DEATHLOOP (2 page)

Frail, twig thin, with clothes that swamped him, on first impression Jason looked younger than sixteen, but his eyes told a different story. It was like they belonged to someone else, someone who had given up hope. Wherever he fetched up Jason always felt he should be somewhere else. So when he hung around over in the park, or sat with the students in the pub, he always looked as though he was about to leave almost as soon as he’d arrived, and usually he did, stopping only to nod vaguely at a familiar face. Secretly, Jason would like to have stayed and got to know someone, especially that girl with the dreadlocks and the tattoos, but best not to, best not to, thought Jason.

Once, when a boy tried to come back saying that he needed somewhere to crash, Jason told him he couldn’t, no way, it wasn’t allowed. The boy didn’t believe him, but Jason didn’t care. What if he was someone in disguise? He could have been. Jason decided it wasn’t worth the risk and anyway, no one came back to his room, no one. The boy got angry when he told him this so Jason smashed him in the face with a brick, that shut him up.

Jason said: “Nyman, Holder and Drew, The Emerson Buildings, 21 Chancery Street, London WC6 B66. Aren’t you proud of me, Zack Fortune? I know your address off by heart.”

The ‘meeting’ Zack had mentioned to Susan was in Starbucks, with his old friend and work colleague, Sam Stein. They’d met up at Cambridge and remained friends since. Sam was short, stout, unmistakeably Jewish, a freakish little Robin to Zack’s Batman. Sam had been desolate when he’d first arrived at university. He stood out to say the least, with his stumpy frame, his potato face, and his overwhelming lack of style – an untouchable. But then Zack came along and took him under his wing, and for that alone, Sam would be eternally grateful. In fact, within days of their meeting Sam had been accepted into just about the most stylish set around. People tolerated him at first, wondering what Zack was doing with such a naff, suburban dwarf, but before long, people sought him out like they would a talisman.

Growing up in Golders Green and about as popular as a Jewish garden gnome, (Sam’s expression), Sam feared that his lack of success with women would become a lifetime’s work. But at Cambridge, Sam met Clarissa, a stunning girl who wore vintage hippy frocks, and big hats, and who had the most wonderful golden corkscrew curls he had ever seen. Zack had made a play for Clarissa once, but she’d turned him down, (the first and last time this had happened), on the basis that she’d rather fallen for Sam, and didn’t want to put him off by sleeping with his very best friend. This simple decision became a thing of legend at the time because no one could understand it. How could any woman turn down Zack Fortune for Sam Stein? It was discussed long into the night by their set and other sets, everyone fascinated by Clarissa’s appalling taste in men.

Some said it was because Sam was from a very wealthy family. Some said it was because Clarissa wanted to teach Zack Fortune a lesson. Whatever the reason, Sam and Clarissa became inseparable and married less than a year later.

Prompted by Sam, his company, Nyman, Holder and Drew had head hunted Zack two years earlier. Clarissa told Sam he was stupid. How on earth would he get promotion now? But Sam, lacking any competitive spirit could not have cared less. Zack was making quite a name for himself in the company and as usual, Sam basked in Zack’s success. More important than this, he saw Zack every day. Secretly, Sam had to admit he’d have taken a huge cut in salary just for this alone. He loved the guy. Not only because of Zack’s kindness at Cambridge, rounding him up like the outcast he was, but because of Zack’s unfailing and continued interest in him. Never a person to command friendship, loyalty or respect, for some reason this potent, dynamic man was Sam’s best buddy, and got off on being his best buddy, too.

“You shouldn’t be flattered by it,” said Clarissa one day when Sam was waxing lyrical about the special relationship the two men enjoyed, “it’s quite common you know, and it’s called something.”

“What is?” asked Sam, bewildered.

“People forming close ties with someone who is so obviously inferior, psychiatrists have a name for it.”

“
Really
?” said Sam, “now there’s a surprise.”

“It makes them look better by comparison, it’s the action of the insecure.”

Sam brooded on this for a while, but then dismissed it. Just how much better did Zack Fortune need to look he asked himself? He shone like a star anyway, the fact he shone even brighter beside Sam seemed academic. And anyway, thought Sam, you’re just jealous. And he was right, she was.

Sam smiled up at Zack as he breezed into Starbucks that morning, turning the heads of office girls perched up on high stools along the window then plonking himself down at Sam’s table and whipping the saucer off the mug of coffee Sam had for him on standby.

“Mate,” said Sam, “what’s new?”

“I am a free man, that’s what’s new. Susan is no more.”

Sam sagged. He looked tired suddenly. “So what’s wrong with Susan? Apart from the obvious that is.”

“She’s unstable.”

“And what did I say right at the beginning?”

“I know, the oracle spoke, and yet again I chose to ignore him.”

“Is she still opening beer bottles with her teeth?”

“That’s the least of it. She’s been going on about this French film for weeks, so we went to see it last night in
East Finchley for God’s sake
, and it was monstrous, of course it bloody was.”

“She took you to see a
French film in East Finchley?
Hells bells, what next? A pig roast in Tel Aviv?”

“Plus, I missed the Wanderers because of it.”

“Ah well, now you didn’t mention that,” said Sam. “Any woman who comes between a man and Bolton Wanderers is signing their own death warrant.”

“I knew you’d agree, Mr Stein.”

The Bolton Wanderers thing started as a joke. One sunny day in Cambridge a group of friends, including Zack and Sam, finding themselves in the middle of a field, stoned out of their heads on a reckless jumble of stimulants had decided to vie for the most hopeless football team of all time. Zack said Bolton Wanderers which had won hands down. Not many of them knew about football then, it certainly wasn’t the sexy game it is today, and Bolton Wanderers just seemed pretty much a lost cause.

“Imagine,” said Zack, “wandering around Bolton.
Bolton
of all places! I’d die first!”

Sam pretended to be deeply offended by Zack’s remarks, insisting he was a lifelong ardent supporter.

“Take it back, sir, how dare you disparage Bolton Wanderers, the football team of my youth!”

“I won’t take it back!” said Zack, “I’ll be damned if I will!”

“Then I’ll fight you to the death. Be prepared to die, you varmint!”

“That’s cowboys,” said Zack.

“It can be anything I say it is!” said Sam, flamboyantly, pulling off a nearby branch to use as a sword.

It was one of those wonderful, stupid moments you never forget, a bunch of guys, young, optimistic, with huge potential, and no responsibilities, enjoying just being together and finding everything farcical.

Later on, maybe out of loyalty to the imagined favourite football team of Sam’s youth, Zack found himself developing a genuine interest in the club, and was now the ardent supporter Sam had once professed to be. Sam found this odd and amusing, and was rather touched by it. Bolton Wanderers became their secret shared interest, and although Sam struggled to remain committed, (he’d forgotten about the game the night before for instance), Zack was. Somehow it was like Zack telling him how much he cared. Sam loved it when Zack talked about Bolton Wanderers, it made him feel secure.

Zack started on his cappuccino as Sam gazed across at him with his usual amiable scrutiny. How could any man be as handsome as this, Sam asked himself for the umpteenth time. There was good looking and there was ridiculously good looking, Zack fell into the latter category. No sign of those looks fading either. If anything, they’d become more defined, more arresting as time had passed. Deep brown eyes that sometimes looked jet black, a Gallic nose, a perfect jaw line, high cheek bones, and the teeth of a Hollywood icon. How wonderful to be Zack Fortune, Sam had often thought, but second best was being Zack Fortune’s closest friend. As a consolation prize Sam had to settle for that and he wasn’t complaining.

He looked up to see a girl behind the counter wrapped round in a bottle green apron, staring at Zack, unable to believe her eyes. Sam smiled at the girl, silently saying: ‘Yes, I know love, it’s not fair, is it?’ but the girl didn’t even notice.

The offices of the law firm Nyman, Holder and Drew were situated on the 9th floor of a sleek office block, Emerson Buildings that dominated the city skyline. The company employed 40 staff and here at eight thirty this morning it seemed all of them were criss-crossing in and out of rooms, along passageways, hell bent on doing important things. Zack strolled into his office soundlessly, the thick carpet absorbing his tread. Inevitably Rose was already there, fussing round his desk. She looked up on his arrival, a hint of acknowledgement but only a hint, as though all reactions from this woman were at a premium.

Rose Crawford was mixed race, early forties, but looked a good ten years younger, and with dyed blonde hair cut close to her head and her willowy, athletic figure she cut quite a dash. A single mother, Rose had gone to college to study business management in order to support her twins, now twelve years old. Everything about her suggested wisdom, restraint, discretion and understanding. Zack knew they would hit it off on sight.

“Hey, Rose, what about that sky this morning, weird or what?”

“Was it?” asked Rose, surprised.

“You must have noticed, sun up, it looked like the sky was on fire.”

“Not in Shepherds Bush it wasn’t,” she said. Then, after a moment’s thought, “the vagaries of our post code lottery I expect… a letter to the mayor do you think?”

And with that Rose was gone, like she’d evaporated. Zack sat down at his desk, glanced at an open diary, but almost immediately got up again and went to find Sam. Sam was on the phone as Zack walked in so he hovered, waiting for him to sign off.

“Sam, did you see that sky this morning?”

Sam looked blank. “And this is a trick question is it?”

“It looked like it was bleeding.”

“
Bleeding
? The sky was bleeding?”

“Or on fire, crimson, dark red…” Zack’s voice trailed off, “
what is this
?” said Zack.

“I wish I knew, mate, I wish I knew.”

“I can’t believe no one else saw it.”

“Can’t say I did, but I’m not a morning person as well you know. That was my wife on the phone, Lady Clarissa.”

“Well thanks for that, but I do remember her name after all these years.”

“Twelve o’clock, she told me to remind you.”

“Remind me of what?”

“This regression thing,” said Sam, dropping his voice to a whisper.

“
Oh God, no
,” said Zack, remembering, “get me out of it, Sam,
please
.”

“No can do, mate, you promised, I was there, I heard you.”

“But I was pissed, you promise anything to women when you’re pissed.”

“Then a lesson learnt I’d say… be there or be square.”

The kind of salary Sam pulled in meant that Clarissa didn’t really have to work at all. At first she did. Trooping into a small publishing house, battling with weighty tomes on gardening, DIY, and self-help manuals, books she had no interest in, working for fusty old Norman Bell, a man she had even less interest in. So when he mooted one day that a recession seemed imminent, and that unfortunately there would have to be redundancies, Clarissa nominated herself as first to go. Her severance pay was agreed on the spot.

“He said – ‘oh all right then’ - just like that. I mean,
really, that man!
” said Clarissa to Sam, as soon as he’d got back from work.

“But you wanted to go, you offered.”

“
That is not the point
,” said Clarissa, a hectoring note in her voice.

“Isn’t it?”

“No of course it isn’t! He should have at least pretended to be sorry. Norman Bell has no social graces - that’s his trouble. He just wouldn’t know where to start.”

If anything demonstrated the difference between men and women this did, Sam decided a little later as he loaded the dishwasher. A man would be cock-a-hoop at this outcome, a lousy job kicked into touch, endless days of indolence stretching out in front of him while he lived off the fat of the land, or at least the fat of his redundancy money, but a woman? Oh no, she’d want full value, the wringing of hands, the shaking of the head, the ‘how on earth will we manage without you’ scenario, before she felt she’d got her money’s worth.

Although Sam would never have owned up to this, he was not remotely surprised by Norman Bell’s reaction. Sam had always got the impression that Norman thought Clarissa a liability rather than an asset to his little company, and yet a kindly man, unable to deal with confrontation, he hadn’t been able even to float the idea that Clarissa might be better suited working elsewhere.

Secretly, Sam was surprised Clarissa had lasted this long, (he wouldn’t want her anywhere near his office), because Clarissa hated the restraint of having to do certain things at certain times – like turn up, and work, it wasn’t her bag really. Sam told her not to bother getting another job unless she wanted to. Clarissa decided she didn’t, and realising she would probably die before she had read anywhere near all the novels you were meant to read before oblivion came knocking, she decided to get cracking and make a start.

Reading had always been Clarissa’s thing. She could spend weeks just going from book to book, imagining the life that was being described to her, becoming part of it but then always feeling very let down when the story came to an end, like she had to deal with reality again and she’d prefer not to thank you very much. She also felt a strange sense of abandonment too. She realised this was absurd, but for a while she resented these authors drawing a line under things, rejecting her involvement with their world and their characters. This feeling continued until she was immersed in another book, and another. She didn’t dare admit this to anyone of course because she knew it was rather strange.