Sophie's Encore (24 page)

I felt like my world was about to disintegrate, but then I told myself off.
He’s a rock star
, I reminded myself.
What do you expect? Lots of ordinary people do drugs on the weekend. I bet Rachel does. And anyway, where
is
the line? I drink alcohol. I take painkillers. Those are drugs, too.

A black hole of thoughts and convictions threatened to swallow me, and Dan must have seen the confusion on my face.

“Oh God, Soph, I feel like you’ve discovered my clay feet after all this time. Listen to me.” His voice was urgent, and he touched my face to make me look at him.

“I don’t
do
drugs.
The band
doesn’t do drugs. But that doesn’t mean that, very occasionally, we don’t…um…well, take something. Something…err…recreational. It’s impossible not to, sometimes.
Everybody
does it.”

“Not me,” I objected in a small voice. “Never.”

“I know,” Dan wailed. “You’re…you’re like an oasis of goodness. Do you have any idea how precious that is? How amazing you are?”

I swallowed hard. I had been naïve, really. I
was
naïve. Always had been. Presumably always would be. I was foolish to expect everybody in my life to abide by my standards. Perhaps I was foolish to close my eyes to the realities of life
out there
. What would I do when the kids came home one day, spliffed and high and
on
something? Never having experienced that myself, how would I react? How would I know the right way to handle that situation? What was the right way to handle the present Dan situation?

Wringing my hands in despair, I looked Dan squarely in the eye. “I’m just a bit…shocked, I suppose. I’m sorry. I’m not your judge or jury. I’m just me, and of course you can do exactly as you please…”

“Sophie, don’t do this. I’m still the same old me, the same Dan who lo—” He bit his lip abruptly. “I’m still the same Dan who’s been your friend all these years. I would never do anything to jeopardize our friendship, or you, or the children. Saturday night…”

“Sunday morning,” I interjected, grasping at the detail as though it mattered.

“
Saturday night
,” he corrected gently, “I was in the shit. I needed help. That chap in the loo, he offered those pills, and I knew what they were, of course I knew what they were, and the night was so young, and I still had so many people to talk to, the pills seemed like a lifeline.” He spoke increasingly fast, rushed, as though he needed to get his confession over and done with as quickly as possible.

“I took one. Then I took another. That’s all. I took two. They hit me…my God, they hit me like a speeding train. I was alive. I was wired. The world was soft and cheerful and colorful. There was laughter everywhere. I could move again. All the pain in my chest was gone. I was light as a feather, and I could talk and laugh and schmooze all those people.”

He took a breath. “I drank more, I think. Somebody gave me a cocktail, and it was so pretty, and it didn’t really taste of anything, so I had it and then I had another. Things got a bit blurry after that.”

I listened, dumbstruck. How could this have happened? He had to have been completely off his trolley. How hadn’t anyone noticed? How come
this
wasn’t in the papers? How could Jack not have known? He had sounded all innocent and worried when I had spoken with him on Sunday night. He had never mentioned anything about Dan being high as a kite and seeing the world in cheerful colors.

“Blurry, huh?” I pondered. “How come you got away with it? How didn’t anyone notice?”

“I don’t know,” Dan admitted. “Maybe I was still functioning on some level until the very end. Anyway, yes, blurry. I knew I’d had it then. I’d never been that wasted before, ever. I
swear
, you have to believe me.”

And somehow, I did.

“So how did you get to my house?”

“I needed to get out of there, fast. It was late. Jack had disappeared. The room seemed to be spinning, so I legged it. I went outside and jumped into a cab. I threw a few notes at the driver and gave him your address. We got to your house and I fell out of the taxi. I practically crawled up your garden path.” He grimaced at the recollection.

“You had a whole bottle of pills in your hand when I found you. What were you going to do with that?”

Dan raised his eyebrows. “Truthfully?”

“Truthfully.”

“I was going to show you. I was frightened. I knew I’d gone too far. I kinda hoped you’d do the right thing.”

“And yet when I said I was going to ring for an ambulance, you begged me not to.”

Dan shrugged. “I don’t remember that at all. I must have been way out of it.”

“That’s one way of putting it.” I chewed my thumb. “You frightened me to death. Do you remember anything that happened after you fell on my landing?”

Dan shook his head. “Nope, that’s it. Until I came around in this room some time. With you there, talking to me. My God, you are amazing, Sophie.

Surprisingly, I wanted to hit him. Yes, I was relieved at hearing the story. Yes, I was relieved that he was getting better. But I was also angry, confused, disappointed, and furious. And I felt very stupid.

“Do you know, I swore blind to your doctor that you
never
took drugs? That this was a disastrous aberration? You could have killed yourself.”

Dan hung his head but said nothing.

“I…I have to go and think about this,” I mumbled. “I can’t get this straight in my head.” Rising abruptly, I grabbed my handbag and coat and headed for the door. Tears welled in my eyes, and I couldn’t be in Dan’s presence for one second longer until I had figured out my emotions. Deep down, I knew he was telling me the truth. Deep down, I knew I was getting hung up over the wrong thing. He hadn’t been admitted to hospital with an overdose, as I myself had pointed out to millions of people. He was in here because of pneumonia. Yet his casual confession at ‘recreational’ drug use had rocked my world. Naïve though I was to the signs of drug abuse, I knew what E’s could do, even just one, and until I could get a handle on Dan’s more cavalier attitude to this, I couldn’t look him in the eye.

As the door clanged shut behind me, I heard Dan calling out to me.

“Sophie, don’t go. I—”

Chapter Thirty-Eight

I spent the rest of the day being the worst mummy in the world. I was so absorbed in the thoughts chasing round my head that I nearly forgot to collect Emily from playschool, and I was grumpy with her when I did. Unable to engage with my darling daughter, I made her a quick lunch and settled her in front of the telly. A desperate measure, and the guilt nagged at me even while I tuned into Cbeebies, but I really couldn’t help myself.

Things didn’t improve after we collected Josh from school. The only difference was my two kids entertained each other, having quickly come to the conclusion that their mummy was a lost cause. I defrosted some Bolognese and served it with overcooked spaghetti. If the kids objected to the mushy texture, they never let on.

After dinner, Josh, with the wisdom of his approaching five years—his birthday would be in January—decided to take care of mummy. While I was tidying the kitchen, he ran a bath and managed to get both himself and Emily into the water, and splashing with plenty of soap by the time I came upstairs. Having checked the temperature and ensured that the water wasn’t too high, I let them get on with the fun for a while why I sat on my bed and brooded some more. Within a few minutes, the kids turned up, wearing pajamas and sporting dripping hair, with a book each and ready for a bedtime story. Their eager faces and concerned eyes finally jolted me out of my gloomy apathy, and I rallied.

“Aren’t you the two most wonderful children in the world,” I praised them, hugging them tightly. “Let’s get your hair dry and then cuddle up for the stories.”

Probably to compensate for my extremely negligent parenting during the afternoon, I read them not two, not four, but six stories. We were all snuggled up in my bed under the big duvet, pretending to be sloths that never got up. It was a magical, peaceful interlude and it helped restore my inner balance and perspective. I gave the kids big kisses each when I tucked them into their beds, glad yet again to have their powerful presence in my life and marveling at the personalities that were emerging.

After all was quiet upstairs, I sat down with a small glass of wine and toasted Steve’s photo on the mantelpiece. “Who’d have thought our kids would come to the rescue like this. You would be so proud of them. I just hope I’m doing a good enough job.”

I stared at Steve’s picture for a while, wondering what he would make of my situation. There was a twang of nostalgia, but the pain of missing him had receded, and I felt oddly detached. Suddenly, I was able to think of him like a much beloved, close, but sadly absent friend, rather than a deceased husband, and it was a good feeling. I carried on my conversation.

“I can’t get my head around this Dan thing. I mean the drugs. Is it a big deal? Am I making a mountain out of a molehill?”

I paused and let myself think quietly for a while. I was listening for Steve’s voice in my head, wondering if some forgotten nugget of conversation would pop up and remind me of what he would say. It didn’t.

Sighing, I sipped at my wine and sat back, allowing my thoughts to freewheel. I was quickly coming to the conclusion that I wasn’t going to find a satisfactory answer. I wouldn’t be able to reconcile drug abuse with my own opinion, my
fear
, on this matter. Yet who was I to judge anyone?

Round and round I went, until all the questioning became background noise and eventually paled and faded in the presence of one emerging certainty. I needed Dan. I loved him. I didn’t want to lose him again.

“Forget about today,” I advised myself aloud. “Think back to all the time you’ve known this man. Has he
ever
given you cause for concern or doubt? Has he ever behaved weird or irresponsibly?” I paused dramatically before giving myself the answer. “
No
.”

That was what it boiled down to. The answer to all those questions was
no
. The Dan I knew was honest, kind, responsible, and caring. He had never let me down, on the contrary. If, amongst all of that, there had been E here or there, he hadn’t been near me and he hadn’t brought it home. Wasn’t that what mattered most? How he behaved around me and the children?

“Sophie, you’re being an idiot.” I looked at Steve’s photo again while I spoke, daring him to contradict me. Of course, he didn’t.

“You’ve already told Dan you’re neither his judge nor jury. So get on with it. Go see him.”

Oh God, I had to seem him. Right there and then. The need was overwhelming, the urgency constricting my throat. I had left him this morning without a backwards look, without another word. I couldn’t leave it like that. What if something happened in the night and I never got a chance to see him again? I, of all people, knew that life could quite literally be too short, could change in a heartbeat, and missed opportunities would become lost opportunities.

I started trembling all over with anxiety and urgency. My hands shook so badly I had trouble dialing Rachel’s number, but I managed on the third attempt. It was only half past eight. With a bit of luck, I could be with Dan within the hour and back within two.

Predictably, Rachel assumed the worst when I asked her to come and sit with the kids. “What’s happened? Has Dan taken a turn for the worse?”

“No, nothing like that,” I assured her. “I… I was being stupid earlier, and we had a bit of a disagreement. And I simply have to go see him. I
have
to.”

Rachel digested this in silence. I could practically hear the little cogs turning in her mind, but she asked nothing. “You owe me big time, my friend, but it’s your lucky day. Alex is here to look after Henry and I’ll be with you in twenty minutes,” she said.

“I won’t be long, I promise. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

Rachel laughed. “Enough already. One day, you’ll actually make yourself happy and that’ll be the day it’s all worth it. Anyway, let me hang up so I can get out to see you.”

I flinched.
One day, I’ll actually make myself happy?
Rachel seemed to think I was going wrong somewhere, but what was I to do? Throw myself at the man, after all this time?

“No, silly, tell him how you feel,” Rachel enlightened me when she turned up, a coat hastily thrown over the pajamas she was already wearing. “Watching the two of you pussyfoot around each other over the past few months has been doing my head in.”

“Wha?” The utterance half stuck in my throat with shock. Rachel laughed and shoved me toward my front door. “If you can’t see for yourself the moon eyes Dan’s been making then you’ll just have to wait. Now, off you go.” She put my coat over my shoulders and opened the front door.

“Oh God, I’ve had a glass of wine. I probably shouldn’t drive,” I suddenly wailed.

“How much wine?” Rachel inquired calmly. “Your usual thimble’s worth?”

“Well, yeah. I didn’t even finish it.”

“You’re fine. Go!” Rachel pushed me out of the house and shut the door behind me.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

I strode into the hospital as if I belonged. That was one of the first lessons I had learned while hanging out with Dan and Tuscq. Act as if you belong, and you don’t get challenged. It worked every time without fail, and it worked that night even though it was nearly nine p.m. and well past visiting hours. The receptionist didn’t give me a single glance when I flew past her, and the security body stationed at the elevator banks remembered me from my previous visits.

The corridors on Dan’s ward were deserted, but the lights were still on. It wasn’t
quite
bedtime yet for the patients. I slowed my step, suddenly unsure whether I was doing the right thing. Dan might be sleeping, for starters. My exuberance faded and was replaced with a dull dread. I didn’t want to turn back now that I was so close.

While I was loitering, a door opened and a man stepped out. He turned and came my way, and I recognized Dr. Smith.