Love, Unscripted Read online

  Instead, Ellie kissed the girl on the nose.

  In a move that was probably for the best for everyone involved, myself included, violence was averted as the girl blew a kiss back and smiled a wasted smile that had more in common with a sloth than an actual human being.

  “Two miles south, you reckon?” she said, hiccuping three times in the space of the one short sentence.

  Ellie nodded. “Just ask for Mr. Benson.”

  Ms. One Shoe stood up, saluted, and made her way into the garden.

  She’d gone about ten meters before she exclaimed, “I found my shoe!” and promptly passed out.

  “We should probably get her back inside,” I said. “Or at least go find her a blanket.”

  Ellie looked at me and said, with sincerity, “You’re one of the good ones, aren’t you?”

  The compliment made me feel both elated and anxious, so I attempted to cover it with self-deprecation hidden in an invitation to spend more time with me.

  “It’s way too early in the evening to jump to conclusions like that.”

  “You’re right,” she said, playing along. “I’ll give you until Texas to prove me wrong.”

  For nearly four years I believed I had that thing I’d craved for so long. You have to understand that love is everything to me. It’s Rick and Ilsa. It’s Harry and Sally. It’s Han and Leia. It’s George and Mary. It’s Peter and June. It’s WALL-E and EVE.

  At the end of our big breakup fight, I clammed up. It definitely wasn’t the most mature option, but I genuinely didn’t have a clue how to respond, and she kept offering new and increasingly unoriginal platitudes designed to make me feel better that had the exact opposite effect.

  I stayed as silent as Buster Keaton and we sat like that for somewhere between ten and thirty minutes. Me staring at the carpet. Her staring at her interlocked hands as she chewed on both her thumbs at the same time.

  Eventually she rose.

  “I’m meeting my mum in an hour. We’ll talk later.”

  I said nothing and she left.

  I was convinced from that moment on we—as we knew us—would never be the same again. That was almost three weeks ago, and we haven’t spoken—bar the occasional text message—since.

  But I have a plan to change this.

  * * *

  —

  OF ALL THE possible places for a potential rendezvous, Ellie’s dad’s house is at the bottom of my list of ideal locations. Richard has never liked me, and the events of the past three weeks will have done very little to initiate a U-turn.

  There’s little I like about him either, except his daughter. And his flat, which is enormous and overlooks Battersea Park. Inside it has huge windows and ridiculous furniture; you’d only have to sell one piece of it and you could refit our entire one-bedroom home. Outside it has these oppressive double doors with security cameras poking out at you from every angle. I read somewhere that Elizabeth Taylor used to live around here in the fifties.

  Did Ellie choose his place to stay knowing I wouldn’t want to visit?

  There are no names next to the buzzers, so I have to use a memory that’s never served me particularly well. Armed with my peace offering, I press the top button. A voice I can’t say for certain is Richard’s says, “Hello.”

  “It’s Nick,” I answer.

  The short and testy “And?” signals I’ve hit the right buzzer. I can picture him now, lounging about in his three-piece suit and his cutthroat shave, suave like Colin Firth.

  At least I know I wasn’t a father substitute.

  “Can I come up?”

  “Nope.”

  A long pause is followed by “She’s not here.”

  “Do you mind if I wait for her?” I ask in the least belligerent way I can muster.

  “She isn’t coming back tonight.”

  My finger is getting sore from pressing the intercom button.

  I carry on regardless. “Do you know where she is?”

  “You can text her, can’t you?”

  This is a reasonable question for which I have no reasonable reply other than that I was hoping the spontaneous, romantic nature of my visit might make her fall in love with me all over again.

  “Look, she left her bike helmet at ours, and now that the weather’s getting better I thought—”

  “You can leave it outside.”

  More silence.

  I consider one final “Can you tell her I came around at least?” but figure that first, it’ll sound a little desperate, and second, there’s no way I can tell for sure he’ll let her know. In fact, any desperation I show will pretty much guarantee he won’t.

  I press the buzzer anyway.

  “That’s really fucking helpful, Richard. Thanks. You know this isn’t my fault?”

  While he may or may not have heard, I think this might be the first time I’ve ever sworn in the presence of Ellie’s dad.

  It’s certainly the first time I’ve lied to him.

  NOVEMBER 5, 2008—12:57 A.M. GMT

  OBAMA 44

  MCCAIN 24

  270 NEEDED TO WIN

  Tom’s house, much to his chagrin, was gloriously upbeat as the numbers started tipping toward Obama.

  I remember wondering what he was hoping for as he stomped about telling anyone who’d listen—and plenty who wouldn’t—“Bob Barr is the man who would offer real change,” only to be met with the elegant refrain of “Who the fuck is Bob Barr?” on every single occasion. Had he really hoped McCain would win in an early landslide and everyone at the party would be despondent and slink away home before two a.m.?

  Tom has always struck me as the kind of person who would rather be right than happy.

  As for me and Ellie, it felt good being the two least wasted people at the party, like we had a special bond. Us vs Them. The Sober vs the Drunk. Those who would throw up into shoes and we who would not.

  Crucially, it meant we could actually talk and listen to each other, even with the increasing volume of the music. Somebody put The Shins on loud, and all the male attendees bopped their heads from side to side, myself included. I stopped when I saw the return of Ellie’s wry smile.

  “What?” I asked in a way that swayed heavily to the curious rather than the confrontational.

  “You like The Shins?”

  “Yeah,” I replied, edging toward confrontational.

  “Okay.” She paused and looked me up and down. “And the movie Garden State?” The wry smile was at peak wryness.

  “It’s all right,” I said, far more defensively than I’d intended to.

  “I see.”

  I know when I’m being teased, and this was some grade-A teasing.

  “What? What does that mean?”

  “Nothing.”

  I turned fully to face her, and she turned to me.

  “What does it mean?”

  “Well, we’ve been chatting about an hour now?”

  “We have.”

  “I’m just trying to get a take on you.”

  I resisted the urge to go full A-ha.

  “And my admission to liking The Shins and Garden State has led you to a conclusion?”

  “Not a definitive one, no.”

  “So, what’s this inconclusive conclusion that has you looking all smug and powerful?”

  She faked offense.

  “How much do you like Garden State?” Her eyes narrowed as if she knew I’d offer a lie.

  “A bit.”

  “Do you own the soundtrack?”

  I grimaced. “Maybe.”

  “Did you see it more than once at the cinema?”

  If anyone else had tried this line of questioning on me, I would have presented them with the definition of surly. But I already liked her and she knew it.


  “I may have.”

  “And I’m guessing, as you work in a cinema, you have a copy of the poster up in your house somewhere.”

  “Now you’re looking smug.”

  “I’m right, though?” she asked, knowing the answer.

  “You’re right.”

  She did a little victory leap, complete with a punch in the air and a twirl. I waited for her to land.

  “So tell me, in your humble opinion, what does it say about me?”

  “Nothing really. Just that you fit loosely into a type. Romantic, a little naive, super-daydreamy…”

  I mock-fluttered my eyelashes and said in a teen southern California accent, “You think I’m dreamy?”

  “Laid-back. To a point. You tend to use humor when you feel uncomfortable, you’re sort of self-involved…”

  “Please go on.”

  “And”—there was that one-second word turned into five—“it tells me you think a woman’s sole function is to swoop into your life and fix you, regardless of her own emotional needs, because you’re the center of the universe and she’s just a supporting character.”

  At this point I literally took a step back with shock at how effectively I’d been psychoanalyzed on the basis of liking one film. I felt like I’d been hit by a beautiful and insanely observant truck.

  “Well, that came out of nowhere.”

  “Sorry. Was it a bit much? The good news is, in the grand scheme of things, these are essentially minor character flaws.”

  I nod, still taking the assessment/assassination in.

  “And anyway, whether I know you for just this night or for a million more nights, I’m sure I can be of some service.”

  She informed me she’d get me a beer and walked away before I could respond.

  I called after her.

  “You do realize you just offered to swoop into my life and fix me!”

  She turned, curtsied, and disappeared into the kitchen.

  My sister, Gabby, is super-cool and I love her with every fiber of my being.

  Yes, she made me wear makeup more times than I’d have liked when we were younger. Yes, no matter my protesting, she still calls me the sister she always wanted. And yes, once—when she was taken over by the gods of teenagehood—she pushed me down half a flight of stairs. But she’s also fiercely loyal and protective of me.

  When I was sixteen, she took me to cool gigs, bought me beer, and let me hang out with her really attractive friends. She’d never get too wasted when I was around, never let me wander off alone, and she’d always put me first, making sure the second I wanted to get home we were in a cab together, no matter how much fun she was having. And Gabby had a lot of fun when she was entering adulthood.

  There was Anthony, Bill, Callum, Daniel, Dave, David, David 2 (listed alphabetically not chronologically). Geographically, there was Eric from America and Trey from Australia. Dutch Butch, who was Dutch, and Butch Rich, who was from Switzerland. Then there was François, who was painfully, stereotypically French. He was her penultimate boyfriend and for a while I was worried he might be the final one. He came from a town in the south of France called Sisteron and would say creepy things to me like, “I am from Sisteron and I am on your sister.”

  Most of these guys were fun, some of them were mean. A couple of them were very fun for a while and then became very, very mean.

  If—and it was always a big if—Gabby settled down, I always expected it would be with a celebrity or a surfer or some sort of surfing celebrity. I never thought she’d marry someone like Andrew.

  Andrew is so boring he prefers to be called Andrew. Who does that? What normal person wouldn’t shorten it to Andy?

  He looks like, and very much is, an accountant. Andrew the Accountant. Oh Gabby, you could have done so much better. Andrew the Accountant, who, when you ask him what music he likes, responds with some bullshit like, “Oh, I like a bit of everything.” Yet if you played him some mid-eighties Tom Waits or anything by The Paper Chase, his head would explode.

  Don’t get me wrong, he isn’t a dick. He’s super-polite and smart in both appearance and books. He’s the kind of guy who pulls a chair out for you at dinner, while insisting that you have the last bread roll and he’ll pay the bill. All before the starters are served. My parents love him. And my parents never love anyone.

  Except Ellie. They also love Ellie.

  And now I have to break their hearts by telling them that their dreams of both their children finding everlasting happiness are as dead as Sean Bean in every film Sean Bean has ever been in. But as I open my mouth, Gabby and Andrew stand up from their seats.

  “We have an announcement to make,” Andrew says. Like he’s reading the quarterly profits of a plumbing company that’s really careful about overspending.

  Gabby pulls out two little square white envelopes and passes one to our parents and one to me. We open them to see a tiny fetus in black and white.

  “We’re going to be a mum and a dad. You’re going to be grandparents.”

  She turns to me.

  “And you’ll be an uncle. Uncle Knick-Knack.”

  And I just start bawling. Really disgustingly blubbering. And I know I shouldn’t, because Gabby’s never told our parents about the difficulty she’s had trying to conceive. She didn’t tell them because she knew they’d offer appalling advice and make it all about them. But she has confided in me and I know just how much this moment means to her. She wraps her arms around me and whispers in my ear, “Are these tears for us, or for you, or because I quoted The Addams Family?”

  And I sob, “Both. All three. I don’t know.” And she cups my head between her hands and we notice that everyone is crying. Except Andrew. Who I assume is incapable of tears, lest his circuitry become damp.

  A group hug is administered, and I know now that there’s some good in the world and that maybe I’ll be okay. These revelations after three weeks of misery mean I can’t stop crying. And everyone laughs at their emotional response like British people do when they’ve let their guard down.

  “Do you have a due date?” Mum asks.

  There’s an awkward pause as Gabby and I exchange a look to say we know what’s coming. Mum and Dad exchange one that says they definitely don’t.

  “Mid-November,” Gabby answers, with a faux grin that makes her look like she’s seven again and has just admitted to stealing all the biscuits in the tin.

  Mum does some quick calculations. “Mid-November? That would mean you’re…”

  “Four and a half months already.” She stands and shows off a well-concealed bump that none of us had noticed before.

  “Four and a half months!” Dad finally joins in. “That’s halfway there.”

  I resist the urge to sing Bon Jovi’s greatest hit as I’m fully aware how difficult the ensuing conversation is going to be for Gabby. My parents are not bad people, but when it comes to being overly dramatic, even Nicolas Cage would advise them to rein it in.

  “Why didn’t you tell us sooner?” Mum asks in a shrill tone.

  Gabby looks to me for support.

  “We’d had some accidents.”

  “Some accidents?” asks Dad in a willfully stupid way.

  “Miscarriages, Dad. Miscarriages. We didn’t want to get too excited until things were…”

  I pipe up with “Cocked, locked, and ready to rock!”

  The line gets a laugh from Gabby, much to Andrew’s chagrin, and our mother chastises me. “Now’s not the time for jokes, Nicholas.”

  Using a full-name Nicholas means I’d better watch it.

  “Why didn’t you tell us about the…accidents?”

  Even though she doesn’t say the word “miscarriage” and it’s already been uttered—in front of the sprouts and carrots, no less—she still mumbles “accidents” like she’s dropping the N-
bomb at a church fete.

  I can see Gabby getting increasingly irate.

  “Jesus. We didn’t tell you because it’s personal to us. We had each other and…some other help.”

  Dad rises from his seat. “You told Nick you were trying, didn’t you? You told your brother and not us!”

  “This is supposed to be happy news,” I offer in as flat a tone as I can.

  “I just don’t understand why you keep secrets from us,” Dad says, teeing Mum up for the perfect body slam of parental guilt.

  “Are we not good parents?”

  “For Christ’s sake. We’re grown-ups!” Gabby yells, her adolescent whine slightly undercutting her point. “We decide who we tell and when! Next time I have a miscarriage I’ll put it in the parish bloody magazine.”

  A hush descends.

  Andrew shuffles nervously in his seat. You can see he really wants to be the one to break the silence, to repair the family with his repartee.

  He looks at me, and I pray to God that what’s coming isn’t what I know is coming.

  “Nick, how’s Ellie?”

  I swallow.

  “She’s…erm…she’s…yeah…”

  Gabby clocks it immediately and gives me the same look Seb did.

  Of course she knows something isn’t right. She’s been able to tell something isn’t right since I was four and Richie next door stole my Thundercats trainers.

  “Can I show you something in the car?” she lies, as I wipe away the tears still hanging off my face.

  We excuse ourselves and creep out to her and Andrew’s pristine white Mercedes. There’s something to be said for Andrew’s vocation, I think, as we walk the half a mile of driveway to the car from the front of their house. Gabby opens the door and I get in.

  “This is a really nice car,” I say by way of distraction.

  “What happened?” Gabby asks.

  I stare at my shoes and kick them together.

  “She said she doesn’t love me anymore.”

  Gabby narrows her eyes in the way she’s always done when she knows I’m being less than totally honest.