Welcome To Wherever You Are

by John Marrs

‘Water, gee, thanks,’ sniffed Matty, although even the thought of alcohol passing his lips made him nauseous.

  ‘It’s good for you – it flushes out your bad toxins.’

  ‘It hasn’t flushed you away.’

  They paused to stare at two girls, dancing ahead of them.

  ‘You’re losing your touch,’ smiled Matty. ‘Look at the blonde one, she’s been giving you the eye all night. Once upon a time you’d have been there like a rat up a drainpipe. Go over and talk to her.’

  ‘You don’t have to tell me twice. Are you coming?’

  ‘No, I’m gonna get arseholed on Evian.’

  ‘Stay out of trouble,’ replied Declan, and wandered over towards the girls as Matty watched.

  ‘I’ll be with you in spirit,’ he smiled.

  CHAPTER 82

  ‘Oh good God, tell me her baby isn’t yours,’ Nicole said to Ron as they stood amongst the shards of broken mirror and glass in Savannah’s bathroom. The piece she’d use to fight off any potential attack remained in her grasp.

  She genuinely hoped to hear a firm ‘no’, but Ron’s shamed silence gave Nicole her answer.

  ‘You drugged and raped her and made her pregnant, didn’t you?’ she asked quietly.

  ‘I didn’t drug her, I found her when she needed help,’ replied Ron, ‘and don’t use that word – I didn’t rape anyone. I love her.’

  FOUR MONTHS EARLIER – SAVANNAH’S MOTEL

  Ron sat in an armchair in the corner of Savannah’s motel room, drumming his fingers across the arm, watching her as she slept under a tartan quilt.

  Whatever drug had been slipped inside the water bottle in the strip club had had the desired effect, but not for the perpetrator. At first Ron wondered why anyone would want to do that to the girl he adored, but as he stared at her inert body, he began to understand.

  From his usual seat in the shadows at the back of the club, Ron knew Savannah wasn’t like the other girls she shared a stage with. Those girls’ eyes betrayed the sexuality they were trying to promote; they were filled with either pretence or desperation. Savannah was different, and from the moment she’d sashayed past him in her black bra and panties and caught his eye, he knew they’d just shared something special.

  However, his frustrating inability to engage with strangers meant he chose not to interact with her and, instead, he’d pulled his baseball cap down towards his thick eyebrows and sunk ever deeper into his chair.

  During a fortnight of frequent return visits, Ron watched as Savannah contorted her supple limbs around a pole either on stage or in a back room, surrounded by peep show customers who could sit in private booths masturbating behind two-way mirrors. He’d spent close to $3,000 getting to know her body better than he knew his own.

  That night four months ago, the stars had aligned and their worlds collided. Ron could barely believe his eyes when Savannah stumbled in front of the car as Peyk picked him up from the club. Together, they lifted her into the vehicle and laid her out across the back seat, and when Peyk found her motel key inside her handbag, they drove her back to her room and put her to bed. Ron purposefully failed to mention he knew who the girl was, but offered to stay with her until morning to make sure she was okay.

  Savannah had been unconscious for around an hour and half before Ron hesitantly plucked up the courage to approach her side of the room. He knelt by the bed and tentatively ran his rough fingertips through her soft hair. Gradually he moved his mouth closer to hers and gently kissed her lips. Then he slowly slipped into her bed, unbuckled his belt, slid down her shorts and guided himself inside her. In less than twenty seconds, he climaxed.

  By the time Savannah awoke in the morning, Ron had left and Peyk had taken his place, fast asleep in the armchair. And in the back of the cab returning back to the hostel, Ron was immersed in the flavour of love for the first time in his life.

  TODAY

  Nicole shuffled uncomfortably from foot to foot, finding it difficult to comprehend that Ron couldn’t see his actions had been despicable towards the woman he claimed to love.

  ‘So what do you call it when a woman is unconscious and can’t say no to sex?’ she continued. ‘Reluctance?’

  ‘It wasn’t like that. Savannah is so beautiful, and I’d sit at the back of the club watching her dance and she had this look in her eyes, like she was alone, like me. We understood each other.’

  ‘Ron, this is all in your head, can’t you see that? I knew you were a bit weird, but this . . . Christ.’

  ‘I’m not weird!’ exclaimed Ron. ‘I told you, I love her.’

  ‘“Love” isn’t an excuse to rape someone.’

  ‘She’s been let down so many times before – if you tell her, you’ll destroy her. Please let her think I’m her friend. For Savannah’s sake.’

  ‘That is the last thing you are.’

  Nicole and Ron reached a stalemate, neither budging from their respective positions. But Nicole knew she held all the cards, only she was unsure how to play them.

  ‘What do you want me to do?’ asked Ron out of desperation.

  Nicole closed her eyes and shook her head. She knew the right thing to do would be to tell Savannah everything she’d learned at the earliest opportunity. She reasoned it must have been hard enough for Savannah to come to terms with her unborn child being the product of rape, but if she then discovered the rapist was a man she’d lived under the same roof with, how much tougher would that be to digest? From recent experience Nicole was aware how devastating it felt to be deceived by someone you know. And Savannah appeared so pragmatic over impending motherhood and her new life with Jane that Nicole made a snap decision – Savannah was better off being kept in the dark. For now, at least.

  Meanwhile Ron felt close to tears, an alien emotion, as he awaited Nicole’s response.

  ‘I know what you can do,’ she eventually replied. ‘And you need to do it tonight.’

  CHAPTER 83

  ‘Guys, that’s not a good idea. Guys! Guys!’ shouted a marshal through a megaphone as a handful of young people ran towards the ocean at Santa Monica to go skinny-dipping.

  Peyk watched as two lifeguards approached the water’s edge and shone powerful torches on the naked figures larking around in the waves. He didn’t bother to double check if they were watching when he sparked up a joint with his cigarette lighter.

  ‘Got one spare?’ asked Nicole.

  ‘Sure,’ replied Peyk, and handed Nicole a ready-rolled joint from his back pocket.

  ‘It’s a good turn out,’ she continued, lighting it and taking a long drag.

  ‘Sure is.’

  ‘Want to join me in a toast?’ she continued, and held up her beer cup to Peyk’s. Peyk nodded.

  ‘Aren’t you going to ask me what we’re toasting?’

  ‘Let me see,’ he replied, pretending to think. ‘Ahh, to you buying the hostel from Ron.’

  Nicole’s eyes opened wide. ‘How could you possibly know that?’

  Just an hour earlier, she had taken Ron’s bank details and promised to wire him a fair price for the hostel in due course on the proviso he left there and then. With his options limited, he had little choice but to agree. As Ron crammed his belongings into the back of his car, Nicole hailed a taxi and headed towards the beach party with a renewed sense of purpose.

  ‘I may walk around stoned most of the time, but nothing escapes me,’ Peyk replied.

  ‘Apparently so.’

  ‘And don’t think too badly of Ron. He doesn’t rationalise like us.’

  Nicole paused to make sure Peyk had just said what she thought he’d said.

  ‘What? You know what he did to Savannah and you didn’t tell her?’

  ‘“The supreme lesson of human consciousness is to learn how not to know. That is, how not to interfere.” D.H. Lawrence.’

  Nicole frowned.

  ‘In other words,’ Peyk continued, ‘Ron will suffer for what he’s done with or without my interference. He will never get to meet his
child, watch him grow up, see his own eyes reflected in another’s and be able to love or be loved unconditionally. And that’s worth toasting.’

  Peyk clipped Nicole’s cup with his own and wandered away, leaving a coil of smoke unspooling behind him.

  CHAPTER 84

  Matty hadn’t felt a tiredness before like the one he felt that night.

  He glanced wistfully across a beach illuminated by bonfires, lanterns, coloured lights, glow sticks and the red tips of cigarettes. Every so often, Declan turned away from the girl he was flirting with to check on his friend, and Matty would force his eyelids to remain open and offer a reassuring wave. But as soon as Declan’s attention was diverted, they fluttered to a close. All he wanted was to fall asleep and wake up in the body of someone else.

  ‘Everything alright, my friend?’ asked Peyk, throwing himself onto the sand, cross-legged.

  ‘Yeah, just watching my boy in action,’ Matty whispered.

  ‘So you’ve said your goodbyes, then?’

  Matty looked quizzically at Peyk. ‘Yeah, I have,’ he eventually replied.

  Peyk nodded and continued to stare ahead of them both. ‘Does he know?’

  ‘No . . . he’s having a laugh and I’m reckoning it’ll be the last time for a while. I don’t want to take that away from him.’

  ‘Would you like some company?’

  Matty considered it for a moment, but decided he was happy being on his own. He began to understand why Levi, his mother’s cat, had taken herself away to die alone in a neighbour’s garage; there was something quite empowering about doing it on your own terms and leaving the world in the same manner in which you arrived.

  ‘I appreciate the offer, but I’m good.’

  ‘It’s been a pleasure,’ said Peyk, rising to his feet and shaking Matty’s limp hand.

  ‘Likewise. Explain to Declan for me, tell him . . . tell him—’

  ‘He knows, Matthew. Don’t worry about that.’

  Matty and Peyk smiled at each other, and by the time Peyk was out of sight, Matty’s eyes were already closed.

  CHAPTER 85

  As dance music made way for classic rap and old-skool hip hop, Nicole left the group of French students she’d been dancing with, and was making her way towards the shore when she spotted Tommy.

  She’d only had three cups of beer, but combined with her first joint since her college student nursing days, she felt giddy. It was medicinal, she told herself, and it had certainly stopped her feeling the bruising on her ribs when she moved. But the expression on Tommy’s face soon sobered her up.

  ‘You look like you’re carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders,’ she began. Tommy didn’t reply.

  ‘Savannah’s moved out of the hostel,’ Nicole persevered. ‘I think she’s going to be really happy at Jane’s place. Did you know she was pregnant?’

  Tommy shook his head but said nothing.

  ‘Have I upset you, Tommy?’

  ‘No,’ he replied. ‘Not everything is about you.’

  ‘That’s unfair,’ Nicole replied, offended by his offhand attitude. ‘Is it Jake? I know you two are—’

  ‘Jake and I are nothing,’ Tommy interrupted.

  ‘Oh, right. I saw him heading towards the beer tent a few minutes ago, if you’re interested.’

  When Tommy offered no reply, Nicole decided against telling him about her hostel acquisition and began to walk away, before halting.

  ‘Tommy, please talk to me, you’re worrying me.’

  ‘If you see Jake, tell him to meet me on the pier. He’ll know where.’

  But before Nicole could respond, Tommy had the bright lights of the fairground in his sights.

  CHAPTER 86

  The Ferris wheel offered panoramic views across Santa Monica’s coastline, way beyond the commercial shopping area, and up and along Route 66.

  Mechanical failure had temporarily shut the rollercoaster, so all four corners of the nine-acre pier were eerily quiet long before its midnight curfew. From its furthest end, Tommy heard the wheel’s grinding mechanism slowly moving the giant wheel as the tide below crashed against the pier’s wooden stilts. He stood with his back to the rides, staring at the blinking orange lights on buoys bobbing against the ocean’s current.

  ‘You’re a hard man to track down,’ began Jake, approaching Tommy from behind. He placed his hand on Tommy’s shoulder, then let it fall towards the arch of his back and held it there. ‘Why are you up here on your own when the party’s down there?’

  ‘I used to love fairgrounds,’ began Tommy, staring straight ahead of him. ‘My parents would take me and my brothers when it came to Abington Park every summer. Lee won me a goldfish at one of those hoop stalls; eleven years later and it’s still alive. Unbelievable, isn’t it? For eleven years it’s been swimming around in circles, day in, day out, all on its own.’

  ‘I didn’t think goldfish lived that long.’

  ‘It’s outlived Lee. And Dan.’

  Jake paused. ‘Is that who you meant when you said you’d lost people close to you?’

  Tommy fell silent.

  ‘Do you want to tell me about them? It might help.’

  ‘I think you’ve done enough already.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ asked Jake, but didn’t get his answer. They remained in a stilted silence, before frustration got the better of him.

  ‘Why are you pushing me away, Tommy?’ he snapped. ‘You’re acting like a kid. I’m old enough to accept rejection, so just be honest with me.’

  ‘Be honest? Ha!’ Tommy laughed. ‘Do you remember when you said there was a connection between us? Well you’re right, there is.’

  ‘Okay but that doesn’t explain why you’re—’

  ‘Not a connection in the way you think,’ Tommy interrupted.

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘You talk about honesty, Jake, but just how honest are we with each other? The night you arrived and we went out for coffee, we agreed one of the best things about travelling is that you get to hear a complete stranger’s life story. Well we’re long past being strangers but we don’t know the first thing about each other, do we? So do you want me to start?’

  Jake nodded, puzzled by the ire slowly warping Tommy’s face.

  ‘I came travelling when my family fell apart after my brothers were killed in a car accident.’

  Jake paused and squinted at Tommy, unsure of how his story related to him. Suddenly Tommy turned and looked Jake straight in the eye.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t know where this is going, Stuart?’

  The look of alarm hastily spreading across his face told them both Jake knew exactly where this was going.

  TWO YEARS EARLIER – LONDON

  As Stuart left Geri Garland’s house, the only thing he had any control over was her car, courtesy of the keys he’d grabbed when her security men were more concerned with bundling him out of her house. Stealing her Range Rover was a tiny victory against the woman who’d systematically built him up then torn him down.

  As he fought his way through the congested London traffic and towards the M1, Stuart was acutely aware he could never take back the events of the last eighteen hours but he was struggling to come to terms with them. Zak was refusing to answer his phone calls, his Lightning Strikes bandmates had turned their backs on him and the woman he loathed had hung him out to dry. Try as he might, he could feel only limited sympathy towards Katie, who’d thrown her hat in the ring with the devil and paid the ultimate price.

  As much as he hated it, there was only one place where he could retreat and regroup: his former shared house in Bolton. But there was a three-hour drive ahead of him and he struggled to focus on the road, so each time the cocaine’s effects began wearing off, he took another hit.

  When the overhead gantry signs warned the motorway ahead was closed at junction 15, he followed the diversion signs and drove towards an estate called Hunsbury.

  Then, without warning, Stuart
’s heart felt like it was beating its way out of his chest. He struggled for breath, his temperature soared and his vision blurred as he frantically searched for the button to wind the window down. He stretched his arms out against the steering wheel and tried to regain control of his body.

  He failed to notice the first red light he passed through, but by the time he’d driven through the second, it was too late to hit the brakes.

  After being pushed 50 metres along the road, the vehicle Stuart ploughed into finally came to a rest on its side, almost broken in two by an equally broken man.

  Stuart felt a shooting pain tear up his nostrils and spread across his temples when the airbag deployed and caught his face full on.

  But Geri’s bulky 4x4 offered him much more protection than the vehicle he’d collided with, which lay in the road like a crumpled concertina. He blindly fumbled around to unclip his seat belt, and struggled to find the handle to open his door. He staggered outside, his legs almost buckling beneath him.

  Stuart stared in horror at the carnage before him, struck by the gravity of his actions. He remained motionless until he heard voices and turned his head to see figures hurrying towards the scene. It was only then that his survival instinct kicked in and he knew what he had to do.

  He pulled his hood up over his head and limped past what was once a Mini, glancing through the broken windscreen. He clamped his hand over his mouth when he saw two mangled bodies lying in the front seats and he could just about make out a third figure in the back of the car, lying motionless but for his blinking eyes.

  Stuart dry heaved as the voices behind him became louder; then with all the strength he could muster, he ran. And he didn’t stop for another three years.

  CHAPTER 87

  TODAY

  What had begun as Declan striving to chat up a girl he didn’t know had turned into something quite unexpected with a familiar face.