Page 52 of Not Moving Out
‘Fancy going to the pub tonight?’ I asked Freya over breakfast on the morning of our anniversary.
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know. It’s our wedding anniversary, probably our last under the same roof, and I thought that maybe we should have a drink to celebrate? Commiserate? I don’t know, it felt weird to not even acknowledge it.’
Freya looked at me across the kitchen, she was buttering her toast, and she smiled at me. ‘All right then.’
‘Yeah? It won’t be weird?’
‘I mean it will definitely be weird, Joe, but still, you’re right. Probably our last chance to do it.’
‘Say seven? The Cow?’
‘Sounds good,’ said Freya, and that was that.
I had known our anniversary was coming up and I had been thinking about it for the last week or so. Would it be weird to do something together or perhaps weirder not to? Surely it was more difficult to ignore the elephant in the room than to just acknowledge that, yes, actually there was an enormous fucking creature blocking the view out of the window.
We arranged to meet in The Cow pub, the nearest to our house, at seven o’clock, and it had me on edge all day just thinking about it. It was hard when you had a wedding anniversary not to feel pangs of nostalgia, and especially so given our current circumstances. I had a tradition with our anniversaries in the past that I would wear the same outfit, and the same aftershave. It had started on our first wedding anniversary, when for a joke I wore the same outfit I wore on our first date. It was a pair of dark blue Levi’s boot-cut jeans, a pale blue shirt from Ted Baker, a pair of brown leather shoes from Russell & Bromley, and my classic L’Eau D’Issey by Issey Miyake. I had worn the exact same outfit and aftershave on nearly every wedding anniversary since. It had been something of a nostalgia blast, and I was also proud of the fact I could still wear the same clothes I had worn in the early Noughties. Admittedly, now the jeans were quite tight, so my stomach puffed up like I had a child’s semi-inflated swimming ring around my waist, the shirt was definitely a size too small, so I couldn’t button it up and had to wear itcasually openwith a fashionable T-shirt beneath, but at least the shoes fit. I stood in front of the full-length mirror at home for about fifteen minutes and debated wearing something more contemporary – that actually fit – but in the end I said, ‘Fuck it,’ and went with it.
Freya was going straight from work as she had to stay late, and so I met her at the pub, although when I walked in ten minutes late, she was already there.
‘I can’t believe you wore it!’ said Freya with a smile.
I walked across, doing a little fashion catwalk spin on the way.
‘Of course. It’s still our wedding anniversary.’
‘Well, you still look good in it, Joe. Although I don’t recall the T-shirt addition, and aren’t the jeans just a little—’
‘Drink?’ I said quickly.
‘I’m okay, I already have a glass of wine.’
‘Right, won’t be a sec,’ I said, and then made my way to the bar to get myself a lager. I had to admit that wearing the outfit and being in that pub we had been in so many times before, it wasn’t as strange or as awkward as I thought it might be. There was still something between us that made it okay. I got my beer and headed back to the table. Freya was in a grey work suit, with a white shirt, unbuttoned a few buttons, so I could see the top of her chest and the necklace I had bought her with the white-gold love heart pendant. She still looked gorgeous.
‘How was your day?’ said Freya.
‘Good, yeah. Just writing, mainly.’
‘Mainly?’
‘I had to get ready for tonight. You don’t look this good without the effort,’ I said, and Freya giggled, although as I was sitting down, I realised I needed to loosen my jeans as they were definitely on the snug side, so I covertly unbuttoned the top button without Freya spotting me.
We both took sips of our drinks.
‘I can’t believe Dolly is done with sixth form,’ said Freya.
‘It’s crazy how time flies.’
‘It is.’
‘It doesn’t feel that long ago we had just moved to Brighton, Dolly was a year old, the second series ofThe Morningswas on, and you and I were, what, ridiculously happy?’
‘I would say so.’
‘It makes all of this even sadder when I think about how great we were because we were fantastic, Freya.’
‘We were, Joe. The very best.’
