19 October
Laurie
Only a rookie singleton would book a package holiday to Majorca at half-term. Rather than finding myself barefoot on deserted beaches I’ve become an unpaid nanny for a bunch of badly behaved children whose parents are too exhausted or lazy to watch them themselves. I daren’t make eye contact with anyone else, in case they ask me to just keep a five-minute eye on little Astrid or Toby or Boden. No, I don’t want to hold their child. I don’t want to hear about school fees or food allergies. And I definitely don’t want to admit that, yes, I have a husband (technically), but no, he isn’t here on holiday with me. Anyone would think I’d sprouted a third eye or something. The only safe place seems to be the hotel bar.
‘Mind if I sit here?’
I look at the woman hovering close to the empty stool beside me at the bar. She’s older than I am, mid-forties at a guess, and she has that well-put-together look, from her perfectly applied coral lipstick to her diamond tennis bracelet.
‘Be my guest,’ I say, wishing I’d just gone up to my room to read after dinner.
She orders a glass of wine, then looks at me and my almost-empty glass.
The hotel is all-inclusive, so this is hardly the offer of the century. I smile. ‘Why not. I’ll have the most ridiculous cocktail on the list, please.’
My new neighbour looks at me with fresh appreciation. ‘Scrap the wine. I’ll have what she’s having.’
The bartender nods, as if this is all pretty standard. It probably is.
‘Vanessa,’ she says, even though I didn’t ask her name. Her accent places her up north. Newcastle, I think.
‘Laurie.’
‘On your own?’
Reflexively, I twist my wedding ring round on my finger. ‘Yes.’
We break off as the bartender places two tall, lurid blue and green cocktails in front of us. My neighbour looks at them, then shakes her head sadly. ‘They’re missing something.’
I put my head on one side. ‘I think you’re right. They need pimping up.’
The bartender turns away with a sigh, and returns with cocktail umbrellas and straws adorned with wrap-around parrots, rather like those paper Christmas decorations that concertina round themselves to make a bell. Only these are, well, parrots.
‘Now that’s more like it,’ I say, once he’s shoved so many accessories into our glasses that there’s hardly any room to take a drink.
‘What do you reckon it’s called?’ my drinking partner asks.
We stare at the drinks.
‘Sex on the parrot-infested beach?’ I suggest.
She considers my suggestion, then wrinkles her nose. ‘Not bad. Although I’d probably have gone for something more along the lines of, “Don’t ask me for sex, I’m not over my ex”.’
I look at her properly then, and I notice she’s also wearing a wedding ring that she keeps twisting round on her finger too. It’s like a secret signal no one teaches you to read.
‘Ten years married. He left me nine months ago,’ she says glumly. ‘For the woman who lives three doors down.’
‘Does she still live three doors down?’ I ask, interested despite myself.
‘Aye, with my husband.’
‘God.’
‘Apparently they bonded over the community garden.’
We start to laugh at the absurdity of it.
‘He said their eyes met over the compost heap and that was that.’
We laugh so hard that tears roll down my face, and she pats my hand.
‘How long for you?’
I swallow. ‘Five months. My choice though. We weren’t married all that long.’
I don’t add how shell-shocked we both are or how horrified my mother-in-law was. The only thing worse than my marrying Oscar is my divorcing him. My own mum’s at a bit of a loss; she keeps sending me texts to see if I’ve eaten breakfast, but whenever I try to talk properly to her she doesn’t seem to know what to say.
I’ve been renting a colleague’s spare room for the last few months; Oscar tried to insist I stay on in the flat, but there was no way I could.
‘Not because of anyone else,’ I add. ‘It just didn’t work out.’
We pick up our drinks and do our worst. ‘Fucking awful,’ she says as we slam them down. I’m not sure if she means the drink or our predicament. She splays her left hand flat on the bar and pokes her wedding ring with the end of a straw. ‘Time to take it off, really.’
I do the same, placing my hand alongside hers on the bar. ‘Me too.’
We stare at our fingers, and then she looks at me. ‘Ready?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Are you ever going back to him?’
Not long after we separated, I wavered late one night and called Oscar in Brussels. I don’t even know what I wanted to say, I was just overwhelmingly sad without him. Perhaps it’s as well that Cressida answered his phone in a loud bar; I hung up and he didn’t call back. I don’t need a crystal ball to know that, in time, she will be the one who picks up his broken heart and pieces it back together. It’s as it should be; perhaps she’s always held on to a piece of it anyway. I’m embarrassed by how often I publicly cried in the aftermath of our marriage break-up. I cried silently on the bus going to work and again on the way home to my empty bed. Sometimes I didn’t even realize tears were rolling down my cheeks until I caught sight of my reflection in the dark bus windows. I recognize it now for what it was: a grieving process – for him, and for me, and for us.
I shake my head at Vanessa, downcast. No, I’m never going back to Oscar.
‘Then you’re ready. We both are,’ she says.
My ring hasn’t left my finger since Oscar placed it there on our wedding day. I can’t imagine ever feeling ready to take it off, but this bizarre moment has presented itself to me, and I can’t wear the ring for ever. I nod, then feel sick.
She reaches for her wedding band, pausing to look pointedly at mine.
I take a big swig of my disgusting cocktail. ‘Let’s get it over with.’
We watch each other and keep pace, turning our rings a couple of times to free them. Mine’s looser than usual anyway; my appetite has disappeared of late. The diamond-set ring slides up over my knuckle and I take it off slowly, because once it’s off I can never put it back on again. Tears prick my eyes, and beside me Vanessa slips her ring all the way off and lays it on the bar.
I take her bravery for my own and follow suit, my mouth trembling. I can’t hide a sob, and she puts an arm of solidarity round my shoulders as we sit side by side and stare at the two wedding bands.
I’ve cried more tears than I ever thought possible over the last year. Perhaps it’s time to dry my eyes.