2
Lisa left the Cricketers’ pub at just after eleven to return to David’s flat. She didn’t want to leave things they way they had done earlier, she hadn’t been able to relax and enjoy herself all night. As she walked, she wondered if he might have gone to bed already. He usually went to bed at about twelve, provided the students in the flat beneath him weren’t having one of their spontaneous parties, but that hadn’t happened for a while now.
She smiled as she remembered how David had gone down to put a stop to it the last time it had woken them up. It had been two in the morning; he’d wanted her to stay behind in the flat but she’d insisted on accompanying him. David had gone down and knocked, repeatedly but patiently, on their door. A short time later, a drunken man in his early twenties opened the door. He was immediately on the defensive; the music flowing out from behind him at an unmitigated level while he stood there in the doorway, with his chin out and his arms folded across his chest. David had smiled and begun to chat to him about the situation. Five minutes later they were back in David’s flat, the music had been reduced to an acceptable level, and David was pinning a piece of paper with the man’s telephone number on it to the kitchen notice board. The man, whose name was Nathan, had given it to David in the event he might need it in the future to call to complain about noise or anything else.
She’d been impressed and had told him so. He told her that disarming an enemy with diplomacy was something he’d learned in the army. Surprised, she’d asked him to tell her more, but he hadn’t. He told her he was tired and that he’d tell her later. She didn’t press him in on it. She figured he’d tell her whenever he was ready, though of course, he never had. She bristled as the feeling of rejection she’d felt earlier began to stir again: the unwelcome, though insistent thought that reminded her that while David may be fond of her, he apparently had no room in his life for her. Then her anger returned: Jesus, if he didn’t want to see her again, why couldn’t he just come out and say it instead of blaming it on his apartment?
‘Stop it!’ she said out loud. There was no use going over it again and again in her head, she needed to discuss it with him, not herself.
As she turned onto Lansdowne Place she was met with the sound of distant music; someone must be having a party. She looked up along the row of terraced town houses to David’s building. The music seemed to be coming from there. The lights were on in all the apartments. Perhaps the effects of David’s diplomacy had worn off and the students in the flat below had gone back to their old ways. She stopped outside the house: this was definitely the source of the music, the sound of drums and guitars radiated from the house like heat from a blaze.
She went up the steps and pressed David’s door buzzer. There was no response. She pushed it again, but still nothing happened. Maybe he’d gone down to try to reason with the guys downstairs and was involved in doorstep negotiations right now. She decided to check; she pushed the buzzer of flat two. A moment later, an irate voice came back through the intercom.
‘Yeah?’
‘Hello? I’m sorry to bother you. My boyfriend lives in the flat upstairs from you. I wondered if – ’
The intercom crackled and went dead. A moment later a buzz came from the door and she pushed it open. Inside, the very air of the hallway seemed to resonate with the beat of the music. She hurried up the stairs. When she got to the first landing, the door of the flat beneath David’s was already open and Nathan was waiting for her.
‘Thank fuck you’re here. Have a word with him will you, love? He’s gone completely fucking mental up there. It’s been like this for over an hour now.’
‘Yeah,’ said another guy, emerging from the flat. ‘And when we knock on his door, he threatens to kill us.’
‘Seriously,’ said Nathan. ‘We went upstairs, yeah? Knocked on the door, and your boyfriend flings it open – all mad in the eyeballs – and tells us we’re going to bloody die. Then he laughs and slams the door in our faces. Mad as a walnut whip, eh, Josh?’
‘Yeah.’
Lisa didn’t know what to say. ‘You mean, David? David said that?’
‘Yeah, him,’ said Nathan. ‘Your bloody loony boyfriend. We called the police, but they said it was a domestic matter and they couldn’t do anything about it. Fat lot of fucking good they are. I mean, listen to that.’ He cupped an ear in the direction of the stairs. ‘If that’s not a breach of the peace I don’t know what is, yeah?’ He looked to Josh for agreement, and found it.
Lisa looked up the staircase. ‘Okay, I, I don’t know what to say. I’m really sorry for the disturbance. I’ll speak to him now.’
‘I should bloody think so,’ said Josh. ‘Some of us have to get up in the morning, you know?’
Lisa hurried up the stairs. When she got to the landing she saw a woman outside David’s front door that she’d never seen before. She was barefoot and wore a pink velour tracksuit. The woman was knocking on David’s door with her fist in slow, rhythmic blows that were barely audible above the music coming from within. Lisa came up beside her and smiled. The woman turned to face her, her features knotted with rage.
‘Do you live here?’ the woman demanded.
‘No,’ said Lisa. ‘Not exactly. But my boyfriend does.’
The woman’s eyes narrowed and she pointed at the door. ‘This fucking wanker has been driving me out of my fucking mind for hours. And he hasn’t even the guts to come out here and face me.’ She pounded and shouted at the door. ‘Have you? You selfish bastard!’
Lisa opened her bag and fished out a single Yale key. ‘It’s okay, I have a key. I’ll go in now and turn it off.’
The lines that tortured the woman’s forehead softened and she closed her eyes with relief. ‘Oh thank God,’ she sighed. ‘Thank you so much.’
‘I’m so sorry – ’ Lisa began, but the woman raised her hands.
‘No, it’s not your fault. Don’t apologise.’ She pointed at the door. ‘It’s him in there, Mr Total Arsehole that should be fucking apologising.’ The woman touched Lisa on the arm. ‘Sorry love, but what the fuck is wrong with people these days?’
Lisa put the key into the door and felt the bass line of the song resonating under her fingers. ‘I know, I’m sorry. He’s never usually like this, you know?’ The woman nodded and walked wearily to the staircase. She managed a weak smile and then went upstairs. Lisa took a breath, and opened the door.
The air was thick with cigarette smoke. Lisa went in and walked down towards the lounge. ‘David?’ she called out, trying to be heard over the music. The lounge was empty, and so was the whiskey bottle on the coffee table.
‘Oh shit, David?’
She moved quickly to the stereo and shut it off. Silence fell almost palpably against her ears. ‘David?’ There was no reply. She looked around. The whiskey bottle stood in the centre of the coffee table beside an overflowing ash tray and a single glass tumbler that lay on its side. Scattered on and all around the sofa were papers and documents, his passport among them. ‘David?’
She turned and went down the hall to the bedroom. His drawers were all open and in disarray, his clothes lay strewn over the bed and for a moment it crossed her mind that perhaps David had been burgled. Then, she heard a familiar sound coming from the bathroom: a low moan punctuated by yelping noises. She went to the bathroom and pushed open the door.
David sat on the toilet with his trousers and underpants around his ankles. On the sink beside him a cigarette had burned down to the filter leaving a sticky brown burn on the porcelain. David yelped again and his legs twitched. ‘No,’ he moaned. His head was slumped forward with his chin resting on his collarbone; drool ran from the corner of his mouth and soaked into his shirt.
‘Oh my God, David.’ Was this her fault? Had her walking out on him earlier pushed him to this? She knelt down before him and took his face in her hands. She lifted his head up, ‘David?’
He made no response.
‘David!’ she said more sternly, patting his cheek.
His eyes flickered.
‘David, wake up!’
He woke suddenly, as if he’d been hit by a cattle prod, his legs scissoring her and causing her to fall sideways. ‘No!’ he cried. ‘I won’t do it!’
Lisa regained her balance and took his hand. ‘David? It’s okay, it’s okay. You don’t have to do anything.’
He looked at her, confused, as if expecting someone else. ‘Lisa?’ His voice was slurry and his breath thick with alcohol.
‘Yes. You’re drunk. You fell asleep on the toilet.’
‘I,’ he looked down at himself, ‘I’m not shitting … I, I just didn’t want to miss … you know – the toilet … I miss when I’m pissed, see.’
‘It’s okay,’ she pushed his hair back from his forehead. ‘You didn’t miss.’ She glanced down at the linoleum around the toilet and realised she was mistaken. She looked back to his face. He was deathly pale and a dew of sweat had broken out across his forehead. ‘Are you alright? You don’t look too good.’
‘I’m fine,’ he said, reaching down and trying to untangle his trousers. ‘Really I, I just didn’t want to miss, you know? See, when I’m pissed, I miss, and Sarah gets all angry with me. She makes me clean it up.’
‘Who is Sarah?’
‘She,’ he stopped his struggling with his trousers. ‘She’s dead.’
Lisa drew her hand away from his face. ‘Oh. I see.’
He looked up at her. ‘She was ... we, we were ... ’ He had tears in his eyes. ‘She died.’
Lisa moved forward and held him as he started to cry. His arms moved around her and he embraced her tightly.
‘I’m sorry, Lisa. I’m so sorry.’
‘Shhh,’ she soothed him, stroking his hair. ‘There is nothing to be sorry for.’
‘Yes there is. There’s everything to be sorry for.’
‘But you haven’t done anything wrong, David. You just got drunk. It’s not the end of the world.’
At that he seemed to change, his sobs became more erratic and she realised he was laughing. He looked up, but he wasn’t smiling – not properly anyway. It was if she had made a sick joke and he was laughing despite his moral revulsion at what she had said.
‘Isn’t it? I’m not so sure about that.’ His silent laughter was abruptly cut off as he turned and vomited into the sink.
‘Are you sure you don’t want a coffee?’ said Lisa, handing David a glass of water. They had moved into the lounge and he sat at the end of the sofa looking generally ghastly.
‘No, thanks,’ he took a sip. ‘This is the best thing,’ then he chuckled, ‘apart from more whiskey, of course.’ He managed a slack-mouthed smile. ‘Jus’ kidding.’
‘I hope so. I can’t believe you were drinking. What made you do that?’
He closed his eyes and slowly rubbed his face. ‘I got – I got a letter. I got some bad news.’
Lisa sat down beside him. ‘Oh my God,’ she lay a hand on his shoulder. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’
‘Oh, I’d love to. I’d love to talk all fuggin’ night about it. But,’ he shrugged, ‘it wouldn’t do any good.’
She smoothed back a lock of hair that was stuck to his forehead. ‘Of course it would do good. People need to talk about their problems, David. Maybe if I had been here when you got the letter, you wouldn’t have got drunk.’
‘Hmm. Yeah, maybe.’
‘Why didn’t you call your sponsor friend, Steve?’
‘Because he would’ve have stopped me, and I didn’t want to be stopped.’
‘David, what was in this letter? Please, talk to me.’
He set the glass on the coffee table and looked down at his hands. Then he met her eyes. ‘My brother has cancer, and he’s going to die.’
‘Oh no, David. That’s terrible. Are you – are you sure there’s no chance?’
‘Yeah. Apparently he’s had it for a while now. It’s too far gone, you know?’
‘How come you only just learned about this?’
He looked back down to his hands, they trembled slightly, and he clasped them together. ‘I don’t … I don’t really talk to my family. As a matter of fact, I hide from them. They didn’t know where I was.’
Lisa said nothing for a moment. She stroked his hand, trying to read his expression in profile. ‘You hide from them?’
He nodded and a tear spilled from his eye.
‘And so, how did they find you?’
He smiled. ‘Oh, they have eyes everywhere. The letter came from their – I mean my – family’s solicitor.’
She waited but he said nothing. She asked, ‘And, so what are you going to do now?’
He shrugged. ‘I’m going to go to them. I have to, I haven’t got a choice.’
‘Of course you should go, if that’s what you want. Is that what all this is?’ She indicated the general chaos of bag packing and disordered paperwork that lay around them.
‘Yeah. I fly out tomorrow.’
‘Fly? You’re flying? Where does your brother live?’
‘Spain.’
She seemed surprised. ‘You told me your family left Spain when you were a child.’ It had been one of his few biographical disclosures to her.
He shook his head. ‘Yeah, my mum and me, we left, but my dad stayed.’
‘And your brother stayed with your father?’
‘No, he left with his mum an’ all. We grew up in England.’
‘With different mothers?’
He nodded. ‘Yeah. Cool, huh?’
‘But then he went back to Spain? Your brother?’
‘He did, yeah.’
‘I see. And so you fly tomorrow. At what time?’
‘Nine.’
‘In the evening?’
‘Nah, in the morning.’
‘In the morning? Jesus, David, you’ll never be able to get up and catch a plane that early. You’re too drunk!’
He laughed. ‘Drunk? This? Baby, this is nothing. Five a.m. start? Piece of cake.’
‘Don’t be stupid. It’s not funny.’
‘No,’ he shook his head. ‘It’s not fuckin’ funny.’
‘I can’t believe you can joke about your drinking. What if you had choked on your own vomit or something? What good would you be to your brother then? He needs you.’
David turned on her, and there was a sudden look of contempt in his eyes. ‘He doesn’t need me!’ Lisa drew back, startled. ‘He doesn’t want me in some kind of Waltons death-bed-drama-type way. See, he has to summon me, and I have to answer that summons. It’s nothing personal.’
‘But, I don’t understand. Don’t you like your brother?’
‘Like him? I hardly fucking know him, Lisa. He’s someone I’ve met from time to time, just like all of my family,’ he laughed. ‘We’re not what you might call close. We’re more like associates rather than brothers and sister.’
‘You have a sister?’
‘Oh yeah. She’s great, she is. A real fuckin’ pearl. I bet she’s the bastard that found out where I was.’ David picked up his cigarettes and fumbled one out of the packet. ‘The fucking bitch.’
Lisa watched as he searched among the litter on the coffee table for his lighter. She had never seen him like this; not just drunk, but angry, spiteful. The things he’d kept hidden inside were now spilling from him like some time-fermented acid. ‘David, perhaps you shouldn’t go; at least not tomorrow. Give yourself some time to think this over. You know you don’t have to go at all if you feel this badly about them.’
He lit his cigarette and shook his head. ‘You don’t get it, darlin’; of course you don’t. I mean, why would you? You think I come from a normal family, and all this, this is just normal family shit. Like I say – you know – some Waltons episode, or maybe Dallas – which is closer, but still way off. See, this isn’t like those things; this is more like something out of Hammer House of Horror. You see we’re not a family, my family, we’re a disease.’ He took a drag on his cigarette. ‘See, when I say I got no choice, Lisa, I mean I really have no choice. My destiny was carved out for me long before I was even conceived.’ He laughed. ‘Fuck, I wasn’t even conceived, me. I was bred, like a horse or a pedigree fucking dog.’
Lisa frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’
David’s lips drew back from his teeth in a smile that bordered on a snarl. ‘Of course you don’t, Lisa. How could you possibly understand?’ He got to his feet and walked into the centre of the room where he turned back to her with a certain theatrical flair. ‘You see, I am the fruit of a poisonous vine. A family line, that’s old, and pure, and cruel in heart. And as much as I wish, I dearly, dearly, wish that I was plain old David Smith, I can’t be. For Smith, you see, was my mother’s name. I took it as part of my brilliant disguise.’
‘What are you talking about? You are David Smith. Who else do you think you are?’
He inclined his head forward and his eyes seemed to darken. ‘My name is David Christopher Flinch. And I am damned.’