Another Justified Sinner

by Sophie Hopesmith

  But still I prayed. I read scripture and carried a favourite passage in my wallet. I sensed his shadow and let it fuse with me. I would rather be on his side than against it. I revered his power, I respected his scope.

  My reasoning took some sketching out but eventually boiled down to this: that earth was a kind of hell, and when we died, we would either pass into oblivion or God would sentence us an afterlife. I figured if God was crooked, he would appreciate the sliver of evil inside me – the fact that I’d acknowledged it, the fact that I let it bear out. I might even be rewarded – with what, I didn’t know. Maybe oblivion was the reward. Maybe I would get a well-deserved exit from the game. Maybe I would be absorbed into the cosmic continuum. Maybe I would turn into God.

  I was in a new game now. There were new rules to abide by. Sin was celebrated – for good was void of value and changed nothing of any consequence. The fact I had figured this out gave me enormous confidence. I felt selected, chosen, predisposed – the mark of knowing on my forehead. Everything I did was suffused with this secret elation.

  I didn’t really believe in a single religion anymore. In that sense, I was liberated. I considered all creeds equal, and was content to let their centuries of wisdom pass right through me. But I also saw their tremendous folly, and felt superior to them all. What wasted lives these holy humans lived. What terrible misguidance had sucked them under.

  I wished for Nancy to die that day – and she did. It was as easy as that. Just close your eyes and wish for evil. That incident gave me the go-ahead for further wrongdoing. God had repaid the dark tinder inside me and now I must turn everything into flames. Or something to that melodramatic effect.

  It was not long after this that I rose up the career ranks. Nancy had been dead a year, and I threw myself deeper and deeper into the job she hated. I had started off in a fairly administrative, clerical role – basically making the coffees, sitting in on meetings. It was almost an internship, the money was so low. But they recompensed my patience with a step up to Desk Assistant (more on the marketing side). I had to look at market reports, prospect for new clients in potential growth areas… Basically, I got to carry paper around and feel important. I was only twenty-three and I already wore cufflinks. Life was good.

  My boss was the man I mentioned earlier: a chap called Finnegan Fishman. He wore garish ties and smoked himself hoarse. He would clap thunderously when he got too excited. He took me under his wing and steered me towards the appropriate exams. I had no sense of this wing being anything but protective. But, of course, flies have wings. Wasps have wings. Big, biting creepies like giant stag beetles have wings. If you are offered a wing, it doesn’t mean you should take it.

  For under a wing is total darkness. I couldn’t see any route out of my life. Who wouldn’t accept guidance from a man with an alliterative name? Who still smoked from a pipe? Who regaled the bars with tall stories about Fleet Street and the Wharf?

  ‘Marcus,’ he said, patting my knee like I was ten years old. ‘I see potential in you. You’ve got drive, you’ve got guts. You’ve got the right mix of instinct and analytical what-not. Now, don’t get complacent. You’ve got to aim high. You’re on your own now, but one day you’ll have a wife, and some kids, and they will like nice things, and they will deserve the very best of life – of course they will. The very best of life means getting the good food, the sun on your back, the clearest sea that stretches out for miles. Yes, we have to work; yes, we have to put in the hours; but the alternative is not working so hard and not getting the best. To me, and I hope to you, that is a poor shadow of a life, a life only half lived. Think of all the things that such a person will never have tasted! All those sights across the globe that this person shan’t see! Of course: enjoy your job, make your job your passion; but never fool yourself into thinking you’ve got enough. Never stop wanting to make it. Never stop wanting to succeed.’

  There was something about me that attracted older men with a parched throat for money. I still ached for my father, still felt his absence in lots of life’s little things. No wonder I swallowed up every word of Finnegan Fishman’s. No wonder that I got that thirst. That thirst got so bad that my tongue hung out of my mouth most of the time, I had to learn to keep my mouth shut. But in the meantime I moved out of that second flat, out of that tiny place full of childish things and the silent Antipodean, and found somewhere of my own: a beige flat in a gated community, on the edges of Balham. I could pretend it was the turret of my own private castle, and watch the commoners walk past.

  ‘But will you be all right?’ asked Jamie, in that worried way of his.

  ‘Of course,’ I said, beckoning the waiter, ordering another bottle of wine.

  I had suggested dinner at this local restaurant – some little eatery that everyone was going gaga about. Time Out had wanked all over it.

  Usually we’d just go to the pub, so the occasion was already a little odd and contrived. Jamie looked awkward, George looked embarrassed. I didn’t care in the least: the sole point of the excursion was to show off all my new money; to let them know that everything was fine, that I was fine, that life was fine. More than fine.

  The waiter came over with the bottle: instinctively poured me a taster. I liked that. I took a sip and nodded. I bloody loved that nod. The authority of it, the erotic charge. I didn’t even know what I was nodding about, truth be known. I knew nothing about wine and still don’t.

  ‘It’s fine.’ I took a swig of the red. No sips for me.

  ‘But won’t it be weird on your own? Have you thought about maybe–’

  ‘It’s fine,’ I dismissed.

  My vocabulary was failing me. Maybe it was the wine. Maybe it was the situation. I felt uncomfortable every time Nancy was mentioned. I didn’t like to talk about her. It was like constantly having to explain away a disability: how you lost your leg, the age when your sight went, that sixth digit on your hand. Over and over and over again. It was exhausting, to be blunt.

  Anyway. Trying to avoid this, I gestured about me. ‘What a great restaurant, eh? It’s got some buzz, that’s for sure.’

  ‘It’s got some buzz?’ George scoffed into his bread and olive oil. ‘What are you on about?’

  That irritated me. ‘You know exactly what I mean.’

  He rolled his eyes.

  ‘You know, it’s got a good atmosphere. There’s ambience, conversation, laughter. A sense that the night is young.’

  ‘It’s a place “to be seen”, you mean. It reeks of Just for Men in here. Or do I mean “Just for Old Men”, the way they’re all leching after these young blondes. You know, in the way that should get them on the sex offenders’ register.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So, it’s not my kind of “buzz”. And I can’t believe it’s yours, either. I mean… When you said you wanted to meet up, I thought we’d be going somewhere…real.’

  ‘So, Marcus,’ came a pleading tone from Jamie, trying to break the tension. ‘Are you really sure you want to do this? Live alone?’

  ‘Wouldn’t you want to? I’ve always wanted to. The only reason I didn’t before is I didn’t have the money. And that really isn’t a problem now. Give me one good thing about flat sharing that is better than living by yourself.’

  ‘Well… We always had a laugh, didn’t we? When we were flat sharing?’

  ‘Did we?’

  ‘I have to admit, I thought maybe you’d move back in with us. You know, get the gang back together. Eventually. I mean… Is it anything we’ve done?’

  ‘God, no. This isn’t about you.’ This was getting close to the realm of emotions and hand wringing.

  ‘You’re absolutely positive?’

  ‘Fucking hell, Jamie; yes!’ I slammed down the wine glass and it cracked as effortlessly as an egg. When I looked down, my hand was holding a jagged flute. The wine was sloshed across the table and down most of my shirt. Zigzags of glass shot into a mishmash pile.

  Some people looked over; some stared; some poi
nted. I tried to redirect the red heat that slid over my body. The waiter dabbed at my shirt, my trousers. He was brushing glass into a dustpan. Slowly, the room reverted to its original state. How sensitive the equilibrium, I thought. How near the surface the social tension.

  When he left, I gave my attention back to Jamie and George. My bestest, truest friends. My university buddies. Now they both seemed so distant that I needed a telescope. Jamie, staring at his fidgeting hands. George, biting his lip, looking sullenly into some middle distance. I realised that they had both changed too, in the years I had known them. The world of work chips away at you, turns you a different shape. Jamie was ever more liberal and artsy; George was increasingly football and scorn. And I was progressively…

  ‘Let’s get the lobster,’ I said. And I closed the menu in a definitive yet nonchalant way: a pretty hard move to master.

  ‘Lobster?’ George’s eyes were back on me. ‘Gosh, what do you think? Just one? Might as well get ten, since they’re so cheap.’

  ‘I’ve never had lobster,’ whittled Jamie, a look of desperation in his eyes, the glee of martyrdom. He could still rescue this conversation! ‘I bet it’s amazing. It’s what they always order in the movies, isn’t it? “I’m having the lobster.” When they want to impress someone or someone is paying.’

  ‘Well,’ I said, sensing a perfect segue. ‘That’s true. I’m paying.’

  ‘Oh, Marcus,’ sighed Jamie. ‘That’s very kind but I can’t let you pay for me.’

  George was more combative: ‘You’re not going to pay for me. This isn’t a date. If I want lobster, I can pay for it myself.’

  ‘I want to do it. I really want to do it. For my friends.’

  ‘For your ego.’

  ‘George,’ hissed Jamie. ‘He’s trying to be nice.’

  ‘And also because I can,’ I grinned. Then I leant forward so they could see the diamond glint in my eyes. ‘I can afford it.’

  ‘Ooo-weeee.’ Sarcasm from George.

  ‘You know,’ I said, pouring myself another glass of wine, now feeling recovered from my mishap. ‘I’m seriously sensing some antagonism, George. Is it because, if I leave for good, you’re basically living with a gay guy?’

  ‘Marc, I’m more than my sexuality, you know. And besides, it is possible, you know, for a straight guy and a gay guy to live together. It’s not exactly a big thing anymore. It’s not the 1950s.’

  Jamie cleared his throat. ‘Yes. Exactly.’

  ‘And also, since when did you become such a walking fucking cliché? The big wanker banker who likes to roll around in massive piles of cash. “Oh, please, please let me have more cash, I can’t get enough of the cash!” Jesus. It’s embarrassing, mate, I tell you. Embarrassing.’

  ‘Look, I don’t really give a monkeys if you think I’m a cliché. For what it’s worth, I think stereotypes get a bad press, they help us make sense of the world, it’s natural. It’s normal. We all have our parts. So if you want to see me as a cliché, that’s fine by me. I can be your stock-and-shares character, how’s that for a joke?’

  ‘Well, here’s another one for you, mate: “All that glitters is not gold.”’

  ‘That’s not even a joke,’ I said, shrugging the weight off my shoulders and really getting into my stride. ‘And anyway, you’ve all got your golds. You like your food too much, you watch too much shit TV. It’s all just a load of rubbish. It’s all glittering gold that don’t mean a shit – but it’s fun, isn’t it? So what’s the problem? Eh? Just roll around in the shit and wait for it to all rot away.’

  ‘Wow. Eloquent. And you don’t think you’re losing it? Wow.’

  I waved my hand. ‘Anyway, I hope you weren’t really expecting me to come back one day and fill that room, guys.’

  ‘No shortage of people looking for rooms in London, mate.’

  Silence.

  Jamie put his head in his hands, he couldn’t let it go. ‘Things have been so odd since Nancy passed.’

  ‘Died, Jamie – you can say died.’ He made it sound like she’d gotten her fucking A-levels.

  ‘We were all so close, and now everything’s different. It’s not been right for ages. It’s been over a year now – it was the anniversary the other week and none of us even said a word to each other. Something’s changed. Who knows, maybe we always needed Nancy to glue us together. Anyway, what I’m saying is–’

  ‘You make it sound like we’re together, Jamie. “It’s not her, it’s us.” I’m not interested, all right? Get over it…’

  ‘Well, I was thinking that maybe you would actually benefit from a different house, meet some different people, and stuff. Not that Australian guy, that wasn’t quite right. He was never there. But maybe some other group, a few more people, something a bit more sociable. I mean, I know that we’re probably not the people to help you right now because of our connection to Nancy. But I’m just worried about you spending so much time on your own. And you don’t see your mates anymore, and you’re always working… I’m worried you’re – not coping. I’m worried you’re going to crash at some point, and it would be good for you to live with people who could see that and avoid that and be there for you. That’s all.’

  I laughed. I actually snorted. It was a loud, obscene laugh – the sort of laugh that shows teeth. ‘Are you kidding me? I don’t need your sympathy, Jamie. I just want to buy you lobster and get you the fuck out of my life.’

  ‘You’re being a total dick.’ George was up and standing now, the entire restaurant swivelled towards him. ‘Why are you acting like Michael fucking Winner?’ He was stabbing his finger through the random reference and into my personal space. ‘Grief isn’t an excuse for turning into a cunt.’

  And at that point we were asked to leave. I never got to buy George and Jamie that lobster. A shame, as I doubt they will ever get offered it again, and they certainly will not buy it. I had fully intended to get them one each. For swagger, but also for swansong.

  So we parted on difficult terms, and we knew that the scene had finality. I had lost all my friends from university. I had not kept any friends from school. There were one or two people on social media – there was the odd ‘status like’ or MySpace comment. But even this I let slide, as these people were The Christians, and I felt no link to that kind of faith anymore. It had eroded away.

  Inevitably, my social life was swallowed up by workmates: whether wining and dining clients or competitive binge drinking into early hours. Not everyone in the company was part of this social group: there was a selection of family men or older men or men who skulked through different walks of life. And sometimes women, too, with ceiling glass matted into their hair. Outrageous, isn’t it? These people worked with money and yet they weren’t all scum. Some were decent, nice-enough folk who were just trying to get by, make little love nests, push through to the future, playing the long game to win that sweet-as retirement.

  But in my Friday Drinks Club was Harry, my mentor – a private school toff of the old-school variety. He boasted about the Bullingdon Club. He liked most nights to end up in the hands of a prostitute. He was thirty-eight and married with three kids.

  Finnegan was occasionally there, although he always left at an appropriate hour, to conserve the requisite aura of mystery.

  Philip was thirty, a confirmed bachelor and suspected poof. He would overdo the lechery to try and dispel our suspicions. In fact, his whole shtick was one of fitting in, of trying to emulate others. I couldn’t complain though – we were cut from the same kind of cloth.

  And then there was Ben. He was closer to my age – just a little bit older. Twenty-four, twenty-five, something like that at the time. He wore an inordinate amount of gel in his hair. It made me think of my dad. Anyway, Ben was very quiet, very reserved, with unnerving eyes of blue steel. He was the one you could imagine skinning a cat or chewing off a stranger’s ear. The one who would one day be in the news for terrible, wicked, indecent acts. (Well – people bet on either him or me.)

 
; There were, of course, no women. Not on our nights out. Boys will be boys. Banter, banter. Off the leash. That’s just how it is. Get over it.

  Anyway. Our behaviour was completely acceptable to each other. We got used to a certain level of drink, a certain level of drugs, a certain level of sex and shallowness and pride. We didn’t get American Psycho on each other’s asses. We didn’t rape and butcher women. We just…floated. In this cold miasma. Indifferent to everything.

  A night that sticks out in my mind? Nothing that was full-on Vegas or worthy of newsprint. Possibly the Friday night that carried on into the early hours of Sunday. We were trying to find after-parties to the after-parties. Soon the after-parties became the parties. I was still wearing Friday’s suit, flecked through with specks of vomit. I had sex with some girl in the alleyway. We had to do it standing up, which I always hate. It’s exciting for the first thirty seconds and then it becomes a real drag, keeping a girl up like that, having to hold her and fuck her. This one wasn’t a lithe, petite thing, either. It was knackering. The sweat pooled down my back.

  When I rejoined the group in some soulless basement bar, Harry was flat out on a stretcher. He’d OD-d on the pills. I don’t know if he had too much water or too little water or what. There was froth over his mouth, and Phil told me he’d fitted. I have to admit, it was grisly. I’d never seen a man so grey. As grey as a tombstone. It lifted your skin up. You felt the breath of death run down you.

  ‘We have to tell Claire,’ said Phil. His fingers yanked back and forth through his hair, all agitated and shit.