We Were On a Break

  ‘What is happening?’ I whispered, staring up at the flickering fluorescent tube above me.

  Two fat tears slid out the corners of my eyes, ran over my temples and into my hair. Had I spent so much time fretting over when he was going to propose, I’d missed the signs of an impending break-up? This wasn’t my first rodeo; I’d been the dumper and the dumped in my thirty years on this planet but I hadn’t seen this coming. Adam and me weren’t supposed to break up, ever. He was mine and I was his, why would I have looked for signs?

  Was this why he was so anxious on Monday night? Not because he was going to propose but because he knew he was going to break up with me when we got home. Another warm tear plopped out of my left eye and made a beeline for my inner ear, making me shiver. But then he’d changed his mind. Probably got home to an empty bed and realized it was easier to keep me around than to find someone new. Probably couldn’t be bothered to work out which DVDs were mine and return them.

  I laid the drum of my stethoscope on top of my chest and listened for my heartbeat. It was still going which was something of an achievement in itself.

  ‘Hello?’

  The handle of the waiting-room door turned and the door knocked against the latch. Sitting up, I wobbled for a moment, almost falling off the table before catching myself, wiping my face and giving a loud, satisfying sniff.

  ‘Just a moment,’ I called through the door as I splashed my face with cold water. ‘I’m almost ready, Mr Harries.’

  Just three more appointments, just one more hour to get through.

  With a deep breath that stuck in my throat, I pushed myself out of my mind and opened the door. A sandy-haired older gentleman carrying a long-haired black cat in a shopping bag held up his hand politely as he walked in. The cat was wearing a hand-knitted jumper with a picture of what I took to be Olaf from Frozen emblazoned on the back.

  ‘Mr Harries, I thought we’d talked about getting rid of Jeremy’s woolly jumpers?’ I said as gently as possible, turning away to dab my runny nose with my sleeve. ‘They’re what’s causing all the hairballs.’

  ‘But he loves them,’ Mr Harries protested. ‘What am I supposed to do?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said, sharing a despairing glance with poor Jeremy. ‘I really don’t know.’

  5

  ‘And that’s how I blew up the microwave,’ Dad finished his story with pride. ‘It was only a small fire and I put it right out, no problems. Scorched the curtain a bit but you can’t tell unless you look.’

  ‘It was time we replaced that microwave anyway,’ Chris said, waving his hand as he laid down his decree. ‘I’ll get you a new one, a better one. Mine’s brilliant, does everything except wipe your arse. Amazing.’

  ‘You could get a gold-plated microwave that shits unicorn droppings, it’ll still blow up if you put metal in it,’ I pointed out.

  ‘I still can’t understand why you were trying to heat up a yoghurt.’

  ’I wanted to know what would happen,’ Dad replied. ‘Now I do.’

  ‘You should sue them,’ Chris went on. ‘It should say on it that you’re not supposed to microwave yoghurt pots.’

  ‘You can’t sue the manufacturers for human error,’ I said. ‘I think you just need to be more careful, Dad.’

  ‘And I think you shouldn’t take legal advice from a law school dropout.’ Chris twisted around in Mum’s favourite armchair to give me the full benefit of his smug, older-brother expression. ‘I’ll get a new microwave sent over before Mum gets back. She’ll never know.’

  ‘She doesn’t use it any more anyway.’ Dad merrily ignored the pair of us, having done a wonderful job of developing selective hearing over the years. ‘I’ll tell her I got rid of it because of the radiation. She’ll be made up.’

  ‘I’ll get you a good one,’ Chris said, already looking at microwaves on his phone. ‘Can’t have you and Mum getting into accidents. We probably ought to replace the whole kitchen.’

  ‘We’re not senile quite yet,’ Dad said, pushing himself up to his feet as the doorbell rang. ‘You don’t need to put a catch on the toilet to stop me falling in.’

  ‘He was dicking about with a microwave, not trying to burn the house down,’ I whispered after he left the room. ‘Stop patronizing him, they don’t want a new kitchen.’

  ‘Calm down, Ad.’ Chris popped the top on a bottle of beer, wrinkling his nose at my provided beverages. He only drank craft ales so I’d brought Bud Light with Lime. It was the little things that got you through the difficult days. ‘You shouldn’t feel inferior because I’m in a position to help them out.’

  ‘If they wanted a new kitchen, they’d buy a new kitchen,’ I replied, turning my phone over to check the time. Between the night on the settee, the Mexican jet lag and whatever the hell had happened with Liv, I was dying on my arse.

  ‘And if I want to help my parents out, I will,’ he replied with serial killer calm. ‘Maybe if they hadn’t spent half their savings on paying for the barrister’s qualification you jacked in a year before you finished, they might have bought themselves a new kitchen before now. Or at least had a lawyer son who could afford to buy one for them.’

  ‘Oh, fuck off.’ I burrowed backwards, praying for the settee to swallow me whole ‘They don’t want a new kitchen, Chris.’

  ‘You’re very touchy this evening.’ He leaned forward over his designer denim-covered knees and fixed me with a smile. ‘Anything to do with the distinct lack of a post-Mexico engagement?’

  ‘Nope,’ I replied, sipping my beer with great difficulty. It really did taste like piss. ‘And I don’t want to talk about that here.’

  ‘She say no?’

  ‘Fairly certain I just said I didn’t want to talk about it.’

  ‘Shame that,’ Chris said with a deep, satisfied sigh. ‘Especially since Cassie was on the phone to Liv when I left. What’s all this about a break?’

  When my brother started going out with Liv’s best friend, I was wary. He’d come to Long Harrington for my birthday and Liv had thrown me a party and warned Cassie and Abigail, her two best friends, not to touch him with a ten-foot pole. Abi listened, Cass did not. Chris had always been a bit of a shit with the ladies – well, a shit in general – but that had been even more of a worry than usual. I didn’t want to get in trouble with Liv when he inevitably broke her best friend’s heart. We hadn’t been going out that long and my brother had never been able to keep it in his pants for more than three months at a time and, try as I might, I could not see a scenario in which his relationship went well for me. What I couldn’t have predicted was Chris falling head over heels in love with Cass, leaving London and buying a house in the village after three months, proposing after six, then getting married and knocking out a baby less than a year later. Whatever magical spell Cassie had worked on my brother had worked and he was a new man. At least for her, anyway. Where the rest of the world was concerned he was still a total prick.

  ‘What did she say?’ I asked, taking another sip of my disgusting drink. Hoisted by my own lime-flavoured petard. I was happy it had worked out but it was massively annoying that he always seemed to know what was going on in my life before I did. Cassie and Liv were constantly texting each other, updating one another on every last little thing that went on. I’d tried to read their texts but since I couldn’t speak emoji I couldn’t understand most of it anyway.

  ‘I can’t believe you brought this piss; I don’t know if it’s cat’s, gnat’s or rat’s but I’m not drinking it.’ He took one more drink then put the half-full bottle on the fireplace. ‘She said you and Liv had some sort of barney and now you’re taking a break. What’s going on? I thought you had it all planned.’

  ‘I did,’ I said, fixing my eyes on a photo of the village millpond that Dad had taken when me and Chris were kids and visiting our grandparents. ‘And then I didn’t and now we’re sort of on a break.’

  My brother fixed me with an unimpressed gaze.

  ‘That’s it?’


  ‘That’s it,’ I confirmed. ‘And I don’t want Dad to know, so don’t say anything.’

  ‘If I’m honest …’ Chris stood up and strode across the living room to the reusable Waitrose bag on the table. He wasn’t quite as tall as me but he was still pushing six foot. Add to that the same blond hair and blue eyes and there was no mistaking we were brothers. Unfortunately. ‘I never saw it working out with you and Liv.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Eh …’ He pulled a six-pack of Samuel Smith ales out of the bag. ‘I’m not saying she’s not pretty but she’s not properly hot, is she? And you know you look like you could be brother and sister, don’t you? It’s all a bit too master race for my liking.’

  ‘Liv is hot!’ I couldn’t decide if he was trying to make me feel better about my situation or if he was just being Chris. ‘Liv’s really hot. And we do not look like brother and sister.’

  ‘You do a bit though,’ Chris said, pouring one of his special beers into a pint glass and returning to his chair without offering one to me. ‘I’ve seen her look all right, bare materials are there, but she doesn’t really try, does she? Always got her hair up, never got any make-up on. And I don’t think I’ve seen her out of jeans more than what, twice?’

  ‘I like her hair up.’ I settled on him just being himself. He’d been acting up ever since he arrived, barking about his big deal at work and talking about the baby like he was the second coming of Kanye. ‘And she looks good in jeans. You’re talking shit.’

  ‘And I’ve always thought it’s weird, her being a vet. Doesn’t it bother you, her stuck in a surgery all day?’

  ‘Where would you rather have her?’ I asked. ‘Chained to the kitchen sink, baking me a pie?’

  ‘Hardly,’ he said, sinking back into his seat. ‘You know I like an ambitious woman but the thought of her hand up a cow’s arse all day makes me gip.’

  ‘Cassie was a vet,’ I reminded him. ‘That’s how she and Liv know each other. From vet school. Where they both trained to be vets.’

  He shrugged. ‘Yeah, but Cass doesn’t put her hands up anything’s guts for a living. She’s a science teacher now.’

  ‘I think it’s brilliant Liv’s a vet,’ I replied. And it was true. I’d gone out with a fair number of girls before her and none of them had such cool careers. Dating a yoga instructor sounds like it would be fun until she’s dragging you out of bed at five a.m. for sunrise sun salutations and refusing to eat, well, anything. ‘She helps animals, she helps people, she has a stethoscope. And it’s good money.’

  ‘It’d have to be given she’s shacking up with a dropout,’ he replied. I wondered how upset Dad would be if I glassed him. I probably shouldn’t – we’d never get the Bud Lime smell out of the carpet. ‘Only kidding. I know you’ve got a job.’

  It was the air quotes around the word ‘job’ that pushed me over the edge.

  ‘We can’t all be a technowiz,’ I declared, banging my bottle down hard. ‘I wish I’d thought to start an app that delivers condoms and rolling papers to students for three times the price of the corner shop.’

  ‘Yeah, you really do.’ There was an edge to his voice that hadn’t been there before. ‘That app paid for my house. Remind me how you got yours again? Oh, that’s right, it’s Granddad’s house and Mum and Dad gave it to you.’

  ‘They tried to give me the wrong pizza.’ Dad walked slowly back into the room, weighed down by a pile of Domino’s boxes, just as I was about to leap across the room and choke my brother with our great-grandmother’s handcrafted quilt. ‘He had to call the shop to check. I wonder how many people don’t check what they’ve been given before the driver leaves? Can you imagine ordering a pepperoni and ending up with tuna? I’d be devastated.’

  ‘If Liv’s so hot and so brilliant, why are you on a break instead of engaged?’ Chris asked while Dad fannied around in the kitchen with plates and the world’s biggest wad of kitchen roll. ‘You’re not making any sense, little brother. She’s had enough of you playing carpenter and packed you in for someone with a proper job, hasn’t she?’

  ‘It was a mutual agreement,’ I replied, swigging my pissy beer. ‘No one has packed anyone in, we’re taking a break, working out some stuff.’

  I didn’t even know if that was true, but since I’d spent all afternoon literally passed out, face down in my workshop from jet lag, I hadn’t had much time to think about it.

  ‘Now leave it. I don’t want Mum and Dad to know until we’ve sorted it out.’

  ‘Getting married a big commitment,’ he said loudly, with an added cluck for emphasis. Chris Floyd, the world’s greatest authority on relationships. ‘It’s a lot to take on.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Dad asked, gleefully presenting us both with two slices of forbidden pizza.

  ‘Marriage,’ Chris said. I shot him a warning look but he went on regardless. ‘I was just telling Adam it’s not something to be entered into lightly.’

  ‘True enough,’ Dad agreed before taking a bite and closing his eyes, enraptured. ‘Is there something you want to tell me, son?’

  ‘He’s going to propose,’ Chris answered before I could. ‘Aren’t you, Ad?’ He smiled at me across the room and mouthed the word ‘what?’ before stuffing his mouth with pizza.

  Dad’s eyes opened up wide and I couldn’t think of a time I’d seen him happier. Pizza, his boys, and important family gossip Mum hadn’t heard first. He was living the paternal dream.

  ‘That’s bloody marvellous news, that is,’ he said, setting down his plate and hurling himself across the settee to give me a hug. Dad had become quite the hugger in his old age. ‘You know your mother and I love Olivia. Do you have an idea when you’re going to ask her? Have you asked her dad for permission yet?’

  ‘No.’ I chewed and chewed and chewed on the same mouthful of pizza but I couldn’t seem to swallow. ‘I haven’t decided anything yet. Probably best not to say anything to Mum until I’ve, you know, worked out all the details.’

  ‘Surprised you didn’t do it on holiday,’ he said, dumping himself back in his chair and nibbling at his leftover crust. ‘That would have been nice.’

  ‘Oh yeah.’ Chris looked at Dad as though he was a genius. ‘Why didn’t you think of that, Adam? Why didn’t you propose on holiday?’

  ‘Anyone want any more pizza?’ I asked, getting up and loading my plate with greasy, sausage-laden Domino’s before helping myself to one of Chris’s expensive beers. ‘Beer, Dad?’

  ‘Oh sod it, I will have one,’ Dad said, holding out his hand for the freshly opened bottle. ‘We’ll be dry again tomorrow. Your mum poured all my booze down the drain.’

  ‘I’m sure she’ll let you bend the rules to toast the happy couple,’ Chris said as Dad happily glugged his beer. ‘As soon as you do it, let me know, Ad. I’ve got a bottle of vintage Bollinger from the year you were born. Cost me a grand but it’s perfect for a celebration, don’t you think, Dad?’

  The senior Floyd beamed around the room at the fruit of his loins.

  ‘I know it’s cheesy but I am glad the two of you have stayed such good friends,’ he said. ‘It’s so sad when siblings grow apart. You’re making an old man very happy.’

  ‘I can’t imagine the world without him,’ I said, raising my bottle and giving my brother the filthiest look I could muster. ‘I’ve tried but I can’t.’

  Chris nodded, his cheeks flushing from the booze and the pizza and the general adulation while Dad carried on putting away his pizza, gazing at his children in such a perfect state of joy I couldn’t help but think Mum had wasted her money on a two-week yoga retreat. Forcing my pizza down my throat with a mouthful of beer, I stared at the wall and waited for someone else to change the subject. Now I was really buggered. There was no way my dad could keep schtum about this and there was absolutely no way Mum would leave me alone until I fessed up about what was going on. Meaning I really should make an effort to work out what that was before she got home.

  ‘You all
right, Adam?’ Dad asked, red sauce all round his mouth. ‘You look a bit peaky.’

  ‘Right as rain,’ I assured him, raising my pizza up high as Chris stifled a laugh. ‘Never been better. Never been better.’

  If only Liv were as easy to placate as my dad, I thought to myself as he carried on munching until his plate was clear. I knew I should have taken her a pizza instead of flowers.

  6

  Thursday night drinks at the local pub had been a tradition for Abi and me well before our eighteenth birthday but in honour of my relationship implosion, we took the unorthodox move of bringing it forward to Wednesday. It was necessary. After Adam left and I finished up all my appointments, I sent David home early and spent the rest of the afternoon hysterically crying in a corner of the surgery while all the doggy in-patients howled along in sympathy. It was like a really terrible deleted scene from Lady and the Tramp. Without going into the details, I summoned my girls to the pub and steeled my liver in preparation.

  ‘Evening all.’ Abi shuffled into our regular corner of the Blue Bell, setting a bottle of white wine on the table. Her chin-length brown hair was half up, half down, secured by endless hair grips and her accidental cool girl glasses were so smudged it was a wonder she could even see. ‘I’ve had a shit day, let’s get smashed.’

  I shuffled along the seat to make room, banging my knees on the underneath of the table as I went. Booths were the devil’s invention; it was impossible to get in or out of one without laddering a pair of tights and yet we always sat here. It was hard to break a habit after more than a decade.

  ‘What happened?’ I asked, pouring for everyone, my hand still shaking.