Chapter Thirty-Eight
I sit at a corner table in The Raven, two glasses of Guinness in front of me, trying very hard to ignore the glances I’m getting from the solo drinkers at the bar.
I’m not surprised they’re staring. I must look an absolute state: red-eyed and tear-stained, as I sip my fourth pint in three hours. But fuck it: let them stare. Things can’t be going too well for them either if they’re sitting alone in a pub on Christmas Day.
I take a big gulp of Guinness and flinch as it washes stickily down my throat. My head is woozy, I’m definitely drunk, and all I want to do is stop thinking. But I can’t. I can’t get that look out of my head: the one on Daphne’s face as she handed me the phone. The hurt shining in her brown eyes like she just couldn’t believe this was happening. All those jokes she’s made over the years about Alice fancying me. All the times I laughed along at them. The betrayal, the humiliation she must have felt reading those messages and seeing that picture. I can’t even bear to think about it.
In that split second, the whole world crashed down around me. It felt a little like waking up after an 11.59 p.m. jump: the combination of confusion, dizziness and motion sickness, as if I’d just been swung around and then punched hard in the stomach.
Before all this time-travel madness began, I thought that maybe this was what I wanted. Up in the attic on Christmas Eve, I dreamed of a blank canvas, getting the chance to start all over again. I wondered if, maybe, Daphne and me splitting up might be for the best.
Well now I know: it’s not. Not for me, anyway.
I can’t bear the idea that I’ve lost her, and no matter how much I drink, the stabbing pain of it won’t go away.
I take another sip and realise that I’m crying again, the tears dropping steadily onto the sticky table. I don’t even bother to wipe my face. I can’t find the strength to care about what I must look like.
‘Are you all right, son?’
I look up, half expecting to see the watch-seller standing over me. But it’s not him. Just another old bloke with a kindly smile.
‘Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry. Thank you.’
He pats me on the arm and walks back to the bar.
The door opens and Harv enters in his comically huge parka, cold wind rushing in behind him. I scrub my eyes hard on my sleeve and try to pull myself together.
Harv’s face is already etched with concern before he even spots me. Fair enough, really, since I wasn’t clear about why I urgently needed to see him at 8 p.m. on Christmas Day, in the very same pub we met up in last night.
As he sits down, I slide the full pint towards him.
‘Guinness?’ He wrinkles his nose. ‘Didn’t we have this conversation yesterday?’
‘Shit, yeah. Sorry. I forgot.’
He pushes the glass aside and looks at me. ‘How many of these have you had?’
‘This is my fourth.’ I hiccup and taste cranberry sauce. I’m finding it very hard to focus. ‘Sorry … I didn’t drag you away from family stuff, did I?’
‘No, I was coming back tonight anyway,’ he says. ‘My sister just dropped me off.’
‘How was your Christmas? Are your mum and dad all right?’
He swats these questions away impatiently. ‘Never mind all that. What the hell is going on, man? What are we doing here?’
I want to explain, but I’m worried I might start crying again. So instead I find Alice’s message chain and slide my phone across the table.
Harv’s brow gets progressively more furrowed and his eyes progressively more saucer-like as he scrolls down. By the time he reaches the photo-booth kiss picture, he looks like he’s seen several ghosts.
He stares up at me. ‘What the fuck?’
I nod.
‘Alice? Alice-from-uni Alice?’
I nod again.
‘When … when did this happen? How long has it been going on? And what does she mean about Paris? What happened in Paris?’
I opt to take a large gulp of Guinness rather than address any of these questions.
Harv is looking down at my phone again. ‘So Daphne saw all this? The messages, the picture: everything?’
‘Yep.’ I take another swig to try and hold back the lump that’s rising fast in my throat. ‘The phone must have slipped out of my pocket. I tried to explain and apologise, but she just said she wanted me to leave. She said she needed to think. All her family were there too, and the way they looked at me …’ I squeeze the bridge of my nose tightly and feel my voice starting to tremble. ‘I can’t bear the thought that I’ve hurt her. I’ve been such an idiot, Harv.’
‘Mate …’ He exhales and shakes his head. For a few seconds we sit in silence, listening to Shane MacGowan and Kirsty MacColl bicker on the stereo. I feel weirdly grateful to Harv for not judging me – or at least, not judging me out loud. Right now, I’m not sure I could take someone else’s disdain on top of my own.
Finally he says: ‘So, what … are you and Alice, like, a thing?’
‘No! Not at all. I just … I don’t know what I was thinking. I guess all this stuff happened because things between me and Daff have been bad for a while now. Maybe that’s why I arranged to meet Alice in the first place – because I was thinking that Daff would be better off without me.’
Harv scratches his stubble and frowns. ‘Well, that’s pretty fucking patronising.’
‘What? Why?’
‘Because Daphne’s a grown-up, Ben. She’s not some weak, submissive idiot. It’s up to her to decide whether she’s better off without you. It’s not your decision to make. If she’s with you, then it’s because she wants to be with you. Simple as that.’
I stare at him, letting
