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I PLAY THAT look on her face over and over in my mind as I work down a bottle of Jack, necking shot after shot in the dark. I don’t want to turn on the lights. I want my apartment to be in darkness, as black as I feel.
I’ve always known my father is an evil bastard.
I didn’t know he was a murderer.
Was he always like this? Did she drive him to it? Did he love my mother enough that she drove him to the edge?
I didn’t think I was pissed, but I find it hard to stagger to the bathroom. I use the chair, the door, the wall to help me get there and back.
A couple of months ago I was living in ignorance. I could have continued to go about business like I was heading up a company that supported me. I had a fiancée I could have been happy enough with. I thought Harold Layton was a dick and my mother was concerned about money and status more than her kids. That all sounds like bliss in comparison to what I have now.
Nothing but a past forged on lies. A father who is a killer.
I keep asking myself if I would have rather known the truth all these years.
I don’t know.
But another shot might help. I don’t bother with the glass; I drain the bottle and fall back onto the sofa.
At least if I’d known the truth, my gut wouldn’t be wracked with the pain of being lied to all my life.
The room starts to come in and out of focus as I stare up at the ceiling.
I’ve left her. Again. I’ve broken her heart. Again.
I see her face move through the darkness.
I GROAN AS the sun pierces my eyelids. My head feels like lead. My throat is dry. I’ve slept in my jeans on the sofa.
My iPhone is ringing, the sound like white noise. I knock the empty bottle of Jack off the coffee table as I reach out for my phone, closing my eyes and pressing it to my ear.
“Layton.”
“It’s Connie. You said you’d text me where to meet, but it’s eleven thirty and I don’t have a message.”
Fuck.
“Clark? Are you there? Where are we meeting for lunch?”
“Connie. Lunch.” It comes back to me slowly. I texted her because I want to tell her the truth. Jay said I should, and the feeling I had last night, wondering whether it was years of lies that hurt more than knowing the truth, made me text her. “Let’s go to the café you like.”
“Soufflé? Okay, I’ll see you there.”
I need to pull myself together for another fucking marvellous day of fucking honesty.
I shuffle to the bathroom, strip down and stand under the hot jets of the walk-in shower. I turn the tap as cold as it will go, and finally the liquor fog starts to lift. I almost wish it hadn’t, because the first thing that comes to my mind is that look on Dayna’s face, those desolate, helpless eyes.
I ball my fists and hold them to the tiles above my head, looking down at my feet. It’s Friday. The tender closes at midnight AST, nine in the UK, and I don’t know if I got through to her. I have no way of knowing if I convinced her not to bid.
Christ, that woman is so stubborn she’d probably go in with Hassan to spite me. But it’s more than that. She doesn’t know how to let go of the past.
Now I can’t get close to her. I thought we were getting somewhere. I knew it would take time if we went into business together, but I thought we could get there. The way she touched me, the way she responded when I touched her and told her how I feel…
I smack my fist into the tiles and instantly regret it when searing pain cuts through my knuckles.
I dress and head out to Connie’s favourite café by the Saatchi Gallery.
She’s sitting in the window, her golden-blonde hair swept across one shoulder, a scarf tied around her neck, and she’s talking to a waitress.
