The Gap in the Curtains Ch. 04

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The day had started off well enough. I had an appraisal at work and I was told that they were very happy with my performance, my probation was officially over and I would receive a modest pay rise next month along with some new responsibilities. I was delighted and couldn't wait to tell Liz the good news. I arrived home, said hello to Liz's mom and chatted to her for a while and then retreated to the bedroom to change out of my work clothes and into something more comfortable. As I did so I heard a familiar tune playing. It took me a few seconds to place it, but then I realized it was Liz's mobile phone ringtone. Liz was always forgetting her phone and it didn't surprise me in the slightest that she had left it at home when she went to work that morning. I managed to locate it on her desk and answered it.

"Hello?"

"Hello, could I speak to Elizabeth Delaney please."

It was a woman's voice, an older woman, I would have guessed in her fifties or even sixties. She was well spoken and I wondered if it was someone from work. Liz worked as a junior account manager in a distribution company and she occasionally got calls from her more important customers on her personal mobile. I couldn't think of anybody else that would call her Elizabeth.

"I'm sorry; she isn't here at the moment. This is her fiancé, can I take a message?"

"Oh her fiancé, that would be Craig correct? Well you will serve just as well actually. This is Harriett Derby from Widdecombe House."

"Widdecombe House?"

"Yes, I'm calling regarding the enquiry you made last week about available dates for your wedding. The seventeenth and twenty-fourth are available, but we already have another wedding booked on the thirty-first I'm afraid."

"Dates for... our wedding?" I said, confused.

"Yes, Elizabeth came in on Sunday with her sister?" said Harriett, now also sounding confused. I decided to take the initiative and bluff. I had to find out what was going on.

"Oh yes, Widdecombe House, of course! Liz told me how nice it was there, I can't wait to come and see for myself." I was an excellent liar when I wanted to be.

"It's a beautiful venue, even if I do say so myself. We could make your wedding really special"

"Let me write those dates down; the seventeenth and twenty fourth... just to double check, which month would that be?"

"August, she only asked for Saturdays in mid to late August. I could check other dates and get back to you if you like?"

"No, no, that's fine, August is definitely when we want. Anyway, thanks for the call, we'll be in touch."

I hung up the phone and stood there completely dumbstruck for several seconds. Liz was planning our wedding! I was suddenly extremely scared and a little angry too. Nine months ago it might have been different - back then I couldn't wait to get married. Sure, I wouldn't have been too happy about Liz arranging the wedding behind my back, but I'm sure I would have looked past that quite quickly. But now doubts were already starting to creep in about where my life was heading and whether I wanted to move so fast. And now apparently the decision had been made on my behalf that my single life would end in August 2013, likely on either the seventeenth or twenty-fourth. August didn't seem very far away at all.

Of course, it could be that I was overreacting. Maybe Liz was just visiting this Widdecombe House for another reason and decided to enquire about weddings on a whim. I calmed down a little when I thought of that explanation. It sounded perfectly reasonable; maybe I would have done the same thing if I saw the perfect wedding venue. Then I thought a bit more about what Harriett had said. 'Elizabeth came in on Sunday with her sister'. Sunday was the day after that party and Anne had spent practically the whole day in her room, maybe with a hangover, maybe trying to avoid me, or maybe both. That meant it had to be Vicky she went with! Both Liz and Vicky had been out most of the day, they could easily have met up at this Widdecombe House at some point. Liz wasn't home from work yet; maybe I could talk to Vicky and find out what was going on.

I went to Vicky's room and could hear music playing from inside. I knocked on the door.

"Come in," she called out. I opened the door and let myself in. Vicky was lying on her bed reading a magazine.

"Oh hi Craig," she said. "What's up?"

I was glad it was Vicky I had to interrogate rather than Anne and not just because of my complicated relationship with Anne. Vicky and I had been friends ever since I moved in. I liked Liz's dark-haired tomboy elder sister, it was almost like having a guy friend around. There were never any complications with Vicky, she shot straight from the hip, which was what I needed right now. I decided to get straight to the point.

"Hey." I said. "What do you know about Widdecombe House?"

"Nothing, I don't think. Where's Widdecombe House?" said Vicky putting down her magazine and sitting up on the bed.

"You know, the wedding venue. You went there with Liz on Sunday." I didn't have time to play games, so I made it clear straight away that I knew about their visit.

"I'm sorry, that doesn't really help, I don't remember the names and after about the fourth one they all started to look the same. I'm glad you guys are planning the wedding, but I've no idea why Liz wanted to take me to these venues rather than you, I'm crap at that kind of thing."

"Hold on, the fourth one?"

"Yeah there was five or six altogether I think. I got so bored looking around posh houses and swanky hotels, I was almost glad when we moved onto flowers instead, even though I fucking hate flowers."

"Flowers?" I was getting more confused by the minute.

"Yes, we went to, like, four florists or something, all exactly the same obviously. Anyway, which one was Widdecombe House? Was that the manor with the big fountain? Or the one next to the big field with the horses?"

"I'm not sure I... got a call saying they have a free Saturday in August though," I said, weakly.

"Oh, well that's good news right? I hope it's a Saturday that the band can make, they had some other bookings in August I think."

"Wait... band?"

"She must have mentioned the band! They were pretty good actually. Not like the easy listening jazz quartets and stuff you get at some weddings, they were a proper modern band with guitars and..." Vicky cut herself off mid-stream. "Are you alright? You have gone really pale." Just then I heard the front door slam in the distance.

Yes I'm fine I've... got to go," I said hurriedly, rushing out of Vicky's room.

I figured the front door closing probably meant Liz was home and if Liz was home I wanted to confront her right away. I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt after the phone call, but now after speaking to Vicky it looked like things had gone much further than I could have possibly imagined. Looking back on it, it would have been better to wait a while, I should have calmed down, thought about things, put everything in perspective, maybe talked to Vicky some more. But at that moment I felt angry and I needed an outlet for that anger.

I managed to catch up with Liz in the kitchen as she made herself a drink.

"Hi sweetie," she said as she saw me come in.

"Hi," I said, bluntly.

"Did you have a good day?"

"Yes, great thanks. I had a phone call from Widdecombe House." Liz stopped pouring her drink when I said that. She tried to feign a smile, but it was obvious that name had rattled her.

"A call for me? Did they leave a message?"

"Yes, they said that they have the seventeenth and twenty-fourth free and that my fiancée has been organizing my wedding behind my back," I finished sarcastically. Liz looked taken aback for a second, then she gave a little laugh that sounded incredibly fake before replying.

"Oh that! That's just something I did on a whim. I went there for a work seminar and it seemed really nice and so I made an enquiry about their availability for weddings."

"Why are you lying to me?" I said, raising my voice.

"What do you mean babe, I'm not lying, it was just a nice place and I-"

"So what about the other five venues, were they just nice places you happened to stumble upon as well? And the florists too? And I suppose the band just happened to be playing when you were having a few lunchtime drinks from work right?

Liz was silent for several seconds. She sat down on a stool at the kitchen counter and rested her forehead on her hand.

"I assume you've been talking to Vicky then," she eventually said, almost accusingly as if talking to Vicky was somehow wrong.

"You're damn right I have! What were you thinking? What were you going to do, arrange the entire thing behind my back and then hand me a tux on the morning of the wedding?"

"No, of course I was going to tell you. I've been trying to talk to you about the wedding for weeks, but you always just dismissed it or changed the subject."

"So you just decided to arrange it anyway? Book a venue, buy flowers, hire a band? Where are we going on our honeymoon? Have you written my speech yet?"

"Stop being such a child," said Liz, visibly getting angry herself. "You didn't seem interested in organizing the wedding so I started looking into things myself. And I took Vicky along to get a second opinion on certain things. What's so wrong with that?"

"What's wrong? I didn't even know we were getting married! Well I mean sure, I knew we would eventually, but I thought we had other things to do first, like buy our own place so we can move out of your parents' house."

"But that's the great part! My parents are going to pay for the entire thing. They have a wedding fund for me and they said I can get married wherever I like, within reason."

"It's not about the money! It's about..." I struggled to finish the sentence.

"What? What is it about?" said Liz, now raising her own voice.

"You can't just arrange someone's life without asking them! What if I don't want to get married in August? What if I don't want to get married at all?"

I instinctively raised my hand to my mouth as if I could somehow grab the words before they reached Liz's eardrums, but it was too late. I said exactly what I was thinking, but it was the last thing in the world I wanted to say. Liz fell silent and glared at me with a look that I knew only too well. Liz didn't get angry very often, not properly angry. I had seen it happen maybe three times since we first met and each time it was accompanied by this look. This was the first time I had been on the receiving end of it.

"What?" she said, very softly and very deliberately. The four letters were sharper than a blade.

"No, wait, I didn't mean it like that. What I meant was..."

I stopped when I saw Liz stand up from her seat and walk slowly towards me. Liz was a good eight inches shorter than me, but right now it felt like the other way around. She held her left ring finger up in front of my face. On it was the engagement ring I had given her almost a year ago.

"Do you know what this means?" she said. "Do you remember the promise that you made me?"

"Yes I remember! And I meant it; we will get married, just-"

"Just what?" she snapped back. "Just as soon as you feel like it? Just as soon as you've got nothing better to do one weekend? It's bullshit! You're living in my house rent free, you share my bed, you work at a job that my dad got for you and what have you given me in return? Nothing but empty promises!"

"How dare you say that? I gave up my life and moved half way across the damn country just to be with you. And it was your parents who insisted we lived here remember? A year ago we had only just met in person and now suddenly just because I don't want my fucking wedding arranged behind my back I'm some kind of flake?"

"Fuck you Craig!"

Liz stormed out of the kitchen and off down the corridor. Several seconds later in the distance I heard a door slam. I wasn't sure if I had 'won' the argument or if Liz just couldn't bear to be around me any longer. If I had won it was a hollow victory. I knew this wasn't over.

The argument resumed off and on throughout the evening. Other members of the family knew that something was up and tried to talk to me about it, but the last thing I wanted was to get anybody else involved. They would all be on her side anyway, that was how it worked with family. Eventually the argument blew over and we were left with a cold war of stony silence. Liz went to bed early and I didn't dare try to get into bed with her, nor did I even particularly want to, so I slept in one of the guest bedrooms instead.

I lay awake for over an hour, thinking about what had happened. I knew I could make it all okay again. All I needed to do was give a long speech about how much I loved her and how much I wanted to get married and I knew she would instantly forgive me and... then what? We would book the wedding I guess. And that scared me because I was starting to realize that maybe I didn't actually want to get married, not yet anyway.

At some point during my insomnia there was a knock on the bedroom door, but I ignored it. I had nothing I wanted to say to Liz at that point. I knew we would have to sit down and talk about this properly like adults, but it could wait until the next day when we had both calmed down and had time to think things through. Ten seconds later there was another knock, which I also ignored. After that there was nothing but silence as I lay there with my thoughts.

It wasn't until the following morning it occurred to me that it might not have been Liz.

_______

And that is why I was now sat in my office, long after I should have gone home. I thought that having a day to think about it would help me get things straight in my head, but in fact it had made things worse. I had been sitting at my desk, on my own, for ages thinking about everything that had happened between me and Liz and Anne and I was still no closer to knowing how I really felt, or what I really wanted. I picked up my notebook again and divided the page into a different two columns, this time they were 'Get Married' and 'Stay Single'. I thought for a couple of minutes and then ripped up the page again. Delaying the inevitable with more lists wasn't going to resolve anything. I had to go home and talk to Liz.

I spent the walk home deep in thought and the journey went far quicker than I would have liked. I knew the next hour might well determine the direction my life would take. Liz would probably be at home waiting for me and, knowing her, she would probably have a speech prepared. I wasn't sure if it would be an ultimatum, or more of a bridge-building 'let's talk this over' speech. She probably wouldn't be too pleased that I was over two hours late home without telling her where I was. She hadn't called or texted me to find out why I was late. I wasn't sure if that was a good sign or not.

The reason became apparent when I arrived home -- Liz wasn't there. Anne and Vicky were around, but neither of them knew where Liz was (although both tried to talk to me about our fight the previous night). I hadn't eaten since lunch, but I really wasn't hungry, so I played video games with their younger brother Charlie instead. He was the one person in the family who seemed oblivious to what had happened the previous evening and, even though he was just a twelve-year-old kid, I was grateful for his company.

It was getting quite late when I finally heard the front door open. I rushed to the hallway to see Liz standing there taking her coat off. We both looked a little sheepish as we struggled to think of what to say to each other.

"Where have you been?" I eventually managed.

"Just out; trying to get things straight in my head," she admitted. Just the same as me, I thought.

"Well, if you want to talk I'll be in our room."

I went back to our bedroom, sat at the desk and waited. I was sure Liz would come; she wasn't usually one to shy away from awkward conversations, but as the minutes ticked by I started to wonder. It was nearly twenty minutes later when she finally showed up. She sat down on the bed, offering nothing by means of an apology or explanation for keeping me waiting. I guessed that she was just taking as long as possible working out what she wanted to say.

"Okay, let's talk," she said.

"Yes, let's" I replied.

What followed was one of those awkward moments where we both tried to talk at once, then both simultaneously apologized and then both paused waiting for the other to speak. Liz eventually broke the symmetry.

"You first," she said.

"Okay, I just want to say I'm sorry for last night. I said a lot of rash things in the heat of the moment and I guess I might have overreacted about you organizing the wedding."

"I'm sorry too. I shouldn't have looked at venues and such without telling you and I shouldn't have got so angry."

We both sat there in silence for several seconds. It was more of an opening gambit that a resolution as neither of us had really given the apology that the other was looking for. Liz hadn't apologized for trying to force me into a wedding and I hadn't apologized for allegedly reneging on our engagement. I wondered if she had noticed this too.

"Okay, so where do we go from here," I asked.

"I don't know," Liz admitted. "As I said I'm sorry for getting so angry, but I'm not sorry for trying to plan our future. You asked me to marry you and I accepted. Everything since then has been building up towards that. As far as I'm concerned the wedding is non-negotiable."

"But does it have to be so soon? It's not like we've even been together that long."

"We've been engaged for nearly a year, what are we waiting for exactly? We've tried living together and that seems to be working okay. Money is not an issue. I don't want us to be one of those couples that just stay engaged forever."

"It just all seems so fast. We're still so young!" I floundered, trying to find a chink in Liz's crafted defence.

"What does it matter? Either you think we'll be together forever or you don't. If you do, then why not make it formal? If you don't, then... what are we even doing?"

Liz let the question hang in the air between us. When I didn't answer immediately, she pulled her phone out of her pocket and pressed a few buttons.

"Here," she said, "this is the number for Widdecombe House; it was the best wedding venue we saw on Sunday. The woman you need to speak to is called Harriett I think? Call her tomorrow and arrange a time and we can both go and see it together. If you don't like it then we will look at other places. Once we agree on a venue we both like then you can choose the date of the wedding."

Liz held the phone out to me like a poisoned chalice. This was the decision point. We could probably have a long and happy future, all I had to do was reach out and take the phone. She could easily make the call herself, of course, but that wasn't the point. She wanted me to do it. If I agreed to make the call then I was implicitly saying I was ready to get married and if I refused... well, I wasn't sure what would happen. Would I be saying I never wanted to marry her? I hated having my hand forced like this, so I made a clumsy attempt to find a middle ground.

"I'll make the call," I said, "but not tomorrow, I'll do some research and then call them when I'm ready." Liz narrowed her eyes and did not look at all impressed.

"Fine, you do that," she said. "And until you do, you can carry on sleeping in the spare room."

"Fine, I will," I said, defiantly.

"Then get out," said Liz. "I'm going to bed."

Liz gave me an icy glare as I stormed out of the room, all the anger from the previous night bubbling back to the surface. Did she want me to just go to the spare room and mope by myself? Did she think I didn't have any other option? I felt like I was almost being forced down a path that I hadn't dared follow until now. But there was no escaping the fact that if Liz didn't want me in her bed, then I knew somebody who did.