Or rather, I remembered the look on my mother’s face when she met him. She was all timid, couldn’t get her words out. He was middle class, which is a bit like saying he was from Middle-earth, wielding a sword that turned blue at the prospect of charging orcs. My mother finds middle-class people—or in other words, anyone with a mortgage—intimidating.
That was reason enough for me to move in with him.
Being dumped went far worse than I’d expected. I hadn’t really considered that the flat was technically David’s and that if we broke up I might end up homeless, but there it was. He came home and looked like he’d had a few drinks, and he said:
“I can’t do this anymore, Lexi. I can’t take it. You’re too much.”
I looked at what he was wearing—since when had he started wearing a shirt and tie?—and said, “Too much of what?”
“Too much of you. We need to split. I’m sorry.”
We hugged. It seemed very amicable. I felt a small amount of pride in what ego I had left that here I was facing the first big milestone of adulthood—namely, the death of my first long-term relationship—and yet I was still managing to say things like “no, no, you’re right, it’s better that we stay friends, that’s the main thing” instead of falling apart. I felt very fond of him right then, because at least he looked like he regretted us parting ways.
But the next morning, he was back to being the Arctic personified.
“When are you moving out?” he said, avoiding eye contact as he did his tie. Navy blue with white stripes. Very corporate.
I looked around at all my stuff strewn across the bedroom floor and spewing out of the chest of drawers. I had barely enough strength to make it to the toilet and back, never mind pack eight years’ worth of crap and organize a removal company. And a new home.
“When do you want me to move out?” I asked.
“By next week, if that’s all right,” he said, and I nodded as though this was a perfectly reasonable request. Note: I’d never done Breaking Up before, not when it involved moving out of my home. And I was on a daily 100 mg dose of an antipsychotic that occasionally made the bread bin initiate a conversation.
Next week came. I got dressed. Jeans, white T-shirt, bottle-green cardi, and a laser-cut necklace that spelled out protagonist in glossy black Helvetica. I filled a bag with some random items I thought I might need—a tin opener, clean socks, the toaster—and made a packed lunch.
I had forty-one pounds and fifty-nine pence in my bank account. I eyed my wardrobe, full of clothes, shoes, and Christmas presents, with trepidation. You might as well have asked me to dredge up the Titanic as ask me to find a way to pack all of it up. It didn’t occur to me to ask anyone for help. I’d put everyone through enough. I’d ruined Meg’s yellow skirt and traumatized that poor librarian.
So I took my packed lunch and bag and closed the door of the flat behind me, leaving my key on the table.
When I went outside it was raining. I didn’t have an umbrella. I had a coat, but no hood. This felt symbolic of my life up until that point. She had a coat, but lo, it had no hood.
I reached into my pocket in case I should find an unused poo bag from walking Mrs. Hughes’s springer spaniel with which to shield my head against the downpour. No poo bag, but I did find David’s prepaid rail pass. I’d found it in the hall and meant to give it to him, but the thought had trickled out of my head like a ribbon falling out of a ponytail.
At Newcastle I took a train headed to Birmingham New Street with lots of stops in between. I had no idea where I was going, and it didn’t matter, because the train was moving, and it was a mild comfort to be headed somewhere when my entire life had come to a complete stop. Plus, I was dry, and my arms ached from hoiking around the Tefal four-slice stainless steel toaster that David had bought me for my last birthday.
The train was full of commuters. As ever I picked up on the cues of people’s lives—accounts spreadsheets, text messages flashing up on screens with evening plans and reminders to pick up milk, phone conversations about a colleague or