The first thing that strikes me as unfamiliar is the smell. My laundry detergent smells like white linen. Even after a week there is always the faint smell of cleanliness, and before I even open my eyes, I’m aware that my sheets don’t smell the same.
My next thought is: What the hell am I lying on? It feels like I’m sleeping on my back (which, by the way, I never do), on a stick.
The thought after that, once I have opened my eyes, is: Where the hell am I?
I try to sit up, but can’t, and I reach behind me to feel a slab of bristles. There is a broom tucked into my T-shirt, and I pull it out, letting it clatter to the floor, clutching my pounding head as I wince, wishing that clattering of the broom didn’t make so much noise.
I look around me at this bedroom, which definitely isn’t mine, and definitely isn’t Jamie’s, and I have absolutely no idea whose it is, which would frighten me, if it weren’t for the terrible headache that’s threatening to blow my head apart.
If I weren’t in so much pain, I might possibly appreciate the bedroom. The sheets are blue, the slatted wooden blinds a dark, masculine cherry. There is an antique desk pushed into the corner of the wall opposite, bookshelves next to it. I have no idea whose bedroom I’m in, but I’m pretty sure it’s a man’s.
An ajar door lends me a glimpse of a bathroom, and I creep in, opening the medicine cabinet to find, thank God, a big bottle of ibuprofen. I tip four into my hand and hold my mouth to the tap to swallow them, looking at myself in the mirror with such shame that I have done it again.
I remember arriving at Chez Gerard. I remember having a long chat with the Channel 4 press officer. And then I don’t remember much else.
Thankfully, it could be worse. I am in all my clothes, so presumably I didn’t have mad, unconscious sex with a stranger. But it could be much better, and I don’t even know who to ask.
There is another door. I push it open and find myself squinting in a large, bright living room. On one side is a sectional sofa and coffee table, on the other a dining table and chairs, with an open-plan kitchen. Huge floor-to-ceiling windows, the light streaming through. My eyes make their way painfully back to the sofa, where there is a man lying wrapped in a bedspread, only the top of his dark hair visible.
Whoever he is, he has to be something of a gentleman, as I am pretty certain we didn’t have sex. I’m completely ashamed to say that while it isn’t a regular occurrence, there have been occasions where I have woken up, like this, in bed with someone I do not know. Naked. Having had a wild night. I presume, for I rarely actually know for certain.
And it’s happened more than once.
Still, whoever this guy is, I don’t want to have to talk to him. I have no idea what my behavior was like last night. I have no idea what I said, what I did, how I ended up here, and I really don’t want to have to face this guy who may have seen me do anything.
If I knew where my shoes were, I would leave here immediately, but I can’t find them, and there’s no way I’m leaving those Manolo Blahniks behind.
There they are, a glimpse of a spiked black heel under the coffee table. I pad over, trying to make no noise whatsoever, refusing to look at the sleeping man because if I look at him he will surely, despite being unconscious, feel my eyes on him and open his own, and I reach for the shoes, then practically scream in fear as I hear “Morning.”
Damn! I can’t believe this. I was so close to getting out of here. I meet his eyes, sheepishly, and say good morning back.
He sits up, the covers falling away, revealing boxer shorts and a T-shirt, and I can’t deny the fact that sitting right before me is a fine figure of a man. He yawns and stretches, his T-shirt riding up to reveal a flat, tanned stomach, the traces of hair disappearing into his boxers, and I feel an unexpected jolt of … something. Something unexpected. I quickly look away.
I don’t even know this man. This is ridiculous.
“Want some breakfast?” he asks, standing up to reveal he is much taller than me, and I’m no shrinking violet at five-eight.
“Um. No, that’s okay. I have to go.”
“I’m Jason, by the way.” He comes over and shakes my hand. “I already know you’re Cat. I’m making breakfast anyway, so you might as well stay. I know you won’t turn down my offer of coffee.” He grins, his hair mussed up, his eyes a warm brown, and I am so disconcerted by his offer, by how nonjudgmental he seems to be, I find myself, against all my better judgment, nodding.
“Sorry about the broom,” he says, pulling eggs and bacon out of the fridge, tipping fresh ground coffee into a cafetière. “I was worried you might throw up while you were asleep, and I didn’t want you to choke on it. When I was at university we used to stick brooms down people’s clothes to stop them lying on their backs.”
“Was I horribly drunk?” My mortification is real.
“You were horribly drunk. You wanted to go home, but you couldn’t remember where you live. I don’t usually bring strange women back to my flat, but it seemed like a safer option than leaving you collapsed in a doorway in Charlotte Street.”
“Do you often rescue drunken strangers?” I attempt a smile.
“It does happen from time to time. I’m quite good at helping those in need,” he says, cracking the eggs in the pan. “Especially when they’re damsels in distress.”
“I’m really sorry,” I say. “I don’t usually drink like that. It’s been a rough few days.”
“Oh? Anything you feel like talking about? I know you don’t know me, but sometimes it’s easier to talk to strangers.” He flips the bacon in another pan and slides four slices of whole-grain bread into the toaster.
“I might be able to talk to you if I knew just a little more about you,” I say, sipping the coffee and starting to feel vaguely human again. “Just so I know you’re not Jason the Ripper or anything.”
He lets out a bark of laughter. “I’m definitely not Jason the Ripper. I’m Jason Halliwell, television director extraordinaire. Right now I’m working with Channel 4 on the series we launched last night. Where we met. Chez Gerard. Do you remember that?” He peers at me as I gratefully nod. “Okay. Good. So, I was born in London, brought up in Primrose Hill, before, by the way, it was Primrose Hill.”
“You mean before it was overrun by celebrities?” I think of all the pictures of Liam Gallagher and Patsy Kensit, Jude Law and Sadie Frost, Jamie Oliver, all living their lives in the leafy green of Primrose Hill.
“Exactly. The most famous person there when I was growing up was Alan Bennett, and he wasn’t even technically Primrose Hill. Gloucester Crescent. Camden.” I nod. Even Alan Bennett sounds impossibly glamorous, Primrose Hill being my second choice, after Notting Hill, for where I would live now if money were no object.
“What else?” I push, but what I really want to know is, do you have a girlfriend? Are you available? Might there be any possibility that you could be interested in me, because my God! You are just the sort of man I could see myself with, thank you very much.
“I’m thirty something years old, have two sisters, and parents who have retired to the Cotswolds. This flat used to be the living room and drawing room of the house I grew up in. My parents converted it into flats, and I ended up with this one.”
I swivel on the stool and look out the window, noting the pretty pastel-colored terraced houses. Of course it’s Primrose Hill. As if it could be anywhere else.
“What are the three most important things to know about you?” I ask, although that isn’t what I want to ask. All I want to know right now is whether he has a girlfriend.
“Hmmm. Good question. Okay. I love chocolate. Seriously. It’s a huge addiction of mine that means I have to have chocolate every day.”
“Milk or dark?”
“Milk?” He grimaces. “I wouldn’t touch that crap if you paid me. Dark. The darker, the better. I’m embarrassed to tell you I’m a member of a gourmet chocolate club. Every month they send samples of chocolate.”
“Do you have any?”
His face falls. “No. I finished it off last week. But—” His face lights up again as he joins me on the stool next to mine, two plates filled with eggs, bacon, and toast in his hands. “I’m expecting a new delivery later this week, so you can try it then.”
I resist the urge to leap up from the stool and do a dance of joy. Surely he would not have said that if he weren’t the tiniest bit interested in me? Surely he wouldn’t be suggesting we see each other again if that were not the case?
“What else?”
“I love cats. I know, I know, it’s a terribly unmasculine thing to admit to, but I’m afraid it’s true.”
“I don’t think it’s unmasculine. I think it shows you have a sensitive side.”
“That’s what I was hoping you’d say.” He grins.
“So where’s the cat?” I look around the flat, expecting to see one, but nothing.
“Albert is usually outside, hunting. He comes back when he’s hungry. Sadly he’s turned out not to be a cuddly sort of cat at all, so I’m thinking of getting another one who might turn out to be a better sort of companion.”
“How do you know what they’re going to turn out to be like?”
“That’s the problem, you don’t. Not when they’re kittens. I thought if I rescued an adult cat that would probably be the best way of knowing.”
“So now I have two things that are starting to indicate you may be the perfect man. What’s the third?”
“I’m a recovering alcoholic,” he says, taking a bite of bacon and reaching for a sip of coffee as if it were the most normal thing in the whole world, having no idea that my ears have started to buzz.
Why did he have to ruin the most perfect morning I have had in years?
* * *
“I’ve been sober three years, eight months, and sixty-eight, no, sixty-nine days,” he says, not an ounce of shame about it. “Best thing that ever happened to me.”
“Do you think I have a drinking problem?” I say, my voice as cold as steel, because I know exactly why he brought this up. I have no idea how he knows, but seeing me shitfaced last night must be why he brought me home. He’s not interested in me, other than because I remind him of how he used to be and presumably he knows the answer to all my problems. I feel a flash of anger and put down the knife and fork, am about to pick up my bag and walk out, because I really don’t need this shit. Not from my mother, and certainly not from this guy I don’t even know.
No matter how cute he may be.
He looks at me, bemused. “I don’t know anything about you. I have no idea whether you have a drinking problem or not. I, on the other hand”—he grins, and the tension disappears—“have a serious drinking problem. Note that I said recovering,” he explains. “I’m never actually going to be recovered. The only thing I know for sure is that it never stops at one drink. And I was bad.” He shakes his head at the memory. “When I got into recovery I’d been kicked off two television shows, and I was almost entirely yellow, my liver was so fucked. Seriously, they said if I’d have carried on I would have been dead within a year.”
I look at him, this picture of health, and I feel slight disbelief, coupled with relief. I’ve held the same job for eight years, and I’m not the slightest bit yellow. Clearly I’m absolutely fine. Although … the bit about not being able to stop at one drink … that certainly resonates. But just because I happened not to stop at one drink last night, after I said I would, doesn’t mean I can’t. It just means I didn’t last night. Tonight will be different. Today I’m going to start again, and particularly given I’ve just met this guy. If he’s not drinking, all the better. How much easier will it be for me?
“Did you go to rehab?”
He nods. “And now I go to meetings every day. During the week I go before work, but on Saturdays the meeting’s at noon. AA, obviously.”
“Obviously. So you knew you had a problem?” I say.
He shakes his head. “I didn’t think it was a problem. I was convinced I could stop at one drink, except I never could. I’d wake up in the morning and have no idea where I was or how I got there.”
Oh shit.
“Like me,” I mutter, eventually, and he just looks at me, with a look of such understanding and compassion I almost burst into tears.
* * *
I have never felt more self-conscious in my life than I do right now, in this room full of people, milling round, helping themselves to coffee from the machine on the trestle table in the corner of this room in the basement of a church in Paddington.
I don’t want to be here. Except I do. I wouldn’t be here had Jason not mentioned that he was coming, and I didn’t want to leave him. He has an exuberance and happiness that are infectious, and I figured either I’d have to go home and see my mum at some point later in the day or I could spend the day with Jason.
But I didn’t really think about what it meant, coming with him to an AA meeting. We climbed in his old Citroen and drove through the park as he told me his story. The full version. The bit about blackouts, and strange women, and how he had alienated everyone around him. The bit about all his friends trying to talk to him about his drinking and how worried they were, and his absolute refusal to listen. How he jumped on the defensive, cut them off, filled with shame at what he was doing.
He talked about the chaos of his life, the self-centeredness, how every time he’d decide to stop drinking, which he decided on practically a daily basis, so fed up with waking up feeling like shit every single morning, his vow would be broken by the evening.
He talked about sitting with friends, in bars, naturally, nursing a tonic water, and he couldn’t hear any conversation, couldn’t join in, couldn’t do anything other than plan how to get away so he could carry on drinking in the privacy of his own home, so no one else would know.
He talked about all of this cheerfully, with no remorse, no shame, and I had no idea how, because every time he said something, all I could think was, oh my God, this is me. This is my story, and how is it he gets to talk about it like this, as if it is the most natural, acceptable thing in the world, when all I want to do is dig a hole in the ground and disappear?
He talked about getting into Alcoholics Anonymous. He talked about letting go of ego, turning things over to a Higher Power. He talked about letting go of control, of learning humility, of learning to accept life on life’s terms, and I started to seriously regret getting in the car with him, knowing that it was too damn late to make my excuses and leave.
So here I am. In this hall, where everyone is hugging everyone else, and although I don’t know anyone here, and in fact am terrified I might run into someone I know, they do seem like a friendly bunch.
Jason left me on a chair to go and talk to one of his sponsees, whatever that might mean, and so far three people have come over and introduced themselves to me with big smiles, which is completely weird, but rather nice.
“I’m Jeff,” says a big guy, sitting next to me with a cup of coffee in one hand and a paper plate in the other, filled with cinnamon buns from the trestle table. “Want some?” He proffers the plate as I shake my head.
“I’m Cat. Hi.”
“First time?”
I nod. “I’m a little nervous. Not sure I belong here.”
“None of us are sure we belong here when we first get here. Don’t worry, you don’t have to say anything. You can just listen. You’re not going to relate to all of it, but they say take what you like and leave the rest.”
“Okay,” I say, as Jason walks over and sits down, and everyone in the room takes their seats.
* * *
He said I didn’t have to speak. They all chant a preamble, something about the only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking, and AA is not allied with any sect or anything, although frankly, there is definitely something eerily cultlike about the smiling people in this room, and how their primary purpose is to stay sober, or something like that.
Then comes announcements, and apparently there’s a new speaker meeting, whatever that is, in Queens Park that needs some help, then anniversaries. Two men and one woman stand up and proudly announce, in turn, ninety days sober, two years sober, and then nine years sober. Huge applause, and hugs all round, then a few words from the person leading the meeting.
And then, oh God! Are there any newcomers? There is a silence as I look at the floor because I do not want to say anything, I’m only here because Jason said I didn’t have to say anything, but I make the fatal mistake of looking up and pretty much every single person in that meeting is looking at me with an encouraging smile, and oh shit, now I have to say something.
“Hi,” I say, my voice shaking with nerves. “This is my first meeting.”
“What’s your name?” a couple of people say.
“Sorry. Cat. I’m Cat.” I think about every film I’ve ever seen that features a 12-step meeting and how they always introduce themselves by saying, “I’m Cat, alcoholic.” Or, “I’m Cat, a recovering alcoholic.” Or, “I’m Cat, a grateful recovering alcoholic.” But I can’t. I can’t qualify my name with anything else because I’m really not sure I belong. I’m really not sure I have that big a problem with drink. Or at least, not a problem I can’t fix by myself.
“Welcome!” the group chimes in. “Keep coming back.”
Riiiiight. I give them all the smiles they seem to expect, then shrink back into my seat, grateful for the reassuring rub on my arm from Jason. I turn to look at him, and he smiles and nods, as if he’s really proud of me.
God, he’s just yummy, I think, and suddenly I’m pleased that I’m here, and I settle back to listen.
It seems this is a “step meeting,” and today is step 2: Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
A thin blue book is passed around, and we move around the circle, reading step 2, and I think, once again, that I am definitely not in the right place, because all this talk about a Higher Power just seems ridiculous.
Perhaps I should not be admitting this, but I have never really understood the whole God thing. My mother, in her distant past, was apparently Episcopalian. She went to church with her parents, but Aunt Judith was completely antireligion and wiped out whatever my mother had had. And my Dad … Well. I can’t really call him that anymore, except I don’t know what else to call him. Richard. My mother’s husband. The man I thought was my father. He was Catholic, which was enough to put me off for life. Because he went to Mass, I refused, and even though he forced my mother and me, once the depression hit she didn’t have to go, and although he made me go with him for a while, the older I got the less I went.
I am definitely not a huge fan of organized religion, and as for God? I’m not entirely sure. I do remember feeling terrified on holiday when I was young. In a strange bed, in a strange villa in Portugal, I would lie in bed screwing my eyes shut, desperate not to look at the window, which had no curtains, and all I could see when I pictured that big black window was a face, a rictus of horror pressed against the glass, about to come in and carry me off, the changeling, taken back to where she belongs.
The only thing that helped me deal with that terror, which was so all-consuming I remember actually being paralyzed with fear, unable to even jump out of bed and go and find my mother, the only thing that made me feel a little better was God.
I pictured him then as a big old man with a huge white beard. Presumably Charlton Heston was my inspiration. He had twinkly eyes and a kindly smile, and he loved me. I would lie in bed, my eyes screwed up, reciting made-up prayers that incorporated snatches of proper prayers I had heard over the years.
“Our father, who art in heaven, hollowed be thy name, please protect me and look after me. Please keep me safe and keep the monsters away from me. Deliver me from evil and badness and monsters. Look after me and protect me and keep me safe in this room, for thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory. Amen. Please. Thank you, God.”
And I suppose, during times in my life that have felt particularly hard, or frightening, I have whispered a prayer, or asked whoever might be watching from above for help.
But to ask for help with my drinking? That seems ever so slightly ridiculous.
We finish reading and the leader starts to speak.
“I’m Grant, alcoholic,” he says, and I look at him and think, he doesn’t look like an alcoholic. Neither does Jason, for that matter. And then I wonder what I think an alcoholic looks like. When I was growing up in Gerrards Cross we had a neighbor who was an alcoholic. I only know this because my parents used to talk about it. Everyone used to talk about it. His name was Terence Miller, and he was forever being driven home by the police, having been found asleep in the car park after hours.
I always remember him as being very nice, but he definitely looked like an alcoholic, especially when I’d see him stagger out of the police car, shouting at the very policemen who had been looking after him. Then you’d smell the booze from about a mile away. If you got up close you’d see his face was always red, broken blood vessels all over his nose and cheeks. His eyes would be glazed and watery, and he couldn’t focus on anything, would blink at you slowly, slurring his words and hiccupping.
That’s what an alcoholic looks like, I thought. Not like Grant, who is the yuppiest of yuppies ever, in his Ralph Lauren polo shirt and cashmere sweater, with a great big Rolex on one wrist. There’s no way he’s an alcoholic.
“Wow,” he continues, shaking his head. “I always get exactly what I need to hear when I come to a meeting, and I really needed to hear about turning things over to a Higher Power. My meetings have been dropping off recently, things just got really hard at work…”
Jason leans over to me and whispers, “He’s a huge merchant banker. Huge!” I look at him, and we both exchange impressed glances, as if, how can a huge merchant banker also be an alcoholic, and I really want to just sneak out of here with Jason and gossip with him about it, but I force my attention back to Grant-the-merchant-banker.
“… haven’t been to as many meetings. And every time I do this, because this is not the first time”—everyone laughs in acknowledgment, as if they too do this all the time—“I start to take back my will, and when I take back my will, that’s the beginning of a very slippery slope.”
There is a murmur round the room, and I notice a number of people nodding, and I have absolutely no idea what he is talking about.
“I tried for years to stop drinking. My wife threatened to leave me, I almost lost my job, and every time I thought I could do it myself, because I was a master of the universe; I could do everything myself. The things I tried!” He laughs a little. “I always decided that the best way for me to stop drinking was to go to a health farm. I figured a week of drinking lemon water and broth, massages every day, and I would miraculously come home and be dried out. The first time I went to Grayshott I left on day two to find the nearest pub and hid bottles of vodka under my bed. And still I thought I could do it. I went to Champneys two months later and it was the same story. I’d stagger into the massages, then pass out in the lounge. And this went on for years, but still I thought that it was just about finding the right amount of willpower. My ego was so huge, I thought I was in control of everything. I had a huge house in Regent’s Park, a wife with a wardrobe full of beautiful clothes; my kids went to the best schools, and I couldn’t understand how I could have achieved all of this, this beautiful life, but I couldn’t stop drinking. My ego ran everything, and I had to get humbled to understand I couldn’t do it.” He shakes his head at what looks like an uncomfortable memory, and I sit forward slightly in my chair.
I didn’t like the Higher Power stuff, didn’t understand it, but I’m always up for a good story, and so far this is turning out to be a good story.
“My wife used to issue ultimatums all the time. Sometimes she’d scream at me, other times she’d cry, and most of the time she’d say she would divorce me if I carried on, and I never believed her. And she didn’t know the half of it.” He shook his head, as if in disgust at himself. “I was a terrible husband. I was unfaithful, and with the worst kind of women. I thought nothing of paying for sex. I spent fortunes in the kind of clubs I’m now ashamed to admit I went to. My wife didn’t know, until I gave her a sexually transmitted infection.” He says all this without emotion, while my mouth has practically hit the floor in shock. This handsome, beautifully dressed, rich guy slept with hookers? And admits it? And what’s more, not a single person in the room appears to be shocked. Except me. They’re all nodding their heads as if they too have all slept with hookers and given their partners STDs. I feel like I’m in a parallel universe in which everything is completely and utterly bonkers. I turn my head and look at Jason, thinking he’ll catch my eye and we’ll exchange one of those mutual looks, that he will be as stunned as I am, and I see him nodding, just like the others, and now I really do know I’m in Bizarro World.
“It all came out,” he says. “The women. The drugs. The booze.” Wait. Did he say drugs? What drugs? Did I miss something? I try to picture him shooting up heroin, but no, it doesn’t quite compute. Maybe he’ll say more. By this time I am not only riveted, I am also curious as hell. If this guy is a huge merchant banker, this would make a fantastic story. Not that I would, obviously, go off and write something about him without his permission, but imagine if I could? I could freelance it out, because frankly it deserves a bigger audience than the Daily Gazette. The Daily Mail would go into raptures.
Maybe he would want to tell his story, I think, picturing myself chatting to him after the meeting, and him agreeing, wanting to help others going through the same thing, which would be, in fact, exactly how I’d pitch it.
“She divorced me and took everything I had.”
Oh, this just gets better and better.
“I ended up sleeping on a friend’s sofa, until even he had enough of my drinking, and stealing, and lying. I lost my job, my children wouldn’t have anything to do with me, and I ended up in a hostel in Waterloo.”
Are you kidding me? I need to come to AA meetings more often. This is like Storytime on steroids. I want this guy to keep on speaking for hours. I want to hear all their stories. I am completely and utterly rapt.
“That’s where I got sober. I hit bottom. I just couldn’t carry on anymore. I remember the night I fell to my knees, quite literally fell to my knees, and I was not a religious man, I never gave God a second thought, but I fell to my knees and cried out, ‘If there is a God, you need to help me. I need you to change my life.’ And I swear to God”—he laughs, and rolls his eyes as the room joins in—“I swear to God I felt, suddenly, an enormous peace come over me, and I knew, beyond any measure of doubt, that I wasn’t alone. And I also knew that he would help me, and if I took the right steps, and asked for help, it would always be provided. My first meeting was the next day, and I have been sober since then.” There is a round of applause from everyone in the room, with a couple of whoops.
“I didn’t do it,” he says. “I couldn’t do it. I tried to do it for years, and nothing worked. My sobriety is due to my Higher Power. And more than that, the phrase ‘could restore me to sanity.’ When I was drinking, I had no idea that my life was insane. I was a mass of neurosis, insecurity, inadequacy, self-righteous indignation, anger. I would fly off the handle at everything, was permanently angry, critical, judgmental. Everything in my life was confusion and chaos, and I thought that was normal.” He shrugs. “My dad was an alcoholic. It was all I knew. I spent my childhood vowing that things would be different when I was a grown-up, that I would never do to my children what my father did to me, and here I was, re-creating the hell of my childhood almost down to the letter, the only difference being that I never laid a hand on my kids, and because of that, I congratulated myself on being such a good father. Now…” He takes a deep breath. “I have been restored to sanity. I occasionally lose my temper, but it doesn’t last long, and I immediately make amends. I have a wonderful relationship with a woman who is in Al-Anon and works her own program, and I am seeing my kids again. Not as much as I would like, because they’re still skeptical about my change. But I take it a day at a time. I have a career again, and my life is good.” He looks around the room, choosing, embarrassingly, to fix his gaze on me. “My life is good,” he says again, nodding to punctuate it. “This program changes lives, and if you’re new here”—God! I wish he’d stop looking at me—“if you’re new, know that miracles happen in these rooms. Don’t leave before the miracle happens.”
Finally he looks away, as the room starts to applaud.
“It’s your meeting,” he says. “For a topic, I’m asking what are the miracles that have happened in your life as a result of getting sober. But feel free to share about anything you’d like. Thank you.”
I sit back, exhausted from the concentration, exhilarated by the story, the only fly in the ointment being that although I heard him say he couldn’t do it by himself, that only a Higher Power could do it for him, I know that’s not the case for me.
I understand this program clearly works for some people, but I also know that I can do this by myself. After all, that’s how I have done everything else.
* * *
We go for lunch after the meeting, Jason and I, and I think how nice this is, having lunch with someone. I am so used to being single, to phoning up Jamie for sex when I feel like it, to going out with the girls or, of late, given that all the girls are now in cozy relationships, to doing things by myself, I had forgotten what it feels like to be in a relationship.
Not that I’m in a relationship! My God! I can’t even believe I just said that. Obviously I’m not in a relationship, but as we sit in Raoul’s, our paninis in front of us, with fresh orange juice and salads, I am aware that looking at us from the outside we do indeed look like a couple, and what a delicious, perfect feeling that is.
Because along with that sense of never quite fitting in, I have always felt lonely. Not that this has ever particularly made sense. I have never been short of friends, I lead an active life, but I have always felt this tremendous sense of loneliness, of being alone, of having to be self-sufficient because of that aloneness.
I have had moments of not feeling quite so alone, and those always happen with men. At university I met my first love. Dave Reynolds. We were together most of the freshman year, and I remember sitting with him in pubs and thinking, oh! This is what it feels like! To be normal!
I feel that way now. With Jason. Even though, obviously, I don’t actually know him, but there is, I am sure, a connection. There is something about him, and he would never have asked me to have lunch if he wasn’t interested. In fact, he didn’t actually ask, he just seemed to assume, which is absolutely fine with me.
“So what did you think?”
“I’m fascinated by Grant!” I say. “What a story! I would never have believed it from looking at him!”
“I know! We’re not really supposed to talk about what people share in meetings or who we saw. But I won’t tell anyone.” He grins. “Did you hear anything you related to?”
“Absolutely!” I nod my head vigorously, lying. “So much.”
“So, do you think you’re interested in getting sober?”
“Absolutely!”
“You need to get a sponsor,” he says. “And the best way of doing it, the way I did it after rehab, is to do ninety in ninety. That’s ninety meetings in ninety days. It will change your life.”
“Okay.” I’m not quite sure how that would possibly work in my life, but I don’t need to say that out loud. “So, a sponsor. Would you be my sponsor?” I’m slightly embarrassed asking him that, but who else am I supposed to ask, given that I don’t know anyone else there.
“I can’t.” He frowns. “Two reasons. First, they recommend you have a sponsor of the same sex. Otherwise it can get complicated.” I hope to God he doesn’t see my face fall. What does that mean? That it would be complicated if we got involved with each other? That he’s not interested in me? I feel a wave of disappointment, which will undoubtedly turn into depression, wash over me, followed by a wave of disgust with myself: Why did I create this fantasy of a perfect life with this perfect man? What the hell was I thinking?
“Secondly,” he says, “I want us to be friends, and I can’t be your friend if I sponsor you.”
Great. Friends. Fan-fucking-tastic.
“Actually”—he leans forward sheepishly—“I’d much rather be more than friends. But if you’re going to get sober, they recommend no new relationships for the first year.”
A year? I can wait a year! My heart is soaring so high, I don’t even realize I have a huge, soppy grin on my face.
“Friends?” I say, reaching out my hand, and he takes it, as I wonder just how long it will take me to persuade him otherwise.
* * *
We leave Raoul’s and walk along the canal and into Regent’s Park. Neither of us can stop talking, and I’m aware both of us have been smiling all day. Nothing has happened, and clearly, if I’m to get sober, which I now have to do, nothing will happen, but still, it feels like the most perfect romantic day imaginable, like something out of a Richard Curtis film, like the kind of day that only happens on a big screen or to other people.
It is such a perfect day, the earth-shattering news that my father is not my father doesn’t even feel quite so important. I tell Jason all about it, because it is one of those days where the laughter and fun devolve into something deeper, more meaningful, and I realize I want him to know everything about me.
“That’s pretty big stuff,” he says, when I have finished and we are sitting on the grass by the bandstand. “You’re going to get in touch with him, presumably?”
“Yes. My mum wanted to write and let him know, and hopefully he’ll write back. I suppose I have this fantasy of going over there and finding out I have this amazing family who all welcome me with open arms. It probably wouldn’t be like that, but I have to believe I’d have more in common with him than I did with the man I always thought was my father.”
“Do you have siblings?”
“I don’t know. It’s a lot to process.” I turn to him. “My whole entire life I wanted brothers and sisters and I can’t quite get my head round the fact that I may have them, that I may finally have everything I’ve ever wanted.”
“It sounds like this could make an amazing book. Depending on what happens, of course, but I could see you writing a memoir.”
I sit back, a light going on in my head. I have never thought of writing a book, but isn’t that every journalist’s dream? Gina ghostwrote a book for a pop star a couple of years back, although I’m not sure that counts, and Jackie has cowritten a couple of self-help books, but I never really thought about it.
I could see myself writing a book, though. And I could write a memoir, now that my father is no longer. I drift off into a fantasy of Nantucket, of finding the perfect family who welcome me into their heart, of writing about the hell of my childhood, and the joy of finding this new, improved family.
It’s a brilliant idea, and soon Jason and I are planning the logistics of my new, improved life.
* * *
I am dropped home just after nine. We spent the afternoon in Regent’s Park, before walking down to Baker Street to watch a film. Everything about the day had been perfect, and after the film, Jason phoned a friend “from program” and asked her to sponsor me.
Not that I need it, but I will do it for Jason. He’s already said that although he won’t sponsor me, he will be my “friend,” and that the primary purpose of anyone in AA is to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety.
I’m not an alcoholic, but I do believe that today may mark the beginning of a whole new world.
For starters, not for one second today did I think about alcohol. We went to All Bar One before the film to grab something to eat, and not only did I order a ginger ale, I didn’t then spend the rest of the evening looking around me at others drinking and wishing I could do that too.
When I got home I went to the fridge and pulled out the bottles of wine and beer and did the unthinkable. Opened them and poured the contents down the sink.
I may not be an alcoholic, but if I stand any shot at all with Jason, I have to get sober. I’m not doing this for myself, I’m doing this for him, but the end result is the same, and taking a quick bath, still smiling the whole time, I replay every moment of the day, astounded at how life can change so quickly, how I have met someone who feels like he’s going to be significant, and how I am absolutely certain that from here on in, things are only going to get better.
* * *
I can’t sleep. I think it’s the excitement of the day, until I realize that I have not climbed into bed without some kind of alcohol for … well … I don’t actually remember the last time I did that.
And I am slightly shocked at the realization. I have no idea how people sleep. I open a book and read, thinking that at some point I’m going to get sleepy, and I watch the clock move through midnight, and then the early hours. If this were a weekday, I would probably be so stressed I would go and get a drink, except I no longer have a drink in the house, and actually, every time I think about that, I then picture Jason, and I know I won’t be doing that anymore.
So it’s a very long night. But sometime after four, with a smile on my face, I finally fall asleep.