Stockholm Syndrome 2- 17 Black and 29 Red (6 page)

He gets his phone out his pocket and thumbs in some numbers quickly, before he changes his mind. She answers on the second ring, and very quietly he says, "Hey, Elsie." He didn't mean to use the silly pet name he had for her when they were eighteen, it just sort of happened. He rests his elbow on the table and rubs at his eyes, willing the headache away, wishing for a time machine or a cheat's book of answers.

She sounds surprised when she replies. "Lin. Are you okay?"

 

"I don't know."

 

"You sound far away."

 

"I'm in Peru. I'm in the airport in Lima."

 

"Why?"

 

"Why not?"

 

"Alright." There's a little pause, just her breathing and the gentle static on the line, then: "Lindsay. Are you okay?"

 

"I hate this place already. Everybody's shouting and banging into people with luggage trolleys."

 

"I think that's just airports, hon, it'd be the same anywhere you went."

"The cunt on the plane found out my name and did one of those looks to the other one. Like professional laughing, taking the piss without making it obvious enough to complain about."

"Surely you're used to that by now."

 

"Not off some bulimic peroxide bint from Essex after I've paid thousands to be treated like a fucking king in first class."

 

"Or a queen. Stop your bitching."

"I'm not, I'm just..." He doesn't know what. "I'm tired. I've got a headache. I'm sorry, what time is it? It shouldn't have bothered you, I don't even know what I'm talking about, I'm just..." He still doesn't know what so he shuts up.

"It's nearly ten. I should get to bed, we've got an early start."

 

"Everything's packed?"

 

"Yeah. Everything we need. Just some clothes, favourite teddies, books. Most of it's been shipped already."

 

"And tomorrow night you'll all go to sleep Canadians."

 

"Not quite. It's just holiday. We might hate it."

 

"We'll be on the same landmass. Just an equator and a dozen borders between us."

 

"What are you doing in Peru?"

 

"I don't know. Have you been?"

 

"No."

 

"So no suggestions."

 

"No. Well. Maybe."

 

"Maybe?"

"I suggest you come to Quebec," she says, very slowly, very quietly, very lightly like it means nothing but it does, he's known her a long time, it does.

"You're as bad as my mother. Why do you women
fuss
over me all the time?"

 

"Somebody's got to."

 

"I'm a big boy now."

 

"Big boys can still self-destruct."

He almost wants to laugh at that - miles and miles and timezones away and people still know what he's thinking. There's no escape. "I don't know why everyone thinks I'm carving my wrists up over him."

"It's not your wrists I'm worried about."

"I'm on
holiday
, Elsie. It's sunny. I'm going to a nice hotel and hiring a nice car and driving round nice places and I'm not spending a single second in a clothes shop or a shit gay disco."

"Right." She doesn't say anything else for nearly half a minute, and neither does he - he wants her to say something first, anything at all, but she won't.

"I'll buy you a stupid tourist present. 'My dead husband's best friend went to Peru to have a breakdown and all I got was this hilarious t-shirt'."

 

"Don't waste your money, I'd never wear it."

 

"Heh."

 

"This must be costing you a fortune, are you on your mobile?" "Mm. It's alright. I don't know if you know this, but I'm quite rich."

 

"Oh, well done, now you'll get mugged and murdered by South American gangsters and dumped in a ditch somewhere."

 

"Racist."

 

"Show off. Your money doesn't impress me."

 

"As if I'm trying to impress you."

"Why are you calling me Elsie?" she asks quietly, and he doesn't have an answer so he hangs up instead and rolls his case down the hall to find a car. One of the wheels is squeaking noisily and he feels guilty and terrified like there's a bomb in there and he's drawing attention to himself, but it's not a bomb. It's just a stupid little toy monkey.

***

They might not exactly be
friends
, but Lindsay knows enough people around the world through work. Work's a good excuse for travelling, it makes it feel less like running away and the weeks and months speed past like lightning. He goes to check up on the hotel he owns in the centre of Madrid, where his mum lives through the winter, and fucks a chambermaid in his penthouse suite. She's blonde and tall, a bit overweight, nothing at all like Valentine and that's what makes it so good when she's on her back in the crumpled bed with her legs wrapped round his waist and her bare polished fingernails pressing sharp semicircles into his back. It's been years but he still remembers how it works, like the time in a sleazy noisy bar in Majorca when a girl totters over to him, all stilettos and alcopop breath, presumptuous enough to sit on his lap even before she asks his name. He doesn't tell her, just fingers her under the table until she comes, wide-eyed and whimpering. It's her own fault for not wearing knickers under her skirt. She kisses him clumsily, sloppy and too much tongue, and wanders off back to her friends but he gets up and leaves before she can point him out to them.

He meets a man in the toilets of a bar in San Francisco who's got a smudge of white round his nose, and through him he meets a woman with purple hair and a lip ring who looks at him like she doesn't trust him when he asks if she wants a drink. Three vodkas apiece later, he leans close to her ear and says, "I've got three hundred and forty dollars cash, what'll that get me?"

"You mean aside from robbed and murdered?"

 

"Yeah."

 

"I don't have that much left. Give me a hundred."

 

They make the swap smoothly, almost professionally. It
is
for her. Strange how easily it all comes back to him, too.

 

"Do you come here a lot? Will you be back tomorrow?"

 

"You sure you can handle it, grandpa?"

"Oh, please. I've got a very big nose." That actually makes her laugh, but she doesn't sleep with him until a few weeks later because - she even says so - she doesn't want him to think she's a whore.

"A dealer with morals," he says, watching her use his credit card to separate off a little white heap. "That's a first."

 

"I'm not a
dealer
. Everyone needs a job through college, I guess I just don't have the right look for poledancing."

 

He's just showing off now, rolling up hundred-dollar bills into tubes. "What are you studying?"

"Law," she says, smirking faintly, and it doesn't really register what she's said until his first couple of lines are gone off the tabletop and he's swallowing the medicine taste in the back of his throat and waiting that split second for the hit to take hold - it does,
then
he realises what she said and can't stop laughing, slumped there in his armchair feeling as if he's being dragged along behind a jet like a rattling can tied to the back of a wedding car.

"You've hardly got the look of a lawyer either."

"Don't be so middle-aged, Sammy." They've been giving each other false names since the night they met, different ones every time like it's a game. They've been Sonny and Cher, Luke and Leia, Danny and Sandy. Two days ago they were Rick and Ilsa. Tonight they're Samson and Delilah. He wonders if maybe that's a bad idea, like a curse, but it's alright. He could snap her neck like a twig if she tries anything, but he doesn't think she'll try anything. Nothing bad, anyway. He watches her take her turn, the play of expressions over her face. She catches him looking and laughs, bright and euphoric. A while later, a couple more lines down, she's grabbed his hand to pull him out of the room, out into the corridor, running through the red carpeted halls without bothering to close his suite door, running downstairs in her platform heels until she stumbles and he grabs at her to keep her from falling, slings her over his shoulder like a fireman and into the lift for the last ten floors. The operator is there in his pristine uniform, clearly trained not to react at all to rich stupid people doing stupid illegal things. He doesn't even blink, he doesn't look twice.

"Where are we going?"

 

She's struggling against his hold on her but she's laughing as well so he doesn't let her go. "Asshole, put me down!"

 

"No."

 

"Put me down and I'll tell you."

The numbers light up one by one like a countdown, then the G. The doors whoosh open and Lindsay stands her back on her feet and lets her hold his hand again, drag him running and laughing through the lobby and out the door to run down the street for no reason at all.
***

It's all a bit calmer after that, three nights later when his phone beeps a text through:

 

sid- takin it easy 2nite, last dance w/ mary jane? -nancy

She rolls joints like she's been doing it for years, lightning-quick and perfect, and then makes a move like she's going out onto the balcony but Lindsay stops her with a hand on her wrist.

"It's raining. We can stay in here."

 

"What about the smoke alarms?"

 

"Disabled. This floor's private property, hotel rules don't apply. I own this whole building."

 

"You
own
this place?"

"Yeah." He leans in closer to catch a light but doesn't feel like moving back again after so he stays there in the middle of the couch with his leg pressed against hers. It's not even the contents of the joint making him feel like this, it's the whole ritual of smoking, even when it's just tobacco. That's why he started rolling his own years ago, it was something about the feel of the paper under his fingertips, the way you control the whole procedure from construction to stubbing out the end. "Property. All kinds. Lots of hotels, holiday homes, bars. I don't
do
anything, I just own them."

"Are you like a billionaire or something?"

 

He laughs at that, blowing a lungful of smoke up into the air above his head. "Not quite. Oh, wait, maybe. Dollar billionaire, I think, not pounds." That includes slightly more illegal profits, but he's not going to tell her that.

 

"And I'm gonna be paying off my student loans until I die."

 

"I'll pay it. How much do you need?"

That was the wrong thing to say, for some reason. She looks a bit annoyed and curls in on herself in the corner of the couch, frowning slightly. "I said I'm not a whore."

"Come on, I'm not even asking anything back. If you need help I can help you, no strings."

 

"Why are you being so nice to me if you don't want sex?"

 

"Are you really
that
jaded you think people are only nice when they're trying to get a blowjob?"

 

"Is that what you want?"

 

Maybe at first, weeks ago. Chemical highs and a forgettable fuck. Not any more. It's unexpected and nonsensical, but... "I like you."

She smiles then, kind of halfhearted and unsure. "You sound like you're in fourth grade. You know, sending a note with 'circle yes if you like me too'."

"Would you circle yes?"

 

"I really wish you never told me you're a billionaire. If I circle yes you'll think it's for that."

 

"No I won't. You can circle what you like."

 

She's giggling now behind her hand, trying not to. "Okay."

 

"What does that mean?"

 

"Okay, yes. I'm circling yes."

She waits for him to finish his smoke, then stands to put both ends in the ashtray on the table. When she turns round she's right in front of where he's sitting, looking down at him with questioning eyes like even after all this flirting she's still not sure what to do - at least until Lindsay puts both hands on her hips, sliding up inside the hem of her dress to rest them there on the border between her clothes and the warm bare skin of her waist. She gets it then, smiling that pretty crooked smile again and dropping down to sit astride him, brushing his hair away from his face and then, suddenly, kissing him.

He's never kissed anybody with a pierced lip before. She's not wearing the ring in it this time, it's a silver spike instead, jutting out just below the centre of her lower lip, and it jabs at his face as they're kissing, all panting breaths and roaming hands. She's got a short black dress on and electric blue leggings, thin enough she can obviously feel him getting hard beneath her; in return, he can feel her smiling against his mouth, a faint murmur of words he can't quite hear until she's kissed across his cheek to nip gently at his earlobe and breathe, "Quit being a gentleman and just fuck me, okay?"

"This passes for gentlemanly behaviour in your world?"

"Hey, it beats fucking college boys who think a Big Mac counts as foreplay. Tall dark handsome rich old British dude, this is what daydreams are made of."

Old
. That bit makes him hesitate, suddenly uncomfortable, kind of embarrassed. He's too tall, he's getting this comical middle-age spread, he keeps finding too many grey hairs to yank out, and she's half his age, bright and laughing, all smooth tanned skin and long aubergine-purple hair. She's younger than Valentine and he feels like a paedophile, except paedophiles probably don't get laughed at very often when they're trying to get lucky and he's a hundred percent sure she's going to start giggling again in a minute, tell him it's a joke or something.

She doesn't. Once they're in the bedroom she starts unbuttoning his shirt for him, tugging it off where it's cuffed around his wrists and throwing it onto the carpet. She's only as tall as his shoulder, he almost has to stoop to kiss her. It's better when they're stretched out and entangled on top of the covers, both topless and kissing furiously. She's got a swirling tattoo down her side, black thorns and red roses starting on her shoulder and wandering down her ribs, curling underneath the curve of her small breast. He follows this with his fingertip on his way down her body to unbuckle her sandals and take down her trousers, and she rests there against the pillows just watching him, pinkcheeked and breathing rapidly like she's just won a race.