The Girl I Used to Be

by Mary Torjussen

  “Make sure you drink lots of water,” he said. “Do you have any painkillers? Perhaps take a couple before you go to sleep.”

  I nodded. “I will.”

  We walked over to the lift. There were still crowds of people in the bar, and just one elderly couple was waiting for the lift.

  David stood next to the lift buttons. “Which floor would you like?” he asked the couple. He pressed a button for them, then said to me, “How about you?”

  For a moment I couldn’t remember, and searched in my bag for the little envelope containing my key card.

  He glanced at it and said, “The ninth? I’m on the tenth.”

  The couple got out at their floor, and David and I stood in silence. In the few seconds it took for the lift to take us up to the ninth floor, I felt as though I could sleep for a week. I wondered what would happen if I didn’t go to the training. Would it matter? I could hardly remember the name of the training event at that point. Was it in this hotel?

  When the doors opened onto the ninth floor, I stumbled out. David grabbed my arm.

  “Steady!” he said, laughing. “Steady on, sweetheart.”

  I stared at him, confused.

  “What’s your room number?” he asked.

  I couldn’t answer. I tried, I tried to say something but I couldn’t think straight and my tongue felt thick and swollen in my mouth.

  He took the key card envelope out of my hand. “912,” he said. He laughed again. “You’ve really had too much to drink, haven’t you?”

  I tried to smile but I couldn’t. All I could think about was getting into bed.

  He stopped abruptly outside one of the hotel doors. I lurched into him. I tried to apologize but nothing came out.

  My back was to the door and he reached out and touched my hair. “Time for bed,” he said, and suddenly the atmosphere seemed to change.

  He leaned forward. I twisted my head away and saw a woman standing at the far end of the corridor. She reached out her hand to press the button on the wall to call the lift. I tried to move away from David, to keep the distance between us, but I bumped against the door and then his hand moved to the side of my face and he turned my head toward him. I couldn’t take my eyes off him.

  And then he kissed me.

  EIGHT

  Saturday, June 24

  THE NEXT MORNING I felt as chilled as if I’d spent the night sleeping on a stone floor. I opened my eyes to find a beam of sunlight glaring through the gap in the curtains. My eyes hurt just to open them. A glance at my watch told me it was nine A.M. and I had to get up; I’d slept through my alarm. I knew I had to go down to the conference room, but my head was pounding mercilessly. My mouth was dry and foul. I needed water.

  I hauled myself up out of bed and staggered into the bathroom, kicking aside my dress, which I’d left on the bedroom floor the night before. For a moment I thought I’d be okay, but the sun was shining through the window onto the bathroom tiles and they were such a brilliant, vivid white that they made my head hurt. Immediately I was sick in the toilet. Afterward my head throbbed so badly I saw stars. I rinsed my face at the basin but avoided looking at my reflection. I knew I’d look awful. There was a mini bar in the bedroom, and I took a bottle of water out and drank it down in one, my hands shaking on the bottle. I brushed my teeth vigorously, but my mouth still tasted disgusting. I couldn’t go downstairs like this.

  Outside the door the cleaner’s trolley squeaked its way down the corridor, and I winced at the sound. Surely it shouldn’t be so loud. I wanted to take some painkillers and go back to bed, but the conference was due to start at nine thirty and, in any case, checkout was ten A.M. so I had to get going.

  I had no choice; I had to go down to the conference. I took off my underwear—clearly I hadn’t bothered getting fully undressed last night, never mind putting on my pajamas—and stepped into the shower. Every movement seemed a huge effort, as though my limbs were heavy and weak. Eventually I was clean and dry and dressed, but I knew I looked far from well. I spent longer than usual on my makeup, trying to make myself look sober and smart, but I doubted I’d be fooling anyone. My eyes were red-rimmed and sore, and I put my glasses on to try to hide the fact that I was hungover. I was so furious with myself for drinking like that; it was as though I hadn’t had a filter, a gauge to tell me when to stop.

  Downstairs I took a cup of coffee from the buffet table and picked up a couple of bottles of water, too. There was no way I could eat anything; just the thought made me feel ill. I bought some mints and a newspaper from the kiosk. I had no intention of reading the paper, but I wanted something to hide behind. When a text came through from Joe to wish me a good morning, I winced with shame. When would I ever learn? I hadn’t drunk like that for years, not since the old days at university. He’d never known me like that, though he knew I’d been through a tough time there. When I met Joe I felt comfortable with him immediately and had told him everything about my past. I was ready to move on then, ready to make a new start, and one of my promises to myself was that I wouldn’t drink too much. I’d stuck to that promise, too, until now. I flinched. I couldn’t tell him I was hungover; I’d told him earlier in the evening that I was going to bed early.

  “Bad night?” Helen, a woman from Cornwall that I met occasionally at these events, sat down next to me. She looked sympathetic. “You look really tired.”

  “I feel awful,” I said. “I had far too much to drink last night. If I have to run out, will you make my excuses?”

  She smiled. “That bad, eh?”

  “Worse.”

  “Want some painkillers?”

  “Thanks, I’ve run out of them.” Grateful, I took them from her. I swallowed them and took a drink of water; my hand was shaking so much I spilled it on my newspaper.

  “Wow, you have got it badly!” she said. “You can keep the rest of those tablets; you might need them later.”

  “Thanks,” I said, embarrassed. “I don’t drink much normally. Haven’t for years. I overdid it last night.”

  The room started to quieten as Philip Doyle, the tutor, moved to the front of the room and tapped his microphone. The sound made me flinch.

  “Were you here overnight, then?” she whispered. “I was staying with a friend in Surrey. Who else was here?”

  My mind went blank. Who had been here? I turned to look around the room and saw a sea of faces. I couldn’t recognize anyone at first, and then I saw Liam sitting with his colleagues, laughing at something one of them had said. He looked pretty rough, too, though he was managing to eat a huge sandwich. Like me, he must have missed breakfast. I turned away, unable to watch him eat it.

  “It was pretty busy,” I said. “Liam Fossett was here, though. I know I saw him and all his gang.”

  “Ugh, you didn’t have to spend much time with them, did you?”

  “No,” I said. “One of my clients was here. I had dinner with him. He’s been here for meetings all week.”

  She smiled at me. “Nice?”

  The thought of David’s face as he lowered his mouth to mine came into my mind then. I shuddered. How drunk had I been? I shook my head to try to force the image from my mind. “Yeah, he’s okay. Better than Liam, at any rate. We had too much to drink, though. I’m paying the price now.”

  “It’s our age,” she said. “Remember when you could drink whatever you wanted and it didn’t make a difference the next day?”

  “I don’t miss those days at all, though. Halfway through a night out I tend to wish I were in my pajamas, in bed.”

  Just then Philip Doyle started to introduce the day’s events. I couldn’t concentrate on what he was saying; it was like trying to think through fog. I drank more water, then tried to eat a biscuit that was on the coffee cup’s saucer, but as soon as I felt the dry sweet crumbs in my mouth, I had to leap up and run for the nearest cloakroom.

/>   * * *

  * * *

  LATER, AT EUSTON station, I took one look at the crowds of people waiting for the train back to Chester and upgraded my ticket to first class, where it was quiet. I spoke to the attendant just before the train pulled out and told her that I wasn’t well and needed to sleep. She put me at the far end of the carriage, away from the other passengers, and gave me a blanket to wrap around myself. I slept all the way home.

  Joe and Rory picked me up at the station.

  “Mummy!” Rory shrieked, running toward me and leaping into my arms. “I’ve missed you!”

  I kissed his head, smelling the fresh scent of his apple shampoo. Just pulling him to me made me feel better.

  “I’ve missed you, too,” I said. “So much.”

  Joe looked at me oddly. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m not well,” I said. I couldn’t bear to tell him I’d had too much to drink. “I haven’t felt well all day.”

  He put his arm around me. “How come, sweetheart? You’re not hungover, are you? I thought you had an early night.”

  I remembered then the text I’d sent him that evening, telling him I was in the bath. Worried in case he smelled alcohol on me, I said, “I had a couple of drinks in my room. It’s probably just that. I drank them too fast and went to sleep. I’m so tired, though.”

  “You’ll be fine,” he said. “Have another early night. I’m out with Mike, remember?”

  That had been our arrangement when Joe agreed to stay at home with Rory, that he’d have the chance to see his friends every week. Mike was a guy that Joe used to work with. He lived half a mile from us and often they’d go out for a run or a drink. I’d understood that; I spent all day with other adults and I knew he needed to see his friends. I’d forgotten, though, that he was planning to go out that night.

  Rory leaped up and down, pulling at my arm. “Just you and me, Mum! And you promised you’d play swing ball with me before I went to bed!”

  My head thumped at the thought of that. I looked up at Joe, hoping against hope that he would offer to stay home, but his eyes were fixed ahead. He knew exactly what I wanted, but he knew I wouldn’t ask, either. It was our agreement, after all.

  “Swing ball it is,” I said weakly, planning already that the moment Rory got into his bed, I would get into mine.

  NINE

  Friday, July 21

  I WAS IN the office a month later when the post came through. We had the same postman every day and of course Sophie had a crush on him. I don’t think I’d seen any guy under twenty-five that she hadn’t had a crush on. Fair enough with this one, though; he was tall and tanned, with a surfer-dude look about him, despite being quite a way from any waves. She’d been anticipating his visit all morning, and I’d noticed the surreptitious smudge of lipstick and the smell of her new perfume. She bounced up as he entered the office and passed me the mail. The day was hot already and a soft breeze came through the open doorway.

  There were no clients in the office. Rachel was working at her computer and Sophie fetched the postman a bottle of water from our fridge. She held on to it while she chatted to him, a ploy to stop him from leaving. It was just an ordinary day.

  I glanced through the mail. There were a couple of letters from solicitors confirming that they were acting for clients. There was another letter from a solicitor confirming completion on a sale. A vendor had returned a signed and approved set of property details. Mostly, though, as usual, it was junk mail and takeaway menus.

  “Coffee?” asked Rachel.

  “Great, thanks.”

  I was just gathering together the junk mail, ready to throw it out, when I saw there was another envelope underneath it. I checked that it was for me, then opened it just as Rachel came over to my desk with a mug of coffee. “Biscuit?” she asked, and put the tin on the desk beside my coffee.

  “No, thanks,” I said. In the envelope was a sheet of paper, folded in half. I opened it up, thinking it was a flyer, but it was a photocopy of a receipt. I looked inside the envelope again to see if there was a compliment slip, but there was nothing.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said slowly. “It’s a receipt for something.” I squinted at the logo. “Oh, it’s from the Shaftesbury Hotel.”

  “The Shaftesbury Hotel?” she said. “That’s not around here, is it?”

  I shook my head. “No, it’s the hotel I stayed in when I was in London.”

  She picked it up and looked at it closely. “It’s from the restaurant. Steak. Barolo. Two bottles? Very nice.”

  I took it back from her, exasperated. There was never any privacy at work. Everyone always wanted to know exactly what was going on.

  The postman had left now and Sophie was back with us. She tried to look at the receipt, too, but I turned it away from her. She said, “I thought you were going to have room service and an early night?”

  “I was,” I said. “I changed my mind.”

  “There are two meals there,” said Rachel. “Did you pay for someone else?”

  Struggling to keep the irritation out of my voice, I said, “I met a client there. I paid for the meal.”

  Out of the corner of my eye I could see Sophie and Rachel staring at each other and then at me.

  “Why have they sent it to you?” asked Sophie.

  “Tax reasons,” said Brian. I hadn’t even known he was taking an interest. “You have to keep your receipts so that you can claim the tax back.”

  “Well, then,” I said, “that was very nice of them.” I put the document into the folder I used to store receipts for my tax returns.

  But later when everyone was busy and I had a few moments to myself, I took the receipt out and looked at it again. Why had they sent this to me? And why send a copy? It wasn’t as though they needed to keep the original for themselves. They would have a record of it on their system. But in any case, surely if it was just left on the table they’d throw it away?

  I’d tried not to think of that night with David in the restaurant. I’d thought those days where I’d drink too much and get into situations with strange men were over. By the time I hit my midtwenties and met Joe, I was past all that. But the night I’d met David, I’d drunk so much I couldn’t remember much of it. Why had I done that? While Rachel dealt with a client and Sophie spoke on the phone to a solicitor, I forced myself to think about it.

  I could remember bumping into David and his drink spilling on the floor. I could remember realizing it was him. He’d saved me from talking to someone else, too. I thought hard. Liam, that was it. I was glad he’d done that. And we’d had a meal. I’d had a couple of drinks before the meal, I knew that. I could remember ordering a couple of gins from the barman. Then an image flashed into my mind: two empty bottles of red wine on our table. I never drank more than a couple of glasses, maybe half a bottle, normally, and not as much as that if I’d had gin beforehand. How much had I drunk? I couldn’t bear to think about how ill I was the next morning. Being sick from drinking was something teenagers did, not adults. Surely I hadn’t drunk that much? But my head hurt so much the next day . . . I must have been completely out of it. I winced with embarrassment. I hadn’t had a drink since that night and planned to keep it that way.

  But I kept coming back to the question: Why would the hotel send the receipt back to me? I’d never known that to happen. Even in a shop, if you walk off without the receipt, the assistant just throws it into the bin. Why spend money and time returning it to me?

  Just then the door opened and Joe’s sister, Caitlin, came in. I put the receipt back into the folder and stood up to hug her.

  “Good holiday?” I asked. The weekend before she’d come back from a holiday in Italy with her husband, Ben. “Lovely tan.”

  “Thanks. It was tough being back at work this week, though.”

  “Ben
’s back in Dubai now?”

  “Yes. I won’t see him for another couple of weeks.” She looked lost for a moment, then pulled herself together. “I’ve just been to Wrexham for a meeting. No point going back to Liverpool now, so I thought I’d call in and see what you’re up to.” Caitlin worked in recruitment and was in charge of a number of offices in the northwest of England. “Are you okay? You looked worried when I came in.”

  “I’m fine, thanks. All okay.”

  “And Joe? Rory?”

  “Yes, they’re great.”

  “I called in to see them before I went away,” she said. “You were away in London. Rory and Joe were having a good time.”

  “I meant to call you about that,” I said, immediately feeling guilty. “They said you were there. Did you get roped into cooking for them?”

  “Oh, Rory persuaded me to make him an apple pie,” she said. “He said he hadn’t had one for ages.”

  “You’ve been had,” I said. “Joe makes them for him all the time.”

  She laughed. “He was very convincing. Said it was years since he’d had one.”

  I laughed. “He has no idea of time.”

  “I didn’t mind, though; it was nice to see them. Did you have a good time?”

  I grimaced. “The course was okay, but I wasn’t well on Saturday. I had to keep running out to the loo.” My face burned at the memory of the swift dashes from the room and at the knowing looks of some of the guys who must have seen me in the bar the night before.

  “Ugh, that sounds horrible. Did you have too much to drink? Weren’t you just going to have a quiet night?” We’d talked about it the week before the training day, how I was looking forward to a relaxing night on my own.

  I hesitated but luckily she didn’t seem to notice. “I think I just had an upset stomach.”

  I don’t know why I didn’t confide in her. We told each other everything, right from our first night in Halls when we were students. We’d always been close, and I loved the fact that she was Joe’s sister. His family became mine and mine his; it was perfect for us. But this . . . I couldn’t talk to her about this. I hated the thought of her thinking of me drunk and incapable, stumbling and incoherent as I knew I must have been. As she’d seen me so many times before.