The Faking Game, page 2
‘No one can see this,’ Millsy says, taking it from Oliver, placing it back inside the envelope.
‘Shit,’ I say under my breath. ‘What are we going to do?’
‘Joe,’ Auntie Mary says brightly. ‘And here you are, better late than never, is that the entertainment? Can I see?’
‘No,’ I insist quickly, reaching out to grab the envelope, holding it to my body, partially so Mary can’t see it, but also as some kind of shield for myself.
‘That’s just instructions, for the games,’ Millsy says. ‘The rules and what have you. Cara has commissioned a series of party games, designed specifically for a baby shower.’
Auntie Mary raises an eyebrow at me.
‘I see,’ she says. ‘Well, how thoughtful.’
She says this begrudgingly, almost suspiciously, but I suppose we are acting rather odd. Oliver is low-key breaking a sweat.
‘Shall we get set up then?’ she suggests. ‘Now you’re here.’
‘Sure thing,’ he replies. ‘Just let me hug my girlfriend hello, hmm? It’s been six weeks since I saw her last.’
I allow my protective cardboard barrier to fall to the side as Millsy approaches me. He wraps an arm around me, placing it on the small of my back as he pulls me close. With his free hand, he rests it lightly on my face, as though he’s pulling me in for a kiss, but then he whispers into my ear.
‘Go hide that in the car, I’ve got an idea.’
I allow myself a premature sigh of relief. If there’s one thing I can always count on Millsy for – and he can always count on me for – it’s our ability to get one another out of scrapes. We have, of course, usually caused said scrapes, but it’s the way we’ve always had each other’s backs that got us together in the first place.
When he releases me, he holds my hand for a moment, giving it a squeeze, but as I feel the plastic press against my skin, I realise it’s the car keys he’s giving me, so I can hide this hideous donkey monster baby designed to look like a member of Flora’s family in the car, before later taking it home to burn so that no one can ever see it. My God, imagine if Flora did see it, or Auntie Mary, bloody hell, she would hit the ceiling, and the only thing stopping her murdering me when she came back down would be how tangled up in all the sparkly blue decorative shit she would be. I just know that they would all think I had done this on purpose, to ruin the shower – as though that is a thing that real humans do in real life. I remember when I dyed my hair a deep, dark shade of red and they said I was doing it to ruin Flora’s wedding. Unhinged.
Venturing out without my coat, I feel the chill of the December air. Something about the cold weather makes me feel a little panicky. Our winters, while not that bad compared to other countries, somehow feel unescapable. The dark nights set in so quickly, the first daylight of the day feels as if it’s never going to arrive, and the weather is far from a picture-perfect snow scene from a postcard.
With the donkey baby safely locked away in Millsy’s boot, I return to the party, just in time to see him placing an arm full of toilet rolls down on the floor at Flora’s feet.
Oh, God.
‘Toilet roll?’ Flora blurts at him in disbelief.
‘Yep,’ Millsy says with a confident smile. ‘We have a series of fun games all planned out. I’ll be the games master, so everyone else can have fun. So, everyone needs to get into two teams, and then for the first game you’ll need to break off into pairs inside your team.’
Everyone does as they are told. Millsy has a natural ability to put everyone at instant ease with his disarming smile that reaches his dreamy eyes, drawing people in like moths to a flame.
He hands me a few loo rolls.
‘What are you doing?’ I ask him quietly, for some reason smiling, because it’s been a while since we did this.
‘Making it up as I go along,’ he whispers back. ‘Hand out these toilet rolls.’
Our hands linger over a loo roll. So romantic. But then I do as I’m told, handing out the toilet rolls – which I’m guessing we’re going to need to replace from a store cupboard somewhere – making sure each couple has one.
My mum smiles at me as I hand one to her.
‘Oliver told me what happened,’ she says with a sympathetic smile. Then she nods towards Millsy. ‘You’ve got yourself a good one there.’
I look over at him as he starts the game. He really is something.
‘Okay, so the aim of the first round is for one person to use the toilet roll to make a nappy for their partner,’ he explains. ‘You only have so much time and the three teams who have made the best effort will get points. Is everyone ready?’
I glance around the room, wondering if this might be considered too ‘low brow’ for Auntie Mary, but everyone seems to be into it.
Cheers echo around the hall, confirming that everyone who is playing is ready.
‘Go!’ Millsy commands as he starts a timer on his phone.
I wander over to him, to talk to him while everyone is distracted. Now that the crisis has been averted, it’s back to reality.
‘You promised you wouldn’t be late,’ I utter, my teeth clenched together to try to contain the annoyed feeling that is growing inside me.
‘Well, when you’re taking an exhausting eleven-hour flight, and then travelling from London to Leeds in the middle of the day, there are lots of things that can delay you,’ he points out, also quietly, but through a smile. His voice is tinged with a touch of amusement. He isn’t going to let his audience see his face slip.
‘But you must’ve arrived home hours ago,’ I point out.
I know that I should let it go, at least until later, but I just can’t seem to. My words are dripping with a mix of disappointment and accusation.
‘I had some work to do, and I needed a shower,’ he says, although it sounds like he’s making excuses.
‘Okay, but I thought the whole point of you coming back was for time off work,’ I continue.
For a fleeting moment, Millsy’s smile wavers, his defences go down, exposing a glimpse of weariness, strain and frustration. But then, almost instantly, his smile returns, and his protective shield goes back up.
‘Cara, do we really have to do this here? Now? We haven’t seen each other for six weeks, we’re at a party…’
The weight of his unfinished sentence clouds the air between us.
I chew my thumbnail as I think about what to say. He’s right, we can’t do this here. Probably best I go get a drink, calm down, and leave him to run the game in peace.
When Millsy left for LA six weeks ago, we knew how long it was going to be before we saw one another again, but this past week in particular I’ve been worrying, wondering what it would be like. I’ve been excited too, though, to see the man I love, and seeing him walk through that door I fancied him just as much as I ever have – if not more.
Everyone thinks we’re the perfect couple, and we probably were, once upon a time, but not any more. We have a secret, one that we’ve been keeping from everyone who knows us, and it’s a secret that we’re going to have to keep for a while longer. I don’t know how we’re going to come clean, or when exactly, but everyone is going to find out sooner or later that Millsy and I broke up, six weeks ago, and that we’re only pretending we’re still together for the sake of those around us.
But no one is going to find out today, though, or for the rest of this year if everything goes to plan, so I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.
2
I wake up the same way I do every day. I stretch, rub my eyes, and then glance at the empty space next to me in bed. I run my hand over the sheets, feeling the emptiness of the space Millsy used to occupy. Even here, in my childhood bedroom at my parents’ house, I still feel it. Well, when you’re in a relationship for three years, you get used to sharing a bed with someone, and while occasional nights away for work don’t disturb you at all (sometimes you even relish the idea of having all that space to stretch out for a night or two), there is something about knowing just how permanent that empty space is that hits you like a tonne of bricks, every morning, and it makes for one shitty start to the day.
Millsy needed to be back in Leeds for some work thing early today, so it made sense for him to go back to Leeds last night, whereas I had already floated the idea of us staying at my parents’ house – almost as a reflex, because that’s exactly what we would usually do – so I decided to still do it any way. To be honest, I’m kind of relieved. I hadn’t expected it to be so awkward, so quickly, when I saw Millsy again after all these weeks of not really talking (well, other than swapping a few messages, to figure out how we make sure Christmas wasn’t ruined for both our families), so starving off that inevitable uncomfortable first conversation where we sit down and make a full (and final) plan for the holidays is fine by me. I know I’ll have to face it later today but, for now at least, I’m happy to maintain a blissful ignorance.
Something about waking up in my childhood bedroom makes this all feel real, as though I’m slipping back to basics, regressing to my sad single girl form. Well, I say ‘sad single’ because that is the way you’re meant to feel, right? But in reality, I have nothing but happy memories triggered by this room.
My bedroom is a quirky blend of the confusing mix of geeky and girly interests I had as a teenager. Every inch of the space reflects my personality. Soft pink-painted walls serve as the backdrop, but then they are layered with posters and stickers of retro video games and pictures of planets and stars.
A large old wooden desk dominates one wall, its surface still cluttered with an assortment of puzzles, brain teasers, and board games. Rubik’s Cubes, jigsaws, dumb little things from Christmas crackers, my old electronic Lights Out game (that I’m delighted to say still works) – anything I could problem-solve, anything I could get myself lost in. I’ve always needed answers to questions and solutions to problems – and when I don’t get them, I grow frustrated and get low-key obsessed. I’ve managed to turn it into a career, designing escape rooms, so I suppose it’s only fitting that I’m turning my own break-up into some kind of problem-solving game – or one hell of an extreme escape room.
A large pinboard still hangs proudly above the desk with a collage of faded disposable camera photographs still up there, hanging on by some seriously ancient BluTack. I can see my childhood friends smiling over at me from the photos, so I smile back, even though we’re not really friends any more. I never saw it becoming an issue, when they all chose to throw their efforts into getting married and starting families, whereas I was more motivated by the idea of starting my career and seeing where I could get with that first. I don’t know why they decided that the route I was taking was leading me too far away from them to still be friends, but they made the invisible walls of their ‘Mummy Club’ impenetrable if you were missing that one vital part of the dress code, that one must-have accessory: a baby. Still, I’m sure they’re all happy now, and I am – well, I was until my break-up, at least, but work is going well, so focusing on my career was definitely a good call for me.
I pull myself out of bed and walk across the purple carpet over to the window where I glance out over my parents’ perfectly picturesque views. My mum and dad’s large detached house is nestled amidst the rolling green hills of Haworth – the Worth Valley steam train line actually passes the bottom of the back garden, which made growing up feel a little bit like I was starring in my own modern-day take on The Railway Children. It’s so beautiful here, like living in a postcard, one ‘wishing you were here’ in rural paradise. It’s funny how growing up somewhere so seemingly remote made me crave the idea of the hustle and bustle of the big city, which is why I couldn’t wait to escape to Leeds in my twenties.
It’s funnier still that now, with my impending break-up with Millsy, I’m going to have to give up living in the flat we share (but he owns) in the city and potentially move back here while I find somewhere new. I suppose I could live anywhere I wanted, I’m just not sure where that is any more. What I have – or had, anyway – was what I wanted, I really don’t want to give it all up.
I slip on my trusty dressing gown – the one with the decade-old Dream Matte Mousse foundation stains from when I used to absolutely cake myself in it as a teenager – and make my way downstairs, the delicious smell of my mum’s cooking growing stronger with every step that I take.
I know that, were I to tell my mum about my break-up, she would be an absolute dream, a whirlwind of support. I don’t think there is anything she wouldn’t do to make me feel better, and I just know that my break-up would have one hell of a menu, but that’s almost the reason I’m not telling her, why we’re not telling anyone. The problem is that Millsy and I had no idea we were going to break up, until we did – but obviously no one goes into relationships thinking about when it will end.
So, naturally, when talk of Christmas came up, and someone suggested we all have our first big family Christmas together – my family and Millsy’s family – at Millsy’s grandma’s big, beautiful house on the side of a loch in Scotland, everyone was so excited for it. Plans were made, food was ordered way in advance and, to be honest, even when Millsy and I did break up, it felt like there was an element of bluff calling, of the stress from both our jobs putting strain on our relationship, I don’t think either of us thought this break-up would actually take… and now here we are, just a few weeks before Christmas, with nothing to do but go with it – well, not unless we’re willing to ruin Christmas for everyone by either having to cancel it, or making everyone feel really uncomfortable with our break-up hanging over the day like an unwanted, uninvited guest. The only real option is to fake it. It’s not easy, though, living a lie, and I’ve been doing it alone so far which, to be honest, is probably easier, because I only need to get my story straight with myself. It’s probably hardest in situations like I’m about to walk into now, when it’s just my parents and Oliver, the people who know me best, who are the ones who can usually read me like a book.
I feel the warmth the second I arrive in the kitchen, not just from all the cooking, or the heating that my mum likes to keep on at full whack, but from my happy family who are all tucking into one hell of a breakfast spread.
‘Here she is,’ Mum says with a smile. ‘I kept plenty of food back for you, in case you fancied a lie-in, but you’ve timed it perfectly. Come on, sit down, grab a plate.’
I don’t need telling twice.
Annie Brooks, my mum, is like a human ray of sunshine. She is a petite lady, just about making it over the five-foot mark if she stands on her tiptoes, proving that sometimes great things really do come in small packages. She has sleek chestnut-brown hair, a warm smile and twinkling eyes, giving her this magical ability to make everyone feel instantly at ease.
Everyone but my Auntie Mary, of course, who seems to take all my mum’s wonderful qualities as somehow personally offensive to her. I often wonder if perhaps, given that it was always just her and my mum growing up, Mary viewed my mum as this annoying benchmark, someone she felt like she needed to live up to, but who she couldn’t be bothered to try to compete with.
Oliver and I are similar, in that it’s just the two of us, but we’ve never felt like we needed to compete with one another. I don’t resent how smart he is, I just make sure I’m always on his team when we do quizzes. But with Auntie Mary, everything my mum does offends her – even silly things, like Mum dying her grey away, whereas Auntie Mary has a full head of grey curls, so she constantly berates my mum for her ‘vanity’. Mary could dye her hair, but she doesn’t want to, but you better believe she’s going to be inexplicably mad at everyone who does.
I sit down next to Oliver, reminding myself how lucky I am to have a sibling I have such a good relationship with.
‘Good morning, Dr Brooks,’ I playfully tease him.
‘Erm, I’m not quite a doctor, not yet,’ he reminds me. ‘I could still mess it up.’
‘You’re not going to mess it up,’ my dad insists, unwilling to even joke about such a thing.
Oliver raises his eyebrows and shovels a large piece of pancake into his mouth, lest he say another word. I genuinely believe he hasn’t actually ruled out bumbling the PhD he’s been working on for years, but there’s no way he isn’t going to smash it.
Oliver, who stands tall at around 6’1, cuts a striking yet unassuming figure. His general vibe combines intellectual wit with understated confidence, but he’s definitely one to use his words wisely, and even he knows a debate with Auntie Mary will never be worth his breath, especially when she’s being ‘that way out’ – a phrase my mum and gran have always used to describe her fun little moods.
He wears his chestnut hair neatly blown back which, coupled with his round-rimmed glasses, somehow gives away the fact that he is an academic. He’s growing a bit of a beard – or trying to, at least, he’ll be the first one to tell you he can’t seem to get beyond the stubble stage. It suits him, though, adding a touch of maturity and sophistication to his otherwise youthful appearance. The interesting thing about Oliver is that he somehow boasts confidence while lacking self-confidence – meaning he can talk to a room full of people, just not about himself.
‘How’s your business thing going?’ my dad asks me from over his newspaper.
Ted Brooks personifies the quintessential Yorkshire dad, as if he stepped right out of an episode of Emmerdale (or what someone like me, who hasn’t ever watched an episode of Emmerdale, would imagine, at least). With his unwavering strength and stoic silence, he’s your classic Yorkshireman, only breaking said silence to deliver straight-talking statements that cut through any pretence or seriously dad-y one-liners. He’s a master of frugality, meticulously watching every penny (for himself and those around him), unless it involves splurging on prime cuts of meat or speciality pints of beer.
