Chapter 1 #2
The man’s jollity has turned into silent caution.
‘You are correct and this means you can go to the bar and get a free drink.’ He slides a sort of token in front of me and waits.
In fact, the whole bar still looks at us, waiting.
Sod the quiz, we have drama in the corner of the pub and that is worth the cost of our quiz entry fee tonight.
Nick, who looked uncomfortable before, now looks as though he’s in the stand of a public court.
‘You can do better!’ a drunken voice sounds from across the pub, and a small table of women cheer.
Don’t react, Kay. Don’t. But I feel so empty, so confused. Something surges up in me, and I pull the microphone, still in the quiz host’s hands, towards me. ‘Why?’ I ask Nick. No one in this pub cares about that meat hamper anymore.
‘You must have felt it too?’ he mumbles quietly, choosing not to broadcast the moment.
‘Felt what?’ I question, the microphone whining with feedback. I feel a whole pub lean forward to try and eavesdrop.
‘Like we’ve grown apart.’
‘What did he say?’ someone at the back of the pub asks.
‘They’ve grown apart,’ the host says, leaning into the microphone.
Nick looks mortified but I will admit, the tables glancing over in anger and judgement are helping here.
Because since that day I met Nick here, I’ve laid down roots and let our branches intertwine.
I let him into my life, we’ve felt the sun on our leaves, we’ve experienced the rain and the cold, but all the while it was together, always growing together.
To put it bluntly, he was inside me last night, so I don’t really understand this at all.
‘Seriously, can we go somewhere else to do this?’ Nick says, leaning over. Dave and his friends next to us are sitting with their arms folded, piercing him with their stares.
‘No,’ I say into the microphone, my fingers clenched tightly around my wine glass.
That table of ladies cheers again. ‘He’s a cliché, babe!’
I can’t think straight right now, I’m just trying to keep it together.
I’ve been completely ambushed, in the very place where our relationship started, and I can’t figure out if he’s being cruel or whether he wanted to give this moment some full-circle significance.
But if he’s going to ambush me with bullshit reasons about why our year-long relationship is over then he can be waylaid too.
He inhales deeply, looking me in the eye.
The host points the microphone at him. Nick looks at it distastefully.
‘We’ve been together for a year and it’s been amazing,’ he tells the pub.
‘But I feel this… you and I… has come to a sort of organic end.’ A lady a few tables down scrunches her face up and shakes her head at him.
He needs to stop it with the plant metaphors.
But maybe that’s my influence rubbing off on him.
‘In a few months, I’m going over to New York to do my MBA.
She wants to travel. I think now’s the time to work on ourselves. ’
‘CLICHé!’ someone shouts. ‘You just want to get out of buying her a Christmas gift, you cheap git!’
I look down at the table, my bottom lip wobbling, and I take a large gulp of my wine to steady myself. I guess however he did this it was always going to hurt, it was always going to feel as if my heart was bleeding emotions that were seeping into every part of me.
‘Ask him if there’s someone else?’ a woman shouts.
He puts his hands in the air and stands up. ‘There is no one else, I promise. I’m so sorry, Kay.’
He shakes his head and covers his face with his hands; if he starts crying, I will throw something at him. I suspect most of the pub will. I feel dumbstruck, nauseated. The Christmas decorations in this place sparkle and wink at me. I wish they wouldn’t do that.
I grab the microphone again. ‘Did I do something wrong?’ I hate myself for asking that question, but I’m simply trying to figure this all out.
‘No. And it’s not you—’
I put a hand up. ‘Don’t finish that sentence.’
‘It’s—’
‘Piss off.’
The pub cheers collectively, as if someone has scored a match-winning goal.
My swearing silences him. I don’t know what else to say.
In my bag under the table is a notebook with a list of all the gifts I’ve bought for his family.
I went to a farmer’s market and bought a bottle of sloe gin for his sister.
His mum wanted cheese knives. I usually cut my cheese with a normal knife but whatever floats your boat, Marjorie.
I got him a blue/slate-coloured jumper that matches his eyes.
I have a feeling he’s bought me nothing apart from this bad, bad news.
‘I really still want to be friends though,’ he says.
I look back at him blankly. This feels rehearsed now; perhaps he’s putting on a performance so the patrons don’t turn on him.
‘Please stop,’ I beg him. I move around in my wooden chair, the cushion worn and uncomfortable underneath me.
‘Do we have to do this here? In front of all these people? It doesn’t have to be like this.’
‘So this is now my fault?’
The pub quietens.
‘Please. If you no longer want this then I will accept that, I will graciously move on.’ I bite my bottom lip to stop myself from crying. ‘But don’t ambush me in a public place and then ask me to be your friend.’
The crowd cheers again.
‘Kay…’
‘Because I love you, Nick,’ I say assertively, loudly.
No microphone needed. The pub goes deathly silent.
We met in this very bar, we spent the evening together, I abandoned all my friends that night and we went back to his house share and had scrappy, fun sex in his single bed.
And he called me back, and we spent a year together.
I was in love, a feeling I’ve never been so certain of in my whole life.
I look up at him. For God’s sake, Nick. React. Let me know this hurts you too.
But he doesn’t. He grabs my hand and holds it to his mouth and kisses it.
Every motion seems to be happening underwater.
He then takes another sip of his drink, pulls his coat from the back of his chair and leaves.
I can’t even look at him. I hear booing.
I think someone just threw a bag of honey-roasted nuts at him. How fitting, how very full circle.
‘Are you alright, love?’ someone whispers, pushing an open packet of crisps in my direction.
I look down at the crinkle-cut McCoys and then around the pub to see everyone glancing over, speaking in hushed whispers.
I am mortified. Do I go to the toilets? I’ve seen the toilets here, I don’t think I want to cry there.
A single tear rolls down my cheek, I wipe it away swiftly.
‘Well, that was fucking embarrassing,’ I mumble.
‘For him,’ Dave says. ‘Go get this girl a brandy or something,’ he says to the quiz host, still hovering.
‘Put it on my tab.’ He wanders off as Dave pulls his stool next to me.
‘Would it be weird of me to give you a hug? I’ve got a daughter your age.
’ I nod and he wraps his big burly arms around me. ‘I’m sorry, love.’
‘Don’t be.’ I cling on to Dave tightly. Up close he smells of lemons and thyme, which is surprisingly comforting.
‘You know, maybe he needs to go off and do his thing and then perhaps when he comes back, you could give it another go?’ I smile faintly at him trying to find a positive in all of this.
‘What’s that thing they say? My wife has it on a fridge magnet.
“If you love someone let them go, if they come back…”’
‘Who’s the cliché now, Dave?’ one of his mates says.
They all laugh. I still can’t find the emotion.
I feel so completely sucker punched by what has happened.
I stare into space at Nick’s empty glass, his empty chair, an empty space at a bar where I once stood with him, not understanding anything he was saying.
‘Make space?’ The quiz host returns, carrying a tray of drinks. We all look up at him curiously.
‘Mate, I said one brandy,’ says Dave.
‘Yeah, every table in here said the same,’ he says, placing a bottle of red in front of me and various other drinks. I look up, expecting to feel mortified, ashamed, but people are nodding, raising their glasses.
‘You deserve better, babe!’ a woman shouts.
‘Nick rhymes with prick…’
‘AND THICK!’ someone adds. And that’s what it takes for the tears to finally roll down my cheeks: the protective kindness of strangers, the shock, and the memory of meeting a boy in this pub for the very first time. A boy I thought I loved. A boy who’s just dumped me. Three weeks before Christmas.