Page 54 of Always the Bridesmaid

With increasingly less enthusiasm, I decide to walk some of the way toward Camden from the palace.

I cross into Green Park, with my Google Maps open in my palm. People are enjoying Sunday strolls with their dogs. A giant stage is being erected for some kind of sunset concert. People are enjoying picnics in groups, in couples. One couple is kissing on their checked blanket, a bottle of fizz and a cheeseboard on the rug beside them. With my heart feeling just as heavy as my legs, I exit the park and see on my map that I am near the Ritz, another hotel I understand to be a must see in the city.

Actually, I am thirsty and so I head inside, up the pristine stairs, through a door held open by an immaculately dressed concierge, and into the bright marble atrium of the hotel.

Perhaps it’s the idea that my legs are going to get a break, maybe it’s the fact that the atrium is cool and I am sweating all over, but I find the brightness of this hotel much more appealing than The Savoy. With direction from a member of hotel staff, I locate the bar, where I am seated at a table for two, on my own, and order an elderflower spritz.

Unlike the atrium, the Rivoli Ballroom is dark and everything is finished with ornate detail, gold and mahogany furniture and trimmings. Having come from the National Gallery and Buckingham Palace, I do enjoy how the hotel oozes vintage London. My drink arrives and I sip the ice-cold beverage, feeling the fluid seep into my hot and dehydrated body. As I do, I can’t help but notice that every table is full of couples and families.

I don’t enjoy the rest for long, feeling uncomfortable in my surroundings and maybe even in my own body.

I leave a five-pound tip and head to Green Park Tube station to navigate my way to Camden and Joe Elvis.

Somewhere on the journey, while sitting uncomfortably on the slightly grubby seats of the train, I wonder how my friends are getting on with their last-day plans before their journeys back to New York. I wonder what Charlie is doing today.

My mind is still on Charlie when I get off the train and a very short distance from the Tube station in Camden I see a poster outside a bar. On it, Charlie's name and the time of his show, tonight. Coincidence or serendipity?

I keep walking, my legs moving me forward but my mind stuck on that poster. I don’t want to spend the rest of my week in London feeling drained and miserable.

I take out my phone and locate Charlie’s number, which I took from him in case I needed his help that day we were in London together. Standing still on the sidewalk, and receiving tuts and grunts as people bump into me and push my shoulders, I type out a WhatsApp message:

Hi. You left before I had a chance to say goodbye this morning. I’m in London. Can we meet?

At first, I end the message with ‘x’. Then I delete it. Then I choose a smiley face emoji. Then I delete it. I don’t know how to begin or end this message, so I take a deep breath, get bumped into by another passerby and press send on the limited words.

I meet Joe Elvis, whose quiff is as high and stiff as it was the first time I met him, and I hand over the suit.

Job done, I check WhatsApp and see that Charlie has read my message – in fact, the app tells me he read it thirty-six minutes ago – but he hasn’t responded.

My thumb hits the call button before I really think about what I will say to him and I’m chewing my lip and tapping my foot as I wait for him to pick up.

He never does.

He’s so big-headed. Nevertheless, I need some closure on this for whatever reason. So there’s only one thing left to do.

I arrive at the bar just before seven thirty, after quickly nipping back to my hotel to wash the grime of the hot day off my body and switch into a pair of skinny jeans and a designer T-shirt with a giant teddy bear on the front.

I’ve brought a thin blazer with me to wear on the way back, when the evening has cooled. Yet, as I take my seat at a high table in the comedy club, I feel chilly already. Not because of the temperature in the room but from the frosty reception I expect to receive from Charlie, owing to the fact he still hasn’t bothered to reply to my message or call me back.

I’m pinning him down, giving him no out, because I need to apologize, whether or not he accepts it.

‘Can I get you a drink?’ a girl asks me. She wipes down the table in front of me and puts her washcloth back on a tray she is carrying on her hip.

I order a non-alcoholic beer and listen to the opening act while I wait for my drink. I check the room but there is no sign of Charlie. I expected him to be sitting at a table, I guess, like he had been before his show last time we were in London.

I wonder whether he’s backstage and I remember how anxious he appeared to be last time. I don’t want to make matters worse, so I decide to sit at the table and wait.

The club becomes increasingly busy as the warmup acts each perform their sets. While they are predictably ordered in relation to their level of success and longevity in the business – so I’m told by two people, husband and wife, who join me at my table – it is the second of the first three acts that I find most entertaining.

When the other acts have finished, I am growing increasingly nervous, waiting for Charlie to make an appearance.

He has to get here soon; he’s on stage in fifteen minutes. Where is he?

I fall into conversation with the couple about London, comedy and other general chitchat but my mind is only on Charlie and his whereabouts.

My watch tells me there’s one minute to go before his set and there is still no sign of him.

I order another drink. As it is placed in front of me, fashionably late, Charlie is welcomed on stage by the MC for the evening.

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