Olive

by Emma Gannon

  “Yes, sorry. Actually, wait, I’m not sorry. I shouldn’t have to apologize for being out of action for a bit,” I snapped.

  “I wasn’t expecting an apology. I was just asking.”

  “Yeah, well, you’re going to be on at me to get myself sorted quickly, aren’t you, so you can get your end away. It’s all men think about. Sex sex sex.”

  “Ol, that’s not very fair.”

  “Well it’s true. You’re just concerned about getting your leg over.”

  “What the hell, Olive.”

  “Sorry,” I regretted the words as soon as they came out of my mouth. “I just feel really vulnerable and weirded out right now. Maybe it’s my hormones, or maybe it’s just me.” I put my head in my hands.

  “I was actually asking because (a) I’m interested in how you are, (b) I’m your boyfriend, and (c) . . . I actually thought that we could discuss the idea of having sex, you know, without any protection,” he said.

  Then there was a massive, massive silence.

  “Oh . . .” I close my eyes.

  “What?”

  “Can we just lie down next to each other in bed for a bit?” I asked.

  I was feeling really out of control, and the thought of having sex made me petrified. With my boyfriend. Of almost a decade. The idea of getting intimate with him was suddenly sending me into nervous breakdown mode. It hit me that I was having the opposite problem to a lot of other women I knew in their thirties. While so many of my friends were paying extortionate amounts to increase their fertility and chances of pregnancy, I was swatting away my partner’s penis like an annoying fly. I didn’t want to chance it. While Jacob seemed to feel the opposite. It struck me that whenever we saw any friends’ babies, Jacob would hold them so naturally. The babies would always warm to him; he was just a natural, making silly expressions that they loved and giggled at. I would smile along, but it always felt like I was hiding something—like I was a fraud.

  We sat down on the bed. I wanted to be close to Jacob. I wanted to feel his warmth. I sat on him, folding myself around him. Then, I suddenly couldn’t breathe. I climbed off him, feeling like I was having a panic attack. I rushed out, into the bathroom across the hall. I sat on the loo, grappling with my phone, trying to google my feelings.

  “You okay in there, Ol?” Jacob shouted, sounding concerned.

  “Yeah, I just need a cold towel on my head. Give me a few moments.”

  I sat on the cold tiled floor. My throat felt lumpy with repressed sadness. My body and brain knew the truth. All I needed to do was confront it. Accept it. Think it. Say it.

  I just don’t want to get pregnant.

  That feeling I had with Bea when we sat in the Foyles toilet all those years ago was not something I wanted to ever replicate. My head hurt. I could hear Jacob as he sat himself down outside, his back against the bathroom door.

  I started to cry; I couldn’t stop. Because deep down I knew this could be the end of us.

  14

  2019

  “Morning, Olive.” I’m picking up the mail on my doorstep, mainly junk, when Dorothy Gray calls over. She is watering a tiny patch of grass outside her front door. I’m not sure why—there are no flowers, just some brown grass—but it’s quite sweet. She always seems to be giving herself random tasks to keep busy.

  “Morning, Dorothy! How are you doing this morning?”

  “Yes, I’m very well, thank you, Olive—just getting some small chores and errands done. Off to the post office later.”

  Please don’t launch into one of your long-winded stories, Dorothy.

  “Have a great day,” I smile.

  “Where are you off to, in that lovely scarf?”

  “Oh, just to meet a friend at the coffee shop.” Friend.

  “Oh, how lovely. Have you been to that little French one at the end of the street?”

  “Yes, that’s actually where I’m off to now!”

  It’s my ex-boyfriend, okay, Dorothy? And I’m shitting it.

  “Oh, how charming. I do like the crockery they use in there. And the forks are the perfect size. I can’t stand a fork that’s too small.”

  “Yeah, it’s really nice in there.”

  “I’d like to go back there one day. The temperature of the coffee is just right.”

  “It is! Very observant, Dorothy.”

  “Are you okay, dear—youngsters seem rather stressed these days.”

  “I’m fine, thanks, Dorothy.” What’s giving me away?

  “Just remember, when you get to my age, you never remember the little things that used to worry you or keep you up at night. You mostly look back fondly on the good times—they become clearer in your mind,” she says, watering some poppies.

  “Thanks, Dorothy. You’re right.” I pause for a moment. “What about the big stuff, though? The big things that keep you up at night?” Jacob, motherhood dilemmas. Hardly small, silly things.

  “Well, you must remember that no decision is ever really the wrong decision. Because it’s the decision you made at the time. Respect your past self and her choices,” she says, looking me directly in the eye.

  “You’re right, Dorothy . . . I’m so sorry, but I must get going now . . .”

  “Off you dash then, Olive! Have a lovely day.”

  She carries on watering and shuffling about with her walking stick. Humming to herself. There is something comforting about Dorothy. I have a feeling she’s seen and heard it all.

  I’m wearing a white T-shirt under denim dungarees, gold hoop earrings, and thin-framed glasses. A bit of mascara and blusher but no other makeup. My hair dried naturally this morning and so is curly at the ends. I smooth it down and pull it back into a low ponytail. I don’t want to make too much of an effort. It’ll only make me feel more on edge. I meet Jacob at the small French café at the end of my road, a place we both know does good strong coffee. It is a small bricked building with the roof painted black on the corner of a busy road and has two big bird-of-paradise plants either side of the entrance. I love the modern black-and-white tiled floors, the bar with hundreds of different liqueurs and spirits, and the friendly staff who always make you feel like their only customer. Even if everything goes to shit with this meetup, at least I can have a nice hazelnut latte in this place I like. Although, like most things in my neighborhood, it is now tainted by good and bad memories of Jacob. I know I have to start living with that, because the only other option to get him completely out of my mind would be to move to Japan or something.

  I see that Jacob has already arrived and is perched on a stool at the window. He hasn’t noticed me yet. He’s wearing jeans and a dark-brown leather jacket, and is sipping a water nervously. He makes eye contact with me before I can try to pretend I haven’t seen him, and waves at me sheepishly. I walk past the plants and in through the main door, feeling his eyes still following me. Don’t trip over, Olive. That would be embarrassing. He is wearing a navy-blue shirt that I’ve not seen before. My heart definitely flutters a bit with familiarity and excitement, but then I suddenly feel a bruising pain immediately after. My brain kicks back into gear, reminding me that he is no longer mine. This man with whom I shared a bed, a flat, and my deepest secrets for nearly a decade will, one day soon, become a stranger. It’s happening already. I project a horrible thought, imagining walking past him in ten years’ time and neither of us saying anything because we are so estranged. I feel overwhelmed at the sight of him, as though I could easily be physically sick. Why has he dragged me out here to meet him? How can he have changed so much in only a few months? New clothes, different hair? I used to know every single piece of clothing that hung in his wardrobe and on the washing line. How can someone become so alien so quickly? It’s like waking up from a sleepy dream where nothing is yet in focus and you momentarily forget where you are. Jacob is so close yet so far away now. I want everything to
get back into focus, to make sense again.

  “Hi,” Jacob says meekly, unsure of how to greet me. Hug, handshake, air-kiss? He hesitates and stands back. “You good?”

  “Hi, yes, thanks—you okay?” I say, noticing that he is wearing new shoes too. He looks so different from the last time I saw him.

  I take my coat off and sit down on the stool next to him. It feels cozy and, dare I say, romantic. Maybe it’s the fairy lights framing the windows. The smell of freshly baked bread is wafting out from the kitchen as a song by Little Dragon plays quietly in the background. Thank god there is music; it dilutes the awkwardness. The last thing I want is people overhearing or snooping on our conversation.

  At the table next to us, I notice an oldish man with gray hair and a young woman with long dark hair eating lentil soup with bread on the side. They are speaking loudly in Polish. All of a sudden, the woman stands up and starts full-on shouting at the old man. We don’t know what she’s saying, but she’s angry; it looks like she’s about to flip the table. They go outside onto the street to carry on the argument so they can really raise their voices, but it’s muffled through the window. We see her arms thrashing around, and his face all screwed up. It’s like watching a fight scene in a movie with the sound turned off.

  “Wow—at least we’re not like them,” Jacob jokes.

  “They’ve got some beef, clearly,” I say.

  “I’m so nosy. I want to know what they’re saying. I wonder what he’s done? Not sure whether he’s her dad or what.”

  “Yeah, god knows. Hope they sort it out.”

  I’m very grateful for the icebreaker. We transfer some of our own awkwardness into watching them for a bit. At the table in front of us, a young mum and dad are trying to control their baby twins, who are in highchairs. They are screaming the place down. Their screeches pierce my eardrums. Such big lungs for two tiny humans.

  “Anyway, you’re probably wondering why I got in touch.” Jacob’s eyes look sore and bloodshot. He doesn’t look great. I feel bad that my first reaction is relief. Relief that he is also human and also struggling with life. The screaming babies quiet a little. The mum puts a yogurt tube into their sticky hands.

  “You look tired,” I say.

  “Ha, thanks. Isn’t that code for ‘you look like shit’?”

  “No, I just meant . . . are you all right?”

  “Not really. Sorry to have messaged you. I know we were going to try having a proper clean break. But. Well, I’ve been going through a bit of a weird time, and I miss you.”

  There’s an awkward pause that I don’t want to fill. I wait for Jacob to continue.

  “Umm. So I just really wanted to see you, that’s the first thing. The second thing is I found a lump. It’s really put things into perspective.”

  “A lump? Is everything okay?”

  “Yeah. It’s fine now. I got the results back yesterday. It just made me feel really alone, to be honest. I was panicking about it. And I realized that it’s something I would have talked to you about . . . You were the person I always confided in. I went to the doctors. I’m just . . . I don’t know. Not very good at telling people this sort of stuff. It’s not like I can talk about it with the lads. Especially with it being on one of my balls,” he laughs. I chuckle too.

  “That’s a shame. Friends should talk about that kind of stuff. Friends talk about everything.” I realize the irony in that sentence, seeing how distant my own friends feel right now.

  “Yeah. You’re right. I suppose I just used to tell you everything. I didn’t need them. I guess you were my best friend.”

  “I’m glad you’re okay now,” I say, trying to ignore how much that sentence punctured me. I am trying to remain neutral and calm.

  “Yeah. It was just a cyst.”

  “Okay. That’s good.” I really want to reach out and touch his hands; they are rough and pink at the knuckles with eczema.

  “I feel like total shit to be honest, Ol,” he says, rubbing his hands together.

  “I’m so glad it was just a scare . . . But you have so many people you could have told. It’s not fair to drag me back into seeing you. I’m trying to rebuild things on my own here. It’s been absolutely horrible these past few months.” My voice is cracking.

  “Sorry. I just . . . I really miss you.” Now his voice is wavering.

  “Do you? Or do you miss having a girlfriend? Because I think people can get the two things very confused.” I am shocked at how spiteful that sounds after it’s come out of my mouth.

  “Olive.”

  “Yes?”

  “What if we . . . you . . . changed your mind? What if you feel differently about starting a family later down the line? Sorry to drag it all back up but . . . we could have a great life together. I was just angry and upset at how distant you were near the end and . . . I don’t know. I didn’t mean to shut you out; I want to give you more time,” he says, trying to keep a lid on the desperation of it all.

  “I’m sorry that you feel regretful over what you said. You were pretty certain that it wasn’t going to work. You know that you want your future to have children in it. And honestly, I respect that. But my instinct’s telling me that I don’t want children now, and I can’t see that changing. You’re ready for them, quite clearly. So where does that leave us?”

  “But this all feels so wrong. We are perfect for each other. This is, like, the only fight we’ve actually ever had!”

  “That’s not true. We had plenty of fights, and you know it. This is the one thing we could never meet in the middle on. We could never meet halfway. We could on all the other stuff. The other stuff isn’t as major. This isn’t moving to a new house, or choosing where to spend Christmas, or what color to paint the bathroom. All that is day-to-day decision-making and compromise, and we are—were—good at that. But we can’t compromise on this, and honestly, I don’t think either of us should have to. You’re allowed to change your mind about what color you want to paint the walls—you can just paint over them again. But you can’t do that with a baby! With a baby, you cannot just go back to the way things were if you decide you don’t like it. We’re talking about bringing a life into the world. A human life! A real person, Jacob.”

  “Yes, I know that, Olive.”

  “We fundamentally want different things. It hurts like hell for me too, but I just don’t see how it can work.” I can’t look at him now or else my heart and throat will break open and I’ll start crying, so I look down at the floor and focus my gaze on his new shoes again. Nike sneakers. Blue laces. They look light and springy—light enough to suddenly run off to somewhere far, far away. From me and this mess.

  “I’ve fucked this up. I’m so sorry.” I watch him dig his fingernail into his hand, as if he’s trying to hurt himself somewhere to displace the pain.

  “No,” I soften. “You haven’t. And no more than I have. This is just two people having different ideas of how they want their future to look. And if I was going to have kids, J, it 100 percent would have been with you.” I tilt my head back to hold back the tears. “It’s all I can think about at the moment. I look at Bea, and now Cec, and try to convince myself that my future could match theirs. But,” I gulp as a tear slips down my cheek, “I just don’t want children. And you do. Minds can be changed on some things, but I don’t think mine can be on this.”

  Jacob pauses, looks down, rubs his eyebrow up and down and then looks back up at me.

  “I don’t know what else to say.” I stare down at my hands.

  He pauses for a while and looks around the café before his gaze turns back on me. “Maybe you could see someone?” he says. “You know, talk it out?”

  “I don’t need to ‘see someone,’ Jacob! I don’t need therapy just because I don’t want kids!” I take a big breath. “I know it’s a huge deal to you, so I understand it’s hard to get your head around, but
your life isn’t worthless or any less valid if you don’t want a family!” I realize my voice has crept up and that people around us have started to stare. “Maybe you need to go and see someone to get your head around that.”

  “Okay, okay. I know that, Olive. That’s not what I’m saying.” Jacob lowers his head.

  “Maybe people who want kids or live for their kids will never get it why I don’t want them,” I went on. “But here are a few reasons: Kids would ruin our relationship. Kids are hard work. Kids will destroy my body, and my freedom. Kids will destroy my bank account, and I don’t have any money as it is. The world is overpopulated! The world is a mess!” I was ready to burst into tears.

  “Okay,” Jacob said hurriedly. “I’m sorry. I’m just so sad without you, Ol. Life feels so meaningless without you there.” His heart was on a plate, and I felt bad for losing my temper with him.

  “I’m sad too. But what can we do? Get back together and then I’d disappoint you forever? And take something so huge away from you? I can’t do that.”

  A waitress with a resting bitch face comes over with a pad and pen, and a tattoo on her face. “Sorry for the delay. What would you like to order?”

  “Err, the classic hazelnut coffee for me, please,” I say with a fake smile, shuffling the different paper parts of the menu.

  “Same, please.” Jacob’s tone is blunt. The waitress nods and leaves.

  “You hate coffee,” I say.

  “I know,” he laughed. “I panicked.”

  I laugh at this, and the tension between us disperses a little.

  He takes a deep breath in then and says: “Look, I am trying to backtrack a bit here. I’ve realized that I am losing you over something, a thing, a person, that isn’t even born yet. That’s stupid. Yes, I want kids. But I want you too. I want to be with you. This entire break has been miserable, and I feel lost.” He reaches for my hand. “It’s so stupid. I made such an effort this morning to scrub up nicely for you. Trust me, I’ve looked an absolute state for the past few weeks. I had a massive caveman beard up until yesterday, if you can imagine it. Even Steve said what a state I’ve looked.”