Page 54 of Mad About You

‘Aren’t you … aren’t you the photographer from Dan and Ferg’s wedding?’ Marianne said.

‘Yes,’ Harriet said, smiling awkwardly, wishing she’d not had that face-off with Marianne outside the venue. She needed to not seem like a flake right now and frankly, she wasn’t doing a great job. ‘I wanted to give you this letter.’

She held it out and Marianne took it, squinting in justified confusion at her forename in biro on the envelope.

‘That’s all,’ Harriet said, and turned to leave, perfectly able to picture Marianne and Blue Curls staring at her, stunned, as she left.

All the way back to her bus, she comforted herself: there, done, over, you did your bit. Congratulations on your clear conscience! That was hard, but it’s over.

Unfortunately, now it was irrevocable, she finally grasped what Lorna was saying to her. It wasn’t a letter, it was taking the pin out of a grenade and lobbing it over a high wall. It was all very well saying she’d got the nerve to do it, but she couldn’t seewhatshe was doing. She had no way of predicting the fallout.

You know what’s most likely to happen? Absolutely nothing.

She’d said that on Sunday in casual, dismissive confidence, and if she was honest, mild disappointment: whatever happened, chances were Harriet would never know, she’d be denied any closure. Now, she’d grab that outcome with both hands.

25

Dear Marianne,

I’m sorry for the weirdness of pushing this letter into your hands. It was a difficult decision to write it, and I know it will be very difficult to read. I’m sorry for any pain it causes you. I felt I had to. Hopefully, by the end, you might understand why.

I’m going to give you the whole story because if I start to leave parts out, I won’t know which parts to leave in.

I’m an ex-girlfriend of your fiancé, Scott. We met when I was twenty-five and were together until I was twenty-nine, and lived together for most of those four years. I look back now, nearly ten years on from when we met, and realise how young and inexperienced I was.

I wasn’t myself yet, if you know what I mean: I was a bundle of ideas and intentions, untried and untested. But like most twenty-five-year-olds, I didn’t think there was anything I didn’t know.

I met Scott at a dinner party. A friend of a friend liked to host them in a networking supper club kind of way.

It was the first time I’d been and I was intimidated. I knewno one, beyond nodding acquaintance, and the hostess was busy. I drank a sugary cocktail, fast. Quite buzzed, I found myself sitting at a long trestle table opposite a slender lad with a broad Manchester accent, and messy, rock-star-in-waiting hair. He had a sly grin and made dry remarks. He fastened his attention on me and asked me rapid-fire questions about myself, his response to my answers a very northern:aw, right. He had a way of looking at me from under his brow that suggested I was the only one in the room who was on his wavelength, and vice versa.

We clicked. Not any old click either, the magic click. The click there are films and songs about, that you spend your adolescence dreaming of.

I went fromwhat the hell am I doing here?to feeling a kind of confident, joyful belonging in the room that I hadn’t known before, and it wasn’t coming from Bacardi served in Moroccan tea glasses. We swapped numbers as we left:’cos it’s always nice to make a new friend, Harriet Hatley.

I don’t remember Scott ever asking me out on a date. He was keen, it was obvious I was too, he told me when gigs were happening that he’d also be at. We were soon intertwined on benches in pub garden tables, him introducing me to his friends in that languid drawl as:my girl Harriet.

My name in his mouth sounded like a miracle. Our love was like a spell. I didn’t walk down the street anymore, I bounced on air. I stayed awake to watch him sleep; we moved in together within months. I was flooded with brain chemicals that made me slightly mad. I put the dope in dopamine.

There was only one unexpected flaw in the rosy picture: my friends weren’t enthusiastic. They made the right noises, in a muted way. Then my best friend Lorna said: ‘He’s a little bit full of himself! You’re in love with him and so is he, haha.’ My friend Roxy thought he was great, but: ‘It did happen very fast, between you two?’

I was caught off guard. Maybe he had a little swagger, but Scott was surely entitled to be full of himself. He was fascinating, opinionated, creative, so sure of his convictions. Charisma to spare. He was the leader of his pack, wreathed in a special aura, the kind of character who blazes through life like a comet.

I once ventured some edited version of this stuff about his extraordinary presence to Lorna, who burst out laughing. ‘He’s an egotistical caner, not Lord Byron.’

I sometimes watched other women react to him. They’d fall by visible degree, with their faux-grudging smiles and sparkle in their eyes as he teased them. Then they’d remember my presence and give me a guilty glance, and I’d respond with a confident smile that said: yep, I know I’m lucky.

I decided: Lorna’s jealous. She maybe even fancies him a little herself. Ditto Roxy. They want him for themselves, but they know that’s a traitorous thought, so they’re taking the edge off their envy by nit-picking. With hindsight, I realise, this was the moment I crossed the line from girlfriend to a delusional member of a personality cult. Anyone criticising him must be in bad faith, or at least have bad taste.

All of this was the early hazing phase. I had to be in astate of bedazzled worship, where he was all the points on my compass and my heart’s only desire, as preparation for his destabilising me. I had to have pushed my poker chips across the green baize and gone all in.

At first, it was subtle. It could be written off as bumpy young love. I still remember the jolt, the cold shock, the first time he lost his temper at me. There’s a photograph of us earlier the same day, sat on the grass at some concert, all bucket hats and face glitter and giddily wasted on plastic pints. He has both arms wrapped around me and I’m grinning, delirious. I look back now and I see how much of a warning it is. His embrace like a cage, staking a claim. Me thinking that his possession is my paradise.

We got home to our flat, sun stroked, woozy with cheap cooking lager and me fancying a takeaway. I threw my house keys with a clatter to the table and yawned. ‘Want a Chinese?’ I turned and saw his face like a gathering thunder.

Why did you say that fucking thing to Lorna?

My stomach dropped like a stone.

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