Remorse stabbed at his gut and twisted. For the first time in nineteen years, he let it. ‘I leaned on alcohol and then I leaned on Lissa. Never really stood alone and faced what I’d done, just buried it all, the emotion, the guilt. So, you see, I’m not much use,’ he said. Skye smelled of hot velvet and he wondered if he’d ever be able to pass an uncut moquette sofa on a warm day without thinking of her, and then frowned. That was the second time he’d compared this lovely, willowy, tragically sexy girl to a three-piece suite. ‘Really, not much use at all,’ he repeated to himself.
‘But you’ve got potential.’ Skye gave him a half-smile, which was more than he deserved, he reckoned. His heart gave a peculiar double beat which at first he mistook for lust, but then realised was hope.
A few muscles uncoiled from their rigid stance and he passed a hand over the back of his neck, almost surprised to feel the heat of his own skin. Still alive. Bleeding inside, but still alive. And with her … with Skye, I might even recover.
He raised his head, knowing that his cheeks were smeared with desert dust, knowing that his eyes probably looked like hellpits. ‘I can get you help, Geth … Tyler, you know I can. Shit, I can even help you myself, if that’s what you want.’ Using Gethryn’s real name for the first time, here like this, gave him back some of his certainty. He felt stronger now, as though some of her strength had transferred to him in that smile. ‘Get off the booze, clean up your act. Maybe do a stint in a clinic or something, yeah? Get yourself straight and maybe I can write you another part. I’ll go and see your family … I’ll do anything. I just want to make amends.’
Gethryn clambered to his feet. With his heart sinking Jack saw the giveaway signs: the lack of co-ordination, the shrunken pupils. Geth was beyond listening to whatever he had to say. He wanted revenge, pure and simple.
‘Fuck off. Leave me here. I’m gonna throw myself off, end it all. You’ve told them all about me, that I’m … what was it you said? “Unreliable, unprofessional and unencumbered by morals”, wasn’t it? Fine piece of word-play that, I’d almost admire you for it, if it didn’t mean that I’d be lucky to get a bit part in Days of our Lives. You’ve ruined my life, Jack.’
‘That’s not true.’ Jack knew it probably was, but that wouldn’t help here. ‘Come back to Britain. We’ll come up with something together, Ty.’
‘You just don’t want me to tell them, do you? Kept it quiet, never breathed a word about Ryan, let Liss think it was all news to me – I didn’t tell no-one, see. Get me Lucas James back and I might just manage to keep it all down a bit longer, might be able to see my way to “forgetting” what you did to my brother. What do you say, Jack?’ Geth held his arms wide. ‘You overlook my little habits and I’ll overlook you being a murdering son of a bitch. Okay?’
Jack felt the hope well up inside him. He could get out of this clean, get away; no-one need ever know what he’d done. All he had to do was bend a little. Make excuses. Tell everyone that Geth was re-hired and …
Her eyes. She was watching him as though she stood a million miles away, afraid to reach out because of the distance. Her dress was still stained with his tears. This woman, who’d overcome her own fears, who was building herself a new present on a shaky history. A woman whose past scarred her inside and out and yet was brave enough to be content to forget. No compromise, just moving on.
‘No,’ he said aloud, startling himself. ‘No, Tyler. You go ahead, you tell them all about me. I’ve spent nineteen years denying myself everything I should have felt back then. I pushed it all down, the guilt, the fear, even the love; I wouldn’t let any of it out in case it hurt, but now? Now I’m sick of running scared.’ He tilted his chin towards the other man. ‘Sick of living in fear. I want it out in the open. Go ahead.’
‘Skye.’ Geth’s voice was slow, like something was taking effect. Jack cursed himself for having let himself take his eye off the man. ‘Come here a second. I want to tell you something.’
‘Geth …’ Jack started forward, but Skye touched his shoulder, her simple, easy gesture paralysing him.
‘It’s okay. I’m assuming I know the worst now?’
Her eyes were so wonderful. Why had he never noticed how lovely they were? Iceman, you’ve not just melted, you’ve puddled. ‘Yeah. That was it.’ He even managed a smile. ‘And I’ve always been kind to kittens.’
‘If I find that was a lie, I’ll be very upset.’ She crossed the roof, stopping just short of where Gethryn was standing. ‘What is it? What do you want, Geth? I’ll listen, whatever. Just … just stop this.’
Gethryn took half a step forward, towards her. ‘I’ll tell you what I want,’ he said. Another step. ‘I want this over.’
And before Jack could move, react, breathe, Gethryn had seized her around the waist, thrown himself backwards, and taken them both off the edge of the roof.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
He sat alone in the white room on a chair that squeaked. From somewhere he’d found an old biro which jutted from between his teeth as he sucked and bit on it to keep the cravings at bay, cravings which crept up his spine like insects and threatened his brain. A cup of very elderly coffee occupied his hands, occasional whispers of its smell making his stomach churn.
‘Mr Whitaker?’ The nurse put her head around the door.
Jack shot to his feet, the coffee sprawling out across the tiles, the biro falling from his lips. ‘Yes. What’s happening? How is … I mean, how is she?’ His stomach turned over again, but it wasn’t at the smell of the coffee now. Cold, hard dread burned a hole through his gut, aided and abetted by hot fury.
The nurse shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, I just came to let you know that there’s not going to be any news for a while, you might as well go home.’ Her eyes flickered over the pooling coffee. ‘If there’s anything, we can call you.’
Jack embraced the fury. It ran through his blood now, overflowing and flooding every organ, rushing his brain like a tsunami. Nineteen years. Nineteen years of feeling nothing, of keeping it all shut away like a mad dog. I’m out of practice … ‘Look.’ He tried to keep the worst of the anger from his voice but he knew it was shining from his eyes by the way the nurse took a step back and held the door half-closed between them. ‘I’m staying here. I will not leave until there is something that you can tell me, all right? So, if I were you, I’d get back to that fucking Emergency Room and not leave it until you can tell me what the fuck is going on.’
His whole body was vibrating with it. The terror that had taken over his brain when he saw Skye fall hadn’t moved an inch, even though he knew she was alive, knew she was in good hands, knew all the right things were being done. It had simply changed form.
Jack went back to the squeaky chair and sat, elbows on knees, head in hands. He let himself sink just for a second into the sleep his body so desperately wanted, but the dreams were queuing up already; nineteen years of denial had built up a huge backlog of nightmares he was very afraid he was going to have to work his way through before he reached any sense of resolution. Like having to read the whole series to find out whodunit. Except, in this case, I know who. It was me.
A sad-eyed orderly came in and began sluicing a desultory mop over the coffee spill. Jack let his eyes follow the movement, its hypnotic rhythm easing more thoughts from his brain. Why did Skye touch him in a way that no-one else had? Did he have a huge case of white-knight syndrome, wanting to ride in and rescue her from her lack of a past and an uncertain future? He rocked the chair back on two legs, the plastic squealing and flexing like a heretic under torture by the Inquisition and remembered her quiet acceptance of him as he was. Remembered the touch of that velvet dress. The scent of her skin. The way she’d let him cry …
His mouth let out a sharp sound as a backwash from the anger hit and then a hand touched his knee and made him jump.
‘Skye?’
Another chair squealed in protest at a sitting body. ‘Hi, Jackie-boy. Looking like shit, if I might say so.’
Jack sank back. ‘What are you doing here, Liss?’ He didn’t want to admit that he’d thought Skye might have died and visited him as some kind of farewell. Even as a writer, that kind of imagination was frowned on.
Lissa sighed. ‘Here for Geth. You might hate him and wish him to hell but … he’s a good man, underneath it all. He’s confused, is all. And I’m … hey, I’m quite fond of him, y’know? He’s had a rough time.’ She gave another sigh and rubbed the back of a dirty hand over her cheek. ‘I want him to make it,’ she whispered.
‘Yeah.’
‘You waiting to hear about Skye?’
‘No, I’m hoping Elvis might stage a come-back tour.’ His head sank lower until all he could see was a circle of tiled floor between his feet. ‘It’s the memories, Liss.’ He spoke to a cracked tile. ‘I can’t lose them. They’ve ruined my life, and I can’t lose them. How am I supposed to do anything, live a normal life with … with anyone, when I’ve got these things following me?’
He smelled a sudden billow of perfume as Lissa moved her chair closer. ‘Memories make us what we are, Jackie. Ask your Skye, poor little chick’s scared to death that she’s not real because her memory’s all mixed up. And here’s you, scared that you’re too real, too tied to what’s gone before.’ Another hand brushed his shoulder. ‘It gets easier, y’know. When you turn around and face it. I found that when I had to look at you knowing who you were, what you were, and then after when … when I lost the baby.’ She touched his cheek with a cool hand. ‘Learn to deal, Ice. That’s all I got. Learn to deal.’
Jack felt a slow uncoiling in his chest, as though an overwound spring was losing tension. He put a hand to his throat where the leather lace felt slimy against his slick skin. ‘I’m holding it all like it defines me.’ The quiet words weren’t for Lissa, who was staring at a poster about sexually transmitted diseases. ‘I’m letting it define me.’
Without looking at him, Lissa shrugged. ‘Life, huh?’
Yes. Life. We’re pitched into it, expected to know what to do, how to cope. How to manage those situations where everything spirals down. And sometimes we just can’t adapt fast enough, it sucks us down with it and the weight of what we’ve done keeps us there. But sometimes … he traced the curve of his throat, where the lace marked a line, echoed a scar … sometimes life spirals upwards. And maybe the trick is knowing which is which …
Chapter Twenty-Nine
When I woke up, I thought I’d gone back in time. Above my head arched a drip unit, the bag swelling down into a tube I could feel somewhere in the back of my hand. Underneath me was a hard bed, my head and chest hurt and I could feel the various stings and weights of needles and bandages around my body.
When I turned my head, Felix was sitting in a chair beside me, feet up on the bed, doing a crossword. He was shirtless, wearing a neck-brace and one arm in a removable plastic cast. When I said ‘hi,’ he jumped, whipped his feet off the bed, winced, and dropped the pen.
‘Fuck, you scared me!’
Despite the various medical interventions surrounding him, he looked good, although, to be fair, he would have had to go some to have looked worse than the last time I saw him. His hair was spiked, he was clean-shaven, and he smelled of some delicious cologne. Although there were bruises along his side, they were losing their immediate puffiness and flaring into black and red.
‘How long have I been here?’
‘Look, I’m just sitting duty. Jack’s the guy you need to talk to, hang on a sec.’ Fumbling one-handed, Felix drew a mobile phone out of his grey joggers pocket and pushed a single button. It seemed to be answered almost immediately. ‘Hey. She’s awake.’ He listened for a minute. ‘No. Nothing. That’s your job, Whitaker. Two minutes.’ He hung up.
‘That’s not your phone.’ My voice sounded hoarse, crackly with disuse. My throat was dry and ached slightly and my mouth was all sticky.
‘No.’ Felix leaned forward as close as he could get with the brace and the cast. ‘It’s Jared’s.’
I blinked. ‘We’re still in America?’
‘Well, darling, this sure as hell isn’t the NHS, is it?’ Felix waved a hand to indicate the gleaming room with the impeccably tasteful wall art and the enormous plasma-screen TV in the corner. He flipped open the phone again. ‘Not unless you’ve been unconscious through several changes of government. Although I do think you should congratulate me for my farsightedness in taking out the medical insurance – have to admit I thought it might be me having to use it, but, hey, there you go.’ He waggled his eyebrows.
‘I didn’t think you were allowed to phone in hospitals,’ I croaked.
‘Yeah, ’cos it’s going to interfere with your pacemaker,’ Felix said, dialling.
‘I’ve got a pacemaker!’ The croak changed to squeak and my voice broke like a fourteen- year-old boy’s.
‘Joke. Now, shut up, this is serious. Hey, Jared. It’s me. She’s awake, I’m free. Come pick me up?’ He flipped the phone shut and got to his feet. ‘Right. Catch you later, lover.’
‘Fe.’ I managed to motion with one hand to stop him leaving. ‘How’s Gethryn?’
He avoided my eye. ‘Jack’s on his way over. You need to talk to him.’
‘I need to talk to you.’
Felix looked at me sideways. ‘It was true, you know. Everything I said about Mike and Faith. They were laughing at you.’ He sighed and his mouth twisted. ‘I hardly knew my own sister sometimes,’ he whispered. ‘So determined to hurt, to get what she wanted.’ A sudden smile and a lightening in his eyes. ‘But I guess that’s actors for you, isn’t it?’
‘From what you said I deserved it. No excuses, and it’s too late now to be sorry. If I was one tenth as bad as you said I’m not surprised that they got together; the only thing I’m surprised about is that you and Faith ever wanted to know me.’
‘Yeah, well.’ Felix shuffled his feet. ‘It wasn’t really your fault, Skye. Your parents weren’t … even when I first knew you they never really cared much about you. We always wondered about your dad, I mean he had one heck of a temper but … you never said anything. They were another one of those things that you made up stories about – they doted on you, adored you, brought you flash presents – we never saw the evidence, of course. And maybe there was some kind of other reason that your grandma left you the house? And then they flew over to see you in hospital, what? Once? You nearly died and they didn’t even stay long enough to drive you home. You’d had to make yourself into someone that could cope with that kind of neglect.’
I looked up at the metal ceiling grill where the recessed lights reminded me of Gethryn’s eyes, fixing me, holding me tight as we plunged towards the ground. I gave a little shake to stop myself thinking about the landing and felt a few, weak tears spill towards the bedcover. ‘It was never that bad,’ my voice sounded weak. ‘They loved me in their own way, as best they could, they were just wrapped up in each other. I … I wanted it to be different, and I thought if I wanted it hard enough, then maybe …’
Felix steepled his fingers underneath his chin and gave me a level look. ‘I’m sorry for what I said, Skye. I mean, yes, you were pretty horrible but … you could be very sweet, too. You and I always got on, well, yeah, you could tell some pretty tall tales sometimes but I took them for what they were – a scared little girl trying to make herself look bigger so that no-one would realise how frightened you were inside. And I didn’t just bring you over here to get you to win the part for me. Okay, maybe that was a part of it, in the back of my mind but … only in the very back, where I keep all those other things I’m ashamed of.’
‘Like your Mamma Mia CD and your David Tennant life-sized cut-out?’
A grin. ‘Hush. I’m not ashamed of those. Just reticen
t about them.’ He took a sudden step closer to the bed and I could see the twinkle back in those hazel eyes again. ‘And, while we’re here –’ his voice dropped – ‘the accident … it wasn’t entirely your fault. Oh yes, you fought, Skye, punched me right in the gonads that night but … Mike was driving like a lunatic, and, come on … letting Faith, well, handle him while he was driving? But Mike always thought he was in control of everything – there you were, fighting and trying to get to him; he should have stopped, pulled over, but he was too arrogant. Girl in the back raising hell? Girlfriend dealing out the hand jobs? Nah, Mike thought he could do sixty through all of that. And that was what killed them.’ Felix leaned in closer. ‘I much prefer the new, improved Skye and her new taste in men. You can never accuse Jack of arrogance, can you? I mean, the guy doesn’t have any idea just how tasty he is … oh, how I hope you’re going to put him right on that score. For the good of all of us, I mean.’
‘We’ve got so much to talk about now, haven’t we? Now you’ve started telling me the truth.’
Felix grinned. ‘Maybe you’re ready to hear it now. This last year-and-a-half it’s been like you were turning Mike into some kind of saint, some kind of perfect boyfriend, and I had to bite my tongue to stop blurting out the truth. He led you along, Skye. He could have told you it was over, but he kept picking you up and putting you down, messing with your head and all the while he was sleeping with your best friend, but since the accident you wanted … no, sorry, you needed to think of him as having been the love of your life. So I let you. And I’m sorry about that, really I am but …’
A shrug and he started to stare at the floor with a pink tinge rising up his neck to engulf his cheeks. A silent hand raised and squeezed mine which made both of us wince. ‘Ow. And then you saved my life. I’d just destroyed yours and you saved mine.’ A sound outside and his head whipped up to stare thankfully at the door. ‘Right then, lover, better be off. Despite these –’ he indicated the brace and the cast – ‘my darling Jared is raring to go.’ With a blown kiss he walked out of the room, limping slightly and giving me a full view of his back, which was covered in newer bruises than the ones on his side. He looked like he’d been beaten, and not in a pervy-sexy-game way.
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