Page 27 of The Monday Night Heartbreak Club

Margot erupted through the wine bar door on Monday, early, out of breath and evidently over-excited.

‘Tell me everything,’ she said.

‘I have told you everything.’ I wiped down the bar. Our phones had almost blown up with the number of messages that had flown to and fro. Only Annie had been noticeably quiet.

‘Oh.’ Margot calmed down. ‘I rather hoped there would be more.’

Behind her, Wren and Fraser came in. They’d obviously all travelled together again.

‘It’s two people’s lives, Margot,’ Wren said gently. ‘I keep telling you.’

‘I know.’ Margot sat down at her usual place. ‘But all those hours of watching Eddie and following him – it doesn’t seem enough, somehow, to find out that he’s simply managing his diabetes.’

‘I think it will be enough for Annie,’ I said. ‘It’s quite a lot to come to terms with. She’s been planning for a wonderful retirement and lots of travelling and all that, and there will be complications that come from having to watch Eddie’s diet and everything.’

‘But she don’t have to worry no more,’ Fraser put in, hanging hopefully over the bar in case Flynn might have some peanuts. ‘He’s not shagging someone else.’

‘Exactly.’ Wren sat down too now, next to Margot. ‘It was the best possible outcome, really.’

‘I like this club.’ Fraser gave up hope on the peanut front.

‘When I joined, when my friend Scousie told me I ought to join, I thought women were like this weird bunch. Like, all they wanted was to sit at home putting make-up on and watching Loose Women, waiting for a man to earn some money and come back and shag them.’

We all stared at him. ‘Did you actually know any women at all?’ Wren asked, slightly faintly.

‘Well, yeah. My sister, my mum. Our Chloe, our Leah. Lots of women.’

‘And how many of them are sitting around waiting for a man?’

Fraser yanked out his chair with a good deal of noise, and collapsed onto it.

‘They’re different. They’ve had blokes and had kids.

The blokes have gone off, and my sister’s bloke died, so they have to work and stuff.

Only my sister’s inside now, from doing the wrong stuff. ’ Unconcerned, he sipped at his wine.

‘But your opinion has changed?’ Wren still sounded taken aback.

‘None of you lot are like that, are you? You’re women but you’re like proper people. You do stuff, like blokes.’

We sat in silent astonishment for a moment, before Flynn said, ‘Your mate Scousie, does he get out much, at all?’

‘He’s got a girlfriend,’ Fraser said, slightly defensively. ‘I mean, he’s never met her or anything, but only because she lives in Alabama, otherwise he definitely would have done by now.’

The door opened and Annie came in. To our surprise, Eddie was with her, looking a wee bit downtrodden.

‘I’ve got some news,’ Annie said.

‘Bom dia,’ Eddie said, keeping to the ‘Portuguese evening class’ fantasy.

We chorused ‘bom dia’ back, even Fraser, who I was fairly sure thought it meant ‘let’s blow up wildlife’.

‘And what is your news, Annie?’ Margot said, sounding as though she were reading from a script.

‘Yes, do tell us,’ we all chimed in, likewise all quoting from a Miss Marple adaptation.

Annie came over and Eddie pulled her chair out for her, waited for her to settle herself and then pushed it in again. He leaned against the bar, trying to avoid looking at any of us.

‘Eddie’s told me everything,’ Annie said. We all shuffled our feet. ‘It wasn’t an affair at all, it was making sure that he didn’t tip over into active diabetes! Aren’t I a big silly? Fancy ever thinking that my Eddie would do a thing like that!’

There was much scripted-sounding laughter.

None of us could look at any of the others, and Eddie was now carefully scrutinising the arrangement of glasses behind the bar.

Eventually I said, ‘Oh, that is good news, Annie,’ and flashed the quickest of questioning looks at Eddie, who shook his head very slightly.

It looked as though we were off the hook.

‘Yes, it’s funny really, he came home from work today and sat me down, said he had something to tell me and that he really joined the gym and changed his diet because he’d been diagnosed as pre-diabetic!

Those days he took off were to have checks and things – but he hadn’t wanted to worry me, the daft ha’p’orth. ’

Good. So Eddie had told Annie everything. I wondered how long it would have taken him if we hadn’t called him out.

‘So, I might not be coming to the Portuguese lessons again very often,’ Annie said. ‘I need to research his condition. To make sure that I know what he can and can’t eat, keep his weight under control, all that sort of thing.’

I was about to say that we didn’t need to keep the fiction of the Portuguese class any more, that Eddie already knew what we really were, but decided not to.

How much Eddie told her about why he had finally come clean was up to him, so she still thought that he still thought this was nothing more than a foreign language evening class.

That was fine. Everyone saved face, all down the line.

‘But I would like to stay in touch,’ Annie went on. ‘Make sure that you all have your happy endings, like I’ve had mine. Er, I mean, when you go on those holidays you’re planning. And we’ve talked about so much other than holidays in Portugal, haven’t we?’ she added quickly.

I felt, rather than saw, Flynn look at me.

‘I’m all right,’ Fraser said. ‘I’ve lost two stone and I’m going into business with Minnie, training people who’ve never lifted more than a sandwich. After I gets back from, er, that place I’m going to in the summer.’ He finished, with a slight touch of geographical desperation.

‘Bruce has agreed to all my revised pre-divorce terms,’ Margot said. ‘Personally, I think he’d agree to anything if it means he’s free to get out and have sex with someone.’

Annie shook her head. ‘I didn’t mean like that,’ she said sadly. ‘I don’t want you to be lonely any more.’ An arch look. ‘After all, that’s what was behind us all joining the Portuguese speaking class, wasn’t it? Loneliness?’

Margot looked awkward. Fraser just beamed. ‘Ah, there’s loads of women up the gym,’ he said happily. ‘I’ll be fine.’

‘Anyway.’ Annie stood up and Eddie pulled her chair out for her. ‘I thought I’d pop in and tell you, stop you worrying. We’re off out now. We’re going to the pictures, aren’t we, Eddie?’

Eddie, who was still clearly atoning for having upset Annie, nodded dismally. ‘Going to see a rom com,’ he said, in the tones of a person who is off to the funeral of a loved one.

The pair of them left, Eddie’s hand on Annie’s shoulder, steering her out of the bar and down onto the street. Flynn let out a huge sigh. ‘Thank goodness,’ he said. ‘I’ve no idea what the Portuguese is for goodbye.’

Wren dabbed at her eyes. ‘Is this the club splitting up?’ Her voice was a bit wobbly. ‘I mean, are we over?’

‘Not if we don’t want to be.’ Margot patted Wren’s shoulder. ‘We can still support one another.’

‘Are we still heartbroken? Should we change the club name again?’

‘Vengeance Squad,’ Fraser muttered.

Flynn briefly leaned his weight against me and I glanced up to see him raising his eyebrows. I smiled. He was right, with his silent question. The club didn’t seem to be needed any more except by Margot and Wren.

‘How’s the divorce going?’ I asked, hoping that Margot was going to now report a hunky male solicitor dealing with her paperwork and a new lusty desire for rampant sex.

I’d quietly mused about Bruce and come to the conclusion that there must have been something about either his appearance or performance that had so completely put Margot off sex with him.

I had high hopes for her discovering a wild and kinky mojo and running off to Biarritz with a professional paraglider or something.

‘Very smoothly,’ Margot replied, fumbling in her handbag. ‘Bruce is prepared now to relinquish the cabin in the Highlands in return for my not chasing half of his pension. I would really miss that cabin, it’s gorgeously located and I decided I just couldn’t hand it over. Let me show you.’

She pulled out her phone and scrolled. Wren looked interested, Fraser looked agog.

‘What, like a log cabin?’ he asked, leaning forward. ‘Like on Seven Brides for Seven Brothers?’ We stared at him. ‘My mum likes old musicals.’

‘Well, yes, I suppose so.’ Margot had found the right album. ‘Look.’

She flashed her photos. It was less of a cabin and more of a high-end bungalow, with a hot tub and small plunge pool, set in carefully landscaped acres with mountains forming a picturesque backdrop. I could see why she would have been sorry to relinquish it.

‘Who’s the bloke?’ Flynn asked, when scrolling revealed some pictures of a man leaning against a bicycle, obviously recently returned from pedalling his way around Auchtermuchty or similar.

‘Oh, that’s Bruce,’ Margot said airily.

I rewrote my view of her marriage. Bruce was far from being the hideous and dishevelled creature of my imaginings.

The pictures showed a tall and tanned man with lots of hair and a beaming white smile.

The cycling gear didn’t leave much to the imagination either.

Bruce had clearly not been off-putting in the physical department.

‘Nice you get to keep the place now,’ I said, slightly weakly and fighting the urge to fan myself.

‘Oh yes. I’m going to head up there in a couple of weeks, for a break.

’ Margot seemed to be saying this for a reason which I couldn’t grasp.

The sentence sounded as though it had had an expected ending amputated at the last minute.

She stopped and then apparently realised that more was needed, because she went on.

‘Before the midges get started. They can be a real problem, during the season.’

Fraser leaned back. ‘Swanky,’ he said.

‘It’s very comfortable. Perfect for couples.

’ Again, those words seemed to hold a secret meaning, but as nobody reacted, I decided I was just feeling a little bit sensitive.

Having Flynn sitting next to me could well have accounted for that.

‘In fact, I’ve joined a dating app.’ Margot sounded almost defiant.

‘For high achievers, it’s very exclusive. ’

A moment more of phone scrolling and she held the screen up again. ‘I’ve been chatting with Alexander, Imran, Michael and Willhelm,’ Margot went on. ‘They are all very lovely and very keen to meet.’

‘They could be scammers.’ Fraser stared at the photos on Margot’s phone. ‘Are there even that many good-looking rich blokes in the world?’

I gave Flynn a sideways look and smiled to myself. ‘Apparently so,’ I said.

‘Well, you be careful.’

The incongruity of Fraser giving dating advice clearly stunned even Margot and she tucked her phone away again.

With that, the meeting broke up. I hobbled my still slightly sore way back behind the bar to serve the Monday night men – who had returned to poker again tonight – and to stand and think.

Could I have a future with Flynn? Would Annie and Eddie live happily ever after?

I had to suppose that forty years of what seemed to have been a blissfully happy marriage was not going to be rocked to the core by his keeping a health scare from her.

Annie would probably just become a little bit more preoccupied with Eddie’s diet; at least it would give her a new hobby.

Eddie really did seem to love her. A happy ending. Wasn’t that what we all wanted?

Fraser looked set to make himself a new life too.

I wiped the bar in a desultory way, listening to Flynn loading the glass washer out at the back.

Surely if even Fraser could have a brand-new future, then I could allow that I might too?

Despite the fact that, on paper, Flynn and I had very little in common, we got on well, liked each other and laughed a lot – would that be enough?

I wiped the bar again and watched the poker players for a while.

This place, this tiny wine bar in this little corner of Yorkshire, was hardly going to make enough profit for Flynn to be happy, surely?

While he seemed reassuringly free of his father’s workaholic genes, would this be enough to keep him engaged and busy?

The occasional hen party, wandering businessmen, locals who wanted something other than pub life and a gradually dissolving club for sad people weren’t going to bother the Inland Revenue into fits of examining our turnover, and I’d seen Flynn pulling faces at the spreadsheets on the computer.

No, I couldn’t see him staying here forever, and where would that leave me?

The last poker player bid me goodnight and I locked the door behind them, turning the retro metal door sign to CLOSED.

I could take this for now, I thought, looking out across the road at the empty windows of my flat.

I hadn’t ended my lease, hadn’t wanted to bank too much on Flynn letting me stay on here, so it was still mine.

If everything ended, if Flynn decided to move on and that I had been a temporary, if pleasurable, blip, I’d always have the flat to go back to.

Hopefully Dexter had been warned off sufficiently never to come back, and I could find another job somewhere.

There were supermarkets and shops that needed staff.

For now, though, this was great. I made a mental note to introduce Flynn to my family sooner rather than later, so that they would know that, even if temporarily, I’d had something in my life that had been worth it.

I wanted to show him off, that was it. To show them that I wasn’t the little loser, the also-ran to my exalted brother, and that I was making myself that good life that they’d always thought would be beyond me.

After that, I never needed to see them again.