Stockholm Syndrome [01] - Stockholm Syndrome (38 page)

There are ways to be there for your mates that don't involve hand-holding and sharing stories about your hopeless love lives, but the urge to ask is always there, just lurking and waiting to ruin everything.

"How's Ellie?" he asks, as he's pulling on his underwear. He says it carefully, approaching the subject sideways so it doesn't look like an attack.

"Woman's mental. Are these your glasses or mine?"

"Well, can you see through them?"

"Oh
Jesus
, you're blind."

"No, I'm longsighted. Yours are behind your bag. How is she mental?"

"Yeah, if I wanted to get in a discussion about how fucking nuts she is I'd have stayed at home."

"Alright." He backs off a bit, just finishes getting dried and dressed, but he's not fooled. He's dropped himself in it now. Ty clearly
does
want to talk, because there's no way it'd take him this long to put his washing gear away if he wasn't hanging around for something. Lindsay slows down, just to try him –

slowly slipping his shirt buttons through and slowly fighting into his jumper and

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slowly tying his boots.

"Why's it take you people so much longer to get ready than normal blokes?"

Ha. "You could go without me, I don't need you holding my hand."

"I'm not touching any part of you, I know where you've been playing."

"Yeah," Lindsay says, after a moment, straightening the bottoms of his jeans so he doesn't have to look up right away. He can feel a flush rising in his cheeks. He hates that, it makes him look twelve years old, even when the flush is covered in a week's worth of beard. "Drank a bit yesterday."

"So did I, you didn't hear me going at Danny all night."

"It wasn't
all night
..."

"Fucking felt like it."

"Sorry." Lindsay's got nothing left to waste time on now so he stands up and heaves his rucksack onto his shoulder, still trying to avoid looking at him, but he meets Ty's eye by accident and sees he's smirking, and that's almost a laugh, and that almost makes it okay. "What?"

"Nothing."

"What?"

"Nothing!" They both squint, stepping out of the dimly-lit shower block and into the bright morning sunshine. "You're just a massive fucking woman, that's all."

"As if you know anything about women."

He does laugh then, a choking noise of derision. "Says the shirtlifter."

"You know I've lifted enough skirts, too." They're walking, but not in the direction of the tent. Just sort of aimless wandering, following one of the scuffed paths into the trees and vaguely in the direction of the river. Lindsay kind of feels like he shouldn't have said that – they don't really talk about the old days, or at least not
that
– but the awkwardness he feared isn't actually as bad as he 309

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thought it might be. As long as they keep it light, meaningless, jokey banter, then they can talk and talk forever about anything, even something as no-no as
feelings
.

"That makes you an expert on women, does it? Decades of trying to talk yourself out of liking dick?"

"Enough of an expert to know they don't like their husbands calling them
woman
."

"I don't. To her face. Well, sometimes."

"Is that why we're here?" Lindsay swings his bag around a bit so he can get in the side pocket for his cigarettes. "Smoke?"

"
That's
why we're here." Ty stops walking for a second to light up, drawing deep on the cigarette and letting it out in a long, satisfied sigh. "She doesn't want me smoking, says it's bad for the girls. I told her it's the only fucking pleasure I've got left, and she went and took it all personal."

Lindsay can't help laughing. "Can you blame her?"

"Jesus, I knew you'd take her side!"

"I'm not on anybody's side, I'm just saying-"

"Yeah, but – okay, she's allergic to my horses, I get rid of my horses, I let her keep that mangy fucking little poodle, okay, I don't even argue. She doesn't want me gambling, fine. Like we can't afford it, right? But fine, no more blowing
my money
, 'cause the woman doesn't like it. She doesn't want me to...

you know I'm not allowed to fucking
sleep
with her any more? 'Cause she's too hot, she sleeps too light, I wake her up.
I
kick her by accident and it's a fucking capital crime – the baby kicks her and she's got to wake
me
up to tell me. I mean... what
are
these people?"

"What, women?"

"Yeah, Christ. And now I can't keep horses, can't play cards, can't fucking
touch
her, and she wants me to give up this too? Give me the pack, I'm smoking ten at once and fucking texting her a photo."

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Now
it's obvious. Should have been obvious months ago, really, because they've been though it twice before. "Are you
scared
?"

"Don't make me laugh." Ty takes the pack and lights a new one from the butt of the last. "I mean it, I'm having these. I'll buy you a pack."

"There's more in the car anyway."

"Oh, good man."

He stops so abruptly Lindsay doesn't realise for a second and has to turn round and walk back to where he's sitting on a fallen tree trunk with his head in his hands, smoke pluming up the side of his face where he's got the cigarette held in the corner of his mouth. It's a gesture he used to do when they were younger, raking his hands through his hair when he was stressed; he hasn't got much of it any more but the impulse is still the same. Lindsay feels a pang of something strange – nostalgia, weariness – and sits beside him quietly.

"Either you're scared or you're jealous. Of a
foetus
. Pull yourself together."

"Thanks," Ty mutters. He spits the half-burned cigarette out and grinds it under his foot into the strewn leaves. He's still not lifted his head, but the movement's edged them a tiny bit closer, so their legs are pressed against each other. Lindsay forces himself not to flinch away and just finishes his own smoke, slowly, savouring the taste and warmth. He's got a woman nagging him to give up it, too, packing him off on one guilt trip after another about how he's killing himself and he knows how horrible cancer is and does he want to deprive her of the only other man she's ever really loved, but that's his mother and it's not the same thing and Ty probably wouldn't appreciate the comparison so he doesn't bother offering it.

"Valentine keeps trying to bin my jazz records," he says instead. "I just thump him. Argument over."

Ty turns to look at him irritably. "You're suggesting I thump my heavily pregnant wife?"

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"Only because she'll kick your teeth in, maybe stab you to death with a stiletto. Get things in perspective when you're dying from a Jimmy Choo in the eye, won't it?"

"No. She'd never risk getting brains on her
shoes
." He sits up a bit, though, and stops hiding in his hands, turns his face up to the warmth of the sunlight filtering through the trees instead and closes his eyes. Lindsay watches him, then realises and looks away hastily, hunting out the packet again and ramming a third cigarette into Ty's mouth.

"You'll be sick," he says, as he's lighting it for him. "First time my dad caught me he stood over me and made me chain-smoke the lot til I threw up all over myself."

Ty smiles a bit, still not opening his eyes. "Should've told him to get fucked."

"Yeah, you don't argue with a man who's got a hook for a hand."

"No. Suppose not."

Lindsay doesn't smoke any more, he just watches Ty at it, watches him relax a tiny bit more with every breath. He looks old, exhausted, unhappy.

There's so little of what he used to be still left in him, until he opens his eyes and catches Lindsay out and then for the briefest moment it's like they're in a hotel again, or a stranger's bedroom at a druggy party, breathing hard and hearts thudding and four hands clutching at the hot sweating flesh of the girl between them. There's nobody now, just the curling stream of smoke. Lindsay's very aware of how much they're touching, leg to leg from knee to hip. There's nothing in it, just memories, but it doesn't stop it being strange and awkward – or stop his breath from quickening. He hopes it's not enough to be noticeable, and curses himself in his mind, but then Ty looks away and everything's calm again.

"She wants you to be godparents."

Lindsay doesn't miss the plural. "Exactly how forward-thinking
is
your church?"

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"It's not
my
church, mate, I still say you're going to hell – I mean, I would if it wasn't all bollocks. Anglicans are too afraid of offending people. I don't know. You'll have to pretend you're not bumming him for half a hour, can you manage that?"

"Remind me, has she actually met him?"

"She likes him."

"Always knew she had shit taste in men." Ty almost smiles again when Lindsay nudges him gently with his elbow, but he can't quite work up the energy to match it. Smiling's the last thing he feels like doing. Mostly he just wants to be sick.

"...And now
you're
freaking out."

"No I'm not."

"It's alright, I'll tell her you don't want to."

"No, it's not that." It's final. It's official. It's almost like having a fucking wedding, standing there in front of all those people, at the party afterwards if not at the ceremony itself, watching Valentine coo at a tiny baby they've been linked to for life. "I've already done it once," he says, lamely.

"Jesus, I'm sorry it's such a fucking
bore
having to have the slightest bit of contact with my kids."

"Shut up, I don't mean that either."

"Well, he's not doing it on his own. Especially if it's a boy. He'll... paint its nails and make it play with dolls."

"I'll do it, I don't mind." Weird as well, because everybody else thinks this is real now. Getting a Christmas card addressed to 'Lindsay and Philip' is one thing, but
this
...

He leans forward, mirroring Ty's gesture from earlier, burying his fingers in his hair and scraping it back, clutching the huge damp handfuls. He needs a haircut but he won't do it because Valentine keeps swinging between 313

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being annoyed he has to fuck a tramp who can't be arsed to look after his appearance any more now they're living like reclusive artists out in France, and getting way too much pleasure from playing with it. Lindsay's just biding his time until he finds out which one the kid actually means, and then he's going to do the opposite, hack it all off or just let it grow, whatever's going to piss him off more.

"Lin?"

"
He's not my boyfriend
," Lindsay blurts out, and immediately feels stupid. When he glances up sideways, Ty's watching him with an eyebrow raised and that half-smile back on his mouth, and Lindsay goes on hurriedly before he can say anything. "He keeps
saying
that, it's not like that, I hate it.
Teenage girls
have boyfriends."

"So? Call him your partner instead if it's twisting your knickers so bad."

"No! That sounds like business partners."

"Isn't that what it is, then? Whore and trick and nothing else?"

Lindsay suddenly wants to punch him. He grits his teeth and forces himself calm, but that's so hard when he can almost
feel
the amusement, like it's seeping through into him by osmosis.

"Hah, you're fucked off with me now. So he
is
your boyfriend."

"No."

"Friends with benefits, then."

That sounds familiar. He remembers the last time it ever happened, the slow wet slide of flesh. The girl they met in the club said she wouldn't be fucked in the arse, but she was drunk and on something, dazed and cheerful and pliant, giggling quietly into her hands and letting them move her around and take turns.

She got it together enough in the end to take a bit of control, making pretty noises and rubbing her own breasts as she slid and thrust between them because they were too involved in themselves to bother. Lindsay could never remember which one of them she was fucking at the end, whether she was riding Ty or

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shoving herself back onto him, but he couldn't make himself forget the eye-contact over her shoulder, then the burning face against his, the gentle scratch of stubble and the hand twisted in his hair and the murmur of swearwords and his own name breathed against the corner of his mouth. Weird, what people will blame on outside influences. That's the day Ty stopped drinking for almost a year and gave up drugs altogether, and the day Lindsay started doubling his efforts to get wasted enough to hide shit he didn't feel like acknowledging.

"Look, I don't care what he is. You know I think he's a fucking little twerp you should've shot and thrown in the sea years ago, but if you like having him around..." Ty trails off and looks embarrassed. "What's this, anyway, fucking Dear Deirdre? You said you're cooking."

"
You
said I'm cooking."

"So get on with it. Too much talk, not enough sausages."

"Oh, see, you'll
have
to stay with her. You'll never pull a nice man with lines like that."

Ty punches him then, hard in the bicep so his arm goes numb, and stomps off back down the path towards the tent, but when Lindsay catches up with him he doesn't look like he's about to top himself any more, and that's a good enough improvement for now.

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i. Thursday morning. Paris hotel.

They get into Paris after dark on Wednesday, too knackered from sharing the drive to do anything when they collapse into bed except pass out.

Valentine seems to think that's some sort of shameful weakness that needs making up for with a wake-up blowjob, not that Lindsay's ever going to complain when he's dragged out of a dream by a clever tongue on his cock.