Most of life’s defining moments happen unexpectedly; sometimes they slide past you completely unnoticed until afterwards, if at all. The last time your child is small enough to carry on your hip. An eye-roll exchanged with a stranger who becomes your life-long best friend. The summer job you apply for on impulse and stay at for the next twenty years. That kind of thing. So I’m completely unaware that one of my defining moments is passing me by when my mobile rings at 6.47 p.m. on 14 March, 2018; instead, I curse under my breath because I’ve got a Velcro roller stuck in my hair and I’m already running late.
‘Hello?’
I can’t help it; I smile as I tap on speakerphone and Freddie half shouts his greeting over the background road noise.
‘I’m here,’ I say loudly, hairpins gripped between my teeth.
‘Listen, Lyds, Jonah’s got car trouble so I’m going to swing round and pick him up on the way back. It won’t make much difference, ten minutes max.’
I’m glad he isn’t here to see the look on my face. Was it Princess Diana who famously said there were three people in her marriage? I get that, because there are three people in mine too. Not that we’re married yet; very nearly though. Freddie Hunter and I are engaged, and I’m officially almost the happiest girl in the world. I refer you back to my earlier statement to explain why I say ‘almost’ the happiest; because there’s me, there’s Freddie and there’s Jonah bloody Jones.
I get it; I don’t go a day without speaking to my sister, but Elle isn’t always here on our sofa drinking our tea and demanding my attention. Not that Freddie’s best friend is demanding, exactly. Jonah’s so laid-back he’s almost horizontal most of the time and it’s not as if I don’t like him – I’d just like him a whole lot more if I didn’t see so much of him, you know? Tonight, for instance. Freddie asked Jonah to the dinner without thinking to check with me first, even though it’s my birthday.
I spit the hairpins out as I give up wrestling with the Velcro and pick the phone up instead, irritated.
‘God, Freddie, must you? Alfredo’s is booked for eight and they won’t hold the table if we’re late.’
I know this from bitter experience: our work Christmas dinner there turned into a disaster when the minibus arrived ten minutes late and we all ended up eating McDonald’s in our Sunday best. Tonight is my birthday dinner and I’m pretty sure my mum won’t be impressed with a Big Mac instead of Chicken Fettuccine.
‘Chill your boots, Cinders, you won’t be late for the ball. Promise.’
That’s Freddie all over. He never takes life seriously, even on the once-in-a-while occasions when, actually, it would be nice if he did. Time is elastic in his world, he can stretch it to accommodate his needs – or, in this case, to accommodate Jonah’s.
‘Okay,’ I sigh, resigned. ‘Just keep your eye on the time, for God’s sake.’
‘Got it,’ he says, already turning up the car radio. ‘Over and out.’
Silence fills the bedroom and I wonder if anyone would notice if I cut off the chunk of hair knotted around the roller currently hanging off the side of my head.
And there it was. My life’s defining moment, sliding nonchalantly past me at 6.47 p.m. on 14 March, 2018.
2018
* * *
Thursday 10 May
Freddie Hunter, otherwise known as the great big love of my life, died fifty-six days ago.
One moment I’m cursing him for running late and ruining my birthday dinner, the next I’m trying to make sense of the two uniformed policewomen in my living room, one of them holding my hand as she speaks. I stare at her wedding ring and then at my engagement ring.
‘Freddie can’t be dead,’ I say. ‘We’re getting married next year.’
It’s probably a self-preservation thing that I struggle to recall exactly what happened afterwards. I remember being blue-lighted to A&E in the police car and my sister holding me up when my legs buckled at the hospital. I remember turning my back on Jonah Jones when he appeared in the waiting room with barely a scratch on him, just his hand bandaged and a wound dressing over one eye. How is that fair? Two get into the car, only one gets out again. I remember what I was wearing, a new green blouse I’d bought especially for the dinner. I’ve given it away to a charity shop; I never