Jolt From The Blue

“Can I come over?” Lizzie asks as I answer the phone. “I’ve got some really exciting news.”

It’s easy to guess that this news probably has something to do with a boyfriend – Lizzie’s twenty-four and she’s never had much luck with men until now; but the way her voice fizzes tells me that she’s found someone special, and I have a feeling she wants to come round and tell me all about him.

*

It’s almost seven when the doorbell rings. I open the door, my face already wreathed in a smile at the thought of seeing Lizzie happy, and then I falter momentarily as I realise she’s not alone. She’s brought the boyfriend with her – which wouldn’t normally be a problem; but as I gaze at the dark hair and deep brown eyes of the man standing on my doorstep, my mind flickers back to the last time I saw him – the only time I’ve ever met him apart from this evening; and by the expression on his face, I can tell that he remembers me too.

I’m sitting in The Blue cocktail bar with Marie, my best friend, trying to drown my sorrows in the bar’s inappropriately named ‘Happy Hour’. ‘Misery Hour’ would be more accurate in my case – I’m still reeling from the shock of discovering my husband’s affair, suffering from the gut-wrenching agony of him confessing that he’s leaving me and moving in with her.

I don’t normally drink, but the way I feel right now, I just need something to numb the pain. I start with a vodka and orange, hoping the alcohol will help me forget; but instead, it just seems to make me maudlin, and Marie’s eyes are glazing over from boredom as I repeat over and over again how much I love Dan and how devastated I am that he’s left me.

“We’ve got to get you off the vodka,” she mutters. “It always makes me depressed too.” She grabs the fancy cocktail menu from the table and scans it quickly. “Why don’t we share a fishbowl? We can fill it with Mojito or Piña Colada or...”

“I don’t like the taste of alcohol,” I remind her. “That’s why I was drinking vodka and orange – because all I could taste was the orange.”

“Okay then.” Her eyes move down the page. “What about a Tropical Surprise? It’s got about five different fruit juices in it and some Curaçao – it’s a bit like those ‘Um Bongo’ drinks we used to have as kids, only an alcoholic version.”

In the end, I agree to her last suggestion – more because I remember the ads for the ‘Um Bongo’ drink and the cute carton jungle animals than for anything else. It certainly tastes fruity, although the liqueur goes straight to my head; then again, we’re drinking through straws, the large, glass bowl between us, and I have a feeling that this sort of behaviour gets you drunk quicker.

By the end of the evening, I’m in no fit state to drive home, so Marie tells me to leave my car outside and order a cab. We stand outside while we wait for our taxis, the cool night air sobering us both up a little. “It’ll be okay,” Marie says, giving me a hug. “You’ll find someone else much better than Dan.” And although I know that Dan was a terrible husband, I can’t help feeling saddened by the thought that I couldn’t hang on to him.

It’s only as the first cab arrives that I realise I can’t find my phone. I must have left it on the table inside. “I’ll see you soon,” I say, hugging Marie once more and telling her to get home safely. We live at opposite ends of town, hence the need for two cabs, but I’m sure she’ll ring when she gets in to let me know she’s okay – if I can find my phone, that is.

I’m in luck. When I ask one of the barmen if he saw a phone on the table we were sitting at, he hands it over straight away. “That man over there spotted it,” he says, pointing to a dark-haired man sitting on his own. “You should buy him a drink to say thanks.”

I approach the stranger, clearing my throat nervously. “Erm, hi. I’m the person who left her phone on the table – the one you handed in. I just wanted to say thanks for being so honest and to ask if I could buy you a drink.”

“That’s very kind of you.” He smiles, and his whole face lights up in a way that makes my insides melt. “I’ll have a red wine – a Shiraz if they’ve got one. And you should sit and have one with me.”

I get the drinks, trying to work out whether he was flirting or just being friendly. He’s far too young for me, of course, but any common sense I normally have has been blurred by alcohol; and besides, I’ve had a really awful day and I need a confidence boost.

“I’m Rich,” he says as I hand him his wine and sit down with my orange juice. (There’s no vodka in this one; I need a clear head.) “I don’t mean I have lots of money...” He gives a self-conscious laugh. “...I mean my name’s Richard, but people call me Rich for short.”

“Fiona,” I say, raising my glass. “Fiona Robinson. Cheers.”

I come back to the present, realising that Lizzie has been talking. “And this is Rich,” she says. “Short for Richard.”

“Nice to meet you, Rich,” I say, shaking his hand.

He doesn’t make eye contact. He knows exactly who I am, but he’s not going to let on to Lizzie that we’ve met before.

I’m having such a good time with Rich that I forget all about my taxi. We finish our drinks and Rich stands up. “My turn this time,” he says. “Same again?”

I watch him as he strides to the counter, wondering why someone like him is sitting drinking with someone like me. When he returns with the drinks, I excuse myself and visit the little girls’ room, staring at myself in the mirror above the washbasins. My cheeks are flushed from alcohol and my eyes are bright. Maybe, and the thought makes my stomach flip with anticipation, Rich finds me attractive. Perhaps I should see where this thing is going.

I take a big swig of my drink when I get back to the table and almost choke with shock as something fiery slips down my throat.

“That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?” Rich asks. “Vodka and orange? I got you a double.”

My head starts to swim immediately. Somehow, I don’t think I’ll be making any sensible decisions tonight. Then, to my horror, I start to cry. Rich looks concerned, so I explain I’m feeling fragile and tell him about being dumped for another woman. (I call Dan my boyfriend, thinking Rich might be put off if he knows I’m a married woman.)

Rich puts his arm around me, holding me close while I sob on his shoulder. (Marie was right about vodka making people cry.) “Let’s get out of here,” he says, finding an unused napkin from somewhere and presenting me with it. I follow him outside and we walk a little way down the road before stopping at a low wall. He motions for me to sit down and perches next to me. “Any guy who’d leave you for someone else must need his head examining,” he says softly and kisses me, very slowly and sensuously, until my head starts to spin and my body feels there and not there at the same time.

Rich continues to kiss me and I kiss him back, unsure whether the tingling I feel is due to alcohol or sexual attraction. All I know is that Dan doesn’t want me anymore but Rich does; and when he suggests going back to his place, I agree far too readily.

“What do you think?” Lizzie asks me, her eyes sparkling. I’ve hidden myself in the kitchen under the pretext of making coffee, but she’s followed me in so she can hear what I think about her boyfriend.

“It’s a bit hard to tell when I’ve only just met him.”  I parry her question, feeling guilty.

Lizzie giggles. “It only took me thirty seconds to realise he was The One. We met at someone’s barbecue and as soon as I saw him, I knew. And then we talked for ages and ages - and he said afterwards that he’d never had a connection like that with anyone else before, and that was how he knew that I was The One for him.”

Rich only lives half a mile away. We walk to his house instead of taking a taxi, both of us wanting to prolong the anticipation. If I’m honest, I’m a little scared. I met Dan at university and he was my first proper boyfriend. I’ve never been with anyone else – ever. Maybe if I hadn’t found myself pregnant at the age of twenty, things would have been different; but we got married straightaway (parental pressure on both sides) and then tried to adjust to being young parents when the baby came along four or five months later.

Everything is in total darkness when we arrive. “The bulb on the landing’s gone,” Rich explains. “I thought one of the others would have replaced it by now.”

Others? I hadn’t realised he shared the house. A horrible thought strikes me – he’s not a student, is he? I think about asking him how old he is, then decide not to; after all, he didn’t ask my age. No, he said he had a job – he’s a trainee accountant, so that makes him at least 22, but he’s still way too young. What am I doing?

Rich leads me into the kitchen. Thankfully, the light’s working in here. He flicks the switch and the fluorescent light dazzles me. I feel like asking him to switch it off again: what we’re about to do belongs in the darkness. I don’t want him to look at me. I don’t even want to look at myself.

“Do you want a drink?” He’s pouring himself another glass of wine. Perhaps he needs Dutch courage too.

I shake my head and he leads me upstairs. The walk seems to have cleared my head a little because I’m now thinking this isn’t a good idea. But I’m in too far now to back out: I feel trapped – compelled to see this through whether I want to or not.

We reach his room and enter into a dim, blue light from a lantern on the floor. “It’s an old ship’s lamp,” Rich tells me. “I picked it up in a junk shop ages ago and cleaned it up.”

The lamp casts a strange hue over everything, throwing shadows across our faces and bodies so that what happens next seems to have a dreamlike quality. I am no longer Fiona Robinson, the abandoned wife: I am a creature of the night, partaking in a necessary ritual that will bring me face to face with myself.

Walking back into the living room, I hand Rich his coffee. Our fingers briefly touch and I know that he too is remembering the sensation of skin on skin, bodies pressed together, his mouth on mine.

“It’s nice to finally meet you,” he says politely. “Lizzie’s told me so much about you.”

“Really?” I smile tightly. “She hasn’t mentioned you at all – she didn’t even tell me she was bringing you here tonight.”

When I wake the next morning, at first, I don’t remember where I am. My head aches and my mouth is dry. What was I thinking, drinking so much last night? The shape beside me moves, grunts and goes back to sleep. Dan usually wakes before I do, so why is he still snoring now? And then the memory hits me: this is not Dan and this is not my bedroom.

As silently as I can, I roll out of bed, grabbing my clothes and pulling them on, my only thought being to get away from this situation as fast as possible. And then I stop, in the action of creeping out of the bedroom door, and wonder if I’m being rude. Should I wake Rich to let him know I’m going? Should I leave him a note to say, ‘Thanks for having me’? I am clueless as to the expected etiquette of one-night-stands: nothing I’ve done in the past twenty plus years has prepared me for this.

The next hour or so is excruciating. I am being forced to make small talk with someone who knows me more intimately than anyone else except my ex-husband; while Rich, in turn, keeps up the pretence of never having seen me before this evening.

“So, how did the two of you meet?” I ask, hoping that Lizzie wasn’t picked up in a cocktail bar the way I was.

Lizzie laughs. “I’ve already told you, remember? It was at a barbecue at Mick and John’s place – you met them both last year at Maggie’s wedding.”

I’d turned up at the church to watch Lizzie’s best friend from school getting married, but she’d introduced me to so many people, I can’t for the life of me put faces to the names now.

“Where do you work, Richard?” I ask politely, although I already know the answer.

We’re walking back to his place, along the main road. A mixture of excitement and apprehension fizzes inside me. I start making asking questions to hide my nerves and he tells me that he’s an accountant.

“Well, a trainee accountant,” he corrects. “It’s a proper job, but I have to take exams for several years. What about you?”

I make some vague response, not wanting to admit to having been ‘just a housewife’ and mother for many years. I had to drop out of my degree course when I discovered I was pregnant and I keep thinking about going back to it but I’m worried I’m too old. I tell him I work in retail – which is strictly true: I volunteer at the local charity shop twice a week – and he seems content with that.

“I’m an accountant,” he says now. “Still at entry level, but I’m doing my AAT qualification. Before that, I worked in a bank.”

“So, you like maths, then?” I know it’s not Lizzie’s strongest point.

He grins. “Not really. I’m just a bit obsessive about putting things in order.”

“I can’t wait for you to tidy up my flat when you move in,” Lizzie adds.

I almost choke on my coffee at this. “You’re moving in together? That’s wonderful news.”

I catch Rich’s eye and I’m pretty sure that he looks as uncomfortable as I feel.

“That’s not the only piece of news...” Lizzie’s eyes are shining. She looks at Rich. “I know you said we’d wait until you’ve bought the ring, but I’m so excited I can’t keep it a secret any longer.” Turning back to me, she says, “We’re engaged!”

Somehow, my mind switches to automatic pilot and I’m able to congratulate them both and sound as if I really mean it. “We should be drinking champagne, not coffee,” I say, hoping my voice sounds convincing. “I think Sainsbury’s is still open – or there’s an off-license that might have something.”

“We brought some with us.” Lizzie reaches down and extracts what looks a bottle of Tesco’s finest from her large, leather bag. “No,” as I start rising to my feet, “I’ll get the glasses. You and Rich can get to know each other a little better while I sort that out.”

As soon as she’s disappeared into the kitchen, I look at Rich. “Does she know we... you know?”

“How could she?” he asks practically. “Until I saw you opening the door tonight, I had no idea.”

“You can’t tell her,” I warn. “I know it happened nearly a year ago, but that’s not the point. She’d be devastated if she thought the two of us had some sort of history.”

But can either of us go through life knowing what happened and with Lizzie blissfully unaware? How will it feel when I look at him during the wedding service? Surely this would count as a ‘cause or just impediment’ to stop the two of them getting married.

There’s no time for further conversation. Lizzie reappears with the glasses, complaining that she looked every where for champagne flutes but has had to settle for wine glasses instead. Rich pops the cork and the sparkling liquid fizzes out importantly, reminding us all that this is a moment to celebrate.

“To my two favourite people,” Lizzie says, raising her glass “– my mum and my fiancé.”

“To my mother-in-law and my wife-to-be,” Rich echoes.

“To the happy couple!” I say.

And as the words of an old Simon and Garfunkel song begin to play in my head, I realise that my last name has never seemed more ironic.