Page 69 of A Face in the Crowd
Can we meet?
Harry’s reply doesn’t take long:
Sure! When were you thinking?
The excessive exclamation points are really becoming quite the plague. It’s a bit like herpes: a person should remain single until they’ve got rid of it.
I type out ‘later?’ and then delete it, before going for:
Tomorrow?
Even in my tipsy state, I realise that this evening would be a bad idea. I’m going to need to plan what to say and to be a good eighty per cent less giggly than I currently am.
I down what’s left in my glass and refill it with Nick’s wine. It isn’t even that good – but that isn’t the point. I find myself wondering if Harry is currently sitting in the apartment opposite mine, playing Elton John. Perhaps he already knew about Ben – and then stole Melanie’s coat to throw me off the scent?
The madder my thoughts, the funnier I find it all – and then I’m texting again, before he’s had time to reply:
How are you?
I picture him in the hospital, his head dented from when he was hit.
His reply comes almost immediately:
The painkillers help! Self-medicating with Jack Daniel’s! Looking fwd to seeing you! What time?! Where?!
Give! It! A! Rest!
It’s the alcohol, I know, but I wonder if he was really attacked. If this was all some massive ruse to woo me. Give me money to get me off guard, convince me he likes everything I do and, if things aren’t going perfectly, concoct some sort of attack to make me feel sorry for him. When Harry was in hospital, it wasmehe called. Not family or friends – a woman he’d only met twice.
It doesn’t add up.
At Chappie’s Café? 11 a.m.? Do the police have any leads about who attacked you?
I’m not sure what I expect back, but the reply is straightforward enough:
11 is good. Haven’t heard from the police. CU2moz!
The biggest problem I have with all this is why would anybody bother with it all? If Harry is trying to con me into a relationship, am I that desirable? Do I offer something that another person couldn’t? Or is he after something else?
I leave the text messages there and it’s only a few seconds later that Nick returns. He seems shattered and pours himself the rest of the wine, downing half a glass in one.
‘It’s Ravi,’ he says. ‘He wants to break up.’
I let Nick talk and offer the odd consoling word. Alcohol gets me giddy, but it’s all tears for Nick as he tells me everything that’s been going on in his relationship for, seemingly, the past two years. He opens a second bottle, but I wave it away, worried I’ll have a thick head in the morning.
It’s possibly because he’s been talking for so long, but I almost miss Nick’s throwaway line. I have to stop him with, ‘Sorry, what did you say?’
He pauses mid-sentence and then repeats what I thought he had. ‘I said perhaps I should cry on the shoulder of the guy across the hall from you.’
‘You’ve seen the person who lives opposite me?’ I reply, suddenly feeling sober.
Nick shrugs as if this is a perfectly normal thing. ‘He was on his way out one day. We nodded to each other on the stairs.’
‘Younodded?’
He breaks into a boozy giggle. ‘Is it that hard to believe?’
My thoughts suddenly feel very focused. It’s not Melanie who’s been across the hall: it’s a man. Perhaps it is Harry…?
