Yours Truly Page 27

  “I think I might have met someone else,” I say suddenly. I put my hands to my mouth in surprise that I've just said that out loud to my mum. It's not even like it's worth mentioning. Riley thinks I'm a liar. It was just a one night stand.

  “Olly's a good man,” Mum says steadily, looking deep into my eyes and holding my hands in hers. “Reliable and honest to boot. Now those qualities might not be glamorous and exciting, but they're the qualities that make for a successful marriage.”

  I take in what she's saying.

  “You're almost thirty, Natalie.”

  “I'm twenty seven!”

  I feel the tears well up again and feel my stomach clench as they spill over and trickle onto my cheeks.

  Mum grabs my hand and squeezes gently.

  “You're just nervous. That's all.”

  I nod. She's probably right.

  “Time to grow up.”

  Dionne returns and I leave because I’m desperate for a wee. I must turn a wrong corner or something because I end up on a long, dimly lit corridor.

  There must be a loo somewhere along here, I think. I turn another corner and pause at what appears to be a ward. There's a glass window looking in upon two rows of beds. Two blue uniformed nurses are gossiping at a station. Great! There'll definitely be a toilet in here.

  I'm about to go in and ask when -

  “I know you, lass. I never forget a face!”

  Oh. My. God.

  I spin around, my heart pounding so fast I fear it's going to explode.

  There in the very first bed, with his leg in a huge white cast and grinning nonchalantly, is Amazing Brian.

  That bastard!

  CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN

  “Yooooou!” I snarl, marching over to Brian's bed and slamming my hand down on his hospital table, causing a bowl of grapes to topple over onto the floor. “You! You ruined my life.”

  The two nurses at the station, spotting a mad woman about to commit murder on a patient, make a lightning quick move towards me. One takes out a walkie talkie and calls for back up. I'm sure the other one cracks her knuckles as if preparing for fisticuffs.

  Brian stops them.

  “It's fine Nurse Gilda, Nurse Maud, I know this lass. She's all right. She'll be quiet.”

  The nurses narrow their eyes at me, not sure whether to trust what Brian says or rugby tackle me to the ground and sit on me until hospital security arrives.

  They look at each other and eventually back away, the more muscular of the two growls at me to keep my voice down or there else will be consequences.

  “They're like my bodyguards those two. God love ‘em,” Brian laughs, all bright and breezy.

  “What happened to your leg?” I say, curiosity getting the better of me.

  “I bloody slipped on some ice about, hmmm, four weeks ago…”

  “Oh.”

  So that's where he was. Seems stupid that I didn't check the hospitals. They always check the hospitals when a person goes missing!

  “So. You were saying?” Brian grins.

  “Oh, right, yes. You. Ruined. My. Life,” I spit once more, carefully keeping it to a stage whisper. I pull up a pink visitors chair and plonk myself onto it.

  “Did I?” Brian asks, nodding at me to pass him the glass of Lucozade on his bedside table. “Did I really?”

  I hand him his drink. I might be mad at him, but I'm not going to deny a sick man his fluids. I'm not a complete cow.

  “Yes, you did, you… bastard. You hypnotised ME you daft git. Four weeks ago at a pub in Manchester –”

  “The Pear and Partridge, yes?”

  “Yes, the Pear and Partridge! You were supposed to hypnotise my friend -”

  “Meg -”

  “Yes Meg! But you hypnotised me. And now I can't hear a question without answering with the absolute truth, which might sound like it wouldn't be that much of a problem but actually it is. It turns out that I'm a great big liar. I've been going around for years never telling people what I really think and now all I can do is tell people what I really think and it's not pretty.”

  “Oh lass, it can't have been that bad, surely?”

  Not that bad? Not that bad? I resist the powerful urge to slam my hand down onto his broken leg.

  “Since you hypnotised me, Brian, you great bastard, my wedding has been called off, the man I love dumped me, I got snowed into Little Trooley.”

  “Oh, that's where I live!”

  “That's why I was there, stoopid. Continuing the list of bad things that have happened to me since I met you, I got fired, I upset my mother so much that she had an angina attack, I slept with a stranger, ate some pigs feet, got cosmetic surgery injections in my lips, took a helicopter ride with two old blokes, had my first ever physical fight, discovered some heavy duty secrets and hurt some people I really care about.”

  I take a deep breath and stare at Brian. I hope he feels bad about this.

  “That's terrible love. Sounds like you've had a right time of it.”

  “Yes. Yes I have,” I say, feeling very sorry for myself.

  “Would you like me to stop the hypnotism now?”

  Oh yes.

  I've been so concerned with being angry at Brian that I'd forgotten the entire reason I needed to find him!

  “Yes. Yes please. Then everything can go right back to normal.”

  “Which is a good thing,” Brian says, patting my arm.

  “Yes... which is a very good thing,” I nod defiantly.

  Brian sits up further against the pillows. I see that his pyjamas are the same design he as the jumper he was wearing at the pub. Blue with the initials AB in red.

  God! What an egomaniac.

  “Right then. Let's get to it.”

  I shake my shoulders ready to be put into trance, to be taken into a deep slumber so that Brian can access the deepest recesses of my mind and fix what he ruined.

  “AWAKE!” he shouts. It's so loud that I jump and my eyes fly open. Next to us an elderly woman screams. As soon as Brian makes eye contact with me he leans forward and claps. Three times. Right in front of my face. The sound of the claps echo around the hospital room and around my brain.

  I go hot for a moment and slightly dizzy.

  “There you go,” Brian says brightly. “All done.”

  I blink. And then again. “What? Just like that? So quickly? So EASILY?”

  “Yes, love. That's how it works.”

  “Oh.”

  I can't help but feel a sense of anti-climax. After four weeks of having my brain not do what I want it to do, the whole stressful search for Brian, the worry that my life was all but ruined! After all that it took only four seconds for my brain to return to normal.

  Normal.

  I'm fixed!

  “You need to be more careful in the future,” I say sternly to Brian.

  “I always am,” he says, his eyes twinkling as if he knows a secret that I don't. “I know exacly what I’m doing.”

  “Well, obviously not,” I scoff and stand up from the chair. “I hope your leg feels better soon, but I still hate you.”

  “Bye, Natalie Butterworth. Good luck!”

  “Yeah, bye Brian.”

  I walk up to the tall nurse at the nurses’ station.

  “Ask me if I like your shoes,” I say peering down at her feet and the ugly white and fluorescent yellow trainers she's wearing.

  She frowns quickly and then shrugs, obviously curious to know what I do think of her shoes. “Okay. What do you think of my shoes?” she asks.

  “They're gorgeous,” I say easily. “The nicest shoes I've ever seen. All my life I have longed for shoes like that!”

  I lied!

  Hurrah!

  I look over at Brian and do a thumbs up. He returns the thumbs up, shrugs and goes back to his newspaper, as if this whole bizarre episode was just a normal occurrence in the life of the Amazing Brian.

  What an odd character.

  As I leave the ward I wonder how Brian
knew that my last name was Butterworth. I don't remember telling him that...

  I finally get to the loo and end up asking two women in there to ask me a question. And then I ask a porter and then a doctor to also ask me questions. And I can lie. I can lie so well! I tell one of the women that I was born to a family of Eskimos, and I tell the porter that when the clock strikes midnight I sprout wings and fly over Greater Manchester for a few hours before I go to bed.

  It feels wonderful to finally have control over my brain. Control over my life!

  As I make my way back to Mum’s hospital room, I think about Riley. I’ve checked my phone a few times to see if he’s been in touch but there’s been not a beep or a jingle. Why would he get in touch? He’s got far more important things on his mind than the girl he had a one night and one afternoon stand with. But still, I check my phone, just in case.

  After another half an hour with mum, in which Dionne regales her with dramatically embellished tales of our snow-in and the helicopter ride, the podgy blonde nurse comes in to tells us that it's time to leave. Mum needs to rest, but will be able to return home tomorrow.

  We meet Olly outside where he's been sat waiting on a bench with Jean-Paul Gaultier.

  A car screeches up in front of us. It's yellow and shiny and loud.

  “Bull's here,” Dionne says. “I'm going to go straight to his. Olly, you'll give Nats a lift back, yeah?”

  “Of course,” Olly says handing over a sleepy Jean-Paul Gaultier.

  I try to peek into the windows to get a glimpse of the enigmatic Bull, but they're blacked out.

  Dionne gives me a terse hug, tinkles her hand in a wave, jumps into the car and zooms off into the night. It's weird, but as soon as she's gone I start to miss her.

  “Come on then, sweetness”, Olly says, throwing an arm around me. “Let's get you home.”

  We drive to Olly's apartment in relative silence. I think that perhaps he's afraid to say anything in case I tell the truth and cause another argument. For some reason I don't tell him about the hypnotism being fixed. And even if I did it probably wouldn't matter. He never believed in the hypnotism anyway.

  Once inside his house I take a shower and get changed into a pair of his pyjamas. I’m drying my hair when my phone flashes with a message.

  TEXT FROM: RILEY OLD WHIMSY

  How is your mum? How are you?

  REPLY TO: RILEY OLD WHIMSY

  She’s fine now. Thank you. Are you okay? Did you speak to Alfred?

  TEXT FROM: RILEY OLD WHIMSY

  Not yet. Need time.

  And then I pluck up the courage to ask what I want to know.

  REPLY TO: RILEY OLD WHIMSY

  Were we just a one night stand? Did I imagine that we were something more than that?

  I lock myself in the bathroom and wait for his reply.

  It doesn’t come.

  It’s weird. Everything seems unusual and quiet. There's an empty, hungry feeling in the pit of my stomach, like the feeling you get when you come back home from an amazing holiday abroad and it's almost as if it never actually happened.

  But things have happened. Things have changed. And even though I'm back in the same place I was before any of this happened, I feel like a completely different person.

  I must fall asleep on Olly's sofa because I wake up at around midnight absolutely freezing.

  I sit up. Olly is lounging on the chair opposite me.

  “I was just about to wake you,” he says softly. “Tell you to get into bed.”

  I nod, wrapping my arms around myself.

  The television is on mute but the bright colours cast flickering shapes over his handsome face.

  “I'm sorry,” I whisper. “I'm so sorry I hurt you.”

  He rises from the chair and is at my side within seconds.

  “I didn't cancel the church, Natalie,” he says fervently.

  “Huh?” I ask rubbing my eyes.

  “I cancelled the other stuff. The flowers, the food, everything. But I kept the church. I just couldn't bring myself to cancel that.”

  I stare at the face I know so well. The face I love. The person I always anticipated spending my life with. The steady, secure reliable man who will always look after me. He’s already my family.

  Olly takes hold of my hand and squeezes it.

  “I love you Natalie. I'll forgive what you did. We can forget all about it... Just say you’ll marry me on Saturday?”

  I get a brief flash of Riley singing the Colour Me Badd song in the kitchen. Of his face when he thought I'd been lying to him. I push it away. What does that matter now? It was a fling. A rebound. I don't even know Riley. I know this man here. The one right in front of me, who is asking if I'll spend my life with him.

  “Yes,” I whisper eventually. “Yes I will.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT

  Mum is back from the hospital the next day, and despite strict instructions from both the doctors and Dionne and I to not get too excited, she is throwing herself into making sure that this wedding happens properly.

  With the nuptials happening tomorrow and with only one day to sort things out, she has set up a command centre from her bed. She's already managed to sort out flowers, catering and someone to come to the house to do our hair and make-up in the morning. The reception was less easy to reorganise so we're now having a party for family and close friends at The Trap Inn, our local pub. One of Olly's workmates is doing the music and Irene from the corner shop is going to do a pie and peas supper.

  Dionne has managed to get Bull to sort out a cake, and while the glittering sleeping swan cake I desperately didn't want is the one I'm now going to have at my wedding, I don't really mind anymore. I'm just grateful that it's happening at all.

  Dionne has been wonderful, actually. I'm thinking that maybe telling her the truth about the way she was behaving was actually for the best. Not only has she been mad helpful in getting the wedding sorted, but she's been sure not to overtake the situation and make it all about her. I know it can't have been easy for her, but she's letting me have my moment in the spotlight. And besides, after what happened to Mum, we've both realised that there are more important things than arguing and getting at each other. Family is more important.

  TEXT MESSAGE FROM: NATALIE TO MEG.

  I'm getting married in 6 hours. Can't sleep! Will u b here? Please say u will. Need best mate.

  TEXT MESSAGE FROM: MEG

  Am still trying! Bet you're excited? You love Olly so much. Don't you?

  TEXT MESSAGE FROM: NATALIE TO MEG

  Of course i do silly. Did you tell Riley?

  TEXT MESSAGE FROM: MEG

  Yeah. Mentioned it tonight. He didn't say anything. Not seen him since. Why do you ask?

  TEXT MESSAGE FROM: NATALIE TO: MEG

  No reason. Xx

  I'm getting married! In a few short hours I will be Mrs Natalie Chatterley.

  It's impossible not to be excited. Mum's house is buzzing. Dionne's turned on some music and is already handing out champagne while Auntie Jan practises her scales for the song she is going to perform in the church (we decided on Up Where We Belong), and in a few minutes the hairdresser will be here to help make me look beautiful and groomed.

  Everything is going to plan. I'm back where I belong, I'm marrying the most handsome man in the world, and my brain is fixed. It's all great. Everything is great.

  I'm having my face moisturised by the make-up lady when Mum shouts downstairs for someone to answer the door.

  “The hairdresser is here! Let her in!”

  No one else seems bothered about the continuously ringing doorbell so I apologise to the make-up lady and plod to the door myself.

  Oh balls. I've seen this hairdresser before.

  It's Barbara. From fricking Hair Hackers.

  Oh no she didn't.

  “Calm down!” Mum scolds as I have a mini panic attack in the living room. In the grand scheme of things that have gone on in my life recently, bad hair isn't really on
e to worry about, but the hideous haircut Barbara gave me does not bode at all well for what kind of wedding up do she'll adorn me with.

  “Barbara was the only person available at such short notice,” Mum shrugs .

  No wonder. She's shit.

  “But, But!” I start, but mum shushes me and plonks me down in the chair. Dionne hurries over with a glass of champagne. I neck it in one.

  “Okay. A simple chignon,” Dionne says slowly to Barbara. “That's what you want, isn't it, Natty?”

  “Yes. Just simple,” I echo, throwing Dionne a grateful look.

  “Not what I'd go for but... it's Natalie's day.”

  Barbara puts her hands on her ample hips. “I don't know why you're fussing. She runs her fingers through my locks. “This here is a top class haircut.” She huffs. “A bloody chignon. Easy peasy, flower.”

  Once Mum and Dionne have established that Barbara will indeed be able to put my hair into a simple chignon, they leave again to pretty themselves up.

  “It's grown out a little bit, hasn't it. I can cut it again now for you if you like?”

  “No!”

  “Why not? You loved your hair the last time I did it!”

  It's my first instinct to lie, to be polite to this woman and agree that yes, I did love my hair the last time she cut it. But something happens. I want to tell her the truth.

  “I didn't love it. I think you rushed it, actually. The colours were horrible, and you charged me too much. I should have told you at the time but I was too afraid of hurting your feelings.”

  Barbara goes quiet for a moment.

  Shit. I’ve upset her.

  She strolls over to where her kit bag is on the dining room table and digs inside.

  What is she doing? She's probably getting out her largest pair of scissors to stab me with. Or worse, her electric razor so that she can shave my head and I'll have to be a bald bride.