Mr. In-Between Read online

  Andy struggled to open a pack of cigarettes, removed two and placed one butt-first in Jon’s mouth. ‘Your problem is,’ he said, and waved the cigarette like a mini baton, the drunk’s rhetorical tool, ‘is that you haven’t told me anything about what you do or what’s happened to you in the last few years. I’m your mate, right,’ he said, and patted Jon on the shoulder, thereby crushing the as yet still unlit cigarette. ‘And I don’t give a shit about what you do. I don’t care if you’re a fucking lollipop man or … It’s just, you know, you’ve done so much …’ His face brightened. ‘Seen the kitchen? That’s down to you. Bought the kitchen. Cath couldn’t believe it at first, you know, you turn up out of the blue and bingo whatsit, I’ve got a job … We couldn’t believe it. Saved us, like. Proper mate. Kind of friend who don’t ever let you down. Might take the fucker ten years to pop up like Indiana fucking Jones and save all and sundry, but you can be fucking sure he’ll be there. Trust you, like,’ he said with surprising vehemence, and emphasised his point, such as it was, by striking the carpet with the flat of his hand. ‘I told Cath all about you,’ he said, ‘only about a month before you turned up. When she found out I met you that afternoon, she was worried you’d be a bad influence.’ He lifted the half-empty bottle and tipped it, his ironic laughter causing some to bubble from his throat and down his chin. ‘That’s a laugh. Bad influence. Bless her.’

  ‘Christ,’ said Jon. ‘Give you a couple of drinks and off you go. You’ve got a world full of best mates until you wake up.’

  Andy buried his face in his hands. Jon was slightly scared that he was going to start crying in his drunken sentimentality, which was not without historical precedent, but it was a false alarm. Somebody walking back from the toilet nudged Andy forward and he rocked like a weeble. Jon saw that he was stretching the skin around his tired, blood-red eyes with his yellowed fingertips. ‘We were worried,’ he said, in a very small and very sober voice. ‘We didn’t know what had happened to you.’

  Jon knew that this was something that Andy had to be drunk in order to say, rather than that he was saying it because he was drunk. The distinction, ostensibly subtle, was fundamental, and opened before him a vertiginous abyss, threatened to transport him to an undiscovered country for which there were no maps. ‘Come on, mate,’ he said. ‘Don’t be dumb. Stop it now. Shut up.’

  Before anything else could be said, a hand closed around Jon’s wrist and one of the black-dressed dancers was trying to pull him to his feet, jerking her head in the general direction of the dance-floor. Jon groaned so that, if she was especially sharp sighted, she might have seen a slight flutter of contempt pass across his lips. He looked despairingly at Andy, who winked and mouthed the eternal credo, ‘I think you’re in there, mate.’

  She looked back at her friends and laughed. Dancers paused and gave a round of applause. She had very big, very even teeth and bent forward slightly when laughing, clasping her thighs. She couldn’t believe she was doing this, her laugh said, she really couldn’t believe that you lot of drunken mares had put her up to this. I’ll get you back, the laugh said. The dancers clapped louder. She pulled Jon to a half-crouched position. He had yet to think of something that might enable him to escape the hell that this woman was trying to lead him to. She turned once more to her friends, ‘This is like trying to unblock a bloody sink …’ and back again to Jon. He could see a wickedly confident light in her eye, fuelled both by her own surprise at doing what was clearly for her an unusual thing and the approval of her friends, who continued to look on and clap their encouragement. Jon had no choice but to allow himself to be pulled to his feet. For some reason, he was surprised that she was shorter than him. Looking down, he could see the crown of her head, and felt a stab of ambiguous pity for her that she had made such public efforts to entice to the dance-floor the one man who for all the world could not be made to dance.

  She tugged on his hand. ‘Come on, love,’ she said, ‘we don’t bite.’

  He shuffled from foot to foot. ‘I’m not a very good dancer,’ he pleaded. He honestly believed, when progress to the dance-floor seemed inevitable, that he had never been so scared in all his life. As soon as he caught Cathy’s eye, he knew that she saw some of this, although once again the smile did not alter, nor was there even some more subtle clue, not even the infinitesimal shifting of weight from one foot to another. She took a single step forward and touched her friend’s shoulder, nodding at the half-comatose figure of the young girl, whose eyes had rolled to show the whites.

  Cathy said, ‘I think we’d better get madam some fresh air.’ She looked at Jon: ‘Jon, could you help her out to the garden and get her a glass of water or something. Be a love.’ Jon wanted to fall at her feet and weep with gratitude. Instead, he looked at the other woman with soulful apology. She looked at him like he was mad. She laughed and again glanced back over her shoulder before speaking. ‘Bloody hell,’ she said, ‘cheer up. It’s not the end of the world.’ Then she took another man’s hand, a father or a neighbour or an uncle, and proceeded to lead him to the makeshift dance-floor. Not without effort Jon, Cathy and Andy raised the girl to her feet. One way or another, her arm was slung round Jon’s neck and he walked her, half-conscious, in the direction of the garden. He opened the door and watched her sit, shuddering in the first cold blast of fresh early morning air. She hugged her knees to her chest. Jon retrieved his overcoat from above the fridge and wrapped it about her shoulders. She snuggled into it, nuzzling her cheek against its soft weave. She was so drunk that to move her mouth was an effort beyond her capabilities. Jon poured her a glass of water and held it to her lips. She took a tiny sip, swallowed, licked her lips. He tipped her chin with his finger and said, ‘Once more, it’ll do you good,’ and she took a second, obliging sip. He stroked her brow, brushing her sweaty fringe from her face.

  ‘I told you you’d be good with kids,’ said Andy, who was standing behind him, a bottle in each fist. ‘Nothing to it. You’re a natural, look. Proper nurse.’ At this point the girl leaned forward and threw up across the threshold. Jon wrapped her in his arms and said, ‘Come on, stand up. Let’s get you into the garden. You can get it all out of your system in the fresh air. Best place for it.’

  He walked her to the bottom of the small garden. She was bent double as if cramped, and was repeating something softly and rhythmically. He stopped and bent so that his ear was level with her mouth. She was repeating ‘It’s horrible’ over and over again. He couldn’t resist a laugh. He even moved to rustle her hair again, but was acutely aware of Andy’s eyes upon him as he too stepped into the garden, sucking breath between his teeth and wrapping about his shoulders an old coat retrieved from some kitchen cupboard. Jon sat on the narrow strip of grass just outside the patch of light cast through the kitchen window. Andy plonked himself next to him and groaned, stretched his neck. Jon heard bone click. They allowed the girl to undergo the painful but inevitable rite of passage, the indignity of pacing the damp grass on all fours, pausing only to strain, puking and hacking her guts somewhere behind them. Occasionally, one of them would turn to her to offer a brief word of comfort and encouragement, but the desired effect of this was somewhat undermined by the little snorting laugh they shared between them when they had done so. They passed the Jack Daniels between them, blowing on their numb fingers when they had taken a swig and wincing as they passed it along. After a pleasant interval of this, Jon lay back and looked straight up. It was a relatively clear night, and through the haze of low cloud and electric light pollution, he could see several of the brighter stars. They snuggled into themselves, cupping free hands around cigarettes.

  Eventually Andy handed the bottle over and spoke in that particular and uniquely soft tone of voice reserved for drinking alcohol outside, late at night on patches of grass, in the winter. ‘The fresh air did me good,’ he said, the banality given weight by the special tone in which it was broadcast, which contained a certain indefinable intimacy. The girl retched painfully and noisily. ‘That
’s right,’ encouraged Andy, ‘bring it all up.’ For the twentieth time tonight, they found this hilarious.

  At length, the girl crawled over to Andy and put her head in his lap. Before he could speak she had fallen asleep. He raised his eyes to the sky in mock exasperation. The girl snuggled for warmth and he tucked Jon’s coat more tightly about her. Jon craned his neck to see, and drew on the cigarette. Its tip glowed bright in the darkness. Jon lay flat once more. He found the bottle with his hand and managed to glug a good mouthful without lifting his head, which he still considered a pretty neat trick if he thought about it.

  ‘Is she a neighbour or what?’ whispered Jon, in that same hushed voice.

  ‘Family,’ said Andy. ‘Cathy’s sister’s eldest.’ He gently stroked her head with one hand, lit another cigarette with the other. ‘I’m going to have a hangover and a half tomorrow,’ he said, examining the cigarette as if he had not the faintest idea of where it had come from. He scratched his chin. ‘Sorry about going on a bit in there,’ he said. ‘I think I’m pissed.’

  ‘That’s all right. There’s nothing you said that I’d like to think you didn’t mean.’

  Andy shifted uncomfortably. ‘We just wonder,’ he said at length. ‘You’ve done all this for us. Have you really got no one?’

  Jon scowled. ‘Not so you’d notice, no.’

  The pause that followed lasted the length of the cigarette, plus a period which marked the evaluation of how wise it would be to light another one. Andy lit, inhaled. Jon could feel him thinking. Finally he said, ‘Are you a poof?’

  Jon barked, although he was not amused. ‘Does it matter?’

  A long pause.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, then, why ask?’

  ‘Because you’re my mate and I don’t know a single fucking thing about you.’

  Jon sat up, and saw that Andy was gazing at him with sober intensity. ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘You’re never on one level,’ said Andy. ‘You always seem to be thinking about ten different things at once.’

  ‘What do you want? Life’s complicated. Surprise surprise.’

  ‘It’s not that. Look,’ he said, ‘Rickets, I mean, he’s a fair enough bloke but you know he can be a bit of a wanker. Well, he’s an arrogant, jumped-up little shit really, isn’t he? Except when you’re around. He treats you like royalty.’

  Jon shrugged. ‘It’s cold. Let’s go inside.’

  ‘Oh, bollocks to that,’ said Andy, and ground out the still fresh cigarette in the freezing grass. ‘Look, I don’t give a toss. I really, honestly, genuinely don’t give a toss. I just,’ and here he dipped his head, ‘look, I love you. You’re my friend. You know. Anything could have happened to you. Nobody even knows where you live. You disappear for a couple of months and your name begins to creep into Rickets’ conversation in the past tense, you know, and this big fucking grin all over his face. Anything could have happened. We had no way of knowing. We were worried.’

  Jon took a protracted swig from the bottle. He didn’t want to be clear-headed. He wanted to be drunk. He wanted to be dizzy and he wanted to see double. He wanted to pass out and he wanted Cathy to come out and sit out here with them on the grass and say ‘yeah’ the way she’d said it a week or two before. He wanted to get up and walk through the house and through the front door and into a taxi and never see Andy or Cathy or the kitchen he’d bought them ever again.

  He massaged his neck. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘point one, for what it matters, I’m not gay. But if being straight means sleeping with women, I’m not that either. It’s sort of complicated. All the rest is details. My address is no big secret. You and Cathy can bring Kirsty round for tea if you like. Stay the night. The big secret is that I’m a sort of overpaid personal assistant for a pretty big businessman, which is why Rickets is scared of me. I represent the boss. All right?’ He stood, and brushed moisture and grass stains from his arse. ‘Let’s get your niece inside.’

  Andy lifted the comatose girl and carried her back into the house, upstairs and into Kirsty’s room, removing her shoes, tucking her up tightly in a clean duvet and leaving a jug of water, a glass and a packet of Anadin Extra on the floor next to her.

  As he was about this, Jon remained in the kitchen. He retrieved another beer from the fridge. Cathy walked in. He looked at the floor. She was flushed with alcohol and exercise, and her previously immaculate hair was ratty and wet. He could smell the fresh sweat beneath her perfume. He knew that she could tell he wanted to look at her, or that he was reluctant to do so, which amounted to the same thing. He wished that this shared knowledge was the intimate thing it might have been. He wished he could tell her that, more than anything else, he wanted to rest his head against the warmth of her naked belly and allow himself the dreadful intimacy of touching and fixing in his memory every inch of her skin. He wished that this yearning could be simple, that it could be something as human and as everyday and as monstrous as lust, which drove friends to terrible betrayals. He wished he could explain to her.

  She waited until he raised his eyes from the floor and looked at her. ‘Has Andy talked to you yet?’ she said, and sipped from a tumbler of Southern Comfort and lemonade which she held against her breasts. The ice cubes tinkled.

  Jon sat at the table and buried his head in his hands. Anything to avoid looking at her. ‘Yeah,’ he said, tilting his head just enough to take a sip from the top of the beer. ‘Everything’s sorted.’

  ‘He loves you,’ she said.

  He pressed his eyes with his thumbs and bit the tip of his tongue. ‘I love him too.’

  ‘That’s not the point,’ she said. ‘He knows that. I know that. Everybody knows that.’ She pulled up one of the chairs that Jon had bought her. It screeched across the floor. ‘You’ve got no idea what a bloody mess everything was before you showed up,’ she said. ‘It got so I couldn’t stand the fucking sight of him.’

  At this Jon looked up, and saw that her face did not match the ferocity of her words. Instead there was a kind of gentle surprise, as if she’d given voice to something she’d never quite acknowledged. ‘He hadn’t touched me for months, but that got to be a blessing. I caught him crying,’ she said, ‘on the bog. Trousers round his ankles and head in his hands.’ She drained the glass, ice and all. ‘I would’ve left him at the first opportunity.’

  Jon was nodding. He wished he was deaf. ‘He loves you,’ he said, quietly. He was ashamed.

  She reached out and took the beer from his hand. Either her finger brushed his or the minute static charge of her dress raised the hair on his knuckles. She sipped. ‘That’s the point,’ she said. ‘That’s what made it all so fucking unbearable. All he wanted was to make me happy, but he associates love with doing something, with actually going out and physically doing something to show it. He thinks he’s thick and that anything which comes out of his mouth is going to make him look like an idiot. About a month before he met you again he started talking about you when he was drunk. All those things you did to look after each other as kids. I know it was kids’ stuff, but it means a lot to him. He knew he was making me hate him, and didn’t know how to stop. So he started thinking about you, about simpler times. About the mate who was always there to save him and who he was always there to save in return.’ She returned the tin. ‘And you bloody did. You saved him. Now he wants to help you. He wants to do something for you.’

  ‘He asked if I was gay,’ said Jon.

  ‘I think he was praying for you to be gay,’ she said.

  Jon laughed, incredulous. Massaged his brow.

  She insisted that this was true. She was smiling a gentle smile now. Almost nostalgic. ‘I think he wanted you to be gay just so that he could tell you that it didn’t matter and that he was still your friend no matter what. Do you see what I mean?’

  Somebody staggered from the front room and up the stairs and even over the music he could hear them curse as they tripped.

  ‘Let him do something for you,’ she sa
id. ‘Just something little.’

  He wanted to say something witty, non-committal. He wanted what he said to sound offhand and casual, possibly even a little conceited. He either wanted to impress her or to sound like he wanted to. But when he said, ‘I don’t need anything,’ it sounded like the loneliest and most desolate thing he’d ever heard. He finished the beer.

  Andy and one of the guests swaggered, arms linked, into the kitchen, wincing in the glare. ‘What are you two up to?’ said Andy, reaching into the fridge, withdrawing a beer for himself and his companion, who, accepting it, released himself from Andy’s grip and swayed on the spot with a look of simian confusion.

  ‘Trying to convince your wife of my heterosexuality,’ said Jon.

  ‘Fair enough,’ said Andy, and swigged. After a mouthful of lager, he added, ‘But don’t try too fucking hard, will you?’ Andy and friend sat with them. The friend maintained his silence. Every time he took a swig he held the can close to his eye as if looking through a keyhole, as if every time he sipped the beer was a different flavour. The crown of his hair was sticking up and his shirt had come untucked. Andy said, ‘Liz is on the prowl for you tonight,’ and winked lewdly. ‘I’d watch myself if I was you, mate.’

  Jon went cold. ‘Hasn’t she got a husband or something?’

  Cathy slapped his arm, laughing and making wide eyes. ‘Don’t be such a bastard,’ she said. ‘What’s wrong with her? She’s lovely.’

  ‘I know,’ agreed Jon. ‘I know. She is. No, really. She really is. Lovely. It’s just that I’m not so good a dancer.’

  Andy had informed his wife of Jon’s lack of ability to dance in any recognised fashion. She put her hand to her mouth and giggled and then belched. ‘You need to let your bloody hair down a bit more,’ she suggested and Andy laid his arm across her shoulders and agreed. ‘That’s what I’ve been bloody telling him,’ he said. ‘He can’t let it down so he cuts it off.’

  ‘Have a dance with her,’ said Cathy. ‘Go on. She likes you.’