Heartbreaker (37 page)

I knock back a glass of water and pass out.

I wake at six and at once my rested brain starts to work at the double. I review the debate. I think of Nicholas. Huge emotions stir in me and have to be slapped down. Can’t deny they’re there, but at the same time I have to ensure they don’t seize control and wreck me. What I must concentrate on is this: before breakfast I have the chance to see Nicholas without Colin lumbering around, and whatever happens I must grab this chance because there’s something I have to do.

Retrieving Richard’s cuff links which I wore last night I slot them carefully back into their little Tiffany box, but before I close the lid I gaze at them for a long moment. I’m thinking how I never appreciated Richard’s love when he was alive. I wrote it off as just a typical client infatuation, but I know better now. He might have started out by being infatuated with Gavin Blake Superstud, but in the end on that boat it was
me
he cared about, the me Carta likes, the me Nicholas always addresses.

“Love is the great reality,” Nicholas said, telling the truth right up to the end, the truth which blew Asherton away. And now I can see that when I meet Nicholas this morning I have to stand in that truth, I have to be Gavin Blake Me, no one else. Then by some mysterious process which I still don’t understand, he’ll accept me as I am and I won’t be shit any more and I won’t be junk either. I’ll count, I’ll matter, I’ll be special.

When I’m dressed I slip the little box into my pocket and pad downstairs to wait in the room nearest the front door. The time’s twenty to eight.

Five minutes later I hear Nicholas and Carta come downstairs. They’re going to church. Last night they asked Mr. Local Parson the time of the early Communion service.

Having given my friends a head start I follow them to the village, sit in the churchyard and breathe loads of clean country air as I savour being alone. I figure that’s
my
way of being spiritual on a Sunday morning.

At eight-twenty-five the door of the church opens and people begin to trickle away. There are three old biddies, one old tosser and the St. Benet’s Two. Mr. Local Parson’s reluctant to let them go but at last he retreats into the church and it’s time for me to step out from the tomb-stones like an updated version of Magwitch in
Great Expectations.

“Hi,” I say.

They’re both surprised but in no way hostile. Nicholas even smiles, and when I see that smile I know I won’t be able to deliver the speech I planned. In fact the huge emotions I’m experiencing again mean that I can’t say anything at all. I can only pull out the Tiffany box and offer it to him.

“This is for me?” says Nicholas startled.

I nod, watching the box as it passes into his hands.

He opens the lid. The silver links glitter. They’re so beautiful that my throat aches to look at them.

“Good God!” says Carta staggered. “Those are Richard’s, aren’t they? The ones Moira gave you after the funeral!”

I hear her but she’s in another dimension. All I can see is the silver, ravishing, radiant—and now redeemed.

“Don’t you want them any more?” says Carta baffled. “In that case why don’t you sell them and give the money to a good cause?”

She doesn’t understand. But Nicholas says firmly to her: “Good causes are always with us, and Gavin can give to one whenever he pleases. But this is a special gift for a special occasion, and it’s a gift which he’s perfectly entitled to make if he chooses. Thank you, Gavin.”

I find I have to sit down. Sinking onto the bench nearby I cover my face with my hands.

“Carta,” says Nicholas, “give us a moment, would you?” and he sits down at my side. He doesn’t touch me. He simply waits. The box is still in his right hand, still open. The outline of the cuff links are just a blur now but I can see the silver shining.

At last I’m able to say: “I’m sorry I made Richard so unhappy.” That sentence is true, all of it. I try another. “It’s not right that I should have those cuff links.” That sentence is true too. I’m exhausted already by all this truth-telling, but I’m winning. I’m doing wonderfully well. “Moira would never have given them to me anyway,” I say in a new burst of confidence, “if she’d realised I was a—”

And then the silence falls, smothering me.

I think: I can’t say it. I can’t.

But I know I must. Right now this minute with this man I have to stand in the truth.

I try again. “Moira would never have given them to me,” I say, “if she’d realised I was a—”

I break off but this time I’m sweating, even gasping with the effort to complete the sentence. And I do complete it. I win the fight, I say the word, and of course it’s PROSTITUTE.

No big deal, right? Wrong. To hear other people say the word isn’t so bad—I can block that out. To think the word to myself in a fit of depression isn’t so bad either—it winds up as just a memory which can be wiped. But to speak the word, to name the slime—and to someone respected and admired—no, that’s pulling the plaster off an open wound and shoving salt in the gash.

Uttering those three syllables takes all my strength and I slump back on the bench, but Nicholas doesn’t go away. He still doesn’t touch me and I still can’t look at him but he’s still there.

Then he says: “That was brave.”

I have to scrub my eyes with my hand, but the wound’s closing over and I know now that if I look at him I’ll see no contempt. In a rush I say: “I don’t just want you to have the cuff links to make good what I did by taking them. I want you to have them because you beat that bastard last night.”

“He was rather more than just someone you’d met once at the opera, wasn’t he? I saw your face when you walked into that room and found him there.”

I manage to nod.

“He’s your manager’s friend who runs the ‘private club’ you mentioned.”

I nod again. “I’ve known him for years,” I say, the words cascading out of my mouth. “He’s so bloody powerful and everyone’s so bloody terrified of him that he does what he likes, but you beat him, you did it, you won—and I want to say thanks not just for that but for everything else, for treating me like a real person, for respecting me, for practising what you preach. I shan’t see you again because it’s too dangerous, but I want you to know I’ll never forget how you touched my life, never as long as I live.”

Speaking clearly to make sure I understand and remember, Nicholas leans forward and says: “If the danger escalates to unacceptable levels, you can always get help from St. Benet’s. We’ve had plenty of experience in dealing with people who want to escape from evil cults.” And when he sees I’ve taken this on board he adds: “How far are you involved with the Guild of Light and Darkness?”

“I’m not a member and I don’t go to meetings. I’m just involved in the recruiting process.”

“Is the club for gays only?”

“No, my manager’s part-owner of an escort agency, and there’s a girl there who trawls for straights just like I trawl for gays.”

“Any women members?”

“A few, I think, but I don’t know how they get recruited. Maybe the woman who runs the escort agency has some kind of grapevine that identifies possible members—or maybe they just get introduced by the hetero membership. The truth is I don’t know much about GOLD because it’s top secret.”

“Gold? Ah, GOLD, yes, the acronym . . . How far is your manager connected with it? Can you tell me a little more about her?”

“I can’t tell you more about anything. If they find out I’ve grassed—” A shudder hits me.

“I understand, but now listen carefully, Gavin. GOLD may be a legal organisation but that doesn’t mean its activities stay within the law. Because these cults need an escalating level of thrills to keep their members satisfied, people like Asherton nearly always wind up going too far, so don’t make the mistake of thinking he’s beyond the law, and don’t make the mistake of thinking you’ve no option but to play along with him. When you’re caught in a trap it’s easy to be paralysed by your powerlessness, but traps can be sprung and the victims can walk free.”

Of course he doesn’t know I can’t live without Elizabeth. In the end I just say: “Maybe life in the trap’s all I’m good for.”

“Are you sorry for the life you’ve led since you fell into the trap? And would you truly want to do better if you were set free?”

“Well, sure, but—”

“Then you qualify for a fresh start.”

After a pause I say: “That’s the line The Bloke took, isn’t it?”

“That’s the line The Bloke took, yes.”

After another pause I say: “In the church at Compton Beeches, there’s a stained-glass window of The Bloke doing the shepherd number.”

“I noticed. Lots of sheep looking as if their fleeces had been shampooed and blow-dried ready for an upmarket agricultural show . . . except for the sheep he was carrying back on his shoulder. That little sheep was in poor shape.”

“But it was coming home.”

“Yes,” says Nicholas, “it was coming home.”

I scrub my eyes again with the back of my hand and stand up. “Better get back,” I mutter. “You go ahead. I don’t want Colin to know I’ve been talking to you.”

“Remember: you’ll always be welcome at St. Benet’s and you can always turn to us for help.” And he moves away at last to the churchyard gate where Carta’s waiting.

I feel as if I’ve been stretched on Asherton’s rack at the Pain-Palace, but by a huge effort of will I get a grip on all the searing emotions and survive the rest of the morning. Colin gives us a tour of the garden after we’ve lolled around reading the Sunday papers. It’s low-key activity and my stress levels get a chance to dip.

The party breaks up after a traditional Sunday lunch with other local guests, but when everyone’s gone, even Nicholas and Carta, Colin refuses to tell me whether he plans to make the donation. Sod him! I can’t wait to get away now but Colin’s booked me till six so that I can bring his weekend to a mouthwatering climax.

I try to be Gavin Blake Superstud, but it’s not so easy away from Austin Friars. At the flat I have my routine to help me slide into the right personality, but here I’m adrift, desperately trying to programme my brain so that my body can deliver the goods.

“What’s the matter, Gavin?”

I say I’m fine, and kill the urge to bolt.

Then I slither into position to be screwed.

I travel back to London feeling like used toilet paper, but by the time I reach the suburbs I’ve practised a dozen possible versions of my opening dialogue with Elizabeth. I haven’t called her. That might look panicky, suggesting I was hellbent on smoothing over the mess for any number of guilty reasons. Let Asherton be the one who sounds off to her about the St. Benet’s Two. It’s much safer if I just play the pretty-boy in a sulk, unable to think of anything except how much I hate escort work.

“Never again!” I declare as I tramp into Elizabeth’s presence at last. “Never, never,
never
again will I spend the weekend with such a drop-dead boring old—”

She blasts the whining aside. “What the hell’s all this about St. Benet’s?”

“Oh God, yes, that really was the cherry on the parfait!”

“Did you really have no idea—
no idea at all
—that Darrow and the Graham bitch had been invited?”

“Well, of course not! I’d have told you, wouldn’t I?”

“You didn’t tell me something Sir Colin told Asherton—that you met both that bitch AND DARROW at Richard Slaney’s funeral!”

I get such a fright that my stomach seems to do a double somersault.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” shouts Elizabeth in fury.

“It was sheer panic. I thought that if you knew you’d go ballistic, but listen, darling, listen, the meeting was all over in a flash, I swear it! Darrow was hauled away almost at once by Bridget Slaney so I never got to talk to him at all, and Carta got kidnapped a couple of minutes later by some people who worked at Richard’s firm. She used to work there too, so they all knew one another.”

There’s a taut silence while I listen to my heart banging but at last Elizabeth says, still furious: “The worst mistake I’ve made for a long time was to let you go to that funeral!” Then miraculously her mood changes. “All right, pet,” she says in a resigned but not hostile voice. “Get yourself a drink and sit down. I need to know exactly what happened at Sir Colin’s house.”

She believes me. Weak with relief I retrieve a bottle of Slimline tonic from her kitchen and slump down beside her on the sofa to deliver my censored account of the weekend.

“What a way for a gentleman to behave!” says Elizabeth scandalised when I’ve finished. “Imagine Sir Colin trotting out all that stuff about GOLD despite having been told it was confidential! No wonder Asherton felt hurt and betrayed, poor love! And imagine trotting it out to Darrow, of all people! And as for that debate . . . well, words almost fail me, but I’m not surprised it was a disaster. Asherton doesn’t do debates. He tells people what to think and they don’t talk back—well, naturally they don’t, they’re just so relieved to be spared all the worry of thinking for themselves.”

“What’s Asherton going to do?”

“There’s nothing he
can
do except forget Sir Colin and move on. But the important thing from our point of view is that Sir Colin still doesn’t know of your connection with Asherton and he’s still keen on you.”

“I’m not doing any more escort work with him!”

“It’s never a good idea to have a closed mind, dear, particularly when one’s dealing with a multi-millionaire, but meanwhile we’ve got a far more urgent problem to deal with and that’s this: Asherton thinks you’re playing some kind of double game.”

“Oh God!” I groan, all outraged innocence even though my stomach’s double-somersaulting again. “I knew it! I knew he’d take a swipe at me! It’s all because I witnessed Darrow wiping the floor with him!”

“That may well be true, but he’s certainly come up with a very nasty theory. He thinks you made a play for Carta Graham at the funeral by boasting you could get a multi-millionaire to contribute to her Appeal. He thinks you’re bored with all the gays, and now you’re no more reliable than Jason and Tony were when I had to give them the boot, but I don’t believe that theory and I’ll tell you why: you’re very much cleverer than Jason and Tony, and I just can’t believe you’d be quite such a bloody fool.”