Page 29 of How Much Wine Will Fix My Broken Heart?
‘I’m sorry. You just took me aback. You really do look like him. Apart from the accent of course. It’s lovely to meet you. And congrats with the wedding and the baby and everything.’
‘Cheers. It’s good to be here.’
We hear Ellie at the bar as she leans into Sam, who studies her partly in shock, partly in wonder. Ellie will do that; she’s a bit of a force of nature.
Ryan turns to me. ‘Can I ask you a question? How much do I look like him? Really?’
I study his face. ‘I’d be doing some genetic testing to find out if you’re a relation.’
He laughs. ‘Well, that doesn’t make me paranoid.’
‘What do you do, Ryan? For work?’
‘I’m a teacher.’
‘Seriously?’
‘Nah, pranked ya. I’m a roofer.’ He smiles broadly. I let out a huge sigh of relief.You’re not Tom. The laugh is different. You don’t have that twinkle.Tom was also mildly scared of heights. But full marks for effort.
* * *
‘So she stayed with me in Sydney,’ says Ellie, recalling our time together, ‘and we had this mad night out where we got absolutely shitfaced and we got these tattoos off one of my mates, Ripper, and it was hysterical…’
It turns out Ellie and Ryan are vegetarian so all their stories tonight are being accompanied by halloumi, dip and chips. I really hope they have the nutritional requirements needed to soak up all the wine in our systems as I count three bottles on the table. Ellie and Ryan are also the type of drunks who get exponentially louder the more they drink. It’s like they are competing with the background music. It was all Ellie and I did in Australia. Drank. From the moment she picked me up at the airport in the camper van that she still had, we boozed our way around beaches and bars. They have drive-in off-licences out there which made things super easy and we drank a lot of beer. Cases of the amber nectar and occasionally lovely bottles of Tasmanian Riesling that we necked straight from the bottle.
As we drank, we had strange drunken discussions over whether Marmite or Vegemite was better. I think I rugby-tackled her on a beach when she suggested the latter. But then she’d also tell me all her Tom stories against expanses of sky reflected in the sea like a mirror, on untouched wild beaches, and we’d cry and toast him and go for a swim in his honour. Naturally, she always did this better than me. She’d been around the sea her whole life so would emerge looking like a mermaid. I was raised completely landlocked so would swim out and worry about the marine life eating me, do a manic front crawl back to the beach and emerge like I’d been shipwrecked. I always imagined Tom got a huge kick looking down on that.
‘She had no idea what tattoo she wanted,’ Ellie carries on, ‘so I chose her a shark and, oh my god, you have to get it out. Have you seen it, Sam?’
Sam has seen the shark because he’s seen me naked. It’s on my shoulder so it means I can’t wear vest tops any more without some sense of paranoia.
‘I have. It didn’t look like a shark to me,’ Sam says.
I roll down the top of my dress over my shoulder. Ellie sits there open-mouthed.
‘That’s because I got one of Lucy’s friends to cover it up for me. It’s now a rose. The shark looked evil. Something had to be done.’
Ellie removes her fleece and does the same. She got a dove tattoo that was both classy and well done to the point where, after, I wondered if she paid her mate to do a botch job on me. However, below the dove I notice something that wasn’t there before. It’s Tom’s date of birth. Wow. Is this some sort of competition over who can mourn him better, who loved him more?Look at me, I scoured Sydney for someone who looks just like him, I’ve named my daughter after him and etched his details onto my skin.The grief almost feels comparative.
‘So, Ry and I are going to get up to London, have a proper honeymoon, and then we’ll be down for the memorial. I spoke to Joyce too and she said I could recite some of my poetry. I’ve written something about Tom.’
‘You have?’ I ask. ‘I guess that would be OK.’ Seriously? Tom hated poetry. He hated the fact it was cryptic. He only had time for things that rhymed. Is her poem going to rhyme? I can think of lots of words that rhyme with Ellie: smelly, welly, telly. This is when I need Cleo’s mate, Isaac.
‘I mean, it was such an honour to be invited,’ Ellie says, reaching out to grab my hand.
That was all Joyce.We need to invite the loud Aussie girl, don’t we? The one who keeps posting pics of him on Facebook with song lyrics?I was hesitant because of the strange nature of our relationship but it was also the right thing to do, to have everyone there who had been part of his life.
‘Oh, you are kidding me?’ Sam suddenly says. He shields his face with his hand and looks in the opposite direction. Ellie and Ryan shift their eyes from side to side.
‘Something I said?’ Ellie mutters.
I glance over at the bar and suddenly get it. Orlagh and her new man friend are standing there, perusing a drinks menu. Orlagh is one of those mums who’s very dedicated to the upkeep. I’ve never seen her without her fake lashes and she’s wearing a stylish leather jacket today. It gives her a polished look but I wonder if she’s getting any warmth from that layer at all. I don’t think it’s lined and so this is where she and I differ greatly. All I need to say about the new boyfriend, Jordan, is that he’s wearing spray-on jeans, so skinny I can see the outline of his keys. Even to the casual observer, the age difference is immediately apparent. Next to me, Sam goes completely beetroot and the hand in mine grows clammy and warm. I grip tightly.
‘That’s Sam’s ex-wife,’ I say. Ellie and Ryan do very unsubtle detective work and check them both out immediately. Orlagh notices and then her eyes scan to me. Yeah, she didn’t know this was a thing. This is awks, as the young people, like the one standing next to her, would say. She whispers to Jordan and they walk over to the table. I’m glad I borrowed Meg’s good bra.
‘Sam?’
Pull it together, man. Don’t cry.
