Page 26 of The Monday Night Heartbreak Club
‘Go on.’ Margot settled her bag on the floor. She’d been remarkably quiet on the group chat this week, I thought. The rest of us – minus Annie of course – had all been busily plotting our Thursday, when finding out where Eddie was going had been ourentire topic of conversation. Annie was on theothergroup chat, offering Wren recipes for home-made chicken goujons and talking about curtains.
I had been quietly gleeful that I was in any group chats at all.
‘I’ve realised that it’s all low self-esteem,’ I said to the expectant faces.
‘What is?’ Fraser had taken the bowl of peanuts that Flynn had brought over and was shovelling them into his mouth with an open palm. ‘Bloody starving,’ he said. ‘Minnie’s all about the protein and the macros and that. She gave me alist, and you know something? Starbars weren’t on thereat all.’ He chewed frantically for a moment. ‘I’m supposed to eat steak,’ he said mournfully. ‘Steak! I can’t afford steak. Can’t afford much meat at all. I’ve even started looking at our Leah’s rabbit in a funny way.’
‘I only went for Dexter because I have such low self-esteem.’ I interrupted the frenetic mastication.
‘Well, that was obvious to anyone with a pulse,’ Margot said rather brusquely. ‘Nobody with any sense of discernment goes for that kind of man.’
I stared at her. ‘Well, you could have toldme!’
Wren patted my arm. ‘Margot doesn’t mean to be rude,’ she said gently. ‘Doyou, Margot?’
To my surprise, Margot dipped her head and fussed with her bag, avoiding my eye. ‘No, no I don’t, I’m sorry, Fee,’ she said, and I nearly fell off my chair with astonishment. Margot? Apologising? Was this a remake ofInvasion of the Body Snatchers?
Then I looked over at Fraser gobbling peanuts and spraying half-eaten ones across the table, and had a word with myself.
‘I forget that others haven’t had the extensive therapy that I’ve been fortunate enough to undergo,’ Margot went on. ‘Self-knowledge is so valuable.’ She sounded much more like herself now.
‘And we’ve all had moments like that, haven’t we?’ Wren went on. ‘After all, it took me a lot of self-analysis to realise that Jordan and I were two very different people and just weren’t suited to one another.’ She gave a rueful little smile. ‘That I’m probably a bit too high-maintenance for someone like her.’
‘You arenothigh-maintenance.’ Margot continued to surprise me. ‘You simply have good standards. I’ve realised – through the therapy that I mentioned – how important it is for us women to have high standards. I have come to realise that, throughout my life, I have sought out men who have been emotionally unavailable, perhaps to protect myself. Even Bruce – otherwise wonderful though he was – couldn’t invest emotionally. That lack of emotional investment meant that I never wanted to be vulnerable with him, hence the death of my desire for intimacy. I have decided from now on I shall only seek out men who are capable of empathy and who have reached a well-developed stage of emotional literacy. Keep your high standards, Wren, we shouldnevercompromise.’
Now it was Wren’s turn to contemplate the flooring in the bar. ‘Thank you,’ she said, almost as though she didn’t want to be heard.
Flynn had finished serving the men at the far end – it was poker night again tonight – and came floating over with a peanut top-up. ‘What are we talking about?’ he said, pulling up his usual chair.
‘Fee’s self-esteem.’ Fraser sprayed peanuts liberally across the table. Annie handed him a wet wipe.
‘And Eddie,’ I put in hastily, before I could receive more words of wisdom on the subject of my lack of inner resilience. ‘We’re thinking about where he might be going on Thursday.’
There was a gulping kind of silence and I realised that wehadbeen thinking about that, but only on the group chat that Annie wasn’t involved in. Fortunately, she didn’t seem to notice, or sheput this down to me simply saying the first thing I thought of to distract everyone.
‘He still hasn’t said anything to me.’ She put the wet wipes back in her bag. ‘Not a word. I was a bit naughty actually…’
I felt my face freeze. I wondered if anyone else had had the ‘stockings and suspenders’ image again.
‘What did you do?’ Margot had regained her composure. Over on my side of the table, Flynn and Fraser were fighting a silent war for possession of the peanuts.
‘I said that it might be nice if he took a day off soon.’ Annie’s expression was one of sad mischief. ‘Now the weather’s getting better. I said we could go for a drive to the beach, Scarborough or Whitby. Eat some chips and walk along the seafront. We used to do that a lot, when we were dating,’ she added, now even more sadly.
‘And what did he say?’
Annie sighed. ‘He said they were really busy at work with some big orders, and he wouldn’t be able to take any time off before the summer.’ She sighed again. ‘I was so tempted to tell him that I knew he’d booked a day off and ask him if it was meant to be a surprise for me.’ A suspicion of tears gleamed at the corners of her eyes. ‘But I was too afraid of the answer.’
‘Oh.’
I opened my mouth to mention that I’d tried to find out who owned the house we’d seen him go into the other week, then remembered that Annie knew nothing about any of that, so I shouldn’t be telling her that searching the electoral register hadn’t got me any results and that unless I paid money, the Land Registry wasn’t going to let me have anything either. All I had found out was that other similar houses on that road had recently sold for upwards of a million quid. I didn’t thinkthat finding out that Eddie was seeing someone with that kind of money would help her at all.
‘I know you said he’s joined a gym and lost weight,’ Wren carefully asked Annie, ‘but apart from that – I mean, if you join a gym youshouldlose weight…’ We all avoided looking at Fraser, whose weight-loss programme looked set to be ambushed by ten tonnes of KP’s finest. ‘Are there any other signs that he’s having an affair? Because he could be doing something else with his mysterious days off. Maybe he’s joined a club? I mean, we’re here… where does Eddie think you are tonight? I’m presuming you haven’t told him you’ve joined a club for people disappointed in love?’
‘He thinks I’m learning Portuguese.’ Annie sounded rather proud of herself. ‘Lessons once a week, on a Monday.’
‘Isn’t he going to wonder when you can’tspeakPortuguese?’ Fraser took time off from his munching to ask. ‘Like, if you ends up on holiday in Tenerife and you can’t speak the language? What?’ He added, as we all stared at him.
‘They speak Spanish in Tenerife.’ Flynn grappled for another handful of peanuts.
