From the Outside

by Clare Johnston

  He glanced at his watch and realised he was running late for meeting a friend, so he ran out to the hallway of his flat and grabbed his jacket from the coat hook. But when he opened the front door to leave, he found his dad struggling to the top of the stairs, red-faced and out of puff.

  ‘Alright Dad, I’m just on my out. Can I walk you home?’

  ‘No son, I’m on my way tae Tesco’s but I need tae speak tae ye.’

  ‘What’s the problem?’

  Gary looked around him to check if there was anyone else in the stairway before stepping closer to Jason.

  ‘We cannae lie any mare son,’ he said quietly.

  ‘How, what’s happened?’

  ‘I bumped in tae Billy Mackay fae the old estate yesterday and they’ve aw been talkin’ aboot seeing ye on the news. Someone’s gonnae say something tae yer man Ben soon enough and then he’s gonnae put it aw together.’

  Jason swept his hand roughly through his hair as he thought for a moment. He knew his dad was right, but he had no idea how he was going to tell Ben. He’d already tried once before but couldn’t go through with it. He knew their friendship would be over the instant the truth came out – and Jason could also be looking at a stretch in prison. But his past was closing in on him and he couldn’t put his parents through any more worry. He was going to have to face the music, whatever the cost.

  CHAPTER nineteen

  IT HAD BEEN A COLD but bright spring morning when I had driven out of town to Livingston to view a new office complex. We were looking at relocating our YourLot.com HQ, the rapid expansion of the business meaning we were outgrowing our central Edinburgh offices. I wanted to more or less take over the entire building, anticipating that growth would continue as we diversified. I’d been pretty pleased with what I’d seen so I made a call from the street outside to Doug Henderson, our head of operations, to let him know I thought the move was a goer. I’d just hung up and was returning my mobile to my pocket when I became aware I was blocking the path of a passer-by. I stepped to my left and smiled at the man apologetically, only to find something very familiar about this stranger.

  It was the eyes that gave him away – eyes I had seen in my nightmares many times – but otherwise Luke appeared like a different person. The skeletal frame and deathly white skin had been replaced with a healthy physique and almost olive complexion. His once shaven head now covered with a trendy crop of brown hair, and even his broken nose fixed. Despite the shock of seeing him, I couldn’t help but be impressed with the transition. I could tell by his startled glare that he was trying to decide whether to run or stay-put so in the end I made the decision for him.

  ‘Keep walking,’ I said. So he turned and headed off in the other direction, rounding the corner quickly. But although out of my sight, I knew I would never be able to shake that boy from my mind.

  Luke had become my nemesis – and I his. We had brought out the very worst in one another, though he had been nothing but a child and I the adult who should have known better. And on that chilly morning in Livingston, I finally had to confront the real Harry Melville. The one who had taunted a desperate teenage drug addict into pulling a knife and stabbing me in self defence. Because when he’d turned up after dark outside the Melville Centre, Luke had been hoping to make amends, to start again. But my ego had been way too big to let that happen. I’d taken a chance on him before and he’d thrown it in my face. The sight of his pathetic, wasted figure hovering in the darkness that fateful night just made me see red. I had lunged for him, grabbed him around the neck and shoved him against the wall. He was struggling for air but I didn’t care. I was angry and violence felt good. I wanted to squeeze and squeeze and squeeze until I’d wrung out every bit of rage in my body and silenced his lack of respect for me. Fortunately for both of us, Luke reached for his knife and stabbed me, allowing him to get away alive and me to keep my spotless reputation intact. The stabbing in fact did so much to boost my heroic image that I was awarded an OBE shortly after it.

  But I was no hero and I knew it.

  Having watched Luke disappear from my vision, I quickly headed back to my car and sped off from Livingston towards the M8 motorway into Edinburgh.

  I wanted to get home as quickly as possible – to the woman I had deceived and who was beginning to drift further and further away from me with each passing day. I was losing her, I knew. But I couldn’t bear the thought of life without her.

  I was paying the price for a life of complete selfishness. For putting myself above everyone I ever loved in favour of furthering my own ambitions.

  As I put my foot down and accelerated towards home, I couldn’t erase the memory of the first person I’d stepped on to reach pole position – Ben.

  My jealousy of Ben had been compounded in our teens when I found my father one night, hunched over a scrapbook, painstakingly pasting another of my brother’s drawings onto its pages. For me, it was time to act. Ben, as I had known for many years, had the kind of talent that could take him all the way – with the right encouragement. But I couldn’t allow him to emerge from our family as the highest achiever. That title was mine.

  ‘What’s that you’ve got there, Dad?’ I had asked.

  ‘Just keeping a few memories on file.’ My father smiled as he smoothed the edges of the drawing he’d just pressed onto the page.

  ‘He’s good at drawing isn’t he? I remarked, casually hanging over my father’s shoulder.

  ‘He certainly is.’

  ‘I suppose we’ll just have to accept he’ll be a different Ben once he goes to art school.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ my father looked at me quizzically. ‘I haven’t talked about art school with him.’

  ‘Oh,’ I laughed. ‘Ben’s already decided he’s going.’

  ‘Really,’ my father raised a skeptical eyebrow.

  ‘Yes. He’s going to join the punks and other social misfits down at the Edinburgh School of Art. Then he’ll be able to paint pretty pictures to his heart’s content and become a professional waster,’ I added, fully realising I had delivered a killer blow to my brother’s plans.

  The next day Dad confronted Ben about his intention to apply to art school and they’d had a raging argument which ended in my father telling him he’d never be allowed back through the doors of our home if he even attempted it. That was Dad – you could wind him up like a clockwork clown then set him off.

  As I neared the junction that would take me back into the city I applied more pressure to the accelerator. The speed was a partial release from the guilt I was battling, a tirade of memories tumbling through my mind, and all pointing to the fact I had stuffed my brother well and truly then left him to rot in a pool of misery while I dined out on his failure. I wasn’t the talented one, but I was the dominant one. And, if that wasn’t enough, I was now crushing my wife’s only dream of motherhood. All this money, this so-called success, but why did I feel like I’d messed everything up?

  Luke’s face as I held him against that wall. His terror. He was just a boy, but I’d enjoyed it. I floored the accelerator. I needed to silence my thoughts.

  The roadside barrier loomed ever closer and I wondered how it was all going to end.

  First with an impact, then darkness. Then there was light.

  Sarah could never work out how many layers of clothes a baby needed in spring weather. Harry always seemed either too hot or too cold in whatever she dressed him in. Being a sunny day, she decided to stick with a light jacket but covered him with a blanket as she sat him up in his buggy. Just getting out of the door was a major upheaval these days, with bottles and nappies to remember, not to mention her own purse, mobile phone and house keys. Relieved to be finally heading off, she pulled the door closed and was locking up when she heard fast footsteps approaching behind her. Gripping her bag as tightly as she could, she swung around to challenge the man whose heavy breaths she could hear getting ever closer.

  To her relief, it turned out to be a familiar face.

/>   ‘You scared the hell out of me.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Ben puffed. ‘I knew you were going out at ten so I had to run most of the way so I wouldn’t miss you.’

  ‘You going somewhere?’ Sarah asked, pointing to the large holdall bag slung over his right shoulder.

  ‘I was hoping I could stay with you for a while, actually.’

  ‘What about Emily?’ she asked, her voice quiet and unsteady.

  ‘Things haven’t worked out between us,’ Ben looked at the ground for a moment, searching for an appropriate explanation. ‘We had a row and she asked me to leave.’

  ‘But what about the wedding?’

  ‘It’s off.’ He dropped his bag on the ground, realising the conversation could last longer than he expected. ‘I didn’t have anywhere else to go, Sarah. I hope you don’t mind.’

  She stood staring at him for several moments, unsure of the implications. Then he met her gaze and broke into that open, all-consuming smile she had grown to love about him. It was the smile that let her know she was no longer alone.

  ‘I suppose you’d better come in then,’ she laughed. ‘I’ve a ton of DIY jobs for you.’

  Three weeks later and Ben had made it home from the centre just in time for Harry’s bath – a nightly ritual that always started at 6.15pm sharp. He flung his jacket over the banister then raced up the stairs, reaching the bathroom to find Sarah lowering the baby into the water. She looked up and smiled: ‘You’re just in time. Do you want to do the honours?’

  ‘Yes please,’ Ben grinned, rolling his sleeves up then kneeling down next to Sarah to take Harry from her.

  ‘How was your day?’ Sarah asked, throwing her arm around Ben’s neck and kissing him.

  ‘It was good. Looks like we’re going to get some extra government funding for the centre next year. We might even be able to take on another full-time staff member.’

  ‘That’s great news. You’re taking that place from strength to strength. You were born to do it.’

  Ben laughed. ‘At least I’m good for something,’ he said, beaming down at little Harry who was enjoying relaxing in the warm bath water.

  ‘You’re good at a lot of things,’ Sarah said, playfully pulling on his shirt to draw him towards her. He smiled and kissed her firmly leaving her with a lingering look, before turning his attention back to baby Harry in the bath.

  ‘How’s he been today?’

  ‘A little angel. He’s barely cried once.’

  ‘You’re such a good boy,’ Ben cooed.

  The doorbell sounded downstairs. ‘I’ll go,’ said Sarah, quickly getting to her feet. Ben heard her footsteps on the stairs and then the creak of the front door opening.

  He strained his hearing to see if he could work out who she was speaking to, fearing at this time of night it might be the police to tell them the centre had been broken into, as had happened a few months back. He was relieved then when Sarah shouted up to let him know it was Jason.

  He gently plucked Harry from the bath and wrapped him in his towel before heading down the hall where Sarah was waiting at the top of the stairs to take the baby from him.

  Ben found Jason standing near the front door, hands stuffed awkwardly into the pockets of his jeans, and looking unusually downbeat.

  ‘Jason, how you doing?’ Ben asked brightly.

  ‘I’m alright,’ he mumbled like an awkward teenager. ‘I went round to Emily’s and she said you’d moved out.’

  ‘Yes, a couple of weeks ago. Did she tell you I was here?’

  ‘She did, aye. She said you’d broken up. Sorry by the way,’ he shuffled from one foot to the other. ‘Hope you don’t mind me bothering you but I need to speak to you about something. Can we sit down?’

  ‘Of course,’ Ben said, confused and slightly worried by Jason’s obvious nervousness.

  He showed him through to the living room where they sat on the sofa next to one another. ‘Has this got to do with what you were trying to tell me at the centre before?’

  ‘Aye,’ said Jason. ‘This is not going be easy for me Ben so I’m just going come right out with it. I’ve not always been called Jason. I used to be Luke – and I knew Harry.’

  He didn’t have to say another word. Ben immediately knew who he meant. He thought about the pictures he had found in my filing cabinet – their likeness to Jason’s work. And then he remembered me telling him about the night I was stabbed. How I’d named the attacker I was protecting - Luke.

  ‘What the hell’s going on here?’ Ben asked coldly.

  ‘I was a drug addict, Ben. I was getting in to all sorts of trouble but that wasn’t how I wanted it to be. I showed Harry my drawings and he said he’d help me, but he had to kick me out the centre when I kept taking heroin. I was trying to get clean, substituting drugs with drink. I was passing the centre one night when I saw Harry locking up outside. I was just trying to be friendly, to see whether he might give me another chance, but he went for me and started choking me. I thought he was going kill me, Ben, honestly, he just had a look in his eyes like he wasn’t going to stop.’

  ‘So you stabbed him?’

  ‘So I stabbed him, aye. Like the rest of my so-called pals back then, I carried a knife for protection, but I never thought I’d use it.’ Jason said mournfully. ‘As soon as I did it I felt terrible. I called an ambulance and I stood in a doorway at the bottom of the road and watched them take Harry away.’

  ‘Why are you telling me this now?’

  ‘I need you to know the truth. My mum and dad have been through hell with this and we’re all sick of lying to you. They’ve had to move estates so that I could come back home from Livingston and try and start again. I cleaned up my act, the way I look, the way I speak, everything, because I wanted to do something with my life – and stay away from the lads that got me into trouble in the first place.’ He turned to look deliberately at Ben. ‘I’m not who I was, but if you decide to tell the police I’m willing to take what’s coming to me. I mean that.’

  Ben exhaled, long and hard. ‘I’m not going to tell the police… Luke. I guess that’s what I should call you.’

  Bowing his head, he replied. ‘I’m not Luke. I left him behind a long time ago. I’m Jason now.’

  ‘Okay, Jason, I’m not going to tell the police.’

  ‘Why you not angry with me, Ben?’

  ‘Though I never allowed myself to fully piece it together, I think deep down I knew. I couldn’t get over how like Luke’s drawings yours were. And there was something about you when we first met, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. There was something about the way you spoke so differently from your mum and dad, like you’d made a deliberate decision to be different.

  ‘Harry told me about you and what happened, but he didn’t tell me he provoked you. I guess he felt too guilty to go to the police, probably didn’t want your version of events coming out. The trial, the negative publicity, he wouldn’t have wanted any of that.’

  Jason tilted his head back and looked up at the ceiling as he let the relief sink in. ‘Thank you for believing me,’ he said. ‘I feel like the whole world has just been lifted off my shoulders.’

  ‘You’ve been through a lot in your life and you’re still so young. I know what it’s like to be lost, to feel like you’re good-for-nothing and the whole world is against you. I’m just glad you found your way.’

  Jason smiled, grateful for Ben’s understanding.

  ‘Why did you put yourself through all this?’ Ben asked. ‘Why not just go to someone else for help?’

  ‘I changed my name because I wanted to rid myself of my past. My mum and dad barely recognised me when I turned up on their doorstep after six months clean, teeth and broken nose fixed, so I thought nobody else would.

  ‘Don’t ask me why, but I just knew you would help me. I didn’t expect my career to take off so quickly, but it all got out of hand when suddenly I was in the papers and on TV. When that happened, I knew it was only a matter of time before I had to tel
l you the truth – before someone else did it for me. I tried to tell you before when I came to the centre that day, but it’s taken me until now to pluck up the courage.’

  Jason studied Ben for a moment, wondering if his apparent forgiveness was simply just shock, but my brother was calm and seemingly completely unfazed.

  ‘Can we really still be mates, Ben?’ he asked. ‘It’s more than I ever expected after what I did?’

  Ben paused for a moment to question his own reaction. After all, Jason had stabbed his brother and then lied to him for the sake of his career. But Ben could see the full picture, because there wasn’t a part of Jason’s story that he didn’t fully understand. ‘I have nothing but admiration for you, Jason. You came from a place where you seemed destined for failure. But you fought it and you dug your way out of a very deep hole. I see so much of me in you. We were both outsiders, we were life’s losers, but we’ve come in from the cold.’

  Jason smiled, ‘We have, aye.’

  ‘And you know what,’ Ben added, ‘we deserve our second chance. And this time no one’s going to blow it for us. We earned our happiness.’ Ben got to his feet. ‘This is where I should get you a beer or a glass of wine to celebrate new beginnings, but I can only offer a cup of tea. Want one?’

  ‘Perfect,’ said Jason, following him into the kitchen.

  And that was where I left them, two men utterly transformed by the self-belief they had given the other.

  I had seen enough to know Ben didn’t need me anymore. He could take care of himself and his family now. Our family.

  I had watched and I had learned. I had faced up to the man I was, as difficult as it had sometimes been. I had mended what I’d broken, including me.

  Acknowledgements