Bad Friends

by Seeber, Claire

  ‘No, I bloody well don’t,’ I said. The bell rang again insistently.

  Alex strode past me, pushing his shirt into his trousers, as unkempt as ever, rubbing his nose. ‘Time to face the music, baby.’ He bared his teeth in a semblance of a grin, but his yellow eyes were full of menace. ‘Tidy yourself up, yeah?’

  I looked down to see an enormous ladder running up my filmy hold-up. ‘Shit. Alex, wait!’ I stumbled in my silly heels as I tried to catch his arm, but he was too fast for me. He was already gone.

  * * *

  In the cab the driver was singing along tunelessly to Dolly Parton’s Jolene. Alex reached forward and rudely slammed the glass divide.

  ‘I quite like that song,’ I protested. Alex gave me a look and started opening his post. I couldn’t be bothered to argue: I simply wanted to get through Barbara’s party sober; to get to the Dorchester unflustered; to get the whole bloody night over with, in fact.

  Alex tossed letter after bill onto the seat, until, with a nasty lurch, I recognised Malcolm’s scruffy scrawl on the final envelope he held. Without a word, Alex tore it open. Without a word, he read it once. His eyes narrowed. He looked out of the window. We were in the heart of the City now, heading for some swanky restaurant on the river. Still silent, Alex screwed the letter up into a ball and threw it on the floor.

  As the cab slowed at a set of lights, I leaned forward and picked it up, smoothing it out. It was short and to the point.

  Alexander,

  Regrettably I have decided I will have to decline the kind offer to help your business out. It hasn’t been an easy decision but I think it is a fair one. Much as I would like to make the loan, I feel I am doing you more of a favour by not giving it to you at this juncture. I think it is time for you to realise what it’s like to be on your own – just like I was at your age. Also, I think you need to knock the boozing on the head. It ain’t doing much for you at all.

  Good luck, son. I am happy to give you any (free!) advice that might add to your business acumen.

  Yours,

  Pa

  ‘Can you stop here, please, mate?’ Alex muttered at the driver, and jumped out into two lanes of oncoming traffic.

  ‘Alex, wait.’ I paid the driver. By the time I got into the bar, Alex was already halfway through a pint, a whisky chaser glinting on the bar beside it. He handed me a glass. Against my better judgement, I took it. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I’m not going,’ he said. ‘I’m not in the mood now.’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ I soothed, but I was irritated. ‘Your mum will be so upset if you don’t show up.’

  ‘I just can’t bear to sit in the same room as my bloody father. I don’t get it, Mag. Why the fuck does he hate me so much?’

  ‘He doesn’t hate you, baby. He – he’s just Malcolm.’

  Alex didn’t answer. He just drained his drink and ordered himself another.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to go. I need to –’

  ‘Don’t leave me on my own, Mag. I don’t mean to be a shit, I don’t really,’ he muttered, kissing the side of my neck so that I shuddered with an emotion I couldn’t immediately place. ‘I need you, baby.’

  I slid out of his grasp. ‘I can’t heal you, Alex,’ I said slowly. ‘It’s got to come from you. You’re going to destroy us both if you don’t stop all this soon.’

  ‘All what?’

  The air between us curdled as we glowered at each other. A clot of misery swelled in my chest as he grabbed my arm. ‘Maggie? I said don’t go.’

  I felt that eerie sensation when you peer down from a great height and see how easy it would be to simply step right off. The feeling you get when you’re almost tempted to do it.

  ‘I’m going to be late.’

  ‘You know, Maggie, you think you can save the world with your stupid TV show. But you can’t, baby.’

  ‘No, you’re right. But maybe I can save myself, Alex.’

  I turned and walked out.

  * * *

  I arrived at the Dorchester only slightly late, only slightly drunk, unbuttoning my jacket in the clammy night, dying for another drink now to anaesthetise the pain. Sam and Joseph were waiting in the foyer, hands in suit pockets, both looking rather overwhelmed as bright young things air-kissed and hugged all around them.

  ‘Come on.’ I indicated the ballroom with my head, suddenly feeling like a Roman general at the Coliseum. Like little lambs, I led those boys to the lions.

  Renee was already seated at our table in a hideous gold creation circa 1971, her gnarly hand proprietorial on the arm of a young black guy I vaguely recognised from some music show. I was sure she must have bribed him to accompany her.

  ‘Hello, I’m Maggie. Drink?’ I grabbed the bottle of Merlot from the middle of the table and waved it so some splashed down my arm. ‘Whoops!’

  ‘Johnson.’ He reached out a hand to shake mine; he had a nice smile and silver hoops in his ears. ‘Don’t mind if I do, thanks.’

  Renee simpered at Johnson, who was still grinning at me. Renee’s simper turned to stone. Gently, Sam took the bottle.

  ‘Allow me.’

  Sam looked very handsome in his tuxedo and much less gawky than normal – if terribly young – his nose still peeling a little from his deep tan, his hair on end, friendship bands peeping from his pristine white cuff. I smiled at him benevolently. I knew I couldn’t teach Joseph anything – he was already arguing with Johnson about the state of the Tory party today, for God’s sake (not Fascist enough for him, probably) – but Sam, well, he might just be the hope of British television. I patted his hand.

  ‘I’m just going to the loo.’ He flushed beneath his tan and loped off across the chattering room.

  ‘Bit young for you, Maggie, babes,’ Renee hissed.

  ‘He’s not for me, Renee, at all. And anyway, I could say the same, couldn’t I, babes.’ I looked pointedly at Johnson, my smile as glacial as I could manage in the hot night. An executive producer accepted an award for a particularly car-crash edition of Wife Swap, his table whooping and looking inappropriately smug. I yawned widely. My mate Naz materialised from behind a pillar as Sam sat down again beside me.

  ‘Mag! I thought you’d be here.’ She kissed me.

  ‘How’s it going?’ I refilled my glass and offered her a slurp. ‘Meet Sam, and this is Joseph, and Johnson. And you know Renee, of course.’

  ‘Hiya all! If you fancy a quick livener, I’m on the Panorama table, behind the Big Brother lot,’ she muttered in my ear. ‘Those spoddy types are mad for it.’

  A big ruddy-faced man appeared behind Sam. ‘All right, Sammy? Enjoying yourself?’

  Dickie Crosswell. Sam must have taken after his mother, I thought hazily, smiling at the jolly brick-red face and three chins. He looked like a man who enjoyed life, though he had small eyes sunk like raisins in dough. Sam was flushing gently again.

  ‘Dad,’ he muttered, head bowed.

  Joseph looked sulky as I stood to shake Crosswell’s hand. Crosswell leaned forward and kissed me heartily on both cheeks. ‘You must be the lovely Maggie. Sam’s told me all about you. Keep up the good work.’

  It was my turn to blush.

  Somewhere between Fern Britton awarding her mate Philip Schofield for Best Entertainment show and Judy Finnegan’s dress NOT falling off – to everyone’s enduring sadness – as she awarded a gurning Davina for most Compassionate Presenter for the ten-thousandth year in a row, I cadged a fag off Johnson and snuck out to the courtyard off the ballroom. I could have been a million miles from London as I stood in the dying light, the hollyhocks in wooden planters taller than my head, snail tracks slippery and silver over the frayed lower leaves, and lit my first cigarette in months.

  ‘Maggie,’ his voice made me jump as I coughed, ‘I didn’t know you smoked.’

  ‘I don’t really any more.’ Hydrangea heads as big as cauliflowers wobbled in the gentle breeze as I ground out the hardly smoked cigarette with my toe, th
e unfamiliar taste pungent in my mouth.

  ‘Will you wait while I smoke mine?’ Sam licked his Rizla.

  My phone beeped; I ignored it. ‘Give us a drag.’ I held my hand out for his roll-up.

  ‘Aren’t you going to check your message?’

  ‘I suppose.’ Listlessly I opened the envelope on the screen.

  I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU DESERTED ME, YOU TRAITOR. WHERE THE FUCK DID YOU GO?

  Alex.

  I shook my head and shoved the phone away.

  ‘Okay?’

  I tried to nod – and failed, bowing my head now as Sam gazed at me; as I realised suddenly that I was crying. Slowly, soundlessly, tears slipped down my cheeks, and I covered my face quickly, ashamed of the naked emotion.

  ‘Hey, Maggie.’ Sam’s voice was quiet as he slipped an arm around my shoulders. ‘Don’t cry. What’s wrong?’

  ‘Oh God, sorry,’ I gulped. ‘How stupid. I don’t know really. Everything. Nothing. Just ignore me. I think – I’m just tired.’

  I felt a huge yawning emptiness, like a rushing in my ears and I swayed slightly, wiping my tears away as Sam exhaled his smoke. And then he leaned forward and kissed me. I was so surprised I almost fell into the hydrangeas; his lips were soft on mine and I was hesitant. Then he stopped. I opened my eyes slowly and looked into his very green ones.

  ‘Oh,’ I said quietly.

  ‘Sorry.’ The flush spread beneath his freckles.

  ‘Don’t be,’ I murmured. ‘I was just a bit – taken aback.’

  ‘I shouldn’t –’

  ‘Ssshh.’ I put my finger against his mouth. ‘You should. It’s nice. No one’s kissed me like that for –’

  He kissed me again. He was so nice; such a boy, so very young. He tasted of tobacco and wine and I felt no lust for him, just a kind of drunken sweetness from lost teenage holidays. ‘You always look so sad, you know,’ he whispered.

  ‘Sad?’

  ‘You’re so beautiful – but you always look kind of haunted.’

  I was touched that he’d noticed anything about me at all. ‘I thought I just looked – I don’t know.’ I tried to laugh. ‘Knackered all the time.’

  ‘No, just sad.’ He pushed my hair back off my face. ‘And beautiful. Would you –’ he cleared his throat nervously, ‘would you like to come home with me?’

  ‘What – back to your dad’s?’ I laughed. ‘I don’t think so, Sam, sweetheart.’

  He looked embarrassed and I immediately felt guilty. ‘Sorry. That came out all wrong. It’s just, well, I’ve got a boyfriend, you know.’ I thought of Alex; I realised I didn’t feel any guilt about him at all. I looked at Sam again, into his black-fringed eyes that gleamed in the dark, and I smiled. ‘You’re so sweet.’

  ‘Don’t say that.’ He scuffed the gravel with his baseball boot. ‘It sounds a bit – you know. Patronising.’

  ‘Aha!’ Naz popped out of the glass doors, her glossy bob swinging in the candlelight. ‘Smokers united!’ Then she peered at us in the gloom. ‘Sorry, am I interrupting something?’

  I moved away from Sam and accepted another fag from her. ‘Don’t be silly.’

  Naz gave me a light. ‘Listen, Ben and Jeff from Roar have booked a suite on the twelfth floor. They’ve got a sound-system going and everything. Come up afterwards.’

  The night seemed to speed up then, as we went up and down in the big lifts between the ballroom and the free booze and the caners in Suite 103 until I realised I was having a positive whale of a time. Johnson left Renee downstairs chatting up a courteous Trevor McDonald and skinned up several enormous spliffs of Sam’s skunk that I didn’t dare try; my head had started to spin already and everyone was drinking champagne and Mojitos and dancing to Kanye West and then I felt so pissed suddenly that I decided to have a line of Naz’s coke. It seemed like a blinding idea at the time, and Sam had one too, and then I felt very peculiar and suddenly much more sober, like I’d just seen everything with great clarity, like the whole room had stopped tilting, was brightening and sharpening into cartoon-like colour. The music was so loud it rocked through my body as Sam pulled me into the ornate bathroom and pushed the door shut behind us and we kissed again, and this time it wasn’t quite so innocent. I leaned over him as he sat on the edge of the bath and he unbuttoned my shirt and kissed my neck, and I thought this is nice, really, really nice, although it was also rather blurry and this time I had to push away thoughts of Alex in the flat earlier – and then suddenly there was a massive pounding on the door and I jumped. I turned towards the door to see Johnson.

  ‘Blood, there’s some bloke looking for you – and that kid Joseph downstairs told him you were up here. He don’t look too happy, I must say.’

  I thought Johnson was talking to Sam until suddenly there was Alex looming behind him, oh Christ, and I didn’t even have time to button my shirt as he pushed past the other man to haul me off Sam’s lap, and then he literally picked Sam up by the scruff of his neck and punched him so hard that I heard the bone in Sam’s nose crack.

  ‘Sam,’ I screamed, far too late. Then Alex lifted me right off my own feet, dragging me backwards towards the door.

  ‘Ow.’ Tears sprang to my eyes. He had hold of handfuls of my hair, and Johnson was moving to pick Sam up off the floor, and I tried to speak, to explain, but I was shaking with fear and adrenaline.

  ‘I was just –’

  ‘Fuck off,’ Alex snarled.

  Sam was trying to stand now, holding his nose, blood seeping through his fingers, and I reached out to him. ‘Oh God, Sam. I’m so sorry –’

  ‘Shut up, you stupid cow,’ Alex howled, flinging me back so I banged my head against the door-frame. ‘What the fuck are you up to?’

  ‘Easy now, bruv.’ Johnson was coming towards us now, arms extended, pacifying.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I stuttered to my furious boyfriend, but he wasn’t listening, he was squaring up to Johnson.

  ‘Alex, for God’s sake.’ I tried to pull him back before he punched Johnson too, but Alex grabbed my arms now in an unremitting hold, staring down at me like he didn’t know me, like he’d never seen me – and when I looked back into his eyes I saw that they were blank. Despite the heat of the night, I shivered. ‘You’re hurting me,’ I whispered. ‘Let go, please.’

  The music was still banging, but other people were coming towards us now. Naz was there, and Alex was still holding on to me as Sam leaned over the huge bath, groaning, blood splashing onto the white porcelain – and then Alex suddenly looked at him.

  ‘Sorry, mate.’

  I grabbed some loo-roll to offer Sam, to staunch the blood – and then Alex picked me up like a small child.

  ‘Get the fuck away from him,’ he snarled, dragging me outside into the suite, banging me against the wall, and he had his hands around my throat, and I could see he was gone, he wasn’t there any more, he was in a netherworld. He didn’t know what he was doing and I was struggling to get free and then Johnson was trying to pull Alex off, and Naz was yelling at him, and then hotel security were there and suddenly one of them headbutted Alex and I was screaming like I couldn’t stop – actually, the thing was I couldn’t stop – and then I was trying to get in-between the security guard and Alex and somehow my suit got torn and my shirt was still undone, and then I got punched too by a random fist before Naz pulled me away. Then Alex got arrested, and I was so utterly hysterical by this point that for some reason they took me in too.

  And that was when Charlie had to bail me out.

  Dickie Crosswell wanted to press charges against Alex. Sally told me later that he’d been in Charlie’s office the next day with Sam, absolutely furious, and Charlie had been utterly sycophantic – but it was Sam who’d apparently dissuaded his father in the end. Somehow the Awards people managed to hush it all up, paranoid that it would get out that so many industry bods were taking drugs at their do, and apparently there had even been a couple of Eastern European hookers in the room who’d wandered up from the bar, and so it was
in everybody’s general interest to cover it all up. Thank God no names made it into the press – although a fracas was alluded to in various gossip columns. And thank God Renee never found out exactly what happened. That would really have been the end of me.

  I felt mortified about Sam. He never came back to Double-decker, at least not while I was there. I called him a few days after the incident, and he was quiet and apologetic, although I felt it was entirely my fault.

  ‘I hope you will be happy again soon, Maggie,’ he said at the end of a stilted conversation, ‘you deserve to be.’

  Dry-eyed, I put the phone down – but his words haunted me for a long time afterwards. I felt hollow and truly ashamed; like I’d compromised everything I’d ever believed in, like I’d let him down.

  The following Monday I dragged myself back in to work to face my furious boss.

  ‘What the fuck were you thinking, Maggie?’ Charlie snarled. He was so angry he could hardly speak, pale beneath his tan. ‘Fucking with Crosswell? I mean, why not choose the son of the most powerful man in TV to hospitalise. Give him some coke and a fucking Polish tart while you’re at it. I trusted you – and you and your loser boyfriend utterly, utterly fucked it up.’

  I was completely contrite, tried hard to explain – except what could I possibly say to make it any better? ‘My boyfriend’s an alcoholic and I’m not far off and I kissed the well-connected work-experience because he said I was beautiful; I kissed him because my boyfriend has forgotten me; because I’m so terribly, terribly lonely.’

  Charlie was about to sack me, of that I was sure, and then he seemed to realise I was rapidly falling apart – albeit quietly – by this stage coming into work drunk, black-eyed from that flying fist, Alex’s fingerprints visible around my neck – and so he gave me a week off to ‘recuperate’, as he called it.

  ‘Sort it out, Maggie,’ he said, and got his assistant to book me an appointment with the employee counsellor – ‘before you have a complete breakdown, you stupid girl.’ At the time I was just grateful to still have a job; grateful to have an understanding boss; grateful my father hadn’t found out about Alex and me being arrested. It wasn’t until later that I realised Charlie was only worried about being sued by Crosswell or rumbled by Lyons or the press.