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Albie moves to the window overlooking the river and its glittering reflections make his sad face look even sadder, his skin pale and his eyes drawn. He clings to the window frame for support as he stares at the world outside, tipping whisky back at regular intervals.
“Don’t need you,” he says, almost bitterly.
“I’m here anyway.”
“Anyone see you?”
“Apart from staff? No.”
I see him sigh with relief at that. “I’ll be fine,” he groans, sounding tired.
“Why don’t you put down the whisky and we can just talk?”
“Fine.”
I take a seat on the pristinely made bed and he sits beside me, clumsily dropping his whisky bottle on the bedside table, only just managing to leave it standing up.
He stares down at his lap. “You hate me.”
“No. I love you.”
I do. It kills me to say it. It kills me to be in this room with him, seeing him like this, the most naked and broken and beautiful I’ve ever seen him.
All of it, every single thing about it, hurts.
BecauseI love him.
And that’s what I realised earlier…
When Miles admitted his sins, and the truth did not hurt me in the slightest, because I don’t give a shit about the man…
I’ve only ever given a shit about a handful of people in my life, and Albie is right up there, top of the list.
Albie takes my hand and holds it between his shaking fingers. “Ditto.”
When he starts to cry, that’s when I take him in my arms.
And when he starts to break for real, the initial burst let go of and now the deluge running free, that’s when we move so we’re lying together on the bed. I let him weep into my chest, my hands soothing him, my voice too.
“I’m here, I’m here,” I repeat, as he weeps for his poor mother.
I’m woken by the low sun but also the sound of retching. Albie’s heaving his guts up something chronic. There’s soon a light tap at the door and I open it, finding Baldy on the other side. Literally, that’s what everyone calls him.
“Nice to see you, Mirabelle. There’s a tray for him.” He gestures over his shoulder at a butler in a penguin suit carrying a tray of breakfast items.
“Could I take it from you? Sir isn’t well.”
The waiter looks absolutely put out at the thought of anyone else doing his job.
“I’ll be so quick, he won’t even see me. Coffee table, yes?”
I nod for him to do his job, which he does, just as swiftly and as kindly as you could possibly imagine.
“Thank you so much,” I say, once he’s back out in the corridor.
“Let me know, of anything I can possibly do. Anything at all.”
“You are so kind.”
