Chapter Eight
It was midnight when I drove back to Cardiff, to Grangetown and my second storey flat overlooking the gas works. It had been a long day and I was very tired, ready for my bed. I’d climbed the two flights of stairs that led to my flat and inserted the key into my front door, when a shadow fell over me. I turned on my heel and stared at the tall, powerful figure of my ex, Dan Hackett. I tensed and felt a sickness in the pit of my stomach.
Dan smiled his charming boyish smile. He was big on charming boyish smiles. He reached over and took the keys from my hand. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”
“Go boil your head in a bucket of oil.”
The smile remained fixed on his face. Indeed, it broadened. “I’ll take that as a ‘yes’.” He opened my door and entered my flat. Meekly, I followed behind.
Dan walked into my living room. He opened a cabinet and removed a bottle of whisky, along with a plain whisky glass. Then he splashed some whisky into the glass. “Still two fingers, isn’t it?”
I felt like giving him two fingers, and a lot more.
“Maybe you should try three fingers,” he suggested. “Better still, maybe you should get blotto, loosen up, let go. Get drunk and you’ll wake up a new woman.”
I’ll wake up an alcoholic. Dan handed the whisky glass to me. I perched on the edge of my sofa and stared down, into the amber liquid. I sipped the whisky. I didn’t really like the taste, but I liked the mellow feeling it produced, albeit that feeling was fleeting, a taste of honey, but not Elysium.
I took another small sip of whisky. “Look, Dan, I’m very tired, I’ve had a long day, I want to go to bed.”
He glanced towards my bedroom and leered, arching a suggestive eyebrow. “Good idea.”
I felt two spots of red burn deep into my cheeks. I was very tired, but I was also very angry. “Get to the point and get out!”
“Okay, okay, cool it.” He held up his hands, displaying his open palms. Then he sat opposite me, in an armchair. He leaned back and crossed his legs. “Haven’t you noticed something?” he smirked.
I looked up from my whisky glass, focusing on Dan. He was in his mid-thirties, four years older than me. He had black, tousled hair, touching his collar and dark eyes with deep crow’s-feet at the corners. His face was rugged and handsome, with a pugilist’s nose and a dimple on his chin. He wore an open-necked shirt, a denim jacket and denim jeans. He also wore finger rings on his right hand, which were like knuckledusters when he used to beat me, and a leather thong around his neck. A pendant hung from the leather thong and nestled in his chest hair. Did I notice anything different about him? No. So I shook my head.
“No drink for Danny-boy,” he grinned. “I’ve cleaned up my act. I’m on the wagon. I’m a new man. I’ve got a job with the Chronicle, with good prospects and a steady income. I’m writing a book about Welsh boxers. The publishers have given me an advance. There’s talk of adapting the book for a TV series. I’ve bought a new place overlooking the Bay, much better than this joint.”
My anger intensified. Okay, my furniture and fittings were basic, but I liked my home; it suited my needs.
Maybe Dan read the anger on my face, because he continued, “I’m not denigrating your pad. I know times are tough and that you get by on what you can afford, I’m just saying that I’m moving up the ladder, making new contacts, making a name for myself and I thought maybe I could share some of that success with you.”
“Congratulations.” I took a gulp of whisky. “Now get out.”
He smiled. He was so charming, so charismatic, so innocent. Butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. “Come on, Sam, you don’t mean that, do you?”
“Don’t play games with me; I’ve had enough of you. More than enough!”
Dan shook his head. He sighed. He gave me a wounded look, the look of a child who’d just been scolded. “You can be cruel, do you know that?”
“I can be cruel?” I was on my feet, pacing. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t you fracture my skull?”
“That was an accident. That was six years ago. I apologised, didn’t I?” Dan climbed to his feet and joined me in the middle of the room. Automatically, my eyes went to his hands and I started to tense. Were his hands clenching into fists? Not yet. “Look, Sam, can’t you see, I’m a new man. Have I done anything to hurt you in the past five years?”
I stared at my carpet and shook my head.
“Have I laid a finger on you?”
I gave his hands a quick glance, then shook my head again.
“I’ve changed.” His tone was so reasonable, so considerate. “People can, you know. But one thing hasn’t changed – I still love you.”
I groaned. Not that bullshit again. “Leave me alone, Dan, I’m tired.” I walked out of my living room. I went into the bathroom and locked the door.
“What are you playing at, Sam?”
“Leave me alone!”
Dan rapped his knuckles on my bathroom door. “Come out of there. I want to talk to you. I want to start again, recapture the good times.”
I placed the lid on the toilet pan and sat on it. “There were no good times.”
“You stuck around for four years.”
And why on earth did I do that? What did I see in this man in the first place? He was handsome. He was charming. He smiled at me. And I was so vulnerable and insecure I thought that if a man smiles at me I’d better grab him because another man might never smile at me again. I was an idiot. I was naive. I was weak. I was pathetic. I’m hiding in the bathroom of my own house. I’m still pathetic. Stop it, Sam; this was you five years ago. You’ve moved on. You’re a different woman now. You run your own business. You’re independent. You don’t need to punish yourself anymore. I flushed the toilet as though flushing away my past. If only it were that simple.
“I stuck around,” I shouted over the gurgling water, “because when I met you I was emotionally shipwrecked and you were the only wreckage I could cling on to.”
“If you want my honest opinion,” Dan yelled through the bathroom door, “you still look lost; you still look as if you need someone to cling on to.”
“I don’t need anyone to cling on to. I get by on my own, relying on myself. I run my own business. I’m doing well. If I decide to enter into a relationship I’ll do so on my own terms, as an equal.”
“Poor deluded Sam.” He was sitting on the landing carpet now; I could sense his weight against the bathroom door. “Do you really believe what you’re saying? You’re not a businesswoman, Sam; you don’t have the intelligence for that. And as for a relationship...you’re damaged goods. Who in their right mind would want you?”
“You would, apparently.” I flushed the toilet again. It was childish, but that’s how it went when I argued with Dan.
“I want you because I want to help you. I want to put right all that I did wrong. Come out of there, Sam.” He thumped the door. “Talk to me. Give me one more chance. I promise, I won’t hurt you.”
“You’ve had a hundred chances. A thousand. Ten thousand.”
“Then make it ten thousand and one, and I’ll make sure that this is the chance I’ll take. I love you, Sam. Being without you hurts me. Try to understand that.”
I put my head in my hands and groaned.
“I love you, Sam. Never forget that.”
A tear trickled down my cheek. I brushed it away. Love hurts. Leave love alone.
I screamed, “Go away!”
“I will go; I’ll leave you to think about what I’ve just said. But one more thing – I’ve heard that you’ve got the inside track on Derwena de Caro.”
I jumped up and opened the bathroom door. “What about Derwena?”
Dan grinned. He climbed to his feet. “That’s better. Now I can see your pretty face.” He frowned then stared into my watery eyes. “Have you been crying?”
I pushed past him and opened
my front door. “You’d better leave before I make a scene.”
He leaned against the door frame, shook his head and gave me a mocking smile. “Poor deluded Sam. Never make threats, sweetheart, unless you intend to carry them out. You’re too introverted to make a scene; you never have, never will. But let’s change the subject. Let’s not quarrel anymore. What’s going on at the studio; what’s the story – sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll?”
“Derwena’s my client. I can’t talk about her. You know that I keep to the code of confidentiality. You have no right to ask.”
“It’d be a boost to my career if I could get an exclusive interview with her. Maybe you could have a word with her manager, Milton Vaughan-Urquhart.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
Dan’s grin stretched from ear to ear. “You’re a princess, a real diamond.” He entered the corridor that served the flats on the second floor. Then he blew me a kiss. “Sweet dreams, my princess.”
I closed, and locked, the door using all three deadlocks tonight. Wearily, I went to bed. And of course, I dreamt about Dan. And all those dreams turned into nightmares.