The One That Got Away. Annabel Kantaria

wanted to speak to you. Properly. Why did you leave?

      ‘None of your business,’ I say to the apartment. I put the phone down and head back to the kitchen for some cheese to accompany my wine. I have a salty Old Amsterdam and some Beaufort D’Ete, which I take out of the fridge almost reverentially. The phone pings again, and then again and again. I take my time cutting the cheese and arranging it on a plate. I pick up a crisp linen napkin and top up my wine glass. Back on the sofa, I put my plate on a side table and pick up my phone.

      Stell?

      Looking good, by the way.

      ‘Gee thanks,’ I say out loud. I think for a minute about sending George a witty reply but decide not to in the end. There’s nothing to be gained from reopening this path of communication. George has been out of my life for fifteen years and I’ve done just splendidly without him.

      I take my cheese and wine into the bathroom and turn on the taps, adding a generous slug of bath oil. I peel off my sweater, my jeans, my underwear and my jewellery and climb into the bath, letting the warm, oily water slide over my skin. I close my eyes and picture the bar I’ve come from this evening. What’s happening at the reunion now? I wonder. Has it become wild, even the quiet ones drunk and dancing, or did everyone leave early, rushing back to partners, children and the thought of an early-morning start for rugby practice? Who’s George talking to? Is he doing the rounds, dutifully remembering everyone’s interests and quirks, or sitting morosely at the bar nursing a whisky as he messages me? And where’s Ness in all this? I sip my wine and enjoy my cheese, happy to be alone in the peace of my bathroom.

      The phone rings: an unknown number. It can only be George. The sod.

      ‘You’re married!’ I tell the phone without connecting the call. I place it on the side of the bath and sink my head below the surface of the water, from where I can no longer hear it ringing.

FIVE

       Stella

      Please pick up. I need to talk to you.

      The message comes in as soon as I turn on my phone the next morning. I put the handset down on the duvet and sigh. George will know, of course, that I’ve read it, thanks to the magic of Facebook. But what’s he after? What’s he looking for? He has everything he could want in terms of success. What does he want with me now, after all these years? I sigh again and pick up the phone. If it were anyone else, any other married man, I wouldn’t have given the message a second look.

      About what? I type. I hesitate, then press send.

      His tiny face appears next to the message immediately: he was watching the screen. Can I call you?

      Another sigh from me. I don’t have the energy for this.

      A pause. We’re worth more than this, Stell. Come on, for old time’s sake.

      Stell.

      I feel like I’m standing on a cliff top, teetering on the brink of something dangerous. I could step back: a part of me is curious, a part of me is defiant and – I close my eyes as I admit this to myself – a part of me is flattered. With a sigh, I twist around and open the bottom drawer of the bedside cabinet, groping around underneath the books, the hand creams, the foot lotions and the pedicure socks until I feel and grasp a hardback notebook.

      It’s old and worn, its corners frayed, the spine breaking, yet it’s as familiar to me as my own hand. Slowly, I open it and turn the pages, looking at the pictures I stuck in fifteen years ago, the Sellotape now yellowed and peeling. The wedding dresses – so dated, so naïve – cut out of bridal magazines; the sickly, tiered wedding cakes, dusted with pastel-coloured flowers; the pencil sketches of my dream wedding dress; the photographs of apartments cut from property magazines; the pages of calculations I’d done to work out how much rent George and I could afford depending on what our starting salaries might be; and then – I know it’s coming before I get there – the page of signatures I’d practised.

      Stella Wolsey. Stella Wolsey. Stella Wolsey. SW. SW. SW.

      A double-page spread of looping, blue-ink Stella Wolsey.

      Lying back on my pillows, I let the book drop and exhale slowly.

      It’s been a long time since I’ve thought about George. Yes, I see the odd thing in the paper about the success of his advertising firm, about the good deeds his company does, but it’s not as if I sit there and read them word for word. I’m interested, but not that interested. That boat has sailed.

      I let the memories wash over me. George and Stella. We go back to 1987. Picture two mums at a school coffee morning, keen to make friends. Two mums whose five-year-olds are thrown together through their mums’ friendship. George – my first school friend. George holding my hand as we walk into school each day. George playing with me, standing up for me, choosing me to be his partner for everything. George and Stella; Stella and George. And me taking his friendship for granted. All the push and shove, the posturing and the fights of the junior school playground passing me by as George takes care of me.

      Passing the 11+ together. Getting into the same school. Laughing at our new uniforms, our blazer sleeves too long, my shoes looking ridiculously big at the end of my skinny legs. Me knocking for George in the mornings, us doing our homework together on the bus, George’s hand touching mine as we work out our maths problems, check each other’s answers, and test each other on our French vocabulary. And then, from the bus stop, going our separate ways at school: for the first time ever, in separate classes, with separate friends, but still looking out for each other; still caring.

      I suppose it was inevitable I’d think he was mine. A part of me probably always thought we’d end up together. And, as we turned fifteen, I started to see George in a different light. He was handsome, strong, popular. A party was the turning point; Sophie’s sixteenth birthday. In a dark living room full of couples slow-dancing, smooching and kissing, George grabbed my hand and pulled me close, his warm hands inside my top, sliding over my skin. I could smell beer on his breath, taste cigarettes as, for the first time, his mouth found mine.

      ‘Come on, Stell. Come upstairs with me,’ he’d whispered, his voice thick with beer. ‘I want you.’ And I’d gone. Just like that. I let him lead me by the hand up the stairs to Sophie’s brother’s bedroom, peel off my jeans and take my virginity on a pile of coats.

      And from then on George and I both were and were not a couple. We didn’t date – we didn’t ever speak of what we did – but, at every party, study date or get-together at which we found ourselves, I let him take me upstairs. In my mind we were a couple. It was never official. It was never, like, ‘George & Stell’ but everyone knew, of course they did: how could they not?

      ‘I love you, Stell,’ George would moan, burying his head in my shoulder as he came inside me on Friday night and Saturday night, sometimes on Tuesday night or Thursday night, or behind the Art block on a Wednesday lunchtime, too. ‘You’re the best.’ And I was happy with my lot: studying for my exams, being quietly adored by George.

      But, while I assumed our love would take on the natural trajectory of an adult relationship – assumed that George and I would stay together, make it official, get married, have children – what actually happened was that I got pregnant, and George fell for Ness.

      Pretty, sexy, bubbly Ness.

      Lying back on my pillows, I close my eyes. The phone pings but I ignore it. I need to open this box of memories; the one I sealed tightly aged eighteen. I need to see how I feel about it now.

      George didn’t want to know.

      I recall the smell of the clinic. The terror of walking in alone and telling the nurse I was pregnant. I flinch as I feel the cold smear of gel on my belly and the probe moving over my skin.

      ‘Eight weeks,’ the nurse had said. ‘That’s good.’

      It