Another Love (31 page)

*

The man slapped the table and sent a spray of sticky beer up over her front. She screamed her laughter. ‘That’s notfair! Not fair!’ She wagged her finger. ‘I am verysad, veryverysad today.’ She leant towards him and breathed her vodka fumes in his direction. ‘My goodDavid hasleftme. He didn’t… didn’t wantowaitf’me!’ She sat back, a little confused.

The man laughed loudly, undoing the top button of his shirt as he twisted in his chair. ‘I’m sorry about that.’ He raised the glass in his hand in a wobbly gesture of solidarity.

Romilly slumped forward and placed her head on the tabletop, where beer and the sticky goo of food remnants and dust stuck to her cheek in a thin paste. ‘BugGirl. That’sit, that’s my name. He made me laugh and I hadtogetinthecupboard. He was funny. He married me…’

She closed her eyes. A little nap would be really good about now.

She felt a hand shoving her shoulder.

‘Come on, Sleeping Beauty, we’re closed.’ The woman sounded irritated. She wanted to close up and go home, and babysitting the passed-out Romilly clearly wasn’t on the agenda.

Romilly roused herself and lifted her head. Her skin peeled away from the table with a sticky, sucker-like noise. She rubbed her face and looked around with one eye closed, trying to recall where she was. The booze had settled in her veins and her brain, cushioning her thoughts and dulling her pain. She liked this slow, neutral state of mind; she’d forgotten what an exquisite pleasure it was to escape like this.

‘Seriously, get a move on, will you!’ The woman was yelling now, dragging on a cigarette as she collected glasses with her free hand.

‘Can I buy a little bottle from you?’ Romilly asked as she reached under the table for her jacket and bag.

‘No.’ The woman opened the door and gestured to the cold outside world.

Romilly felt her face crumple into tears; all she wanted was a little bottle.

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake!’ The woman strode over to the bar, the soles of her trainers sticking to the linoleum floor as she went. Grabbing a bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale, she popped the top and marched back with her arm outstretched, shoving it into Romilly’s hand. ‘Now piss off!’ she shouted.

‘Thank you.’ Romilly nodded at the closed door. She placed the glass neck to her mouth and gulped.

Looking up into the night sky, she wasn’t entirely sure she knew where she was. It certainly wasn’t a street she recognised. She wandered along the kerb, uncertain on her feet and finding it easier to keep the raised pavement against her heel to guide her. She was aware of being in among crowds of people, but their faces were indistinct. One or two men catcalled in her direction as she stood still, teetered and carried on her way. ‘Fuck off!’ she shouted in their general direction, which earned her claps and more catcalls.

Eventually she looked up and found herself by the Freemasons’ Hall in Great Queen Street. Recognising the impressive white pillars that towered above her, for some reason she thought it appropriate to salute. In doing so, she fell sideways, landing on the steps with an almighty thud. Her glasses flew from her pocket.

‘Oh my God! She’s cut her face!’ came a woman’s voice, kindly and soft. The woman bent over her. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Leave her alone, she’s just pissed,’ her male companion said, pulling her away into the night.

‘Fuck you!’ Romilly yelled as she leant against the step and watched their shapes disappear along the pavement towards Drury Lane. ‘I’m a scientist. I am. I am not juspissed, I’m a pissedscentist!’ This made her laugh. Then her giggles dissipated, replaced by tears as she pictured the note David had stuck on her lampshade. ‘Proper love,’ she whispered, gathering her specs, newly cracked in the right lens, and hauling herself upright against a pillar with the taste of iron seeping into her mouth.

Father Brian was woken by the noise. He came downstairs with his dressing gown over his pyjamas. Romilly was beating the glass top of the door with her flattened palm. ‘Father Brian! It’s me, come on! Father Brian, open the door!’ she yelled.

Several Chandler House residents screamed down through cracks in the rattly windows, telling her to ‘Shut the fuck up!’ Someone on an upper floor opened a sash window and threw a half-empty bottle of water in her direction; it missed her by an inch and landed at her feet. She found this hilarious, laughed loudly.

Father Brian slid the bolts and released the chain. He stared at the sorry state of his prize pupil. ‘Be quiet now!’ he hissed. ‘You’ll wake the whole neighbourhood. Come in, come on!’ His voice was stern.

‘You are so fucking righteous, you have no idea whatmylifeislike! But you are my only friend, FatherBrian, my only friend… You don’tcare about my boulders, you have helpedme… youhelpme.’ She fell over the step and plunged forward, head first, missing the wall by an inch.

Father Brian took her by the arm and led her into his private study, easing her onto the sofa. He lifted her feet and put them on the arm, before going to fetch a blanket that he laid over her shoulders and tucked around her body. ‘Oh, Romilly,’ he said with a sigh as he shut the door on her and left her to sleep until the morning.

*

As the door creaked wide, she opened her eyes and was shocked to find she wasn’t in her bed. A split second later, she felt the pain behind her eyeballs and the mother of all headaches.
Oh no… What have I done?

‘I’ve made you some coffee and here’s a glass of water.’ Father Brian set the tray down on the floor by the sofa and sat in the chair at his desk.

She closed her eyes again, wanting to disappear, wanting to be anywhere else but there, humiliated in front of the man who had given her a chance at recovery, a shot at the title. Her tears of self-pity sprang.

‘You’ll need to be rousing yourself, Romilly. I’ve got staff arriving soon and it will do nobody any good for you to be lying here in that state.’

Slowly she lifted her body and let her legs fall to the floor until she was sitting up. Laying her palm on her throbbing cheek, she felt the congealed line of blood, newly formed over a cut. She reached down for the hot cup of coffee and felt her entire insides shift as she struggled not to vomit. ‘I’m sorry,’ she croaked, between sobs. ‘I don’t remember coming here. I don’t know what happened.’

Father Brian knitted his knuckles across his ample tummy. ‘Do you know what triggered it? Was it your letter?’

She thought about David’s words:
I have met someone else, but that is incidental.
Romilly swallowed. Her spit tasted sour and her breath wasn’t much better. She could smell the booze on her skin and her whole body itched as if coated with something.

‘I think it was partly that, but it’s been a tricky week. I found the new girl’s descriptions very unsettling – that hadn’t happened to me before, but I don’t know, it… it just got me thinking. And then to read that my David, my husband, who I love very much…’ She exhaled. ‘I know it sounds daft, Father Brian, but I hadn’t considered it, hadn’t thought that he would meet someone else.’

She sipped her coffee and tried to rid her mind of the image of a woman who looked like Sara walking up the driveway and into her home. ‘It floored me. And all I can think of is the promises he made to me and the promises I made to him and I broke my promises and so what did I expect?’

‘It’s still difficult for you, of course.’ Father Brian’s tone had softened.

‘I’d forgotten, you know… I’d forgotten what it felt like to have a drink. The happiness I felt, it was like nectar. It was magic. And even though I knew it was undoing all my hard work, I didn’t care. I didn’t.’ She shook her head at the admission. ‘All that mattered was that second when the booze sat on my tongue and knowing it was going to go into my veins and make me feel better. It’s like medicine and poison rolled into one. And I’ve fought against it for all these months, but yesterday it was stronger than me.’ She wished she could stop the irritating trickle of tears that was rolling over her nose and mouth.

‘Oh, Romilly, I know exactly how it feels. For me it’s been over thirty-seven years, but some days that desire in my gut is just as strong as on day one.’

‘Father Brian, I didn’t realise that you…’

‘Oh yes. I nearly lost everything, my life included, but I’m still here and at least now I’m turning those years into something good.’ He cocked his head and looked her full in the face. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘Shit. Horrible. Sick.’

He nodded his understanding, as if this feeling too was still raw. ‘You know the rules, Romilly. This indiscretion means you go back to square one, back to the hostel and back to basics.’

Tears streamed from her bloodshot eyes. ‘It’s like playing snakes and ladders.’ She sobbed. ‘But instead of a game, this is my life! This is my crappy life!’ She thumped her chest.

‘My husband is the beautiful David Arthur Wells and he married me in front of everyone we knew and told me I was his one and only proper love and I so wanted to be, I really did!’ She sniffed and wiped her tears with her grubby sleeve. ‘He is the father of my child, my girl, who is the most perfect thing I have ever seen and I can’t believe I am her mum. I picture them in our house and I always thought that there would be a space left, a place for me, for when I’m better, but they’re not waiting for me, are they?’ She sobbed again. ‘I know they’re not. My David has a woman that he loves, I can feel it, and it isn’t me! It isn’t me!’

Father Brian stared at her. ‘Go back to the flat. Get yourself cleaned up, drink plenty of water, rest and I shall see you back here for group meeting.’

She looked up at him. ‘But… but you said I had to go back to square one!’ she stammered. ‘You said that was the rules!’

‘I think you have gone back to square one, Romilly.’ He sat forward and smiled at her. ‘And I think sometimes it’s okay to break the rules a bit, don’t you?’

I don’t remember Annie being officially introduced. There certainly wasn’t the awkward afternoon tea or a briefing on what I should say and wear, nothing like that. Dad didn’t start behaving differently, she just kind of appeared. Looking back, they were already very comfortable with each other by the time I met her, so I guess things must have been going on for quite a while. It was their ease with each other that made it all feel very natural. Uncomplicated.

Annie just slotted into our lives and started picking me up and cooking my supper and buying me clothes or shampoo if I ran out, just normal stuff. She never tried to be my mum, we never discussed it, didn’t have to. As I said, it was all very easy. The first time she came to the house, she and Dad cooked and I remember her asking where the pots and pans were, things like that and then the next time she came over and cooked, she didn’t have to ask and that’s kind of how it was with everything. She stayed over occasionally and then more regularly and then she stopped going home and the bathroom cabinet filled up with her things and just like that we were a little unit. Dad and Annie and me and it was great.

A major turning point for me was when Annie started to chat to my friends’ mums and cook for my mates and organise sleepovers for me and drive me around; that kind of thing. Of course it made me think about my mum, but by then it had been such a long time and she hadn’t contacted me and I hadn’t seen her and she had faded for me, in every sense. I know that might sound harsh, but this wasn’t some movie, this was my real life and that was the truth.

Annie would smile every time she saw me – still does – and that was a lovely contrast to that sick feeling, wondering whether Mum was going to be all over me and doing something fun or whether she was going to go batshit crazy and scare me half to death. I think the best word to sum it up is ‘relaxed’. I started to relax and was able to think about school work and boys, normal stuff.

Annie always fought my corner. Amelia wanted a group of us to go to Newquay for a long weekend and stay in a caravan and my dad point blank refused. I went nuts, stormed from the dining table and told him I hated him, which I did for about three seconds. I looked at Annie and she shrugged and said, ‘your dad’s probably right.’ I glared at her, expecting more support. I slumped on the stairs and I heard her say to him, ‘that girl is an angel. When I was her age, I’d have snuck off to Newquay and you’d have had no idea where I was, but not her, she tells you everything. You know her friends, her routine… you don’t want her to be left out do you? To miss out, not fit in when they’re all talking about the rainy weekend they spent in a bloody caravan?’

I crept up to my room and my heart was bursting with love for her. She brought my pudding up about half an hour later and sat on the side of the bed. ‘Thank you Annie. I heard what you said to dad.’

‘Us girls have to stick together.’ She winked.

I took a deep breath and told her, ‘It’s not true you know.’

‘What isn’t?’ she smiled.

‘I don’t tell him everything. I don’t tell anyone everything.’ It was a rare admission from me.

Annie was silent for a moment. I could tell she knew that I was talking about my mum. She spoke softly and kindly when she asked, ‘Are there things you would like to tell someone, someone impartial, who won’t judge you and has heard it all a million times before?’

I nodded, thinking that might help me get things straight in my head. She brushed my fringe from my face and she said, ‘I’ll make you an appointment to go and see my friend Erica. You’ll like her a lot.’

I never called Annie ‘Mum’, although she fulfilled the role; and she never asked me to. I guess that was out of respect for Mum’s memory and to keep things as straightforward as possible.

Romilly was quiet. She was thinking about how she had nearly ruined everything and about how grateful she was to Father Brian, who had been far kinder than she deserved. Her fall from the wagon had shaken her. It had happened so easily, so quickly; it was a timely lesson in the need to be vigilant at all times. She understood Father Brian’s admission that even after thirty-seven years clear, his struggle was almost as hard as it had been on day one. This was a battle in which she couldn’t afford to lower her shield, ever. It was a daunting prospect and she wasn’t sure she still had the strength for it.