Junction X by Erastes (digital ebook reader .TXT) 📗

house was only another block further along, so I walked on, hoping for a lift home and perhaps another drink. The glow from the wine at lunch had quite worn off. Then the rain started again in earnest. I ran the last twenty yards. By the time I pressed Phil’s doorbell, I was wet through.

Phil opened the door and I found myself so damned glad to see his irritating face. I suddenly realised that I’d allowed myself to be far too isolated, that missing him and sulking had led to me seeing no one socially at all. For two pins I would have grabbed him. He pulled me inside, and from his unguarded smile—the one he only used when we were really alone—and the slight slowness of his speech it was obvious he’d been drinking, and not just wine for lunch, either.

“Just the man,” he said thickly. “You must have known I was thinking about you.” I pulled my coat off and he slung it over a chair. “Come through.” He led me into the golden-floored sitting room and shut the door behind us. He poured a drink for me before I sat down and then frowned at me. “Why are you wet?”

“I walked.”

“What on earth for? Don’t tell me you’ve finally let Valerie loose on the Bentley?”

It was banter to him. Mere small talk. But either I was going to tell him why I was walking in the rain or I wasn’t. So I shrugged. “No. Just fancied a walk.”

 I willed for him to pursue it, to point out that pounding the pavements wasn’t something I normally did; if I felt restless, I’d generally take it out on a golf ball. But he didn’t. He just slumped into the chair opposite and put the decanter on the table next to him.

“Where’s Claire?” I asked.

His face darkened, and I saw that expression that I’d seen before a few rare times when he’d been crossed at work or beaten in sports (as he thought) unfairly. “You didn’t walk all this way to talk about my wife.”

“I told you. I was just walking.”

“Yeah. Right. And I’m just drinking. At three in the afternoon.”

I shifted in my chair. The malt made my tongue seem thick, and I didn’t speak for a while. I could feel his eyes on mine, heavy and insistent until I broke under it, and said, “All right. What’s wrong?”

I moved again, uncomfortably. I hadn’t come here to talk to him, but I felt that he’d manipulated me into asking him what was wrong, thus making him tell me.

Then he irritated me further.

“Forget it.” He slammed his glass down on the table so hard that the bottom dropped out of the crystal and slid onto the wooden floor. “Christ.” He stared at his hand, which was bleeding, and at the blood, which was dripping onto his lap.

I jumped up, pulled out my handkerchief and tied it around his hand. He sat quietly, a dazed expression on his face, and I wondered how much of the near-empty decanter he’d had. “Bloody hell,” I said. “Stay there.”

I found the kitchen easily enough and brought back water and a tea towel. He sat quietly as I washed the cut and, as I wrapped the towel around his hand, his free hand moved to my hair and he touched my cheek, a gentle look on his face.

I shrugged him off. I had no intention of doing anything in his house.

“You’re a good friend, Eddie,” he said.

“Yes. I think we’ve established that.” I kept it light. He was drunk, and he tended to get maudlin on Scotch. “Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?”

“If you tell me why you were walking in the rain.”

“I will, if you do.” I now had no intention of telling him my concerns when he was this drunk, but it seemed a good enough lie to get him to open up.

“It’s Claire,” he said. “She’s left me.”

If I was expecting anything, it wasn’t that. I’d thought he might have been in trouble at the firm. Perhaps he’d made a bad deal; that fear was always there in our line of work. For a moment, I found myself lost for words. Then I had to ask the one question that immediately jumped into my head. “She hasn’t—she didn’t find out about…”

“Us?” He laughed then. “Good God, no. Do you think I’d still be in this house—in one piece—if she had?”

“Then…”

“She’s gone off with some boy. Years younger than her. Some artist she met at evening school.” He went to stand up and toppled slightly. “He’s twenty-two. He’s talented, she says. He understands her, she says. He appreciates her, she says.” His face twisted then and he looked like he was going to cry. It was horrible.

“You need coffee,” I said. But I didn’t sound very convincing, even to myself. I needed a drink, too. I went through to the hall and called Valerie.

“Phil’s…” I hesitated. “There’s a problem. I need to stay until he’s got it sorted out. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

There was a breathless silence, then she said, “Claire?”

“You knew?”

“Not as such. Just that there was something.”

“I’ll tell you when I get home.”

I hung up, feeling rotten. I’d been worrying about something stupid and hadn’t even been there for my best friend. I went back into the sitting-room. Phil was staring glumly at the garden.

“You’d better tell me all about it,” I said, pouring him another drink, along with a larger one for me.

Chapter 8

I’d not had an inkling of what Phil told me throughout that afternoon and evening. It seemed to me that they’d always had a pretty good relationship, but what did I know? Some people said that I had the perfect marriage, too. I’d seen Phil and Claire be mildly icy to each other, but I’d passed that off as nothing much; Valerie and I were icy to each other a lot. It was part of marriage, wasn’t it?