Chapter 28 #2
Why was he sliding off his chair. Had he dropped something? Taken ill? Oh, hopefully not because then they’d need to wait for an ambulance and they’d never bloody get out of here. No, he wasn’t falling. He was on one knee. And now he was looking at her, all misty-eyed.
A moment of realisation dawned.
He was holding a ring. Her eyes fixed on it. It was the most unremarkable ring she’d ever seen. Nothing to it. A band. A tiny stone. Seriously, was that it?
The rabble of noise in the restaurant seemed to drop, as people started to stare and she felt her face begin to burn. This was, like, so mortifying.
For a split second, her gaze shifted to her mum, who was, as far as her latest round of Botox would allow, bloody beaming with glee too – but there was no surprise there.
She knew! She absolutely knew Cammy was planning this and she didn’t even give her a warning?
He was speaking, but all she caught was the last line…
‘Lila Anderson, will you marry me?’
Was this a joke? One of those prank videos that would go viral on Facebook?
It had to be, because otherwise he meant it, he really was down there asking her to spend the rest of her life with him.
She couldn’t think. Couldn’t process. Couldn’t speak.
Marry him? She didn’t even want to stay with him. Sure, they’d had a good time but this was never a ‘forever’ deal.
The stares were burning into her skin now. The irony. Her whole life, she’d adored being the centre of attention, and now she would give her last pair of Louboutins to be anywhere but here.
This was a nightmare.
For a split second she saw a different image – Ken, on one knee, asking her to marry him. That’s what her future held, not this.
‘No… I can’t… I…’ There were no more words.
Instead, she grabbed her bag, jumped to her feet and rushed to the door.
No catwalk swagger this time. Just a heart-thudding charge, as fast as she could go in those heels, while every bit of her seared with embarrassment at the fact that every person in the restaurant was watching her with astonishment.
Outside, another moment of panic. Keys. She fumbled in her clutch and pulled them out, beeping the car open.
‘Lila!’ Her mum’s voice. Traitor. Last person she wanted to speak to. Why hadn’t she told her Cammy was going to do this? She could have been prepared, cancelled dinner, spoken to him.
Horns blared as a lifetime of practice in heels allowed her to break into a run across the road, with no attention whatsoever to the cars coming along the street.
Thankfully she made it, opened the door, jumped in, pushed on the ignition button and she was out of the space, in another cacophony of horns, in seconds.
No doubt there would be a CCTV camera covering this street and she’d get a visit from the police next week, but right now she didn’t care.
She wanted, needed, to be out of there. She put her foot down, and negotiated the grid of Glasgow’s one-way system, left, lights, left again, lights, lights, more bloody lights, left, and then she was at the end of Great Western Road, heading towards the West End, stopping every few hundred metres for more hugely irritating lights.
Her stomach was revolving like the inside of a tumble dryer.
This was too much. As she sat drumming her fingers on the steering wheel at another set of lights, halfway to her destination, her phone buzzed.
Cammy. She declined. It buzzed again. Her mum.
She declined. She didn’t want to speak to anyone.
That wasn’t true. There was only one person she wanted to speak to.
Another set of lights. Drumming her fingers again.
An image in her head. Cammy. Looking so thrilled, so gorgeous, so hopeful that she would say yes.
For a moment she thought she was going to have to open the door and vomit on the Corsa full of young guys, music pounding, that had just pulled up next to her.
Cammy wanted to marry her. Her first ever proposal.
Someone actually wanted to spend the rest of his life with her and she’d just crushed him.
That must have been horrendous for him. She felt a brief moment of sympathy and then shook it off.
He should never have ambushed her like that.
If he’d actually spoken to her he’d have realised that she wasn’t in that place.
She clenched her veneers tight shut. It wasn’t her fault he was the wrong guy. He shouldn’t have done it. He’d get over it. Cammy was just another man trying to make her dance to his tune.
No more.
From now on, Lila was in charge of the soundtrack and it was going to play out very differently. Cammy wasn’t going to call the shots. Neither was Ken.
She wasn’t her mother – she wasn’t going to spend half her life waiting for the man she loved to walk in the door, missing him, her happiness determined by whether or not he was with her.
It was that existence, that childhood experience, that had given her the strength and tenacity to wait for Ken all these years – but she wasn’t going to be the one who waited another two decades to have her man by her side.
She wanted Ken now.
More lights. This time they turned to green almost instantly – definitely a sign that this was meant to be – and she roared through, turned right, went along the all-too familiar street and stopped, turned, looked…
His house. There were lights on, so he was home. His car was in the driveway, next to the Fiat. Another car sat on the road outside. Visitors to Ken’s house? Or one of the neighbours?
It didn’t matter.
Her phone rang again.
Cammy. Decline.
Priorities.
She checked her face in the driver’s mirror, then emptied her clutch, grabbed her face powder, dampened down any shine, reapplied lipstick, touched up her hair, applied some hairspray. A quick squirt of Opium, Ken’s favourite, and she was done.
Phone rang again. Cammy. Decline. Bloody hell, could he not take a hint?
She shoved it in the glove compartment, prepared, for the first time in living memory, to go anywhere without the device that meant more to her than just about anything else on earth.
She opened the door, slid out, and took a moment to steel herself for this.
She could do it. He would thank her. It was going to be a moment of pain, then that would be it.
Bernadette would realise the truth, know that Ken was no longer in love with her, see that it was a lost cause, and she would walk away, go find someone else, someone who was more her type.
They could have matching bloody Fiats in the driveway.
She started walking. Confidence. Hair done, lipstick on, face the world.
What did she have to lose? Nothing. Her job was undoubtedly gone.
Ken was talking about calling it off because he was too much of a nice guy to make the move.
Didn’t he see that this was only making it worse for Bernadette in the long run?
She was wasting her life in a loveless marriage.
Lila was about to do her a favour, and sure, it would sting, but she’d probably even thank her later.
It was time.
Apart from her lunchtime quickie, today had been horrendous. Now was her chance to change that and make this one of the best days of her life.
Bravery and conviction surging through her, all regret, fear and anxiety dissipated as she prepared herself to ring the doorbell.
This was her moment.
Her finger was almost on the bell, when she heard footsteps from inside the house, coming towards her.
She couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman.
She needed it to be Bernadette, because if Ken answered there was always the possibility that he would thwart her plan.
Not that she’d let that happen. One way or another, she was going to speak to Bernadette, even supposing she had to shout through the letter box.
More footsteps. More than one person?
The tumble dryer started in her stomach again.
She froze, the bell still not pressed, as the footsteps stopped right at the other side of the door. The sound of a doorknob being turned. The door opened.
Lila felt like the ground was moving beneath her feet as she came face to face with her rival.
‘Can I help you?’ Bernadette asked.
‘You’re Kenneth Manson’s wife,’ she said.
It wasn’t a question. She’d seen her once in the hospital and she’d just spent half the afternoon watching her and her car boot pal lugging bags in and out of the house.
She was still wearing the same clothes. Jeans.
Boots. A shapeless black jumper. One of those waterfall cardigans that women used to cover the fact that they ate a pudding the night before.
Even now, on a Friday night, she didn’t have on a scrap of make-up.
Bernadette nodded. ‘I am. Sorry, who are you?’
For the first time, Lila noticed a young guy standing behind Bernadette, obviously her son, given that there was an unmissable likeness. Next to him was a woman, tall, dark hair, around her own age, and for a moment Lila was thrown. Ken’s eyes, his mouth. This must be Nina.
Oh, fuck, it was the whole family at once. There was a momentary urge to flee, but it was quickly overtaken by the realisation that this was actually a positive thing. Better that everyone found out at the same time – that it was all out in the open and everyone knew exactly where they stood.
Wasn’t that what she’d wanted for seven long years? She inhaled, pulled back her shoulders, tried to project a confidence that she didn’t quite feel, but as always, she wasn’t going to let any fear or weakness show.
‘I’m Lila Anderson.’
Blank looks.
‘I know this will probably come as a shock…’
More blank looks. They genuinely had no idea who she was.
‘… I’m Ken’s girlfriend.’