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SHE WON’T COME tonight. I know that. I sit up anyway, listening to music in the dark, staring across Hyde Park, waiting for the sun to rise.
What could I have said? What could I have done to convince her?
At six thirty, I pull on my jogging bottoms and a t-shirt and head out for a run. On Sunday mornings the streets of London are quiet. Partygoers are in bed. Professionals have left the city for the weekend. Tourists aren’t awake. I pound the streets, music drumming in my ears.
The way she looked at me. She’s fighting herself. She’s hurt. She wants nothing to do with my family. But I think she might want me.
By ten thirty, I’m showered and dressed with nowhere to go. Nowhere I want to go. So I wait for her. A call. A buzz on the door.
At two o’ clock, I make pasta. At two thirty, I eat pasta, watching rugby re-runs. By four p.m., I’m thinking she won’t come today.
When the hour hand strikes six on my kitchen clock, I think about doing something constructive. Like considering what in the hell I’m going to do with the rest of my life now I don’t have a job.
Five minutes later, I give in. The only thing I can think about is her. I can’t see a future without her in it.
Kathryn Facetimes me around eight, and I speak to Izzie because she refuses to go to sleep until I’ve spoken to her. A delaying tactic if ever I heard one. When I hang up, I wonder if I could use the two-year-old’s plan on Dayna. Perhaps I should call her and tell her I can’t sleep until I’ve spoken to her.
At quarter past ten, I stand under the shower, my hands braced on the tiles in front of me, my head down, watching soap swirl away from my feet towards the plug.
At midnight, I’m still lying awake on top of my bed sheets, thinking about Connie and how the thought of leaving her made me sad, but it never made me feel like a slow and painful death would be better than being without her.
Dayna didn’t come.
FOR THE FIRST time since I can remember, I’m woken on a Monday morning by the light of day, instead of an alarm clock. The fact amplifies the question lingering in the back of my mind. What the fuck am I going to do?
I check my phone. Nothing. I look out of the window, as if she’ll be walking towards my apartment block. Of course, she’s not.
I drink a protein shake, pack a bag and head to the gym.
Sam is training with a kid, maybe nineteen or twenty, probably at uni. Sam holds up pads as the kid lands three punches, right-left-right. I strip down to shorts, lace up my boots and strap up my hands, ready to go on the bags, then I watch the kid. Jealous. University was easy. If I could go back and tell my teenage self just how easy it was, I would. I’d also tell myself to go travelling, get away, break free of Harold Layton, never step foot in Layton Oil.
Then it hits me. If I told my teenage self that, I’d have never come across Dayna. And I’d take the lows, all of them, to have been with her for any length of time.
“You on leave?” Sam asks, patting the kid on the back and ducking between the ropes to slip out of the ring.
“We could call it permanent leave, yeah. I quit.”
Sam looks over me, rubbing glistening sweat from his forehead. “Wanna go a round?”
No questions. No judgement. “I fucking love you, Sam, you know that?”
He flicks his head towards the ring. “Let me get a drink and we’ll go.”
I bounce from foot to foot and swing my head from side to side, limbering up. Sam climbs into the ring and lets rip. He doesn’t give in to me; he comes at me full throttle, landing blows, accepting mine. He’s a machine, and I have a lot of steam to let off. So we go until I’m spent and my t-shirt is saturated. Sweat runs down my arms and legs and into my eyes.
DAY SIX.
Maybe I didn’t understand her at all.
I’m beginning to fester. I haven’t put my mind to my next career move. I’ve given up on shaving, and the only place I go is the gym. And once to the local store to stock up on carbs.
The chair in the lounge has a dint, as if it’s fed up of seeing my arse for ten hours a day. My iPhone rings just before six, and Jay’s name flashes up on the screen.
“Clark, get your sorry arse ready and come out. Don’t give me bullshit. It’s a couple of pints after work. I’m in Clock Tower. Get here, loser.”
He doesn’t give me a chance to respond before hanging up. I walk to the bathroom and stare at the growth around my chin. I probably should get out. I shave around my lip but leave the rest. I shower and pull on jeans and a jumper and head out to meet Jay.
I walk through Clock Tower, acknowledging people I know as I pass them. The place is packed, more so than on a usual Friday, because of all the Christmas parties. I find Jay, Teddy and a couple of Jay’s work mates standing at one end of the bar.
