by Mel McGrath
He goes to the console table, pulls out the drawer and fetches the spare set of house keys. It won’t hurt to lock the door from the inside. What if Gav came back early? Not that he will. But what if?
Jacket off, his date does a twirl in the hallway, craning to get a better look through the half-closed doors in to the drawing room and the study.
‘What a beautiful house. All that art.’
Dex smiles blandly – all Gav’s – and leads Fabien into the drawing room. He’s never been very good at the preliminaries, would actually prefer just to get down to it but it’s trickier, somehow, in your own home. The need to be hospitable, a generous host.
‘Ooh, this colour!’ exclaims Fabien pumping his arms up and down as if playing air drums. Interiors are also Gav’s domain. Interiors, art, the stuff they go and see. Most of their friends, even. All Gav’s.
‘Like a beer?’
Fabien runs his finger along the wall. ‘Let me guess? Incarnadine? Or Nancy’s Blushes.’ He chuckles, amused with himself. On the wall now, where he touched it, is a long greasy smear.
‘Please,’ Dex says, ‘don’t do that again.’
Fabien raises a single eyebrow. ‘I’ll have a glass of champagne if you’ve got it.’
There is some, Dex knows. Gav always keeps a bottle in the fridge, though not generally for the use of his husband’s lovers. Christ on a bike, though, really? Champagne?
When he returns from the kitchen with a bottle and a couple of flutes Fabien is already perched, naked, on the sofa. Well, good, if that’s how he wants to play it. He moves forward, doing his best to seem confident, though in fact, he’s beset by worries, wondering whether he should move in for a kiss or maybe something else or, given he asked for it, pour Fabien a glass of champagne. Plus the indignation from before still lingers.
Dex puts the bottle down on the coffee table and sets the flutes beside.
‘Now, or later?’
Fabien is staring at him as if he’s gone mad, and maybe he has. There’s a fit, young, naked bloke on his sofa and he’s standing there, fully clothed, rearranging the glassware.
‘Ooh, you look dangerous, unpredictable,’ Fabien says. ‘Are you dangerous, Dexter?’
Is he? Once he was, perhaps, in the old days. In all the good ways. All the ways Bo still is. A thought flies by. Has living with Gav made him old before his time? The idea so upsets him that he starts tearing at his clothes to get them off and prove to himself that this is not the case. He doesn’t even want Fabien now. He only wants to feel more alive. He stands over Fabien, erect and ready, but even as Fabien takes him in his mouth, the thought keeps replaying in his mind that there is a part of him that is sad and afraid and although his dick is definitely into what is happening, a part of his heart remains in the hallway, wishing he hadn’t opened the front door.
Afterwards, in the master bedroom, Dex hands Fabien his own bathrobe and wraps himself in Gav’s which, of course, is far too big, then paces downstairs to fetch the remains of the champagne, even though the events of the last hour or so have done nothing to support the idea that there is anything to celebrate here, but the expedition is also an excuse to fetch Fabien’s clothes, a gesture which, he hopes, Fabien will take in the spirit in which it is meant. The red drawing room still smells of early promise and it is with a melancholy air that Dex sweeps up Fabien’s clothes and trousers and underwear, and his own, and brings them all upstairs and into the bedroom. There, Fabien, is still sitting on the side of the bed, with a vacant look in his eye. Did he just take something, speed or bath salts maybe? Dex wonders.
‘Oh, I can’t put those on without having a shower,’ Fabien says with his nose in the air, waving at the pile of clothes.
‘Of course,’ Dex says, none-too-discreetly checking the time on his phone.
‘And while I’m in the shower – Dex isn’t it? – how’s about calling for a pizza? I am starving.’
‘No problem,’ Dex says, kicking himself. What am I now? The valet? He doesn’t want to be rude, but there’s a cost-benefit aspect to every Grindr encounter and this one just swung into the red. ‘I’m kind of meeting friends, though.’ He smiles at Fabien and from his pained expression sees he has offended him. ‘Although I don’t mean, because, obviously . . .’
What will it take? Not much. He even has the Great Big Pizza Company number on his speed dial. Twenty minutes to shower, by which time the pizzas will probably have arrived, five or ten minutes of eating and small talk and he never has to see Fabien again. Besides, he’s quite hungry himself and tonight is likely to be a big one, so he’ll need to line his stomach.
‘Fine,’ he says. ‘I’ll get the food. You go ahead, take a shower in the bathroom down the hall. It’s a bit nicer. Second door on the right. The towel on the rail is fresh and there are some others in the cupboard.’
This isn’t true. The shower down the hall is no more or less nice than the one attached to the bedroom, but it’s further away from any association with the master bedroom and Dex is now feeling shabby about having used the marital bed for his extra-curricular activities, knowing as he does how much it would upset Gav. ‘I’ll use the en suite.’
‘I saw the ticket to the Wapping Festival,’ Fabien says, out of nowhere. ‘In the living room, on the mantelpiece.’
‘Oh yeah,’ Dex says. ‘Going along with some friends later.’ It suddenly occurs to him to wonder why Fabien’s mentioning it. Oh God, he’s not wanting to tag along, is he? No, no, absolutely not. Not in a thousand years. ‘I don’t think there are any, like, must-see acts.’
‘The ticket said the Sylvettes. I love the Sylvettes. But so expensive.’
Dex tries to laugh this off. ‘Yeah, but, I’m not sure it’ll be worth it. The acoustics are always really bad there. I wouldn’t even be going if my friend hadn’t already bought me a ticket.’
‘Oh, well,’ says Fabien, uncrossing his legs and rising from the bed. At the door he stops and turns. ‘Aren’t some of us the lucky ones?’ And with that he turns and pads down the hall. At the door to the bathroom the footsteps stop.
‘Hello?’ Silence. ‘Hello?’ The second hello has an air of irritation about it. Christ on a bike, really? Champagne, sex and takeaway pizza and the guy still can’t remember his name?
‘Yes?’ He pokes his head out of the bedroom door to see Fabien standing in the hallway with one hand on the bathroom door handle.
‘I’m vegetarian. And I must have lots of mozzarella. Double mozz.’
Dex waits until he can hear the shower then speed dials Great Big Pizza, orders a Trieste for him and a veggie for Fabien, requesting extra mozzarella on the veggie.
‘Thank you,’ he says, winding up. ‘I must have lots of mozzarella.’ God, Fabien is a pain.
He’s still in the shower room towelling himself dry when the doorbell rings. Throwing on Gav’s robe, he pads down the stairs to the hallway and peers into the drawing room. The first thing that hits him is the greasy smear. Something about it suddenly makes him feel despondent and, when that clears, almost murderous.
Are you dangerous, Dexter?
Try me.
A knock on the glass of the front door brings him zooming back into the present and the hallway. Through the frosting he can see a person of small stature standing holding a couple of pizza boxes. He goes towards the door then remembers it’s locked from the inside.
‘One moment,’ he says.
A thin, reedy woman’s voice speaks back to him in an East European accent. He turns and walks back to the console table, opens the drawer, takes out the keys, and, without closing the drawer, approaches the front door.
31
Cassie
11.45 a.m., Sunday 2 October, Isle of Portland
If I can pinpoint the moment when it first seriously occurs to me that the Group is floating into dangerous waters, it is Sunday morning, at The Mermaid.
It’s a warm day and the sun has turned the sea into a rippling space blanket. The path from Fo
ssil Cottage gives out onto a huddle of honey-coloured stone hunched over the great belt of Chesil Beach. It’s quaint and lovely. It’s too late in the morning for the falcons and even the crows are quiet now. Earlier, as Julie was leaving, the sound of bells reached us from the church, but the congregation has dispersed leaving only a junkie slumped against a tombstone and the vicar has shut and locked the church. No owls but then owls stay out of the light. The only hunter out here in the sun is me. I am hunting for the truth, but the truth is evading me.
I should have left when Dex and Anna wanted me to. It’s too late now. I am already tangled in the seaweed at the shoreline. When the tide comes in I may drown.
‘Something’s going on and your friend PC Blythe isn’t telling us what it is. You need to find out,’ Anna said, as we walked down the hill. It wasn’t a suggestion. I knew that the moment she said it. It was in her voice and in her eyes and in the way she wound her hand in mine.
This is a test. Of my love and of the love that comes back to me.
At this table is all the love I have.
The door into the public bar at The Mermaid opens into a hoppy, welcoming funk. Will is serving and doesn’t notice me straight away. When he does, his face brightens and he waves me over and I feel that there is something bad in what I am about to do but I am going to do it anyway.
‘Hey, Cassie. How are you?’
As I near his jaw tightens and a crease appears in his brow. He says, carefully, ‘What happened to your nose?’
Already from his face I can tell he’s not quite sure whether to believe my answer. Secrets and lies make easy bedfellows. Easier than people. Easier than the truth.
When I was young my mother read to me sometimes. Not often, but sometimes. One of the stories she liked to read (because my mother always picked the stories) was Pinocchio. In the story Pinocchio’s nose grows longer every time he lies. But in this version now, the nose doesn’t grow longer. It simply thickens and goes purple. Liar liar. Lies have become so easy and so necessary.
‘The horse. Bruising’s only just come up.’
‘You look like you need a stiff drink. Can I get you something on the house?’ If Will is hurt about my leaving last night, he’s doing a good job of not letting it show. Maybe he’s not the type to hold a grudge. Maybe he just doesn’t care.
You see what’s happened to me? My nose hasn’t grown longer. Instead I have grown. I’m becoming jaded and weary.
When I ask for a coffee he turns his back to me, fills a cafetière, and sets it alongside a cup and saucer on the bar. Perched on the saucer is one of those little caramel biscuits you more often get in continental Europe.
‘Does it hurt?’
‘Not really. I mean, yes, a bit, but I took some pills.’
‘I felt bad about letting you go off on your own like that. I should have insisted.’ His eyes reach mine and there’s a steady look, an appeal to me to come clean.
‘That’s sweet,’ is all I am able to say.
He lets out a yelp, somewhere between hurt and bleak amusement.
‘What’s so funny?’
A pause. His head is cocked and he’s eyeing me through narrowed lids now. We’re a moment from truthfulness. In another instant, it will all be said. The attack at Wapping Festival, the drowned woman, Gav and Dex, the escapee at the cottage and the sense that the Group is splitting open and when it does, terrible things will emerge. Awful, unforgivable things.
In that moment the door opens and in with it comes a burst of sunlight and out of it goes the moment for the truth.
‘That’s Ian from the brewery. I better just . . .’ He smiles and waves to the figure behind me, then, ‘Why don’t you take a proper seat at one of the tables? I’ll only be five minutes.’
The pub is pretty empty, the lull before the Sunday lunchtime rush. A couple of women are sitting at a table by the unlit fire, angled with their backs to me. I settle into a nearby table and begin idly keying words into the Google search box. Thames. Drowning. Wapping Festival. Isle of Portland. Prison escape. Nothing of interest. And then, something. Not on the phone but a few words overheard which set off an alert in my mind. Whatever it was has passed before I’m able to catch it, but I’m listening now. The two women have my full attention.
They are talking about a recent date. The one with mid-brown hair to her shoulders, from the back view I’d say in her early twenties, is saying, ‘Obviously, I remember him coming round, we had a few drinks, then nothing.’
‘You don’t remember anything about the date?’
‘No.’
‘How weird.’
‘I spent most of Saturday in bed. I just felt really out of it. I mean, we had a few drinks, but I really don’t think I drank that much. Maybe I did, though.’
‘You don’t know the guy’s name?’
‘I’m pretty sure I did at the time but I’ve just forgotten it. I literally cannot remember.’
‘If you two matched, he’ll obviously be in your profiles, won’t he?’
‘I checked but he’s deleted his profile from the app.’
By now I’m all ears, my pulse quickening, thinking of any excuse to walk by so I can see their faces.
‘Wow.’ There’s a pause, then the other woman says, ‘Do you think you should report it?’
Will comes over, nods to the two women and sits.
‘So, Cassie, don’t you think you should get someone to look at that?’
‘Those two women, are they friends of yours?’ I ask, ignoring the question.
I watch him crane his neck and turning back to me, in a low voice, he says, ‘The older one is Alison Freeman. I was at school with her. Can’t quite see the other one. I didn’t serve them. Why?’
With impeccable timing, the woman with the shoulder length mid-brown hair gets up and makes her way towards the toilets. After a moment’s wait, I get up and follow her. There’s only one toilet and she’s in it when I get there so I hang back and wait by the basin. The toilet flushes. The click of the bolt as it slides back. The door opens. My gaze lingers just a little too long. She meets it with a curious smile, as if trying to place me. There’s an odd, uneasy moment when our eyes lock as she holds the door open for me.
It’s Rachel, the woman I saw with a man down by the bus shelter next to the church last night. The woman Bo hooked up with on Friday. Big Black Book entry number 346.
32
Cassie
5.45 p.m., Saturday 13 August, Shadwell
Someone should write a book about the hellacious freaks, dicks and weirdoes who cross your path when you’re active on dating apps. The guys with twisted heads and rubbed-out minds, guys whose hearts are locked in underground vaults, guys with no discernible souls.
Not that I’m claiming any moral high ground here. Because me.
Someone should write about those guys. But someone should write about the good guys too.
Ink Man’s real name is Jake but for the purposes of sex he likes to be called Gandalf. Really. Being Gandalf is what turns him on. That and the ink of Middle Earth on his back. Why we matched I don’t know, except the Swipe app isn’t very discriminating. I should probably tell Bo that. It’s his app, after all. He developed it and it’s the reason he’s made all that money.
They’ve been predicting the end of romance. They’ve been saying the old black magic is over and the only spells my generation will ever get to write are carved out in ones and zeroes. ‘You lot will have will never have any good stories about how you met,’ Gav told me once. ‘All you’ll be able to say is that you met on some app. How sad is that?’ At the time I was offended but also, Fuck you, oldie. If I was your age, all I’d have are memories of hanging around in parties and at clubs waiting for a guy to notice me and being ever so grateful whenever one did. My generation don’t have to hang around waiting. We don’t need to crush on some guy or trick ourselves into an imagined love just because we want to sleep with someone. We no longer have to stand at the party and smil
e and hope while some guy with a girlfriend at home gets his flirting kicks. We don’t have to hang out with the duds or the creeps because they’ve waved their magic wands and turned us into doormats. We don’t have to spend hours waiting by the phone. So maybe there are no stories, but, believe me, Gav, it’s better this way. It’s way, way better.
Me and Ink Man are just a hook-up but that’s OK. I like Ink Man’s profile, I like the look of him, his sweet smile, the way he’s turned his body into a story, someone else’s story, granted, but you can’t have everything. He profiles well. We’ve messaged, we’ve Facetimed. He’s sent me pics of his tats and his cats. Besides which, he’s funny, cool, doesn’t immediately scream narcissist or serial killer. Which, you know. Sometimes it’s enough. Often, actually.
Tonight, Ink Man and I want the same thing. A brief connection, a handshake in the dark. It’s OK to want that. It’s fine not to have to pretend.
And now we are meeting. His ink shop is just off the Highway, between a chippie and a bookies. The shop is closed and the blinds are drawn like he said they would be. Closed for business, open for pleasure. I ring the bell. Ink Man comes to the door with a warm smile on his face and a silver point cat in his arms and bolts the door behind me.
‘Meet Miog,’ he says, holding out the cat.
I chuck the cat under the chin. It slow blinks in return.
‘Sweet,’ I say.
‘Not really,’ Ink Man says. ‘He’s actually an evil genius.’
We’re in the ink shop now, a glorified dive with a reception area to one side, a heap of ink and metal magazines on an old table surrounded by vintage barber chairs. The walls are mood boards of ink illustrations and photos of tattoos. The ink book lies on the floor beside the table.
‘Amazing. You did all these?’
‘Most of them.’
