Exposure (46 page)

Goran wished he could go straight back to Mila now. But there were more than two hours of the night still to go.

 

Almost a month had passed before Luke had any real news of Arianne. And when it came he did not learn it from a friend in one of the bars where she went, or from the hairdresser's he had watched her go into; nor did he learn it from the usher he never dared to approach at the theatre. He didn't learn it from the maitre d' he had not yet spoken to at Lanton's, or from the bar girl at Noise, or even from the flirty gay man on reception at her gym. He learnt it at the breakfast table with his parents.

An unquestioned routine had now established itself in the main house. His parents had now resigned themselves to their son's need for 'a bit of time off' and his father was plainly too afraid of self-incrimination to question it. And, in a way that Luke did not recognize, Rosalind was too self-absorbed to do more than worry about his food. Although this parental negligence shocked him, he knew it worked in his favour. He wanted to be left alone. Let them be cowardly and selfish, he thought, only don't make me go back to the flat without her.

In fact, all three wanted nothing more than to be left alone. They risked only the most superficial interaction: 'Has anyone seen my glasses?' or 'I don't suppose anyone's interested in wine, are they?' or 'Anyone mind if I turn on the news?'

Life functioned, life continued, and Luke became used to the way his mother left a room almost as soon as his father walked into it. This was precisely what had just happened when Luke put his hand into the pile of Sunday papers on the breakfast table, not knowing they contained a shard of glass. He picked up one of the magazines. 'You don't want this, do you, Dad?'

'Please, go ahead,' Alistair said, without looking up from his book review.

On the magazine cover, Luke read, 'A-list Eating, Drinking and Partying'. The cover shot was of the lower half of a girl's face, her pink tongue licking cream off the corner of her mouth. Luke flicked the pages, taking in the words and pictures in little flashes: 'Vitamin B12 ... day-patient procedure ... kitten heels ... ancient Jewish faith ... scallops with pancetta ... Palme d'Or ... Venetian blinds ... Japanese orchids ... Lapis-Lazuli.' His fingers stopped at these last two words. Lapis-Lazuli was the name of the bar Jamie Turnbull was planning to open with his footballer friend Liam Bradley. Luke had read about it on the Turnbull and Liam Bradley fan sites. Jamie had told
Stars
magazine,
'I was just fed up with the same old queues at the bar with no exclusive feel. This is going to be strictly members only.
'

The photograph in the centre of the article was of Liam and Jamie with their arms round each other's necks like Mafia brothers. In the background, Luke recognized the outline of Arianne's shoulder and arm. She was wearing a dress she had not owned when she was with him: it was high-collared and gold. Luke read,

 

The opening party for the exclusive members-only club will also celebrate the recent success of Turnbull's girlfriend, Arianne, star of the surprise West End hit
Hotel.
Turnbull, known for his romantic gestures, recently hired disgraced TV gardener Owen Macintosh to replace flower-beds at his Kensington home. The beds had been planted to form the letters of Turnbull's previous girlfriend's name, Elaine Dance, in her favourite orange lilies. Owen Macintosh, 52, who is alleged to have used BBC hardware to download 'adult material', told
Flash
magazine, 'Jamie's dad and I go back a long way. Jamie's a great young guy and should not be criticized for it. There is something wrong with this country. I have no comment to make about the vicious lies said against me. This is all about gardening.'

Plans for the party are said to include a troupe of cabaret dancers to go with the 'All that glitters...' theme. There are rumours the couple may also use the event to announce their engagement.

 

Luke knocked his coffee cup on to the floor.

'Luke!' his father cried out in surprise.

'I—I dropped my cup,' Luke said. 'It was an accident.' Alistair stood up and reached for the kitchen roll on the sideboard. 'Yes, of course it was,' he said, observing his pale-faced son with concern. 'Not to worry.'

Luke held up a dripping fragment. 'It is totally destroyed,' he said, his voice trembling with sadness.

'Oh, well, never mind, Luke. It really wasn't anything special—just an ordinary cup.' Alistair tried to catch his son's eye and smile at him, but Luke was frantically scraping chairs across the floor—as if he had set fire to something and the blaze might catch.

Rosalind came hurrying in. 'What a
noisel
What on
earth's
going on?' she said.

The sharp anxiety on her face was a reminder to each of them that fear and mistrust lay just beneath the quiet surface on which they moved. They looked at each other, reluctantly acknowledging this. Then Alistair sighed and said calmly, 'Doesn't matter. An
accident
. Just an
ordinary
cup.'

Rosalind shoved the table further to the side and fell to her knees with tears coming down her face. She began to place the fragments into her left hand. Through gritted teeth, she said, 'Actually it wasn't
just an ordinary cup,
Alistair. It was one of the ones
I
made in my pottery class.'

She snatched the front page of his newspaper, wrapped the pieces in it and dropped the package into the bin under the sink. Then she went out into the garden, closing the door hard behind her.

 

Luke spent the rest of the day on his bed. Just before six, when Goran usually woke and dressed for work, Luke went out of the front door and down the side passage to see him. He glanced back through the foliage of the tree peony at the empty-looking house. Then he did the special knock so Goran would know it was safe to answer.

'Hello Luke,' came the call—as usual.

Luke pushed his way in.

Goran was standing in the doorway of the little shower room. 'I am washing myself. Be there in a tick,' he said. He was proud of his English idioms.

Luke sat down on the sofa where Goran slept and put his head in his hands. He sat like this for a few minutes, unaware of the amount of time that had passed, or that he was being watched from behind. Goran stood with the yellow beach towel wrapped round his neck; his hair was wet and black and shiny as crude oil. He pushed it back with one hand, then rubbed it with the towel, still watching Luke. There was a feeling of deep anger in him and he would have preferred not to have had a visit today, no matter how lonely and desperate Luke was.

'How are you, Luke?' he said.

Luke started. 'Oh, you're there. You made me jump.'

'I am sorry.'

'Actually, I need your help.'

Goran could not help but be struck by the unmasked pain on Luke's face. He dropped the towel and put on his shirt. 'OK, Luke, I owe you many favours.'

'I only want one,' Luke said. 'Goran, I thought you might know where I could get hold of a gun.'

Instinctively, Goran wanted to pull up a chair, clasp the back of Luke's neck and ask him what the hell he was talking about, tell him not to be so stupid. But the anger inside him told him to wait, out of a kind of spiteful curiosity, and see what the stupid idea was. 'What kind of a gun?'

'Pistol,' Luke said simply. 'I don't know the names. One about this big. I'll pay. I've got plenty of money. Do you know who to ask?'

'Yes,' Goran said truthfully. 'I know.'

'Well ... will you do it?'

Here Goran's resolve broke. 'No,' he said. 'Luke, are you
crazy?
'

'No?' Luke repeated.

'No,
I will not find your gun.'

Luke stood up. 'Then I'll ask someone else.'

Goran laughed at him. 'Yes? Who else you will ask? Nice rich English boy—you know so many people who can find you a gun, Luke?'

'You said you would help me, Goran, because I helped
you!

'Help you to become
killer? Criminal?
'

'Why do you care?'

They heard the door open. It was Mila. She was eating an apple and she smiled at both of them.

'Hello, Goran. How are you, Luke?' she said. 'It is a beautiful evening.'

Luke and Goran both stared at her. She was still smiling at Luke. She had tied her hair back in some new way.

'Hi, Mila,' Luke said.

Goran walked over to her and put his arms round her, but she pushed him away. 'Eeuch. You are
wet!
she cried. 'Like
big wet dog!
' She laughed with her eyes trained on Luke, inviting him to share the joke. Out of politeness, Luke smiled with her.

Goran moved away and controlled his anger as he laced up his shoes. They were old trainers of Luke's. Suddenly he wanted to tear them off his feet. He wanted to walk out into the garden barefoot and wave his arms at the rich people in the big house.

'OK. I go to take a shower,' Mila said. 'I do five flats today. Everybody have
dinner parties,
' she said, wrinkling her nose in disgust.

When they heard the water start, Goran sat down on the arm of the sofa. 'Why do you want this gun, Luke?'

'To kill him,' he said. Then he lowered his eyes. 'Or to scare him. I don't know yet. I just need the gun, Goran.'

Goran wanted to laugh because it seemed like a joke: a gun, here in Holland Park, where the houses were so tall and white; a gun in this beautiful boy's hands. But Luke's face was pale and sweaty, his teeth were gritted—it was a look Goran had seen often before in PriŜtina. 'You talk about this man who is with your French girl?'

'Yes. Jamie Turnbull. You see, I know where they're going to be. He's having a party next week.'

'You really think she loves you, she will come back to you, Luke?'

'Yes.'

Goran was not sure why, but he felt distinctly irritated by this response.'
Why
do you think this?' he said.

'Because—because I
believe
it.' Luke clenched his fists. 'I
really, really
believe it. You know?'

'No, I do not know.'

Luke scrutinized him briefly with a sickly smile. 'Well, look, it doesn't matter, Goran, because I
do
know.'

'Yes? What do you know, Luke?'

Luke shrugged. 'I know God won't let this happen to me,' he said—and Goran laughed to see all the egocentric complacency that Western money could buy laid out so prettily before him.

'God?
Why do you say God, Luke? When I was young child, we had school teacher in Priština. A good teacher. He was maybe fifty years—he was old Communist like my father, always telling us kids about how great is "Mother Russia". I remember one day we talk him about God—we say, "What is he
like,
Teacher, does he
love
us, is he a
nice old man?
" and all this shit.' Goran shook his head and grinned. 'And this teacher said to us, he said, "Children, don't you know that in Russia the scientists have sent
big space-ship
up into the moon?"

' "Yes, Teacher," we say, "we know this."

'"Well," this teacher say, "and don't you know, children, that your uncle Gagarin, he came out of this spaceship, he had a look around ... and—oh!—children,
there is no God!

Luke listened to the horribly caricatured voices and began to cry. At that moment, Goran felt pure hatred for him. Mila was flirting with this ridiculous English boy. That was the truth and he might as well acknowledge it.

Could it really be true that like all those grabbing bitches in Priština, like his stupid sister Irena who had married a guy who pimped Albanian prostitutes in Milan
just because he had a BMW,
that even Mila was only interested in money after all? How could he help but notice that she would not even allow him to touch her in Luke's presence? Not that she particularly wanted him to touch her during their few moments alone.

A 'wet dog', he thought. My Mila called me 'a big wet dog'.

'OK, fuck what I tell you,' Goran said. 'I will get you this gun.'

Luke smiled with relief and Goran smiled back, thinking, Yes, get yourself into as much trouble as possible. Go to prison and be locked away from us, away from Mila. If you are so stupid, then you deserve to go to prison. Stupid people are more dangerous than guns, he thought.

Just then, Goran wished they had only stayed two nights in the annexe and then made their own way, even if it had meant sleeping in a stinking bed like Rajan's, rather than accepting charity from this mad rich boy. He hated Luke for his poindess angst, which was the agony of privileged people. He wanted to say, 'Do you know what real pain is?' and to tell him about the NATO bombings, when the noise of death made your teeth hum in their sockets. Or, before that, about the guilt and gut-fear you felt when, out of each bedroom window on Dragodan hill, you could see the Albanian farms burning all the way across the valley like little Christmas candles and, yes, it was silent but you knew that your own countrymen, dressed up in uniforms, were raping in the dark and that the screaming went on and on into the night. He wanted to tell Luke about what it was like to find body parts—a foot, a finger—as you walked down the street. And now, now that it was all supposed to be over, now that the churches and the mosques alike had been bombed, he wanted Luke to know about the thousands of unexploded landmines, all over the countryside, designed by a devil to look like toys.

But he said nothing about any of this, because suddenly all he could think of was Mila's face, doing that shameless grin of hers for this stupid, rich young man.

Luke stared at his own feet and noticed he was wearing odd shoes.

It had been a lovely dream and Alistair had slept late. He sat up in bed smiling and drank some water. He had dreamt about his mother and Ivy. He could not remember the exact subject matter of the dream, but it had left him with a particular cosy excitement that he could only associate with the rainy afternoons of his early childhood.