Get Me Out of Here by Henry Sutton

Author:Henry Sutton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Europa
Published: 2012-10-03T00:00:00+00:00

SEVEN

CHAOTIC UNWINDING

It was not dark though not exactly light either. That perpetual twilight had returned and the temperature had risen a touch, as had the humidity. The cloud cover appeared permanent. Though I thought I didn’t like change, I wasn’t so happy with this overwhelmingly dim dampness. Out on the balcony, scanning the wet, grey concourse, I felt I was back on too familiar territory. I suddenly didn’t want to be stuck in an unheated flat, on my own, on an autumnal Sunday afternoon.

Company was what I craved, yet I had this terrible sinking feeling that I was fast destroying the few crucial relationships I had left, that I was increasingly alone and disconnected in this city. At that very moment I wanted to be in a country cottage, by a roaring fire, the Sunday papers to hand, or at least the TV remote, having just strolled back from a quaint sixteenth-century inn, called probably the King’s Head. This would have to be in the Cotswolds—I’d been to Stow-on-the-Wold with Fran all right, I’d checked out the heritage, those endless drystone walls, the real ale. My pregnant wife—a softening of the haunches and a swelling of the breasts well advanced—though not necessarily Fran, would be in the kitchen, her back turned, making gravy on the Aga. A forerib of beef would be resting on the slate counter—because although this would be a trad cottage, it would have been tastefully modernised. The two children we already had would be amusing themselves quietly in their bedrooms. The exhausted dog—let me see, a cheeky Jack Russell, called Brand—would be at my feet. My fat, authentically mud-splattered BMW X5 would be out in the drive, ready to ferry us back, at the end of the weekend, to our immaculate, north-west London house, where the underfloor heating would be timed to kick in well before our arrival. Was this how it had been for Fran and Joe? Before the scratches started to appear. Before the windows began to shatter and bricks amass in plush downstairs rooms. Who actually lived with all that comfort and security? That familial perfection? The insult to people like me. No wonder I had to take action.

But I had now moved on from all that. Hadn’t I learned a few lessons, at least quelled my anger? I could have punched myself. This wasn’t the moment to become reflective, even remorseful, let alone to fantasise about how things might have been. No time for weakness. I had to pull myself together and soldier on. Top of my agenda was to finish that damn business plan, attract proper funding, even if I didn’t manage to nail a sizeable contract, and get the hell out of here. While I still had the chance.

Waiting for my PowerBook to fire up I wandered back onto the balcony. I thought things hadn’t looked quite right earlier, even through the gloom—no wonder I’d wished to be miles elsewhere. Jeanette’s blinds had been up as usual but there had been no sign of life in the main room or any other rooms for that matter.

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