Chapter 18
CLARK
I play that look on her face on repeat in my mind as I work down a bottle of Jack, necking shot after shot in the dark. I don’t want to turn on the lights. I want my apartment to be in darkness, as black as I feel.
I’ve always known my father is an evil bastard.
I didn’t know he was a murderer.
Was he always like this? Did she drive him to it? Did he love my mum enough that she drove him to the edge?
I didn’t think I was pissed, but I find it hard to stagger to the bathroom. I use the chair, the door, the wall to help me get there and back.
A couple of months ago, I was living in ignorance.
I could have continued to go about business like I was heading up a company that supported me.
I had a fiancée I could have been happy enough with.
I thought Harold Layton was a dick and my mum was concerned about money and status more than her kids.
That all sounds like bliss in comparison to what I have now.
Nothing but a past forged on lies. A father who’s a killer.
I keep asking myself if I would have rather known the truth all these years.
I don’t know.
But another shot might help. I don’t bother with the glass, draining the bottle before falling back onto the sofa.
At least if I’d known the truth, my gut wouldn’t be wracked with the pain of being lied to all my life.
The room starts to come in and out of focus as I stare up at the ceiling.
I’ve left her. Again. I’ve broken her heart. Again.
I see her face move through the darkness.
* * *
I groan as the sun pierces my eyelids. My head feels like lead. My throat is dry. I’ve slept in my jeans on the sofa.
My phone is ringing, the sound like white noise. I knock the empty bottle of Jack off the coffee table as I reach for the source of the sound, closing my eyes and pressing it to my ear.
‘Layton.’
‘You said you’d text me where to meet, but it’s eleven thirty and I don’t have a message.’
Connie. Shit.
‘Clark? Are you there? Where are we meeting for lunch?’
‘Lunch.’ It comes back to me slowly. I texted her because I want to tell her the truth. Jay said I should, and the feeling I had last night, wondering whether it was years of lies that hurt more than knowing the truth, made me text her. ‘Let’s go to the café you like.’
‘Soufflé? Okay, I’ll see you there.’
I need to pull myself together for another day of fucking honesty.
I shuffle to the bathroom, strip down and stand under the hot jets of the walk-in shower.
I turn the tap as cold as it will go, and finally the liquor fog starts to lift.
I almost wish it hadn’t, because the first thing that comes to my mind is that look on Dayna’s face: those desolate, helpless eyes.
I ball my fists and hold them to the tiles above my head, looking down at my feet. It’s Friday. The tender closes at midnight AST, nine in the UK, and I don’t know if I got through to her. I have no way of knowing if I convinced her not to bid.
Christ, that woman is so stubborn she’d probably go in with Hassan to spite me. But it’s more than that. She doesn’t know how to let go of the past.
Now I can’t get close to her. I thought we were getting somewhere. I knew it would take time if we went into business together, but I thought we could get there. The way she touched me, the way she responded when I touched her and told her how I feel…
I smack my fist into the tiles and instantly regret it when searing pain cuts through my knuckles.
I dress and head out to Connie’s favourite café by the Saatchi Gallery.
She’s sitting in the window, her golden-blonde hair swept across one shoulder, a scarf tied around her neck, and she’s talking to a waitress.
‘Wow,’ she says when she sees me. ‘I’d lie and say you look good but?—’
‘Don’t worry, I’ve seen my reflection. You, on the other hand, look lovely.’ I kiss her on the cheek and she squeezes my shoulders.
‘Thanks.’
The waitress comes back with two coffees, and for a second, I think she might be an angel sent from Hangover Heaven.
‘I ordered you a croque monsieur, too,’ Connie says.
‘Thank you.’
‘Why are we here, Clark?’
I sit back with my coffee, enjoying the sun’s rays through the window, warming my skin through my shirt.
‘I owe you an explanation. A full one.’
She holds her coffee cup in both hands. It makes her look sweet and innocent, a complete contrast to how I feel.
I tell her everything I knew before yesterday.
I tell her about Dayna, four years ago, eighteen months ago.
I tell her about Little Princess – the truth, all of it – and that I never called Dayna when her father died.
She already knows some of it, most of it really, but not how I truly felt, how I still feel about Dayna.
Connie shifts in her seat, clearly unsettled, and I feel bad, but I don’t stop telling her, because she should know the truth.
She deserves nothing less than the truth.
I get to us, our wedding, and I tell her how much I love her. I rub away her tears with my thumb when she cries.
‘I’m fine,’ she says. ‘I’m just… it’s a lot to compute.’
‘I know. I know it is. Do you want me to stop?’
She shakes her head. ‘I think I need to hear it.’
I walk her through the moment I caught my father cheating, and how I knew I didn’t want to end up like him. I shake my head. That was before I even knew the extent of who my father really is.
‘It’s not like I’m saying I’d be settling with you, Connie. You’re amazing. Incredible.’
‘Just not the one for you.’
I take her hand. ‘I’m still in love with Dayna, Connie. I’m sorry, so incredibly sorry.’
She nods through tears. I move my chair to the side of the table so I’m sitting next to her, and I hold her head to my shoulder, kissing the back of her hand.
‘I’m sorry,’ I whisper again, holding her against me until she’s composed.
‘Have the two of you?—?’
I stop her before she asks. ‘Yes. But you should know we’re not together, and Dayna would never want to upset you, or…’ I stop myself before I say ‘anyone’.
She does want to upset someone. She wants to hurt the man responsible for blowing up Little Princess, the man who killed eleven people and drove her father to suicide. She doesn’t know she should want revenge against my father, too.
‘You want to be with her,’ Connie says, maybe noticing the shift in my body, the tensing of my muscles.
‘Yes.’
‘Does she feel the same?’
‘No.’ The word twists in my torso, right under my ribcage.
‘If she’s the person you tell me she is, Clark, I don’t think she would have slept with you if she didn’t still have feelings for you.’
‘It’s not that simple with us.’
She winces at the word us.
‘You don’t want to hear this.’
She gives me a forced smile. ‘Actually, in a strange way, I think I’m glad you told me. It makes me feel like it wasn’t just me not being good enough for you.’
‘Jesus, Connie, don’t ever say or think that. You’re ten times the person I am and more. Look at what fucking created me.’
She takes a deep breath, sighs and bites down on her lip. ‘I can’t be a shoulder for you, Clark. Not right now. Maybe never. I don’t think I want anything to do with your family or your life. I— I think I’m going to go,’ she says, reaching for her bag to pay.
I nod. I get it. I don’t want anything to do with my family, or my shit either. ‘I’ve got this,’ I tell her, gesturing to our empty drinks.
She holds my chin and strokes my hair in a way that’s so familiar it makes my lips curve into a sad smile. She kisses my cheek and lets her mouth linger. I breathe in her comforting smell.
She’s had a lucky escape. Maybe now, she can see that.
‘Thank you for telling me the truth. You should try the truth on Dayna, too.’
I close my eyes and when I open them, she’s gone.