Page 30 of One Moment in Time
‘I bloody know that! And I agree on all those things, but that isn’t the point. Have you forgotten our conversation a couple of weeks ago? Colin, we’re here and making a pretence of celebrating a marriage that’s on its last bloody legs.’ She hoped the walls in this place weren’t too thin, because she’d be mortified if the girls next door could hear this.
He popped the cap back on his wipes. ‘I thought we were giving it a go. Getting things back on track? I mean, last week we had…’
Brenda closed her eyes. ‘Please don’t say sex.’
‘I wasn’t going to,’ he countered. She breathed a sigh of relief, until he added, ‘I was going to say “great sex”.’
He topped that off with a wink and Brenda wondered how long she’d have to bang her head against the wall until she was rendered unconscious.
If anything, his relentless and unequivocable optimism were just making her feel weary now. She didn’t want to fight. It went against every grain of her non-confrontational, drama-avoiding soul and the anxiety of it made her sweat.
She rallied and came back with a more conciliatory tone. ‘Colin, we shouldn’t be here. It feels dishonest. And, let’s face it, we don’t have the best memories in this city.’ She didn’t have to spell it out. They both knew what had happened here and they’d both chosen never to discuss it.
His sigh made his shoulders sag. ‘What’s dishonest is acting like we haven’t had a good marriage all these years.’
‘I never said that!’ she objected. Why couldn’t he hear her? ‘We were happy. I admit that, Colin, but people change. They grow. And we’ve grown apart.’
‘But you’re the only one who thinks so,’ he argued. He even did that calmly. Passive-aggressive bickering. That’s what they were both reduced to now. Brenda wasn’t sure whether it was making her loathe him or herself more.
This was pointless. She went into the bathroom, locked the door, turned the taps on in the bath and then sat on the toilet and FaceTimed Bernadette. It was almost 11 p.m. at home, but Brenda and Bernadette shared the same rota, so she knew her pal would only have got home a little while ago, and she’d be showered, pyjamas on, and lying on the sofa with a coffee in hand. If they’d had a particularly challenging shift, they often spoke after they got home, no matter the hour. It was their way of processing. Of decompressing. Of supporting each other. This wasn’t a life-or-death situation, but Brenda could do with hearing her pal’s dulcet tones right about now. She was relieved when Bernadette answered on the second ring.
‘I was hoping you’d call! Well? Was it London? Are you in some flash suite in the Savoy that’s going to make me unbearably jealous?’
‘It’s not London.’
‘Hang on, hang on, let me guess. That looks like a marble bathroom, so it’s definitely flash. Paris? Monaco?’
‘I’m running a bath and I’ll have flooded the room by the time you get the right answer, so I’m going to have to tell you. It’s Vegas. I’m in Las bloody Vegas.’
Bernadette’s jaw dropped. ‘And that isn’t a good thing?’ she asked weakly, sensing Brenda’s displeasure and reacting with understandable surprise and confusion.
Brenda got it. To most people, this would be an absolute dream. Or at the very least a brilliant adventure. But those people hadn’t been here before. Now that she was looking at Bernadette’s raised eyebrows of puzzlement, she realised that she’d never told her friend what had happened here. Once again, the whole ‘what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas’ thing had never been more apt.
She was desperate to tell her pal the full story, but not only would the bath be stone cold by the time she’d finished, but she also didn’t want to risk Colin overhearing her. Things were bad enough.
‘This is where we got married…’
‘No way! Why do I not know that?’
‘It’s a long story,’ Brenda sighed. ‘And not one I ever want to tell. But the girls knew and now they are so thrilled because they think they’ve done something wonderful by bringing us here to celebrate our anniversary.’
Bernadette was catching on now. ‘Oh sweet Jesus. You still haven’t told them?’
‘I can’t, Bernadette. It’s bad enough that I’ve told Colin several times, and he doesn’t want to hear it. Or accept it. I don’t know. I just broached it with him and he reminded me that we had great sex last week.’
‘Oh my God, did you?’
‘No! My nightdress and my slippers were on the whole time. How great could it have been? My mules barely trembled.’
‘Oh, Brenda, I… I… that’s… I mean… that’s…’
At first, Brenda thought the Wi-Fi was playing up, then she clocked on that the disruption to Bernadette’s speech was caused by her friend trying desperately to control the urge to laugh.
And it was utterly contagious. Before she could even think about it, Brenda was creased over, absolutely howling with giggles. Tears began streaming down her cheeks, she was gasping for air, and there were points where she didn’t know if she was laughing or crying. Laughing. Definitely laughing. But with a dash of hysteria thrown in.
She barely heard the knock at the door. ‘Brenda, are you okay in there?’
That sobered her up. ‘Yes, I’m fine. I’m just on the phone to Bernadette. She was telling me a joke.’
