Chapter Thirty
Saturday, 17th December, Kendric House, Midnight
Raff is not one of those people always attached to their phones. So, it’s only because we get stuck on the fifth day of Christmas.
We can’t agree. I think it’s five maids a milking, he says it’s five geese a laying. He has to get out of bed, find his phone in some pocket and google it.
“We’re both wrong, it’s five gold rings,” he says with a wide smile.
He’s still standing beside the bed, looking down at his phone, when the smile disappears.
“What?”
“Text messages,” he says.
“Who are these rude people texting you in the middle of the night?”
He doesn’t answer as he quickly listens to a voicemail. Then very deliberately, he types something.
“What is it.”
“I have to go.”
He says this while coming back into bed. So I don’t get it.
“Now?”
“No, in the morning,” he says deadpan. “The filming schedule has been changed. They need me sooner.”
My heart refuses to believe him.
“They can’t. You have plans here. It’s only ten days till Christmas, surely they can wait.”
His eyes tell me what I already know. Film schedule is king, and everyone must obey. “They’ve booked me on a flight from Heathrow tomorrow.”
I’m too much in shock I don’t really take it in. Raff is better, quicker on the uptake. He holds me until my heart and mind catch-up, then he takes my face between his two hands. “Can you do me a favour?”
I stare deep into his eyes and wait for him to ask.
“Can you go to The Glyn tomorrow and say goodbye to everyone for me. I have to leave very early in the morning. Can you tell them…” he thinks for a minute “You know what I’d have said, what I mean.” He blows a frustrated breath.
It’s the clearest sign he feels as thrown by this sudden change of plans as I do.
“Just give them my love and wish them a merry Christmas.” Then as if he remembers something. “Oh and promise me you won’t drop the Christmas plans. The dinner. Make it a truly amazing day.”
It’s the last thing on my mind. And impossible. “How can I do it without you?”
“You don’t need me, I can’t cook. You’re the one doing everything anyway.”
“But I need…” It takes a huge effort to gather up the scattered bits of my mind and focus. “But when you're behind me, it’s easier. Even when I did the cream tea, you were there encouraging me, offering to drive everyone over.”
“I’m sure you can talk Alex or Evan or anyone else to drive them over.”
“But it’s not just the Christmas dinner. There was so much. We were going to do the games and you were going to decorate the tree. How can I do all that alone?”
“Because there is nothing you can’t do if only you let yourself.”
His faith in me makes it hurt so much more that I’m losing him.
Where will he be?
Who will love him when he’s away in the desert. Alone in his trailer trying to stay off the bad stuff.
“Raff?” I stroke his skin, lay my head on his hot chest.
When I don’t go on, he asks, “What?”
“Can I ask you something?”
He chuckles, silently. I can’t see him but feel the laughter in his chest under my cheek. “You want to know what I’m thinking? Isn’t that the question all women ask in bed?”
He’s trying to make me laugh, but I’m too scared. After a minute he senses me. “What do you want to ask?”
Keeping my eyes on his chest, on the delicate hairs that trail down from his belly button. “I want to…erm…about the…erm…”
“The drugs? The addiction?” He guesses.
Of all things in the world I’m going to miss the way he can read my mind.
“Of course, you can ask,” he says softly.
“What happened? I mean you said you were in a bad place.”
He takes a moment before starting. “The thing you need to know about addiction is that it’s not the problem, it’s kind of the solution, at least it starts that way. Like drinking sea water when you’re thirsty. It’s a solution, just not a very good one, and if you keep it up it becomes the bigger problem.”
He shifts up in my bed and piles a pillow behind his head so he’s slightly raised. I move off his chest to lie on my side.
“The best way I can explain why someone becomes an addict is that you don’t deal with life the right way. It starts with all the garbage you carry from childhood. I wasn’t popular at school.”
“Who is?” I sit up so I can be close to him. “School is a testing time for everyone. Even the popular kids I think have a hard time.”
He considers this. “You’re probably right, but some of us deal with it the right way. Others, the wrong way. Boys aren’t supposed to show pain so I hid it instead of letting it go. Jokes boys made at my expense, teachers that told me I’d never amount to anything, girls who wouldn’t go out with me. Carried all of it like excess luggage and kept adding to it with every failure and every mistake…And to make things harder for myself I chose to be an actor, a career built on rejections.”
“Oh God, don’t I know it.” I can’t help agreeing hotly. “The hundreds of auditions that lead to nothing. The savage competition for roles. One of our lecturers at the Guildhall would always say, you need to be thick skinned to be an actor. She said it again and again over and over to drum it into us.”
He scoffs. “Wise words. We were told the same. But being told to expect difficulty and knowing how not to let it get to you are not the same thing.”
“You’re not the only one. Remember Daniel Day Lewis? He cracked up because of all the bad reviews?”
“The Hamlet thing?” Raff glanced down at me, more animated. Theatre gossip is always stimulating. “I thought he saw his father’s ghost.”
“No that was how his agent spun the story for the press. I heard it from someone who was at the National. Daniel Day Lewis got a lot of bad reviews, don’t know why, and it got to him. He walked off stage in the middle of the scene and fell apart backstage sobbing and refusing to go back out.”
Raff whistles long and low. “F-u-c-k.” He draws the word out. “He was at the top of his fame, too, and even he couldn’t take it.”
He thinks for a moment, and I snuggle up under his arm and lay my head against his chest again.
“That’s kind of how it was for me but on a smaller scale. The self-doubt. Whenever anything went wrong I took it as evidence that I was the same failure my teachers said. When things were going well, I worried they might end too soon. The more successful I was the worse the doubt and anxiety. Worrying about reviews, about competition, about being written out of Clan if audiences didn’t like my character. Then one day, someone offers you a pill, and all that fear melts away.” He glances down and strokes my hair. “You know that luggage I told you about, it suddenly lifted. I felt fine and free and happy. My heart didn’t feel like a jagged rock anymore.”
He wraps his arm around me and pulls me close. “So, I took another pill, and before long I couldn’t manage without them even back in England. Even when I was out with friends drinking and having fun, I still took the pills. Until…until I fell through a glass wall and woke up in hospital.”
I want to cry listening to his story. His heart, his beautiful caring heart, how could it feel like a jagged rock. I press my lips on his chest, just in the centre where his pectoral begins. “I wish I could kiss your heart better,” I whisper and press my lips above his heartbeat for a long time while he continues.
“That injury, the loss of blood, all of it was the best thing that ever happened to me. It made me realise this was no way to live, it was a way to die. And I wouldn’t be the first. So when they discharged me from hospital, I booked myself into a recovery centre. There. I learnt how to put down my luggage, how to see life differently and most of all how to stop feeling sorry for myself, thinking every misfortune is about me. In recovery you learn to stop thinking about yourself and think about others, to be of service to others. It’s very freeing. The relief might not be as intense as the pills, but it lasts longer and you learn to handle life better.”
He squeezes me. “Does this answer your question?”
“Thank you for telling me.”
He slides back down, so we’re face to face and we hold each other and eventually fall asleep. My last thought before drifting off is of his words.
In recovery you learn to stop thinking about yourself and think about others, to be of service to others.
The next morning, at 5.30am, he slides out of bed and pulls his clothes on.
“It’s too cold. Stay under the covers,” he says when I sit up.
The bed is hot from his own body. But I’m not going to let him go without a proper goodbye so I follow him downstairs. At the door. He holds me so tight as if he wants to take me with him. “Leonie, think about it. Your next step. Think about what makes you happy.”
I can’t answer because he kisses me one last time and then he’s out and the door is closed behind him.
I run upstairs so I can watch him drive away. It’s too dark so all I can see are the tail lights from the taxi as it winds up the hill then disappear too soon down the other side.
When I get back into bed, it’s cold. With my body alone it takes too long to warm up and never as hot as he made it.