A strange sensation fizzes behind my eyes. “You swan in here for five minutes and claim you know more than me about the man I’ve been living with for the past three years.”
“Why are you defending him? The guy just walked out on you?” Reg’s voice rises and I get the weird impression that he wants me to get a whole lot angrier than I appear. ‘Appear’ is the operative word. Inside, I’m hurt beyond belief; in equal measure I’m also bloody furious. Were I in a better frame of mind, and seeing my little brother so exasperated, I’d ask how the ‘circle of life’ fitted now.
As if he hasn’t already said enough, Reg persists, “Remember the weekend I dropped in to see you before I moved here?”
“Yeah, Tom wasn’t around.” A one-off event in London, Tom cooked dinner for a wealthy entrepreneur. I moaned at the time because I thought it would be fun to go with him and spend an afternoon mooching in the West End. Tom talked me out of it.
“Where was he?” Reg demands.
“You know where he was. Hampstead.”
“He wasn’t.”
“He was.” I take a big glug of wine, the liquid equivalent of a mighty full stop.
Reg breathes in tight and lets out a sigh. “He went to Wales.”
I jitter with nervous laughter. “Wales? I don’t believe you.” From his skewering expression, I see that he has the drop on me although, to be fair, he isn’t parading it.
“I wasn’t going to show you but, well, in the circumstances …” Like a magician pulling a bunny from a hat with a flourish, Reg produces a card and pushes it under my nose. It’s for a taxi firm based in Conwy. The date written by hand coincides with the timeframe Tom was allegedly in London. I take and handle it as if it’s an ancient relic.
“Where did you get this?” Planting it face down with deliberation, I just about mask the icy note in my voice.
“Found it on the floor inside your wardrobe.”
“You went into our room to snoop? You went through my stuff?”
“His stuff, and only after Tom split today. Jesus Christ, Roz. Don’t have a go at me. I’m only the fucking messenger.”
“You had no right.” My voice cracks. My chest expands and contracts, and a dry sob catches at the back of my throat. Tears that I’d held in check for all of today erupt and I stagger out of the room, down the hall and into the night. Reg calls after me but I don’t look back.
The fucking bastard, I rail to the cold night air. Unable to take it in, I stumble through dark wet streets. Planning to berate him with obscenities, I phone Tom’s cell phone mobile but nothing happens. Must be switched off. I can’t even let him have it and tell him exactly what I think of his lousy behaviour.
Torturing myself, I obsess about the recent past. Were there signs I failed to spot? Like the night he was exhausted and didn’t want to be intimate and made me feel a fool for trying to initiate sex? Did I really put him under pressure to go to the magazine party? I’m full of things I’d like to say and do to him. I’m not a violent person. It’s against everything I believe in, yet for his cruelty and his cowardice, at this precise moment I’d like to beat the living crap out of him.
To think that only this morning we made love in the sitting room, or would it be more appropriate to say that we ‘had sex’? Thundering with alcohol, rage and confusion, and without any recollection of where I’m heading, I plunge down to the centre of town, past shops and restaurants at full tilt and feel such an overwhelming sensation of desertion that it mangles me. With sharp and penetrating focus, my minds reels back to how we met.
It was Vick’s idea to use an internet dating site. With hindsight, and given Tom’s general avoidance of social media, it seems paradoxical. Did it for a laugh, I remember without mirth. Most of Vick’s dates were either fully functioning alcoholics or gym-mad narcissists. One looked nothing like his photograph, another had dog’s breath. According to Vick, every male expected her to perform a sex act on him on a first date. Meanwhile, I land Tom Loxley. Burning at the memory, I press my hand to my lips to force down the dry cry that threatens to escape.
He looked so gorgeous and rock-solid dependable and all I could dream of in a guy.
Smothering my distress, I consider going to Vick’s. Except Reg is probably already there, feeding his face. The thought of both of them dispensing tissues and sympathy is more than I can bear, but I can’t go back home. Instead, I take a minor diversion and head to Bayshill, with its white-stuccoed houses, and beyond to leafy residential Overton Park. The hotel and restaurant where Tom works is tucked away, its short forecourt crammed with cars screened from the road by laurel. I weave a path around them to the back entrance.
Sure enough, there are two sous-chefs working at a manic pace, and a lad, no more than eighteen, pot-washing. I don’t hang around. “Is Tom here?” I ask.
Three men stop what they are doing and swivel their gaze to me. I feel as if Tom’s name is the equivalent of uttering a profanity.
The eldest of the three by at least fifteen years, a man with a greasy complexion and eyes the colour of pebbles, steps forward. He doesn’t look friendly. “Handed in his notice.”
“Well at least he wasn’t scheduled to work tonight,” the lad chips in, eliciting a dirty look from Grease-face. “It’s true,” he bites back, giving the impression that he can be subjugated in a kitchen environment but not outside it. I briefly wonder how long he’ll last.
“Do you know where he might have gone?”
“What’s it to you?”
I turn to the second chef. Silent until now, he stands, watching me like I’m the dish of the day. “I’m his girlfriend,” I say with a pleasant smile, even though it near kills me. It isn’t reciprocated.
“Left you in the lurch, has he?” He runs his hands down his apron in a suggestive manner. Creepy sod.
Grease-face intervenes, the self-elected spokesman. “Tom isn’t here. That’s all we have to say.”
My eyes scope the kitchen. Food piled high. Unwashed plates. Hobs and workstations all in need of a good clean. Nothing like the glam disorganisation of TV cookery shows.
“Could be on a bender. It happens. Maybe he’ll come back.”
I look at the young guy who spoke and is doing his best to make me feel better. The second chef is still stripping me with his gaze. The tip of his tongue touches the corner of his mouth, as if he imagining what I might taste like.
I force a smile. “Sorry to have bothered you.” My shoulders round. My hands plunge into my pockets as I back out and exit.
Fuming, I walk slowly, head down. A fast footfall behind me, I twist around into a fug of cigarette smoke that darts straight into my eyes. It’s the young guy. “Fag break,” he grins, jabbing the air with a lit cigarette. “My name’s Stevie, by the way.”
“Thanks, Stevie, I really appreciate what you did in there.” I look furtively in the direction of the kitchen. “I don’t want you getting into trouble on my account.”
“Fuck ‘em. They don’t own me.”
Telling the world to screw itself is the luxury of naïve youth. How much I miss it. Being dumped makes me feel spectacularly middle-aged. “Mind me asking why they are so defensive?”
“Easy.” He takes another drag. “Chef runs a little business on the side. Not that I’m knocking it. Cooking is a high-pressure game.” I ignore the pun because I’m