‘What on earth’s going on?’ says Tabitha. ‘Sorry to barge in and wake you up like this, but, really. What did you do to the flat? What happened to the heating, the lights?’
She is in a suave, maroon winter coat, cashmere jumper, and slender jeans I could never afford. Almost military in her stiffness, yet always chic. For a moment I don’t know what to say. I look at her, as I come to full consciousness. And I wonder, for a second, how jealous I am, of her, my best friend. She’s always been that bit better than me, in every way: richer, from a much smarter home. But she is also a shade taller, and a tiny bit prettier; she was blonde and I was a redhead; throughout our twenties we subtly competed for men and she usually won. Were we competing for Jamie Trewin – was that why I egged her on, so that he would prefer me, so he would maybe come on to me?
Perhaps it is all my fault.
‘Seriously, Jo,’ says Tabs, sitting herself on the end of the bed, still frowning, ‘what the hell is wrong? I came back from Arlo’s an hour ago, and found everything off – and I mean everything. And it was freezing cold. Then I worked out someone had switched the flat off, with the fuse box!’ She shakes her head. ‘Is there a problem – you have to tell me these things.’
I order myself to sit up. In my two T-shirts and jumper. Painfully aware I must look a total state. Bed hair everywhere. Shiny with sweat. What do I say? I still can’t go near the events with Jamie, so long ago, so utterly unmentionable. And what is left? Stalling for time, I pull the jumper over my head, and off, followed by the second T-shirt. Then I come up with some fumbling answer.
‘I got confused by the Assistants. The app. Think I used the app wrong, so the Assistants turned the lights on and off.’
From the end of the bed, she shakes her head, confused:
‘Sorry? The Assistants?’
‘They were saying things. Um. Ah. Ah. And I forgot how, uh, how to, you know, talk to them, get them to do things, because, well. Because they are confusing.’
I drawl to an embarrassing halt. It is impossible to even hint at the truth without leading her straight to the crux of the matter: the Assistants are talking to me, and tormenting me, and the whole flat feels like it is alive, and using the death of Jamie Trewin to make me think that I am mad.
Alternatively, I could tell Tabitha that I am, indeed, very possibly going crazy, as I am exhibiting symptoms of late-onset schizophrenia horribly similar to those my beloved daddy experienced when he thought the TV was ordering him around, a few years before he finally did himself in.
I wonder how my friend and flatmate would react if I said all that. Tabitha already looks like a concerned nurse at my bedside. Momentarily I think she is going to put her four fingers flat to my forehead, checking for fever. Like she is my mum, and I am a kid, seeking a day off school.
Tabitha hesitates, then says, ‘What do you mean, you forgot how to control the Assistants? I’ve told you how to use the apps. Several times.’
Her voice is calm enough, but I can also detect a hint of impatience. Stern, but professional. I think it is that coat; it is so smart. Where does she buy these things?
Tabitha’s body language says: WELL?
‘What I mean is—’ It dawns on me, belatedly, that I shouldn’t say anything about the voices or the song. It makes me sound too mad. Too much like Daddy. I go on, ‘When I got back from our drinks, you know, in Highgate, the lights were flickering, and then I must have done something to the heating, it was so chilly. But I was drunk and tired – and I reckon I did it wrong. I guess I’m not used to the technology yet.’
‘OK,’ my friend says. Thin-lipped. ‘And then?’
‘And then …’ I sit up very straight: preparing my lie. I can lie quite well when called upon. I learned as a kid, when other kids would ask about my dad. Why he was so weird, or acting scary. I refused to admit he was mad. He was my daddy and I loved him and he used to be the funniest, kindest man on earth, my idol, my daddy, who told me riddles and made me giggle. How dare they say horrible things about him. So I came up with some convincing lies. And I shall do the same now. I gaze at Tabitha’s impatient, expectant face.
‘Well, Tabs. After all that I thought, sod it, there must be some bug, or malfunction, and I turned everything off at the fuse box.’
I look in her eyes. Blank. Stubborn. Defending myself. I will not be cowed. I love Tabitha but I won’t be patronized by her. Even if I am in the wrong.
My lie – or my half-truth – seems to have done the job. She stands, wearing a softer mystified frown, then she flicks a glance at her wristwatch.
‘Christ, it’s nearly ten. I have to go, we’re editing at the studios – those bloody frogs.’ Her eyes meet mine. I see sympathy there. And confusion. And something else I don’t comprehend. ‘Look, sweetheart, I don’t blame you or anything like that, it was a shock, that’s all. The flat was so cold! Tell you what …’ She walks from my side, over to my bedroom door, and gives me the first smile of the morning. ‘Shall we have a nice supper tonight, just you and me here? Open a nice bottle of red, then I can explain again how everything works – the lights, the apps, the whole shebang. And we can gossip about Arlo’s stupid Belgian banker pal. Turns out he’s quite remarkably deviant. It’s delicious.’
My friend is being a friend. She’s being nice. Perhaps too nice?
No. What’s wrong with me? Why am I mistrusting my very best friend?
‘Brilliant!’ I say. ‘Great idea, a girls’ night in. I’ll cook! I’ll do that fish thing, cioppino – remember?’
‘Excellent,’ she says. ‘Make a lot, I bet I won’t even have time for lunch – we’ll be stuck in that studio all day – the exec producer clearly misses her time in the Gestapo.’
Pale blue eyes. Pretty smile.
Tabitha opens the door, and the smile is saying goodbye,
‘See you later. Let the Assistants sort the heating and everything, I’ve rebooted them all. They’re fine.’
And with that she sweeps out of my bedroom. Leaving her perfume.
It is the scent of my humiliation. Probably costs £5,000 an ounce. I, by contrast, smell of dried sweat and unwashed T-shirts. I hear the flat door slam. I stare at HomeHelp. The ovoid tormentor. There are no dancing lights. There is nothing. I can still feel the dreamy Xanax in my head. The sleeping pills. How many did I take? I can’t recall. That’s a bad sign. I must Pull Myself Together. I must be like Tabitha. Efficient, brisk, clever, smart, yet still funny and likeable. Why can’t I be like her?
Yes. Enough. GET UP. Don’t think about the past. GET UP.
But it is too late. As I stand up and walk into the living room. and gaze at the moistened frost on the windows, the memories finally breach, like a ferocious Christmas storm, like winter waves swamping little harbours. Jamie Trewin. Poor Jamie Trewin. It all comes back to that.
11
Jo
We were so young. Very young and very foolish. It was the second time Tabitha and I had been to Glastonbury, it was the summer we graduated: warm and sunny.
The first time we went to Glasto it rained and our feeble tent collapsed and the experience was essentially miserable. We fled the knee-deep First World War mud after one night, dragging sleeping bags smeared with dark soil into a friend’s VW combi; we missed all the bands we’d come to see and didn’t even get properly drunk.
So this second Glasto we were determined to have fun. The forecast was excellent. Cloudless for the whole June week. Tabitha had a load of friends and relatives going, a guaranteed crowd of good timers. We arrived early, before the fuming queues of cars began to form on the narrow Somerset lanes. The tent was expensive and solid – bought by Tabitha, naturally – one of those tents that simply zoinks into position when you unzip the side. There’s your tent. We stuffed our rucksacks into a corner and went out to have the FUN we didn’t have the first time.
We saw every band possible, we checked out the mediocre comedians, we watched three lesbians in black tie playing ‘Hoppípolla’ b
y Sigur Rós on the ukulele – it was the song of the festival, we heard it everywhere in different versions – we met a man on stilts with maracas and devil horns, a team of pantomime llamas, a dreadlocked poet warbling his sonnets into a megaphone, we went to a sweat lodge and got gigglingly naked, then we bought some E and popped the pills just in time to get that slow rush of happiness, that building sensation of blissful, half amorous Love-the-World generosity, as the sun set red and symbolic and magically perfect over the sacred breast of Glastonbury Tor – ironically this was one of the times when religiously, I thought, who knows – then we decided to go back to our tent for some wine Tabitha had stolen from her dad’s cellar, and on the way a tall white guy in purple face-paint with yellow flame-bursts at the eyes called out to Tabitha, ‘Hey, Tabs!’ and she turned to me and rolled her eyes and laughed, and whispered, ‘He’s some old family friend, I barely know him, but his dad knows my dad. Apparently he does the best pills, though, always has the best pills.’ And so Tabs turned and smiled at Purple Man and said, ‘Hey, Whassup?’ and he came over and grinned and laughed like a loon, and then he sold us some tablets, ‘Better than E,’ he kept saying. ‘Girls, Tabs, you guys, these are better than any pills in, like, the history of forever’, and Tabitha casually handed out fifty quid for four, and then we traipsed over snogging couples and through dancing circles of teens gathered around some guitarists – ‘Hoppípolla’ naturally – and we made it to our tent where we simply started laughing, and laughing, and laughing, as we fumbled for the wine, dropping our torches and giggling as we sought out the corkscrew.
I don’t know what was so funny. I don’t remember ever being quite that happy.
Certainly not after that day.
Perhaps it was our giggling that attracted him. Or our loud raucous laughter after we discovered we didn’t have any cups so Tabitha poured wine down my throat and I did the same to her. Like we were pagan, heathen, Roman. Possibly it was the force of magical bliss that brought Jamie our way. Or it was the devil, guiding him to witches.
Whatever the cause and the context, in the sweet, warm, noisy Glastonbury twilight, a handsome face peered through the flap of our tent.
‘Jamie!’ I said.
‘Jamie Jamie Jamie!’ Tabitha said. Laughing.
He was a mutual acquaintance from university. He was a New Zealander doing a year’s study abroad. I liked his Kiwi accent. I liked him. He was properly handsome, and masculine, in a young, mop-headed way. He was easy-going and fun. We’d all got drunk at parties and danced, many times, and he was forever generously buying us drinks at the student bar. Tabs and I both fancied him, but no one had yet made a move.
And here he was. In our tent. He grinned at us. I grinned back, all E’d up and sexy. I could see the big blazing white pyramid stage beyond him. Hear the cheering. I glimpsed the sea of floodlit white arms, stripy banners, and rippling pennants, the pageantry of a hundred thousand young people all happy and singing in the dark. It felt magically ancient yet new. Like a medieval encampment on MDMA, a grand besieging army of psychedelic banners. The noise was intense; obviously some major band was playing. It could have been the Beatles reformed. We were too happy to care. Hoppípolla!
‘Jesus,’ he said. ‘You girls are having a ton of fun. What are you on?’
‘Rough cider,’ said Tabitha, snorkelling with laughter. ‘No, it’s realllllllly good.’
‘As if!’ Jamie laughed. ‘You got some E or something? You couldn’t spare me a couple of pills, could you? I can’t find anyone.’
Tabitha and I looked at each other. We giggled and grinned, and evidently had the same thought at the same time. Why not? We both liked him, he was a sweet, fun, generous guy; we were already halfway to chemical heaven, we didn’t require another rush.
‘Yes,’ I said to her, ‘go on, Tabs. We don’t need them, do we? Look at us!’
I laughed, she laughed, she reached into her hippy-chick embroidered bag and handed over the lime-green pills Purple Man had given us.
‘They’re better than E,’ she said, in a darkly conspiratorial whisper. ‘Better than any E in, like, the entire history of forever. Or something. Here, you can have them for free.’
And we fell into fits of laughter. Jamie took them with a dashing smile of thanks, and then he winked.
‘You girls are the best. See ya later in the trance tent?’
We vividly agreed. He left the scene. After that, the evening blurred even more – for a while, for a while. At one point we met some friends of Tabitha’s and we pretended to be sheep and sheep dogs, or lions and tigers, crawling between tents, babyish with hilarity, and then we went to some big orange glowing marquee with pounding drum and bass, where we danced with bare-chested jugglers and dreadlocked guys with phosphorescent hula-hoops, and then we chilled out listening to long-haired girls with violas, and then we came across Jamie, in the trance tent as promised: wild-eyed and happy, dancing and euphoric,
‘Hey, ladies!’ he whooped. ‘You LOVELY girls. Wanna come back to my tent? Chill out a bit? I got some great Kiwi wine,’ and he grinned at us both, in that boyish but manly way. ‘Tent’s a whopper as well, way out by the pylons, and all my mates are with their girls. Got it to ourselves, all night.’
And that was it, the fateful moment, the fateful choice.
Remembering that choice, I look at Electra, here, on the shelves of Tabitha’s flat. Silent and mute, she stands there. Dark and watching.
Judging.
Why did we agree to go back to the tent? Was it sex all along?
Whatever the reason, I said an eager ‘Sure!’ And then Tabs smiled a knowing smile and said, ‘Yeah, why not.’
And so we traipsed through the crowds to a distant, empty corner of the campground, lonely and dark. And true enough, Jamie had a huge empty tent with a New Zealand flag flying proudly above, and some great Sauvignon Blanc inside, still cold in a thermos. And as he tremblingly, gigglingly served up the wine he stammered,
‘Those pills, my fucking God. Those bloody pills you gave me, Tabs, they’re the fucking best. What a buzz. I owe you!’ He winked. ‘Both of you!’
Wine poured, toasts made, cuddling close, it kicked off. I don’t know who kissed Jamie first. I think it was me. But we certainly both kissed him, and then the kisses became kisses, and then he had his shirt off, and I had my top off, and the glory of his muscles shone – they glowed like rippled gold in the dim dim lamplight from somewhere distant. And then Tabitha was kissing him, and he had his hand up her dress, and I had my hand down his jeans, and I was thinking, excitedly, my first threesome, this is it, my first threesome, never done this before, oh what a memory. I felt I was growing up, leaving Thornton Heath behind, no one ever had a threesome in Thornton Heath.
And thus the night swirled and I couldn’t remember who was kissing who, or whether it mattered, and Jamie had his mouth on my breast and it made me shudder, in loud pleasure, and Tabitha was giggling as he nuzzled me, and she said, ‘Oops, I got to pee, before we all get serious,’ and then she staggered out of the tent – and I turned back to Jamie.
He was coming in for another kiss, but as he did, I recoiled, in shock, nearly retching. Because there was something pouring from his mouth like wine, but I knew it wasn’t wine. It was blood. It was drooling, thickly. Streaming trickles of blood. And he had no idea. Sickened, I jerked away.
And now, from nowhere, this was a different Jamie. He tilted his head, and mumbled, puzzled, choking on the blood; his words were slurring, wildly, and his eyes were acting strange, kind of rolling white, the pupils tiny, I called to Tabitha – Tabitha! Help! – and as I did, Jamie’s head began to shake, violently, and a line of frothing pink drool ran from his mouth, mixing with the blood, and his body was jerking, up and down, up and down,
‘Jamie, Jamie, what the fuck, what is it??’
‘Nnn—’ he said, it was all he could say – and then he vomited, like they do in horror films, horizontally, spraying the canvas walls, and his body thrashe
d once, twice, wildly, spasming, ‘Ffff,’ he croaked, throatily, ‘FFF those – those pills, aaa—’
Somehow he was up, and then he was out of the tent, running. Fast fast fast, into the dark. Towards the happy crowds, the wider campground, where the girls in tiny summer dresses were sending Chinese lanterns, sad and scarlet, into the dark.
For a second I sat there in the tent. Inert. Paralysed by confusion, and terror. Tabitha reappeared. Face white through the tent-flaps.
‘What is it? Where the fuck’s he gone?’
In my panic, it was all I could do to talk.
‘I don’t know. He said those pills we gave him. Made him ill. Oh God, Tabs! What have we done??’
We both rushed out, buttoning and zipping our clothes, heading towards the crowds. For two, five, ten or so minutes, we pushed through the mob, which was pushing against us; then we heard it, heard them. The police sirens, the police shouts, and then we saw the swivelling blue of ambulance lights. Coming from the direction of the main Glastonbury campground.
Everyone could sense the commotion, it rippled across the festival, like information through a hive. Lots of people were walking away from trouble, shaking their heads. Yet I wanted to push the opposite way.
‘Come on,’ I said to Tabs, ‘we have to know.’
‘No no no,’ she said. ‘Let’s go back.’
If only I had listened; if only we had gone back. I would never have seen it. Never have known, maybe.
Yet I was determined to help. Do my bit. So I pulled her through the last of the crowd. Where it thinned to allow space for the horror beyond. I saw a vacated patch of floodlit mud and grass where police were standing around, talking into radios on their shoulders. Bright light flooded from their vehicles and the open ambulance doors. Paramedics were crouched over the young man at the centre of the scene. It was like a painting by Caravaggio. I’d been studying him at uni. The darkness and light, the vivid contrasts. There is always a central figure, around which the composition revolves. And the centre of this scene was Jamie.
The Assistant Page 7