Fiction

Giving Up

Matthew Friday

‘What are you giving up for Lent, Jake?’ asked Caroline.

Jake had his headphones on and was burning some songs from the internet onto his computer to make a new party CD. He had a gig at a Hen Night in Kingston that night and his cheesy pop compilations needed refreshing. How he maintained a career on such a laughable selection of songs was beyond Caroline. But then so was using the word ‘career’ for what was something Jake turned up to do with the same enthusiasm he had getting dressed or cleaning his teeth.

Caroline asked the question a second time.

Jake did not answer. She taped him on the shoulder. He turned around slowly. Anyone else would have jumped in surprise. Not Jake. Everything he did had a pause to it as if he was wading through quicksand.

‘Hey, Cas, I was just thinking –‘

‘I asked you a question about Lent. You know, making a sacrifice.’

‘I’m not religious. Nor are you.’

‘But I like the symbolism. It’s good for you.’

‘Good for you, not me. Get this. If I was a type of fruit, what would I be?’

Caroline was taken aback by this question. She was used to Jake’s immature take on life, that was what attracted her in the first place – so different to serious Architectural Surveyor Gordon with his pristine suits, sycophantic adherence to the views of the Daily Telegraph and unadventurous foreplay.

Jake, when he could be bothered, was passionate, spontaneous and unpredictable. Or at least he had been. It had all stopped in the last month.

‘I have no idea, Jake. I want to talk to you about Lent. It’s serious.’

‘You’d be a guava melon.’

‘What?’

‘You’re not watery enough to be a water melon.’

‘What do you mean?’

Jake shrugged his shoulders.

‘Come on, you’re saying something aren’t you?’

Jake put his headphone back on. Caroline tore them off.

‘Hey! They cost a mint.’

‘What are you trying to say, Jake? That I’m too dry? That you don’t love me?’

‘What? Where did that come from?’

‘You know where.’

‘No I don’t,’ said Jake.

His vacant look made Caroline calm down. She was giving him too much intellectual credit to have created the metaphor of a not-so-watery melon for her health problems.

‘Is this what twenty-five year olds do on a Saturday afternoon, is it? Play around on the internet?’

‘Play around? This is my career.’

Caroline gave a scoffing laughter. ‘So you have one, do you?’

‘And what do thirty-seven year olds do?’ asked Jake, showing he was capable of some verbal self-defence. This felt more like an attack to Caroline.

‘You have a problem with my age, don’t you?’

Jake shook his head. ‘You’re the one with the problem. You know I like older birds. Aren’t you supposed to be at the doctors?’

‘I went this morning, but thanks for remembering,’ she said savagely.

Her left breast began to ache. She massaged it gently.

‘What did he say?’

‘She. Nothing. The mammogram was clear. It may be fibroids.’

‘And that’s what?’

‘A problem with the fibre-tissue at the back. Tightening, I think. It can cause radiating pain. I’ve got to have a MMR Scan at St George’s. Will you come with me?’

‘Yeah, sure,’ Jake said without any meaning or sympathy. It was just another request to agree to and then forget about.

Caroline sighed. The scan would be in the morning. Jake didn’t get up until after midday and that was even when he was wasn’t DJing, which only happened two or three times a week.

‘Are you getting tired of me?’ she asked softly.

‘Right now, Cas, yes. I’ve got to burn this CD.’

‘The gig’s in eight hours. You could talk to me for a bit.’

‘I gotta prepare.’

Caroline walked away feeling rejected. Maybe it is my fault, she thought sitting down at the living room table. She poured herself a pint of mineral water. There were bottles strategically placed all over the flat so she was never more than an arm’s reach away from relief. She drank the water in one go. She pawed her skin hoping to feel a difference. Nothing. Still, she wouldn’t be dehydrated.

I’m so much older than him, she thought. He has different priorities. He doesn’t notice the milk running out, or buy me water for my skin or remind me to take my High Cholesterol pills. He’s just a kid really. No sense of adult responsibility. Remember that time he found a sleepy hedgehog and he wanted to keep it. You wanted to call the RSCPA. You couldn’t have a wild animal in the house. But he wanted to have it under his desk and feed it cucumber. And what about the cat? They’d have a cool fight, he said. Bloody ridiculous. Caused a massive row.

It’s my flat. If I don’t want a hedgehog in here, I won’t have one. Or have you forgotten that?

You’re just like my mother. Leave me alone!

Caroline gulped. How funny that it should take four months for something that had been said to truly be heard.

So that was the problem. She was a mother to him. She did his washing, she cooked his food, she brought him presents, she satisfied his every needs. What did he do in return? Help her get over the mistake of marrying Gordon? The fact that she had stayed with him for five years knowing from the first she did not love him, and yet being too much of coward to get out. Wasn’t she repeating the same thing all over again? She didn’t love Jake. She just lived the idea of pulling him, six months ago at a Halloween party in a Sutton nightclub. That night Jake was the King of the Dance Floor and Caroline, Head of English at a struggling Secondary school, was the Queen.

Off with his head, off with his head, off with his head.

Caroline went back to Jake’s room and watched him working on his computer. She did not see her lover, an equal, a grown man, a future. She saw someone’s son playing in one of her rooms. It was time to send him back to his real mummy.

She had decided what she would give up for Lent.