Dumped, Actually(78)

Mum and Dad don’t argue! Mum and Dad never argue!

Dad thumps his hand down on the counter. ‘Oh, for God’s sake Daphne. We needed a new pergola, and that one was fifty per cent off. You know we need a new one!’

‘Yes, Leonard, but I thought we’d agreed to wait until we’d picked out the right clematis, so we’d know what colour pergola to get!’

‘I know that. But this was a bargain. We can choose the clematis to go around the pergola instead!’

‘But I don’t want to do it that way, you insufferable man!’

‘And I don’t want to waste money on a more expensive pergola, when this one will do the job very well, for half the price!’

‘Oh bloody hell, Leonard! We could have afforded the full-price one without a problem!’

‘Yes, but why spend more than you need to?’

‘You’ll just have to paint it, to match whatever clematis I choose.’

‘Oh right! It’s whatever clematis you choose, now, is it?’

‘Yes, Leonard! You choose the pergola without consulting me! So I get to choose the clematis without consulting y—’

‘STOP!’

Mum and Dad both cry out in shock and immediately look at me.

‘PLEASE STOP!’ I shriek, tears coursing down my cheeks.

This isn’t Mum and Dad.

This isn’t what Mum and Dad do.

They don’t argue. They don’t fight. They don’t talk to each other like this.

What is happening? Why are they doing this?

Why can’t I stop bloody crying???

‘Oliver! Oh, Oliver!’ Mum says, all the anger gone from her voice. She rushes over to me and gives me a hug. ‘What’s wrong, son? Tell me.’

Dad also comes over, the look of anger on his face replaced with worry. ‘Whatever is the matter, my boy?’

I point at them both as Mum stands back a bit. ‘You two. Arguing like that. Talking to each other like that. What’s wrong? You were so happy yesterday! What the hell is wrong?’

Mum and Dad look to one another briefly in confusion, before returning their gazes to me.

‘Why . . . nothing’s wrong, Oliver,’ Mum says softly. ‘Your Dad and I were just having a disagreement about the pergola.’

‘That’s right,’ Dad interjects. ‘Nothing to worry about.’

‘But . . . But I’ve never heard you speak to one another like that,’ I insist. ‘There must be something wrong with you. You’ve never spoken to one another like that!’ I wipe my eyes. ‘Are you . . . Are you getting a divorce? Was yesterday just a sham to keep everyone thinking your marriage was okay?’

‘Oh my God!’ Mum exclaims in horror.

‘Of course not, Oliver!’ Dad blurts out. ‘Why would you think such a thing?’

‘Because you were arguing.’ I say this like it’s the most bizarre and dreadful thing in the world – which I guess it is, from my perspective.

‘So?’

‘You and Mum never argue. You . . . You have the perfect marriage, Dad.’ I look at him, misery writ large across my face. ‘You have the thing I can never have.’

Mum looks aghast, before quickly staring at her husband, who appears equally shocked.

‘I think we should sit down and have a chat,’ Mum suggests, pulling out one of the kitchen chairs beside us. ‘Why don’t you sit on this, Oliver? I’ll make us all a nice cup of tea, and you can talk to us.’

Mum looks quite distressed. And no wonder. This is the first time I’ve expressed my feelings quite so openly with them. It must be something of a shock.

While Mum busies herself making the tea, Dad offers me a wad of kitchen roll. ‘Here you go, son. There’s no need to cry. I’m sure we can get to the bottom of whatever it is that’s getting you down.’

I look up at him. ‘I don’t know, Dad. I’m really not in a good place . . .’

We sit in silence for a few minutes while Mum pours the tea, Dad’s hand gently resting on my arm. I dab away the tears from my eyes and blow my nose.

I am such a bloody mess.

‘Now,’ Mum says, plonking the tea in front of me and sitting herself down in one of the other chairs, ‘why don’t you tell us what’s going through your mind, son?’

I take a deep breath, and start to talk.


It barely takes me five minutes to tell them what the problem is.

That’s the way with the ‘big stuff’. It’s rarely that complicated or hard to describe, once you allow yourself to do it. It often goes that when we’re finally ready to be honest about how we feel, it never takes that long to get it off our chests. We think the big things are complicated and difficult to explain, because we’re afraid of them. Afraid of facing, and expressing, the unvarnished truth. Anything that scary must be hard to explain, right?

But within those five minutes, I neatly manage to outline everything that’s going through my head, from the shock of seeing Mum and Dad argue, to the knowledge that I’ve spent my life chasing the kind of relationship they have with each other. A relationship that’s been undermined completely by the argument I’ve just seen them have. Hence all the tears.

‘You . . . You think we never argue?’ Dad asks me, a little stunned.