‘Remember the guy who worked in that bar? What was his name again?’ He paid for the shots and handed one to Jenny.
Jenny frowned. ‘Which guy?’
‘You know – the one with the moustache and the gapped teeth.’ They downed their shots, and he shook his head, grimacing. Why did he order sambuca? He didn’t even like it.
‘Ah.’ Jenny licked her thumb. ‘Christos.’
‘That’s right, Christos. He was a total legend. Those cocktails . . .’ He pictured the blend of eight different spirits that Christos had served them in tall glasses with mini cocktail umbrellas. That was the night Jenny had got sick.
‘Yeah.’ Jenny pulled a face. ‘Those cocktails. Ugh.’
‘I’m surprised you can even remember his name, you were so pissed.’
‘How could I ever forget, with that moustache?’
‘It was an epic ’tache, though; I’ll give him that.’ He looked at Jenny smiling at him. ‘What?’
She shook her head. ‘Nothing. It’s just nice to see you smiling again, that’s all.’
‘Yeah, well. It’s been a good night, so far.’
And it had. Now, all he needed to do was pull, and it would be mission complete.
A trail of lilies etched along Tamsin’s spine moved as she danced. Adam had approached her at the bar, and compared to the other women in their short dresses and high heels, she’d looked understatedly sexy in a backless top and skinny jeans. Since then, he’d thought of little else than tracing his finger along the lilies curling their way down from the nape of her neck to the waistband of her jeans.
She was a phenomenal dancer. She really seemed to feel the music, moving her body in a way that filled his head with images of what he hoped would be on the cards later. He put his hands on her hips, and she backed into him, reaching her arms over her head to weave her fingers through his hair as the bass reverberated in the humid air around them. With the dance classics the DJ was churning out and the sweaty bodies thrashing on the dance floor, he almost felt like he was back in Ibiza. He’d worked a season there after university and nearly every night was full of debauchery – booze, girls and drugs. It felt like yesterday.
As Tamsin swayed her hips, he kissed the side of her neck, slipped his hands under the soft material of her top and ran his hands up her sides, letting his thumbs brush the sides of her breasts. It was time to go.
He put his lips to her ear. ‘Where do you live?’
‘Croydon. You?’
‘Finchley.’
She turned around, wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed his lips. ‘So, let’s go back to yours.’
He was about to nod until the image of Sarah popped up in his head. He blinked it away. ‘Can’t. My sister’s staying with me.’
Did he really just refer to Sarah as his sister? Christ, that was a bit low. But then, he didn’t really want to say he was living with his ex-girlfriend. Talk about complicated.
‘My place it is, then,’ Tamsin replied.
5 October, 4.50 a.m.
There’s no point pretending to sleep anymore. Adam still hasn’t come home. I went into his room after he left. It smelled of his Hugo Boss aftershave, and there were pairs of jeans on the bed. I bet he’s wearing his faded Diesels, the ones that hang on him just right. It’s obvious he went out to pull, and judging by the fact that he hasn’t come home yet, he’s clearly been successful.
The thought of him in the arms of someone else makes me feel sick. I don’t want some random girl to touch the smattering of freckles across his shoulders or the bit on the back of his neck that makes him shudder with pleasure. I don’t want anyone else to kiss the chickenpox scar on his rib like I did. And I know how much of a selfish cow that makes me sound, but it’s how I feel. I even thought about texting him. Half because I wanted to check that he was alright, and half because I thought that if he saw a text from me, he’d feel bad about trying to get with someone else. And then I realised I was just being stupid. With the way I’ve been acting, seeing a text message from me would probably propel him towards someone else quicker than I could blink.
Maybe he’s still propping up the bar somewhere. He might not have pulled. In fact, I bet he hasn’t. I bet he’s in a drunken mess somewhere. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d have ended up in a state on a night out with his mates, especially with Carl. The idea of him in an awful state isn’t a nice one, but it’s better than the alternative.
Adam closed the door to the flat behind him and looked in the full-length mirror hanging in the hallway. He looked dishevelled and tired – not unusual after a night out – but he forced himself to look again. He could hear Sarah in the kitchen, stirring a spoon in a cup. Would she be able to tell that he’d slept with someone else? Was he radiating it without even knowing? Why did it even matter? She wasn’t his girlfriend anymore; he could do whatever he wanted with whoever he wanted.
‘Good night?’
He turned at the sound of her voice to see her standing in the hall, holding a cup in her hand. Something deep inside him stirred as he looked at her in her little pyjama shorts and T-shirt. The stirring was swiftly replaced by a powerful pang of guilt. He’d had fun with Tamsin. It was exactly how he’d hoped it would be, and they’d swapped numbers to keep in touch, but after hearing Sarah’s voice and the strain behind her casual tone, he felt like the biggest arsehole in London.
Adam momentarily looked down at his feet and nodded. ‘Yeah, it was alright.’
‘Cool.’ Sarah nodded back, and they stood looking at each other for a few seconds.
It was moments like this that told him she wasn’t any happier with their situation than he was. He could feel the jealousy emanating from her, but what could he do? So far, his plan to let time take care of their situation wasn’t working, and all he was aware of was the fact that he hadn’t showered before leaving Tamsin’s flat.
‘I’m going back to bed,’ Sarah said, and Adam stepped back to let her pass, wishing he smelled fresh instead of hung-over and carrying the scent of another woman.
She walked past him and into her room, and he looked at the back of the door, trying to ignore the way the guilt had hit him when he’d looked at her. He had to keep telling himself that he was single. She was the one who wanted things to be this way, and the quicker he moved on, the better.
7.
15 October
I went to the church up the road after work today to light a candle. I stood in front of the other tea lights with their flames flickering in the air, and the tangy, briny, iron-like smell was so real, it nearly overpowered me. It might have been fifteen years since that day, but the memories are as raw as ever.
Bad luck, fate, pure chance. I’ve tried to come up with a reason as to why it happened in the first place for a long time, but I know that there isn’t one. I stood in that church, thinking back to my fifteen-year-old self, heartbroken and terrified, crying to the point of sickness, and told myself that there couldn’t be a God. He wouldn’t have allowed something like that to happen, to shatter the lives of two teenage girls and strip them of their innocence. But the stupid thing is that I still lit that candle, the same way I do every 15th of October, because for some inexplicable reason, stepping inside the church, feeling the cool air inside its stone walls and breathing in the smell of beeswax makes me feel less alone. It makes me think of Mum. She used to take so much comfort in her religion. I wish I had that. I wish I had her here.
I miss her. So, so much. I just want her to put her arms around me and tell me that she loves me. But she wouldn’t understand. Nobody would.
Adam did a double-take when his mobile phone rang in the middle of poker night. He’d just sent a particularly filthy message to Tamsin, and if anything, he would have expected to see her name flashing up at him on the screen, not Sarah’s. When was the last time she’d called him? He scowled and diverted the ca
ll. Less than a minute later, it rang again, and he looked at the smiling picture of her on his screen. What did she want?
He sighed and put the phone to his ear. ‘Yes?’
‘Hi, Adam? It’s Ruth. I work with Sarah.’
‘What’s happened?’ He frowned, shoving manners to one side as a jolt of unease rippled through him. Something was obviously wrong. Why else would her friend be calling him? He left the others at the table and went out into the hallway.
‘She’s drunk. Like, really drunk. I’m worried about her getting home.’
That couldn’t be right. Her workmates must have organised drinks for her birthday, but Sarah never drank enough to get drunk. He’d never even seen her tipsy before.
‘Seriously? She doesn’t drink much,’ he replied.
‘Well, she did tonight. I can’t let her get on the Tube like this.’
The distorted sound of people shouting and laughing filtered through the phone, and he pictured groups of friends deciding where to go next. Adam swore under his breath. What did she want him to do? He didn’t have his car – he’d left it at home since he knew he’d be drinking tonight.
‘She’s in a really bad way,’ Ruth continued.
He pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut. ‘Okay. Put her in a cab, and I’ll sort everything out at my end.’
He gave Ruth his address, hung up and frowned, looking at the phone in his hand. Did that conversation really just happen? Sarah – drunk? Even on holiday, she would have one glass of rosé and nothing more. Getting her to drink the complimentary shot of amaretto after dinner was like trying to persuade a vegan to eat a rare steak. He shook his head, went back into the living room and picked his coat up off the sofa.
‘I’ve got to go.’
‘Everything okay?’ Carl asked.
‘Yeah, mate, I just need to go.’
‘Do you want a lift?’ Matt offered, standing up.
‘No, you’re all right. You stay and carry on. I’ll nip down to the cab office.’
He grabbed a can of Coke from the table and left, jogging to the bottom of Carl’s road. He needed to get home before Sarah did, but it was Friday night. He’d be lucky if he didn’t have to wait for long. He walked into the tiny cab office with its scuffed magnolia walls and faded threadbare carpet and was relieved when he was ushered straight back out again. Twenty minutes later, having endured the sickly smell of vanilla car freshener and the tinny sound of Magic FM, he paid the driver and stepped out of the car. The whole drive back he’d pictured pulling up outside the flat to find Sarah slumped against the door, but she hadn’t arrived yet. She might not have even managed to get a cab at all – they were notoriously antsy about picking up catatonic revellers. He checked his phone for the millionth time. It had been half an hour since Ruth called him. Where was she?
He paced the living room, looking out through the blinds every time the glow of headlights shone through the window. He swore under his breath at the state of her when she finally arrived. She’d been sick all down herself and in the back of the cab. The driver wasted no time in telling Adam he’d have to pay an extra thirty pounds to have the car cleaned. He lifted Sarah from the backseat of the car and ignored the angry mutterings as the cab driver snatched the notes from Adam’s hand before speeding away.
Once inside, he undressed her, leaving her sodden clothes in a heap on the floor, and scowled as he sponged her face and neck with warm water. Her drunkenness was so out of character, even if it was her birthday. It probably hadn’t helped that he’d barely managed more than a mumbled, offhand birthday greeting before she’d left for work, but what else was he supposed to do? He was fairly certain there wasn’t a line of birthday cards to give to your live-in ex-girlfriend. Living together was getting more awkward every day, and he didn’t know how to act. He was constantly swinging between hating her for the way she’d ended things and missing her. He scowled again. What was he even doing here? He should be back at Carl’s, bleeding his mates dry over poker. There was no reason for him to be here, doing this. They weren’t a couple anymore – Sarah had made that perfectly clear. She wasn’t his responsibility, yet here he was, faithful Adam, dependable as ever, sponging her down instead of being with his mates.
Her head lolled from side to side, and the scowl fell from his face. What was so bad that she needed to get herself into this state? He picked her up, took her to the bedroom and laid her down on the bed. She was going to have the hangover from hell in the morning.
She looked at him with glassy eyes. ‘I do love you, you know.’
Adam blinked. For a split second, it was like the clouds that had been following him since Santorini had opened up to let the sun on his face. The rush he felt was better than any high any drug had ever given him, but as she rolled over and promptly fell asleep, a frown etched onto his face. She was drunk. His mind adjusted, and his elation gave way as the clouds came back, thick and grey like dirty cotton wool balls. In his experience, the truth was almost always spoken after a few drinks, but if there was one thing the last few weeks had taught him, it was that nothing good ever came from an assumption. He’d assumed that Sarah loved him enough to want to marry him, that she’d say yes without question, and look what had happened.
He shook his head, put the small bedroom bin next to the bed and her handbag on the chair in the corner. A sliver of pink leather peeked out at him. It was her diary. He’d watched her in Santorini, sitting on the terrace in the morning, writing whatever it was she wrote in there, and he’d thought that she looked beyond beautiful in the midst of concentration. Maybe if he read it, he’d find out whether she really did still love him. Then it wouldn’t be an assumption; it would be fact.
He glared at the diary. There was no point reading into what she’d said, no matter how good it felt to hear her say those words. He went to turn off the light, but his finger hovered over the switch. The diary was pulling at him like a magnet. He walked over to the bag and looked at it. It looked so placid and harmless, but he continued to glare at it as if it were his fiercest enemy, like they were opponents, ready to step into the ring and fight it out.
How many chances like this would he get?
An hour later, he let out a breath he didn’t even know he’d been holding. His heart pounded so hard it made him feel sick as he looked down at the words written on the pages of her diary. The pounding intensified, and he hurled it at the wall. He watched it land on the floor with a small thud. His face burned as he got up and poured himself a three-finger measure of whisky. Since they’d split up, he’d felt like his world had collapsed. He’d made a complete arse of himself, moping around and wallowing in self-pity. And for what? She was deliberately hurting him, telling him she didn’t want him, when it was written down in black and white that she did.
It had started well enough. He’d been right all along: she did love him. He hadn’t imagined it. In the lead-up to Santorini, he was all she wrote about – how excited she was, how loved up she was, how happy she was. And then it had changed, with no warning and still no explanation.
He gulped down the whisky and winced as it burned the back of his throat. Why would she do this? It was obvious something had happened in her past, but even still, she didn’t have to end things the way she had.
He never should have read the stupid diary. Knowing she still wanted to be with him just added a whole new dimension to the already tangled mess in his head. If she wanted to be with him, then why did she turn him down? He shook his head, picked up the diary and went into the bedroom.
He looked at Sarah as she slept. Fucked up wasn’t the term to describe the situation. It was nowhere near accurate enough. He threw the diary back into her bag and went to bed.
8.
A couple of hours later, Adam kicked the door shut, took Tamsin’s head in his hands and pushed her up against the wall. He’d lain awake, staring at the c
eiling, willing himself to sleep, but Sarah’s diary had fired him up too much. He’d reached for his phone, scrolled through his contacts to Tamsin’s name and sent her a text. Within an hour, her fingers clutched at his hair, grabbing fistfuls of it as they kissed in the hallway of her flat. She was looking back at him. Why was she doing that? He squeezed his eyes shut and parted her legs with his knee. Open-eyed kissing implied intimacy, and he didn’t want that. Not tonight or possibly ever again. Snippets of Sarah’s diary popped up in his head, but as he unzipped Tamsin’s jeans, he shoved those thoughts away. Fuck her. Fuck Sarah and her fucked-up diaries. Fuck it all.
The next morning, Adam opened his eyes and squinted against the bright sunlight flickering through the blinds. His head throbbed as if someone were ramming a sledgehammer into it. This was bad. He hadn’t even lifted his head off the pillow yet.
What the hell was that noise? It sounded like an Apache helicopter taking off. He moved his head an inch and saw a cat, lying prone on the floor, purring. It flicked its tail and gave him an uninterested look before stretching back on its hind legs.
Adam trawled his gaze along the floor to the bin and the slither of latex hanging on the side. He sniffed through a blocked nose and twisted his face at the sharp, chemical tang in the back of his throat. What the hell had he been thinking? No wonder he felt like crap. After shagging Tamsin in the hallway, they’d got pissed, and she’d pulled out a wrap of coke. He hadn’t even put up a fight. All he’d wanted to do after reading Sarah’s diary was get wasted. If the pounding in his head and churning of his stomach were anything to go by, it looked like he’d succeeded.
Together Apart Page 5