I watched his eyes flick from me to the empty bottle of wine to the peanut butter. He didn’t pass comment anymore but I knew what he was thinking whenever he caught me mid-binge:No wonder you’re fat. You were slim when we met. You went to the gym. You cared about your appearance. Now look at the state of you.
‘You’ve still got your coat on,’ he said.
‘Have I?’ I hadn’t realised. The only things I was aware of were how hungry I still was, how I had peanut butter welded to the roofof my mouth, how the wine had gone straight to my head, and how I’d lost all feeling in my left buttock. My right one probably wasn’t far behind.
‘What time is it?’ he asked.
‘Nearly ten.’ I watched him reach for the fridge door and wondered why I used to think he was out of my league. He was certainly tall and dark but was he handsome? Not really. It was true what they said about personality. That fit body, which I once hadn’t been able to keep my hands off, did nothing for me anymore. I was also blatantly aware that, after a year of comfort-eating, my body did nothing for him either… except perhaps repulse him. Working late for the past year to avoid facing up to the reality that Jason wasn’t The One after all meant I got home too late to cook, so I lived on a diet of chocolate, crisps, doughnuts and takeaways. This took its toll on my bank balance, my figure, my confidence and our relationship. We argued constantly at first. Then we started ignoring each other so I ate more to comfort myself and… well, it was a pretty vicious circle.
He closed the fridge door. ‘What’s for dinner?’ He flicked the top off a bottle of lager. It dropped to the floor where it lay on the tiles next to a tomato stalk and what looked like a blob of salad cream. He wouldn’t pick it up. He didn’t care. And, at that very moment, I realised that neither did I. I slid off the stool, reached for my post and said, ‘I can’t do this anymore, Jason.’
‘Do what?’
‘Live like this.’
‘I haven’t had time to clear up.’
‘I don’t mean the mess.’ I looked up from my post and fixed my eyes on his. ‘I mean our relationship. I want us to break up.’ The minute the words left my mouth, I felt liberated. I felt light as a feather. I felt… Oh crap, he was about to protest.
‘Are you serious?’
‘Yes.’Stay strong. Don’t say it was just a suggestion. Don’t agree to try again. You can do this. You may as well end it and be alone because what you have right now is not a relationship. You’re like flatmates who don’t even like each other.‘We’re not right for each other. This last year hasn’t exactly been relationship heaven, has it?’
Jason stared at me, completely poker-faced. I willed him to say something. Agree. Protest. Shout. Cheer. Just do something. He gulped the rest of his drink down and banged the empty bottle on the worktop. Then he flashed me a dazzling smile and said, ‘Well, thank God one of us finally had the guts to say it. Sarah, you’re a life-saver. Do you fancy getting last orders in down at The Griffin? Don’t look so shocked. Come on. I’ll buy you a birthday drink.’
So that was that. Just over three years together had ended. No tears, no recriminations; just two drinks, a packet of Scampi Fries and an amicable conversation about what idiots we’d been to let it drag on so long. We agreed to give notice on the flat and sell the car, and I’d get custody of the cats.
I couldn’t have felt more relieved that the ordeal was finally over although it had been so easy that I couldn’t stop kicking myself for not having the guts to end it sooner.
Jason kissed me goodnight – a gentle peck on the cheek – then hailed a cab to a friend’s house to avoid a night on the sofa and to give me some space to think.
Which is exactly what I did. In fact, I lay awake most of the night thinking. And worrying. About the important stuff like where I’d live, how quickly we’d sell the car and how we’d detangle our finances, as well as the little things that suddenly seemed important at 3 a.m. like who’d keep the tea-light holders we’d bought in Greenwich Market last summer and whether I’d have to pay Jason for his share of the cat scratching post.
Rain tapped gently on the window, then with more ferocity. The rhythmic drumming eventually sent me into a troubled sleep where I reverted to my thirteen-year-old self, shivering outside Uncle Alan’s flat.
‘Uncle Alan? It’s only me,’ I shouted through his letterbox.
Drops of icy rain from the overflowing guttering splashed onto my head and trickled down my neck. I sniffed as a large drop ran down my nose, then instantly recoiled from the letterbox, clutching my nose, as a stench akin to rotting meat hit me. Urgh! He must have left the chicken out of the fridge again.I held my breath as I lifted the flap again. ‘I’m going to let myself in.’
Tucking the carrier bag containing the Sunday papers under myarm, I fished in my jeans pocket for the spare key and unlocked the door, bracing myself against the overpowering stench. My stomach lurched and I pressed my hand over my nose and mouth, thankful that I’d skipped breakfast.
‘Uncle Alan?’ I called through my fingers. ‘Don’t say you can’t smell it this time.’
A few flies buzzed round my ears and I swatted at them with my hand. Placing my bag down in the hall, I slowly removed my waterproof and hung it on the peg next to the beige mac that he never left home without. My hands shook slightly asI eased off my wellies and called again, ‘Uncle Alan? Are you being a grump again today? I won’t help you with the crossword if you are.’
Heart thumping, I waited for his response. Nothing.
I swatted a few more flies before creeping down the hall towards the lounge at the back of the flat. ‘Uncle Alan?’ I paused just before the lounge doorway and listened again. Over the rain, the thunder, and the flies, I could hear the thump, thump, thump of my heart.
With my hand still over my nose and mouth, it took all my strength and courage to step from the hall into the lounge because the sinking feeling in my stomach told me that our regular Sunday routine was about to be broken forever.
The curtains were partially closed so the lounge was in darkness. I tentatively felt along the blown vinyl for the light switch. As my fingers reached the plastic casing, a flash of lightning lit the room like a floodlight. And that’s when I saw him. Lying there. Over the thunder I heard a scream. A girl’s scream – a terrified, pained sound.
I sat upright now, heart thumping, as a flash of lightning lit my bedroom. ‘Uncle Alan?’ I whispered. When the thunder crashed, I shivered and dived under the covers, clutching my teddy bear, Mr Pink, reminding myself that I was thirty years old, not thirteen. I needed to think positive thoughts. I needed to picture him alive instead. I needed to focus the routine we used to have. At 10 a.m. every Sunday, I’d announced my arrival through the letterbox, let myself in and headed for the lounge where I found him reclining in his favourite chair, dunking a plain digestive in milky tea. With a lifecontrolled by diabetes, that plain digestive was his one weekly treat. A strawberry milkshake and a couple of chocolate digestives would be waiting for me. I admired his restraint at never succumbing to the chocolate ones himself. We’d have our drinks while I told him about my week at school and what I’d been doing in my after-school clubs, then I’d help him with the crossword. I say help but I certainly wasn’t the brains of the partnership; my reading saved him the faff of putting on his glasses and my writing spared the arthritic aches in his hands. His body may have let him down but his mind was sharp with a million facts and details.
Another flash of lightning lit the room and, with it, a vision of Uncle Alan flashed into my mind – the lightning revealing the swollen face, the marbled yellowy-grey skin, the soiled trousers – and I shuddered. I wished I hadn’t been the one who found him that day. But if I hadn’t, it would have been Mum, Dad or my brother, Ben and I wouldn’t have wished the gruesome discovery on any of them either. If only I could erase that image from my mind and picture him instead as the grump with a heart that I knew him to be, with a big frown but twinkly grey eyes that teared up each time I hugged him goodbye.
I blinked back my own tears that came so easily every time I thought of him. I should have visited more often. Once a week wasn’t enough. He needed me. He had nobody but our small family. I wiped at a rogue tear and admonished myself. I was young, I did my best and he appreciated it.
