The Hit

by Melvin Burgess

  Sooner than he expected, he’d had enough. He didn’t want to go back to his house but he did, anyway, just so he could have a picture of it and post it up, and his parents would know he’d been there, thinking about them.

  On the way back, he stopped on the Curry Mile to eat — a favorite restaurant where he used to go with his dad, and once or twice with his friend Jack. He wondered if he ought to give Jack a call, but it was already four o’clock. He had his date in an hour. He ate up, paid the bill, and caught the bus back to town.

  As he got close, in among the big crowds, he started to worry that Piccolino would be closed, but he needn’t have worried. People still had to eat. With all these crowds waiting in the city center, it was actually fat pickings for the restaurants.

  He pushed the door open and walked in. It was half restaurant, half bar — not the sort of place he’d usually go. People were drinking wine. It was too old for him, and he felt out of place at once.

  His date — Janet, she’d called herself — had told him she would be the blonde wearing a blue coat; and right there, sitting at the long table that ran in front of the bar, was a pretty, young blonde woman. She caught his eye, but she wasn’t wearing blue. Adam looked around, but saw no one else. He looked back to the woman. She was patting the seat next to her. There was a blue coat lying on it.

  Adam froze. She smiled and called across to him.

  “Adam,” she said. “Sit down? Want a drink? I’m having prosecco.”

  “Yes, please. How did you know it was me?” he asked.

  “How many seventeen-year-olds do you see in here? I wonder if they’ll serve you.” She nodded to a waiter and asked for another glass. The man frowned at Adam.

  “Madam, he looks very young …”

  “Bring us a bottle of water and a spare glass, then,” she said, and winked openly at Adam. The waiter shrugged and went to fetch them.

  Janet settled herself back on her stool and gave him a long look. “You’ll do,” she said, and she laughed. “How about me? Will I do?”

  “Of course!” Adam insisted. He would have found it impossible to say no under any circumstances, but he took the chance to look her up and down. She opened her arms to show herself off, and then laughed and blushed slightly. She was quite short with a neat figure, wearing a white blouse open at the neck, a black jumper, and a shortish green skirt. He was already wondering if he was going to get to find out what was underneath it. The thought made him blush, and he looked up quickly to meet her eyes. Underneath her makeup, one of them looked bruised, he thought.

  “Fine,” he muttered, and she laughed at him again, but it was a high, tinny laugh, because he’d sounded so gruff and uncomplimentary.

  The prosecco arrived with the water. Adam studied her some more as the waiter served them. There was more bruising when you looked closely. Someone had beaten her up recently. There were some laughter lines around her eyes. But they didn’t make her look old, he decided.

  She waited till the waiter had gone, then poured Adam a glass of wine.

  “The world’s falling to bits outside, and he’s worried about his license. Cheers,” she said, holding out her glass.

  Adam picked his up, and they tipped their glasses together and drank. There was a brief pause.

  “I was worried it would be shut,” Adam said, gesturing around at the bar.

  “The Zealots use it,” she said. “And some of the other rebel groups as well. Oh, it’s a hotbed of sedition in here all right. Full of spies as well, I expect.”

  Adam glanced at the other people sitting around. Most of them were in their twenties and thirties. Well dressed. How could you tell what side they were on? He had no idea. But the thought alarmed him.

  There was more awkward silence. Janet smiled tightly. “I don’t suppose you have much small talk, do you?” she said.

  “Er — do you work in Manchester, then?” he tried, but she lifted up a hand.

  “Sorry, my fault. I don’t want you to know anything about me,” she said. “Do you mind?”

  “No. It makes small talk a bit tricky, though.”

  Janet bowed her head in admission. “You’re not doing bad,” she told him. She laughed again, more relaxed. “This is funny. It feels exactly like the dates I used to go on when I was a teenager. Oh my God, I used to get so uptight! It brings it all back!”

  “Was it that awful?” he asked, because it looked as if it was. He felt vaguely insulted.

  She thought about it. “Looking back, I always thought it was awful. But now I think, maybe not so bad. What about you?” she went on. “Do your parents know about … what you’ve done?”

  Adam looked coolly at her. He’d thought he’d do anything or say anything to avoid scaring her off, but now that it came down to it, he had his pride.

  “I don’t want you to know anything about me, either,” he said.

  “Touché!” she cried. “And that is going to make it rather hard, isn’t it? But I like a little chat, it’s romantic, isn’t it, sitting here with the city burning all around us and everything about to change. Like soldiers of fortune, aren’t we? Or spies or something.” She smiled. “And with nothing to say to each other.”

  “I don’t want to talk about my family, that’s all,” he said. “You can ask me about anything else.”

  “Can I? But isn’t your family the whole thing?” she said.

  Adam shook his head. He didn’t want to go there. They talked about the protests instead, and Adam told her how he had been at the Jimmy Earle concert that had started it all off. She was curious about that. “I’d have given anything to be at that concert,” she said. She asked him a little more about himself, about school, about his friends, his girlfriend. Adam was waiting for her to ask the big one — about his decision to take Death. He’d prepared for it. I couldn’t see any future I wanted to be a part of was his favorite. Something like that. But to his surprise, the question never came.

  Finally, she quaffed her wine.

  “OK,” she said. “Let’s go.”

  Adam gulped and nodded. He emptied his glass and followed her outside. It was a chilly, breezy day, colder than it looked. She walked down toward Albert Square, but it was just too packed, so they headed the other way, through the narrow side streets toward Oxford Road. Janet linked arms with him, dipped her head, and smiled.

  They checked into the Palace Hotel on Oxford Road, where there had been a battle on the streets earlier. It all seemed back to normal, the staff in their places, everything quiet. Maybe it had changed hands. If so, there was no way of knowing.

  It was appallingly embarrassing going in — the staff had to know what was going on. To his surprise, Janet felt it, too.

  “That was the walk of shame, wasn’t it?” she said when they got safely into the elevator. “I was thinking all the time, they must be wondering which one of us is the prostitute.”

  It was a huge room — four-poster bed, two sofas, a desk, a table, and chairs. There was an en suite bathroom, with a bath that was long enough to lie flat in and a separate shower. It was all oversized.

  “Do you like it?” she said. She laughed and looked sideways at him.

  Adam suddenly thought that he was supposed to make a move and took a step toward her, but she darted off to the cupboards and stared searching through them.

  “Here!” she exclaimed. It was a minibar in a little fridge in a cupboard under the desk. She took out a half bottle of champagne, which she gave to Adam to pop while she found some glasses.

  “I’m nervous!” she confessed. “Isn’t that idiotic?” She poured for them. They clinked glasses and gulped at the wine.

  “Have you …” she began.

  “What?”

  “Done this before?”

  Adam blushed. “Yeah, of course. A few times,” he lied. “You have, I suppose.”

  “Not with a seventeen-year-old boy with one week to live. I’m a virgin myself in that respect.” She laughed again and took another gl
ug of her champagne. “Right. I’m going in the bathroom to undress. You get into bed and I’ll come and join you. OK?”

  Adam nodded. Janet scurried off into the bathroom. Adam dropped his clothes as fast as he could, hid in the bed … and waited.

  She wasn’t long. She came out wrapped firmly in a white bathrobe, and made him look the other way while she slipped in next to him.

  “This is silly!” she said. “I’m supposed to be the sophisticated older woman, but I’m just so shy.”

  “What are you shy about?” he asked.

  “You!” She wriggled close and pressed herself against him. He felt her body all down his — breasts, legs, torso, her little rough bush against his leg.

  She kissed him. “You can touch if you like,” she said. She lifted his hand to her breast. He rubbed gently and felt her hard nipple in his palm. She put her hand down and touched him under the covers, and came in for a kiss. She tasted of wine. Then she sighed, relaxed, and pulled him on top of her.

  * * *

  Afterward, they dozed briefly. Adam came round before her and lay there with her head on his arm, waiting for her.

  So that was it. Second time, second partner. He hadn’t had time to think about it much the first time with Lizzie, but now it reminded him a bit of those birthdays he used to have when he’d think — So I’m ten now, or I’m thirteen, or whatever, and he’d strain to feel a change, but it was never any different. Having had sex wasn’t much different from being a virgin. Maybe you had to wait till you were in love. Maybe you had to wait forever to feel anything other than what you were.

  He remembered how his dad had told him something his granddad had said on his seventy-fifth birthday. “I know I’m old,” he’d said. “But I don’t feel old. I feel the same as I did when I was eighteen.”

  You just did stuff. You went on and did other stuff. But it was all the same. Maybe that’s what Death was going to teach him. That it didn’t make any difference after all.

  But … it had been very, very nice. He felt guilty about Lizzie, but she’d left him, after all. He was hoping they’d do it again when Janet woke up, but she wasn’t interested. She went to the loo, then came back to bed and kissed him on the lips.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I thought I was going to make you feel older, but instead, you made me feel like I was fifteen again — all shy and sweet and scared. But perhaps a little more confident this time. I loved that, you know.”

  She propped herself up with the pillows and finished off the wine. Despite her claim that she wanted him to know nothing about her, she started chatting away about all sorts of irrelevant things — bars in London and Manchester, a boy she knew who might have been the love of her life but didn’t seem to care, and how heartbroken it made her feel, and how she couldn’t get over it.

  “I don’t think I ever will,” she said. “Not till my dying day.” She threw back her head and laughed, then gazed sadly at Adam. He knew — he thought he knew — what she was thinking: that he wasn’t going to get over anything. His was a story already coming to its end.

  When he looked at her again, he saw that she was crying. He wanted to comfort her, but didn’t know how. She leaned over for a tissue, blew her nose, and wiped her eyes. “Getting sentimental in my old age,” she said. For some reason, perhaps because of the sex, or because of her tears, or because she had shared a secret with him, he wanted to share something with her as well.

  “My brother’s in the Zealots,” he said.

  Janet turned to him. “Tell me about him,” she said, and it was as if a plug had been pulled. His whole heart came flowing out of him — about Jess, about how much he’d loved and admired him and how angry he was with him now, and how let down he felt. About his parents, and how he’d ruined their lives and was too weak even to tell them he was sorry. And Lizzie, of course; how he’d said he loved her because it didn’t matter whether he did or not, but now he thought he really did, but she was gone, and he couldn’t really blame her, could he? How could he blame anyone for anything after what he had done?

  And most of all, he talked about how he wished he’d never done it. He wished he could go back to a week ago. Life had seemed so terrible to him then, but in fact, it was so precious, so wonderful, so lovely — and he’d thrown it all away because it hadn’t been what he’d expected, like a sulky brat throwing his teddy out of his stroller. Now he wanted it back so badly but it was gone forever, and no one could give it back …

  Janet listened carefully, but didn’t offer him any advice or ask him any questions. When he began to cry, she took his hand and stroked it and waited until the flood ended.

  “Your brother sounds like a proper soldier,” she said. She sighed and looked across at the clock on the bedside table.

  “What are you going to do?” he asked her. “Can’t you stay?” He didn’t want to be on his own.

  “The revolution,” she said. “Listen!”

  From outside came the sounds of chanting — half a million voices calling for change. “I want to be a part of that, just for a few nights.”

  A few nights? Did that mean … “Have you taken it as well?” he asked.

  “No. Nothing like that. Don’t ask, I won’t tell you.” She slipped out of bed and began to pull her clothes on. As she dressed he could see more bruises on her body, but he didn’t dare ask what had happened. When she’d finished dressing she checked her hair in the mirror and came to sit on the bed next to him.

  “Now, Adam,” she said. “I want you to listen very carefully to me. I know the Zealots. No, don’t interrupt me. I know some of them very well, and I can tell you something not many people can. There is an antidote. You understand? And I can get it for you.”

  She looked down at him, her face almost without expression, as if she was conducting an experiment on him.

  “I don’t believe you,” he said. But he was hoping so hard.

  “It’s going to take me a couple of days,” she said. “But I promise, I absolutely promise I can do this for you. All you have to do is stay out of trouble for that long. Until Friday.” She stared down at him. “Well?” she asked. “What do you say? Do you want it? Or would you prefer to hang on to your week?”

  Your week. She said it scornfully. Such a tiny measure against a whole lifetime.

  “Why are you doing this?” he begged.

  “Because I can,” she said. She was quite businesslike now, like a doctor, sitting there on the edge of the bed telling him what he had to do.

  “But I only have four days left,” he said.

  Janet smiled sourly. “And if it’s not true, and I’m lying, you’ll have wasted two whole precious days staying nice and safe. Except, Adam, they’re not precious, are they? They’re painful and horrible and nasty, because you’re going to die when the world is about to change, goodness only knows how, and everyone is looking toward the future and you should have your whole life ahead of you. Well, I’m offering it back to you. Do you want it? Tell me. No questions,” she said as he began to speak. “I can’t answer them. All you have to do is keep yourself safe and be here when the antidote arrives on Friday night. It’s that simple. Yes or no.”

  “But everyone says there’s no antidote,” he whispered.

  Janet bent down close over him. “Everyone is wrong,” she said. She leaned right down and kissed him on the lips. “Everyone except me.” She laughed. “Do you agree?”

  “Yes,” he said. Yes. And now he had admitted it fully. He had made the most terrible mistake possible. Above all things, he wanted to live.

  “Good.” She stood up and smiled down at him. “Thank you for a lovely evening,” she said. She picked up her bag and went to the door, where she paused and lifted a finger of warning. “Stay safe,” she told him. “It’s dangerous out there. If I were you I’d stay here, right in this room. No risks, Adam — because I’m risking a lot for you. Understand?”

  Adam nodded.

  As soon as the door closed behind her he ju
mped out of bed and stood in the middle of the room, exalting, his heart beating in him like a drum. It was a miracle. He was going to live!

  He grabbed his phone and rang Lizzie. He had to tell her! Wouldn’t it be wonderful if she came round and spent these two days with him? She had to know. Everyone had to know.

  “I’m going to live!” he shouted. His voice echoed around the room. He had never felt happier in his life.

  AT ROUND ABOUT THE SAME TIME THAT ADAM WAS SHOUTING hallelujah in his hotel room, Lizzie was sitting up in bed with a cup of coffee. Her left eye had swollen up until it was almost closed, and a trickle of blood was coming down her nose. She was very much aware that every time Christian lost his temper and hit her, she became a little more ugly. Becoming ugly was a bad move on her part, because, as he had pointed out to her after the last blow just a few minutes before, he was only going out with her because he liked her looks.

  He didn’t like her being afraid, either. It made her look stupid, and the way she flinched when he lifted his hand was just plain irritating. Which was a pity because the past day had been the most terrifying of her life. At the moment, she was concentrating as hard as she could on not spilling her coffee. Trembling apparently made her look like a spaz, and who wanted a spaz for a girlfriend?

  Christian was standing a few feet away, getting himself dressed up in some new gear — baggy T-shirt, high-tops, and a pair of designer jeans he’d just had delivered. There was a new skateboard as well. He was posing with it under his arm in front of a full-length mirror.

  “What do you think?” he asked.

  Lizzie licked her lips and tried to control her breathing, terrified that if she spoke she might burst into ugly tears.