Naked

by Kevin Brooks

  I was just walking …

  I was so tired.

  So everything.

  I was nothing.

  After a while, I somehow found myself in the auditorium. The Clash were on stage, blasting away, looking and sounding really good, and everyone in the crowd was going crazy. I stood at the back for a minute or two, just looking around, listening to the music, watching the band, watching the crowd …

  All the familiar faces were there. Jordan, McLaren, Vivienne Westwood … a bare-breasted Siouxsie Sioux. Steve Jones, Bernie Rhodes … the Bromley punks, Charlie Brown …

  Flashbulbs were going off …

  The whole place was rocking …

  This was it.

  This was the dream.

  This was what it was all about.

  It was nothing.

  And as I left the auditorium and walked out into the storm-bruised night, all I could think about was William.

  27

  I slept until noon the next day. The sun was shining when I woke up – the pale August light filtering in through the curtains – and I could hear Mum and Laura pottering around in the kitchen downstairs, talking and laughing, making coffee … and, just for a moment, everything felt perfectly normal.

  It was a nice sunny day.

  Mum and Laura were in the kitchen.

  And I was just lazing around in bed …

  But then, of course, the illusion cracked and the events of last night came flooding back to me – Mum and Doc Sam … the kids at Cranleigh Farm, Nancy and Joe … William and the three men … the workshop, the guns … the men chasing after me …

  And then Curtis …

  God …

  I rolled over, closed my eyes, and buried my head in the pillow.

  I didn’t really want to think about any of it, I just wanted it all to go away, but I knew that it wouldn’t. It couldn’t. It had happened, and things that have happened don’t just go away. You can bury your head in a pillow and shed as many tears as you like, but it’s not going to make any difference. It’s never going to change anything. What’s happened will always have happened, and eventually you just have to deal with it.

  You have to stop crying …

  Open your eyes.

  Take your head out of the pillow …

  And deal with it.

  You have to ask yourself – those men with William, they were IRA men, weren’t they? Pistols, machine guns, bomb-making equipment … what else could they be? And if they are in the IRA, what does that mean? Is William one of them? Is he in the IRA? Has he been lying to you about everything? About his mother, his father, about Nancy … the reason he came over to England … is that all just a cover-up for the real reason he’s here? I mean, can you really believe that William is involved in an IRA plot to set off a bomb somewhere in London?

  And, if so, you have to ask yourself – what are you going to do about it?

  I don’t know.

  And what about Curtis? What are you going to do about him? Are you just going to assume that it’s all over between you? Do you want it to be over? What if he were to apologize for the things he said, for the way he treated you …? Could you forgive him? Do you want to forgive him?

  No …

  I don’t know.

  And what about the band? What does all this William and Curtis stuff mean in terms of the band? Is that all over too? Are Naked finished now? And, if so, do you care?

  I don’t know.

  What do you know?

  Right now, all I know is that I can hear my mum downstairs, and that she sounds quite happy, and that might just mean that she’s doing OK … and I could really do with something being OK at the moment …

  I got out of bed, got dressed, and went downstairs.

  It was always hard to tell with Mum. She could be reasonably normal one minute, totally crazy the next. Or she could be perfectly OK for a couple of weeks and then suddenly lose control again, and for the next few weeks, or even months, she could be virtually anything – drunk, depressed, hyper, horrible, asleep, insane, obsessed, unbearable …

  But that day, when I went downstairs and found her sitting in the kitchen with Laura, I was as sure as I could be that – for now, at least – she really was doing OK. Her eyes were bright, she looked and sounded fresh and happy, and the smile she gave me when I went into the kitchen … well, it was her smile. Her real smile. And it was so good to see it that I almost began crying again.

  ‘Are you all right, love?’ she said, getting up to give me a hug. ‘How was the concert last night?’

  ‘Yeah … yeah, it was good, thanks.’

  She held me at arm’s length and looked into my eyes. ‘Are you sure you’re all right? You look a bit …’

  ‘No, I’m fine … really. Just a bit tired, that’s all.’ I smiled at her. ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘Never better,’ she said, smiling back. ‘Especially now that you’re here. Are you staying for a while?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know –’

  ‘Do you fancy going shopping with Laura and me this afternoon?’

  ‘Shopping?’

  ‘We’re only going to Hampstead, you know … just the local shops.’ She took my hand and gave it a squeeze. ‘Come on, Lili … we haven’t been out together for ages. It’ll be fun.’

  It wasn’t my idea of fun – traipsing around shops all afternoon, looking at clothes and shoes and God knows what else – but I thought it might help to take my mind off things, so I went along anyway. And it was kind of OK for a while. Mum was right, we hadn’t been out together for a long time, and it felt good just being with her again – out in the sunshine, walking the streets, looking in shop windows …

  It was nice.

  It wasn’t exactly fun …

  But it was kind of OK.

  And every now and then, just for a moment or two, it did actually help to take my mind off things. But they were only moments. And as the afternoon wore on, even the briefest of these occasional moments gradually faded away, until eventually I found myself thinking of nothing but the things I didn’t want to think about.

  William …

  Lies …

  The IRA.

  Curtis …

  William.

  Curtis …

  The thing that kept coming back to me about Curtis was, quite simply, why? Why had he accused me of sleeping with William? It just didn’t make sense. Why would he think that? And the only answer I kept coming up with was that he didn’t actually think that I’d slept with William at all – he’d just said it. He’d been so pissed off with both William and me for messing up the gig and ruining his dream that he’d just blurted out the first thing – and the worst thing – that came into his head. He knew perfectly well that it wasn’t true, but once he’d said it … well, for him, that was it. There was no going back.

  Or maybe he hadn’t just blurted it out …?

  Maybe it was a lot simpler than that.

  Maybe he’d wanted us to break up all along. And rather than doing it the hard way, he’d just accused me of the worst thing he could think of, in the hope that I’d get so mad that I’d leave him, which would not only save him the bother of leaving me, but would also gain him all the sympathy.

  Or maybe not …

  I just didn’t know.

  And it was that that was killing me – the not knowing.

  ‘Mum?’ I said, as we headed towards yet another chic little shoe shop. ‘I’ve just remembered something.’

  ‘Sorry, love?’

  ‘I have to go, Mum. There’s a band meeting this evening … sorry, but I forgot all about it.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said, obviously disappointed.

  ‘Sorry.’

  She smiled. ‘Well, if you really have to go …’

  ‘Yeah, I’d better.’

  ‘All right then.�
��

  As I gave her a hug, I glanced over at Laura and mouthed, ‘Is that OK with you?’

  She nodded.

  I let go of Mum.

  Laura said to me, ‘Will I see you tomorrow, Lili? I’m staying for another couple of days …’

  I nodded back, letting her know that I understood, then I headed off to the underground station.

  It was around five o’clock when I got to Seven Sisters. The sun wasn’t shining any more, and as I left the tube station and walked down the road towards the squat, the skies were beginning to darken under a bank of heavy black cloud. A cold wind was blowing, scattering litter around the streets, and I could smell the spicy heat of takeaway food in the air.

  I didn’t know what I was doing.

  I didn’t know what I was hoping to find.

  I didn’t even know what I was feeling.

  I’d reached the squat now, and as I headed up the path towards the front door, I remembered the night of the party, when Curtis had given me a piggy-back down the street … and he’d gone hurtling down the road, jiggling me up and down on his back, and I’d closed my eyes and screamed like a kid on a rollercoaster … and then we’d crashed into the hedge and tumbled to the ground and we’d both just sat there, laughing ourselves stupid …

  I shook the memory from my head and carried on up to the front door. It was open, as usual – the only time it got locked was at night – so I just walked in and went straight up the stairs. There was music playing all over the place – Captain Beefheart from a room downstairs, some old Bowie stuff from somewhere else – and as I moved up the stairs, I realized how familiar this place had become to me. The same-old sounds, the same-old house, the same-old mixture of smells – marijuana, mould, unwashed clothes …

  ‘Hey, Lili.’

  I looked up at the sound of the voice and saw a frizzy-haired girl in a doorway on the landing.

  ‘Oh, hi, Sinead,’ I said, pausing for a moment.

  I didn’t know Sinead that well, but I’d spoken to her a few times, and she was kind of all right. She designed her own clothes and sold them at Kensington Market.

  ‘Are you OK?’ I asked her.

  ‘Yeah …’ she said, smiling.

  But she didn’t seem all right. She seemed nervous about something, hesitant, not sure what to say. Which was unusual for Sinead.

  ‘Do you know if Curtis is in?’ I asked her.

  Her eyes flicked briefly upwards. ‘Uhh … well, I’m not really …’

  ‘It’s all right,’ I said, heading up the stairs. ‘I’ll see you later.’

  ‘Uh … yeah …’ I heard her mutter. ‘Yeah, see you …’

  Curtis’s room was the first on the right at the top of the next flight of stairs. I couldn’t hear anything as I approached it, but that wasn’t unusual. Curtis didn’t always make lots of noise, he’d quite often spend hours and hours sitting quietly in his room, reading or writing, or sometimes just thinking. Of course, he often slept during the day too, especially if he’d been up all night.

  So I didn’t give the silence much thought.

  And I didn’t even think about knocking before I went in. I never knocked on his door, I always just opened it up and walked straight in …

  Why shouldn’t I?

  I virtually lived there. It was our room. I mean, you don’t knock on your own door before you go in, do you?

  So, no … I didn’t knock, or call out his name, I didn’t even allow myself a moment to stop and think, because I knew that if I did, I’d start wondering what to say, and how to say it … and all that would have done was confuse me even more. Just open the door, I told myself. Open the door, go on in … and see what happens.

  And that’s what I did.

  The room was dim, the curtains closed, and it took a couple of moments for my eyes to adjust to the gloom. And when they did, and I looked down at the bed, it took another couple of moments for the reality of what I was seeing to sink in.

  I knew that it was real.

  And I knew that I was seeing it …

  Because it was right there … they were right there. Right there in front of me.

  Curtis and Charlie Brown, asleep on the bed together …

  Naked.

  It was obvious that they were both totally wrecked. There were empty bottles all over the place, ashtrays overflowing with dead joints … there were clothes strewn all around the room, sheets thrown off the bed … and when Curtis finally half opened his eyes and looked up at me, he was still so out of it that he didn’t recognize me at first. He just kind of lay there, squinting through the darkness at me, his eyes all bloodshot and bleary …

  ‘Whuh …?’ he mumbled, rubbing his face. ‘What’s that …?’

  I glanced at Charlie Brown. She was waking up too now, struggling hard to sit up straight and open her eyes, but as soon as she saw me standing there, she knew exactly who I was – and it didn’t seem to bother her one bit.

  ‘Oops,’ she said, covering her mouth and smirking at me.

  ‘Lili …?’ I heard Curtis mutter.

  I looked at him for just a moment, just long enough to see that he still didn’t know what was happening, and then I turned round and walked out.

  He didn’t come after me. He didn’t even call out to me as I ran down the stairs, the tears already streaming down my face.

  Or maybe he did …?

  Who knows?

  All I could hear was the roar of the hurricane inside my head, the crushing emptiness, the anger, the sickness … the pounding of my own stupid heart. And as I stumbled down the stairs, blinded with tears, I could feel the walls of the house closing in on me, squeezing the air from my lungs … and I knew that I had to get out of there. My chest was being crushed … I couldn’t breathe … I couldn’t see …

  Just keep going …

  Keep running …

  Don’t look back …

  As I clattered down the last few stairs and crashed along the hallway towards the front door, I caught a passing glimpse of myself in a dusty old mirror that was leaning against the wall, and just for a moment – a very brief moment – the image I saw was of a girl who was running away from herself. She wasn’t running away from Curtis, or Charlie Brown … she was running away from herself. And I knew – with absolute certainty – that this girl in the mirror would never ever get away …

  I knew that she’d be running from herself for the rest of her life.

  And then, as I left the mirror behind and threw open the front door, I knew nothing again.

  It was raining hard.

  The sky was black, edged in yellow.

  Just keep going …

  I hurried along the path, wiping tears from my face …

  I turned right, heading for the tube station …

  And saw a familiar figure coming towards me. Slight, not that tall, his dark brown hair neither long nor short … dressed as ever in his tattered black jacket and washed-out shirt … and his eyes …

  God, his eyes.

  So clear and radiant, so full of life …

  William smiled when he saw me. And then, almost immediately, as he realized that I was crying, his smile faded and he started hurrying towards me with a worried look on his face.

  ‘Lili?’ he said. ‘All you all right? What’s the matter?’

  ‘I can’t do this …’ I heard myself mutter.

  ‘What? You can’t do what?’

  ‘I just can’t …’

  ‘Lili?’

  But I’d already turned round and started to run.

  28

  I was running through the rain again, running through another summer storm, and the hurricane inside my head was roaring ever louder, and my stupid dead heart was pounding ever faster, and I was blind with tears and soaking wet and sick and empty and sick and angry and I knew once again that the girl in
the mirror would never get away from herself …

  She’d never get away from herself …

  She’d never stop running for the rest of her life …

  I knew nothing.

  It was raining hard.

  The sky was black …

  Just keep going …

  Keep running …

  Don’t ever look back …

  Just run.

  I ran.

  I didn’t know why I was running any more. I didn’t know what I was running from, or to … I had no idea where I was going. I was just running. I couldn’t stop. I knew that if I stopped running, even for a moment, I’d never be able to move again … I’d just sink down to my knees and sit there in the pouring rain, and that would be it. I’d never get up again. I’d stay there for ever. And if I stayed there for ever …

  Just keep going …

  I kept going.

  I’m not sure how long it took for the madness in my head to subside, but gradually – very gradually – the roar of the hurricane began to fade and my senses began coming back to me. I could feel the rain in my face, I could feel the cold. I could feel the tiredness in my legs, the pain in my side, the ache in my lungs … I knew that I couldn’t run any more. I had to rest. And I knew, as I slowed to a walk and then stopped and looked around, that I’d run all the way up Stamford Hill, over the crossroads at the top, and now I was heading down the other side towards Stoke Newington.

  It was a long way to have run.

  But at least I’d stopped.

  I hadn’t kept running for ever.

  And that was something.

  And there was something else too …

  As I stood there on the pavement, sucking in great gulps of air, it suddenly came back to me why I’d run all this way in the first place … or, at least, why I’d started running in the first place.

  William.

  I’d run away from William.

  And it felt so weird, realizing that I’d actually forgotten something that had happened no more than fifteen minutes ago. I’d seen William outside the squat, I’d turned round and run away from him, and then … the next thing I’d known …