Lindsey Kelk - We Were On a Break

‘It’d have to be given she’s shacking up with a dropout,’ he replied. I wondered how upset Dad would be if I glassed him. I probably shouldn’t – we’d never get the Bud Lime smell out of the carpet. ‘Only kidding. I know you’ve got a job.’

It was the air quotes around the word ‘job’ that pushed me over the edge.

‘We can’t all be a technowiz,’ I declared, banging my bottle down hard. ‘I wish I’d thought to start an app that delivers condoms and rolling papers to students for three times the price of the corner shop.’

‘Yeah, you really do.’ There was an edge to his voice that hadn’t been there before. ‘That app paid for my house. Remind me how you got yours again? Oh, that’s right, it’s Granddad’s house and Mum and Dad gave it to you.’

‘They tried to give me the wrong pizza.’ Dad walked slowly back into the room, weighed down by a pile of Domino’s boxes, just as I was about to leap across the room and choke my brother with our great-grandmother’s handcrafted quilt. ‘He had to call the shop to check. I wonder how many people don’t check what they’ve been given before the driver leaves? Can you imagine ordering a pepperoni and ending up with tuna? I’d be devastated.’

‘If Liv’s so hot and so brilliant, why are you on a break instead of engaged?’ Chris asked while Dad fannied around in the kitchen with plates and the world’s biggest wad of kitchen roll. ‘You’re not making any sense, little brother. She’s had enough of you playing carpenter and packed you in for someone with a proper job, hasn’t she?’

‘It was a mutual agreement,’ I replied, swigging my pissy beer. ‘No one has packed anyone in, we’re taking a break, working out some stuff.’

I didn’t even know if that was true, but since I’d spent all afternoon literally passed out, face down in my workshop from jet lag, I hadn’t had much time to think about it.

‘Now leave it. I don’t want Mum and Dad to know until we’ve sorted it out.’

‘Getting married a big commitment,’ he said loudly, with an added cluck for emphasis. Chris Floyd, the world’s greatest authority on relationships. ‘It’s a lot to take on.’

‘What’s that?’ Dad asked, gleefully presenting us both with two slices of forbidden pizza.

‘Marriage,’ Chris said. I shot him a warning look but he went on regardless. ‘I was just telling Adam it’s not something to be entered into lightly.’

‘True enough,’ Dad agreed before taking a bite and closing his eyes, enraptured. ‘Is there something you want to tell me, son?’

‘He’s going to propose,’ Chris answered before I could. ‘Aren’t you, Ad?’ He smiled at me across the room and mouthed the word ‘what?’ before stuffing his mouth with pizza.

Dad’s eyes opened up wide and I couldn’t think of a time I’d seen him happier. Pizza, his boys, and important family gossip Mum hadn’t heard first. He was living the paternal dream.

‘That’s bloody marvellous news, that is,’ he said, setting down his plate and hurling himself across the settee to give me a hug. Dad had become quite the hugger in his old age. ‘You know your mother and I love Olivia. Do you have an idea when you’re going to ask her? Have you asked her dad for permission yet?’

‘No.’ I chewed and chewed and chewed on the same mouthful of pizza but I couldn’t seem to swallow. ‘I haven’t decided anything yet. Probably best not to say anything to Mum until I’ve, you know, worked out all the details.’

‘Surprised you didn’t do it on holiday,’ he said, dumping himself back in his chair and nibbling at his leftover crust. ‘That would have been nice.’

‘Oh yeah.’ Chris looked at Dad as though he was a genius. ‘Why didn’t you think of that, Adam? Why didn’t you propose on holiday?’

‘Anyone want any more pizza?’ I asked, getting up and loading my plate with greasy, sausage-laden Domino’s before helping myself to one of Chris’s expensive beers. ‘Beer, Dad?’

‘Oh sod it, I will have one,’ Dad said, holding out his hand for the freshly opened bottle. ‘We’ll be dry again tomorrow. Your mum poured all my booze down the drain.’

‘I’m sure she’ll let you bend the rules to toast the happy couple,’ Chris said as Dad happily glugged his beer. ‘As soon as you do it, let me know, Ad. I’ve got a bottle of vintage Bollinger from the year you were born. Cost me a grand but it’s perfect for a celebration, don’t you think, Dad?’

The senior Floyd beamed around the room at the fruit of his loins.

‘I know it’s cheesy but I am glad the two of you have stayed such good friends,’ he said. ‘It’s so sad when siblings grow apart. You’re making an old man very happy.’

‘I can’t imagine the world without him,’ I said, raising my bottle and giving my brother the filthiest look I could muster. ‘I’ve tried but I can’t.’

Chris nodded, his cheeks flushing from the booze and the pizza and the general adulation while Dad carried on putting away his pizza, gazing at his children in such a perfect state of joy I couldn’t help but think Mum had wasted her money on a two-week yoga retreat. Forcing my pizza down my throat with a mouthful of beer, I stared at the wall and waited for someone else to change the subject. Now I was really buggered. There was no way my dad could keep schtum about this and there was absolutely no way Mum would leave me alone until I fessed up about what was going on. Meaning I really should make an effort to work out what that was before she got home.

‘You all right, Adam?’ Dad asked, red sauce all round his mouth. ‘You look a bit peaky.’

‘Right as rain,’ I assured him, raising my pizza up high as Chris stifled a laugh. ‘Never been better. Never been better.’

If only Liv were as easy to placate as my dad, I thought to myself as he carried on munching until his plate was clear. I knew I should have taken her a pizza instead of flowers.

Thursday night drinks at the local pub had been a tradition for Abi and me well before our eighteenth birthday but in honour of my relationship implosion, we took the unorthodox move of bringing it forward to Wednesday. It was necessary. After Adam left and I finished up all my appointments, I sent David home early and spent the rest of the afternoon hysterically crying in a corner of the surgery while all the doggy in-patients howled along in sympathy. It was like a really terrible deleted scene from Lady and the Tramp . Without going into the details, I summoned my girls to the pub and steeled my liver in preparation.

‘Evening all.’ Abi shuffled into our regular corner of the Blue Bell, setting a bottle of white wine on the table. Her chin-length brown hair was half up, half down, secured by endless hair grips and her accidental cool girl glasses were so smudged it was a wonder she could even see. ‘I’ve had a shit day, let’s get smashed.’

I shuffled along the seat to make room, banging my knees on the underneath of the table as I went. Booths were the devil’s invention; it was impossible to get in or out of one without laddering a pair of tights and yet we always sat here. It was hard to break a habit after more than a decade.

‘What happened?’ I asked, pouring for everyone, my hand still shaking.

‘My lab assistant broke a very expensive piece of equipment, buggered three months’ worth of test results and I really don’t want to talk about it,’ she said as Cass picked up the bottle I had just put down and filled it up to the top. Cass and I had already talked. ‘Liv, you’re back, yay. You look nice.’

‘No, I don’t,’ I replied, my eyes dry and sore from all the horrible, horrible crying. ‘I look like shit. I haven’t had a proper night’s sleep since Sunday and an Alsatian had explosive diarrhoea all over the examination room when I tried to give him a rectal exam and – well, we’ll get to the rest.’