Always the Bridesmaid
LINDSEY KELK

Copyright

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by Harper 2015

Copyright © Lindsey Kelk 2015

Cover illustration © Shutterstock.com

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015

Lindsey Kelk asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007582334

Ebook Edition © May 2015 ISBN: 9780007582341

Version: 2018-08-10

Dedication

For Janice

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Acknowledgements

Keep Reading …

About the Author

Also by Lindsey Kelk

About the Publisher

My Bridesmaid Journal

Name: Maddie Fraser

Age: Thirty-one but I definitely don’t look it, honest

My bride’s name is: Lauren Hobbs-Miller

My bride is: My alleged best friend

I have known my bride for: 12 years

How we met: We were flatmates at university

My other bridesmaids’ names are: Sarah Hempel, Jessica Hobbs-Miller-Joyce

Three words that describe my bride: Tyrannical control freak Generous, loving, blonde

Three words that describe the groom: Potentially on drugs

The date of the big day is: Too soon for me to lose weight

How I feel about being a bridesmaid: Like I’d rather pull my womb out with a rusty coat hanger and parade up and down Brighton seafront wearing it as a hat Blessed.

Congratulations!

You have been asked to join your bride on this most important journey, one of lasting love and a lifetime of memories. A bridesmaid is not someone who follows her bride down the aisle, but someone stands who beside her in life. Yesterday you may have been a friend, a sister, a cousin, but from today until forever, you are so much more.

This journal allows you to chart every step of your adventure together, from the day your bride bestows this great honour upon you, up until the day you say goodbye to the fiancée she is today and welcome a wife into your life.

Record every moment, write down every feeling and thought and reflection, for this is one of the most special and beautiful privileges in a woman’s life.

You are no longer just the person you were when you woke up today.

You are a bridesmaid.

1
Thursday May 14th

Today I feel: Exhausted.

Today I am thankful for: Taxis that can find you with an app.

It is an undisputed truth of the modern age that there are now only two kinds of people in the world: people who call and people who text.

Obviously there are a lot of weirdoes knocking around on social media: that girl from your old job who likes everything you put on Facebook, the boy you hung out with during the first week of university and then ignored for three years but who still added you on LinkedIn, and, most worrying of all, anyone who tries to have extended conversations on Twitter direct messages, but, when it comes to genuine, honest to God, help-you-hide-the-body-without-asking-questions best buds in the whole wide world, there are only texters and callers.

My best friend Lauren is a caller. As annoying as I find it, Lauren can’t help but pick up the phone, regardless of what it is she has to say. In my humble texter’s opinion, we don’t need to actually talk about who has been eliminated on Bake Off; selected gifs and the odd emoji can express all of our emotions quite adequately. But Lauren loves to call, and that is why I knew something was up when she sent a text message asking me and Sarah to meet her for dinner.

‘What do you think she wants?’ Sarah asked as we trotted dutifully down the street, right on time. ‘Why did we have to come out tonight?’

By the time I got on the Tube I’d run through every possible scenario, and had settled on a kidnapping. Instead of finding her in the restaurant, there would be a sinister man with a random scar, stroking his beard at the bar and demanding a million pounds by midnight, otherwise he would start chopping off her fingers and sending them through the post. Maybe he would FedEx them; the post was a bit unreliable.

‘No idea,’ I replied. No need to worry Sarah about the kidnapping until it was confirmed. ‘It’ll be nice to have dinner together, though. I feel like I haven’t seen you in weeks.’

Which was a terribly polite way of saying, ‘I haven’t bloody well seen you in weeks, you massive bastard − aren’t you supposed to be one of my best friends?’

‘I’ve been busy,’ she said. Not even an attempt to make up a lie. I’d half expected her to show up with a baby bump, but I was relieved to see she was as rail-thin as ever. Well, not relieved, obviously. No one is ever ‘relieved’ to see their skinny friend is still skinny, are they? And the worst part was, she still had massive boobs. Explain to me how that’s fair. ‘Work’s been shit. I need a new job. Your place is advertising for a PR manager, you know.’

‘Are we?’ I replied, knowing full well that we were.

Sarah unfastened and refastened the top button of her shirt, pulling the collar tight around her throat, muttering to herself.

‘I don’t know why she couldn’t just say let’s get dinner?’ she said, changing the subject again, still burning up about The Message. ‘Why all the drama?’

Because you’d cancel like you have every time for the last month and a half, I replied silently.

‘Because she’s American?’ I suggested out loud.

‘She moved here ten years ago,’ Sarah argued. ‘She does not get to use “because I’m American” as an excuse any more. I’m officially cutting her off.’

‘Maybe she’s moving back,’ I said, hoping it wasn’t true. There had been a lot of talk about her poorly mum and pregnant sister lately. And who would want to spend another miserable summer in the UK when you could be drinking cocktails at your beach house in the Hamptons and bothering your sister’s new baby? ‘She was quite insistent that we had to meet tonight.’

In truth, I was a little bit giddy. I never went out on a week night. Ever. And yes, I know, that sounds sad, but I work a lot and all my best friends are completely coupled up. What’s the point of going out when you could be at home with a bottle of wine, making fajitas and laughing uproariously with your boyfriend/girlfriend/blow-up doll? It’s fine, I get it, I do the same with my significant other, a great big bottle of gin. And yes, we’re very happy together, thank you.

Sarah, on the other hand, did not look giddy. She looked downright miserable.

‘She’s always so insistent,’ she said, tightening her ever-present topknot. Sarah had a look. Sarah always wore her hair up. Sarah always wore perfectly applied black eyeliner and Sarah always wore shirts buttoned up to the throat. And yet, against all odds, Sarah always looks amazing. But regardless, I hated that topknot. I wanted to lop it off with garden shears. But I didn’t, because I’m a Good Friend. ‘Nothing is ever optional with her. I really didn’t want to be out tonight − I just wanted to go home.’

‘I’m not sure what you’re trying to tell me,’ I replied, ‘but I’ve got this weird feeling you’re not especially in the mood for dinner.’

She scowled. I smiled.

‘Well, your make-up looks nice,’ I said, threading my arm through her elbow whether she liked it or not. ‘So that’s something.’

‘Whatever.’

When in doubt, always compliment a woman’s eyeliner application.

Sarah let go of my arm to avoid a pack of terrifying pre-teens hurtling down the middle of the street. ‘I just don’t want to be out all night,’ she said, dodging the kids like a pro. ‘I’m not in the mood. Who wants to be out in London on a Thursday night? No one. It’s full of wankers.’

I caught a glimpse of my overexcited expression in a blacked-out shop window and tried to suppress it before she looked up and slapped it off my face. Wankers and me! If someone wanted to be a full Grumpasaurus Rex, that was up to her. I wasn’t going to let it ruin my evening. Probably.

‘There you are!’

Lauren was squeezed into a tiny space at the busy bar when we arrived, Tweedleglee and Tweedleglum. Sarah allowed herself to be hugged briefly before ordering a double gin and tonic, while I took on the squeezing of a lifetime. Lauren is deceptively strong. Lauren goes to the gym. I believe these two factors are related but have done no research of my own to back that theory up.

‘What’s going on?’ I asked, dancing around from foot to foot and combing my hands wildly through my hair. It had looked fine when I left the office, well, brown and clean but now, surrounded by so many pretty people, not to mention my two blonde best friends, I was certain it was tangled and greasy and needed to be shaved bald. Or possibly tied back in a ponytail. Definitely, one or the other.

‘I’m not telling you until we’ve sat down,’ Lauren said, shaking her very good hair out of her face and into mine. ‘I’ve got a table, and I’ve ordered champagne − you don’t need to get a drink, Sarah.’

Sarah gave her a dark look, slapped a five-pound note on the bar and necked her G&T in two gulps.

‘Champagne?’ I said. ‘What are we celebrating?’

‘God, Maddie.’ Lauren’s eyes sparkled. It actually looked as though someone had already been on the champs. ‘Wait, like, ten seconds.’

Despite Sarah’s less than chipper attitude, Lauren was still smiling when we got to the table. To her face, we always joked that she was so much better put together than we were because she was American, and behind her back (in a nice way, of course), we reassured ourselves that it was because she’d never had a proper job in her life, but tonight she looked extra shiny.

‘So, how are you guys doing?’ she asked, allowing the waiter to pull out her seat. ‘It’s been forever since I saw you.’

‘Standard,’ I replied. Why hadn’t I done something with my hair? Lauren’s blonde mane always curled delicately at the bottom, like a fairy had come along and kissed it. ‘Shona got called in for a mammogram, but she’d heard they hurt so she made me go and get one first.’

‘Your boss made you go for a mammogram?’ Sarah’s eyes widened into saucers.

‘How does someone make you get a mammogram?’ Lauren asked, poking me in the left boob. ‘Jesus, Maddie.’

‘I don’t know,’ I said, slapping her hand away. ‘It was in my diary − I didn’t really think about it until afterwards. I thought everyone was doing it. And don’t poke my boobs in public.’

‘As if that’s even the worst thing she’s done,’ Sarah said, tapping her fingers on the table and watching like a hawk as the waiter peeled the foil off the champagne cork. ‘I think providing hospice care for her incontinent dog was more of an ask.’

I considered this for a moment.

‘He was a lovely dog when he wasn’t shitting everywhere,’ I replied.

‘But he was always shitting everywhere,’ Sarah countered.

‘Did it hurt?’ Lauren asked, wrinkling her little nose at the dog-shit banter. ‘The mammogram?’

I wrapped my hands around my chest and nodded. ‘Even thinking about it hurts. But, you know, they’re important.’

‘They are,’ Sarah agreed. ‘When you need them. You’re a thirty-one-year-old woman with no family history of breast cancer who spent the afternoon with her tit in a vice to appease her boss. That’s different. Is she at least going to get one now?’

‘I’ve scheduled her in for an MRI,’ I said in the kind of quiet voice an embarrassed mouse might use. ‘She didn’t fancy it after she read my report.’

Sarah gave me the look.

‘I don’t know why you don’t just quit,’ Lauren cut in before Sarah could explode. ‘You’ve been her assistant for, like, ten years, Maddie. You could be an assistant anywhere. Wait, don’t open that yet,’ she ordered the waiter as he gripped the champagne cork. ‘I want to make a toast.’

‘Jesus, in that case can I have a Hendrick’s and tonic, please?’ Sarah asked. ‘A double.’

‘Me too,’ I said, raising my hand. ‘Thank you.’

‘You guys …’ Lauren’s voice had a tendency to get a bit whiny when she wasn’t getting her own way. Oddly enough, that didn’t happen often. ‘I don’t want you to get wasted.’

‘We won’t get wasted,’ I promised. ‘Just delightfully tipsy. And you know it’s not as easy as walking out of the door and into another job. Things are difficult everywhere right now.’

‘There are quite a lot of event assistant jobs,’ Sarah pointed out. ‘Have you even looked?’

‘I’m not going to leave one shitty job for another shitty job, am I? And, you know, it’s not always awful,’ I said, preparing to launch into my well-rehearsed ‘Why I Don’t Leave My Horrible Job’ speech. ‘I only tell you the worst parts. It’s interesting. I get to do a lot of different stuff, the rest of the company is nice, it’s only Shona who can be difficult. And I get to meet a lot of people—’

‘Difficult? Can you even hear yourself?’ Sarah replied, unconvinced. ‘Next you’ll be turning up with a black eye and telling us “she only hits me because she loves me”. You stay because you’re scared to leave. I’ve known you too long, Mads. You’ve lived in the same flat for ten years, you’ve had the same job for ten years—’

‘I’ve had the same best friends for ten years,’ I broke in with what I hoped she would take as a threat. ‘Maybe I should make some changes.’

‘I guess you do get to go to a bunch of awesome parties,’ Lauren offered. Lovely, peace-making Lauren. ‘And you always get a ton of free cake.’

‘I do always get free cake,’ I said, looking pointedly at Sarah, who had so often been the grateful recipient. ‘Thank you, Lauren.’

‘But,’ she continued with one of her sweet smiles, ‘if you left, you might be happier. And we might actually get to see you more often.’

Lauren, the two-faced, backstabbing cow.

‘How are you, Sarah?’ she asked, ignoring the look on my face. ‘What’s going on with you?’

‘Nothing,’ Sarah replied as her G&T was set down in front of her. ‘Busy, tired, whatever.’

‘Tough day at work?’

‘They’re all tough,’ she said. ‘Maddie isn’t the only one who needs a new job.’

Lauren cast me a quick glance, which I replied to with wide, nonplussed eyes. When Sarah was in a bad mood, there was very little point trying to force her out of it.

‘Let’s open the champagne,’ Lauren said brightly, beckoning the waiter over with the bottle. ‘Before we start talking about mammograms and dog shit again.’

I smiled broadly. ‘Just your average Thursday night.’

‘This isn’t how I had planned this,’ she said, reaching under the table into her tote bag and pulling out two elaborately wrapped pink presents. There was a lot of curly ribbon involved. I mean, a lot. ‘But I have some news and I wanted to share it with you right away.’

Sarah stared at the presents, stared at Lauren, and took a sharp breath in before downing the rest of her second gin. ‘Oh no,’ she whispered.

‘What?’ I flicked my head back and forth between my friends so fast I’m almost certain I could have sued them for whiplash. ‘What?’

‘Michael asked me to marry him last night,’ Lauren announced, fiddling with her hand for a moment, then displaying a diamond ring so big it could only have come from Claire’s Accessories. There was no way that shit was real. ‘We’re engaged.’

I had never seen her look so happy, and Lauren was always happy. Lauren was happy, I was happy, the waiter was happy, and Sarah was … oh. Hmm. Sarah did not look happy. In case you were wondering, it takes exactly seven seconds to go from silent awe to awkward silence. Before I knew it, we were right in the middle of one of the most uncomfortable situations I had ever had the privilege to experience. Lauren’s smile began to freeze, and her giddy expression turned into tense confusion, while Sarah looked like she was getting a mammogram right there at the table.

‘Are you pregnant?’ I asked.

Apparently that was not the right thing to ask.

‘Jesus, Maddie, no!’ Lauren rolled her eyes and pouted. ‘I’m hoping he asked because he loves me. It happens. Remember when Sarah did it? Big white dress, church, party, bridesmaids?’

‘Oh no,’ Sarah said again, this time in a whisper. Her face was ashen and she refused to make eye contact with either of us, even when I gave her a swift kick under the table.

‘And that’s why I asked you to come meet me tonight,’ Lauren went on, in a Keep Calm and Carry On voice. American born maybe, but that girl had the stiff upper lip of a Brit when it was needed. She could pretend something wasn’t happening like an absolute pro. ‘To ask if you would be my bridesmaids.’

‘Of course!’ I shouted. Bridesmaids! Lauren’s bridesmaids! Lauren was getting married! Argh! I mean, hurrah! ‘That’s amazing, Lauren − come here.’

Hugging seemed like the socially correct gesture, but in half a heartbeat I went from being ecstatically happy to realizing it would make me the spinster of the group. But still, I gave her a hug instead of stabbing her through the heart with my butter knife. I was raised properly.

‘Sarah, isn’t this amazing?’ I asked, widening my eyes at our other friend across the table while Lauren showed off her ring to the waiter, who politely pretended to care.

But Sarah didn’t reply. We should have been screeching and making neighbouring tables offer awkward congratulations, but instead of leaping to her feet and joining the hug, Sarah was staring at her knees with tears streaming down her face.

‘Sarah?’

She held up a hand and tried to choke down the tears so that she could speak. Good old emotionally constipated Sarah had finally exploded. She was too overcome with happiness to leave her seat. It was impressive, really − Sarah never cries. When we went to her grandmother’s funeral, she was the one who elbowed me in the ribs and told me to keep it together. But our dear friend’s unexpected betrothal to a slightly dull man who thought cleaning products were an appropriate expression of love was finally the thing that got to her.

‘I think I’m going to be sick,’ she croaked.

It wasn’t the response either of us had been expecting.

‘What’s wrong?’ I asked. ‘Are you OK?’

She looked up, mascara running down her face, lips pursed tightly together, and shook her head, rubbing her hands together like a Topshop-clad Lady Macbeth.

‘These are bridesmaid journals,’ Lauren said, determinedly upbeat, taking her seat again and tossing the two pink packages across the table, ‘so you can write down all the happy memories, like the time I asked you to be my bridesmaids and showed you my engagement ring and Sarah said she wanted to throw up?’

And that was when I noticed Sarah’s left hand was entirely without diamond adornment. No engagement ring, no wedding ring.

Fuckityfuckfuckcockbollocks.

‘Come on, you two, I’m getting married!’ Lauren said before I could react. She waved her newly accessorized hand in the air, too busy looking at her own ring to notice the lack of someone else’s. ‘What’s wrong? Be happy!’

‘Sorry, don’t meant to be rude,’ Sarah said, raising her champagne glass in a solo toast and then draining every last drop. ‘Steve asked me for a divorce at the weekend, but, you know, here’s to you. Cheers.’

And so, dear diary, on the upside, tonight I was given this lovely journal, but on the downside, I had to endure one of the most uncomfortable evenings of my entire life. On reflection, probably not worth it.

All About You

Being a bridesmaid isn’t just a day to wear a pretty dress and have your photo taken!

As well as getting to know your bride even better than you do today, it’s a time to learn a lot about yourself. Fill in the answers below and you might be surprised to learn what an accomplished and powerful and wonderful young woman you already are.

Remember, there’s a reason your bride chose you!

My hair is: light brown

My eyes are: green

My favourite physical attribute is: boobs

I don’t love my: thighs arse bank balance but they’re mine!

My three best qualities are: loyalty, sense of humour, perseverance (as evidenced by this journal)

I make a great friend because: I’m a good listener, I remember everything and I always have gin

Three things I will practise from this day on for a happier, healthier life:

– Delete all the shopping apps off my phone before I bankrupt myself

– Stop looking at my ex-boyfriend’s Facebook page

– Only look at my ex-boyfriend’s Facebook page once a week

– Read all the big literary books Sarah has given me instead of looking at the Wikipedia entries for the ones that win prizes and telling everyone I’ve read them

– Get fantastic boyfriend and post so many pictures of the two of us that people I don’t know that well unfriend/unfollow me

– Spend time meditating and getting to know myself so I can truly be happy

– Throw out dry shampoo and bloody well wash hair more often

2
Friday May 15th

Today I feel: Like eating All Of The Things.

Today I am thankful for: The fact I’m too lazy to go out and buy all of the things.

Knowing I had to work all day Saturday for the McCallan wedding, I had planned to spend the entirety of Friday night on my arse watching some terrible television and working my way through the millions of emails Lauren had already sent about her wedding and hastily arranged engagement party, set for Sunday afternoon. I know, two days’ notice. FUN.

So far she’d sent me fifteen different wedding dresses, six venues and enquired whether or not we could get Beyoncé to play the reception – and, officially speaking, we hadn’t even started planning properly yet.

Why did I get the feeling this wasn’t going to be an easy one?

I was tapping out the politest version of ‘No, we cannot get one of the most successful musicians in the world to play the reception, you lovely moron’ when the texts from Sarah started. It was her first Friday night as a single woman in ten years, and she wasn’t doing well, despite the seventeen ‘I’m fine’ text messages she’d sent me earlier in the day.

An hour later, she was at my door, Oddbins bag in hand.

‘Sorry it’s such a shit-hole,’ I said, shoving half a pile of magazines off the coffee table onto the floor as she gingerly placed her handbag in their place.

‘It’s always a shit-hole,’ she pointed out, her voice tired and defeated as she handed me a bottle of gin and looked round at the clutter spread all across my flat. Open plan had seemed like such a good idea when I found the place but all I’d really done was double the amount of space I had available to fill with shit. At least she’d had the presence of mind to bring tonic. I never had anything helpful in my cupboards unless you considered an unopened packet of Ryvita and a not quite empty box of Frosties useful. ‘I’m used to it − your shit-hole is reassuring. Drinks. Now.’

It’s easy to let your flat become a takeaway-box-littered shantytown when no one else is there, but it’s hard to defend your appalling housekeeping skills face to face. Ever since Seb had moved out, I’d lacked the motivation to keep the place in order. It was amazing how quickly you could get over dust allergies if you tried.

‘I was going to clean this evening,’ I lied, ‘but I thought essential bonding time with my best friend in the entire world was more important. Do correct me if I’m wrong.’

‘You might actually be.’ Sarah slapped both of her hands down on the kitchen counter and gave me a grim smile. ‘This place is a human rights violation.’

‘Shut up and drink your gin,’ I said, poking my way to the back of a cupboard to find clean glasses. ‘Shona was a real bitch today.’

I’m not proud of myself, but I was putting off talking about the divorce until I had at least one drink in me. I had no idea how to talk about the divorce. If I’d had advance warning, I might have bought in a lot of ice cream and dug up my Pretty Woman DVD, because that’s what we did when Dave Stevenson stood her up for the lower sixth Halloween disco. I didn’t know the protocol for this one.

‘I know we give you shit about it, but you need to find a new job,’ Sarah said, moving a pile of creased sweatshirts from the settee to the armchair and sitting herself down. ‘I can’t believe you got a mammogram for her. Your boss shouldn’t really get a say in your tits unless you’re sleeping with them for a promotion.’

‘How do you know I’m not?’

‘Because of that time Lauren kissed you at the uni ball to impress Stephan Jones and you threw up immediately afterwards.’

‘That was as much to do with Aftershock shots as my aversion to lipstick lesbianism,’ I replied. ‘I could be a lesbian.’

‘You couldn’t even get through an entire series of Orange Is the New Black.’

‘Yes, but that was because I live in mortal fear of going to prison and ending up as someone’s bitch,’ I pointed out. ‘Not because I’m scared of a loving, respectful, consensual partnership with a lady.’

‘You’re not gay, Maddie,’ she said. ‘You’re just a wimp.’

‘Yeah, I know,’ I said, chopping up a sad-looking lemon for our gin. ‘That’s one of the upsides of having a gay sister. You don’t run around going “I wish I was a lesbian, it’s so much easier”, because it isn’t.’

Sarah nodded and held her hand out for a red wine glass full to the brim with gin and tonic. ‘Remember that girl she was going out with in her first year at Durham? What a cock.’

‘It’s not just the chaps,’ I agreed. ‘Women can be just as bad.’

‘Yeah, well, I’m pretty anti-man right now,’ she said, nursing the glass but not drinking.

Here it was. The Talk. We were going to have the talk and I was going to be supportive and caring and she would leave here knowing that she was an incredible person who, in spite of all the pain she was going through, was utterly and completely loved. I was going to say just the right thing.

‘Yuh-huh.’

I suck so hard.

Thankfully, Sarah didn’t seem to mind my friend fail and took it upon herself to start talking anyway. I dropped a lemon in her drink, sat myself down and held my glass tightly. All I needed to do was listen.

‘Things had been shit for a while,’ Sarah said. ‘I suppose I got used to it. He was out a lot and I’ve been working so much … you don’t realize how quickly things can go wrong. It’s got to be three months since we even had sex. I just didn’t realize.’

I nodded in silence. Three months. Was that a long time? I’d forgotten.

‘Then he comes home one day and out of nowhere he’s like, it isn’t working, I want a divorce. Just like that, he wants a divorce.’

‘So, what actually happened?’ I asked, treading as carefully as I knew how. ‘What exactly did he say?’

These were the same two questions I’d been asking her about boys since we were eleven. The fact that we were thirty-one and still having the same conversations was impossibly depressing.

Sarah took a deep breath and blew it out in one big huff.

‘It’s so ridiculous, saying it out loud,’ she said, her big blue eyes tearing up already. And as we’ve established, Sarah is not a crier. ‘It was Saturday, he’d been at the football with Michael and some of the others all day. I was a bit pissed off because, like I said, we hardly ever see each other and he was out so late, and he didn’t tell me what time he’d be home.’

‘So you were perfectly entitled to be annoyed,’ I said.

‘Exactly,’ she nodded, swiping at a stray tear before it messed up her eyeliner. ‘So I was making dinner when he got in, and he got a beer out of the fridge and I said dinner was almost ready and could he open the wine, and he said he didn’t want wine and I said I wanted wine, and he said he wanted to go out and I said I’d made dinner, and he slammed down his beer on the kitchen top and it spilled everywhere, and then he said “This isn’t working”. And yeah, it went from there.’

Sarah was still staring at her gin instead of drinking it, but I was halfway down mine.

‘It’s weird, isn’t it?’ she said, tapping her bitten-down nail on the rim of her glass. ‘You think these things are going to be dead dramatic, and then they’re not. You’re doing something painfully normal and having a totally average chat, and then, there it is. He just says it, just like that. It’s not working. He wants a divorce. Dunzo.’

‘Did he actually say he wants to get divorced, though?’ I asked, looking for a silver lining in this epic pile of shit. ‘Maybe he means he wants a break. Or he wants to fix things? This might be his way of getting your attention.’

‘He’s got that,’ she replied in a voice so light it felt like her words might float away before I heard them. ‘He’s already moved out. He slept on the settee on Saturday and went to stay at his mum’s on Sunday. He’s not coming back, Maddie. He emailed me today to say he’s got a lawyer and I should do the same.’

‘Oh, bloody hell.’ I squeezed her ankle, the most easily accessibly appendage, while she chewed on her bottom lip in an attempt to stop the tears from coming. She’d been gnawing on that thing for so many years I was amazed she hadn’t chewed it right off. ‘Why didn’t you call me before? I could have done—’

‘Absolutely nothing?’

I had never felt so useless in my entire life. I wanted to help but didn’t know how, and when your entire existence is based around being The One Who Helps, that is majorly distressing.

‘I started about a million texts, but I couldn’t work out how to say it,’ Sarah said. ‘Plus I had a yoga workshop.’

I paused, mid-sip. ‘You went to a yoga workshop? The day after your husband told you he wanted a divorce?’

‘I’d already paid for it,’ she said, daring me to argue. ‘And what was I supposed to do − sit around and cry all weekend?’

‘I don’t know whether to be massively impressed or have you sectioned,’ I said. ‘So that’s it? It’s happening?’

Sarah tilted back her glass and chugged it down in three big gulps.

‘When I try to think about it,’ she said, ‘it’s like my brain shuts down. I can’t even process it. Then I’ll be sat having a wee and I’ll look at my hand and think, do I have to take my wedding ring off? Has he already taken his off? I actually googled how long it would take for the groove to go away.’

She held up her hand and stretched out her bare fingers. I felt my own face crumple a little bit as her tears started to come in earnest.

‘Turns out it takes longer than a week,’ she gasped, clenching her hand into a tight fist. ‘I can’t believe that he’s doing this and he’s happy about it. How can someone who said they loved you every day for a decade suddenly decide they don’t any more? I’m sitting at home every night, sleeping in the spare room because I can’t stand to be in our bed, and he’s happy.’

‘Do you think he’s cheating?’ I asked.

She fidgeted with her top button for a moment and then shook her head.

‘No,’ she said with certainty. ‘He said he isn’t.’

‘Right,’ I replied.

‘Why?’ Suddenly she wasn’t looking nearly as certain. ‘He wouldn’t. Would he? Do you think he is? Have you heard something?’

‘Of course not,’ I replied instantly, squeezing her foot to calm her down.

Another white lie in the name of friendship.

Of course I thought he was cheating. Why else would he suddenly decide he wanted to abandon his wife and marriage without giving it a second thought? They’d been together since uni, inseparable for a decade, and now he had randomly decided it wasn’t working out? I remembered when Seb left me, wonderful Shona reminding me that most men don’t leave until they’ve got the next thing lined up. I scoffed at the time but of course, it turned out she was right in my case. Not an insight I would share with Sarah at this stage, perhaps.

‘I don’t want to get divorced,’ Sarah said, her watery blue eyes meeting my red-rimmed green ones. ‘I don’t want to have to tell people I’m divorced and sit there while they wonder what’s wrong with me or do exactly what you just did and assume he was cheating on me. What’s going to happen to me now?’

I stared blankly at the TV that I’d muted when I heard the doorbell but not turned off. A cartoon played silently in the background, a happy dysfunctional family, husband, wife, three kids.

‘I don’t know,’ I said, not wanting to lie any more than I had to. ‘But I do know we’ll get through it. I don’t know what else to say that won’t sound like a load of annoying clichés.’

‘I’m only thirty-one,’ Sarah said, gripping the stem of her glass until her knuckles turned white. ‘I’m not the first person in the world to get divorced, am I? Better now than ten years down the line when we’d have two kids in the mix, isn’t it?’

‘Course.’ I wondered how many times she’d told herself that already this week. ‘You’re totally right.’

‘All I want is to not feel like this any more,’ she said wearily, putting down her glass and pressing the heels of her hands against her eyes. ‘It’s like the worst hangover ever. I feel sick and empty, and every time I forget about it for a moment, it comes back and punches me in the face. And the only person who could make me feel better about it is the person who’s causing it. I hate him so much I can see it, but all I want is for him to come home and tell me he’s changed his mind.’

That part I recognized. ‘Really? You’d take him back?’

‘I don’t even know,’ she laughed, sounding sour. ‘I don’t know what I’d do. How would I ever trust him? I’d always be waiting for him to do it again, wouldn’t I?’

For want of a better response, I shrugged.

‘So what the fuck do I do now?’ Sarah asked, dropping her head against the back of my saggy settee. ‘Am I just supposed to sit here until it stops feeling like someone ripped my insides out with a fish hook?’

‘Would it help if I made you a kale smoothie?’ I offered.

‘It might,’ she said, pulling my hair. ‘But I think I’d rather have another gin.’

‘Good because I don’t have any kale.’ I grabbed the bottle off the coffee table and topped her up. ‘Let me get the tonic out of the fridge.’

‘Don’t bother,’ she said, taking a glug then holding up her glass. ‘To fresh starts, Maddie. Cheers.’

‘Cheers,’ I echoed, wondering whether or not there ever was such a thing as a fresh start, or whether you just picked up a new set of problems.

I can’t believe Sarah is getting divorced. It’s bizarre: I’ve known her for two-thirds of my life, and for the first time ever, I have no idea what to say to her.

Divorce. She’s getting a divorce. I don’t know anyone who got married and isn’t married any more other than Lauren’s parents, and I don’t really know them. It’s so weird. When you’re single you don’t think about that bit, even though in this day and age you’re fully aware of that bit. Getting the ring on your finger is the goal: the white dress, the John Lewis wedding-present list, worry about the rest of it afterwards. Getting married means you’ve won, and I hate thinking like that, I do, but let’s be honest, that’s just how it is. In our super progressive, equal rights, modern society, it’s the one thing no one wants to say but everyone is thinking, however messed-up it is.

Until you’re married, you’re a loser, no matter how great you are at everything else. But what does that make someone who gets divorced?

Divorce is something that happens to my parents’ generation, not my friends. Like in year nine, when everyone’s mum and dad suddenly split up and no one talked about it until Jane couldn’t come to your ice-skating birthday party because she ‘had to see her dad on Saturdays’.

Shit, who will get their cat? They both love that cat. Won’t somebody think of the children?

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