DEATHLOOP (54 page)

When the bell sounded and woke Sam and Clarissa it was as if they knew straight away. They lay beside each other longing for silence, and their wish was granted temporarily, but the reprieve didn’t last. It wasn’t Zack ringing the bell, they knew that. They could always tell if it was him, and this wasn’t him.

Sam heard Clarissa in the hall saying a few words into the intercom and his stomach lurched. Vomit collected in his throat as he heard the lift moving up to their floor so he sat up. He heard Clarissa bringing them in and knew he had to be there with her, he couldn’t stay here although he wanted to. He wanted to stay here forever because then he wouldn’t know, not for certain anyway. Sam found some courage from somewhere but his mind and his body had gone into default, it was like everything had shut down, but his feet obeyed him, delivering him into the living room where Brian Smith stood, flanked by a WPC.

Neither needed to speak, but when Brian Smith finally said that he was sorry and when his words went into their nasty drawling blur, Sam punched him, it was inevitable that he would and he did. Clarissa leapt forward and pulled Sam away, but when Clarissa tried to excuse Sam, Brian Smith brushed it aside. He was made of sterner stuff the gesture said, he had been the recipient of worse, much worse. Brian watched Sam’s devastation, at the hysteria his words had evoked and felt nothing but envy, his own death would affect no one, not like this.

For an hour or so Sam raged, howled, clung onto Clarissa, threatened to break every stick of furniture they owned, threatened to jump out of a window, until in the end Clarissa called their doctor and asked him to come immediately, Sam had become insane. When their doctor finally arrived, Sam turned on Clarissa, calling her a traitor and threatening to kill her too. It took another hour to calm him, an hour of threats and injections, and God knows what, and only then was Clarissa allowed to react to Zack’s death and she wondered at one point if she would actually ever stop crying, and if tears were finite or if there were always some held in reserve somewhere, ready to do their duty.

In the morning, when the violence of sudden grief had eased slightly, they were left only with banal agony and desolate shock, which was just as bad, if not worse. The drama had ebbed away to be replaced by the relentless loneliness of loss.

“They say the pain goes at some point…” said Clarissa, following two hours of absolute silence, clutching at a far off straw.

“No they don’t,” said Sam, “they say it’s always with you, you just get numb to it, I think that’s what they say.”

The details didn’t concern them, what concerned Sam was his ultimate desertion of his best friend. He asked Clarissa again and again why it was he didn’t go with him, after all, he could see the state he was in, so why send him off like that with a cab driver for company of all things.

Eventually Clarissa told him to stop it, neither could have known what was in store. But Sam just would not have this, reminding her of Zack’s prediction of his own death. He should have been there for him, he had always been there for him, but in the end he wasn’t. Perversely, at the time he needed him most he had failed him. If that was why instinctively Zack had rounded Sam up all those years ago, somehow sensing that a simple act of kindness would save his life twenty years down the line, poor Zack had made a terrible mistake - he had picked the wrong guy. Sam was destroyed by this and destroyed by grief, and as much as Clarissa was suffering, she realised that it didn’t come near to the utter wretchedness that consumed Sam, and she knew then that she would lose Sam too now, and wondered what on earth she would do without both of them.

Sam had ordered flowers in the shape of a football in the colours of Bolton Wanderers, red white and blue, but when the floral arrangement arrived it just made him burst into tears so he stamped on it and threw all the flowers from the window. Secretly, Clarissa had always thought this a bad idea. Zack was not a football fan, or even that interested, it was just some kind of private joke between them and to Clarissa it felt inappropriate.

The small Catholic church in Clerkenwell was packed as is always the way when someone dies young. Clarissa didn’t know half the people there and she resented them. They might be a little upset, but it was nothing compared to how she felt and how Sam felt or even how Justin felt. There was a delegation from Harter and Sachs and from Nyman’s. Rose was there, struggling to find the composure she was renowned for, as was Geoff and Sharon, and some office girls. Patrick had turned up with Betty Dibbs and Gloria. There were dozens of ex-girlfriends, Amber included, and groups of people from Cambridge. Tracy was there looking ashen, and even Brian Smith had turned up, a sense of contrition about the man.

Sam was convinced that Zack would have wanted them to represent him at Veronica’s funeral earlier in the week and so they asked Miriam if they could attend, but Miriam had advised against it. Her parents were distraught and blamed Zack for Veronica’s death entirely. Secretly, Sam and Clarissa had been relieved at this, thankful that Zack’s funeral was the only ritual they would have to go through.

Sam had agreed to say a few words, and Clarissa was hoping he would be able to get through the short address, but when it was time, Sam got up calmly enough, stood at the front of the church and cleared his throat.

“I met Zack, like so many of us here today at Cambridge twenty odd years ago. He saved me from being a pariah at that time. Why he did that I don’t know. He collected me like an empty milk bottle he often used to say and I suppose that’s true. Zack Fortune was an absolute monster when the mood took him, but he could also be the sweetest, kindest, most loyal person on earth. Luckily, I usually saw his better side, but his complexity is well known. My life would have been barren had I not met him and known him although he frequently drove me insane… we all know his propensity for doing that. Zack would want us to hear a joke or two today, and I’ll admit I’ve struggled to come up with anything, but here’s something that gives you a flavour of the man we all knew and most of us loved…

In our second year at Cambridge, Zack complained to me that our corner shop did not stock Curly Wurlys, his favourite pick-me-up after a night out on the tiles, and despite entreaties to the owner of said shop, he refused to listen. Stocking Curly Wurlys encouraged school children he said and school children he could do without. Consequently, in true Zack Fortune fashion he decided to make it his crusade and so set about an elaborate ruse involving photographs of the Queen, and a story he had mocked up as though from The Sun newspaper documenting the surprising news that Curly Wurlys were her Majesty’s favourite confectionary. Along with this he printed up leaflets announcing the imminent visit of the Queen to the University and to the local community and urging all shopkeepers ‘to be prepared’.

Surprisingly, it worked, Zack found himself able to enjoy a good supply of Curly Wurlys on his doorstep, and for quite some time afterwards the shopkeeper would rise each morning thinking that the day had dawned, when he would be able to put up a blue plaque outside his shop announcing to the whole world – as had been suggested in Zack’s leaflets - that from now on he would be known far and wide as ‘Confectioner by appointment to the Queen’.”

This story did for Justin who wept openly, setting Clarissa off. Sam took a moment, composed himself and continued.

“At funerals these days we are meant to celebrate the life that was lived, not mourn the life we have lost, well I celebrated the fact that I was Zack Fortune’s best friend every day. We are here because he’s been taken from us, and for me… and for Clarissa… that is an impossible burden for us to bear, so we do mourn, and we will go on mourning. He was more than my best friend, he was my brother, and I know that his loss will never stop destroying me.”

Two hours later Sam was driving through open countryside his seat belt unfastened. He had left the wake at The Two Bells, unable to deal with it, telling Clarissa he needed some air and time to think.

Sam had agreed to look after Jason’s interests following his arrest, he was Zack’s son after all. Tracy didn’t feel she could represent him any longer so Sam had dug out an old colleague of Zack’s from Harter and Sachs. Word was that Jason was unfit to plead. No doubt he would be sent off to a secure unit where he would continue to be challenging in the company of other challenging people, such would be his lot from now on. As much as Sam hated Jason, he knew that Zack would want him to do his best by his son. The Jason who killed his own father was not born, he was created, and Zack was instrumental in that process. Sam knew that Zack would be of the opinion that he had in effect killed himself, through his selfishness, his weakness, his inability to do the right thing. Sam knew that Zack would have considered the responsibility to be his alone.

Susan had come round to Baker Street on several occasions, hysterical and distraught. Sam had managed to get her carted off by the cops each time. She had been banned from the funeral and for once it seemed she had listened, although as Sam and Clarissa were driving out of the crematorium on their way to the pub, Sam thought he saw her at a distance, skulking around amongst the grave stones, an appropriate place for her after all, considering her vendetta had died with Zack.

Sam found himself wondering what Susan would do now. Would she look around listlessly for another life to wreck, or was her desperate behaviour just a natural consequence of Zack’s ruthlessness? Sam had whitewashed Zack and defended him every day that he had known him in the way a mother does with her wayward son, unable to believe the worst of someone who is able to arouse such love within them. And it is true that Sam had tried on a couple of occasions to cut those ties, but had failed resolutely to do so, because the truth was, being trapped with Zack Fortune was infinitely preferable to being free and without him. If Sam had ever doubted that while Zack was alive, he didn’t doubt it now.

Sam was driving faster, desperate to get out of these stupid country lanes that led to stupid country towns, full of stupid country people. Sam hated just about everyone now, apart from Clarissa, and since Zack’s death sometimes he thought he hated her too. What was left for him and Clarissa now? A turgid job in a turgid firm that offered not one iota of excitement or reward? A life ensconced in their padded cell in Baker Street full of frozen memories and regrets.

Zack was irreplaceable, no one could come near, no one could engender such love and loyalty and emotion. He hadn’t been the third person in their marriage he had been the reason it had kept going. Without Zack he and Clarissa had broken apart and they both knew this, although neither had voiced it. They knew they were done for if they did, off on their solitary sojourns to infinite tedium, or to kick start what was left of their lives… charity work, speed dating, sports groups and clubs full of people Zack would have despised.

In The Two Bells, the couple who had found Zack came up and introduced themselves, the young man saying something extremely strange. Weeks ago, Zack had accosted him in the street insisting he knew of a suicide, a girl who had jumped from the roof of Jericho Mansions not far from where he lived. At the time he denied all knowledge of the place, but that was then, oddly he and his girlfriend had only yesterday taken on a tenancy in Jericho Mansions and were moving in together next month.

Gerald Rosenbloom had turned up at the wake for a glass or two of gin and a Scotch egg. Zack had often said that the guy would wade through a sewer at the prospect of a free Eccles cake and here he was as large as life, proving his old friend right. Sam had punched Gerald in the face a few times and kicked him out causing quite a scene, and Clarissa had run after him, citing Sam’s still desperate state of mind. Why couldn’t Gerald have got knifed to death in a back street confirming his idiotic fucking risk assessment once and for all? The fact that Gerald was still drawing breath when Zack was not, ignited a riot of anger to run through Sam, bringing his foot to bear down on the accelerator even more.

Other cars were hooting at Sam as he tried on several occasions to overtake, then when he got stuck behind a tractor he thought he would explode with impatience, the damn things should be banned from the road. He could just do it maybe if he swung out now, but the car coming towards him was travelling just as fast and Sam could not quite get back in front of the tractor in time… or could he… or was it just that Sam didn’t want to?

As the two vehicles smashed into each other, Sam punched out of his windscreen and was expelled from his car in a wild somersault that seemed to go on for hours, his life playing itself out in his head, Zack featuring predominantly, and Sam would have died many times over to see this because he felt close enough to his old friend to touch him.

When he landed with a thump in this greenest of English fields in this greenest of English countrysides he saw something moving towards him from such a distance.

Sam said: “
Zack! My God you’re here, you’ve come back to me… I knew you would… help me through, mate, help me through
…”

© 2012 Gil Brailey

Gil Brailey has asserted her rights in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

Published by Uncut

First published in eBook format in 2012

eISBN: 978-1-908886-66-8

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