I was. The thought of not seeing him again was like leaving a part of myself behind. A part I’d only just discovered. I hadn’t realised I was in love with him until I’d lost him. I guess it had crept up on me. Each kiss, each touch, each time we’d made love a bit more of my heart had been won over.
But if he loved me then surely he wouldn’t have made me choose. It was his reputation he was most concerned about, not me. It proved what a fool I’d been to allow our relationship to get to that stage. Hadn’t he said from the start he had other priorities right now? I had foolishly agreed to getting involved and now I was paying the price.
But if he’d only wanted a casual fling why had he revealed so much to me about his past? It wasn’t just the red-hot passion I longed for in a relationship. It was that wonderful sense of intimacy, of being able to talk about painful things without fear of judgement or lack of interest. Matt had opened up to me in the same way I had opened up to him. Why, then, had he made me choose? It wasn’t fair to push me. To blackmail me.
I was getting my things out of the central office on my last day when Jill came in with a bundle of files to be entered into the computer. ‘I can’t believe you’re not coming to the ball,’ she said. ‘Why not use it as a send-off? We haven’t had time to do a drinks thing for you or anything.’
‘I don’t want any fuss,’ I said, eyeing that wretched postcard. If only I could get it off that board then maybe my life would magically return to normal, or whatever normal for me was.
‘This all seems rather sudden,’ Jill said. ‘Did the CEO pressure you to leave or something?’
‘No, of course not,’ I said. ‘It was my decision.’
She eyed me doubtfully for a moment. ‘It won’t be the same here without you, Bertie. You’ve brought a lot of fun to the department. Even Stuart is saying how much he’s going to miss you. And Prof Cleary. Do you know what he said? He said you’re like a bright red poppy in a field of oats.’
I blinked back a sting of tears. ‘That was sweet of him.’
There was a short silence.
‘You weren’t really having an affair with Matt Bishop, were you?’ Jill asked.
I couldn’t hold her look and turned to the noticeboard and unpinned the postcard. ‘You don’t mind if I take this?’
‘Of course not,’ she said. ‘It’ll just get thrown out. You might as well keep it for sentimental value.’
I pasted a tight smile on my face. ‘That’s what I thought.’
I felt like Cinderella on the night of the ball, except I didn’t have two ugly stepsisters and a horrid stepmother keeping me away. I was keeping myself away. I watched as the clock ticked towards midnight. I imagined all the guests arriving, walking up the red carpet, couples arm in arm. My stomach clenched at the thought of Matt arriving with some gorgeous date on his arm. I thought of him dancing with her, his arms around her as I’d dreamed of his around me. I hadn’t even had the chance to see if we could actually dance.
But if our lovemaking was anything to go by, I thought we would’ve had a chance to be that couple on the dance floor. You know, the couple you see at weddings or functions who look like they’ve just come off a reality dance show, their movements together so beautifully synchronised it was spellbinding to watch. I wanted us to be that couple. We were a great team at work. We balanced each other out. Matt’s cold, hard science needed softening with my more feelings-based intuition. We were like a perfect cocktail. The flavours by themselves weren’t too flash, but put them together and, wham. What a knockout combination.
I looked at the clock again. The ball didn’t end until one a.m. If I got my skates on I would have just enough time to poke my head in the door to see if everything had gone according to plan. I was deeply ashamed at not following through with my commitment. People had been relying on me and I’d walked off the job. What if not enough money was raised, or what if there was some last-minute hitch and I wasn’t there to sort it out? Since when had I become a quitter? I still had my ticket and I had a choice of costumes from previous fancy-dress parties. It was a choice between Princess Fiona from Shrek or Kermit the Frog.
I didn’t fancy being either so I decided to do what Jem had suggested. I pulled out a nineteen-fifties ball gown I’d bought for twenty pounds in a charity shop a few years ago. I’d never worn it in public because I’d always thought it was too glamorous for me. But when I put it on and looked at myself in the mirror it was like looking at myself for the first time.
I put my hair up and put on a bit of make-up. I spritzed myself with perfume and picked up a little drawstring evening purse that matched the white organza of my gown. Actually, it wasn’t really white any more. It was more of an off-white, leaning towards yellowed with age, and it had a couple of moth holes in the flared skirt, but I was hoping no one would notice that. I slipped on some heels and prayed my toes would forgive me for the ensuing torture.
I called a cab—there weren’t any pumpkin coaches on duty that night—and went to the hotel.
The ball was in full swing when I slipped in to stand by one of the red-rose arrangements with heart-shaped helium balloons sticking out of it. The dance floor was full of dancers in a variety of costumes. Some had taken the fun aspect of the night to extremes but there was a nice sprinkling of elegance amongst the frivolity.
I saw Matt dancing with one of the nurses from A and E. My heart gave a painful spasm as I saw his hand in the small of her back as they waltzed around the dance floor. They looked so good together. Not quite as good as a couple from a dance show … in fact, I thought I saw Matt tread on her toe at one point but that could’ve been my wishful thinking in overdrive. But then, as if he had a sixth sense, he suddenly stopped dancing and said something to his partner. She nodded and slipped away to dance with someone else.
Then he turned and met my gaze across the crowded room.
I know it sounds like a cliché but I felt my heart come to a standstill. Tears sprouted in my eyes as he came towards me. He was dressed in an old-style tuxedo with a red rosebud pinned to his lapel—no silly cartoon or superhero characters for him. He took my evening-gloved hands in his. ‘So Cinderella made it after all,’ he said.
‘Yes … a close call but so far my glass slippers are intact.’
‘Dance with me?’
He didn’t give me time to say yay or nay. Suddenly I was in his arms and we were moving around the dance floor. Yes, you guessed it. Just like one of those couples. In fact, we were so good everyone else stopped dancing to look at us. I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn’t realised there were two reasons they were staring. One: we were pretty fantastic together. Two: I was still pretending to be married to someone else.
It was exactly five minutes to midnight.
I stopped dancing and slipped out of Matt’s hold. ‘Will you excuse me for a moment?’ I said. ‘There’s something I have to do.’
Everyone was still standing on the perimeter of the dance floor as I walked over to the podium, where a microphone had been positioned for the fundraising auction that had been conducted earlier. I waited for the musicians to stop playing the last bars of their song and then I took a deep breath. ‘Hi,’ I said, waving to all of the familiar faces and the not-so-familiar ones.
‘For those of you who don’t know, I’m Bertie Clark.’ I felt like someone at a support group owning up to some sort of vice. ‘There’s something I have to confess. I’m not really married. I was jilted the night before the wedding. I didn’t mean to send that postcard. That sort of happened by accident. I’ve been pretending ever since. I’m sorry for all the hurt I’ve caused. It was stupid and immature and I’m terribly, unreservedly, unequivocally sorry.’ I thought I’d better stop there. I was starting to sound like a thesaurus.
There was a moment of stunned silence and then everyone gave me a round of applause as they started to surge forward on the dance floor. I felt like a