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After he’s gone, Baldy looks at me as if to say, “Well, it costs enough here.”
“Jamie and the girls okay?” I say, asking after his wife and two daughters.
He nods. “They missed you at the Christmas do last year.”
“I missed them, too.”
“Albie made a big mistake losing you,” says Baldy, rather baldly, I decide.
“If I were you, I’d keep my eye on Sharon rather than any of the whackos out there who think he’s their dream man or their long-lost brother slash best friend. Know what I mean?”
Baldy chews his lip.
I shut the door tightly.
Nobody on the staff has ever liked the fact that Albie drinks and snorts himself into oblivion, not when he’s so much nicer without it all, but they don’t know what’s behind his addictions.
People must assume Albie was the one who wrecked his chances with me, but for some reason, I’ve begun to wonder if he didn’t push me away to protect me from something.
A true bastard like Miles keeps women hanging on by a thread, clutching at some tiny morsel of hope that he’ll eventually change and that that talented tongue of his will become theirs for life.
Never wondering how he got to be so talented, with all that practise…
The toilet flushes and he gets in the shower.
I watch out of the window as the city begins to wake up. Lots of pleasure cyclists fill the streets for once, and the boaters, canoeists etcetera are all out, too. Then there are people rushing for the tube to make it to King’s Cross or St Pancras for a weekend away. It’s barely 7am on a Saturday so Albie must’ve pre-booked an early wake-up call for some reason.
I manage to enjoy a few slurps of coffee and a couple of bites of an apple. I notice how it’s breakfast for two, which means Baldy will no doubt have to go downstairs for himself, or be fed outside the door by the butler… since some of this was obviously meant for him.
Or perhaps, down the corridor in the butler’s pantry, he will find his fill. Since I wasn’t expected.
Albie stumbles out of the bathroom and fails to hide the fact he’s been crying again. I thought it was a long shower, for him, anyway.
“Want some coffee?”
“Put some whisky in it for me, love. I just want some toast, you have the eggs.”
He drops his towel and gets dressed without any shame, like we’ve been a married couple forever. Although to be fair, plenty of people have seen him naked. Perhaps it is the familiar that I am afraid of falling back into…
I do as he says and put whisky in his coffee—anything to wake him up. Get him functioning.
I arrange things so that I’ve got the scrambled eggs and one slice of toast. On the other side of the table, he’s got the toast rack, his coffee and a couple of paracetamols which I just dug out from my bag, waiting beside a glass of juice.
He eats and drinks, takes the pills without thanking me or acknowledging what it is he needs—to stop drinking like this—and hides behind the sunglasses he just put on, since the low winter sun is fairly blinding this morning and we didn’t close the drapes last night.
Finishing my eggs and toast, then pouring myself more coffee, I ask, “You have an appointment today? It’s Saturday.”
“I’m flying out to Ibiza.”
“What about the funeral?”
“It’ll be a few weeks.”
“Isn’t there a lot to organise?”
“My auntie is already doing all that. I’ll just make her life more difficult, she says.”
Oh.So, his mother’s family also holds a grudge, then.
