Page 65 of Five Gold Rings
‘No, you were the hero back there. I’m but a sidekick in all of this.’
‘Hero?’
‘You fought back. You found a way to draw a line, some people never do that. They just get haunted by relationships forever. It was a classy move.’
‘And completely improvised,’ she tells me, trying to play it down. ‘I’m not normally that level-headed. I normally get dumped and drink myself into oblivion, not that I’ve been drunk at all over the last few days,’ she jokes, not before looking at me and pausing for a moment. ‘By the way, your dad – his cancer. I didn’t realise. I’m very sorry about that,’ she says, facing me, her eyes softening to let me know she cares.
‘You weren’t to know,’ I reassure her.
‘How is he?’ she asks.
‘In remission but it took a while – some ops, some chemo. I moved back home for a bit to help.’ She’s quiet, watching me thoughtfully. ‘But it’s why I gave up drinking. Why I normally just tell everyone I’m the designated driver. I spent enough time around chemo suites with people who’d drunk their livers away, so I had a revelation that maybe it wasn’t worth it.’
‘I’m sorry if I made you feel uncomfortable – I’ve hit the bottle quite hard in the past few days. I’m not normally like that,’ she admits.
‘I know… You had your reasons…’
She puts a hand to my arm and I feel it all, all that sincerity, that kindness and it kills me.
'Thank you though, really. For all of it. For coming to my flat, for going in Chris’s house with me. You didn’t have to do that. On today of all days.’
I did. I had to make sure she was OK. I still care. She looks into my eyes for a moment, and I exhale softly trying to contain that emotion. ‘Well, it’ll be a Christmas morning I won’t forget. They all tend to blur into one otherwise. I’ll always remember that time I faked being Swedish, snogged someone’s gran and then stole a turkey.’
She laughs, getting a mirror out of her clutch to fix her eye make-up.
I’d only do it for you. I’d only snog someone’s gran for you.
‘So,’ I say, trying to snap myself out of it. ‘Rings. Let’s get this done. Nearly there.’
‘Agreed, just two more rings,’ she mutters, looking a little sad for a moment. ‘And then after that?’
'Christmas. I’ll probably drive straight home. I’ve packed my car up already. I could probably drop you in to see your brother? Your dad?’ I suggest.
‘Yeah. If that’s not too much trouble?’
Nothing will ever be too much trouble. I need to stop this. ‘No trouble at all.’
She cocks her head to thank me and then studies the map on her phone. ‘Here, take a right here.’
I do as I’m told, navigating the half-empty streets. ‘So, what’s the bet on this wedding having some element of drama?’ I joke.
‘Who knows?’ she grins. ‘I sold this ring actually.’
‘Tell me more?’ I ask.
‘His name was Emmanuel, and her name was Faith. They’d known each other forever. They were mildly hilarious as a couple because they wanted to try everything on and take comedy photos and they were just so excitable. It was nice to see.’
‘And the Christmas Day wedding…?’
‘They’re making a day of it apparently. Just take a left here and park up somewhere.’
‘Are you sure?’ I ask, scanning for spaces.
‘Yep, BUT LOOK OUT FOR THAT—’
‘—SHEEEEEEEEP!’ I scream. The Mini screeches to a halt and we both sit there, rattled but also confused. This is North London, this guy is not common around these parts. He stands there in the street, illuminated by the glow of the winter sun and bleats softly at us. I wave at him. A man suddenly runs into the road, holding a crook and what looks like a tea towel to his head, though he has Jordans on his feet.
‘COME HERE, YOU ABSOLUTE TOSSER!’ he bellows, bundling it up, putting a hand up to apologise to us.