There’s a part of him that’s still furious at his mother. She deceived him, goddamn it. She conned him into thinking one thing in order to shield him from another; she treated him like a child. Had he just known what Bill had said, how his father had felt, he could have started some process of healing. At the very least, he could have avoided being eviscerated by Eloise in a country from which he can’t wait to escape. His mother had robbed him of that opportunity, though, and had taken it upon herself to decide what was best for him. It was an exercise in parental tyranny, he thinks to himself. Plain and simple.
And yet, curiously, his rage, the white-hot indignation that’s fueled him for the past three years, is fading fast. Because once he strips away his knee-jerk anger, his contrarian disposition, how terrible had Donna’s decision actually been? How justified is Paul in vilifying her? She had lied—that much is true. It was a lie of omission, but it was still a lie. But the intentions of that lie were purer than any truth he can presently conceive: to protect him from his own ruin, a propensity for self-destruction that she understands better than he ever will himself. Eloise was right: she had saved him. It was a salvation based on false pretenses, but does that necessarily make it any less real? Was he not spared regardless? Can you smoke in this place? He looks down the long stretch of bar and doesn’t see a single ashtray. He sucks on a fistful of peanuts instead.
God, he’s been awful to Donna. If he could disappear into the glass in front of him, he would. Just crawl beneath an ice cube and let the whiskey wash over him. He closes his eyes and thinks of how certain he’d been of his anger toward her. “She erased Dad from our life, so I’m erasing her from mine”—those had been his words to Mark, the reductive and solipsistic foundation for his righteousness. How many of her calls had he let roll over to voice mail? How many of those voice mails did he delete before listening to them? During the holidays he never opened her Christmas cards; he threw them into the trash with pamphlets of Best Buy coupons and direct-mail ads from real estate agents. Whenever Alice passed along news about her—that she was remodeling the kitchen, or that she was spending the weekend in Indiana—he consciously forgot it. A sudden, drunken epiphany: Paul can’t account for two years and eight months of Donna’s life; two years and eight months estrange them.
He’s already drunk, but that doesn’t stop him from ordering a second whiskey as he tries to anticipate the next song on the pub’s playlist. Sting and the Police, he wagers. “Roxanne.” Closing his eyes, he listens and holds his breath. The silence lasts a second shorter than forever, and finally he hears the song’s first few notes. Elton John’s “Rocket Man.” Foiled again.
Taking his phone out of his pocket, he drops it, retrieves it from the filthy floor, and squints at the screen. The images are blurry, and he tries to focus through the boozy fog. He wonders if he should call Mark. The day before, as they were driving to Dorset from London, Alice had made him promise that he wouldn’t; she knew it was something he often did.
“You get drunk, and sad, and you call people,” she’d said. They were at a gas station, filling up the Peugeot. “Just … don’t do that this time around. In fact, give me your phone.”
“Knock it off.”
“You’re going to do it.”
The pump clicked; the tank was full.
“I am not,” Paul had said.
“You will, and you’ll regret it in the morning. It’ll just be another story for Mark to tell.”
Now, swaying on his stool, typing and retyping his password into his phone, he thinks, What the fuck does she know? He needs to talk to someone, someone who knows him, and Mark knows him. They were together when his dad died, and Mark watched Paul grieve. Yes, he thinks. Mark. He’s the right person to call.
He’s seeing double, so he closes his left eye and concentrates on finding his contacts. Scrolling down, he finds Mark’s name.
A woman’s shrieking laughter diverts his attention, and he drops his phone again.
“Shit,” he slurs, and glances over to where the sound is coming from. The woman laughing looks to be about his age. She’s an English rose type—delicate features, with a lithe, boyish body in a slim blue dress. A man’s arm is wrapped around her waist, and he’s kissing the spot where her neck meets her shoulders, and Paul’s got to blink twice and rub both his eyes before he can put two and two together and realize that the man is Henrique.
Henrique. Wait, he thinks. And then: shit. Because Henrique is supposed to be with Donna—yes, this much he knows. And more important, he should be at their daughter’s rehearsal dinner. He drags his mind through the sludge and tries to get his bearings, his sense of who’s currently being wronged and whom he should currently hate. Donna had spent the day with Henrique, and came back flushed and excited. And now he’s here, sliding into second base with some cut-rate Kate Moss, while Donna wanders around an old British manse, munching on lukewarm cheese puffs, alone. No, Paul decides. Firmly: no. His mother’s suffered through enough without having to contend with a replay of Henrique’s philandering. And besides, if anyone has a monopoly on fucking her over, it’s him.
He stands, wobbles, and regains his balance before steeling himself. Paul has made a decision. Paul is a man possessed.
“Excuse me.”
He jabs a finger into Henrique’s shoulder, and Henrique detaches himself from the girl’s neck. Paul’s drunk, but his double vision can see the first bruised marks of a hickey.
“Yes?”
“What—what do you mean yes?” Paul focuses on appearing stern and disappointed, and on not slurring.
Henrique blinks. “Paul,” he says. “I didn’t recognize you. Why aren’t you at the party? You look unwell.”
“And who’s your—your friend?”
“Paul.” Henrique leans forward and puts a hand on Paul’s shoulder.
“Don’t touch me.”
“Let us call you a taxi. You’re drunk.”
“Yeah? Well, you’re an asshole.”
A single couple occupies the pub’s small dining room, and they look up from their menus.
The English rose clears her throat and tucks her clutch beneath her left arm. “Maybe I should go,” she says.
“You stay right where you are,” Paul says, blocking her way. “I won’t be long.” He turns, once again, to face Henrique. “You’re an asshole.”
Henrique straightens his lapel and licks his lips. “Your mother and I had a lovely day,” he says.
“Not that lovely, evidently.”
“Are you going to let me finish?”
Paul raises an eyebrow.
Henrique continues.
“We had a lovely day. But sometimes these things … they don’t work out.”
“Yeah?” Paul rocks back on his heels, and then forward onto his toes. “Does she know that?”
“I—I’m sure she’ll understand once she does.”
Paul tries to decipher what song is playing. He listens for recognizable chords or lyrics, but the sounds are all blending together into a mess of clanks and strums and crashes.
He wipes his nose and says, “She deserves—deserved—better than you.”
“Excuse me?”
“She’s a good lady.” He shoves his finger at Henrique again, this time burying it into his sternum. “The best lady. And she deserved better.”