They both slept fitfully that night, Ric unable to get that image of the tempting inside of the betting shop out of his mind, and Connie tossing and turning with the discomfort of her current condition. Ric couldn't escape from that pull he'd felt to go in and blow whatever he had on him, on the most promising horse available. He could almost hear the thunder of hooves in his mind as he drifted in and out of sleep, combined with the rattle of chips being shifted under the croupier's wooden spatula. The rattle of the tiny ball on the roulette wheel, the shuffle of cards, they were all sounds that were far too familiar to him. So familiar in fact, that he could conjure them up without any difficulty whatsoever. What would Connie feel if she knew all these things? Would she still want to be his rock, as he knew she was certainly becoming? Would she still want to listen to his hardly thought-provoking ramblings? He hadn't been lying earlier when he'd said that he'd badly wanted to cry, because he'd felt a severe need to expel all the corrosive poison of his addiction, to cleanse himself of the depression over Paris's death, and to rake away all the badness, all the weakness of character that made him who he was. He wanted to clasp some beautiful, loving woman to him, such as Connie for instance, and howl his bloody eyes out against the injustice of his life, his daughter's life, and the life of her child that had been ended so prematurely.
Connie knew that he was having as little success at sleeping as she was, and to some extent she could feel the waves of self-loathing coming off him, making her want to hold him to her and soothe all his pain away. When she realised that neither of them were about to get any sleep in the near future, she broke the uneasy silence. "Why can't you sleep?" She asked, wondering what sort of answer she would get. "Just thinking about life, the universe and everything," Ric told her dryly. "What about you?" "My womb seems to think its a good time of the day to give me hell," She replied without thinking, and finding herself amazed that she'd said such a thing, never having done so with Michael. Connie was lying on her side, facing away from him, and as he cuddled himself up behind her, her body slightly stiffened. Just because of what had happened earlier that evening, didn't automatically mean that she could suppress her reaction that had lasted years, to having anyone close to her at a time like this. But when Ric put his left arm round her, and laid his firm, gentle hand on the flat plain of her lower abdomen, she made a move to detach herself from him. "Just relax," He assured her softly. "I'm told this really does work." He didn't ad that it was Lola who'd told him this, but as he began to deftly massage her taught, knotted belly, she groaned in awe at the relief he was giving her. "Whoever taut you that deserves a medal," She said after a while. "I can't remember whether it was Diane or Lola," Ric told her with a smile.
Then, after a softly contented silence, Connie said, "We didn't exactly finish our conversation earlier, did we?" "That depends on what you wanted to talk about," Ric said, carefully hedging his bets. "If I ask you something," Connie continued just as carefully. "Will you try not to flinch away from me?" "Oh well, I suppose there is a bonus in the fact that I'm not looking at you," Ric said philosophically. "When you walked passed that betting shop, why would you have wanted to go in? What might have made you give into that urge?" "I think I needed the buzz, the high that gambling always gives me. If it hadn't been the day of Paris's funeral, I might very well have done it, but it somehow seemed slightly disrespectful. I've been so, depressed, over the last few days, that I think I needed cheering up." Ric had hesitated over the word depressed, that Connie could feel it was an effort for him to actually voice it. "And is that such a crime to be depressed over losing your grandson?" Connie's voice was so gentle, so tender, that he was finding it almost too easy to talk to her, to put into words the feelings he usually kept to himself. "No," He replied thoughtfully. "I'm just not used to admitting it, that's all." It also occurred to him at this stage that it was easier to talk to her now, because they were in the dark, and she couldn't begin to analyze any of his facial expressions, that so often could give away his true feelings. "Connie, when I dream," He continued tentatively. "I can hear all those things that remind me of what I used to be. If it's not the thunder of horses' hooves over the turf of a particular racecourse, it's the rattle of the tiny ball on the roulette wheel. I can see the bright lights of the casino, or the dingy interior of the betting shop, just like the one I passed today. I can feel that sense of excitement, the anticipation of the win or the lose, knowing that I've placed far more than is good for me on an enormous risk that could so easily end in success or disaster. Like a drug, the gambling would give me a temporary release, make me feel free of the constraints that surrounded me either by virtue of my job or whichever woman I was married to at the time. Even though the high would always be followed by the low, knowing that I'd blown a week's rent or food money on a horse that may as well have had three legs instead of four, it still made it all worthwhile. I despise myself for what I've put far too many people through over the years. Jess, Leo, Lola, even Sam, who thought that giving me a cheque for twenty grand to sort out my debts was really a good idea. I put the entire thing on a roulette wheel the night before I was due to marry her, and lost. I felt like a cockroach, not fit to even look her in the face, and yet it wasn't her fault, it wasn't anyone else's fault but my own." He'd said these last few words with such self-loathing, such passion, that Connie knew that she was finally getting somewhere. "Jess hated every minute she spent with me when I was still gambling, because every promise I made her, to either sort myself out or to lend her money was always broken. Even last year, when I found out who the father of her baby really was, everything I did alienated her even further from me. She was pregnant, and badly needed my support, and what did I do? But react with my fist as though I thought that would solve anything. Then I left, just when she needed me to stay, something that had also been done before. It is entirely my own fault that I didn't get to know my grandson as well as I might have done, mine, and no one else's."
Connie could hear the tears in his voice, and could hear his voice beginning to crack. Halting his hand in its soothing movements on her abdomen, she took it in hers, gently chafing his fingers between her own. "You didn't know that Paris was going to die," Connie told him gently, but it didn't seem to make any difference. "But if I'd been here," Ric insisted vehemently. "I would have been here to support Jess, at a time when Zubin was clearly finding it impossible to do so." Turning over within his embrace, Connie raised herself up a little so that she was half leaning against the pillows. She could just see the tears shining in Ric's eyes, from the shaft of moonlight that had crept in through the gap in the bedroom curtains. One or two had escaped down his cheeks, making him look more vulnerable and in need of comfort than she had ever seen him. Putting her arms round him, she held him with his head against her chest, softly running her fingers through his hair. "You can't hold the entire world in your hands, sweetheart," She told him gently. "And even if you could, that wouldn't have prevented what happened to Paris, or your daughter, or anyone you love. You're just human, with all the strengths and weaknesses of any one of us. What's important, is that you've tried your hardest to help both Jess and Zubin, in the way you know best." "I'm sorry," Ric said as the tears finally took over, making him feel small enough to be crushed under just her fingernail. "Shh, it's all right," She said as she held him, trying to soothe away the torrent of grief that had been approaching ever since she had told him of Paris's death on Monday, only five days ago. She stroked his cheek, feeling the beginnings of the stubble under her fingers, and the tear tracks that seemed never ending. "I feel so weak and pathetic!" Ric said vehemently, hating the fact that she was seeing him in such a vulnerable, unmasculine position. But he was also forced to admit that only she out of the collection of women he had known over the years could ever have handled such an outburst from him. He could feel the softness of her breast beneath his cheek, and he clung to her as he wept, almost as one might to a mother. When he calmed down, his grief for the moment spent, she slid back down beside him, wrapping herself round him, in an effort to banish away the many thoughts that she knew he hadn't shared with her. This outpouring of feelings might have been an oasis in the depression that forced him to consider gambling rather than talk to her or to anyone, but that didn't mean it was over, not by a long way.