Where There's Smoke

His tone was thinly jocular. He cleared his throat. “I was pissed off this time as well. But I was too drunk to get any sense out of, so they put me in a holding cell to sober up. I fell asleep, and when I woke up I felt like death. It stank of piss and puke, and I could hear all these drunks in the other cells, shouting and singing. Then I heard a couple of coppers coming down the corridor, talking about this drunk they’d picked up for a burglary, but it didn’t dawn on me until they started unlocking my cell that it was me. Even then, I just thought, ‘Fucking coppers, who do they think they are?’ And then I sat up, and saw I’d pissed myself and been sick all down my front.”

He broke off. Kate heard him swallow.

“Anyway, in the end they traced the cabby who’d taken me home. He remembered me because I’d argued with him and then puked in his cab.” He gave a humourless laugh. “Good job, as it turned out. Once they’d spoken to him, they gave me my shoes and belt back and let me go. Trouble was, when I got outside I realised I hadn’t taken my wallet when they’d arrested me, and I hadn’t got a cent to get home with. So I stood there, covered in puke and piss, and I thought, ‘What the fuck am I doing? I’m thirty-seven, I’ve lost my job, I’ve managed to piss off nearly everybody I know, and I’ve got to walk through the streets stinking like a wino.’ And I just started crying. If I’d had any money on me, I’d have probably bought something and got pissed again, but all I could do was walk home. By the time I got back I was freezing and stone cold sober, and I thought, ‘That’s it,’ and binned all the bottles in the house before I’d got time to think about it. Emptied them down the sink first so I couldn’t change my mind. Then I got the phone book out and phoned Alcoholics Anonymous.”

There was a dramatic pause. Kate wondered if he had rehearsed the ending, expecting a fanfare. But she was immediately ashamed of her cynicism.

“So how often have you been?” she asked, feeling obliged to say something.

“More than half a dozen times now.”

If he resented the anticlimax, there was no sign of it. Kate felt churlish.

“You go as often as you need, wherever there’s a meeting,” he went on. “I still need to go pretty often. There’re twelve steps they say you’ve got to take. The main one is accepting that you’ve got a problem. That’s supposed to be the hardest, that and apologising to people you’ve been a bastard to. Like you. But I’ve finally managed it. And I’ve not had a drink since.”

There was a faint note of pleading now, of wanting his accomplishment to be recognised. Kate relented. “It can’t have been easy.”

“Hardest thing I’ve ever done.” He sounded proud. “Next to this phone call, that is. But I wanted to tell you. I know I gave you a hard time. Not just recently. Before, as well.”

That wasn’t just drink! you’re still making excuses! She felt a flash of the old anger, but it quickly burned itself out.

“It’s a long time ago. Let’s just forget about it.”

“No, I mean it. I know what you think about me, and you’re right. I was a bastard to you. I wish I could blame it all on the booze, but I can’t.”

She tried to find a suitable response. It wasn’t so much that she didn’t believe him. Just that none of it seemed to matter now.

“Okay,” she said, and then, because she knew he expected more, added, “I’m glad.”

She could almost hear him trying to gauge if she meant it. He seemed to decide that she did. “I came to the office this afternoon to tell you, but I couldn’t bring myself to go in. I didn’t think I’d be welcome, anyway. Not after last time.” Kate made no comment to that.

“I saw your friend outside,” he added.

The change of tack threw her. Lucy? she thought.

“You know,” Paul continued. “The guy you were with at the restaurant.”

Understanding came in a rush.

“Outside?” she said, stupidly.

“On the other side of the road. He was in a doorway. I thought he must be waiting for you.”

“He was there this afternoon?”

“Yeah, about four o’clock, but—”

“What was he doing?”

“Nothing, he was just standing there. I couldn’t place who he was at first. In fact, I thought he was a dosser to be honest. He looked like he should have been selling the Big Issue.”

Kate didn’t laugh.

“Yeah, well, he was in a bit of a state, anyway. I wondered about going over and apologising for... well, you know. But then he saw me, and gave me this look, and I thought, ‘Perhaps not’. I’d got myself into enough trouble, and if he’d had a go nobody would’ve believed I hadn’t started it.”

A faintly aggrieved note had entered his tone, but Kate barely noticed. “Did he do anything?”

“Not while I was there, but like I say, I didn’t stay. I just got as far as your office and turned back. He was still staring at me when I left. Look, are you going to tell me what’s wrong?”

The words wouldn’t come. “The uh... the police are looking for him.”

Distantly, she heard Paul exclaim, asking why, and her own voice answering. There was a roaring in her ears. When it passed Paul was shouting at her.