by Lowe, L. Lee
‘Never mind, Mick, I’ll wait in the bedroom. Call me when you’re ready.’ Gavin flashed Sarah a brief grin, then flicked his hair back ostentatiously. He gave Mick a long intent look, a look that raised the temperature in the already over-warm room. With spliff and ashtray in his hand, he sauntered into the bedroom, closing the door behind him.
‘Come on, Sarah, sit down. I’ll fetch you a coke.’
Mick left before Sarah had a chance to refuse. The air stifling, she thought about opening one of the windows but decided not to bother. She’d drink her coke and go. Maybe Thomas would think of another way to deal with Mick.
‘So tell me, what’s the problem?’ Mick asked, handing her a glass. He sat down next to her, crowding her. She could smell his maleness—disturbing, familiar.
Sarah sipped her coke, both thirsty and glad to buy some time. Ice cubes clinking like hail on a glass roof. Mick lit a cigarette and watched her through the smoke, his gaze knowing. Sarah coloured faintly and shifted a bit on the sofa. Her skirt was rather short, and her thighs were sticking to the leather. Mick moved even nearer, his body pressing right up against hers. She could feel beads of perspiration gathering on her upper lip, under her arms, between her breasts. Mick was so close that it was hard for her to breathe, to think. She longed to shut her eyes. Her heart squeezed against her ribs. She needed some air. Why had Jesse . . .
Abruptly she realised what was happening. No. Not again. Not with him, with Mick. She tried to push further into the corner, but there was no place to go. Mick put his hand on her leg, just under the hem of her skirt. She jumped and spilled a bit of her coke. She set her glass on the table.
‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘Please.’
Mick took another drag on his cigarette and laid it on the edge of the table. He smiled languidly but didn’t remove his hand.
‘Why not?’ he asked. ‘You liked it before.’
Sarah shook her head, pushed at his hand.
‘Oh come on, Sarah. It’s no big deal.’
‘I said no, and I meant it.’
She tried to rise. Mick propelled her back against the cushions with a casual flick of his wrist. He leaned towards her, ready to kiss her.
‘You don’t really mean no. Just relax and enjoy it.’
A tiny corner of her mind couldn’t believe he’d actually said that. How could she want to laugh when his hand was crawling up her thigh?
‘Please, Mick,’ she said. ‘Not now. My period.’
Mick hesitated, then reached for his cigarette, drew on it, and blew a smoke ring. He studied it until it dissipated. Then he grinned.
‘I like bloodsports.’
Desperately she searched for an excuse, something, anything to put him off. ‘Your friend. He’s in the next room.’
‘Gavin? Don’t worry about him. He won’t mind.’ A snigger.
‘But I thought—’
Mick drew back a fraction. ‘You thought what?’
‘That you and he . . . I mean, the way he looked at you . . . I thought . . .’ Her voice trailed off, some instinct warning her that she was making a mistake, that in fact she’d already made it.
Mick’s eyes narrowed and his pupils shrank to pinpricks. He extinguished his cigarette slowly in the ashtray.
‘What exactly did you think?’ His voice was soft, dangerous—a viper’s hiss.
‘Nothing,’ she said as neutrally as possible.
‘Tell me.’
He leaned forward, at the same time moving his hand back up under her skirt.
‘No.’
‘No what? No, don’t touch you here’—his hand slid to her knickers—‘or no, you’re not going to tell me what you were thinking?’ His smile was suddenly friendly, teasing. As if he were just messing around.
Sarah swallowed. Maybe he’d let up if she gave him what he wanted to hear. ‘I thought the two of you might be more than just friends. I’m sorry if I got it wrong.’
‘Wrong?’ he mused, as if he were in a classroom and had been just corrected by the teacher. He removed his hand and stared at it.
‘I’m sorry,’ she repeated, feeling an immense sense of relief. ‘Not that it would matter. Nobody needs to hide being gay any more. Or bi.’
‘Gay, did you say?’ He was still staring at his hand.
‘Look, Mick, I misunderstood. Dan seemed not to mind if—’
He lunged so fast that the breath was knocked from her lungs. In an instant he was on top of her.
‘Gay,’ he spat. ‘I’ll show you gay.’
He had one hand on her left breast, and the other on her throat. His mouth ground against hers, his teeth cutting her lip. She could feel his erection. She could smell his sweat underneath the musky cologne he used. Her heart was pounding. She managed to twist her head to the side. She thought she would gag. Then she thought she would suffocate. She couldn’t seem to get any air. He tilted her neck back and moved his mouth to her throat. Drawing in a ragged breath, she tasted blood in her mouth.
‘No,’ she croaked.
‘You know you really want it.’
‘No!’
‘Nobody says no to me,’ he said, leaning back just enough to look at her face but no further. His eyes glittered, and his smile was cold; his groin, relentless.
‘No! No!’
Suddenly everything spiralled out of control. Mick was no longer smiling. He was spitting words like cunt and bitch at her. He slapped her across the face. She gouged him with her fingers. He clamped his hand on her wrist. She wrenched it free. He yanked at her shirt and tore it. She struggled against him. He reached under her skirt, hooked his fingers into the thin cotton. She would not let him do this. He was strong, so very strong. Why had she worn a skirt? She twisted, she flailed at him, she bit his shoulder. He grunted in pain and grabbed a fistful of her hair, pulled it hard to one side. She gasped, and tears spurted into her eyes. She was beginning to pant. To panic.
The door to the bedroom opened. ‘Hey,’ Gavin called. Mick relaxed his hold on Sarah. His eyes followed her gaze. For a moment she thought that Gavin was coming to her aid. Then she saw that he’d stripped completely. Mick stared, then looked away, then back again. He seemed to be having trouble controlling his face.
‘Man, you’ve got one hell of a boner,’ he said.
‘You two are making a lot of noise,’ Gavin said. He walked over and locked the door, picked up the remote, switched the TV back on. Pounding music filled the room. ‘Let’s bring the cunt into the bedroom.’
Sarah sagged back against the cushions and closed her eyes. She couldn’t believe this was happening. Snatches of advice ran through her head. Don’t get yourself into dangerous situations. Say no. Kick him in the balls. Scream. Always fight back. Say no. No. God no.
They half dragged, half carried her into the bedroom and dumped her on the white shag rug. Gavin kicked her.
‘Get up,’ he said. ‘Strip.’
She shook her head, knowing it was pointless. He kicked her again while Mick shed his jeans.
‘Not her face,’ said Mick.
And again, in the small of her back. Gavin wrenched off her clothes while Mick watched, breathing hard. He wiped his hand across his face and retreated a step, glancing at a poster on the wall—a photo of Dan and him on a beach, arms draped round each other, sunburnt, laughing—then back at her. In some part of herself—the part that wasn’t paralysed by terror—she suddenly understood the expression ‘time froze’. For it did. No one moved. No one spoke. Even the music seemed to recede to a distant and ghostly place. It was as if the three of them were poised together on the fulcrum of an invisible seesaw. Which way would it descend? Sarah thought she saw something flicker in Mick’s eyes, some warmth, but at that moment Gavin grunted and lurched forward. He grabbed up a leather belt lying on the bed and struck her across the belly. A red mist blossomed behind her eyes, clouding her vision.
Jesse, she thought. Jesse.
She must have spoken aloud.
‘Jesse?’
Mick sneered. Any compassion he might have been feeling vanished. ‘That fucking pervert? Tondi told me all about him. You’ll get nothing from him. He doesn’t like girls.’
Gavin smashed his fist into her breast. She screamed. He clamped a hand over her mouth. ‘Shut up,’ he snarled. The music beat against her in huge waves, threatening to drown her.
‘She said we were gay,’ Mick said.
‘Us? Gay?’
They laughed together.
‘She likes gay. Nice. So let’s start with gay.’ Mick bowed, sweeping his arm towards Gavin in a gesture of exaggerated deference. ‘Go ahead. Show her just how gay it can be.’
Gavin rolled her over onto her stomach. Sarah let the music take her. It became a howl, then a savage roar. Jesse, she heard herself cry again as the light gave way; gave way to deep-sea black.
Chapter 18
and a small winged dragon curls herself into a ball as a foot comes down and kicks her and her cries slice through his head into a jumble of limbs and grunts while wake up he tells himself it’s a nightmare of pounding music and slick bodies dancing writhing with the hot smell of sweat running shrieking into the flames and their screams always the screams wake up before they die this time wake up wake up wake
Jesse gasped and tore open his eyes.
‘No don’t,’ he said, his voice cracked and peeling.
He lay still while the images from his dream loosed their stranglehold. He’d been sweating, and heavily; he could feel the sheet sticking to his skin. Then he shuddered and held his breath—this was more than sweat he smelled.
~~~
Jesse found Finn at the kitchen table, a mug of coffee, a dictionary, scribbled sheets of paper, and a scattering of pens at hand, and his laptop open in front of him. He looked up as Jesse came into the room.
‘You’re awake,’ Finn said. ‘How’s the cold? Still feel feverish?’
‘Where’s Sarah?’
‘She’s gone to an exhibit in the city,’ Finn said, disconcerted by the abruptness of Jesse’s manner.
‘Call her mobile.’
Finn stared at him.
‘Now!’
Jesse’s urgency was beginning to affect Finn. He rose and fetched the phone from the worktop, punched a couple of keys. He listened for a moment.
‘It’s ringing,’ he said. Then he frowned. ‘She picked up, but we were disconnected.’
‘Try again,’ Jesse said.
Finn pressed redial and let it ring for a while. ‘Unavailable.’
They looked at each other.
‘Tell me what this is about,’ Finn said.
Jesse put a hand to his head. Suddenly he needed to sit down fast. He pulled out a chair and sank into it, lowered his head to the table. Finn came over to his side and laid a hand on his shoulder.
‘What is it, Jesse? Dizzy?’
‘Sarah’s in trouble. What are we going to do?’ Jesse muttered.
‘How do you know?’
Jesse raised his head. Finn was shocked by the look on Jesse’s face. He’d seen that kind of despair before, in far too many places. In the mirror.
‘While I was sleeping—’ Jesse floundered, unable to formulate a coherent explanation. He grimaced as though Thor were using his skull for hammer practice. ‘I don’t know how I know. I just do,’ he finished lamely. It was becoming a familiar refrain.
‘I’m going to ring Meg.’
‘Meg. Yeah, ring Meg. I hadn’t thought of that. She’ll know if something’s happened to Sarah, won’t she?’
Finn hesitated. Jesse’s faith in Meg’s abilities, though touching, was misplaced. A mind like Meg’s couldn’t be switched on and off like a light bulb.
‘It doesn’t always work like that, you know,’ Finn said.
Some colour had returned to Jesse’s face. ‘Stop wasting time. Ring her!’
To his surprise Finn reached Meg at once. She listened, then asked to speak with Jesse. The conversation was very one-sided, Jesse answering mostly in monosyllables.
In the meantime Finn used his own mobile to try Sarah again. He’d feel much better if he knew that she was really all right. Which was not only unnecessary but clearly obsessive, wasn’t it? He reminded himself that anxiety was contagious. Sarah had only switched off her mobile. He’d done the same a thousand times over while in a meeting or during a shoot.
Jesse had known about kwakabazillion.
‘Meg wants to speak to you,’ Jesse said.
He handed Finn the telephone. Jesse had got his face under control, but not his eyes. Finn thought that Jesse would never be able to mask the depth of feeling to be plumbed there.
‘Finn?’ Meg’s voice broke into his thoughts. ‘Give Jesse two nurofen and see that he goes back to bed. I’ll be home as soon as I can get away.’
‘There’s nothing the matter, is there?’ Finn felt compelled to ask, even though Jesse hadn’t left the room, was in fact watching him from the window to which he’d retreated, squinting as if the light were blistering his optic nerve.
‘We’ll talk about it when I get there.’
Finn’s hand tightened on the phone. Meg spoke composedly enough, but he knew her very well and recognised what he liked to call her shrink voice. She always smiled whenever he teased her about it. Both he and Sarah hated it when she used it on them.
‘What is it? What aren’t you telling me?’
‘Finn, there’s nothing we can do for the moment.’
Now the first stirring of real fear. ‘Meg, don’t do this. Tell me what’s going on.’
‘I don’t know what’s going on.’
That was when Finn realised Jesse might be right about Sarah. ‘Where is she?’ he bellowed into the phone.
‘Losing your temper won’t help anybody.’
‘Don’t give me that fucking line of crap!’
‘Finn, listen to me. It may be nothing at all, just fever and bad dreams. Jesse needs you to stay calm. Get him into bed till I come home. I’ll try to arrange for David to take over a bit earlier.’
Finn closed his eyes, took a few deep breaths, and succeeded in holding his fear—and his anger—in check. ‘OK, I hear you. Do you—’
‘Look, I’ve got to go. Don’t worry. We’ll sort it out.’ And then she was gone.
Finn slammed the phone down. She treated him like an adolescent sometimes, like another of her children. Or a patient. It was intolerable. Hands clenched, he strode to the refrigerator, yanked it open, and pulled out a bottle of lemonade. Jesse watched him without speaking.
‘Want some?’ Finn asked.
Jesse nodded.
Finn poured them each a glass. He drank his at a gulp, the cold making his teeth ache and his throat burn as it slid down his gullet. Jesse sipped his slowly, as if it hurt for him to swallow. By the time Finn had finished his second glass, his temper had cooled. He went to the window and stared out, chewing his lip. For all her gifts, Meg hadn’t been able to help trace Peter, had she?
‘You’d better go lie down. I’ll bring you your tablets,’ Finn said.
After putting his glass into the dishwasher, Finn moved to the table and saved the changes he’d made while Jesse had been asleep. In no mood to work on the bloody translation, Finn wished he hadn’t agreed to do it, even as a favour to his brother.
‘You blame Meg, don’t you? For Peter’s death?’ Jesse asked.
His face savage for an instant, Finn rounded on Jesse. Then, expression softening like wax held too close to a flame, Finn turned away. After a hesitation, Jesse went over and touched Finn tentatively on the arm.
‘You told me yourself it doesn’t work like that,’ Jesse said. ‘Meg’s not a fortune-teller.’
‘It’s got nothing to do with palm-reading and tarot cards and all that sort of crap,’ Finn said.
‘Then tell me why you’re so angry at her.’
‘I can’t talk about it.’
‘Can’t? Or won’t?’ Jesse paused, then added, ‘I’m just a kid, aren’t I? A fucked
-up street kid who’s got no business asking. And who couldn’t possibly understand anyway.’
‘Bollocks. You heard me. I don’t want to talk about it. So zip it.’
Jesse made a noise halfway between a sob and a snarl. ‘And if something happens to Sarah, who will you blame then?’
Finn struck him across the face.
~~~
Huddled on the bed, Jesse found himself close to shaking. His cheek didn’t really sting any more, only the memory of the slap. He picked up the top and rubbed it between his fingers until heat began to rise from the wood. The rest of him felt cold. He’d failed Sarah. And alienated Finn with stupid taunts. Jesse laid the top against his cheek. For the first time in years, he’d found decent people, people he could respect. And what did he do? He deserved to be struck.
It’s no good, Jesse thought. Liam was right. Mal was right. Even I was right. I can’t live with them . . . with anyone. It was stupid to try. Better to be alone than end up like Mal and Angie.
He who is alone now, will remain alone . . . will wander the streets restlessly . . .
A soft knock, and the door opened. Finn stood on the threshold, his face sombre.
‘May I come in?’ he asked.
‘Suit yourself,’ said Jesse, shrugging. After one quick look, he refused to meet Finn’s eyes.
Finn crossed the room and sat down on Jesse’s bed, careful to leave a space between them. Leaning forward, he propped his forearms on his knees so that his spare tyre rolled comfortably over his waistband. There was a long silence, broken only by the faint snuffle of Nubi’s breathing.
‘I’m sorry,’ Finn finally said. ‘I don’t know what came over me. I haven’t hit anyone in years.’ He gave a little snort of laughter. ‘Well no, that’s not quite true. There was this nasty bloke in Santiago last year . . . You don’t ever want to punch a policeman in Chile.’
‘You’re kidding me.’
‘Nope. Spent a couple of nights in gaol fending off the cockroaches—the two-legged variety. I’ve even got the release papers tucked away somewhere to prove it.’
‘Is Sarah back?’ Jesse asked, although he knew the question was futile.
