Chapter 3
The walk back to Jared’s house takes exactly fourteen minutes, which I know because I spend it planning all the witty and smart things I’ll say to him, clever things that will make guilt hit him right between the eyes and he’ll be filled with regret and beg my forgiveness, despite the fact that saying clever and witty things is not my strong suit, and that if guilt was going to hit Jared anywhere, it would likely have already done so at any moment of the last six months.
He will undoubtedly still be out, and I will be able to slip in, grab some bits, and slip back out again like I was never there.
Our street looks exactly the same as always.
Red-brick houses with neat front gardens, hedges without a leaf out of place, identical bay windows, Mrs Henshaw’s cat sitting on the wall with an air of superiority, judging everyone who passes.
Normal life continues like the world hasn’t shifted off its axis.
It’s a typical late-May day and the sun that was shining earlier has been covered by heavy-looking grey clouds that match my mood, but as I turn the corner, I see something is different.
There are black shapes scattered across Jared’s front lawn like a bizarre art installation.
It takes my brain a moment to process what I’m looking at.
Binbags.
Multiple black plastic bags, sitting on the grass haphazardly, some split open and spilling their contents onto the perfectly manicured lawn. I can see my favourite pyjamas draped across the hedge. The book I’m currently reading that was on the bedside table is now faceplanted on the doorstep.
I break into a run and arrive at the garden gate just as Mrs Henshaw pokes her head out of her front door. She’s got that look people get when they’re pretending they haven’t been watching drama unfold from behind their net curtains.
‘Oh, hello love,’ she says, like she’s surprised to see me. ‘Having a clear-out, are we?’
‘Something like that,’ I mumble, surveying the carnage.
There’s my entire life, scattered across the front garden for all the neighbours to see. Books with broken spines, clothes that have clearly been shoved into bags without any care, the box that contains my grandma’s baking equipment and family recipes. Strewn about like it all means nothing.
He’s… thrown me out, just like that? Like I mean nothing? He was so eager to get rid of me that it doesn’t even look like he bothered to carry the bags outside via the front door, but instead chose to lob them out of the upstairs window.
The grey clouds choose that moment to let out a fine mist of drizzle. Tears blur my eyes as I kneel down beside a torn bag and start trying to gather up the strewn clothes.
I knew our relationship had lost the sparkle we had in the early days, but I didn’t know it had reached this level of contempt. He couldn’t even give me a chance to collect my things. He’s evicted me to the front lawn when only an hour has passed since I was skipping towards the café this morning.
As I grasp a bag, I hear the unmistakable clinking of broken china and it makes my heart clench. I know what it is without looking, but I peel back layers of ripped plastic with my eyes squeezed half shut.
There, thrown in amongst the clothes and presumably tossed from a window, is my beautiful, impractical, stupidly expensive vintage teapot that I bought at an antiques stall in a market that Vickie and I went to last month.
It is, predictably, in many more pieces than it was when I left this morning.
I couldn’t really afford it, but I fell in love with its delicate blue and pink floral pattern, and the way it felt in my hands, like it had stories inside and was waiting for the right person to share them with.
‘It’s perfect for the café,’ I’d told Vickie, cradling it like a baby. ‘It’ll be our mascot. We’ll display it for customers to admire. The teapot that started it all.’
Now it’s sitting in a binbag like rubbish, cracked into so many broken pieces that it will never be fixable, and it feels like a metaphor for my life too.
The sob I let out must’ve been audible, because the front door opens and Jared appears, looking thoroughly pleased with himself.
‘Oh good, you’re here,’ he says, like he’s doing me a favour. ‘I’ve packed everything for you. Saved you the trouble.’
I fight to hold back another sob because I can’t believe this is happening.
I stare at him, this man I thought I was building a future with, and wonder how I ever found him attractive.
How did I not notice the way his mouth turns down when he’s not getting his own way?
How did I miss the fact that he’s got the emotional depth of a bird bath?
How did I ever let my life get this… unsatisfactory?
I haven’t been truly happy in any aspect of my life for a long while now.
I thought The Nostalgia Café would be the change I needed, but this extends further than just a career.
Everything is wrong, including this relationship.
‘Where exactly do you expect me to put all this?’ I gesture at the binbags, trying to keep my voice level.
‘Not my problem any more, is it?’ He’s smiling like he’s actually enjoying this. ‘You made your choice when you stormed out this morning. Very melodramatic, by the way, and wholly unnecessary. Vickie was very upset.’
‘Vickie was upset?’ The words come out strangled. ‘Vickie?’
‘Yes. She feels terrible about the way you reacted. We both do. We never intended to hurt you, but if you can’t be mature about this—’
‘Mature?’ I’m gripping the teapot pieces so tightly that I have to force myself to put them down before the jagged china does some damage to my hands, or mysteriously finds itself embedded in his patronising neck.
‘You want to talk about mature? You’ve been shagging my best friend for six months and then you chuck all my possessions onto the front lawn like you couldn’t wait to see the back of me.
You must have raced back here to make a start on packing before I had a chance! ’
Mrs Henshaw’s door opens a bit wider. I must be providing the best entertainment she’s had all year. She’s probably typing this in real time to the neighbourhood WhatsApp group.
‘Look, Doll, I don’t know what you want me to say. These things happen. People change, feelings change. You can’t expect—’
‘I expected basic human decency,’ I interrupt. ‘I expected the two years we’ve spent together to count for something more than having my stuff dumped on the lawn like I never mattered at all.’
He has the audacity to look bored, like my heartbreak is inconveniencing him.
‘Are you going to take your things or not? The neighbours will start complaining about the mess soon.’ He waves to Mrs Henshaw and gives her a bright smile.
I look at the binbags, at my entire existence reduced to black plastic sacks, and feel something crack inside me that has nothing to do with broken teapots.
Where am I supposed to go? I can’t even carry all these bags without a car.
He must know that, and yet he doesn’t give a toss.
I’m not his problem now. And looking back, I can see that’s what I’d become to him – once a girlfriend, now a problem.
It’s a realisation that makes tears threaten again.
Jared and Vickie are the two people in my life who I thought were in my corner when they’ve both been the exact opposite, and the reality is that I have no one on my side.
I go back to gathering up binbags, tying knots in split sides, trying to collect everything into one tidy pile and keep my emotions under control.
‘Do you need help?’ Jared asks, in a tone that suggests the answer is obviously going to be no, and if I did need help, I wouldn’t get any from him.
‘No—’ I’ve barely got the word out before he’s disappeared back inside and shut the door with a slam that reverberates through the ground under my feet.
‘I’m fine, thanks,’ I call after him, stuffing a jumper back through the hole in a binbag. I’m not fine. I’m the opposite of fine, but I am not going to give him the satisfaction of seeing me cry. Again.
I gather the bags into some form of order, huffing and puffing and swearing under my breath.
Or possibly not quite so under my breath, given the pinched look on Mrs Henshaw’s face where she’s still watching from her doorway, a phone in her hand.
Probably livestreaming to the neighbourhood WhatsApp group in case anyone’s missing it.
Even her cat’s having a good gawp, although at least the cat doesn’t try to hide its judgemental tendencies behind false smiles and hours spent tending the hydrangeas. I appreciate that about the cat.
I stand and look at the pile at my feet. The drizzle is persistent enough that rivulets of water are running down the bags and everything has that dampness to it that feels like it will never be fully dry again.
What am I going to do? I could call a taxi, but where would I ask it to take me? I could probably find a B&B and charge a couple of nights’ stay to my credit card, but…
As I’m looking around in despair, trying to ignore the twitching of curtains from the other houses on the street, my eyes fall on it.
It’s there, sitting on the driveway, like a lime-green beacon of possibility.
Jared’s campervan.