Drinking felt like the greatest luxury on earth. She tilted her head back, downing the last of the brandy, her fingers sliding on the condensation before regaining their grip. She felt the burning warmth of it in her mouth, her throat...and her head made an involuntary shake.
A numbness crept into her brain, the way it had done when she was a child and she had drunk down a cold drink too quickly.
She hadn't known what she expected to find when she opened the door and entered the bar. It hadn't changed, and yet she found herself disappointed by the ordinariness of it. She had assumed, somehow that there would be something left of that night here, as though she could stand in the spot those men had stood in and she would have felt something...anything...
Instead she felt nothing but the blooming of a headache behind her eyes and the sluggishness of her brain. She'd lost count of the drinks she had had already. She had made to leave once, when a group of men entered. She had walked to the door to find that night had come and she hadn't even noticed.
Rita...she had whispered her name into the air. The weather still growled and the rain still pummelled the earth, but still she felt numb. She had stood there, watching the people pass by, watching the staggers of those, like her, who had already had one too many and were walking as if the ground was the deck of a storm-tossed boat. Each foot coming to the path as if the collision of shoe and concrete wasn't entirely anticipated and the person lurches, stumbles... Whilst the sober ones stride like the only adults in a party of infants, shepherding them to a car ride home.
She hadn't realised how long she had stood there, just watching, waiting for the guilt to come...the guilt that never came.
Now she sat, with another empty glass and a head that felt as heavy as the thoughts that were inside it.
Suddenly she became aware of someone speaking. There was somebody standing on the other side of the little table. She looked up at him, narrowing her eyes to try to lessen the overwhelming swaying sensation that took hold when she moved her head.
"Sorry, could I borrow this chair?"
She could tell he was repeating himself, and he looked at her with a vague smile of apprehension.
"Mmm, go ahead."
She managed to say, though her words sounded stilted and slow.
He tapped his fingers on the back of the chair in question...Rita's chair...it was Rita's chair. Where was Rita? She twisted in her seat to glance behind herself.
"Are you ok? I mean, tell me if I'm wrong, but you do look a little...miserable...?"
He was speaking again. She frowned across at him, and then she smiled slowly, a smile that turned into a sigh.
"Miserable."
She repeated, placing her hand about the base of the glass, watching as her fingers smudged the circle of condensation at it's base.
"Would you mind if I..."
He paused, looking at her again. Perhaps he was trying to work out if she really was miserable, or perhaps she was just another drunk...or mad...
"Sat."
He concluded, obviously deeming her harmless enough.
She narrowed her eyes again and looked back up at him. In the mirror behind him she could see how crowded the bar had become, and how every other seat must be full.
"Eliot March."
He extended a hand across the table before she had realised that she had agreed.
"Connie Beauchamp."
She murmured, accepting his hand.
"Sorry, bit formal..."
He drew his hand away after the brief, awkward shake, and set his drink down on the table.
"Could I get you anything?"
He asked dubiously, noticing how she eyed his pint. She shook her head slowly, and immediately regretted it as the room kept on moving once she had stilled her movements.
"No...I think I've had enough already."
She smiled slightly and tilted her head. He seemed so very far away.
"Would you like to talk about it?"
He asked suddenly, shifting in his seat. She raised an eyebrow.
"Talk about it?"
She repeated.
"Well, I just thought...perhaps you might need somebody to talk to...maybe? You don't look the type to...to..."
He raised his glass to his lips and took a sip, giving up on his sentence altogether and setting the glass back down again and smiling a tight smile at her across the table.
"Right about now I'm supposed to be having dinner with my partners parents. Instead I'm here..."
She pushed her thumb into the water at the base of her glass, marking her spot in the world.
"Ah."
He nodded slowly.
"So, Mr March, what brings you here?"
She found herself asking as she rested her head on her hands.
"Oh, I've had one of those days...I suppose I'm drowning my sorrows."
He drew up his shoulders and sucked in a breath. She watched him, as though he were in slow motion. The room was too warm, the drink too much, and now she was lost somewhere between drunk and delusional, seeming to do nothing by sway back and forth between consciousness.
"What happened?"
She murmured, feeling greateful for the solidity of the chair at her back.
"I was made redundant. I'm a teacher, an English teacher...was a teacher."
He corrected himself and relaxed his shoulders. He was wearing glasses, she realised, black rimmed glasses that reminded her of Ethan, but unlike Ethan his eyes were the colour of the sky, and his hair was dark and neatly combed to one side.
"What about you...Connie Beauchamp? What do you do?"
He asked, looking at her expectantly.
She looked down at her glass.
"What do I do..."
She whispered.
-.-
xxx