Chapter 24 France
FRANCE
ONE MONTH LATER
ALEXANDER
Of course I love France, though not as much as Americans do (to be fair, I probably don’t even love London as much as Americans do). But I wouldn’t be here right now if it weren’t for Badrick getting married to Laurent.
For four weeks I’ve scarcely left my house. My hair is shaggy, I’ve lost nearly a stone, and I gave up on shaving… leading to the dismaying discovery that my facial hair at this length is alarmingly and undeniably ginger.
Still, when Bad called and said he and Laurent had decided to make a trip (reckless, but no one asked me) up the middle aisle, I packed a few suits and chucked them into the boot of the Austin-Healey and hit the road.
I suppose it’s good for me to get out of the house, rather than mooning around playing piano and day-drinking and rereading books that made me satisfyingly depressed as a teenager.
(Thank you, Graham Greene, for Brighton Rock.) On the Dover–Calais ferry, I leaned into my adolescent despair to such a degree that I stood on deck with my face in the wind, listening to Amália Rodrigues’s “Maldic?o” on repeat and feeling very sorry for myself.
The lyrics, What destiny or curse commands us, My Heart? seem written just for me.
For reasons that are probably unfair and a bit territorial, I took Laurent for a gold digger, but it turns out his parents have a small winery in Reims, where the wedding is.
After making my way up the winding drive, I park near a picturesque barn that has the doors thrown open.
Workers dart in and out, preparing for tomorrow’s festivities.
I drove with the top down from Calais onward, so I’m all kinds of disheveled, and a little sunburned on the back of my neck. As I climb out of the Sprite, Badrick exits the house and trots over to me, arms open.
“You look terrible, mate,” he says, embracing me and pummeling my back.
“And you look like an International Male cover stud, as usual.” I nod sideways at the wedding preparations. “Even if you are such a cliché that you’re having a barn wedding.”
“Fuck off,” he says with a laugh. “And the reception’s in the barn, not the ceremony.” When I pull my garment bag from the boot, Badrick takes it from me and leads the way to the house. “That scruff! My best man couldn’t be arsed to shave?”
I rub my jaw. “You don’t think it looks… virile?”
“Maybe if you weren’t otherwise giving ‘shipwrecked.’ I’d ask where’s the rest of your baggage, but it’s under your feckin’ eyes.”
I think I must’ve winced, because Bad’s expression goes from piss-take to pity.
His steps slow. “Brighten up, boyo.” He lands a playful punch on my shoulder.
“Laurent has three sisters, all with friends who’ll be here.
And some of the girls from his modeling agency are coming too.
This time tomorrow you’ll be up to your pecs in hot birds. ”
I give a wry sniff. “No thank you.”
“All right, not that, then.” He throws out a sweeping gesture at the fields of champagne grapes. “So walk a bit, touch grass, breathe the country air, remember who you are.”
I stop on the path, probably looking more hopeless than I intend.
“That’s just it, Bad. I don’t fucking know who I am.
There’s no ‘real’ me—I’m a box full of cheap disguises.
For a few weeks, with Sage, I thought I finally had it.
I had everything. I was becoming… fuck, I don’t know, someone?
Myself. My best self. And now…” I shrug.
He squeezes my upper arm. “I know who you are, bruv. You can’t see it ’cause you’re too close.” He chuckles. “There’s always been a ‘real you,’ Piano Twat—take it from Drum Twat.” He slowly sets off in motion toward the house again. “Still haven’t talked with her?”
“I think she blocked my number—my texts went green the first night, so I stopped writing them. I won’t be an utter mug and send my pathetic pleas into a void.
” I shove my hands into my pockets as we walk, and even a small gesture like that makes me think of her; she once told me it looks sexy when a man wearing a suit has his hands in his pockets.
The setting sun is throwing beautiful long shadows, fringing the ground beside the stands of grapes, and I think of all the pictures Sage and I exchanged just weeks ago.
Hers from Miami: an amusing misspelled sign, a flower she saw growing out of cracked pavement, the pillows on her bed with Wish you were here.
Mine from London: a broken umbrella in a puddle, a wound on a tree where the branch sheared off and left the shape of a heart, my hand on my piano keyboard with Wish you were here.
The next morning, I stand at the window in the little slope-roofed dormer room, gazing at the sun on the grass below, the chairs set up in their tidy rows, the arbor arch hung with grapes and jasmine and honeysuckle.
“Bloody hell,” Badrick mutters, faffing with his tie in front of the antique mirror, “it’s still crooked. The fuck do I need a triple Windsor for?”
“Because it looks better, you plonker. Here—let me fix it.”
“Regular knot’s fine,” he says, veering aside at my approach.
“If you’re a pleb. Hold still, for fuck’s sake.” I whip the necktie into shape and smooth it down. “There, neat as a pin.”
He turns to the mirror, inspecting, then eyeing me through the reflection. “Thanks.”
“Cheers.” I go to a rustic armoire and lean against it.
“I hope you know I really am happy for you and Laurent. I’ve taken the mick plenty, but I do like him.
You two are a good couple, and I was wrong about it being ‘too sudden’—you’ve been together over a year.
I was purely being a sulky shit, and I apologize. ”
“No worries. Appreciate it, bruv.” He focuses on affixing his boutonniere—a purple iris entwined with a red Tudor rose. “I suppose six weeks with your little racing bird changed your mind about how soon you can know you’ve found your person.”
His words paralyze me like an icicle to the chest. “Fuckin’ hell, Bad. Don’t.”
He shrugs. “I ain’t gonna go easy on you when I think you gave up too quick. Laurent has a weakness for those angsty romance books and made me read a couple of ’em myself, and there’s always a ‘grand gesture’ in the story. A dramatic moment where you show your heart, lay it all bare.”
“My heart was bare, pretty much from day dot.”
“Then she thought you stabbed her in the back, and when she said it’d all been bollocks from the start, you told her—according to your account—‘I’m not giving up,’ followed by giving up within twenty-four hours.
You think that’s gonna change her mind? Make her think she’s wrong about your feelings not being genuine? ” He makes a disgusted scoffing noise.
“The texts I sent that night after she walked out made it clear that—”
“You said yourself she probably blocked your number, mate. She was furious.” He gestures toward the window. “You think I ain’t seen that shit a thousand times with Laurent? He’s got a temper like a rabid badger. You let ’em cool down, then you talk it out.”
I fold my arms, offering a sarcastic “Oh, and now I should organize a flash mob to do a dance outside her trailer while a fuckin’ jet sky-writes ‘Alexander will love you for all eternity’?”
“Not a bad place to start,” he says with a crooked smile.
“She knows where to find me if she wants to talk.”
“With an attitude like that, you deserve to lose her.”
My arms drop and I stumble a step back, feeling like I’ve taken a shot to the chest. “Oi! Steady on. That’s un-fucking-called for.”
“The truth hurts, but maybe you need a solid kick in the arse. Because years of wondering what might’ve happened if you hadn’t been a coward… that’s much more painful.” He falls silent and fusses with the boutonniere.
I walk slowly to an overstuffed chenille chair and sag into it. “She’s in Montreal right now for the GP anyway. It’s not like I can do anything.”
“Oh, right,” Badrick says, snapping his fingers. “You couldn’t possibly send flowers—there are no florist shops in Canada. Well, carry on, then. You know what you’re doing, clearly.”
I glare at him, and he smirks back.
His tone is gentler when he says, “Are you my best man or what? So… be your best. Quit making excuses for why it won’t work. I don’t know if you’re more afraid that you’re right about that, or afraid you’re wrong.”
My shred of laughter is bitter, and I focus on adjusting the strap of my wristwatch. “Fine. Next GP is Silverstone. Maybe I’ll… give her a shout and see if she’s willing to get together and talk in London.”
“You’ll ‘give her a shout’? Not much of a grand gesture.”
“Don’t push your luck. The flash mob can wait until I see whether she’s receptive.”
“Fine, but at least don’t make her come to you. It’s an hour or two up the M1 to Silverstone. Go to her, you feckin’ bellend. Christ.” He shoots his cuffs with an expression of pure wedding-day jitters, then comes to offer me a hand up. “Right, it’s go time.”
I stand and he pulls me into a brief, back-thumping hug. “Love you, bruv. I just want you to be happy, you know that, yeah?”
“I do. And you’re not wrong about any of it.” I gnaw at my lower lip and admit, “The stakes are just so fucking high.”
“They are.” He grins, glancing at the window. Outside, the sound of Laurent’s distinctive laugh rises on the golden morning sunshine. “But the higher the stakes, the bigger the payoff.”
LONDON
It took a while to decide whether I would execute revenge on CJ Ardley.
If that was my plan, I’d need access to my blog again.
It has over a hundred thousand subscribers and gets a healthy amount of non-subscriber traffic as well.
I asked my mother (omitting mention of a revenge plot, of course), and she reinstated my admin control because she felt sorry for me and said a bit of writing would give me something to do until the new job at Caterwaul starts.
Between the beard, the weight loss, and the shadows beneath my eyes, Mum was genuinely distraught by my appearance.