But mixed with the shock was curiosity and – madly – hope. My heart was pounding in my ears as I answered. ‘Joey?’
‘That you, Rachel? Listen, Luke’s ma died yesterday. He’s on his way home. Funeral’s on Friday.’
‘Luke? What … How …？’ I had so many questions. How had he been for the last six years? Had he got married again? Had kids? ‘How …’ I stammered. ‘How is he?’
‘His ma just died. That’s how he is, Rachel.’ Then Joey was gone.
At the best of times, Joey would never have won a Mr Conviviality contest. That hostility, though …
My hands were shaking so much that I needed to sit on them. Had that really happened? Did Joey just call me? Momentarily I worried that I’d imagined it.
‘You all right?’ Murdo gave me a sharp look.
‘Mmmmm.’ My lips felt numb. ‘Fine. Just … stuff.’
‘Sure?’
Silently, I nodded. Feelings flooded me: loss and longing and … yes, anger, and while it would probably be better if I didn’t see Luke, I knew I still wanted to.
Why had Joey called? Because Luke had asked him?
But that wasn’t very likely.
Unless … it was?
Should I go to the funeral? Or stay away? Back in the day I’d been very fond of Mrs Costello but we hadn’t kept in touch.
I waited to see if the friendly voice in my head had anything useful to offer. But all there was, was silence.
Really? I asked. Seriously?
Still nothing. So I was on my own with this. Maybe I should pretend that there’d been no phone call? Just push it down and get on with my life until Monday, maybe Tuesday, whenever Luke had left the country again and gone home.
But what if I regretted it? Missed the chance of seeing him? Or felt guilty about not paying my respects to a decent woman who’d been good to me?
I hadn’t felt this unravelled in – God, I literally couldn’t remember when. The right thing was to ring Nola, my sponsor and the Wisest Woman I Knew, clean and serene for almost twenty-seven years.
‘What’s up, pet?’
‘Luke.’
‘What about him? No, don’t tell me, come straight over. Drive safely!’
Half an hour later, I was pulling up outside Nola’s beautiful red-brick house.
Unbelievably, it was twenty years since I had been a patient at the Cloisters and she’d come in to tell her story of recovery from addiction. With her beautiful highlights, zippy little sports car and impressive job, I thought she must be an actress in the pay of the treatment centre.
However, when I left rehab, I discovered she really was an addict. But she was drug-free, happy, hilarious and robust enough to weather all emotional storms. I wanted to be exactly like her so she took me under her wing and helped me to grow up.
My time in the Cloisters had revealed that I was an addict, but Nola had convinced me that, without taking anything mood-altering, I could live a normal life, a better-than-normal life. That I could cope with unpleasant emotions, that I could aspire to a healthy relationship with a man, that I could aim for whatever job I wanted – a life I was sure could never happen to a person as worthless as me.
I parked my car, hurried up Nola’s black-and-white chessboard path and Harry, her delicious husband, opened their smartly painted front door and welcomed me inside.
In my early days in recovery I’d a right crush on Harry, he was just lovely – always keeping a respectful distance but never less than kind. I yearned for a man as good as him.
Nola used to tell me that if I stayed clean long enough, I too would get a life ‘beyond my wildest dreams’。 That was hard to believe.
Yet it had happened. All of it. Including a man as lovely as Harry.
Nola put a mug of tea in front of me. ‘Go on, tell me.’
It didn’t take long. ‘So?’ I asked. ‘Should I go to the funeral?’
‘Was Joey ringing off his own bat? Or on Luke’s say-so?’
‘I didn’t think to ask, and I’m not ringing him back – I have some pride.’
‘Grand.’ She laughed. ‘No one’s making you. Okay, let’s look at the facts. On the one hand you and Luke have unfinished business –’
‘Do we, though, Nola? It was so long ago. Isn’t it – what’s the word when accounts have been inactive so long that they no longer exist? – moribund? Inert?’
‘This might be the chance for you to tidy up some of that mess.’
‘But what if I see him and end up devastated all over again?’