#11 – Understand the two absolutes of break-ups:
i) Eventually, you will be OK. You will recover.
ii) You absolutely cannot imagine ever feeling OK again. Ever.
Signed: Bella, Olivia, Harry
249A Fortess Road, Tufnell Park, London.
*
‘Go on then,’ Bella said, holding an old-fashioned fountain pen up to Holly’s face.
Holly stared at the pen, watching it go in and out of focus, her eyes thick with tears. Everyone was staring. It was not unlike being back on the school playground. She was half expecting a football to come and thwack her round the head. She looked down at the epic list of rules and wondered how it had all come to this. What was next? Laminated membership cards? A ten per cent loyalty discount at Thornton’s?
‘Yeah, Folly, sign,’ Olivia said. ‘What are you waiting for?’
‘Please don’t call me Folly. Lawrence calls me that.’
‘Called you that,’ Olivia corrected.
‘C’mon Holly. Let’s face it now, the only way is up!’ Bella sang while doing a move that wouldn’t have been out of place on Top of the Pops circa 1990.
Maybe they had a point. Holly wiped her green eyes for the tenth time that day and reviewed the evidence. She had only slept three nights out of the last twelve. Currently, her top three activities were: binge-drinking, insomnia and unabashed howling on public transport. And, these days, the face that stared back at her in the mirror was none other than the bastard sister of Freddy Kruger.
Olivia held out a plate of baklava. Holly recoiled, feeling a bunch of moths practising the high jump in her belly.
‘Christ no. Nothing against Harringay’s finest delicacy, I’m just not really doing food at the moment.’
No one commented, but it was obvious what they were all thinking. Things must be bad if Braithwaite was off her food.
Oh no you don’t, she thought as her eyes welled up again – the tear jar is full today.
Bella put her arm around her. ‘Let it out, Hol. That’s what we’re here for.’
‘But that’s all I’ve done today. Cry. Blow my nose. Watch American teen dramas. And repeat on a loop. I have no brain cells left, and the most overworked tear ducts in all of North London.’
‘Sweetie, you’re supposed to indulge it at first,’ Bella said.
‘Yeah. That’s the point,’ Olivia said, holding out the tray of baklava. ‘Here, get your strength up.’
Holly tried a tiny morsel.
‘It’s really just a formality at this stage,’ Olivia said, sounding a little too much like she did in her day job. ‘In the eyes of BUC law, you and Harry are already members. You both joined by default when you did a Synchronized Dump.’
Holly winced at the ridiculous slogan and scanned the room for any trace of irony. She looked across at her best friend from childhood, Harry, who had signed only moments before. The wry smile on his freckly face said that yes, he appreciated how ludicrous this all was, but the alternative was too bleak to comprehend. Going it alone. Venturing into the Valley of Unrelenting Doom in a seat for one. No, that was too horrendous a thing to imagine. Much better to travel on a bicycle built for two; or in this case, four.
Holly wiped her nose and took a deep breath. ‘All right. Gimme.’
Bella did a small handclap, then passed her the pen.
Even though this was all madness, there was still a part of her that felt like she was betraying Lawrence. Somehow signing on a dotted line made it all seem more final. Counting to three in her head, Holly signed her name in funeral black, next to the other squiggles.
‘And then there were four,’ Bella said.
Everyone cheered and clinked glasses. Holly pretended to look pleased and dedicated to the cause. Pretended she wasn’t thinking about Lawrence for the fourteenth time that minute.
She handed the document to Olivia, who returned it to its A4 plastic sleeve, the matter of New Joiners now dealt with. ‘We can always add to The Rules, as we see fit,’ she said, stretching up to place them high on a shelf as though they were the Dead Sea scrolls. ‘I think we’re done here, don’t you? Unless anyone’s got any AOB?’
Bella, Harry, and then Holly shook their heads.
‘So then, let’s go out and celebrate your inauguration!’ Olivia smiled.
As they descended the stairs in the flat, Holly felt her eyes well up again and finally she gave into the tears. She let them fall in time with her walk, leaving little droplets on every second stair. Before long, there were so many lines of black eye make-up down her cheeks that, as she shut the front door behind her and stepped out onto the street, she had the distinct look of a Jackson Pollock No.7.
Of course, none of them had imagined they’d ever need a thing so absurd as a Break-up Club. None of them had imagined they’d be spending the fag-end of their twenties slumped together in a living room in Harringay, knocking back cheap wine and baklava to a soundtrack of The Cure. Least of all Holly, who had always been such a committed Marxist. Not of the hammer and sickle variety, but the one Groucho
Marx gave to the world when he vowed never to belong to any club that would have him as a member. The kind that has since led to neurotic girls everywhere (Holly among them) running for the hills whenever anyone shows too much interest. Which was why out of all four of them, she was the last to see this coming. But then, there are some things in this world – your first grey hair, an on-time Northern line train, a pig flu epidemic – that you just never see coming.
(Two months earlier)
‘Your heart is a weapon the size of your fist.
Keep fighting. Keep loving.’
(‘Pure Evil’ Street Art, East London)
I love him; I love him not.
I love him… Holly decided, tearing off the virtual petals and staring across at the handsome man with the brown curls and big blue eyes… the one who’d first rocked her tiny world five years ago.
Yes, I one hundred per cent definitely love you, Lawrence Hill. Holly put the imaginary pile of ‘love him not’ petals to one side and stared at his silly face with fondness.
‘Stand
