Page 5 of The Monday Night Heartbreak Club

On Saturday Demi texted to tell me she was moving to Peterborough.

You’ll have to come and stay all the time.

In Peterborough? I wanted to ask. Why the hell would I come to Peterborough?

Yes, of course.

I texted back.

Good luck. I’m sure we can have a drink before you go.

We move on Thursday.

There wasn’t much I could reply to that. Her life was going to go further and further towards the house, big family, reliable husband and a spaniel that she’d had it pointed at when we’d first met. Mine… wasn’t.

I put the phone down and stared around the flat.

It echoed with emptiness. Also a little with the argument breaking out downstairs, which seemed to be based on Him looking at Her again, you know Her, the one with the lips and the bum, not that they’re natural so you needn’t get any ideas.

I slumped at the kitchen table and stared out of the window, which looked out over the main street and directly across to the wine bar, where Flynn was pulling a couple of tables out onto the small pavement area and trying to make the town look like Paris.

I watched him for a few moments. Then I opened a bottle of wine.

I was the second to arrive on Monday evening. Margot, of course, had got there first and was neatly arranging her handbag and some A4 pads when I swung through the door.

‘Ah, hello, Fee!’ Her use of my name made me feel odd, a little as though she was greeting me like an old friend, not like someone I’d only met once before. ‘How are you today? How’s life?’

‘Don’t worry, I’m still single,’ I muttered.

Flynn, behind the bar again, poured me an unasked-for small glass of wine. ‘Never mind,’ he said. ‘Being single isn’t that bad. Sometimes better than the alternative.’

I thought of Dex. He might not have been perfect partner material, but at least he’d been there.

He’d shown that I could have a normal life – a flat, a boyfriend, a job – despite everything I’d always been told.

I’d been doing it, having a life. Now, everything was gradually seeping away from me, leaving like heat evaporating from a warm bath.

I was floundering in the cold water already.

‘Very gnomic.’ I picked up my glass. ‘They should hire you to write T-shirt slogans.’ Being bitchy to Flynn distracted me from feeling sorry for myself. Then I looked at Margot. She was a little paler than she had been previously, her make-up just a touch less perfect. ‘Are you all right?’

As though my question surprised her, she jerked her head up and stared at a corner of the ceiling. This went on for so long that Flynn and I made eye contact and pulled faces, indicating that we were unsure as to whether or not interrupting her upward stare might result in a tirade.

Finally, she brought her eyes back down to the table. ‘Yes, thank you, Fee. I’m fine. The divorce is going ahead. Bruce has agreed to all my terms. I’m having the house, of course, and half his pension.’

Flynn and I widened eyes at each other now. ‘Wow,’ I said. ‘What does he get?’

‘Oh, he’s having the place in Spain.’

‘Well, that’s…’

‘And the cabin in Scotland. Plus the boat, of course.’

There was a pause. I didn’t know what to say to any of that, other than another Wow, but I thought the previous one pretty well summed things up. ‘And are you happy about that?’ I asked eventually.

Margot sighed. ‘I shall miss the cabin. The Highlands are so wonderfully relaxing out of season, I find.’

I hadn’t meant that. I’d really meant to ask her how she felt about her husband wanting a divorce.

She’d already mentioned not having children and I wanted to know if that had been the bone of contention or whether she had been replaced with a younger, blonder model.

I wanted company in my misery, basically, and her resolute attitude wasn’t giving me the All Men Are Bastards vibe that I was after.

The door jingled and our newest recruit, the bloke who’d been wearing the Star Wars T-shirt, came in. ‘Just a pint, mate,’ he said to Flynn, who had half-heartedly begun to sort bottles in the racking.

‘This is a wine bar,’ Flynn said levelly.

‘Pint of wine then,’ said Luke Skywalker, and guffawed, as though this had been one of Stephen Fry’s best-ever comeback lines.

Flynn sighed and poured a large glass of white wine. Tonight his hair was loose and hung around his face, which made him look like a student working his evening job, although I knew he must be older. I wondered what else he did, apart from working in here. Or maybe this was all he did?

Mr Star Wars saw Margot and me and came bouncing over, balancing his wine carefully. ‘Didn’t get to introduce myself last week, did I?’ He stuck out the hand not holding the wine. ‘I’m Fraser. Fraze-the-Haze, the boys call me.’

‘Do they?’ Margot shook hands, looking a bit faint. ‘Why?’

Fraser’s face scrunched up in thought. He had a very round face; the fringe of beard did nothing to disguise its rotundity and made him look like a baby in fake facial hair.

‘Well, well… haze, it’s like fog, isn’t it?

’ he asked, uncertain in the face of Margot’s stringent questioning. ‘Like – stops you seeing?’

Her expression became one of intermediate clarity. ‘Oh. I see. Airborne pollution. Obviously. Silly of me, really.’

Fraser-the-Particulates-in-Suspension sat down, looking a bit stunned, and took a large mouthful of his wine, which made me warm to him a bit.

‘I’m Fee and this is Margot,’ I said. Then, in a spirit of mischief, ‘And the onlooker is called Flynn.’

Flynn waved.

‘Our other two are Annie and Wren. I’m sure they’ll be here in a minute.’

‘Wren called to say she may be a little late.’ Margot was fiddling with the notepads again. ‘I gave her my number last week, I should give it to you too, Fee. In case you can’t make a meeting or something.’

‘Can I have your number too?’ Fraser glanced over. ‘In case I’m late.’

Margot paused. ‘I’m not sure that’s appropriate,’ she said. ‘I don’t give my number out to men I don’t know.’

‘Well, that’s discrimination then, isn’t it?

’ He sounded confrontational. ‘What do you think I’m going to do with it?

Unless you reckon all men are drunk-diallers who’re going to phone you up, pissed, and send you dick pics.

’ The confrontational tone was diluted somewhat when he swigged another mouthful of wine as though it were lager.

He did have a point.

‘Why the notepads, Margot?’ I asked, to break the tension. ‘Are we doing exercises?’

Fraser put his glass down. ‘I don’t do writing,’ he said. ‘I’m dyslexic, me.’

‘No, no.’ Margot waved vaguely at the pads and pens.

‘It’s for making notes, scribbling ideas.

I always think a meeting looks so much more finished if people make notes, don’t you?

Besides, Bruce’s company produces stationery products, so I’ve got literally millions of these at home and I ought to start clearing out some cupboards.

I’ll write my number down on them.’ She picked up a pen. ‘So you all have it.’

Another small pause while she wrote, and Fraser and I tried to avoid catching one another’s eyes.

Thankfully, Annie and Wren chose that moment to come in together, letting a little of the night’s chill in with them.

Through the open door I could see the windows of my flat opposite.

There were no sudden flickers of illumination in the kitchen or bathroom to show that someone was moving from room to room, no strobing blue indicating that the TV was on.

Only that one single bulb trying to light up my whole life.

I drained my glass.

‘Wren! Annie! Over here!’ Margot called, sounding slightly imperious and making one of the old men – who were playing poker tonight, for furtive pennies – look up and say something, which made the other laugh.

There was a bustle of coats and bags and moving of chairs.

Fraser sank himself down into his T-shirt neck; tonight’s featured the slogan ‘Pigs Might Fly’ accompanied by an unlikely picture of cartoon pigs smoking joints.

Fraser was not giving me ‘joint-smoking’ vibes and he now seemed to be rather intimidated by the volume of women he found himself surrounded with.

Margot indicated the notepads. ‘Just a little “giveaway” for the evening,’ she said. ‘In case anyone wants to write things down – future dates, useful contacts, that sort of thing. I’ve written my number on the inside, so everyone has it.’

Annie smiled politely, but Wren thanked Margot and tucked the pad inside her tote bag.

Wren, I thought, looked a little less brown tonight.

She was still make-up free but wearing a bright yellow scarf tied loosely, which contrasted with her hair and made her skin glow.

Annie looked ruffled. She was what Dex would have called ‘built for comfort’, well-upholstered and with the softness of limb and face that made her look older and happier than she probably was.

She was dressed older too, in a pleated blouse and the kind of trousers that were advertised in Sunday supplements as ‘slacks’.

I wondered about Eddie’s evident affair – had he found himself a younger, slimmer version of his wife?

Or gone completely off-piste and started seeing a dynamic organiser type?

I really hoped he wasn’t going to turn out to be having an affair with Margot.

That kind of neatness wasn’t what I expected from life these days.

I sat somewhere between Wren and Margot in looks.

Older than Wren but younger than Margot, tall but I didn’t have Margot’s imperious height.

I dressed not to be noticed and had hair of the neither curly nor straight persuasion.

In any given gathering I looked as though I was there to make up the numbers.

We all regarded one another glumly across the table. Except for Fraser, who had slumped even further and seemed to be trying to avoid everyone. ‘Well,’ said Margot eventually. ‘How are we all?’