Page 45 of The Monday Night Heartbreak Club
‘Are we still heartbroken? Should we change the club name again?’
‘Vengeance Squad,’ Fraser muttered.
Flynn briefly leaned his weight against me and I glanced up to see him raising his eyebrows. I smiled. He was right, with his silent question. The club didn’t seem to be needed any more except by Margot and Wren.
‘How’s the divorce going?’ I asked, hoping that Margot was going to now report a hunky male solicitor dealing with her paperwork and a new lusty desire for rampant sex. I’d quietly mused about Bruce and come to the conclusion that there must have been something about either his appearance or performance that had so completely put Margot off sex with him. I had high hopes for her discovering a wild and kinky mojo and running off to Biarritz with a professional paraglider or something.
‘Very smoothly,’ Margot replied, fumbling in her handbag. ‘Bruce is prepared now to relinquish the cabin in the Highlands in return for my not chasing half of his pension. I would reallymiss that cabin, it’s gorgeously located and I decided I just couldn’t hand it over. Let me show you.’
She pulled out her phone and scrolled. Wren looked interested, Fraser looked agog.
‘What, like a log cabin?’ he asked, leaning forward. ‘Like onSeven Brides for Seven Brothers?’ We stared at him. ‘My mum likes old musicals.’
‘Well, yes, I suppose so.’ Margot had found the right album. ‘Look.’
She flashed her photos. It was less of a cabin and more of a high-end bungalow, with a hot tub and small plunge pool, set in carefully landscaped acres with mountains forming a picturesque backdrop. I could see why she would have been sorry to relinquish it.
‘Who’s the bloke?’ Flynn asked, when scrolling revealed some pictures of a man leaning against a bicycle, obviously recently returned from pedalling his way around Auchtermuchty or similar.
‘Oh, that’s Bruce,’ Margot said airily.
I rewrote my view of her marriage. Bruce was far from being the hideous and dishevelled creature of my imaginings. The pictures showed a tall and tanned man with lots of hair and a beaming white smile. The cycling gear didn’t leave much to the imagination either. Bruce had clearly not been off-putting in the physical department.
‘Nice you get to keep the place now,’ I said, slightly weakly and fighting the urge to fan myself.
‘Oh yes. I’m going to head up there in a couple of weeks, for a break.’ Margot seemed to be saying this for a reason which I couldn’t grasp. The sentence sounded as though it had had an expected ending amputated at the last minute. She stopped and then apparently realised that more was needed,because she went on. ‘Before the midges get started. They can be a real problem, during the season.’
Fraser leaned back. ‘Swanky,’ he said.
‘It’s very comfortable. Perfect for couples.’ Again, those words seemed to hold a secret meaning, but as nobody reacted, I decided I was just feeling a little bit sensitive. Having Flynn sitting next to me could well have accounted for that. ‘In fact, I’ve joined a dating app.’ Margot sounded almost defiant. ‘For high achievers, it’s very exclusive.’
A moment more of phone scrolling and she held the screen up again. ‘I’ve been chatting with Alexander, Imran, Michael and Willhelm,’ Margot went on. ‘They are all very lovely and very keen to meet.’
‘They could be scammers.’ Fraser stared at the photos on Margot’s phone. ‘Are there even that many good-looking rich blokes in the world?’
I gave Flynn a sideways look and smiled to myself. ‘Apparently so,’ I said.
‘Well, you be careful.’
The incongruity of Fraser giving dating advice clearly stunned even Margot and she tucked her phone away again.
With that, the meeting broke up. I hobbled my still slightly sore way back behind the bar to serve the Monday night men – who had returned to poker again tonight – and to stand and think.
Could I have a future with Flynn? Would Annie and Eddie live happily ever after? I had to suppose that forty years of what seemed to have been a blissfully happy marriage was not going to be rocked to the core by his keeping a health scare from her. Annie would probably just become a little bit more preoccupied with Eddie’s diet; at least it would give her a new hobby. Eddiereally did seem to love her. A happy ending. Wasn’t that what we all wanted?
Fraser looked set to make himself a new life too. I wiped the bar in a desultory way, listening to Flynn loading the glass washer out at the back. Surely if evenFrasercould have a brand-new future, then I could allow that I might too? Despite the fact that, on paper, Flynn and I had very little in common, we got on well, liked each other and laughed a lot – would that be enough?
I wiped the bar again and watched the poker players for a while. This place, this tiny wine bar in this little corner of Yorkshire, was hardly going to make enough profit for Flynn to be happy, surely? While he seemed reassuringly free of his father’s workaholic genes, would this be enough to keep him engaged and busy? The occasional hen party, wandering businessmen, locals who wanted something other than pub life and a gradually dissolving club for sad people weren’t going to bother the Inland Revenue into fits of examining our turnover, and I’d seen Flynn pulling faces at the spreadsheets on the computer. No, I couldn’t see him staying here forever, and where would that leave me?
The last poker player bid me goodnight and I locked the door behind them, turning the retro metal door sign to CLOSED. I could take this for now, I thought, looking out across the road at the empty windows of my flat. I hadn’t ended my lease, hadn’t wanted to bank too much on Flynn letting me stay on here, so it was still mine. If everything ended, if Flynn decided to move on and that I had been a temporary, if pleasurable, blip, I’d always have the flat to go back to. Hopefully Dexter had been warned off sufficiently never to come back, and I could find another job somewhere. There were supermarkets and shops that needed staff.
For now, though, this was great. I made a mental note to introduce Flynn to my family sooner rather than later,so that they would know that, even if temporarily, I’d had something in my life that had been worth it. I wanted to show him off, that was it. To show them that I wasn’t the little loser, the also-ran to my exalted brother, and that I was making myself that good life that they’d always thought would be beyond me.
After that, I never needed to see them again.
16
The next Saturday, therefore, we went to York to ‘pop in’ on my family.
