Chapter 63
I started my evening in the Morrison. I didn’t know anybody who hung out there.
I pretended to be a tourist. I convinced myself that black was white.
It’s probably what made me a good actor and drama teacher.
Hotels were anonymous. The bars where people my age socialized were few and far between and there was more chance of meeting someone I knew in those places.
All my friends and probably most of my acquaintances knew that I was a recovering alcoholic.
The hotel lounge was empty but then it was a Monday night.
I sat at the bar and ordered three glasses of wine, one after the other, and I drank quickly.
Within an hour, my defences were down. I wanted to be someone else.
I was chatting amiably to the bartender.
She didn’t ask me any questions, we talked about her.
She was off to Boston for the summer. She asked if I had any pearls of wisdom to impart.
I told her that she should try to catch a Red Sox game at Fenway Park.
A few people had come in by this time, young couples who failed to notice me.
That happened with increasing frequency.
The joys of being in my forties, I guess.
A man of about my own age came in. I checked my cleavage and discreetly hoisted it upward.
He bypassed me completely, went to a corner table and opened a laptop, having ordered a sparkling water.
I looked over a few times, but he didn’t look my way.
I craved sex like I had when I was in college.
I remembered my first time with Kenny Carter.
I felt the twenty bucks burning my palm.
I got another drink to wash away the memory.
Later, suited men entered, an older man with a young guy.
They sat near me on bar stools. The older one was upset and was being comforted by the young man.
Lawyers, I guessed. We weren’t too far from the courts.
Eventually, the younger of the two left, and I caught the eye of the other in the mirror behind the bar. I smiled at him.
‘Did you lose your case?’
‘Sorry?’
‘Lawyer?’
‘God, no, much worse. Auctioneer. Estate Agent.’ He laughed bitterly.
‘A realtor.’
‘American?’ he said.
‘Bingo. How did you guess?’ He was not a theatre-goer, then. He showed no sign of recognizing me.
He moved down the bar and, as he did so, he knocked his pint glass across the bar. A spray of dark liquid splashed on to my dress before I could get out of the way. The bartender swung into action, cleaned up the mess on the bar and handed me some clean napkins while the man rambled his apology.
‘Shit. Sorry. I guess I’m having a bad day and it’s getting worse.
I’m sorry. Your beautiful dress.’ I was busily sponging off the worst of the stain with tissue.
Luckily, it was around the knee-length hem.
The man was still jabbering away. ‘I blew the sale of a multi-million-euro office building to a Chinese investor. My car wouldn’t start and then the taxi ran out of petrol.
You couldn’t make it up. Turns out that Chinese people are sticklers for punctuality.
I was only twenty minutes late. He left before I got there.
And then my day gets that bit worse when I throw Guinness on to the dress of a beautiful tourist.’
‘It’s okay.’ I was flattered. I’d had the usual Botox and fillers, but only Jack called me beautiful. I felt sorry for him.
He smiled at me forlornly with even white teeth and for a moment I was reminded of Erin’s bright grin.
My sister Erin had married some much older guy nine years previously.
Vince was sixty years old and Erin was forty-four now.
She invited me to the wedding, but that would have meant going to Boston.
Mom had hassled me about going: ‘She wants you to be her bridesmaid.’ I told her I couldn’t go because I had to look after Jack’s drama school. The timing was wrong, I told her.
‘Let Jack find someone else. You don’t owe him anything. Besides, the timing will never be right for you to go to Boston,’ she said, narrowing her eyes at me. She was right and she knew exactly why.
When she returned, she showed me a lot of photos.
Vince had two adult sons and was a widower.
Erin should have married one of the sons, they were cute.
We didn’t speak much after that. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d heard from Erin.
Maybe it was the time she told me I was entitled for expecting Dad to leave me proper money in his will. That was 2018. Seven years ago.
‘Please let me pay for the dry-cleaning?’
I shook the thought of Erin out of my head and turned my attention to this poor man and his bad day. Maybe I could turn it into his lucky day. He hadn’t even tried to hide his wedding ring yet. Mine was in my handbag.
He was still ranting on, feeling sorry for himself. ‘Accountability, my father always said, was what mattered. It’s my own stupid fault.’ Eventually, he stopped, noticing I had folded my dress up on to my thigh and that my glass was empty. ‘Please let me get you another drink?’ he said.
‘Sure.’
Within an hour, my hand was on his thigh, and he was considerably more cheerful.
I remember telling him I was in Ireland on holiday to visit a cousin who lived in Donegal.
I was staying one night in Dublin, I lied.
I vaguely remember we left the hotel and went across the river to the Clarence Hotel.
The same river I had been rescued from a lifetime ago.
After that, it was hazy. Flashes of conversation.
Kissing up against the wall in the corridor of the Clarence under the stairs, like drunken teenagers.
I don’t remember any mention of a wife, but then I never mentioned Jack either.
I remember a taxi journey, but after that, it’s all a blank.