style eyebrow as he discreetly slipped the bell boy a tip and waited, arms behind his back, with a genteel nod for the door to close. Then he took a running leap and bounced his way across the king size bed.

‘Holy fucking fuck! Will you look at this place?’ Adam yelped, not very Sean Connery style after all.

‘Roger & Gallet toiletries!’ I squawked from the marbled bathroom the size of our living room at home, opening each tiny bottle and smelling them in rapture

‘Now good lady’ Adam bounced himself off the enormous bed in the direction of the mini bar ‘Champagne? I think it would be rude not to’

‘Rude indeed’ I agreed solemnly

Three hours and two bottles of champagne later, not wanting to seem too eager, we glided in what we hoped was a genteel manner into the Grand Club Lounge. Adam positioned us at a window seat rather than the plush bar, not to enjoy the sun setting over the city skyline, but rather to mask the worst of our drunkenness. There we made a polite but impressive dent in the cocktails and canapés until it was time to descend, as elegantly as we could muster, to the opulent restaurant.

Once seated we held it together enough to nod appreciatively at an amuse bouche of cherry tomato and basil essence, followed by a warm ciabatta bread that I would trample my family for. I remember a goat’s cheese salad, a roasted rack of lamb with green beans, a deconstructed raspberry pavlova and a cheeseboard. I remember that each course came with matching wine and just in case that wasn’t enough we rounded things off with an espresso martini and petit fours. I think. I honestly can’t remember much after the goat’s cheese but it was something along those lines and it was all completely delicious.

Back in our suite, tired, happy and absolutely shit faced we stretched our busting bellies on the king size bed and as I turned to smile at Adam, he was already fast asleep. I watched the lights from the city skyline casting themselves through the window and across the face I knew so well. Adam’s head resting in the plush depths of his pillow, his chest rising and falling in time with his peaceful breathing. I kicked off my stilettos, curled my still dressed body towards his, leant my head against his chest and slipped into a deep, contented sleep.

‘Good morning’ Adam croaked, stirring next to me I have no idea how many hours later.

‘Oh god’ I peeled myself up off the bed and tried to remember the way to the en-suite ‘I need Panadol. How’s your head?’

‘Is it still there? Feels like I left it in the restaurant. Did we drink every drink in the hotel last night?’ Adam sat up and rubbed his eyes ‘Did I do the Moonwalk?’

I cast my mind back to the evening’s events. Champagne in the suite, our entry to the Club Lounge, an odd moment of clarity around the time of the cheese board, everything else was kind of hazy.

‘I couldn’t reliably say. But probably’ I nodded gingerly

Adam groaned and wrapped his arms over his face, blocking out the light. I lay back down next to him and declared us too old for all this. Three hours of sleep later any attempt at being posh and genteel had given way to a ferocious need to soothe our poor hangovers and despite our twenty four course dinner the night before we put away a breakfast that could choke a pig. Then we fixed our sunglasses firmly in front of our bloodshot eyes and took a tentative step outside into the fresh afternoon air. Half way around the Tate Modern we were somewhere on the road to feeling human again.

‘What would you like to do this evening’ Adam took my hand as we walked along the Embankment in the late afternoon watching the sun set early across the Thames.

‘Something low key’ I smiled

What I really wanted to do that evening was have sex. It had been too long since we had last had sex. I wasn’t even sure if Adam had realized how long it had been and everything I had tried lately had fallen flat.

‘Everyone knows hotels mean sex’ Jen announced earlier that week ‘It’s a given. You’re on a promise. You don’t stay in a hotel with someone if you don’t want to have sex with them. Particularly not a hotel in the same city you live in. It’s no one’s birthday, it’s not your anniversary, it’s not even Valentine’s Day. Just because? That’s a five star booty call if ever I heard one. Your luck is about to change’

‘Maybe Italian’ said Adam stopping to lean against the river wall ‘and just one glass of wine’ I nodded feeling the cool wind run through my hair and awaken my dull brain. ‘Then maybe take a walk back to our suite, have an early night, you and me?’ Adam brushed the hair away from my eyes and looked at me intently ‘We have that great big bed after all’ he smiled as I leant against him, resting my cheek against the warmth of his neck in happy relief. It looked like our dry spell was about to see some well missed rain.

Later that night I stood in the en-suite, straightening the straps of a new black silk teddy. I added a spritz of Adam’s favourite perfume, shook my hair to give it body and checked my reflection in the mirror with a little smile. The anticipation of something wonderful is the best part. I padded across the bedroom, music played in the background, the lights were dimmed and I slid my knees onto the end of the soft Egyptian cotton sheets, moving up the bed towards his body like a cat stretching in the anticipation of pleasure.

‘Adam’ I whispered, pressing my lips against the back of his neck ‘Adam’ I whispered again, kissing his cheek. He didn’t stir.

He lay on his front, his body pressed into the bed, his face turned away from me. He had taken to doing this in these last few months. Previously he slept on his back, one arm above his head, with his chest open for me to rest my head against. Last night, in drunken freedom, was the first time he had slept with his chest open to me in longer than I could remember.

A few short hours ago Adam wrapped his arms around me and told me he what I so badly needed to hear. And now in my new, specially bought, unseen, untouched, unwanted negligee, I watched him sleep.

Ten minutes after I left it I stood in the marble en suite again and peeled off my redundant lingerie. I silently watched my reflection as I wiped off my make up slowly, steadily, calmly, feeling the heavy weight of sadness sink into my unsurprised heart.

I thought about how many women had stood looking into this mirror, fixing their hair, undressing for the night, and how many men had come up behind the woman they love and put their hands on her body. Watching her reflection, kissing the back of her neck, running his hands over her breasts, her waist, her legs, pressing his body against hers until she turned, unable to contain herself, to face him, knowing that he wanted her, right there against the cool marble tiles.

I wondered if they made it to the bed or if they stayed in that spot, his arms wrapped around her body, watching her face as he moved inside her, or if he sat on the edge of the bath and pulled her down on to him, or if they made love in the hot beating shower, wherever they were in that moment.

A tiny part of me remembered what that was like. A distant observer, aware of something I used to know, something that wasn’t mine anymore. Like watching someone light a cigarette and take that first drag when you haven’t smoked in years. You might never smoke again, but you know what that first drag feels like. You know that it used to be a part of who you are.

*** *** ***

The thing is, no one ever talks about men not wanting sex. Young, healthy men, I mean. They talk about older men and Viagra. But that about not wanting it, that’s about the apparatus. They talk about long term marriages that have lost their spark or they talk about rebuilding intimacy after an affair or a heart attack or illness.

But they don’t talk about healthy, happy thirty something men not wanting sex with the woman they love. Because it’s a given: if a healthy man, in a relationship isn’t having sex it’s because the woman won’t put out, not because he doesn't want it. Everyone knows that, don't they?

There are entire comedy club stand-up routines about it. The missus has a headache, she won’t put out until I shave my beard or buy her shoes or take out the bins; the painters are in; the mother in law is staying; it’s a lunar eclipse; it isn’t a lunar eclipse; or the 17^th night after the last lunar eclipse; it’s no one’s birthday; it’s still five months until Christmas; there’s no letter ‘r’ in the month.

If it wasn’t so close to the bone I would laugh. Three years ago, I would have laughed. But when you are thirty one years old and the man you love seems to avoid any reason to touch you, it’s like a knife to the heart.

Chapter Four

‘Have you heard the news?’

On Monday morning Jamie perched on the edge of my desk, his eyes wide with excitement. The words were out of his mouth before I even had a chance to take off my coat.

It was Jamie who told me all about the no making decisions at Birthdays and Christmas rule. He is steadfast about it, even now. It comes from his many years of being a psychologist. That was until one of his clients - a CEO with a penchant for public sex and a fear that he was going to busted - told him that he could treble his earnings by turning corporate. Within a year Jamie had joined Hamer & Hamer, bought a flat in Richmond-upon-Thames and amassed a truly excellent collection of Thomas Pink shirts.

Jamie is very wise. He is also six foot tall, wears an ever-present smile on his face and has skin the colour of sun kissed afternoon even in the deepest mid winter. I would marry him if I could. I can’t marry him of course because a) after what happened with Adam I am giving marriage and all other romantic pursuits a wide berth for a long, long time b) Jamie and I dissected every ugly nook and painful cranny of what was going on with me and Adam for the better part of three years, and while I was never actually Jamie’s patient there are probably all sorts of potential counselor-client confidentiality breeches involved and c) he is gay as Christmas.

Jamie is the only one of my friends in London who understood that just because I was the one who left Adam that didn’t mean I was ok. He is also my only friend close to forty, and that makes me feel so much better in so many ways.

First, because I am nowhere near forty, so that makes me feel instantly better. Second, because it’s nice to be friends with a real almost-forty year old, and a clever one at that. It makes me feel like I am grown-up on those days when I get a sneaking and largely undeniable suspicion that I will never manage to be a proper grown-up. Proper grown-ups don’t walk away from a flat and a savings account and a marriage to a perfectly nice man.

And third, because whenever I get overcome with a dose of the maudlins and tell him that proper grown-ups don’t walk away from a flat and a savings account and marriage to a perfectly nice man Jamie reminds me that deciding not taking second best for the next sixty years was one hundred percent the right thing to do. See? Wise.

Not long after he turned to the corporate dark side Jamie confessed to me, after a few too many champagnes at someone’s leaving do, that there was another reason why he traded his counseling rooms for the board room. He said that after five years in rooms – that’s what counselor types call the practice of being a psychologist, they are in rooms - he couldn’t stomach nodding encouragingly at couples who he just knew in his heart were doomed to fail.

Nowadays Hamer & Hamer Management Consultancy charge him out for hundreds of pounds an hour to share his psychological wisdom with the senior management of Greater London’s corporate giants. Me, I get him for free.

‘What news?’ I asked hanging my coat inside the concealed cupboard in the wood paneled walls of our very fancy open plan office. I put my breakfast, take away cappuccino and raisin toast from the deli downstairs, on my desk and checked my reflection in my computer screen for a cappuccino foam moustache.

‘She’s been found’ he declared somberly

‘Who?’

This was a more than fair question on my part. I should tell you here that Jamie knows everything about everything. Most of us have idle office kitchen based conversations. We talk about the Royal baby or about those miners who got trapped underground and the conversation goes something along the lines of this:

‘Did you hear about those miners?’

‘Ooh yes isn’t it terrible? Where were they again?’

‘Chile’ someone pipes in. They might even pronounce it Chill-ay earning extra bonus points for being culturally sensitive as well as topically accurate.

‘That’s right’ says someone else

‘How long have they been down there now?’

‘Fourteen days’ you say with a grave nod of the head, quietly pleased with your contribution, not to mention just a little surprised that it turns out you do have some awareness of current affairs in the world at large after all.

‘Terrible’ everyone murmurs in unison and the topic is done and you move swiftly on to the serious business of what to have for lunch.

If Jamie were there though, the conversation would be much, much longer and would stand a much, much better chance of being factually correct. He could fill in every tiny gap and fact and detail about mining, about the topography of South America, about how long it is physically possible to exist underground without light, food or water. Everything. He knows way more about all sorts of things than anyone I have ever met. This makes him a very annoying person with whom to try and have a casual, in-passing, while we-wait-for-the-kettle-to-boil, sketchy-on-the-details office kitchen chat.

I must confess that I might have more than a loose grasp of events in far flung places if I paid better attention, but who can honestly say they watch the news in earnest? I half-watch the news usually while simultaneously painting my toenails and talking on the phone to Jen. I figure subliminal messaging will penetrate my brain enough to make me aware of the major happenings in the world.

Jamie also only half-watches the news. Usually while simultaneously ironing his Thomas Pink shirts and buffing his nails to a natural healthy shine after peeling shallots for homemade, from scratch, Beef Stroganoff. But somehow he manages to absorb and retain every tiny detail. He could be a guest speaker on Newsnight.

So when Jamie leant against my desk on this blustery May Monday, eyes wide with anticipation and some hot off the press piece of news tingling on his lips, he could have be talking about anything. He could be talking about a little girl who went missing at the hands of some dodgy beardy cult in Arkansas back in 1993, he could be talking about the remains of Amelia Earheart, he could be talking about a reclusive celebrity spotted tumbling out of a nightclub at 4.20am. It could have been anything.

But this morning it was none of those things. This morning, the hot topic was me.

‘Your replacement. She's been found’ Jamie said, then he leant back with arms folded across his chest, waiting for my response.

This was newsworthy indeed because Mr. Wick, Head of Accounts, has been looking for my replacement for four months now, ever since Adam and I broke up. Mr. Wick, by the way, is Sri Lankan. His full name is actually Mr. Wickramasinghe but no one can pronounce it. For months a standard morning greeting uttered by most of the employees at Hamer & Hamer went like this.

‘Ah, good morning Mr. Wick-rimy-singy, I mean Wig-ama-mama, um, ah, Wick-rooma-thinga’

He must have a first name but I suspect it is even harder to pronounce and he has chosen to quit while he’s ahead. (Jamie once told me that there are only a handful of first names and surnames in Indonesia and everyone has the same ones only in different combinations. It must make for quite a confusing family gathering). Plus Mr. Wick is a thin, wise, village elder sort of a man, calling him by his first name just wouldn’t seem right. It would be like calling the Dalai Lama by whatever the Dalai Lama’s real first name is. So when Mr. Wickramsinghe joined the company a couple of years back, he politely endured a few weeks of endless tongue-twisting attempts at the pronunciation of his surname, followed by red-cheeked apologies, then gracefully shortened his name to Mr. Wick so we could all go about our days and get some work done.

I couldn’t pronounce his name either until I went to Sri Lanka with Jen for what should have been her tenth wedding anniversary. Most people might have cancelled their anniversary holiday when they found out the awful truth about their husband of ten years but not Jen. When she found out what Nick had done she said she wasn’t about to lose the holiday as well as her marriage. So there we were in Sri Lanka and I half heartedly suggested that we should do something aside from lying by the pool drinking every cocktail we could think of. So, being in the country of his birth, the challenge was set. We would learn to pronounce Mr. Wickramasinghe’s unpronounceable name.

We started by breaking it down by syllables ‘Wick-ram-a-sing-a’. Then we strung the syllables together. Then, once we had that mastered, we challenged each other to say it faster and faster every time. To this day, when she has a few drinks inside of her, I swear Jen can say Wickramasinghe in less than a second. We all have our gifts. Some of us can tell jokes, some of us can perform magic tricks involving ears and a fifty pence coin, Jen can say Sri Lankan surnames absolutely perfectly really, really fast.

*** *** ***

‘Ah Eleanor!’ Mr. Wick had said four months earlier as a loitered outside his office on a hand-wringing January morning ‘Come in, come in’

Mr. Wick is the only person I have ever known to call me by my full name. He pronounces my name Elll-ee-an-orrr, stretching out every syllable. It sounds so poetic it almost makes me want to adopt it full time. Perhaps it is in respectful return for me calling him by his full name when, ever since the first day back at work after my Sri Lankan holiday, I met Mr. Wick in the corridor and pronounced his surname correctly, in full, right off the bat. No stopping or stammering or skipping over syllables or anything. He looked at me with an air of faint awe and a little bond was built between us.

‘Mr. Wickramasinghe’ I had said, not stopping for pleasantries for fear of not getting my news out ‘I need to give you my notice’

His kindly face fell.