When I turned around, Ben had gone. To America, it transpired. New York, where his investment bank had transferred him; promotion. So I contacted him. Asked when he was coming back, if we could meet, have lunch. I wasn’t unduly worried. In fact I was so casual I think I was even painting my toenails on the stairs in Clapham at the time, phone tucked under my chin. And he’d said not for a bit, not for a good six months, and anyway, he’d met someone in New York. Caroline. An American girl, who worked with him. Same age, twenty-four. A banker. They were going to get married.
Hard to describe the body blow felt at the time. The breathlessness. The pain. Ben, who’d always been there. Funny, clever, beautiful, blond Ben, who of course would be snapped up in New York – would be snapped up in London, but with the accent, the whole Brit bit, would go down a storm over there – but who loved me. Had always been there for me. Whilst I’d been totally complacent about him. My Ben.
Jennie had endured much grief and wailing. Much smoking of too many cigarettes, much talk of shelf life, and, eventually, the months having ticked by, much furtive hiding of wedding plans from me after she admitted she was engaged.
She’d meet me after work, samples of shot-silk organza hidden in her handbag, CDs of suitable music for bridal entrances secreted about her person. She’d counsel and sympathize and suggest suitable replacements for Ben, but all were unacceptable. All were second-bests. Will Thompson was nice enough, I supposed, when she told me he fancied me, but he didn’t have Ben’s charm, his easy manner, and Harry Eastgate was fun too, but, oh I don’t know, Jennie, he worked so hard, was very driven.
‘What about anyone at work?’
‘What, like Andy?’ I said gloomily, sinking into my cider without bothering to pick it up.
When Jennie got married it was fine, because I knew she would, to Dan, who turned out to be everything she described and was madly in love with her, but then Tess, a sweet girl on the fringe of our group, got engaged, and the following year Daisy, a really good mate, and then Will Thompson and then Harry Eastgate. Which pretty much just left me. And I can’t tell you how panicky I felt. I told myself to relax, but I hyperventilated. I went to spas with girls I knew quite well, but not like Jennie and Daisy, and lay around wrapped in seaweed. I went to the Canaries to get an early tan for the summer. I even went to see Madame Sheriza – not a fortune-teller, you understand, but a proper medium, at a reputable institute of psycho-something in South Ken, and she told me I’d meet someone through my sister, except I didn’t have a sister. Sorry, I meant your brother. Don’t have one of those either. And all the while my eyes roved around in a crazy fashion at parties, and one day I panic-bought. Those crazy eyes lit on Phil. Phil. On the periphery of society, tall, pleasant-looking, fair-haired, slim – nice Phil, surely?
‘Oh, lovely Phil,’ Tess assured me eagerly. A good friend of her brother’s. Really lovely Phil.
‘Quite nice Phil,’ Jennie said, more hesitantly. A bit sort of … bland, maybe? And don’t forget, Tess’s brother read sociology.
But I wasn’t listening. Off I went on dates with him and he was delightful. He hadn’t had a girlfriend for years and feeling, I think, he was punching above his weight, was pulling out all the stops: taking me to country-house retreats, weekends in the Cotswolds, even mini-breaks in Paris.
‘Phil’s great!’ I’d squeak, flying round to Jennie and Dan’s in Twickenham, where she’d be reading to her stepdaughter, Frankie, or getting the supper amid packing cases, poised to move to the country. ‘And he’s mad about me, and yesterday I got roses at work!’
‘Good. And you’re mad about him?’ She poured me a drink and we perched on a box.
‘Of course.’
‘And does he make you laugh?’
‘Oh – laugh. Last night we went to see Airport and we couldn’t stop laughing!’
‘I think you’ll find that was Gene Wilder making you laugh, but good, Poppy. I’m pleased. Shit. Hang on.’
She’d moved like lightning, legging it up the stairs to meet Frankie, aged four, who’d appeared damp and tearful at the top, still wetting her bed at night.