Page 64 of Five Gold Rings

‘We’re done here, Chris. We’re done,’ I whisper.

He looks me in the eye for one last time. He seems sorry, sad even, but maybe I don’t trust those eyes anymore. The room continues to silently witness everything when suddenly, a voice pipes up loudly.

‘But how… What did he say?’ Nanny Clara asks in loud tones.

‘He messed up,’ Joe says, in equally loud tones so her ninety-five-year-old ears can hear. ‘HE HAD AN AFFAIR.’

Chris glares at him from across the room. Joe realises he may have said that in his terrible Swedish accent, a little too loudly.

‘I should go,’ he says, slinking off in the direction of the kitchen.

‘HE HAD WHAT?’ an aunt screams. ‘WITH WHO?’

‘BUT IT WAS EEEEEVE!’ another thunders. And well, I don’t need to deck anyone because ninety-five-year-old granny rises from her wingback armchair and she goes for her grandson herself. Except she swings. And misses. Chris falls back. A tree starts to tilt. I hear a yelp. I think that was Crackers the cat. Baubles fly. A child sobs. Someone cries out about mulled wine and a cream carpet. ‘YOU HAD AN AFFAIR?!’ I hear as I back out of that room, ever so quietly, into the hallway and out of the front door.

Outside, I search for Joe but see him inside the car, the engine on to make a quick getaway. I take a deep breath. I exhale. All of it. I wasn’t sure how that was all supposed to go. I’d imagined that to be wronged so badly meant I would rage, all my emotion would unleash on him, but instead I feel something else. I feel free. I feel calm. I look up into the bright winter sky and exhale, my breath misting the air in a huge cloud of what I think people call closure. I walk over to the car and open the door.

‘Why, hello,’ a Swedish voice says from the driver’s seat. He smiles, his tie undone slightly. Talk about something which is starting to bring me calm. I smile back.

‘I’m sorry I left you in there. Were they awful?’ he says. ‘I should have waited.’

‘It’s fine. You half snogged his grandmother for me,’ I tell him laughing, getting in. ‘You were amazing in there. Thank you.’

‘I’ve learnt that my Scandinavian accent needs work though…’

I’m hit by fits of hysterics again, both of us peering over to a frosted massive bay window, hearing raised voices, watching Crackers the cat squashed against the glass. I can’t quite understand the emotion, but I think it’s me just processing the grief of the situation. From intense sadness to rage to a giggling mania, complete with tears.

‘Are you OK?’ Joe asks me, confused.

‘Yes, Olaf.’ I titter even harder to say that name aloud.

He laughs back, grateful that I seem lighter, less aggrieved, that I owned that moment and made it mine. This was all Chris. Never me.

‘Well, since you’re in a good mood, I have something to tell you, a secret…’

‘Yes?’ I ask, curiously.

‘Well,’ he says, hesitantly. ‘I was really angry to see him. To see his smug face. To think how much he hurt you so… I stole their turkey…’ He points to a large foil-wrapped package in the back seat.

‘You stole the… what now? The turkey-turkey?’ I say, staring at him in disbelief.

‘The very one.’

‘You’re amazing. That’s the best thing anyone’s ever done for me.’

And I laugh. I laugh so very, very hard.

Joe

Ring 4: 18k white gold, floating round diamond semi eternity band. For Faith.

Yes, I stole the turkey. I’m not sure why but we’ve had three days of bedlam, so this felt like something else to add to the chaos. I escaped the melée happening in the front room while Eve shamed Chris in front of his whole family, I went straight into the kitchen, and I carried that moist bird to my car. I was angry – furious to see him but even more so because of that note. The venom in that note pushed me over the edge and stealing that twat’s turkey felt like the next best thing to punching his lights out. I’m a proper hard nut, me.

‘La-la-la-la-la,’ Eve sings to herself in my car seat and I won’t lie, it’s a nice feeling to see her transformed from the girl who was sat in my passenger seat earlier this morning. She simmers with excitement over what just happened, seeming free of all that emotion that weighed her down. Balance in the universe has been restored and she can at least enjoy the rest of the day ahead.

‘So on to the next wedding, Batman,’ I tell her, reminding her of the task at hand as I negotiate the streets around the North Circular.

‘I’m Batman? Surely I’m Robin in this situation?’ she jokes. She looks over at me, positively glowing, and it’s hard not to grin right back at her.