by G. Brailey
Sam was sitting up in bed, remote control in hand, listlessly flicking channels as Zack crossed the room towards him. Sam had a call device somewhere and without averting his gaze he caught the glow of its big red button reflected in his covers, waiting patiently to be pressed but Sam decided not to press it, after all, that would be the less interesting option.
He didn’t fear Zack any more. He acknowledged that what had happened between them was the culmination of weeks of trauma and paranoia, and he also knew that Zack deeply regretted his actions. Clarissa had told him, but he knew that already, even as Zack was pounding his fist into his face. He also knew what it meant, that he, more than anyone on the planet still had the capacity to hurt Zack, which told him just how much Zack still cared.
Inwardly, Sam smiled at the justification, reminiscent as it was of the beaten wife with so little self-esteem that she found herself trotting back time and again to a man who one day would kill her. And just like the wife beater, Zack had no need to exercise himself too much with excuses because Sam always made them for him. For all Sam’s posturing and threats to dump Zack they were still joined at the hip, and bizarrely the fight only served to emphasise the fact.
“You look worse than me, mate,” said Sam.
“Listen, Sam…”
“Forget it,” he said, lifting up his left arm to show the fine scar that still remained from their drunken ‘blood brothers’ episode 20 years earlier, “these things happen in families.”
Sam’s unexpected forgiveness hit Zack like a thumping great wave and fighting an urge to start sobbing, he took three shaky steps to a chair and dropped into it, the silence between them broken only by echoing disconnected sounds from other places. A good ten minutes passed as both men allowed themselves to tacitly heal and for the first time in weeks Zack felt safe tucked away in this little room with Sam Stein as his guardian and companion.
“You shouldn’t be here should you?” said Sam, finally.
“No, so don’t tell anyone,” said Zack, making Sam smile, “especially not Tracy, she’ll dump me.”
“Will I ever be free of you, you bastard?”
“Not if I’ve got anything to do with it.”
Within minutes Zack was asleep. Zack crashed out awkwardly in an old chair or on a sofa or on the floor was a familiar sight to Sam and it was hugely reassuring. He gazed across at his old friend and it felt like he’d come home.
When Clarissa turned up at midnight she was at first shocked then moved to see the two men in her life dozing like puppies. Zack woke with a start, sensing he was being watched.
“Clarissa, what are you doing here?” whispered Zack.
“Much the same as you, I imagine, I’ve come to see Sam.”
“At this time?”
“I couldn’t sleep.”
“We’ve made it up by the way,” said Zack, beaming, like a child reporting back some playground feud that had finally been settled.
“That’s great news.”
“He’s not still going on with this separation thing is he?”
Clarissa shrugged.
“He gets a bee in his bonnet sometimes,” said Zack, aware even before he had voiced it of the understatement, “well, you know he does.”
“I think it was to do with you really.”
“What?”
“He was hurting so he lashed out at me. He’s always blamed me for the dead people anyway, for tipping you over the edge…”
“We’re okay again all three of us,” said Zack, moving towards her and taking her in his arms, “I just know it.”
They were still holding onto each other when a large black nurse came in, stopping briefly when she saw them, then crossing to Sam’s side. Clarissa and Zack watched her make her checks, both sensing almost straight away that something was wrong.
“He’s okay isn’t he?” asked Zack, his stomach on a nose-dive to the floor.
“Would you mind stepping outside,” said the nurse, herding them out of the room like naughty infants.
“What’s happening?” asked Clarissa.
The nurse made no reply, she just shot off pretty sharpish and disappeared. In the corridor, Clarissa and Zack sank into two hard backed chairs, fear bringing them to silence. A few moments later the nurse reappeared with a young Asian doctor who followed her into Sam’s room, closing the door firmly behind them. When the door reopened a short time later, the doctor asked to speak with Clarissa alone.
“Oh God, Clarissa, what is it?” said Zack, as Clarissa came back to join him. “Clarissa… what’s happened, tell me.”
“They think… a hematoma…” said Clarissa in a daze, “is that it?”
“What? What is that?”
“They have to open up the skull or something, is that right? Is that what they do? Relieving pressure… some bleeding that they need to drain away…” she said, her voicing trailing off, then suddenly a flash of anger, “So why didn’t they get on with it before? What the fuck else have they been doing?”
“Jesus Christ,” said Zack, honestly thinking his heart was about to stop, “but he was fine, he was talking and he looked okay.”
“That’s what can happen, they said… part and parcel apparently.”
Clarissa and Zack held onto each other like shipwrecks as a press gang of medical staff trooped up and headed into Sam’s room. Moments later they came out again, pushing Sam along past them and out of sight.
“So what happens now?”
“We wait,” whispered Clarissa, “what else can we do?”
A nurse led them to a private room, small, claustrophobic with a TV hoisted high up in the corner of the ceiling as though anyone would want to watch TV under these circumstances. More dreary and depressing a place Zack thought would be hard to find. Suddenly he needed to speak with Veronica and walked straight out again, finding a quiet corner in a corridor.
“Zack, where are you? Why the hell haven’t you phoned?”
“Sam’s in trouble Veronica, they’re operating right now.”
“Oh God,” she said, completely thrown by the seriousness in Zack’s voice, “shall I come over?”
“What if he dies Veronica, I’ll have killed him, Sam Stein dead and all because of me.”
“Come here, just come here…”
“I can’t leave Clarissa.”
“Then let me come to you.”
“I’ll come when I’m through, oh and I love you by the way.”
In the morning the doctor came and found them telling them that the operation had gone well.
“He’s okay?” Zack blurted out, “he’s okay? Tell us he’s okay.”
“He’s still very poorly but initial signs are good. I should be able to tell you a little more later on.”
Zack and Clarissa stayed in the hospital all day despite Clarissa encouraging him to go home and sleep, but only when news came that Sam was stabilizing did Zack finally agree.
“Go and find Veronica,” said Clarissa, “she’ll look after you.”
“My God, Zack…” was all Veronica said when she saw him, leading him into her bedroom, pushing him on the bed and tugging at his shoes. “Do you want a drink or anything?”
“No, just you,” said Zack.
By the time Veronica had climbed up next to him Zack was asleep. She watched him for a while, then sneaked off downstairs to call Clarissa.
“How is he?” she asked, “how’s Sam?”
“Holding his own they say, whatever the hell that means. Is Zack with you?”
“Yes, he looks terrible.”
“The whole thing is terrible,” said Clarissa, sounding angry with Zack for the first time.
“Call us if there’s any change.”
“Of course I will.”
When Zack woke at 3 am, wretched and full of fear the first thing he did was check his phone. Relieved to find no messages or texts he wandered down to the kitchen and dug out a bottle of wine. A little later Veronica joined him.
“I
woke you,” he said, “I’m sorry.”
She shook her head and shrugged, then they sat at the table, facing each other.
“I spoke with Clarissa, she said Sam was doing okay.”
“When? When was that?” Zack demanded, greedy for information.
“Not long after you got here,” aware as she said it that hours later anything could have happened.
“What’s wrong with me, Veronica,” said Zack, “why am I like this?”
“Why are you like what?”
“Such a bloody mess… I went to see an old mate, a psychologist or a psychiatrist, what’s the difference? I can never remember…”
“So that’s where you got to, and did he help at all?”
“Yes and no, but I think we have to accept that I’m on my own with this death thing, it’s a one off.”
“But you’re not on your own, I’m here, remember? By the way,” said Veronica, “who’s Susan?”
Zack shot her an uneasy glance. “Who told you about Susan?”
“Clarissa…”
“What did she say?”
“She just said that it wasn’t Sam who’d dropped you in it with Geoff, it was Susan.”
“I’ll tell you some other time,” he said, relieved Clarissa had said nothing else.
“What happened with you and Sam?”
”I thought he was… look, it sounds pathetic now, but I thought he’d got me fired and was laughing about it,” and immediately Zack knew what she was thinking. “It wasn’t just paranoia. It was Sam Stein sleeping with the enemy… of losing him, of all those things. We have the capacity to hurt each other very deeply, Sam and me, if that’s not stating the obvious. We’ve had bust ups before, nasty, violent rows, especially when we were stoned or when one of us set about destroying the competition.”
“You make it sound like a love affair.”
“It was, it is, it always has been,” said Zack, tired of justifying his relationship with Sam, longing for someone just to get it, to understand and not to judge, “look, we don’t have sex or anything, but yes, it is a love affair, I put my hands up to that.”
Zack slumped back in his chair, pleased to have owned up to this, but anxious too. The last thing he wanted now was for Veronica to dump him.
“And yet you tried to kill him…”
“Yes, I did, and if anything happens to him… there’s no future for me, I know that, I’d have no reason to keep breathing.”
After a few moments Veronica got up without saying another word and went upstairs. Zack knew that he had hurt her, but he couldn’t pretend, not now, and although Zack had avoided Veronica’s question he knew really why he’d attacked Sam. Each time his mother had brought another cheap trick into the house he’d felt this overwhelming desire to hurt not only the new boyfriend but his mother too for reaffirming this feeling of utter worthlessness, but how could he admit to Veronica that he had always had trouble with rejection? He would struggle admitting that to Justin or to anyone, Sam included, although he knew that Sam had worked all that out for himself, it was a weakness, and Zack Fortune liked to make out he didn’t do weakness.
Zack had told Veronica that he loved her, and in his own way he did, but right at that moment had anyone asked him to swap Sam’s recovery for the permanent loss of Veronica he would have gladly agreed. He found himself thinking back to the time Nick Mallik had run out of Cambridge for the very last time. Zack had woken up to find him gone. It was early morning and he felt like hell, too much skunk and a clutch of lethal pills that had been kicking around the flat calling out to him for days. He woke Sam asking about Nick.
“Gone, mate,” said Sam, pissed off to be disturbed.
“Where to?”
“Andromeda,” said Sam, turning over and trying to get back to sleep.
“I’m going to find him,” said Zack, keen to plunder a decent supply of speed he knew Nick still had in his back pocket.
“No point, he’s gone for good he told me, and he won’t be coming back.”
“What did you say to him?” said Zack, alarmed.
“That he should sling his hook, that if he stayed round here and stayed round you I’d slice his idiot fucking head off.”
“You shit, Sam Stein, you bastard little cockroach!”
Sam smiled and shrugged, and although initially Zack wanted to punch him, instead, he leant down, tussled his hair and planted a great big kiss on his head. Here was a guy who would threaten violence to someone much bigger, much tougher rather than share him and Zack just loved him for it. It was what he had longed for his mother to do for so many years, but unlike Sam, she was never committed enough to her son to do it.
Then Zack left the flat, roaming the streets in search of an early morning shop that sold Curly Wurlys. When they met up again later that day Zack accused Sam of pulling rank and Sam didn’t deny it, but that was it, chapter closed.
Zack returned to the hospital at 6 am, to find Clarissa parked up next to Sam in Critical Care.
“How is he?” said Zack.
“No change.”
“He’s going to make it, Clarissa, I know he is. Listen, I haven’t said sorry, so I’m saying it now.”
Clarissa waved a hand to dismiss the idea, as though it were neither here nor there.
“I thought he’d betrayed me. It doesn’t excuse what I did, but that’s the truth. I don’t deserve him, or you for that matter, or Veronica or anyone, I keep saying that but it’s true. Why the hell do you put up with me?”
“Because we know you, we know who you are, and more importantly we know why you are.”
This surprised Zack, curious now as to what Sam had told her over the years. “Then tell me, Clarissa, will you, because I’m very much in the dark with all that.”
“How’s Veronica?”
“Not happy, I love the woman and I treat her like crap.”
“No changes there then.”
“I’ll make it up to her but I can’t think of anything but Sam right now.” Then they fell to silence, both of them watching as simple plastic tubes worked their magic, keeping Sam alive.
Later in the day, cutting through the medical jargon, the feeling was that Sam would probably pull through, although whether his speech and movement would be permanently impaired remained to be seen. Zack felt a surge of joy race through him when he heard the words, wanting to hug the dreary doctor, wanting to hug the whole world.
The following day Sam’s eyes opened. He looked round to see Zack and Clarissa both transfixed on him and about to burst into tears.
“God, Sam, don’t do this to us,” whispered Clarissa.
“Yes, bastard, listen to your wife for once,” said Zack.
Sam’s eyes closed almost immediately but he was smiling. Clarissa rushed off to tell the nurse the good news, leaving Zack sending up a prayer of thanks to anyone who was listening, to anyone who had given Sam Stein back the gift of life.
That night, when Zack was reassured Sam was actually stable and not giving them false hope, he set off home. His flat was cold, damp almost, but he was mighty relieved just to be there. He realised now, if he hadn’t before, how relative things were. Up until the moment he thought Sam might die, he had only been concerned with the dead people, Susan and Russell, but compared to the very real threat of losing Sam, they barely registered. He decided to contact Veronica and to make amends, but Veronica would not pick up and he had to acknowledge the fact that the poor woman had probably had enough. But at midnight she called asking if she could come over.
Half an hour later she was standing in the middle of his living room wearing a vintage green velvet dress, very high heels and a plethora of irregular chunky stones set in silver at her neck. Her hair shone like it had been polished and her eyes gleamed. Veronica French was impossibly beautiful and at that moment Zack would have done just about anything to keep her.
“How’s Sam?”
“Recovering… at least, we think so,” said Zack, crossing fingers on b
oth hands and holding them up.
“I think… maybe… well… I think it might be better if we call it a day.”
“Do you?”
“Yes, I do,” she said.
Zack sighed. He had had conversations like this so many times over the years. Streams of girls he had enraged in different ways, stamping their feet, calling his bluff. “If that’s what you want,” he said after a few seconds, confident that she didn’t, after all, no one said it was over looking like this, not unless they wanted to be persuaded otherwise.
“That’s what you want isn’t it?” she said, annoying Zack a little at her lack of originality.
“No, it’s not what I want, not by any stretch of the imagination.”
“So what do you want?”
“I want you, but from the moment we met my life has gone into free fall. It doesn’t mean I love you less.”
“But you don’t do love.”
“Who told you that?”
“You, indirectly…”
“I don’t do it very often, no, but surely that’s a good thing. Surely then it means more.”
“You’d choose Sam over me every time, that’s what you said, give or take, and that doesn’t do much for the ego somehow.”
“I don’t go to bed with Sam Stein, neither do I want to. I only want to go to bed with you.”
He was standing very close now, tracing the curve of her chin with his thumb, gazing into her huge, clean, cautious eyes.
“You’re damned hard work, d’you know that?”
“Yes, I do know that since you ask… but the general consensus is… I’m worth the effort.”
Zack kissed her like she was the last woman on earth, and as much as she fought it, she failed. She couldn’t help but grab him back, shocking herself by the desire she felt which made her words and all her good intentions go up in smoke.
CHAPTER 24
For the next month or so Zack felt that his life was at last reverting to some kind of normality. Sam was making progress, and when Zack had demanded to know if a relapse was likely the doctor had been vaguely reassuring. Sam’s speech and his recall of language which had not been brilliant at first was getting better with the help of a humourless speech therapist called Evelyn, who Sam tolerated. Zack’s relationship with Veronica had taken off again to the extent that she was spending more and more time at his flat, and for once he found that heartening rather than threatening. He had enough money to tide him over, so he put off the thought of meaningful employment for the time being and tried to relax.