Make or Break

The next day we got up early and ate breakfast at a steampunk café. Huge vintage machinery with shiny copper piping and multiple levers and cogs took up the majority of the warehouse-like space. Waiters in waistcoats adorned with chains and leather straps, top hats and/or vintage aviation goggles on their heads and iPads in holsters took orders from lively locals with bundles of cheer and personality. The coffee menu had strange things like egg-white shots or orange juice infusions, and I ended up trying far too many and chittered incessantly like a coked-up Warner Brothers’ chipmunk. I think I was also trying to compensate for Pete’s slight downturn in temperament. It was something we were both trying to overlook but it was there, loud in its silence.

‘What did you think of the egg-white coffee?’ I said as we hopped into Trust’s waiting van. ‘It felt like I was drinking, sorry, but a coffee that someone had ejaculated in.’

Pete made a face. A justifiable face. And yet I carried on.

‘Not that I’ve ever drunk a coffee that someone has ejaculated in.’ I clicked in my seat belt. ‘Well, not knowingly, anyway. I mean, I could have. But I’m sure I would have been able to tell. It’s a very distinct consistency, isn’t it?’

Pete glanced towards Trust then looked at me with his eyebrows raised so high they were almost in his hairline.

‘Sorry,’ I made an ‘I’m-being-a-bit-gross-aren’t-I’ face. ‘I feel a bit wired. I think I’ve had too much coffee.’ I shot Pete a sideways glance and lowered my voice. ‘Too much cum coffee,’ I muttered, and then giggled behind my fist.

We walked off the generous breakfast along a clifftop footpath, busy with Capetonians and their dogs. The sea pounded below us and I pointed out (after googling the correct collective noun) a murmuration of starlings twisting and folding in on itself, some risk-loving paddleboarders and a host of great whites that mostly (always) turned out to be rocks breaking through the rolling surface of the ocean. Pete walked beside me trying to muster enthusiasm but I could tell his heart was elsewhere. Surfing an avalanche or diving for toxic-shelled crabs, perhaps. We ran through our individual ideas for the rest of the trip.

‘I think we should go shark cage diving. And ziplining. And I really want to try canyoning,’ Pete said. His eyes had shone when he’d mentioned the Cederberg climb again.

‘I’m pretty keen to visit some more wineries. And animal sanctuaries. And I’d love to go to a festival while we’re here,’ I said. My eyes had watered when he’d mentioned the Cederberg climb again. I was really trying to understand his new need for going to the top of things or under things or off the edge of things. He’d never been into this type of stuff before – just your regular ‘go to the gym/lift some weights/Map-My-Run-and-share-it-on-Facebook’ type stuff (I’d been very disappointed that he didn’t take on my suggestion of running in the shape of a dick and balls like I’d seen on Bored Panda and sharing that map on Facebook). I wanted to share his enthusiasm but it felt forced, whereas his was real and desperate.

‘Why do you keep checking your phone?’ I asked a few hours later as we reclined on a blanket in the stippled shade of a giant tree.

The remains of a winery picnic lay between us and I was feeling warm and fuzzy due to the delicious and criminally cheap rosé. A shallow river bubbled past us and other picnickers paddled in it or sat on the banks drinking wine and chatting, their feet cooling in the clear, cool water.

Pete glanced at his phone again before putting it face down on the blanket. ‘It’s just Goat. He’s posting pictures of his hike.’

I looked at the time. It was 3 o’clock. And a Tuesday. ‘Doesn’t Goat have a job?’

‘It is his job. He’s a social influencer, so makes money from posting. He’s got airlines and travel companies and sportswear companies sending him places. And he gets paid for it!’

I nodded. At work we had a pool of paid influencers we used when promoting a new music video. You generally had to be ‘somebody’, though, before you were paid to post.

‘How’d he get to be that?’ I said, popping the last circle of chorizo in my mouth.

Pete’s face lit up as he spoke. It turned out Goat was something of a celebrity in South Africa. He’d been on The Bachelor and while he didn’t find lasting love (apparently the girls had descended into out-and-out sluttery), he did emerge victorious; Goat’s gentlemanly rebuttals had gained him a huge following. He was now a well-known semi-celebrity and didn’t work in the conventional sense but instead got paid to play and post. Luxury tour companies, champagne-makers, cars, protein powders, hair gel, nightclubs, sports clothing, wine; basically everyone wanted a piece of Goat. So he climbed the mountains, leapt off the cliffs, wore the watch, drank the champagne, blended the paleo smoothie, did the hashtag and the money rolled in.

‘I was thinking I could do something like that but for kids,’ Pete said. ‘Have an Instagram aimed at teens and preteens. Get kids interested in something else other than selfies and Snapchat. Make them excited to be young and healthy.’

‘That’s an amazing idea,’ I said, feeling affectionate and proud. I moved some picnic debris out of the way and laid my head on Pete’s lap. ‘Is there anything like that at the moment?’

‘I don’t know.’ He instinctively began twirling my hair around his fingers. ‘But imagine being paid to go on all these adventures!’

‘Goat gets paid because he’s a personality. You’d have to do it for a while to build up a following before you’d make any money from it.’

‘Hmmm,’ Pete mused. ‘If I went on the Cederberg climb it could be an excellent starting post.’

I sat up, instantly irritable. ‘Can you stop talking about that climb? You can’t come on holiday with me then fuck off for a week. What would I do in Cape Town by myself?’

‘Sunbathe?’ he said, knowing I found sunbathing tedious. ‘Hang out with Priya?’

‘Priya is on her honeymoon, remember?’

‘I really want to do this,’ Pete said, throwing a screwed-up paper napkin in the picnic basket.

‘And I really don’t want to have a holiday in South Africa by myself,’ I said, glaring at him from behind my dark glasses. I couldn’t believe he was saying this. I didn’t want my boyfriend not to do all these things he clearly felt so instantly drawn to; it’s just none of them involved me. And this was our first holiday together in ages! ‘What about the game reserve Lana booked? We’d never be able to afford to do that. Do you know it has baby rescue cheetahs that we are allowed to TOUCH?!’

‘You’d still enjoy it,’ Pete said, looking mildly conflicted.

‘By myself? Are you kidding me?!’

‘You spend all your time with Annabelle and I never ever complain. Why can’t I do this one thing?’

I stood and began packing up our picnic debris. Pete stood and did the same.

‘Annabelle needs help,’ I said, gathering all the empty boxes that had contained our food and tossing them in the picnic basket. ‘She’s a solo mum battling addiction demons every day.’

‘Annabelle has two illegitimate children and puts drugs in her smoothies.’

‘It’s CBD oil and it’s legal and medicinal!’ I said. ‘She takes it for her anxiety!’

‘Annabelle is the least anxious person I have ever met.’

‘Proof that weed works.’

‘I thought you just said it was CBD oil,’ Pete snapped.

I let out a frustrated groan. Pete glanced at the other picnickers but no one seemed to notice our heated exchange.

‘You want to run off on a trip with people you barely know when there are diamonds in ethically run mines waiting to be put on the fingers of people who you’ve loved for six years!’ I stopped tidying and looked at Pete. ‘This is our first holiday together in three and a half years and you want to spend most of the time apart?!’

Pete threw a paper plate on top of the picnic basket and stormed off. The pathways from the picnic area to the car park meandered through painstakingly tended kitchen gardens, velvet-petalled roses and heavily laden fruit trees. Instead of the romantic stroll I’d been hoping to take, sipping on the last of our rosé and chatting about the rest of our holiday, our future, whatever, we marched through in uncomfortable silence until we reached Trust dozing in the van in the shade.

‘I’m going on the trip,’ Pete said fifteen minutes into our icily quiet car journey, his face dark and determined. ‘I might not get another opportunity like this.’

‘I can’t believe you.’ I shook my head.

‘I have to do this. I need to do this,’ Pete said, steely. ‘I feel like I’m becoming who I’m supposed to be.’

‘Oh god. You’re climbing some rocks to “find yourself” now?’

‘So what if I am? I’m not stopping you pursuing your dreams.’

‘This has been a dream of yours for precisely two days!’ I said, louder than I intended. ‘A month ago you wanted to go back to teacher training and get your master’s. Now you want to climb rocks and tweet about it?’

‘Instagram.’

‘Same shit.’

Trust sat in the front absorbing every bit of our conversation.

‘I’m sick of being the sidekick in the Annabelle and Jess show.’ He fixed me with an accusatory look. ‘Aren’t you sick of being there day in, day out, not living your own life?’

My eyes welled up. What was Pete saying? It felt like all of a sudden, since meeting Goat and his cliff-climbing cousin, he was disappointed in what we’d become. What I’d become.

‘Don’t you have dreams?’ he continued. ‘Wishes?’

I turned sharply away from him, fighting back the tears. My dreams? My wishes? I wished I could be one of those people who remember quotes from books and are able to quote them at the exact right moment instead of googling them later and going, ‘oh that’s what I should have said!’ I wished, catching a whiff of myself, that natural deodorant actually worked. And all I dreamed of was an ordinary life. One where my family was happy and my niece didn’t end up in hospital every time she got a cold. One where, when Annabelle was fine, Pete and I would go on camping holidays to Cornwall with a bunch of friends and a bunch of vodka. We’d have regular brunches with Priya and Laurel, and Sunday afternoons at the local pub where the landlady knew our names and drink orders and didn’t mind our corgi puppy sitting at the table in his tartan sweater. I wanted to be in a relationship like my parents’, where the only thing they fought about was how to fold a fitted sheet. And now I felt stupid for wanting all that. Pete had wanted to run the PE department at a fancy school and I’d just wanted a happy life, spending time with people I loved. And I thought that was a good ‘want’.

‘Am I supposed to want something grand?’ I said, turning back to him. ‘Something “worth fighting for”? Or striving for? Or making a vision board for?’

Pete gave me a look of contempt.

‘All I’ve ever wanted is my family, friends and boyfriend around me. To have children one day, and get some pets. Ones that don’t shed so Katie won’t get respiratory problems when she comes over. To perhaps run my own little business like Annabelle has, against all odds, managed to do. And to take evening classes. Like pottery and lead lighting and nude drawing.’ (I really just wanted to see up close what kind of person chooses to pose nude for strangers.) ‘I want us to buy a place of our own just outside of London yet commutable enough to go in and visit friends or see Matilda.’

‘How many times do you have to see that show?!’

‘Some people have grand aspirations like social media dominance or getting their book published or owning a PR company that allows you to rub shoulders with the somebodies of the current world. And some people just don’t. And I’m OK not being grand.’ I looked at Pete. ‘I thought you knew that about me. I thought you liked that about me.’

Pete put a hand on my shoulder but I turned away from him and he let it fall. We drove the rest of the journey in silence, and when Trust pulled up outside our apartment building Pete thanked him then jumped out and headed inside.

‘You can go home now,’ I said to Trust as he helped me out of the van.

‘But this evening?’ he said, passing me my bag.

I shook my head. ‘Maybe another night.’ I’d booked us a game of cave mini golf, which was exactly as it sounds: mini golf played inside a cave, followed by dinner and a movie at an outdoor theatre. You watch the sun set over the city and then get given squidgy day beds and fluffy blankets and are served dinner while snuggled under the stars. I’d chosen tonight because they were showing the documentary on Lance Armstrong. Pete had wanted to see it for years but we’d always watched something else. I’d been really looking forward to it. And it was just the kind of thing Pete would have loved. Well, the old Pete would have loved it. This new adrenaline enthusiast probably only wanted to watch a movie if it was projected onto the side of K2 and viewed from a paraglider.

‘Why don’t you have the day off tomorrow?’ I said as we walked to the apartment doors. Pete must have already gone up, as he wasn’t in the foyer.

Trust looked concerned. ‘You sure, Miss Jess?’

‘Absolutely,’ I said with a tired smile. I gave him a hug, which surprised him, then said goodbye and headed inside.