Exposure (44 page)

'Oh, yuck,' James said. 'You little
tart.
Go to your bloody GP.'

'No, no. Nothing like that. I just need an excuse for work.'

'Go on.'

'Basically, if you wanted to get off work for a month, what would be the best way of doing it?'

'Mmm. It's a long time, a month. You'd need a proper medical certificate. What d'you want a whole bloody month off for, you skiver?'

'Well, I might not really need a whole month, but I'd just like to think it's there. You know what I mean—I basically don't want work hanging over me.'

James laughed. 'Interesting way of looking at it. Didn't we use to have to drag you off your laptop? You were like the media whiz-kid. I was just waiting for you to get a pair of those National Health glasses and wear them with withering irony and a pair of Prada trainers, like all the whiz-kids do.'

'I know. No, I know,' Luke said, trying to conceal his impatience. 'Funny ha-ha,' he said. Suddenly he was worried James would think he was acting bizarrely and would tell Jessica and Ludo. He dreaded compassionate interference because he was beginning to realize that it saw no hope for him and Arianne. But the voice sounded amused, rather than concerned: 'OK, Mr Langford. What you're saying is, you need to get yourself a medical certificate and you want the good doctor to tell you how.'

'Exactly. But the problem is, there isn't anything wrong with me.'

James snorted. 'Nothing
wrong
with you? In
this
day and age? Don't be ridiculous.'

Luke could hear him typing as he spoke. It sounded as though he was instant-messaging someone. James 'multi-tasked': he said he had learnt to maximize his extra-curricular hours.

'Listen, all you need is an invisible ailment,' James said. 'I'm told back pain's
de rigueur
among skivers, but you'd be unlikely to get a whole month out of it. In your shoes, I'd go with depression.'

'Depression?
' Luke felt a thud of dismay. Depression was Sophie's problem. Must he sink to
that?

'Yeah, depression rocks,' James said. 'Doctors are shit scared of people topping themselves if they don't take it seriously. It's your best bet—and your boss will assume it's all to do with the thing about your dad, so that works nicely. Yeah, sorry if that's unbelievably tactless, but you know what I mean. I'm just trying to help.'

'Oh, that's fine. Forget it. It's a good idea.'

'Look, I really am sorry, Luke—about your parents. It must be a tough time for their marriage and stuff...'

Luke could not think what to say.

'...and I know I should have called you earlier. Shit, I just want you to know I'm here if ever you need a mate to have a drink with or whatever...'

James listened to the dead silence.

'OK,' he said. 'I'm getting the impression you'd rather not talk about it.'

'Kind of,' said Luke.

'Okey-dokey. Completely understood.'

Luke heard James hit 'return' and a paranoid thought formed: what if this supposed friend was instant-messaging
Jessica
or
Ludo,
outlining the necessity for compassionate interference in
real time?

James said, 'So, what's the skiving about, then, Luke?'

'Skiving? Oh, it's nothing, really. It's really nothing. I just want some me-time or whatever. I'm just having a rethink.'

'A "me-time rethink"? Sounds incredibly fashionable. Will it involve a yoga mat?'

The phone cut out momentarily.

'Whoopsy-daisy,' James said. 'Call waiting. Might be a
girl.
Look, I'll email you some symptoms, OK?'

Luke was relieved to avoid further questioning. 'Thanks, James. Owe you one.'

'I suspect it might be more than
one
by now,' James said.

Luke made an appointment to see one of the local doctors that afternoon. He read James's email several times until he was sure he knew exactly what to complain of. Actually, he was surprised to find that, other than the 'suicidal ideation', he seemed to fit the profile for 'clinical depression'. When he wondered what a 'clinically depressed' person ought to look like as he stared into the bathroom mirror, he decided that his unwashed hair and dirty T-shirt were probably about right. This was lucky, he thought, because he really didn't have the energy to change.

 

Dr Crawford had a small whitewashed room with a smell of new carpet and plastic seating. On her desk, in front of the monitor, was a picture of a little boy in a cowboy outfit. Along the walls was a series of government warning posters urging people to wear condoms, give up smoking, get a flu jab, cut down on fat. It was a basement room and the window faced out on dingy steps that led up to the street. In a bright strip at the top of the window, shoes walked past the railings.

The doctor studied him, nodding slowly with her eyebrows drawn together. Luke shifted his weight in the plastic chair. 'Basically I have thoughts about suicide,' he said.

'I see. OK,' said Dr Crawford.

'That's as well as the insomnia, and the appetite loss. I've lost about a stone and a half,' he said, again wondering if this was actually true. 'And I used to find lots of things fun and now ... now they just seem totally meaningless,' he said.

The doctor was typing something. 'And how long have you been feeling like this?' she said.

'Oh, quite a long time. Months, really.'

'Months. OK. And do you have any idea what brought it on? Any tragic event or mishap?'

'Oh, yes. Yes, I know exactly. It's
work stress,
' Luke said carefully, as if he was spelling out his name for the completion of a form.

'I see.'

'Basically I've been under all this pressure and my boss bullies me. I just can't cope with it any more. I need a rest or I'll—you know—I'll
crack!

The doctor gave him a prescription for something called Zylamaprone
^TM
, which she said would 'lift' his mood and help him to sleep. She also gave him a medical certificate which would secure him a month off work.

When, out of curiosity, he looked it up on the Internet later, Luke found hundreds of Zylamaprone
^TM
sites. There were a lot of postings from people in bits of America he had never heard of. 'Kayla' from 'Paoli, Pennsylvania', said: '
I gained forty pounds!!! Add to this I wanted to kill my husband with a knife
'. 'Lolitaboy' from 'Ybor City, Florida', said:
'Pharmo-friends! Zylie just gets
BETTER
. Crush it up and you can totally smoke it, too...
'

Luke wondered if he would try this and he put the pills in his desk drawer, inside his old school pencil case.

Then he put on a clean shirt and went out in search of Arianne.

Once, when he was eight, Luke had 'watched' a boy called Carlos Navarro, who was two years older than him. Carlos was the best at their prep school at tennis and swimming. Luke was the second best. They were both singled out for extra sports tuition, better to represent the school, and often raced or played against each other. Had it not been for the classes, Carlos would not have dreamt of talking to such a junior boy, but during these extra-curricular hours, they fought and dived and laughed together in private. Afterwards, in the echoing changing rooms, they passionately discussed the teachers—who was 'decent' and who was 'a complete bastard' - while they pulled on their uniforms, their eyes red with chlorine, their hair still streaming wet on to their school shirts.

It was still embarrassing and unsettling for Luke to remember the obsession he had developed for this dark-haired, prematurely muscular child. He could still recall the exotic refinement he had perceived in Carlos's habits: eating a plate of dressed green salad at school lunch (the way parents and teachers did); reading comics in Spanish, and punching anyone 'for my family honour' if they said his sister was fat. Carlos was as mysterious and beautiful as his name: a Spanish king's name, which made you think of golden palaces and scuttling footmen. Even now Luke could picture the thrilling contrast of the white school shirt against the strong, caramel-brown neck.

And it had been Carlos who had delivered the first ever knife wound to Luke's heart. One Saturday afternoon, when Rosalind had left Luke waiting outside Peter Jones while she popped in for Sophie's new hockey skirt, he had spotted Carlos out with a few other older boys. They appeared to be heading away from the cinema—perhaps they had seen the new kung-fu film because they were doing karate kicks at one another.

In a rush of surprise and joy, Luke called out, 'Hey! Carlos! Did you see McEnroe win the semi-finals?'

But, after an outraged flash from those fierce brown eyes, he found himself ignored. For a moment, he stood waving idiotically across the road at thin air while the laughing group moved on.

 

The darkness was warm and loving; it was velvety and jasmine-scented. The lights in restaurants and cafés gave the dark streets a twinkly, roguish look. People were eating late suppers at outdoor tables—salade Niçoise and fruit sorbets. It might have been a scene in a city in France or Spain or Italy. The faces were sunburnt and laughing, culturally altered by the good weather. There were tall glasses of rosé and of iced water; waiters carried small bowls of olives and of oil and balsamic vinegar.

To Luke, just walking out into this soft night with his secret purpose was erotic. Just setting off to visit some of Arianne's favourite places—Noise, Shanghai Sam's, Zaza's, Blue Monkey, even Lanton's, where Dan had wanted to take her, made him happier than he had been for weeks.

He drank and he watched and he waited for her to come in. Why shouldn't it happen? No one could ever have predicted that he should lose the vision of the girl on the table—only to find the woman herself in the back of his best friend's car. By ten, after three apple martinis, he had reached a state of luxurious submission to Fate. He settled at the long white bar in Zaza's and lit a cigarette. There was an empty glass a few places along from him, pink lipstick on the rim. Was it hers? A jolt of lust passed through him. Perhaps she had set it down and left, giggling, swinging her bag behind her, just seconds before he arrived. And at Lanton's, was that a faint trace of her perfume outside the ladies' loo? Women jostled past him, soused in Chanel and Dior, confusing the whispering air. And later still, in the red room at Blue Monkey, perhaps the characteristically half-smoked cigarette butt, still sending up a wisp of smoke from the ashtray, was still slightly damp from her lips. When he got home at five a.m., he could not sleep for cocktails and sexual excitement.

Searching the Internet, trailing the street, interpreting signs was a slow striptease in the mind, and each titillating clue brought him closer to Arianne. It was pornography for the sixth sense and it became his full-time occupation. It was a night shift and he kept the same hours as Goran.

 

To Luke there seemed to be no reason why Goran and Mila could not live secretly in the annexe for just a little longer. They were invisible and soundless, and his parents had no reason to go down there since, as Jessica had rightly observed, they would hardly be doing the famous Langford garden party this year.

Luke had the key copied and a way of life—parallel to the life of the house—established itself. In the mornings at around six, Luke would go down the side passage (even at this hour he took the precaution in case a sleepless parent should happen to look out at the lawn as he crossed it) and give a beer to Goran, who had just got in from work. The men would have a cigarette together. Mila had found work at a cleaning agency. She woke up around then, finished dressing in the little shower room, and then she would sit and watch them for a while before she went out to clean.

She had become healthier, prettier. Her face had lost its endangered look and sometimes, when she laughed uncontrollably at Goran, whom she apparently found ridiculous in almost every way, Luke could see why he had thought her attractive. It was hard not to laugh when she did—particularly when it irritated Goran so much. He could be terribly proud and serious in a way that Luke thought foreign and rather comical in itself.

He had asked Goran if he and Mila found it difficult to see so little of each other, what with their different working hours, but Goran refused even to address the subject. He waved it off. 'In few weeks we will have enough money for buying one passport and one National Insurance number. Then I will take a bank loan and then we will begin. You know I will be Spanish man?' he said.

'Really?'

'Spanish and Italian passports are cheapest. I think maybe I will be called Juan. Do you like it?
Juan!
Goran repeated, trying out his new name, excited by its novelty. He sighed. 'Luke, can you believe we will rent a flat in
London
? And you will come and eat with us!'

'That would be great,' Luke said, clinking his beer bottle against Goran's. 'I just hope you won't mind if I bring someone with me.' He smiled secretively. From the bar across the street he had caught sight of Arianne getting into a taxi outside the theatre the night before. She had been talking—or, rather, shouting—into a mobile phone: 'I
know.
He's a possessive
bastard,
Georgie,' he had heard her say before she slammed the door. (He had time to note a tight white T-shirt, a mossy green suede skirt and beige leather ankle boots. Legs: bare and brown and long and long and ... Also, there was something sparkly on her wrist, which he had tried to put out of his mind.) He had decided then that he was almost ready to go and see her play. Two and a half hours of watching her from the anonymous darkness: would it really be allowed? He could hardly believe he would not be arrested for it. UN troops would escort him out, as they did in his dreams. As it transpired, it was sold out.

Goran shook his head. 'Oh, Luke. You talk about her always. You know what I think of this girl. I do not understand you.'

'I know. Look, it's complicated,' Luke said.

Goran did an impression of Luke: 'It's terribly complicated,' he said. 'It's just so complicated with my complicated French girl.'