29
Ben
I am having brunch with Poppy, Hugh, Simon and Abigail at a cafe in Balham.
Will couldn’t be here this weekend because he’s doing a hundred-mile bike ride in the Scottish Highlands, and then he’s spending four days visiting his sister in Edinburgh, who is training for a marathon.
I have no idea what their parents put in their porridge when they were growing up, but it seems both of them are full of energy, have the desire to challenge themselves and live life to the fullest. I, on the other hand, am living life with the handbrake firmly on.
I am in the slow lane watching everyone fly past, terrified of what might happen if I put my foot down, but also desperate to do something different and take a chance before it’s too late.
Jemma is home for the weekend, visiting her parents, and I, it seems, have a few days to get my head straight before Christmas.
She wanted me to go with her to meet her parents again, but I made an excuse about having some work to get done.
I am still reeling from my FaceTime with Saskia and trying to work-through the complicated knots in the fabric of my existence.
We are sitting around a long wooden table, full of plates of food, mugs of coffee, and Hugh is telling us an anecdote about someone at his work called Neil.
‘Neil is sitting at his desk, minding his own business, going through the weekly numbers, when Sarah from HR, lovely lady, owns a horse, also called Sarah—’
‘Wait. She called her horse Sarah even though she is also called Sarah?’ says Abigail.
‘No, it was already called Sarah when she bought it, and rather than confuse Sarah the horse, she kept calling it Sarah despite the fact she is also called Sarah,’ says Hugh.
‘So, Sarah from HR comes across to Neil, and asks him to follow her, Neil thinks he’s in trouble, and then,’ says Hugh, chuckling to himself.
‘She takes him into her office, closes the door and after five minutes he comes out, sits down and gets back to work.’
We all look at each other, and it’s up to one of us to ask the obvious question.
‘So, what happened?’ I ask.
‘That’s the funny thing,’ says Hugh. ‘Nothing. He just needed to sign some paperwork, but you should have seen his face when she called him into her office. Classic Neil.’
‘I guess you needed to be there for that one,’ says Simon, and we all get back to our food. ‘So, Ben, what’s happening with you and Saskia? Did you do the deed?’
‘I did. It’s over,’ I reply.
‘How did Saskia take it?’ asks Abigail.
‘She was really sad about it.’
‘What about you?’ asks Poppy. ‘How are you doing?’
How am I doing? This is the question I have been asking myself since my FaceTime with Saskia.
From the moment I put my phone down on my bed, I didn’t feel right about it.
I knew I had to do it, but it left me feeling bereft, and if that’s the case, then surely it wasn’t the correct decision, right?
I have feelings for Jemma. She is lovely, perhaps perfect for me – except when it comes to buying presents – and we could have a brilliant life together, but there is just one thing she isn’t, and that is Saskia.
But how can we be together? Is it even possible?
It doesn’t feel like it, or maybe I’m just not brave enough to make it happen.
I know if Will were in my position, distance wouldn’t stand in his way — he would probably paddleboard all the way down under.
But I am not Will. He’s the King of always saying ‘YES!’ and I’m the champion of always saying, ‘maybe, we’ll see, but you know, it’s tricky, isn’t it? ’
‘I’m not great, to be honest.’
‘Lay it on me, Ben,’ says Hugh.
‘Who do you think you are?’ says Poppy. ‘Lay it on me, indeed.’
‘Sorry, old boy, how can we help?’ says Hugh.
‘I think …’ I say, and I can’t believe I am going to say this out loud, but I think I have to. ‘I want to be with Saskia.’
‘What?’ says Poppy incredulously. ‘Seriously?’
‘I think she might be The One .’
‘I knew it!’ says Abigail. ‘From the day you told me about her, I knew she was special.’
‘So, what are you going to do about it?’ says Simon.
‘I literally have no idea,’ I say, before having a sip of my silky, creamy coffee, and it feels like a weight has been lifted just saying it out loud, but also that another slightly heavier weight has been added because now it feels like I need to do something about it.
As we are sitting here, I look across at another table and there is a young family having brunch.
There’s the mum and dad, who both look about my age, and their daughter, who looks about two or three.
The woman is clearly pregnant again, and they seem like the perfect little family.
I know that I want this, and Jemma wants it too.
This could literally be us in a few years’ time.
We could be so happy together in London, and wasn’t that always the dream?
I watch as the dad helps the little girl cut up her toast into soldiers for her soft-boiled eggs, and it makes me smile.
I want to be a dad cutting up toast for my child so they can dunk it in runny eggs at a cool cafe in South London.
‘I have to ask,’ says Poppy. ‘Is this just you sabotaging yourself again? You find yourself with someone great, who you really like, it’s getting a bit serious and so you find a reason to blow it up on the off chance this other person might be better?’
‘She’s right,’ says Abigail. ‘You do that.’
‘I know I do,’ I say. ‘But I don’t think this is that.’
‘So, the question is, again, what are you going to do about it?’ says Simon.
When I’m at work trying to work out the viability of an investment for a particular client, I work up the numbers, look back through the historical data and give the client my projections based on all the viable factors.
I take into consideration all the possible risks, run a cost-benefit analysis model, and consider whether the client wants to take a bigger risk with more potential for growth or whether they want something with stable long-term earnings.
These are all factors when deciding what is best for my client, but can I treat love the same?
Is it quite as easy as putting numbers into a spreadsheet, determining the risk factors, and making the best, most calculated choice when it comes to my heart?
‘You know,’ says Abigail. ‘I went on a management training course recently, and we did a whole day about making difficult choices in the workplace, but it might work for love, too. We played a game called ‘phone box’—’
‘Oh, is it like the 2002 psychological thriller ‘Phone Booth’ starring Colin Farrell?’ says Hugh. ‘We put Ben in a phone box, call him and threaten him to make a decision between Jemma and Saskia, and if he can’t, we call—’
‘No, Hugh, it isn’t like that at all,’ says Abigail. ‘We got together in small groups and worked independently on a particular problem. Then after about twenty minutes, all the groups got together and discussed what we had come up with. It was surprisingly effective.’
‘But how is this going to work exactly?’ I ask. ‘Everyone goes away, comes up with a solution to my problem, and then we come back together and share our thoughts?’
‘Or we put Ben in a phone box, threaten to share his dilemma with Jemma and Saskia, unless he makes a decision!’ says Hugh.
‘Thanks for your help guys, but I don’t think playing a management strategy game or threatening me in a phone box is going to give me the push I need to make a decision,’ I say, and we all get back to our food, but it’s hard to enjoy because all I can think about is what I am going to do about Jemma and Saskia.
The thing is, I love my life in London. I enjoy my job and have little interest in leaving the company I have worked for since graduation and moving across the world.
Would Saskia leave Sydney and move to London?
If one of us moved, would we always feel like we were giving up so much for the other, and would that eventually come between us?
Wouldn’t it just be easier to stay with Jemma?
Jemma is lovely, beautiful, and she makes me happy.
Would choosing Saskia just be repeating the same mistakes of my past?
We finish our food and drinks until finally we are all done and waiting to pay.
At the table next to us, the couple with the little girl just left with the girl on her dad’s shoulders, laughing and squealing with delight, and they wandered off outside, zipping up their jackets and the little girl had an adorable, knitted hat and gloves.
The waitress eventually comes across and we pay before we sit at the table, which is strewn with all our post-brunch detritus, readying ourselves to leave when Simon says.
‘We should call Will.’
‘Why?’ I ask.
‘To see what he has to say on the matter of your love life,’ says Simon, and everyone nods in agreement, and so it is decided that I am going to call Will – apparently the person most likely to decide my relationship conundrum. I take out my phone and dial his number.
‘Put it on speaker,’ says Poppy, and so I do.
‘Hello!’ says a rather out of breath Will. ‘Sorry, I’m on mile thirty-four. Fortunately, the weather is glorious, and Scotland is looking stunning. What’s up?’
‘We need your input on Ben’s troubled love life!’ says Poppy loudly.
‘Thanks, Sis, apart from everyone in the cafe, I think half of Scotland heard you too!’ I say before I go on to explain to Will exactly what has happened and the difficult situation I find myself in.
It’s a choice between playing it safe with Jemma or going rogue and somehow giving it a go with Saskia.
Even saying it out loud to Will sounds ridiculous.
Why would I break up with Jemma to risk everything for Saskia, someone I have never actually met in real life and who lives on the other side of the world?
It is clearly madness. After a brief five-minute explanation, I ask Will what he thinks.
Will leaves a pause, and we can hear traffic in the background, and then somehow the sound of bagpipes, before he finally delivers his verdict.
‘If you want my opinion, whether it’s your career, life goals, or love, it all comes down to one thing.
You have to follow your heart, Ben. When I decided to give up a career in law for a career in fitness, most people, including my parents, who went ballistic, thought I was crazy, but it’s what my heart was telling me to do.
Follow your heart, Ben, and you won’t go wrong because even if it doesn’t end up as you had hoped, at least you took a chance. ’
‘Bravo!’ says Abigail. ‘Top advice.’
‘Couldn’t agree more!’ says Poppy.
‘Me too!’ says Simon.
‘I’m with Will,’ says Hugh.
‘So, you all think I should break up with Jemma and give Saskia a go because it wasn’t that long ago that all of you, apart from Simon if I remember correctly, said I should stay with Jemma and forget about Saskia. Remember?’
‘I remember,’ says Will, ‘but clearly, I was wrong because that hasn’t worked out because you’re still fixated on Saskia. I really thought that once you decided to stop FaceTiming with her, you might realise how great Jemma is and go all in on her.’
‘But you haven’t, have you?’ says Poppy.
‘Well, no,’ I reply.
‘Listen to your heart,’ says Will. ‘If your heart says Saskia, then that’s what you should do. Right, I have to go. I still have sixty-six miles left, and there’s a huge hill coming up before we drop down into a loch for lunch. Good luck, mate.’
‘You too, Will, and thank you.’
Will hangs up, and I sit with my thoughts for a moment.
Can I really break up with Jemma, and then what?
Can I fly across the world to see if things with Saskia are as real in reality as they feel in my head?
It would be the first time in my entire life I have gambled and taken a chance on something that doesn’t appear to make any sense.
This isn’t like me at all, but then again, when I am talking with Saskia, I don’t really feel like myself.
She makes me want to be brave, to step outside of my comfort zone, and maybe this is what I need to do despite my brain saying: NO!
STOP IT, YOU FUCKING IDIOT! JEMMA IS PERFECT!
PLAY THE ODDS! Saskia has Bondi Brad, might be going on tour with Fudge Cake, and maybe in reality we aren’t even compatible, but then again, she might just be the love of my life.
‘So, brother dearest, what’s it going to be?’ says Poppy after a moment.
I look at my sister and my friends, and I finally make a decision. It comes to me in a blinding flash of inspiration because when it comes down to it, there really is only one choice. I stand up suddenly, taking Hugh by surprise, who almost topples backwards and out of his chair.
‘I have to go,’ I say. ‘Thanks for your help.’
‘Where are you going?’ says Poppy, but I don’t reply because I am already on the move. I know that I need to do this right now before I lose my confidence and find an excuse not to do it – and there are about a million of them. I walk outside, flag down the nearest cab and get inside.
‘Kings Cross train station please, mate,’ I say to the driver, and we are off.