Three Men On Tour: 38

I stayed in the bar for some time after that. At one point, I’m sure I saw Harry at the other end of the room but either it wasn’t him, or he saw me first, because when I looked again he was gone.

I stumbled out of the bar at about ten past ten. Once inside the lift I paused, my finger hovering uncertainly over the console. Then I muttered a muted ‘fuck it’, pushed the button for my own floor and tried to pretend that it had never been a decision.

I suppose I should have spent some time on the article: it was due in a couple of days after all and this was supposed to be proving to Jamie that I was a step above School Fêtes. Somehow I wasn’t in the mood. Instead, I rummaged through my bag and brought out the whisky I’d brought with me – an Ardbeg Uigeadail to drink with the boys as the sun set over our final day. Caramel and burnt stubble permeated the room as I popped the cork and grabbed a chipped tea cup to pour it into. The yellow stream that trickled over the hotel porcelain didn’t raise my spirits as much as I’d hoped, and the first gulp felt soured by the poorly kept cider I had just finished drinking.

When do you grow up? I don’t mean your first car, or your first job, or the first time you have sex. You can do all of those without being grown up at all. I mean when do you start calling yourself an adult inside your own head? I didn’t feel like an adult. I felt like I’d put on my father’s oversized coat and shoes and was clomping through the house telling everyone to call me Mr. Chapman. I clutched my whisky glass and tried to pretend it made me grown up.

Maybe that was how everyone else saw me. Maybe in my mind’s eye I saw myself in my twenties, dazzling everyone around me, while everyone else saw a dodgy middle aged old bloke trying to chat up all the pretty young things at the bar.

I poured myself another whisky and was just about to douse myself in more thoughts of my own mortality when I heard three sharp knocks at the door. I paused. There were a limited number of possibilities. The rapping came again: tap, tap, tap. I considered matters. Whoever it was wasn’t going to go away. Placing my whisky by the bedside light and walked the short distance to the door and opened it.

“Oh,“ I said in considerable surprise. “It’s you.“