The Summer We All Ran Away (7 page)

“That's six hundred miles away.”

“Forget it. It's my job to cope, remember?” She wiped her cheeks. “I'll wait until she's broken your heart. And then I'll come back and pick up the pieces. I'll be waiting, I promise.”

“Evie, seriously don't bother waiting for me, I don't want you to.”

“And listen to Alan,” she added over her shoulder.
Moments later he heard gears and gravel crunching, and the slow rumble of the Jaguar disappearing down the drive.

The silence was a deep base-note that made his head ring. From the mirror, a wild-eyed, bewildered madman glowered at him, a ghost from his nightmare past. What the hell just happened? What had he done? He winced, and began a slow tour of the premises.

It was just as Mathilda had said. Every bedroom had been used; every ashtray overflowed with cigarette butts and half-smoked joints; every table heaved with abandoned drinks; every bed was crumpled. The baths spilled flaccid bubbles and tepid water over their sides. On the mirror of the turquoise bathroom, the words ‘Jack Laker gives the best parties ever!!!' were scrawled in orange lipstick. He wondered who'd written it, and whether he knew her. The basin was dusted with white powder.

Did he have a cleaner? Had Evie arranged one, along with everything else she'd done for him? A
relationship
. His
girlfriend
. How had he not seen this coming? He must be insane.

Abandoning the chaos, he crossed to the other side of the house.
I think I prefer the empty half
. Mathilda should have been here with him. Was that the ghost of her perfume in the air? How could he only have met her a few hours ago? And how could he have let her go again?

Behind the panelling of the deserted upper corridor was the entrance to the rooms Evie didn't even know existed. The rooms he'd paid the architect to hide, then painted and furnished himself, with things he'd chosen himself from ordinary shops in ordinary places, because they reminded him of his childhood. The catch was reluctant to yield, but he pressed persistently at the seam in the woodwork until the door swung open. In the bathroom, he opened the cabinet and stared in.

Looking back at him was his secret cache, the stash he'd been ordered to throw away, but hadn't. He had barbiturates
to lull a thousand housewives to sleep, amphetamines to keep half of London awake, prescription painkillers to blot out a million years of pain. The capsules were big enough to hurt on the way down, but they'd make up for the brief discomfort by cleaning out his head. His hand was on the loose again, rogue rebellious entity with a mind of its own. This time, instead of hitting a girl, he was reaching into the cabinet.

There was a cautious knock on the bathroom door. He slammed the cabinet shut. His heart fluttered painfully against his ribs.

“Who is it?” he demanded.

“Mathilda.”

“What? Really?”

“Yes, really. Why?”

He opened the bathroom door.

He wasn't dreaming.

“Evie passed me on the road,” she said. “I thought I might come back after all.”

“And find out if I really am Jack Laker?” He couldn't stop the ridiculous grin spreading across his face. The hideous scene with Evie hardly seemed real. He was so pleased to see her.

“Something like that,” she said, and kissed him.

It had been so long since he had done this; so long since he'd felt the sweet shock of strange skin against his own. He was afraid of hurting her, then afraid of not pleasing her, and then simply afraid. When she put her hand on his cock and squeezed, her murmurs of pleasure set him on fire; he was sure he'd never be able to last long enough to satisfy her, and had to push her away. Then she put her arms around his neck and whispered, “It doesn't have to be perfect the first time, we've got all night,” and he groaned in relief and hid his face in her hair.

A few hours later, he was woken by the bathroom light shining right into his eyes. Mathilda, wearing one of his shirts, was
staring at the medicine cabinet in fascination.

“That's a lot of pills. Aren't you supposed to be clean?”

“I am clean,” he protested. She looked at him disbelievingly. “No, really, I am.”

“Why keep them then?”

“They're sort of like souvenirs.”

She looked sceptical. “Most people steal ashtrays.”

“It's a bit hard to explain.”

“You're supposed to be a modern-day poet.”

It was cold in the bathroom. He led her back to bed and wrapped the green eiderdown around them, smoothing her hair away from his face.

“When I was just starting out,” he told her, “I met this record producer, Brian. He's dead now, but he owned an indie label called Gumshoe. They were going to sign me, but they went bankrupt. Anyway. He was ex-SAS, big Welsh lad he was, and he had a live landmine on his desk.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Why?”

“That was the thing, you see. No-one ever asked, because asking was cheating. You just acted cool and pretended it was totally normal to have a motion-sensitive bomb on the desk between you.”

“And what did doing that get you?”

“Oh, you know, respect - ” He loved making her smile. “So, we had a few meetings, and I was only a kid and I was a bit of a tosser, so I thought I'd break the rules and ask. And he laughed like a drain and slapped me on the back, and he said,
Jack, all men do this, I guarantee it. By the time he reaches forty, every man who's ever lived a life worth a damn has got something from his past that could blow up in his face and wreck his life. I just keep mine on display
.”

“And that's your explanation for a stash of pills you can never take? Okay, I'll think about that one. So what happened to Brian?”

“He had a meeting with this real angry young group. He was giving them advice about their live show, but they were white-hot and crazy arrogant. One of them thumped the table too hard.” Jack shrugged. “Brian's past finally caught up with him.”

“Proper rock'n'roll.”

“I know. No-one knew whether to laugh or cry when they heard. His obituary was ridiculous. It was in
The Times
, but they got an NME journo to guest it. The headline was
An Industry Mourns
, but there were all these terrible phrases like
ground-breaking talent
and
Brian's death has left a huge void
, and no-one was quite sure if he'd done it on purpose.” He felt the vibration of her laughter when she leaned against him. “Ask me what the band were called.”

“Alright. What were they called?”

“You won't believe me, but I'll tell you. This is true, I swear, they were called,
Everything Explodes.”

“No! You made that up, I don't believe you!”

“I said you wouldn't. But honest to God, that really was their name.”

Somewhere in the laughter, they began kissing again.

chapter five (now)

Davey was at a cocktail party, and someone was jabbering tirelessly away down his ear. He held a large martini glass festooned with umbrellas and cherries, and he was naked. He thought if he could start a funny conversation with the woman beside him, perhaps no-one would notice, but he couldn't make head nor tail of what she was saying.

“Sorry, could you say that again - ”

“ - said if you don't wake up soon, I'm eating it myself. I know you can hear me, mate, you might as well open your eyes.”

Priss was sitting cross-legged on the end of his bed, draped in a silky red bedspread that made him think of lingerie. He looked hastily away.

“You're turning into a Morlock,” she told him.

“Sorry.”

“I'm going to put that on your gravestone. I brought you breakfast in bed.”

“Thank you.”

“It's a bribe,” Priss continued. “I'm putting you in my debt so you'll be forced to come and talk to me instead of hiding in the library and pretending to write letters.”

“I'm s - ” Davey bit his tongue, and took the mug of coffee. Priss peeled off a long strip of fat and dropped it into her mouth before passing him the bacon sandwich.

“You shouldn't eat that,” said Davey, before he could stop himself.

Priss shrugged. “I'm only sixteen, I can get away with it. Besides, that's the only bit I've eaten. You're about to eat the whole sandwich.” She licked her fingers with her pink tongue. “Get a move on. I'm not very nice when I'm bored.”

“Um, can you give me a minute?”

“To do what?”

“To get up.”

“I'm not stopping you.”

“I - haven't g-g-got any pyjamas on.”

“You are
such
a fuckin' prude.” Priss turned around. “Go on, then.”

Davey scurried out from beneath the covers, grabbed an armful of clothes and locked himself hastily in the bathroom.

“I don't know why you're bothered,” Priss shouted through the door. “I've already seen it.”

“What?
When?”

“When you was dead drunk and puking everywhere, soft lad, when d'you think? Are you stopping in there all day?”

“I'm sorry, I'm cleaning my teeth - ” Davey chewed frantically on his toothbrush, struggled into his jeans, pulled his t-shirt over his head and unlocked the bathroom door. “But, but you're not even dressed!”

Priss looked at him challengingly and folded her arms. She was wearing a shapeless black jumper that exposed her left shoulder, thick woolly socks, and a pair of boxer shorts.

“Yes, I am.”

“But you're only wearing - ”

“If I wore this to the beach you'd think I was
over
dressed. You can't see my tits or my minge, can you?”

“It's j-j-j - ”

“July,” said Priss, leading the way down to the kitchen. “Justice. Juvenile delinquency. Jeeves.” She switched to a bad approximation of an upper-crust accent. “Jolly good show. Just not on, what? No, that's fuckin' terrible, that, isn't it?” Davey wasn't sure what the polite answer would be, but fortunately she just kept talking. It was a bit like having the
radio on. “Do posh people really use ‘what' as a placeholder, or is that people like me are supposed to go round saying
Go 'ed
all the time? I've always wondered. Hey, Kate, look who I found snoring under his covers like a pisshead farm-hog.”

“I don't snore,” said Davey feebly.

Priss sniffed. “Like you'd know.”

“Why are you always so horrible in the mornings?” asked Kate, ruffling Priss' hair.

“I'm horrible all the time.”

“Yes, but you're worse in the mornings.”

“The badness builds up overnight while I'm asleep.”

“So you did sleep?”

“Don't fuss.”

“Did you?”

“I was exploring the Dark Side. I found a dinner service in there. I think it's Meissen.”

“What makes you think it's Meissen?” asked Davey.

Priss favoured him with a pale-eyed stare. “'Cos it's got a Meissen mark on the bottom.”

Davey opened his mouth to ask how Priss knew what the Meissen maker's mark looked like, but then closed it again.

“It's not safe in there,” said Kate. “And it worries me when you stay up all night.”

“I'm a teenager,” said Priss airily. “I'm supposed to have messed-up sleeping patterns and a shitty attitude.”

“So you are.” Kate put her fingers under Davey's chin and tipped his face up so the light caught his bruises, finally fading under the influence of time and rest and sunshine. “And how are you?”

“I'm fine,” said Davey. Was this the start of an interrogation?

“Good.”

“You look like George Best,” said Priss. “All yellow.”

“I'm sorry I slept so late,” said Davey. He glanced at his watch and was appalled to find it was nearly eleven o'clock. He hadn't made it downstairs at a decent hour even once in the five days since he'd rocked up here. Priss was right. He was
turning into a Morlock.

“Why?” asked Tom. “We're not exactly living on a schedule, you know. Have some coffee, it's fresh.”

“But you keep f-f-f-feeding me and m-m-making me coffee and - ”

“Oh, I expect we're just madly overcompensating for the hideous crimes of our past lives,” said Kate.

Her tone was light, but for a moment, the whole room seemed to freeze in place.

Then, in unison, Kate and Tom began to move again. Tom said, “Right,” and walked out through the patio doors. Kate murmured something in which the only distinguishable word was ‘later', and disappeared into the house.

“We're going out for a walk,” said Priss to Davey.

Davey wondered what would happen if he argued with Priss.

“Here's the thing,” said Priss. “I really,
really
want to talk to you. And I'm tougher than you, and we both know it, so I'm always going to win any argument we have. Which means it's much quicker and less painful if you give in. Also, I brought you breakfast in bed, which, as I may have mentioned, was a bribe, and you took it, which means we've got a contract. Right?”

“We could talk in the library,” Davey suggested.

“No we couldn't.”

“Why not?”

“Never mind.”

Davey noticed for the first time that Priss looked pale and tired, and she had dark shadows under her eyes.

“Are you alright?” he asked.

“'Course I'm fuckin' alright, why wouldn't I be?”

As they crossed the lawn, she slipped her hand into his. He was surprised by how small and soft her fingers felt.

“So,” said Priss. “Is
Alice In Wonderland
your favourite book?”

They were sitting in the branches of a gigantic tree whose branches grew horizontally out from its red-skinned trunk and then shot up into the sky. The shape of the branches and the resiny scent made Davey think of a church.

“Yes. No. I don't know. I can't choose just one. I don't know why I brought it really.”

She glanced slyly at him from underneath her hair.

“Is
self-knowledge
just a word beginning with ‘s' where you're from?”

“Okay then,” he said. “If you're so clever, why do
you
think I brought it?”

“Ha! You ready? Answer one: 'cos it's about a fantastical journey from reality, and that's what you were hoping for when you ran. Answer two: 'cos it's a book in which altered states are a major feature, and you were absolutely off your face when you packed your bag. Answer three: 'cos it's a child's book, and you haven't been happy since you were a child. Answer four: 'cos you, like its author, are a shy, socially awkward misfit with a stammer.” She laughed at the expression on his face. “I can keep going if you like.”

“How, how, you don't know anything about me!”

“I know
loads
about you,” said Priss loftily, without looking at him.

The wind rippled through the tree and blew Priss' hair away from her immaculate profile. When she wasn't speaking, he could see past the theatrical make-up and piercings to the classical serenity of her lovely face. He wished he could draw. Raphael, he thought vaguely, or maybe Caravaggio -

“It's really rude to stare,” said Priss, still not looking at him.

Davey felt himself flush a deep and unbecoming scarlet. “I um, I wasn't - I wasn't st-st-st-st - ”

“Stagnant. Strait-jacketed. Streaking. Stalking the girl from round the corner. Stuck up the chimney. Forget it. What do you make of the house?”

“It's great. The décor's really interesting.”

“You know
interesting's
what British people say when we mean
fucking awful
, right?”

“It's just, I don't know, it's fashionable.”

“Fashionable?” Priss laughed. “Is that what you think?”

“My mother's really interested in interior design,” said Davey, knowing he was going to win this one. “The retro look's been really big recently.”

“Christ,” said Priss. “I've met out-of-date cheese with more brains.”

“Sorry?”

“It's not
fashionable
, you twat. It's so old it's come back in style.”

Davey looked at her blankly.

“It's the original deal, thicko. Someone half-did that place up back in the late seventies and it's never been changed. That's why there's no books in the library past nineteen-eighty.” She pulled the sleeves of her jumper down to cover her hands. “It's horrible. Like a tomb. Or a labyrinth. All those fucking rooms, looking out at us. Nothing matches up, I swear it moves around while we're asleep or something.”

“But it's beautiful,” said Davey, in surprise. “It's the best place I've ever lived in. I mean, I know I don't l-l-l-live there, n-n-n-not really, but - ”

Priss laughed. “You need fuckin' analysing, you do.”

“I've been - ” Davey stopped suddenly.

“That figures,” said Priss. “For all the good it bloody did you. Bet you had a crush on your therapist as well.”

“I did
not.”

“Your problem is, you get distracted by appearances.”

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Hard to see through those rose-coloured spectacles, is it? You probably think this place is some sort of Paradise, right? Luckiest break of your life the day you turned up on the doorstep?”

“But it was! I don't know what I'd have done if - ”

“Look, just 'cos I look like a fuckin' angel doesn't mean
you can trust me. And just 'cos Kate and Tom did one nice thing doesn't mean you can trust them.”

“They saved my life!”

“So? Stop feeling grateful and start thinking!”

Reluctantly, Davey remembered the scene in the kitchen this morning.

“It's not their house, right? Although I reckon they only told you that 'cos they knew I'd say something, they didn't mention it to me for fuckin' ages. So what happened to the real owner?”

“I don't know and I d-d-d-don't care,” said Davey resignedly.

“You mean you don't want to think about it. But you've got to, okay?
We've
got to. Just look at this place! Whoever owns it must have loved it once. Spent a fortune doing it up. Made it into a real home. And then, they just left. Walked away and never came back. Didn't turn the power off, didn't nick the light bulbs, didn't take the crockery, didn't take the pans, didn't take the books off the shelves, left all the clothes in the wardrobes.” She looked meaningfully at Davey's t-shirt. Davey shivered. “And then one day, Kate and Tom walk in.”

“So what?” said Davey.

With some difficulty, Priss tore off a cluster of long, needly leaves. “See, the thing is,” she said, tugging hard at the tough stalks, “Tom and Kate, they don't bother you with questions. They just let you, you know, be. It's not like they don't care – Christ,
anyone
that'd mop up your spew, the state you were in – but they just, they don't pry.” Her smile was brief, but bewitching. “They're, like, the opposite of parents. And I want to think they're everything they seem, I really do.”

“Well, maybe they are.”

“And maybe there's fairies living in the brook and a giant pink teapot orbiting the Earth and Our Lady really does make stone statues cry, but - really?” She wiped her nose on her sleeve, leaving a trail of wet silver. Even this disgusting action, when performed by Priss, seemed almost charming.

“Why can't you just let it go? I mean, why look a gift horse in the mouth? We're all happy here.”

“Please,” Priss begged. “Look me in the eye and say
Priss, you're a cynical cow and two adult strangers are being ludicrously nice to us 'cos they're a couple of living saints
, and I'll shut the fuck up forever, scout's honour. But tell me this. Why are they hiding in the middle of nowhere, in someone else's house? And how do they know they won't get caught?”

Davey shook his head stubbornly. Against all possible odds, he'd taken flight from an impossible situation and found a secret, magical haven. Now Priss was spoiling it all. Why couldn't she leave it alone? Why did she insist on making him see?

What was so great about the truth, anyway?

“Maybe they've done - something bad,” said Davey at last, with deep reluctance.

“Oh, you reckon? Just man up and say the bloody word.”

“Like m-m-maybe they m-m-m - ”

“See, I don't
want
to think that,” said Priss. “'Cos I love 'em. Both of 'em. I do. That's the trouble with love, though, isn't it? It stops you seeing the truth.”

They sat in silence for a while, Priss tearing at her clump of leaves, Davey desperately trying to find the flaw in her logic. The scent of resin was enough to get drunk on.