The Afterparty

by Leo Benedictus

  Yours, as ever,

  Val x

  * * *

  From: williammendez75@gmail.com

  To: valerie.morrell@nortonmorrell.co.uk

  Subject: Re: Need that decision

  Date: Sunday, 13 December 2009 00:40:23

  Dear Valerie,

  What can I say? First of all: congratulations, you’re right. William Mendez is not my real name. And it is a great relief to say so. Secondly, yes, I do have my reasons. Nothing dramatic or exciting, I fear, but sufficient to prevent me from meeting you, or the publishers, for the moment. I would love to be more open, but, for now, I can’t.

  If this means you can’t represent me either, of course, then there will be no hard feelings. But I do still desperately want to make a deal, so if you or Jane or Bloomsbury or anyone can find a way around the problem I would love to hear it. Not just for the money, though that would help, but because your comments and support have only proved to me how much I do want people to read this book when I finish it. Which – honestly – won’t be long now.

  Please consider what I’ve said and let me know what you think.

  Yours,

  ‘William’

  * * *

  From: valerie.morrell@nortonmorrell.co.uk

  To: williammendez75@gmail.com

  Subject: Re: Need that decision

  Date: Monday, 14 December 2009 10:08:52

  Thank you for your honesty, whoever you are. And sorry to have badgered you so. I may be batty, but it’s nice to know I’m not completely paranoid. Will talk to Jane and Matthew to see if a solution can be found. Please do not let this raise your hopes, however. They would already be going out on a limb in buying an incomplete book, so this added complication, I expect, will snap it. Do keep the chapters coming, if you can, but do also be prepared for disappointment…

  Vx

  * * *

  From: williammendez75@gmail.com

  To: valerie.morrell@nortonmorrell.co.uk

  Subject:Chapter 8

  Date: Monday, 14 December 2009 22:14:21

  Chapter 8 – Medics

  Fingers crossed…

  Saturday, April 2 2005

  06:22

  A FUCKING SNAIL.

  Hugo looked around for something to destroy.

  A fucking, fucking, fucking … snail.

  He glared at the tousled silk, ruffled now by wind that hid the creature’s trail within its folds. And for a dead moment, he allowed himself to wonder if he had imagined it. That tight brown curl of crust perched upon its rain-grey muscle, straining forward through a skirt of slime. Had these been the weavings of exhaustion? The paramedic’s demolition arm, a frustrated gesture: could it have been aimed at empty air? Hugo was tired.

  He looked again. But it was obvious. Obvious if you knew. No shell, no. But there, where two soft ripples ought to billow separately, they didn’t. Inside that space was something sticky. It was obvious if you knew.

  The paramedics worked fast, bulleting letters and numbers to each other, and jotting them with ballpoint pens on to their gloves.

  They knew.

  And behind them, Mike stood looking on, holding his arms with an unnatural stillness, like a volunteer dragged up on stage. On the sternum of his shirt a small cream speck of puke had stuck, from where it leached a dark surrounding blot. He glanced back up at Hugo. He knew.

  And now he was silently mouthing something, repeating it overtly with his clumsy rubber lips.

  Mumble mumble … at a snail?

  Hugo nodded very slightly just to make him stop. And noticed, as his eyes slid round in doing so, that Mellody – perhaps – was watching.

  He stopped nodding.

  Stopped too quickly maybe?

  He was panicking. Making mistakes.

  He needed Renée. Her tyranny was called for. Could he ring her now? Would that be seen as callous? Would that be seen? He needed action, some steady line of purpose from which to hang his thoughts. Then he almost – dear God, almost – found himself offering the paramedics each a cup of tea.

  Or, ‘Is he dead?’

  He could say that. That surely was the most important question.

  And yet he did not trust himself to ask it. The words would come out wrinkled with anxiety, yes – but it must be the right kind. Not the eager panic that he felt, a restive vulture hopping on its claws. He must be the brave spectator, watching, iterating his rosary of regret. If only … if only … if only … if only … Oh yes indeed, he almost smiled, he could count off a few of those.

  ‘Is he dead?’ he said.

  The paramedics worked fast, said nothing.

  Hugo did not find encouragement in their faces.

  Perhaps – and this was a promising possibility – perhaps they had not really noticed the snail at all? Perhaps that brushing-off had been an act of instinct, already half-forgotten, lost within the matters at hand. The implications, at any rate, surely could not yet have been assembled.

  How fast were snails anyway?

  Slow. Famous for it.

  But fast enough to slither, what, at least two feet, before the ambulance arrived?

  Whatever. No medic with so young a corpse beside them could be considering such matters. They would surely for the moment still be on his side. Yet the man and woman’s concentrated faces did not look like those of friends. In itself, this was not uncommon: the proud, the practical, the underpaid, such people often liked to flaunt their lack of reverence in Hugo’s company. It can’t have been a pleasure wading through those rancid paps at such an early time of day. But still he thought he smelled distrust. And it did not help that Mike kept such a guilty distance, or that Mellody was loitering beside him with her droopy girl concern. Could the paramedics read her pinprick eyes? The signs looked parodically obvious to Hugo in the morning sun. It was all so humiliating. As if these sensible professionals had been summoned here not principally to clear up their mess, but more to shame them all for making it. What once had been his garden now had become their place to work and tut. The site of one more wasted life. One more misadventure.

  ‘Is he dead?’ Mellody asked it this time.

  ‘Is he dead?’ Hugo said.

  … yes, Calvin did look kind of dead. Made of death. Like that stuff Steve Klein used to do. Beautiful but sad.

  No: beautiful because sad.

  Broken. Eyes closed and vanquished. Unfluttering lids of skin shielding a victim’s wisdom.

  Sometimes she envied the dead.

  ‘Is he dead?’ she said.

  ‘It’s very serious,’ the man said, after a pause. ‘We’re doing everything we can. Is he married? Are any of you family?’

  ‘No,’ Mellody said.

  Calvin’s family. Hugo had not thought of them before.

  ‘Do any of you know where to reach them?’

  Mellody, Mike and Hugo all shook their heads.

  ‘Does he have a mobile phone?’ The man was at work. He knew what to do.

  ‘He did …’ Mellody began slowly, her words drifting idly downstream. ‘I mean, I don’t know where he put it.’

  ‘Renée,’ Hugo almost shouted, hurrying with relief towards the basement doors. ‘She’ll have the number for his record label.’

  He went in, scooped up his own phone, held down 5 and listened to the familiar numeric chirrup as it dialled.

  The skin on his neck was cold.

  Ringing.

  What time was it?

  Ringing.

  Usually it was Renée who woke him up at dawn.

  Ringing.

  … Surely she would pick up?

  Ringing.

  She must pick up.

  ‘Hugo!’ Renée’s voice. An overmeasure of alertness in it, an attempt to hide the fact she’d been asleep.

  ‘Hi,’ he said, not knowing how to begin.

  ‘What’s up?’

  Once before, reshooting Sinbad, Hugo had known a now like this. Drinking out a long weather delay with the director, he ha
d flippantly suggested that he leap in person from the pirate ship’s high mast if the moment ever came to film that scene. Two days later, he was taken at his word. The thirty-foot fall, they told him, had been sanctioned by the film’s insurers, and everyone was waiting eagerly. Immediately, he knew the deed was just too frightening to be done, yet he agreed to climb up for confirmation with the stunt co-ordinator. And when he got there, and gazed out across the quiet waves that stretched as far as he could see behind his crash mat, the knowledge struck him. His standing on this picture – perhaps across the industry forever – now teetered on a point in time. This one. Now.

  ‘Erm,’ he said. ‘Something terrible has happened.’

  ‘Calvin? Blink if you can hear me Calvin?’

  They had done that already. Why were they doing it again?

  ‘Try wriggling your fingers or toes, Calvin.’

  Stillness.

  The purple crescent moon of entry inked upon his hand.

  There was one on her hand too.

  Mellody looked at it.

  ‘OK,’ said Renée. ‘Something terrible has happened.’ It was just a calm restatement.

  ‘You know Calvin Vance?’ Hugo began. ‘Mellody brought him back to the house.’

  ‘Yes. What’s he done?’

  ‘Nothing … I don’t know … Anyway, I mean, he’s had an accident. He hit his head and fell off the roof. Mike tried to grab his legs and …’ There was only one important word, and Hugo nearly could not bear to use it. ‘… I think maybe he’s dead.’

  Silence.

  ‘This is the young guy, right? X-Factor?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Silence.

  ‘When did this happen?’

  ‘Just now.’ Hugo scratched his neck and leaned awkwardly against the thick French doors. ‘The ambulance guys are outside with him.’

  ‘Ambulance guys?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why didn’t you call me before?’

  ‘Jesus, Renée! I’m calling you now.’

  ‘OK. OK.’

  ‘Anyway, look, they said we should get in touch with his family. And none of us know who they are. Could you call his record label and get them on to it?’

  Some gasps and exertions indicated that Renée was getting out of bed.

  ‘I’m coming over,’ she said.

  ‘OK. But you’ll call his label, right? I think,’ Hugo sought the right words, ‘you know, that we should make sure we do the right thing.’

  ‘Yes. And I’m coming over.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Just wait there. Be helpful. Don’t say anything to anyone until I arrive, OK?’

  ‘OK.’

  Mike was sidling towards him.

  ‘Oh, but Renée!’ Hugo shouted urgently into the phone.

  ‘Yes?’ She was still there.

  ‘What if the police come? I mean, I can’t exactly refuse to talk to them. Wouldn’t that look suspicious?’

  ‘Of course you should talk to the police, Hugo. Have you called them?’

  ‘No. It was an accident, and …’

  ‘Fine. Well, if they show up, just co-operate, be nice, and wait for me to get there. But don’t go calling anyone else, OK? And make sure none of the others do either.’

  ‘It’s only me, Mellody and Mike here.’

  ‘Good. OK. See you in twenty minutes.’

  ‘See you then.’

  Mike stood before the open door, gaze on the ground, shoulders pinched forward and narrow, arms digging deep into his trouser pockets. He looked up when Hugo finished the call, saying nothing. Then his eyes burrowed back into the grass for cover.

  ‘Renée is going to talk to Calvin’s people,’ Hugo said.

  ‘What are we going to do?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  This was getting irritating. Would this guy ever pull himself together?

  ‘I want to tell the truth,’ Mike said.

  ‘What do you mean you want to tell the truth? We have told the truth. Don’t close the door!’

  Mike’s hand sprang away from the handle. Behind him, the garden quietly breathed.

  ‘Hugo …,’ he began.

  ‘Look.’ Hugo did not want to listen or explain. ‘Renée will be here soon. Let’s just sit tight until then.’ If he was a hypocrite, then it was Mike that made him so.

  In the distance, Mellody appeared to be bending down over the body. Speaking, it appeared. And the male paramedic was speaking to her.

  ‘You’re going to be OK.’

  She wasn’t supposed to touch, but she could say it.

  ‘Don’t worry, everything’s going to be OK. The doctors are here, and they’ll look after you. Just, you know …’

  She was going to say relax. But was that right? Perhaps it was a battle in there? You couldn’t see with the tubes and stuff all over him. Maybe he was tired and ready to give up? So tired. Like in films. Maybe to relax meant to surrender? And it made a big difference that stuff, in the mind. Her grandfather had had a stroke nine months after retiring, when Mellody was starting out. Just didn’t want the freedom, I guess, Grandma had said, not with sympathy, at the funeral.

  ‘… just … stay,’ she said.

  Poor boy.

  The medics hoisted hard at each end of the stretcher. Hoisted kind of roughly, Mellody thought.

  ‘Where are you taking him?’ she asked.

  ‘Trauma unit.’

  The woman was holding up a bag of fluid with her teeth and backing rapidly towards the kitchen.

  ‘I’d like to come.’

  ‘It’s better if you stay here, madam,’ the man replied. ‘He’s in good hands.’

  ‘Could you open the door for us, please?’ the woman said, interrupting any protests.

  Mellody stepped round to take the handle and scuttled inwards with it, crushing herself into the wall. Through the pane, she saw Calvin’s head flicker past into the kitchen, encased in a padded orange box. An hour or so ago, she and that broken boy were having sex. She could still feel the trace of him.

  ‘What is Calvin’s surname?’ the man asked.

  Mellody realised that she didn’t know.

  ‘Um … I can find out?’ she said.

  ‘That’s OK. When you find his family, just tell them to call Charing Cross Hospital.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘You’ve got that, yeah? Charing Cross Hospital.’

  ‘I got it.’

  They had reached the front door. Mellody opened it.

  Photographers clustered round the ambulance. Flashes and shouts.

  The crew stepped briskly down the path.

  Mellody watched Calvin’s disappearing body.

  She closed the door.

  ‘Uh … we need to find Calvin’s family!’ she shouted to the house.

  And again, stumbling across the hall: ‘We need to find his family!’

  With a dreamy determination, she tried to supervise her feet, which swayed and sped regardless, bouncing her against the banisters, the wall, and finally into her husband’s large, unloving hold.

  ‘Where are they?’ she demanded of his face.

  ‘Jesus, Mell. Calm down,’ it said. ‘Renée is on her way. She’s calling Calvin’s label so they can call his family.’

  ‘What …’ breathlessly, ‘the fuck happened?’

  Hugo sighed, as though bored by the question.

  ‘What the fuck happened?’ she repeated. Such effort it took.

  ‘We went up on to the roof …’ Mike began, but Hugo spoke over him:

  ‘He was wasted, Mellody, OK? He was lying over the edge of the roof when we got up there. Mike went over to see if he was OK, and he just fell off. I doubt he could even walk, to be honest. What the fuck had you given him?’

  ‘Why …’ She was beginning to crumble. She knew the signs, little shifts and settlings, a burning building’s intimations of collapse. ‘Why didn’t you call the ambulance? Before?’

  ‘It would have made no diff
erence. You saw him.’

  A gloomy acquiescence held.

  ‘He might die,’ Mellody managed to say.

  ‘Mm?’ said Hugo. He seemed not to have heard.

  ‘They think he might die, Hugo. He’s got spinal damage, um, ineffective breathing … um …’ What had that woman said into her radio? ‘… suspected subjural … heema …’

  ‘But he’s not dead?’ Mike’s eyes were wide. His and Hugo’s faces looked kind of blue.

  ‘No,’ she reassured them. ‘There is … um … ineffective breathing, and …’

  ‘Oh,’ said Hugo. ‘Good.’

  They were blue. Everything was blue, flashing blue.

  ‘It’s the police,’ Mike said.

  For a moment, Michael heard nothing. He was deafened by a pressure wave of joy. Innocent: a word for children and for passers-by. And now he knew it as a feeling. He was innocent. Calvin was alive. And he was innocent.

  ‘But he’s not dead?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ said Mellody. ‘There is …’ she hesitated, unsteady on her feet, ‘ineffective breathing, and …’

  ‘Oh good,’ said Hugo.

  Trying to be so cool about it. Like he cared. Like Calvin was what mattered here. The too-calm tone. Those tightened cords of brow. Michael saw it all. Oh yes. Very good. The lizardly relief. There had been no such signs of sympathy before.

  From the street, an urgent perforating light.

  ‘It’s the police,’ Michael said, referring quickly to the screens.

  And even now, as he looked back at Mellody and Hugo, he saw that they were beautiful. Blonde and brown; she quite tall, he taller. Her powdered slenderness, though gripped there, fitting in his torso’s groove. His negligently dashing grade of beard. Such specimenship, never better seen than in its mussing up.

  For a while, they just stood looking as he looked at them.

  But from outside, and rising, a jostled hum was leaking in, broken through with shouts that burst like bubbles of excitement on the surface.