Читать книгу Personally, I Blame my Fairy Godmother - Claudia Carroll - Страница 16

Funny thing is, when the final blow falls, it happens fast. I’m lying in bed with all the life and energy of a used teabag. My phone rings and it’s him. It’s Sam. I almost drop it with nervous anxiety and before he’s even said a word, my heart’s already twisting in my ribcage.

‘So…you got my messages then?’ is my opener. Shit, I didn’t mean to sound sarky, it just slipped out.

‘Yes.’

‘That’s all you’re going to say? “Yes”? A monosyllable?’

There’s an awkward pause, so I do what any TV presenter does when faced with a hiatus, fill it up with gabble and shite. The nightmare the last few miserable days have been, the agonising worry over why he was blanking me out—

‘Woodsie,’ he interrupts and I jibber over him. But then nervous tension tends to have that effect on me.

‘I need somewhere to stay,’ I stammer. ‘So – and I know it’s an awful lot to ask – is it OK if…Look, what I’m trying to say is…and of course, it would just be until I get back on my feet again…but the thing is…can I move in with you?’

There’s silence. I didn’t expect silence. I have to say ‘Sam?’ a few times just to check that he’s still on the line.

‘I’m here,’ he says dully and I swear to God, now I can actually feel the beads of sweat starting to roll down my face. ‘To be honest, Woodsie, I think right now, that would be a bad idea. A really bad idea.’

For a second I can’t speak. Then more gibberish comes tumbling out, Tourettes-like. ‘Look, I know it’s a big ask, and an even bigger imposition, but Sam, it’s just temporary, just until I find another job, that’s all…’

‘I’ve got my parents coming to stay, so I’m afraid it’s not going to work.’

‘But your house has seven bedrooms! It’s not like we’ll all be on top of each other!’

‘Look, there’s no easy way to say this, but I really feel that…’

The breath catches in the back of my throat. ‘You really feel that…what?’

‘That you and I should take a bit of a break. I need to be honest with you; I’m finding all of this negative media attention very difficult to live with.’

There it is, the one cold, bald sentence that I’ve been dreading this whole, horrendous week. Funny, now that it’s out in the open, a dead calm comes over me. ‘Just so you’re clear on a few things, Sam,’ I say icily, almost spitting, staccato style. ‘The negative media attention as you call it, is dying down. We put out a press release and that’s pretty much killed the story—’

‘Woodsie,’ he interrupts, ‘you know where I’m coming from here.’

I’m cooler now so I let him talk. And out it all comes, all my worst fears, verbalised. He’s worked so hard to get to this level of his career and bad press is the last thing he needs right now, he feels his position is utterly compromised because he and I are so publicly linked together…blah-di-blah-di-blah.

It’s like he’s reading from an instruction manual on how to break up with someone and leave them with absolutely no hope of reconciliation. And all I feel is numbness, like I’m anaesthetised from pain that’s going to hit me like a sledgehammer any minute now.

‘What you’re trying to tell me, Sam, is that you don’t want to be tarred by association with me. Like my fall from grace is something contagious.’

‘Woodsie, look—’

Then I throw in an old classic. What the fuck, I’ve nothing to lose. ‘I thought you loved me. But here you are, at the first real hurdle we’ve ever had to face, bailing out, running for the hills. You’re the single most important person in my life and I mess up once and suddenly you decide that I’m flawed and therefore dispensable. Have you any idea how that makes me feel?’ My voice is shaking so much, I’m amazed I even managed to get that much out coherently.

‘Woodsie, you’re taking this the wrong way…’

‘What other way is there to take it? You’re dumping me over the phone? After two years?’

‘Can we drop the dramatics? No one is dumping anyone. I’m just suggesting we take a break, that’s all.’

It’s an odd thing when the man you love asks you for ‘a bit of time out’. Makes you feel like the first quarter in a basketball game.

‘Woodsie? Are you still there? Because there’s something else I need to say to you.’

I catch my breath, waiting on some crumb of comfort he might throw my way.

‘I’m having my PR people put out a press release to say we’re not together any more. I think it’s best for both of us to put a full stop to this. Don’t you?’