That Summer He Died (11 page)

James didn’t like the sound of it already.

‘News to me,’ David said. ‘He never tells me shit. First I hear about what he’s been up to is when I check out the site.’

‘Well,’ Becky said, ‘James is going to Grancombe to write an article, and Lucy’s going with him to do the photos for it.

And Lucy said, ‘So why don’t you and Becky go too, David?’

David and James’s eyes met for a second.

‘When?’ David said.

Lucy waited for James to speak, but when he didn’t, she answered, ‘James’s editor wasn’t sure. James has got his LA thing to finish off first. Some time in the next fortnight, though.’ She grinned at him. ‘That’s right, isn’t it?’

A sound rather than a word left James’s mouth. He was too drunk to put them all off now. His head nodded of its own accord.

‘Cool,’ David said uncertainly, looking to James for confirmation. ‘Always up for a bit of fresh air. Quality of it up here sucks. So long as that’s OK with Mr Sawday, you can count me in.’

For James, what happened next was like an out-of-body experience. It was like he was floating, buoyed up by a solution of alcohol and helplessness. He listened to himself. It was his voice, all right, but not the words he wanted to be speaking. He heard himself agreeing to the idea, watched the others smiling and laughing and hatching plans about what they’d get up to.

And all the while, he was powerless to intervene, to speak his mind, short of freaking out and telling them all to back the hell off. How could he have let this happen? Stupid smart-arsed bastard, thinking he could deal with Alan’s estate and the article simultaneously. Yeah, so how smart did he feel now?

First Lucy and now David and Becky. The three people he cared for more than anybody else were now going to the one place he feared more than anywhere else. The situation had ballooned out of his control. Everything was fucked.

Fucked up bad.

He got back to his flat with Lucy around two-thirty a.m. They’d left the others at a club, and had grabbed a cab. Against his advice, she’d shared a pill with Becky earlier on in the evening. James had switched instead to Red Bull and vodka just to keep up, which had had the dual effect of keeping him peaked but now leaving him too wired to contemplate sleep. Lucy was still wide awake and buzzing.

James hated pills. Hadn’t done them for years, not since he’d been a teenager. He hated them because you never knew what you were paying for. You never knew what they might do.

The red-headed girl. . . he saw her again. . . he blinked and pushed the memory of her deep back down.

‘Come here, babe,’ said Lucy, dropping her coat on to the arm of the sofa.

He walked up to her and she pushed him back on to the sofa. He took her hands and pulled her down hard, so that she ended up sitting astride his waist. For a moment, he just stared into her eyes. Then she closed them and leant forward and they kissed. His eyes remained open, watching her face as their tongues intertwined and his hands instinctively stroked her thighs and slid beneath her skirt.

He knew what he should be thinking. That she was beautiful. That he was lucky she’d chosen to come home with him and not someone else. He should have been grateful that she’d waited for him while he’d been away, hadn’t jumped lazily on to the first easy offer going.

But her facial features were becoming blurred. It wasn’t her he was thinking about at all, even though he’d been thinking about having sex with her from the moment he’d seen her walk into Faust earlier that night. Fantasy was taking over. Another time in another place with another person was filling his vision. A situation that should have been, but never was. Another girl. . . not the redhead. . . someone else. . . someone he wanted to remember. . . Suzie. . . a dark-haired girl he’d once loved.

Lucy’s thighs locked on to his and her tongue pushed deeper into his mouth. He reacted, started to unfasten her shirt.

Then she was on her feet, walking through to the bedroom, threading her arms free from the shirt, letting it slide to the floor. Now crooking her arms behind her back, unfastening her bra, dropping that as well, halting briefly to kick her shoes free. He followed, stripping down himself, adding his own clothes to the trail she’d left behind.

She was naked by the time he reached the bed, lying on her back, her eyes open, dilated, her breath coming fast, coming deep, wanting him like he wanted her. He pulled his shorts off and lay down beside her. Their limbs became a hungry tangle. They writhed.

‘I’ve missed you,’ he whispered, kissing his way down her body.

But again, he wasn’t thinking of her.

The bedside lamp cast her skin golden, like pale evening sunlight on sand.

He shut his eyes.

Suzie. . .

So long ago now. So far away. Might not even be alive. Maybe not even living in Grancombe any more. Perhaps did what she said she would one day: left and travelled. Maybe Surfers’ Turf went bust, left her with nothing to come back to.

Lucy was on top of him, riding him now, moaning. But it was Suzie he wanted. Here with him now. . . Now. . . Another chance. . .

I’ve missed you. I’ve missed you so much. . .

Lucy cried out, bucking, as she clawed her nails across his chest. He shivered as he started to come.

Later, in the dark, he listened to Lucy breathing beside him. He glanced at the bedside clock and dread crawled across him before he remembered that tomorrow was the weekend. He rolled across the mattress and waved the red eye of the spliff he’d been smoking over the bedside table until its reflection winked back from the glass ashtray. He stubbed it out and stayed there, propped up on his elbow, stoned and confused and guilty all at once.

Why did he still care about Suzie? Was that really why he was going to Grancombe? Because he wanted to see her again?

‘Are you OK?’ Lucy whispered.

‘Yes.’ He’d not realised she was still awake.

‘Are we OK?’

‘Yes.’

She placed her hand on his shoulder, pulled him over, then held his jaw in her hand, gently turned it so that he faced her. A weak shaft of moonlight stretched from the gap in the curtains across her face. She kissed him, kept her nose pressed to his and whispered, ‘You would tell me if we weren’t, wouldn’t you? You would let me know?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good.’ Rolling over, she shuffled her back up against his chest. ‘Because I’d want to know. I’d want to know so that I could make things right.’

James stayed there, staring through the curtains at the moon. He shouldn’t have had that last smoke. He was now Legion. All these voices in his head. All these crazy, mixed-up thoughts, stopping him from sleeping, jabbering at him, making him lose his place in time.

Just calm it, he commanded himself. Block them out. Shut the door. Just like his ex, Naomi, had taught him. Stop thinking stressful thoughts. Replace them with numbers. Dwell on the numbers, on their pattern, until nothing else matters, until you are at peace. . .

Keep the thoughts out. Just concentrate on the breathing. No Grancombe. No
Kudos
. No grief. No beautiful Suzie. Or that unblinking redhead. No Lucy. No Alex and Dan. No David and Becky. No Alan. No responsibilities. Just being. Just breathing. Just counting. Two, four, six, eight. . .

Two. . .

Four. . .

Six. . .

Eight . . .

Lucy twisted and mumbled in her sleep.

Darkness came for him them as well. It dragged him down into it, as though he were a stone and it a bottomless well.

When he dreamt, he felt like he was drifting on a boat that had slipped its moorings in a storm. He didn’t know which way to go. He couldn’t see land. He wanted his parents back. He wanted someone to tell him what to do. He wanted someone to help him remember who he was and why he had ended up here.

James trailed across South Beach, behind the figures of Alex Howley and Daniel Thompson, as they headed towards the cliffs. It was maybe half a mile across, no more. In the far corner, he could already make out the black scar of the steps in the cliff, the same steps Monique had walked down for the last time on New Year’s Day. Hidden from view at the top were the woods that sheltered Alan’s house from the scything sweep of the coastal winds.

When they reached the low slope of barnacle and mussel-studded rocks which formed the foot of the cliff, Daniel stopped and sat down. ‘Smoke break,’ he muttered, digging into his shorts for a cigarette.

‘No,’ Alex said, standing over him. ‘When we get to the top. I stop now, I’ll never get going again. Anyhow,’ he said, glancing back across the beach, ‘I wouldn’t put it past Murphy to be watching us with binoculars.’

‘Fuck him,’ Daniel said, threading a cigarette into his mouth.

Alex clicked his tongue and moved on.

Daniel replaced the cigarette in the packet and got to his feet.

‘What you looking at, posh boy?’ he challenged, catching James staring.

‘Nothing,’ James said with a shrug, brushing past him and starting up the steps after Alex.

‘Watch your step,’ Daniel called after him. ‘You could have a nasty fall round here.’

James, having overtaken Alex about halfway up without speaking, was the first to reach the top. He stood for a moment with his hands on his ribcage and waited for its heaving to subside. Even though his lungs were aching, it felt good, away from the other two, up here at the top of the world. He turned and surveyed South Beach. His eyes settled on the distant block of Surfers’ Turf.

He pictured Suzie as he’d left her, imagined what it would be like to press his lips against hers, imagined the scent of her breath mixing with his.

He shook his head at the thought in a futile attempt to dismiss it. Dream on. He had about as much chance with someone who looked like her as he did of ending up mates with Alex and Daniel. No point in wondering about what isn’t on the cards.

He walked a few paces across the uneven, springy turf, dropped the rucksack and lay down on his back. With his hands cradled behind his neck, he stared up into the vast blue sky.

‘Knackered?’

James looked up, surprised to have been addressed. Alex was gazing down at him. Without seeing his eyes it was hard to be sure, but from the rest of his expression, he seemed more interested than aggrieved.

‘Yeah,’ James said. ‘Fucked.’

Alex grinned at that. He sank down next to James on the turf. His heavy breathing competed with the sound of the breeze.

‘Still,’ Alex said, ‘you got up here pretty quick. Used to play a bit of sport, did you?’

‘Used to,’ James said.

‘Didn’t we all?’

James rolled on to his side, facing him. The sarcastic expression he’d expected to see on Alex’s face was absent. He nodded towards the top of the steps.

‘It wasn’t that bad,’ he said.

Alex struggled into a sitting position, crossed his legs and sat like a guru, looking towards the top of the steps. ‘I’m not sure Dan would agree.’

Daniel’s body slid slowly into view as he staggered up the last few steps, like a swimmer walking out of the sea. ‘That’s it,’ he gasped. ‘I’m telling you, that’s it.’ He stumbled over to where they sat and sank to his knees. He wiped the sweat from his eyes, and shuddered into a coughing fit. ‘That tosser Murphy,’ he wheezed. ‘He can kiss my hairy arse if he thinks I’m walking one step further.’

Alex snorted with laughter and lit a cigarette. ‘Shit,’ he exhaled, his mouth a chimney with the wind whipping smoke from it. ‘My throat’s as dry as a desert.’

James reached for the rucksack. ‘Here,’ he said, tossing it over. ‘Water.’

Alex rummaged inside and pulled out a bottle, held it up to the sun so that diamonds of sunlight exploded inside. He smiled at the effect. ‘Perfect,’ he said, unscrewing the cap and drinking deep. Bubbles of air soared vertically through the liquid. He lowered it and passed it back to James. ‘Cheers.’

As James drank, he saw Daniel watching him thirstily. ‘Hits the spot, doesn’t it?’

Alex nodded and lay down. ‘As good as beer, right now.’

Daniel wiped the sticky patches of spit from the corners of his mouth. ‘Give it,’ he said.

James ignored him, checked Alex for a reaction. There wasn’t any. He looked back at Daniel, who was leering at him like a drunk whose drink he’d knocked over, whose girlfriend he’d glanced at.

So this was it. Back down now and for ever hold your peace. Back down now and take a mortgage out in losers’ corner. Or call Daniel’s bluff, follow it through.

‘You deaf or something?’ Daniel said. ‘I told you to give it here.’

James raised the bottle to his lips and slowly sipped. He put the bottle on the ground, twisted the top tight and stared into Daniel’s eyes. ‘Fuck you,’ he said.

Disbelief clouded Daniel’s eyes for a moment, then blackened into a storm. ‘You what?’

‘Who’s deaf now? I said, fuck you. Want me to repeat it, fine: fuck you.’

Alex did nothing. Lying there with his shades on, his chest slowly rising and falling beneath his shirt, he could even have been asleep.

‘That too complicated for you?’ James went on, concentrating on keeping his voice clinical, aware that this war of words might well be as far as it went, knowing that if that was the case then he’d win by keeping his cool, using his brain to run circles round this jerk. ‘You want me to explain it? That’s fine. Fuck you, because last night you chucked my clothes all over the car park. Fuck you because you’ve treated me like a piece of shit all morning. And fuck you because if you want to drink this then you’re going to have to get past me first.’

‘Right,’ Daniel barked. He got to his feet, his prior exhaustion swept away like a cork by the torrent of adrenaline pumping through his veins. His face was the colour of an open wound, like someone had peeled back its skin.

‘You’re going down.’

James was already standing. Their eyes locked, the bottle between them, two dogs about to run for the same scrap of meat. James heard his breath coming shallow. He wanted this. He spread his feet, stabilised himself against the inevitable assault. This son of a bitch had it coming.

‘Sit the fuck down.’