Chapter 31
It was odd going out for once as herself, but she really had no more use for Elaine. These people knew her as Kay, so Kay she would be, at least for tonight. Honestly, she’d never fully understood who Elaine was. For so long she’d wanted to be her, but in the end she’d turned to be not to be a person at all but an anyone – an emptiness beneath a mask.
Hello old friend! Kay murmured as she caught sight of her reflection in the pub window before pushing open the door. It was a busy evening at the Rose Dan was smiling contentedly, nodding every now and then. His eyes weren’t quite present. He seemed in a dream. Elle didn’t appear to mind. She just kept on talking.
They were both dressed casually now, in shirts and jeans. She looked attractive, if a little narrow-faced. Her cheeks were glowing, her dark blonde hair still in its bridal updo with scattered jewels winking in the lights. Dan’s hair was more messy, as if he was already on their honeymoon beach. He looked, Kay thought, quite lovely. She wanted to push that stray lock of hair out of his eye.
She had intended to saunter up to them casually and say hello, but her body wasn’t responding, her legs refusing to move. She drained her margarita, yet even the shot of alcohol wasn’t doing the trick. She could sense it like a bin liner about to burst –some inner crisis brewing. Seeing them so happy together had unbalanced her.
She tried to reason with herself. What exactly had she expected? That they’d be fighting or ignoring each other? Be happy for them. She had her own exciting new life to look forward to. Guatemala, and who knows, maybe future gigs , Rob had hinted. Dan was her past. It was time to let go. So why did it suddenly feel like an amputation? A few hours ago, she voluntarily and of her own free willturned this man down. Now here he was married to another woman, a woman he didn’t even love, making plans for the rest of his life. It wasn’t effing right. It should be her over there holding his hand, talking to him about their future. For someone who’d turned making bad decisions into an art form, she may just have broken her own record for the worst decision ever.
Kay felt herself beginning to fall over some precipice in her mind. She was trembling inside, throat pulsing, chest heaving, on the brink of tears. She had to get out of here. Rushing out of the pub, she discovered it was raining. No umbrella, just her little suede jacket over her thin dress. Not caring, she breathed in the soaking air, letting it splash her cheeks. Sky tears.
“Looks like I’ve lost you then?” said a low, cockney voice.
She turned, and saw the familiar weatherbeaten, fist-pummelled face reflected in the red brake lights of the Chase Side traffic. The sight of Garfield Elphinstone Blake shook her momentarily out of her tears. “I thought you were on holiday,” she said.
“Yeah. No. I didn’t go in the end. So tell me why you’ve decided to jack it in?”
The master of the lie wasn’t someone she would ever bother trying to hoodwink. He could read her as if she was made of glass. “Dan tracked me down,” she said. “Seeing him yesterday, it woke me up. I can’t do this anymore.”
“Ah well, there you go. We had a good run, didn’t we kid? I’ll struggle to find anyone half as good as you.”
Kay began to cry again – she couldn’t help it.
He squinted at her through the rain, a hint of compassion in the creases of his face. “Come in out of this shit. Let me buy you a drink.” He put an arm around her shoulder and she allowed herself to be led back into the pub.
Garfield seemed to have supernatural powers when it came to attracting the attention of busy bar staff, and just two minutes later she found herself seated on a stool next to her former boss, a fresh margarita in hand while he sipped the cream off a pint of Guinness. She told him about Rob and the job offer.
“Be very careful of that fella,” he warned her. “We had some trouble with him after we blocked him from seeing you. He got quite shirty with us, before apologising and begging for another chance, so against my better judgement I set him up with another girl. At first everything went fine. Then the same thing started happening – harassing her with late-night phone calls, always drunk as a skunk. That was when we closed his account, banned him for life.”
Kay felt her heart crashing as she listened to this. She could already see that beautiful Guatemalan beach drifting away. She should have known it was too good to be true. Things like that never happened – not to her anyway.
“What was the name of his girlfriend?” Garfield asked.
“Tamsin.”
He nodded ruefully. “Yeah, thought it might be. That was the name of the other girl we set him up with.”
“Oh no!”
“Sorry kid.”
Biting back more tears, Kay switched on her phone, found the message from Rob, and deleted it.
“I’d offer you your job back, but I doubt you’d want it.”
She sniffed and shook her head. “I need to do something else with my life. I was going to quit anyway, even before Rob made his offer. Do you think it was all just a stunt to get into my pants?”
Garfield shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe he genuinely loves you, though his behaviour with Tamsin suggests otherwise. He might just be a basket case who doesn’t know what the hell he wants.”
“I feel like fate has defecated on me from a great height today,” said Kay, “and even the margaritas aren’t helping. ”
Garfield picked up the remains of his pint and got down off his stool. “Yeah well, take care kid. I see young Daniel making his way over here, so I’m going to leave you two to talk.”