The One Read online

keep my temper and my voice at an even level while I explained the situation we had been in half a bloody lifetime ago, "When you turned down my marriage proposal it was because you said you weren't sure if I was 'the one' ...".

  Yes, I did gesture little bunny ears with the index and middle fingers of both hands as I said it. I couldn't help myself, all right?

  I continued "... and you said you wanted to try other partners to see if you could find him. It clearly wasn't me because you said, while I was still on my bended bloody knee in front of everyone in that swanky restaurant staring at us, that you 'would know him when you found him'...."

  Bunny ears again, I'm so pathologically predictable.

  "... We had shared a flat for five years and nearly two months for Christ's sake so I was clearly not 'the one', was I? I loved you enough to commit my life to you and then you basically admitted that you never really loved me at all. I wasted those five years and more. Well, I hope you finally found 'the one' in the end."

  I even surprised myself that I got all that out without interruption. I think Lesley was stunned. It took a long moment of staring at me round-eyed, her lips attempting to form a circle while preventing her jaw hitting the table, before she replied, quite quietly.

  "Yes, I think I did, eventually. Did you?"

  "Not really. I settled." I was still angry.

  "But you are wrong, so wrong Alan, I did love you, I was just mixed up and confused back then. I was thinking about you all the time at work the next day and when I got home desperate to see you so we could make up, you had moved out, leaving your empty drawers open, and disappeared. I was devastated, I was going to ask you to ask me again to marry you but you had vanished. And I never saw or heard from you again. Who does that after five years and two months together? Where did you go?"

  "It didn't sound to me like you were mixed up or confused. You very clearly said 'no', and then went on and on about seeing other people. About how you were a virgin when we met and therefore you needed to check out other men, getting more experience, checking to see if I was up to the bloody mark or something.” I was getting into my stride now, twenty years of pent-up fury, “You actually said you had been thinking about it for some time and hadn't found the right time to bring it up. Until that bloody night in the restaurant when I was on my bended knee offering you a ring that cost the best part of a month's wages, that is."

  "Well, being asked to make a decision about my future at that moment, when I had been seriously thinking about our relationship for a couple of months, certainly had the effect of concentrating my mind." She looked away at her hands, breaking eye contact with me for a moment. She looked up again. "On our fifth anniversary of being together I thought you were going to pop the question then-"

  "I couldn't," I interrupted.

  "Let me finish," Lesley interjected. "I expected it and was going to say yes. But you never did. We went out for the whole day, to the zoo, with a picnic. We cuddled on the grass on that blanket, held hands all day long. We made love as soon as we got back, we didn't even make it to the bedroom; the floor of the landing was as far as we got, our clothes scattered all over the hall and stairs. We made love twice more once we got to the bed and again Sunday morning. It was a wonderful day and night and you never bloody asked me to marry you, you bastard!"

  "I was still saving up for the ring," I pleaded, now on the defensive, "It cost me an arm and a leg. I couldn't get any more credit as I was maxed out and it took me four months, before I had enough money together, that was twice as long as I hoped it would take. I even got your sister to find out your ring size so it would fit. I couldn't ask you to marry me without the ring, could I?"

  "What a mess," she said, reaching out and holding my hands again. "I was broken-hearted when you left. I took the morning off work a couple of days later and went to where you worked. They said you left the day before, didn't leave any notice or forwarding address or anything. Your P45 turned up at the house about six weeks later. I tried your mum that first evening but she wouldn't speak to me, called me a heartless bitch and said I'd broken your heart and you'd moved away."

  The lift dinged and I looked past Lesley but it was only a couple of strangers and a teenage girl wearing garish stripy tights. I thought about looking at the laptop again to see if they were finished, or in the shower, or still ... well, still bloody well at it, but I couldn't bring myself to, even if Lesley hadn't been there. Some images were burned forever into my skull and I didn't want to reinforce any of them. The solicitor could access the feed that the private investigator had installed and she was getting paid well to deal with it. I just wanted it all over and done with. Lesley was a complication I could have done without.

  A waitress, who appeared to have been hovering, considering the interchange between the pair of us, saw me look up and took a hesitant step towards me. She was quite pretty, I noticed, perhaps it was a sign I was getting over Natalie already. Fat chance of that in a hurry! I nodded to her and lifted my empty cup; the waitress came over. "Rosamund", announced her name tag, pretty name for a pretty girl, it fitted the classy hotel somehow, which my wife and her lover upstairs certainly didn't.

  "Would you like a coffee, Lesley?" I asked, "It's very good, here."

  "Yes, please, that's what I came over here for." She turned to the waitress and smiled. "Large latte, please."

  "I'll have another large black filter, thank you," I said. Rosamund smiled at me and glided away with my empty cup. I made a mental note to leave a tip.

  "Scotland," I said.

  "Scotland?"

  "Edinburgh for a month, then eighteen months in Glasgow, then onto London for a couple or three years, coming home here about 15 years ago. The answer to your question 'Where did you go?'"

  "I followed you to Edinburgh after your P45 turned up. Firstly, I went back to your company based here and spoke to your mate, the other copy writer in your office, Peter or Paul or something?"

  "Paul Metcalfe? That pussy hound, he was never a friend of mine."

  "No, he wasn't. He made me go out with him twice before he would give me any info."

  "Bastard!" I snarled, even after twenty years, it still rankled. I guess some things you never get over. Did he succeed with Lesley? Did I really want to know? Yes, bugger it, I did, but I would never ask. No definitely never ask. Never in a million ... Lesley interrupted my thoughts.

  "Yes, he was a right bastard, he kept trying to get into my knickers...," Lesley hesitated and then she smiled as if recalling some magical memory.

  Bugger, bugger, bugger, did he? Did that smarmy bastard nail my girl? All right, my ex-girl who I still cared so bloody much about that it hurt. My thoughts screamed in my head while I did everything I could to keep my poker face. Lesley didn't seem to notice, she just kept rabbiting on.

  "I had to knee him in the bollocks in that wine bar that used to be in Church Lane, that's now the specialist pork butchers. I was just thinking of their lovely virtually fat-free sausages. Then he told me you had gone to their Edinburgh office to work off your notice."

  Yes! Re-bloody-sult! Arsehole gets his knackers crushed, good old Lesley, never been more proud of her. OK, even if she never physically kicked me in the balls, there with my knee resting on the ground and my legs spread apart, it had always felt that she had. I still had the bruises, at least Paul's pain was over in a matter of minutes, I was still walking funny twenty years on. I had even hated Lesley for a while. Would you believe it, the love of my life and I think for a few short moments in time I actually stopped loving her and went the other way? She still kept talking. Do all women's mouths come fitted with Duracell batteries, or only the ones I know?

  "By the time I got to Edinburgh they repeated the story that you were only there working out your month's notice and then you were off. I had a long talk with Justine. I think she fancied you so I suppose she opened up to me to find out more about your story. She said that nobody could get through to you in that month; even though they trie
d everything to get you to stay, and then you were gone. She had kept some of your best slogans and advertisement blurbs, that she showed me, stuck in a scrapbook. She thought you were special, definitely very special, but completely impervious to her obvious charms, if you don't mind big-chested girls who talk with a funny accent. Then the trail went cold. I tried your professional organisation, but they were prevented from giving me any info. I even tried your mum again but she still refused to even speak to me. What happened to you Alan?"

  "I drifted around, worked hard as I could, still trying to get stuff published. Worked freelance for a couple of ad agencies in Glasgow, then London. Did some checking copy work for magazine and book publishers for a while and then came home, got married, had a bunch of kids and here I am."

  "Wow!" she said, "that was a quick round up of your life."

  There was nothing much to say, on my part. I was still looking up at the banks of lift doors, waiting for my wife and her significant other. So she started up talking again to fill the silence.

  "So, I've already told you that I went out dating after about six weeks, but that was only to try and track you down, not try other men, you know? And I know you fended off the black-haired, green-eyed top-heavy beauty that was Justine," she said, coyly, "How long was it before you