Page 74 of The Woman Who Said Yes

‘Hang on a minute,’ Eva mutters. She turns and marches away to where the registrar is seated at the desk, where she murmurs into her ear.

The woman has a kind, round face and looks up at Eva with apparent concern. ‘Oh,’ she says. ‘Really? You’re sure?’

Eva nods. ‘Yes, I’m sure.’ Then she saunters towards Dom and seems to mouth something at him. It’s weird, Sam thinks – her body language is shouty but she is managing to convey her message just to him, and no one else can heard a word.

‘Attagirl,’ Andie whispers, close to Sam’s ear.

He is conscious now that the entire room is watching, as if something remarkable is about to happen. No one is making any pretence of waiting casually, as if all of this is entirely normal and very soon the marriage ceremony will begin. Because clearly, as Eva tugs the ring off her finger and the gold bangle from her wrist, there will be no wedding. Sam cannot tear his gaze away as his incredible friend hands the gleaming objects to Dom. He nods, frowning, and leaves the room.

Then Eva turns back to the wedding party and seems to pull herself several inches taller in her beautiful yellow dress. Still gripping her flowers, she forms a big beaming smile. ‘Okay, everyone,’ she announces. ‘Thank you so much for coming and I really hope you’re going to enjoy the day. I just need to explain that there’s been a change of plan.’

41

DOM

His big chance, Dom thinks as he marches away from the registry office and lights a cigarette. That was his big chance to change his life and be the kind of man he has always yearned to be.

That’s how it had seemed when he had come across his mother’s little book. A notebook, that is – like the one Dom carries around in his pocket, in which he’d written down the cocktail recipes from that friendly bartender on the cruise. He’d liked the idea of being a cocktail man, of having friends who’d enjoy drinking something other than beer straight from the bottle, that he could mix for them. He’d be somebody then – a proper adult man with a life.

He had found his mum’s notebook in her dressing table drawer when he’d been having a little rummage around. The size of a deck of cards, it was clearly ancient, its pages yellowing at the edges. But as soon as he started to flick through its pages, he realised that it was the key to a new and altogether more thrilling life. It was where she had written down all of her login details for her numerous bank accounts. And now that he could access them, the world was Dom’s oyster.

As he steps onto the bus, wearing his new suit that he couldn’t really afford, he tells himself that he is not a complete disaster of a human being. In fact, he had played it out incredibly well. Until today, everything had gone perfectly.

He fishes out his notebook from his pocket as the bus trundles along, and studies his neat handwriting. It has always given him a sense of pride (after all, there was nothing else he was good at the whole way through school). In contrast, his mother’s resembled tiny black ants squished between the pages and it made him sick to see it. But also… kind of excited as he’d fetched his phone to photograph the relevant pages. Because for what feels like forever, Dom has done everything for his mum and she hasn’t shown the slightest bit of gratitude. His dad fucked off when he was six, never to be heard from again. He never contributed a bean to his son or daughter’s upbringing. ‘Not that we need his money,’ his mum always said. Dom’s sister, Elizabeth, had got out as soon as she could and had a baby by twenty-one and as far he knows, she is living her best life up in Northumberland, with her husband and their numerous kids. Everything normal, all boxes checked.

It’s true that Geraldine Morecock is an extremely wealthy woman, but it’s not of her own making. Her dad had bought up properties all over West London in the sixties and seventies – real shitholes with collapsing roofs and rodent problems, riddled with damp. Dom’s mother had inherited the lot and taken over the running of a ‘property portfolio’, as she calls it, putting on her posh voice.

Dom wouldn’t mind all of this if they’d enjoyed a decent standard of living. If, whenever he’d asked if there was any food in the house, she hadn’t snapped, ‘Bread and cheese is food! Help yourself!’ And the way he’d had to wear his sister’s terrible cast-off school blazers, with the bust darts, earning him the nickname of Moretits (a play on ‘Morecock’. How witty!). That’s why he’d changed his name. Alcock had more weight behind it he felt, like he was owning it. ‘Morecock’ had always sounded faintly apologetic, and there’d been enough jokes about that too.

So is it any wonder, when he’d found his mum’s tiny notebook, that he’d taken matters into his own hands? The thing is, she might be loaded and have him running around dealing with the tenants and any tedious maintenance matters that might require attention. But she doesn’t pay him adequately. Nor is she remotely interested in online banking, which he had nagged her to set up several years ago, in the hope that she would never bother familiarising herself with it. As her banks have stopped sending out paper statements unless she pays for them – which she refuses to do – over the past couple of years Dom has been able to cream off a sizeable amount.

It struck him one day, watching some awful daytime TV drama about rich people on a boat, that a cruise might be the answer to his problems. Genius idea! He had the money stashed away and he could see all those cities he’d heard so much about: Florence, Marseille, Barcelona. It sounded marvellous and it would be a chance to step out of his life, away from his mum with her foul-smelling hair dye dripping down her forehead.

On this ship, Dom Alcock planned to become an entirely different person. His mum has more money than she knows what to do with – more money than sense, certainly – and he was going to have himself a bit of fun! He might even meet an attractive single woman on board. The odds were definitely higher than when he was schlepping about dealing with tenants’ guttering issues and leaking pipes.

And he loved Eva on sight. Loves her still, with a passion. She is an utterly stunning and amazing person: smart, glamorous, exciting and independent and far too good for him. Dom knew this, which is why he came up with the wedding idea.

Once she found out the truth – what his life is really like, and that he’d never got it together to leave home – she’d drop him. Not because she is a gold-digger in any way, but because of all the fibs he’d spouted on the ship. Admittedly he’d got a bit carried away with the riverside house which, in truth, happens to be a tawdry old town house, with bits constantly falling off it, shared by five hapless single men and an incontinent German Shepherd. He hadn’t thought that one through properly, and he’d also overstepped the mark in stealing his mum’s bangle that he’d never seen her wear since he was a little kid.

However, if Dom and Eva got married, none of that would matter. They’d be legally bound together; a proper little unit and he would move into her flat in Bethnal Green. It wasn’t fancy but it was a damn sight better than being trapped with his mother in Storey Road. As for the mythical riverside house, he would make up some rubbish about not being happy with the renovations, and deciding to sell it.

Dom had gone all out to make Eva fall in love with him on that ship. After their first lunch together, he’d stayed up for an entire night researching little ‘secret’ places at each of the destinations, that he would just happen to know about. Oh yes – Dom Alcock would present himself as a real catch.

Her friends Andie and Sam threw a spanner in the works but again, Dom’s abundant charm had eased them over that nasty little bump. Then last night, when Eva called him, saying she knew about Boggis Road and the disgruntled tenants there, he promised he’d sort everything out and he meant it. It’s what he does – he’s just his mother’s dogsbody at fifty-two years old, a pathetic specimen.

As Dom emerges from the Tube station and marches towards home, he notices a couple of attractive middle-aged women giving him the eye across the street. He looks good, he knows this. And like Eva, he is smart, not an idiot like his mum seems to think he is. The engagement ring was a silly mistake – carried away with himself again! – but next time, he won’t make such a silly rookie error.

Back home, Dom finds his mum sitting in front of the blaring TV, chain-smoking. She doesn’t even look round at him; not until he holds out the gleaming object.

‘What’s this?’ she barks.

‘Your bangle, Mum. The one you said I must have moved? Like I go delving about in your private things?’

She glares at it and takes it from him. ‘Where was it?’

‘In with the laundry. I was just about to put a load on.’

‘How did it get in there?’