well, I’d told myself it was probably indigestion. The cracks were there, spreading invisibly. I think I’d just hoped if I tried hard enough I could make it all okay again.
It had only been a few weeks after the proposal that I told Alice I’d been offered a place. God, she’d been so disappointed in me. It was the first time I’d seen that side of her. She’d been humouring me all along, hoping I’d get a grip and stop having some sort of third-of-life crisis.
‘Can’t you just do voluntary work or donate some money to charity?’ she’d said, trying to brush it off.
‘I can’t – it’s not that simple,’ I’d replied.
‘You don’t have to make up for your dad dying by giving up your life and becoming a nurse,’ she’d said, trying to keep her voice even. I remember spreading my hands out on the table, looking down at them, wondering if she just needed a chance to get her head around the idea and get used to it.
‘It’s not that. I want to do something that makes a difference. I want to work with people.’
‘Why don’t you train as a doctor then? At least that’s …’ She’d paused, and the words had hung, unspoken, in the air.
‘I don’t want to be a doctor, that’s why.’
‘But you’d get a half-decent salary, at least.’ She’d barely been able to disguise how cross she was.
But the idea had been nagging away at me since those long weeks we spent in the hospital with Dad. It wouldn’t leave me alone. I wanted to be a nurse. I was going to be a nurse. And if Alice couldn’t get her head round it now, well, she’d get there in the end.
Weeks had passed, and Alice hadn’t said anything about my plans; it’s clear now she was hoping it would all go away. Occasionally she’d throw me the odd barbed comment about playing nurses, but other than that she carried on as normal. It was a bit weird, when I look back on it.
When it was clear the idea wasn’t going away, particularly after I’d taken up the offer for the place on the course, she started throwing out every objection under the sun. A change in career would throw our perfectly ordered life into chaos, she’d said. She’d been making noises about having babies, and made it clear that there was no way that’d be happening if I was earning a nurse’s salary. We wouldn’t be able to carry on paying the rent on our pretty little place in Stoke Newington with me not earning. She became shrill and angry, yelling at me that I was putting her future in jeopardy just because I was having some sort of crisis. And the relationship that had seemed so solid had slowly but inexorably begun to show those tiny cracks, which soon turned into gaping huge chasms.
The one thing I know is that I didn’t blame Alice. In a way, I almost felt that I’d lured her into getting engaged under false pretences. She’d bought into a lifestyle as well as a relationship, and then I’d decided – on what seemed to her like a whim – to take that lifestyle away.
I turn the corner onto Albany Road, still lost in my thoughts.
‘Hi,’ Becky says when she pulls the door open back at the house.
I’ve had all this stuff going through my head and I need to have a shower, gather my thoughts, try and wipe it all away. God I hate Valentine’s Bloody Day.
I don’t know why I find myself upstairs in my room, rummaging through balled-up socks and crumpled boxers, reaching right to the back until my hand finds the small, solid box. There it is – a tangible reminder of the life I left behind. And when I look up at my face reflected in the mirror I realise I look knackered. Also, I really need to get a haircut. I rub my face with both hands, before giving a huge yawn. What I really need is to get a decent night’s sleep.
A couple of hours later, we’re all sprawled on the sofas, so stuffed with Domino’s pizza we can hardly move. Rob isn’t there, of course – Valentine’s Day being one of the big nights in the restaurant biz, with people like Alice and me last year keeping them in business.
‘My God,’ says Becky, rubbing her stomach as if she’s six months pregnant. ‘I swear I’m having a pizza baby.’