The Inglorious Dead (A Doug Michie Novel) by Black Tony

Author:Black, Tony [Black, Tony]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
ISBN: 9780857160478
Publisher: McNidder and Grace Limited
Published: 2014-05-28T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 22

What was the old phrase? Something like, Man plans, God laughs … As I woke up and stared at Lyn’s head on the pillow next to mine I knew we’d crossed a boundary neither of us had foreseen; well, certainly I hadn’t.

She was sleeping, her long dark hair sweeping her bare shoulders. It felt wrong to stare; I turned away and took in the carnage of the room. The abandoned clothes, the upturned bottle of Absolut and the messy remnants of the Royal Blossom’s take-away containers.

My eyes drew me back to Lyn; she seemed to be smiling in her sleep, content. There was a response queuing on my lips, something like, ‘Oh, sweet Lord …’ but I held schtum and backed out of the bed.

I scooped up my clothes from the floor; I seemed to be missing a shoe but presumed it couldn’t be too far away. As I closed the door and dressed in the hallway, my gut turned, acid bile making its way up my windpipe. It could have been the food, I told myself, but a siren wail inside my head begged to differ.

‘Vodka …’ I was at the age where social drinking meant a bottle of wine, maybe a tot of Tia Maria under the tinsel at Christmas time. What was I playing at?

The missing shoe showed itself on the top step of the staircase. I carried the pair all the way to the kitchen, presuming my stockinged feet would be best not to wake my guest. I scrunched my eyes at the thought of Lyn lying in my bed, but the image wouldn’t dissolve. I tried to ask myself what I was doing, why had this happened? I was moving on and Lyn was looking for something I couldn’t offer, or didn’t want. Well, that had been my last rational assumption.

In the kitchen I opened the window and hoped my frayed nerves would negotiate for peace with the first cigarette of the day. The hangover I could just about live with, but the guilt trip was the killer. I’d fallen for Lyn before and had the idea blow up in my face. I’d been on the rebound from my failed marriage and Lyn looked like the answer to my misery. At least, that’s what I thought at the time; looking back now I think it was more a case of like attracting like. She was at a low ebb then, too, and saying our goodbyes had been the right thing to do. It was a period in my life I’d tried to bury, move on from, move away from … at best, I’d allow myself to resort to the wisdom of Burns.

Had we never lov’d sae kindly,

Had we never lov’d sae blindly,

Never met — or never parted –

We had ne’er been broken-hearted.

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