Page 82 of Not Moving Out
‘Exactly. You asked me to marry you again, and now I’m expecting a wedding.’
Joe laughed, before he looked across the car at me and said, ‘Actually, I was thinking about this Christmas.’
‘Won’t it be a bit chilly for a wedding?’
‘In England, yes, but in the Maldives, I think it’s looking quite pleasant.’
‘The Maldives! How much are the BBC paying you again?’
‘Enough. Plus, I was thinking about keeping it small. Just you, me and Dolly. How does that sound?’
‘I think, it sounds fucking amazing!’
‘Right then, let’s get it booked up. I’ve always wanted to stay in one of those little villas over the water.’
‘Oh, me too!’
Joe kept driving, and I started looking at resorts in the Maldives on my phone, and as we got nearer to Liverpool, I couldn’t help but think back to that day when Joe and I met at Pelicano Coffee Co in The Lanes and decided to separate. That felt like a million years ago now, a different lifetime, and yet it was only just over six months ago. Sometimes years passed by, and you really felt like nothing had changed, and it was true because some years not much happened, but then years like this happened when you felt like you had really lived. We had been through something and came out the other side still intact. It did make me appreciate that life changed and evolved, and if so much had happened in the last six months, why couldn’t the next six months or year be just as turbulent? Joe had his show with the BBC that would no doubt take up much of his time, and he would be going backwards and forwards to London, and who knew what would happen with that? Maybe it would become a runaway success, his career could take off again, and maybe in a year, we’d be living in Los Angeles, Joe working on a film or a huge American television show. I still wanted to become a solicitor, and who knew where that would take me, and then there was Dolly to think about, too. Life was unpredictable even when you thought it couldn’t surprise you any more. The only thing I knew at that moment, as we drove towards Liverpool, was that I loved Joe and Joe loved me, and that was enough.
Chapter Forty-One
Joe
One year later
Everyone was at the house, and we were all waiting for the first episode ofHouse Sharedto come on the telly. It was Freya’s idea to have a big premiere party at our house to celebrate, and she had literally invited everyone we knew. We had even, for the big night, bought a much larger television set, which we’d had a man put up on the wall in the kitchen diner. It felt like a huge moment because whenThe Morningshad aired in 2005, Freya and I celebrated with Carl at a pub in Soho, but this felt even better and perhaps more significant. Then I was just a kid, and it was impossible to really appreciate what a huge moment it was. Also, then I hadn’t gone through the wasteland of failure, and so my comeback felt so much sweeter.
‘Where’s the champagne?’ said Freya eagerly.
‘In the mini fridge in the garden,’ I replied, as the clock ticked down to nine o’clock, when the very first episode ofHouse Sharedwas going to air. Dolly was next to me with her girlfriend, Elle.
‘Are you so excited?’ said Dolly.
‘I’m ninety-nine per cent nerves,’ I replied.
‘He’s always like this before anything,’ said Freya, who had returned with two bottles of champagne. ‘He puked in the toilets at the pub beforeThe Morningspremiered.’
‘Thanks for that historical nugget,’ I said to Freya. ‘I just want people to love it.’
‘And they totally will,’ replied Dolly with a smile.
‘Right, five minutes to go,’ said Freya. ‘Let’s get these bottles open!’
‘Need a hand?’ said Stuart, who had come back to Brighton with Lucy and the boys especially for tonight. They had moved to Rugby at the beginning of the year, and we missed them terribly, but Stuart’s new language school was going from strength to strength, and they all seemed happy. ‘I did a course once, and we were shown how to correctly open a bottle of champagne.’
‘Of course you did,’ I said. ‘Anything you can’t do, mate?’
‘Umm, let me think,’ said Stuart, and we all looked at him, before Lucy gave him a nudge.
‘Tell them about the dance class we took last month,’ said Lucy, with a delicious grin. ‘What did the instructor call you?’
We all looked towards Stuart, who said slowly and quite despondently, ‘The worst dancer with the least amount of rhythm she had ever seen.’
‘Sorry, mate,’ I said, clapping Stuart on the back. ‘But could you still open the champagne?’
Stuart smiled then opened the bottles of champagne we had bought for the occasion. There must have been about forty people in our kitchen. Freya’s mum and Marmalade were there, and Marmalade was very excited about the prospect of meeting someone famous. Unfortunately, none of the stars of the show could make it, and so he just had to make do with me. Dad and Juliette had come across from France, and it was great to see Dad so happy and, probably for the first time in his entire life, tanned. He had lost weight, too, and looked like a different man.
Barney was there with Phoebe from Bristol, who was now Phoebe who formerly lived in Bristol but now lived with Barney in Brighton, and they seemed to be really happy together – there were even rumours of an impending engagement. Carl had come alone because his girlfriend had caught him cheating, and so another relationship seemed to be over for him. We had invited other friends, and some of the BBC team. All the members of the expanded Cold Water Club were there, and there were twelve in total now. I had gone along once, but never again. I would leave the freezing cold water to Freya and her ladies. My testicles still hadn’t forgiven me!
