Love, Unscripted

by Owen Nicholls

  Typical Mum. Always laying on the drama. If she’d joined RADA, she’d have an Oscar by now.

  My father continues, bursting my bubble by zeroing in on the thing I’m using to excuse my actions. “I know you think she’s just being overly dramatic. But she’s not. She cares about you so much. We both do. But you’re thirty bloody years old. You need to be able to look after yourself.”

  “I can!” I protest, convincing no one.

  “It’s going to be so hard for her to go with you in this state. And that’s what’s killing us.”

  It’s not just the words that sting. I can picture the two of them now, in bed, him just wanting some peace, her fussing and worrying about me until her fussing and worrying gets to him too. Then, as soon as she’s calmed down, he’ll be the one to start questioning everything.

  They don’t deserve this.

  As much as they wind me up, they’ve always done right by me. I feel like a 24-carat arsehole, and so I offer my dad a tiny expression of sorrow and, without a word, walk over to—shit, was it Jeff and Pamela? John and Patricia?—and hold out my hand.

  “Hi.”

  “Hello, young Nicholas, how are you?”

  After exchanging pleasantries, I glean a few facts about the job that all seem to make it sound tolerable. I don’t need experience. I will be allowed smoke breaks. The office is small, cozy, and local relative to Ronnie’s flat. And working for a charity offers “job satisfaction.”

  “Oh, and it starts Monday. How does that sound to you?”

  It sounds, I think, like I’d better actually learn your names.

  * * *

  —

  THE REST OF the evening is pleasant enough. Mum is positively giddy that I’ve accepted the job, no matter how many times I tell her it’s just on a trial basis. Dad, meanwhile, is just relieved he won’t have to cancel his plane tickets or sell a house he’s only recently bought on, literally, the other side of the world.

  I have another minor run-in with Gabby, whose hormones are still making her a total whackjob. She apologizes profusely about the dung beetle comment and I can tell she really wants to get into a conversation about Ellie. Lots of needling questions without a definitive endpoint. I have a feeling she knows about Ellie’s job offer, but I can’t bring it up in case she doesn’t.

  I sneak out just before eleven.

  Making my great escape, however, I bump into Margaret, Ellie’s mum. It makes sense she’d be here. Our parents have been close for a while and often send each other invites to various gatherings. But it still surprises me that she actually said yes. These invites are usually caveated with “They won’t come, but it’d be rude not to invite them.”

  “Hello, Nick.”

  “Margaret.”

  A shiver runs down my back. We haven’t spoken since “Margaret’s drunken visit.” “Margaret’s drunken visit” that may or may not have shaped the entirety of the lead-up to me and Ellie ending.

  “Margaret’s drunken visit” that I know I’m still not ready to truly reflect on.

  Yet.

  “Are you leaving?” she asks.

  “Yeah, early start for me,” I lie. Then, trying not to sound desperate, I blurt out, “Is Ellie with you?”

  “No, she’s having a leaving meal of her own. She flies next week.”

  “I know.”

  “Tonight’s just her and her dad.”

  “Are you and him still not…”

  She shakes her head.

  “Are your parents inside?”

  I nod.

  “Okay, then. Best go say hello.”

  She ducks to my left and I’m grateful there’s no awkward hug.

  * * *

  —

  I ARRIVE “HOME” to discover Ronnie passed out on the couch, also known as my bed. We have an understanding that if this happens—and it often does—I get his room. It’s an okay compromise, but I feel more than a little funny about taking it in turns to share a fifty-year-old’s bed with him.

  When it came to the decision of where to live next, Lizzie’s “ask me out” speech made it almost impossible to say yes to her previous offer of accommodation. There is definitely a part of me open to the idea of getting to know her better. At some point. Prospective mates, indeed. But the phrase “crapping where you eat” has never felt more apt.

  So while I’m definitely drawn to the idea of Lizzie and me, a nagging voice inside says I need to see out at least one date with someone not on my Facebook feed first.

  I get undressed to my pants and T-shirt, grab my laptop, and get under the covers.

  There are arguably too many dating sites.

  A quick Google spits up the big guns: eHarmony, OkCupid, Match. I’m not sure about PlentyOfFish. I get the idea of the title—“Don’t be despondent, there’s someone out there for everyone”—but it feels a bit like “Check this out, we’ve got plenty of fish.” AdultFriendFinder? Nope, don’t click on that. Guardian Soulmates? Bit on the nose, even for me.

  I pick one of the big three.

  Enter your email address: whatsmymantra@hotmail.com.

  Choose a username: JonnyBigDick seems quite subtle. Oh, it’s already taken. Try JonnyBigDick12. My God, there are eleven other JonnyBigDicks? I was just messing around. Maybe this isn’t the best site for me if I’m competing with eleven guys who think JonnyBigDick isn’t a joke name.

  Right, stop talking yourself out of this. I need something clever, but not too clever. Something filmic, obviously, so I can whittle down the ones that don’t get the reference.

  LassoTheMoon.

  That feels subtle enough.

  Are you looking to date men or women? I think it might actually be easier if I pick the former, but…Women.

  Age range? Let’s not be creepy about this. 25–35? Seems okay.

  About you? Next question.

  About you?*

  *This section requires completion.

  Fine. I’m 30. I’m male (as you can hopefully tell from the picture). I live in Clapham Junction, near St. John’s (if within a mile is near), with a former workmate (fifty-year-old stoner). I used to be a projectionist at the Royalty, I now work for a local charity (this job is paying off already!). I love films and storytelling of all kinds, books, plays (I even went to watch a whole one once), etc.

  I’m looking for the right person to be with.

  For some reason I think about how my parents have lasted this long.

  I still believe in love.

  NOVEMBER 5, 2008—3:20 A.M. GMT

  OBAMA 210

  MCCAIN 130

  270 NEEDED TO WIN

  After what she’d said about her childhood boyfriend holding her hand, all I could think about was doing the same. But even this tiny action—one that would come with low odds of rejection—was too big a bridge for me to cross.

  We were a minute away from the street where Tom lived, and I knew that the more time passed without me summoning up the courage to ask Ellie out, the less likely I’d actually be to do it.

  “So, yours?” she asked, interrupting my classic self-doubt.

  “What’s that?”

  “Your first?”

  “Can I pass on the first? Go straight to the second.”

  The reason for me not wanting to go into my first at that moment was because my first contained too many similarities to Chicken Cottage Vicky, as she would henceforth be known. I really didn’t want to paint another picture of strong alcohol and feeble fumbling. Truth be told, if it wasn’t for the fermentation process, I’d probably have made it to my midtwenties with my virginity intact.

  “Cathy. Or Cat, as she liked to be called. We met in the first week of uni. We’d both been to the same V Festival the summer before, and so, as you can imagine, my fate-o-meter went into overdrive.”


  “You do seem a slave to Moira.”

  “Who?”

  “It’s a Homer thing,” she explained.

  “Like The Simpsons?”

  “Like The Odyssey.”

  “Right. Like O Brother, Where Art Thou?”

  I gave a wink to show I knew more than I was pretending to, but I knew in my heart that I knew less than the wink suggested.

  “So…” She sighed, trying to get me back on track.

  “We lasted a couple of months. It was fun, but I don’t think either of us thought it would make it past the first term.”

  She offered a look to suggest I was holding back some crucial information. She was right and so I divulged.

  “There was someone else that I liked. I know that sounds awful. Before you think of me as a complete and utter bastard, there turned out to be someone else that Cathy liked too. Before the Christmas holidays she’d broken up with me and asked him out. I heard they got married.”

  “That doesn’t sound much like a first love. Was the follow-up the real thing? The other girl you liked?”

  “Oh no, that was a textbook unrequited. The list of unrequiteds runs long. To quote Groucho again, I’m not a huge fan of belonging to any club…”

  “…that would have someone like you as a member.”

  Ellie looked sadder than she had in a long time and I congratulated myself on timing this particular bout of woe so well.

  “So, who was your first love?” she asked.

  I folded my arms and blew air out slowly from inflated cheeks, giving myself a little hug and a moment’s hesitation. An instance to reflect before I doomed myself.

  “I don’t know. I mean, I’ve loved a lot of women.”

  We were right outside Tom’s house now. The noise from inside was loud enough to be heard from miles around.

  “But we’re talking about being in love. You can only be in love with someone,” Ellie said, “if someone loves you back.”

  “Ellie?” I ask. “Are you awake?”

  She replies, “I’m right here.”

  She’s lying next to me, but we’re back to back.

  “Can I ask you how close I am?”

  “To what?”

  “To losing you.”

  She doesn’t answer. She never does.

  * * *

  —

  I’VE HAD A variation of this dream every night since she told me her news. This means two things: (1) I’m still not over her, and (2) I need to stop listening to Cherry Tree by The National on loop.

  Tonight’s dream has an even more lucid quality, because today is departure day.

  There will be no race to the gates of Gatwick and no surprise last-reel intervention. For two reasons. The first is because I’m never late and the second is because Ellie flat-out asked me to take her to the airport.

  For a reason I still don’t fully understand, I said yes.

  * * *

  —

  THE FLIGHT IS at stupid o’clock in the morning, so we set off more than three hours prior to this. I worry about a range of different things on a day-to-day basis, but nothing makes me as anxious as missing scheduled transport.

  Maybe it’s why she picked me for this particular job.

  Like the gentleman I occasionally pretend I am, I help her with her bags and place them in the boot of the rented car. All her possessions for her future life are in those two standard-sized cases.

  “You didn’t have to rent a car. We could have taken the train.”

  I made a promise to myself that I won’t journey down memory lane with her, but there’s no avoiding mentioning our ill-fated trip to Cannes, and happier times.

  “We don’t have a great track record with public transport getting us places.”

  She grins. “We don’t have a great track record with hire cars either.”

  I hold my own grin back, instead fixating on the contents of the cases.

  Has she packed any photos of me? Will a ghost of me look down on her new home? Will a photocopy of a happy me sit by her bed and watch over her as she sleeps?

  The bags can’t be holding much. They can’t be holding Sir Isaac Teddington, the cheap stuffed toy I won at Winter Wonderland the day we attempted to tick off each item on my list of “Mightiest Romcom Clichés.” They can’t contain the framed poster of Cinema Paradiso I bought us—and yes, I do mean us—when we moved into the flat together. I gave it to her in the “divorce,” but now it unquestionably sits in storage.

  There is, however, definitely room for the—ahem—“toys” we bought together one drunken Saturday night in Soho. But I can’t decide whether I hope she’s taking them or not. There’s definitely not room for me. Unless she jettisons the entire contents and saws me in half.

  I must have been staring at the bags a while because Ellie’s now behind me checking her watch.

  “We’re fine,” I assure her. “We’ve got two hours’ journey time—including an hour leeway for heavy traffic—thirty minutes to get to the terminal and a further hour for check-in.”

  Before we get in the car, she touches me on the arm.

  “Nick,” she says, “I really appreciate you taking me. There’s no one I’d rather be with today.”

  I melt for a moment as I can see how apprehensive she is about all of this.

  Don’t be a dick, I tell myself. Just for today. Don’t be a dick.

  She pulls out three CD-Rs from her coat pocket and tries on a big cheesy smile.

  “I made road music.”

  * * *

  —

  EVERY SINGLE SONG she’s chosen kills me. Every single song is a Nick and Ellie number. There are songs from our first night together, songs from anniversaries, songs from gigs we went to together, and songs from movies we shared. I wonder why she’s being so cruel as Sam Beam sings about lovers dying in each other’s arms.

  The early start and the music choice are making a big dent in my “don’t be a dick” mantra. That she feels such a need to reminisce about good times is the icing on a shitty Victoria sponge. My bearish behavior will seep through, firstly in the form of monosyllabic answers, and then in lengthy silences. As long as I don’t snap, we’ll make it to Gatwick.

  “Do you remember the first time you met my folks? We were at their house and you pulled out the chair for me to be all romantic and I had no idea what you were doing and I ended up falling on my arse.”

  “Yep.”

  Instead of this three-letter contribution to the conversation, I want to scream, “Why? Why are you doing this? Why am I even here for this?”

  She tries again, but I bite my tongue.

  “And that time you let Snuffles out and she ran into the road and—”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Remem—”

  I can’t take it anymore. I snap.

  “Can we not do the ‘remember when’ thing?”

  She shifts in her seat, knees away from me, her body language more than making up for her silence.

  “How’s the job hunting?”

  On the back of my dour demeanor and hostile chitchat, it’s an absolute miracle of wonder that this question is asked in a nice manner and not soaked in venom.

  “I had a trial week with my parents’ friends’ charity last week.”

  “That’s brilliant! I mean, good for you.”

  She sounds genuinely pleased for me, but I guess it’s just a relief that she doesn’t have to feel guilty about leaving me at my absolute lowest. I’m one floor up from the dank basement of life.

  “It’s not working for the Associated Press or anything, but it’s okay, it’s a steady paycheck.”

  We share the smallest of smiles and look at each other. As I turn my attention back to the road, I can feel she’s still looking at me.
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  “If you’ve got a solid wage, you can use your redundancy money to come visit me. See where those Ghostbusters did their busting? Visit Léon and Mathilda’s Italian restaurant? Take a trip to Montauk?”

  I shrug, and out of the corner of my eye I see her look away. I think about telling her that that restaurant has been torn down, but her fake invitation has me riled. Riled enough to offer something I’ve been holding back.

  “I’ve got a date tomorrow night, actually.”

  I look over and realize the word “speechless” has never been more apt. Her mouth is open and she’s trying to form vowels and consonants, but they simply won’t come.

  “She seems nice. Her name’s Mia. We’re meeting at The Ferryman.”

  “Our pub?” she squeals in a way that I know she instantly regrets.

  I try not to appear smug.

  “I think it was around a few years before we got together.”

  She shakes her head and shuts her eyes and I wonder if she’s going to cry and why the hell I’m choosing to hurt her this way. The date is true, but I’ve completely invented the meeting location for maximum impact.

  I can’t make her love me again, but I can make her hate me. Is that the plan? Is that where this is heading?

  “What happened to your ten percent rule? We were together four years!”

  I can’t help myself.

  “Three years nine months actually.”

  “Still, ten percent of”—she does the simple math quicker than me—“forty-five months is four and a half months. It’s been just over three since you had your emotional breakdown!”

  What is she talking about? What’s that supposed to mean, my emotional breakdown?

  I present her with a guttural noise that’s meant to signify she should proceed; instead she offers me disdain and a pretty hurtful laugh. Not that I can really protest at the jab with the mean shit I’m flinging.