Chapter 44
I narrowed my eyes at Laurie. It’s my fault he’s dead. Had he really just said that?
‘He drowned,’ I said. ‘It was a tragic accident. How can that be your fault? You weren’t even there.’
‘It wasn’t an accident.’
‘Of course it was! He got caught in a riptide in a place notorious for them.’
‘Exactly! He knew that but he still entered the water because he…’
Laurie’s voice caught and my stomach plummeted to the floor as I realised what he was saying.
‘You can’t mean he… No! Not Adrian. He was always so happy and full of life.’
Laurie shook his head. ‘Ade was struggling. He felt like he was failing at life.’
‘But why? He had a top job and loads of friends.’
‘He had a low-paid junior job. He could only afford to fly back to the UK each year because his parents paid his air fare.’
I stared at him, frowning. ‘What? That makes no sense. Why would he lie to us?’
‘Because, in his eyes, we all had these amazing careers and he was too ashamed to admit that he hadn’t made it.
He kept thinking his big break would come but it never did.
As for friends, he had us but he only had acquaintances in Hong Kong – no proper friends.
It’s why he wasn’t on the socials – didn’t want us to see his real life. ’
‘But all those stories about his surfing and diving buddies…’
‘Were made up. He didn’t dive – couldn’t afford to.
He only started surfing because someone gave him their old board.
He loved surfing – said it was the only thing he was good at.
Riding the waves gave him such a thrill but then he’d get back on dry land and return to reality where there was nothing thrilling. ’
My heart pounded as I tried to take it all in. It made no sense.
‘When did he tell you all this?’
‘At Jude’s wedding. Remember the two of us staying up late in the bar?
’ When I nodded, he continued. ‘He seemed down. I’d never seen him like that before so I asked if everything was all right and out it all came about how miserable he’d been for years.
He was dreading turning forty the following year.
He felt he had nothing to show for it – no career, no home, no wife or kids, no social life. ’
Tears rushed to my eyes and my stomach churned at the thought of one of my closest friends feeling that way. I’d never have guessed.
‘What did you say to him?’
Laurie sighed heavily. ‘Nothing helpful. You know how useless I am at the emotional stuff. I told him that, if he didn’t like his job, he should change it and, if he didn’t like it in Hong Kong, he should come home because he had friends here.
As for a wife and kids, I suggested he try a dating app.
And because I wasn’t comfortable with that type of conversation and wanted the old Ade back – the one who laughed all the time – I started reminiscing about uni with him and soon had him back on form.
Except I don’t think it worked. I don’t think I gave him anything to live for.
All I managed to do was highlight how good the past had been, which presumably emphasised how crap his present was. ’
My heart broke for Adrian to have felt unhappy and directionless for years but never sharing that with any of us – the people who loved him.
My heart also broke for Laurie to have been the one person Adrian eventually confided in but who hadn’t had the tools to be able to respond to that conversation in the way that Adrian had perhaps needed him to.
But Laurie shouldn’t punish himself for it.
They’d been drinking and Laurie had no reason to believe that Ade was being anything other than a bit melancholy about his approaching milestone birthday.
‘Did he say anything about taking his own life?’
‘Obviously not. You think I’d have turned it into a trip down memory lane if he had?’
‘You don’t need to snap at me. I was only asking so I could make a point which is that, as far as you were concerned, your best mate had got a bit melancholy after quite a few drinks. The natural inclination for any of us would be to build him back up and make him laugh.’
That wasn’t strictly true. It sounded like Adrian had shared a lot of things and, if I’d been with him, I’d have wanted to help unpack them all.
I’d have been concerned that he’d felt the need to lie to us about his not-so-perfect life overseas and worried about him thinking he was failing.
But Laurie didn’t need to hear that. He clearly thought he’d failed our friend and it had had a major impact on him. I needed to focus on fixing that.
‘Did he speak about it again?’ I asked.
‘I checked on him the next day but he blamed the drink and apologised for putting a dampener on the night. But it wasn’t the drink, because he…’
Laurie’s voice cracked and he took a deep shuddery breath.
In all our years together, I’d never seen Laurie cry.
His voice had cracked and I’d seen his eyes cloud over but never tears.
Until now. And suddenly all the anger I felt towards him drifted away.
The man I’d loved was in pain and I wanted to help him.
I reached across the table and placed my hand over his.
‘Go on,’ I said softly. ‘What happened?’
‘He left me a message.’ Laurie swiped at his cheeks with his free hand but it was fruitless as the tears kept falling. ‘I can’t put it on speaker. It’s too much. You don’t have to…’
‘It’s okay. I can take it.’
Laurie withdrew his hand from mine and brought up a message on his phone, passing it to me. I pressed play and placed it against my ear, dread filling me as to what I might hear.
‘Hi, Laurie, it’s me. I, erm… I’m calling to say goodbye cos I can’t do this anymore.
For as long as I can remember I’ve felt like I don’t belong in this world.
I’ve always felt empty and worthless without knowing why.
Nobody else I met was like that so I faked living my best life.
I faked the laughter, the smiles, the jokes and I’m so weary of it.
I can’t face another decade of feeling like this so it’s time to bow out doing the only thing I’ve ever been good at.
There’s this beach I know. Dangerous place.
So, erm… I wanted to say thanks. The five of you are the best thing that ever happened to me.
Probably wouldn’t have made it this far without you all and especially you, mate.
How much you all meant to me was real – about the only real thing about my life.
Take care of everyone for me and don’t be sad. I need to do this. Bye.’
The phone slipped from my hand onto the table and I stared at Laurie, tears streaming down my cheeks.
I rushed round the table as Laurie rose to his feet and we held each other as we cried together.
I’d no idea that Adrian, the life and soul of the party, had been in so much pain.
He’d masked it so well. A quote from Robin Williams sprang to mind: I think the saddest people always try their hardest to make people happy.
Because they know what it feels like to feel absolutely worthless, and they don’t want anybody else to feel like that.
It seemed that our amazing friend had done exactly that until his true feelings became too overwhelming.
I felt the dogs nudging against my legs, clearly concerned about how upset I was. Letting go of Laurie, I sat down once more but, this time, I chose the chair beside him. Skye placed her head in my lap and Nova did the same to Laurie.
‘That was hard for me to hear all these years later,’ I said, stroking Skye’s ears, ‘but for you to hear it at the time…’
Laurie had been working overseas and I could imagine the panic he must have felt, all alone, frantically trying to call Adrian back.
‘I heard the news from his parents first and it never entered my head that it could have been more than a tragic accident. And then I saw the missed call and listened to the message and… there’s no doubting his intentions, is there?’
I shook my head slowly, pushing down the lump in my throat. ‘Did you ever tell his parents?’
‘How could I? They were devastated enough as it was. If I’d told them, it’d only have made it worse. Maybe it was the wrong decision but I figured that telling them the truth would have brought distress rather than comfort.’
‘I agree, but that meant you absorbed all the distress.’
He stared down at his mug, his shoulders slumped, and I wished I hadn’t decided to be clever with the slogan one. It felt completely inappropriate after what I’d just discovered.
‘I blame myself,’ he said. ‘If I’d taken him more seriously at the wedding or pushed him to talk the next day when he’d sobered up… If I’d called him when he got back to Hong Kong… If I’d answered the phone that night…’
‘I get it,’ I said. ‘I’d have thought those exact same things.’
He looked up, tears pooling in his eyes again. ‘I failed him. He was my best mate and I let him down.’
I placed my hand over Laurie’s once more. ‘Nobody failed him. Would he have left a message thanking you for your friendship if he thought you’d let him down?’
‘But I was the one he confided in at the wedding. He told me he was struggling.’
‘And he retracted it the following day.’
‘What if it was a cry for help and I missed it?’
‘If Adrian had been in such a dark place that he could only see one way out, he’d have taken that path regardless of what you said at the wedding or in any conversation you or any of us might have had since.’
‘But he phoned me. Was that a cry for help?’
‘What time did the call come through?’
‘In the early hours.’
‘When he knew you’d have had your phone switched off. It wasn’t a cry for help, Laurie. It was exactly what he said it was at the start – him saying goodbye.’
I clasped my hands round my daisy mug and took a comforting gulp of warm tea.
‘I understand you not telling Ade’s parents,’ I said after a while, ‘but why didn’t you talk to me about any of this?’