The Mad British (28 page)

THERE ARE SEVERAL guidelines to follow when drinking alone. Firstly, don’t eat anything; it disrupts the flow of alcohol to the bloodstream. If food is required, eating out of the package is recommended, even encouraged, and whatever falls to the floor, the cat will take care of it.

Wait. There is no bloody cat. Not any more.

Secondly—and this needs some training before doing it right—pull the battery out of your mobile and hide it. The same should be done to the house phone. The last step, and the hardest, is to lock your computer with a password so complicated that you can’t easily recall it, but taping it somewhere that you can find later, when you’re sober enough.

The car keys must also be hidden. This step is crucial, since after you find the battery to the mobile—you always find the damn battery—and make a dozen calls to the same number, all of which end in voicemail, you’ll usually stumble around trying to find the spare car keys to go to her, a logical next step to a broken mind. The key to hiding the keys is to put them in a separate place than the phone batteries, some place it hurts too much to go into, like her studio.

I stare at the painting for a few moments through contacts so dry, they feel like inch-thick glass plates stuck against my eyeballs.

"Ah, good morning, sir." Priyam's face pops into view, thankfully blocking the painting of Shiva or Kali or whoever it is. "How do you feel on this beautiful Saturday morning?"

I push myself slowly into a sitting position and almost keel over from the red tide of pain hammering on the inside of my skull. "Very, very embarrassed."

Priyam waves me off. "No matter, sir. I am glad you are all right."

I choke down the stale taste in my mouth and vow to never again drink forty ounces of anything purchased at a corner shop for fewer than five pounds.

"What happened?"

"This is a funny story, sir. It makes me laugh very much. You called me very late at night, and from a not very good area, so I drove around until I found you, and by then you had already lost your keys. You offered me a lot of money if I would take you to Miss Queen's parents' house, but I thought it better if I bring you back here. Then you promised me a raise and very forwardly propositioned my wife."

I feel my eyes snap open. It had been a long, long time since I’d gotten loaded enough to act like a pre-marriage Preston, and Mrs Priyam is kind of. . . old, and round, and not exactly my type.

The older man is smiling at me with a twinkle in his eye. I groan.

"I'll double the raise."

"Thank you, sir. And your phone keeps ringing. I think someone is trying to find you."

My head throbs when I scramble for my phone, hoping against desperate hope that Adelaide has finally given in and returned one of my calls. I haven’t heard her pretty voice in two weeks. It feels like eternity.

My heart sinks into my stomach when the call-log displays nothing but Camilla, once, and Travis, fourteen times, along with a slew of texts. I read the last one.

Travis:
If u dnt call bck in 1hr I file missing persons report.

Priyam gives me a ride home, and when, and only when I’m standing by my door, do I realise I’ve lost my damn keys. I kick the door and a lightning-bolt pain shoots through my toe.

I make the call, and thankfully, my knight in something armour doesn’t bring his tiny sidekick with him.

Preston steps out of the lift and gives me a long, pitying look before pulling the keyring out of his coat pocket. "No offense, bro, but you look like you slept on a park bench—No, a park bench slept on you."

I ignore him and remind myself to find out how to install an electronic lock, or one of those funky eyeball-scanning ones so I don’t end up in this position ever again. It’s bad enough I’m scraping the bottom of the dignity barrel without locking myself out of our home like a seventeen-year-old out past curfew.

I forget Preston is tailing me and go into the bedroom, strip off my shirt and trousers that are sticking to me with sweat, and enter the bathroom. My stubble has turned into a full-fledged beard and it’s itching like mad. My eyes are burning like someone has taken a blowtorch to them, and I tug the tacky contacts out of my eyes and flick them at the floor, missing the bin by a mile.

"Right," Preston begins, trying his best attempt at casual, leaning against one of the counters. I turn on the tap and splash my face with cold water a few times. "Have you talked to her yet?"

I freeze over the basin, suddenly intent on watching the shooting stream of water jet down into the drain. "No." My throat feels scratchy and dry.

Preston gives a single nod. "Did you try and call her?"

I turn the tap off and reach for a towel. "No, I hadn’t thought of that. What a great idea. It never occurred to me to find a phone, punch a bunch of numbers into it, and use it as a communication tool to facilitate discussion. Thank you, Preston, you're my hero. You've just solved all of my problems. I'd be so screwed without you. Piss off, Preston."

I expect Preston’s patented death stare to burn a hole in me, the one he reserves for paparazzi, accountants, and studio agents, but the look he gives me is a crisscross of pity and curiosity.

I bloody hate it.

"You're doing sarcasm wrong. Are you high?"

"I wish."

Preston frowns. "Hey, guess what starts right now?"

"What?"

"Detox."

"Piss off."

"You said that already. Be like Apple and think different."

I leave the bathroom and hear him clanking around the kitchen shortly after. I dart out to save my stash.

Preston is standing in front of the line of empties on the counter. "Aw, how cute. You going to go bowling with these or something?" He sweeps them all into a black bin bag and then rummages through the fridge and scoops out armfuls of beer bottles. "Are you bloody serious? Beer's not even alcohol."

"Really? Ten of twelve per cent and let's see you walk a straight line and say the alphabet backwards." This is a battle I’m meant to lose. "Fine. Just leave the Ambien, I can't sleep without it."

Preston pockets the little orange bottle. "Boo-hoo, Princess. Drink some tea, Hatter."

"You know you're being a dick."

"Why? Because I won't bring the cake to your pity party?" Preston stops his clean out and turns to face me. "Listen, I know you're new to this whole relationship affair, so let me help you realise what just happened. You had a fight. So what? Couples fight. Even ridiculously solid couples like Camilla and I, and it makes the sex even better and dirtier when you make up. Believe me, you can find some proper filthy positions when you’re angry and hurt.”

I feel bile at the back of my throat. That is something a brother should never hear.

Never.

Preston sets a hand on my shoulder. “Let her cool off for a few more days, then go down there, talk it out, and drag her arse back home. It's Adelaide, man. I know her. She can't stay mad at anyone for long. Except for. . . well, that's something different."

"This is different," I say gravely, sliding onto a stool and resting my elbows against the island, trying to rub the nerves out of my face. It isn’t working.

"Okay, who stole my brother-in-law and replaced him with a fourteen-year-old girl?"

"Shut up."

"Maybe you should download the Facebook app. Status: Feeling sad."

"Preston, really, if you're here just to piss me off, I'm not in the mood, so please go find something else to do and leave me the hell alone."

Preston looks more serious than I’ve ever seen him in my life, aside from the time when he’d told me he was marrying my sister:
“And no, I’m not joking.”

"I'm not here to piss you off." He clears his throat. "I want to help."

"You can't."

"Why not?"

I think about the raw pain I’d seen in her eyes.

I
did that to her.

I shake my head, trying to kill the memory in my head. "I messed up bad."

Preston doesn’t seem to be buying it. "We all mess up. Did you try and talk to her about it?"

I throw a levelling look at him. "All the talk in the world isn't going to fix it."

Preston says something, but my mind is a blur. "What?"

"I said, you guys are partners, you both want to make this work. Just communicate."

"I’ve tried. She won’t answer any of my goddamn calls and the three times I’ve gone down to her parents’ house, she won’t come out to see me. . ."

Preston exhales heavily, rolls his eyes toward the ceiling and cracks all his knuckles in quick succession. "Okay, what happened that you can't fix it by acting like rational adults and talking it out?"

I grunt. "I said something."

"Please. If Camilla stormed out every time I said something boneheaded, we'd have to buy two houses."

"It was bad."

"It can’t be that bad. What was it?"

I meet his eyes, and tell him.

Reluctantly.

Preston is barely breathing as he stands motionless. I count to sixty before he gives it to me. "What the fuck, James?" I simply nod. "Real nice there, chief. Real nice. You know that isn’t how it is, and neither is she or has been a stripper. How dare you judge—"

Something snaps inside my head and I send my chair flying, jumping up and shout across the island. "Don't you think I fucking know that, Preston? I fucked up, okay, I know I did, and if she never comes back, I don’t blame her. Now quit telling me shit I already know and get the fuck out of my home already."

Preston remains still for a moment, and then picks up the plastic bag of bottles and turns to leave. "Okay, man, if you're really trying to alienate everyone that gives the slightest about you—congratulations, it's working."

The door opens wider. "I'll be back tomorrow to make sure you're not dead. And if you are, I'll make it look like a murder so your sister doesn't blame herself. And the next time I come round, please keep your shirt on. You make me feel like less of a man."

I wait until the door shuts before responding, "Thanks."

Without the Ambien, and with the copious amount of alcohol in my bloodstream, I don’t sleep that night. She doesn’t answer her phone that night.

I don’t know if it’s because I’m going mad, but I’m really starting to miss that spoiled, untrained, fat cat.

Later in the evening, Steffen is hiding behind Chloe when she storms in, like she owns the place. She barely looks at me, brushing past, clearly on a mission. I turn to Steffen who seems to shrink a bit as he shrugs.

I follow Chloe into the bedroom and she immediately starts pulling articles of clothing out of a drawer. "What’re you looking for?" I ask.

"I need to grab some art supplies and, uh, some sort of flea. . . pill?

“I think she said it's in the studio," Steffen says, disappearing like his heels are on fire and his arse is catching.

Chloe turns to meet me; her eyes flashing like road flares. "So, I hear you've been a total dipshit to everyone who tries to talk to you."

Right. She must have heard it from Preston, or my sister.

"That's not—"

"Why?" she suddenly hisses, much like the cat did sometimes. "
Why
aren't you trying to fix it?"

This is getting ridiculous. Didn't they realise I would try to fix it? I would have fixed it already if there were a way to do it. But it’s like trying to put together an exploded space shuttle with Pritt Stick.

"I know you're not the best guy at emotional finesse—"

"Chloe."

"
Shut up
and let me finish."

I do.

"First of all, against all of my better judgment, I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you didn’t mean what you said about her, because if that’s really how you honestly feel, tell me now so I don't waste my time in killing you."

"Bloody hell, of course not. I . . .” I sigh and turn away from her. "I don't know, I was angry and just started saying stuff. She told me Ethan had been here and I lost it."

And then I lost her.

My goddamn jealousy ruined everything.

Steffen enters and exchanges a look with Chloe. Her voice is deadly calm when she finally says, "James, do you even know what happened with Ethan?"

There is enough energy in my response to power a small city for decades. "No. And she won’t bloody tell me. Chloe, I know you hate me and want to kick me in the balls right now, but please tell me what the hell went down." She looks back to Steffen. "Tell me."

She blinks, seeming to come to a decision right then. "Okay then." In the doorway, Steffen nods. "Okay, first thing's first. Where do you keep your CDs?"

"What?"

"Your CDs, James. You know, those things we used to have before mp3s? You must have it. Everyone has it. And all yuppies listen to the same Michael Buble crap."

I lead them out of the bedroom and to a cabinet in the living room with the TV. Chloe throws open the doors and runs her finger down the rows of jewel cases. "Oh my God."