gin in one hand and a half-smoked Marlboro Light in the other. Daniel had never known his mother had smoked until that night. She had told him sixty was the year she ‘stopped giving so many shits, like Helen Mirren said’, and that included hiding her four-a-day habit from her grown son. ‘Life’s too short!’ she’d hooted, before they both knew just how short. Daniel had thought it was hilarious. ‘All power to you, Mum!’ he’d said, laughing, his dad simply shrugging as if to say, ‘What can you do?’
Daniel stared. He wouldn’t normally cancel her call but this was about to be the first moment of the rest of his life. He couldn’t talk to her now. He didn’t want to be on the phone as his future began. He deliberated for half a second before hitting the red cross, watching her face disappear. He waited for his drinks and, staring anxiously at the open door, waited for his date too. She’d be here any minute now. Any minute.
24
Nadia
Nadia took the back way to the courtyard, so she wouldn’t have to battle with an army of commuters heading home, or walk past the massive pub on the corner that would no doubt be heaving at this time, the weather being what it was – London came alive in the summer that way, at the first hint of sunshine it was after-work drinks and walks along the South Bank – and if she crossed the road before the corner and took the first right, she’d be able to loop through the cobbled passage that would bring her out right opposite The Old Barn Cat without having to use her elbows to fight through throngs of half-drunk people. Not that she’d mind that. Everything looked beautiful to her. The sun was low and warm and she hummed lightly to herself as she ducked out of the crowds and through to the alleyway. She stopped just before the corner to pull out her compact and check her lipstick. Perfect enough, she thought to herself happily, but I’ll just add a little more.
25
Daniel
‘Hiya Mum, what’s up? I’m a bit tied up at the moment.’ She’d called Daniel again, not seconds after he’d rejected her first call. Daniel couldn’t evade her twice. It wasn’t like her not to take the hint. His instinct told him to pick up.
‘Danny boy, darling – it’s me, it’s Mum.’
Daniel crumpled his brow. Obviously he knew it was his mum. ‘Yes, Mum, I know. Of course I know it’s you.’ She sounded upset. ‘Are you crying, Mum? Mum, what happened?’ He presumed she’d got stuck trying to reverse the car out of the driveway again, or didn’t know how to get the Apple TV on. There was a lot she’d had to learn about living alone, and much of it frustrated her.
The barman put a glass down in front of him – not one of those small wine glasses the French use, or worse, a tumbler like in some of the hipster places in Hackney. It was a tall, elegant, white wine glass, with thick globs of condensation already forming around the base. Beside it, a small shot glass of yellow tequila. Daniel reached for it, throwing it down his neck before he could question himself, letting the thick liquid burn at the back of his throat and warm his chest as it went down. That was better. It took the edge off almost immediately.
‘Daniel,’ his mother said. ‘I … I don’t know what’s wrong. I can’t stop.’
Daniel took the wine glass between his fingers and held it.
‘Can’t stop what, Mum?’ He didn’t understand, yet, just how badly she needed him. He still thought her call was an inconvenience. His tone was sharp, frustrated. He really didn’t want to be on the phone when Nadia arrived. I should never have picked up, he thought. Surely she’s fine. She’s always fine.
‘Cr-cr—,’ the line broke quiet for a minute. In a very measured voice that sounded as if his mother was using every ounce of willpower in her body, she continued. ‘Crying. Daniel, I cannot stop … crying. I don’t think I am okay.’
She said it so matter-of-fact, and suddenly so stoically, that the irony of what she was saying and how she said it broke Daniel’s heart clean in two. He understood, implicitly, that the façade of being strong had finally cracked. His therapist had said it would. In a way, he was relieved.