“Well, I’m trying to be better at letting things go. What is it you said to me?” I snorted. “?‘Some of us don’t let the past dictate the way we live our adult lives’?” I mimicked her voice so perfectly that she looked shocked.
A waiter finally made himself known, and I asked him to seat Cassandra. It would be one of Maggie’s blessings if I was able to eat anything at this meal. We sat down and tried our best to hold independent conversations despite being distracted by Maggie lecturing our table (and all surrounding tables) on how Brexit would fuck us all over but how, ultimately, faith in Jesus would save us, with my granddad being uncharacteristically vocal in his support.
“This sparkling drink is nice,” my grandmother said to the table. “What do you think, Wilfred?” she asked, trying to get him off Maggie’s line of fire before he had a heart attack.
“Very nice,” my granddad said, finishing what was in his glass and pouring some more. “I’ve had three now.”
“You know that’s alcohol?” I said to my grandmother across the table.
“No it’s not, it’s a sparkling soft drink.” She picked up the bottle and passed it to me. “Look.”
“No, it’s literally alcohol. Look here,” I said, tapping the sticker on the bottle. “It says five-point-five percent.”
“Jesus Christ,” my grandmother said, terror in her voice. “Get that wine away from Granddad,” she told Diana, who immediately started to prise the glass from his hand.
“Maggie, we’ve poisoned ourselves! Get us some water,” my grandmother shrieked. “Sylvie, you call the ambulance.”
“Nobody is calling an ambulance,” I said, standing up.
“You’re right, a cab to the hospital will be quicker,” my grandmother said, snatching the bottle of water from Maggie and pouring a glass for my granddad. “What’s that thing you use? H’uba? The H’uba, call the H’uba!”
“Just drink water, you’ll be fine!” I said. “I’m not getting you an Uber!”
“We’re on so much medication, Queenie, we don’t know how the alcohol will mix with it,” my grandmother barked at me. Panic had taken over. This was obviously where I got it from. “Is anyone in here a doctor?” she shouted across the restaurant.
“Cassandra, your boyfriend’s a doctor, innit, shall we call him?” Kyazike grinned. Cassandra pretended not to hear her.
“I need to go,” I said to Darcy.
“To go where?” she asked. “They’ll honestly be fine if they stop flapp—”
“I’ll be back in a sec.” I walked to the loo and turned back to see if anyone had seen me leave. Kyazike was pouring glasses of water for my grandmother while my granddad drank from his glass with one hand and flapped himself with his flat cap with the other; my grandmother was rooting around in her handbag and handing Cassandra various boxes of pills and asking her to read what happens when each tablet was mixed with alcohol; my mum was trying to explain what was happening to the restaurant manager while Diana filmed it all on her phone and Maggie told her off for not taking it seriously.
I pushed the bathroom door open with my foot and stepped inside, taking deep breaths as I stood in front of the sink and looked in the murky mirror. It was quiet in here. The only noise I could hear was the steady drip of a tap. My grandparents would be fine, that wasn’t the issue. Despite everything, I wanted to call Tom, to tell him that my life was back on track, that I was celebrating being mostly better in more ways than I knew I could be. I took my phone out of my pocket and scrolled through my phone book. I found Tom’s contact page and stared at it. My finger hovered over the call button.
“Are you ill?” Darcy walked into the loo.
“No. Not physically, anyway.” I put my phone into my pocket. “What’s going on out there now?” I asked tentatively.
“They’ve calmed down. Turns out the manager used to be a doctor, and as soon as he told your grandparents the alcohol was too weak to make a difference to their medication, they went back to normal. It was weird. Like someone turned their hysteria switches off.”
“They’re Jamaican, Darcy. Doctors are the only people they trust. If he’d told them the alcohol was going to kill them, they’d have jumped in a cab to the cemetery.”
“What’s wrong?” Darcy said, squeezing next to me and putting an arm around my shoulders. I rested my cheek on her hand.
“When all of that commotion was happening, I saw everyone in the restaurant looking at us, and it made my head feel funny, and when my head felt funny, my stomach dropped, and I felt a bit like I did before. And I know it sounds stupid, but I just wanted Tom to make it right. After everything he—”
“Yes, Queenie, that sounds incredibly stupid,” Darcy said, cutting me off. “After everything that’s happened this year, that is honestly the maddest thing I have ever heard. Take a few deep breaths, have a think about why it’s the maddest thing I’ve ever heard, and when you’ve finished, come back out to the restaurant. We, all of the people who love you, who have been there for you, will be behind that door.”
“Firm words. Are you channeling Cassandra?” I asked her as she left the bathroom.
“I’m not a therapist.” Cassandra turned back to look at me. “Nor do I need to train to be one to tell you that you love what Tom represented more than you love him. We both know that he’s incredibly basic.”
* * *
“Okay,” I said aloud to myself, after I’d checked that there wasn’t anyone in either of the toilet stalls. “Even though things aren’t tiptop, they are definitely better, and here’s why.” I stared at my reflection.
“One. In a shock twist, Gina told you that after your ‘surprisingly great’ gig review, the Daily Read is going to give you a regular music writing slot. Scary, yes, and not quite as political as you wanted, but you can get there. So you’re doing great things at work, even though you were almost fired for sexual assault earlier in the year. Talk about a comeback! Two. Ted’s been fired for misconduct and lying by omission and you never have to see him again. Three. You’ve deleted those bleak-as-fuck dating apps that only really served to make you forget that beneath the big boobs and bum you are a human person who is easily damaged. Plus, now you don’t want to look at men, never mind have sex with them.” I tensed up as the men of the last year flashed before my eyes. Mouths and hands biting and pulling and smacking and scratching and— I took some deep breaths to stop myself from getting all het up again. Darcy might be right, but I still missed Tom. I missed him a lot. Maybe if I apologized to him again, with a bit more space between us, maybe he’d soften? I should have been able to tell him what I was going through. I won’t make that mistake again, I promised myself, if someone—nonmarried (times two), not sexually aggressive or with a girlfriend, not manipulative or a secret neo-Nazi—ever wanted to be with me. I took some more deep breaths. I was feeling better. “Four. As for the anxiety, and the head feeling weird and then the stomach following, even if you do go back to how things were, you made it out before, you’ll make it out again. You have tools to cope this time, and even though deep breathing and safe spaces don’t sound like they’ll help, they do. Five, the night terrors have eased off. Maybe not forever, but at least you haven’t punched your grandmother in the night or fallen out of bed for a significant amount of time. Six, when you go back into that restaurant, look. Look at all of those people who love you. You are worthy of love, and they prove that. They’ll always be there for you, like they have been when you needed it most.” I paused. “Possibly not Cassandra, she is definitely a variable. And . . . seven. As for Tom,” I said, pulling my phone back out, “you know what you need to do.” I unlocked it and looked at Tom’s contact page again. Something shifted. His picture was the one I’d taken on our one-year anniversary, on Clapham Common where we first met, just after he promised that whatever happened between us, he’d never abandon me. “Time to move on.” I accepted.
* * *
Delete.
* * *