Dumped, Actually

by Spalding, Nick

  I think it’s so cool that you’ve asked to hear from other people about how they got over their break-ups. Even cooler that you’re actually trying the things they suggest. Although, I guess you probably wish you’d never gone camping, eh? ☺

  I just had to get in touch, because I think I have the answer to your problems. When my relationship of seven years with my boyfriend, Alfie, fell apart, I thought the world had ended. Couldn’t even get off the couch.

  But then my doctor suggested I try some mindfulness exercises to see if that could help. I was really sceptical, but had a go at it anyway, as what did I have to lose? At first it didn’t do much, but as the weeks went by I really started to change. Things began to feel a lot better. Not just about Alfie, but my life in general.

  Mindfulness teaches you to communicate better with yourself, and live more in the moment. Through it I discovered that I suffered quite badly with anxiety, which the mindfulness really helped with. I basically got my life back because of it.

  I also got a new job, because I now teach mindfulness classes, as well as classes in meditation techniques, cognitive behavioural therapy and other methods of relaxation and self-improvement.

  You would be more than welcome to come along to try some of them out, if you like!

  Anyway, hope you are well, and are not doing too badly. Best wishes and lots of love,

  Lizzy Moore

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE TRAUMA OF THE TINY WHITE BALLS

  I’m not a great believer in serendipity these days.

  It sounds like the kind of thing that only happens in badly written novels. Life may be full of coincidences, but they rarely result in a happy ending, in my experience.

  I’m not saying they all happen with disastrous results either, though.

  They just tend to happen. That’s the thing about coincidence. Nine times out of ten it will be completely inconsequential to your life.

  You’ll try to get into a Volkswagen Polo in the car park that’s exactly the same as yours, with nearly the same number plate, parked a few bays away from where your actual car is.

  Or you’ll bump into that same couple from Lancashire on holiday in Greece that you met last year on holiday in Tenerife.

  Strange and head-scratching coincidences that might seem important at the time, but in actual fact have no impact on your life whatsoever.

  But then there’s the one-in-ten case that actually does have a massive effect on your life; and for me – at least in recent times – that’s only resulted in bad news all round. Without what I thought was ‘serendipity’, I wouldn’t have been stuck at a theme park with a bogey wiped down my nose.

  Given all of this, I tend to ignore coincidence as much as I possibly can, especially the sort that looks like serendipity. Nothing good can come from it. I’ve learned that lesson.

  Finding appropriate feedback from my audience is not as easy as I’d like it to be. I get hundreds of responses from the continuing run of ‘Dumped Actually’ stories I’m writing, but there’s actually not a lot of them I can turn into the next story.

  I get a lot of emails and social media messages that are either congratulating me on the feature, or taking the piss out of me for all of my mishaps. I still get an unhealthy amount of pornographic pictures of Bambi in my inbox every week. I don’t know what’s more disturbing, the fact that I keep getting sent them, or that there are people out there making so many of them in the first place.

  I’ve also started getting an awful lot of men contacting me, asking me to pass on their phone numbers or social media profiles to Vanity. I ignore all of these, of course. They think she’s just an object of sexual desire, but I know she’s actually a real, living, breathing human being, who still needs time to heal.

  Of course, I am also continuing to get a lot of people contacting me with their suggestions on how to get over Samantha. Most of them run along similar themes: Get drunk. Go on holiday. Shag somebody else. Move away. Etc., etc. All of these are fine – and I’ve even tried a couple of them already – but my journalist’s nose does not twitch when I read any of them.

  It’s come to the point where writing a good story for ‘Dumped Actually’ is as important to me as getting over Samantha. I don’t know when this happened, but it’s definitely the case now. My desire to distract myself from heartbreak has been joined by my desire to fill out three to five thousand words with some quality storytelling. Of course, this is a distraction from the heartbreak in and of itself.

  Or at least it would be, if I could actually pin down some suggestions from the punters out there that I could go and experience for another write-up.

  I’ve bounced a few of them off Wimsy, to see what he thinks of them. I’m finding that underneath all that misery and self-pity, my new friend has an extremely sharp mind. This is proving very useful, as it’s always nice to have someone to chat to about these things.

  He agreed with me that nearly all of them weren’t worth exploring, though, more’s the pity.

  So, at the moment I only have three ideas that seem like they could turn into something I can use for more material. Sadly, one of them is right out, as it involves confronting Samantha about the reasons why she dumped me. This is not happening. Never in a million years. I will masturbate in front of an entire herd of fallow deer before I do that.

  Then we have Lizzy Moore’s idea of doing a bit of mindfulness. This sounds like so much new-age blather to me, so that one gets shoved to the bottom of the pile as well . . . for the moment.

  This leaves Ahmed’s proposal that I bury myself in my work and win the approval of my peers and seniors.

  Sadly, I feel like I’m already doing this.

  ‘Dumped Actually’ continues to be a massive success. Actual Life’s subscriber numbers are still climbing – even though they’ve levelled out a bit, as all things do after the initial rush.

  I am still popular with my peers around the office, although I’m starting to detect a little jealousy emanating from some of them – particularly Helen, who writes lifestyle features like mine, and is probably cursing the fact that she has a happy marriage with a wonderful man called Mark.

  Erica is also very pleased with what I’m doing. She was absolutely delighted with the story about Vanity – not just because she found the whole Super Mario thing hilarious, but because she was impressed with the way I portrayed Vanity (or Charity, for the purposes of the story).

  ‘That girl has a lot going on, underneath all that make-up and breast augmentation,’ Erica told me. ‘Sometimes I think people like her just get lost in the pressures of that social scene. I only think she turns up to yoga because it fits the lifestyle she thinks she needs to have. Everyone has to be gorgeous and perfect all of the time. It doesn’t leave much room for being a flawed, interesting human being. It was a pleasure to see that side of her, and lovely that you were so nice to her.’

  Vanity adored the article as well. She called me the day it came out and told me that she loved me for it. Which was very nice.

  So, the last thing I wrote for ‘Dumped Actually’ has been a success all round. Which now makes it even harder to top it with the next feature – hence my stress and anxiety over picking a subject worthy of the follow-up.

  I’m sat chewing on a knuckle at my desk, trying my hardest to think of a way I can take Ahmed’s suggestion on board (and failing completely) when my office phone rings, and that awful serendipity thing I was talking about comes a-calling.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Ah . . . is this Oliver Sweet?’ The voice on the other end of the phone is deep, baritone and speaks of supreme self-confidence, self-belief and possibly self-love.

  ‘Yes,’ I reply, hesitantly.

  ‘Good. I wasn’t sure if my secretary had your number right, and I didn’t want to have to go through Erica.’

  ‘Okay.’

  I don’t yet know who this person is, but I have a feeling that my testicles do, as they are starting to crawl up into m
y belly.

  ‘How are you, Oliver?’

  ‘I’m well, thank you. Um . . . who may I ask is calling?’

  There’s silence on the other end for a moment. It’s probably of the offended kind.

  ‘I’m Benedict Montifore, Oliver. I own y—’ He stops himself. ‘I own Actual Life.’

  Yep. My testicles were right on the money.

  ‘Oh, hello, Mr Montifore. It’s nice to hear from you.’

  What would be nice is if I could throw the phone down and dunk the whole thing in holy water, but I’d better be on my best behaviour with this man, as his capriciousness is well known, as is his desire to throw me and my fellow Actual Lifers out on to the street.

  ‘I’m sure. I hope I haven’t interrupted you from writing another wonderful feature, Oliver.’

  ‘No, no. I certainly wouldn’t say that . . . sir.’ ‘Sir’ is always good to use in these kinds of circumstances, isn’t it?

  ‘Good. Good. That “Love Actually” feature of yours is doing so well. I wouldn’t want to be the cause of any hold-ups.’

  ‘It’s “Dumped Actually”, actually.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘The feature, Mr Montifore. It’s called “Dumped Actually”. It’s a clever riff on the movie title.’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Very well.’

  ‘Okay.’

  I’m not entirely sure Montifore thinks it’s all that clever, given the tone of his voice.

  ‘Do you golf?’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Golf, Oliver. Do you play?’

  ‘Ah . . . not really, sir. I once came fourth in a pitch-and-putt contest on holiday in Plymouth. Does that count?’

  ‘No. It does not.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘But you can hold a club, yes? Hit a ball?’

  ‘I suppose so. After a fashion.’

  The fashion being one from twenty years ago, when my favourite T-shirt was Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, and the golf club I was carrying was largely made of plastic.

  ‘I wanted to invite you out for a round. It’s the way I like to get to know my employees.’ There’s a meaningful pause. ‘The ones I admire, anyway.’

  Oh dear. This can’t be good.

  ‘Oh. Okay.’ I have little else to say on the matter right now, as I’m still trying to process several things.

  First, that Montifore would deign to reach down from his highest of high perches to call me on the telephone. Second, that he is trying his very best to come across as pleasant to someone he must actually hate deep down inside. Third, that he wants me to come and play golf with him. And fourth, that he says he admires me.

  Me.

  Oliver Sweet.

  The person who is probably preventing him from convincing his entire board of directors to close Actual Life down tomorrow and sell off the assets.

  What strange and curious machinations are these?

  ‘So, would you like to come?’ Benedict repeats in a tone on the verge of becoming impatient. ‘I part-own a course not too far away. It’s called Sheldon Brook. Have you heard of it?’

  I have, indeed. It’s the kind of place people from Manucode probably wish they could get into. The women, anyway. Sheldon Brook is exclusively for men. And by men, I mean fat, old rich, white men, who voted for Brexit, think abortion is wrong for anyone but them, and don’t understand why people can’t just know their place like they used to.

  I’d rather use one of my crawling testicles as a golf ball than visit such a place.

  My mind instantly starts to conjure excuses not to go.

  . . . I have severe hay fever that means I can’t be in the countryside for more than ten minutes every six months.

  . . . I’m scared of large concentrations of sand.

  . . . I’m in the middle of transitioning into a woman, so I doubt the members of Sheldon Brook would want me anywhere near the place. It’d only confuse and worry them.

  . . . I have a deadline for my next feature that I just can’t miss.

  The last excuse would be the most sensible – and the only even remotely believable one – if I actually had a feature to write.

  Which is when it hits me. The pure, unlovely, unwanted serendipity of it all.

  It’s bloody perfect, isn’t it?

  For so many reasons.

  Not only would I get to have the chance to win the approval and respect of my boss – like Ahmed Rahami suggested – but I might also be able to convince Montifore that keeping Actual Life going is the best thing for him to do. Just think how much people around here would love me then!

  Also, I’d have an extremely good basis for a further ‘Dumped Actually’ story, wouldn’t I?

  Those are three large, fat, squawking birds that I can confidently hit with one expertly aimed stone – if I’m about myself enough.

  And yet – in much the same way that I never wanted to go out on the pull, as Callie Donnelly told me I should – I do not want to spend one second in Benedict Montifore’s company, and I do not want to visit a place like Sheldon Brook. There is no conceivable way in which any of that could make me feel better about my break-up with Samantha.

  . . . but if I hadn’t gone out on the pull, then I would never have met Vanity, and had the most cathartic and rewarding experience of this entire process so far.

  Sometimes, I have learned, you just have to risk going outside your comfort zone for something good to happen.

  I have tried to firmly remain in my comfort zone my whole life for one reason or another, so this can safely be considered quite a large shift in my outlook on the world.

  Bearing all this in mind, my hand tightens on the phone as I respond to Benedict’s offer.

  ‘Yes, Mr Montifore. I would like to come. It would be nice to see your golf course.’

  ‘Excellent, Oliver. I’m very pleased. It will give us a chance to discuss how you’re feeling about the future of Actual Life, and your place in my company. I’ll have my secretary call you later today to arrange a time and sort out all the details.’

  ‘Okay, Mr Montifore.’

  ‘I look forward to meeting you.’

  ‘As do I, sir.’

  Try telling my balls that. They’ve now climbed back up into the cavity from which they dropped three decades ago and are attempting to burrow in even further.

  The other end of the line goes dead, indicating that Montifore is done with me . . . for now.

  I sit back in my chair and purse my lips together.

  Whether this is a good idea or not, I have no clue, but at least I now have a sense of focus and purpose again. I’m not worried about what I’m going to write about next any more. I am comprehensively worried about spending a significant amount of time in Benedict Montifore’s company – but that is infinitely preferable to having nothing to tell stories about. I’ve got to keep my audience happy, whatever it takes.

  I want to keep Erica happy as well, so I’d better tell her all about this latest development. I’m sure she’ll be delighted I have a new angle for ‘Dumped Actually’!

  ‘You’re doing fucking what?!’ Erica exclaims when I pop in to tell her about my date with Montifore.

  ‘You don’t think it’s a good idea, then?’

  ‘A good idea? A good idea?!’ she snaps, and jumps to her feet. ‘No, Ollie. I do not think it’s a good idea!’

  My face flames red with shame. The last thing I want to do is upset Erica, and it looks like I’ve managed to do that in spades.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because . . . Because . . . Aaaargh!’ She throws her hands into the air. ‘Because he’s a bastard, Ollie! A morally bankrupt, self-centred, money-grubbing bastard!’

  The venom in Erica’s voice could kill a herd of elephants.

  ‘I know! But Ahmed thinks I should get to know him better!’

  Her face drops in confusion. ‘What?’

  I go on to explain the contents of Ahmed Rahami�
��s email, and why this is the reason I’ve reluctantly agreed to spend the day golfing with Montifore at his resort of eighteen holes and gross misogyny.

  Erica starts to pace up and down in front of me when I’m done. ‘It doesn’t matter. You shouldn’t do this, Ollie. Pick a different email.’

  ‘I don’t have another good email,’ I reply – which is a lie, of course. I have the ones about the mindfulness and confronting Samantha, but Erica does not need to know about either of them. This golf date with Montifore feels like the right thing to do. I just have to convince her of that. ‘Look, I don’t like the idea of spending time with him any more than you do, but think of the story I can write about it. And maybe, just maybe, I could talk him round into keeping us. And if I could do that, we’d all end up winning.’

  Erica looks at me darkly. ‘He won’t change his mind, Ollie. Trust me on that.’

  ‘Why, though?’ I ask in confusion. ‘If we’re making him money, and the site is popular, why would he want to get shot of us?’

  Erica leans on her desk. ‘There’s more going on with him than you know about. But it’s stuff you don’t need to know about. It’s just between him, me . . . and the rest of the board of directors.’

  I throw my hands up. ‘Well, if you won’t tell me, then what am I supposed to do?’

  ‘Pick another story.’

  My shoulders slump. This really isn’t fair. I know there’s good material in this. Erica is shooting me down for reasons she won’t go into and it’s very, very frustrating.

  Ah well. I guess I’ll just have to think of something else to write about.

  . . . you could tell her you’re going to do it.

  I couldn’t do that.

  Why not? Let’s face it, you’re her best asset right now. She needs you.

  Yeah, but she’s the boss.

  So is Montifore – and he makes a good subject for a story, doesn’t he?

  I can’t do it.

  Yes, you can.

  No, I can’t.

  YES, YOU CAN.

  ‘Ollie? Are you alright?’ Erica asks, sounding puzzled. ‘You’re twitching a bit and staring off into space.’