41

CALVIN BRIDGE BROKE up with Shirley.

He couldn’t believe he had the guts to do it, and – from the look on her face – she couldn’t believe it either.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, I don’t want us to be together any more.’

‘But we’re getting married!’

‘I’m not.’

‘What do you mean, I’m not?’

‘I mean I’m not getting married. Sorry. I should have told you sooner, but, y’know…’

‘But why?’

‘Because—’ he started, and then wondered whether he should tell her the truth or not. He had no desire to hurt Shirley any more than he already was. But he couldn’t think quickly enough to come up with a plausible lie, so the truth it had to be.

‘Because I’m just not that… enthusiastic about it.’

‘About the wedding?’ said Shirley, in a voice that let him know that although she was trying to be understanding, she had no inkling of how anyone could not be enthusiastic about a wedding.

‘About any of it really,’ he confessed. ‘I’m not enthusiastic about the wedding. Or the children or the corduroy sofa or the idea of being together for the next sixty years when I haven’t even done anything with my life yet. I mean, I’m only twenty-four.’

‘What do you mean, you haven’t done anything with your life?’ snapped Shirley. ‘This is what we’re doing with our lives! We’ve been together for years and we love each other and we want to share our lives and now we’re getting married and that’s what people do, Calvin! People get married and then they have children and they work together to bring them up. That is life! That’s what life is!’

‘Yeah,’ said Calvin doubtfully. ‘But I’m not crazy about it, that’s all. I mean, it’s not really what I want for my life. Not right now, anyway.’

‘If it’s not what you want, Calvin, then why did you ask me to marry you?’

‘I didn’t. You asked me.’

‘Then why did you say yes, you idiot?’

Calvin paused and then figured In for a penny, in for a pound and said, ‘Because if I’d said no you’d have been all upset, and the Italian Grand Prix had just started.’

Shirley slammed the book of swatches shut so hard and so close to his face that she nearly pressed Calvin’s nose like a Victorian flower.

‘You bastard!’ she shouted. ‘Get out!

‘But it’s—’

‘GET OUT!’ she shrieked, and heaved the book at his head. It landed splayed open on the floor behind him.

‘But it’s my flat,’ Calvin pointed out cautiously.

That’s when Shirley started screaming. Everything up until then had been mild by comparison. All Calvin could do was stand there and wait for it to end, while Shirley gathered up random wedding things in her arms, weeping and yelling and red in the face.

The fact that he could muster only mild concern for her heartbreak was all the proof Calvin needed that he really didn’t love her after all.

At least he’d learned that.

It didn’t stop the break-up being bloody awful, but when it was all over and Shirley and all the wedding things had left his flat for good, Calvin Bridge felt a lovely sense of calm.

For a few minutes he stood in the middle of his living room, just looking around him at the sheer absence of Shirley, while his banished existence crept slowly back towards him from every corner of the flat.

Then he turned on the second half of England versus San Marino and settled down on his leather sofa to live the rest of his life.

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