The Girl I Used to Be(13)

And then he kissed me.





EIGHT


Saturday, June 24

THE NEXT MORNING I felt as chilled as if I’d spent the night sleeping on a stone floor. I opened my eyes to find a beam of sunlight glaring through the gap in the curtains. My eyes hurt just to open them. A glance at my watch told me it was nine A.M. and I had to get up; I’d slept through my alarm. I knew I had to go down to the conference room, but my head was pounding mercilessly. My mouth was dry and foul. I needed water.

I hauled myself up out of bed and staggered into the bathroom, kicking aside my dress, which I’d left on the bedroom floor the night before. For a moment I thought I’d be okay, but the sun was shining through the window onto the bathroom tiles and they were such a brilliant, vivid white that they made my head hurt. Immediately I was sick in the toilet. Afterward my head throbbed so badly I saw stars. I rinsed my face at the basin but avoided looking at my reflection. I knew I’d look awful. There was a mini bar in the bedroom, and I took a bottle of water out and drank it down in one, my hands shaking on the bottle. I brushed my teeth vigorously, but my mouth still tasted disgusting. I couldn’t go downstairs like this.

Outside the door the cleaner’s trolley squeaked its way down the corridor, and I winced at the sound. Surely it shouldn’t be so loud. I wanted to take some painkillers and go back to bed, but the conference was due to start at nine thirty and, in any case, checkout was ten A.M. so I had to get going.

I had no choice; I had to go down to the conference. I took off my underwear—clearly I hadn’t bothered getting fully undressed last night, never mind putting on my pajamas—and stepped into the shower. Every movement seemed a huge effort, as though my limbs were heavy and weak. Eventually I was clean and dry and dressed, but I knew I looked far from well. I spent longer than usual on my makeup, trying to make myself look sober and smart, but I doubted I’d be fooling anyone. My eyes were red-rimmed and sore, and I put my glasses on to try to hide the fact that I was hungover. I was so furious with myself for drinking like that; it was as though I hadn’t had a filter, a gauge to tell me when to stop.

Downstairs I took a cup of coffee from the buffet table and picked up a couple of bottles of water, too. There was no way I could eat anything; just the thought made me feel ill. I bought some mints and a newspaper from the kiosk. I had no intention of reading the paper, but I wanted something to hide behind. When a text came through from Joe to wish me a good morning, I winced with shame. When would I ever learn? I hadn’t drunk like that for years, not since the old days at university. He’d never known me like that, though he knew I’d been through a tough time there. When I met Joe I felt comfortable with him immediately and had told him everything about my past. I was ready to move on then, ready to make a new start, and one of my promises to myself was that I wouldn’t drink too much. I’d stuck to that promise, too, until now. I flinched. I couldn’t tell him I was hungover; I’d told him earlier in the evening that I was going to bed early.

“Bad night?” Helen, a woman from Cornwall that I met occasionally at these events, sat down next to me. She looked sympathetic. “You look really tired.”

“I feel awful,” I said. “I had far too much to drink last night. If I have to run out, will you make my excuses?”

She smiled. “That bad, eh?”

“Worse.”

“Want some painkillers?”

“Thanks, I’ve run out of them.” Grateful, I took them from her. I swallowed them and took a drink of water; my hand was shaking so much I spilled it on my newspaper.

“Wow, you have got it badly!” she said. “You can keep the rest of those tablets; you might need them later.”

“Thanks,” I said, embarrassed. “I don’t drink much normally. Haven’t for years. I overdid it last night.”

The room started to quieten as Philip Doyle, the tutor, moved to the front of the room and tapped his microphone. The sound made me flinch.

“Were you here overnight, then?” she whispered. “I was staying with a friend in Surrey. Who else was here?”

My mind went blank. Who had been here? I turned to look around the room and saw a sea of faces. I couldn’t recognize anyone at first, and then I saw Liam sitting with his colleagues, laughing at something one of them had said. He looked pretty rough, too, though he was managing to eat a huge sandwich. Like me, he must have missed breakfast. I turned away, unable to watch him eat it.

“It was pretty busy,” I said. “Liam Fossett was here, though. I know I saw him and all his gang.”

“Ugh, you didn’t have to spend much time with them, did you?”

“No,” I said. “One of my clients was here. I had dinner with him. He’s been here for meetings all week.”

She smiled at me. “Nice?”

The thought of David’s face as he lowered his mouth to mine came into my mind then. I shuddered. How drunk had I been? I shook my head to try to force the image from my mind. “Yeah, he’s okay. Better than Liam, at any rate. We had too much to drink, though. I’m paying the price now.”

“It’s our age,” she said. “Remember when you could drink whatever you wanted and it didn’t make a difference the next day?”

“I don’t miss those days at all, though. Halfway through a night out I tend to wish I were in my pajamas, in bed.”