‘Why are you laughing?’ I ask, a little offended. I didn’t laugh at Mr Sparkles, did I? Or the Phuketian long one. He could show my misfortune the same kind of courtesy.
Wimsy looks at me in amazement. ‘Why am I laughing?’
‘Yes . . . why?!’
He wipes a tear away from his eye. ‘My life has fallen apart completely, and you’re actually up here contemplating chucking yourself off, just because some lass gave you the heave-ho.’
I am incensed by his lack of sympathy. ‘It was in front of hundreds of people,’ I say, trying to further justify my position. ‘One of them wiped a bogey down my nose.’
‘B . . . bogey?’
‘Yes! Right down my poor bloody nose.’ I point to the protuberance in question, by way of underlining the gravity of the situation.
Wimsy is clearly unable to grasp this particular gravity, as he starts to wail with laughter again, putting him ever closer to losing a fight with the other kind of gravity.
‘Oh God,’ he exclaims, slapping his thigh. ‘You are too much, pal. Just too much!’
‘My heart is broken!’ I shout at him, trying to make him see the seriousness of it all.
‘Oh, I’m sure it is, mate. I got dumped by a girl once when I was a kid. It was horrible.’
‘We were going to ride an elephant!’ I blurt out, some uncertainty now creeping into my voice. I’m keenly aware at this stage that my sad story of heartbreak and loss doesn’t really stack up to what Wimsy’s just told me about his own life. I’m in the depths of depression right now, but that doesn’t mean I’ve lost all perspective, thank God.
Wimsy stares at me. ‘You were what?’
‘Going to ride an elephant. A big, happy one with a curly trunk.’ I say this in a deflated voice, knowing full well that I sound just a little bit ridiculous.
‘Really? What would that trunk have looked like?’
For a moment, I distractedly start to wave my right arm around in front of my nose – then I realise Wimsy is taking the piss, and stop. The damage is already done, though. Wimsy goes off into another gale of laughter that sends him even closer to tipping over the edge.
I take a small step closer to him. He may have mortally offended me by not taking my pain and misery seriously, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to let him fall off this car park.
Saving Wimsy’s life has now become inextricably tied up with my own pathetic existence. Thanks to my run-in with this poor bastard, I am no longer feeling even slightly suicidal. His tale of extreme woe has brought me up sharp, and has thankfully knocked some sense into me.
Yes, I am as miserable as sin because I’ve lost the love of my life, but Wimsy here has instantly proved to me that things could be so, so much worse.
I feel like I owe him quite a lot for doing that. Stopping him from killing himself would be a good way to repay him.
‘Stay back!’ he roars, getting the crazed laughing under a bit more control.
‘I don’t want you to fall!’
‘I don’t care what you want!’ he snaps. ‘I came up here to end this sad little life of mine, and instead I have to get into a conversation with a walking comedy sketch.’ He looks skyward and bares his teeth. ‘I can’t even commit suicide properly!’
‘Then don’t! Don’t kill yourself, Wimsy!’
‘But I want to!’
‘But you shouldn’t!’
‘Why? Why the fuck shouldn’t I?’
Oh good grief . . . why shouldn’t he?
‘Because . . . Because . . . Because Mr Sparkles wouldn’t want you to!’
He looks incredulous at this, and with good reason. ‘Mr Sparkles?’
‘Yes! He was a good dog, I’m sure! I bet he loved you! I bet he wouldn’t want you to kill yourself!’ This is a horrible, horrible gambit to take, but I’m committed now. ‘He’d . . . He’d want you to go on! He’d want you to live! He’d want you to . . . to . . . get another Mr Sparkles!’
Wimsy looks at me with pure hate in his eyes. I don’t think I’ve helped matters. ‘Mr Sparkles jumped off a twelfth-storey balcony to catch a pigeon that was a hundred feet away. Mr Sparkles was a moron.’ His eyes narrow. ‘And do you know who called him Mr Sparkles in the first place?’
Oh God.
‘Yeah. That’s right,’ Wimsy hisses, nodding slowly. ‘It was bloody Penny!’
And with that, Wimsy tips himself backwards off the ledge.
I act on instinct, leaping forward and grabbing at Wimsy’s flailing legs as they fly up into the air. By some stroke of pure luck, I manage to get a firm grasp around both of them. As I do, though, his left heel kicks me in the face.
Both of Wimsy’s flip-flops have flown skyward. One describes an arc out over the drop, while the other flies directly up for a few feet, before falling back . . . and landing perfectly on top of my head.
‘Let me go!’ he screams, dangling over the precipice and squirming for all he’s worth.
‘No!’ I scream back, tasting blood as it streams from my nose. The flip-flop wobbles on my head, but does not come off. This is due to the fact that I’m rigid with a combination of fear and determination to not let this suicidal fool go. I can’t look down at him as I might lose my grip if I do, so I stare right out in front of me at that beautiful sunset, the cords standing out on my neck with the strain of holding up a fully grown man.
‘Fucking let me go!’
‘No, Wimsy! You have to live!’
‘I don’t want to live!’
‘You must, Wimsy! Life goes on!’
‘No, it doesn’t!’
‘Yes! Yes, it does! No matter what happens to you, you have to keep going! No matter how much it hurts! Things can get better! Things will get better!’
I’m not sure whether I’m talking to Wimsy now, or myself.
‘Oh, bugger off, mate! Just let me go!’
Wimsy bucks his hips, trying to free himself from my death clutch.
‘No, Wimsy! I can’t! I can’t let you go!’ Samantha’s face flashes through my mind as I say this, for some reason.
Wimsy struggles for a few more seconds, but I still have a good enough hold on him to stop him from getting away from me. My arms are really starting to burn with pain now. If I can’t get him back up here soon, I’m going to let him go through sheer exhaustion.
And then all the fight goes out of him, and I’m holding on to a dead weight.
‘Oh, fucking hell,’ he wails, arms dangling. ‘You’re a total bastard, chief.’
‘Maybe! But I’m right, though, aren’t I?! This isn’t the right thing to do! Neither of us should be up here! Neither of us should be even thinking about doing this!’ I grunt with effort as Wimsy’s dead weight gets even heavier. I have to convince him to climb back up. ‘Please don’t lose hope, Wimsy! Please, please don’t. Because I don’t want to . . . and if you fall, I just might.’
‘Oh . . . fuck me,’ he says, with heavy resignation in his voice. ‘Why did I have to bump into you this evening?’
‘Luck?’ I venture, feeling my grip really beginning to slip on Wimsy’s rather hairy shins.
He chuckles at this. There’s still a crazed edge to his laughter. ‘Why?’ he sighs, shaking his head. ‘Why? Why? WHY?’ He doesn’t seem to be addressing me now, but some unknown third party. I can’t say I blame him. Wimsy has been dealt an extremely bad hand in life, and I can understand him wanting a few words with the dealer.
‘Why?! Why?! WHY?!’ he screams a few more times, looking up at me as he does so. ‘Why?! Why?! Wh—’
He stops, staring at me.
‘Why have you got a flip-flop on your head?’ he asks in astonishment.
I stare off into the distance for a moment. I have no idea why I have a flip-flop on my head. There are many things about my life I don’t have an answer for, but this is currently the strangest of them.
I certainly don’t know what I came up here to this car park for. Not really.
Maybe it was to seek some
solace. Maybe it was to seek some answers. Maybe it was to flirt with something that would stop the questions.
I just don’t know.
I wasn’t planning on having a nosebleed with a flip-flop on my head, though. That’s for sure as cobblers.
For some reason, this makes me laugh. I haven’t laughed since Thorn Manor. It feels quite alien.
Wimsy also starts to laugh again, though this time it’s a cleaner sound. Gone is that edge of insanity.
So, for a few moments, we laugh together. Him dangling over the edge, and me holding on to him for dear life.
‘Oh God,’ he eventually says, looking down for a second at the gulf of space between him and the concrete below. ‘Oh fuck, I’ve gone and bottled it now,’ he adds tremulously. ‘You’d better pull me up.’
That’s easier said than done. Almost all of the strength is gone from my arms.
I solve the precarious situation by folding Wimsy’s lower legs over the car park wall with one arm, while leaning over to grab his England vest with the other. As I do this, he pushes away from the wall with his hands, pivoting his body upwards.
I feel something give in my bicep as I yank him to safety. I’m going to be on the ibuprofen for the next few days, without a doubt.
As Wimsy returns to an upright sitting position, the whole front of the vest rips, destroying his one remaining piece of clothing that isn’t floral.
I succeed in pulling him off the wall completely, and we both collapse next to each other on the car park floor, breathing heavily. Above us, the pink sky is darkening to red as the sun dips lower. Thankfully, my nose appears to have stopped bleeding, though it still feels very tender.
‘Well, what do we do now?’ Wimsy asks after a few moments, staring up at the colourful sky overhead.
‘I have no idea,’ I say, truthfully.
I may have moved away from the idea of ending it all, but I still feel like my life is over. I’m still lonely and heartbroken.
All I know now is that chucking myself off a car park is no bloody solution. There must be something more constructive I can do to get over this. What that is, though, I really do have no idea.
Wimsy looks at me. ‘Pint?’
I stare back at him for a second. This man is clearly in need of some serious psychiatric help, and I’m not sure alcohol is the best way for him to—
‘Yeah, alright,’ I reply.
Wimsy sniffs. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Oliver . . . Ollie, if you like.’
‘Alright, Ollie. Let’s go get pissed.’ Wimsy gets to his feet and looks out over the drop that he so nearly just succumbed to.
I also get to my feet, and look at the tattered remains of his vest. ‘I’ve got a T-shirt you can have,’ I tell him.
Wimsy nods and flashes me a quick grin. ‘Thanks very much.’
It’s not much, but I guess it’s a start.
With something of a relieved sigh, I head back towards the stairs leading down from here, with my new friend Wimsy at my side. I won’t feel completely comfortable until we’re on the ground floor, though.
As we walk off in the direction of my flat so I can get him some clothing, I once again think about how I owe Wimsy a debt of gratitude for showing me some much-needed perspective.
Okay, I feel no better about what’s happened to me, but at least I can appreciate that it could be so much worse.
And there’s a small part of me that actually feels quite proud of what I’ve done here tonight. I managed to stop a man from killing himself. That actually sounds quite . . . heroic when you get right down to it, doesn’t it?
I wonder if Samantha would take me back if she knew how heroic I’d been tonight?
Oh good grief.
I really am in a bad place.
But there are worse places I could be.
At the bottom of that car park with my shin bones poking out of the top of my head, for instance.
CHAPTER THREE
BACK TO ACTUAL LIFE
Never mind, though. At least I still have a job.
For now, anyway . . .
Things are hanging by a thread at the website I work for, and there have already been redundancies, so I probably shouldn’t turn up for work so dishevelled and with a hangover, after spending the evening drowning my sorrows with my new pal Wimsy.
However, that is exactly what I am doing today, so let’s hope no one’s observant enough to noti—
‘Wow. You look like you’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards’ – a familiar and amused voice says as I shuffle over to my desk – ‘just after someone’s thrown a brewery over you.’
I turn and affect what I hope is a sheepish grin. This actually makes both my head and my face hurt, which should give you some idea of the state I’m in today. ‘Morning, Erica.’
‘Good morning, Ollie. Nice to have you back at work after your obviously much-needed period of absence.’ Erica Hilton has an almost supernatural capacity to lace her words with so much sarcasm you can practically taste it. ‘I do hope the time you have spent convalescing from your – what was it? – food poisoning has helped you. It’s amazing how much the after-effects of such a serious complaint can mimic a roaring hangover, isn’t it?’ Her voice is now filled with as much amusement as sarcasm. The pointed look she’s giving me is hard to miss as well. You could probably see it from orbit.
‘Ah, yeah. Feeling . . . much better now,’ I tell her.
In point of fact, I don’t feel any better, of course. One heavy drinking session with a man whose life is a bigger disaster zone than yours is not going to get you over being dumped in front of hundreds of people by the person you thought you’d spend the rest of your life with.
I woke up this morning with that same sharp ache in my chest, much as I had the previous day. It was just accompanied now by a throbbing headache and a tongue comprised of eighty-five per cent shagpile carpet.
‘Really?’ Erica replies. ‘Because you don’t look it, Ollie.’ Oh dear, she sounds genuinely concerned about me. That can’t be good. ‘Why don’t you come into my office for a quick chat before you start work? I can make you some coffee. I hear that’s a very good cure for a hang— I mean, food poisoning.’
I start to protest, but then I am out of coffee at home at the moment, and Erica does have one of those lovely bean-to-cup machines in her office, so . . .
‘Okay. The vast sea of emails can wait for at least ten minutes.’
Erica makes a face. ‘Probably. Though there’s one you really need to look at, which I don’t think you’re going to like one bit.’
Oh joy. It sounds like I have some work-related anxieties to add to my relationship problems.
You don’t have relationship problems, you idiot. You’re not in a relationship.
With a heavy sigh (which is something I am so well practised at these days, I could probably win a medal for it) I follow Erica towards her office for what I feel might not be the most pleasant of chats.
As I do, I nod to my fellow writers and the website designer, who share the open-plan office space with me. Most of them look as miserable as I do. Things are not happy here at the Actual Life offices these days. Not by a long shot.
Erica busies herself making us both a coffee, while I contemplate the inside of my eyelids for a minute.
‘Here, drink that,’ she tells me, plonking the coffee down in front of me and returning to the other side of the desk with her own cup.
Once sat, she regards me with a mixture of curiosity and sympathy. Erica Hilton’s green eyes are just as expressive as her voice. She can convey oceans of intent with a simple look. It’s always been quite disconcerting. Marry that with red hair that inexplicably seems to change hue depending on her mood, and she’s a formidable person to be around.
I’ve maintained a very good working relationship with Erica since I started at Actual Life six years ago. That was when she hadn’t been bought out yet, and owned the website outright. Back then it was stil
l growing, and I was only the fourth staff member she’d hired. I got the job thanks to a speculative feature I’d written about why it’s okay for men to enjoy watching romantic comedies. Erica read it, loved my style and tone, and offered me the job straight away.
I’d like to think I contributed to the website’s huge rise in popularity over the first three years. I equally hope I’ve done nothing to hasten the decline it’s undergone in the last two.
The decline seems to have started right around the time that arsehole from ForeTech bought Actual Life to add to his portfolio of online companies. I’ve met Benedict Montifore a grand total of three times, and after each occasion I’ve wanted to hose myself down with holy water.
I’m willing to bet the vital parts of my anatomy that aren’t currently pickled in alcohol that the email Erica mentioned outside will be from him.
I take a sip of the coffee and rub my face, trying my best not to look Erica in her eyes.
‘What’s going on with you, Ollie?’ she asks gently.
‘What do you mean? I’ve had food poisoning.’
She gives me a look of derision. ‘Pull the other one, Mr Sweet, it’s got several bells on.’
‘What do you mean?’
Erica leans forward. ‘What I mean is that you called me two weeks ago to deliver a garbled message about having eaten some bad quinoa – which makes very little sense, by the way – and you sounded incredibly upset, rather than sick. I can tell the difference, you know.’
‘You can?’
‘Yes. Years of being a journalist talking to all sorts of people gives you a good ear for that kind of thing.’ She cocks her head slightly to one side in a questioning manner. ‘What’s really going on with you, Ollie?’
Oh hell. I guess I’d better come clean. I don’t like lying to Erica. I never have before, and it makes me very uncomfortable to do so now. She may only be six years older than me, but I look up to her a great deal as something of a mentor, and I’d hate to break her trust by continuing the charade of my quinoa-related food poisoning.
Dumped, Actually Page 5
