I know I promised to tell her why things with Chantal are complicated, I was going to do it last night after we got back from our walk in the sodding rain but the appearance of the lady herself put an end to that. I've been trying all day to get the peace and, I suppose, a bit of privacy to do it and now we're on the bloody train going home and I still haven't managed it. I know I said I was getting off at Crewe to go for a booze-up with the lads in Liverpool, but I hadn't known then that the train would be packed with football supporters, most of them seem cheerful enough, but they're all pissed and I don't like leaving Molly alone in the middle of them.
She doesn't want me to stay with her, keeps telling me to sod off, saying she'll be fine and insisting that a few drunks don't bother her and anyhow she's more than capable of taking care of herself, but I'm not a bit happy about it. Eventually I had to do as I was told, I couldn't keep arguing with her, even the drunks had started to notice and add their opinions, and then I could hear her voice loud and clear, well you could hardly mistake it, as she sorted out some chancers who'd seen me do what she wanted and leave.
"Nah sorry mate, I only go out with me own sort, you know human beings, and as for your mate, I thought he was me dad for a minute" so I have to assume that she's right and that she wasn't just saying it to make me feel better but I didn't want to get off that train, every bloody instinct I have was telling me to either go back and stay with her, to make sure nothing happened to her, or even better, to pull her off the train and take her to Liverpool with me. I can't do either; she'll end up telling me as well as him that I'm just like her dad.
My night out with the lads went pretty much as I expected it to and my hangover next morning was pretty spectacular as well, I haven't been out on the booze like that for a very long time, the evenings spent drinking in New York were almost tee-total by comparison. It didn't seem to matter how pissed I got though I couldn't get away from worrying about Molly the whole bloody time and had she got home safely? I really wished I'd thought to ask her to just text me when she got back. Mind you, it would probably have given her another chance to tell me to stop behaving as if I was her dad, but I still wish I'd done it.
OGOGOGOGOG
I met her for a bite after she finished work, I still hadn't told her about Chantal and I wanted to, although I couldn't actually see now why it seemed so important that she knew, it didn't make any difference to anything after all, but it was just that I'd made a promise and I needed to keep it. Mind you, I was a bit worried that she was pissed at me for some reason because I could hear it in her voice when I called her from Crewe and although she said everything was fine, she was still a bit narky when we were eating. The waitress, who was hanging around and making a bit of a fuss of me, was pissing her off big time, and God she can be feisty when she's bugged. I told her about Chantal, although not that I'd had a voice mail message from the lady waiting for me when I got back from Scotland saying we need to have a meeting to talk about the future as soon as possible. I have no idea what that means, whether she can fire me or anything when I have a contract and if she does whether I'm going to have to find someone else to represent me. We're supposed to be off to the States tomorrow, so this couldn't have happened at a worse time, but I suppose it serves me right for mixing business with pleasure, I can hear my dad now with his "Told you so" and he's right, he did, dammit!
Telling Molly about Chantal and how things are, or rather were, with her, even without this bloody meeting, I could hear myself beginning to sound as if I'm trying to get the stuff about Chantal out of the way so that I can ask Molly to think about me as someone to have a relationship with. I need to stop it, I don't get emotionally involved so even if I did manage to split her from Steve, which to be honest is what I'd love to do, nothing is going to happen between us, we're friends. I need to leave her alone, to stop thinking of trying to fuck up her life with him, to step back and let her get married and maybe have children, if that's what she wants and to stop being so sodding selfish otherwise I'll even lose her as a friend.
0GOGOGOGOG
My new agent is Mitch and she's brilliant, much closer to my mother's age than mine and very, very proud of her three grandchildren, which will make mum spit with envy if she ever gets to meet her. My contract meant that Chantal couldn't fire me even if she'd wanted to, and I think she did, but she handed me over to a colleague instead saying that she didn't want to work with me anymore, which, to be honest, was a huge relief. It meant that I went to the States on my own, and did the interviews and stuff for the launch of the James' saga part two, and did everything else I had to, albeit some of it a bit later than we'd originally scheduled. There weren't any problems, no-one asked any awkward questions about my agent, but it did mean that my trip to Exeter with Molly had to be postponed, which believe me wasn't such a bad thing, it gave me more time to distance myself and to try and stop myself thinking about her and Steve playing happy families.
OGOGOGOGOG
Bournemouth and Poole would probably be very nice in the summer, but I've got the feeling it's going to be pretty shit at this time of the year for going out for long walks in the evenings, so we probably won't, more's the pity. I knew the second I clapped eyes on her again, well even before that to be honest, that all those good resolutions didn't count for a bloody thing when she was sitting across from me on a train, reading what looks like an advance copy of part 2 and avoiding looking at me. I wanted to ask her to give me a chance, to take some time and think whether he's the right bloke for her, that I'd missed her badly when I was in the States and that I didn't mean a word of it when I told her I only wanted her as a friend, and more than anything else I wanted to kiss her. And I couldn't do any of that, could I?
Sandbanks is a very beautiful place and I could see why Molly said immediately that she'd changed her mind about where she most wanted to live, that Soho didn't seem nearly as nice anymore and then both of us, the taxi driver and I, laughed at the expression on her face when I told her how much a house costs, that I'd read it somewhere, and that actually it's more expensive to live in Sandbanks than in Central London.
The view from the hotel dining room was magic, you could see across to Studland Bay and Brownsea Island and the sea and the little ferry across the harbour mouth, but I wasn't looking at the view, I was watching her face all the time, wanting desperately to find something neutral to talk about, something that would make her relax and laugh, so that we could get back to the fun we had when we went to Edinburgh, before things got complicated. I'm not sure if it was her idea or mine that we started doing shots, I just know it felt like a great idea at the time and the way she giggled as I told her about America was very infectious, and I knew I was getting pissed, well we both were. She started telling me about trying to get fit by going to Yoga and even though she was laughing, how bloody awful it was, and I don't know what triggered the feeling I had that I didn't want to laugh any more, that I wanted, well I didn't know what exactly I wanted, but I didn't want her to try and change anything about herself, I needed to make sure that I told her that she's perfect just the way she is.
I shouldn't have touched her, I know it was only on her cheek but the feeling was so overwhelming that I had to take myself off to bed before I did something very, very stupid, something that I'd wanted to do for the last couple of hours, no, that's a bloody lie, for the last few weeks, well for almost as long as I'd known her, but definitely since we'd walked back from the castle in Edinburgh. I ended up deciding that even though I'd had a fair bit to drink, I was nowhere near drunk enough to stop myself knocking on her door so I drank a lot of the contents of the mini-bar, well not the gin or the rum but the whisky and the vodka, and I don't know whether I drank the brandy or spilt it, but the empty bottle was on the floor when I woke up this morning.
Mind you, describing it as waking up is a bit of an exaggeration, it was more like regaining consciousness; the booze I'd shipped last night acted like an anaesthetic and to say I was regretting it this morning would be an understatement. Everything hurt, even my teeth and I still had to go and sit in a sodding Book Shop all day smiling and breathing fumes over people and hoping that I didn't throw up on them or gas them with my morning after breath, well that's always supposing I can lift my head off the pillow without it exploding. The aftermath of my lads' night out in Liverpool was nothing compared to this and I've still got to shower, not only to help me surface, but also because I can smell myself and I stink; I can only hope that the aspirins and black coffee will stay down long enough to work before I have to go and find Molly and see what sort of state she's in this morning.
She doesn't look as though she feels quite a bad as I do, but maybe she stopped at Tequila and left the mini-bar alone, but neither of us look at our best exactly. She is very pale and heavy eyed and I have no idea how bad I look, I haven't actually checked, but if it's anything like the way I feel, I must look like shit.
Drinking gallons of water and peeing for Britain helped with the dizziness and the headache of being completely dehydrated; Molly seemed to be coping much better than I was. I am just beginning to feel a bit more human, but even so I am not sorry when its three thirty and we can smile nicely, say thanks very much and then bog off. It's a lovely afternoon, blue sky with just a few clouds, a bit cold and windy but at least it's not pissing down which it has been every other day we've been on this tour. I want to get changed and go for a walk, to get on the little ferry and go and explore Studland, go for a walk on the beach which will blow the hangover cobwebs away and I've decided that I have to ask Molly to maybe have another think about whether she really wants to marry Steve. I know it's a huge risk, that I could end up losing her friendship, but I'm not sure if I want to go on as we are.
OGOGOGOGOG
Author's notes: The consensus was to carry on, so that's what I'm doing. I'm not sure what I want now, the thought of another 5 hours of CJ watching is the sort of fantasy that dreams are made of, it's just that I can't bear the thought of him moving on from Molly, but I guess I mustn't pre-judge and I'll have to trust that TG won't do that to us.
I hope that you enjoy this chapter, and you all know where the next one is leading.