Page 3 of The Monday Night Heartbreak Club

‘Shall I go first?’ Margot leaned forward across the table, seemingly filled with an almost indecent desire to share her story. I wanted to say If you must, but didn’t, mostly because the wine was doing its work, blunting the edges of life.

‘My husband told me he wanted a divorce the day before Valentine’s,’ Margot said, matter-of-factly. ‘I’d been planning a long weekend. Val d’Isère, I thought, really terribly popular just now.’

I thought that was the name of an opera singer, so I was quite pleased when Wren said, ‘For the skiing?’ and stopped me looking like a total culture-free idiot.

‘Of course,’ Margot replied, as though there were no possible reason for anyone going anywhere unless it was to slide down mountains.

‘I was going to surprise him with it for his birthday. His birthday is 17 February, you see,’ she added.

‘But he sat me down and told me that as far as he is concerned our marriage is over and he wants a divorce.’

She stopped speaking suddenly, as though the reality of the situation had only just dawned on her. ‘He wants a divorce,’ she said again, more softly. ‘After thirteen years.’ Those bright blue eyes clouded and she blinked rapidly.

We murmured consolation. Margot seemed to have come to an end, so Annie, the greying-haired lady, took over.

Her top swung and the beads clattered against the edge of the table with a noise that made my teeth want to chew my wine glass.

‘I think my husband is having an affair,’ she said, in a monotone that made the words seem free from any emotion.

‘He forgot Valentine’s Day this year, for the first time in forty years. ’

Margot cocked her head. There was an interrogative shine in her eyes now. ‘Any other signs?’ she asked.

Annie sighed. ‘Oh, the usual ones. Secret phone calls, lost weight, he’s bought himself some new clothes, taken up going to the gym.

All the clichés. He’s snappy with me, short tempered, you know.

He’s sixty, we’d been saving so he could retire this year, but he’s suddenly stopped talking about all the plans we’d made – it doesn’t look good.

’ She took a deep breath. ‘So I’m joining this group because I think I’m going to need support when it all comes out. ’

She looked around at the three of us. ‘I don’t have many friends,’ Annie went on. ‘It’s always been just me and Eddie. If I lose him…’

I swallowed hard. I’d been thinking that this group would be a bunch of women like me, who wanted to meet up every so often, drink, shout about what a bunch of bastards our exes were, sing two verses of ‘I Will Survive’ and try to pick up a man at the bar.

I’d not considered that real emotion might come into things.

Everyone nodded, as though committing Annie’s betrayal to memory.

I wanted to skip past this bit and get to the part where we all bought another round of drinks and possibly managed a chorus of ‘Respect’, but there didn’t seem to be any hurrying anyone.

Plus the lack of juke box would mean we’d have to go a cappella, which might be a little cold-blooded, even for me.

‘I mean,’ Annie added, ‘I’ve got my groups of course. French lessons, crochet club, bowls on Wednesday…’

We carried on nodding.

‘…reading to the elderly on a Friday, knit and chat alternate Tuesdays, supporting refugees – but that’s only once a month of course – collecting for the Red Cross, Daffodil club…’

Our nodding had slowed somewhat.

‘…the WI, our baking group, and organising outings for the playgroup.’

There was a pause as we all waited to see whether she’d run out of associations.

‘But I don’t have many what you could call real friends,’ Annie went on, rather begging the question as to why she bothered with all these activities. ‘Oh, there’s Sally of course, but all she wants to do is talk about her grandchildren.’

After a slightly stunned moment of silence, when Annie failed to reveal fifteen more friends of varying realities, attention switched to Wren.

Like her namesake bird, she was small and tidy and somehow…

brown. Her hair, her clothes, everything was over-washed with a kind of mental sepia, forcing her into the background even though she was currently the centre of attention.

‘Jordan didn’t bother with Valentine’s Day,’ she said, looking down into her cocktail.

‘Nothing. I’d bought some chocolates, thought we’d go out for dinner, you know, that sort of thing, but I got…

’ A shrug. ‘So I asked why – I mean, surely, even a voucher, would that be too much trouble?’ She took a deep breath.

‘I got “I appreciate you every day, why do you want me to do something extra just because some card shop says you have to spend money? That’s capitalism at its finest.” Or something like that. So I ended it.’

I remembered the barman expressing similar sentiments when I’d been falling over my own feet on Saturday night and glanced over at him to see if he was listening. He seemed to be sorting out money in the till and was therefore presumably not in a position to appreciate anti-capitalist rhetoric.

Wren sighed again and Margot leaned forward across the table to lay a hand on Wren’s wrist. ‘Typical bloody man,’ Margot said, in a tone so laden with vitriol that it ought to have burned a hole through the table.

‘Taking women for granted. Not wanting to spend so much as a fiver if it means inconveniencing themselves.’

‘Er,’ said Wren, looking even smaller and browner.

‘No, no, I understand how you feel.’ Margot’s conversational juggernaut was rolling forward, squashing all objection.

‘We do everything for them. We cook, we clean, we organise their lives. We’re like social secretaries, housekeepers and sex workers all rolled into one, and all we ask is a little bit of gratitude now and again.

But oh no, it’s too hard for them to even go online and order a bunch of flowers once a year to say, “Thank you for all you do”. Honestly. Men!’

‘Jordan is a woman,’ Wren said quickly, obviously trying to squeeze this vital information into the conversation before Margot dug herself in any deeper.

We all looked off in different directions in the resulting silence.

Over in the corner, the barman was now doing something to a gin bottle that made it look as though he was trying to earwig on our conversation.

Although why he would want to listen to four women doing Sad Face and complaining, I had no idea.

He wore an all-black uniform too, shirt and trousers and a tie, which made him look like a formal ninja.

‘How about you, Fee?’ Margot was using me to distract everyone from how deeply her foot was currently in her mouth, obviously. ‘What made you want to join our group?’

Three pairs of eyes swung my way. Four, actually, because the barman was looking over now, still uncoiling a roll of plastic which had inexplicably sealed the gin into a pirate-ship-shaped parcel.

‘I dunno,’ I said, awkward at being the focus of attention. ‘My ex walked out on Valentine’s Day. I mean, he was always walking out, but he usually came back. This time…’ I shrugged. ‘This time I really don’t want him back. I know he’s not… good for me,’ I finished rather lamely.

I saw Margot and Wren make eye contact and both raise their eyebrows.

‘Did he say why he left this time?’ This was Annie, a gentle question in her soft, Yorkshire tones.

‘Not really.’ I thought back to that night, but absolutely wasn’t going to admit that I’d declined his offer of sex and he’d decided to go back to Leeds and knock on the door of someone more available.

‘Nope. He upped and left in the middle of an episode of Our Flag Means Death. Threw his stuff into a bag and walked out.’ I didn’t add that it was something I’d grown to expect, Dex walking out to find either his dealer or another woman, because that made me sound desperate.

After all, why would I want to hang on to a man like that? Why would I?

I didn’t tell them about the yelling and the screaming and the accusations, about how hard I had tried to keep Dex because I thought this was what I wanted, what I deserved.

‘Oh, Fee.’ Annie’s eyes were bright. I thought this was very generous of her, given that she had an unfaithful husband. ‘That’s awful, love. Not even to give you a reason or a chance to talk.’

I couldn’t think of anything to say to that.

How did I explain the strange feeling that came so close to relief, after Dex left?

The kind of relief you feel when a boil has burst, when you hope the worst is over but suspect it’s just going to build up again.

My new resolve never to take him back again was just the pin I sat with in readiness.

He was a boil I was determined to prick.

Thoughts about boiling his prick weren’t totally alien to my nature either.

I finished my wine and tried to catch the barman’s eye to order another.

He was now pretending not to listen but standing right up at the end of the bar, as close to us as he could get.

He had his dark curly hair pulled back into a small tie at the back of his neck and his glasses kept catching the light, making his eyes look like white circles of reflected light. I still couldn’t read his name badge.

‘So.’ Margot cleared her throat. ‘Looks like we’re all in this together, do you all agree?

I’m getting divorced, Annie’s got suspicions, Wren has been taken for granted and Fee’s been abandoned.

’ She sounded perkier now and I definitely saw her rub her hands together almost as though she were gleeful at the prospect. ‘But we can all support each other.’

‘How?’ I asked, but nobody seemed to have heard me.

Annie gave a rueful smile and Wren nodded earnestly. ‘Can we meet every week?’ Annie asked.

‘Well, I was thinking monthly…’ Margot began.