‘Did he attend a party at your house?’
‘Attend as in he turned up, drunk as a fish, then proceeded to powder his nose in the bedroom. How the man could have ascertained the age of anyone there is beyond me. The last time I spoke to him that night he couldn’t have told me his own age. Look, I’ll be straight with you. I throw a party every now and then. I like to let my hair down. I invite my friends, they bring their girlfriends . . . beautiful women, let me tell you . . .’ He leans a bit closer so Jay catches his aftershave, feels like he’s taking him into his confidence. ‘Not always their wives, yeah . . . People stay the night. I have fifteen bedrooms in that damn place. I’m sure some of them have sex, yes . . . I know, some people have sex. It’s not a crime. Do you want to lock people up for having sex?’
Jay wishes he hadn’t mentioned sex. His mind is whirling again. Stacey is undressing in front of him, pushing him down on to the bed, covering his face with her tits.
‘Were you aware of anyone there being underage?’
‘Of course not. It’s not a crèche. It’s a party for adults. I know who I invited and I’ll happily provide you with the names. I can’t vouch for who they brought along. It’s bloody hard these days. The seventeen-year-olds look like they’re twenty-five and vice versa. But the idea that it was some kind of planned mass underage orgy is preposterous. It was very laid-back. Champagne, cocktails, music, dancing. I’m sure you know the thing.’
Jay does not know the thing but he’s flattered Curtis thinks he might.
Curtis stands and walks over to a mahogany sideboard and withdraws a small leather box. ‘Cigar?’
Jay shakes his head.
‘They’re very good.’ The smoke clouds his features so all Jay can see for a moment is two glassy eyes and the orange glow of his cigar.
‘The only problem I have out there is security, but I’m afraid your lot don’t seem at all bothered by break-ins any more. I’m having to sort it out myself. You seem like a man who looks after himself, am I right?’ Jay smiles. He likes the gym, glad someone notices. His muscles ripple in reply.
‘I like to keep myself fit.’
‘Good man. Kids, wife?’
‘Neither.’
‘Ah, best way. Haven’t found the right woman yet. Well, when this is all cleared up, as I have no doubt it will be, get in touch if you fancy some extra work. Always good to have someone sensible on board with security.’
He passes Jay a card. Chadwick Security. ‘The firm I use.’
‘Thanks. I’ll keep it in mind.’
‘Please do. Was there anything else?’
‘I don’t think so for the moment.’
As predicted, the investigation reaches a dead end. No witnesses, no victims, Gabriel Miller’s word against Curtis Loewe’s. He enjoys telling Gabriel there is insufficient evidence to proceed, likes the way the silence between them crackles with anger.
And when he informs Curtis Loewe that he has nothing to worry about, he puts the phone down assuming that will be the last he will see or hear of the man, in person at least.
But he is wrong, because the next month Jay finds himself in a spot of trouble.
He’s spent the day with his mates at the match (Chelsea lost) and having sunk ten pints of Stella Artois, he is wandering home when he realises he is not far from the flat Stacey shares with Toby. Before he knows it, he’s standing outside looking up to the second floor where he sees a low, moody light escape from the living room. They’re probably having a takeaway or a shag on the sofa, Jay thinks, at which point the kebab he’s just eaten turns violent in his stomach. When he spots Toby’s red BMW sitting outside, he knows exactly what he is going to do. Jay was never a grade-A art student but every boy grows up knowing how to draw a knob and, pleased to find his skills have not deserted him, he carves one out on the bodywork. His only regret is the size of it. It’s too big. Toby definitely has a small cock.
Unfortunately, Toby also lives on a busy street with CCTV cameras. Jay should have thought about this. Should have thought, full stop, but the ten pints didn’t leave any room for thinking. So you could say he wasn’t covering all his bases in the normal sense. Satisfaction, that was what he was after. To teach the guy a lesson. In the end they didn’t need the CCTV because Toby (and now Stacey’s) neighbour filmed him doing it. Again, that might not have been such a big deal (you couldn’t see his face) were it not for the fact he was wearing his football training jacket with Huxtable emblazoned on the back.
‘Who’s the knob now?’ DCI Patel asks. Huxtable, in possession of his faculties once again, deduces this is a non-rhetorical question. He says nothing. ‘Your stupidity might cost you your job.’
He suspends him, pending investigations. ‘I should tell you it’s not looking good,’ he says in the understatement of the year. ‘It’s a shame, because you could have had a good career. But if you want to blame anyone, look no further than yourself.’
Jay doesn’t fancy looking at himself. It is the last thing he wants to do. His job is a barrier between him and the estate people. Makes him better than the next scrote. Now DCI Patel is stripping it away and he doesn’t like it one bit.
He goes to the pub. Stella got him into this situation, Stella can console him now. He fishes in his pocket for change and finds a card instead. Chadwick Security. Curtis fucking Loewe. Jay drains his pint and orders another. He will call the number tomorrow when his head is clear.
After the police force, it doesn’t feel like a job. It doesn’t have a description other than security and he doesn’t have a rank. He’s just Jay, the man who drives a Beamer (Up yours, Toby) and works for Curtis at his house which is really a mansion in the Cotswolds. After a month, he gets invited to a party. ‘You’ll have to do a bit of work, but I like to keep my staff happy. There’ll be time for fun too,’ Curtis says. Jay is transformed, has barely thought of Stacey once.
He looks different too. The Burton suits are out. It’s amazing what money can do for a man. Bought himself some designer gear, a suit that fits like it was made for him. Christ, he feels good.
At the party, he’s introduced to John, a Scottish guy who shows him the ropes. He’s to take the guests’ keys and park their cars around the back. Some of the faces he recognises, some he doesn’t. But he knows enough to sense they’re rich. The air is thick with the smell of money. He’s mainlining it, can’t help smiling as it rushes through his bloodstream.
By midnight John says their work is done. ‘Time for a drink.’ John finds them a beer, although Jay had fancied a champagne, just because. He’s got a bit of catching up to do by the looks of things, everyone is well into the evening, but the strangest thing is he doesn’t feel out of place. Not even when the most fucking gorgeous woman sidles up to him. ‘I’m Mariela,’ she says, and her breath hits every sex-starved nerve ending. She’s wearing a dress that defies gravity, sliced to the bone of her sternum and scooped out all the way down to her arse. Is she for real?
Her presence spins him out. She gets more drinks, talks to him like he’s the most important man in the room. He’s grown five inches in her company. She whispers in his ear, ‘Follow me.’
Who is he to argue?
It happens quickly, although given the choice Jay would like to stretch out every moment until it’s ready to snap. Mariela is kneeling. Not his idea. He didn’t even ask. But here she is. Just the thought of it makes him want to come. Steady, he tells himself. Her tongue is on him. Stacey is smashed out of the water. Obliterated. He holds on and holds on until he’s ready to explode. He comes like it’s his first time, his last time. All the other times rolled into one.
They drink some more. He gives it a while, not long. Then it’s his turn. Mariela likes it hard. He wants to consume her. She couldn’t be more perfect.
Life is good. Great in fact. Sometimes his face hurts because he smil
es so much. They used to call him Happy in the station to be ironic, but when John calls him Sunshine, he knows it is because he’s pumping out the megawatts. DCI Patel hasn’t been in touch with the date of his hearing but as far as he’s concerned he can stick his job where the sun doesn’t shine. Who’s the knob now?
Curtis likes him too. Sometimes, at the house in the Cotswolds, they share a beer. ‘Got to stay on your toes in this game, always someone plotting your downfall.’ Jay had no idea film-making was so cut-throat. ‘Not the film-making. The politics, the charity. I do a lot of public work. My head is above the parapet, so to speak. And in this country, no one likes a success. I’m telling you, I should have gone to the States years ago.’
The latest person who wants to cut him down is a woman called Linda Moscow who happens to be Gabriel Miller’s mother. It all makes sense now. ‘She must have put him up to lodging the complaint against me,’ Curtis says. ‘She’s a one-hundred-carat bitch, that woman. And she knows I have something on her. She’s out to destroy me.’
Jay is not a particularly emotional man (‘It’s like having a conversation with a wall’ – Stacey) but he can see Curtis is upset and he doesn’t like it. Curtis is the man who has given him money and a Beamer and the suit he’s wearing (he tried DKNY, today’s number is Paul Smith), not to mention Mariela, but he can’t think of her right now because he’ll go hard and that’s not a good look in front of his boss. In the simple equation Jay makes, Curtis = success and sex and feeling happy for the first time in months. Anyone who is going to subtract from that total is no friend of his.
‘Now that Gabriel’s mudslinging hasn’t stuck, she’s trying a different tack.’ He reaches for his iPad on the table. ‘See this website? My charity helped many of these women when they were girls. So they didn’t make it in theatre or TV, that’s not my fault. This is what I mean. You try to help people and they throw it back in your face. They want to squeeze me for money, blackmail me. And Linda is encouraging them. Take a look.’
Jay takes the iPad from Curtis. Makes a note of the website: www.whathappenedatkelmore.com.
‘This woman who set the site up, I want you to find her and find out what they’re up to. I want to know what they are planning.’
‘How am I going to do that?’ he asks.
‘Be creative. What do you think I pay you for?’
Autumn 1996
Charlie
Bex and I made it to London. Not the London of dreams and riches or the Cool Britannia of the nineties; our London was a scummy little sideshow. A studio above a kebab shop barely bigger than the bed we shared. We took to walking through the West End, inhaling the black cab fumes, soaking up the sound of hawkers selling their wares, posing next to the theatre billboards, the musicals, Cats, Phantom of the Opera, Mousetrap. ‘One day it’ll be us!’ I said, but when I saw the look in Bex’s eyes I wished I’d kept my mouth shut. Who wants to be reminded of what they’re not going to be?
The closest Bex got was a job interview at the Cambridge Theatre on Earlham Street, but two days later they told her that her application hadn’t been successful. ‘They didn’t think I had the right kind of experience,’ she said. ‘Like, what kind of experience do you need to sell ice creams during the interval?’ She lit the letter with a match and watched it burn until the flame licked her hand and she threw it in the sink.
‘You were too good for it anyway.’
‘Obviously not.’
‘There will be others.’
‘How would you know?’ She opened a bottle of wine and filled her mug to the brim, slurped it like cola. By the third mug she started to cry. At the end of the fourth she threw up.
On the other hand my CV was a riot of indiscriminate postings, random shifts at frozen food factories in far-flung corners of the North Circular, catering in an old people’s home, a summer job on a hot-dog stall, and finally ‘floor manager’ in Stratos’ Café, where the only people I managed were myself and the cleaner. Stratos, a Greek man in his fifties, was fat and balding and had, as far as I could see, an outrageous approach to food hygiene. His business only survived because it was in Soho. An endless supply of tourists meant he didn’t have to rely on repeat custom.
I was about to say what Bex did all day was a mystery, but this isn’t strictly true. She made drinking her hobby; secretly at first, so I would get a waft of vodka through Polo mints and wonder whether it was my imagination or was she really a bit pissed.
Sometimes she wouldn’t come home. She’d turn up the next day having lost hours. Her nails filthy, her skin the colour of Stratos’ jacket potatoes. On a bad day there would be bruises; mostly on her arms, her legs, but occasionally they crept on to her face. ‘A fall,’ she’d say, if my eyes asked any questions. But the worst times were when she came back with money, because Bex didn’t have a job and the thought of her earning that cash broke me in such a way I threw it back at her, told her where to stick it.
I should have done more to help. Every time I caught sight of Bex’s disappearing frame and the spots on her face and the way the light never entered her eyes any more, I knew I should do something. But what? We were floundering in our own distinct ways: Bex drinking to anaesthetise herself and me autopiloting to work every day, losing myself in coronation chicken and tuna and cheese toasties. Was this it? Was this all there was? We had empty lives and no idea how to fill them.
There was one weekend when I locked the doors and refused to let her out.
‘It’s an intervention,’ I said. Too much American TV to thank for that. She was sweet at first, lucid. ‘I know, you’re right . . .’ Full of sorrys and tears and snot. ‘We can get through this together,’ I said, and made us spag bol and a cup of tea. But after she pushed a few twirls of pasta around her plate the air changed, her need polluted it. The remorse ebbed away, along with her willpower. Promises evaporated. ‘Let me out,’ she said.
Bitch.
At ten o’clock she pushed past me and when I came after her she punched me. The blood burst from my lip. It tasted like the end. But it wasn’t. That had still to come.
It was September, around six o’clock. My legs were heavy and I prayed the woman nursing her cup of tea would bugger off so I could close up. My heart dived when I heard the bell above the door tinkle. Another customer. It began to race when I saw who it was.
‘Charlie, is that you?’
I toyed with saying no, pretending I was her doppelganger.
‘Miss Reilly.’
‘How are you?’
She was kind enough not to wait for an answer. ‘Lovely to see you. What time do you finish?’
‘Depends on how long she stays.’ I nodded to the woman with the tea.
‘Don’t worry, I’m going,’ she said. ‘I was only trying to avoid the rain. The sandwich was disgusting by the way.’
She wasn’t Miss Reilly any more. ‘Why don’t you call me Gabby.’ I wasn’t sure I could, or wanted to. It was over-familiar, twisted our relationship into something it wasn’t.
‘Let me buy you a coffee . . . dinner. I’ve often wondered . . .’ She let the ellipsis hang.
As soon as I sat down and the waiter issued us with menus I knew it was a mistake. I had left Kelmore behind. And though she was one (the only one) of the nice teachers, I didn’t want the conversation to drag me back there.
Besides, I wasn’t hungry.
I brought her up to date, skirted over the Bex situation. ‘She’s fine, picking up work here and there.’ By the time we had ordered our food, I had exhausted the chat.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
‘What for?’
She stared at me, her eyes all-knowing, and it sat between us for a moment as she considered how to pierce it and pin it down and say its name out loud.
‘I reported it to the police, you know. They said unless I had evide
nce they couldn’t take it further. They accused me of being an embittered former employee, said I had been sacked because I had touched a girl . . . made it out like it was me in the wrong . . . I didn’t, you know. I would never ever do anything like that.’
‘I know,’ I told her.
‘Thank you. It wasn’t your fault.’
‘I . . . I . . .’ Words drifted away from me. She saw everything. She saw everything I wasn’t. Not the young woman who was making her way in the world, who wore lipstick and didn’t look too bad, who smiled on cue. She knew they were fake. What she wanted was to talk to me, the real me beneath them, pick me apart so she could lessen her guilt.
Suddenly I was properly angry. What made this woman with the neat hair and the soft voice and the baby-pink sweater think that her concern mattered, amounted to anything, could make a difference to us? What gave her the right to probe and push and ask questions in the search for answers she had no business knowing?
‘Shall I tell you something? We chose it.’ The force of the words winded me. I hadn’t spoken them before, hadn’t admitted them to myself, but here it was, out in the open, the truth that ate away at me, at Bex. We let it happen. Miss Reilly or Gabby or whoever she was tried to dive in but I wouldn’t let her, not now the admission was out there. There was no stopping me.
‘We wanted to go. Do you hear what I’m saying? We would have done anything to get out of Kelmore. And we were gutted when it stopped. Does that fit your picture? Didn’t think so. So what does that make us? You think you understand. You drove out of Kelmore every day and went home to your nice life and you shut the door. You only ever dipped a toe in. But it was all we had. That awful building with its smell of decay and damp and the shit food and the teachers who made us so small we almost disappeared. So when they came along and offered us something else, we took it. It was our choice. We could have stopped it and we chose not to.’
An Act of Silence Page 16
