The Summer We All Ran Away (27 page)

“If you mean Evie, we were only ever just - ”

“Jack, if the next word out of your mouth is going to be
friends
, you're the biggest fucking hypocrite I've ever met in my life.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You could at least own up to what you've done. You've already lost one woman her career. You're not doing the same to me.”

“I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.”

From between the pages of
Lysistrata
, she took out an
envelope. A letter from Evie, already opened.

“You opened my post?”

She dropped it beside him onto the magenta velvet. “Get the plank out your own eye first. You bastard.”

Together, Priss and Davey leafed through the pages. A girl with long hair climbed the tree and sat next to the man. Another girl, naked, her eyes huge and black, trod a perilous path down through the woods to the enclosure where a black shape prowled impatiently behind the bars.

“This is fucking brilliant,” said Priss.

“Why aren't there any words?” Davey asked.

“That's the writer's job.” Priss turned over more pages. “Look, she's jumped into the cage. Hey, is that who I think it is?”

In the corner of the page, a man with dark curly hair watched in horror as the girl plunged into the panther's lair.

“That's Isaac,” he said incredulously.

You'll find it hardest when you're stressed
. Knowing it didn't make the craving easier to ignore. The medicine cabinet in the annexe called to him. The only way to stay ahead of it was to walk and walk, pacing out rooms and corridors through luxurious decadence to crumbling ruin and back to decadence again, as he tried to put together what he'd just read in Evie's letter.

He forced himself to examine the few shards of memory he'd held on to. The journey from the hospital, sweating with fear, trying to hold it together in an office somewhere, lying through his teeth to the shrink,
no, nothing, nothing since I was admitted, not a thing, I swear
, knowing the shrink wasn't fooled. Being searched, his suitcase and then himself, the blaze of panic when they found his stash. Understanding murmurs, worse than accusations. Hallucinations, things slouching in corners, voices whispering and giggling, creatures on his bedclothes and on his skin. The haze of pills
clearing, leaving a dreadful clarity filled with everything he'd been running from. No sleep. He'd lost eleven days he worked out afterwards, and was glad to have done so.

And somewhere in all of that, he'd apparently -Was it even possible?

Was Evie telling the truth? He didn't believe her. He'd barely been able to walk when he arrived, never mind have sex. And surely, surely he'd have some vague recollection? But there was simply nothing there. Nothing but an eleven-day gap in his brain.

He could see Mathilda coming out onto the lawn from the woods.

Which would sound worse? To tell Mathilda that yes, she was right, he'd ended Evie's career and then abandoned her without remorse or hesitation? Or to confess he'd fucked up his brain so profoundly that he simply had no recollection of the events Evie described? Would it make things better or worse to go and talk to her?

She caught sight of him, beckoned him impatiently outside.

“This must be the story of what happened here,” said Davey.

“I bet you were ten minutes late for your own birth.” Priss flicked impatiently through the pages. “That's Evie, look, she looks just like her photos. That girl from the tree, that's probably Mathilda - and that guy must be Jack Laker.” She shook her head in disbelief. “Jack
Laker
. We're living in Jack Laker's house. No, that still sounds ridiculous. I mean, I don't even
like
Jack Laker. Christ, if he's killed someone every fan in the Western world'll be sobbing into their Cheerios.”

“You really didn't know, did you,” said Mathilda as soon as he got close enough. “I thought maybe you were faking it so you didn't have to talk about it. But you really, really didn't know.”

“I still don't know,” he said. “I can't remember a thing. Not a thing.”

“I don't believe you.”

“That's how bad it was.”

“That's how bad what was?”

He was in court, under oath. No escape. No excuses. His chest was tight. “I was out of contract with Island,” he said at last. He scrabbled in his pocket for something to destroy, found a biro, pulled out the ink-tube. “I was going to sign with Gumshoe, but then they went up in smoke. And I really thought that was it. Fifteen minutes over. Then Alan turned up at a gig one night with a contract in his pocket. Next thing I know,
Violet Hour
was double platinum and I had four top ten singles off it. I still don't know why.”

“I know you don't.”

“So there I was, a freak superstar with forty dates booked in these massive venues. And it's like a deal with the Devil, you know? I don't know why I was surprised. It's not even a secret, not really. You know when you start it's going to be screams whenever they see you and mad people hanging around the stage door afterwards, and hotel rooms, and a messed-up sleep schedule, and everyone treating you like some kind of holy idiot, and never having time to work, and forgetting to call your mother, and absolutely no personal space, and sycophantic interviews, and girls in the dressing room, and junk food, and drugs. You know what it's going to be like, but somehow you think you'll be different. No, I mean,
I
thought
I
was going to be different.”

“You don't have to tell me this.”

“Yes. Yes, I do. See, the thing is I'm a writer, not a jukebox. Once the album's finished, I just want to put it out there and get onto the next thing. But the fans aren't there for
new
. They want
familiar
. So every night, the same show, over and over, note-perfect, and they'd be ecstatic, then every morning I'd be in the hotel room with my ears ringing, trying to hear the music, the
new
music. But I was too tired. So Alan got me these Dexedrine tablets.”

“And then you couldn't sleep.”

“And then I couldn't sleep. So he got me some Valium.

That made me sleep alright, Christ - the first time I took one I thought I was going to die. But then there was always the speed to wake me up. And that's how it started.”

“So could you write then?”

“No, that's the fucking stupid thing. It
never
worked. But once I'd started, I couldn't stop it. See,
I
wanted to write, but nobody else cared if I did or not. They just needed me to perform. They were getting me everything they could think of to keep me going, and trying to cheer me up by - ” the pen snapped in half. “Oh, fuck, I still can't believe I - ”

“The girls in the dressing room?”

“Yeah. I mean, you always get groupies, but suddenly there were so many more of them. There was this one gig. The Phoenix. I met a kid back stage. Just a kid. And his kid girlfriend. Alan was picking girls out of the crowd. I saw him pick her. A fucking schoolgirl! And Christ, if you think what I did with Evie was - ” he shook his head. “That was the worst night. The very worst one.”

“Did you? With her, I mean? The schoolgirl?”

“No. I took every goddamn pill I had. And then a pint of Jack Daniels on top. They found me in my hotel room, passed out in a pool of piss and vomit.”

“She looks like him,” said Priss, studying Isaac's drawing of the girl in the cage. “If he grew his hair, he'd be the spit of her. I bet she's his sister.” She turned the page and disclosed a double-page spread showing a row of beds with Evie, in a nurse's uniform, moving between them. One of the patients was Jack, lank-haired and skeletal. In another bed, Evie bent low over the girl with the dark eyes.

“And did you really say all that to Evie?” Mathilda asked. “Did you tell her you'd die without her? That you needed her? That you couldn't survive without her?”

“I might have done. Addicts'll say anything when they're desperate.” He paused. “I mean,
we'll
say anything when
we're
desperate. But I honestly can't remember.”

“Not even a flicker?”

“Not even a flicker. Look, I should have told you all this before, I know I should. I'm sorry. I should have warned you how bad it can be, living with an addict. I mean I damaged my brain, didn't I? It'll never work quite right again. I can't drink or take drugs, or risk going anywhere near anything that might make me want to drink or take drugs. It could happen again, at any time, from now until the day I die. All that fucking grandstanding about that stash I keep up in the annexe, that story about the landmine - that's bullshit. The truth is I'm too weak to get rid of it.”

She was looking across the lawn into the woods.

“Look,” said Priss, “they're having a massive row. Jack and Evie and Mathilda. D'you reckon he asked them for a threesome?” She paged on through the manuscript. “And what's Isaac doing in all these pictures? Did he, like, live with them or something?” She turned over the pages. “Oh, no! No fucking way!”

“What? What?”

“He did the artwork,” said Priss, sounding outraged. “Fuching Isaac fucking painted the fuching cover artwork for the fucking
Landmark
album. Isaac! I've known guys who'd walk over their mother's entrails to meet the guy who painted that cover. Damn it, I wanted to meet a murderer.”

“You know,” said Davey, “you still might have - ”

“Give over, posh boy. I want to see what happens next.”

“I'm sorry,” Jack repeated. “I wish I was a different man, a better man. And I really wish I was the kind of man who wouldn't get jealous just because a young, good-looking, talented guy who you clearly get on with got to see you naked.” He waited, but she kept silent. “You know, you
could
tell me you think he's repulsive and it drives you nuts the way he never speaks.”

“Isaac's queer,” said Mathilda.

“He's
what?”
Jack was astounded. “Are you sure? How do you know?”

“Does that bother you?”

“No, I suppose not, but - ” he shook his head, feeling the events of the last two months rearrange themselves into a surprising new pattern. “I had no idea, are you sure?”

“I'm sorry too,” said Mathilda. “I was jealous, you see. I didn't like reading all those things Evie said you said to her. And I wanted to see how the painting would turn out.” She took his hand gently. “But I should have known you wouldn't have walked away from her like that if you'd known. I don't think you've ever been knowingly cruel to anyone in your life, have you?”

Hand in hand, they stood on the lawn and felt time flowing past them. The argument felt to Jack like a lock in a canal; a necessary pause in a dark and frightening place, to allow their closeness to move to a new level.

“I need to go and feed him,” he said at last, reluctantly breaking the peace.

“Why have you got that panther? You've never really explained.”

“I told you, I won him in a poker game.”

“Yes, but how?”

“It was when I was looking for a house. I met this old guy in a big falling-apart place in Devon. He said he'd only sell to the right person. Apparently that wasn't me, but we got talking and then we got drinking, and we started playing. He bet me anything I wanted out of his animal collection. I was most sorry for the panther, so that's the one I took.”

“That makes sense, actually,” said Mathilda. “It's one of the nicest things about you, you know.”

“What is?”

“How kind you are.”

He kissed her hand. “I won't be long.”

Twenty minutes later he was running madly through the
woods, blazing with a rage so pure and incandescent it felt like a series of electric shocks.

“This would be much easier to understand with the words,” said Davey.

“Easy's boring,” said Priss. “So, Jack and Mathilda are living together, Mathilda's modelling for Isaac. Whoa.” Sprawling across a double-page, Isaac had drawn first the panther, and then Mathilda, both of them sleeping in a barred cell in the shape of a heart.

“Prisoners of love,” said Davey.

“He must have used half my pens on this one, the robbin' little bastard,” said Priss gloomily. She turned the page.

“What the fuck have you done!” Jack yelled. He slammed the veranda doors shut. “What the bloody hell have you
done?”

Mathilda looked at him blankly.

“I don't know. What have I done?”

“The cage door! You let him out! You went into the woods this afternoon and you bloody well let him out! Why would you even do that? I know you don't approve of me keeping him, but Jesus Christ, Mathilda, why would you
do
that? He'll get killed out there, there are roads - ”

“He's miles from any roads,” said Mathilda, reaching for her glass of wine.

Another white-hot stab of rage. “So you admit it? It was you?”

Her face was smooth and blank as she took a considered mouthful from her glass. “I didn't say that.”

“Well, you might as well, because
of course
it was bloody well you!” His hand went to the chain around his neck. “Who the fuck else was going to get the key off me?”

“How do you know you didn't forget to lock up?”

“Because I check. Always. That's what you have to do when you're keeping a - ”

“Prisoner?”

“He is
not
a prisoner!”

“Of course he is. It's disgusting to keep anything caged like that. Now he's free. He can do what he's meant to do.”

“Which is what, exactly? Maul sheep? Get shot? Starve to death? Die of loneliness?”