Break-Up Club: A smart, funny novel about love and friendship. Lorelei Mathias

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      Daniel was still shaking his head.

      ‘Shit, it’s not fair!’ Bella said. ‘Where is Magic Internet when you need it?’

      Bella was referring to the intermittent insecure Wi-Fi they were sometimes able to pick up And because Magic Internet occasionally worked in her bedroom, she had refused to contribute financially towards getting proper broadband installed in the flat.

      ‘Bella, the party is in full swing, why don’t you come upstairs and actually socialize? It’s eleven thirty!’ Holly said, looking at Bella’s clock on the wall.

      ‘Oh that one’s really fast. It’s not as late as that.’

      ‘Well what time is it?’ Daniel asked, his patience waning.

      Bella pointed to the alarm clock on her bedside table. ‘Let’s see, that one’s only seven minutes fast, I think. So if that one says it’s twenty past, then it must be just coming up to eleven fifteen.’

      ‘Bella you lunatic, why are none of your clocks set at the right time?!’

      ‘I’ve told you before; it’s to stop me being late!’

      ‘But if you never know which one is which, how does that even work?!’

      But Bella was still absorbed with tapping away at her screen, pressing refresh and trying to make the Internet come to life. She sighed.

      Daniel was now fractionally red in the face. ‘Seriously, Belle, what are you DOING? There’s a party going on upstairs. A party YOU insisted on having. Our house is getting crapped on from a great height. The least you could do is get up there and ENJOY IT.’

      Bella’s face began creasing. Gradually, something similar to the Iguazu Falls came gushing out of her eyes, down her face and onto the bed, leaving watery deposits of mascara all over her pink duvet. And so began a tantrum-ette. To the uninitiated, a tantrum-ette wasn’t quite a full-blown hysteria fit with fist-on-floor thumping action, but it was tiptoeing over the edge of what constituted ‘normal’ adult behaviour. Amusing to watch though it was, it didn’t last long, and Bella would be back to her charming self within minutes.

      Holly put her arm around her. ‘Come on, B. It’ll be OK. I know it must feel horrendous now, but it will get better.’ She watched in silence as her hand rose and descended on Bella’s back, in time with her sobs.

      Daniel dispatched a guilty, ‘I think my work here is done,’ look at Holly, before retreating upstairs. She started brushing Bella’s hair and mopping up her face with tissues.

      ‘Thanks Holly,’ Bella said through sobs.

      ‘Hey, anytime,’ she said, delivering a big bear hug.

      ‘I’m really sorry for having another outburst. If it’s any consolation, I have really been trying to cut down.’

      ‘I know.’

      ‘You’re like family to me. You know that, don’t you?’

      ‘Aw, thanks Belle,’ she said, wondering if Bella wasn’t becoming a bit needy lately. ‘So, shall we go upstairs? I for one need a drink. Lawrence still hasn’t been in touch!’

      Bella nodded and brushed herself down. They headed to the kitchen, to join Harry and Olivia, who were with Daniel’s friend Jonny – more commonly referred to as Jonny The Archetypal Public School Boy.

      ‘So I had some brilliant news today,’ Jonny was saying, placing some cocktail sausages onto his plate. ‘I made an offer on a little “pied-à-terre”…’ he said, raising his fingers into little animated quotation marks, ‘and amazingly it’s just been accepted!’

      There was a general chorus of ‘Wow – that’s awesome!’ and ‘Well done!’ and ‘Where?’

      ‘Thanks!’ he beamed. ‘It’s in Victoria Park village. It’s all exposed brick, high ceilings, and it’s got this cool mezzanine level.’

      As Jonny began to tell them more about his new flat, Holly felt herself zoning out. She stood up and went to open another wine bottle. Despite her best efforts, buying flats was still something she just couldn’t bring herself to feel excited about yet. She returned back to the circle just in time to hear Jonny deliver the sentence all homeowners used to make themselves feel better about stamp duty and a life devoted to choosing bathroom tiles: ‘No more throwing rent money down the drain for me now I’ve managed to buy!’ he beamed.

      Holly cringed, realising that Jonny – chiselled and charming though he was – was now on the other side of a dotted line. The one separating those who had made it onto that most impossible of rites of passage, the first rung of the property ladder, and those that still hadn’t. The ones that were living in sweet denial of pensions, properties and prams… and most of all, the big ‘Three Oh’ that was hurtling towards them with relentless zeal.

      ‘So…’ Holly began, as she poured out more wine, ‘does no one else think it’s a bit odd… this whole “–uying” thing?’

      Everyone looked confused.

      ‘You know. One day in your mid-twenties, out of nowhere, people start talking about “BUYING.” But they don’t say what. It’s like, now it’s okay to just say, “We’re buying”, and expect people to know what you mean. Has no one else noticed that?’

      Everyone stared at her with a mixture of raised eyebrows and furrowed foreheads.

      ‘People are just being sensible, that’s all,’ Olivia said. ‘You know, trying to get some security for the future.’

      ‘And then,’ Holly went on, ‘three years later, the same thing happens. Only it rhymes. You just replace the “B” sound with a “TR” sound. Does no one think this is odd?’

      ‘Oh right, I get you,’ Bella said.

      ‘I mean, what’s next after that? Lying? Sighing?’

      ‘Crying?’ Bella suggested.

      ‘Dying,’ put in Harry, emptying the last drops of white wine into his glass, and then opening another bottle entirely on autopilot. ‘Or, D.I.Y.-ing. Whichever is worse, I guess.’

      Olivia placed her empty glass onto the table a fraction too forcefully. ‘Well. I’m a long way off ANY of those things. My relationship of seven years has just flatlined, and nearly everything I own is currently residing in a small storage unit in Brent Cross. Mostly I think I’m going to be CRYING.’

      As Olivia’s face coloured, Holly felt the tact police slam handcuffs around her wrists. ‘Shit, sorry, Liv. That was insensitive of me, prattling on like that. Sorry. Are you OK?’

      Jonny edged closer to Olivia and draped a heavily triathloned forearm around her. Olivia turned to look into his eyes and smiled. ‘I’m fine Holly, don’t worry,’ she said, still looking into Jonny’s hazel eyes. ‘I was just winding you up.’

      ‘Anyway, I thought you were going to buy your mate’s flat, Liv?’

      ‘That’s the plan, but it’s СКАЧАТЬ