Half Plus Seven (31 page)

‘Okay, Bill, okay. Sit down will you?' I reached down to pick up the cup and saucer.

‘Leave it, love, I'll clean it up later.'

I counted to ten, or at least two before she started again.

‘So if you're not gay then, love, what is it…? Drugs?'

‘Mum!' I screeched.

I was fourteen again.

‘Well, it's either that or the other these days, isn't it?'

‘Mum!'

‘Well, it's always in Barry's paper.'

‘Mum, okay, well, it is drugs. Or was drugs.' Her face paled. ‘WAS. It was a lot of things but it's not anymore, it's just me, Bill, trying my fucking hardest to be a functioning member of society, doing good, thinking of others and trying to make up for all the bad things I've done over the years. Drink. Drugs. Women. Drugs. Drink. Bad things. Bad people. Bad places. But not now, mum. Not now. Now it's just me. Bill. Trying to be that little boy you told to be true to himself.'

And with that, I collapsed in her arms, tears running down my cheeks.

I was exhausted.

I don't know how long I lay there for but when I came around a cup of hot tea sat next to the remote control on the faux marble coffee table in front of me. The air smelt of carpet shampoo. Hoovering could be heard from upstairs.
Herman's Hermits
hummed in from the conservatory. These new houses had paper-thin walls.

This was their home. Mum and Barry's. And you know what, I was happy for them. Or if I wasn't quite happy for them, I wasn't quite so mad. I'd drink my tea and leave them to it.

Mum.

Tick.

Barry.

Tick.

Chapter 31

They say a man's home is his castle. It was a shame that mine looked like it had been ransacked. It was hard to feel the security and privacy alluded to by the proverb when the kitchen had fleas and the shitter came with a viewing gallery.

I pushed the door of number 35.

The house smelt of incense. My mind jumped to a memory from a few months and a million years ago. Bad music played through the floorboards. Bad clothes draped up the mouldy carpet of the staircase. Craig and Connie were the only couple in the world for who
The Levellers
was sex music.

Today, the kitchen table displayed half-empty cans, rolling tobacco and a copy of the I Ching; proudly, ornamentally. I ripped a page from the back of the book, took a pen from my top pocket and wrote:

Dear Connie and Craig,

Sometimes a man just needs a roof. An umbrella from the elements, a guardian from the night, a cover from the cold. You gave me that when I needed it the most and for that gesture I will be eternally grateful. Man can survive under a roof forever. Correction: some men can survive under a roof forever. Some men need more than a roof. The cold kept out for only so long until internalised. Until a chill wind blows right through on the cosiest of nights. Winds lead to warm fronts. It's time for my weather to change. You have helped me more than you could ever know but now I need to help myself. I have left a month's rent in the cutlery drawer. Use my scant possessions as you see fit. I don't need them where I am going.

Yours

Bill

PS If you ever want to rent the room out again, you seriously need to sort out the bathroom floor. Not everyone is as desperate as I was.

Craig and Connie.

Tick.

Chapter 32

The room had been booked for a week now. I'd spent lapses in between prepping for the waste management pitch searching online for somewhere special. The criteria wasn't an Egon Ronay award or a TripAdvisor top-rating. There were many factors to take into consideration. Everything had to be just right. The time had come.

I told Christy I had something important to tell her. There was no need for a PR spin on that statement. It was 110 per cent God's honest. I'd pitched it as a ‘buddy session on tour' so as not to scare her off. It wasn't strictly by-the-book Morgan & Schwarz HR policy to hold these pastoral sessions in a hotel bar on the outskirts of the city, but then I never could quite cut it as the company man. The location had been methodically chosen specifically for the night that lay ahead. No one could know us. We needed to go incognito, blend in just as any other couple would. Our relationship had developed since those nervous getting-to-know-you meetings, awkward silences broken up with Health and Safety protocol, time management tips and unexpected soul bearing. After spending more and more of our time together outside of the office, I knew what Christy needed even if she didn't. She needed this even if she didn't want it.

The hotel was a good 20 miles northwest of the office along the dual carriageway which fed traffic in and out of the city, ideally located for two-bit salesmen and out-of-town conference goers to hit the bar and the hay before a day in the smoke. In my drinking days a trip this far out would have meant expensing taxi cabs there and back but my new found steadfastness put the pool car at my service.

It was getting darker. The lights of the cars flew by, white passing my windscreen, red ahead. I tried not to let the symbolism of following the red lights faze me. I was doing the right thing. I flicked through the radio dial to take my mind off what lay ahead. I'd run over this moment in my head times once, times twice, times infinity. I knew what to do. I had visualised the result.

This would happen.

The fly in the ointment could be the side effects of sobriety. The ever-present bead of sweat on my temple and nervous gut rot were not desirable traits in a man. Yeah, sure, me and Christy had got closer but I don't think we were at the ‘poo in each other's company' stage just yet. When a girl had smelt the traces of your rotten insides lingering around the porcelain, it was hard to get the magic back. No one told you the wagon would be so hard.

‘Arrive at destination on the left.'

We were here.

Well, I was here.

But you're here too, right?

I couldn't do this alone. Even James Dean would have struggled to make a big entrance in a roadside, 3-star, chain-hotel. I pulled down the sun visor to check the mirror. A sushi take-out menu (potentially anyone's) fell out. My eyes weren't as tired as I'd expected. Hell, I'd venture to even say that once I wiped the sweat away, I looked good. The truth was a peerless effervescent.

This was it.

I left the car and walked across the car park, past the hire cars and motor homes, through the sliding doors of the hotel. There was no welcome from a bell boy. No one offered to carry my luggage from the car. Just how I wanted it.

I was running deliberately late; around 20 minutes. Enough but not too much. As much as I hated the awkwardness of being the one watched walking in (I never knew what to do with my hands), I wanted to see her from afar, watch her for a while unnoticed; see her look around the bar, see others look at her, area sales managers eyeing her up, imagining her back in their queen-size bed, looking, trying to catch her eye, failing, and looking again. She was sat on a table for two in the corner. It was symptomatic of a hotel bar: soulless and licensed. Her red hair shone at the side of her pale face. She reached down under the table into her bag and brought her phone out, checking the time, checking if I'd called. She turned her phone over and checked herself in the reflective back.

‘Table for one, sir?' Turns out they did have staff, nondescript Eastern European staff. God bless the Common Market.

‘No, I'm fine. I'm just going to join a…' and I pointed in Christy's direction, not quite knowing how to end the sentence.

Her dark eyes looked up and saw me. They smiled ‘at last'. I started to walk over, awkward all over… what to do with my hands, what to do with my hands. Ah. She stood up. Put them around her. Squeeze. But not too hard.

‘Hey,' I said, putting her down.

‘Hey,' she said, ‘what time do you call this?'

‘Umm…' I reached for my phone.

‘Not literally, Bill.'

‘Oh, yeah,' I laughed, ‘of course.'

‘Shall we sit?'

‘I already was.'

‘Of course.'

We sat. Come on, Bill. You can do this.

‘Another drink?' I offered, noticing her empty highball.

‘Sure, it's table service. I'll catch their eye.'

‘Cool.'

Non-threatening guitar music played in the background.

‘So, how was your day?' I asked.

‘My day? My day was the usual answer the phone – tell white lies – smile and repeat. I've got it down to a fine art now. But forget that, how was your day? The pitch?'

The pitch.

With all that had been happening today, I'd completely forgotten about the pitch.

‘The pitch was…'

‘Good?' she filled in.

‘Well…'

‘Bad?' this time.

‘No… It was one of the best things I've ever done in my life.' If I'd said this sentence before today it would have dripped with sarcasm. Not now.

‘But I thought it was Trent's thing?'

‘It was.'

‘Okay. Okay. Well, wow, Bill. That's great.' Her eyes opened wide. ‘I'd raise a glass to that if I had a full one.'

And on cue a waitress appeared. Christy ordered a gin and tonic. I'd fucking love a gin and tonic.

‘Diet Coke, please.'

‘Celebrating then?' Christy poked.

‘Celebrating,' I said, blowing an imaginary party horn. I felt the bead of sweat come back.

‘Cheers.' She raised an imaginary glass to mine.

‘Cheers.'

She leaned her jagged shoulders in towards me.

‘So, Bill, pitch aside,' she was whispering now, ‘how have you really been? I've barely seen you recently. The only words I can remember you uttering to me were to get the key code to the staff file—'

‘Thanks for that by the way.'

‘It was nothing.'

The drinks arrived. She took a long, thirsty sip.

‘I've been, you know,' I lifted the Diet Coke and imagined it was something else, ‘busy.'

‘So. I. Have. Heard.' She emphasised every word. Morgan & Schwarz's gain was am-dram's loss.

‘What do you mean?' I said a little too eagerly. I'd done my utmost to be discreet.

‘Well,' she sipped again, ‘Carol told me you'd helped her secure funding for the soup kitchen. That's wonderful, Bill. Just wonderful.'

Relief.

She didn't know.

‘I figured it was a down payment for when the bottom falls out of the PR game.'

‘Bill, stop it. It was a wonderful thing to do.'

‘Well, lots of wonderful things have been happening recently.' I sipped and whispered under my breath, ‘Are about to happen.' My words were muffled by the background music. The sound system played a song used in the accompanying TV ad to a campaign we'd run promoting safe sex to teenagers. The singer was a 17-year-old with hot pants and a short temper. Her name escaped me.

‘How about you?' I asked. ‘How's life?'

She moved back in her chair. Smoky make-up did a good job of covering up the bags under her eyes.

‘You know…'

‘No, no I don't.'

‘Well, work I covered.'

‘And…'

‘And what?'

‘And what about everything else?'

‘And it's still really fucking hard to be there for Joe. I feel like a single mother who got pregnant aged nine.' Her dark eyes welled a little.

I was going to help her.

Over the next two drinks I cheered her up. I played the clown. We joked about Pete (‘He definitely irons his tea towels,' we agreed), pay rises (‘If Miles wasn't so pally with Meinhoff, I'd swear he was Jewish' – me), and community politics (‘Opting in is the new opting out' – her).

All the while the elephant in the room tap-danced on the bar.

‘Bill, why are we here?'

‘Why are we where, Chris? Here, precisely now? Or here; the earth, the world, the universe?'

‘Bill…'

‘Well, you know what? I think I'm just beginning to find out.' And with that, I put my drink down, reached into my pocket and put the room key on the table.

‘Bill…'

I put my hand on hers. My eyes tried to communicate a thousand things about this moment, the past and our future. I'd seen her eyes so many times before. I'd never seen them look at me like this.

‘Okay.'

She picked her glass up and sunk the last sip. She was not drunk. I was not taking advantage.

‘Come on…'

I settled the bill while she lingered by the door. We headed to the lobby. We moved silently towards the lift. I pushed the button. As the doors opened we caught a glimpse of ourselves in the mirror. We looked ready. We were on the precipice of something she needed.