Curtain Call

by Graham Hurley

  ‘Tell me something,’ I say casually. ‘If you want a sample of someone’s DNA, how do you go about it?’

  Mitch wants to know why I’m asking. I tell him it’s a favour for a girlfriend. She wants to be sure of the link between her newborn baby and the three men in her life.

  ‘I told her I hadn’t a clue,’ I say. ‘But I’d make some enquiries.’

  ‘You mean talk to me.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Right.’ There’s a longish silence. I picture him thinking, trying to join the dots, trying to separate the thinness of the lie from the real reason for me asking. Silly bitch. Silly, silly bitch.

  ‘You’ll need saliva, or a nail clipping, or a hair with follicles, just a trace,’ he says at last. ‘And that’s from the pair of them.’

  ‘You mean the four of them. You mean she’ll need.’

  ‘Of course. The technology’s amazing these days. LCN. Low Copy Number. Just a used toothbrush will be enough. Extraordinary when you think about it.’

  I thank him for the advice. My girlfriend, I say, might want to buy him a bottle or two of wine. What should she be looking for?

  ‘A 2011 San Vincente Rioja.’ He’s laughing. ‘But you knew that already.’

  Malo and I are back on the train within the week. I’ve made a precautionary phone call to the hospital in Dorchester and have been assured that Mr Prentice is still in residence. When I asked about a possible discharge date the woman at the nursing station said the doctors couldn’t be sure. At least a week, she thought. Probably longer.

  This time we take a later train, arriving at the hospital in the early afternoon. Saucy’s already busy with a visitor and we find a perch in the waiting room outside the ward. Malo eyes a nest of soft toys in the corner while I thumb through a battered copy of Hello! magazine.

  So far, thank God, my son is showing no signs of the withdrawal symptoms I’ve been dreading – no sweats, no sleeplessness, no desperate desire to hit the streets again. On the contrary, he seems determined to make friends with me. Is this Saucy’s doing? Is Malo that glad to have turned his back on Berndt? In truth I’ve no idea but each day seems just a little better – sunnier – than the last, and for that I’m deeply grateful.

  I’ve just finished a breathless account of Catherine Zeta-Jones’ first date with Michael Douglas when the door opens to admit a man in his early fifties. He’s overweight, flushed, grey suit, purple tie, expensive-looking shoes. He spares Malo a nod and then asks me whether I’m here to give young Hayden a shake or two. When I say yes, he apologizes for keeping me waiting. Northern accent.

  ‘He’s free now,’ he says. ‘What he really needs is a bloody secretary.’

  He laughs at his own joke and steps back outside. I’ve seen his face before, I know I have, but I can’t think where. When I ask Malo, he shakes his head. No idea.

  Saucy is pleased to see us. With the exception of the flowers, which have disappeared, not much in the room has changed. The patient is still in a neck brace, his arm is still pointing skywards, and he’s still on a catheter, but the moment we step into the room I know I’m looking at a different man. He seems younger. Much of the pain that was so evident last time appears to have gone. His voice is stronger too, and he’s mastered the art of speaking in whole sentences without having to stop and draw breath.

  He pats the sheet for me to take a seat and pouts his lips for a kiss. I oblige on both counts. The swelling around his left eye has settled down. He’s looking hard at Malo.

  ‘Sorry about last time, son. Not at my best.’

  Malo shrugs the apology away, says it’s not a problem. Saucy manages a grin.

  ‘Fucking bikes. That’s over. In this life, son, you get to know your limits. Once is enough.’

  Saucy asks me to pass him the cup on his bedside table. It’s plastic, sealed top with a bendy straw, the kind you give to young kids. He sucks it greedily while I hold the cup. Afterwards he’s dribbling what looks like orange juice but Malo is on hand again with the tissues. What a team.

  Saucy seems pleased. He gives my hand a squeeze and settles back against the pillows.

  ‘Know how many hits that piece on YouTube got?’ he says brightly. ‘Over a million. A million. In this world it pays to make enemies but a million is way over the top. Should I be flattered? Is that a compliment?’

  I tell him it’s a sign of the times. People love seeing others come to grief. He ignores the comment. My red beret seems to intrigue him.

  ‘You cold or something? Why don’t you take it off?’

  I remove the beret. My hair has begun to grow again, a soft brown fuzz under my fingertips. Saucy is gazing at the line of stitches.

  ‘You, too?’ he says at last. ‘Too quick into the corner?’

  Malo laughs. I shake my head. Saucy wants to know more – demands to know more. I explain about the tumour, the operation, and coming to in a room much like this.

  ‘You mean cancer? In the brain?’ He seems to be taking the news personally.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Shit. I never knew.’

  ‘I never told you.’

  ‘Yeah, but … your brain? You had a headache? You couldn’t think straight? Then everything went black? Is that what happens?’

  ‘More or less.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘Now’s different. You take things for granted before. Plus all the wrong things matter far too much. Work. Disappointments. Crap reviews. That’s all gone. Thanks to my little visitor.’

  ‘That stuff used to get to you? Are you serious?’

  ‘Of course. And it gets to everyone, no matter how much smoke they blow up your backside.’

  He rolls his eyes. There’s wonderment in his face, as well as surprise.

  ‘But you were beautiful,’ he says. ‘You were so beautiful. You still are. Even fucking bald you’re beautiful. Can I say that? Do you mind?’

  ‘Not at all.’ I gaze down at him. He looks like a child. He might be Malo’s age when the marriage first went seriously wrong, maybe even younger. What I’m seeing, what I’m hearing, is hard to associate with the darker bits of Mitch’s description. This man has killed people? Hurt people? Broken every rule in the book? Really?

  ‘I’ve brought a hairbrush,’ I tell him. ‘It’s nothing personal but maybe you need a bit of TLC.’

  ‘Be my guest.’ He sounds delighted.

  Malo looks on, surprised, as I bend over the bed and begin to attack the tangle of greying curls. I work slowly, exactly the way I used to with my son, using the brush to tease out knot after knot, trying not to hurt him. His scalp is bone-white beneath the matted hair. I’ve nearly finished when an orderly appears at the door. He wants to know whether we’d like tea or coffee. I say tea, Malo coffee.

  ‘Top work.’ The orderly nods down at Saucy and then shoots me a grin. ‘You want a job?’

  Moments later, I’m finished. At least half a dozen of Saucy’s hairs have ended up on the brush. I return it carefully to my bag and then perch on the side of the bed. I want to know what Saucy’s been up to all these years our paths haven’t crossed. I want to know where he lives, who he shares his life with, how he keeps himself amused. In short, I want to know everything.

  ‘Why?’

  It’s a reasonable question. I’m playing this scene way too fast. I need to take my time.

  ‘Because I’m nosy,’ I say. ‘And because I’ve never forgotten you.’

  ‘No bullshit?’

  ‘No bullshit.’

  ‘And the boy?’ He manages a tiny shift of his head in Malo’s direction.

  ‘He knows.’

  ‘Everything?’

  ‘Everything?’ My laughter is totally unforced. ‘You seduced me. You got me very drunk. And then you fucked me. That’s it. There’s nothing else to know. Except you made me laugh.’

  Saucy is frowning. This isn’t the answer he wanted. He’s looking a little bruised. I lean over and kiss him again, this time on the forehead. �
�No offence,’ I tell him, ‘but I’m still wondering about that hundred grand.’

  ‘For the mine people?’

  ‘Of course.’

  He closes his eyes for a moment or two, says nothing.

  ‘And there’s me thinking I had you for free,’ he mutters at last. ‘Talk to my accountant. I’ll give you the number. He’ll put a cheque in the post.’ The eyes open again. ‘So what else does it take, apart from money?’

  ‘To do what?’

  ‘To stay in touch.’

  I have a late supper with Mitch that night, at an Italian place in Hither Green. I called him from the train while Malo was using the toilet and described the visitor we’d so briefly met at the hospital. Thinning hair. Rimless glasses. Nice shoes. Purple tie. Purple watch strap. Now, over seafood pasta and a bottle of Soave, Mitch spreads a handful of photos beside my plate.

  ‘Him,’ I say without hesitation. I’m pointing to a suited figure on a raised stage. He has his arm around a tall, blonde woman in late middle age. She’s wearing a purple rosette. They’re both waving to what I assume must be an audience.

  His name, according to Mitch, is Erik Dubarry, Erik with a ‘k’, though his real name is Derrick Johnson. He’s been one of the more anonymous figures in the wings of the pantomime that is UKIP and Mitch, as ever, seems to know everything about him.

  ‘Long-time mate of Prentice. Businessman in his own right. Yorkshire born and bred. Brewery interests in the North East and a huge property portfolio, mainly in seaside towns. This is the guy who buys all those rundown hotels that no one wants and converts them into DSS. Our masters wouldn’t thank us for saying so but without the likes of Dubarry, these people would be sleeping in the streets.

  ‘And the UKIP link?’

  ‘He was early on the bus. I’m not sure there’s a political bone in his body but he’s like so many of the rest of them. Boil the offer down. Press the right buttons. England for the English. Take back control. Don’t let Brussels steal our money. Immigrants back where they belong. You can write this stuff in your sleep and people like Dubarry didn’t take much notice until UKIP started winning votes. At that point they realized that they could really get under the Establishment’s skin and that’s when the cheque books came out.’

  ‘And you’re telling me Saucy’s part of this?’

  ‘Prentice is part of anything that threatens to get out of hand. He can’t resist a ruck, even now. That’s been the appeal of UKIP. They promised to get stuck in and that’s exactly what they’ve done. The Tories never saw them coming. Not really. They dismissed them as a bunch of fruitcakes and it never occurred to them for a millisecond that they might lose the referendum. They thought people would vote with their wallets. The one thing they never took on board was that most of those wallets were empty. That was the genius of UKIP. People had literally nothing to lose so why not stick it to the rich bastards? Prentice understood that. He got rich by screwing the poor guys. He knows the way the trick works because he understands the kind of lives that quite a lot of people lead. We’re not talking drugs here. We’re not even talking unemployment. You can get a job these days, even two jobs, and still have trouble paying the rent. Prentice and his mates know that. They’re pushing at an open door. Show them a glimpse of the Promised Land, wind them up about the fat cats, about the London political set, about the blokes in suits that make all the decisions, and they’ll vote in their millions. That’s music to Prentice’s ears. Talk to him about the issues, about the small print, about trade treaties and preferential tariffs and all the rest of it and he’ll go to sleep on you. Show him the way to give the suits a good kicking and he’s your friend for life. These people have money, lots of money, and that puts them in a very special place.’

  Gradually it’s dawned on me that Mitch is seriously angry. He hates people like Prentice because he hates what they’re doing to the country. This is mayhem for mayhem’s sake, he seems to be saying. This is politics waged like the Pompey away-games where he first tasted blood. I also get the feeling that Mitch doesn’t entirely trust me any more. He senses that Saucy may have turned my head again and he’s exceptionally keen to make a course correction or two. He wants me to know that Prentice and his mates are out of control. They’re rich. They don’t care who they upset. And they have absolutely no interest in the real-life consequences of what they’re up to. We’re a year or two away from catastrophe, he says. And no one knows what to do.

  Catastrophe is a very big word. I ask him what, exactly, it means.

  ‘Brexit,’ he says simply. ‘Telling Europe to fuck off. Turning our backs on what makes life sweet. Assuming we can pig out at someone else’s trough. You really think Trump won’t screw us? You really believe the Indians will do a deal without a trillion work visas? This is madness. Dubarry knows it. Prentice knows it. And that makes them very happy.’

  ‘Because …?’

  ‘Because there’ll be rich pickings in the wreckage and they all know it. In five years, maybe ten, there won’t be a National Health Service worth the name. All gone. All privatized. All in the hands of big business. The same with education. With care of the elderly. With parks and pot holes and rubbish collection and libraries and the rest of it. The world we take for granted will be gone and all you’ll hear from the likes of Prentice will be laughter. You think I’m joking?’ He suddenly looks up, mid-sentence, and gets to his feet. ‘This is Sayid,’ he says. ‘If you want to know about consequences, you’re looking at an expert.’

  So I finally get to meet Sayid, Mitch’s housemate and partner. He’s tall. He’s wearing a pair of grey trackie bottoms and a loose crew-neck top. His head is shaved and his skin is the lightest shade of olive. He moves with the grace and poise of a natural athlete and he also has what a publicist of mine once called ‘a melting smile’. One could do a lot worse than fall in love with a vision like this, I think. Assuming you had any choice in the matter.

  He apologizes for interrupting our meal. He’s been running on Blackheath and has somehow misplaced his keys. I’m listening hard. The clue is in the language. Not lost. Misplaced. Mitch dismisses his apologies and insists he join us. The waiter brings an orange juice and a menu. Sayid says no to food but sips the juice. After Mitch’s little diatribe, the passion has gone out of the conversation but we have a quietly civilized exchange of views on the iniquities of Home Office harassment of asylum seekers.

  The restaurant is barely a quarter full but Sayid is clearly ill at ease sitting here in his running gear. He keeps glancing over his shoulders at other diners, at the door, at the street outside, and as soon as he’s finished the juice I push my plate to one side and tell Mitch I have to go.

  ‘You mean home?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You can’t.’

  ‘Why on earth not?’

  ‘It’s the fifteenth,’ he says. ‘Cassini left us this afternoon.’

  We take an Uber back to Mitch’s place. The driver seems to think the company might be in trouble in London but Mitch won’t have it. Too many drivers. Too many customers. A tweak to the terms of employment and everything will be fine. Sayid says nothing during the journey. He’s like an unpresence in the back of the cab, a shadow of a man with nothing to say. Even his sweat smells divine.

  In Mitch’s kitchen, a major surprise. Sayid turns out to be a gifted cake-maker, and he’s presented his landlord and lover with a very personal take on Saturn. Strictly speaking it’s only half a planet, cut through at the equator to sit neatly on the presentation plate, but the delicate shades of ochre and blue are perfectly rendered and he’s even added two rings carefully sculpted from the icing he had left. Best of all is a tiny Cassini lookalike he’s whittled from the remains of a discarded window frame he says he found in Mitch’s shed. I stand in the kitchen, lost for words. Is there no end to this man’s talents?

  Mitch, I know, is touched. He’s been out all day on various assignments and he’d no idea of the surprise in store. He wants to know how S
ayid could possibly have kept a secret like this when their lives are so closely interlinked. Sayid smiles. He’s sparing when it comes to conversation but his eyes – the deepest brown – fill in the gaps between words.

  ‘It’s a trick you have to learn,’ he murmurs, ‘in this country.’

  ‘Cake making?’ I ask.

  ‘Discretion. London is a big city. I’m good at keeping secrets.’

  Mitch produces a bottle of Moët. Sayid sticks to juice from the fridge. When he finds a knife for the cake he insists that I do the honours. Cutting into the perfect half-sphere, I marvel at the skill that went into its creation. This is Big Bang all over again, I tell him. A second go at confecting Saturn from the dust and debris of deep space.

  ‘I found a mould at the care home,’ he says. ‘After that it was simple.’

  The cake is delicious. Mitch pulls the curtains tight against passers-by before we troop into the sitting room. His anger has gone now. He’s softer, gentler, something I put down to the presence of Sayid. I’ve acquired a lot of gay friends in my career and I’ve always noticed how comfortable they are around their partners. Mitch and Sayid are the same. Their obvious affection is unforced. They touch each other a lot – nothing heavy, nothing sending a message, simply a hand lingering briefly on an arm or a thigh. They sit together on the battered old sofa, companionable, enjoying the cake, sharing each other’s days. Being part of this, being so wholly accepted, feels like a privilege as well as a pleasure. Nice people. The best.

  I ask about Aleppo. I spent some time there before the war when we were shooting the movie in Palmyra. I remember the souk and the dust of early evening that turned the sunsets into magical shades of gold. It was a lovely city, proof that ancient civilizations can teach us how to live better lives.

  ‘You think so?’

  I can’t make out what lies behind Sayid’s smile. I don’t want to trespass on this man’s past, I don’t want to ask the obvious questions about what it must be like to lose everything you count as precious, but at the same time I’m becoming horribly aware that nothing is forever. We need to ask ourselves the harder questions, I tell myself. We need to be braver, more candid. That’s why I forced Malo to a decision about his young life. Be bold. Make friends with the truth. Because everything else, in a phrase that might have dropped from Saucy’s lips, is bollocks.