She nodded. ‘Thank you. I have never believed in God, not really. I’ve always let the science part squash that kind of faith for me, but I do think that this place and you…’ She didn’t know how to phrase it. ‘It’s special.’
‘Goodness me, Romilly Wells, we’re not shifting that boulder, are we?’ He laughed.
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. But it may have moved a fraction of an inch to let a thin ray of light into an otherwise dark place.’
Father Brian smiled at her knowingly. ‘I couldn’t have put it better myself.’
Romilly liked her job very much. Doruk was grumpy but kind, critical but generous and she was slowly learning how to react to him. He made constant jokes about how his wife should be in the kitchen and how business was a game for men. It was only when she met his formidable wife Ayla, saw how he adored and feared her in equal measure, that she realised his talk was all part of his sport. Ayla ran their two businesses and looked after their three kids. ‘This is the only place he’s safe, Romilly, at least in here I know where he is and he can’t cause too much damage! Keep an eye on him for me, will you?’ She placed a hand on Romilly’s arm as she left.
Doruk watched his wife leave and turned to Romilly with his hands on his hips. ‘She’s just showing off in front of you. Don’t listen to Ayla. It’s me that runs things around here!’
‘Oh hi, Ayla!’ Romilly waved over his shoulder. The speed with which he whipped around, with a look of abject fear on his face, was a picture. She laughed with her hand over her mouth to hide the gap where she’d lost two teeth.
‘Ah! Very funny!’ he spat and went outside for a cigarette.
*
It was an ordinary night at Chandler House. There were the usual familiar faces gathered in the circle, as well as a new girl, in her late teens, who’d been sleeping rough. Romilly was struck by how young the girl seemed and her thoughts immediately flew to Celeste. She wondered what her daughter was doing at that moment in time. She hadn’t spoken to her family in months and months; it was easier that way. Any snippets of information could keep her awake into the early hours, cluttering her head with grief and longing, making it hard to stay clear and focused, putting her recovery in danger.
Romilly listened as the girl spoke of her journey. She described in such detail the yearning for a drink that coursed through her veins that Romilly felt a flicker in her gut that she hadn’t experienced for quite a while. She sat on her hands to stem the shake and swallowed the bitter spit that filled her mouth. She would not give in to it, not now that she had her job and was doing so well.
Father Brian noticed her discomfort. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked.
‘I’m fine. Just feel a bit blown off course tonight. A good night’s sleep and I’ll be right as rain tomorrow.’ She smiled.
‘If you’re sure. You know where I am if you want to talk.’
‘I do. And thank you.’ She reached over and gave him a small peck on his papery cheek, unsure if that was the correct thing to do, but not giving a fig.
‘Actually, Romilly before you go, I have something for you. It arrived today.’
He made his way to the desk and opened a drawer, removing a slim cream envelope on the front of which was the unmistakeable script of David Arthur Wells.
Romilly was rooted to the spot as she took the envelope into her trembling hands. She sank back onto the worn sofa that lived in the corner of the room and stared at the letter, addressed to her, the first she had received in a very, very long time.
‘Are you okay?’
She looked up quickly, having almost forgotten that Father Brian was in the room. She nodded. ‘Can I open it here?’ she whispered.
‘Of course! I’ll give you some privacy.’ He patted her shoulder and left her alone.
Romilly flipped it over and ran her finger up under the glue that held the flap fast, wondering if he had licked this very edge, if he’d written it at the table in the kitchen, just like he used to. She slowly peeled the cream sheet from its envelope, her heart beating loudly in her ears. Her thoughts leapt ahead, trying to guess the contents. I would love to see you, Rom… Her heart lurched at the prospect.
The first thing she noticed was the brevity of the communication: a single paragraph. Swallowing her disappointment, she studied the words. Knowing David, this would probably have been the third or fourth attempt, to make sure he’d got the tone and content exactly right. She adjusted her wonky specs and read his words.
Dear Romilly,
I got your address from your parents. This is not an easy letter to write, but I think probably easier than meeting or even trying to do this over the phone. I am sure your life has moved on, as mine has. To this end, I think it would be a good idea to start the procedure to end our marriage. I have met someone else, but that is incidental. I feel this would allow us to move forward with our lives, which are now so separate. Please advise best address for my solicitor’s correspondence.
Very best wishes,
David
She was stunned. She read and reread the lines over and over.
There was no mention of their daughter, the one thing she wanted to read about. His words cut her, not least the assumption that she, like he, had moved on, when every day she was totally preoccupied with surviving. And the very idea that him meeting someone else was incidental – how could it ever be incidental? He was her husband! She was too numb to cry.
*
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 a
gainst 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?’
Celeste
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.’
Another Love Page 24