The Unfinished Symphony of You and Me by Lucy Robinson

Author:Lucy Robinson [Robinson, Lucy]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: General, Fiction
ISBN: 9781405911597
Google: ZKbfAgAAQBAJ
Publisher: Penguin UK
Published: 2014-06-09T23:00:00+00:00

Scene Twelve

Perhaps unrealistically, I had rather hoped for an apology from Fiona the day after her party. She knew I’d spent hours organizing it and – more to the point – she must have known how devastating it would be for me to catch her taking cocaine while chatting merrily away with Julian.

I received no apology. The next day I didn’t need to be at the Met until four o’clock, but by the time I left the apartment she was still asleep. I saw Raúl in the stairwell as I left the building, so I knew she was in there on her own.

‘I’m sorry I left so abruptly last night,’ I said.

He shrugged. ‘Hey, no worries, man. You were upset.’

‘I heard she never actually came to her own party.’

Raúl shook his head. ‘Nope. But it was a blinder. We went on until seven a.m.’

‘How come? Were there drugs?’ I spoke far too quickly.

‘Um – I dunno. If there were, I wasn’t on them,’ he said defensively.

‘No, no, sorry, Raúl. That’s not what I was thinking. I was actually worried about –’ I stopped.

‘Fiona,’ he finished for me. Her name hung heavily in the air between us.

‘Yes. Are you two OK?’ I sounded desperate.

Raúl’s face clouded. ‘I hope so,’ he said sadly.

It was a terrible blow – yet deadeningly predictable – when I got a call from Barry later on to say that Raúl had finished with Fiona. Barry didn’t know the precise circumstances but he reported that there had been a lot of screaming and crying, and that after Raúl had gone, Fiona had thrown an ashtray through the window so we now had the challenging task of trying to find a warehouse window pane.

I thought of what Julian had said last night, about how mad Raúl was about Fiona but that he couldn’t be anywhere near people who took drugs. And I felt a chill.

When I got back from work that night, close to midnight, the apartment reeked of bad humour. Fiona barely acknowledged me but sat hunched on the sofa with a huge measure of Scotch, a bag of ice melting slowly beside her. Her pupils were massive, she was talking complete shit to Barry and her hands were shaking. I felt sick. When I tried to talk to her she stalked off to her bedroom with the Scotch, slamming the door behind her.

Julian arrived shortly after with a box of Yorkshire Tea. And a sachet of Bird’s custard. ‘I’m too old to crack open the booze after midnight,’ he explained cheerfully. ‘And I miss this shit! I get it imported! Let’s make some custard and drink tea!’

I was so relieved to see things like custard and tea, rather than Scotch – and Julian’s smiley face, rather than Fiona’s black scowl – that I burst into spontaneous honking. It was something between laughter and tears and it made Julian hug me and honk a bit himself, although his honking was pure laughter. ‘You sound like Pam the dog when she’s having a bad dream,’ he said.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.