Page 66 of Not in a Million Years

I tried to suppress the waves of emptiness that kept washing over me, with a rhythm as steady as the breakers on the Alsaya beach but, just as inexorably, they kept coming.

By nine o’clock, I reckoned I could safely go to bed. I’d watched three episodes of the first season of Westworld (three more seasons to go! More than thirty episodes left! It might as well have been sent by the gods of bored, lonely people and, if I paced myself, should just about see me through until my new job started in ten days’ time).

I brushed my teeth, cleansed my face with micellar water, rosehip oil and more micellar water before applying an overnight resurfacing mask, smeared castor oil on my eyelashes, wrapped my hair in a silk turban, slathered moisturiser on my cuticles, put on my pyjamas and got into bed. The ritual was important – without it, I knew I wouldn’t sleep.

With it, I might not sleep either, but I was going to give it my best shot.

I slid under the duvet, plugged in my AirPods and found a relaxing sound bath on my phone. Not waves on a beach – that was too triggering. Not the wind through pine trees, for the same reason. Rain on rooftops would have to do.

And, to my drowsy amazement, it worked. I felt my thoughts drifting away from reality, into absurd and random channels, a sure sign that sleep was approaching. The rain sounds swished comfortingly in my ears, my own mattress felt pleasingly firm beneath me, the cool breeze coming through the open window lightly fanned my face.

I was asleep.

Except I wasn’t. I was on the yacht with Daniel. We were dancing together, the music filling our bodies, its pounding bass thrumming through me, willing me to move to its rhythm. Only I didn’t want to be on the dance floor – I wanted to be alone with Daniel on the still deck with the cool seawater kissing my feet.

But I couldn’t get away. The music was insistent, deafening, compelling me to keep dancing. Shrieks of laughter came from the other guests. There was the sound of beer cans being crushed and the smell of cigarette smoke. There was a resounding crash as a bottle shattered somewhere, and a woman’s voice screaming, ‘Fuck, what did you do that for, you utter plank?’

I sat bolt upright, sleep banished. I wasn’t on the yacht – I was in my own bedroom. And the noise was coming from the next-door apartment.

Jintao, my neighbour, had always been as quiet and well behaved as I (mostly) was. When I had friends round, I slipped a note through his letterbox warning that there might be noise and thanked him with a bottle of something for his forbearance the next day, and he returned the favour. But, I remembered, Jintao had told me a few weeks back that he’d been seconded to his firm’s New York office for six months and would be renting out the flat in his absence.

Clearly, his tenants weren’t the quiet and respectful sort. And clearly, I was stuck with this party for as long as it went on. I got out of bed, pulled on my dressing gown and walked through to the living room. The noise was louder there, and louder still out on my balcony. Cigarette and weed smoke was drifting through from outside, so I retreated and closed the door, which made little difference to the noise level.

I considered knocking on the door and asking them to pack it in but rejected the idea almost immediately. I didn’t want to be a fun sponge, and I didn’t want to risk stirring up bad feeling when I was going to have to live next door to whoever these people were until Jintao’s return.

I poured myself a glass of water and went back to bed, putting in earplugs and lying back down again. But I knew it was a lost cause. I was fully awake now; bands of tension had wrapped themselves around my shoulders and across my forehead. Sleep was a distant memory, and my earplugs barely dented the sound of the throbbing bass, which I was sure I could actually feel vibrating through my bedroom wall. Too enraged even to attempt baking, I lay in the darkness waiting for it to end.

They had quite the playlist. Over the next five hours, I listened to ’80s pop, ’90s rave, ’00s rap and ’10s grime. Show tunes seemed to be a particular favourite; at one point I could hear the partygoers shrieking tunelessly along to ‘I Know Him So Well’. I pulled my pillow over my head with a silent scream and wished I was dead – or deaf.

At last, the music subsided. I could hear voices in the street outside, laughing as they piled into Ubers and departed. There was a rattling crash as someone knocked over what sounded like a crate of empty bottles. And then silence descended, just before the dawn light began to filter through my curtains.

And it was then, in the darkest part of the night, hours of loneliness and anger and tiredness pressing down on me, that I weakened and texted Daniel.

Twenty-Four

Andy opened the door on crutches. He’d had a haircut, and the long fringe that had been tied back from his face when he was in hospital was now flopping artfully over his forehead. His shirt looked like it had been ironed, which I guessed was Daniel’s handiwork, unless he’d figured out a way to iron while sitting down. Although he’d only been discharged a day ago, the hospital pallor seemed to have gone from his face, and he was cheerful and smiling.

‘Well, look what the cat dragged in.’ He stepped carefully into my outstretched arms and I hugged him tightly. ‘Did you get the unwaxed lemons and capers?’

‘Every item on your extensive shopping list has been faithfully purchased,’ I assured him. ‘And the weight of these bags is about to drag my arms out of their sockets, so let’s get them inside, unless you want to stand nattering on the doorstep all afternoon.’

He turned and I followed him inside, not offering to help him, because apparently Mistress Whiplash had been insistent that he should learn how to get himself around safely on his crutches before discharging him from hospital.

‘You’re looking good,’ I said. ‘You’ll be training for the Paralympics in no time.’

‘Maybe. But I still can’t stand for long enough to cook, so you’d better take direction like a good little proxy chef. In here.’

He led the way into a large open-plan kitchen and living room. A sofa bed had been made up under the window, and various bottles and blister packs of pills stood on the kitchen counter. I’d never been to Daniel’s home before, and I couldn’t help being impressed by how beautiful it was: the floor polished, golden parquet, one wall painted a deep moss-green, a huge abstract cityscape hanging over the mantelpiece. A bureau made from some pale, glossy wood stood against the wall, a pottery jug crammed with peonies resting on it – the flowers a gift from the Girlfriends’ Club to Andy, I knew from WhatsApp. Two closed doors led to what I guessed must be the bathroom and bedroom – but I didn’t want to think about Daniel’s bedroom, now or ever. It was bad enough that I could almost detect the smell of lemon shampoo in the air.

‘All settled into the convalescent home, then?’ I asked.

‘Getting there. Thank goodness our Daniel was able to have me to stay, because I could never have managed at home. That spiral staircase up to the mezzanine’s a death trap, even when you’re sober with two working hips, and the front room’s not big enough to swing one of those cats he’s so fond of.’

‘Is he…?’ I began.

‘Through in the workshop. I’ll unpack the shopping while you go and say hi.’

He propped his crutches up against the kitchen island, and I deposited the bags of food. I hesitated, feeling the need to gather my courage before seeing Daniel. But Andy winked at me and said, ‘Off you go – it’s through that door there. He won’t bite. Not unless you want him to, anyway.’

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