Dumped, Actually(19)

‘Sure can, boss!’ I spring out of my seat with a display of enthusiasm that only goes skin deep. I feel decidedly guilty about not writing the article about my break-up that Erica suggested, so I have to compensate.

Erica smiles. ‘Okay, then.’ She gives me another sympathetic look. ‘It’ll get better, Ollie. Honestly.’

Damn you, bottom lip! Damn you to Hades and back!

‘Thanks. I hope . . . hope you’re right.’

Before my boss can see me get too emotional, I scuttle out of her office and over to my desk – where many, many emails await, along with an incomplete article I really must get finished.

This is probably for the best. A bit of hard work will keep my mind off Samantha for a while. I glance up at the clock on the wall, which says 9.15.

Samantha will be at the garden centre now. She’ll be out doing the stocktake, after the morning delivery, as always.

Damn you, brain! You can join the bottom lip on its way down to hell!



I ignore all of the emails, deciding instead to concentrate on the piece I was writing two weeks ago about the flurry of retro cinemas that have opened across the country. I try to keep the back end of the feature as light-hearted as the first thousand words, but it’s very hard to do so. I just about manage to crank the damn thing out, and then mail it over to Erica for her to have a look through. It reads to me like something written by two completely different people (which in a way, of course, it is) but I’m hoping she’ll approve it.

Then come the emails.

Oh Lord, the emails.

It takes me a good two hours to get through them all. A lot are about setting up meetings and visits for future articles I plan on writing. In most of my replies, I make profuse apologies for not being in touch in the past few weeks. Then I start on the dull admin emails that clog up my inbox like fat, lazy toads on an electronic log. Quite how a feature writer on a website can build up so many admin-related emails in such a short space of time is beyond me, but it’s happened and there’s nothing I can do about it, other than wade through them all until I see daylight out of the other side.

I leave Benedict Montifore’s email until last. This is probably a mistake, but I can’t bear to read it until after lunch, after I’ve had another coffee and a chicken salad roll. I figure raising my blood-sugar levels will help me cope with it.

I couldn’t be more wrong.

The tone of the email is ghastly. Gone is the smooth-talking businessman of the past. Now, Benedict is showing his true colours, and his words are brusque, cold and extremely hostile.

Erica summed the damn thing up pretty well this morning. Benedict does want to liquidate Actual Life as quickly as possible. He says his motivation for doing this is ‘the dramatic drop-off in subscriber numbers in the past six months’. I unconsciously scrunch a sheet of A4 paper into a tight ball in my hand as I read this. The subscriber numbers wouldn’t have plummeted in the first place had he not cut our staff and resources to the bone!

I’m actually livid by the time I get to the bottom of the email.

This is not a mental state I am accustomed to. I’ve never been a person who is quick to anger, but this single piece of electronic communication has made me madder than a rabid badger.

I should send him a reply.

I really, really should.

I should send him a long and heartfelt response to this rude and destructive email, detailing how poorly I think he’s run the website since he bought it, and reminding him that he’s playing with the lives of eight human beings!

Yes!

That’s what I should do!

. . . I don’t, of course. If I’m not a person quick to anger, I’m certainly not a person who’s good at confrontation – even in digital form. Besides, I need this job to last as long as possible. My landlord is putting my rent up next month, and I haven’t finished paying off the TV yet.

So, instead of replying to Benedict bloody Montifore, I open up a fresh new document in Microsoft Word and start to write about mocktails for men.

I adamantly try not to think about that other article – the one about the spectacular proposals. The glorious feature that a version of Ollie Sweet in another universe is happily tucking into, having had his marriage proposal accepted by the love of his life. The utter bastard.

No. It’s mocktails for me. Whether I like it or not.

The first thing I need to do for this is think of a title.

‘Mocktails for Men’ is too boring.

‘Mocking Masculinity’?

Too negative.

‘One Man and His Softie’?

Too cheesy.

‘Dry Hard’?

Nope. Been done.

Hmmm . . .

‘Dumped Actually’.

What?

‘Dumped Actually’. That’s a good title for the story.

Eh? That’s got nothing to do with mocktails!

No. It’s for the feature about splitting up with Samantha. The one Erica asked you to write.

I’m not doing that.

No? You think a dull as ditchwater story about boring cocktails will help keep this website afloat, do you?

I don’t know.

Yes, you do. It won’t. But ‘Dumped Actually’ . . . Now that has potential.

No, it doesn’t.

Yes, it does. And you know it. It’d be huge. The subscribers would love it. It’d bring in new readers. Because Erica’s right . . . everyone has been dumped before. And everyone has stories to share.