Dumped, Actually

by Spalding, Nick

  Mum wags a finger at him. ‘Yes, Leonard! Completely intolerable!’

  ‘I . . . I . . . Er . . .’ I stammer.

  What the hell is this?

  What in God’s name is going on?

  Mum and Dad don’t argue! Mum and Dad never argue!

  Dad thumps his hand down on the counter. ‘Oh, for God’s sake Daphne. We needed a new pergola, and that one was fifty per cent off. You know we need a new one!’

  ‘Yes, Leonard, but I thought we’d agreed to wait until we’d picked out the right clematis, so we’d know what colour pergola to get!’

  ‘I know that. But this was a bargain. We can choose the clematis to go around the pergola instead!’

  ‘But I don’t want to do it that way, you insufferable man!’

  ‘And I don’t want to waste money on a more expensive pergola, when this one will do the job very well, for half the price!’

  ‘Oh bloody hell, Leonard! We could have afforded the full-price one without a problem!’

  ‘Yes, but why spend more than you need to?’

  ‘You’ll just have to paint it, to match whatever clematis I choose.’

  ‘Oh right! It’s whatever clematis you choose, now, is it?’

  ‘Yes, Leonard! You choose the pergola without consulting me! So I get to choose the clematis without consulting y—’

  ‘STOP!’

  Mum and Dad both cry out in shock and immediately look at me.

  ‘PLEASE STOP!’ I shriek, tears coursing down my cheeks.

  This isn’t Mum and Dad.

  This isn’t what Mum and Dad do.

  They don’t argue. They don’t fight. They don’t talk to each other like this.

  What is happening? Why are they doing this?

  Why can’t I stop bloody crying???

  ‘Oliver! Oh, Oliver!’ Mum says, all the anger gone from her voice. She rushes over to me and gives me a hug. ‘What’s wrong, son? Tell me.’

  Dad also comes over, the look of anger on his face replaced with worry. ‘Whatever is the matter, my boy?’

  I point at them both as Mum stands back a bit. ‘You two. Arguing like that. Talking to each other like that. What’s wrong? You were so happy yesterday! What the hell is wrong?’

  Mum and Dad look to one another briefly in confusion, before returning their gazes to me.

  ‘Why . . . nothing’s wrong, Oliver,’ Mum says softly. ‘Your Dad and I were just having a disagreement about the pergola.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Dad interjects. ‘Nothing to worry about.’

  ‘But . . . But I’ve never heard you speak to one another like that,’ I insist. ‘There must be something wrong with you. You’ve never spoken to one another like that!’ I wipe my eyes. ‘Are you . . . Are you getting a divorce? Was yesterday just a sham to keep everyone thinking your marriage was okay?’

  ‘Oh my God!’ Mum exclaims in horror.

  ‘Of course not, Oliver!’ Dad blurts out. ‘Why would you think such a thing?’

  ‘Because you were arguing.’ I say this like it’s the most bizarre and dreadful thing in the world – which I guess it is, from my perspective.

  ‘So?’

  ‘You and Mum never argue. You . . . You have the perfect marriage, Dad.’ I look at him, misery writ large across my face. ‘You have the thing I can never have.’

  Mum looks aghast, before quickly staring at her husband, who appears equally shocked.

  ‘I think we should sit down and have a chat,’ Mum suggests, pulling out one of the kitchen chairs beside us. ‘Why don’t you sit on this, Oliver? I’ll make us all a nice cup of tea, and you can talk to us.’

  Mum looks quite distressed. And no wonder. This is the first time I’ve expressed my feelings quite so openly with them. It must be something of a shock.

  While Mum busies herself making the tea, Dad offers me a wad of kitchen roll. ‘Here you go, son. There’s no need to cry. I’m sure we can get to the bottom of whatever it is that’s getting you down.’

  I look up at him. ‘I don’t know, Dad. I’m really not in a good place . . .’

  We sit in silence for a few minutes while Mum pours the tea, Dad’s hand gently resting on my arm. I dab away the tears from my eyes and blow my nose.

  I am such a bloody mess.

  ‘Now,’ Mum says, plonking the tea in front of me and sitting herself down in one of the other chairs, ‘why don’t you tell us what’s going through your mind, son?’

  I take a deep breath, and start to talk.

  It barely takes me five minutes to tell them what the problem is.

  That’s the way with the ‘big stuff’. It’s rarely that complicated or hard to describe, once you allow yourself to do it. It often goes that when we’re finally ready to be honest about how we feel, it never takes that long to get it off our chests. We think the big things are complicated and difficult to explain, because we’re afraid of them. Afraid of facing, and expressing, the unvarnished truth. Anything that scary must be hard to explain, right?

  But within those five minutes, I neatly manage to outline everything that’s going through my head, from the shock of seeing Mum and Dad argue, to the knowledge that I’ve spent my life chasing the kind of relationship they have with each other. A relationship that’s been undermined completely by the argument I’ve just seen them have. Hence all the tears.

  ‘You . . . You think we never argue?’ Dad asks me, a little stunned.

  ‘Yes.’ I nod my head. ‘You’ve never argued. I’ve never seen you raise your voices to each other once. That’s why it was such a shock to see you doing it now.’

  ‘Oh, Oliver. Your father and I snap at each other all the time,’ Mum says.

  Dad nods. ‘Oh yes. We’ve had some right barnstormers.’

  ‘But I’ve never seen you . . . never heard you . . .’

  ‘Of course you haven’t, sweetheart,’ Mum tells me, hand squeezing mine. ‘We’ve always tried to keep it away from you. You’re our son, and we love you. We don’t want you to see us arguing.’

  I blink three times in quick succession, staring at her. ‘You argue all of the time?’

  I am utterly incredulous.

  ‘Of course we do!’ Dad exclaims. ‘Every couple does, Oliver. It’s just the way of things.’

  I shake my head again, adamant. ‘No. You’re not like other couples. You’re . . . You’re perfect.’

  Dad actually lets out a loud bray of laughter, while Mum puts a hand over her mouth.

  ‘There’s no such thing as perfect, my boy!’ Dad says. ‘And just as well. Perfect sounds bloody boring to me!’

  ‘Leonard,’ Mum chides, before leaning forward in her chair towards me. ‘Is that what you’ve always believed, Ollie? That me and your dad have some sort of perfect marriage . . . with no problems?’

  ‘Yes! Absolutely! And I realised yesterday that I keep screwing things up with the women in my life because I’ve been trying to emulate you. Trying to emulate your relationship. Because . . . Because it’s perfect.’

  Mum puts her hand over mine. ‘Sweetheart, nothing is perfect. No relationship is perfect. There’s just no such thing.’

  No such thing.

  No. Such. Thing.

  Oh God.

  The universe makes another one of those fundamental shifts as I let this sink in. It’s going to have to stop making them soon, otherwise I’m going to fall off the bastard.

  I’ve been chasing an impossibility.

  I’ve been hankering after a falsehood.

  I’ve been wasting my time on a thing that can never be.

  I heave the longest, loudest and deepest sigh I have ever let out of my body, and slump in the chair. It feels like someone has let the air out of me.

  Some vast and invisible weight is being lifted from my shoulders as I sit there staring at my mother’s concerned face.

  Everything slots into place in my mind – for the first time in my life.

  I have idealised the notion of romance, bec
ause I idealised the way I saw my parents.

  I have lived with this dream of the perfect relationship that was so strong, it forced me into making terrible decisions . . . and into losing the girl of my dreams.

  I have been nothing short of a bloody fool.

  ‘Oh dear. We’re so sorry, son,’ Dad says, looking pretty damn miserable himself now. ‘We always tried to protect you from any problems we might have had . . . but maybe we went a little too far with it.’

  Mum nods in agreement.

  Both of them look guilty.

  That’s horrifying.

  ‘No! No!’ I say, sitting up straight again. ‘You mustn’t blame yourselves at all! You gave me everything I needed when I was a child. You loved me, cared for me, and always did the right thing by me. None of this is your fault. It’s all down to me. Because . . . Because I didn’t want to see. You understand? Because . . . I didn’t . . . I didn’t want to grow up.’

  Oh boy.

  There it is.

  There’s the answer.

  I have lived my entire adult life with a child’s idea of what romance is, and what it should be. I have walked around with this idealistic vision in my head – born of what I thought my parents’ relationship was.

  Watching all of those bloody romantic comedies probably didn’t help, either. They would have just reinforced the fantasy I had in my head. Maybe I should have watched more action movies, after all.

  I have simply not allowed myself to grow up. To accept that no relationship is perfect. That they all have their own problems.

  And it took an obviously inconsequential argument about a pergola to realise that.

  I say all of this to my parents.

  They sit in silence digesting everything, before Dad lets out an explosive breath. ‘Blimey. I never realised that’s how you felt.’

  ‘Nor did I,’ Mum agrees. ‘We made things very difficult for you.’

  I shake my head again. ‘No, Mum. I made things very difficult for myself.’ I square my shoulders a little. ‘And that’s the truth. I’ve been acting like a child for too long when it comes to the women in my life. When it comes to my relationships. And that needs to change. If I’m ever going to find the right woman, I have to grow up. I have to see being in love for what it really is.’

  ‘And what is that?’ Mum asks, curiosity in her voice now.

  I think for a moment. ‘Imperfect. Frustrating. Difficult.’ Sam’s face flashes through my mind, followed by Gretchen’s, Yukio’s and Lisa’s. ‘And wonderful,’ I say with an exhausted smile.

  Mum also smiles, and once again squeezes my hand. ‘I’m very proud of you, son,’ she says softly.

  I feel my dad’s hand on my shoulder. ‘Me too, my boy.’

  We sit there for a moment together in warm communion, before Dad eventually breaks the silence. ‘Just . . . Just try not to get a boner in front of any more baby deer, there’s a good boy.’

  ‘Leonard!’ Mum roars in shock.

  We carried on talking, the three of us, for hours that day.

  Not as two parents and a child, but as three adults. Probably for the first time.

  And that is what was important – that I began to see my parents for who they actually are. Two flawed, but wonderful human beings, who have had their ups and downs in life, just like everybody else. By doing that I can accept that their relationship is not perfect, that it’s not the dream marriage I thought it was. That should give me more realistic expectations of what I can achieve. Which can only be a good thing.

  And as we talked, I started to feel better. Much better, in fact.

  I never realised how much pressure I had been putting on myself to achieve this impossible dream of the perfect relationship. Understanding that there’s no such thing has immediately alleviated almost all of that pressure. I feel like I’ve had a boil lanced.

  Okay, there is still a lingering regret inside me as well. Regret that I lost Sam because of my unrealistic expectations. Regret that I’ve spent so much of my life looking at love from the wrong angle. Regret that I tried to force things with Sam, even though I had no idea if we were actually compatible as human beings. How could you after only three months? And the worst part of that lingering regret is that I will never know how things could have gone with her if I’d been more laid back and realistic about the whole thing.

  But it does feel small now, somehow – all that regret. Like an afterthought. Like something I know I’ll be able to leave behind me as I move forward.

  And funnily enough, I feel like I have a newfound sense of strength inside me.

  Chasing an impossible dream all of this time has made me weak. It’s made me needy. It’s made me desperate.

  But no more. Not from this day forward.

  I am not going to chase that dream any more. Instead, I am going to face reality head on. I’m going to live in the real world, and I’m going to bloody well enjoy it. Because you can never really enjoy a fantasy . . . or a dream. You might as well try to hug smoke.

  By the time I left Mum and Dad’s house that afternoon I felt like I was walking on air.

  To finally have a real and proper understanding of yourself is a wonderful thing. To gain knowledge of what actually makes you tick is a gift that not many people receive in their lives. I should count myself lucky.

  I have spent months lost in a fog of confusion and self-doubt – ever since that fateful day at Thorn Manor. But now, for the first time in a long time, I have a clear head.

  Which gives me a spring in my step.

  And now I need to do something . . .

  Something big.

  Something huge.

  Something that I can only do now that the weight has been lifted from me. I feel a huge surge of energy coursing through me almost permanently at the moment. I’m like a cat on a hot tin roof.

  And I need some sort of release. Some sort of grand gesture – to myself, and to everyone else, to show that Ollie Sweet has started a new chapter of his life. A better chapter.

  One with more exciting words in it.

  And I think I have just the thing I can use to show all of this, sat back at the Actual Life offices, waiting for me, in my email inbox . . .

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE FINE

  No. No. Stop it.

  Seriously, stop it. It’s going to be absolutely fine.

  I have to do this.

  I want to do this.

  I’m going to be perfectly safe. The company I found on Google is a well-respected skydive outfit that operates from an ex-RAF airfield. They have many, many five-star reviews on TripAdvisor AND Trustpilot. The guy who runs the company is an ex-paratrooper himself.

  It all sounds legitimate, safe and expertly run. I’ve done my research. I will be fine.

  So, are you going to come and watch me throw myself out of a functioning plane, or not?

  The crowd that turns up at Harriston Airfield on a cool September morning is quite a bit larger than I thought it would be.

  There’s about a thousand people here.

  A thousand.

  And all of them are standing around shivering, because I thought it would be a nice idea to ask the readers of ‘Dumped Actually’ if they’d like the chance to watch me do something totally out of character.

  . . . but not at all risky. I will be fine. Absolutely fine.

  You might argue that a thousand people isn’t all that big a crowd, given how popular I’ve been telling you ‘Dumped Actually’ is all this time, but when I say I only put the invitation out yesterday morning, would that change your perspective?

  It was a spur-of-the-moment decision, obviously. I’d already published the story about the visit to my parents’ house a few days earlier and wasn’t planning on writing about the parachute jump until after the fact – but then I impulsively told Erica I’d like to invite people along to watch me do it, figuring it’d make for a good bit of publicity, and some more flavour for the story.
/>   Strange, isn’t it?

  Me – Oliver Sweet – being impulsive.

  It’s like finding out that Joseph Stalin ran an animal welfare sanctuary, or that Nigel Farage was once nice to a foreign person.

  Completely out of character.

  But that’s how I’ve been feeling since I came away from Mum and Dad’s house – impulsive. And maybe even a little reckless in the bargain.

  That spring that I’ve had in my step has thankfully not gone away since that day.

  It’s amazing what a bit of perspective can do for your mental outlook on the world. I feel like I’ve turned a very large and very long corner in my life.

  So now I’m fairly buzzing with anticipation of what life holds for me in the future. And I’m also buzzing with a lot of pent-up energy that needs to be released. Released in a grand and overambitious way, to signify a change in Ollie Sweet’s outlook on life.

  Hence why I’m now walking towards a twin-prop aeroplane, with ‘REACH FOR THE SKY’ written down the side of it in exciting, jazzy blue lettering.

  It’s also why I’m wearing a black helmet, a small radio headset and a bright-yellow jumpsuit, with a parachute on my back that is getting heavier by the second.

  No.

  No.

  Stop it.

  I said it’ll be fine, and I meant it. I’ve had two full days of instruction with Ted the ex-paratrooper, and am feeling confident that I know what to do once we get airborne.

  Ted is a very good instructor, and he’ll be with me the entire way down, just in case I start doing anything too Oliver Sweetish on the way to the ground.

  Also, it’s not like I’ll be going the whole hog and doing a skydive from fifteen thousand feet. That, my friends, is something you take a long time to build up to.

  I’ll be doing a static-line parachute jump from five thousand feet – which is more than enough for me, thanks very much.

  The eyes of a thousand people are upon me as I make my way over to the plane. Among them are Erica, Wimsy, his new girlfriend Lizzy, Vanity, Laughlin McPurty, Skeez – the guy who suggested I do this parachute jump in the first place – and both of my parents. I don’t think I’ve ever seen my father as proud of me as he is now. My mother looks worried. But she has no reason to be.