How Do You Like Me Now?

by Holly Bourne

  That Dee. That Dee who was with me only months ago. That Dee who sang ‘Elephant Love Medley’ with me in the car. Who always took my calls. Who understood it. Who could see the wall and the hurt it causes.

  She is gone.

  Because that Dee would never say what that woman in the living room just said to me.

  Maybe she’s right. Maybe my career isn’t the same. Not that she would know, she is only a teacher. And I have never had that thought – that bitter, superior thought – until this moment. Maybe she is saying it because she cares. But, what was clear, what was so clear from what she just said, was this: Having a baby is better. It is the better option. It is the option with the most depth. The most meaning. The most significance.

  … and you couldn’t possibly understand, hon, because you simply have not had one.

  I shake my head at the photo. If I allow myself to get angry, maybe it will stop me from crying. It’s hard enough, feeling the clock ticking and yet life not obliging to give you the things others have. To feel defunct and left behind and scared as hell about it – and the more nervous you get about it, the more you give off some smell that makes it less likely to happen. I did not ask for there to be walls. I swear I do not want them. I don’t want to feel like this. Why is Dee making me feel like this? Why would you make anyone feel like this about something they cannot help?

  I tried to tell myself Dee’s baby wouldn’t change anything.

  But it has changed everything.

  I push through the door and it slams behind me.

  *

  I decide to walk home. It is crisp and the sun is bright and golden. Christmas taints the air and it will be good for me, after all that. I mosey along back streets, discovering pockets of pretty houses I’ve never seen before, a small park I never knew existed. When I get to Brixton, I stop and look at the lights and try to make myself feel festive. Which is hard because it’s still daylight and some random yells at me to accept God into my life.

  I’m surprised by how unshocked I am.

  Instead I’m resigned. My soul has settled comfortably into the inevitability of what just happened.

  I decide to surprise Tom with some special sandwiches. How he will like that. I stop at the artisan bakery that used to be a KFC and order two Christmas sandwiches with everything on them – one meat, one veggie. I tell them to put extra cranberry sauce on Tom’s because he really likes it. I hardly get any change from a tenner. I cradle the giant sandwiches in my arms and plan the rest of my day. I will surprise Tom and he’ll be in a good mood because he loves it when I surprise him. Then I guess I should at least try and write some chapters. I might do some Christmas shopping online.

  ‘I’m home,’ I call, stepping over the threshold of our flat. Our home. Cat is the first to acknowledge me. She pads over, the bell on her collar ringing, and meows until I bend down to stroke her. Once I oblige, she flounces off in the direction of the kitchen.

  ‘In the living room!’ Tom’s voice calls back.

  I shrug out of my coat and gloves and hat and other winter paraphernalia and take the sandwiches in. He’s set up a workstation on the sofa – papers spread everywhere, both his laptop and his iPad set up.

  ‘Hey Tor,’ he says to his screen, fingers blurring over his keyboard. ‘How was Dee?’

  ‘She was fine. The baby is cute.’ I hold up my parcel. ‘I got us Christmas sandwiches from Flour Pottery.’

  Tom looks up at that and I gesture to the sandwiches like a magician’s assistant. He closes the top of his laptop with a click. ‘Have I ever told you how much I love you? How very very much?’

  I curtsy. ‘Shall we eat them at the table? I don’t want you getting cranberry sauce on the sofa.’

  I get out some plates with a clatter and ask him if he wants tea. He does, so I boil the kettle and plate up the sandwiches as I wait for it. I find a bag of Kettle chips and pour half into a bowl. When everything is arranged, I bring it to the table, where Tom is sitting, eyes wide with adoration. He beckons me to him, and gives me a backwards hug from where he sits in his chair. ‘This is just what I needed. Thank you! I love it when you surprise me.’

  I sit down and pick up my sandwich. ‘I know.’

  We eat in companionable silence. The bread’s gone slightly soggy from where the mayonnaise has bled into it on the walk home. I rip that bit off but enjoy the rest of it. The combination of tastes you only eat one month of the year. The tang of cranberry with the velvet crunch of nut roast between bread. Tom’s face is buried in his, small animal-like grunts emanating from him every five or six bites. I look over at him and I smile.

  And I say, ‘Tom, I want to have a baby.’

  I’m not even sure if it’s true as it falls out of my mouth. But I say it anyway. I put it out there. I was not planning to say it, but it’s there now.

  Tom puts down the last part of his sandwich. ‘What’s brought this on?’

  His face has changed, the smile has gone. His nose is wrinkled.

  I am so calm. I am holding my sandwich and I feel nothing but calm and certainty, like I’ve been switched on to autopilot. ‘I want a baby,’ I repeat, still not even sure if that’s true. Still saying it though. I reach out and poke the invisible boundaries of our relationship, then I flatten my palm and I push.

  He shakes his head, like I’ve let him down. ‘I knew you’d be like this after seeing Dee. I knew it.’

  ‘That’s beside the point. Do you want a baby, Tom?’

  He leans back, throws his arms up. ‘Of course I want a baby. At some point.’

  ‘At what point?’ I press, putting down the remains of my sandwich. ‘When, Tom? In a year? In two? In ten?’ I cannot believe I am saying all this. Why am I saying all this? I am breaking all the rules of us. I have picked up a pointy stick and I’m gesticulating madly to the pink elephant. I’ve even made a neon sign for the pink elephant. I’m relaxed, I’m not even angry. I’m just … finally saying it.

  ‘Is this why you bought sandwiches? To butter me up?’ he asks.

  ‘I didn’t know I was going to bring it up until I did.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘Well, it’s the truth.’

  ‘Do you really think now is a good time? I’m on deadline. You know I’m on deadline.’

  Cat jumps up onto my lap and tries to eat some of my soggy discarded bread. We don’t even acknowledge it. All my voices, the voices that usually keep me in check, scream What are you doing? Why are you ruining this? He was so pleased with you about the sandwiches! You could’ve had a nice day! But there is a new voice, an older voice. A wiser one. One that has been getting louder since I’ve started seeing Anne. One that has come back to this one life of mine after being away so long, and looked at the mess all the other voices have made, and that voice is saying No, what the fuck have you done?

  ‘We’re not happy Tom.’ I am just saying it. It is all falling out of me. ‘We’ve not been happy for so long.’

  The hysterical voices yell, Tor, what the hell are you doing to us?!

  The wiser voice whispers, Tor, finally.

  ‘Where is this coming from?’ Tom’s face is stretched into ugly defiance, like he’s ashamed of me, like I am a cat who just shat outside its litter tray. ‘Look, it’s not fair for you to get upset about Dee and take it all out on me. You’ve got to stop doing this, Tor. This is not about me and you, this is about Dee and her having a baby and making you insecure and …’

  The calm shatters. I stand. I yell. ‘IT IS FUCKING ABOUT ME AND YOU.’ My fists are curled into balls. ‘WHAT ARE WE DOING? WHY WON’T YOU LET ME TALK ABOUT US?’

  Tom kicks back his chair and leaves the room. ‘I’m not going to talk to you when you’re like this. You’re being hysterical.’

  Cat follows him into the kitchen, thinking he’s going to feed her. I stand with my fists still clenched and have no idea what I’m feeling, but know it’s a miracle I’m not yet crying. So many parts of me beg me to stop. To smooth
this over. To apologise. To tell Tom I didn’t mean it. He will punish me for a few days, sure. He’ll be crabby and silent and he will make a few jokes at my expense. But soon it will be forgotten and we can get back to normal. Our life. Our togetherness. The only thing I have really that everyone else has. The only tick I’ve got in the right box.

  The wiser voice tells me to follow him into the kitchen. Anne is in my head too, joining forces. She is saying, ‘It’s not unreasonable to want these things, Tori. It’s not needy. They are natural things to want. Do not let Tom think you are the problem. Not any more.’

  ‘You can’t just walk out,’ I call to him in the kitchen. I sigh and follow him in.

  He’s boiling the kettle again and making a cup of tea. How can he be making a cup of tea?

  ‘I told you,’ he says, his back to me. ‘I’m not willing to talk to you when you’re this upset. I can’t get any sense out of you.’

  ‘I’M NOT EVEN CRYING! I’M JUST ASKING YOU A SIMPLE QUESTION!’

  He turns with his arms already crossed and a silent ‘a-ha’. ‘Don’t yell at me, Tor. Don’t raise your voice to me.’

  ‘DON’T GIVE ME A REASON TO YELL AT YOU THEN!’

  ‘Tori,’ he warns. He turns his back again. He gets out mugs and he puts teabags into them.

  ‘Tom,’ I plead. Oh, this is where the tears come. The tears he always uses against me. ‘What are we doing?’

  He pauses. He turns. He looks at me. And I’m expecting more flames, more insults, more deflection. He gets so annoyed at me whenever I cry. Instead he meets my eye, and his, his are watering too.

  ‘I don’t know, Tori,’ he replies quietly. ‘I don’t know.’

  The kettle is bubbling but we ignore it. We look at one another. It clicks itself off.

  ‘We don’t make each other happy,’ I say. I say the truth. The truth that, for whatever reason, woke up in this moment and refused to go unsaid a second longer. ‘We haven’t in years. We don’t have sex any more. We argue all the time. We keep delaying the future and I think we’re doing that for a reason.’ A bubble of grief pops and erupts and the tears really come then. I bury my face into my hands and the sobs start ripping through me. This is it. We are breaking up. I know this. This is what is happening here. Because it must.

  Tom, unable to ignore my pain any longer, steps over and hugs me. He hugs me so tight. His smell, I’ve always loved his smell. ‘But I love you, Tor,’ he whispers into my ear. ‘I love you so much.’

  ‘I love you too.’ The grief makes it come out like a whistle, one you can hardly hear. My heart, it hurts so much. It’s twisting in my body like it’s been stabbed with a flaming torch. I say, ‘But I’m not sure if loving each other is enough.’

  He’s shaking his head into my shoulder. ‘I wasn’t expecting this,’ he mutters. ‘I wasn’t expecting any of this.’

  ‘I wasn’t either.’

  He has to believe this. He has to. We were going to eat some sandwiches and I was going to write some chapters. Maybe we could have gone for a walk around the park together before it got dark. Somehow, for reasons it will take a lifetime to truly understand, I changed everything.

  I feel the words falling out of my mouth before I realise I’ve even said them.

  ‘Tom? I think we need to break up.’

  I can’t believe I’ve said it. I’m in as much shock as he is. He goes stiff in my arms. We lay suspended, together, in the shared wretched agony of what I’ve just said.

  Then, then he lets go.

  ‘If that’s what you’ve decided to do,’ he says, ‘I’m not going to humiliate myself by begging you to change your mind.’ He turns from me, goes back to making the tea. I blink at him, my mouth open, my insides collapsing in on themselves.

  He’s not fighting for us.

  I blink away the tears so I can still see him. He’s getting out the milk now. He’s only making the one cup of tea.

  Tom was never going to let go. I realise that in this moment. It was always going to be me. He would cling on while never giving me what I needed. He’s been just as unhappy as I have but he was never going to be the one to give up. He broke my heart every day he didn’t love me in the way I needed to be loved. Every day he looked at me in disappointment that the reality of me hadn’t quite lived up to his fantasy. Every day he changed the subject or made me feel silenced at a wedding. But he was never going to be the one to end this. He is the good guy and I’m the villain. That’s how it’s always been, playing out, right until the music stops.

  The calm has returned, or maybe now it’s just numbness. ‘I’ll pack some things and go to my parents,’ I tell his back.

  ‘Tor, if you walk out that door, you can’t just walk back in again.’ He puts the milk back into the fridge. He slams the door shut. Then he grips the handle and leans into it, like he can’t stand without support.

  This is the moment. The moment where, after months, after years, of dillying and dallying, of putting it off and getting on with it, of suppressing and hoping it will be better tomorrow. This is the moment where the choice I’ve been avoiding stands right in front of me, gets up in my face, and demands to be made. I’m not ready to make it. But I don’t think I ever will be.

  My gut though. It knows. It’s known for so long now.

  And my gut says, ‘I love you, Tom. Goodbye.’

  *

  I pack up my moisturiser and retinoid cream and the plans Tom and I were making to go to Greece in the summer. I chuck some bras and a few pairs of knickers into a wheelie suitcase, alongside the names I’d secretly picked out for our unborn children. Children that will never exist now. I’m not sure how many pairs of shoes to take, or how many of Tom’s most private feelings and memories. Things only I know, after years of careful extraction during gorgeous moments talking under the duvet. I pick up that one time he told me about a childhood holiday to France, where his dad cried because he trod on a sea urchin and where Tom’s childhood ended with the realisation that his parents were fallible. I pack it in with my alarm clock. I wrap up the electrical cord of my travel hairdryer and place it in the suitcase next to that feeling that, no matter how bad a party is, you can still return home to someone who loves you.

  I flinch as the front door slams. The sound of Tom leaving.

  I do not know when I will ever see him again.

  And, just moments ago, we were smiling at one another and eating Christmas sandwiches.

  You can build a relationship for so many years. You can grow it and nurture it, give it foundations and walls, and tinker with how you want it decorated. Then in just one moment, you can blow at it gently by telling the truth and the relationship collapses like a teetering house of cards. Years of careful craftsmanship. One conversation to undo it all.

  There’s not space for everything in my suitcase. I’ll need to come back for the furniture that we will argue about. The cat who both of us will want. The flat will need to be put on the market and sold. I can’t get all my clothes in, and there’s no longer room for that safe feeling of being a woman with a long-term partner, even if that partner has sucked you dry. All the memories we’ve made, all the memories we had yet to make – this is all they are now. Memories. I fit in what I can and I zip it all up.

  I do not cry as I bend down to say goodbye to Cat. I do not cry as I stand with the handle of my wheelie suitcase in one hand and look around our flat – our life – and know it has already become a museum.

  Our ornamental wall clock ticks loudly and persistently. It tells me it’s only quarter to three. It tells me I’m thirty-two. The clock goes tick, the clock goes tock.

  I am alone.

  The clock goes tick, the clock goes tock.

  I may have just ruined my one chance at having it.

  The clock goes tick, the clock goes tock.

  I’m walking away from a man who says he loves me, and there is nothing or no one here to catch me.

  The clock goes tick, the clock goes tock.

&nbs
p; Being unhappy with Tom may be the happiest I will ever be.

  The clock goes tick, the clock goes tock.

  But I’m still leaving.

  Because I know that it’s the right thing to do. Because, somehow, somewhere deep inside me, I know it’s going to be OK. Maybe even better than OK. Maybe, in time, I could even be happy.

  I sigh and feel relief – yes relief – ripple through me.

  I close the door.

  I lock it behind me.

  I trudge along with my wheelie suitcase to the train station, the wheels getting stuck in cracks in the pavement. My lungs are not working properly, they will not let air in. It’s hard to breathe. I am gasping instead of inhaling. I keep thinking, I should go back, I should go back, I need to go back. But my legs keep walking away. Away from the life I’ve spent six years building. The sky is dull. Christmas songs blast from the open doors of shops selling silver ornaments in the shape of festive owls. ‘It’s the most wonderful time of the year’, the music says. I stop and Londoners collide into the back of me and swear.

  I cannot breathe.

  My lungs. My lungs will not let in oxygen. Everything swims; I feel my knees weaken. What have I done? What have I done? What have I done?

  And then the cloud breaks, only for a moment.

  The winter sunshine finds its way to my face and I turn up towards it. My face feels warmer, if only for a second. This sunshine feels just for me. The universe’s way of telling me, Tori, you have made the right decision. You deserve to be happier than you have been. It is going to be all right.

  I’m not crying.

  There will be tears, I know this. There will be pain. Doubts. Endless questions about who was to blame and could I have done more and did I leave too soon and is it actually all my fault, as I turn my face into my pillow at 2a.m. to try to muffle the endless sobs. There will be the missing him that creeps up at the most unexpected moments. Tiny things that I will remember will make me cry. As I hold a cucumber in the supermarket because he always said they were overrated. People I meet that I know he wouldn’t like and I’m so desperate to tell him about. I’ll worry about him constantly – about his happiness, his job, the health of his mother – and yet I will not be able to call. I’ll mourn the in-jokes and pet names that died when Us died. I’ll have the surreal pain of knowing there’s someone out there, under the same sky, who knows me better than any other human, yet I can’t speak to him again. There’ll be annoying moments, like not having the good vegetable peeler any more, or not being able to nick his deodorant when I run out. For the rest of my life, whenever I go to a restaurant, I will be able to look at the menu and know what Tom would’ve ordered. So many imprints of agonising, useless, information. There’ll be moments where I will look at this period of my life with true fondness, and moments where I will look at it with only anger at the senseless waste of time.