‘Is that supposed to be a joke? Have you got a time machine so I can go back fifteen years, get out and dump you?’
‘Now, now, we had lovely times. I can’t let you trash what we had together. They’re precious memories. I just don’t think I valued you enough.’
‘You reckon?’ There was such a note of nostalgia in his voice that, in spite of herself, she felt her anger ebbing away.
‘Absolutely, we had some special times. Here, give me a hug.’
And that’s exactly how Gav tried to work his magic. ‘No.’
‘Just .?.?. hear me out .?.?. This whole wedding palaver is a total mind-fuck, Cassie. All the table plans, and the bride and groom fucking fruit cake .?.?. It all feels so bloody bourgeois.’
Cassie thought of Mam and Eric. ‘That’s weddings for you.’
‘You understand, Cass. I felt .?.?. trapped. It wasn’t .?.?. like us. That’s why I’m here. I knew you’d get that.’
She could feel herself being reeled in: suddenly, she was the only person who understood him.
‘Gav, she’s due her baby .?.?. when?’
‘On 20thJuly, I believe.’
He made that sound like the baby of a distant acquaintance.
‘Why did you do it?’
‘I mean .?.?. she was young, gorgeous, I was flattered – what man wouldn’t be?’
‘Gav, you’re an idiot.’
‘I realise that. She’s twenty years younger, for God’s sake. She doesn’t know my music, she doesn’t get my references, my jokes, and her friends are kids. I mean, they’re a pain in the arse. But then .?.?. obviously, there’s the baby.’
When Josie had broken the news about the wedding to her, she’d imagined it as a massive occasion of joy and triumph. Evidently, real life didn’t quite match up.
‘What’ll I do, Cass? You were always my rock, you were always the one with the sense.’
That wasn’t saying much, she thought.
‘Last Tuesday I made the decision to call off that .?.?. travesty of a wedding. I emailed everyone, it was awful, I won’t lie to you. People were pissed off with me. I just knew I had to get away, go somewhere .?.?. and I said to myself, where’s the safest place? Where’s the one place in the world I want to be? And it hit me:I need to get to Dublin, to Cassie. And I took a taxi to Euston station. I can’t explain it, I didn’t want to fly, I needed to be on the ground.’
‘Oh, Gav.’
‘Cass, d’you think there’s any hope for us to get back what we had? It was good. I was too stupid to recognise how good.’
She should be feeling vindicated and all sorts of yummy feelings, she reflected, but all she could feel was tired.
‘I think once you’ve cracked an egg, Gav, there’s really no way to stick it back together.’
‘Leaving you was the biggest mistake of my life.’
‘The time to say all of this was last October. Oh, sorry, by my calculation that’s right about the time your young lady was getting knocked up. How could you dump me by text, Gav? You didn’t even face me.’
‘I know. I’m a shit. Hands up, I admit it. I felt claustrophobic. I needed a change. How d’you put that into words?’
‘Well, you know what I think? I think you should go straight back to Kirsty and try a bit harder.’
He looked crushed. ‘That’s it? That’s all you’ve got for me?’
‘So fucking what if your music is different? So what if you don’t like her friends? You’re not living with them, or her family. Man up, for God’s sake.’
