Gus
The front door thudded to a close and he surveyed the scene in front of him with tired eyes.
It looked much as it had done when he’d left it the previous evening.
Evidence of yesterday’s microwaved Christmas dinner and the takeaway curry from the night before had piled up in the sink and he wrinkled his nose as he loaded the dishwasher.
He shouldn’t have left it looking like this, like a messy bachelor pad.
Amelia would probably be horrified to see the flat in this state.
He caught himself quickly. He and Amelia were separated.
She definitely wouldn’t be returning to complain about the mess in the kitchen, or anything else for that matter.
The logical part of his brain knew this, understood that she wasn’t coming back, but there was always a tiny flicker of irrational hope– a flicker that had sustained itself on denial for so long that he wondered if it would ever go out.
To be fair, Amelia had never been much of a complainer when they’d been together.
At least, not until the end. All of her angst and resentment had been hidden deep beneath complicated layers of an outwardly sunny disposition, impenetrable to mere mortals such as himself.
Her grievances, whether big or small, were only brought out for a public airing when she’d had too much to drink.
Most of the time they festered and stewed inside her, building to gargantuan proportions, whereas if they’d been dealt with in the moment they could likely have been resolved with minimal fuss.
He didn’t blame her for it exactly, it was just the way she was, but this trait of hers left him with a perpetual feeling of anxiety, a constant fear that he was upsetting her without realising.
Trying to interpret little huffs of disappointment or frown lines of disapproval, tiptoeing around her unexpressed opinions, second-guessing her likes and dislikes, to be honest it had been exhausting.
He recalled an incident where he’d bought a dress for Amelia’s birthday, wanting to do something nice, wanting to please her.
It was expensive, as close to designer as his NHS salary could manage, but as she peeled away the tissue paper and ribbon, he instantly knew she hated it, something about the set of her mouth– he’d become quite the expert by this stage.
And so, he asked her outright, said he could see she didn’t like it, told her they could take it back, no problem.
But she’d smiled tightly, insisted it was fine.
It was months later that he got the full backlash; the dress made her look fat, of course it did.
The very fact that he’d bought it for her indicated that he wanted her to lose weight.
And the cut of the fabric, the pattern, it was intended for someone much younger, prettier, taller– whatever– it was all wrong.
He got the same reaction when he bought her books: Did he think she needed to improve her mind?
Did he think she wasn’t intellectual enough for him?
Never said at the time of course, only weeks after the event.
It got to the point where he simply took the path of least resistance and gave up.
He let Amelia make all the decisions because it was so much easier than choosing a course of action himself and finding out weeks later that it had been the wrong one (not just wrong– awful).
It was why he’d never mentioned looking for a different house.
If he’d suggested that they continued their search once they’d found this flat then she’d have discreetly resented every little trip to the letting agents, every subsequent property viewing.
They’d have lost the flat to different tenants, missed the opportunity to live in the city centre, and he'd have been blamed for it. Not overtly, Amelia wasn’t prone to direct accusation, she preferred a more insidious approach.
Little hints would have been dropped over a period of weeks, comments that would have made him uneasy in a way he couldn’t specify.
She’d have pointed out every tiny flaw in whichever property they ended up renting, constantly comparing it to this one perfect flat, wishing aloud that she had stuck to her guns– the implication being that he’d forced her to give up on her dream. It simply wasn’t worth the aggravation.
Who knows how long he would have existed in this suspended state of paralysed indecision if Amelia herself hadn’t made the biggest decision of all– to end the relationship, citing, amongst other things, Gus’s inability to stand his ground and his pathological avoidance of conflict.
He hadn’t even managed to do that himself, he reflected with a rueful smile as he poured himself a bowl of Coco Pops and settled on the sofa to watch an episode of Stranger Things – both activities that would have been subtly frowned upon if he’d still been with her.
Maybe there were some advantages to being single after all.
Once he had finished his cereal and a side helping of Christmas pudding he made his way to the spare bedroom.
This was always the room he chose for sleeping between night shifts.
It was small and tucked away in the corner of the flat with narrower north-facing windows which reduced the natural light significantly.
In fact, most people would have considered this the gloomiest, pokiest room in the apartment, the rest of the living space being so open and airy and light.
But for daytime sleeping this little nook was perfect and he could also stay out of Amelia’s way when she was working from home.
Another thing that was no longer remotely relevant.
Bleary-eyed, he shuffled to the single bed.
The blinds remained down and the air was dark and still as he shrugged off his scrubs and slid under the crumpled duvet but after twenty minutes of staring at the wall he sat up and reached for his phone.
He couldn’t sleep. His mind was whirring with the events of his on-call shift, the patients he had clerked in, those he had sat with in theatre, those who were in recovery and needed close monitoring.
He had handed over to the Boxing Day on-call team and knew that his patients were in safe hands, in fact many of them would have been discharged by the time he returned this evening, but he still went through each patient in his head, scrolling through the list on his phone until he was convinced that every job had been completed and nothing had been left for the day team to pick up.
He didn’t want to be one of those doctors who dumped work on their colleagues, even if it was accidental.
So much of what made practising medicine bearable was a good working relationship with the rest of the team and he was careful never to intentionally jeopardise that.
Once he was satisfied that all tasks had been completed and he definitely hadn’t missed anything, he tried to close his eyes again, clearing his mind of all extraneous detail, whether it related to work or his personal life.
But sleep still wouldn’t come. Instead he kept returning to his conversation with Violet and wondering whether she was still at the lido or would she have reached home yet, wherever that may be.
She’d said something about a housemate as opposed to living with a partner so maybe that implied she wasn’t in a long-term relationship?
Not that it mattered either way, obviously.
He wondered whether what she said about cold-water swimming helping her sleep was really true.
She certainly didn’t seem the type to fabricate something like that, she was brutally honest about everything else.
He smiled as he remembered their shared conversation in the small hours of the morning when she’d described her frankness as a bit of a curse.
It was an unusual trait and he could see how it might rub people up the wrong way but he found it surprisingly refreshing.
Speaking of refreshing– the warm, stuffy atmosphere in the bedroom suddenly felt a little oppressive and he returned to the image of Violet gliding through the cool water of the lido, her long limbs made graceful by the action, her cropped hair sleek against her neck until it began to dry and curl behind her ears…
Maybe she was right. Maybe he should give it a try.
After all, it wasn’t as if he was having much luck sleeping at the moment, and if he was honest, the thought of spending more time with Violet was definitely appealing, even if he had to risk hypothermia to do so.
He paused scrolling through his messages, most were from family and friends wishing him a Happy Christmas but halfway down his inbox was one from Naz, a surgeon he often worked with.
Naz was a keen surfer. He often talked about his various trips down to the Devon and Cornwall coast to catch the elusive waves and the seemingly less elusive surf-chicks, most of whom were irresistibly drawn to the muscular surgeon with his shaggy dreadlocks and laid-back attitude.
‘If you weren’t with Amelia I’d suggest you came with me, mate,’ he’d said to Gus on numerous occasions. ‘They’d bloody love you.’
Naz was about the same height and build as Gus, they were both tall, both broad-shouldered, and he knew from being in the theatre changing rooms that they had similar sized feet because he’d had to find Naz a new set of surgical clogs only a few weeks ago when the first pair had become so splattered by the bodily fluids of the patient on the operating table that they were unwearable for the rest of the day.
If anyone was likely to have wetsuit accessories in his size it was Naz, and Gus knew he’d be working tomorrow.
The twenty-seventh of December meant a return to normal scheduling for the majority of the hospital, until the New Year bank holiday at least. He opened up the message thread and began to type.
Random Boxing Day question but do you have any surf boots & gloves I could borrow?
He paused for a moment, imagining the realities of the colder water, and then resumed typing.
And maybe short wetsuit?
He watched the screen for a moment as the dots flickered with their promise of a response.
Sure. When?
Tomorrow? I’m on nights. Could collect before I head home.
Naz replied with a thumbs up and a surfboard emoji and Gus smiled to himself as he turned the phone off and settled himself back down into bed.
He wasn’t committing to anything, he could easily decide against a swim if he didn’t fancy it tomorrow morning and could likely slope off before Violet even realised, perhaps claim he’d forgotten her offer without causing any offence or upset.
But he’d pack his trunks and a towel anyway.
Give himself the option. Who knew– it might be exactly what he needed.