DEATHLOOP (36 page)

“
My God,
” said Justin, catching his breath, “bloody sodding hell.”

For a long moment they just looked at each other, Zack managing a wry grin, then Justin stood back, allowing him inside. Closing the door behind him, he led Zack along an echoing hallway to an expansive country kitchen come family room at the back of the house. They stood drinking each other in until Zack stepped forward and took hold of Justin and gave him a hug. At first, Justin did not respond, then he did, the two men holding onto each other with that show of emotion that only real history can stir up. Approaching footsteps caused Justin to disengage first.

“Simon,” said Justin, “Simon, this is Zack.”

Zack turned to find him, a small, fussy man with greying hair, and it was immediately apparent that Simon knew all about Zack Fortune.

“Pleased to meet you,” said Zack, holding out his hand.

Simon took Zack’s hand limply, the action shot through with disapproval. Then they all stood in silence looking at each other, wondering what would happen next.

“As you’ve waited twenty years tomorrow morning would have done wouldn’t it?” said Simon. “It’s after twelve.”

“Yes, sorry about that, but it is rather urgent.”

Simon took the hint and flounced out, throwing Justin a warning look on the way.

“Excuse me a moment,” said Justin.

Zack heard Justin catch up with Simon on the stairs and engage in a half whispered, half shouted row, Justin reappearing a few minutes later as a door slammed up above.

They sat across from each other at an oak table, Zack gazing at his old friend with interest. He didn’t look that much different, he’d aged well. He always wore check shirts and jeans and suit waistcoats, his blond hair falling heavily over his collar. Zack had forgotten how good looking he was. His jaw line was well defined, his frank brown eyes were set wide apart on either side of a Roman nose, and he was still youthfully slim. Justin took out a small packet of cheroots from his waistcoat pocket and offered one to Zack.

“Twenty years, it can’t be,” said Zack as they lit up. “Oh and I’m sorry, Justin, I’m sorry by the way.”

“
You’re sorry
?” said Justin, “what for?”

“For just about everything… anyway, how’s work? A never ending supply of mad people, is that it?”

“I’m not complaining,” said Justin, looking increasingly bewildered.

“Well here’s another one,” said Zack, getting straight to the point.

Justin found himself intensely curious at Zack’s brief confession, a confession that had clearly driven him to seek him out again after all this time.

“Can I tell you what’s been going on?”

“Fire away.”

Ten minutes later Zack was staring at Justin eagerly, willing him to come up with an explanation, just like he used to.

“Blimey,” said Justin quietly as he stood up, padded over to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of vodka and a large bottle of tonic. He filled a couple of glasses and handed one over. For a long time neither spoke, but Zack could see Justin brooding on things as they drank.

“Sam thinks it’s the acid.”

“Yes, well he would,” said Justin, bitterly, “and he blames me I suppose. Don’t tell me he hasn’t come out yet.”

“He’s with Clarissa, remember.”

“Only to impress you,” said Justin, as though Zack was the only person in the world not to know this.

“I need help, Justin, I’m desperate.”

“Yes, I can see that.”

“I’m part of something I don’t understand and it’s freaking me out.”

“Really? It used to be the weirder the better at one time.”

“Yeah, but nothing was this fucking weird.”

“What made you think of me?”

“I often think of you,” said Zack, lying.

“Fondly?”

“Of course, but I’m not gay, Justin…”

“You
said
you were,” said Justin with a distant twinkle.

“I said I
might
be…”

“You were the most evil fucker on two legs.”

“I know I was and that’s the point.”

“And you drove all this way after all this time to ask me this?”

“I want answers, and no one can provide them. I thought maybe you could.”

Justin smiled. “You always want something, don’t you, you old tart?”

“Yes,” said Zack, “I suppose I do.”

Justin glanced across at the man of his dreams and couldn’t help but be excited by him sitting here in his kitchen. Since Cambridge, every one of his boyfriends had been a substitute for Zack Fortune. Even Simon knew that because he’d told him.

They heard the front door slam, angry feet stomping across the gravel outside and the familiar sounds of a car being started up and driven away.

“Is that because of me?”

“Oh yes, I expect so.”

So they chewed over their days of inertia and their nights of debauchery in Cambridge with Sam, Clarissa, and Nick Mallik who had left Zack’s flat that night following Sam’s threats only to get five years in a Turkish prison for drug smuggling.

“Hell,” said Zack with feeling, “and he survived?”

“His father bribed quite a few people apparently so it wasn’t as grim as it might have been.”

And as the alcohol took its toll, Zack became sentimental and maudlin, telling Justin that while it was true he wasn’t gay, had he been gay, then without question he and Justin would have embarked upon a lifelong relationship years ago.

“Have you got any idea how many times you’ve said that to me?” said Justin. “Or words to that effect.”

Zack frowned, convinced he’d only just thought it up.

“You don’t remember, do you?”

“Not really…”

“You and Sam had that awful tiff and you ended up smashing up his room and causing all that damage and he had to get his father to pay for it, surely you remember that?”

“Well yes…” said Zack, who remembered every moment vividly.

“The day before, you came to me in pieces because Sam was giving you the cold shoulder. I’d never seen anyone like that, and you of all people… I hated Sam Stein from that moment on but it was the closest we ever got to sleeping together… in fact we
did
sleep together…”

“As mates though,” said Zack, hastily.

“More’s the pity,” said Justin, gloomily, “you were so stoned you passed out and I ogled you all night long. ‘Unbearably exquisite’ was how I described you in my romantic post-adolescent way. You haven’t changed much either you bastard.”

“You neither, which begs the question as to what the hell you’re doing with a boyfriend who looks like a stoat.”

“
How dare you!
” said Justin in mock outrage, secretly amused at the comparison, “anyway, you don’t know what stoats look like.”

“Yes I do,” said Zack, “but forget stoats for a moment, let’s get drunk.”

“We are drunk.”

“Let’s get more drunk,” said Zack, filling up their glasses from the Vodka bottle.

Just after four they staggered upstairs. Justin offered Zack the spare room but Zack just crashed out on his bed, which meant that Justin did not sleep at all, curling up beside him just as he had twenty years previously, wondering what Zack’s visit really meant and wondering what chaos would follow.

Two hours later as Justin was making tea in the kitchen, Zack’s phone lit up and started skidding across the table.

“Zack?”

“Hello Clarissa…”

In the silence that followed Justin could hear Clarissa’s mind clanking into recall.

“
Justin?
” she said, “Justin Dunsmore?”

“That’s the one…”

“He’s with you then is he? Well that’s something.”

“How’s Sam?”

“Broken jaw, broken cheek bone, broken nose, but he’ll survive,” said Clarissa, implying that Zack might not be so lucky.

“I’m keeping an eye on him.”

“Has he told you much?”

“He’s told me everything.”

“Sam wants him to know something, it’s important, tell him, will you?”

“Of course.”

“It wasn’t Sam who told Geoff… it was Susan.”

Realising how vital this piece of information could well be to his prodigal friend, Justin told Zack as soon as his eyes opened, just after eight, which turned out to be something of a mistake. Exploding with rage, Zack yelled at Justin accusing him of lying.

“Don’t shoot the messenger, matey! Phone Clarissa if you don’t believe me!”

Zack flew downstairs and rang Clarissa straight away.

“I shouldn’t speak to you or Sam, so don’t tell anyone,” said Zack, “Tracy said she’d dump me if I did.”

“It was Susan who spilled the beans, Zack, it wasn’t Sam. She made an appointment to see Geoff.” This took the wind from Zack’s sails and he could make absolutely no reply. “Are you still there?”

“She went into Nyman’s,
and she spoke to Geoff
? I can’t believe she’d do that.”

“Well she did,” said Clarissa.

“But presumably Sam confirmed it?”

“I don’t think so, and he’s refused to press charges by the way, have you heard?”

Zack hadn’t heard, but the information brought tears to his eyes, and a great big lump to his throat. “How is he?” he said.

“He’ll be okay, and how about you?”

“I’m going to die, Clarissa, did I tell you?”

“What?”

“Me and Veronica apparently, God knows how, but that’s the latest.”

“Put Justin on.”

Zack shouted for Justin and charged back upstairs, throwing himself into bed and pulling the covers over his head, feeling safe for a little while, like he used to feel when he was a child, until some bastard came along that is, and wrenched his safety from him.

Two hours later Justin came up with a breakfast tray, laying it down gently on the bedside table. Zack woke with a start, frightened suddenly and unsure where he was.

“There’s food here and I’m going to watch you eat it.”

“Did I yell at you before?”

“You know you did.”

“Sorry, Justin…”

“Just like old times, eh?”

Zack sat up straight and brought the tray across his lap.

“I don’t deserve you, or Sam or Clarissa or anyone for that matter because I’m a shit.”

“Yes, dear, we know, but what’s all this about dying? You didn’t tell me that.”

“It’s all baloney of course,” said Zack, gulping down eggs and bacon and toast, “all this spooky stuff is.”

Zack looked up at Justin and met his gaze. In their Cambridge days Justin had seen Zack strung out many times but never before like this. Zack Fortune was still a beautiful man but now his eyes would not stay still, he was gaunt, jumpy, like a gazelle, a life spent in wait for the flicker of a predator

“So what’s your theory?” said Justin, “I presume you’ve got one.”

“The obvious one is stress, what with Susan and Russell and the fear of being found out and losing my job.”

“But the suicide happened before all that didn’t it?”

“Well yes,” said Zack, annoyed that Justin had picked up on the flaw in his argument so quickly, “yes it did.”

“So we can rule that out.”

“Then there’s guilt,” said Zack, sounding a little sheepish, but still pleased to be saying this out loud at last.

“
Guilt
?” said Justin, “I didn’t think you did guilt.”

“Neither did I, but some people don’t know the difference okay… bastards sure, yet they can live with themselves because they’re psychopaths or sociopaths and they don’t perceive or evaluate their actions as harmful, but I do.”

“
Ah
…” said Justin.

“I destroy people, don’t I? Shrugging off the resulting misery as collateral damage. But sometimes, Justin, I’m ashamed of what I’ve done.”

“A conscience at last, so what’s brought this on?”

“But is it guilt do you think, conjuring up these traumas, making me so paranoid I can’t even walk through a crowd for fear of someone dying right in front of me. Justin, you’ve got to help me with this.”

“Okay, so these visions…”

“Let me stop you there, they’re not
just visions
, I go through physical changes, my body freezes, my lungs seize, I’m affected physically and mentally and it scares the shit out of me. It’s like I shouldn’t be there but I should because something keeps returning me to these people…”

“So let’s trace this back to the beginning…”

“The regression, everything stemmed from that, but if it’s not that then it’s me,
I’m
the alternative, and sometimes I think that’s worse, because it just shows how completely screwed up I am.” Zack took a breath, and Justin could see he was debating whether to say anything else, “I did things as a kid that were pretty freaky.”

“We all did, didn’t we?”

“My mother brought strings of guys to the house and I hated them. I tried to kill one or two.”

“So what? You were under the age of responsibility.”

“And look at all these women… chucked away like empty fag packets.”

“Zack Fortune is a shit, sure he is, tell us something we don’t know, but if you’re implying that your mind somehow is conjuring up these scenarios as some kind of dramatic flagellation….”

“I haven’t said this to anyone else but the smell of death is always with me, and there’s this foreboding, this feeling that another person is hiding round a corner somewhere and about to die.”

“Meanwhile, back in the real world…”

“And that’s just as bad thanks for asking… it’s like some chaos causing virus has gone into overdrive, infecting everything I touch and everyone I know. Should I find a priest do you think and confess after all this time.”

“I’d forgotten you were a Catholic.”

“I’m not, although my dear mother did her best in that respect, but as we all know Catholic guilt enters the psyche by stealth.”

“Maybe that’s the problem.”

“What?”

“Okay, look, I’m talking off the top of my head now, analysis takes years so I’m winging it here, but the hedonism that was so much part of your modus operandi has been tempered with age, am I right?”

“Well, yes, I suppose.”

“You’re more reflective now, more aware of the effect of your actions and so…
maybe
the early indoctrination, Catholic guilt in your case has been activated, brushed down and brought back into play.”