Page 49 of How Much Wine Will Fix My Broken Heart?
I look around the room at the merriment in people’s faces. Pablo’s complexion is the colour of raw salmon. That girl who was sobbing before is asleep on a corner of the sofa, snoring like a bear.
‘They sell that cider in half-pints because it’s so strong. How many did everyone have?’
‘Well, I had four. They were super sweet so the girls had more…’
‘I WANT TO SING ENRIQUE! FOR TOM!’ Robyn shrieks into the air.
Naoko shifts me a look. ‘Tom used to sing this a lot. He’d put on an accent. It was very entertaining.’
Robyn starts to sing. Unfortunately, her accent is less entertaining but she looks like she’s having fun. Tom never sang me this song. I’m glad he didn’t. Had he done, I most likely would have smothered him with a pillow.
A group of them stand up to form a chorus line. Naoko is now on her phone babbling away in Japanese, one finger in her ear.Aishiteru. Tom said this to me on the phone once. I thought it was rude. It means ‘I love you’ in Japanese. I hope she’s got her roaming on or using the Wi-Fi in this place, or that could be hella expensive.
‘Is that Hiroshi?’ I ask her as she hangs up.
She nods. I met him briefly when I was in Japan. Their relationship was new and budding, but I like the way he makes her glow. Unless that really is from the cider.
‘It is morning in Japan and he’s heading to work.’
It’s a wonder to me that the world keeps turning outside of this little room. A love on the other side of the world. I remember that once.
‘Are you having fun, Grace?’ she asks, sensing I’ve gone a little quiet.
I nod. ‘It’s been quite the evening. Everyone’s so lovely but there’s been a lot of stories. Pablo apparently used to watch porn with Tom, which is nice of him to have shared.’
Naoko giggles. There are a million stories here. He went to Hiroshima with that student, climbed Fuji with another, and sought cover in a 7-Eleven with that teacher after a typhoon hit and they nearly got killed by an escaped pig. (That may have been a cider-induced memory but who knows?) But the sense I also get is that Tom didn’t hide away from these people after he left Japan. He stayed connected online; he was aware that even if you grow and thrive in another place, you try and keep the roots connected, knowing that at one time that friendship meant something. Tom was good at that, growing friends.
‘He was a good man, Gracie. A very good man.’
Naoko downs the rest of her drink and stands me up, handing me a fully charged microphone.
‘God, I hate this song,’ I say.
‘Sing. We must sing.’
I mean, we may not be able to sing over Robyn but let’s give it a try, open up those passages and sing the hell out of this nineties shite balladry. I hope you’re hearing this, Tom. I really hope you are.
* * *
‘Christ, Susan. What the hell? Maybe if you take the legs and I take the arms?’ says a teacher, as they try and carry their former colleague out of the karaoke lounge. This may not be the best idea. Susan is the crier who slumbers so deep I fear she may be in a coma. The group is absolutely wasted. I feel responsible but if Tom is looking on I think he’d be proud.Not a good night until someone is throwing up in a bush, he used to tell me. I hate that these may be the words a lot of people remember him by.
As I walk among them, down the long steep pavements of Park Street, I hear murmurs of kebabs and one group member waxing lyrical about the joys of extra chilli sauce. I’m glad I won’t be sharing a hostel room with him later. Don’t kiss that bus stop either. I don’t think that’s hygienic. Naoko skips arm in arm with another down the road. I like that I’ve given her some freedom tonight, that Tom led her here to me, to this foreign place. An arm suddenly drapes itself around me.
‘Oh my god, this night was so awesome. Thank you so much for arranging it.’
Robyn. I’ve not interacted much with Robyn today as she seems to have taken it on herself to be the group leader, the attention-seeker, the flirt. When she left Japan, she went on to marry a brain surgeon, divorce a brain surgeon and now works as an estate agent. You can imagine her shiny hair and teeth standing at an angle, arms crossed on a sign on someone’s lawn.
‘It’s been nice to meet you all in person, to be fair. Before you just existed as names and stories.’
‘Did Tom have stories about me?’ she asks.
That you slept with Pablo and you ate tuna out of a tin like a cat?
‘He did.’
She holds her hand to her chest, her eyes glazing over.
‘I say a little prayer for him every night.’
