Naked

by Kevin Brooks

  ‘Don’t tell him anything,’ she pleaded, her voice a broken whisper. ‘Please …? Don’t tell him I’m here …’

  ‘Are you there?’ I heard Curtis say.

  Mum just turned and ran then, clattering hysterically up the stairs, almost falling over in her haste to get away.

  ‘Mum!’ I called out after her. ‘Mum!’

  I heard the bathroom door crashing open, then slamming shut … and then all I could hear was the sound of muffled sobbing. I couldn’t move for a while. I just stood there, staring hopelessly up the stairs, my heart beating hard and my eyes filling with tears …

  ‘Lili …?’ I heard Curtis say. ‘Are you still there? Lili?’

  I slowly put the phone to my ear. ‘Yeah, I’m still here.’

  ‘What the fuck’s going on –?’

  ‘Not now, Curtis,’ I said emptily. ‘I’ll tell you later.’

  ‘How much later?’ he said angrily. ‘When are you –?’

  ‘Just ring me later.’

  ‘Yeah, but –’

  I hung up.

  It was two or three hours before Mum stopped crying and came out of the bathroom. While she was in there, I must have called Dr Samaros at least a dozen times, but he was either out somewhere or just not answering his phone. Mum looked exhausted when she finally came out of the bathroom – her eyes red and puffy, her skin deathly pale, her movements slow and heavy.

  ‘Are you OK, Mum?’ I asked her.

  ‘Tired,’ she muttered. ‘Just tired …’

  Laura helped me get her into bed, and then … well, then I just sat with her for a few hours. She slept restlessly – tossing and turning, twitching, shivering … muttering to herself now and then … whispered words of madness.

  I just sat there.

  Laura was still trying to get through to Dr Samaros on the phone downstairs, and every time she picked up the phone and put it down again, the phone on Mum’s bedside table made a soft tinging noise.

  Ting …

  The curtains were still drawn, and the dimmed afternoon light seemed old and heavy. The air was hot and humid, and through a small gap in the curtains I could see dark clouds hanging low in the sky. Every now and then, faint rolls of thunder murmured in the distance.

  I just sat there.

  Ting …

  It was around five o’clock when Laura brought me up a cup of coffee.

  ‘I got through to him at last,’ she told me. ‘The doctor … he said he’ll be here in about an hour.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, taking the coffee from her.

  Laura looked at Mum. ‘How is she?’

  I shrugged. ‘It’s hard to tell … she’s just sleeping …’

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yeah … you know …’

  ‘What time’s your concert tonight?’

  ‘Well, we’re supposed to be there at seven, but –’

  ‘You don’t have to stay, Lili,’ she said kindly. ‘I can sit with your mum –’

  ‘No, it’s all right, thanks. I’ll stay –’

  The telephone rang.

  I picked it up. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Lili? It’s Curtis. What’s going on?’

  ‘The doctor’s coming round in an hour,’ I told him.

  ‘An hour? It’s gone five already.’

  ‘Yeah, I know –’

  ‘So what time will you get here?’

  ‘Look, Curtis, I don’t know if I can make it tonight –’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Mum’s really ill –’

  ‘You can’t do this, Lili,’ he said angrily. ‘You can’t fuck this up … not tonight.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Curtis, but I can’t just leave her –’

  ‘Yeah, well, you’re just going to have to, aren’t you?’

  ‘No –’

  ‘Or bring her with you.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘If you can’t leave her, bring her with you.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid.’

  ‘Fuck’s sake, Lili,’ he screamed. ‘What’s the matter with you? This is important. Don’t you get it? This … is … fucking … important!’

  ‘So is this,’ I said quietly, and put the phone down.

  I looked quietly at Mum … her troubled face, her worn-out beauty …

  I looked at Laura. She smiled sympathetically.

  The phone rang again.

  I picked it up. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Listen, Lili,’ Curtis said quickly. ‘I’m sorry, OK? I’m really sorry … I didn’t mean to yell at you, I was just –’

  ‘I’ll get there if I can,’ I told him.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘If I’m not at the squat by seven, and I probably won’t be, go on without me.’

  ‘Well, OK, but –’

  ‘Just shut up and listen to me, Curtis, OK?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, of course.’

  ‘If I think it’s all right to leave Mum,’ I said wearily, ‘I’ll make my own way over to Islington as soon as I can. But I’m not making any promises, all right?’

  ‘Yeah …’

  ‘If I’m not there by eleven, you can assume that I’m not coming and you’ll just have to manage without me.’

  ‘We can’t –’

  ‘William can play bass … or you can.’

  ‘Yeah, but –’

  ‘That’s it, Curtis,’ I said firmly. ‘I’m not arguing with you. Have you got that?’

  ‘Yeah …’

  ‘I’ll see you if I see you.’

  By eight o’clock, Dr Samaros had been and gone, and Mum was sleeping deeply.

  ‘I’ve given her something that’ll keep her out for at least twelve hours,’ Doc Sam had told me. ‘She might be a little woozy when she wakes up, but with a bit of luck, a good long rest will clear her mind and she won’t have any more of these episodes.’

  ‘With a bit of luck?’ I said.

  ‘Call me tomorrow,’ he said, ignoring my sarcasm. ‘Let me know how she’s doing.’

  After he’d left, I sat with Mum again for a while … not really knowing what to do, or how to feel … just sitting there, listening to the rumble of distant thunder … too tired to do anything, too wired to sleep …

  Laura came in at some point and quietly gave me a hug.

  ‘You might as well go, Lili,’ she said softly.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Your concert … I mean, if you feel like it, you might as well go. There’s no point in staying here, is there? Your mum’s going to be asleep all night, there’s nothing you can do for her. All you’re going to do if you stay is sit here all night worrying.’ She smiled at me. ‘It’ll be all right … I’ll sleep in here, just in case she wakes up. And I can always ring you at the cinema if necessary … the Screen on the Green, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yeah …’

  She grinned. ‘And I’m sure Curtis will be happy to see you.’

  I allowed myself a little smile. ‘You wouldn’t say that if you knew him.’

  ‘Really?’

  I nodded. ‘He’s not really a “happy” kind of person.’

  ‘He’s more of a dark, brooding type, is he?’

  ‘Yeah, you could say that.’

  If it had been just another gig that night, I think I probably would have stayed at home, but it wasn’t just another gig. It was a gig that could change our lives for ever. And while the prospect of getting signed by a record company didn’t mean all that much to me, it meant the world to Curtis. It was the gateway to his everything. And however I felt about him just then, whatever he meant to me, I couldn’t just let him down, could I? I couldn’t ruin his dream.

  And so, with a mixed-up heart – and a pocketful of cash I’d taken from Mum’s purse – I told Laura I’d call her later, kissed Mum goodbye, and went out to look for a taxi.


  23

  It was just gone nine o’clock when I arrived at the Screen on the Green. The streetlights were on, the air was still hot, and the night sky was heavy with rolling black clouds. After wandering around the cinema for a while, trying to work out where I was supposed to go, I finally found Curtis in a smoke-filled room backstage. It wasn’t a very big room, and there were so many people and bits of equipment in there – guitars, amps, speakers, drums – that I could hardly get through the door. I didn’t have a clue who most of the people were. Some of them, I guessed, were roadies, others were probably just friends of the bands, or people who wanted to be friends of the bands. Steve Jones and Paul Cook from the Pistols were there, sharing a bottle of vodka with a couple of scantily dressed punk girls. And I could just make out Jake, over in the corner, rolling a joint and laughing about something with a middle-aged man in a suit who I’d never seen before. It took me a while to spot Curtis, but eventually I saw him – sitting on the floor at the back of the room, talking animatedly to Mick Jones and Paul Simonon from the Clash.

  Rather than wade through all the bodies, I just called out to him from the doorway. And when he looked up at the sound of his name, I could tell from his eyes – which were popping out of his head – that he’d taken a lot of speed.

  ‘Lili!’ he cried out, quickly getting to his feet. ‘Thank God you’re here.’

  As he hurried across the room towards me, his amphetamine eyes darting all over the place, it suddenly struck me that within the space of half an hour or so I’d gone from one extreme to the other. From Mum, at home, sedated out of her head … to Curtis, here, speeding out of his head.

  What, I wondered, was that all about?

  Before I had time to think about it, Curtis came stumbling up to me, grabbed me by the arm, and said, ‘I need to talk to you,’ and the next thing I knew he was bundling me out into the corridor.

  ‘All right,’ I told him. ‘Take it easy. There’s no need to –’

  ‘Do you know where he lives?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Billy … do you know where he lives?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He’s not fucking here, is he? That’s why. It’s gone nine o’clock and the little bastard’s still not here.’ Curtis shook his head. ‘I knew I couldn’t trust him … I just fucking knew it.’

  ‘I’m sure it’s all right,’ I said. ‘He’s probably just –’

  ‘No,’ Curtis said angrily. ‘It’s not all right. He said he’d be here by eight at the latest.’

  ‘And he hasn’t phoned or anything?’

  ‘I would have told you if he had, wouldn’t I?’

  ‘All right,’ I said, trying to keep calm. ‘I’m only trying to –’

  ‘West Green Road, isn’t it? That’s where he lives – somewhere on West Green Road.’

  ‘Cranleigh Farm,’ I said.

  Curtis looked at me.

  ‘It’s an estate on West Green Road,’ I told him.

  ‘That’s where Billy lives?’

  I nodded. ‘I mean, I don’t know which flat or anything –’

  ‘How do you know he lives there?’

  ‘He told me.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said, not quite sure why I was lying, or why I felt guilty. ‘He just mentioned it once, that’s all … I can’t remember when …’ I looked at Curtis. ‘Does it matter?’

  He just shrugged and lit a cigarette.

  ‘Anyway,’ I said, ‘I’m sure he’ll be here soon. I mean, it’s still only half past nine. As long as he gets here before midnight –’

  ‘And what if he doesn’t?’

  ‘We’ll just have to play without him, won’t we. We’ve done it before … played as a three-piece. We can do it again.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Curtis said. ‘But it wouldn’t be the same, would it? I mean, without Billy …’ He hesitated, puffing hard on his cigarette, uncomfortable about saying what he wanted to say. ‘Well, we need him, don’t we?’

  ‘You don’t have to be embarrassed about it,’ I said.

  ‘About what?’

  ‘How you feel.’

  ‘How I feel about what?’

  ‘About William … I mean, just because he really pisses you off –’

  ‘All I care about right now is this gig, OK? Everything else is irrelevant.’

  ‘Is that why you haven’t asked me about my mum?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘My mum … she’s really ill, remember?’

  ‘Yeah, I know –’

  ‘You could have at least pretended to care.’

  ‘I do care –’

  ‘No, you don’t. You haven’t even asked me how I am.’

  ‘Yeah, I know, but …’ He blew out his cheeks. ‘It’s just that I’ve hardly had time to think –’

  ‘You’ve had enough time to shovel a load of speed up your nose.’

  ‘Yeah, well … I’m having to organize everything on my own, aren’t I?’

  ‘Poor you.’

  He didn’t like that, and for a moment I thought he was going to lose his temper with me, but he just about managed to control himself.

  ‘You want to try thinking about someone other than yourself now and then,’ I said. ‘I mean, you’re not the only one with problems, you know.’

  He lowered his eyes, trying to show me how utterly ashamed of himself he was.

  It was pathetic.

  And for a moment, I really felt like slapping him.

  But then, quite suddenly, I realized that I just didn’t care any more. He was Curtis; he was how he was. And that’s all there was to it. I could take him as he was … or I could leave him.

  ‘All right,’ I sighed. ‘What do you want to do about William?’

  The way Curtis saw it, there was no point in all of us staying there and just hoping that William would turn up, so one of us might as well drive out to West Green Road and see if we could find him.

  ‘I know it’s a long shot,’ Curtis said, ‘and it’ll probably be a complete waste of time … but, like I said, we don’t all have to hang around here, do we?’

  ‘I suppose not …’

  ‘And if you get going with Chief right now –’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Yeah …’

  ‘Why me?’

  ‘Because …’

  ‘Because what?’

  ‘Because if I go, and I find him, and it turns out that he just couldn’t be bothered to get here on time, or he forgot all about it or something … well, you know what I’m like. I’ll probably start yelling at him, and then he’ll get really pissed off …’ Curtis looked at me. ‘But he likes you, Lili. He’ll listen to you.’

  I was slightly taken aback for a moment. I just wasn’t used to Curtis being like this … whatever this was. It was almost as if he was behaving like a normal person – being reasonable, being aware of his own faults, being honest. Of course, it was perfectly possible that he was just being whatever he thought I wanted him to be, in order to get what he wanted …

  ‘So what do you think?’ he asked me, glancing at his watch. ‘If you leave now, you should get to West Green Road by ten. It shouldn’t be too hard to find this Cranleigh Farm place, then all you have to do is ask around and see if anyone knows where Billy lives –’

  ‘And what if they don’t?’

  ‘We won’t be any worse off than we are now, will we? I mean, as long as you start heading back by eleven-ish, you’ll be back here no later than eleven thirty, and if he’s still not shown up by then … well, in that case, we will have to play without him.’ Curtis looked at me. ‘I think it’s worth trying to find him though, isn’t it?’

  It’d been a long tiring day, and my head felt really frazzled, and the last thing I wanted to do just then was go driving round London in a crappy old Transit van … but I could see
that Curtis had a point. I probably wasn’t going to find William, but it made sense to at least make the effort. And, besides, the only alternative was to hang around here for the next couple of hours with Curtis and Jake in a room full of roadies and wannabes and Sex Pistols and half-naked punk girls and creepy old men in suits …

  ‘OK,’ I told Curtis. ‘I’ll give it a go.’

  While Curtis went off to find Chief, I called home from a payphone in the corridor. Mum was still sleeping, Laura told me, everything was fine … there was nothing to worry about. To be honest, I was getting a bit sick of people telling me that there was nothing to worry about, but I knew that Laura meant well – and that I was in a particularly irritable mood anyway – so I just thanked her, told her that I’d ring again in an hour or so, and said goodbye.

  When I hung up the phone and turned round, I almost bumped into Chief. He was standing so close to me that I had to step back to look up into his face.

  ‘Hey,’ he said.

  ‘Hey, Chief,’ I replied, looking around for Curtis. ‘Where’s Curtis?’

  Chief just shrugged. ‘The van’s round the back.’

  ‘OK …’

  He looked at me for a moment, nodded, then walked off.

  I followed him – along the corridor, through the double doors, along some more corridors – until, eventually, we came to an unlocked fire door that led us out to the back of the building. The night air was still quite warm, but it was just beginning to rain now, and as we hurried across to the Transit van, a roar of thunder ripped through the sky and almost immediately the rain started crashing down. I wasn’t wearing a coat – just a T-shirt and jeans – and by the time we got to the van, I was already soaked to the skin. Chief seemed to be taking ages to unlock the doors, and when I looked over to see what was keeping him, I saw him standing at the side of the van staring down at the ground.

  ‘Come on, Chief,’ I shouted over the rain. ‘Open the doors … I’m getting soaked here.’

  He looked up slowly at me, shaking his head.

  ‘What is it?’ I said. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Flat.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Flat tyre.’

  A flash of lightning lit up the night for a moment, followed seconds later by another huge crack of thunder. It was a lot louder this time, a lot closer.