It's Not Me, It's You

by Mhairi McFarlane

  Delia watched Adam dart inside. She had a sense that she should marshal the pieces of things that happened into a coherent picture, but didn’t have the cognitive skills to complete the jigsaw.

  She wondered if it’d be quite clever if she did move, as he’d said not to? The door opened and as a couple of people came out, Delia slipped in after them.

  Should she have another drink? She should perhaps try the circulating thing. She felt very bold and confident it’d go well.

  Freya from the Mirror advanced on her, not someone Delia was aiming to circulate with.

  ‘Be careful around Adam. You know he’s slept with everyone,’ she said.

  ‘He’s not slept with me,’ Delia slight-slurred.

  Freya raised an eyebrow and turned her back on her.

  As Delia zeroed in on a drinks tray, she felt a tug on her arm and Adam Who’d Slept With Everyone leaned down, hissing: ‘Oi! I thought I told you to stay put, you pissed womble.’

  ‘You’re not the bosh of me,’ Delia said.

  ‘I will bosh you around for your own good and you’ll thank me for it tomorrow.’

  Delia protested as he propelled her towards the exit. Outside, Adam thrust her raspberry wool coat into her arms. Did he say it was like a Fraggle? She should tell him that … what should she tell him …

  ‘Now please try to look compos mentis long enough to ensure that a taxi will take you. Concentrate. Look at me …’

  Adam held her face in his hands and Delia scowled as her eyes swiped from side to side. She looked totally cons … consch … Conch shell. Hah! How had she never noticed those words sounded quite similar before?

  ‘Give me my face back.’ Her voice came out in a bad ventriloquist’s gottle-of-geer.

  Adam hooted with laughter, dropping his hands and shaking his head.

  ‘You are something else.’

  Delia had a dim sense that things had possibly gone very very wrong, and she would feel differently about all this in the morning.

  The caramel brown-ish Freya girl from earlier came flying out of Cock & Tail and Adam turned his back on Delia. He had a fraught, hushed conversation with caramel girl that a swaying Delia only part-absorbed.

  She caught the odd phrase from the cross, slim woman with her arms folded … what the hell … well who cares if he is … thought you were trying to get to him, not get into her knickers.

  Knickers?! Delia wanted to move but everything was taking place underwater.

  And a terse riposte from Adam All The Sex, who concluded: If people think that, then let them. What do I care?

  Eventually Freya went back inside, throwing a toxically filthy look in Delia’s direction. Delia lifted her fingers in a heavy wave but it came off strangely.

  Adam sighed heavily and put his hand on her shoulder.

  ‘Right then, Drunkst Delia, Destroyer Of Evenings. Let’s get out of here.’

  Delia had a reply ready to go: Oh so you know my name after all! And: No thanks, I will make my own way.

  But again her mouth defied her, and it came out as: shmmmfff. She shook her head. Adam strode out on to the road and put his hand up, a taxi swung in and Delia was ushered inside.

  An arm went round her in the cab and a conversation took place she had no conscious part of, although she heard her own voice. With the vehicle’s soporific movement, she was fighting it, but she felt her consciousness slipping, slipping, slipping …

  ‘Delia, Delia?’ she heard a male voice.

  ‘Mmm …’

  ‘Stay with me. Stay away from the light. Or the dark.’

  Delia opened a gummy eyelid, as disorientated as someone returning to consciousness in the recovery ward.

  Who was she … where was she … The room even smelled strange: of a powdery, strident brand of washing powder she didn’t use. And dust. And boy.

  She pushed herself up on her elbows and looked around. She was in a single bed in a narrow room, with a plastic clotheshorse at one end.

  Her purple dress lay on the floor.

  Oof, her head. And her stomach. Oh God oh God oh no … the night before came back to her, in violent, strobing flashbacks. The awful bar … Kurt trying to chat her up … she left … who did she leave with? She was in a cab with someone, the ‘who’ was hazy. She felt psychically sick with apprehensiveness and remorse, a nice partner to the literal sick she felt.

  Next to her on the nightstand was a bottle of Coke with ‘Drink Me’ on a Post-it note, a pack of Ibuprofen with ‘Take Me’, and a folded piece of paper with ‘Read Me.’

  A booze trout’s version of Alice in Wonderland.

  Delia shifted bones that creaked and ached, and a skull that felt as if it was full of marbles that had rolled to one side. She unfolded the paper.

  MORNING!

  How’s the head? So I thought you needed to go home last night, but I couldn’t get your address out of you. Turns out cab drivers need more than FINSHBURRY PORK! repeated three times, with increasing volume. So much for The Knowledge. I had a choice, either go through your things to find out where you live, or bring you back to mine. I thought as dread rivals we were better off without me diving through your handbag. So here we (you) are. Sorry the box room isn’t beautiful. See you in the breakfasting salon at sun up in cotton waffle dressing gowns, for kedgeree and homemade granola.

  Adam

  Oh no, oh God.

  Delia grasped for her handbag on the nightstand and dug out her phone. She went to Google Maps and keyed in Emma’s postcode, hitting Get Route. The blue pin dropped, giving her location as just off Clapham High Street. She groaned and looked down again at her underwear. Had he undressed her? What had she said? And done? This was so horrific.

  With shaky hands, she unscrewed the cap on the Coke and tipped it to cracked-dry lips. Ahhhhh. The reviving power of sugar and caffeine. The abrasive syrupy fizz flowed over her sandpaper tongue and made a noise as it gurgled down her throat. She wasn’t sure if she could handle swallowing the tablets, though. Her stomach was telling her she was on Nil By Solids. She waited a moment and did a throw-and-swig with them.

  Delia eased herself out of bed and pulled her dress on. She felt deeply uneasy at waking in bra and pants. They didn’t match and she was only patchily depilated.

  Her shoes had been kicked off nearby but she thought a stealthy exit might be better accomplished not in heels. She opened a compact mirror in her handbag and surveyed the damage, wincing. Easing the door open, there were noises of someone moving about downstairs but otherwise the coast seemed clear. Delia could see where the bathroom was, just across the landing.

  She tip-toed in and closed the door. This was a lad’s house, albeit apparently one with a cleaner: the towels were in dark colours, the edge of the bath held bottles of functional and sporty things. Inside the mirrored cabinet were disposable razors and packs of soap.

  Delia wet gobbets of loo roll and wiped at her smudged eyes. She splurged some toothpaste onto a forefinger, rubbed it across her teeth and tongue, spat and rinsed. She finger-combed her birds-nested, backcombed hair and tried to pull it into something more like a ponytail.

  She had small bits and bobs of ‘touch-up’ make-up in her handbag, which could now be deployed in accident recovery: concealer, a lip gloss, perfume miniature, and her liquid liner. When she’d finished re-applying, she looked more terminally ill brothel madam than unidentified corpse.

  She padded back to the bedroom, slipped her heels on and found her coat slung over a chair.

  Time to make a very fast and dignified-as-possible departure.

  She wobbled gingerly down the two flights of shallow stairs and ducked her head round the door of one of the rooms at the bottom.

  Adam West was in the kitchen, dressed in t-shirt, jogging bottoms and trainers, holding a cup of coffee. He looked as fresh as a dew-speckled daffodil by comparison, glowing from a run.

  ‘The Kraken awakes!’ he said, grinning widely.

  ‘Er. Morning. What happened?’
Delia said, testing her voice for the first time. It sounded a bit Kermit.

  ‘Apple schnapps in champagne happened, about ten times. Or lovely nommy naughty Appletise give me back my special tasty Appletise, as you said constantly on our way home.’

  ‘Oh, fuuuccc—’ Delia rubbed a throbbing temple.

  ‘Spirits in champagne are the speedball of cocktails. Be glad you’re only the living dead in Clapham as opposed to dead-dead outside the Viper Room.’

  He was going to enjoy this to the full, Delia realised. Of course he was.

  ‘Coffee?’ he said, picking up a steaming mug from next to the kettle.

  ‘Thank you,’ Delia croaked, taking it, more for something to do and an excuse not to speak while she sipped.

  She had no idea what to say to him.

  ‘Thanks for letting me stay,’ Delia said, awkwardly.

  ‘My pleasure.’

  ‘Did, uh. Did everyone see us leave together?’

  Adam did a joke spitting-my-drink double-take. ‘You think I did this to make everyone think I scored? I’m not into the Coma Sutra, thanks.’

  Delia wanted to die.

  ‘No! I wasn’t saying that. I need to work out if I still have a job.’

  ‘I don’t think anyone saw us, no,’ Adam said. ‘It was an act of immense chivalry on my part and I understood the need for discretion.’

  ‘Why was I not in my dress?’ Delia said, a reflex response in the snap of shame, not because she much wanted to know.

  Adam’s eyes widened in surprised innocence.

  ‘Oh, hang on now, any clothing removal was done by you, after I closed the door. Don’t turn this good deed into something sinister or I will get anxious and angry.’

  Delia nodded, weakly.

  She’d been so catastrophically stupid to get so lashed. How many years at the city council had she carefully extricated herself from the Christmas party by the time the Jägerbombs conga hoved into view? But she came to London and went arse-over-tit.

  ‘Do you usually get that slammed? If I hadn’t been there then God knows what would’ve happened,’ Adam said over the rim of his coffee mug.

  Delia shivered. The bad blond man had a bloody good point. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been that incapable. Thinner, sad Delia who forgot to eat didn’t have the same tolerance as the fatter, happier Delia of old. You didn’t admit such vulnerability to the enemy though.

  ‘I would’ve been fine, I’d have got home …’

  ‘You honestly need to be careful. You’re not around nice people. Alternate alcoholic drinks with water and combine with caution.’

  ‘Ooh tell us more about the effects of this “alcohol”, we’re all toothless, playing banjos up in Noo Cas’le!’ Delia said. It was impossible to sustain any real ire amidst Adam’s delighted laughter.

  ‘Oohooohoo! NO! You know what I meant. Kurt was all over you and he meant business.’

  ‘Oh no, he’s just very direct and Aussie …’ Delia lied.

  ‘I saw him buying condoms in the gents,’ Adam said, making an ‘oh dear’ face.

  Delia’s skin prickled.

  ‘Maybe that was for something else.’

  ‘Animal water balloons,’ Adam said, setting his mug down and pushing himself up on to the breakfast bar. His eyes strayed to the kitchen doorway behind her.

  ‘Oh, Dougie, this is Delia, Delia, Dougie.’

  Delia turned to see a rumpled, bulky, bum-fluffed man of about thirty, in a towelling robe. He looked as if he’d had nearly as hard a night out as Delia had.

  ‘Hello. Nice to meet you,’ he said in a Glaswegian accent. He poured Crunchy Nut Cornflakes into a bowl, sploshed chocolate milk on to them and turned to leave. Dougie’s incurious demeanour around her suggested to Delia that women in their kitchen he’d not met before wasn’t an uncommon occurrence.

  ‘Back to bed?’ Adam said.

  ‘Aye. Forever. I’m fucked so I am.’

  He shuffled out.

  ‘Dougie went out with some friends from his homeland last night. They call themselves the Willy Wallace warriors. Imagine. Actually, don’t.’

  ‘Is it only you and him here?’ Delia said. She was sure she’d passed several rooms on her way down.

  For the first time since she met Adam, he looked ever so slightly uncomfortable.

  ‘Yeah.’

  Was he gay? She’d gotten zero gay vibes, but who knew. He slept with ‘everyone’ apparently, so maybe Freya meant he was AC/DC.

  ‘Why did you do this really?’ she said, with a forced smile. ‘To get me into trouble with Kurt, or put me further in your debt?’

  ‘There’s thanks for you. Because I knew otherwise you’d wake up with a sore groin as well as a sore head in a Sofitel somewhere. I took pity.’

  Delia didn’t know what to think.

  ‘I never know whether to believe you.’

  ‘I’ll let you into a secret, Delia. I always tell the truth. So you always can.’

  Funnily enough, she didn’t believe him.

  ‘I’m going to get going then, which way to the Tube?’ Delia said, thinking Adam would want her gone as much as she did.

  ‘Come and sit down for a bit and recover,’ Adam said, standing down from the work surface.

  ‘Ah. No …’ Delia resisted.

  ‘You spent the night here, another fifteen minutes isn’t going to make a difference. You look like the bad taxidermy version of yourself.’

  ‘Sod you,’ Delia mumbled, but she had to admit she was exhausted by the business of being upright.

  ‘C’mon. Dougie’s no company for the next twelve hours at least. Take pity on me in return.’

  Delia couldn’t really refuse, and carried her coffee to the front room.

  It was a true boys’ rented house, this. Every soft furnishing was navy blue or army grey. There were big saggy worn blue sofas with removable covers, a pine coffee table covered in sticky rings and a huge flat-screen television, coated in a light patina of greasy dust.

  The room was cast into a greenish gloom by the thick overgrown ivy that clung like a wig to the window, although it was a nice alternative to blinds.

  Delia sank gratefully onto the nearest settee and wondered just how huge a price in ridicule Adam was going to be extracting for this. Right now she couldn’t think about that. Physically surviving this hangover was task enough.

  ‘Can I make a suggestion?’ Adam said, on the sofa opposite. ‘When I have been beaten by the beer, I like to lie like this,’ he swung himself round so he was lying on his back, ‘my legs like so,’ he rested them on the arms of the sofa. ‘I think you’ll find the angle very relaxing, and the light from the window is precisely the amount your vampire eyes can cope with.’

  He folded his hands on his stomach. ‘Try it. I promise you, this position held for five hours straight sorted Dougie after he’d done the Top Gun drinking challenge.’

  Homoerotic Top Gun, eh? ‘What does that involve?’

  ‘Oh, I dunno. Judging by Dougie’s condition you must drink every time there’s a moment of patriotic machismo.’

  Delia sighed, and moved herself into an approximation of Adam’s position. Her muscles relaxed against the sofa cushions, her heels dangling.

  ‘See!’ Adam said. ‘You look … at peace.’

  Delia did a weak shaky gurgle-giggling. ‘That’s what you say about people in the Chapel of Rest.’

  ‘Haha! “Remember her the way she would’ve wanted, not like this.”’

  Adam laughed and Delia thought how intensely he was enjoying himself.

  ‘So … this Paul of yours, then,’ Adam said, and Delia was given the scariest rollercoaster drop-lurch of realising she had said things of which she had no memory. None. Like general anaesthetic. She had put herself under.

  ‘God, what?!’ she said.‘What did I say?’

  ‘Oh, nothing much,’ Adam said, soothingly. ‘You told me he’s been fooling around and it’s why you came to London.’
<
br />   Delia’s alcohol-poisoned, clammy skin grew clammier against the gritty fabric of the sofa. It was awful and exposing, not knowing what she’d said.

  ‘When?’

  ‘I got you to drink a glass of water when we got back, and we chatted. Briefly.’

  The thought that Delia had said things to him where there was no sift, sort or check mechanism before the words left the brain depot was awe-inspiringly dreadful. She groaned and placed a palm over her eyes.

  ‘Now you’re sober and possibly going to remember, can I give you my views on this subject?’ Adam said, to Delia groaning. ‘The man’s-eye view.’

  Delia groaned some more. ‘Because all men are the same.’

  ‘No, we’re not. But I think sometimes women apply the logic of how females think to male behaviour, in order to understand it,’ he twisted his head to look at Delia, ‘then don’t understand it. I won’t say another word about this if you don’t want me to.’

  Delia fancied clawing back some control by telling him to leave it. On the other, she had a small flicker of curiosity about his opinion.

  ‘Go on,’ she said, with a long-suffering exhalation.

  ‘Alright. I think you shouldn’t get back together with Paul, for two reasons. First reason, he wanted you to tell him he had to end it with the other woman. I think to not give you a straight answer on whether he was leaving you or not when you found out was a proper shit’s trick.’

  Oh no. She’d said loads.

  ‘He kind of did. He wanted me to say we were going to get through it. Which I couldn’t.’

  ‘Translation: he wanted you to say you’d be there if he broke it off. Shit’s trick, as I said. That’s someone who’s never going to take responsibility for his actions, or treat you with much respect.’

  Delia squirmed. This was more incisive and harsh than she expected. And hearing Paul denigrated hurt her.

  ‘Secondly, he happy-cheated, not sad-cheated. If it’s a response to something in the relationship that needs fixing, it can possibly be fixed. Happy cheaters do it for the adventure, and they’ll do it again.’