Still, I had to be clear with him. ‘This is a rehabilitation centre, not a hospital. There are no doctors. We treat alcoholics and addicts. If that’s not what you want, you should leave.’
‘You’ve got me wrong. I’m not an alcoholic.’
‘Lowry, you were employed to take photos of a wedding. Someone’s special day. You got so drunk that most of their photos are unusable. You fell into an ornamental lake. You knocked over the wedding cake and stood on it –’
‘I didn’t mean to –’
‘You vomited on the wedding car. You made a pass at the bride –’
‘Hey –’
‘Then made a pass at the groom’s father.’
He waved a hand. ‘Love is love.’
‘It sounds more like alcoholism to me.’
‘Yeah, okay, I wasn’t my best self that day. But that’s why I’m here. When I find out why I drink, this sort of thing will stop happening to me.’
‘“Stop happening to you”？ The alcohol didn’t magically infiltrate you, Lowry. You drank it.’
‘Only because I felt so dark. It was the only way to get through that day. My girl had left me … Shooting a wedding with a broken heart, that was hard.’
I could have laughed. Lowry Cook couldn’t have been more of a classic alcoholic if he’d tried. Firmly bonded to his stance as a victim, refusing to own his actions, insistent on justifying anything shameful.
‘That day,’ he said. ‘The way I drank. It wasn’t usual.’
I referred to my notes. ‘But you’d received a caution for drunk and disorderly the previous month –’
‘Rachel, the break-up with Sienna hit me right here.’ He touched his chest. ‘The crazy drinking, that out-of-control stuff …’ He shook his head. ‘It’s not who I am.’
Again, I could have laughed. If only he knew what a cliché he was. Hopefully he would stay long enough to find out.
63
The door of the Huntsman opened and there was Luke, his silhouette – height, hair, shoulders – unmistakeable. He scanned the room, his eyes searching, then made his way through the clusters of chairs and sofas.
Standing over me, he unzipped his leather jacket, shrugged it off his shoulders and threw it on a seat. ‘You okay for a drink?’
I indicated my water and he strode to the bar, returning soon after with a pint of something. Clattering it onto the table he said, ‘So. I left you?’
His mood? Not overtly angry. But far from friendly.
‘You know you did.’
‘And you left me. We left each other.’
‘I don’t really –’
‘Can you just let me tell it from my side?’ He paused, his eyes intent on me. ‘Please?’
It was the please that did it. ‘Okay.’ But I was full of dread.
‘So. It started when you said you were awake all night every night. But I wasn’t sleeping so well myself, either. I used to check on you. A lot of the time you were asleep.’
I stared at him, wondering why he would say this.
‘When you told me Carlotta had given you enough pills for five nights, that was the last time you were honest with me.’
‘Wait –’
‘You, wait.’ There was a flash of anger. ‘You got another prescription from her and more from at least two other doctors and not only did you not tell me but when I asked you straight out, you lied.’
‘Hold on, Luke.’ He was trying to distort the facts. ‘I was going insane from lack of sleep. A doctor prescribed me sleeping tablets. But you were so against me taking anything, ever, that the only solution was to keep the truth from you.’
‘“Keep the truth” from me? That’s just a fancy way of saying you lied. As soon as you started doing it in secret, you were in trouble. You know that. You’re the authority on addiction.’
‘It was only secret because you’d have stopped me – and, Luke, I needed them.’
‘Would you listen to yourself. If a client told you that, you’d reef them out of it. You didn’t need them, you wanted them –’
‘You’re wrong. I –’
‘Can you imagine how scared I was? Our baby had died and now I was losing you. When you said you’d taken nothing’ – he bit out the next words – ‘I. Can. Not. Tell. You how much I wanted to believe you. But I’d been there with you before, back in the day. I knew the signs. Soon after you started on those tablets again, you were taking more than you should. And during the day as well as bedtime. And in the middle of the night. But whenever I asked, you lied.’