Two Years After ; Friends Who Lie ; No More Secrets

by Paul J. Teague

  ‘You bitch!’ Becky shouted from the stage, making full use of the PA system at her disposal.

  There was an intake of breath from the crowd.

  ‘You can’t leave him alone can you, you little slut? You can’t find anybody quite like him, can you? Does your casual shag over there know that you’re damaged goods?’

  ‘Really Matt, this is what you meant by picking the right time? You bloody idiot!’ Harriet shouted. She was crying now, distressed not only at the way that he’d decided to declare his love, but also by the immense embarrassment of it having been done so publicly. She was completely humiliated.

  ‘Come on!’ she said, taking the hand of the man that she’d met at the bar. She stormed off, out of the club, into the Benidorm night.

  ‘Harriet, wait!’ Matt shouted after her, dropping his microphone on the ground and getting ready to exit the stage. Oblivious to the entranced crowd, he ran off after Harriet, followed by a crying Becky.

  ‘We’d best head out after them.’ Caitlen said, ‘I’ve a feeling this is about to get even more ugly.’

  They left the bar and there was silence for a few moments.

  ‘Okay, sorry about that ladies and gentlemen!’ the DJ said, still a little shocked about what was going on. ‘Let’s get back to the karaoke. Here’s Les once again, this time he’s singing David Soul’s “Let’s Have A Quiet Night In” ...’

  Chapter Eighteen

  Porter and Dr Barbara Lawrence: May

  ‘How long have you been having these dreams, Porter?’

  Barbara Lawrence studied Porter’s face, searching for any sign of agitation or stress. He remained calm, with his twitching thumb the only giveaway that what was coming out of his mouth and what was going on in his head were misaligned.

  ‘Over three weeks now. I feel like the past has come back to haunt me. It’s been so long since I thought about it. Now ... well, it’s like I’m there again.’

  ‘Have you told Emmy yet?’

  She could see from his reaction that he had not.

  ‘You need to share what happened, Porter. It’s a traumatic experience, it’s been life-shaping for you. Emmy is your wife, you have to try harder to trust her. She accepts you for who you are.’

  ‘Only, I’m not sure that she does, Dr Lawrence.’

  She let that one hang. If she waited long enough, the silence would become uncomfortable and he’d venture something else. The longer she waited, the more uncomfortable the silences became, the closer she’d get to the truth. Even better, she was getting paid by the hour, so she even made money when they were saying nothing.

  ‘I think she’s having an affair. Either that, or she doesn’t love me anymore. I’m not even certain that she ever did. She thinks I’m a fool.’

  ‘Did you try the CBT exercises that we discussed?’

  ‘You mean that cognitive behavioural stuff? I’m sorry, Dr Lawrence – and please excuse my language here – but it’s a load of old bollocks!’

  She was taken aback by that. Porter didn’t swear as a rule. He was calm, thoughtful and considered. Profanity was how he gave a glimpse into his anger. She pushed ahead.

  ‘It can help many people to re-route their thought patterns and create different behaviours based upon recurring and negative thoughts ...’

  ‘I killed my brother, Dr Lawrence! You don’t erase that memory with a bit of psychological mumbo-jumbo. It doesn’t go away just because I play a CD of whale sounds or try to think happy thoughts when I picture his face.’

  This is what she was looking for. For Porter, it always came back to the same thing. The entire world had moved on from the incident, but Porter was still stuck there, forever locked into his own memory of his teenage self.

  ‘You were both high, Porter, you were only seventeen. It was not your fault, we’ve talked about this so many times. You even have the inquest to confirm it. It was an accident. You were not to blame.’

  ‘But what happened afterwards with mum killing herself like that. It all followed from that night. She couldn’t live without James ... but she found it easy enough to leave me behind.’

  Barbara Lawrence loved her job, but sometimes she saw glimpses in her patients which really scared her. Porter had been coming to see her for two years. He was a private patient, he had the money to keep paying the bills. She had people like him to thank for her new Tesla. Most of them were just bellyaching about childhood slights or petty life crises. Porter’s was more deeply rooted, it made him both psychologically fascinating and an excellent source of recurring monthly income.

  ‘Losing your mother at such a young stage in your life is bound to affect you. It’s the person you need most, choosing to end their life at a time when you’re at your most fragile and vulnerable. But you can’t blame yourself Porter, it was your mother’s choice to leave this world, it has nothing to do with you.’

  ‘So why are the dreams back? I can see James’ face vividly as he fell ... he was grasping into thin air, I was not too far away to reach out to him. He looked me directly in the eyes before he fell. As if he was blaming me for not being there for him.’

  Porter’s eyes reddened as he pictured his older brother falling from the wall of the multistorey car park. What a couple of arses they’d been. High on pot, laughing their heads off, challenging each other to try out new parkour moves which were becoming increasingly dangerous. And then the inevitable happened. He could still hear the sound of James’ head cracking on the pavement below.

  ‘Have you been to the graves recently? Did you try my idea of writing them a letter to express how you feel about those events? You lost two of the most important people in your life within the space of a month. There’s still a lot of pent up anger in there.’

  ‘I’m going again after this appointment. I took the morning off work. I haven’t written a letter – it feels stupid to me. But I’ll say it in my head. I want to scream at both of them ... I feel so guilty about that.’

  ‘Don’t. They left you without being able to say goodbye. You never got to sign out properly with them. You need to reconcile that.’

  Dr Lawrence looked up at the clock.

  ‘Well, I think that’s us for this session, Porter. You need to confide in your wife. You have to trust somebody else with this information. It’s fine talking to me, I’m a safe person. But you have to trust other people – your wife, your friends. They won’t judge you anywhere near as harshly as you judge yourself.’

  Porter shook Dr Lawrence’s hand and left her office. He enjoyed their chats. It allowed him to play out what was going on in his mind and speak it aloud. He hadn’t told her everything, only he knew that. One day, he might trust that information with her. But he was a man edging forward, working through a very serious realisation.

  He’d chosen Barbara Lawrence specifically because her office was close to the cemetery. He always went there after his appointment, it had become something of a ritual. He’d see Dr Lawrence, put flowers on the graves then go for a coffee. Each time he did that it would allow him to relive the whole thing.

  There was even a flower shop on the way to the cemetery too. It was a small, local shop, the prices were almost reasonable. He bought a bunch of roses, then walked up the road, into the sprawling graveyard.

  In spite of the cemetery seeming to get bigger every time he visited, Porter could navigate his way directly to the graves. They were looking old, the once pristine marble headstones were now showing signs of weathering.

  Porter placed the roses on the graves, which were in adjacent plots. Even the ground had sunk now, there was no mound to show where the earth had once been displaced by the coffins.

  Porter closed his eyes and thought back to that day. He was pissed with James. Not only was he able to fly through his exams without an ounce of effort, he found teenage relationships easier than Porter and had his pick of the other female students. The truth was – and Porter knew it – he’d been insanely jealous of his brother. He loved him, of
course, but he also hated him at the same time. It was a resentment that had been festering for some time. Even their mum gave James an easier time. Parents always say they love their kids equally. But Sarah didn’t – after their dad left them, she quite clearly favoured James. He was less like their dad, Porter looked like a replica of him when he was a younger man.

  He pictured the car park. They’d been with friends, on the top floor, skateboarding down the ramps and terrifying any drivers who came hurtling round the corner only to be confronted by a daft teenager who seemed completely oblivious to any health and safety legislation.

  Eventually they’d tired of being hassled by angry drivers. Their mates had moved on, but James encouraged Porter to hang back.

  ‘I got this joint at college,’ James had smiled at him, he could still hear his voice. ‘Let’s share it before we go home, I’ve never tried one before.’

  They’d got silly very fast and started to dare each other. Porter hadn’t pre-planned it, he was as certain as he could be about that. It’s why the sessions with Dr Lawrence helped, she allowed him to walk it through it all again and try to remember it correctly. She was bound by confidentiality and he would never tell Emmy what was really going on in his mind. Besides, she’d been so remote from him recently.

  Had he encouraged James? When he’d done that handstand on the highest wall of the car park, James had taken his own life into his hands. Had it been the pot speaking when he challenged James to repeat the move and show him what he was made of? Or had he known in his heart that James would come to a sticky end?

  James had smiled at him and climbed up onto the wall. Porter had seen him stagger slightly, even in his drugged-up haze. Yet he hadn’t stopped James, he’d let him go ahead with it. Even though he knew he must fall.

  He thought back to how he’d walked closer to the wall, buying himself more time, just in case James needed his help. James had gone to move into a handstand, lost his balance on the wall and gone to steady himself. Had Porter moved forward, he could have offered a hand, he could easily have pulled James off the wall and into safety.

  But a devil in him had taken over as he watched James struggle. He’d chosen not to reach out his hand, it had been a decision made in the heat of the moment. He loved his brother yet still, something terrible in him had let him fall to his death. Porter had been struggling with this since the day he let James plunge to the ground. And standing there, closing his eyes, after working through those events one more time with Dr Lawrence, he was becoming surer and surer of how he’d felt that day.

  It had been exhilarating to watch someone on the cusp of death. To look into his brother’s eyes and to know in that moment that he was God, only he could decide who lived and died. He wanted that feeling again – the terror, the absolute fear, the unique sense of power, the massive rush of adrenalin as you discovered that you’d got away with it, that the whole thing had been written off as a childish prank.

  Porter didn’t get much sense of power or control in his life. These feelings had only come back because of the way Emmy was making him feel so small and unwanted. It was like James and Sarah all over again, laughing at him, despising him. But Porter was beginning to build up the courage to experience that intoxicating sense of power once again. It was so close now, he could almost touch it.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Benidorm: June

  They spilt out onto the street. Benidorm never seemed to sleep, there were people all over the place, drunk and boisterous, a stream of sweaty bodies.

  ‘Which way did Harriet go?’ said Caitlen, craning her neck to get a better view in the crowd. ‘I’m worried about her with that chap, I don’t want her doing anything reckless. What an oaf Matt was, doing that!’

  ‘There’s Matt over there ... oh shit, here comes Becky now. Bloody hell, Cait, you certainly know how to screw up a good night!’

  Caitlen looked at her sister, but had no time to reply. Becky was in tears, wild with fury at Matt. While on the stage with the microphone she’d felt in control, walking across the bar towards the exit she’d realised how he’d just humiliated her.

  ‘That bastard!’ she screamed at nobody in particular. ‘He told me it was over between him and Harriet. And I believed him! I can’t believe he did that ...’

  ‘Becky, try to calm down,’ Naomi urged. ‘You’re upset – of course you are – but let’s find somewhere to sit down and talk about this.’

  Wes had now followed the small group out onto the street. He didn’t know these people very well, he was trying to assess which way the wind was blowing. Gina too – a second newcomer – backed off, mostly concerned about Caitlen.

  ‘Don’t bloody patronise me!’ Becky screamed at Naomi, who retreated like she’d just dodged a scratching cat.

  ‘They’ve headed up this road,’ Rhett said, ‘I can just see Harriet, and Matt’s following them. Look, over there!’

  He pointed to them in the crowd ahead. ‘We should follow them, I’m worried about what Matt might do. Did you see the size of that guy Harriet’s with?’

  ‘Where the fuck is Terry?’ Caitlen asked, ‘He’s good at this sort of shit, it’s what he spent his life doing as a copper. Domestics and drunkards. He’s perfectly qualified for this!’

  Gina put her arm around Caitlen.

  ‘It’s okay, Cait,’ she reassured her, ‘It’ll blow over. Let’s make sure that Harriet’s safe. Girl power, remember?’

  She risked a smile and it calmed Caitlen immediately.

  ‘You’re right,’ she said, ‘Oh shit!’

  Becky had taken Rhett’s coordinates and run up the street like a scud missile seeking its target.

  ‘Somebody stop her!’ Caitlen said, ‘She’s in no fit state to have it out with Matt right now. Rhett, head Matt off at the pass. This is going to get even worse if they have this fight when they’re all pissed.’

  It was too late. Becky had spotted Matt and had run at him at great speed, jumping onto his back and punching him. Matt didn’t know what had hit him, he’d been intent on following Harriet in the crowd.

  ‘Get off me, you stupid cow!’ he screamed, thrashing around in the road and trying to throw her off. She was like a limpet and wouldn’t budge. Her left arm was around his neck, she was punching his side with her right arm and digging her feet into the sides of his legs.

  ‘Oh Jesus!’ Caitlen said, ‘They’re gathering a crowd.’

  A circle had formed around Becky and Matt, mainly of young men holding bottles and cheering on Becky.

  ‘Give him a good thumping!’

  ‘That’s right luv, kick him in the nuts!’

  ‘Can I get a turn, treacle?’

  All of this seemed to spur Becky on in her fury.

  ‘You lying, cheating bastard!’ she screamed, ‘You just couldn’t leave that whore alone!’

  Matt was tiring and she was hurting him. More important, Harriet was getting away, he’d lose her if he didn’t shake off Becky soon. They’d talk it through later. Now all he wanted was to make things right with Harriet.

  Matt lurched to one side and, caught completely off guard, Becky fell off his back onto the pavement.

  There was a gasp as her head slammed onto the road. There was silence and Becky lay still in the street. Matt sensed the change of atmosphere and turned around to look at Becky.

  ‘That was bang out of order sunshine!’ somebody said, and a fist slammed into Matt’s face. He felt his legs weaken and he crashed to the ground. The watching crowd had changed from the schoolyard brawl variety to the casualty in the street crowd. There was little concern for Matt, attention had now turned to Becky.

  Rhett finally got to Matt.

  ‘Jesus Matt, are you alright?’

  He was dazed, his nose filled with blood.

  ‘That hurt! I need to find Harriet. Where is she?’

  ‘Steady Matt, you’ve just been punched in the face by a brick shithouse. We need to make sure you’re okay.’

 
Matt staggered to his feet.

  ‘I must see Harriet,’ he said, running off again.

  ‘That was not cool, man!’ somebody shouted at Matt.

  ‘Let him go,’ Naomi said, catching up at last. Caitlen, Gina and Wes were close behind.

  Becky was stirring on the pavement. She was perfectly alright, but enjoying the attention of the crowd. For a moment she forgot Matt as a group of young men crouched down around her to make sure she was okay. She sat up and looked around. Her friends were watching on. The fall to the ground had calmed her, she was tired now, her fury burned out, for now. She just wanted to sit down and take it all in.

  Wes moved in to help.

  ‘Let me help you,’ he said, moving in to offer his shoulder as a crutch. He moved his guitar case into his left hand and made space for Becky.

  ‘Do you know this guy?’ somebody asked.

  ‘Yes, it’s fine, he’s – a friend – it’s okay, thank you.’

  Wes helped Becky to her feet and the crowd dispersed.

  ‘You okay Becky?’ Naomi asked.

  She nodded. Wes guided her over to a low wall outside one of the bars. The others joined her and they all sat in silence for a while.

  ‘Should I go after Matt?’ Rhett asked, looking at Naomi, then to Caitlen.

  ‘No, leave them,’ Caitlen replied, ‘Let them sort it out. Gina’s right, it’ll all blow over in the light of day.’

  Becky’s anger had changed to tears now. Wes had his arm around her, ready to offer comfort wherever there was opportunity.

  ‘How about we go to that bar over there. There’s a couple out at the tables, they’re serving coffees. We can sit down and chill a bit.’

  Becky nodded.

  ‘Anybody joining us?’ Wes asked.

  ‘You go,’ Naomi said, ‘I think a bit of peace and quiet will do her good. We’ll just be over here if you need us.’

  They watched as Wes walked over to the bar with Becky. They sat down at one of the outside tables and an attentive waiter came over to take their order. Caitlen watched as Wes moved out a hand to wipe the tears from Becky’s eyes.