As he stepped into the musty warmth of his bedsit he felt the headache that had been niggling in the back of his neck all day assert itself with a vengeance. It had been a terrible day at the hospital with the victims of a coach crash stretching the under resourced hospital to its limits and causing him to work an extra five hour shift, just to help clear the backlog. As if that weren't enough, when he finally escaped at midnight and started the thankless journey home he found that once again, his car had a flat battery and in the absence of anyone to jump start the car he thrust his hands into his pockets and trudged to the bus stop, hankering after the days when he could afford AA membership or indeed, a car that didn't break down every five days. At gone midnight there were unsurprisingly few buses, although allegedly there was a night bus that ran once an hour so resentfully, he called a cab and made a mental note to deny all knowledge to his creditors.
Pushing open the door to the kitchen, the cheap plywood door gave an ominous creek that made him think that a call to the landlord would soon be in order and he saw the red light on the answer machine winking smugly at him. Once again he wondered why he kept the machine that gave him nothing but trouble – generally he didn't want to speak to whoever was calling and avoiding them was a bonus. The exception to the rule was Jess and she always called his mobile anyway so there was little advantage in knowing who had called in his absence and being forced to return the call. Even so he reluctantly pushed the button and froze at the well-known voice filling the room. Of all the people he'd expected to hear from, it hadn't been her – after six months of nothing more than the very occasional post card filled with cheery statements of how well her new life was going, he certainly hadn't expected her to start leaving messages on his answer machine. Especially not messages whose main aim seemed to be to thank him for something that to his dismay he had recently found fell under his job description. Despite this, he found himself listening to it over and over again;
"Hi Ric, it's Connie here" as if he hadn't known in the first syllable who was calling "I'm just calling to thank you for the tax forms and pay slips you forwarded – I really appreciate it. Perhaps I'll see you next time I'm in England?' a nervous pause followed the question which seemed rather rhetorical – whether or not she saw him was down to her and he had long since given up on the illusion that he had any control in their so-called relationship "Anyway, must dash – I'm running late for work and I'll miss the train. Bye" followed by the prolonged beep of the tone that told him that the message had come to an end and then the shorter beep of his pressing play and starting the message over again.
If he had listened more carefully, perhaps he would have seen beyond the words to the message that lay beneath the speech that she had spent hours carefully preparing as she persistently punched in his number and then hung up as her nerve failed her. Perhaps he would have heard the barely perceptible tremble to her voice beneath the veneer of confidence that she battled to present throughout the message. Perhaps if he had listened to more than just the words he would have realised that she was as unhappy as he was and taken some comfort from the fact that perhaps their relationship had not been as one sided as it had felt when she left him. Instead he felt only bitterness that she seemed so much happier away from him than she was when they were together. The message served only to reinforce his suspicion that he was, in fact, no good for her.
Momentarily he considered returning her call; at two thirty in the morning in England it would be half six in California and if he called now then in all likelihood she would be out and he wouldn't have to speak to her, instead getting away with a short but to the point message on her answer machine before he could forget her again, or at least pretend that she was forgotten. Alternatively he could dig out the bottle of aged whiskey that he had won at the recent hospital raffle that he had entered despite Diane's disapproval. The whiskey, he felt, represented a definite upwards turn in his fortunes – for once in his life he had won something rather than simply winding up poorer for taking a gamble. Surely that had to be a good sign. Diane and Jess disagreed, insisting that the raffle represented his first step on a slippery slope back to addiction but he preferred to think of it as an auspicious sign.
Quickly he decided on the whiskey as the less painful, or at least less immediately painful, course of action and poured himself a large measure, downing it in one swift mouthful and shuddering as he felt it scorch a blazing trail along his tongue and down his throat to his stomach. Then he sat back, basking in the warm glow that the alcohol gave him and wondering why it was that he still felt cold, empty and lonely. For a man with such a vast extended family, he seemed to spend rather a lot of time alone and increasingly he was finding that he dreaded the time that he spent outside work. After all, there was nothing that made him crave the rattle of the roulette ball more than a night spent alone with nothing for company but the TV.
He had felt this way before but what had saved him before was the cause of his current misery. Almost a year ago she had bought him back from the brink in one single, particularly fantastic session in bed. Of course it had taken more than that to even begin to solve the problems that weighed him down but in that one act, she had reminded him that life was worth living and that he was still capable of experiencing enjoyment. Over the weeks that passed he had fallen for her, harder and faster than he had fallen for anyone before and she knew exactly how he felt about her. For a short time he had allowed himself to entertain the rather pleasant fantasy that she felt the same way about him but his illusions were quickly shattered when she came into his office bubbling with excitement and announced that she had been offered the job which she had spent her entire career working for. He had been thrilled for her until she revealed the snag; the job was in America and it was a single seat that had been booked on the plane. She hadn't even had the courage or courtesy to tell him outright that she was moving away, instead announcing that she was leaving two days before her flight, making it abundantly clear that it would be inappropriate for a man who she saw as little more than a casual lay to join her. She had told him in slightly patronising tones that their liaison had been fun while it lasted and then she turned and walked out of the office, not even glancing back at him. It was this view of her – the backside swinging slightly as she strutted away from him, bouncing jauntily on her heels – that he carried in his mind. He couldn't bring himself to remember the good times that they'd had together – the days when she had slept in his arms or the time when they made slow, sultry love in every room of her house, a final insult to the man whose lawyers were forcing her to sell it as part of a divorce settlement. All he could remember of her now was the final sting of her betrayal and the way she looked as she walked away from the final time.
He was four glasses of whiskey down by the time he finally plucked up the courage to pick up the phone and return her call, wincing as he tried to decipher the hastily scrawled digits where he had written down her phone number earlier in the evening. Slowly he punched in the numbers and heard the familiar clicks of the international call connecting as he stretched his legs in front of him and shut his eyes, preparing to leave a short message on her machine and then fall asleep. Eventually the ringing stopped and was replaced by a crackling line and then a familiar voice that lacked its usual edge of hardness and confidence;
"Hello" he froze for a moment, waiting for the answer phone to continue with the message, then praying that Connie had behaved completely out of character and recorded a stupid message which led the caller to believe and they had got through before mocking them for their stupidity. It was only when the voice repeated a second, more impatient "HELLO?" that he was forced to admit that he had miscalculated in his plan to call while she was at work. Panicked he slammed the phone back in the cradle, staring at it as one might a ticking time bomb for a moment before standing and articulating a single, unslurred word; fuck.