Page 90 of Not in a Million Years

‘Basically. What are you going to do about the rainforests, anyway? You could go vegan, I suppose, if you wanted to make a difference.’

Andy shuddered. ‘Life without steak tartare wouldn’t be worth living. I sometimes think life without drugs isn’t, either.’

‘Don’t say that. You don’t really mean it – you were so happy when you were first on the programme. So kind of… I don’t know. Serene.’

‘Yeah, serene. Fab, isn’t it?’ He grimaced. ‘You know what? I’d trade you all the serenity in the world for a night on the lash, frying my sinuses with blow and fucking anyone who’d stay still long enough to let me.’

‘That’s not true, though. You were miserable.’

‘Only when I was coming down. The rest of the time was great. And even the come-downs weren’t so bad, when I was with you.’

I remembered those days, holding Andy while he cried and shivered, fetching him Fanta from the corner shop, frying cheap sausages to try and tempt him to eat, staying up late talking to him even when I had important work stuff the next day in case he went out and got loaded again. Picking up the pieces of him, and the crumbs of love he gave me in return. Maybe they hadn’t been so bad for him, but they had for me.

I said, ‘It was dreadful for me. I’m not going to lie, it was. For Abbie and Matt as well. And for Daniel, I expect.’

Daniel, I realised, had never really said. He loved Andy, too. Andy’s descent into chaos must have been as hard for him to witness as it had been for the rest of us.

‘I’ve changed,’ Andy said. ‘I’m not like that any more. You know I’m not.’

I looked at him. His eyes were the same sparkling blue above the grey collar of his sweatshirt. The lock of hair combed carefully over his brow was the same bright gold, now I couldn’t see the place where it was thinning at the temples. The winsome smile he gave me was as familiar as my own face when I looked in the mirror.

‘Actually,’ I said, ‘I think you’re just the same.’

‘Oh, Kate.’ He reached for me, suddenly enveloping me in his familiar, violet-scented embrace. ‘You’re such a fucking bitch. My bitch. I love you so much. Please let me stay with you tonight.’

Thirty-Five

Then

2015

With the inevitability of night following day, or an avalanche taking out the side of a mountain, Andy broke his promise to me. He broke it over and over again, over the next few years. Every time, I vowed that this would be the last time – that I couldn’t allow myself to be hurt that way again. And every time, I broke my own promise to myself, which I guess made me just as much to blame for the situation as Andy was.

After the initial seismic falling-out with Daniel, our cosy outings as a threesome didn’t resume, but Andy stayed in my flat – after all, he had nowhere else to go. But, over the next few weeks, there were nights when he didn’t return home, days he spent on the sofa, morose and self-pitying, flicking through the channels on the TV with the curtains closed, complaining that the sunlight was giving him a headache.

He wasn’t working – I had no idea where the money to buy drugs was coming from, or the money to buy the expensive bottles of champagne he often bought for us to share, even though I’d said I didn’t want them. He just sat, went out, slept and then sat some more.

Then, one night, he went out and didn’t come home the next morning, or the morning after that. At first I was accepting, then annoyed, then increasingly worried. I rang the police, but they didn’t seem particularly interested in an adult man choosing to leave the place where he’d been staying. I rang round local hospitals, but to my relief he wasn’t there. I asked my friends if they’d heard from him, but they hadn’t – not until a week or so later, when Rowan rang to tell me she’d had a drink with Daniel, who had told her that Andy had moved into ‘some dodgy bedsit in Dalston with a guy he met out clubbing’.

And that, I told myself, was that. Of course, I was devastated – hurt and confused and blindsided by the idea that Andy would simply up and leave without saying a word to me. But, I told myself, it was a symptom of his addiction, of the chaotic lifestyle he seemed increasingly drawn to. And as the weeks turned to months, my hurt receded, and my devastation turned to relief.

Then, on my birthday, Andy knocked on my door with a huge bunch of red roses. He was sober, he seemed happy, he said he’d missed me terribly and he was sorry for the way he’d behaved. I’d just been dumped by a guy I’d been seeing for a few weeks, and although I’d known deep down the relationship wasn’t going to go anywhere (when did my relationships, ever?), I was feeling bruised and vulnerable.

And Andy was at his charming best. Sensing my sadness (or was it weakness he sensed?) he ran me a bath, and while I soaked in the scented water, he baked me a birthday cake. In funds for once, he took me out to a little Lebanese restaurant for dinner, during which he drank only peppermint tea while insisting I work my way through a bottle of cheap red wine.

He moved back in for a few months after that, until he disappeared again. And there we were – the pattern repeating itself again and again. There were long periods when I didn’t see or hear from Andy, and shorter ones when he burst back into my life, adoring and adorable, sometimes sober, sometimes not. Every time, I found it impossible to turn him away.

Of course, life carried on. I sold my first, tiny flat and moved to a bigger one in a nicer area. I got promoted at work and then was offered a better, higher-paid role at a different company. I saw my friends and dated and splashed out on a Mulberry handbag.

But, always, Andy and his problems were there in my life. He moved into a flatshare with a friend, but then when that didn’t work out, he moved back in with me for a few months. He met a guy from Seattle and stayed out there for a bit, and his social media was peppered with pictures of mountains and city skylines and cups of coffee, until he came home again because he had no green card and no money. Then he went back to live with his parents, but his rows with them were so awful he turned up on my doorstep in tears, begging to be allowed to stay.

That was in April, when I’d known Andy for eight years. And he was in as dark a place as I’d ever seen him. His jokes came less frequently, he was worryingly thin and, no matter how much time I spent cooking his favourite food, he never seemed to want to eat. Mostly he slept on the sofa, but when he woke from a nightmare, he’d come into my bed, shivering and frightened, and I’d hold him in my arms until he slept again.

He didn’t take cocaine in my flat – not when I was there anyway. But he was taking it somewhere – and I was increasingly sure that it wasn’t just cocaine.

All that summer, it seemed, I spent being batted around like a pinball by Andy’s moods – giddy and fun-filled one day, bitter and silent the next, overflowing with self-recrimination and apology the next. My work suffered. I struggled to sleep at night. I gained a stone from comfort-eating at home and mainlining chocolate at work to keep myself awake.

And almost the worst thing about it was that I felt I couldn’t confide in Abbie or my other friends about what was happening. I was being taken for a mug – deep down, I knew it and I knew they’d know it. But admitting it would mean admitting I’d been wrong about Andy – about the possibility that I could change him. And it would mean admitting what our relationship had become and revealing the secret about Andy I’d promised to keep.

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