Off Script

by Graham Hurley

  ‘My friend?’

  ‘Pavel.’

  ‘Ah … so where do you exercise?’

  ‘Mainly the gym. Early mornings, I run.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Sandy Bay. Miles of beach and not a soul anywhere. If you get running right, it becomes hallucinogenic. Running back, you meet yourself. Maybe it’s the endorphins, I dunno …’

  I’m exploring the tight little whorls of hair on his belly now. I can feel him stirring beneath my chin. Running back, you meet yourself. Interesting.

  ‘This boxing,’ I murmur. ‘Do you like hurting people?’

  ‘I like beating them. I like winning. I like ending up on top. Hurting them? Not unless I have to.’

  ‘It’s a control thing, then. Alpha male? Top dog? Am I getting warm here?’

  ‘Whatever.’ He shrugs. ‘You’re a clever woman. But I knew that from the start.’

  ‘In the pub, you mean?’

  ‘Of course. A single look tells you everything in life. The rest is conversation.’

  ‘So, what did you see?’ The question is shameless, but I don’t care.

  ‘I saw someone who excited me.’

  ‘I’m flattered.’

  ‘And who made me want to know more.’

  ‘Excellent. And what have you found out?’

  ‘Lots. All of it good.’

  I try and press him further. I want details. I want to know what ‘good’ means. But he simply smiles and says nothing. Then I change the subject.

  ‘You have proper fights? A ring? A referee? The crowd yelling for blood? All that?’

  ‘Of course.’ He nods. ‘That’s all part of it. It’s a turn-on. You’re in the arena. It’s primitive.’

  ‘And you love it?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘And you always win?’

  ‘God, no.’

  ‘So, does losing hurt?’

  ‘Yes, but not in the way you might think. Physically, you’re knackered, but you’re still full of adrenalin so you can’t feel a thing. The place it really hurts is up here …’ His big hands cup my head. ‘And that’s probably worse.’

  ‘You stay friends with these people? Win or lose?’

  ‘Sometimes. Some of them are arseholes and boxing won’t change that. Others?’ He shrugs. ‘They’re OK.’

  ‘Does Boysie box?’

  ‘He tried once. My fault. He got hammered.’

  ‘By you?’

  ‘Of course. That’s what he wanted and that’s what he got.’

  ‘You’re ruthless, Mr Deko.’ I glance briefly up at him. ‘But that can be a turn-on sometimes. A favour?’

  ‘Name it.’

  ‘Do you ever fuck Boysie? Just a nod will do.’

  He looks at me for a long moment, and then he nods.

  ‘Good?’ I ask.

  ‘Different.’

  ‘Good answer.’

  I take him in my mouth and hear a little groan of pleasure. Delight? Definitely. Surprise? I doubt it. An invitation not to stop? Of course.

  I explore every part of him, very slowly, very gently, nearly teasing but not quite. In the ring, I’m guessing this might qualify as a round or two of playful sparring. I’m beginning to admire his stamina, his ability to hang on, when he reaches out and eases me towards him.

  ‘A favour?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Sit on my face?’

  ‘A pleasure.’

  I abandon his erection and straddle his big face, making myself comfortable. I’m wet within seconds under his busy tongue, and as I settle a little lower, moving my hips very slowly, back and forth, then a little sideways, then back and forth again, trying to marry myself to his lapping tongue, but I needn’t worry because he’s found my sweet spot already. He starts making little sucking noises, the lightest pressure, and the sensation is beyond delicious.

  ‘Good?’ he wants to know.

  I choose not to ruin the moment with anything as banal as an answer. Moments later, to my huge surprise, I come, a deep jolt of hotness that floods every part of me. I gasp, groan, hang my head over the cushion at the end of the sofa, and somewhere fathomless, way down inside me where there’s no such thing as a lie, I know that this has been the best. Seriously. The best ever.

  He’s smiling up at me, his face wet. He knows, I think.

  ‘Again?’

  ‘Yes, please. Just give me a minute or two. Blame my mum. She hated greed.’

  We lie together, side by side. There’s just room on the sofa. After a while, he stirs and I know he’s ready for another round. Ding, ding, I think. Seconds out.

  ‘You’re very generous.’ I kiss him lightly on the end of his nose. ‘And you’re a lovely man, but I think it’s my turn.’

  ‘We need to fuck.’

  ‘I know. But there’s something on my mind and I need to share it with you.’

  His face is very close and for a split-second I glimpse, or I think I glimpse, something close to alarm in those deep-set eyes.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I tell him, ‘it won’t hurt.’

  He’s frowning now. I very badly don’t want to wreck this moment. A fuck – slow, intense, much-anticipated – is exactly what we’re ready for. But there’s a single question I have to ask him before this movie reaches the final reel.

  ‘I’ve been interviewed by the police again,’ I say. ‘They’ve been going through her phone billing, her emails, checking out the people she’s been talking to. One of them appears to be you.’

  ‘We’re talking about Carrie?’ He’s staring at me.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That can’t be true. I don’t know any Carrie. Otherwise I’d have told you.’

  ‘That’s what I thought.’

  ‘Then what’s the problem?’

  ‘It turns out she had another name. Amy.’

  ‘Amy Phelps?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s different. Of course I know Amy.’

  ‘Knew.’

  ‘Knew. Amy was the matron of the home I bought.’

  ‘So why did she change her name?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. We had a business relationship. I’d taken a look at the property when it was still up and running. I needed someone to mark my card, explain one or two things. Amy knew the place inside out. She was happy to help.’

  I nod. I’m trying to put a name – an adjective – to the way I’m feeling. Relieved is too small a word.

  Deko reads me like the proverbial book.

  ‘You think we were close? Me and Amy? Some kind of relationship?’

  ‘I was wondering why you never mentioned her.’

  ‘So now you know. Was she a looker, Amy? Yes, she was. Was she any man’s wet dream? Again, yes. Was she the goddess windsurfer who turned every fucking head on the beach? Yes, yes, yes. And would this woman, this vision, have room in her life for a fifty-something Dutchman with no manners and no money? Alas, no.’

  We’re very close. I can touch him, smell him, taste him. I’ve asked my question, sought an answer, listened very hard, and I’ve believed every word. This man, I tell myself, has brought me nothing but pleasure. Please God, spare me losing yet another person in my life.

  ‘Fuck me?’ I run a finger over his lips. ‘Please?’

  TWENTY-NINE

  I stay the night with Deko. The gado-gado is a marvel of precision, perfectly balanced, not too sweet. The peanut sauce – fittingly enough – is to die for, and when Deko asks for the verdict I tell him he’s a genius. Afterwards, we drink far too much Spanish brandy. We fall into bed and I sleep like a baby, waking up after dawn with a mouth like a sewer and a thumping head. Throwing up in a downstairs loo, currently without a door, turns out to be a good idea. Deko fills the resulting hole with bacon and eggs, plus a side order of beans on toast, and by nine o’clock I’m back at the apartment, ready for anything. Which is just as well.

  My relationship with the media over the years has been a bit like the curate’s egg, good in
parts and rubbish in others. When my movies were playing to full houses, I held court to the usual circus of showbiz interviewers. Some were acute, funny, and knew how to turn a phrase or two. The ones who liked me suppressed their reservations about a particular scene or the director’s heavy hand and did my budding career nothing but good. Others weren’t shy in naming their price for a good review. I remember one woman, not young, who claimed she could put me in the running for an Oscar. ‘Sleep with me,’ she promised, ‘and the world will be yours.’

  It never happened, of course, and more recently – with my name no longer in lights and my career flat-lining – I attracted a journalist of a very different kind. His name was Mitch Culligan and he stepped into my life at the very moment my tumour upped its game and threatened to kill me. Most journalists have an agenda and for Mitch that involved changing the world. The scale of this ambition was matched only by his work rate and his sheer dedication, both of which I admired greatly. He was an easy person to like, less easy to work with. When it mattered, he could be kindness itself and I was very grateful for that, but as I quickly learned, all good journos have the writer’s chip of ice in their hearts. When needs must, they can stitch you up and a longish association with Mitch, to be frank, turned into a bit of a nightmare. I liked him to the end and very occasionally, even now, we still share the odd coffee.

  All of this should have prepared me for Seb O’Leary, but it didn’t. A message is waiting for me on Pavel’s landline at the apartment. O’Leary sounds way past middle age. His voice carries just a hint of an American accent. He works, he says, for a leading broadsheet and he’s been tasked by his editor to put pen to paper and come up with something nutritious on the mental health crisis. In this context, he’s noticed rum goings-on down in leafy Exmouth. His understanding is that I, thesp extraordinaire, may have something to say about a vagrant youth everyone appears to call Moonie. Might I have the time and disposition for a chat?

  This message is on the long side and there are a number of key words, all of them – I suspect – deliberately planted. One is ‘nutritious’. Does that mean ‘meaty’, as in sensational? Or life-sustaining, which is what you might expect of a snack? ‘Rum goings-on’ is another marker, slightly louche, the work of a metropolitan eye cast regally in our direction. ‘Thesp extraordinaire’ suggests he’s been on Google, which is what any journo would do, but the real clue is the word ‘vagrant’. Just the sound of it, the weight it so carelessly carries, its brief dalliance with everyone’s lazy expectations, makes my blood boil. Karen’s boy may technically be a vagrant, but the truth is far, far more complex.

  ‘I was rather hoping I might come to your place,’ he says when I call. ‘The coffee here is crap.’

  ‘Where’s here?’

  ‘The Premier Inn.’

  I tell him there’s no question of meeting chez moi. It’s the Premier Inn or nothing.

  ‘So be it,’ he says. ‘The restaurant’s empty by ten o’clock.’

  I turn up at quarter past. He’s sitting sideways at a table by the window, reading a copy of Le Monde. I wasn’t wrong about his age. He wears half-moon glasses and the scabby damage around his hairline tells me that, over the years, he’s spent far too long in the sun. The denim jacket might suit a much younger man but it’s impossible not to admire the scuffed leather of his cowboy boots. As he looks up, he reaches for the tall glass of Pernod on the table.

  ‘You speak French?’ Uninvited, I take a seat.

  ‘Oui. I also have a flat in Paris. Nineteenth arrondissement, Quai de Jemmapes, but that’s another story. I’ve been in the States a while. Montana. Know it at all? If I’d ever had an ounce of common fucking sense, back in the day, I should have been a wrangler out there, run cattle, maybe ranched. Instead …’ He gestures at the pad open on the table. ‘This shit. Iraq? Afghanistan? Fucking Syria? Give me a break. I’ve done time in them all, and I mean time, but one crushed infant too many and you get a little jaded. Not that here is any better. I’ve been back from the States for less than a fortnight and already this poxy little country depresses me, and so does France now that they’ve let Le Pen and her tribe into the dress fucking circle. Yep,’ he nods, ‘Montana, for sure. You want to buy a flat in the Nineteenth? Third floor? Decent resto next door? Three hundred grand and it’s yours. I’ll phone my lawyer. We’ll sort something out.’

  I tell him not to bother. If this man is trying to impress me, it hasn’t worked. Am I supposed to have heard of Seb O’Leary? Have I been missing something all these years?

  ‘So why Exmouth?’ I ask him. ‘And why me?’

  He folds the paper and reaches for his pad. It’s quickly evident that he’s already picked up most of this story’s threads. He knows, in some detail, what happened to Carrie. Like everyone else in the world, he seems to regard Moonie as the prime suspect. Much to my surprise, he even knows about Pavel’s stroke.

  ‘You’ve been talking to the police,’ I say. ‘That’s where you got Pavel’s number.’

  ‘Of course. Our friends in blue can’t do without us. The wrong kind of publicity and they’re twisting in the wind. The right kind, they’re smelling of fucking roses. You want a peek at those files of theirs? Easy. You find their sweet spot, work out what’s bugging them, and they’re all over you.’

  ‘You’re talking about the mental health thing?’

  ‘Exactly. They’re richly fucked, and they know it. The percentage of time they’re wasting on the loonies out there goes up by the day. Last week it was forty per cent. This week? Forty-five. I don’t disbelieve them for a second. And I’m very happy to help.’

  ‘So what else did they tell you? Am I allowed to ask?’

  ‘Ask what you like.’ He gestures at the pad. ‘You can write the fucking story if you want. Sad is the way I see it; sad and probably inevitable. This country’s on the skids. The only way is down and believe me it’s going to hurt. Big, big car crash. Blood everywhere.’ He leans forward and beckons me closer. I can smell the Pernod on his breath. ‘You heard it here first, right? Except that everyone else in Europe, in the States, even in fucking Moscow, maybe especially in fucking Moscow, anyone with even half a brain, they’re gonna be warming their hands at the fire.’

  ‘Fire?’ I’m lost.

  ‘Sure. The wreckers are in for the kill. They’ve kicked over the furniture and helped themselves to what’s left, and when it suits them they’ll torch the place and claim on the fucking insurance. You want to talk about the real lunatics? Look no further.’

  He sits back again, turning to stare out of the window. This, I belatedly realize, is about our current political situation. In O’Leary’s eyes, we’re evidently at the mercy of a bunch of ultras determined to clean up. This reminds me of Mitch Culligan at full throttle: the same disbelief that things have gone so far, the same despair that they may yet go a whole lot further. Mitch was obsessed about the skeletons he claimed to have discovered in UKIP’s cupboard. O’Leary, on the other hand, has settled on mental health.

  ‘In my game it’s all down to focus,’ he says, toying with his pen. ‘Anything to do with the NHS is a fucking boneyard. It’s too big, too complicated, even for the kind of punters who keep our rag going. No, when it comes to the loonies we need a name, a face, a story, and this one sounds perfect.’

  ‘You mean Moonie?’

  ‘Of course. Our Mr Moonie. He of the golden locks and bedside manner. You were there with the victim. She told you everything, right? After he’d paid her a visit?’

  ‘Her name’s Carrie,’ I point out. ‘But you know that already.’

  ‘Sure. Carrie. So, what exactly did she say?’

  I don’t like this man. I don’t like his manner, his easy assumptions, the way he’s chosen to kid himself that we’re somehow comrades-in-arms in this struggle for the nation’s soul. He thinks he’s doing me some kind of favour. He thinks I’m an easy sell.

  His pen is poised. I say nothing.

  ‘Well?’ he says at last
.

  ‘I don’t know what you want.’

  ‘You don’t? But I’ve just told you. I want to know about Carrie. I want to know what she was like. I want to know about going round to see if she was OK that afternoon. The way I see it, you have a dog in this fight, a guy called Pavel, a guy Carrie likes, trusts, looks after. She’s the carer of your dreams and without her you’re probably fucked so it’s your job to listen very hard when she tells you that story of hers. Does that make sense? Or am I wasting my time?’

  ‘You’re wasting your time.’

  ‘Why? Is it money you’re after? Let’s cut to the chase here. Be honest. Papers like mine are flat broke but there might be ways and means. Name it. How much?’

  I’m gazing at him. In truth he disgusts me, and moments later I tell him so. He physically recoils at the table and then reaches for the last of the Pernod, a slightly stagey piece of theatre that confirms my growing belief that the man is a twat.

  ‘Disgust?’ He whistles softly and looks round as if I might have someone else in mind. ‘That’s a big word. Did I hear you properly? Disgust?’

  ‘You heard perfectly. I don’t need your money and I certainly don’t need any of this crap.’ I nod down at his empty pad.

  ‘You don’t?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You think I’m talking bollocks?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’re wrong. You ever read any of my pieces from Aleppo?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Shame. I’ll send you a selection. Just give me an email address.’

  ‘Why should I?’

  ‘Because they might interest you. Because they might be relevant. Because they might persuade you that I have a listening ear, and a certain talent with language, and – dare I say it – the best of intentions. That war was evil. Pick the right victims, do their stories justice, and you’ve touched the conscience of half the fucking world. You want this mental health thing sorted? You want to do something for the memory of that poor bloody woman? Then trust me. Talk to me. Tell me the way it was.’