The Facts of Life (50 page)

‘You’ve made up for lost time. I thought
you
were driving us home, you bastard,’ Sam said. ‘What are you on? Where’s your glass?’

‘I dunno,’ Jamie mumbled, his mouth turning to a pleasing jelly in his jaw and wanting only to kiss the lips that grinned before him and left his own feeling incomplete. ‘Sam, I – I thought I’d lost you.’

‘I went for a piss in the rose garden with old Heini. Lost him now. Did you know he knows Myra Toye as well? She had a fling with his dad too, apparently.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Jamie blurted. ‘I should introduce you to people. I was too embarrassed.’

‘No more than I was by you on the site that time.’

‘Really? Really, Sam?’

Sam looked around them.

‘Really,’ he muttered.

‘Sam I do love you.’

‘Ssh.’ Sam touched his fingertips to Jamie’s lips. ‘Come on and dance.’

The temperature in the tent had risen sharply and the air was humid with the odours of bodies, grass and split wine. Lovingly fashioned hairstyles were subsiding in the rhythmic mêlée. Zippers and buttons slipped open unregarded. Wet skin glowed in the dim, coloured lights. Joining in the dance was easy now for, under the influence of whatever Jamie had taken, it seemed as though the music had taken everybody over and even their wildest motions were in harmony. Everyone, he felt sure, joined him in having a little piece of sharp magic gel glowing under their tongues like a jewel; if they all opened their mouths, they would light up the night. It seemed, too, as though a tightly buttoned collection of sexless mannequins were transforming before Jamie’s eyes into a pack of glorious animals in rut. Dancing, he began to feel himself grow more attractive, confident in his body again. He was clean, healthy, untouched by infection. Just as he wanted to reach out and caress Sam and all the men and women around him, so he felt their gazes stroking warm across his body.

All was well until, after a momentary break in the music because of a technical problem which drew brays and jeers from the crowd, something in the atmosphere began subtly to alter. At first Jamie was aware of a few, a very few, questioning glances cast his way. Then the glances came more frequently, and with them an unmistakable tut-tutting. He had quick glimpses of hideous faces, saw, from the corners of his eyes, bodies distorted with fury. The stares were not admiring, he saw that now, but fiercely disapproving. He grew breathless, the more so as Sam was so plainly still enjoying himself. His heart beat savagely in his chest and he saw even Sam turn a look of disgust upon him as though he had wet himself on the dancefloor or begun to bleed from some hideous wound. They knew. They all knew terrible, shameful things about him! Seizing his moment, his heart constricted in the grasp of invisible hands, Jamie staggered towards the tent’s opening and into the relative cool outside. His tie, which had come undone in the dance, fell to the grass and somebody stamped it into the mud before his fingers could rescue it.

‘What
is
it?’ Sam shouted behind him, catching him up. ‘What’s wrong?’ Even here there were harsh eyes upon him. The famous woman with the silver neck-chain whispered by and visibly recoiled at the sight of him. ‘Jamie. Jamie, it’s okay. I’m here.’

Jamie turned and saw at once the only benevolent figure in the entire crawling hell-scape, and he clung to Sam for dear life.

‘Come on,’ Sam laughed. ‘Get your breath back. It was fun in there. Let’s go back in.’

‘No,’ Jamie almost screamed. ‘I can’t! Please.’

‘What’s got into you, for fuck’s sake? You
did
take something, didn’t you?’

‘Yes,’ Jamie confessed through chattering teeth. ‘Only a bit, though.’

‘Berk.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Suddenly it seemed that he had ruined everything for everybody. ‘I’m so sorry.’ Sam’s moving back a few inches threw Jamie into a panic. He clutched out wildly, wanting his height and warmth to protect him from the others.

‘Hey!’ Sam laughed, gaining some idea through his drunkenness of the irrational terrors that were besieging him. ‘It’s okay. Come here.’ More openly affectionate than he had ever been in public, he pulled Jamie to him, kissing his forehead and stroking his hair as one might soothe a frightened child. But Jamie’s nightmares were still closing in. Every passing Noah’s Ark pair looked at him in scorn, hissing indignantly at the sorry spectacle. Worse still, a security guard was standing nearby, watching and muttering something about two defectives to be neutralised into his walkie-talkie.
Could
he really be saying something so appalling for all the crowd to hear? Now the guard was coming over, walkie-talkie whispering maliciously in his grasp. His tone managed to be simultaneously obsequious and threatening.

‘Could I see your invitations, Sirs?’

Sam checked his pockets.

‘Left it in the car, mate,’ he said good-naturedly. Hearing Sam’s accent, the guard’s manner immediately frosted over.

‘If you’d like to come with me quietly,’ he said.

‘Listen. We were properly invited,’ Sam said. ‘I told you. It’s in the car.’

‘Yish,’ Jamie began, and found his mouth unable to work.

‘James Pepper and Friend, it said.’ Sam went on angrily. ‘I’m the friend.’

‘Oh yes sir. I could see that. Very friendly. Come along now.’

People were definitely stopping to stare now. The guard had made the mistake of taking Sam by the upper arm to steer him away. Sam shook furiously clear of him and pushed him away. The guard quickly pressed a button on his walkie-talkie that set a red light flashing, then tried to seize Sam again. Sam spun round and landed a powerful punch in his face, sending him staggering back against one of the marquee ropes.

‘Come on, for fuck’s sake!’ he shouted, but Jamie couldn’t run, couldn’t cry out. All he could do was stare at the blood pouring from the security guard’s nose and think of Sam behind bars and how this was all his fault, all of it, and that he deserved to be severely punished.

‘Come
on
!’ Sam urged.

For a moment, Jamie even imagined that the taking of the drug
was
the punishment, rather than the cause of it, and that everyone here, Sam included, had planned this, had sent the woman into the cloakroom after him, primed and falsely smiling. Then two more guards came running through the crowd and one shoved Sam’s arms behind his back, tightening their hold when he struggled so that he cried out in pain. The other held Jamie by the upper arm. As they began to be led away, Jamie saw Nick Godfreys, white-faced, hurrying the minister’s daughter away from the edge of the crowd. The utter lack of recognition in the glance he threw them was more chilling than any hallucination Jamie had suffered.

‘Say something,’ Sam shouted. ‘For fuck’s sake tell them who we
are
!’

But Jamie’s mouth had turned so dry that his tongue was glued to his palate, and his teeth were chattering so furiously he feared he would bite into his lips if he even
tried
to speak.

Salvation came, surprisingly, in the tall, disapproving form of Beatrix Maxwell, who had thrown a dowdy knitted shawl about her gaunt shoulders. Tent dress billowing in the night breeze, she stepped out into their path.

‘Stop,’ she said, patrician as a vestal in the dancing light of a brazier. ‘There’s been some stupid mistake.’

‘No mistake, Madam. Don’t you worry. Just some gatecrashers.’

‘But I
know
these people! Heini. You tell them.’

Heini caught up with her and his imperious manner, silvery hair and old-fashioned white tie and tails worked like a charm on the guards, who promptly released Sam and Jamie to talk with him. Then the one with the bleeding nose came back to apologise to Sam, a handkerchief clutched to his face.

‘So sorry, Sir. I had no idea. No hard feelings, I hope.’

The three of them melted back into the crowd around the tent.

‘Whatever did you tell them?’ Mrs Maxwell asked.

‘That my tall young friend here is a distinguished, if unconventional ‘cellist.’ She scoffed but Heini insisted, ‘He looks the part. Now, these two are in no state to drive anywhere.’ He turned to Jamie. ‘I assume you came by car?’ Jamie could only nod his head and wipe away the dribble from his lower lip with the back of his hand. Heini turned smartly back to Mrs Maxwell, betraying only a hint of disgust. ‘Perhaps you could explain to Candida, if you see her, Beatrix? She’s wearing green. I’ll drive them to Edward’s place. It isn’t far. He won’t mind.’

Miraculously sober, Heini took control, making Jamie feel more than ever like a disgraced delinquent as he retrieved their coats, then bundled him into the back of the Volkswagen, threw the tartan rug over him and drove them in silence to The Roundel. He seemed as familiar with the building as Jamie was. The studio was all in darkness so he led them straight into the main house, ignoring Sam’s amazed questions and briskly finding Jamie a room with a made-up bed to fall into.

Lying beneath chilly sheets and weighed down by the two eider-downs Heini had thrown over him to stop his teeth chattering, Jamie was slightly soothed by the familiar surroundings and by the sudden withdrawal of stimuli – no more music, no more stares, no more strangers, only soft near-darkness and the clean smell of the sheets. He listened to the distant murmur of voices from the kitchen and waited impatiently for the effects of the drug to wear off. Sam eventually came to bed, too exhausted to do more than mutter, ‘Alison’s here and she says to say you’re a berk. She says you can give me the guided tour in the morning.’

Jamie kept him awake however, nervously fingering Sam’s chest hair and asking again and again, ‘Who am I?’ or ‘Who did you say I was?’ never quite believing Sam’s patient, sleepy replies.

When, once too often, Jamie turned on the bedside light to stare fanatically at his own hands moving in the air before him or to jump up and examine the unfamiliar face in the dressing table mirror, Sam was forced to fling an arm and leg across his restless body, pinning him down until the natural anaesthetic of exhaustion took a hold on them both.

Assuming Alison to be too engrossed in the Sunday book supplements to mind, Heini Liebermann and her grandfather had allowed their conversation to lapse back into the soft, eager German she had interrupted earlier. There was a disarmed gentleness to her grandfather’s voice when he spoke the language, as if the underused idiom of his youth had retained the intact imprint of his younger, untried self. He gestured when he spoke German, tapping the table for emphasis, uncoiling his hands to shape words he was perhaps no longer sure of choosing correctly. When he spoke English, his hands were still, his inflexion wearier and less musical.

The Munich café atmosphere so alien to The Roundel’s kitchen was heightened by the sweet smoke of the little cheroots Heini had persuaded her grandfather to share with him – in spite of the way they made his lungs heave – and by the smell of the cripplingly strong coffee he had brewed. Heini had thrown a borrowed tweed jacket over his evening dress but otherwise it was easy to imagine that they had been up talking all night. She glanced at her watch and, judging the morning to be far enough advanced, poured a couple of mugs of tea and took them to the Boys, as she had taken to thinking of Sam and Jamie.

Their bedroom door was ajar and water was noisily running in the adjacent bathroom. She knocked.

‘Brought you some tea,’ she called out. ‘Cover up. Woman coming in.’

Jamie stirred in the bed, mumbling, edged upright and clutched a pillow to his chest. Shocked at how bony he looked since she had last seen him naked, she passed him his tea and smiled. ‘Could you draw the curtain again?’ he muttered, wincing.

‘No,’ she said. ‘You’re down here so rarely. I’m not having you spend the whole day in bed.’

He sipped at his tea, crestfallen.

‘Sam’s in the bath,’ he said, indicating the second mug. ‘I’ll drink that one too. He’ll be hours. Are there any old clothes of mine down here still? If I have to get dressed in last night’s I’ll throw up.’

She opened the little wardrobe in the corner and tugged out some jeans and a frayed white shirt for him along with some Donald Duck boxer shorts Miriam had once made the mistake of giving him for Christmas. Then she stood, triumphantly, with her arms folded.

‘Okay, okay,’ he protested. ‘I’ll be out in a second.’

She went away to brush her teeth. As she walked back onto the landing, Jamie joined her, hair in spikes, stamping his way into some old, red plimsolls.

‘Heini Liebermann’s in the kitchen smoking cheroots with Grandpa,’ she warned him.

‘
That’s
what the smell is. Christ. Let’s go in the garden, then. Is it warm enough?’

‘It’s fine.’

She saw him throw a quick look around him at the hall as they headed for the garden door. He scowled as though the house were a familiar enemy. She was glad to see him here again feeling as unsettled by his neglect of the place as she would by the estrangement of friends.

‘I hear you made a spectacle of yourself last night,’ she said, not intending to be as judgemental as she sounded.

‘Don’t ask. Godfreys’s friends were nightmarish enough even without the chemical assistance.’

‘You should be more careful taking drugs from strangers.’

‘She was a TV personality for Christ’s sake!’