Hey guys! I'm sorry for such a late update, school starts next week, and I'm insanely busy but I love writing, so enjoy! Don't forget to review!
It was possible she was crying. Later, she would not be able to say when it had started. The rain soaked her hair, glued it to her head. It rand down her neck, her back, the front of her blouse. She was too exhausted to pull her collar up or to tighten her coat around herself. She had suddenly realized she hadn't taken her umbrella with her, she'd reached for it, but she hadn't taken it with her. Passerby raised their umbrellas, glanced at her and then at each other. She breathed through her open mouth.
She had no destination, no idea where she was walking. Coherent thoughts refused to from or to take shape. She remembered the name of her hotel, but she did not want to go there, did not want to be inside with other people. Did not want to be alone in a room.
She stepped off the cut and, by habit, looked the wrong way. A taxi squealed. Olivia stood still, expecting the driver to lean out the window and yell at her. Instead, he waited patiently for her to cross the road. She hadn't been used to the UK driving on the opposite side of the road.
She knew that she wasn't well and grew nervous, afraid that she might inadvertently walk into a construction hole, might step off the curb again, might be hit by a red bus. A headache claimed her, and she slipped into a telephone booth to put herself momentarily into a safe box. She wondered if she had any advil on her.
A man stood impatiently outside the phone box, then tapped on the glass. He needed to use the phone, he mouthed. She walked out into the rain again and walked along the busy street that seemed as if it might on on for ever. Heads bent against the rain, and people passed her. She thought about finding a department store, buying an umbrella, possibly a rain coat.
At the corner, she saw two men in overcoats laughing. They held black umbrellas and brown leather briefcases. They went inside the doorway. There was a glow behind the door, frosted glass, the sound of communal laughter, it was dark already, night now, and it might be safer to go inside.
Inside the pub, the scent of wet wool rose to her nostrils. She liked the warmth of the interior space. The glasses of the man just in front of her steamed, and he laughed with him companion. A man behind the bar handed her a towel. Someone else had used it before her, it was damp and limp and smelled of aftershave. She toweled her hair as she would do after a shower, and she saw that men were staring at her. They have pints of ale in front of them, which made her thirsty. The men parted slowly, and gave her a stool.
When the bartender came back, he took the towel, and she pointed to a tap. The ale was bronze colored when it came. Light sparkled from polished surfaces, and men had cigarettes. She was thirsty and drank the ale like water. She glanced down, saw that her blouse was nearly transparent with the soaking and drew her coat around her for modesty. The bartender turned in her direction and raised an eyebrow, she nodded in answer and he gave her another glass of ale.
She needed to use the bathroom, but she didn't want to give up her stool. She thought she should order a third glass of beer just in case she lost her place and wouldn't be able to get another. The bartender ignored her raised hand, but women across the bar noticed. They spoke to each other as they stared at her. The bartender, acknowledging her finally seemed slightly less friendly than he had been before. When he finally asked her if she'd like a third drink, she shook her head and stood up, catching her coat on the stool. She lifted the wool of the vinyl seat, and she tried to walk with a steady gait, moving through the crowd of men and women standing with their drinks.
She followed a sign for toilets and it seemed unnecessarily direct. It was relief just to be alone in the stall. Her stomach threatened momentarily to revolt, but she held her ground, withstood the queasiness. She washed her hands in a grimy sink and looked in the mirror. The woman reflected there could not be her, she decided. The hair was too dark, too flat against the head. Half moons of mascara lay beneath her eyes, a ghoulish makeup. The eyes themselves were pink rimmed, the eyeballs veined. The lips were bloodless, though the face flushed. A homeless woman, she thought.
She dried her hands on a towel, opened the door. She passed a phone on the wall and felt a powerful urge to call Elliot. The urge was physical, she felt it in the center of her body. She tried to follow the instructions printed on a placard next to the telephone, but gave up after several times. She asked an older man in a waxed jacket who was on his way to the men's room to help her. When he had a connection, he handed her back the phone and looked at her blouse. He walked into the men's room and too late, she remembered that she hadn't thanked him.
The phone rang six or seven times and Olivia was dying to hear Elliot's voice, the longest man that had been in her life and her best friend. It rang another time but she refused to hang up.
"Hello?"
The voice was breathless, as though he had been lifting weights or running.
"Elliot!" Olivia cried, spilling relief "Thank God you're here"
"Olivia? What's the matter? Are you okay?"
Olivia composed herself, she didn't want to frighten him. "How are you?" she asked
"Um, I'm okay." Olivia's voice still wary, tentative.
Olivia tried for a cheerier tone. "I'm at a bar a few blocks from Muire's."
"What are you doing there?" Elliot asks
There was music in the background, and Elliot could tell it was Irish music playing in the pub.
She doesn't answer soon.
"Olivia, are you sure you're okay?"
"You sound breathless" Olivia says to him
"Why can't you talk?" Elliot asks
"It's loud, listen, I'll see you in a bit."
She hung up before he could answer.
She walked out of the pub and tugged her coat close to her. In the distance, she could see halos on street lamps. The rain had begun again. She saw a couple running across the road, where the young woman wore heels and the man held an umbrella over the woman's head. They had just made it to the other side of the street before the light ha changed . Muire O'Brien and James might have done that in this city, she thought. Run to beat a light. On the way to dinner, to a pub, to the theater, to a party to be with other people, to a bed.
Muire O'Brien's marriage had weight, two children as opposed to one. Two young children. And then she thought, how could anything that had proceeded such beautiful children be thought invalid?
She walked until she saw a familiar facade. The hotel was quiet when she entered and only a clerk, standing in a cone of light behind the reception desk, greeted her. She was enormously relieved that she could remember her room number. As she put the key in the lock, Elliot emerged from the room next door.
"Jesus Christ" he said. His forehead was furrowed, his tie loosened to the middle of his chest. "I've been out of my mind wondering what happened to you."
She blinked in the unflattering hall light and pushed her hair out of her face.
"Do you know what time it is?" he asked, sounding like a parent with an errant child.
She did not.
"It's one am in the morning"
She withdrew the key from it's lock and Elliot stood, holding open his door. Through the door, she could see a meal, virtually untouched, on the desk.
"Come in." he said "You look like hell."
Once inside the door, she let her coat fall from her shoulders.
"You actually look dirty." Elliot said
She slipped off her shoes, which had lost their shape and color. He pulled out the chair from the desk.
"Sit down."
She did as she was told. He sat on the bed, facing her , their knees touching. He had on a white shirt, not the same shirt he had had on earlier. He looked a different man, drawn and exhausted, the eyes lined, an older man than earlier. She imagined that she, too, had aged considerably.
He took her hands in his. Her hands swallowed by his long fingers.
"Tell me what happened" he said
"I've been walking. Just walking. I don't know where I went. Yes, I do. I went to a pub and drank beer."
"I gather it was bad" he said
"You could say it"
"I have you thirty-five minutes, and then I followed you to the address. You must of gone already. I walked up and down the street for an hour and a half, and then I saw a woman who wasn't you leave the building. She had two children with her."
Olivia looked at the uneaten sandwich on the tray. It might have been turkey.
"I think I'm hungry" she said
Elliot reached around, took the sandwich from the tray, and handed it to her. She balanced the plate on her lap, and she shivered slightly.
"Eat some, and then get into a hot bath, do you want me to order you a drink?"
"No, I think I've had enough, you're being very parental."
"Jesus, Olivia."
She looked down.
"I was getting ready to go out and hunt you down. I'd already called the number where you'd been, but there was never an answer."
"They were James' children."
He didn't seem surprised.
"You guessed" she said
"It was a possibility, I didn't think about children though. That was her? Muire O'Brien? Leaving the building? His...?"
"Wife" she said "They were married. In a church."
He sat back and she watched the disbelief turn reluctantly to belief.
"In a Catholic Church" Olivia said
"When?"
"Five and a half years ago."
On the bed was an overnight bag, unzipped at the top. The shirt he'd worn earlier was peeking out the bag. Bits of a newspaper had fallen off the bed and onto the floor. On the desk, there was a half empty bottle of mineral water.
She saw that he was examine her, as a doctor might do. Looking at the face for signs of illness.
"I'm over the worst of it" she said
"You're clothes are ruined."
"They'll dry out"
He held her knees.
"I'm so sorry Olivia"
"I want to go home"
"We will." he said "First thing tomorrow, we'll change the tickets."
"I shouldn't have come" she said, handing him the plate back.
"No."
"You tried to warn me"
He looked away.
"I am hungry" she said "But I can't eat this."
"I'll order you fruit and cheese, some soup."
"That would be nice"
She stood up and then faltered. She felt light headed. He stood with her, and she pressed her forehead against his shirt.
"All those years" she said "It was all false"
"Shhh..."
"He had a son Elliot, another daughter."
He pulled her closer, trying to comfort her.
"All those times we made love" she said "For five years, I made love to the man while he had another woman. Another wife. I did things. We did things. I can remember them..."
"It's okay"
"It's not okay, I sent him notes about how much I loved him, I wrote things on cards to him, he accepted them."
Elliot rubbed her back.
"It's better than I know." she said
"Maybe"
"It's better not to live a lie."
She sensed a quick change in his breathing, like a hiccup. She drew away and saw that he looked drained. He rubbed his eyes.
"I'll take my bath now" she said "I'm sorry to have worried you."
He put a hand up as if to tell her she needn't apologize.
"What matters that you're back." he said, and she could see the strain of not having known on his face.
"You can hardly stand." he said
"I'd like to take the bath here. I don't want to be alone in my room. After the bath, I'll be fine."
She saw that he doubted she would be fine.
She ran the water hot and emptied a bottle of shower gel into the tub that made a froth of suds. She was startled, when she undressed, to see just how filthy her clothes were. She stood naked in the center of the room. She made dirty foot prints on the white tiles. On a glass shelf were towels and a pretty basket with toiletries.
She put a foot into the water and winced, then stepped in. Slowly, she sank into the tub. She washed her hair and face using the soapy water, too tired to get the shampoo. She pulled a towel off a rack, rolled it and laid it on the lip of the tub. She leaned back, resting her neck on the towel.
A leather toilet kit was perched on the small porcelain sink. She could see Elliot's overcoat slung over the hook of the door. Beyond the door, she could hear a knocking, a door opening, a brief conversation, and then a pause and a door shutting. Room service she thought. She wished she'd ordered a cup of tea, a cup of tea would have been perfect.
The casement window had been opened a crack, and she could hear street sounds below, traffic noise, a distant shout. Even at one am in the morning. She felt drowsy and closed her eyes. It would be an effort to move her body, to climb out of the tub. She willed herself to empty her mind, to think of hot water and soap and nothing else.
When the door opened, she did not move, made no effort to cover herself, thought the bubbles thinned some and the tops of her breasts might have been exposed. Her knees rose from the suds like volcanic islands. Her toes toyed with the chain of the plug. He'd ordered tea, a glass of brandy.
He laid the cup and glass on the edge of the tub. He stood back and leaned back against the sink, put his hands into the pockets of his pants. He crosses his legs at the ankles. She knew that he was looking at her body.
"I'd mix them together if I were you." he said
She sat up to do so as he suggested.
"I'll leave you alone." he said
"Don't go."
Behind him, the mirror over the sink was opaque with steam. Near the window, outside air mixing with the heat created wisps of cloud. She poured the brandy into the tea, stirred the two together, and took a long swallow. Immediately, she felt the heat at the center of her body. The medicinal properties of the brandy were amazing, she thought.
She held the teacup with soapy fingers.
His jaw moved, he might have sighed. He took a hand out of his pants pocket and rubbed the beads of moisture on the lip of the sink with his thumb.
"I'll need a robe" she said.
In the end, she told hime everything. In the dark, lying on his bed, she told him every word she could remember of the meeting in the white town house. He listed without saying much, murmuring here and there, once or twice asking a question. She wore the terrycloth hotel robe, and he stayed dressed. He trailed his fingers up and down her arm as she spoke. When they grew chilly, he pulled a comforter over them. She burrowed her head into the space between his chest and his arm. In the dark, she felt the unfamiliar warmth of his body, heard his breathing next to her. She thought there might be something else that she wanted to say, but before could form the words, she drifted off to a dreamless sleep.
I'm sorry for such a later update, but I hope you enjoyed, I love that this is getting more EO for you guys and I really appreciate that you guys have stuck it out this long! Reviews are appreciated!