Bad Boys of London: The Complete GYPSY HEROES Collection (51 page)

‘Neither of us is going to die. Jake will be here soon.’

‘What if he doesn’t come? He doesn’t like me, you know,’ she said.

‘Stop talking nonsense. Why wouldn’t he like you?’

‘You’re such a fool, Dom.’

‘He’ll come.’

‘What if he doesn’t make it in time?’

‘He’ll make it in time,’ I said, a wave slapping salt water into my mouth.

‘I’m sorry, baby.’

I could feel the rage in my guts. ‘Stop apologizing. I’d do the same again given half the chance.’

‘If I die, will you marry someone else?’

‘I’ll never marry anyone else, Vivien.’

‘I couldn’t bear it if you do.’

‘Look, I fucking won’t, OK?’

‘You promise?’

‘I promise.’

‘I’ll come back and haunt you if you do.’

‘You’re not going to fucking die, so this is a stupid discussion.’

‘But if I do. Don’t fall in love with anyone else.’

‘You won’t,’ I said through clenched teeth.

She didn’t speak anymore, and for more than an hour both of us were mostly silent. We spoke only to check that we were both still alive. I kept glancing at my watch every few minutes. Time had never moved so slowly. After what seemed like interminable hours my legs felt like dead weights and I was struggling to move them.

By then, Vivien was also no longer shivering. There was a strange lethargy about her. I knew that at that rate she was not going to last. I turned her over so her chest was pressed to mine. It was harder work for me, but I didn’t know what else to do to warm her up.

‘Don’t move unless you have to. Don’t even kick your legs. Stay still and conserve your energy,’ I told her.

‘I’m afraid, Dom. I’m afraid I’ll die.’ Her voice was quivering with emotion.

‘No, you fucking won’t. I won’t allow it.’

‘My wedding dress. You’ll never see me in my wedding dress,’ she moaned into my neck.

The dank taste of the ocean was in my mouth. ‘I’ll fucking see you in your wedding dress if I have to bury you in it,’ I growled.

She giggled. It was a weak, lazy sound. She was slipping away. I could feel it as strongly as I knew my hands had become so numb I could no longer feel them.

‘It doesn’t hurt like I thought it would. I’m not scared anymore. It’s almost peaceful, actually. Just like falling into something soft and dark.’

I held her tighter still. ‘Vivien, you have to fight it. Stay with me.’

‘Hey, baby! Look at those lights. They’re beauuuuuutiful.’

‘What lights?’

‘Can you not see them?’

‘No.’

‘Oh, I pity you. They are sooooo beautiful.’

I gazed down at her face. It was animated in a way it had not been since I
’d
found her floating face down. I became terrified.

‘Vivien, look at me,’ I shouted, but she was so entranced by the vision in front of her that she refused to turn in my direction. I grabbed her chin and turned her face toward me. Her eyes were glassy and empty. They seemed unable to focus on me. She made a small, incoherent sound of displeasure or irritation.

‘The lights. I want to see the lights,’ she mumbled pleadingly.

I released her chin and she turned away immediately to gaze with fascination at the lights only she could see. I looked around desperately at the empty blackness stretching out in all directions around us. And I prayed. And I prayed.

It felt like we had been in the water forever.

My legs were getting tired of treading water, and I could see that she had given up the desire to fight the cold. Not even the lights could interest her anymore. Her eyes were closing. Her body, having imposed increasingly drastic measures to keep functioning, was finally starting to shut down. Her heartbeat was becoming weaker and weaker. If I didn’t do something soon it would stop completely. Then only her brain would be alive. And then even that would die. I
had
to pull her out of her slump.

I shook her and she opened her eyes weakly.

‘Listen,’ I said with fake excitement. ‘Jake
’
s coming. I can hear the engine of his boat.
’

She seemed to listen. ‘I don’t hear it,’ she mumbled groggily.

‘There
’
s too much water in your ears,’ I lied.

She smiled weakly, only half-conscious. ‘I’m so happy. He can take me back to my mother,’ she said, and I smiled back, but my smile became a grimace of horror when her heart stopped and she died from the sheer relief of thinking that she had been rescued.

I couldn
’
t believe it.

I
’
d heard of people dying from the relief of thinking they
’
d been rescued, but I had never thought that it would happen to her. I held her body tightly against mine. It was impossible that she was gone. I couldn
’
t comprehend that something as alive as she could ever succumb to something as ordinary as death. Or that as fierce and possessive as my love was, I couldn
’
t keep her. I had held on so tightly, with every ounce of my being, and yet she had slipped away, like sand from a clenched fist.

So I shook her limp body. I rubbed her arms and legs. I gave her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, but Vivien was gone. The pain and horror of losing her was unbearable. Words couldn’t enter into my pain. I began to scream. I screamed and screamed like a madman. I cursed, I swore, I sobbed until no sounds would come out of my mouth.

I kissed her cold, blue lips. 

‘Oh, Vivien!’ 

In my head she was wearing a red rose in her hair and whispering, ‘
You’re my gypsy hero. You’ll always be my gypsy hero.’

‘Oh, Vivien!’

Once there was a way to get back home again…

—
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjOl0fG72ZE

TWENTY-TWO

‘W
hen we pulled their waterlogged bodies out of the water, Dom was nearly as blue as Vivien. He never uttered a single sound, not pain, not grief, not relief. His fingers were so tightly clenched around her corpse it was ages before we could prize them away from her cold flesh. He stared vacantly into the distance. When I called him, he turned slowly and looked at me as if he didn
’
t recognize me. As if we were not flesh and blood.’

Jake stops speaking, and I see him shudder with the terrible memory.

‘I brought him to my house and put him in my bed. He slept for three hours. Then came the profuse diarrhea brought on by the seawater he
’
d ingested, and the uncontrollable muscle tremors. He became very ill, and Shane and I took care of him. He even missed her funeral. They buried her in her wedding dress, apparently in accordance with her wishes. She had told her mother that if she should die before her wedding she was to be buried in her dress.’

As Jake speaks, a numbing cold is creeping into my body, and I hug myself and force myself to listen to his words.

‘Dom was so ill that for a while we even thought he was going to die. But he didn’t. His body grew stronger, even if his head was totally fucked. For weeks he had such severe nightmares that he would move bedroom furniture around in his sleep and wake up screaming on the floor. He was like a madman. He blamed himself. He couldn’t look at a picture of her without getting into an uncontrollable rage. I gathered up all the photos of her and hid them.

‘Then one day I came back and he was making himself an omelet. “Want one?” he asked, and I knew it was going to be all right. We ate together and he thanked me for everything I
’
d done. Then he left.’

Jake looks at me with somber, sad eyes. ‘Ever since then there has been no other woman in his life. One-night stands, casual flings. No woman, no matter how hard they tried, and believe me when I tell you a lot tried, and very hard too, could get close to him. Until you.’

Jake pauses and takes a sip of whiskey while watching me intently from above the rim of his glass.

I drop my eyes. Some part of me feels a flash of joy at his last sentence, but it
’
s muted. I think I
’
m in shock. 

‘Don’t give up on him so quickly. He
’
s come so far because of you,’ Jake says, as if he
’
s trying to sell me the idea of staying in a relationship with Dom. As if he needs to.

I look up at him suddenly and his eyes slide away. Not immediately, but he can’t hold my gaze! I watch him take another sip before he raises his eyes to me. I stare at him. He looks back without flinching this time, but that moment he couldn’t hold my gaze has given him away.

‘There’s more, isn’t there?’ I ask.

He sighs. It
’
s actually a sound of relief. As if a burden is about to be lifted from his shoulders.

He nods, stands, and walks over to his desk. He unlocks the last drawer and takes a photo album out. He turns the pages to somewhere in the middle and walks back to me carrying the open album. He stands over me and holds the book out to me.

I take it from him. It
’
s one of those fancy albums with tracing paper between the pages holding the photos. I take the end of the tracing paper page and turn it, and pretty much just stare at the picture. It
’
s a photo taken outside some kind of temple. The sun is shining brightly. I
’
m wearing a pink tie-dyed T-shirt and a long flowery skirt. It looks like it’s been taken in a foreign land. India, perhaps. Asia, definitely.

But I’ve never been to Asia.  

All these impressions hit me in seconds. I raise my eyes upwards and Jake is looking down at me, his eyes full of pity.

‘That’s her?’ I ask in a shocked whisper.

‘That
’
s Vivien.’

‘Oh my God!’ I cry. The girl in the photo looks exactly like me. The similarity is uncanny. Except for her hair color, I am her twin.

‘I’m sorry,’ Jake says softly.

Suddenly
everything
makes sense. Everything! It explains why the whole family had behaved so strangely when Dom introduced me. I
’d
thought it was because Dom was dating a tax inspector, but now I know. Ah! That would nicely explain away the uneasy, quickly hidden expression on his mother’s face whenever she thought I wasn
’
t looking.

A thought seeds itself into my head.

‘Did you already know what I looked like when we met?’

‘Yes, Shane had warned us all.’

I nod slowly, taking the information in. ‘Did Shane know Vivien?’

He frowns. ‘Of course. Dom was going to marry her.’

‘I see.’ Some part of my rational brain makes the observation that only Shane in this family is truly impenetrable. His classically handsome face had betrayed nothing when he had met me for the first time at the party. Nothing but an open friendliness and an irresistible charm.