Hiccups (8) - Symptoms 12 to 14

Symptom 12. Losing your girlfriend

At 6.30 I met Lara outside the swimming pool for our daily swim. At 7.45 we went for breakfast. At 9.00 we started work. The day passed uneventfully, several people came up to me to wish me well, having heard that I was leaving. Sheena also wished me well, though aside from her words she seemed unconcerned and I could see from the look in her eyes that in the depths of her mind gossip was forming. Oh well, so what if Nina heard Sheena’s gossip, our relationship was strong enough to survive idle chatter.

Days passed. For my last day at work we went to a Chinese restaurant and to the pub afterwards. For my leaving present I received some CDs of songs from musicals that Sheena had told my boss I’d like. I feigned delight – oh well at least that was Nina’s birthday present sorted, or even as a congratulations on finishing your exams present. She had just the one exam left now, on Tuesday of the next week. Nina was invited to the restaurant, but couldn’t come, as she was going out clubbing with friends from her course. It was the first chance she’d had to go clubbing for weeks, with this slight gap in her timetable, so I didn’t mind.

Most people left the pub early, leaving just me and Lara. After last orders we went for a walk along the beach. This time, with Lara beside me, there was no sign of anyone else. No storytellers, no strange men in suits. Not even late night clubbers staggering home. We talked for hours before we parted, before I guided Lara to her door, kissing her mentally perhaps, but physically not touching. We were both fully aware of Nina.

It was some time after 2.00 when I got home. The door was ajar as I walked up the drive. Oh dear I thought, Nina will wonder why I’m so late. But Nina wasn’t home yet. The door had been forced open. The house had been broken into. For some reason I knew immediately that it was the men from the beach. I checked that no-one was left in the house before phoning the police, who said that they’d be round some time next week. I left a message on a locksmith’s answerphone, then checked to see what had been taken.

The first thing I checked was my file of writing. As I suspected all of my stories were missing. Everything I had written on those hic-crazed nights after talking to the storyteller had gone. But the file was still in the drawer, and in its place the men had left photocopies of what looked like plans for a submarine. I threw them away. The discs on which the stories were stored were also gone, replaced with computer games, predictable adventures, chase games, games I would never play.

Nothing else had been taken. There were few signs of a burglary, just the broken door and slightly scuppered paperwork. Nina came home drunk and in tears. I told her that nothing had been taken as I didn’t want her to know about the men on the beach, in case she blamed me for the burglary. I told her that I must have disturbed them before they could take anything. She blamed me anyway though, told me I had too many weird friends, that I attracted burglars. We had a furious row, which is hard to do when you’re hiccupping, and went to our separate beds. Neither of us slept. I could hear her getting up throughout the night for water, to use the toilet, to make toast, and to phone one of her friends, I think it was Sheena. I couldn’t hear what she was saying but she was crying. I didn’t interrupt her though, I was in enough trouble as it was, and besides, I was engrossed in a Terry Pratchett novel by this point.

The next morning we ate breakfast awkwardly. Nina apologised for being drunk. A locksmith phoned and arrived shortly afterwards. We tidied the flat, removing the last signs of the previous evening’s burglary. Nina found the plans for the submarine in the waste paper basket and asked where they came from, but believed me when I said that they were from Bill who’d thought I’d be interested, as that’s the sort of thing that Bill did. We had scrambled eggs for lunch, which I made while Nina sorted out the revision she needed to do for her final exam. After lunch Nina left me. The conversation went something like this.

“ I don’t think it’s working.”

“Hic”

“I’ve really enjoyed the past year. We’ve had some really good times, and I still like you.” Pause for tears and hiccups. “And I still love you. But I don’t see the relationship lasting. I can’t see us ever getting married.” Tears. “And if we’re not going to stay together I don’t think we should stay together.” (She really said that. The female mind eh!)

“Hic.”

“So I’m ending it Dave.”

“Hic”

“It’s nothing to do with last night. The reason we rowed was that I knew it wasn’t working, the reason I got drunk was that I knew it wasn’t working. You do understand don’t you?”

“Hic”

“I’m sorry Dave! I do still love you. I hate to do this. But I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

“Hic”.

“I know. I’d go myself. But it’s my finals. It’s bad enough breaking up during my finals. I can’t move out now.”

“Hic”.

“I knew you’d understand. I know we’ll always be friends. We just weren’t meant to go out together. You do still love me don’t you?”

“Hic”.

Actually I probably said more than “hic” during the conversation, I forget exactly. But let’s face it, it didn’t really matter what I said. It didn’t really matter whether I hiccupped or not. It was over. Which was a shame, ‘cause it was something very much like love between us. All the symptoms had been there. But not love itself. But never mind, at least part of me was thinking. ‘Cause there was always Lara!

That day I moved most of my things into Bill’s house, as a temporary measure, while I decided what to do. Luckily Bill had a spare room at that time as he couldn’t find anyone to share with him. And, being a friend, he said he’d go easy on the rent, for now at least.

Symptom 13. Finding that the swimming pool is closed for repairs

That night Bill and I played the longest ever game of History of the World, which I lost considerably, thanks mainly to my great Roman army being defeated in seven separate battles by unexpected Belgian resistance. I had given up on night walks by this time, so after the game I unpacked my trusty Pratchett and read through the early hours. At 6.30 the next morning I stood outside the pool only to find that Lara wasn’t there. The pool was closed. There was a hand-written A4 sign on the front door that said ‘closed for repairs,’ in bright red lettering.

The first day of my new life. I was without a job, without a girlfriend, living in a friend’s spare room, seemingly addicted to hiccups. And now I wasn’t even seeing Lara, without meeting her at work, with the swimming pool now closed, how would I ever get together with her? I was so depressed, so miserable, sitting on the wall outside the swimming pool, that I almost forgot my hiccups. But when I came back to my senses they were still there. I was alone on a wall outside a closed swimming pool loudly hiccupping to myself.

I decided to go to the Leisure Centre Café for coffee when it opened at 7.00. I would even try to eat something, my body was skinny now, I’d had some soup two days ago but there was no fat left on me, just skin, bone, muscle, brain and a pusy boil that had formed on my right knee a couple of days previously.

Symptom 14. Falling in love

I sat in the Leisure Centre Café prodding unexcitedly at a plateful of fried food. The same stained table by the window I’d sat at with Lara just days before. The only other inhabitant was an old man reading a paper in the corner, who turned and looked at me every time I hiccupped.

It was a Saturday. In theory the world was my oyster, I could do anything I wanted, the weekend was here. I was free and single, no ties, no binds. But to me the future presented itself as a gloomy desolate world, like a world in sci-fi story that has been bombed, poisoned by chemicals and abandoned. My mood wasn’t helped by the sight of a greasy sausage eeking cold slime onto my plate, like a slimy chemical spillage from that nightmare world or, even worse, Port Talbot.

Then she walked into the room. I knew immediately that this was the start of something special. She smiled at me and walked over to my table.

“I wondered if I’d find you here,” she said. “I forgot to ask if you knew that the pool was closing. You must have felt really stupid getting up so early on a Saturday to find that the pool was shut.”

I listened to her laugh at my misfortune. Her laugh was beautiful, like sunlight in the morning after a vicious storm, like a setting sun painting an orange-clouded sky, like a Morrissey ballad, and I laughed too, in-between hiccups of course.

Lara wasn’t surprised that Nina had left me. She said she’d expected it for weeks now, everyone in the office knew we were having problems. By everyone in the office she obviously meant everyone but me. She said never mind, you’re sure to meet someone else soon. And then we kissed.

The moment we kissed my hiccups disappeared. Her kiss must have effected my breathing, by carbon dioxide levels, or perhaps it was the effect of passion on my bloodstream, or something like that. They just vanished, like a vision standing before a mad cleric on a golf course they disappeared as suddenly and as unexpectedly as they’d appeared. Which was just as well Lara said later, she certainly wasn’t going to sleep with me while I was still hiccupping. But with the hiccups gone and me and Lara together – well we had an enjoyable weekend.

It was Lara who broke my heart of course. I fell head over heels in love, Lara didn’t. It lasted just over a year, we even moved in together. But it was not a match made in heaven, or even on the outskirts of heaven, the Never Never Land of near compatibility where so many relationships are forged. She’d seen other men I knew, but I thought we could work through that. She was a tart I knew, but I thought she could change. But what I didn’t know was that she was bored with me, thought it was time for a change, and she casually dismissed me one day whilst doing her washing.

It was November 1996. It still hurts, having your heart ripped up and flung away like that. But I bear no grudge towards her, no hard feelings. After all she did cure my hiccups. And the sex was great.

When I started going out with my current girlfriend, Marine, I confessed that my heart was broken, but that everything else was in perfect working order. We’ve been seeing each other for three years now, and it seems to be working out. Marine favours the drinking backwards from a glass of water method. And it works for me now, just as it used to. Sometimes I only need to see the glass poured out and I stop, pavlovian style. It makes me wonder why, in that summer of 1995, it didn’t work. Which is why, I suppose, I’m writing this.

If you’ve come across this piece by mistake, whilst searching the internet for a cure for hiccups, and if you’ve tried everything else (see cures 1-16) then maybe you should try the cure I lived through.

1. Get fired from your job
2. Get dumped by your girlfriend
3. Steal stories from a mysterious stranger on a beach
4. Go without food, go without sleep, swim lots
5. Get together with ‘the girl of your dreams’ and kiss