‘It’s Samantha,’ I tell her in a dull voice.
‘What about her?’ Erica’s eyes go wide. ‘Nothing’s happened to her, has it?’
‘Nothing’s happened to her, don’t worry.’ My lip wobbles a bit.
Traitorous lip! Why must you wobble in the presence of our boss?! Why can you not stay firm and rigid? Damn you, bottom lip! Damn you, and all that you stand for!
‘What happened, Ollie?’ Erica presses, as gently as possible.
‘She . . . she dumped me. I asked her to marry me on her birthday, and she dumped me.’ I hate how pathetic I sound, but I can’t help it. Erica is the first person – other than a suicidal bloke in flip-flops – I’ve talked to about this face to face, and it’s incredibly hard.
‘Oh, Ollie. That’s terrible,’ Erica sympathises.
‘Yeah. You could say that. I’m sorry I took so much time off.’
She waves a hand. ‘Don’t worry about it. When Chris left me, I could barely function for a month. Actual Life nearly never got going because of his awful timing. What happened with Samantha? You seemed so happy.’
I go on to tell Erica all about the hideous day at Thorn Manor, including the oompah band. I then fill her in about the following two weeks, and my run-in with Wimsy. I finish my sorry little tale by confessing that I have no idea how to get over the heartbreak. Not this time around.
Though I have to admit that I feel a tiny bit better at the end of it. Spilling my guts to someone I’ve always trusted is quite therapeutic. I say this to Erica.
‘That’s great. Glad I can be of a little help.’ She sits back and puffs out her cheeks. ‘Christ, though . . . that all sounds horrible, Ollie. I’m so sorry.’
God bless her, she didn’t even laugh at the oompah band.
‘Thanks. It’s been a miserable time for me.’
‘I bet.’ Erica thinks for a moment. ‘Well, what I’m certainly not going to do is tell you that there are plenty more fish in the sea, or that there’s another girl out there for you somewhere. People tried to tell me the same thing after Chris left, and I could have clawed their eyeballs out.’
I give her a brief smile. ‘Thanks. I don’t think it would do me much good at the moment.’
‘No, I’m sure it wouldn’t.’
‘I have to think of something to get me over this, though,’ I tell her. ‘I feel like I’m in a slow-motion car crash at the moment. If I wallow in self-pity for much longer, I’ll start to rot from the inside out.’ I chew on a fingernail. ‘Quite how I do that, I have no idea.’
‘Hmmm,’ Erica says thoughtfully, drumming her nails on the desk. She then narrows her eyes a little, and smiles. ‘Why don’t you write about it?’
‘What?’
She leans forward again, this time with a lot more animation. ‘Write about it, Ollie! You said talking to me felt therapeutic . . . Maybe getting it all out there to our subscribers will make you feel even better!’
‘Oh God, I couldn’t do that!’ I reply instantly, feeling my guts roll over.
‘Why? You’re one of our best writers. I knew that the minute I read “I Have a Rom-Com . . . And I’m Not Ashamed to Watch It”. And that feature you did last month about that weird restaurant, Control, Alt, Del-Eat, still makes me giggle every time I read it.’
‘Please. Don’t remind me. I can still taste the grasshopper,’ I reply with a grin.
Then I remember that I’d taken Samantha along to the place to help me review it, and the grin disappears instantly.
‘A feature about dealing with, and getting over, heartbreak would be wonderful for you, Ollie,’ Erica continues. She’s dropped into career-journalist mode now, unfortunately. If my boss has a flaw, it’s that her worldview tends to be driven by her commitment to her work. That’s what made her an award-winning foreign-affairs reporter in the first place, and what drove her to start Actual Life when the constant travel became too much. ‘It would be incredibly popular, as well. Everyone has been dumped at one time or another. Reading about your heartache could help other people with theirs!’
‘I don’t think I’m up to something like that.’
‘You could ask them for advice!’ she carries on, not listening. ‘I bet our subscribers would love that! An interactive feature, where you talk about what happened with Samantha, and ask for ways to cope with the heartbreak! It’d be fantastic!’
I shake my head. ‘I can’t, Erica, I really can’t. It’s just too raw for me right now.’
For a second, she looks like she’s about to protest, but seeing the look of pain in my eyes brings her up short. ‘Okay, Ollie. I understand,’ she says, a little deflated.
It’s a solid idea for a feature, of that there is no doubt. A lifestyle website trades on that kind of subject matter all the time . . . but I just don’t think I can manage it – any more than I could manage that article about great marriage proposals, albeit for very different reasons. All I want to do is go back to my desk and finish up that article I’ve been writing about retro cinemas, start that next feature about the bloody mocktails, and completely forget about my destroyed love life for a few hours at least.
‘What was the email you mentioned?’ I say, trying to change the subject.
Erica rolls her eyes. ‘He’s at it again.’
She doesn’t need to say who. We both know who she’s referring to.
‘What is it this time?’ I say, dreading the response.
In just the past five months, ForeTech has reduced our staff of twelve down to eight, cut our expenses budget by half, reduced our server space by even more, and forced us on to a cheaper web-design software package that only does about a quarter of the useful stuff the old one did.
My ongoing romance with Samantha was the only thing keeping a smile on my face in that time, and now she’s gone the situation at work seems even worse.
‘He’s decided to issue an ultimatum about subscriber numbers,’ Erica says, her expression darkening. Her red hair has definitely gone a shade darker too. This should be impossible, but it has, nonetheless.
‘What kind of ultimatum?’
‘He says if we don’t get them back above thirty thousand by the end of the month, he’s shutting Actual Life down.’
I let out a gasp. ‘Can he do that? Can he really do that?’
Erica shrugs. ‘Maybe? Probably? Who knows?’
‘But you’re on the board of directors! Can’t you vote any move like that down? I thought that was the reason you agreed to join ForeTech’s board when you sold the site!’
‘It was. But Benedict knows how to sweet-talk the others. He probably wouldn’t have let his company go public if he couldn’t. And if they decide to vote in favour of liquidating Actual Life, then there’s not much I can do about it on my own.’
‘Oh God.’
‘Yes. My thoughts exactly. I’m going to try to work on them myself in the next few weeks, and convince them to block any move Benedict makes to shut us down, but I don’t hold out much hope of it working.’
Erica looks decidedly miserable at the prospect of this. And who can blame her? Selling to ForeTech seemed like a good idea two years ago. It certainly brought more cash into the company to begin with. But, slowly and surely, Montifore has bled us dry – especially in the last few months. The bastard has made a fortune buying, selling and upgrading web-based companies. When he discovered that Actual Life was never going to be the profit-making powerhouse he thought he could turn it into, everything went sour. And now we all pretty much hang by a thread . . .
Erica bangs a hand on her desk, bringing me out of this unpleasant train of thought. ‘Well, we’re not going to keep the site running by sitting here talking about it. Do you feel up to working?’
‘Of course I do!’
I’m not sure I really do feel that way, but a bit of positivity probably wouldn’t go amiss, for multiple reasons.
‘Great. Can you get that cinema feature done by this afternoon?’
‘Sure c
an, boss!’ I spring out of my seat with a display of enthusiasm that only goes skin deep. I feel decidedly guilty about not writing the article about my break-up that Erica suggested, so I have to compensate.
Erica smiles. ‘Okay, then.’ She gives me another sympathetic look. ‘It’ll get better, Ollie. Honestly.’
Damn you, bottom lip! Damn you to Hades and back!
‘Thanks. I hope . . . hope you’re right.’
Before my boss can see me get too emotional, I scuttle out of her office and over to my desk – where many, many emails await, along with an incomplete article I really must get finished.
This is probably for the best. A bit of hard work will keep my mind off Samantha for a while. I glance up at the clock on the wall, which says 9.15.
Samantha will be at the garden centre now. She’ll be out doing the stocktake, after the morning delivery, as always.
Damn you, brain! You can join the bottom lip on its way down to hell!
I ignore all of the emails, deciding instead to concentrate on the piece I was writing two weeks ago about the flurry of retro cinemas that have opened across the country. I try to keep the back end of the feature as light-hearted as the first thousand words, but it’s very hard to do so. I just about manage to crank the damn thing out, and then mail it over to Erica for her to have a look through. It reads to me like something written by two completely different people (which in a way, of course, it is) but I’m hoping she’ll approve it.
Then come the emails.
Oh Lord, the emails.
It takes me a good two hours to get through them all. A lot are about setting up meetings and visits for future articles I plan on writing. In most of my replies, I make profuse apologies for not being in touch in the past few weeks. Then I start on the dull admin emails that clog up my inbox like fat, lazy toads on an electronic log. Quite how a feature writer on a website can build up so many admin-related emails in such a short space of time is beyond me, but it’s happened and there’s nothing I can do about it, other than wade through them all until I see daylight out of the other side.
I leave Benedict Montifore’s email until last. This is probably a mistake, but I can’t bear to read it until after lunch, after I’ve had another coffee and a chicken salad roll. I figure raising my blood-sugar levels will help me cope with it.
I couldn’t be more wrong.
The tone of the email is ghastly. Gone is the smooth-talking businessman of the past. Now, Benedict is showing his true colours, and his words are brusque, cold and extremely hostile.
Erica summed the damn thing up pretty well this morning. Benedict does want to liquidate Actual Life as quickly as possible. He says his motivation for doing this is ‘the dramatic drop-off in subscriber numbers in the past six months’. I unconsciously scrunch a sheet of A4 paper into a tight ball in my hand as I read this. The subscriber numbers wouldn’t have plummeted in the first place had he not cut our staff and resources to the bone!
I’m actually livid by the time I get to the bottom of the email.
This is not a mental state I am accustomed to. I’ve never been a person who is quick to anger, but this single piece of electronic communication has made me madder than a rabid badger.
I should send him a reply.
I really, really should.
I should send him a long and heartfelt response to this rude and destructive email, detailing how poorly I think he’s run the website since he bought it, and reminding him that he’s playing with the lives of eight human beings!
Yes!
That’s what I should do!
. . . I don’t, of course. If I’m not a person quick to anger, I’m certainly not a person who’s good at confrontation – even in digital form. Besides, I need this job to last as long as possible. My landlord is putting my rent up next month, and I haven’t finished paying off the TV yet.
So, instead of replying to Benedict bloody Montifore, I open up a fresh new document in Microsoft Word and start to write about mocktails for men.
I adamantly try not to think about that other article – the one about the spectacular proposals. The glorious feature that a version of Ollie Sweet in another universe is happily tucking into, having had his marriage proposal accepted by the love of his life. The utter bastard.
No. It’s mocktails for me. Whether I like it or not.
The first thing I need to do for this is think of a title.
‘Mocktails for Men’ is too boring.
‘Mocking Masculinity’?
Too negative.
‘One Man and His Softie’?
Too cheesy.
‘Dry Hard’?
Nope. Been done.
Hmmm . . .
‘Dumped Actually’.
What?
‘Dumped Actually’. That’s a good title for the story.
Eh? That’s got nothing to do with mocktails!
No. It’s for the feature about splitting up with Samantha. The one Erica asked you to write.
I’m not doing that.
No? You think a dull as ditchwater story about boring cocktails will help keep this website afloat, do you?
I don’t know.
Yes, you do. It won’t. But ‘Dumped Actually’ . . . Now that has potential.
No, it doesn’t.
Yes, it does. And you know it. It’d be huge. The subscribers would love it. It’d bring in new readers. Because Erica’s right . . . everyone has been dumped before. And everyone has stories to share.
I can’t. I just can’t.
Yes, you can. And you should. You need this job, remember?
I need to get on with my life.
Oh yeah. You’re really doing that, aren’t you? Nearly chucking yourself off a car park and crying into your breakfast cereal every morning.
Leave me alone.
I can’t. I’m your brain. And your brain is right.
No.
‘Dumped Actually’, Ollie. It’s called ‘Dumped Actually’. It’s a great title, isn’t it?
No.
Yes. A clever play on Love Actually. It’ll go down a storm. You should use it.
No.
Yes.
No!
Yes!
I don’t want to!
Yes, you bloody well DO!
I jump out of my chair, startling the others in the office out of their collective misery.
‘Sorry!’ I say to them, instantly feeling embarrassed.
To escape public scrutiny, I hurry back over to Erica’s office and throw the door open.
‘“Dumped Actually”,’ I say, almost breathlessly.
‘What?’ she replies in shock, lifting her head from her laptop screen.
‘“Dumped Actually”. That’s what I could call the feature about Samantha leaving me.’ I think for a second. ‘No. Not just about that. A feature about all the women who have dumped me over the years. It can’t just be about one person.’ For some reason, making that decision has made me feel better about writing the story. Writing about all of the relationships I’ve had somehow diffuses the impact of Samantha’s loss. Just a little, anyway.
‘I thought you couldn’t bring yourself to do it?’ Erica says.
I roll my eyes. ‘Yes, well. I’m heartbroken and alone. But I’m a journalist who’s heartbroken and alone. And I know as well as you do that it’d make a great article.’
Erica beams. ‘It would.’
This is the main problem with being a journalist. You’re always on the lookout for the next great feature idea, no matter where it comes from. And for some reason, people seem to absolutely love it when you write about personal stuff. That’s why I was going to do the feature about marriage proposals . . . if mine had gone the way I wanted.
The window into another person’s life is often a must-read.
And, to be honest, that’s especially true when that window actually looks on to something traumatic. That’s just human nature, I guess – the desire to read about how other peopl
e’s lives are worse than yours is often greater than to read about other people’s successes.
And it’s the nature of a journalist like me to satiate that desire, no matter how painful it might be.
‘And I want to do something to keep that git Montifore off our backs,’ I add. ‘A story about how men are drinking mojitos with no rum in them is not going to do it.’
‘Agreed.’
‘I’ll need some time, though. It’s going to be . . . difficult.’
‘Take as much as you need.’
I nod my head. ‘Right, then. “Dumped Actually” it is.’
Erica nods too. ‘That’s a great title.’
I roll my eyes again. ‘Yes, I know it is. I hate myself.’
And with that, I close Erica’s door again, leaving her to return to her laptop, this time with a broad smile on her face.
I amble over to my desk and plonk myself down.
That blank page stares back at me, just daring me to bloody well get on with it.
Suddenly, I am overcome by the same sense of vertigo I had standing at the top of the multi-storey car park. I’m contemplating the idea of jumping again, but this time there’s no Wimsy around to stop me.
I write the title at the top of the page, right in the centre:
Dumped Actually
By Ollie Sweet
I feel a cold sensation settle into my stomach as I stare at these five words. The first of what could be many. The first of what will be many.
Time to jump.
I told Erica that it would take me a long time to write ‘Dumped Actually’. I figured it would be hard for me to do it, given how raw my emotions are.
However, by six o’clock that evening, I have already written three thousand words, and am still thundering onwards to a word count that will easily represent my longest ever feature for Actual Life.
I start quite slowly, talking about my life up to this point, by way of some background information, before leaping into the meat of the article.
I talk a little about how I grew up with parents who love each other without condition, and have the perfect long-term relationship. I mention how this gave me a very positive impression of what romance is like, even at a very early age.
Dumped, Actually Page 6
