‘No,’ I say.
‘Please, Amy. I promise I won’t hurt you.’
It startles me, chills me. He never begs. The strain in his voice sounds real, raw. It’s terrifying. He’s desperate enough to say Please. Is he losing control?
My finger hovers over the End Call button.
‘Something you’re keeping . . . Some secret you know will destroy the one you love the most . . . ’
I’m remembering now, as if the past had been a Magic Eye painting, and finally, I’m starting to see the real picture.
I need to go before the bad monsters are let out.
‘I’m sorry, Shepherd. I can't,’ I say, and disconnect him.
41
ME
It slips out before I even realise it.
Please, Amy.
Fucking pathetic. No wonder she hangs up on me. Problem is, I say it to myself too much. Since I got back to this ghost town, I imagine myself saying all kinds of things to her I would never say. Like I'm sorry. Fucking people who think apologies undo things when they don't do shit. You can't say, ‘I'm sorry,’ and make it like all the bad things never happened. Won't keep bad things from happening again either.
I lie on my sofa with a whiskey bottle in hand. After a couple of hours drinking into nothingness, I get up and ring Fab5. The phone rings twice, then goes to his voicemail.
‘This is Fab5. Check you.’
‘Fab5, no one has said check you since 1992. Seriously, it just sounds weird in a Scottish accent. You giant prick.’ I hang up.
Five minutes later, he rings back.
‘What’s up?’ he says. ‘You sound moodier than norm.’
‘Nothing’s up.’
I hear a girl’s voice. Then the sound goes hissy and I figure Fab5 has covered the phone with his hand. His voice sounds distant but enclosed, as if he’s shouting into a cup.
‘Friend . . . touch of the old maritals . . . ’ The girl’s voice says something I can’t make out. Fab5 laughs. I think I can hear the sound of a kiss. Someone says mmmm.
‘Fab5,’ I growl.
He removes his hand from the phone. ‘What’s up?’
‘Covering the phone with your hand doesn’t work. And if you’ve got a hard-on right now, you’d better fucking hang up.’
‘Yeah, no worries, mate. Limp as your grumpy cold dick.’
‘Who’s the chick?’
‘It’s one in the morning, Shepherd. You’ve not rung me to talk about me compromising my vow of celibacy. You okay?’
‘No.’
‘Want me to come over?’
‘You’re busy.’
‘Break out the Courvoisier. There in an hour.’
And an hour later, he’s sitting opposite me at my kitchen table.
‘I have no Courvoisier,’ I say.
‘Relax, Shepherd.’
‘Got damn good whiskey.’
He looks at the label, then taps the whiskey bottle.
‘Who do you know who drinks Courvoisier anyway?’ I say.
‘Figure of speech. A joke. Over your head. No big deal.’
I pour two large whiskies and offer him a smoke, which he declines.
‘Same question, Shepherd. What’s up? Amy, no?’
‘Why would that be?’
‘Awfully highly strung.’
‘That’s you, mate. Who was that, anyway?’
Fab5 considers this for a moment. ‘Displacement, Shepherd.’
‘What?’
‘You didn’t call me up to pop a cap in my ass for my sex life. What’s up?’
‘Pop a cap in your ass? What’re you, fourteen?’
‘I’m the only one willing to be your friend. So what’s going on?’
‘Wow, a real question, with real English words and everything.’
‘Like I said, you don’t have other friends, twat. Tell me what’s wrong.’
I tell him, grudgingly. It takes me just under half the bottle. Fab5 doesn’t drink much, but he does listen. At four, he puts away the whiskey bottle and makes me drink two pints of water. At four thirty, he pushes me into the bathroom to wash my hair and change my clothes, while he makes coffee. I shower and go into the bedroom for clean clothes.
In my living room I say to Fab5, ‘What’s happening to me?’
‘Shepherd, friend, right now you’re drunk, and you need to be drunk. You need to switch off that right brain, sometimes. Let your left brain take over.’
‘Other way round.’
‘You see?’ There’s concern in his eyes. ‘You need to decompress, mate.’
‘Alright. Cheers, Fab5. You’re a mensch.’
‘And you need to get back to the academy and train. Go fight. Best way to get it out of your system, mate.’
I try not to think about things.
I fail. I think about those things, and about what I’m about to lose. I think about them for the longest time.
THE BOXING GYM is empty because it’s damn early. I only turn on enough lighting to walk through the gym without tripping over any equipment. I go to a punching bag hanging from the ceiling.
My hands and wrists are wrapped good. Don’t fist fight for sport anymore. Did my stint in prison. Still train. Still feel like my knuckles are never quite healed from the punches across jaws and the indents of teeth. In prison there were no rules. No fancy style. Just all out brawling. The sort I learnt on the streets. The only reason I survived.
I’m training here and now because it’s too early to get wasted, and there’s little else to do in this godforsaken town.
I unzip my grey hoodie and throw it down to the floor leaving my chest bare. I know I’m in better shape than I’ve ever been. Definition that hadn't been there in my teens, strong pectoral muscles, arms that I now wonder whether I could bend damn steel with.
I take a glug of the water bottle I’m carrying before setting it down on the floor and bring out my mini pod. I put the little white buds into my ear and clip the device to the
