Asking For Trouble (33 page)

When he catches me looking, Ilya does his best to conceal his rage and turns his attention to poor, soaked Tony.

But I saw him. I saw that brief betrayal of what’s ticking in his mind. He knows I’m fucking up on purpose, and it makes him livid because all he wants right now is for me to be a good little slut who can placate his creditors.

The clarity of my situation is stark, vicious almost in its suddenness: Ilya’s not concerned about me, not to the extent I want him to be. His priority is his own neck, and he’s using me in a way I don’t want to be used.

As Tony wipes at the damp patch on his trousers, and someone makes a fuss about getting a cloth from the bar, I swank away to another table.

There’s no point slutting it up for the bully-boys. I’ve done enough of that.

And, at last, I’ve reached my decision.

Today was good and today was bad.

Last night, shortly after my little accident with the beer, Ilya and his gang left the gig. Ilya said nothing to me – not even ‘Goodbye, never mind, thanks’ or ‘That was great’ or ‘You stupid bitch, what did you go and do that for?’ He just smouldered for a while, face like thunder, then they all trooped out.

It worried me for a long time. I kept thinking that maybe Ilya would have to bear the brunt of Tony’s wrath. Or maybe I would.

I couldn’t sleep – not just because of that but because of a thousand other things running through my mind. And, as I lay in bed, I was forever expecting the phone to ring or the door to buzz and for me to be summoned to take some ill treatment from Tony.

And if I didn’t agree, then Ilya would get his kneecaps blown off or cigarettes stubbed out on his face, or the tip of his tongue cut off with scissors. Or, more likely, my refusal would count for nothing and Tony would just get on with whatever he fancied doing to me.

I had lots of horrible, sick thoughts as I tried to imagine the worst kinds of sadistic torture Tony might be capable of. When your head is suddenly clogged up with violence, as mine was last night, it’s a truly nasty experience. And it was so hard to escape from. However much I tried to focus on nice things, some part of my brain kept working of its own volition, chucking up foul images to better the ones I already had.

But nobody called and, when daylight brought rationality, I figured Tony wouldn’t have reacted to what was, after all, just a bit of spilt beer. He didn’t have Ilya’s explosive rage. To be unhinged the way Tony is, you need a certain coolness, a psychopathic calm.

So I more or less reassured myself that Ilya would have seen the night through unharmed.

Around midday, I headed for his B and B.

I’d spent all morning wavering between decision and indecision – not about whether to do it but how to do it. Perhaps it would be easier if I just dropped him a line. If I say it to his face, maybe he’ll try to persuade me to change my mind; maybe it’ll get messy and emotional and I’ll start to weaken.

But I didn’t think that would happen. The one constant in all we’d been through was our respect for cuttlefish, the end. Even in the B and B, surrounded by thugs, Ilya had given me the option of saying the word, of walking away and leaving him to deal with Tony and his cold, gleeful violence.

There was something almost sacred about the clean death of cuttlefish.

So yes, I would say it to his face. Besides, I wanted to see his reaction. Would he look relieved? Hurt? Would he start frantically packing in a scramble to leave town now he’d lost his prize bargaining tool?

It was a warm, freakishly windy day. I walked along North Street and everyone’s hair and clothes were being whipped this way and that. When I reached the Old Steine, the force of those winds, powering in from the beach, almost took my legs from under me. The waves were crashing in like I’d never seen them before and the sea was swollen and choppy. It was weird weather.

At Ilya’s B and B, I pressed the bell. The beige man answered the door again, and again I told him I’d come to see someone in room nine.

He shook his head. ‘Left this morning,’ he said. ‘Not here any more.’

It took a while for this to sink in. I just stood there, the wind tunnelling up the street, lashing my hair across my face.

‘Are you sure?’ I said, raising my voice because that wind wanted to whip my words away.

‘Yep. Is your name . . .’ The man frowned, and beckoned me into the gaudy red lobby.

‘Are you sure?’ I repeated, as I closed the front door and deadened the noise of the weather. ‘Dark guy. Ilya Travis, his name was – is.’

‘Yep,’ said the landlord, and he disappeared into a room full of empty breakfast tables, spinsterish lampshades and net curtains. ‘Something odd like that,’ he called back. ‘Room nine, he was.’ He returned with an envelope, looked at it, then at me. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Beth,’ I breathed. ‘Beth Bradshaw.’

He handed me the envelope and I took it with shaky fingers. This wasn’t how it was meant to be.

I saw my name scrawled on the front and gave a silent breath of relief when I recognised the writing as Ilya’s. I’d half feared it might be unknown to me and inside there would be some horrible message about Ilya’s fate. Maybe there still was. Maybe it was a blood-splattered farewell, written by Ilya while he had a gun pressed to his head.

I didn’t want to open it.

‘Do you know where he’s gone?’ I asked. ‘Was anyone with him?’

‘Just paid up and left.’ The landlord shrugged, resting his hand on the wooden banister as if he were about to go upstairs. ‘Not likely to tell me where he’s going, is he? It’s a bed and breakfast. People come. People go. Quite early it was. Now, anything else I can do for you?’

‘No,’ I whispered, feeling slightly foolish. ‘Thanks.’ And I left.

Outside, I leant against the spiky black railings, my back to the sea in order to shield my envelope. I opened it with strong, sure fingers, terrified the contents would be snatched away from me, sucked up into the sky, and I’d never know what they were.

Inside was some Brighton picture postcard. I turned hastily to the reverse, my eyes scanning wildly for the whole sense, rather than reading in sentences.

‘Cuttlefish’ was the first word I registered. It leapt out at me – cold and brutal.

No, I kept thinking, that’s my word. That’s why I’m here. It’s mine. I was ready. I was going to say it. It’s been running through my head all morning. You’ve stolen it. It’s not fair.

Then I read the message:

Sorry, Beth. It’s been great. You’ve been great – more than I deserve. But I don’t know how to play fair any more. Maybe I never did. Tony wants more of you – I suppose you knew that’d happen. And so do I. But the two things don’t go together, and so I guess this is it, babe. You’re worth far more than me. It’s time I moved on. I’ll never, ever forget this summer. Hope you won’t either.

Love and cuttlefish, Ilya.

PS Your stage show blew my mind last night. I’m gonna have a hard-on for decades. Keep at it.

I went to the beach.

The shingle was all banked up near the promenade, littered with debris chucked up by the sea.

I didn’t cry.

The waves were enormous, hurtling forward, caving in and spuming up as if they were hitting cliffs rather than beach. And, against the groynes, the water was even more violent, sending white foaminess splashing high into the air.

It was so noisy.

I found out afterwards that we’d got the tail-end of some hurricane from America, but I didn’t know that then.

The wind buffeted me and, every now and again, my
steps went crooked and drunken because it was so ferociously strong. It was warm and arid too: my eyes didn’t stream the way they would do in a chill wind. That rushing air had the opposite effect; it made my eyeballs feel strangely dry. Probably a good thing.

There were quite a few people about, just walking along and looking out to sea, gazing at its big angry beauty.

I felt numb for a long time. Then I began to feel bitter and resentful because
he’d
ended it and that was surely my right.

It was as if, once again, he’d turned the tables by landing a surprise on me and I just had to take it. From start to finish, it was always Ilya who had to have the upper hand, who had to compete to outdo me. And now he’d walked away. He would never know that I was ready to quit; that I’d seen enough of his violent, deceitful, twilight world; and that our game was over because it got swallowed up in a bigger game was far too dark and dirty for my taste.

I stood facing the sea – not too close because I didn’t want to invite danger. I was through with that; and, anyway, I’d never meant to do it in the first place.

The gales were so fierce that I could actually lean forward and stay that way, supported by the constant push of air. It was difficult to breathe. The wind was too fast to inhale though my nostrils, so I had to open my mouth and my cheeks wobbled as the breath I wanted poured into my throat. It was delicious because it was so warm and sharp with brine.

It made me laugh. I felt giggly and exhilarated. A fine sea mist blew steadily into my face, making my skin damper and damper. And I had a sudden upsurge of delirious happiness and a feeling that I could conquer the world.

Negative ions, someone once told me. You get them from the seaside and they make you feel good. Maybe
that’s true. Or maybe it was the sight of all that furious water cresting in and exploding into whiteness like some advert for bad aftershave.

Or maybe I had every reason to be deliriously happy. Ilya was right: it was a summer not to be forgotten and, yes, it had been great. Most of it.

But in a way, I was glad that all the horrors of guns and bully-boys and whatever else Ilya’s life was had crept in to destroy our game. At least we hadn’t had to say cuttlefish because we were getting bored or because one of us – me, probably – wanted the other to give more. After all, it seemed pretty unlikely that either of us would quit because the sex was too debauched.

And isn’t that what I’d asked for in the beginning: just a summertime fling?

I worried a bit about what would happen to Ilya. Would he be safe? Would he sort Tony out? Where the hell was Tony now? Would I be safe?

Time will tell, I thought. But I had a sense that it would be OK. I didn’t think Ilya would leave me to face any danger. And I reckoned he knew how to handle himself. He seemed to have managed so far.

I crunched on a little further, the wind roaring into my left ear. The shingle was strewn with trails of slimy seaweed, broken shells, bits of rotting wood and the flotsam and jetsam of a modern-day beach: a dead biro, a crushed tin can, a lighter, another tin can.

I have Martin, I thought, and I’ll probably love him for ever, because we’re back where we used to be: just great mates. We’d spoken the night before, briefly, and he’d laughed delightedly at what I was doing, said I was a soppy old tart and that we ought to go out soon, drink some beer and bicker over the best flavour of crisps. He’s sorted himself out, I can tell. He knows we’re better at being friends than we are at being lovers.

So Martin and I are solid and platonic.

I still desire Ilya – in my groin more than anywhere
else – and I’ll probably miss our sleazy sex games. But he’s gone now.

And I’m fucking Luke who’s kind of sweet but he doesn’t make me swoon.

I imagined taking the best of all three situations, putting them in a blender, and bam – I’d have the lust and love of my life in one delicious package.

But then, I thought, I don’t want that yet. I’m only thirty and, while some people are seriously settled, done and dusted at that age, I don’t want to be like that.

I want to play around more. And anyway, when I do meet Mr Right, I’ll probably want him to share me with his friends. Assuming they’re nice friends, of course.

A shard of bone-whiteness on the ground caught my eye and I stooped to pick it up, smiling wryly.

On one side it was like a female giant’s badly manicured fingernail, while the scooped underside was packed with something that was a bit like that oasis stuff you stick flower arrangements into, all pitted and scarred.

Oh, how bloody symbolic, I thought, turning the thing in my hand. I reckon that’s a bit of a dead cuttlefish, the bone they give to parrots. Nice timing, God.

I stuffed the thing into the pocket of my fleece and walked on, mulling over last night’s gig. People liked it. They said it was horny, funny, exciting, wild. The finale to my little performance was me whipping off my mask. That wasn’t in rehearsal, but I’d got so fired up by the cheers and applause that it seemed the right thing to do. The roof nearly lifted off when people realised who I was.

Maybe I’ll strip and strut again; I don’t know. But one thing’s for certain: I’m going to have many more nights of Hot Sex. It’s a winner.

I toyed with the bone in my pocket, fingering its rough, frayed edges as a wicked idea began to blossom in my mind.

Luke, I thought. Now Luke and I are just sex. And never in a million years will the two of us become involved, because what we have is light and frothy and carefree. And Luke, poor Luke, has shyly confessed to being a teensy bit interested in other men, but he isn’t sure because he hasn’t really explored it properly. Not yet.

So maybe I should give him a helping hand. Maybe I should introduce him to a little game I’ve learnt. I’ll be better at it than he is. I know the ropes. And also I know how to play fair.

The wind lashed my hair across a great big grin.

Yes, I thought, that’s what I’ll do. I’ll play a game with Luke. He’ll love it.

I think I’ll call it Cuttlefish.

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Epub ISBN: 9780753531587