The Girl I Used to Be(15)

“I was,” I said. “I changed my mind.”

“There are two meals there,” said Rachel. “Did you pay for someone else?”

Struggling to keep the irritation out of my voice, I said, “I met a client there. I paid for the meal.”

Out of the corner of my eye I could see Sophie and Rachel staring at each other and then at me.

“Why have they sent it to you?” asked Sophie.

“Tax reasons,” said Brian. I hadn’t even known he was taking an interest. “You have to keep your receipts so that you can claim the tax back.”

“Well, then,” I said, “that was very nice of them.” I put the document into the folder I used to store receipts for my tax returns.

But later when everyone was busy and I had a few moments to myself, I took the receipt out and looked at it again. Why had they sent this to me? And why send a copy? It wasn’t as though they needed to keep the original for themselves. They would have a record of it on their system. But in any case, surely if it was just left on the table they’d throw it away?

I’d tried not to think of that night with David in the restaurant. I’d thought those days where I’d drink too much and get into situations with strange men were over. By the time I hit my midtwenties and met Joe, I was past all that. But the night I’d met David, I’d drunk so much I couldn’t remember much of it. Why had I done that? While Rachel dealt with a client and Sophie spoke on the phone to a solicitor, I forced myself to think about it.

I could remember bumping into David and his drink spilling on the floor. I could remember realizing it was him. He’d saved me from talking to someone else, too. I thought hard. Liam, that was it. I was glad he’d done that. And we’d had a meal. I’d had a couple of drinks before the meal, I knew that. I could remember ordering a couple of gins from the barman. Then an image flashed into my mind: two empty bottles of red wine on our table. I never drank more than a couple of glasses, maybe half a bottle, normally, and not as much as that if I’d had gin beforehand. How much had I drunk? I couldn’t bear to think about how ill I was the next morning. Being sick from drinking was something teenagers did, not adults. Surely I hadn’t drunk that much? But my head hurt so much the next day . . . I must have been completely out of it. I winced with embarrassment. I hadn’t had a drink since that night and planned to keep it that way.

But I kept coming back to the question: Why would the hotel send the receipt back to me? I’d never known that to happen. Even in a shop, if you walk off without the receipt, the assistant just throws it into the bin. Why spend money and time returning it to me?

Just then the door opened and Joe’s sister, Caitlin, came in. I put the receipt back into the folder and stood up to hug her.

“Good holiday?” I asked. The weekend before she’d come back from a holiday in Italy with her husband, Ben. “Lovely tan.”

“Thanks. It was tough being back at work this week, though.”

“Ben’s back in Dubai now?”

“Yes. I won’t see him for another couple of weeks.” She looked lost for a moment, then pulled herself together. “I’ve just been to Wrexham for a meeting. No point going back to Liverpool now, so I thought I’d call in and see what you’re up to.” Caitlin worked in recruitment and was in charge of a number of offices in the northwest of England. “Are you okay? You looked worried when I came in.”

“I’m fine, thanks. All okay.”

“And Joe? Rory?”

“Yes, they’re great.”

“I called in to see them before I went away,” she said. “You were away in London. Rory and Joe were having a good time.”

“I meant to call you about that,” I said, immediately feeling guilty. “They said you were there. Did you get roped into cooking for them?”

“Oh, Rory persuaded me to make him an apple pie,” she said. “He said he hadn’t had one for ages.”

“You’ve been had,” I said. “Joe makes them for him all the time.”

She laughed. “He was very convincing. Said it was years since he’d had one.”

I laughed. “He has no idea of time.”

“I didn’t mind, though; it was nice to see them. Did you have a good time?”

I grimaced. “The course was okay, but I wasn’t well on Saturday. I had to keep running out to the loo.” My face burned at the memory of the swift dashes from the room and at the knowing looks of some of the guys who must have seen me in the bar the night before.

“Ugh, that sounds horrible. Did you have too much to drink? Weren’t you just going to have a quiet night?” We’d talked about it the week before the training day, how I was looking forward to a relaxing night on my own.

I hesitated but luckily she didn’t seem to notice. “I think I just had an upset stomach.”

I don’t know why I didn’t confide in her. We told each other everything, right from our first night in Halls when we were students. We’d always been close, and I loved the fact that she was Joe’s sister. His family became mine and mine his; it was perfect for us. But this . . . I couldn’t talk to her about this. I hated the thought of her thinking of me drunk and incapable, stumbling and incoherent as I knew I must have been. As she’d seen me so many times before.