1 Two Rings, Both For Sorrow
There was nothing out of the ordinary about that particular order apart from the fact of course that she was very alone and very pregnant: whisky on ice which she downed in two gulps and a half-pint of Heineken that she sipped at distractedly while she stared out into the crowd of dancing lights that were occasionally bounced around the glass of the windows violently as it caught on something shiny and played with her jewellery. She fiddled with her rings and earrings, twisting them round and round trying to detangle her necklace from the wispy hairs at the nape of her neck.
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"When are you coming back?"
"Darling, you know that's not up to me to decide. As long as it takes to close the deal, it would mean a huge raise and also make something of my name, you know what it's like, you're only as good as the last deal."
She didn't but she bit her lip anyway and let him draw her in for a hug with her arms staying woodenly by her sides. She could smell the cologne she had gotten him for Christmas and the aftershave that she loved so much and something else? Something spicy and warm. She put it down to the cinnamon tarts they had shared that previous night.
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She wore a thick, long trench coat that came past her knees and obscured any of what she had on under it, collar upturned against the world. She eyed her left hand where the small cluster of stones on the platinum band on her engagement ring caught the dim light and sparkled pathetically. The other patrons that sat in booths and groups along the bar all looked comically animated as if she was watching them in a children's cartoon. She reached for her Heineken and sipped at the lukewarm beer, not really tasting the liquid as it ran down her throat.
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"Where are you going this time?"
"New York for that conference and then a flight to our new client briefing in Illinois. I can feel it Char, this is going to be the big one that finally gets me that promotion, we'll talk about that new pool table when I get back yeah?"
"Should we not start the down payment for the house?"
"Like I said, we'll talk." He planted a sloppy kiss on her cheek, petted Oscar, their hyperactive puppy, quickly on the head and whizzed out of the door in a flurry of suits and hasty, half-hearted goodbyes. The smell of smoke lingered in the suffocating air of the empty front porch and she wrinkled her nose in disgust. The boyfriend she thought she had didn't smoke. He had told her that on their first date as an 'official couple', he despised the smell and called it sickening, pulling a comical retching face to lighten the sombre mood and threw a piece of popcorn for her to catch in her mouth.
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She signalled for another. The dregs of beer at the bottom of the pint glass had discoloured into a sickening pee-coloured liquid. The bartender eyed her through a cocked eyebrow for clarification. "The whiskey. In fact," she mused. "To hell with it, the whole damn bottle."
"That's top shelf, miss, also should you really be drinking in your condition?" the bartender nodded at her protruding, very obviously pregnant belly. "As much as my manager will kill me for not selling, it's probably not in your best interests."
"And why the hell would you care?"
"We're trying too, my girlfriend and me, you're so lucky," his lips quirked with a wry smile.
"She's the lucky one, got someone with her to stop her from drinking. Someone who cares enough to stop this whole mess from happening to begin with." A hollow laugh, "so, are you going to sell me the drink?"
He ran his hand through his hair and there was a pause, "no. Eilidh'll go nuts if she hears, but no, it's not good for you or the wee 'un. I'll take my chance with the dragon any day."
"Oi, barkeep, stop chatting up the chick!" A yell from the other side of the bar startled the young bartender and he turned around sheepishly and threw her an apologetic grimace before tending to his other customers.
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"Char? What's going on, I'm in the middle of a meeting?"
"I just wanted to check in, it's been radio silence all week, how's the deal?"
"I thought there was some big disaster, could it not have waited?"
She could probably recite his voicemail message backward in her sleep by now.
"Char? You still there?"
"Yeah."
"Look, the deal's been harder than we thought to close, I'll not be home for another week at least. Wilson's about to tear his hair out, I need to go."
"Brad? Babe, who's that on the phone? Can you check whether the pizza's here yet, I'm starving!"
The woman's voice from her boyfriend's end of the phone was sharp and nasally. The tilting accent suggested that, whoever she was, wasn't all too familiar with English. It made her stomach churn.
"I've got to go, Char, I love -"
Her knees hit the tiled floor and the acidic stench of vomit hung in the air. She held her hair back as best as she could and gasped for air. In a meeting at 1am in the morning while ordering a pizza and having someone in his bed? He wishes.
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She was drumming her fingers on the worn bar surface and the bartender, having placated his other customers with freshly topped up drinks, set a glass of water in front of her. She dragged her fingers across the cold glass and drew a smiley face and crossed out the eyes so violently that she sent the glass skidding to the opposite edge of the bar. The bartender caught the glass and set it back on her side of the bar in a practised fashion. "If you smash the glass, you're paying for it."
"Figures," she muttered, taking a gulp of water. "You know, I wanted to be a bartender when I was younger."
"Didn't we all? It was like the coolest thing, my best friend Fitz's brother was a bartender when we started drinking and we treated him like God back then. Trust us, it's not that glam."
"Yeah, bartenders always have the best stories, is it true people tell you their life stories?"
"Nah, that's just in films, more likely to throw a pint at my head, to be honest."
"Films, what a joke. Rom-coms are the worst of the lot."
"Why'd you say that?"
"Cause they're so damn stupid. And fake, entirely false advertisement of love."
"That's not true, they're right sometimes."
"Hmm, I'm still waiting for that god-damn business meeting to end and for the airport reunion scene, it's not gonna happen you know. He's been on enough business meetings for me to know that." The bitterness was unmissable.
"Jordan, you can knock off for fifteen just now." A voice coming from the back room called.
"It's fine, I'll cover for Carrie, she's on the phone to her ex anyway, better off let them finish before she starts smashing glasses again. God knows her wages don't cover all the glassware," the bartender hollered back.
"Jordan, huh, nice." She gulped at her water again, "you don't charge for water, do you?"
"It's London, doll. We charge for everything here."
"Fine, get me another water, I'll tally it up whenever I leave. How much do I owe you just now?"
"Just gone a tenner, plus the water takes you to £13.20."
"That's extortionate, water is free where I'm from."
"Where are you from?"
"Does it matter?" she fired back quicker than was necessary and then there was a long pause that hung awkwardly between them. "Sorry, home's not somewhere I want to be reminded of right now."
"Yeah well, no one ever shows up alone at a bar because they're completely happy with their lives."
"How astute."
"Why are you here anyway, at a bar I mean. You're pregnant, surely the bar's the last place you should be."
"Well, I was going to drink my sorrows away but you," she pointed a half-heartedly accusing finger at the bartender, "you just had to play the responsible, nice guy and save me from myself. How cliched. It would be more cliched if you didn't have a girlfriend but hey, we can't have everything in life."
"Honestly, you sound like you're reciting the plot for a rom-com."
"Nope, the hero in the rom-com actually has to be present for the rom-com to work. Also, no woman in a rom-com goes drinking by herself while being pregnant, she's meant to be at home binging 'Titanic' and eating ice cream and pretzels with her insufferable girlfriends or something.
"Jordan! What the hell have you done! Get back here now! Carrie go and take over the bar." The shrill voice made them both wince.
"Eilidh, I'm on the phone, just doing us all a favour and giving the toad a piece of my mind."
"Just go Carrie, we've not got anyone front of house."
"Ugh fine." A bleach-blonde in her late twenties with brunette roots showing walked out of the back and tucked her phone into her back pocket.
"You're up." Jordan tossed her a lanyard and a set of keys.
"Whatever she says, start grovelling, she looks like she's about to murder someone." Carrie grimaced even at the mention of her manager's wrath.
"It's fine, I've got a secret weapon. Dimples and puppy eyes. Works every single time," he winked and disappeared into the back.
"Never get a cheating scum boyfriend, always ends in tears," Carrie told her conspiratorially as she swiped the lanyard on the till and started to serve the customers that had started to queue up.
Don't I know it.
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She was standing at the front of the crowd of men with solemn faces in business suits with hastily sharpie-scrawled signs for whoever they had been dispatched to retrieve to some glasshouse office. The departure board had announced that among the many planes landing at Heathrow, the one Bradley would be on would be landing late. She didn't have a sign but the juxtaposition of her mere presence in that crowd of suits would have been noted by any and everyone who got off of that plane. Plus, she knew what her fiancé looked like even though they hadn't even spent a full week together as an engaged couple. Moving on. Besides his delivery of the all-important question was subpar at best.
They could hear the jetlagged passengers' voices bouncing off of the walls before they could see them. There was a woman clinging on to her fiancé's arm, laughing at some joke that had obviously been shared out of sight. He looked up and caught her eye and hastily shoved the woman that had been attached to him moments before out of arms' reach.
"Hey love, I've missed you so much." He wrapped his arms around her in a bear hug and she reciprocated the hug mechanically as if her body had forgotten how to react to close contact with another human. "That's Tanya, associate and transfer from Shanghai, you know they're like." He dropped his voice lower as he finished whispering his explanation. "No concept of personal space."
She wanted to retort with a clever quip that 'he didn't seem to mind' but her throat seized up at the last moment as she inhaled the sharp smell of citrus and cinnamon on his collar and pulled away spluttering. "You've changed your cologne."
"Yeah well, couldn't get any of my usual stuff in Shanghai, anyway, it was going free in the hotel room." He wrapped an arm around her waist and steered her towards the turntables where suitcases were already being ejected unceremoniously onto the rubber belt.
"Cologne in a hotel? Company's generous if they're willing to put you up in luxury hotels for what, three weeks."
"Yeah, just about. How's the kids? P3s are tough, all video games."
"I teach P6 Bradley, remember?"
"Yeah, yeah, Chinese kids start school way older than they do here. Anyway, come on help me look, it's a black suitcase with the company's ribbons on it."
"Like that helps, that's like every single one here."
Tanya, the woman from before, comes to stand next to her and eyes the suitcases rolling past the trio. She smelt of sharp citrus and cinnamon tarts. She finds hers before ours and smiled sickeningly at me, waved at Bradley and walked off, her small heels clicking on the polished floor.
"How was the deal? Considering you've come back with a new associate, I'm guessing it went well?"
"Yeah, was alright," his reply was distracted, "come on, let's get home. I've missed Oscar too."
"Oscar's gone, Bradley, he passed the first weekend you left, I left you like fifty voicemails."
"Oh, right."
The silence between them was suffocating.
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"Hey, I thought you'd have done a runner on me," Jordan tapped on the bar.
"Nope. Although, now that you say it, it's not a bad idea."
"Hey, don't do that, whatever's going on, it's never too late to fix."
"Bold of you assume that there's something to fix," her laugher rang hollow. "I want some more water, need to clear the fog."
He took the glass and refilled it wordlessly, "you're pregnant and you've got a ring, there's definitely history, clearly enough to fight for if you've got a ring on your finger."
"We've known each other for thirteen years, since high school. Together for eight years, married for five."
"Exactly, so much f*cking history, why throw it all away? For what? Why don't you just work it out?" His voice was getting louder with each question, not angry, just exasperated.
"For the seven years that he's been out on business meetings and trips across the globe for months and months at a time. For the years that I've spent trying to be seen by my own husband. For all the times he's slipped off his wedding band when he's going out to charity dinners and he thinks I don't notice." She took a gulp of water, breathless but didn't stop. "For the f*ucking cinnamon shampoo that's forever on his collar; for the time when he told me to get over the fact that we've not been out in three years as man and wife; for the wee man he told me to abort like he was telling me that we needed more f*cking milk!" Her hand went to cradle her belly instinctively.
She finished the water and scraped the empty glass on the bar, pushing it at the bartender who diligently filled it up again. "Every time he comes back, tells me he loves me, tells me how much he's missed me, I want to tear his hair out and shake him until the truth spills."
Another gulp and she swiped furiously at the tears and mascara that ran down her cheeks. "Thinks I don't notice that his shirt's buttoned wrong when I come into his office with lunch and he looks like he's just run a marathon. Thinks he can get away with it. It's a joke."
She stopped suddenly, her breath ragged and cheeks flaming. "No, I'm the joke. I'm the one who stayed by his side, defended him to my parents. I'm the joke here. I'm the joke. Joke. Joke. Joke…" She trailed off and buried her face in her hands.
The bartender watched as her shoulders shook uncontrollably at a loss for words. He didn't know what to do.
"Hey, Jordan, if you don't come and give us a hand there'll be trouble, also, call the cops." He was grateful for something to do, anything at all. He left, patting her back awkwardly and hastily dialled for the police before heading over towards where he had been called.
She composed herself, wiped the mascara and tear mess off of her face, steadied her shaking hands, reached for a napkin from the rack and an abandoned pen and started writing, wrote until she had filled both sides of the napkin. Then she took one last gulp and knocked the rest of her glass of water over the edge of the napkin. She left the money in a separate napkin, a safe distance from the water, pulled her coat tighter around her shoulders and slipped out of the door into the cool evening air.
When the bartender came back to the empty seat and rescued the money and sodden napkin from the dripping bar, he could only make out the few words at the end of the letter that was not smudged into illegible patterns.
I'm sorry, I can't do it anymore Bradley. We deserve better.
Char
He went to collect the money, and in the napkin, he also found two rings, a plain wedding band and a platinum engagement ring with a small cluster of pathetically shining stones.
