Chapter Seven
Lydia had run through Richmond Park in her haste to get to Milan, fearing that something terrible was about to happen to him. In the phone call, he’d only been semi-coherent, rambling about his wasted life and how very much he missed her.
“Where are you?” she’d asked him urgently.
“Home. No, not home. I have no home. This place. This flat.”
“The Barbican?”
“Big, huge concrete monster surrounded by more big, huge concrete monsters.”
“Okay, calm down, Milan. I’m coming. Hang on there.”
All the way to the City on the Tube, her heart beat a fearful tattoo. Was he suicidal? He sounded so messed up, so confused, so utterly angst-ridden. What if she arrived there and he had passed out, or worse? She would have to find the concierge. She pictured herself pushing open the door of his apartment to find him in a pool of blood on the carpet, wrists slashed, or with open bottles of pills and brandy beside him.
By the time she arrived at the Barbican, she could barely breathe.
She tore to the lobby area and pressed Milan’s buzzer.
After a wait that seemed interminable, his voice slurred through the speaker.
“Yeah?”
“It’s Lydia. I’m here.”
“Uh-huh.”
For a moment, she thought he was too drunk to even buzz her in, but then she was able to open the exterior doors and enter the building.
She couldn’t even bear to wait for the lift, so she ran up the stairs, needing to work off her excessive nervous energy.
His door was ajar and she dashed straight in, calling his name.
The living room was chaotically messy, but empty, as was the kitchen. Perhaps he had fallen asleep.
She went into the bedroom and there he was, sitting up in a silk robe, swigging from a bottle of Czech brandy while the Bruch Violin Concerto played from his iPod speakers.
“Milan, what’s going on? What’s wrong?”
Lydia, despite her relief at his obviously alive-if-blotto state of being, felt uneasy. Was he trying to pull her strings?
“You care,” he said, putting down the bottle and patting the bed beside him. “I knew you would come.”
“Is this some kind of test? You sounded distraught. Of course I came. I thought you might have…done something stupid.”
“Done something stupid? Everything I do is stupid.” He patted the bed again, harder. “Sit down, sit down.”
She drew closer, warily, but he didn’t look as if he posed any kind of threat. He was too exhausted-looking, as if life had defeated him. She sat on the edge of the bed, still unsure whether to be annoyed or not.
“Look, Milan, why did you call me?”
“Because I wanted to see you.”
“Couldn’t you have just said so? Instead of laying on the drama?”
“I wanted you to come. You would not have come.”