The Make

‘They’re nice,’ said Alfie, coming out from the lounge to find George standing there holding the cellophane- wrapped bunch of red roses.

‘Well I don’t want the fucking things,’ said George, and walked through to the kitchen and threw them straight in the bin.

‘You can’t do that,’ said Alfie, retrieving them.

George glared at him. ‘Yes I can, Alf. I just did. Okay?’

And George went off to his bedroom, slamming the door behind him.

Jesus, now he had his very own stalker. And now he’d yelled at Alfie. He shouldn’t have done that. But he felt so damned awkward around Alfie now, ever since that . . . well, he couldn’t bear to think about it, but when he did, if he did, he thought of it as that incident.

All right, so Alfie was obviously gay. So what? They couldn’t shoot you for it. The fact that Alfie had come on to him was another issue entirely, and it kept nudging at his brain, even though he tried to block it out. He was straight. He had always been straight. Hadn’t he?

Hey George, are you absolutely sure about that? kept flitting around the edges of his mind, like Muhammad Ali dancing like quicksilver around a sluggish opponent before delivering the knock-out punch.

I’m straight, he told himself, over and over.

But there had been incidents, hadn’t there? All the friends he’d had who’d been girls. Friends, yes – but not girlfriends in the proper sense of the word. There had been the occasional bit of necking and fumbling with one or two of them; it seemed almost obligatory because all his male mates were at that stage. And certainly as he grew into adulthood he had always been able to get it up for women when that was required. But how much had he actually wanted that? Had he been doing it because it was sort of expected?

And once, at secondary school, there had been Jeff. A bit girly, keen on art and fashion, and he and George had been great friends, close friends, until some of the other boys had started saying that Jeff was arse, and someone had actually said, laughing, joking, was George arse too, because he seemed to like hanging around with Jeff so much?

George had felt a spasm of horror at that. He had decried that theory, loudly.

‘Who you calling bent, you cunt?’ he’d roared, and he’d given the boy who’d said it the pasting of his life.

After that he had avoided Jeff. Mud would stick, and he couldn’t have that. He had a reputation as a hard nut to protect. He was straight. And so he ignored the hurt in Jeff’s eyes, and went off with the other boys, the really macho ones like himself, and laughed in his turn at gay boys like Jeff, even though – deep down – he felt like shit about it.

Now, he did a bit on the computer, answering emails and taking a few more bookings – and there was Sandy again popping into his inbox. He was going to have another word, this was getting tedious – couldn’t the silly cow take a hint? He shut down after about an hour and went out into the lounge.

Alfie had placed the roses, neatly trimmed and arranged, in a vase of water, and stood it on the table. Alfie himself was slumped on the closed-up sofa bed opening a letter. He looked up at George, his eyes wary and hurt. George remembered that look, that same look, in Jeff’s eyes. He’d wimped out then, left Jeff to the wolves. The poor little git had suffered several beatings after George abandoned him to the rougher elements at school. George had tried to ignore all that, but at bottom he had felt bad about it, really bad: ashamed.

‘Post’s been.’ Alfie waved the open letter he held at George and risked a small, tentative smile. ‘Look, George. I got the job.’

Hadn’t the poor little sod been through enough, without him coming over all moody on him? George forced a smile in return. Poor cunt couldn’t help being a shirt-lifter, could he? He was still Alfie, still a friend, still a great laugh.

‘Well, done Alf,’ he said. ‘Come on, let’s get down the caff and celebrate.’

Chapter 43

Sandy turned off the computer the minute she was aware of Noel standing behind her in the doorway of their little ‘office’. Some bloody office – it was a box room really, eight feet by five.

‘Who you talking to on that?’ he asked, puffing on a spliff.

Sandy half turned in her chair, keeping her face blank and her voice casual, even though he’d given her a bit of a scare, creeping about the place like that. ‘Just some mates,’ she said, her nose wrinkling as a warm waft of Noel’s unwashed socks and sickly sweet skunk drifted over her. Damn, how could he have come up the stairs so quietly? He’d obviously crept up them, determined to catch her out.

She was resenting him more and more. Couldn’t he see that if he kept spying on her like he did, then she was more likely to cheat? And anyway, she hadn’t cheated at all, not really. Not technically. She hadn’t slept with gorgeous George; they’d just dated. Sandy lived for her dates with George. All right, she paid him, but she knew he just took her cash because he was hard up and needed it. She knew he was in love with her, just as she was in love with him, and one day they were going to be together properly, live in the country maybe, keep chickens and grow veggies – it would be so wonderful.

Only for the moment she was here, with Noel.

Suddenly he spun her chair around and crouched over her, holding on to the armrests, breathing skunk and suspicion all over her from inches away. She could see all the black-heads over his nose, could smell his foul breath – and Jesus, couldn’t he ever take a bath?

‘You been talking to men on that?’ asked Noel, his ciggie still between his lips, one eye squinting and watering as smoke drifted up from the spliff.

‘Nah,’ said Sandy with a half-laugh. ‘You want to stop smoking that stuff, Noel. It’s making you paranoid.’

‘I ain’t paranoid. I know you’re talking to other men on that fucking thing.’

‘Don’t be daft.’

‘Don’t call me daft!’ yelled Noel.

Sandy literally jumped in her seat, startled by the loudness of his tone. Her heart started beating very hard, and she felt her stomach coil into tight, sick-making knots. He never used the computer, never showed any interest in it. She knew whatever secrets it contained of hers were safe.

She stared at him, and wondered how on earth she had ever found him attractive. He was crass and ugly. She hated him. She wanted out. And one day, she’d get that. All she needed was to talk to George, make sure of their plans, then she would be out of here.

‘You’re a crafty, cheating little mare,’ snapped Noel, and he slapped her, hard.

Sandy was knocked sideways, but his arm and the arm of the chair stopped her from falling to the floor. She cried out in pain and surprise and raised a hand to her face. He’d never really hit her before, although he’d raged and shouted and sometimes he’d pushed her, more times than she could count. She was used to all that. But this . . .

He drew back his hand and slapped her again, and again.

Her cheeks stung. She could taste blood in her mouth; she’d bitten her tongue. Tears of pain and panic sprang from her eyes.

‘I’m not cheating, Noel,’ she managed to sob out. ‘I swear.’

‘No? How do I know what you get up to in that bloody office of yours? You could be having it away over the desk in your lunch hour for all I know.’

‘I wouldn’t do that.’

‘Yeah you would, given half a chance. You keep saying your boss is an ugly little bugger, but how do I know that’s true?’

It was true. Her boss looked about ninety: what the hell would she want to screw him for? Noel was getting worse and worse with all this shit he smoked. He was already paranoid. Soon he’d be