Love, Unscripted

by Owen Nicholls

  “Yeah.” The smile disappears and she looks at me with utter contempt. “Christ, you’re a moron.”

  The sudden turn takes me back a little, but I reason it must be something pregnancy-related that I don’t understand.

  “Why did you hang up on me the other day?”

  “Because. Because I was pissed off Ellie called you. Why did she call you?” I ask, having wanted to ask for the last ten days.

  “Because she’s fucking awesome and nice and she knew I was due soon and wanted to wish me luck.”

  That’s right. Two women can have a conversation without it being about a man. It’s not all about me. Still, I counter with a little petulance anyway. “Maybe you should have had a baby with her instead.”

  “Instead of boring Andrew, you mean? I know what you think of him,” she says.

  I hang my head for the umpteenth time tonight.

  “Thought of him,” I offer. “I saw it when I walked through the door. What you mean to him. What he means to you. I’m sorry if I give him too hard a time.”

  “Don’t be. You wouldn’t give him a hard time if I didn’t. And he wouldn’t put up with it if he didn’t like it. People are simple.”

  She cocks her head. The contempt she showed before is now a thing of the past, replaced instead with curiosity.

  “Can I ask you something?” she says, cocking her head to the other side.

  I nod.

  “Do you like being unhappy?”

  It takes a while, but I let out a meek “No.”

  Maybe that’s not the question I need to ask myself, but it’s damn close.

  I ask, “When I took her to the airport, Ellie said I had a breakdown. I didn’t, did I?”

  “You sort of did.” Even in our hushed tones Gabby says this with a softness that lulls me. “But everyone breaks down. Everyone does, from time to time. It’s when you reassess everything. What shit means to you. What matters. It was such a damn fucking shame that everything else went tits up so soon after.”

  “I still don’t think it was a breakdown,” I argue.

  “What did you do in April?”

  “I don’t know.” I rack my brain to try and figure out what she’s getting at. “I worked a bit. Nothing special.”

  “And what did you do the April before that and the April before that and the first April you and Ellie were together?”

  The realization is fast and painful.

  “Oh Christ.”

  I had completely forgotten the tapes to Lucas. The ritual we had every year. The promise I made to get out the camera. To leave the flat. To let Ellie record her messages to her brother and feel better.

  “Why didn’t she say something?”

  “How could she? ‘Hey, Nick, you know that heartbreakingly nice gesture you did for me? Well, you forgot this year.’ She’d never want to make you feel bad.”

  She wouldn’t.

  “Like I said on the phone, something in you just switched off earlier this year. You came to ours with Ellie, it was around March, and there was something missing. Something changed. You just collapsed inwards. Like a…”

  “Like a dying star?”

  “Like a fucking twat. I know things have been tough lately. You loved that job, and it was a fucking shock to me too when our parents decided to fuck off halfway around the world. Especially when I’ve got that”—she points at her darling sleeping child—“fucking parasite to try and keep alive. But you switched off before all that. I just don’t know why.”

  I’m desperate to tell her there were other factors, outside influences, but I know now isn’t the time or place. And even the mitigating circumstances don’t stop her being right. I like how right she is. I don’t know why I didn’t rely on her rightness before now.

  “Ellie told me she invited you to America.”

  “She didn’t mean it…”

  “Christ, Nick!” The sudden raised voice makes Freddie twitch, but he settles himself, allowing his mother to lay the sarcasm on thick. “Of course, she was just calling your bluff. Playing a prank. And when you arrived at the airport, bags all packed, she’d laugh in your face.” Sarcasm complete.

  “She might.”

  The withering look Gabby gives me next makes me fear for her son.

  “Well, it seems like you’ve moved on anyway. What with your date and all.”

  I haven’t told Gabby about Lizzie, so she must mean Mia.

  “Did you let her down gently?”

  Because I’ve forgotten to get Gabby and Freddie a present, I think I might as well give them the following.

  “I climbed through the restaurant’s toilet window. But I got stuck halfway and the staff had to help me free.”

  A smile crosses Gabby’s face. Followed by a little chuckle. Then a hearty laugh and a snort and full-blown guffawing. She’s taking such delight in my suffering it’s enough to wake Freddie and a couple of other babies on the ward. Evil glances are given by the other mums, and returned, as Gabby picks Freddie up and puts him on her boob. He bounces up and down as she continues to laugh.

  “It really wasn’t funny.” I grin at her grin. “Let me guess, hearing that is the highlight of your day?”

  She finally settles, wipes away a tear, and says, “It might just be.”

  I make sure Gabby can see me looking at Freddie.

  “Did you hear that, Freddie? Two hours old and she’s already putting my misery above your happiness. She’ll be a terrible mother.”

  Gabby helps Freddie find his food with one hand and holds mine with the other.

  “You’ll be all right,” she says.

  “I love you,” I say.

  “I know.”

  * * *

  —

  BEFORE I LEAVE the hospital, I find a seat outside the ward and drink the coffee Andrew bought for me. On the TV, Obama is giving his victory speech. He looks implausibly older in these four short years, the specks of gray in his hair, the already long face somehow longer. He speaks of an optimistic future, the promise of the country’s founding, how as a nation people aren’t as cynical as the media would have them believe. He talks of how America is greater than “the sum of our individual ambitions…more than a collection of red states and blue states.”

  It’s an impressive speech. Better than the last one even, but last time around it was so much easier to believe in. So much has happened between Obama ’08 and Obama ’12.

  As a British outsider, I see so much anger. From both sides. Angry comedians shouting angrily about how wrong and angry the angry commentators are. And angry commentators shouting angrily about how angry and wrong the angry comedians are.

  With so much bad blood, how can they possibly “seize this future together”? Hope and change seem a distant memory. And to misquote Dylan, I was so much younger then. I’m older than that now.

  But with age comes wisdom, right?

  Gabby’s diagnosis of my shutting-up shop earlier this year brings with it an avalanche of recriminations and filtered-out memories.

  I haven’t added to the Reasons We’re No Longer Together list since Ellie flew away over six weeks ago.

  I think of the truest way to write this.

  #5 I SHUT DOWN.

  Like a form of relationship narcolepsy, I switched my feelings off and coasted. I didn’t listen when she made it clear she was unhappy. I didn’t try when I needed to. And I forgot about those damn tapes that meant so much to her. I might not be able to pinpoint where the other things on the list started to go wrong, where they started to eat away at the future of us.

  But this moment, the catalyst for the great switch-off, this I do remember.

  And so, for the final time, I’m ready to tell our story. Truthfully.

  The Girl knew that change was a part of life. The Boy feared it w
ith every fiber of his being. His reluctance to bend to what life threw at him would invariably lead him to break, bringing with it more change than he could possibly deal with.

  The news that Ellie’s parents were separating, after three decades of marriage, blindsided everyone who knew them. Ellie most especially. She replayed the meal at which they announced their split when she returned home.

  “I felt like I was twelve. Like, this is the sort of thing that happens when you’re growing up. Not when you’re thirty-one.”

  She spoke clearly but dispassionately. As though she was retelling the plot of a book she was reading. Plenty of “then he said” and “then she said.” She was blinking a lot too, still trying to make sense of it.

  “I half expected a ‘this isn’t your fault’ speech, but thankfully it was all about them. About how they’d been unhappy together for a while now. How they were of an age at which they both wanted more than the other could offer.”

  She stopped talking and Nick did his best to figure out what would be helpful in this situation. He landed on sharing in her shock.

  “I’m amazed,” he said. “I just thought that was it for them. In it for the long haul. Like if this was a computer game, they were so close to ‘completing married life.’ Why stop playing now?”

  He wasn’t sure if Ellie was listening, if she was taking in any of his pearls of wisdom. Not wanting to push it, he offered her tea instead.

  “No thanks. I think I’ll find it hard enough to sleep anyway.”

  She kissed him on the cheek.

  “Thanks for listening, Nick. Sorry it’s so late.”

  That night in bed she held on to him tighter than normal.

  * * *

  —

  THE WEEK FOLLOWING the big announcement, Ellie’s mother, Margaret, journeyed down to London to meet up with a friend who she described as “a fellow divorcée,” even though she and Richard had only marked off seven days from their separation calendar.

  Ellie had said she could stay at theirs if she wanted and been met with “If I don’t get lucky out on the town!”—a line of dialogue no daughter ever wants to hear from her parent.

  Thankfully for Ellie, Margaret was back at their flat, safe and sound, by midnight, though more than a little under the influence. Ellie was in the bathroom, so when the doorbell rang, Nick went to answer it. He was met with a hug, a double cheek kiss, and the peculiar scent of vermouth and too much perfume.

  “Hi, Margaret, how are you?” he asked.

  She hung her coat and bag up as if she’d been living with them for years and led the way down the hall.

  “Call me Mags, Nick. I love it when you call me Mags.”

  “Okay, Mags, can I get you a drink?”

  “Got any vermouth?”

  Ellie met them in the living room and shot Nick a look that said “Please choose your words more carefully when offering her a beverage.”

  “No, Mum, we don’t have any vermouth. But I think coffee would be a good idea.”

  Nick nodded and left them to it, although such was the space in their flat that he could hear the entirety of their conversation.

  “Oh Ellie, I feel so free.”

  Margaret pulled off a graceful twirl to accompany the word “free” and slumped onto the couch.

  “I imagine you feel quite drunk too,” Ellie responded.

  “Don’t be a downer, Ellie. This is good for both of us. For all of us. Your dad’s a good man, but he’s not the man I married. Goodbye, old pants!” She giggled loudly.

  “Don’t call him names!”

  “No, I mean it literally. I will never have to stare at his old-man pants again.”

  There was joy in her voice like she was tipsy, but the actual words betrayed the fact that she was well and truly sloshed. Ellie assessed her and came to the conclusion that she had spent too much of her life convinced adults had it all figured out. It was unsettling to see someone thirty years her senior fall apart.

  Nick took his time over the coffee, knowing that if he went back into the living room he’d become part of the discussion and have to give opinions and take sides. He predicted there was no way on earth that would end well for him.

  Alone with her mother, Ellie tried to coax out more answers to the question that still so confused her. Why, after everything they’d been through? Why now?

  “Are you saying you’d stay together if Dad bought new underwear? Because I’m sure Nick could take him shopping.”

  “You’re talking like this was all my idea, Ellie. It wasn’t. It was a mutual decision. Mutual boredom.”

  These words hurt Ellie, and Nick, hearing them through the wall, needed to offer his support. He settled on the pretense of not knowing how Margaret took her coffee to make his entrance.

  “Milk? Sugar?”

  He prayed she wouldn’t come out with a “sweet enough, Nick” flirtation, but before she could answer, Ellie barked, “Black!” at him and added a large water to the order. She did this in such a way that Nick immediately thought it best to retreat back to the safety of the kitchen.

  “I feel like our job is done now,” Margaret continued. “We did the thing we were meant to do. We raised you. You’re all grown up now.”

  To contradict her point, Ellie sullenly observed, “So it’s all my fault? Me growing up has caused you to separate?”

  “No. No, you’re twisting my words.”

  Margaret lowered her voice. Or at least she lowered it in the way drunk people do, where they dial it down for a second before forgetting why and raising it back to the previous volume moments later.

  “You don’t know what it’s like, my darling.”

  “Then tell me, Mum.”

  “Nick’s…Nick’s so good for you, Ellie. Can’t I have someone look at me the way he looks at you?”

  Her voice carried and Nick thought to himself, Why am I being brought into this? I’m supposed to be safe in the kitchen. Don’t make your daughter’s boyfriend one of the reasons you’re leaving your husband. And please, God, tell me you didn’t tell Richard that. He hates me enough as it is.

  Ellie replied aggressively, “You don’t think after thirty-odd years of being married to Nick his old pants will piss me off too?”

  Nick made a note in his phone. Buy new pants. And another: Google latest trends in pants. Make sure you’re keeping up with the times.

  As he thought about his pants, he could hear Margaret attempting to drop the decibel level again, this time with such great effect that he had to move to the edge of the kitchen to hear her.

  “You were smart,” Margaret began. And Nick thought how nice it was when proud parents got all gushy about their kids.

  That was until she finished her point.

  “You were so smart, Ellie. With Nick. So smart. You aimed…low.”

  The words crushed him.

  “Mum!” There was rage in Ellie’s voice despite her hushed tone.

  “He can’t hear me. It’s fine. But you are. You are. So smart. You could have had anyone. But picking him, you know he’ll always idolize you.”

  “Mum, seriously.”

  There are times when you can ride something out by saying, “It’s the booze talking.” But this remedy only lasts for as long as you can keep out the thought, What people say when they’re drunk is what they really mean.

  A silence enveloped the flat.

  Nick waited for the conversation to pick up again before he brought Margaret her drinks. He knew that if he went in too early the awkward silence would be brought up again later, when he and Ellie were alone. If he timed this wrong, he’d have to lie about what he had heard.

  “One coffee, black. And one large water.”

  * * *

  —

  THEY TALKED ABOUT London and work and anything they c
ould think of that was uncontroversial until the drinks were drunk. Then Ellie showed Margaret to their room. When she reappeared, Nick gave her the sofa and took the floor.

  As they lay, she held his hand from her higher ground.

  “How much of that did you hear?”

  “Just your mum saying how great I am,” he lied, as he’d known he would. “How she wishes someone would look at her the way I look at you. Although as nice as that was to hear, it did make me incredibly sad.”

  Ellie stayed silent.

  “Why? Did she say anything else?”

  “No,” Ellie lied back. Although her lie was arguably a little whiter. “Nothing of note. Just drunken ramblings.”

  “Are you okay?” Nick asked.

  “No.”

  “Can I help?”

  “You can come up here and give me a cuddle.”

  He did as he was asked.

  “You’ll be okay,” he whispered. “And they will be too. Given time.”

  * * *

  —

  IN THE MORNING, Ellie left for work before Margaret was awake, leaving Nick the unenviable task of dealing with an in-law nursing a hangover and remorse.

  He considered inventing a reason to bail, perhaps an emergency at work. But two reasons kept him around. First, he hated to be seen as a bad host. Second, he didn’t want to give Margaret the chance to snoop around their flat and find more reasons to judge him unworthy.

  He made himself a double espresso because he hadn’t slept. Because this woman’s words had kept him awake most of the night.

  “You were smart, Ellie. You aimed…low.”

  All those fears, the ones he’d had years ago—even on that first night—the fears that had lain dormant, they spewed forth now. He wasn’t good enough for her. Someone had finally had the balls to say it.

  Before last night, he would have placed a considerable sum of money on it being Richard, Ellie’s dad. But Richard just made his contempt clear through nonverbal communication, like even taking the time to tell Nick he wasn’t worthy of his daughter was offering him too much respect.