What I Did On My Holidays

by Chrissie Manby

  ‘It’s the talk of the company,’ Alison confirmed. ‘Nobody can believe you guys split up right before your fortnight off. Right before your birthday! What an idiot that man is. I’m not going to call him Batman any more. I’m going to call him Ratman from now on. I never really thought he looked like Christian Bale anyway.’ Though she was the one who had started that particular idea.

  ‘I can’t believe that you’ve gone on holiday on your own!’ commented Candace. ‘You are one brave girl.’

  ‘It’s the best thing you could have done,’ said Hannah in an email she copied to all the girls. ‘I can tell that Callum is really gutted you went without him. Gutted enough to be regretting his decision if you ask me.’

  Hannah continued, ‘He told Alison that he dumped you because you aren’t independent enough and can’t seem to do anything without him and it’s been driving him nuts, but now you’re in the Med on your own. How’s that for independent? By the time you get back,’ Hannah concluded, ‘Callum will be eating out of your hand.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Alison chipped in. ‘He can’t believe you went without him. You’ve got the Ratman on the back foot now for sure. You couldn’t have made a better move.’

  Really? I felt a small flicker of hope.

  Chapter Seven

  Here was my position: I was totally in love with Callum Dawes. Head over heels. Utterly besotted. I had woven him into every part of my life, and my dreams of the future were nothing without him as the romantic lead. I simply did not know how I would carry on without him as my boyfriend. How would I fill my lonely nights and long weekends? Worse still, how on earth could I be expected to carry on seeing him in the office five days a week, knowing that he didn’t want me any more? My heart would break every weekday morning. And then there would be the hell of discovering who had replaced me in his heart, because I would be bound to hear all about it. Hannah and Alison would make sure of that. And what if it was Alison! She’d certainly do her best to persuade him that it should be. The reasons why one should never date a workmate were quickly becoming clear. If I couldn’t get Callum back, I would only date long-distance from that moment forward. Preferably someone on death row in a Texas prison who could be guaranteed not to transfer his affections on to one of my office colleagues.

  Right then, however, my colleagues seemed to be firmly on my side. They were so enthusiastic in their ‘Go, girl!’ cheerleading for my decision to holiday alone that it brought tears to my eyes. If only I had warranted their praise. I knew I would have to tell them the truth at some point. What would they say to me then? They’d think I was pathetic. The thought of their pride turning to pity was just awful. I couldn’t face it. Not yet. Not while my head was still reeling with the reality of being dumped. So I didn’t respond to their emails. Neither did I send Callum that begging email I’d composed so carefully. There didn’t seem to be a lot of point. He wouldn’t be able to meet for lunch, would he? He was back at work.

  Perhaps I was crazy with the shock of being dumped, but though I had started the day with a long sit-down on a hard floor, by five in the afternoon I was feeling almost cheerful. Hannah reported that Callum had been seen ‘moping’ in the staff kitchen around three o’clock, so she and Alison went in on the pretence of making some tea and talked loudly about the wonders of Majorca until Callum started to go pink with embarrassment. ‘He looked like he was going to burst with fury.’ When I read that email, I almost liked her.

  ‘In going on holiday alone,’ she concluded dramatically, ‘you’ve struck a blow for womankind.’

  If only I had. Part of me wished I had taken that flight alone. A much bigger part of me knew I would never have had the guts. If I’d managed to get as far as the airport, I’d almost certainly have ended up sobbing over the check-in desk. That image of me as Cameron Diaz striding through security would for ever be a fantasy. I was a wimp. I always would be.

  But at about six o’clock in the evening, I heard a key in the door, jolting me from my moping. Without stopping to think, I fled for the safety of my bedroom. I had forgotten that my sister would be coming to water the plants.

  Chapter Eight

  Now, there was no doubt in my mind that if I told my sister what had happened over the past twenty-four hours regarding Callum and the cancelled holiday, she would have been firmly on my side, but right then, I just couldn’t face the idea of saying out loud I’d been dumped. In my fragile state, I didn’t want sympathy and I didn’t want sensible solutions (not that Clare had ever really been big on those). I definitely didn’t want a talking-to from our mother, which is what would come next if Clare passed the news on. It seemed infinitely easier to say nothing at all for the time being. That is why I hid.

  Fortunately, as she walked into my flat, my sister was jabbering away on her phone, which distracted her nicely from any noise I might have made while getting into my hiding place behind the bedroom door. She was totally oblivious to my presence.

  Once behind the door, I was pretty sure I would be safe from discovery. Luckily, I had already moved my suitcase from the hallway back to the bedroom. In an effort to make Clare’s task of looking after my plants easier, I had, as promised, grouped them all together on the draining board next to the sink in the kitchen, which meant that all Clare had to do was fill the big jug I had left in the sink and go slosh, slosh, slosh from one plant pot to the next. There was no need for her to venture any further into the flat than the kitchen to do what I’d asked of her. In any case, having known my sister for three decades, I doubted she would do any more than the bare minimum. It simply wasn’t her style to pay much attention to anything but shoes and hair products. I was 99 per cent sure I was as well hidden as I needed to be.

  I had left the bedroom door open just a crack, so that I could peer out and see what she got up to. After the twenty-four hours I’d had, I actually craved the sight of a friendly face, even if I wasn’t going to admit to being there. My flat was so small that from where I was standing, I could see pretty much the whole of the kitchen.

  When Clare got there, she was still talking on her mobile. She stopped and exhaled loudly. She glanced to her left and right and announced to the person on the other end of the line, ‘Well, the door was only on the top lock, which is very strange for Sophie given that she’s such a security freak, but I can see the telly from here. It’s still there. No burglars.’

  The person at the other end said something that made Clare snort.

  ‘Well, if it was a sixty-two-inch screen, they wouldn’t be able to get it through the door, would they? OK. If it was a flat-screen, then yes, of course they’d be able to get it through the door, but . . . oh, you know what I mean.’

  Sixty-two-inch screen. Big tellies were her fiancé Evan’s current obsession. She had to be talking to him.

  ‘I am walking into the living room now,’ she said. ‘Not only is the telly still there, the DVD player is also exactly where I last saw it. As is the silver-framed photograph of me in a Brownie uniform. I wish she’d get rid of it.’

  I imagined Clare picking that photograph up. I knew she hated it. She begged me to hide it whenever she came over, but I refused until she reciprocated by taking down a picture of me, aged three and naked in a paddling pool, that she’d fixed using magnets to her fridge door. We’d had a small falling-out when she invited me and Callum over for dinner one night and drew his attention to the unflattering shot.

  ‘I think I can safely say that Sophie hasn’t been burgled,’ Clare continued. ‘Though there is a dirty mug on the coffee table. And some cheese. That isn’t like her at all. Either a burglar just dropped in for a snack or she must have left in a real hurry.’

  When she passed by my bedroom door on her way to the kitchen again, my sister was carrying that dirty mug, perhaps with the intention of washing it. That wasn’t like her at all either. The Clare I knew never washed up until she had run out of mugs or her fiancé demanded it for reasons of health and hygiene.

  Evan was
issuing instructions now by the sound of Clare’s end of the conversation. Evan was a very practical man.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ she said. ‘Of course I will. And yes, I’ll turn a light on so it looks as though she’s still here. Of course. Of course. I’m doing it right now. I know what to do, Evan. I am thirty-two years old and I have a degree.’

  Evan said something.

  ‘A two-two in comparative literature is still a degree, Evan Jones.’

  I heard the tap running.

  ‘Yes, I’ll double-lock the door before leaving. I’ll be home in half an hour. Bye-bye.’

  Clare sounded annoyed as she finished her call. She placed her phone on the kitchen table with quite a clatter; then she let out a very loud sigh.

  ‘Do this . . . do that . . . Anyone would think I was a bloody child. Right, let’s see.’ She perked up now she was talking to the plants. ‘One of you should only have a little bit of water, and one of you likes to be soaked, and I can’t for the life of me remember which is which. Never mind. Better to have too much than too little, eh?’

  I imagined her drowning my precious jasmine. I could have saved it. I only had to shout, ‘Not the jasmine,’ but I could not let her know that I was there. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to have to explain why I wasn’t in Majorca but in my flat. Not yet. Not while I was still digesting what was going on.

  I heard the metallic clang of the jug being dropped back into the sink.

  ‘All done,’ Clare muttered to herself. ‘Now I’d better go and get those dishwasher tablets or . . .’

  I heard her open the cupboard beneath the sink. It had a distinctively creaky hinge. Evan said it needed WD-40. Not to be outshone by Evan’s handiness around the house, Callum had been promising to have a go at it for months. He never did. Perhaps now he never would.

  ‘Ah-ha! A whole box. Thanks, sis.’

  Clare had found what she was looking for. She was nicking my brand-new box of dishwasher tablets! I’d bought them just a couple of days before. They cost me £8.

  ‘I’ll pay you back,’ she said out loud, as though she knew that I was there.

  I let the gap between the door and the frame widen just a little more so that I could see further into the kitchen. As I suspected, Clare was at the kitchen table, tucking my dishwasher tablets into her handbag. So far, so Clare. But just as I thought she was getting ready to leave, she pulled out one of the kitchen chairs and sat down on it heavily. She slumped forward. Then she let out another long sigh and lay her head down on her folded arms.

  ‘Oh God,’ she exhaled, ‘what am I doing?’

  Thunk. She let her forehead drop onto the table. She gently banged her head on the Formica three times before she settled it on the cushion of her folded arms again.

  What was she doing? Was she all right? Her shoulders weren’t moving up and down as I might have expected had she been crying, but her downcast pose definitely wasn’t a normal posture to assume at your sister’s kitchen table when you’ve just popped over to water the plants. Banging your head on the table ain’t exactly normal behaviour either. From where I was standing, she looked thoroughly depressed. Had I been able to come out of my hiding place, I would have put my hand on her shoulder and asked if she was OK. Instead, I could only watch anxiously from the crack in my bedroom door. If she showed any signs of acute distress, I told myself, then I would have to confess that I’d been there all along, but if she was simply tired . . . I would have to wait and see.

  Clare stayed like that, with her face buried in her arms, for a good long while. Long enough for the kids from next door, who were playing in the street outside, to sing the whole of ‘Over the Rainbow’. They were practising for the next set of Britain’s Got Talent auditions. I’d overheard them saying as much to their mother.

  So, for the whole of ‘Over the Rainbow’, my sister, Clare, who normally went through life like a whirlwind in Chanel No. 5, sat motionless at my kitchen table. Just the slight movement of her shoulders from time to time gave me any proof she was alive at all. Then, when the kids outside had finished playing Dorothy and worked through some Hannah Montana hit instead, just as suddenly as she had collapsed onto the table, Clare sat up again. Her eyes were maybe a little pink, but she didn’t really look as though she had been crying. Maybe she was just tired. She smoothed her hair back from her face, slicked on some lip gloss, got to her feet and left with my dishwasher tablets. And a whole packet of biscuits, I would later find out.

  After Clare had gone – I waited until I heard her double-lock the door – I crept back out into the kitchen. As I had suspected, she had overwatered my plants. They were drenched. I carefully dabbed my favourite jasmine dry. The plants would survive, but I was oddly disquieted by having seen my sister slumped over the table like that. Was she unwell? I decided I would text her to ‘find out’ if she had watered the plants and, when she responded, I would ask her if everything was OK, giving her a chance to confess to whatever was bothering her.

  Clare beat me to it. She must have texted me on her walk to the Tube station.

  ‘Plants watered,’ she wrote. ‘Everything looks fine. Nothing’s been nicked, but someone must have broken in and left a dirty mug on your coffee table. I can’t believe you would have left the flat in such a state.’

  ‘Ha, ha,’ I responded. ‘Thank you. Are you OK?’

  ‘Of course I’m OK,’ she replied. ‘How about you? What’s the hotel like? Has Callum proposed yet?’

  That stung. I had told Clare about Hannah’s sainted Mike and the nuptial view. She’d listened politely enough, but I wasn’t sure she’d ever rated the chances of lightning striking twice.

  ‘Having a great time,’ I texted back without answering her question.

  ‘Good,’ texted Clare. ‘You deserve it.’

  I did deserve a holiday, didn’t I? Bloody Callum Dawes had ruined everything. Somehow I was going to make him pay.

  Chapter Nine

  So I spent the first night of my holiday in my own flat, being disgruntled and angry and sad. Mostly sad. I ate some of the remaining Manchego. A day out of the fridge had not improved its flavour, alas. I ate a little piece of the lemon tart. That tasted OK, but I didn’t really have much of an appetite. After that, I logged on and read my colleagues’ updates on Twitter. Hannah had tweeted on the completion of the Newcastle project and the inauguration of the second-tallest building in Luxembourg, which also contained three of our lifts. There was nothing about my solo holiday, thank goodness. All utterly professional. Mum meanwhile had tweeted about a great evening at Older Eve, the yoga class for menopausal women. ‘Makes me feel much better about being the mother of a nearly thirty-year-old!’ she’d added. ‘Can’t believe Sophie’s thirty next week.’

  Thanks for reminding me, I thought.

  Next, I logged on to Facebook and clicked on Callum’s page. I screwed my eyes shut tight while his page loaded, then read his profile through my fingers. There didn’t seem to be anything different about it. At least not yet. He hadn’t de-friended me. He didn’t appear to have any suspicious new ‘friends’. Neither had he changed his relationship status. That could have been a good thing, or a bad thing. Either he wasn’t so sure that he had done the right thing by breaking up with me and he didn’t yet want to announce it to the world or he had moved so seamlessly into a new relationship it hadn’t seemed worth changing his status to ‘single’ in between. I told myself I had to assume the former or I would go mad. My own Facebook profile still bore the status ‘Excited about going to Majorca with Callum tomorrow.’ I didn’t change it. I mean, what was I going to say? I couldn’t think of anything that wouldn’t sound strange or bitter. Not yet.

  Having reassured myself that my humiliation had so far been contained to the offices of Stockwell Lifts and was not yet out there in cyberspace for everyone to read about, I went to bed. I didn’t sleep for a long while, no matter how many times I turned my pillow to get the cool side, no matter how many imaginary sheep jumped the
fence. I didn’t want to sleep. All I really wanted was to know what was going on across the river in Kentish Town.

  Why hadn’t I seen it coming? Why hadn’t I realised that Callum was unhappy? Like a forensic scientist looking for that single hair or flake of paint that will solve a murder mystery, I went over our last few conversations in minute detail. I analysed everything he had said in the break-up speech and then I went through everything he had said on the phone or via email in the month that we’d been apart. Everything I could remember, that was. What hadn’t I noticed? Sure, our telephone conversations had been largely one-sided of late, with me chatting about our upcoming holiday and him adding the odd ‘Mm-hmm’ to show that he was sort of listening, but he’d still texted several times a day. I went through those texts now, searching for the exchange that should have alerted me to how he was really feeling.

  There were no clues there.

  Thank goodness I didn’t have to wait long to hear more. I managed a couple of hours’ sleep and as soon as the Stockwell Lifts office opened the next morning, I got more news. Hannah emailed bright and early to inform me that Callum was in the office again.

  When he walked past to the kitchen, Alison said loudly, ‘I expect Sophie’s on the beach by now. They’ve got lovely beaches in Majorca. I can’t think why anyone would want to be anywhere else.’ You should have seen his face, Soph. He was livid.