‘You coming to the pub?’ he asks in lieu of a greeting.
‘Not sure I feel like it,’ I reply, shrugging my bag over my shoulder as I come out of the ferry terminal building into the darkening evening. I hang a right towards the beach.
‘What’s wrong? You okay?’
‘Bit of a strange day.’
‘Strange how?’
‘I’ll tell you about it at home.’ Hint, hint, don’t stay out too long…
‘Er, well, El’s just arrived,’ he replies. ‘He’s at the bar,’ he adds as my heart sinks. ‘Seemed pretty rough. Said he’d fill me in once he had a drink down him.’
‘Oh, right.’
‘Come join us,’ he says in a cajoling voice.
‘Maybe. I’ll keep you posted.’
‘Okay.’ He sends two kisses spiralling down the receiver and ends the call.
El – Elliot – is Bridget’s ex. Bridget was my flatmate in England, and I missed her terribly when I moved back home. Luckily, she’s a travel writer, and it took very little convincing to get her to agree to come and spend some time in Australia. Early on in her stay, she bumped into Elliot, whom she’d known as a teenager. They rekindled their relationship and we became an awesome foursome. It was brilliant. Until Bridget’s visa ran out and she had to go back to the UK. She and Elliot managed long distance for almost a year, but Bridget broke it off when she fell for someone else.
I love Bridget to bits, but she’s very up and down when it comes to men, a trait I recognise because I used to be a bit like that, myself. And, even though she seems besotted with her new guy right now, I wouldn’t put money on it lasting. I just can’t believe she threw away everything that she had with Elliot – with us – for yet another relationship.
The most gutting thing is, right before they broke up, Elliot confided to me that he was thinking about proposing. If they’d got married, Bridget could have settled in Australia permanently, and we all could’ve lived happily ever after…
But, clearly, El left it too late.
It was awful dealing with the repercussions of their break-up. Elliot was devastated. Lachie and I rallied round – Lachie especially – but El was a mess for months. Recently, he’s starting dating again – well, pulling might be a more apt word. I don’t love the idea of my boyfriend hanging out with a single man on a mission, but I know we need to ride it out until he’s back on his feet.
Lachie and I live in a one-bedroom flat on the top floor of a two-storey building, a couple of blocks from the beach. There’s a small balcony out the front, which in the summer hosts barbecues aplenty, but is currently being used only as a space for drip-drying Lachie’s wetsuit. Lachie surfs almost every day – I’m a little envious that he has time to. His work takes place outside regular office hours – he plays the guitar and sings, mostly at weddings, but also at birthdays and other special occasions. I met him at a wedding in Scotland – he was gigging and I was taking the pictures. I thought he was so sexy, so far from my idea of a typical wedding singer.
I unlock the door and walk in to find our home ever so slightly better off than when I left it: the breakfast things are gone from the counter by the sink and the mail has been cleared into a neat stack, but there’s still a ring on the table from where Lachie sloshed too much milk into his bowl this morning, and breadcrumbs on the board from his lunchtime sandwich preparation. I scan the contents of the fridge, relieved to see that my boyfriend at least remembered to go to the supermarket. But, before I can ponder what to cook for dinner, I have a flashback to Alex’s email and reach for an open bottle of white wine instead. I really, really need to talk to someone about this. I have to talk to Lachie, but I don’t really want to. I want to talk to Bridget, I realise. It’s Friday morning in the UK – I wonder if she’s busy. I grab the phone and go to the sofa, taking a large gulp of wine and kicking off my shoes before dialling her number.
Alex and I met about six years ago at an eighties club night in London – he was on a stag do and I was on my Aussie friend Polly’s hen night. We ended up talking and bonding over the course of the evening and he confided that he’d recently broken up with his long-term girlfriend, Zara – or, technically, she’d broken up with him, labelling it ‘a break’. Later, he walked me back to my hotel and we spent the night together. It all happened so fast, but it didn’t feel that way at the time. I really liked him, way more than I could’ve thought possible, considering we’d only met earlier that night, and the feeling seemed mutual.
So we both felt torn and confused the next morning when Zara texted and asked to meet him for lunch, claiming that she’d made a mistake. I was only in the UK for a couple of weeks for Polly’s wedding, so the smart option seemed to be saying goodbye and going our separate ways, but it hurt.
A year and a half later, I went back to the UK, this time on a one-year work visa. I’d landed a job at Hebe, the aforementioned magazine. To say I was shocked when Alex turned out to be the new Art Director is an understatement. I was thrown to discover he was engaged to his former ex and set to marry her later that year. We formed a tentative friendship, but the chemistry between us intensified until it became overwhelming and he stepped right back. He didn’t want to leave Zara, whom he’d been with for a decade. They had a shared history that felt too hard to walk away from.
Now Alex and I have history, too. Whether or not we still have chemistry doesn’t bear thinking about.
‘Hello?’ Bridget’s tinny voice comes down the receiver.
‘Bridget!’ I cry, relieved that she answered.
‘Bronte!’ she cries in return. ‘I was just about to call you, I promise I was!’
‘Why?’ I ask, confused at her slightly panicked, slightly guilty tone.
‘Has Elliot not told you?’ she replies.
‘Told me what?’
‘Oh! I thought that was why you were calling!’
‘Bridget!’ I exclaim. ‘What’s going on?!’
I hear her inhale quickly and let her breath out in a rush, while I wait for her to speak.
‘I’m getting married.’
I almost fall off the sofa. ‘What?’
‘I’m engaged. Charlie proposed to me. I’m getting married,’ she repeats. And then she bursts out laughing.
‘What? How?’ I ask with surprise. ‘When?’
‘Next summer.’
‘No, I mean, when did he propose?’
‘Two days ago,’ she replies. I can’t see her face, but I know that she’s beaming from ear to ear.
‘Wow.’ I’m astonished. She and Charlie met a year or so ago and have only been a proper couple for half that time. ‘That was quick!’
‘I know,’ she replies, her enthusiasm dampened slightly by my reaction. ‘But when you know, you know.’
‘And you know?’ I ask weakly.
‘I’ve never been more certain about anything in my entire life,’ she states calmly but firmly.
A belated bubble of excitement bursts inside me and I let out a squeal. She cracks up laughing again, relieved that I’m finally responding appropriately.