Welcome To Wherever You Are (21 page)

‘Yes, this looks like a nice place.’

They exited the truck and stretched limbs that felt tight after seven and a half hours of continuous driving. Route 66 both ahead and behind them was silent and should’ve been straight as a die, had the sun’s incalescence not made it wobble like jelly. But the mainly barren landscape was pure picture-book America.

Eric lifted himself into the back of the truck to remove the cardboard box where Mrs Baker’s urn was stored. Then he followed Nicole as she walked towards a grassy knoll with a canyon-like drop below.

‘Hey, it’s Eric and Urn,’ Eric joked, and looked to Nicole for approval. She ignored him.

‘Didn’t Bridget ask why you wanted her mum’s ashes?’ she asked. ‘What kind of woman gives something so precious to a complete stranger?’

‘The kind who couldn’t care less, I suppose. People can be shits, Nic.’

‘I guess so. Okay, let’s do this.’

Eric passed Nicole the urn, and she tore off the tape that kept the lid firmly in place. Then she took a deep breath and began to shake the ashes into a light breeze and watched Mrs Baker make her final journey towards the snow-capped Mount Elden, beckoning from the distance.

‘Goodbye, Mrs Baker, and thank you for this opportunity,’ Nicole whispered, and smiled. Eric placed his arm around her shoulder and felt her head tilt towards him. After a few moments of silence, Nicole wiped away the tears pooling in the corners of her eyes, carefully placed the empty urn on the ground and returned to the truck.

Eric waited a moment longer and absorbed the view of the arid landscape surrounding him.

‘Goodbye, Mother,’ he muttered, and spat on the ground where a small pile of ashes rested.

PART TWO – THE DEPARTURES

DAY EIGHT

‘Come on, man,’ snapped an unusually competitive Peyk, ‘it’s an easy shot.’

‘No pressure, then,’ Tommy replied, and arched his back over the pool table, stretching his fingers over the black ball to knock the cue ball into the yellow. It glided into the pocket with ease.

‘Lucky,’ said Peyk dismissively, as the music in the hostel lounge became louder.

A group of Australian girls in their late teens scanned a TV screen, awaiting direction before frantically aping the animated dance steps flashing before them. Tommy resented the popularity of Matty and Declan’s stolen Xbox One, and that his adversaries had become the centre of attention because of their gift and vivacious personalities.

When one girl lost her balance and jostled Tommy, he missed his shot. Only her apologetic smile stopped him from snapping at her.

‘Which rules are we playing,’ Tommy asked, ‘American or European?’

‘What’s the difference?’ asked Peyk.

‘The biggest differences are that Americans don't play a lot of snooker or three-cushion billiards,’ interrupted Jake, potting his first, second, then third red with ease. ‘Americans mostly play 8-ball and 9-ball, along with some one-pocket or 14.1 straight pool.’

Tommy and Peyk looked at him and raised their eyebrows.

‘What? I’m more than just a pretty face, lads.’

When Jake missed the fourth red, he passed the only cue to Sadie, the receptionist. Tommy leaned against the wall, his eyes darting between Jake and one of the amateur dancers who was offering him kittenish glances.

‘If this was snooker, would you be going for the pink or the brown?’ whispered Peyk, clearly amused with himself.

‘What?’ Tommy replied, thrown off guard.

‘You know what I mean.’

‘If I do, then you are
way
off.’

Peyk shrugged and turned to take his shot. Suddenly the booming bass of a familiar pop song blasting from the TV interrupted their game.

‘Hey!’ yelled Tommy. ‘Turn that off.’

‘Why should I?’ the Australian girl yelled indignantly.

‘Because I said so,’ replied Tommy angrily. ‘Now!’

‘Don’t talk to her like that,’ warned Declan, who stood by the window with Matty.

‘Mind your own business.’

‘What did you say?’ Declan continued, walking towards Tommy with shoulders squared.

‘Leave it, Dec,’ said Matty.

The girl turned the song off and abandoned the game, as the others in the room glared at Tommy, surprised by his uncharacteristic aggression. He looked at the faces staring at him, then he walked out of the room, unaware Jake had slipped out moments earlier.

THREE AND A HALF YEARS EARLIER, LONDON

The cork from the champagne bottle flew through the air like a bullet and rebounded off a polystyrene ceiling panel in the restaurant at the TV studios.

A DJ in the corner of the room mixed James Brown’s ‘Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Sex Machine’ into Prince’s ‘Gett Off’ as Stuart left the makeshift dance floor and helped himself to a glass of cheap fizz from a waitress’s tray. It wasn’t the obvious location for
Star People
’s wrap party, but as the floor manager pointed out, the budget had been blown on the series finale’s pyrotechnics, choirs, backdrops and staging. And creator Geri Garland held her purse strings tightly.

All eyes were on each member of winners Lightning Strikes. The others boys were well on their way towards intoxication, but Stuart preferred the control that sobriety brought. He watched, with a touch of envy, as families hugged their winning offspring and clenched their hands with affectionate pride. Competition-winning fans interrupted them for selfies, and celebrity guests vied for their attention.

In need of just a moment’s peace, Stuart slipped away from the rowdy room and aimed for the bathroom where he planned to lock himself in a cubicle and process the night’s events.

He was about to lock the door when a hand yanked it open and a startled Stuart turned to find Geri squeezing herself inside the cubicle.

‘I told you you’d make me proud,’ she began, placing her hands around his waist. Her breath smelt of cigarettes and scotch.

‘It’s incredible,’ began Stuart awkwardly. ‘I’ve been meaning to say thank you for—’

‘No need to thank me,’ she interrupted, closing his lips with her finger. ‘Thank those Indian call centres I paid to push your votes up. And this is just as much for me as it is for you.’

Geri unclasped Stuart’s hand and in it placed a black Links of London box with a ribbon around it. Inside was a silver bangle bracelet. Stuart turned it over and read the inscription: ‘Never Look Back’.

‘Those boys need a front man and you’ve got the looks to do it,’ she continued, ‘and I have a feeling you’re going to make me a very, very, satisfied woman.’

Geri removed her finger from Stuart’s lips and gradually moved it down his shirt and towards his belt, before slipping her hand inside the front of his jeans and cupping his balls.

‘Geri, I don’t think this is a good idea . . .’ Stuart mumbled nervously as her fingers moved their way around his crotch. He could feel his dick hardening and he tried to think of anything that might make it shrink again. Instead, his eyes widened and his buttocks pressed backwards against the cubicle wall as Geri gripped him firmly. Then when he was completely but reluctantly erect, Geri kissed his cheek, released her hand and let herself out of the cubicle with a smile.

It wouldn’t be a one-off event, Stuart realised, repulsed by both her intrusive actions and his primal response to it.

Two thumps on the left hand side of the shower pipe and three to the right was what it took for water to pour from Tommy’s shower.

Only today, there was a special surprise about to burst from the end of the pipe where a shower nozzle should’ve been attached. It came in the form of a deep gurgling and an army of cockroaches surfing a tide of water.

‘Jesus,’ yelled Tommy, and jumping backwards against the cracked wall of tiles, lifted his foot to squash them before changing his mind.

Tommy was aware of the saying ‘you get what you pay for’, and he paid for nothing in the hostel. But the right to basic hygiene wasn’t too much to expect, so with the roaches negotiating the slippery shower tray and scuttling down the drain, he wrapped his towel around his bare waist, felt his feet squelch on a sopping-wet bathroom mat and stormed out of the room.

He was still angry at Matty and Declan for interfering when he asked – well, ordered – that girl to turn off the computer game. But he was more frustrated at allowing his temper to get the better of him and making a fool of himself in front of the others.

‘Is he in?’ Tommy growled at Sadie, seated behind the reception desk piercing her eyebrow with a needle and an ice cube. She shrugged, so Tommy knocked on Ron’s door and didn’t wait to be invited in.

However, instead of finding him behind his desk, Ron was standing with a pile of cash, handing Wayne a brick-sized package wrapped in cellophane. Tommy immediately recognised what was inside – dried, compressed cannabis leaves similar to the ones Peyk was so keen on sprinkling into his Rizlas. Ron and Wayne were startled by Tommy’s appearance, and when Wayne scurried out past him, Ron opened his desk drawer and swept the cash inside.

‘It’s not what it looks like,’ he muttered.

‘Well it looks like you’re selling drugs to Wayne.’

‘Then it is what it looks like.’

‘How? Why? You told me to keep him out of this place.’

Ron sighed and ran his hand through his comb-over, then appeared to wrestle with indecision.

‘Things change, Timmy,’ he said finally. ‘You need to come with me.’

The first time Zak Stanley’s eyes met Ruth’s, she was sitting motionless outside his Hollywood Hills home.

Ruth had begun to lose all track of time by her fifth consecutive day spent perched on a fold-up chair. An hour could sail by before she’d realise she’d been staring blankly at a whitewashed wall. But the long-awaited sound of footsteps and an automatic gate slowly opening snapped her out of her unfulfilled daydreams.

She turned around like a shot and there he was – Zak Stanley, in the flesh, and in the presence of his biggest fan.

Zak frowned at her, wondering whether the plump, dishevelled shape was male or female and a threat to his safety. Meanwhile the shape’s eyes worked their way up from Zak’s tanned legs to his Abercrombie & Fitch-emblazoned sweat shorts, then his white sleeveless T-shirt and MP3 player strapped to his arm before reaching his face. She ached to touch the dark chocolate fringe tucked behind his ears, but she felt paralysed.

Deciding the shape appeared harmless, Zak turned his music up with a remote control attached to his headphones, and jogged up the hills and out of Ruth’s sight.

She didn’t move a muscle for another ten minutes.

Jane turned a photograph she was holding face down on the carpet when she heard footsteps approaching the door.

Instinctively she knew something was wrong when Savannah appeared, clutching her cheek and trying to avoid eye contact.

‘Oh my God, what happened to you?’ began Jane, jumping to her feet.

‘I’m fine,’ Savannah replied, only then remembering a new roommate had been shoehorned into her life.

‘No you’re bloody not, let me have a look.’

Jane grabbed Savannah’s hand and pulled it away, noting her cut lip and a swelling around her eye. ‘What happened to you, darling?’

‘Nothing.’

‘That’s not nothing. At least let me stop the bleeding. I’ve got some antiseptic wipes somewhere—’

‘Please,’ begged Savannah, now trying to control her emotions, ‘Just leave me alone.’

She dashed into the bathroom and closed the door behind her, locking it. She tore off two sheets of toilet paper, looked into the mirror and began dabbing the drops of blood from her split lip.

In the months Savannah had been dancing at the Pink Pussycat Club, she’d never seen a fight amongst customers, let alone been the cause of one. But that changed when she refused a private lap dance to two drunken rednecks who were in no mood for rejection. When one grabbed her arm, she’d yelled for security men Marlon and Kevin for help, and once the fists began to fly, she got caught in the middle of the fracas.

Now tired, bruised and emotional, Savannah swallowed hard but she couldn’t fight the urge to cry any longer. So she sat on the toilet seat, held her hands over her mouth and silently sobbed.

‘This is not how your life is supposed to have turned out,’ she thought, ‘working as a pole dancer, living in a backpacking hostel and sharing a room with a middle-aged Mary Poppins.’

But this is what it had become . . . for now, at least.

SIX AND A HALF MONTHS EARLIER –
Montgomery, Alabama