Laura Merryweather
Scene One
Nobody on stage. A chair with a jacket thrown over it. ‘The Power of Goodbye’ by Madonna plays over and over again on a thirty-second loop.
ADAM FREEMAN, thirty-one, comes on, adjusting his belt. He notices the music and rushes over to grab his phone out of his jacket pocket. He presses a button. The music stops.
Awkward pause.
Haha, sorry about that, that er
Haha
Did that, um
Was that playing for long?
He checks the screen.
Oh, eight missed calls. That’s good. Just eight. Just eight looped choruses of ‘The Power of Goodbye’
Which, is clearly
My ringtone
Bet you didn’t know people still had songs as their ringtones, but, yep. Still very popular amongst thirteen-year-old girls and… me.
It reminds me of Holly
…I thought that would be a good excuse but actually it’s just made it even sadder hasn’t it
Got to keep it on silent. Last week it started playing in the dairy aisle at Tesco. I just acted like it wasn’t me and pretended to be very interested in the soft cheeses.
Nice loos
By the way
Very nice. Cowshed. You can tell a lot about a company from the quality of their hand soap.
Sometimes it looks like fancy soap then you inspect it and you realise it’s like, Morrison’s own brand and you think, what are these people trying to hide
Anyway, sorry about that, I just suddenly realised that if I didn’t go for a wee immediately something bad was going to happen. Crept up on me.
You were saying, er, what you were saying, sounds good.
Very… good. Encouraging, even. I’m, er, I’m not that um
It’s funny being here
Not funny, ha-ha, it’s funny, unexpected. I’m not totally sure what to say. I’m usually great at talking, I talk a lot, Holly used to say I could talk my way out of an al-Qaeda beheading, nice image
Holly was the one who got me deeply into Madonna’s back catalogue, specifically the Ray of Light album, which before you judge, is really
She told me one night that it was her favourite album of all time, and I really took the piss, so she made me get stoned with her and listen to it on repeat, and it turned out she was right, it is incredible and I was wrong. ‘Frozen’, mate. ‘Frozen’ is so good. You’re frozen… when your heart’s not open yeah I’m going to stop singing Madonna at you now, definitely. Yep.
She liked weird things, unpopular things, like she had this really hideous jumper with the Heinz Baked Beans logo on it. Which she would wear in public, like a weird hipster billboard with boobs. She wore it all the time even though she knew I hated it. She’s quite, she’s funny with stuff, she’d get attached to things, she once made me buy her a wonky lamp from a boot sale because it ‘looked sad’. I’ve still got the bloody thing, can’t seem to chuck it out.
I’m not talking about anything proper, am I
Sorry I’m just going to check my
He looks at his phone.
God, all those missed calls were from Neil. My flatmate. He moved in after
He’s a bit of a cretin. Not really… my usual type, friendshipwise. But it was getting sort of quiet and depressing and he was one of the only people who
I’m very aware that I’m thirty-one and I have a flatmate, by the way. It’s not that I necessarily need one. Although there is a mortgage that needs paying, and I’m not, you know, not working at the moment, er
Anyway everyone in Friends had a flatmate and they were ancient.
Oh god, were they ancient? Or were they my age?
Shit. How old was Frasier?
No he actually was ancient. I need to calm down.
He looks at his phone again.
He’s left a voicemail. Why? Who leaves voicemails any more?
Delete…
He puts his phone away. Pause.
You know how on weekends London suddenly becomes packed full of smug couples? You know. Nicely dressed people holding Whole Foods bags, snogging on park benches. Usually with a dog. We were one of those couples. Me and Holly. Adam and Holly. It even sounds right.
I’m just… not meant to be single.
Look – being honest, and not doing that faux-humble thing the British love so much: I’m good looking, and I smell nice, and I have a good job, a great, an interesting job. And I’m funny, ish, or as funny as you need to be when you’re already a nice-smelling good-looking bloke, which as it turns out is not very. People will laugh anyway.
I’m not trying to be a
I’m just being honest. Which is… what you wanted?
Yeah.
I live in Stoke Newington. Gorgeous garden flat. Preferred living there with Holly, nothing spoils a gorgeous flat like seeing Neil in his boxers every morning, but
I bought the flat about a year after I met Holly. My uncle died – the only way anyone under forty buys property in London is if a rich relative dies – my uncle died and I got money and I bought the flat. And Holly wasn’t interested, at first, in being involved. She didn’t like the idea of depending on anyone. Because she wouldn’t have been able to give very much to the mortgage, she was an intern, and she was twenty-three and liked living with her mates. Seemed very set on not moving in but then I showed her round the place, you know… actual garden in London, fireplace in the bedroom, a skylight – everyone loves a skylight – and she changed her mind.
Anyone can be swayed by a nice skylight. Even Holly. Who never appears to care about anything… material, aesthetic.
She’s very clever. She’s
It could get quite
Girls like Holly are – I mean, it’s exciting, it’s interesting, always interesting, but they’re never off, you know? Never quiet. You come home and you’re knackered and they’re never up for watching Take Me Out, which you know is shit but is still your favourite thing on telly. Holly would always be buzzing about something – the plight of the Syrian refugees or middle America’s attitude to vaccinations – she’s so clever, I wouldn’t change that about her – but she didn’t have that thing most of us have, where we pretend we’re clever at work or when we’re with other ‘clever’ people, but then when we get home we stop pretending and we start voting for Celebrity Big Brother on the iPhone app. She doesn’t have that, her intelligence isn’t a cover-up for anything, and the curse of that is she cares about everything, she is constantly outraged, she’s like a human version of left-wing Twitter, always quoting articles and signing petitions and radiating indignation.
But she wrote for one of those magazines, those crap magazines that always have pictures of female celebrities in bikinis from bad angles on the front, the kind of magazine that Holly hated, hates, the kind of magazine she once ranted about for hours, but then she started writing for one
Because we say we won’t compromise but then we have to pay deposits and bills and student loans and then
I mean she’s also fun
I’m making her sound crap, she’s not crap, she’s fucking fun. On my thirtieth birthday last year – god last year, is it that
Anyway we’d, well, we’d been having a rough time and if I’m honest I sort of wanted to pretend I wasn’t turning thirty because I just felt
Feel
Felt that I hadn’t done loads of the stuff that I
I mean, start a family and
Oh, you know.
I was going to ignore it, I thought that would be welcomed by my mates actually ’cause when you’re my age you spend literally every weekend at a thirtieth. Or a wedding, or a baby shower, or a housewarming. Your social life is completely taken out of your hands. Anyway I said this to Holly, repeatedly, so she didn’t feel compelled to book a pub function room somewhere
It got to the night before and she told me to take an overnight bag to work with me the next day
And it turned out she’d booked a weekend in B
arcelona, at the W Hotel, that amazing one that’s shaped like a big glass wave. So cool. Three days of sangria and tapas and sex and we Really got back to our old
It was the best thirtieth. And she made every moment of it fun and cool and I forgot about my
My
What’s the male equivalent of a biological clock? Is there one?
Biological… screwdriver?
Anyway.
I like your office. It’s nice. Soothing. Smart. You seem to know what you’re doing.
I think we can work together.
Scene Two
ADAM is eating an M&S chicken-and-sweetcorn sandwich.
I’m thirty-one. Same age my dad was when he left me and my mum and my little sister Ella. I thought maybe when I got to thirty-one, when I was, you know, there, I’d understand why he did it. I’d have empathy or something. I’d think oh yeah I’m still quite young and the idea of having kids is scary.
Nope.
I feel the opposite. I’m desperate to have kids. When I see my mates’ babies I go all weird and broody. It used to freak Holly out. It freaks me out. It’s quite a feminine attribute, isn’t it? Shouldn’t I be more into getting my dick wet or like, buying cars or punching or something
Do you want a bit of this? I’m only going to have half.
So I can’t empathise with my dad. I can’t understand why he did what he did. And I don’t speak to him. He came crawling out of the woodwork about five years ago. He turned up at Ella’s uni halls, Ella… Ella’s always been a lot more… into the idea of finding him than I have. I couldn’t care less. Fuck him. Don’t want to exacerbate any possible daddy issues I have even further by attempting to forge an adult relationship with him. Tearful recriminations in a Caffè Nero. Throwing a ball to each other, making up for lost years. I’m alright without, thanks.
Holly would be the best mum. I think. I used to fantasise about lying in bed with her and her bump, rubbing her feet. Holly didn’t exactly feel the same way. She used to make me watch One Born Every Minute to try and change my mind but none of it bothered me. She’d really stare me out every time the voice-over lady used the term ‘mucus plug’.
Holly got pregnant for the first time when we’d been together three months. She was on the pill. It happens. She was twenty-two, I was twenty-seven, she was interning at The Times by day and writing for no money by night, I was still freelancing. Graphic design.
I do it for a catalogue now, full time, bit less interesting but a lot more stable, anyway that’s irrelevant
It would have been insane to have had the baby.
That didn’t stop me wanting it.
When she told me, over the phone, crying in a toilet stall at work, I thought – fuck it, let’s just keep it.
Let’s just
ADAM takes a moment.
I met Holly, er… four years ago. My friend Sarah had a barbecue, and the theme was the Baz Luhrmann film Romeo + Juliet? The one with Leo DiCaprio and Claire Danes? When you got to the barbecue, you drew a character out of a hat, and then you were handed the corresponding mask for that character… Sarah is mental. Anyway I’m sure you can guess what happened. Holly got Juliet, and I got… Quindon Tarver, the little boy who sings the cover of ‘When Doves Cry’. I was one of the last to arrive. I held up my mask and this girl, this kind of striking brunette girl wearing a green dress and waving her Juliet mask around like a wand, she started pissing herself. She went, sing the song!
And I had to sing ‘When Doves Cry’ in the style of that little boy, because she’d said it in front of everyone and I’d have looked like a tosser if I didn’t
So I sang it
I really went for it
And she was dying laughing, and she came up and grabbed my wrist and said thank you like I’d given her a really amazing present.
And she smelt like sun cream and grass and fags and she was fucking hilarious and she ate so much food. Other girls there were picking at salad and every time I saw her she had a burger or a sausage in her hand, she didn’t have that social-anxiety thing loads of girls get about eating in public
And there was this inflatable flamingo in the corner, a really big, obnoxiously big inflatable flamingo, and Sarah told me that
Holly had brought that with her.
Which was just
Funny.
And weird.
And six beers later I was desperate to shag her.
I could lie and say ‘six beers later I was desperate to get into a committed relationship with her’
But
No, I wanted to shag her. She was – is – so fit. She’s got this soft, chocolate-coloured hair that sort of rolls past her shoulders like a fucking painting or something. And her body is like, I mean, I don’t want to be, let’s just say she
Anyway, it got later and I managed to sit next to her as she rolled a cigarette and I asked if I could have one and dropped all the tobacco in my lap and she laughed and rolled one for me
And two hours later we were in my bedroom, and her green dress was up around her waist, and she tugged her knickers off so hard that they pinged off her ankle and into my face, and I didn’t have time to find that hilarious because she
Was
The next morning was weird, I’m not great at that bit. I like to be on my own, have a think. She left and she seemed annoyed. I texted her saying that I’d had a good night. She replied saying her too, we should have a drink next week. I didn’t reply, because… that’s what you do.
And two days later she called me.
Why do men do this? Do you think because you’ve fucked me a spell has been broken? Why aren’t you texting me back? It’s so boring. It’s predictable and boring. I’m fucking great. You should get that into your head. I’m great. I’m giving you one more chance. Okay?
And she hung up.
Anyone else, mate, anyone else, that would have sent me running for the hills.
But
Two days later we had our first proper date. I took her to a Greek place in Primrose Hill that I love. We shared a mezze and she wrapped her ankle around my calf under the table. She told me about her parents and her sister and growing up in Warwick. She made me laugh more than I’d like to on a first date, it ruined my composure, you know, the first-date veneer of cool. And you know, I can’t tell you what happened next, which date was next, what the next step was because from then on was
We were just in love and it was fluid and easy and we were the smuggest couple in London, walking through Sunday sunshine with that look, that aura, that says we are happy and perfect and impenetrable.
And then we got pregnant.
Holly said she hadn’t gone to Cambridge University to become a mum at twenty-two.
I went to Roehampton. Not the same is it. Still
She wouldn’t even let me go with her to the Her sister took her instead
So on a wet Wednesday morning in November I sat at the desk in my bedroom while, a couple of miles away, Holly removed our mistake, two fingers pinching a lit candle – extinguished.
I got over it. There was no other option. And I loved Holly. I love Holly. You don’t stop loving someone like her. The love changes, it bends to move past obstacles, it becomes more or less easy and more or less pleasurable but it doesn’t go away.
And even then I looked at the behaviour of my father and marvelled at his lack of gratitude, his unacceptable response to what is such a
Such a gift
Scene Three
ADAM is on his phone.
But my card is linked to the account
…
I see
…
Yes but the person who
Mm-hmm
Mmm
But
But the person with the
The person
…
No, yeah, it’s
Surely
Surely you’ve had this situation before
…
No
That’s not a
n option.
…
Yes.
And when will that be?
Fine. Okay. Thanks.
He hangs up the phone.
Sorry about that
I’m having a Netflix issue
I’m still paying for mine and Holly’s Netflix account but I don’t have the password.
So I can’t watch it.
It’s a very modern break-up problem.
I’ve asked her to change it to her card details, I mean I don’t have her new number and she’s blocked me most places but I still have her on LinkedIn so I had to ask her on there which was weird
She didn’t reply
You never think you’ll have to resort to messaging someone who’s seen you cry during sex on LinkedIn
It’s so pointedly impersonal, I mean it’s the sort of thing she’d find funny
Maybe she did
That’s alright, isn’t it? Messaging her on LinkedIn? Or do you…?
Crying during sex wasn’t a regular thing, by the way. Just something that happens when you’ve been together for a while and you get that need to be intimate and connect with each other even after some bad news or whatever. It’s kind of pathetic but it’s also an indicator of how the relationship is doing. If someone doesn’t mind you getting actual tears on them mid-penetration then they’re probably in it for the long haul.
I suppose I wasn’t great at explaining how I felt or telling her I was sad. Sort of the way I was brought up. After my dad left my mum just wouldn’t mention him. She’s quite cold, my mum.
We’re not a close family. I mean, me and Ella are, were, well I always try with her, but she can be really
We’re not a tight family unit. Unlike Holly’s family, who are all harmonious and love each other and stuff, which I find disconcerting. When you go to their house everyone’s happy to see each other. Nobody’s bitchy or nagging or
I used to love going to Holly’s for Christmas because it was like being in a film, a nice film, or a John Lewis advert.
We started doing things like Christmas and stuff like that together pretty quickly, I think because we moved in together after a year. Which was great, I loved having her then, but
She liked the flat, she liked living with me, but she didn’t like the fact that she couldn’t put much money in
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