Chapter 19
“Sunday night?”
“No, sorry I can’t, Dru…”
“Oh come on Will, not tonight, not Saturday or Sunday – what’s the problem? – Monday then?”
“Look Dru…you seem to be going to an awful lot of trouble just for a simple dinner”
“It’s no trouble!”
William batted his eyelids with exasperation and said,
“What I mean is, WHY is it so important to you?”
Dru looked at him like he was stupid at first, then she smiled – of course, she’d been mapping things out in HER mind – she just hadn’t let him ‘in’ on things, men – you just HAD to put them on the right track before THEY realised what THEY wanted, didn’t you?
“For us to get reacquainted, to catch up – then I thought for Christmas we could-“
“Hold on, hold on, Christmas?”
“You haven’t anything planned, have you – I mean, guy on his own, I thought that we could-“
William screwed up his face and waved his hand in front of his body, like he was trying to wipe away her words…
“Dru, you think way too much, you take too much for granted – and as regards Christmas, I DO have friends you know!”
Dru felt like he’d smacked her in the face, but she tried to make light
“I know! I was only thinking that to save us both being on our own, we might –“
“See – there you go, assuming I’d be on my own! – I won’t be”
“Oh”
William warmed to his task now, that of putting any cosy thoughts Dru had about ‘them’ being a couple totally right out of her head.
“I’ll be with my girlfriend”
“GIRLFRIEND?”
Dru said the word loud that other people I the cafeteria looked over to them
“Y-yes, girlfriend!” William’s bravado began to wain slightly, knowing now that he’d said that, he’d have to lie, and invent things………
“You didn’t tell me you had a girlfriend!”
“I didn’t know I’d got to!”
Dru felt stung, all her cosy Christmas plans began to unravel…
“Look, I’m sorry Dru, but, hell, I don’t really know what I’m apologising for – I think dinner isn’t a good idea besides, I’m going on Monday night”
“Going? Going where? - But you’ll be coming back to LA before Christmas, surely?”
“Yes, no, I don’t know, depends”
“On what?”
“On what…Deborah’s doing”
“Deborah being?”
“Being my girlfriend”
“What does she do?”
William sighed – he knew now it would be ‘twenty questions’ with Dru – she’d want the full mental picture
William looked at his watch and stood
“I’ve got to go Dru – I imagine I’ll see you before I go”
“You didn’t tell me where you’re going”
“Europe, I have a footballer to operate on, now if you’ll excuse me”
Dru said nothing, she was thinking………
********************
“Sorry I’m late honey, I’ve come straight from the gallery!”
Joyce deposited an armful of paperwork and two glossy programmes of the latest exhibition that the gallery was going to hold over the next three weeks on Buffy’s bed, being careful to mind her daughter’s bad foot. She kissed her on the forehead and saw that Buffy looked really well, she had a glow in her cheeks she hadn’t seen for a while…
“That’s okay!” Buffy said bright and happy
“You seem chipper, feeling good?”
“Great!” Buffy stretched her arms above her head and grinned, Joyce smiled too
“Has he said yes or something?”
“What?”
“Dr Carling, silly! Has he said yes to ‘you know what’ with us, you look like the cat that got the cream!”
“Oh, no, not yet, but I’m sure he will!” Buffy added, beaming.
Pearl knocked and entered Buffy’s room, bringing her dinner, which she placed in front of her
“Dere you go darlin’ eat up – see you later!” she left with a wave and Buffy lifted the cover off the plate to reveal meatballs and spaghetti in a herby tomato sauce
The savoury smell hit Joyce’s nostrils, and she grabbed her purse and said,
“I’ve just GOT to go and get me a sandwich and a coffee, I missed lunch, I won’t be long”
Buffy ate and then there was a knock at the door
“Hi!”
“Hi, caught me stuffing my face!”
William smiled
“Look, I just thought I’d warn you, that Dr Tate…she’s becoming a pain, I told her I’d got a girlfriend, one I was going to be with at Christmas – so it’s more important than ever now for us not to say –“
Buffy grinned and William knew she understood.
The door opened and Joyce came in carrying a sandwich and vending machine coffee
“Hi!”
“Hello doctor – how are you?”
“Oh, you know, over-worked, under-paid!”
They grinned at each other and Joyce sat, unwrapping her sandwich
“Please do forgive me doc, but I missed lunch!” Joyce took a bite of her chicken salad with lemon and tarragon mayonnaise sandwich and closed her eyes in rapture…
William noticed one of the programmes on the bed and picked it up.
“Felix Von Hendrikson – I LOVE this guys work – I saw him in Holland about three years ago and was blown away by his stuff!”
Joyce swallowed and grinned
“Was that the exhibition in Amsterdam?”
Without looking up and flicking through the programme William said,
“Yeah, that’s right, oh, you don’t mind me looking through this, do you?” he held up the programme
“Course not, in fact you can have that one if you want, I was there for that exhibition, I’d been in Europe, watching Buffy take part in some European championships, and took the ferry from England to the Netherlands, met my boss Mr Duggan there – it was a great success, and he promised, that is Felix promised he would exhibit at our gallery next time he was in LA. It’s taken three and a half years to get him here, but it’ll be well worth it!” Joyce said
William was still flicking through the programme, looking at all the colour photographs of the artists work
“I WISH I could have seen him here!”
“Well you can – the exhibition doesn’t start for another ten days, then he’ll be here for three weeks. He’s in New York at the moment, then he’s stopping off in Chicago, although I don’t know if they’re big on landscape art there, then he’s coming to us on the 15th”
William grinned, he’d go to Germany, do the operation and be back well in time…
“Oh Mrs Summers – really?”
“In fact, if you like, you could come as my special guest and have a pre-exhibition preview, and meet the artist himself – it’s where he meets all the serious customers, and then the following evening is the press review before it’s open to the public. There will be wine and canapés served, then my boss, Mr Duggan will take him out to dinner – you could come as my guest, I’d be delighted”
“WOW – really, that would be WONDERFUL!”
Everybody was smiling, although Buffy felt a twinge of jealousy that her mother would be spending time with William…
“I’ll sort things out, get you a VIP badge made – “
All of a sudden, William’s beeper went off, and he looked at it
“Sorry folks, I gotta go, Buffy, in the morning I’ll go through the physiotherapy routine I’ve set out for you okay, night both and thanks for this Joyce!”
“Welcome, night”
“Night!” Buffy said, giving him a little wave.
“It’s not fair!” Buffy whined
“Oh now come on, I know who he’d much rather be with…but it keeps him here, doesn’t it!” Joyce said
“Yeah – mom, there’s this woman doctor here – she used to know William back in London, well, she seems to think, well, she’s got it into her head that – look, Will’s told her he’s got a girlfriend, and he’ll be spending Christmas with her – so it’s important we say absolutely NOTHING about it to anybody, okay?”
“Sure honey, not a word will pass my OH – hello Pearl – golly, you look tired!” Joyce saw the door opening and stopped what she was saying…
“I am honey-chile, this workin’ t’ree jobs is a catchin’ up wid me!”
“Oh Pearl! You want to go home and put your feet up!”
“Oh I shall tonight!”
“Make sure you do, night!”
“Night darlin’!” Pearl put Buffy’s empty food plate and dish on her cart and left.
“Three jobs, I hope her daughter appreciates it!”
“I’m sure she does mom, I’m sure she does!” Buffy said
*****************
William put his pen down, yawned and rubbed his eyes, then looked at his watch.
It was twenty past ten, but at least he’d caught up with all his paperwork, including working out a routine for Buffy’s physiotherapy on her foot.
Locking everything away in his drawer he realised that as he hadn’t been shopping (again) it would have to be a take-away (again)…he’d decided on Chinese, and made his way downstairs and out to the parking lot
*********
Having eaten his fill of chicken with bamboo shoots and water chestnuts, beef with ginger and green onion and egg-fried rice, William picked up the programme Joyce had kindly given him – there really was some lovely pieces in it, and this time, he was more in a position to buy some artwork – he had the money at least!
**********
Back home, having rooted around in the garage until she found what she was after, Joyce knelt on the lounge floor and placed the blow-up photos all around her, she went through them, one by one, she was beginning to think it was a stupid idea, but then, on what must have been at least the 50th photo of the exhibition in Amsterdam, there in the bottom left hand corner, among a sea of other people was the distinct picture of Dr William Carling! He had on jeans and a leather jacket, and some rather smart looking glasses, but it was definitely him all right! She’d keep this as a surprise to show him Christmas. She found another two, one with his back to the camera, and one a sideways shot of him, looking at a programme standing in front of the main piece of artwork – there were other people in the photo too – she smiled and put the three photos on the side and put the rest away.
***************
Dru drained the last few drops of Chardonnay into her glass. She picked up her photo album and tried to remember the names of the people standing in front of St Thomas’ teaching hospital in central London, all throwing their stethoscopes and what have you up in the air…
“Lionel…boring stuffed shirt YOU were………Vanessa – what happened to you huh?………Martin, no Michael – no, MITCHELL – Mitchell, that’s it, Mitch…poor Mitch, fell off the back of a lorry – no, crashed into a lorry din’t ya…(hic)…then there was Da (hic) Darla…bitch! Always tryin’ to steal Will (hic) Will-yum off me………who the fuck is this Deborah?” Dru asked out loud, she’d drained her glass, wrung the bottle dry and frowned – she couldn’t be out of booze now, not now – the 7-11 would be closed, it was a quarter passed…
“Ah, brandy! Yeah, where did I – oh yeah…come on brad- (hic) mean brandy…eh? She stood unsteadily, remembering she’d bought a bottle of brandy for the diner party that didn’t happen. Must have spilt a lot!” Dru held the bottle up to her nose and stared owlishly at the lack of contents; incredulous that ¾ of it had gone – she certainly didn’t remember drinking it…
She frowned and scrabbled about in the cupboard and smiling came out with a full bottle of…god knows what – one of the nurses had bought her back for her from holiday in Mexico.
“You’ll do!”
She opened the bottle, and took a big, long swig – and she nearly spat it out – it tasted like bitter medicine – but then booze was booze, and at this time of night, she couldn’t afford to be choosy about what she drank, besides, some juice would sweeten it up.
An hour later, all the booze gone, including what was left of the brandy, Dru was tearful, incoherent and had intermittent bouts of weeping and screwing up photos, only to try and straighten them out again…
She tried to stand up, but the room was spinning too much, so she lay amongst the photos until she passed out.
********
When Dru woke at twenty to seven, she had an ache in her head as well as her back, she’d wet herself and she had a foul taste in her very dry mouth. She sat up and the room swam slightly. She stood unsteadily, went to the bathroom and stared hollow eyed at herself I the mirror.
Shakily she reached for her toothbrush, and when she saw how much her hands were trembling with the DT’s, she felt scared. Getting dressed as quickly as she could, she pulled her hat down over her eyes and went down to the 7-11 store, where she bought 2 x 1 litre bottles of Chardonnay, and a litre of vodka. She hurried best she could back to her apartment and went straight to the kitchen. She could hardly get the vodka bottle open quick enough, and she opened the fridge to get juice – no juice – where was the juice? She knew she’d had some…Going into the lounge for a glass, she saw the empty Tropicana orange juice box lying on it’s side, then she saw the empty bottle of Mexican gut-rot, and remembered what she’d done. Nothing else for it then, she made coffee and poured herself a very large vodka, just to stop the shakes you understand…it would also liven her up for work.
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