As my eyes pop open my protest is loud. ‘Actually Ididn’tdo that.’ Mostly not, anyway. Mostly I passed out way before I got anywhere near their beds. ‘But eventually I got a wake up call that made me rethink all those poor choices.’ I’m trying for my best super-confident beam, knowing it’s coming across more wild eyed than I’d like, and that I’m sharing so much more than I should. And knowing that if I hadn’t been in that awful state, Michael would probably be alive now.
That’s not something I’ll ever leave behind, it’s a weight I’ll carry with me forever. However much I pretend I’m fine, which I have to do for other people, I know I’ll never get past the guilt. But that’s something I’ve got to lock up deep in my heart, something private for me, my very own penance. The only way to explain it is that it feels like a rock sitting inside my chest. I can’t let it spill out and bring other people down. But I know that it will stay there forever, because I really don’t have the right to be happy again. And I’m completely resigned to not being.
‘So here I am, there are lots of things I don’t do for now, neat gin’s only one of them. But it’s all working out really,reallywell.’
‘I’m pleased to hear it.’ He swallows and looks like he’d rather be anywhere other than where he is. ‘It explains why tinsel’s become inordinately big in your life.’
Could he be any more patronising? ‘No, I’ve always been the same with tinsel.’
He’s still going. ‘How about we take the buckets over to the castle on a trolley and wash them instead?’
At last there’s an offer I can’t refuse. The distillery was supposedly a doggy no-go area, so I’ve been pretending Merwyn wasn’t here, but if we’re leaving I can talk to him again. ‘Time for a walk?’
His tail shoots up, and he skitters towards the door, claws slipping on the gleaming floor.
