‘Why do you keep checking your phone?’ I asked a few hours later as we reclined on a blanket in the stippled shade of a giant tree.
The remains of a winery picnic lay between us and I was feeling warm and fuzzy due to the delicious and criminally cheap rosé. A shallow river bubbled past us and other picnickers paddled in it or sat on the banks drinking wine and chatting, their feet cooling in the clear, cool water.
Pete glanced at his phone again before putting it face down on the blanket. ‘It’s just Goat. He’s posting pictures of his hike.’
I looked at the time. It was 3 o’clock. And a Tuesday. ‘Doesn’t Goat have a job?’
‘It is his job. He’s a social influencer, so makes money from posting. He’s got airlines and travel companies and sportswear companies sending him places. And he gets paid for it!’
I nodded. At work we had a pool of paid influencers we used when promoting a new music video. You generally had to be ‘somebody’, though, before you were paid to post.
‘How’d he get to be that?’ I said, popping the last circle of chorizo in my mouth.
Pete’s face lit up as he spoke. It turned out Goat was something of a celebrity in South Africa. He’d been on The Bachelor and while he didn’t find lasting love (apparently the girls had descended into out-and-out sluttery), he did emerge victorious; Goat’s gentlemanly rebuttals had gained him a huge following. He was now a well-known semi-celebrity and didn’t work in the conventional sense but instead got paid to play and post. Luxury tour companies, champagne-makers, cars, protein powders, hair gel, nightclubs, sports clothing, wine; basically everyone wanted a piece of Goat. So he climbed the mountains, leapt off the cliffs, wore the watch, drank the champagne, blended the paleo smoothie, did the hashtag and the money rolled in.
‘I was thinking I could do something like that but for kids,’ Pete said. ‘Have an Instagram aimed at teens and preteens. Get kids interested in something else other than selfies and Snapchat. Make them excited to be young and healthy.’
‘That’s an amazing idea,’ I said, feeling affectionate and proud. I moved some picnic debris out of the way and laid my head on Pete’s lap. ‘Is there anything like that at the moment?’
‘I don’t know.’ He instinctively began twirling my hair around his fingers. ‘But imagine being paid to go on all these adventures!’
‘Goat gets paid because he’s a personality. You’d have to do it for a while to build up a following before you’d make any money from it.’
‘Hmmm,’ Pete mused. ‘If I went on the Cederberg climb it could be an excellent starting post.’
I sat up, instantly irritable. ‘Can you stop talking about that climb? You can’t come on holiday with me then fuck off for a week. What would I do in Cape Town by myself?’
‘Sunbathe?’ he said, knowing I found sunbathing tedious. ‘Hang out with Priya?’
‘Priya is on her honeymoon, remember?’
‘I really want to do this,’ Pete said, throwing a screwed-up paper napkin in the picnic basket.
‘And I really don’t want to have a holiday in South Africa by myself,’ I said, glaring at him from behind my dark glasses. I couldn’t believe he was saying this. I didn’t want my boyfriend not to do all these things he clearly felt so instantly drawn to; it’s just none of them involved me. And this was our first holiday together in ages! ‘What about the game reserve Lana booked? We’d never be able to afford to do that. Do you know it has baby rescue cheetahs that we are allowed to TOUCH?!’
‘You’d still enjoy it,’ Pete said, looking mildly conflicted.
‘By myself? Are you kidding me?!’
‘You spend all your time with Annabelle and I never ever complain. Why can’t I do this one thing?’
I stood and began packing up our picnic debris. Pete stood and did the same.
‘Annabelle needs help,’ I said, gathering all the empty boxes that had contained our food and tossing them in the picnic basket. ‘She’s a solo mum battling addiction demons every day.’
‘Annabelle has two illegitimate children and puts drugs in her smoothies.’
‘It’s CBD oil and it’s legal and medicinal!’ I said. ‘She takes it for her anxiety!’
‘Annabelle is the least anxious person I have ever met.’
‘Proof that weed works.’
‘I thought you just said it was CBD oil,’ Pete snapped.
I let out a frustrated groan. Pete glanced at the other picnickers but no one seemed to notice our heated exchange.
‘You want to run off on a trip with people you barely know when there are diamonds in ethically run mines waiting to be put on the fingers of people who you’ve loved for six years!’ I stopped tidying and looked at Pete. ‘This is our first holiday together in three and a half years and you want to spend most of the time apart?!’
Pete threw a paper plate on top of the picnic basket and stormed off. The pathways from the picnic area to the car park meandered through painstakingly tended kitchen gardens, velvet-petalled roses and heavily laden fruit trees. Instead of the romantic stroll I’d been hoping to take, sipping on the last of our rosé and chatting about the rest of our holiday, our future, whatever, we marched through in uncomfortable silence until we reached Trust dozing in the van in the shade.
‘I’m going on the trip,’ Pete said fifteen minutes into our icily quiet car journey, his face dark and determined. ‘I might not get another opportunity like this.’
‘I can’t believe you.’ I shook my head.
‘I have to do this. I need to do this,’ Pete said, steely. ‘I feel like I’m becoming who I’m supposed to be.’
‘Oh god. You’re climbing some rocks to “find yourself” now?’
‘So what if I am? I’m not stopping you pursuing your dreams.’
‘This has been a dream of yours for precisely two days!’ I said, louder than I intended. ‘A month ago you wanted to go back to teacher training and get your master’s. Now you want to climb rocks and tweet about it?’
‘Instagram.’
‘Same shit.’
Trust sat in the front absorbing every bit of our conversation.
‘I’m sick of being the sidekick in the Annabelle and Jess show.’ He fixed me with an accusatory look. ‘Aren’t you sick of being there day in, day out, not living your own life?’
My eyes welled up. What was Pete saying? It felt like all of a sudden, since meeting Goat and his cliff-climbing cousin, he was disappointed in what we’d become. What I’d become.
‘Don’t you have dreams?’ he continued. ‘Wishes?’
I turned sharply away from him, fighting back the tears. My dreams? My wishes? I wished I could be one of those people who remember quotes from books and are able to quote them at the exact right moment instead of googling them later and going, ‘oh that’s what I should have said!’ I wished, catching a whiff of myself, that natural deodorant actually worked. And all I dreamed of was an ordinary life. One where my family was happy and my niece didn’t end up in hospital every time she got a cold. One where, when Annabelle was fine, Pete and I would go on camping holidays to Cornwall with a bunch of friends and a bunch of vodka. We’d have regular brunches with Priya and Laurel, and Sunday afternoons at the local pub where the landlady knew our names and drink orders and didn’t mind our corgi puppy sitting at the table in his tartan sweater. I wanted to be in a relationship like my parents’, where the only thing they fought about was how to fold a fitted sheet. And now I felt stupid for wanting all that. Pete had wanted to run the PE department at a fancy school and I’d just wanted a happy life, spending time with people I loved. And I thought that was a good ‘want’.
‘Am I supposed to want something grand?’ I said, turning back to him. ‘Something “worth fighting for”? Or striving for? Or making a vision board for?’
Pete gave me a look of contempt.
‘All I’ve ever wanted is my family, friends and boyfriend around me. To have children one day, and get some p
ets. Ones that don’t shed so Katie won’t get respiratory problems when she comes over. To perhaps run my own little business like Annabelle has, against all odds, managed to do. And to take evening classes. Like pottery and lead lighting and nude drawing.’ (I really just wanted to see up close what kind of person chooses to pose nude for strangers.) ‘I want us to buy a place of our own just outside of London yet commutable enough to go in and visit friends or see Matilda.’
‘How many times do you have to see that show?!’
‘Some people have grand aspirations like social media dominance or getting their book published or owning a PR company that allows you to rub shoulders with the somebodies of the current world. And some people just don’t. And I’m OK not being grand.’ I looked at Pete. ‘I thought you knew that about me. I thought you liked that about me.’
Pete put a hand on my shoulder but I turned away from him and he let it fall. We drove the rest of the journey in silence, and when Trust pulled up outside our apartment building Pete thanked him then jumped out and headed inside.
‘You can go home now,’ I said to Trust as he helped me out of the van.
‘But this evening?’ he said, passing me my bag.
I shook my head. ‘Maybe another night.’ I’d booked us a game of cave mini golf, which was exactly as it sounds: mini golf played inside a cave, followed by dinner and a movie at an outdoor theatre. You watch the sun set over the city and then get given squidgy day beds and fluffy blankets and are served dinner while snuggled under the stars. I’d chosen tonight because they were showing the documentary on Lance Armstrong. Pete had wanted to see it for years but we’d always watched something else. I’d been really looking forward to it. And it was just the kind of thing Pete would have loved. Well, the old Pete would have loved it. This new adrenaline enthusiast probably only wanted to watch a movie if it was projected onto the side of K2 and viewed from a paraglider.
‘Why don’t you have the day off tomorrow?’ I said as we walked to the apartment doors. Pete must have already gone up, as he wasn’t in the foyer.
Trust looked concerned. ‘You sure, Miss Jess?’
‘Absolutely,’ I said with a tired smile. I gave him a hug, which surprised him, then said goodbye and headed inside.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Is there anything more lonely than lying next to someone you feel you’re losing? Yes, of course there is. Get a grip. Being homeless, friendless, family-less, moneyless, foodless and moisturiser-less would be way worse. But none of that was happening to me, and it was pretty shit to try and sleep knowing the person next to you was wishing they were elsewhere, their back a wall of hostility.
Pete got up at 4.30 a.m. and the front door clicked behind him ten minutes later. I’d barely slept all night. I’d tried counting sheep but it wasn’t a system that worked for me. My sheep always intended to jump over the fence the way they were supposed to but at some point they’d get bored and move into pirouetting and cartwheeling. Next thing I knew they’d be getting out Bluetooth speakers, turning up some ska music and would start parkour-ing over the fence, flipping mustangs or donning Evil Knievel helmets and shooting themselves out of cannons.
Around 6.30 a.m. I dragged open the bedroom curtains, climbed back under the covers and watched the sunrise from my bed. The horizon was the colour of an actual orange, then merged into buttercup yellow, banana yellow, lemon meringue pie yellow, before ending in the kind of pink and purple you see in the ‘girls’ aisle at a toy store.
I took a few photos on my phone but they did no justice to the intensity of the colours. It was like someone had rubbed wet crayons all over the sky. The need for coffee eventually dragged me from watching the harbour wake up. The coffee tin was empty so I threw on some clothes and plodded through the waking streets to a cool-looking café I’d spotted a few times from Trust’s van.
A smattering of diehard coffee addicts sat at tables tapping at silver laptops, appraising their neighbours and looking intensely millennial. I ordered an almond milk cappuccino with an extra shot, then sat at an outdoor table and called Pete.
‘Hi,’ he answered, his voice subdued but with a hint of warmth. ‘You’re up early.’
‘Couldn’t sleep.’ I picked at a groove in the table top. ‘Babe, I don’t want to fight.’
Pete sighed. ‘Me neither. I’m really sorry I left without saying goodbye. I thought you were asleep.’
At home, even on the days when he’d left extra early for work, he always kissed my cheek and murmured a goodbye.
‘I was faking.’ I chewed my fingernail. ‘I just . . . I don’t understand why you had to go on this trip. We’re supposed to be on holiday together. I can’t believe you just . . . went.’
‘I’m sorry, Jess,’ Pete said. ‘It’s . . . I think we’ve changed. What I want has changed.’
My heart felt like it had dropped to the pit of my stomach.
‘Since when? Since meeting Goat three days ago? So now you’re a completely different person?’
‘No.’ Pete cleared his throat and continued in a low voice. ‘I’ve been feeling like this for a while.’
A while? Pete and I had been together for six years but were friends for many years before that. We had both been in the school running team and were just as fast as each other. I would beg my teachers to let me run in the boys’ races and Pete and I would be neck and neck. Our parents became friends by the edge of the racetrack and still had dinner with each other every month or so. Pete and I remained friends through secondary school and university but then I hit twenty-three and my functional runner’s breastlettes blossomed to the double Ds I dragged around with me now, and Pete began to look at me a little differently. As did Mum. ‘Where did you get these?’ she’d asked in a clipped tone that made her German accent more pronounced. ‘Have you been in Harley Street, young lady?’ Mum had compact, efficient German boobs; Annabelle had delicate Bambi boobs (was Bambi a boy . . .?), and it wasn’t until Dad produced an old photo of his aunt with big Cornish fishwife bazangas that Mum believed I hadn’t come back from a season being a chalet girl in Chamonix having had a boob job. I’m not sure how I got on to the subject of my great aunt’s boobies but the point was, Pete and I had been ‘Pete and I’ for a very, very long time. We were happy. And now he was telling me he felt differently.
‘If you’ve been feeling like this for a while, then why did you agree to this trip?’ I said, still reeling.
‘Because I couldn’t turn down a free trip to South Africa,’ he said. ‘And Priya insisted.’
‘Priya is going to rip your balls right off when she finds out that you’ve left me here.’
Pete let out a tight little sigh. ‘And I knew if I could get you to leave Annabelle you’d have an amazing time. You never allow yourself to do what you want because you’re always helping her.’
‘What I want is to help Annabelle!’
‘But what happens when she doesn’t need your help? Then what do you want? Then who are you?’
There was a silence while I processed what Pete was saying.
‘And I’m sorry,’ he continued with a loaded sadness. ‘But I don’t think I can wait around to find out.’
I swallowed. ‘Oh my god.’
‘Jess,’ Pete said in a consolatory tone. ‘We hardly spend any time together. I thought this trip might help us reconnect but—’
‘You keep using the word “reconnect” yet I’m here and you’re not,’ I spat. ‘You want to know what I thought? I thought we’d be having an amazing holiday together. I thought we might go back to London engaged.’
‘I know,’ he said. ‘But I think . . . I think being here has only highlighted our differences.’ He sounded uncomfortable. He’d never been much of one to talk about emotions. ‘I think we should—’
I heard a girl’s voice in the background.
‘Who was that?’
‘Who was what?’
‘That girl’s voice. Who was it?’
‘Oh.’ Pete
lowered his voice and it sounded like he was covering the mouthpiece. ‘That’s Goat’s cousin.’
‘Goat’s cousin is a girl? You never said Goat’s cousin was a girl!’
‘I never said it was a guy.’
‘I thought this was a boys’ trip. You didn’t even invite me!’
‘You wouldn’t have come,’ he hissed. ‘You don’t even want to walk up Table Mountain!’
I wasn’t usually a jealous person. In fact I’d go so far as to say I was never a jealous person. Growing up I’d had lots of male friends. Boys were fun. And during those hideous teenage years, when girls become irrational she-devils, I’d found myself gravitating more towards their keep-it-simple, wanna-share-a-pint nature. I never thought a boy couldn’t have an innocent and platonic relationship with a girl and I was never jealous if Pete was friendly with other females. But this seemed different. It felt like he’d purposefully kept something from me. None of the photos from his hike or the seal trip had her in it. Only him, Goat, cliffs and the god damned, (admittedly breath-taking), wildlife.
‘What the fuck, Pete?! You lied to me!’
‘I did not,’ he said, exasperated. He said something else but the phone cut out.
‘What? I didn’t hear you.’
He tried again but all I heard was ‘oh oh eh oh-oh’. He sounded like he was doing the vocal on a New Kids on the Block chorus.
‘What was that?’
‘The reception’s getting bad. I’d better go,’ he said, the reception now crystal clear. ‘But I think we need to talk when we get home—’
‘Need to talk?’ I said, suddenly angry. How dare he utter the dreaded ‘we need to talk’ words over the phone when he was about to fuck off out of mobile coverage for a week?! ‘Are we breaking up?’ I said, incredulous. This couldn’t be happening. What about the ethical diamonds? What about my potential proposal at the top of Table Mountain, sweaty and breathless and hopefully free from snake damage?
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