Dumped, Actually

by Spalding, Nick

  I slowly begin to lower myself on to bended knee.

  Sadly, those rubbery legs are still not up to snuff, and I tip forward with my knee buckling, managing to squarely headbutt one of the cream-coloured flagstones beneath my feet.

  ‘Ow! Bloody hell!’ I wail, pulling myself back to upright, with one hand going to my forehead. That’s going to leave a nasty bruise.

  ‘Ollie! Are you okay?’ Samantha asks, momentarily forgetting her shock at what’s going on.

  ‘I will be,’ I reply, trying my best to go back on to bended knee.

  It’s not going to work, though. I’m just too shaky, for a multitude of reasons. I’m just going to have to settle for doing this on both knees. This makes me look less like a proposing boyfriend and more like someone expecting to be beheaded for treason, but there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.

  I gaze up into Samantha’s eyes, and gingerly raise the ring box, opening it as I do. When the lid pops open, she gets her first look at the 24-carat shiner that I spent a month’s wages on. Her mouth drops open, and her eyes go even wider.

  Around us, the crowd issue a collective intake of breath. From one corner of my eye, I see my best friend Lauren with her finger stuck right up her nose again, staring at me with what I hope is amazement.

  This is it.

  This is the moment.

  My life since I met Samantha has been building to this.

  Time to ride the rollercoaster.

  ‘Samantha, I love you,’ I say, voice trembling. ‘And I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you . . . Will you marry me?’

  Samantha looks down at me, tears in her eyes. The sun bathes her in a warm, happy light as she takes a deep breath, steels herself and opens her mouth to speak.

  My heart skips.

  This is where the rest of my life begins.

  ‘No.’

  My jaw drops open and starts to twitch up and down a little. Suddenly, my tongue feels very fat. ‘Whaa?’ I manage to say.

  ‘No, Ollie,’ Samantha repeats, shaking her head, and backing away from me. ‘I don’t want to marry you.’

  The crowd, who have been on the legendary tenterhooks this entire time, issue a collective ooooooh noise.

  My jaw wobbles a couple more times. I’m starting to resemble a ventriloquist’s dummy – but one who has most definitely lost his ventriloquist somewhere unpleasant.

  ‘Bu . . . bu . . . bu . . .’ I say.

  Samantha looks around at everyone watching us. Her face is flaming red. ‘Get up, Ollie! For God’s sake, get up!’

  ‘Bu . . . bu . . . bu . . .’ I repeat.

  Her hands fly to her head in the time-honoured expression of overwhelming stress. ‘Oh God, Ollie! Why are you doing this?! It’s ridiculous!’

  ‘Bu . . . bu . . . bu . . .’ I say yet again.

  She starts to shake her head. ‘What’s wrong with you? Why did you do this? On my birthday!’

  ‘Bu . . . bu . . . bu . . .’

  Her head shakes even harder. ‘I can’t . . . I can’t do this, Ollie! I just can’t. I’ve been worried about me and you for a while now . . . And this? This just shows me what—’ Samantha looks skywards in apparent exasperation. ‘Jesus Christ!’ She looks back down; this time her face is resolute. ‘I’ve been thinking about having a talk with you, Ollie. But I didn’t want to do it like this!’

  ‘Bu . . . bu . . . bu . . .’

  Her face crumples into a mixture of anguish and frustration. ‘I don’t think . . . I don’t think we should . . . should see each other any more. It’s just not working for me. And this’ – she waves her hand around, taking in the crowd, the oompah band and the rollercoaster – ‘this just shows me why we shouldn’t stay together. It’s all just too . . . too strange.’

  ‘Bu . . . bu . . . bu . . .’

  Samantha backs away from me even further, so she’s now at the edge of the crowd – all of whom are watching probably the most memorable thing they’re going to experience today, even if they take multiple rides on the sodding Blitzer.

  ‘I’m leaving now, Ollie,’ she tells me. ‘I’m really sorry, but I think it’s best we don’t see each other again.’ The crowd then parts to allow Samantha to disappear into it . . . and to disappear from my life.

  ‘Bu . . . bu . . . bu . . . but I love you,’ I say, to no one in particular.

  From the crowd, Lauren moves forward, slowly walking over to where I am still knelt in utter defeat.

  My brain is simply not allowing me to process what’s just happened. All I can do is stare at the flagstones and continue to let my jaw twitch up and down with the horror of it all.

  Lauren approaches and looks down at me with what I think is the deepest sympathy a small child can muster. I look up into her innocent little eyes, trying to find some kind of answer in them.

  How can this have happened?

  How could Samantha do this to me? After all we’ve been through? After all this time?

  Lauren steps forward, as if to give me a hug. It’s the sweetest thing I think I’ve ever experienced. A moment of pure kindness in a sea of cruel horrors.

  I smile at her weakly and lift my head.

  As I do she raises one tiny hand . . .

  . . . and wipes a massive green bogey right down the centre of my nose.

  ‘Lauren!’ her mother screams with horror.

  The crowd, who up until now have seemed deeply sympathetic to my plight, can’t let this moment of high comedy go without a robust group chuckle.

  The trombonist in Horst’s band – a man who has so far displayed a remarkable ability to punctuate moments with just the right note on his instrument – gives us all a loud and tremulous waaaa-waaaa-waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

  So, this is how it ends.

  Not with a bang, but with a bum note.

  My world has just utterly collapsed around me.

  Time and space have become abstract concepts.

  Existence has fallen into a void from which it will never escape.

  I have become one with nothingness.

  All I am now is a smeared bogey, and a single, pathetic trombone note.

  Single.

  I’m single again.

  . . . and I’ve lost her. I’ve lost Samantha. I’ve lost . . . the one.

  Oh, the horror.

  The unbending, unwavering, unadulterated horror.

  Roll credits.

  CHAPTER TWO

  WE WERE GOING TO RIDE AN ELEPHANT

  We were, you know.

  A big, happy, grey elephant, with massive flapping ears and a trunk you could pull a tree out of the ground with.

  From almost the first time we met, Samantha and I both knew we wanted to visit India together, and ride an elephant by a jungle waterhole. There would be someone playing a sitar close by, of course. How could there not be? One of the first romantic movies we watched together was Monsoon Wedding, and I think the fascination stemmed from there.

  This attraction to the country was one of the first things we bonded over.

  Very soon, the idea of going on holiday to India together was firmly placed in both our minds. It was just a matter of raising the cash we’d have needed to take the trip.

  Of course, it was my intention for India to be the place we went on our honeymoon, but—

  . . . oh Christ, here come the tears again.

  There have been a lot of tears in the past two weeks, and I would have a lot of trouble trying to describe that fortnight to you.

  I’ve moved through it like a ship with no captain.

  I remember calling work to let them know I needed some time off. My boss, Erica, didn’t sound happy about it, which made me wince, but I managed to convince her I’d come down with food poisoning. It wouldn’t have mattered if she hadn’t believed me, though. There was no way I could face work. I’d have quit before going in. How the hell are you supposed to write an ongoing men’s lifestyle feature for a bloody website when your own life has turned into a liv
ing nightmare?

  I also called my parents.

  I told them about what had happened with Samantha and received exactly the same kind of response I have had from them after every one of my other break-ups. Complete disbelief that something like it could have happened to me . . . again.

  You see, my parents are, for the lack of a better phrase, the perfect couple. Their love for each other only seems to grow stronger every day, and I’ve never seen them argue.

  Literally, never. Not even once.

  This is an impossibility right up there with time travel – and yet if I could invent a time machine and trace their relationship right back to its roots when they were both eighteen, I bet I wouldn’t be able to find any indication that they’d ever had a serious, proper argument in their entire lives together. Dad doesn’t complain when Mum nicks his pudding, even when she doesn’t order any herself. He asks for two spoons, so she can have some of it with him. That’s how happy they are with each other.

  Because of the success of their relationship, my mum and dad have a hard time understanding what I’m feeling, bless them. They try, of course. Lots of moral support and fulsome affection. But they have absolutely no idea what I’m going through, so their advice tends to drop into cliché within five seconds flat – and tends to be nautically themed, thanks to their love of going on pleasure cruises.

  ‘Plenty more fish in the sea.’

  ‘Worse things happen at sea.’

  . . . and so on, and so forth.

  Mind you, I guess they’re right. I’m sure being eaten by a great white shark is worse than getting summarily dumped in front of a hundred theme park visitors, with a green smear of childish snot stuck to your nose – but I could have really done without them making the observation to me, if I’m honest. Still, I love them for trying. It’s much appreciated.

  For a moment, I considered picking up the phone and calling Brett, my best friend from university. He helped me through the break-up with Yukio – which up until now was the worst one I’ve ever had to endure. Yukio was the love of my life throughout the three years of university, and when she dumped me to move back to Tokyo, I could have slit my wrists with a Ginsu knife. Luckily, Brett kept all sharp implements out of my grasp, and got me drunk enough to get through the four or five months it took to start feeling like an adequate human being once again.

  But I haven’t spoken to Brett in a very long time. Life kind of got in the way. He has no idea who Samantha is, let alone any knowledge of my recent break-up. On Facebook, it looks like he’s had a baby and is enjoying the first few months of fatherhood, so who am I to bring him down with my problems? Also, I think I’d feel incredibly uncomfortable if I talked to him now, given how I’ve acted over the years.

  I don’t really have any other friends I can turn to. Samantha had become the central pillar of my social life and, now she’s gone, I feel all at sea, with no islands to swim to.

  Every time I’ve lost at the game of love, I’ve cursed myself for not staying in better contact with my friends, and yet every time I start a new relationship I do exactly the same thing. I remember they used to have a nickname for me whenever I found love again – Invisible Ollie. Alright, not the punchiest of nicknames, but you can’t fault them for accuracy.

  You don’t get to do that kind of thing over and over again without losing contact with those friends almost permanently. I’m certainly not close enough to anyone to seek comfort from them for my problems now. I’m sure it’d come across as totally out of order, anyway. Invisible Ollie only ever pops up again when he’s been dumped – that was what they thought then, and it’s what they’d think now.

  You see, I don’t do things by half measures, me. When I fall in love, it becomes all-encompassing. I throw myself into my relationships 100 per cent, and that sadly has an effect on the other connections I have in my life.

  I have to confess, I often put my romances ahead of my friendships. It’s not something I do consciously, but it always happens all the same. When I’m head over heels in love, I also tend to get my head stuffed up my arse when it comes to my friends.

  All of this leaves me sat at home in front of the television alone, watching the evening news unfold before my reddened eyeballs.

  This is half an hour of unmitigated horror, of course, and is doing nothing for my current mood. There are only so many reports about famine, war, poverty and politics you can watch before wanting to shove a fork into those reddened eyeballs, making them even redder, for very different reasons.

  What really finishes me off is when they go over to their Asia correspondent for a story about poachers killing elephants in India for their ivory. I just can’t take that. Not now. Possibly not ever.

  I turn the channel, to find that Sky Movies is showing Notting Hill, one of my favourite movies. In other circumstances I would happily watch it . . . but the idea of sitting through a romantic comedy right now fills me with more horror than the elephant poaching.

  I flick the television off, and ponder my next move.

  It’s six thirty on a balmy, cloudy, summer’s day. Perhaps it would be a good idea for me to go out for a walk.

  I’ve done a lot of this in the past two weeks. When you feel cast adrift and miserable, it’s very hard to concentrate on anything, and mindlessly trolling around the local streets is about the only way of passing the time that you can come up with.

  I could do with getting out for some fresh air to clear my head today, that’s for certain. Not only am I still in deep, deep mourning for the loss of my relationship, I also know that I have to go into work for the first time since the break-up tomorrow, and that’s going to be a cold slice of awfulness in and of itself.

  Not only will I have to explain away my absence without actually telling anyone what’s happened to me, I’ll also have to contend with the febrile atmosphere at the website’s office as well.

  I’ve loved working for Actual Life for the past six years.

  It’s been my dream job – working at an exciting lifestyle website . . . like the one Actual Life used to be, anyway.

  But since the takeover happened six months ago, it’s been a fast slide down into the mire of corporate-takeover shenanigans and painful cutbacks. Samantha was frankly the only thing keeping me from getting extremely depressed about the whole situation, and now she’s gone there’s nothing to prevent that from happening. God knows what’s occurred at work over the two weeks I’ve been absent. But I’ll find out tomorrow, I’m sure.

  I was planning on writing a lovely long article about my successful dream proposal to surprise everyone at the website with – but I obviously won’t be able to do that now, will I? In fact, I had a great idea for an extended feature about spectacular wedding proposals in general, with mine as the centrepiece – one I’ll have no chance to do.

  With that idea firmly thrown out of the window, I’ll need to think of something else, which isn’t going to be easy, considering my state of mind.

  I might have to dust off that story about mocktails I’ve been avoiding, largely because I’m not the biggest fan of cocktails – alcohol-free or otherwise.

  But now even I’m getting sick of hearing me talk about how horrible everything is, so let’s get up and go for a soothing walk around the park, shall we?

  It takes me about ten minutes to amble through the streets to the broad expanse of publicly owned green space, which has actually gone a rather sickly shade of yellow thanks to the lack of rain recently.

  I immediately decide that this was a terrible place to come when I start to spot happy couples walking along arm in arm all around me. Whatever pleasure I may have thought I could get from this little sojourn is extinguished as I pass my third cheerful couple, playing with their equally cheerful little dog.

  Right after this, I am almost struck dumb with misery when a hugely expensive grey Aston Martin passes me on the road just outside the park with a number plate that reads ‘DB SAM’.

  Seriously. I k
id you not.

  DB SAM.

  Dumped By Sam.

  Of course, it doesn’t actually mean that. It’s an Aston Martin DB 8, and the penis in the huge black sunglasses sitting in the driver’s seat is probably called Samuel . . . But at the same time it absolutely DOES mean that. I’m 100 per cent sure of it.

  I came out for a stroll through the park, but it’s quite clear that the universe is trolling me this evening – the infinitely wide bastard.

  I actually stop there on the pavement and look down at my shoes with a leaden sigh.

  When I begin walking again, it’s not in the direction of my one-bedroom flat. Instead I head towards the town centre. I am not really conscious of why I’m heading in this direction, at least not at first. The shops are a good half an hour’s walk away, and I really should be going home, as I have an early start tomorrow – and yet, here I am, trudging along the pavement in the direction of Aldi and H&M, for reasons which escape my conscious mind for the moment.

  But then it comes into view.

  The thing my subconscious has been guiding me towards ever since I saw that bloody number plate.

  The multi-storey car park squats like an ugly grey eyesore at the edge of the town centre. Butted up against the aforementioned Aldi, it is usually full to bursting with the vehicles of enthusiastic and unenthusiastic shoppers alike. From it, you can easily make your way along the main high street and into The Spire – the new shopping mall somebody thought would look really good plonked next to the five-hundred-year-old church, which was quite happy for half a millennium without a Starbucks parked beside it, thank you very much.

  At this time of the evening, the multi-storey is largely empty, as most of the shops have closed for the day. I see a few people wandering around Aldi looking for bargain meat, though. I myself often wander around Aldi looking for bargain meat. It’s what you do when you’re in Aldi. You look for bargain meat, and those knock-off Oreo cookies that taste exactly the same, but cost half as much.

  Samantha and I shopped in Aldi three days before she dumped me. We bought a big shoulder of lamb for five quid, and two packets of Moreos.