This is Not a Love Story

Chapter Five

‘OH MY GOD!’

I jerk awake, blinking madly at Martin, who is clambering across the bed.

‘Maggie! Maggie, oh my god, are you okay?’ He grabs my face and flits his eyes across my body. I look down. I am covered in chicken tikka masala.

‘Martin, hellooooo.’ I move my hand across my stomach and watch as a huge gloop of curry slides onto the bedsheet.

‘What the hell happened? Why are you here? What’s... this?’ He’s gesturing towards my general situation.

‘I got sent home from work and I was hungry, so I—’ I stop as I notice a flickering coming from the hallway. ‘Oh my god, Martin, is something on fire?!’ I jump up from the bed and a naan bread hits the floor with a splat . I run into the lounge and skid to a stop. There are tea lights on every surface and petals are scattered all over the sofa and floor. In the middle of the dining table is a bottle of champagne in an ice bucket. I turn around. Martin is standing in the doorway looking sheepish.

‘What the hell is this?’

‘Don’t you like it?’ He pouts.

‘Well, I mean . . . are we celebrating?’

‘Maybe.’ He takes my crusty, garlicky hand and leads me towards the table. I sit down and he disappears into the kitchen.

‘Stay there!’ he shouts.

I look around the room. There must be over 100 candles in here. They’re probably the paraffin ones that cause lung disease, too. What is going on? How long was I asleep? I peer at the label on the champagne bottle. Right. So this is where he spends the rent money he never gives me. Be nice, Maggie.

‘Ta dah!’ Martin is wobbling into the room carrying two steaming plates of something that smells suspiciously like farts. He places one down in front of me. Grilled chicken, broccoli and sprouts. The curry in my stomach swirls in protest.

‘Now, I didn’t want to break my diet, but as this is a special — well, potentially special — occasion...’ He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a squeezy bottle of extra light mayonnaise. ‘Let’s be naughty, shall we?’ He winks.

‘Martin, this is really great, but—’

‘Shhh. Let’s eat.’

I’m really not awake enough to play detective right now. I smother a sprout in mayonnaise and force it into my mouth. I gag.

‘Careful, it’s hot! You okay?’

‘Yes, yeah, I think I just need a glass of this to cool my mouth down.’ I reach for the champagne and rip off the foil.

‘Wait, I wanted to save that for—’

POP. I fill my glass to the brim and take a huge gulp before pouring some for Martin.

‘Oh. Well... cheers.’ He clinks his glass glumly against mine and I smile brightly. I need a distraction so he doesn’t notice I’m not eating his sulphurous food. I could break up with him... he wouldn’t notice I wasn’t eating then, would he? I stare at the line of tea lights precariously licking at the space under the curtains. No, probably not the best time. Later, when we’ve blown all the candles out.

I feel my eyes threatening to close again. I blink hard and look down at my plate, but I’m saved from eating any more because Martin is inexplicably on the floor next to me.

‘Have you dropped a sprout again?’ I peer my head under the table.

‘No, Maggie, look at me.’

‘Okay . . .’

‘Dear, sweet Maggie.’ What? ‘My life has changed in so many ways since I met you. This apartment, our home, has become a haven for me with you in it.’ WHAT? ‘You are the most beautiful, sweet and kind person I know.’ I am none of these things. OK, maybe a bit beautiful. Gotta be your own cheerleader. ‘I can’t put into words how much you mean to me, but hopefully this will show you.’

He reaches behind him and as he turns I notice that he isn’t just on the floor. He’s on one knee.

ONE.

KNEE.

Oh my god, no.

No, no, no.

This is not happening.

Abort.

ABORT RIGHT NOW.

‘Are you proposing on a Wednesday ?’ I screech. It’s a baffling, nonsensical question, and it comes from the very oldest, most primitive survival centres of my brain.

He pauses. ‘What’s wrong with Wednesdays?’

‘Well!’ I scrape my chair back. ‘Well!’

‘What? Maggie, what? ’

I down the rest of my drink, buying time. Be patient. Be nice. This is nice. This is a lovely moment.

‘Maggie,’ he repeats.

‘Well.’ Why do I keep saying that? What is wrong with me? What is happening here? I need to be sensitive and say no politely, but I can’t match thought to speech. I just need him to be quiet so I can think. Maybe pause time, freeze-frame, while I wash my hands, change my clothes so that I smell just a little less like a cumin farm and figure out precisely what the situation is here.

He blinks at me and my eyes travel to his hand, which is holding the most beautiful ring I have ever seen. A thin, silver band with three delicate, perfectly round diamonds nestled together.

Jesus.

I pause for a second. Martin looks up at me with big, wide eyes. Oh, god. It is pretty. The images come immediately, flipping like an Instagram carousel. We could have the wedding on the beach in Santorini; me in a flowing, cream gown, barefoot with flowers in my hair, three bridesmaids trailing behind in different shades of cornflower blue. A honeymoon in the Caribbean; that place where you can swim with pigs. Me laughing on the sand, my head flung back, salty hair billowing in the breeze. A photo-montage that would lift my depressing social media presence and gain me a thousand followers. And then back to England, to Manchester, relaxed and tanned, back to work and this apartment. Coming home to Martin every evening, poached salmon and green beans for dinner, never having any time alone again. Getting pregnant, trapped working for Theo forever to pay off the mortgage, the boiling hatred for Martin growing inside me every day until I eventually snap and burn the house down.

‘Maggie?’ His eyebrows are drooping.

No. NO. I will not trade my soul for a pretty ring.

‘I can’t.’ I shake my head violently. ‘No.’

I grab the bottle of champagne and take a swig. Martin watches me.

‘That was supposed to be to celebrate... if you’d said yes. I could have saved it if you hadn’t opened it.’

‘Oh my god, Martin. For what ?’ The thought of there being something to celebrate — of us having something to celebrate — feels contradictory to the foundational physical principles upon which the universe is built.

He shrugs. ‘I don’t know. For next time, maybe.’

‘There won’t be a next time.’

‘You don’t know that. I could meet someone else.’

‘Oh. Right.’ I’m not surprised to find that this doesn’t upset me in the slightest. The idea of Martin with someone else actually makes me feel relieved. Though I’m not one to let an open-goal opportunity to be self-righteous go to waste.

‘Great. Yeah, no, that’s great. Save the champagne and the ring for the next one.’ I grab the bottle again. ‘Oh, except you can’t, because I’ve drunk most of it.’

Martin grimaces, like if he held up the ￡1,000 rent of this place against the rapidly dwindling bottle of Veuve Clicquot, the latter would be deemed a more worthy contribution to this relationship. ‘Yup.’

I can feel the rage bubbling in my veins. There’s no point even trying to filter my responses.

‘Don’t worry, I’ll pop a stopper in the top and it should last another week or so. That should be enough time, shouldn’t it?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Maggie. I couldn’t propose to someone with half a bottle of champagne.’

I cannot believe I’m having this conversation. I grab my half-full glass from the table and messily pour it back into the bottle.

‘Better?’

He frowns. ‘That was really expensive.’

He’s pouting at me miserably. I suddenly want to suffocate him with the rose petals. I am so angry. How has it come to this? I grab a handful.

‘Would you like these back, too?’

‘No, they’re already starting to turn.’ He tuts. ‘The food’s gone cold now as well.’

‘Thank god for that.’

‘It was a bit too hot, wasn’t it? I’ve told you a million times not to dig in when it’s fresh out the oven. You do it every time.’

Right, that’s it. The gloves are off. ‘No, Martin, it was disgusting. And I just ate four curries, so I’m not all that hungry to be honest with you.’

‘ Four?’ He gasps. For the first time this evening, he looks devastated. ‘You know there’s over a thousand calories in one curry?’

‘There’s a bit left if you’re hungry.’

He recoils. ‘God, no.’

I sink down onto the sofa, the bottle still in my hand. He doesn’t get it. It’s not his fault he doesn’t get it. Be nice. ‘I’m sorry, Martin. I’m upset, I’m not being very nice. I’m just...’ I sigh. ‘What did you expect me to say? We have nothing in common.’

‘Yes we do!’

‘You can’t be serious? You’re obsessed with healthy eating and the gym. I just had four thousand calories and a 2p.m. nap.’

‘We both like The Walking Dead .’

‘Oh, great!’ I stand up and wave the bottle in the air. ‘Let’s get married! Let’s have a Walking Dead themed wedding and teach our children to fend off zombies and spend our retirement years watching reruns.’ The champagne is swimming straight to my head. It is completely his fault that he doesn’t get it.

Martin is twisting a rose petal between two meaty fingers. ‘Well it’s not a bad idea...’

‘It’s a fucking terrible idea!’ I screech. Martin flinches. Why am I so horrible? I can’t decide between consolation or attack; I’m flitting between the two. ‘I know this was meant to be lovely, and I’ve ruined it. I’m sorry. But you must realise that we’re not compatible? At all?’

Martin ignores me, taking the plates and shuffling dejectedly into the kitchen. I grab my tobacco tin from the bookcase, roll a cigarette and light it from one of the candles on the coffee table. I crack open the window and lean on the windowsill, taking deep drags and watching a pigeon peck at a fried chicken leg on the street below. Isn’t that cannibalism? A chicken is a bird, and so is a pigeon. Does it even know what it’s eating? Of course it doesn’t. But then, if I ate a monkey, would that be cannibalism? Although we’re not the same species as monkeys, are we? Could a human get pregnant from a monkey? Could a chicken get pregnant from a pigeon?

‘For god’s sake, please don’t smoke inside.’ Martin has returned, drying his hands on a tea towel.

‘Could a chicken and a pigeon have a hybrid baby?’

He stares at me blankly. ‘Put it out.’

‘It’s my apartment, Martin, I’ll do what I like.’

‘It’s not yours, it’s the landlord’s, and there’s no chance we’ll be getting the deposit back if it stinks of smoke.’

‘ I’ll be getting my deposit back because I’ll fumigate it before I leave.’ I don’t even know what fumigating is. I think the smell of Brussels sprouts might require something a little stronger, though. An industrial, post-contagion chemical clean, perhaps. Or just demolish the entire building. It’s probably the only solution.

‘You know for every one of those you smoke you’re losing ten minutes of your life, right?’ He looks quite proud of this little factoid he’s produced. Note to self: if by some horrific turn of events I end up marrying Martin, I must smoke fifty a day to shorten the pain.

I take a deep drag and tap the ash out of the window.

Martin glares at me and thunders into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him. I return to watching the pigeon and his feast. Another one arrives and the first steps to the side, moving to a smaller crumb and allowing the newcomer to have the slimy bone he leaves behind. I wonder, again, about the genetic similarities between a chicken and a pigeon.

I’m deflecting. I know I am. I’m being mean and antagonistic and thinking about avian cannibalism instead of trying to have a civilised conversation about what the hell just happened. I can’t process it, though, because the future that flashed in front of my eyes when I saw that ring was so terrifying, so totally the opposite of what I ever imagined for myself, that it made me sick. I want to go back in time and slap 25-year-old me. You do not want marriage and children. Do not talk to the man with the alluring eyebrows. Walk out of the club and go and get a pizza.

I take a final drag and throw the butt out of the window, taking care to miss the pigeons having their evening feast. I love pigeons; I think they’re hilarious. Martin hates them — yet another thing we can’t agree on. I can hear him having a poo in the bathroom. That seems like an appropriate chain of events: propose, get rejected, contemplate re-using champagne on the next woman who drops unwittingly into orbit, enjoy loud, unselfconscious bathroom break. I feel really romanced. What a lucky girl I am.

I down the last few dregs of the champagne from the bottle and pick up Martin’s glass, which has hardly been touched. I imagine him picking out that bottle, buying the rose petals, carefully lighting each tea light. Guilt rises up from the pit of my stomach. I need him out of here. I look around the room, which is full of reminders of his existence. A stack of protein shake sachets at the end of the dining table, his phone charger neatly coiled by the wall, dumb-bells next to the TV. I want my space back. I want my evenings in front of Hell’s Kitchen with a pizza and a bottle of wine. I want to stretch my legs across the entire bed and not have to breathe in the result of his aforementioned protein habit. Why did I ever think this was what I wanted? How much time have I wasted?

He doesn’t want me, anyway. He can’t possibly be happy with me. We don’t laugh, we don’t cuddle, we don’t have sex. We don’t even talk. Martin just wants a wife; the carbon-copy, socially-approved life, ticking off all the milestones at exactly the right time. Excellent body in mid-twenties: check. Well-paid career at twenty-five: check. Centrally located apartment at twenty-six: check. Engaged at twenty-seven is just the next appropriate ‘to-do’ item. He doesn’t think too much; it’s just convenient for him that I happen to be here to ask.

The bathroom door opens and Martin is standing there, holding a hair I must have missed in the plughole earlier.

He opens his mouth to speak.

‘Get out.’ The words come out before I have time to think.

‘What? Look, Maggie, it’s not hard to just put these in the bin—’

‘Get out, Martin.’

He steps out of the bathroom, looking over his shoulder.

‘Not out of there!’

‘Out where?’

‘Out of the door. Out of the apartment. Wherever. Just leave, please.’

‘What do you mean?’ He frowns.

‘I mean I want you to go. I don’t want to be with you anymore. I don’t want you here anymore. I don’t want you. So just go.’ I can’t believe I’m saying this. I can’t believe I’m finally doing this. It’s an injustice to him, to have left it this long, to have let it get this far. I could do this better, I could have done this better a long time ago, but if I stop to consider his feelings I’ll never get through it.

His mouth hangs open. ‘Where is this coming from?’

‘Martin, if you have to ask that question, then you really need to get out.’

‘What have I done?’

‘It’s nothing you’ve done , it’s what you are. What I am. You’re so different to me. We’re not even slightly compatible. I feel suffocated by you, I’m not happy. I’m sorry. I’m sure you’ll find someone lovely, who gets you and likes you and wants to eat chicken and beans every night for the rest of her life. But that’s not me, Martin, I’m really sorry but it isn’t, and I think you know that. I need you to go.’

He looks hurt, and for a moment I regret it all so much. I feel like I should just give him a hug and apologise and stick an episode of The Biggest Loser on for him. Go back in time, say yes, let him smother me forever. Have the stable life with the husband and mortgage and sacrifice hope for pure misery.

‘I haven’t finished washing up.’

That moment is gone.

‘I’ll do it. Please, Martin.’ I’m getting frantic now. What if he doesn’t leave? What if he stays here and refuses to get out and I’m stuck with him forever? Who do you even call about that? Is there an ombudsman?

He stares at me for a second, and then walks into the bedroom. I follow him and watch as he starts slowly and methodically placing everything he has ever owned into his suitcase, folding each item precisely as if he’s going to a business meeting in Dubai. I am suddenly hot and panicked. I need to be alone.

I head back into the kitchen and grab a bin bag. I throw everything of Martin’s I can see into it as quickly as possible. There’s something vaguely therapeutic about the action, like I’m literally binning this chapter of my life. A few of my mugs remind me of him, so they go in as well. And that wall hanging he once said he liked. The radish in the fridge. The tea towel he just dried his hands on. And a nice sprinkling of rose petals to garnish it all off.

I drag the bag into the bedroom. He’s on the floor, zipping up his case.

‘You can pick up your weights another time.’

‘Or you can just post them to me.’

I’m going to ignore that ridiculously expensive suggestion. He takes the bin bag from my hand and trudges towards the front door. I reach round and open it for him.

‘Well, bye then, Martin.’ I force myself to seal the deal. Don’t back down now. Keep pushing. Push until he’s gone and then you can reassemble your mind and work out what to do next.

‘Bye, Maggie. Don’t forget to water the bonsai.’

I decide not to mention that the bonsai is now rammed inside the bin bag he is currently holding, mangled and covered in protein powder.

I shut the door.

* * *

Somehow, I have half a bottle of wine in my hand. I’ve not even bothered with the glass; I’m just swigging it straight and wondering why I ever bother doing anything different.

I’d hazard a guess that it’s about three hours since Martin left, and in that time I have rather swiftly transitioned from euphoric tipsiness into full-on-breakdown wasted. I have a piece of paper in my hand, too, but I’m struggling to remember why. I roll and light a cigarette. Cigarettes! That’s it. I write it down.

Obviously this isn’t the first time I’ve had an all-consuming wave of panic about my cigarette habit. YouTube keeps slapping mini-documentaries on my homepage, with titles like ‘the dangers of smoking’ and ‘here is what 100 cigarettes do to a clump of cotton wool’. It’s like it knows. I’ve been smoking since I was sixteen, and I’m now twenty-seven. Eleven years . It was all fine when I was at uni, and we’d sit and smoke in the hallway of our disgusting ten-bed house in our dressing gowns, missing lectures. But slowly everyone has stopped smoking and started cooking and making money and settling down and talking about mortgages. Except me.

Anyway, I’m tired of trying to settle down and I’m quitting now, so soon I will be able to sit on my high horse and scoff at all the poor smokers and their shivering, year-round outdoor time.

I roll another cigarette.

It appears I am creating a to-do list. I think I came up with the idea when I was looking at my phone. Emma Penton’s Instagram, I think that was it. I want everything she has, so I have to make changes. Hence the list.

What else does Emma Penton have? She’s slim, like a brand-new, shiny spoon, and looks good in a maxi dress. In fact, I’ve seen pictures of her painting her living room in ‘Setting Plaster’ pink, dressed in a huge nineties jersey and a pair of mom jeans, and she still looked three times smaller and more effortless than me. I take another swig of my wine. Skinny privilege is so unfair. Then again, so is male privilege, but I was born female so I’ll just have to lump it. Or I could join a movement. Participate in the fight for equality. Equality for... everyone. All of us. I don’t think we need to get too specific at this stage. Perhaps that’s where this journey is taking me: activism.

I feel like I’ve drifted off topic. What was I thinking about? Oh, yes, being born a girl. A non-skinny girl. I wasn’t born fat, though, was I? I write carefully. That’s something I can change.

Emma’s almost entirely muscle, too, but not in a beefy way. The woman basically lives at the gym when she’s not going to sushi classes and trying cheese tea down some weird backstreet with Instagrammable neon signs. The gym is actually probably the reason she can have cheese tea. A tub of Philadelphia is not any healthier if it’s dumped on top of a mug of Earl Grey, Emma. I scrawl my pen drunkenly across the paper again. For the past two years, exercise has been Martin’s thing. Doing it myself felt like giving in to his regime. Now he’s gone, I’ll give it a shot. Maybe I could start with Zumba, or ballet or something. Become one of those people who post ‘train with me’ TikToks of their workouts.

I’m nearly out of wine. I’m getting hungry again. I wish my mum was here to make me a cheese toastie. Or my Nana. She makes a good ham butty. I haven’t seen her in a while. I really miss her. My eyes well up and I shake it off. Now is not the time to transition into weepy-drunk.

Veri’s coming over in a couple of days. Maybe I could try and get closer to her? I shudder at the thought. I do love hanging out with my brother, Charlie, though. Emma Penton has loads of pictures of her having cupcakes and visiting farmers’ markets with her brother and her grandma. Anything’s cool if you’re cool. I take another slurp of my wine and then balance the glass precariously on the arm of the sofa, grabbing the pen again.

OK, good. I feel good. I’m happy drunk again! This list is the recipe for perfection. Follow the steps, and Emma Penton will appear. Looking a bit more like me, obviously. But not too much. Just so people recognise me. I squint at the piece of paper in front of me.

1. Stop smoking.

2. Lose weight.

3. Exercise.

4. See family more.

I’ll start tomorrow. I drain the last of the wine and light one last cigarette. Oh god, work tomorrow. I can’t cope with this. I can’t spend another day in that place. I scribble one final item down.

5. Change your fucking job.