Chapter 15
Adam
Just as there are times in life when you are drunker than you believe, there are also times when you are very, very aware of how plastered you are.
Right now is one of those times.
I am sitting in Sinclair’s Oyster Bar, on my eighth ￡2.50 pint of Taddy, and Bil has just had a bright idea to pull me out of my slump.
‘Give me your phone!’ he roars, his volume-control switch officially broken.
‘Why? No!’ I clutch my phone like it’s my firstborn child. ‘You’re not deleting her number.’
‘Nah mate, it’s too soon for that, she still needs to get all her stuff.’ He beckons with his hand again. ‘Come on, hand it over.’
Through my drunken fog, I vaguely register that I’ve memorised Katie’s number, so all being well I can remember it tomorrow anyway. ‘Fine.’ I unlock the phone and pass it over.
‘Right, where’s the App Store on this thing?’ He squints at the screen with one eye closed, swiping with his index finger. ‘There.’
‘Ooh, I know where this is going,’ Piotr cackles.
‘RIP, Adam.’ Ferg pats me on the arm.
‘What? What’s he doing?’ I take another sip of my pint and instantly regret it.
‘ Et voila . You are officially the owner of one Tryst app.’ Bil grins. ‘Right, let’s set up your profile.’
I groan. Online dating is not for me. Katie and I met at work, when I was a secondary school maths teacher and she was the school nurse. It was organic and perfect, and made a brilliant story. Secretly, I’ve always felt a bit sorry for people who meet online. But then again, look where the alternative got me.
‘Curly-haired Adonis seeks someone to listen to his boring coffee stories.’ Bil giggles as he types.
‘No, no, try this: Are you the x to my y? Come and solve this maths tutor’s special equation.’ Piotr snorts.
They collapse into giggles and I let my head hit the table.
‘Forget Pythagoras, let me be the father of your triangle.’ Ferg quips, and they all explode with laughter.
‘What does that even mean ?’ I cry, laughing despite myself.
‘Right, come on, enough of that.’ Piotr wipes the corners of his eyes. ‘Let’s get swiping.’
‘Alright.’ Bil taps a few times. ‘Wait, wait, we need a picture.’
‘Use the one from my—’
‘If you say LinkedIn, I swear I’ll kill you,’ Bil warns.
I was going to say LinkedIn.
‘When was that picture even taken?’ Somehow, he’s pulled it up on my phone and they’re all staring at it. ‘2006?’
‘No!’ I say. ‘Like, five years ago.’
‘Bollocks.’ Piotr takes the phone from Bil and trains it on me. ‘Time for a new one, smile.’
I grin drunkenly, and make a mental note to delete the entire profile tomorrow.
‘Right, now let’s get down to business.’ Bil settles back in his seat and the other two crowd round. ‘Ooh, she looks nice. Oh, shit, it’s right for yes, isn’t it?’
‘Pass it here.’ Ferg takes the phone. ‘Yes, yes, yes, yes, hmmm... yes, yes—’
‘Ferg, you can’t say yes to everybody !’ Piotr protests.
‘They all look nice!’ Ferg retorts. ‘Look, this one’s a doctor.’
‘No more medical people.’ I shake my head. ‘If I smell hand sanitiser on another woman I’ll have a breakdown.’
‘Quick, Bil, update his profile: allergic to individuals in the care sector.’
I laugh. ‘Piss off.’
‘Jenny, yes, Roberta, yep, Bella... hmm, no, she’s got a French bulldog, it’s unethical, Grace, yes, Eve, yes, Eleanor, oh god, definitely not, she’s a Trump supporter. I didn’t even think they existed over here?’
‘You know I’m not going to touch this app again once we’re done here?’ I try.
‘You might!’ Piotr sits down next to me, leaving the other two to carry on swiping. ‘Never say never.’
‘Hmm.’
‘I am sorry, mate.’ He squeezes my arm and I feel the tears rush back to the surface. ‘You didn’t deserve it.’
‘Thanks.’ I wipe the end of my nose and he hands me a tissue.
‘We thought...’ He gestures vaguely to the air around him and then shrugs. ‘Well. It doesn’t matter what we thought.’
‘It does, of course it does.’ I’m slurring slightly, and I put my drink down. ‘You thought we’d have broken up sooner.’
It’s only now that it’s happened, now that she’s gone, that I can even bear to say it. The way the guys reacted to Katie’s betrayal, the way they’ve been this evening with their ploys to help me move on, suggests they had less faith in our relationship than I thought.
Piotr sighs and runs his finger around the rim of his glass. ‘You’re not alone, Ad. You know that, right?’
‘I know. I’ll be alright. I just need time.’
‘Take as much as you need.’ Bil leans across the table, lowering the phone for a moment. ‘If you’re still feeling crappy by the time we go to Dublin, I’ve got some tricks up my sleeve.’
‘Well that’s motivation to get over it if ever there was any.’ I laugh snottily. ‘I dread to think.’
‘You don’t need another woman,’ Ferg scrapes his chair up to the table noisily. ‘I haven’t had sex for five years and I’m alright.’
Piotr raises his eyebrows. ‘I think the jury’s still out on that one, mate.’
We collapse into laughter again, and I wonder, just for a second, if maybe I will be alright after all.
* * *
The hangover is already kicking in by the time I stumble through my front door. It’s dark and empty without Katie here, but I bat away the urge to mope. She often worked nights, so this isn’t new.
It’s gone midnight, but the heat is still heavy and I can feel a headache coming on. I make myself a cup of tea and go to the back door, sitting on the step and sipping slowly. Every so often I lose my balance and almost fall backwards into the kitchen. I am so drunk.
Tomorrow is going to be hell. I have no lessons, so all I’ll be able to do is wallow in my hungover shame. I don’t know where Katie’s gone. I assume she’s at his house, but I don’t want to think about it. If I let my imagination run, it’ll never stop.
Another wave of drunkenness washes over me and this time I don’t try to fight it. I let my body fall back until I hit the kitchen tiles with a soft thud. My legs hanging out of the back door, I stare at the ceiling and sigh.
‘I loved her,’ I say out loud, my voice cracking. ‘I love her.’
The kitchen stays silent, the hum of the fridge the only sound above the distant roar of the motorway a few miles away.
My mind drifts lazily back six years, to stolen glances in primary school corridors and unnecessary trips to the nurse’s office to request a plaster that wasn’t really needed. The staff Christmas night out when, emboldened by eye-wateringly strong tiki cocktails, I admitted to her that the cold compress I’d asked for the week before had sat in the drawer of my desk the entire day, completely unneeded, until it had soaked all of the practice SATs papers for my lesson the next morning. The resulting reprinting had caused the launch of an internal investigation into ‘abuse of stationery privileges’.
She had pretended to be horrified, telling me that she was going to report me to Mr Beasley, the school’s biggest jobsworth busybody, for abuse of medical supplies, too. Then she’d leaned in and whispered, ‘You’re a terrible liar, you know.’
And she was right. My disguised attempts to see her were completely transparent. It was her that was the actress all along.
A tear leaks out of the corner of my eye and trickles down onto the cool floor beneath me. My phone vibrates against my leg, and I pull it out and hold it above my face.
Chloe: Adam, please just answer the phone.
‘AGH!’ I roar into the silence.
Something soft brushes against my ankle and I jump, sitting upright, my phone skidding across the floor.
I blink. There’s a cat — a scraggly tortoiseshell — sitting on the patio by my feet and swishing its tail.
‘Hi?’ I croak.
It stands up, arches its back and then trots through the back door and into the kitchen.
‘Erm, excuse me...’ I scrabble to my feet, holding onto the door frame for balance. ‘This isn’t your house, can you—’
The cat turns and stares at me with huge amber eyes.
I stare back. ‘Look, mate, I appreciate the ballsy approach, but now really isn’t the time.’ I take a few steps forward, crouching down unsteadily and reaching out my hand.
He stands stock-still as I run my fingers through his patchy fur. It’s soft, but comes out in thick clumps as I root around, looking for a collar. There isn’t one.
‘Whose are you?’ I ask.
He stares at me, as though trying to convey the message that he answers to nobody. I shake my head. I’m too drunk for this.
‘Well, I’m going to bed, so . . .’
He blinks.
‘. . . off you pop.’ I sweep my hands gently, trying to usher him out of the door. He sits down and sweeps at the tiles with his tail.
I sigh, and then move towards the fridge. ‘Fine. I’m going to get a glass of water and a snack.’
I run the tap and unsheathe a Peperami before taking a bite. The cat stares at me some more, and then meows.
‘Oh, you want some?’ I break a piece off the top as an idea hits me. ‘Go on, then!’ I throw the chunk out of the back door.
He pads slowly over, tentatively sniffing the air, and then steps gingerly outside.
I shut the door quickly behind him.
‘Sorry!’ I shout. ‘It’s just late, and I really need to go to bed...’ I trail off, realising how ridiculous I must sound. The cat has probably gone; run away to beg for food at some other person’s house. I flick off the kitchen lights and take a swig of my water, before leaning over to close the blinds.
The cat is still there, sitting under the floodlight, licking his lips and staring unblinkingly back at me.