How to Say Goodbye. Katy Colins
Mum dismissed the group coming in with a wave of her hand. ‘That’s a bunch of women.’
‘Unless… ‘Freddie raised an eyebrow and gave an unsightly smirk.
‘I’m not gay,’ I said to my glass. No one else was listening. They all had their eyes trained to the door of the bar, like a dog waiting for its owner to return.
‘Him! That one!’ Mum squealed. Freddie collapsed into a fit of laughter. In walked a man who must have been there for his first legal drink. Angry red spots burst across a painful shaving rash.
‘I don’t think –’
‘Grace! Go and talk to him!’ Mum bellowed, yanking my elbow.
‘No, I –’
‘Go on. Go and talk to him, it’s not going to kill you!’
‘I said no.’ I roughly pulled away from her grip. ‘Can we leave it please?’
‘Ooooh! Touchy!’ Freddie’s voiced raised an octave or two.
Brendan was gently rubbing Mum’s hand, frowning at me as if I’d intentionally hurt her.
‘Sorry, Mum, I said I didn’t –’
‘It’s fine, Grace. I just don’t want you to be alone for the rest of your life. But, whatever. I’m only doing it because I care. I’m going to the ladies’.’ She scraped her stool back and wobbled off.
I was half listening to Freddie waffle on to Brendan about the outrageousness of United’s Premier League position, and half wondering what possessed a man in his late fifties to wear a single silver earring, when I felt my heart stop. I blinked hard to make sure my eyes weren’t deceiving me but when I opened them again he was still there.
On the other side of the bar was Henry. My Henry.
The air left my body.
What the hell was he doing here?
‘Grace?’
I heard my mum’s loud voice behind me, apologising to the couple of girls on the next table for spilling their drinks as I roughly knocked past them.
Henry is here! I fought my way through the dancing crowd. The band had started up again with an energetic cover of a Bob Marley song. Elbows and hips were blocking me from getting to him. I stopped still and tried to hover on my tiptoes to get a better vantage point. Where had he gone? He was right there a second ago.
‘Grace! Where are you going?’
Mum was still calling after me but I couldn’t stop. I had to get to him.
Henry is here. Henry is here.
My feet were moving without my brain thinking. What was he wearing? He didn’t own a stripy polo shirt; he must have bought it recently.
Annoyingly, he looked good in it. He had always looked good in anything. Questions roared across my mind as I forged forward.
‘Alright, love!’ said a man with cauliflower ears and a receding hairline, smiling a toothy grin at me. ‘You won’t get served standing there.’ He’d spilt some of his pint onto his tan loafers. He wasn’t wearing socks.
‘I’m not trying to get served.’
I craned my neck to see where he’d gone. He couldn’t have just disappeared. He was right there, I was certain of it. I felt funny, not sure if I wanted to vomit or cry at how overwhelming the feeling was.
‘You want us to hoist you up? You might have a better chance of catching the barmaid’s eye then?’ The man nudged me. His equally enormous friends turned round to see who he was talking to.
‘He was just here…’
‘Who? Who was here?’ I could see him pull a face to his mates out of the corner of my eye. A booming laugh and a meaty hand slapping his back. A waft of offensive BO. ‘You alright, love? You’ve gone a bit pale.’
I shook my head.
It wasn’t him.
My eyes had deceived me. Henry’s doppelgänger, who actually didn’t look very much like him after all, was laughing with an older woman at the bar. The hair colour was almost the same but his face was all wrong. That cheeky smile, the cluster of freckles and the confident way he held himself were all missing.
Waves of heat rose to my cheeks. It was much too hot in there with all those writhing bodies jostling around me. Henry wasn’t there, of course he wasn’t. How utterly ridiculous of me to think that after all these years he’d show up in this place. As if he’d be hanging out in a dive of a bar in Ryebrook on a Friday night. What planet was I on? I blinked back the tears threatening to overcome my gritty and tired eyes. I had to get out of there immediately.
‘Hey, come back darlin’, I won’t bite!’
‘Unless you want him to!’
I ignored the looks and irritated tutting from strangers as I pushed past. Jeers of laughter followed by wolf-whistles were drowned out by the terrible music. I fought my way to the doors, inhaling lungfuls of cool air as I tumbled outside.
I scurried past the huddle of smokers flocked under one lonely heater, holding my breath so as not to be permeated by their poisonous fumes. I’d call Mum later and tell her I wasn’t feeling well, apologise for not saying bye. Thanks to the drinks she was putting away, I doubted she’d even remember my dramatic disappearance by the morning. For the first time in a long time I yearned to be anaesthetised by alcohol too.
When you break up with someone it’s normal to ricochet between emotions; all the books told me that. Except this wasn’t a clean cut break-up. He’d just disappeared, and there were still so many things left unsaid. I’d tried. I really had. I hated feeling like that, struggling to pick myself up and get back on track. Usually baking helped, but I couldn’t summon up the energy to give one of Ms Norris’s recipes a go. Cleaning was the next best solution, but even that didn’t seem to be working.
I decided to call Maria. She was the only person who knew about Henry, and I could trust her not to judge me. Others wouldn’t understand. Surely I should feel OK by now. But it was like my head and heart hadn’t read the rulebook which contained the exact date you should move on after a traumatic break-up. As time had passed, I’d forced myself to see less and less of Maria, as seeing her meant being reminded of him. Every time we met, his name wasn’t far from slipping into our conversation. That’s just the way it was.
I dialled her number.
‘Grace? Wow. Long time! How are you doing, hun?’
I let out a breath I’d been holding. Her warmth radiating down the line immediately washed away any of the doubts I’d had at making this call out of the blue.
‘Hi! I know, it’s been a while…’
‘Everything OK?’
I sighed deeply.
‘Stupid question. Of course not. Why else would you be calling me?’ Her light tinkle of a laugh softened the dig.
‘Are you around for a catch-up? I could really do with seeing you… as soon as possible.’
I could hear a rustling of papers in the background. I winced. I shouldn’t have been so presumptuous that she would want to see me, especially after such a long absence.
‘Oh, hun, I’m so sorry but I’m really busy at the moment. Work is manic, you know how it is.’
Of course she was busy, what was I expecting?
‘Maybe I can move things around and give you a call back so we can organise a get-together soon? It would be good to see you again.’
I felt