Deranged Marriage by Faith Bleasdale Read Free Book Online Page B

cheer me up. She was brilliant after George left for America all those years ago, she moved me straight back into her flat and nurtured me in an alcoholic sort of way until I was ready to move on and get my own place. Then she helped me find the little two-bedroomed flat in Clapham which is still my home.
    We arranged to go for supper at our favourite Italian, conveniently located down the road from my flat. Because I was meeting Lisa, who was stunning, I put on a bit of make-up, and because she was tall, I put on my high heels. I looked at myself in the mirror, and I could still see the hangover. I smiled and tried my best to look human, then I left.
    *
    ‘So, you and Joe aren’t talking,’ Lisa said when we were settled with a bottle of red. She was wearing jeans and a black long-sleeved T-shirt, but she still looked amazing.
    ‘I don’t know. We haven’t spoken since it happened, and I guess he’s pissed off with me, but I don’t know because all there’s been is silence.’
    ‘Call him?’ Lisa didn’t believe in game-playing.
    ‘I thought that it would be better if I didn’t.’
    ‘Holly, you’re a bloody idiot. Anyway did you say you saw George last night?’ This was my line: I met George, he told me that he was going to ask his girlfriend to marry him, we had dinner to celebrate and catch up.
    ‘Yeah, he looked older.’
    ‘No offence, but you look older.’
    ‘Today I do.’
    ‘Every day darling. Listen, you’re going to be thirty soon, I was wondering what sort of a party you had planned.’
    ‘I don’t like parties, you know that.’
    ‘I wanted to have a roller disco for my thirtieth but the insurance premium was too high.’ Lisa lit a cigarette.
    ‘As I remember it your thirtieth was a drugs and disco party.’
    ‘That’s back in the days when I was on the drugs and disco diet.’
    ‘The what?’
    ‘Well, in order to stay thin I took a little coke and danced a lot.’
    ‘And now?’
    ‘Now I smoke a lot, but generally I don’t do much else.’
    Not sure how we had got to this point, I decided to change the subject. ‘What are you doing for Christmas?’
    ‘Oh, Max has invited his family to come to us for Christmas Day. He tried to persuade me to invite mine too, but no way. What about you?’ Max was Lisa’s boyfriend, they’d been together for years and she adored him.
    ‘Well, I’m probably going to Devon, but I’d quite like to spend Christmas Day with Joe.’
    ‘If he’s still talking to you.’ We had come full circle.
    Later, as I lay wrapped in my duvet, I realised that recently I had begun to hate sleeping alone. It had never bothered me before. Sure, I liked to spread out in bed, but I wanted Joe there. I chastised myself for sounding so sad. Instead, I looked forward to a new day, a new week, and I would concentrate on Joe, I wasn’t ready to let him get away.
    *
    ‘Freddie, why didn’t you buy me coffee?’ I asked as I sat at my desk glancing enviously at Freddie’s overpriced cappuccino.
    ‘Because it’s bad for you and now you have a boyfriend you have to be careful.’
    ‘But I don’t even know if I have a boyfriend at the moment.’
    ‘Oh God, I wondered how long it would take you. Holly it’s ten o’clock on Monday morning and already you’re whingeing.’
    ‘I am not.’ What I didn’t tell Freddie was that I had already taken action on the Joe front. I decided not to be too proud and so sent him a text message on the way to work asking him to call me. I hated the idea I was coming across as desperate but felt that I didn’t have any choice.
    ‘Good weekend?’ I asked, changing the subject.
    ‘Yeah, yours?’
    ‘Yeah, it was lovely seeing George again,’ I lied.
    ‘So why do you look so ghastly?’ It was a good question. One which reaffirmed that I looked the way I felt.
    ‘Joe.’
    ‘Oh the whores,’ Freddie teased. I shot him a look. This was Freddie’s idea of lending a sympathetic ear.
    ‘No, I don’t think that’s it.