Chapter Nineteen
NINETEEN
To add insult to injury, someone else is sitting in Callum’s seat.
It’s chic divorcee Jennifer, resplendent in her ‘end of an error’ sash and ‘we never liked him anyway’ T-shirt.
She’s scrolling through a preloved wedding dress site on her phone and when I try to throw my bag into the overhead locker, she turns her kind eyes up at me.
‘Hello.’ She smiles as I attempt another running jump, wishing so hard that Callum was here. Eventually one of the cabin crew helps me out and I settle into my seat.
‘Hi,’ I say. ‘I’m Nina. I like your T-shirt.’
‘I wanted them to read “Eric can kiss my ass” but Jennifer put her foot down,’ chirps up one of the party in the row behind.
‘I’m Jennifer,’ chuckles Jennifer. ‘And please excuse Rachel. She gets very defensive on my behalf, Nana.’
‘It’s … oh, never mind.’
The pilot asks the cabin crew to prepare for take-off, and I realize that there’s no mention of a late-coming passenger.
Was that missing egg sandwich this morning a pre-cursor?
There are no angry flyers booing the person who held us up.
We even start taxiing on time and it dawns on me that Hamish McKellan is definitely not getting on this flight.
As the plane roars up and into the sky, I take a minute to consider how this makes me feel.
There are so many messy thoughts and feelings knocking around in my head right now but when the dust settles I decide that when it comes to Hamish, I feel good.
Happy. Relieved. Hamish not being here offers the smallest glimmer of good news, too, and I grasp on to it with both hands.
‘Hey, Nana, you’re in luck.’ Rachel’s head pops up over the back of my chair once the seatbelt signs come off.
‘I am?’
‘Found the prototype for you.’ With that, she throws a white T-shirt over to me.
I hold it up.
‘Eric can kiss my ass,’ I read out loud.
‘Rachel!’ Jennifer chastises. ‘I told you I hated those. So crass. And poor Nana certainly doesn’t want to wear one.’
‘D’you know what, Nana actually does,’ I say as I study it. ‘Eric can kiss my ass, right ladies? In fact, they all can.’
Jennifer’s divorce party erupts into cheers.
‘I like this one,’ says Rachel, asking for ten mini bottles of vodka and handing them round the group. She waggles one at me and vodka is obviously the answer to all of my problems.
I neck it in one go.
‘Didn’t you want to wait for a mixer?’ Jennifer asks, askance.
‘Maybe next time.’ I wince. ‘So, Australia seems like a long way to go for a divorce party, at least I’m guessing that’s what this is?’ I add to cover my tracks.
‘Oh honey, that is correct,’ says Jennifer. ‘I’ve just got my divorce papers through and I’m a free woman, so the girls and I are celebrating. I brought my mum too.’
She points towards a sweet octogenarian sitting in the row behind.
‘Hello, dear!’ She waves.
‘Hello!’ I beam back. I guess this is why Jennifer’s up front with me this time, because of the last-minute addition of her mum to the group? ‘Are you looking forward to Australia?’
‘Call me Dot,’ she says. ‘And yes, I am, very much so. The girls tell me there’s going to be plenty of D.’
I splutter out a cough.
‘That’s right, Mum,’ cheers Jennifer. ‘So much D.’
Dot is also wearing a divorce party T-shirt and she’s teamed it with orthopaedic shoes and a pair of catalogue trousers. Maybe I’m missing a trick, here. These women really are grabbing life by the, er, bits.
‘I cannot wait,’ says Rachel. ‘I knew it was time to divorce my ex when he was diagnosed with a lazy butt.’
‘No?’
‘True story. The GP had literally told him that his painful shins were because he had lazy glutes. I thought, if even science is backing him up, then I’m screwed.’
‘Cheers to that,’ says Jennifer. ‘The problem with marriage, Nana, is that it’s so limiting.’ It takes a moment to figure out that she’s talking to me, and not the actual nana sitting behind us, but I get there in the end. I lean in, happy to have the distraction.
‘I’ve got a couple of boyfriends,’ announces Dot. ‘I wouldn’t mind a third, preferably one who is still allowed to drive.’
‘Yes!’ says Rachel. ‘Why limit yourself to one slice of cake when you can eat the whole damn thing?’
‘Well,’ I waver. ‘Isn’t there the risk of feeling a bit sick? Or, you know, finding yourself torn between two men and spending so long faffing about that by the time you figure out that it’s so totally and obviously Callum, he’s gone.’
‘Oh dear, sounds like Nana’s having a time of it,’ Jennifer says.
I blow my hair out of my face.
‘Is that what’s taking you to Aus?’ asks Rachel.
‘I honestly have no clue.’ I exhale. ‘I mean, ostensibly I’m going for work but philosophically?’
‘Can someone fetch poor Nana another vodka?’ suggests Dot. ‘Perhaps a double.’
I can’t help but titter at this.
In the end, Jennifer, Rachel and Dot lift my spirits so much. I can’t remember the last time I had so much fun without my brain feeling like a fried egg that’s been left out in the sun. We share stories for so long that other people are starting to turn their lights out.
‘So, Nana, tell us more about why you’re in a fix.’
‘Pffftttt,’ I say, blowing air out of my mouth. ‘It’s complicated.’
‘Even better,’ says Jennifer. ‘Come on, spill.’
‘I’ve spent the past decade convinced that there’s no one better than my ex-boyfriend, the one that got away, and then I recently met up with him again and realised how flawed that logic was.’
‘Of course it was, honey,’ says Jennifer.
‘I personally hate that whole one-that-got-away thing. So ridiculous. You broke up for a reason, things weren’t right.
My very wise best friend once told me something which I live my life by, now.
He said: “Don’t go back”. The advice works in so many scenarios.
Think about it, you go on a fabulous holiday and want to book the same place again for the following year.
You ignore my best friend, and you do go back and guess what, it’s not quite as good.
The shine has worn off a little, because you’ve already had that first rush. It’s all a bit less.’
I listen intently.
‘But mostly, it applies to exes. Honey, I can guarantee that you kicked that guy to the kerb for a good reason. And if he dumped you? Then thank goodness for that.’
‘I do totally agree with you,’ I say. ‘It’s been a revelation, I can tell you, and it feels good to let go of the what-ifs.’
‘So, then, what’s the problem?’ asks Jennifer.
‘I’m falling for someone else.’
‘And that is bad because …’
‘I hate him.’
Everyone considers this for a moment.
‘Are you sure about that?’ Dot asks.
‘Well, no, I used to hate him. But it doesn’t matter anyway, because I’ve lost my chance.’
‘Is he seeing someone else?’
‘No. It’s more that I had my opportunity and I messed it up.’
‘You’re making this sound very final.’
‘It is. Like, I’m not even sure if I’ll see him again. And even if I did, and even if he wanted something to happen, it couldn’t. A good relationship needs strong foundations, right? You should be friends first. That just makes sense.’
‘Oh honey, no it doesn’t.’ Jennifer shakes her head vehemently, while Rachel in the seat behind starts to cackle. ‘Why on earth do you reckon you need to be friends first?’
‘Because it’s obvious?!’ I begin. ‘My mum raised me all on her own because my dad was totally absent. I’ve never met him and all I know is what Mum’s had to tell me over the years.
That she and this guy burned very bright, fizzled out quickly, and nine months later there I was.
She never dwells on it massively but she did always make it clear that a solid relationship needed good strong foundations. ’
‘And you’ve decided that means you need to skip off into the sunset with your best-friend, slow-burn, possibly quite boring lover?’ asks Jennifer.
‘Ouch,’ I chuckle.
‘Jennifer, stop overstepping,’ says Rachel. ‘She does that all the time.’
‘Do you seriously think you need to be friends with a partner before you get together?’ Jennifer ploughs on.
The group laughs hard for such a long time that I keep checking the time, wondering if we might be about to land. Not quite, but by the time Dot stops chortling we are flying somewhere off the coast of Myanmar.
‘Some of my best relationships have come from a place that definitely was not friendship,’ Jennifer says. ‘Let’s see, my last husband was obviously a dreadful human being. Loved golf. We met through friends, so I guess you could say we were friends first.’
‘Proof that friends isn’t always a good place to start,’ chips in Rachel. ‘Tell Nana about the husband before that. Jennifer’s had a lot of husbands,’ she adds to me.
‘But you look so young,’ I blurt out.
‘Facialist, plastic surgeon, weekly cryotherapy,’ Jennifer says, ticking things off with her manicured fingers. ‘Also PEMF mat, tongue scraping, collagen supps,’ she adds, as if I know what any of these things mean.
‘Wow,’ I whisper. ‘You’re a busy woman.’
‘I’m a celebrity agent so I get access to a lot of stuff. Now let me tell you about Mattieu, my penultimate husband. He was divine. A dreadful human being, of course. I hated him!’
‘So why did you date him?!’ I squawk.
‘Isn’t it obvious?’
‘Please spell it out for me, Jennifer, I need all the help I can get.’
‘We had chemistry. Yes, I thought he was awful, but that just meant that we sparked. A lot. He was my personal trainer and a total sadist.’
‘Huh. And did you hate him when you got together?’