Cloud no. 9
1) All fills for prompts of the earlier prompt posts go in the post the prompt was posted in. No re-posting or splitting up prompts and fills.
2) Self-prompt when you post unprompted fic. (This means posting what the fill is about in a first comment, like a real prompt, and commenting on that with your fill.)
3) Try not to get too srs business. ( Read more... )
Andy would be his first call, and it’s not like she never wants them to see each other again, but at least the fuckers can try and spend some time apart just to think about how the fuck they fix this. And she doesn’t want Ed and Andy getting cuddles while she’s on her own, feeling her marriage fall apart. Petty, yes, but fucking reasonable, under the circumstances.
She pretends to be asleep, hoping Ed won’t try to talk to her. He does, though, because he always talks. Yvette can keep a silence - through spite or because a silence needs to be kept - but Ed can’t hold his tongue for anything - not even in the run ups to penalties.
“Yvette?” He says her name so often it doesn’t sound real anymore (and reminds her of when she was 12 and hated her name and almost refused to respond when people called her by it).
She doesn’t say anything, but Ed doesn’t get angry, because he knows she’s not ignoring him: she just can’t trust herself to say anything.
“Do you want me to go?” He asks, but still no reply. “I’ll sleep in the spare then.”
“No sheets.” She reminds him. She doesn’t remind him that he said he’d go and get some after the spare had coffee spilt all over it. That’s an old conversation. A conversation from before Ed decided to fuck his best friend.
If it was anyone else, she could forget it. She’s not possessive and she doesn’t think fidelity is key to love, so shacking up isn’t the biggest crime she can conceive (it’s a crime, but not up there with rape and murder). But it’s Andy. Andy knows her. She knows Andy. Ed and Andy have been friends for so long, they do... well, if it’s not love, it’s something close. Before now she’d have said it was platonic or brotherly.
She could even claim she loved Andy herself, too, as a friend. There have been times when they’ve been drunk and on the sofa, and Andy’s been close enough to kiss her, and she’s laughed at one of his jokes and his eyes never leave her laughing mouth, and he squeezes her hand, but she’d never ever act on it, even though she’s been tempted.
She’s never been the sort to let her imagination run away with her. Unlike Ed, she sees Andy for what he’s always been: a friend, a good one. Ed looks at Andy and sees an unconsummated relationship, one that he’s just dying to try, one that he needs. He sees possibilities and temptations and ways and means. Odd that he never seems to see consequences.
“D’you want me to go on the sofa?”
“No, it’s fine. Turn off your mobile.” She reminds him. She always has to remind him. Ed would leave it on 24-7 if she wasn’t there to remind him that sleep is necessary for the human brain to function. He doesn’t want to though: What if Andy rings? What if Andy’s wondering what the hell’s going on? What if Andy’s expecting to be asked over to give an explanation of himself, or an apology?
It makes him feel like a shit person (husband, human) that he’s just cheated on his wife and all he can think about is the man he cheated with. The man who’s hips and ribs and neck he’d held on to and kissed, the man he’d told he loved about four times in one sentence. He should be thinking about the woman he’s loved for 10 years, the woman who he’s still in love with, who he doesn’t tell enough. The woman who, even now, after she’s heard him fuck another man, doesn’t even make him sleep on the sofa, just because it’s easier not to.
He does turn it off though - it’s the very least he can do. She’s just found him shagging his best friend and all she’s asked is that he turn his phone off. Is she, maybe, planning to murder him as he sleeps? Is revenge best served cold? Or is she just that wonderful a person that she’s thinking it all over before she passes irretrievable judgement.
“Yvette, I’m so sorry.”
“Please, Ed. Just let me sleep.”
She rolls onto her side, away from him, and he thinks he can hear her crying.
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Oh god, poor Yvette. And poor conflicted Andy, wanting Ed but having to let him go. And Ed knowing he's fucked everything up. *clutches heart*
And above all that, there's BurnBalls-y charm that makes my toes wriggle. :3 Can't wait for more.
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There are 4 missed calls on his mobile, all from Andy, that start drunk but calm and end furious, sweary and incoherent.
“Shit, Ed, shit. Shit. Ed, this is so fucking bad. Oh fuck. Oh cunt. What’ve we done? For fuck’s sake, let me in.” The last message, at 5:30 AM includes the phone being stamped on, the ‘let me in’ giving away his whereabouts.
Ed goes to the front door, and, sure enough, Andy’s car is on the street in front of their house, Andy’s head against the car door, his coat collar high around his chin, and a hat over his eyes. He looks like a fucking cartoon character in disguise. Fuck, Ed loves the stupid bastard. He leaves Andy there, hearing someone stir in the house and the tap running. He creeps back in.
“Yvette?” He hears the radio on in the bathroom.
“Bath,” She replies, and Ed wonders if she’s somehow blanked yesterday from memory. Maybe last night was all just a bad dream.. A bad dream that’s left bruises on his neck and guilt on his conscious. The hope doesn’t last long: If nothing had happened, he would have slept better (he was awake all night, staring at the back of his wife’s head, wanting nothing more than to put his arms around her and cry with guilt), he wouldn’t be dressed, she wouldn’t be about to leave him.
Ed sits on the top step, and waits for Yvette to come out of the bathroom, trying to tell himself this isn’t the end of the line. It can’t be. She’d’ve already chucked him out, wouldn’t she? There’s a chance, right? There has to be. Please...
She pulls open the door, and pauses there, surprised. Ed looks nothing like he did last night: no smile, no New Years party fake happiness, no Andy between his fingers.. He looks so guilty that for a while she can forget how much it hurts. She sees his stupid face, and he’s almost got tears in his eyes, and he stands at the top of the stairs like he’s about to lob himself down them, and, like she always does, she just wants a hug.
“Andy’s asleep in his car. Can I call him a taxi?”
She rubs a hand through wet hair, and Ed hates how white her knuckles are, clutching at her towel. Like she’s suddenly wary of being naked around him. Fuck, what has he done?
“No.” She bites her lip.
“No what? No I can’t call him a taxi?”
“Bring him in. I’ll put coffee on.”
“He’ll be drunk. Are you sure, Yvette?”
“We can’t send him home. He must have driven here drunk, in which case we need to sober him up and I’ll give him a bollocking about driving safety.” She dresses (with the door closed, while Ed makes more tea), and goes out to get Andy.
Andy’s heavy and she’s probably not strong enough to carry him in, but Ed doesn’t go out himself, because having to put his arms around him, have his head lolling on Ed’s shoulder, and the stink of raw and drunk Andy in his nostrils would be too much. And he doesn’t want to even touch Andy in front of Yvette. Sometimes, just sometimes, Ed Balls is the most thoughtful, intuitive and sensitive man on the planet. It’s just a shame he only gets like that after he’s done something stupid.
Yvette pulls the car door open, and Andy stirs, making a grab for the shape that looms above him. His eyes focus, and he gives the kind of half-drunk grin that Ed used to give her when they were first married - like he couldn’t believe he was so lucky to wake up with her beside him (She knew the look because she felt the same a lot of the time, although she never let on. It still makes her laugh that people think Ed is the macho one, when she’s probably worse at showing emotion than he is).
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“Don’t call me love,”
“Fuck. Shit. I’m so sorry,” Andy wakes up properly, hurriedly letting go of her arm, sitting up straight. “I am so sorry, Yvette.”
“Come on. Inside. I don’t want this conversation on the street,”
She doesn’t want this conversation at all, but, like her Dad was always telling her, deal with it before it escalates (as a Union leader, he knew all about escalation, although he’d always kept the militancy to a respectable level - ie enough so they weren’t hated the length of the country).
Andy sways on the pavement, and she has to lock his car for him. He reeks of booze. There’s half a bottle of own brand scotch on the dashboard of the car, as well as an empty 2 litre bottle of coke that she knows accompanied the 70 mililitre vodka bottle.
Wishing Ed was out here instead of her, she slips an arm under Andy’s, keeping him upright.
“You stink,” She tells him, as she half-carries him inside. Alcohol on his breath, sweat and general sleeping-in-car stench.
“You shouldn’ be doing this, love,” Andy tells her, “Y’should probably leave me to die in the gutter. I deserve it.” Andy mumbles as she drags him over the threshold.
“Don’t be melodramatic. And don’t call me ‘love’. I’m not your ‘love’. I’m not anybody’s love,” She adds, as she sees Ed in the kitchen doorway. She manages to get Andy as far as the sofa, and drops him there.
He grabs her hand as she goes to get coffee for him. Ed’s peering around the kitchen doorway, waiting for permission to come out (which she doesn’t give on principle, because she hates the idea of needing to give permission for anything, even if it’s permission to see the lover he betrayed her with).
“I know you won’t believe me, and you shouldn’t believe me, and you’d be right, fuck, you’re always right, but ... I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“Andy, you need to sober up. We can’t talk about anything until you sober up.” He clings so tightly to her wrist that when she does manage to shake him off, he throws up down his front. Thick, watery vomit dribbles down his chin, and she perches on the sofa beside him, patting his back awkwardly as he brings up more stomach-lining.
She unbuttons his shirt for him, and he belches ‘sorry’s at her.
“Don’t worry about it. It’s not the first time, after all.” She pulls the half unbuttoned shirt over his head, mopping his mouth with the sleeve. “Do you want to go and sit by the toilet? Or are you happier here?”
“Toilet,” He gasps, interlocking his fingers over his mouth as more sick threatens to come up.
“Ed. We’re going to go and sit in the shower for a few hours.” She tells him. He takes the phone off the hook and puts some toast on.
Ed comes up with a tray of water glasses, coffee and bread and butter, to find his wife and best friend on the floor of the shower, holding hands tightly.
“You look like birthing partners,” He laughs, nervously. Andy looks green, Yvette looks like she’d rather be anywhere else in the world, their clenched fists are locked, elbows stiff, held at eye level.
“You can take over,” Yvette tries to get up and make Ed responsible for mopping sick of Andy’s glasses. Andy only grabs on tighter.
“I need to talk to you, Yvette.” He says, solemnly. “It’s all my fault.”
“Andy, please, don’t do this now.” She says, quietly. “Tell me later.”
“No! Because then I’ll sober up and I’ll think about it and I’ll realise how wrong this could go, and then I’ll never say anything again, and I’ll probably move to the Isle of Wight and grow a beard just to avoid talking at you ever again. I love you.” The last sentence is run in with the first, so she barely registers it.
“What? Fuck, Andy, you’re so drunk,” She drops to her knees again, beside him, and takes his glasses off his face as he brings up another few pints.
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“Ed’s the sort of person you grow to love, but you? Head over heels first time I met you. Why d’you think I hate him bringing you to the pub with us? Why can’t I stand being in the same room as you? Cos you're both wearing wedding rings and I just know I can’t... Shite. Th’only reason I haven’t ‘ad him before now is cos I knew it’d hurt you. If I didn’t care ‘bout you, I wouldn’ve thought twice...”
There’s a long pause, and Yvette looks between the two like they’re eating their own livers in front of her: confused and a bit disgusted.
“I don’t really understand, Andy.”
“No, and that fucking confuses me.” Andy says. “You always laughed at Ed for being so surprised that people actually like him, didn’t you. Well, I love you, and Ed loves you, and we love each other, and we want us - the three of us - to be okay with that. But all you see is me and Ed fucking off together. We love you.”
“You want me to.. We’re going to share my husband? So you get week days, and I get weekends to play happy families? Wait, no, you’ll want the weekends for Match of the bloody Day. This is a shitty thing to do to me, Andy.”
She isn’t crying. She can’t be fucking crying. Yvette hates crying in front of Ed. Ed’s happy to weep at films, football, TV debates, but Yvette hates feeling that vulnerable in front of him (he’s seen worse, but the crying thing is something she’s never managed to master), and now... well, one humiliation per New Year’s party is enough, thanks, especially with Andy there.
Ahe’s spent all night thinking about it, and every time it comes back to this: she doesn’t want a divorce. She doesn’t even want to split up. She definitely doesn’t want to lose Ed or Andy.
She loves her husband, whether he’s had sex with someone else doesn’t change that, and she loves Andy (not in that way, though).
Having reached that conclusion, there isn’t really much she can do. If they’re going to make her choose - ‘open’ marriage or no marriage at all - then she’d go with the compromise every time. Not that they should make her choose.
She pushes her fingers into the tops of her eye sockets, breathing out through her nose.
“Not in our bed.” She says in her small, defeated voice. “You can have the spare if you’re so desperate for a fuck you can’t even leave the house, but you’re not screwing in my bed.”
Yeah, now she’s crying, great fat tears falling down her flushed face, and all it does is itch. They don’t say anything.
“Happy now, y’bastards?” She hiccoughs, annoyed with them for making her lose it like this. They could say thank you at least. ‘Thanks for not going to the papers and ruining our careers’. Or ‘Thanks for not cutting our bollocks off with a rusty meat cleaver. Really appreciate it’. Or ‘Thanks for not making me sleep in a Travelodge’.
“Yvette, what are you doing?”
“I’m negotiating our new fucking open marriage, Ed. What d’you want me to do? I... I don’t want a divorce.” She hates admitting that to him, because it’s an admission that her happiness is dependent on Ed staying with her, dependent on Ed. She hates the thought that she might do anything to keep the marriage going, but it’s not just her marriage, it’s 10 years, it's her best friends, her career.
Ed’s by her side in seconds. She flinches as Ed tries to put his arms around her.
“No!” Ed says, quickly. “Never that.”
“Why? Because an open marriage would let me have other people too?”
“No. It’s only Andy. Only him, not anyone else.”
She doesn’t remind Ed that he used to tell her ‘only you’ when he held her tightly in front of bad news, or after the New Year Chimes. She doesn’t remind him of their marriage vows either, although she’d be in her rights to.
She wrenches herself free of Andy and Ed, and lets the shower door bang on her way past. She flings the sick-covered towel at Ed, because she doesn’t know how else to show just how confusing these bastards are.
“You.” Ed rounds on Andy. “Get well. Don’t even fucking think of coming out of this shower until you’re better.”
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“This is all wrong, Ed,” Yvette tells him, and her voice cracks as she says his name. “It’s not fair. If I’d known the decade would pan out like this, I wouldn’t’ve put so much fucking effort into getting here.”
That’s the kind of sentence Ed would never expect from her, and one he’s terrified of. She gets mellow a lot of the time, but rarely just apathetic. Now she’s obviously miserable and hurt, and she can’t even be bothered to talk at them about this. What if it’s the ME? Fuck, what if it is psychosomatic, and she’s going to lose another 2 years? What does he do now? Oh fuck.
“Love, don’t say that. It was.. We were drunk, it was a countdown, you know. I do stupid stuff.”
“Ed, don’t say it was a mistake or it meant nothing. You’d get away with it if it was anyone else, but it’s Andy. Literally anyone else in the world, I would buy it.”
“What d’you mean by that?”
“He’s your best mate, Ed. I’ve found you in all sorts of compromising positions before now. I always thought it was cute, finding you curled up on the sofa together, cuddling your Fosters cans, but.. if I’d known it was post-coital.”
“It wasn’t. Never. I wouldn’t do that to you.”
Fuck off. Last night doesn’t count. It wasn’t cheating. It can’t have been cheating. He loves her.
“You still fell in love with him.”
The admission hangs there, undeniable and painfully obvious. Even if Ed didn’t have the bitemarks to prove it...
“No!” He tries to deny it anyway, because he’s Ed and he really doesn’t know when to just give up. He’ll never give up on his marriage. Or Andy, come to that. Some things really are too important.
“No?”
“I love you,”
“You can still love him, you’ve just been saying that. Loving me makes no difference-”
“Yes it does! It fucking does! I... Fuck. Why can’t I have both?”
The elephant in the room is now dancing the fucking cancan, wearing a sparkly tutu, trumpeting the Red Flag and shooting fucking glitter and Guinness out of its trunk. They should have talked about this before the recess, before they all dug their heads, shoulder deep into sand, and Christmas, and pretended they were happy families, and that Ed wasn’t falling in love with someone else. Fuck, Ed hates the Christmas holidays.
Yvette looks hurt. “You sound like you’re talking about having two puddings,” She says, and regrets it. That sounded harsher than she meant. “Sorry. I didn’t...”
“You’re right.” Ed holds up his hands to stop her apology. “But it’s not like that. I can live without any pudding at all, but I can’t live without you. Or... him. Just cos you have crumble, doesn’t mean you don’t love cake, does it? Does it? I know it makes me a greedy arsehole, but... Fuck,” Ed puts his head in his hands the way he always does when he doesn’t know what he’s saying. “I think I’m diabetic.” Ed finishes, miserably.
“That’s a metaphor worthy of Andrew Neil,” Yvette tells him, but she looks like she might be smiling with her eyes.
This is the stupidest thing she’s ever done (in that she includes trying to do Christmas dinner with Ed Miliband to prove to her Mum that she could, repainting the living room when she was drunk, and that expenses claim), but she gives up any rational thought as Ed does a passable soap-opera audition, tears in his eyes and snot threatening to dribble out of his nose.
“D’you want a cup of tea?” she asks, almost putting her hand on his shoulder.
“Is that a ceremonial cup of tea?”
“It’s not an olive branch,” She says, hurriedly. She still isn’t sure what’s going on. “I’m making one anyway, and you look like you need it. And a tissue.”
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“He’s been sick in our bathroom a hundred times before. Why’s it weird now?” She rubs her eyes, more stressed than tired.
“Probably because I fucked him..” Ed bites his lip, obscuring the sentence. What is it about speaking that he seems to find so difficult? He can’t even look at his wife without stammering now, and she’s always been someone he’s been better at talking with. She puts a hand on his arm, but doesn’t squeeze. Ed is grateful she’s not too disgusted to even touch him.
“You’ve wanted to do that for ages,” She says, quietly, and Ed’s ears burn because he has and he can’t deny it. “You talk in your sleep,”
“No I don’t.”
“Last year, September. A Norwich hatrick and 7 pints of Heineken. You put your arms around me and called me ‘Andy’.”
“Once.”
“No, that was just the first time.” She doesn’t mean that so sound accusing because no one’s perfect, and everyone thinks about having sex with someone else sometimes. Thinking about it doesn’t make you a bad person. Doing it might not even make you a bad person, but doing it in secret, lying.. It hurts.
She takes a deep breath and carries on with a speech that she’s vaguely worked out but isn’t sure of. “I’ve seen how much he means to you. He means a lot to me too, but.. that doesn’t mean you can just fuck him at a New Year’s Party.”
“I know... I know, I’m so sorry.” Ed squeezes her hand, and looks at her now. Her eyes are watery, and beautiful and he’d give anything to go back and change what’s happened.
“If you’ve been feeling.. like this so long.. why couldn’t you just talk to me?” She rubs her eyes free of tears so she’s not looking at a blurry lump where her husband should be. “I mean, Christ, Ed. I’m.. I’m you wife. If you’d just... We’ve been married over 10 years. You can tell me anything. Why is it you can tell me about the group masturbation on your school trip, but can’t tell me you think you’re in love with someone?”
“I didn’t want to make you... I dunno. Fuck, I feel like a teenage fucking girl saying this... I didn’t want you to think you’re not enough.. I love you so much.”
“Honey, however you say it, we’re always going to sound like pretentious or stoned teenagers.” She laughs. There’s a clunk from the ceiling and they both jump.
“Where are the sheets? I’m gunna make the bed-” Andy interrupts their tender moment with typical aplomb, and they both race up the stairs, getting to Andy before he’s sick anywhere, breaks something or falls down the stairs. Yvette takes his hand, Ed pulls Andy’s arm over his shoulder.
“Come on then. Let’s get you to bed,”
“Yvette,”
“Don’t say anything, Andrew Burnham. Keep your pretty mouth shut, because you’ll only say something stupid and me and Ed haven’t even sorted ourselves out. You sleep until you’re sane again, and then we can talk.”
Andy does as he’s told. All he can process is her ordering him into bed, and he doesn’t want to embarrass himself by telling her how much he loves her but also just fancies her rotten.
Ed shoulders open the door, and disappears downstairs.
“That’s your bedroom,” Andy says, stupidly. Yvette drops him on the bed.
“Please don’t be sick in here,”
“Scout’s honour.” He holds up his three fingers. She returns the salute. “’Vette?”
“No, Andy, I’ve heard enough drunk talk to last me a lifetime. Sleep.”
As she closes the door, she sees him picking up the photoframe on the bedside table (beside the copy of Beyond the Crash, the 2 empty mugs of tea, mobile, and a paper about Israeli settlement export labelling). He puts it down before he vomits on the picture (their Eastbourne wedding, Andy feels nauseous jealousy as well as 9-pint hangover-sick). He pulls the pillow over his head, and says a little prayer that their marriage doesn’t fold. God may not approve of non-monogamous relationships, but Andy’s not praying for himself. His brutally honest, drunk brain tells him he can fucking swing, so long as Ed and Yvette don’t break up. They’re what matter.
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“Don’t shag him,” She asks, tiredly. “Not yet...” It could be an admission of defeat, but doesn’t feel like it. She’s allowing this mad (fucking insane) thing to go ahead, but Ed doesn’t look triumphant. He would give it up if she wanted him to.
She knows it’s mixed messages, because she just put Andy in their bed, and may as well have wrapped him up with a little red ribbon and bow, but they are grownups, they can refrain from sex for... well, until it doesn’t feel so weird. Which could be months. Maybe they should play it by ear.
“Come here,” Ed holds his arms apart, and she hugs him. She leans her forehead against his collar, and breathes in the un-showered, drink and sick-stained scent. He speaks over her shoulder, warm hands on the small of her back. “You know that if I had to choose, I’d always choose you. He knows that too.”
Tiredness, contact, being told she’s still number one, whatever it is, she’s crying again, because she never meant to make him choose, to be selfish. She wasn’t looking for compliments or attention, she just doesn’t want Ed to go.
“That’s not a very nice thing to tell him.” She snivels when she gets her breath back. Ed kisses her hair.
“I’m not a very nice person. Anyway, I didn’t say that to him. He just knows. Like you know I’d pick football over sex.” She laughs at that and he squeezes her tightly. “I’d pick you over everything though.” He adds, although it doesn’t need saying anymore. Once was enough. Once was more than she ever hoped for or expected.
“Was I the apple crumble or the cake?” That little laugh, Ed could swear, is the best noise he’s ever heard in the world. He kisses her hair again, not knowing how else to convey the burning in his heart.
“Please don’t tell him I compared you to puddings. He’d piss himself laughing.”
Ed lets go, because he’s worried about suffocating her, and leads her over to the sofa, pulling her down into another hug.
“This is so strange, Ed. Is he... What is he?”
“Call him our gimp. That’ll embarrass him.”
“I can see why we fell in love with you. You’re such a charmer.”
“Romance is boring.”
“Ed. It’s not.. casual, is it?”
“No. Me and Andy, we’ve never talked about it, but you must have heard us last night. Your name.. I don’t know what happened yesterday.. It was such a shitty thing to do, but.. I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about it for months. It just happened. I meant to talk to him, I really did. Talk.”
The only acknowledgement he gets is an ‘mmmm’, and Ed looks down, to see her fast falling asleep, eyes closed, head on his chest. Asking a question and ignoring the answer. Typical politician. Ed kisses her again.
Yvette sleeps for a few hours, while Ed just cradles her and knows he doesn’t deserve her. Either of them. They’re mad to let him get away with it.
He wishes it hadn’t started like this. Even though he’s got more than he could ever dream of, he feels guilt and regret churn around him like the raw-egg hangover cure. It should have been different. If they’d talked, if Andy had talked, if they could only have said something, instead of fucking each other against a toilet wall, leaving her to find them come-stained and red-faced and treacherous...
He is so fucking lucky.
Eventually he has to wake her, because he needs a wee and the Archers comes on the radio (they have a pact. If ever one of them actually listens to the Archers, they’re booking the flights to Zurich, calling Dignitas and getting a funeral with the Co-Op).
She lets him up, standing up with him, and, as he passes, takes his hand, turns him to face her, and kisses his cheek. He stands, startled by that (he still cannot believe she hasn’t thrown him out), and she hurries away, looking embarrassed. He finds her by their open bedroom door. Andy is half buried in pillows.
“Are you watching him sleep?” Ed asks, a trace of glee in his voice.
“I could murder some chips.” It’s painfully obvious that she’s about to go into the room, and Ed wants more than anything to be there, to just talk with them both, but he’s asked too much of her already. He grabs his wallet and coat and heads to the chippy.
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“You’re not going to murder me in my sleep are you?” Andy asks, quietly. He’s been awake for a while, listening to the pair of them on the landing.
“No. Nothing like that. Anyway, if the police found your body under our patio, they’d ask some questions. Ed would never forgive me for ruining his chances of being Shadow Chancellor.”
Andy laughs. Yvette sits down gingerly on Ed’s side of the bed (Andy’s on her usual side, nearest the door).
“I always thought I’d go to prison for extremely intelligent fraud. Crime Passionelle isn’t really my style. You?”
“I nicked a copy of Crime an’ Punishment from a bookshop when I was 15,” He shrugs.
“That wouldn’t get you put away,”
“Would if John Reid had his way. Or Ed. Party of law and order and all that. Ed’d be a football thug. Stabbing people in the arse with bottles.”
“You’re joking. My husband? More likely guerrilla gardening. He couldn’t be violent if he tried.”
“You have tried then?” He raises an eyebrow, sniggering lecherously.
“Don’t push your luck, mate.” She chuckles.
“Thanks for looking after me. You should have left me in the street.”
She lies down beside him, arms by her side, staring at the ceiling. She would normally shrug it off and say ‘it’s what friends do’, but is he a friend anymore? There should be rulebooks about stuff like this. Etiquette and all that.
“What are we doing, Yvette?” Reluctantly, Andy realises they need to talk about ... this thing. As fun and comparatively easy it is to pretend they’re just mates and that nothing’s changed, it won’t get them anywhere, and when Ed comes back there’ll still be the problem that there are three of them now and somehow they’re going to have to sort it.
Andy’s better at talking when he’s drunk. He can do speeches, and informal chats, but doing the Big Conversations with people he actually cares about? That’s something he’s never managed. Which is why, when his Dad went into hospital for his operation, Andy punched his arm lightly, and gave him the quickest hug in the history of the Burnham family, why he broke up with his first girlfriend out of a classroom window at break time and why they’re in this state. He’d much rather joke and avoid the issue.
“I’m trying it on for size.” She indicates the space in the bed. This is so strange..
“You’re way too good for us.”
“Don’t say that yet. This might go tits up any second. Sorry in advance.”
“Where is Ed?” Andy tries to hide the snigger at his own joke. Talking to Yvette shouldn’t make him so nervous. He’s never been nervous before.
Shit, why can’t they just all agree they’re the Shadow Cabinet Dream Team and, because they’re all so brainy and amazing, they should just live together and sleep together and generally be together forever, right? That sounds pretty good. Morcambe and Wise slept together, didn’t they? They did okay. He’ll settle for witty banter in the same bedroom, he doesn’t need rampant threesome sex.
She punches him lightly. “Gone to get chips.”
“Why am I here, Yvette?”
“Random chance, the Big Bang, God did it, 42.”
“No, why am I still in your house? You should have thrown me out. You should never have brought me in. You should probably stab me, or cut my cock off at the very least.
“Do many girls do that to you after you’ve told them you love them?”
“I’ve never told any girl I loved them. I was a right prick when I went out with girls.”
“I heard you tell Ed last night. Against a toilet wall.”
“If you heard that, you also heard me say I love you.”
“Yeah.” She frowns at the ceiling, half hoping it will crumble and bury her in insulation and they’ll never have to speak of this again. “He said it a few times too.. Didn’t stop him.. y’know.”
“I know.. It was a shitty thing to do. Is shitty. Fuck, I screw around with your husband, convince him we’re somehow in fucking love and made for each other, despite the little problem of him being married and everything, I beg him to fuck me in a toilet cubicle, then I get sick, drinkdrive over to your house, sleep outside it all night, throw up in your shower - and on you - and you let me sleep in your bed? That’s not good Samaritan, that’s a whole new league.”
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She rubs a hand over her face, knowing everything coming out of her mouth sounds wrong, but has no idea how to make it sound right. What they’re talking about is insane. Mad, totally fucking mad. The Daily Mail would have a fit. And that’s the magic word. Anything the Daily Mail hates must be a good idea, Ed used to say (apart from the obvious, like rape and murder. She’s fairly sure the Daily Mail doesn’t approve of that either), so... She takes a deep breath.
“I think if I didn’t exist, he probably would ask you to move in, civil partnership, whatever. Maybe he should. I don’t know.” His hand finds hers on top of the blanket. He squeezes her hand lightly, and she can feel, louder than words tell me this is wrong.
She can’t tell him it’s wrong. It feels okay. Not right or perfect, but good. Nice. Banal, unexcited adjectives. Comfortable, like it might make her happy. She squeezes back, and she thinks that means ‘yes’, but they aren’t sure what the question is that she’s saying ‘yes’ to.
“Ed told me he fell in love with you the first time he met you, at you ‘welcome back’ thing in 1994. Said he saw you talking to Harriet, bitching about some Tory you’d decided to hate, and knew he wanted to spend his life with you.”
“He’s lying. The first time he met me, I bought him pants, and he was suspicious about how I know so much about men’s pants.”
She grins, because that’s the sort of conversation they usually have after the pub and the highlights, when Alistair Stewart is on the News, or there’s late night double bills of Family Guy to ignore, crap 3 AM telly, and ‘Nah, 1 spliff won’t hurt’, and ‘do you think love is like a butterfly or more like a steamroller?’/’Jesus, Ed, I love it when you’re baked. At least you know you’re talking bollocks.’
Andy sniggers. “Y’what?”
“Back when we shared an office, so, yeah, it was 1994, he got the year right. I came in, found him asleep on the floor. Reeking of piss and alcohol, and I think he’d had a wank the night before, too.”
“Nice.”
“He had a meeting with Blair and Campbell after lunch. He was in a right state about it, too, so during my lunch break, I was going past M&S anyway, I bought him some clean pants and a new tie. Instead of saying ‘thank you’, he put them on - in our office - and asked me how I knew about men’s pants. As if it’s really that complicated. When he got back from the meeting, he asked me out for a drink.”
“What a romantic.”
“He said he’d never had such good ‘undercarriage support’.” She giggles. “I don’t believe in love at first sight, and neither does he.”
“What about you?” Andy looks across at her now. Her eyes never leave the ceiling.
“What about me?”
“If it wasn’t love at first sight? Are you that nice a person that you’d go and buy people clean pants even if you weren’t guaranteed a date after?”
“Andy, I lived with Ed Miliband. I took over from where Marion left off, I practically dressed that boy. Pants and all. I definitely ironed his shirts for a bit.”
“You’ve seen Ed Miliband’s pants?”
“When you lot get drunk, all you ever want to do is take your clothes off. I’ve seen David’s, Ed’s, yours, Douglas’. Pants and cock most of the time. Arse at the very least.”
“What?!”
“Oddly, Ed has a lot more hair than his brother..” She grins, knowing she’s giving him some mental images he really doesn’t want.
“Oh god,” Andy mimes a retch, putting his hands over his eyes. “Yvette, god, don’t.”
She smiles, wistfully, returning to the actual question.
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“Don’t.”
“Basically... I suppose I’m.. I’m not ruling out falling in love with you, but it hasn’t happened yet.”
“Yvette, you’re being so, so good about this. Jesus, I wouldn’t understand. I’d be off bitching to the newspapers by now if it were my husband.”
“Don’t tempt me.”
“You’re incredible.”
“Stop it, Andy. Stop telling me how perfect I am. If you’re going to be more than Ed’s best mate, you’re going to find out all sort of things you don’t want to know.”
“Like what?”
“I’ve only got 2 pairs of sexy knickers.”
“I don’t have any.” Andy counters, easily.
“I always forget to get lager when I do the shopping. I can’t cook anything that isn’t rice. I always put the washing machine on for the hour and a half cycle, so there’s never any clean or dry shirts for evening stuff. I steal Ed’s socks all the time. I can’t fuck when I’m drunk. I giggle when I’m drunk. I can’t have a bath that lasts less than an hour. I always leave wet towels on the floor. I hate Mark Lawrenson’s punditry, but I’m hot for Alan Shearer.”
“Who isn’t?” Andy interrupts, with a grin. “Yvette, stop it. Just relax.”
“I can’t relax. I’m a stereotypical feminist, Andy, I just cannot relax.” She says, but with a small smile to match Andy’s infectious one. “And whenever I’ve got serious stuff to discuss, I send Ed for chips.”
“Come here,” Andy rolls to face her, putting a finger to her lips. “Just be quiet. Stop talking. Relax.”
For a moment, she thinks he’s going to kiss her, but he doesn’t, and they’re both relieved. She isn’t ready for that. Her head is still spinning from what they’re doing (even though they’re not doing anything, it feels like dramatic music should be playing and storm clouds rolling through the sky, lightning in the shape of faces, and raining frogs and all of that Catholic stuff her first boyfriend used to be scared off), a kiss really would bring everything to the brink, especially with Ed out of the house already. That would be cheating.
“Your turn.”
“I dunno. One minute he’s just someone to get the drinks in, the next he’s barging into my wet dreams, calling me a fudge-packer and sucking me off.”
“Wow. That’s really touching.”
“I don’t know really. Y’just get taken in, don’t you? All that psycho Lee Bowyer, Robbie Savage, Roy Keane stuff, and then you get past that and he trusts you enough with his nightmares about being stamped on in the school bogs and being locked in the biology lab with the gas tap open..”
Yvette nods. “The Stanley knife in his thigh.”
“Fag burn, index finger.”
“He’s outside the door, you know,” Yvette says, quietly.
“What?”
“I can smell the vinegar,”
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“Andy? You awake? ‘Ve you see Yvette?” Ed asks, through a mouthful of soggy chip. He elbows open the door (Ed never waits for a ‘come in’), and falters as he sees the twin shapes on the bed, Andy bolt upright and Yvette laid flat like a cadaver, fingers knitted over her stomach. “Alright, love.”
“Hello, Ed,”
“What’s... Everything okay?”
“Yes.” She says slowly.
“Okay.” Ed hovers at the foot of the bed, not know what to say, where to put the chips, who to talk to, which side of the bed to perch on.
“This isn’t perfect, right?” She says to the ceiling. “This is weird, and if you think everything’s cloud cuckoo, you’re wrong.”
“I know, sweetheart. I know. I’m never taking anything for granted again,” Ed promises, and he really does mean it.
“Alright. Come on then. I know you’ve been dying to for months.” She beckons.
Ed drops the chips and tumbles onto the bed, wrapping his arms around his wife. He gases across his wife’s neck and sees Andy, glasses off, looking back at him. He looks nervous but happy. Ed can feel his own stomach tensed and terrified and wonders if any of them will survive.
“This is bonkers..” She laughs, lightly.
Yvette, feeling inexplicably relaxed, takes both their hands, closes her eyes and prays everything stays okay.
It doesn’t have to be amazing, but if no one gets hurt, she doesn’t lose a husband or friend, no one has to cut any ties, it might all be worth it. She crosses her fingers, and neither of the other two need to ask why.
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Don't know how you manage to mix all the burnballs staples ('grabbing him like a 3AM glassfight', ed never sees consequences, andy sleeping in a car with a hangover <3) with such heartbreaking angst, but I totally love it.
I love that yvette isn't the total opposite to the other two: she's allowed to be selfish, and uncommunicative and angry, but also forgiving and likable. And she's included in the football and drinking stuff, which makes the whole OT3 angle believable.
Thank you for the happy ending. Amazing.
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