The One Before The One
A contemporary love story told with Katy's inimitable laugh-out-loud humour, poignancy and heart.TO DO LISTMake something with QuinoaPluck eyebrowsDo something 'cultural' every weekDump married boyfriendCaroline's life was meant to be sorted when she made the decision to end her engagement, 3 months before the big day. With her to-do list tasks getting crossed off and her career going great guns, Caroline is sure she's now a fully functioning adult. So when her 17 year old half-sister Lexi, arrives unexpectedly at her door, it doesn't quite fit with her image that she's drunk and wearing her wedding dress!Lexi has come to stay for the summer but their relationship is strained, as Lexi is the result of their father's infidelity. An affair that led to the divorce that destroyed Caroline's mother and ruined her own childhood. Needless to say, Caroline is in no hurry to confess her relationship with her married lover Toby.As the summer wears on, Caroline has decisions to make, and a life to reconsider, but surely a 17 year old can't teach her anything about how to live well?
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KATY REGAN
The One Before the One
For my parents
Contents
September 2008
I knew this would be the day the minute I opened my eyes that morning, the sun pouring through our slatted blinds throwing stripes onto Martin’s face. I turned over and examined him, his face slack with sleep, head half turned into the pillow, mouth ajar.
That was it, I decided, tears already threatening. I’d come to the end of the road.
I just couldn’t do this any more. It was killing me. Not softly, like the song, but slowly and painfully, sucking the life force out of me like hands around my neck.
I reached over and gently (guilty, probably, at what was about to come) pushed his dark hair, clammy after another Indian summer’s night, from his face so that it stuck up, revealing his widow’s peak. I’d watched that peak develop. That deepening V was like a measure of the fourteen years we’d spent together. Sometimes I felt like my feelings were receding at the same rate as his hair. Fourteen years. More than a third of my life. Did I even know who I was without him? My heart thudded with nerves.
‘Happy Birthday, gorgeous,’ he mumbled, still half-conscious, before flinging a heavy arm across my chest.
I swallowed hard. It felt like trying to swallow a mouthful of dried leaves.
‘Thanks,’ I managed eventually. But it was already anything but happy.
The next time I would be in this bed, I would be here alone. What I hadn’t predicted at that point, however, was that technically I was about to finish with my fiancé, the man I was due to marry in a month’s time, the only man I had ever loved or who had loved me, over a present. A present he’d bought for me.
‘Here we are birthday girl, one blueberry smoothie and Eggs Benedict with – I dare say so myself – a Michelin star standard Hollandaise sauce.’
It’s two hours later (one of those spent perfecting the Hollandaise sauce) so that I’m that unfortunate mix of so ravenous I am annoyed, and guilty that I’m annoyed, Martin places the tray on the duvet in front of me, then sits down on the bed. He tightens the belt of his white ‘waffle’ dressing gown, a free gift from Boots with a Magimix coffee machine last Christmas.
I look at the tall glass with the sprig of mint placed lovingly on top and then at his face – such a pleasant, friendly face that I knew so well: the neat, narrow mouth, pressed deep into a generous chin that told of a man who was full of joie de vivre and liked the good things in life; the slightly upturned nose that he liked to root around constantly when he thought I wasn’t looking; round cheeks that made you want to reach out and squeeze them and those small, yet ever-twinkling dark eyes behind tortoiseshell glasses, slightly too far apart like a sheep, and yet filled with so much unwavering love it made me want to cry.
I forced a smile. ‘Thank you, honey.’
‘My pleasure. Now, does birthday girl want her present now, whilst she’s eating her breakfast, or later?’ Martin liked to refer to me in the third person.
‘Ooh, I think now.’
‘Good choice.’ Martin reached deep into his dressing gown pocket and produced an envelope wrapped up in red ribbon. Martin was always an excellent present-wrapper, unusual for a man I’d always thought. A momentary flurry of hope: tickets to the theatre perhaps? Beauty Salon facials? A voucher for John Lewis? It didn’t really matter since I’d already decided I won’t be able to keep it.
‘Come on then, Caro, the suspense is killing me. Aren’t you going to open it?’ he said, eyes glistening.
I opened the envelope, my hands shaking. A leaflet with a picture of a tree in full autumnal blaze on the front.
‘Your Guide to the National Trust', it read in an uninspiring font.
Membership to the National Trust? I momentarily had to catch my breath. If it was membership of the National Trust at thirty-two, what would it be at forty? His-and-her flasks? The Vicar of Dibley box set? Jesus Christ, I was about to marry my dad. (If my dad were a normal sort of dad, which he isn’t).
‘So do you like it? he said, nudging closer whilst I held the membership card in my shaking hand. ‘I thought after the honeymoon, when weekends are more free, we could start with the Stately—’
‘Course I like it!’ I cut in, and then an awful, awful thing happened. I started to cry. I started to cry and I couldn’t stop.
Martin peered at me, alarmed.
‘Caro, what on earth is the matter?’ The membership leaflet was damp with tears now. ‘Please. Tell me. What on earth is wrong?’
