Take My Breath Away by Ali Ryecart

Chapter Forty-Five

JAMES

I beckon to the barman to bring me another G&T. He’s young, fair-haired, and flirty and in another lifetime I would have flirted back. Now, it’s the last thing I feel like doing and I wonder if I ever will again. I don’t return his smile and he moves off to the other end of the bar.

It’s Thursday, and five days since Perry left. I shake my head. I shouldn’t be counting, because his leaving is best for both of us, long term, but I can’t not count. I simply can’t not.

I haven’t been here before. The pub doesn’t know me, and I don’t know it. Here, I’m anonymous, and I’m more than fine with that.

From my place at the end of the bar, I look out at the life going on around me. Groups of friends all laughing and chatting, and couples who have eyes only for one another. Sometimes the couples lean into each other and kiss. I turn away, the heat of other people’s happiness too searing. I should go home but I don’t want to, because all I’ll find is an empty shell. No life, no warmth.

No love.

Thrusting my hand deep into my trouser pocket, I pull out my mobile. The hook up apps, and the account with the upmarket escort agency are all gone but it wouldn’t take long to reinstate them. My hand tightens around my phone, as the oily, aromatic gin gurgles in my stomach, making me feel vaguely sick. I shove the mobile back into my pocket.

I have to go home sometime, and it may as well be now. I’m about to get up and leave when a shoulder bumps mine.

The place is getting busier, and it could just be an accident but I know it’s not. I turn my head to look at the guy who’s set himself on the seat next to me.

He’s handsome. The lights from the bar pick out the deep copper strands in his hair, and his eyes are dark brown. My stomach knots, and I can’t help but stare. He takes it as an invitation and, smiling, opens his mouth to speak but he clamps it closed when I shake my head hard. His smile disappears and he turns away.

I leave, making my way back to a house that for a brief time was a home. There’s nothing there, now, nothing waiting for me other than silence, a cold and empty bed, and all those promises I can’t keep.

* * *

“Oh, Christ.”

Peeling my eyes open I stare up at the ceiling. My head’s hammering with the power of a hundred pneumatic drills, and something from a sewer has crawled into my mouth and died. I’m not even in bed, but sprawled out on the sofa and still dressed. The reason’s on the coffee table next to me. A bottle of forty-year-old brandy, half of it gone and the top sitting next to the empty glass.

Peering at my watch, I groan. Five-thirty in the morning. My body, despite the alcoholic beating I’ve given it, is conditioned to wake up at this time.

I fumble for me phone, but I’m clumsy and drop it to the floor. My head spins as I lean down to pick it up, and at the same time sickness bubbles in my guts. I take a deep breath, then another, before I sit up and tap out a quick text to my PA, telling her I won’t be in today. I’m just about to add that I’ll be working from home. Screw that. Instead, I tell her to cancel all my appointments, that I’m uncontactable and I’ll see her on Monday. Wishing her a good weekend, I hit send and switch my mobile off before I can change my mind. Slumping back on the sofa, I close my eyes as I think about taking a shower and cleaning my teeth.

I wake up two hours later, still feeling like crap, but a couple of pints of water, a large mug of black coffee, some aspirin, and a hot shower later, I convince myself I can pass for a functioning human being. Now, all I have to do is wonder what the hell I’m going to do with myself.

The day stretching out in front of me is long, blank and featureless, and for a moment I regret my earlier text. I could go into work, say my plans have changed…

The doorbell rings, making me jump.

A couple of burly guys stand on the doorstep with a very large green object balanced between them.

“Mr Campion? Mr James Campion?” one of them asks as he looks at his phone. “Your Christmas tree, delivered as ordered. Where do you want it?”

I hadn’t told Perry when it was coming, because I’d wanted to surprise him. I’d imagined us decorating it together, eating warm mince pies and drinking too much eggnog before getting very dirty together on the rug.

“Sir? We’ve got a lot of deliveries to make today,” the same guy says. I can virtually hear his eye roll.

“Yes, of course. Take it round the back, will you? I’ll open the gate.”

The two guys carry the tree down the side of the house and set it up against the wall in the garden, taking a photo to show it’s been delivered, before they rush off. It’s a dull, gloomy day, and heavy, freezing rain, edged with ice, starts to fall, but all I can do is stare at the tree.

I don’t want it. I don’t want the fucking thing in the house. There must be some local charity who’d welcome the festive donation. A thunder clap and a blinding flash of lightning send me scurrying indoors.

Soaked to the skin, I head up to get changed. In the en-suite I breathe in deep and imagine I can smell the lingering aroma of Perry’s vanilla scented shampoo, but there’s nothing other than my own, citrus and sharp.

Dried off for the second time, I wander back downstairs. The kitchen feels like a wasteland. No delicious, savoury aroma from something bubbling away on the hob. No buttery sweetness from a just-baked cake, or a batch of biscuits cooling on the rack. There’s nothing. It’s as empty, cold and lifeless as it was before Perry arrived and turned my house into a home.

I make more coffee because it’s something to do, and think about maybe eating something, anything. About to dig through the fridge, I spot the blue and white spotted cake tin. Perry brought it home one evening, something he’d seen in one of those retro shops close to the office … He’s forgotten it, and for a wild moment I wonder if I should return it to him… take it around to Alfie’s, if I knew where he lived… bump into him at Elliot’s… call him, arrange to meet him for a drink to hand it over…

“What the fuck,” I mutter, as I rub my hands over my face. There’s no way on God’s earth Perry would want to see or hear from me ever again, and to think anything else is nothing more than a delusion caused by too much brandy and self-pity.

Maybe I should get rid of it, knowing full well I could never do that. Instead I prise it open, and am enveloped with sugar sweetness as I peek inside, blinking hard to clear my fogged vision. The scant remains of a cake, not just any cake but a Victoria sandwich. Sponge, jam, buttercream, that’s all it is, but it was — is — my favourite.

I tip it out onto a plate. It’s stale, and seen better days. But none of that matters. I slice it up and work my way through it, tasting not the dryness of the sponge or the sour turn of the buttercream, but the delicious sweetness of a time when I was truly happy.