bulging black sack in the bin – mostly full of empty bottles I couldn’t be bothered to recycle – and tripping coming back up the drive… Oh bloody god. I grimaced, as far as I could grimace with my face planted on the drive… Giggling and thinking it was really funny and that I’d just lie here for a while and have a little sleep…
‘Are you all right down there?’
‘Yes, thank you, I’m okay.’ I was a hundred percent sure I was not a pretty sight, but I wasn’t hurt – booze and my curves meant I had bounced, probably, like a baby, before landing in my prone and highly compromising position. ‘I’ve been up to London,’ I said, like a female, inebriated Dick Whittington. ‘I’ve had a few too many. Sorry. I’m on your half of the drive.’
‘That’s okay. Do you need a hand up?’
‘Yes, please. That would be really kind.’ Oh, the English politeness. It never fails, even at moments of extreme humiliation. Will held out his arms and heaved me up; no mean feat, considering I was carrying approximately four litres of booze and a Burger King Whopper meal about my person. When he was assured I could stand without collapsing to the ground again, he bent down and retrieved the lost half of my footwear.
‘Your boot,’ he said, holding it out.
‘Right. Thanks.’
He stood smiling at me; I stood, trying not to fall over.
‘Have you got work in the morning? Rather, this morning?
‘Yes. Yes, I have.’
‘And have you got your keys?’
‘I think so.’ My keys had been in the pocket of my thick, padded coat, out for duty early this year as it had been a very chilly October. I rummaged in both pockets. When my left hand (without wedding ring – it felt weird) located them, on their fluffy pink, feathery, glittery key-chain thingy, I pulled them out and shook them in the air to prove I’d really got them.
‘There you go,’ he smiled. ‘Fantastic.’
He saw me to the door, which must have banged shut in the night, and watched me open it and step inside.
‘Thanks, Will,’ I said.
‘Any time, although I don’t mean any time. I don’t know you very well, but I presume you won’t be doing this too often…’
‘I don’t think so,’ I said meekly. ‘As it is rather embarrassing.’
He smiled again. ‘Good night, Daryl.’
‘Good night, Will. Thank you so much.’
I staggered upstairs. The horror. Oh, the absolute horror. I couldn’t bear to think about it. I decided I couldn’t think about it. Not now. I could be mortified and apologetic in the morning. Now, I had to sleep.
I woke up feeling like death warmed up in a petri dish. The radio alarm, set to Eighties FM, woke me at seven and I was furious at it. How dare Madonna and her ‘Material Girl’ aspirations interrupt my comatose slumber? I needed eight hours more sleep. I needed carbs and painkillers. I needed a new liver… I staggered to the bathroom and was horrified by what I saw. Blonde, short hair sticking up all over the place – all pretence of perky Marilyn Monroe coquettishness gone. A pasty face with make-up smears down it. And panda eyes that wouldn’t look out of place at London Zoo. Gone were the days when a hangover made me look dishevelled-ly pretty and enigmatic; I just looked a wreck.
I flopped back into bed. Just fifteen more minutes. Just to get my brain in gear. Oh god. I remembered everything. But mostly waking up on the drive and Will discovering me lying there. What on earth must he think of me? He already thought I was a bit of a nut job. I’d moved in just over a week ago, last Saturday to be exact, and he’d already caught me admiring his bum, taking a giant stuffed whale out to someone’s skip and stuffing lemon drizzle cake in my face at two a.m.
He’d made the lemon drizzle. Well, I presume he had; I’d have to ask him. The morning I’d moved in, laden with boxes and giant Ikea shopping bags packed with all my stuff, he’d knocked at my new front door offering a smile and a polka dot cake tin.
‘Hello,’ he’d said. ‘I’m Will Hamilton. I live next door. Did you know your doorbell doesn’t work?’
‘Yes, I know,’ I said. ‘I need to get that sorted. I’m Daryl Williams.’
‘It’s very nice to meet you, Daryl Williams. I’ve brought you a cake.’
‘A cake? Wow!’ I’d replied. ‘That’s a lovely thing to do. I didn’t think neighbours did that stuff any more. I thought it was all lawnmowers at dawn and curt nods on the driveway.’ He laughed. He was nice; I could see that immediately. He had a dark-brown-with-grey-bits quiff that had collapsed and was flopping in his eyes, a wide smile and brown eyes. He looked about the same age as me – mid-forties, perhaps late forties? Very, very good looking. The sort of face you wouldn’t mind peeking over the top of a newspaper at, at the breakfast table, for years and years. Not that I was in the market for that ever again. I was over marriage. I was over my marriage. I didn’t need another hero; they just let you down and went off with your best friend.
‘Come in,’ I said and he’d stepped into my hall. He was wearing dark, almost black, blue jeans and a brushed cotton checked shirt. Plus grey desert boots – I hadn’t seen those since my days at Brighton Poly – in 1991. ‘Excuse the décor.’
I’d bought a mid-street house in a Victorian strip of smallish semis in Wimbledon, not far from the station. My new house looked lovely from the outside, matching all the others with their red bricks and white porches; it even had a nicely tended patch of garden at the front which I already feared for – I was not known for my gardening prowess. Inside, the other semis were probably the height of character period charm coupled with sleek modernity; mine was not. It was extremely dated. Think striped wallpaper below yellowing dado rail; sponge paint affect circa Changing Rooms 1998 above… Swagged yellow curtains with tie backs – the previous owner clearly couldn’t be bothered to take them down and I don’t blame her; I wouldn’t have dragged such mustard monstrosities to my new house either… Artexed ceilings… A bath with carpet up the side… Will had laughed when I’d showed him that and so had I. He didn’t look like a serial killer so I’d showed him round the whole house.
‘It’s not exactly Homes and Gardens, is it?’ he said after we’d done the tour and were back in the hall. ‘Needs a little bit of work.’
‘A lot of work,’ I quantified, again thinking how good looking he was. ‘I know.’ It was in pretty bad shape, my new house. That’s how I’d managed to knock ten grand off the price, giving me a bit of money to play with. I’d already got a decent amount, from my ‘proceeds of marriage’ or whatever they called it (blood money? Tears money?), but the extra cash would come in handy for renovations. I was really lucky. I hadn’t wanted to leave Wimbledon – it had been my home since my twenties – and I hadn’t had to.
‘I’m quite handy, with a paint brush, you know,’ said Will, as I was seeing him out. ‘Just give me a shout if you need any help.’
‘I might take you up on that,’ I said, then hoped I hadn’t said it in a flirty manner. The plan was to flirt and have fun with men from now on – now I was over the horror of my break-up and divorce – but that couldn’t
