Chapter 29 Mila
Chapter 29
Mila
He knew about it all along. He knew about her silly premonition, and he never breathed a word—never said that I told him.
Cringe. Cringe. Cringe!
Bloody shrooms. I’m so embarrassed. Not that Baba’s words can have anything to do with our marriage. It’s just a coincidence, that’s all. She didn’t even get his name right and she thought he was Alexander the Great! Not that I would mind seeing him in a toga.
We leave Baba dozing in her chair, though she made him promise to bring the backgammon board next time he visited. Not a backgammon board but the backgammon board. I really want to ask him if he owns one, but I don’t really want to know the answer.
“Where can I take you?”
“I’d really rather make my own way.” There’s a lump in my throat the size of a tennis ball, and I’m worried it might shoot out. I’m going to Baba’s flat, and the place is a dump—it all got too much for Roza, and I never realized the extent of her difficulties until I had to move back in. It’s not like I abandoned her when I moved out in my early twenties, but I’d take her for lunch and days out rather than visit. Christmas and Easter she’d come to us. I wanted to treat her, but in doing so, somehow I missed her illness.
But if the flat is a dump, the building is a dumpster fire. In an island of dumpster fires. I don’t want Fin anywhere near the place.
“Seems unnecessary. I have my car, and you’re clearly in a hurry to go somewhere.”
“I’m always in a hurry to get out of that place,” I say, glancing behind me. “I hate it in there.”
“Yeah, I get that. It’s not the nicest facility, though you’re pretty lucky with the nursing staff.” A smile curls in the corner of his mouth, but I’m not going to comment, even when he pretends to hide it by scratching the tip of his nose. “It was nice how they congratulated us on our marriage.”
I still say nothing, and I step back as a woman with a twin stroller barges between us, narrowly missing my toes. How did they even know? It wasn’t the gossip column, because there were no funny looks. No sly suggestions that I’d bagged myself a rich man. Just smiles and congratulations.
Ah! The realization hits. We’re both wearing wedding rings. Coupled with Baba’s confused mutterings, that was probably it.
“So now you’ve seen for yourself why I agreed to fake marry you.”
“But not why you real married me. And now you know you told me already about Roza’s coffee premonition.”
“You must’ve thought I was crazy,” I say. “I can’t think how I brought it up.”
“It was a really sweet moment. Even when you explained how you thought she was confused about the date.”
I say nothing and hope he’ll do the same.
“We got married on your original wedding date.” It’s a simple statement, though a tiny spark of humor lurks in those gray eyes of his.
“The date, yeah.” I scrunch my nose.
“It must’ve felt pretty wild for you.”
“That’s one way to put it.” Freaky would be another. “But it’s just a coincidence. Thank you for humoring her. You know, with all that palm reading and woo-woo stuff.”
“No problem.” Still with the amusement. Amusement restrained.
“Well, I’d better be off. I need to get back to Baba’s flat shipshape.” I throw my thumb over my shoulder, though that’s hardly the direction I’m headed.
“Today?” Fin’s brow furrows briefly.
“Not everyone owns their home,” I begin, my words spiky, “and the housing association wants the place back. Which is another reason I said yes. To Oliver and Evie’s scheme, I mean.” There’s no point hiding this stuff anymore. Not now that he’s seen where I come from. Though he hasn’t (and won’t) see the worst of it. “It’s... been a time. I got dumped. Baba lost her marbles and moved in there,” I say, throwing my thumb behind me. “Which meant I was about to become homeless a second time. My business went wonky, which you know, and all that together made for a very trying time.” Understatement of the century. “But things are looking up now.” I smile—staple that sucker on.
“Because you married your grandmother’s dream man?”
“No, that’s Alexander. Why are you pulling that face?”
“Reasons,” he replies enigmatically. Or annoyingly.
“Anyway, we should probably talk about our exit strategy at some point.” I sound so clinical, but it’s the best way. Right?
“From marriage?” He pushes his hands into the pockets of his pants, his gaze dipping briefly.
“Well, obviously, I have to find my Alexander at some point,” I mutter, slightly caustically.
“Of course.” He gives a huff of a laugh, that twinkle in his eye coming back.
“Look, Fin, I’m grateful for your help, and I’m sorry if it doesn’t always seem that way. I know I wasn’t very gracious before, but I would like to be your friend. If you think that’s possible still. You’re on good terms with your exes,” I add as an afterthought. A slightly desperate sounding one. “Not that we’d really be—”
“I’d like that. To be your friend.”
I thought I might feel relief, or comfort. I do not. “I’m going to be busy over the coming months. I’m sure we both are. And I expect, for appearances, we should probably be seen together. Sometimes. Maybe?”
“I think that would be best. Neither of us would benefit from being outed in a lie.”
“True. I think what I’m trying to say—and making a mess of—is that I don’t think we’ll be spending a lot of time together. But I’d like to—well, if you’d like to too ...” I take a deep breath. “I want to sleep with you—in your bed. To be intimate.”
“Be intimate?” he repeats with a twitch to his lips.
“Have sex. And not just because there’s a chance someone on your staff might tell the tabloids.” A smile tugs at my lips, because we both know that was nothing but a ruse. A silly excuse. “I want you. And I want to.”
“I guess it is Roza sanctioned.”
“Can we not talk about my grandmother and sex in the same breath?”
“Can I ask what made you change your mind?”
“Last night, I came to the conclusion that, if we’re staying in the same house, I won’t be able to keep my hands off you.”
A fact I find mortifyingly necessary to admit.
In the end, Fin insists on taking me to the flat, and short of tripping him and making a run for it, I don’t see how I can get out of it. But it turns out, he’s not driving. Bob is. Bob is Fin’s sometime driver.
“If Bob drives, it means I get to work,” he explains with an apologetic shrug.
I give Bob the address, and I know by his blank expression he’s heard of the area. I mean, most Londoners have. The place is notorious. Knife crime and drugs, gangs, addicts, and police raids. I’ll be so glad when I never have to climb that concrete staircase again.
“Take a left here, please.” I direct Bob to the car park nearest to Baba’s building. If you read about the area, you’ll learn the sprawling towers include over three hundred homes and that the building style is something called postwar brutalism .
I would say living in the shadow of these towers is brutal, if nothing else.
“Right.” I reach for my seat belt, my tone determined. “I expect I’ll see you later.”
“I’ll come with you,” Fin says, doing the same.
“No,” I bite out. “No need,” I add a little softer. “You’ll just get in the way.”
“I get that you want to do this alone, that you feel like you need to do everything unaided,” he adds with consternation. “But I can help.”
My eyes slide to the driver, who does a solid impression of being inanimate. But he’s got ears.
“I can,” he repeats.
“No, you can’t. Not with this. This is personal. I don’t want you there.” I feel cruel saying so, even if it is the truth.
“Fine. Then I’ll just walk you up.”
“I knew it,” I say under my breath as I reach for the door handle and yank it open. I’m out and almost at the stairwell, my cheeks burning angrily and my head thumping, as he catches up.
“Wait.”
“I’ve been climbing these stairs for years. See?” I make a couple of ridiculously exaggerated steps. “I don’t need your help.”
“Oy, mister!” Our heads simultaneously turn to the voice from the other side of the car park. “You need someone to look after your motor?”
“He means your car,” I mutter, eyeing the gray-tracksuit-, black-hoodie-wearing group of boys. Men? They might be ten years old, or they might be in their twenties, it’s hard to tell. They could be kids messing about, or they could be gang members. “You’d better go back. We don’t see many Bentleys around here.” I turn away, only to find his fingers wrapped around my upper arm.
“No, thanks!” Fin yells back with an affable wave. “Bob will look after it. It’s an ugly car, anyway,” he adds just for my ears. “Part of the company fleet.”
“But still—”
“That fat fuck?” the voice yells back. “Is he carrying?”
“He means—”
“You don’t have to translate for me,” Fin answers, amused. “I’m sure he’d invite you to find out!” he then calls over his shoulder.
“Fin!”
“They can take it up with him just fine.”
“But he’s—” old.
“He’s ex-military,” Fin replies. “Like, serious shit.”
“Whatever!” the voice yells back. “I bet he’s not fire retardant.”
“You should go.”
“And leave you here?” he says, as though I’ve lost my mind.
“I live here.” Shame pokes at me, though I know it shouldn’t.
“Not anymore,” he grates out. “And not if I’ve got anything to do with it.”
“Well, guess what? You don’t,” I retort.
“Okay.” He holds up his hands. “Let’s just go upstairs,” he adds, instantly calmer. And ignoring the threat.
“Fine. On your own head be it. Or poor Bob’s,” I add in a mutter.
“That was quite a sophisticated choice of words for an idiot,” he says, trudging behind me. “ Fire retardant. ”
“They’re not idiots,” I say, whipping around. “They’re poor. There’s a difference.”
“Okay?” Fin holds up his hands. “But they’re probably also criminals.”
“That’s what happens to the disenfranchised. A lack of choices leads to a life of crime and violence.” I sound so sanctimonious and feel like such a hypocrite.
“That’s not true for everyone.”
I don’t answer as I turn away, not even sure why I said those things. I might’ve agreed with him five minutes ago, but that doesn’t make it right. Any of it. Just because he can afford to waste tens of thousands on a stupid balloon dog, it doesn’t mean he’s any better than us.
Them and us.
We’re worlds apart in life and experiences.
We’re just too different.
But for what?
“Someone said you got here in a Bentley this morning,” Ronny says, as I open the front door to her smiling face an hour later. The same door I closed (not quite) in Fin’s face when it looked like he wasn’t going to leave.
“No secrets in this building,” I mutter, closing the door behind her, bolting it too. The scent of the hallway is stale, though the rest of the place still smells like home, the scent of a thousand tomato dishes having seeped into every nook and cranny.
“With walls this thin?” Ronny grins as she sets her can of energy drink on a doily in the center of a small nest of tables. “Who was it, then?”
I swallow back a sigh. May as well get it over with. “My husband.”
“What?” Her eyes fly wide. “Spill the tea, sis!” Then she playfully punches me in the arm.
“That’s all I’m saying.” I pivot and make my way into the kitchen.
“Nah. No way!” she says, bounding in behind me. “Is he a big-time dealer?”
“A drug dealer, Ronny? No!” I turn to the pantry, pulling open the yellowing melamine door.
“So, he’s like, just rich?” Her expression scrunches. “Regular rich. Come on, he must be rich if he drives a Bentley. Did you get hitched on holiday?”
“Do you know that spices were first brought to England in the Middle Ages?”
“What?”
“I’m pretty sure there are some in the back of this cupboard with date codes from then.”
“Oldies, man.” She shakes her head. “They keep everything. My nan has jerk seasoning from way back when.”
I’m pretty sure Ronny’s gran is about fifty-five. At least, she looks around that age. And so glamorous.
“I have a job for you,” I begin, knowing that’ll catch her attention before it spins elsewhere. Whirlwind Veronica—so her mother calls her.
“Yeah? What is it?”
“Business is picking up.” Seriously. I was amazed when I checked my message bank to see I had three messages. Three booking inquiries! And now I have three introductory meetings next week. Yippee! The downside is I’ll have to schlep them, as I no longer have an office but each couple (or bride, in these three cases) preferred an actual meeting to a virtual one.
“You never explained what happened to your business. You know, why you moved in with Roza and gave up your flat and stuff.”
“I had a run of bad luck after me and Adam split up.” I pull out the first of a dozen tins of tomatoes. Checking the dates, I sort them into two piles on the two-seat kitchen table. Bad date code and donate to the food kitchen. I turn back to the pantry, which is filled to the brim with tins and packets and boxes, some of which are a dozen years old. Treacle might not go out of date, but crackers go soft. She can’t really have been eating these, can she?
My heart is heavy as I glance around the small space. There is so much to sort through before I can hand back the keys, and yet another letter arrived from the housing association while I was away. I haven’t opened it, as I know it’s just another threat.
“Seems a bit sus.”
My attention drops to Ronny. “Sorry?”
“A bit suspect.” She shrugs and begins sifting through the old foodstuffs. Picking up a packet of single-serve oatmeal, she screws her nose as she reads the date. “The wedding industry is booming,” she says, dropping the oatmeal back. “I don’t see what luck has to do with it.”
“Booming?” I try to keep my amusement from my voice.
“Yeah. I’ve been doin’ a bit of research. You know, after you said you might have something for me. Beats working in a factory.”
“You work in a sports shop. Part time.”
“Selling running shoes.” Her lip curls. “And you know I hate feet.”
Ah, Ronny. She makes me laugh.
“Anyway, the revenue for the wedding industry is up twenty-two percent on last year.” As she says this, she swings her backpack from her shoulder, pulling out a notepad. “Do you know the vicar charges when you get married in church?”
“Yeah.”
“If there’s a God, I hope he’s paying tax.”
Ronny pulls back a kitchen chair and opens her notepad, all business, as she slides away my neatly stacked piles with her forearm, oblivious. She goes on to explain how she’s been hanging around some of the online wedding forums, taking notes of trends and what brides are looking for. I take the seat opposite, impressed. A lot of the information she’s gathered doesn’t really pertain to me; I have my preferred vendors and venues, but Ronny wouldn’t know that.
“What was your wedding like?” she asks quite suddenly, reaching up to tighten her ponytail, jet spirals spilling over her shoulders as she does.
“It was beautiful.” What I remember of it. And what I remember most isn’t the decor or the setting or even the dress. It’s the way Fin looked at me as he lifted my veil. My heart hammered, and my knees were shaking like crazy, but that all faded when he took my face in his hands and whispered how beautiful I was. It went a bit pear shaped after that, but it was mostly nerves.
Specifically mine, which he seemed intent on getting on.
When I think about Fin ... I quickly remind myself not to.
“The ceremony was held in a place overlooking the ocean. The sun was shining, and everything was just perfect.”
“I expect so. It is your job, after all.”
“Yes.” The reminder is a good one. It was just a job.
“So you didn’t have a job to do over there,” she says with a grin. “You went and got secretly hitched!”
“Surprise,” I say weakly.
“Do I get to meet this husband of yours, then?” she asks, pressing her chin to her hand.
“I’m sure you will.” Fin was great with Sarai, so I know he’ll be good with Ronny. I bet he builds a rapport with everybody he meets. Decent, kind, sexy Fin.
“That’s not him downstairs in the Mercedes people carrier, is it?”
“What Mercedes?”
“The bloke driving it looks like a policeman, but the wheels are too posh for him to be a copper,” she adds, using the colloquial term for a policeman. One of the more polite ones, at least.
“That’s nothing to do with me,” I say as I pull out my phone to check the time. Or to see if I’ve received an alert for a new post on that awful gossip column. And what do you know? I have. A fist grasps, then twists my innards, but I won’t look at the post now.
“Is that A Little Bird?” Ronny peers over the top of my phone, so I flip it over.
“Yeah. I was just checking something.”
“It’s so trashy,” she says with a laugh. “But it gives me life.”
“What?”
“I love it. It’s, like, a guilty pleasure.”
“Reading about . . .”
“What’s going on in London. How the other half live and all that. Like, last year, when that woman trashed her wedding after finding her man had been cheating.”
“I read about that. It was awful.”
“I watched the Pulse Tok,” she says, beginning to rummage through her backpack. “I high-key loved it.”
“But the bride was devastated.”
“She served him his arse,” she says, her tone making it clear she disagrees. “Then it went viral, and that man was tortured! The best part was he was so salty about it, which just meant he was heaped on even more.”
“I didn’t see any of that.” But he deserved it, I think as she pulls out her phone. She’ll just be checking her texts. I hope. Or her Snaps. She’s obsessed with Snapchat.
“Gossip is, like, so nourishing it should be its own food group.” But then her eyes widen, and I realize my thoughts were just wishful thinking as she scrolls. And scrolls. And then suddenly sits back in her chair.
“Sis,” she admonishes as she sets down her phone. “I am shook .”
And I’ve been busted, it would seem.