That Summer He Died (30 page)

‘Hello again.’

The redhead was back. Her voice was a yell, like everyone’s here, trying not to be buried by the thump-thump of bass.

‘This is him,’ James said, nodding in Alex’s direction. ‘Alex. He’s got what you want.’

‘You gonna introduce me?’

‘Sure.’

They waited for Alex to conclude some business with a gang of blokes. Alex then gave the redhead a cursory inspection and she told him she wanted some pills.

Her cash and three Es from his left pocket swapped hands.

‘Enjoy,’ he told her, staring back into the crowd, the interview concluded.

The redhead grinned at James and turned her back to the crowd before slyly placing one of the pills on her tongue and washing it down with a slug from her beer. Another grin. She held a second pill up before her like she was presenting James with a flower.

‘I—’

She moved her hand forward, so that the tips of her fingers pressed tantalisingly against his lips. ‘Open wide.’

‘He’s already sorted,’ Alex interrupted, gently lowering her hand.

She looked between them for a couple of seconds, realising Alex wanted her elsewhere. ‘Whatever,’ she muttered with a shrug.

‘If you want a pill, then I’ll give you a good one,’ was all that he said to James as the girl faded back into the crowd.

They stayed in the tent for another half hour then went back to check on Dan, who was standing right where they’d left him. Alex counted up the cash and sent Dan through the fencing at the back of the car park to where a taxi stood waiting.

‘You know where to take it,’ he said, handing him the cash box. ‘Then get your arse back here and let’s get wasted.’

‘Sounds like a plan.’

James stood with Alex and watched the cab’s red tail lights fade into the night.

‘Here.’

Alex slipped James a pill and took one himself. James necked his and they headed back to the beer tent, then on to the trance tent. No more dealing, this time, just drinking. And coming up. Coming up fast.

Music throbbed from the speakers, either side of a hooded DJ, who stood with his head down over the decks, one earphone clamped to the side of his head by a sweating palm. Dancing now, unable to stop himself, James felt his world shift shape. Glazed eyes, heaving bodies, wide smiles, loose limbs. He smoked cigarette after cigarette.

Tick, tick, boom.

The rush rose and it fell.

Then rushed again.

Alex was grinning.

‘Beautiful,’ he mouthed.

James’s grin was wide, like the mouth of a cave. All the smiling people. So much love. His whole body felt like it was coming.

‘I fucking love this,’ he laughed.

‘Come here,’ Alex told him.

James leant forward and Alex slid his hand under his shirt and stroked his fingers down his spine.

Warm electricity.

‘Feels good?’ Alex’s breath was hot in James’s ear.

‘Yeah,’ he said, but something about it also felt wrong. He pulled away.

A flash of anger in Alex’s eyes. . . Or was it? It had come and gone so fast that James wasn’t sure it had even been there. Alex grinned and lit another cigarette. And once more James started to laugh.

Dancing now, his blood turned to mercury. Quicksilver.

Rush.

Love Alex. Love Suzie. Love everyone. . .

Don’t want this ever to end.

But then came movement.

Not dancing.

Commotion, over in the corner of the tent. James’s E dropped a notch. He’d learnt to control it by now. He could fade it out when he wanted to. Like adjusting the volume. He could zoom in and out, focus its intensity like sun through a magnifying glass, fry his brain or just leave it simmering. Control. Don’t you just love it? He could enjoy the ride, or take the wheel, apply the brakes.

Someone was shouting.

The music jarred.

Even the DJ was looking now. A circle of bodies in one corner of the tent. Someone was screaming. The DJ deserted his decks. He crossed the floor, pushed his way through the crowd. Moses parting the waves. This was bad. Instinctively, James knew something wasn’t right. No longer high. Dropping down like falling off a building. Panic setting in. Faces wiped clean of smiles. He started moving. Slow motion, then faster.

The bass was still thumping, but no one was dancing.

The whole crowd was moving, like a quake had occurred, causing the ground to tilt, and they were suddenly on a steep slope, gravitating towards one corner of the tent. Helpless.

Voices.

‘What’s going on?’

‘Oh, Jesus.’

The scream: ‘Call an—’

Shouting, drowning out the scream. James stood at the edge of the circle of bodies now, standing there, focusing inwards at something on the ground, teetering towards it, balancing, trying not to fall.

Shouting.

The scream again: ‘Call an . . .’

He stretched forward, over the assembled heads, and stared down at the ground.

The redhead. . . she was lying there.

Immobile. Same as Dawes. Eyes open. Blank screens. Shut down.

Her face and hair were soaked, like she’d been dragged from the sea. Like she’d been drowned. Like Monique.

Only this was sweat not seawater. Redhead. Red face. Scalded and burnt. Another girl crouched next to her. The DJ ducked down, placed his fingers against the redhead’s neck, searching for a pulse.

His mouth opened, making an announcement beneath the shouting and the drumming and the bass.

The scream exploded from the girl crouched next to the redhead: ‘Call an ambulance. She’s—’

James fell back. He’d seen the look on the DJ’s face. The ground turned to ice and James’s feet slid away from beneath him. He collapsed back into the bodies behind, turned and stumbled, started flailing, drowning in the crowd, thrashing his way out.

He’d seen the look on the DJ’s face.

Redhead.

He’d seen it in her eyes too.

Dead-head.

James sat up on the hotel bed, his face flushed and pillow-creased, his clothes pasted like wallpaper to his skin. The redhead’s face was with him now, as it had been a decade ago. The guilt and the sickness he’d felt then remained too, as incurable and recurrent as malaria. The redhead’s name was Victoria Cooper. She’d been seventeen years old when she’d died.

He looked across the bed to where Alan’s papers were strewn, crumpled where he’d slept on them. He checked the clock, worked out how much time had passed since he’d fallen asleep. Exhaustion still clung to him. Sleep had gathered like grit in the corners of his eyes, as if they’d seen enough and had resorted to sealing themselves up whilst he’d slept. He examined the clock again. Lucy, David and Becky would be here soon.

So move.

He gathered the papers up, piled them in the cardboard box next to Alan’s computer in the corner of the room. That, like the papers (mainly short stories predating Monique’s death), had revealed little of the direction Alan’s life had moved in over the past ten years. He had cleaned the laptop’s hard drive, the same as he’d cleaned the house.

Nothing remained but some ancient household accounts on an Excel sheet. Nothing personal. No clue or explanation as to why he’d killed himself. And, strangest of all, no writing. No unfinished masterpiece. Not so much as a short story. It was as if he’d employed all those hours James remembered him being locked away in his study, repeatedly pressing the space bar and nothing more.

James walked to the bathroom and stared into the mirror, studied the alterations that time had carved on his face in the intervening years. Not on Victoria Cooper, though. She’d never grown old. Just died. Buried by her parents. He and Dan and Alex had stolen her future, stripped it from her and watched her fade into nothing. He imagined her grave with its attendant bunch of wilting flowers. And there, behind the grave, slouched against the church wall, he saw Alex, a cigarette hanging from his lips, the sun bouncing off his shades, smiling, not giving a fuck.

James’s phone rang. He went through to the bedroom and grabbed it off the bed.

‘Hey, mate,’ David’s voice greeted him. ‘We’ve docked in Hicksville and – guess what? – we’re lost.’

‘Where are you?’

‘If I knew that. . .’

‘Yeah, yeah. . . just tell me what you can see.’

James could hear the girls chattering in the background.

‘Well,’ David said, ‘I spy with my little eye something large and made of stone and beginning with “C”.’

‘Church,’ James said.

‘You’ve played this game before.’

James gave him instructions on how to get to the hotel, then returned to the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face. Again regret and fear hit him. He should not have allowed Lucy to come down here. David he could handle. Becky, too. But not Lucy. Not the way he was feeling now. He tried to revisit a moment he’d spent with her, searched his memory for something involving her that would bring him pleasure, make this meeting easier. But there was nothing. All the good times – from meals out, to jokes, to orgasms – meant nothing now. Suzie’s shadow hung over them, robbing them of their light.

He heard a car horn blast three times, and walked to the window to look down. David’s car was there, its exhaust steaming into the cold Grancombe air. The back door opened and Lucy stepped out and stretched.

She was a good-looking girl. He could still see that in spite of the fact he no longer found her attractive. Why was that? How could the same person draw him to her one moment, then drive him away the next? How could the poles switch so easily?

Becky got out next and the two girls dragged bags from the car boot to the hotel, disappearing from view. He watched David drive round the corner, presumably to the small car park at the back.

Enough procrastination. James went over to the desk and turned the laptop off. Smile, he told himself as he walked down the stairs. Don’t make this any more painful or awkward than it already is.

Lucy and Becky were already waiting at the reception desk. They were giggling over the hotel literature, waiting for someone to come and book them in. Like a couple of sisters. And here he was, a crocodile smile on his face, knowing it was only a matter of time before he broke up the happy family.

They looked so London, all hip-topped and cool-shoe-ed. A snapshot of Suzie flashed into his mind, with her clothes just plucked from the wardrobe, her face so much more important than anything she wore. And then these two – his closest female friend and his girlfriend. They seemed almost like strangers. Part of James wanted to fade away, sneak back up the stairs and hide until they left.

‘Hi,’ he said, reaching them and tapping Lucy on the shoulder. She turned and beamed at him and they hugged. Then they kissed. Her lips felt different from how he remembered them; no longer evoking desire in him, just flesh pressed against his. It was like kissing a relative, devoid of sensuousness. Whatever spark they’d once shared had gone.

‘Hello, babe,’ she said.

He looked into her eyes and wondered what she saw. He couldn’t believe the distance he felt from her when she was standing so close. He quickly turned to Becky instead.

‘Mate,’ he said. ‘So you guys finally made it,’ he went on, resorting to banter, feeling like an actor reciting lines. ‘Getting country fear yet? Paranoid about the lack of traffic and shops and people?’

Becky grinned. ‘I can do country. You just watch. I’ve got walking boots and jackets and jumpers. My lungs aren’t going to know what’s hit them.’

James could feel Lucy at his shoulder. Timing. This was all about timing. Because it was over between them. He liked her, couldn’t mess her around or pretend that things were just fine, when fine was the last thing they were. He needed to tell her they were over. But not now. Not here in front of Becky.

A blast of cold air. He heard the door opening and turned to see David walking over to them. Distraction. Thank God for friends. He brushed past Lucy and shook David’s hand.

‘Beer,’ David said. ‘Now. Six hours of driving. Crappy local radio stations. iPod jammed. I need my sanity restored.’

‘I want to see my room,’ Becky announced.

‘I’ve booked you two singles,’ James said.

He saw Lucy grinning and watched Becky unsuccessfully attempt to keep a broad smile from her face.

‘What?’ he said. Lucy just shrugged, continued to grin. ‘Well?’

Becky nudged David in the ribs. ‘Are you going to tell him, or shall I?’

‘Ummm,’ David began. ‘Well, it’s like. . .’ He glanced at Becky. ‘You going to help me out here, or what?’

‘Typical bloke,’ she said, rolling her eyes. She stepped across so that she stood by his side, and slipped one arm round his waist. David put an arm round her shoulders and squeezed her tight.

James found himself laughing. ‘You’re kidding?’

‘Er, no,’ David said, blushing.

‘But when? How? Who? Come on, details. . . Who made the first move?’

‘I don’t know,’ David said, looking confused. ‘I suppose we both did.’

‘He’s being modest,’ Becky said. ‘He did.’

‘My God,’ James said. ‘David takes a chance! What the hell caused that unlikely event to occur?’

‘You,’ he said bluntly.

‘Details, please,’ James prompted.

‘That chat we had in Faust,’ David said. ‘You asking me how come I’d never made a move on Becky. And I came out with all that shit, all those dumb reasons why I hadn’t. Well, I ended up thinking about it the next day.’ He smiled at her. ‘And the next. . . and the next. . .’

‘Come on,’ James said. ‘Cut to the chase.’

‘He asked her out for dinner,’ Lucy filled in.

‘What, as in a date?’

‘Not exactly. At least, I knew that’s what it was, but I didn’t—’

Becky pinched David’s waist. ‘He rang me up, told me he was bored and hungry, and asked me to keep him company.’

‘Last of the great romantics, huh?’ James said.

‘And we went out and ate and got drunk and took a cab and went back to Becky’s and carried on getting drunk and. . .’

‘And the rest is history,’ she concluded.

‘Yeah,’ David agreed, ‘I suppose it is.’ He looked warily at James. ‘So, what do you think?’