‘Dum dum dum da-da-dum,’ Justin hummed Queen’s ‘Under Pressure’.
I had a hard lump in my throat, and rocks in my stomach.
‘Her older sister’s really sick with encephalitis and her parents are up at the hospital all the time. I said I’d cook Christmas lunch for them.’
Oh, how Ed. How wonderful of you.
‘It’s touch and go whether she’ll make a full recovery, apparently,’ Ed said.
He risked looking directly at me, possibly hoping I’d see this was a good and necessary endeavour. I nearly spat: she could have seven sick sisters and you’d be still be a lying arsehole traitor.
‘Do you have a photo? Let’s see her! I can’t even picture this otherworldly femme fatale who’s got you settled down this fast,’ Susie said.
Susie had no idea how she was ratcheting up my agony as surely as if she was tightening the screws on a rack. I took some small, sour comfort in the fact that Ed was also clearly wishing a whirling portal to another dimension would open up outside, by the bar’s happy hour specials A-board.
He reluctantly flashed a wallet Polaroid at us and I glanced, blank expression, at a blob of pale golden light, a blob that still somehow contrived to have phenomenal bone structure and a sexy broad mouth. She was beautiful, and she looked nothing like me. Of course. Satan wasn’t pulling a half shift.
‘A Marilyn who’s going to be Ed’s Jackie,’ Justin said and Ed replied: ‘Hah, steady on,’ and Susie said: ‘I bet that’s true, I bet you marry her,’ and I couldn’t find a single thing to say.
I wanted to howl-weep, I wanted to scream, I wanted to slap Ed – a stinging, full-palm slap like scorned ladies used to deliver in old movies, and the man holds his face and blinks. Instead I went to the loo, when enough time had passed that it looked innocuous, and did a humiliating mini vomit.
It took an hour for Susie to go to the loo in turn, at the same moment that Justin was at the bar, and Ed and I were finally alone.
There was an excruciating moment when Ed glanced at me and tried to speak and couldn’t, opening and closing his mouth. I had anaesthetised with cheap white wine, which had first helped numb my throat and kept me quiet. Now I felt it unlocking my words, unguardedly.
‘You could’ve told me,’ I said, when it was clear Ed was going to waste at least half of the precious minute we had for his limp explanation in mute terror.
‘Why did you write?’ I said, hollow, and blunt. ‘You could’ve not written to me. “I love you” and then this?’
‘You didn’t write back?’ Ed said, guilty head snapping up in surprise, jaw dropping. ‘I said if you didn’t write back, I’d know you didn’t … want …?’
‘What?’ I said. ‘I did write back?’
We stared at each other, uncomprehending. That this had broken my heart was a given. That it could be due to an admin fuck-up, rather than pure evil, was a new room in this hell that I’d not contemplated existing.
‘I didn’t get it,’ Ed said, shaking his head, face stricken. ‘Eve. You have to believe me, I didn’t. I wouldn’t …’ he trailed off.
‘It was sent the day I got yours,’ I said. ‘First class. I posted it an hour and a half after. It should’ve been there the next day.’ This eagerness was mortifying and exposing to admit, but essential.
‘Where’d it go?’ Ed said, and he wasn’t going to get any help juggling options from me.
‘Wait … which month was it …’ Ed said, then, clearly speaking at the same rate he was thinking, his hand ruffling his hair as he spoke: ‘Fuck! There was a flood in the kitchen … a load of water-damaged stuff got thrown out and Raf said that there were letters in it. The names had totally blurred so he didn’t know who’d lost what. I didn’t think you’d write back that quick, or I’d have asked you if you’d sent anything … I didn’t think for a second I had a letter back from you that soon?’
‘Well, you did.’ I bit the inside of my cheek to stop myself from crying.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Ed said. ‘I can’t believe this. I’d have never …’
‘Got a steady girlfriend?’ I said, mocking, bitter.
‘I’m not sure it’s serious,’ Ed said, staring at me intently, reassessing where we stood. But the cause was lost, I knew it was. Any lifeline he threw me was to ease his discomfort, not because it represented a way back to where we were.
‘Cheeky Sambuca sidecars!’ Justin whooped, at our side once again, smashing down a tray.
That was it. The door with Ed Cooper had closed.
I told myself, in the weeping and the losing of a stone and a half in the following weeks: you’ll get over him, you’ll meet someone you feel as much for, who you click as much with. Puppy love. Fish in the sea. I tried to be my own agony aunt, and responsible adult, and voice of wisdom.
Well, so much for received wisdom – I haven’t, and I didn’t. There’ve been times it’s hurt less and times it’s hurt more, but it’s always there and it’s always hurt.
And Ed and I have stayed close friends, so my reminders of our unimprovable rapport are constant. I never told Susie, or Justin: because why make everything weirder, for nothing?
I’ve asked myself a thousand times whether the missing letter makes it worse, or better.
It’s better in as much as Ed was restored to me, he wasn’t a villain. But then maybe I needed the simplicity of implacable villainy to get shot. Letter or not, he still didn’t love me enough, those months later, to end it with Hester. She was a sensational catch, I could see that. The year’s convalescence for her sister seemed something Ed should stick around for, and then that was that, they were a done deal.
Every so often, Ed will let his guard drop and I will get a clue that some of his feelings for me are still there, somewhere. Often enough that I can never lose faith.
Holding my eyes seconds too long, after laughing together. Fretting my internet dates might be Ted Bundy. The way his eyes avert if I wear anything lower or tighter than usual, in a way it never seems to around any other female. Or the way he sits it out, silent, if Justin or Susie make ripe jokes regarding my love life. His general scepticism about, and small but noticeable distance he kept from, my ex, Mark. Calling me to talk about family or work problems, and I know, without a doubt, he’s using me as a more reliable sounding board than the volatile Hester. You give such great advice, he says.
The way he makes it clear that if I needed him, he’d drop everything. And anyone. Almost anyone.
Sometimes my friendship with Ed feels amazing and beneficial, because it’s good to know I can feel that way with someone, and to see him glow with adoration in return. Other times it’s like endlessly over-performing in an interview for a job where the position’s already been filled.
I know what someone sensible would say about Ed Cooper if I confided in them (though I never have).
If he really was right for you, if he felt what he needed to feel – he’d have left her.
Maybe that’s true, maybe it’s weakness of character. Perhaps he feels more for Hester than he ever could for me, and after all, there’s no nice way to express that?