Page 44 of Five Gold Rings

‘Was that what it was like with Almondy?’ I say, tears forming snot bubbles that dribble all over my face.

‘She didn’t eat her own toenails,’ he tells me.

I half laugh, still sobbing. ‘You know what I mean… Why did that end?’

He grips on to the steering wheel tightly. ‘Because she didn’t love me back.’

I cry when he says this. Comedy tears that you see coming out of cartoon babies, like garden sprinklers. I can’t think straight but my emotion is peaking, the alcohol has opened some sort of floodgate and the back of Joe’s car is bearing witness to it all. Why is this car spinning? It’s like I’m in a Tardis. Maybe this love story is different. Maybe I’m travelling back in time to change it all, everything. Or maybe. I grab my phone and scroll through to find Chris’s contact, putting it on speaker and ringing his phone. I’m surprised when it starts ringing. I obviously didn’t throw it out of that window hard enough.

‘Who are you calling?’ Joe asks, shifting his head around to see.

‘Santa?’ I say, unconvincingly.

Hi, this is Christopher Lay. You know the drill, leave me a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.

The car stops at a traffic light, and Joe reaches around trying to get the phone from me. ‘Don’t do it, Eve. Give me the phone.’

It’s a strange play-fight, with him trying to grab my phone and me having the skills of a drunken ninja dodging him. I open my window and extend my hand and phone out, sticking my tongue out at Joe who gasps in disbelief. There’s a beeping noise encouraging me to leave my message. A cyclist whizzes past. I drop my phone.

‘My phone!’ I yell, unbuckling myself messily, opening the car door and hanging out of the car to rescue it off the tarmac.

‘EVE!’ Joe roars. ‘What the hell!’ He turns on his hazard warning lights and jumps out of the car to the pavement side, looking aghast when he finally sees me. Don’t look at me, Joe. Not like this, like some drunk seal hanging out the side of his car, trying to steady herself on the pavement.

‘You can’t park there, mate,’ I hear a voice project out to him, the sound of car horns and Elton John. I can still hear him singing to me about Christmas forever and ever.

‘I’m so sorry, Chris,’ I whisper into the phone. ‘I’m sorry you didn’t love me back. I hate you. You’ve broken me.’

And those are the last words he hears me say, as I hang up my phone, slink back into the car and very casually and instantly pass out.

Joe

Amandine. If you really want to know about Amandine, I dated her for two years thinking I was young and hip, dating a Parisian with a blunt fringe who used to smoke in the bath, but the truth was she was cruel. She once threw a pineapple at me in rage, was strangely rude and judgemental about my viewing habits (What is this snooker? It is boring. Like you…) and then toy with my emotions, usually making me believe I’d done something wrong and trying to win back her approval. It took two years of her doing that to realise that wasn’t love.

I never thought Eve was like Amandine. I always thought her kinder, more compassionate, but maybe they do have one thing in common. Maybe they both don’t love me back, not in the way I loved them. Ever since I heard Eve’s admission to Mike and Abby, I can’t get those words out of my consciousness.Not Joe. I guess that was that then. I don’t know when I fell out of contention for her affections, but the words are gutting, all the same, to hear that someone you care about doesn’t return the feeling.

I’m still not sure what to do with that feeling of rejection. In any other scenario, I’d flee and run home to the comfort of my family at Christmas, but part of me knows Eve is still hurting, still vulnerable and I’ve made a promise to deliver some rings. I have to follow through on that much, despite the sting of knowing Eve and I will never quite be. That said, she’s making it a little easier for me to de-crush given that she’s stopped my car slap bang in the middle of Earl’s Court and made me have to come out and rescue her phone that she’s dropped out of the window.

I look at her now as she’s passed out in my back seat and I try to arrange her into the car so she’s at least safe, grabbing an old hoodie she can use as a pillow and chucking her shoes in the boot. Cars behind me honk their horns, glaring at me for holding up the traffic. I better not get a ticket for this. I like you so much, Eve, but please don’t throw up in my car either. My upholstery won’t survive. I look down at her phone which has survived falling onto the street and see a familiar screensaver of the both of us in this very motor. That is what we’ll never be and my heart fractures, just a little bit. I should probably confiscate this from her so she doesn’t get the chance to phone Chris again. He’s still on her mind, but that’s only natural, and it’s stupid of me to think I’d just slide in there and replace him.

‘You broken down, bud?’ a van says, slowing down next to me, looking me up and down in my dinner jacket. Yes. The girl I like doesn’t like me back. I am very broken down.

‘All good,’ I tell him, putting a thumb in the air. ‘Cheers though.’

I get back into my car, putting her phone on the seat next to me. Just deliver the next ring, Joe. That is the most important thing in all of this. Christmas music still blares out of my car and I turn it down, not really knowing how to connect with my jolly. Maybe I could just do these last three rings quickly with her in the backseat. Drop them off, job done. Then this will be over and far less torturous of an experience. I can deliver her to a family member who’ll take care of her, and I won’t have to think about how she doesn’t want me.

Eve’s phone suddenly rings next to me. For a horrible moment I think it’s Chris. But when I glance over, the name ‘Noel’ is on the screen. Her brother.

‘Ummm, Eve…?’ But I hear her snore lightly, and look round to see her drooling into my hoodie.

The phone doesn’t stop ringing. One missed call after another and Eve not even flinching. I pull into a petrol station and stop the car, answering it immediately.

‘Hello?’ I say, starting to sound exasperated.

‘Who is this and why do you have my sister’s phone?’ Noel says sternly. ‘If you’ve kidnapped her, I have a locator thing on my phone and I will find you. Put my sister on the phone now!’ He is shouting, reminiscent of Liam Neeson looking for his daughter with his very special set of skills.

‘I haven’t kidnapped your sister. She’s here but she’s asleep,’ I say plainly.

‘Why is she asleep?’

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