Chapter Thirty-Three With a Little Help from My Friends
‘She’s right, you know,’ Charlie says as Mum explains her stalking episode to everyone in the Mercury Travel shop the next day.
And by everyone, I do mean that. Poppy and Peter have, well, popped in to see Charlie about the wedding, a customer managed to get herself locked in when we hurriedly closed up shop and Patty is here because she has very little else to do while waiting for her ship to sail. Add myself, Dad and Josie to the mix and we almost have a full house.
‘If you’re interested, you would definitely offer to buy the next drink,’ says Josie. ‘You’d probably suggest sharing a bottle of wine.’
Murmurs of agreement echo from everyone.
‘And yet he hasn’t been in touch,’ says Poppy. ‘Angie could be right and he’s just trying a few women on for size. Must be difficult after a bereavement.’
‘It is,’ says Patty. ‘But I don’t remember dating lots of different men — did I?’
She looks over at me and I shake my head. It was rather the opposite actually. When her hubby died, Patty became a recluse for quite some time. Hard to believe that now.
‘Tell us the timeline again.’ Charlie has pulled our whiteboard out of the break room. He wipes off our sales targets and instead draws a horizontal line like you see on detective shows.
‘New Year’s, you brought him to the party and he seemed to have a good time,’ he calls out. ‘As evidenced by this photo.’
He pulls out his phone and shows everyone the picture of all of us at the party.
‘Yep — that smile looks genuine,’ says Josie, getting nods from everyone. It appears that they have all become experts in behavioural psychology as well as selling holidays and entertaining on stage.
‘Then,’ continues Charlie, ‘there’s no word from him for how long, Angie?’
‘A week,’ I tell the room to gasps and whispers of ‘that’s a long time if you’re keen’.
‘But,’ I interject quickly, ‘when I did call him, it turned out that I hadn’t given him my number and he didn’t know Patty’s address.’
There’s a collective sigh of relief as Charlie jots these details on his whiteboard. It’s as if the office is watching some B-movie unfold.
‘So he now has your number and you arrange to meet,’ he says. ‘At the tea shop on the canal.’
‘So sweet,’ says the customer. Everyone turns to face her as we’d forgotten that someone came in to spend money. She blushes at the attention and tries to make herself smaller in the chair.
‘But he doesn’t turn up,’ says Patty. ‘And he doesn’t message or call to say why.’
A group ‘Oooooh’ this time. I think this B-movie might be The Twilight Zone — that’s what it feels like.
‘And he hasn’t done since?’ confirms Charlie, looking at me. I nod as he writes this down too.
‘Nope,’ adds Patty, ‘and when we were in the Lake District at the end of January we hear that he’s seeing someone, although we don’t have that confirmed.’
‘But if he wasn’t keen on the woman he met yesterday, that couldn’t be the person he was supposedly seeing back then — what stopped him calling between then and now?’ asks Poppy, tapping a well-manicured nail against their lips.
‘We can rule out him having fallen in the canal or being dead,’ says Mum helpfully.
‘But not a bump on the head and total amnesia,’ adds Josie even more helpfully.
‘Amnesia’s not real,’ says Patty. ‘It’s just a helpful plot device.’
Everyone stares at the whiteboard and the gap in time that can’t be accounted for.
‘Could he have lost your number again?’ asks Dad in his kindest voice. ‘I’m forever losing things. He might have stuffed your number in his pocket and then put those jeans in the wash.’
‘He put it straight into his phone,’ I say, squeezing his hand.
‘Well, maybe the phone was in his pocket and that went through the washer,’ he continues and Mum picks up that line of thought.
‘That could be it,’ she repeats. ‘Poor man hasn’t got a woman around; they’re always doing daft things without us.’
‘You know, we really aren’t,’ Charlie tells her haughtily. ‘I’ve done my own washing for forty years without incident.’
I don’t want this to turn into a battle of the sexes and I don’t actually want it to last a minute longer, so I tell everyone that even if there had been a washing machine mishap, Michael would still have been able to contact me through the shop. I tell everyone that I’m grateful for their concern but I’m happy to let matters rest.
‘No chance,’ says Mum. ‘You deserve an explanation.’
I protest that I don’t need one.
‘I’m quite curious though,’ says Charlie, getting agreement from everyone. ‘I say we let Mrs S keep up the surveillance and report back later.’
Dad looks over at me and I shrug defeat. In solidarity he says that he can’t continue as he’s busy. Mum throws him a furious look which I know means no supper for at least two days.
‘I’ll come with you,’ says Poppy. ‘He’s never met me.’
‘How on earth are you going to look inconspicuous?’ asks Mum.
‘Wait and see,’ they say, linking arms with her. ‘Just you watch — we’ll be the next Mulder and Scully.’
The reference is lost on Mum and I can’t see how hunting aliens has anything to do with Michael but I let it go.
We clear everyone out of the shop including the customer, who promises to come back in a couple of days for an update. I suggest to Patty that we head over to the wine bar to decompress.
‘I have a better idea,’ she tells me, pushing me towards a waiting taxi.
‘Not Clubbercise again — please,’ I say. ‘I’m not sure I could cope with that.’
‘Don’t worry, neither could I,’ Patty says as the taxi heads in the opposite direction to home.
We pull up outside a small social club on the edge of town. As we park I notice the other Granny-Okies are there too. Kath and Sheila hug us like old friends and say they’ve reserved a table at the front.
‘Front of what?’ I ask, looking at the place and guessing that the front of the room and the back aren’t that far apart.
We walk in and I’m right. It’s a tiny venue with a small stage at one end. The kind of club where comedians might debut and get heckled off stage, where punters would later brag that they saw such-and-such when they first started out — forgetting completely that they gave them a hard time.
Patty buys a bottle of wine for us and we sit at a small round table that does indeed have a scrap of paper with the word Reserved on it. It’s a weekday and the place isn’t exactly heaving so I doubt it was needed, but Kath seems excited. And then I guess why.
A pull-out poster stand is dragged onto stage announcing an act playing tonight — Getting Wetter, a tribute to Wet Wet Wet.
‘Just wait until you see Marti Pellow,’ gushes Kath. ‘He’s just like the real one — absolutely gorgeous.’
Now I’m a little excited too — who hasn’t had a crush on that handsome man at some point in their life? Although I’m not sure about that name.
Patty tells the girls that I need cheering up, which means I have first dibs on the Mr Pellow lookalike. I catch a glimpse of over my dead body on Kath’s face so quickly assure the girls that I want nothing to do with any man tonight. Kath looks slightly appeased but I guess she’ll keep a close eye on me. The first bottle of wine goes down far too quickly so Sheila and Kath get up to buy another. I know it’s a work night and I should be doing my best to stop it turning into a wild session, but right now I don’t care.
‘What do you think happened?’ Patty asks me while we’re alone. ‘Assuming you don’t believe the amnesia or dead in the canal theories. Why do you think he hasn’t called?’
I have of course pondered this and as I thought Michael was such a nice man, I can only think of reasons that play to that image.
‘Well, I’ve never lost a spouse like you both have,’ I reply, choosing my words carefully. ‘But when my divorce was finalised, people kept telling me to move on and I started to feel like a failure because I wasn’t sure I was ready.’
‘I remember,’ says Patty. ‘I felt that way too.’
‘So perhaps, coming to the New Year’s party was Michael bowing to pressure from other people. He tried to move on but realised that he wasn’t ready.’
‘But why not just tell you that?’
‘Because it sounds weak,’ I say. ‘He may even have had a really nice night but then he got home and felt guilty. It’s kind of difficult to explain that to someone you’ve just met.’
Patty doesn’t have time to respond as the girls arrive back with an ice bucket and a fresh bottle of Pinot Grigio. As our glasses are topped up, I notice that the room is filling and it’s pretty much all women. Kath is going to have far more competition than me tonight.
The lights in the room go down and the one stage spot lights up. There’s a whoop of delight from the audience behind us and Kath adjusts her hair. At the opening bars to one of the band’s biggest hits, some of the ladies rush to the front of the stage ready to start dancing.
The other band members appear to a muted response, which I guess they must all be used to now, and then Marti appears and everyone goes wild. And with good reason. This man is extremely handsome and has that broad smile that made the real Marti very popular.
‘Sweet Little Mystery’ is their opening track and immediately everyone is dancing like it’s 1987 again. Kath and Sheila are up immediately, elbowing their way to the front, but Patty and I are happy to sway along from a seated position.
‘Are these guys repped by your agent?’ I ask Patty when there’s a break between songs.
‘Yes, and they’re on the cruise ship too. They’re doing the whole summer though.’
‘Kath will be happy about that,’ I comment with a laugh.
‘To Kath getting wetter,’ says Patty, raising her glass to clink. I can’t because I’ve snorted with laughter so hard that the sip I’ve just taken is threatening to come down my nose.
The band run through a medley of their biggest hits, ending with ‘Goodnight Girl’,where Marti really works the audience, walking into them and taking the hand of one lady then the next. He twirls them romantically then kisses their hand before moving onto the next. They all seem to love this, and happily for Kath, he reaches her last and brings her up onto the little stage. For the instrumental at the end of the song he pulls her into a close slow dance, which she evidently enjoys. As it ends, he bows to her and helps her off the stage then turns to the audience and blows kisses to them. They erupt with applause, proving that a man with manners can flirt with multiple women in one night and get away with it.
I’ve had a lovely night and tell the girls this as I say goodbye. Patty is still inside having a word with Marti and the band but comes out shortly afterwards.
‘Checking their terms and conditions?’ I ask, knowing that Patty is pretty hot on ensuring she gets as good a room as anyone else.
‘Something like that,’ she says in a vague, dismissive way.
Our taxi pulls up and we head home. On the way I can see that she’s messaging Marti but she won’t tell me why.
‘Just business,’ she says. ‘You’ll see soon enough.’