Читать книгу The Make - Jessie Keane - Страница 13

Chapter 6

‘D’you know, you’ve been great,’ slurred Jemma Houghton, staggering slightly and having to cling to the front of George’s jacket as they left her office party.

Yeah, I have. Above and beyond the call of duty, thought George.

Fuck me, could this woman drink. She was pretty – blonde and rake-thin and very sexily turned out in a white mini-dress and little else. She’d told him the drill when they’d been heading over in the cab in which he’d collected her from her posh waterside apartment near Southwark Bridge. He was her new boyfriend, Michael. She’d been pretending she had been dating Michael for months and she wasn’t going to turn up to a works do without him and have to admit that she was a saddo who’d been telling porkies all this time. So he was Michael for this evening, right?

‘Right,’ said George.

‘And you’re in property. Developing and stuff,’ she’d told him.

‘There still money in that?’ he asked, curious. He thought the bottom had dropped out of the property market and buy-to-let was dead. Not that he would ever be troubled by it one way or the other; he doubted he would ever have cash enough to speculate.

‘There’s money in anything,’ said Jemma, slipping him a bundle of crisp tenners. She gave him an arch smile and lowered her voice so the driver wouldn’t hear. ‘Even escorting, apparently.’

And there still was in banking, too; George saw that from the minute they entered the building in Canary Wharf. It was a steel-and-glass cathedral, a soaring, holy tribute to the great god Money. In the office where she worked there were already expensive silver and white Christmas decorations up. It was surreal, it was not yet November, but Jemma said the markets were hectic and they’d had to schedule this party into the nearest available free slot – which was now. Everyone was crowded in, sweating in tropical heat, jiggling along to Christmas songs, necking a lot of booze and loudly congratulating each other on the anticipated size of their forthcoming bonuses.

George could see he was going to have his hands full with Jemma. She was throwing the drinks back with abandon while he hovered around at the buffet table trying to get some decent food down him – not easy, because it was all poncy bits and pieces: blinis with little piles of red caviar, wraps of Parma ham and melon, goat’s cheese tartlets, one lonely little prawn stuck bog-eyed into a shot glass of spicy sauce. Not his taste at all, but he made the best of it, tucked in and tried not to drink too much, because this was work. It certainly wasn’t pleasure.

As the evening wore on and the revelry became wilder, he found himself policing Jemma’s behaviour like a maiden aunt. Pretending to be a developer, that was a piece of piss. He knew – vaguely – about RSJs, wet rot and dry lining. He could front it out with the best of them. But Jemma was going to be rat-arsed soon if he didn’t get her to put the brakes on.

‘Don’t you think you’ve had enough?’ he asked above the roar of the crowd and the noise of the sound system, when she returned to the drinks table for about the hundredth time. She was already slurring her words and staggering a little. Her white-blonde hair was falling into her eyes and her make-up was caking in the heat.

‘Not until I’m wasted,’ she grinned, and slung back another mojito.

They fell out of the building at just after twelve, along with a load of others who were all shouting and cheering like loonies.

I’m surrounded by bloody idiots, thought George.

He hailed a cab. ‘Southwark Bridge, mate,’ he said, and it was at precisely that moment that Jemma threw up all the drinks she’d spent the evening shoving down her throat. Vomit splattered the open back door of the cab and the driver rounded in fury.

‘Fuck off, I’m not having her in my cab,’ he said, and he reached back, slammed the door shut, and drove off.

‘Fuck that,’ said George.

‘Oh Michael you’ve been so good . . .’ Jemma was now telling George, turning a sick-streaked chin up towards him as if inviting a kiss.

George flinched back, disgusted.

‘Show’s over,’ he said angrily. ‘It’s gone twelve and I’m about to turn back into a ruddy pumpkin. I’m George, okay?’ He looked for an orange light in the gloom and was relieved to see one coming near. He hailed the cab and it swerved in to the kerb.

‘Southwark Bridge please, pal,’ he said, and hoped that this time Jemma didn’t throw up. He shoved her into the back, and closed the door.

Jemma started clawing at the window. ‘Aren’t you coming too?’ she mouthed at him.

‘No luv. Need a walk,’ he said, and the cab pulled away. Thank Christ for that, he thought.

If there was one thing he hated, it was the sight of a woman falling-down drunk. His stomach was complaining loudly after an evening of prissy little tartlet jobbies and mineral water. He longed to get some proper food down him, but it was too late to find a chippy. The crowds had departed, and he was alone in the crisp, chilly night air, a heaven full of stars above him and the open road in front. He breathed in deeply, relieved that was over.

His conscience niggled at him a bit. Maybe he should have seen her home to her door, but he thought bailing out when he did was the safer option. Next thing you knew, she’d be inviting him in for coffee, and he couldn’t have got it up for the skanky mare if his life had depended on it.

Then he saw another one – a girl in jeans and a pale top, crouched just around the corner of a building in an alley, obviously drunk out of her skull, her arms over her head. He walked on. He’d had a gutful of Jemma and her type for one night. But . . . his footsteps slowed. He could hear the girl crying. She was all alone.

He stopped walking.

Stood there, thinking about it.

Ah, fuck it.

He started to walk back to ask if she was okay as it was pretty obvious that she wasn’t. And it was then that he wished he’d just kept on walking, because now he saw there was someone else in the alley with her: a tall, stick-thin darkish man in a floor-length black leather coat.

Shit.

In the yellow light of the streetlamp he saw the glint of a long blade in the man’s hand. A thrill of fear shot all the way up George’s neck to the top of his skull. Suddenly all his senses were on high alert. The man was shrieking at the girl, looming over her threateningly.

George looked around. There wasn’t a soul about. No cops when you needed them, no fucking cavalry pounding down the street; just him – and he wished he was a thousand miles away.

‘You no-good bitch, you think you got the right to say yes or no when I’ve told you the way it’s gonna go? You don’t ever run out on him. You keep him sweet, okay? You keep him sweet or I’ll cut you, cunt, I’ll cut you bad. Give you a spell in the correction room, how’d you like that? You listenin’ to me?’

The girl was crying, shielding her head with her upraised arms. George caught a glint of thick pale hair. With no intention whatsoever of doing so, he stepped forward and said: ‘Hey!’

The man standing over the girl looked round but the girl didn’t move. She seemed paralysed with fear.

‘Hey,’ repeated George more quietly, wondering what the fuck he was doing.

There was a flash of teeth in the gloom of the alley. The man was smiling, like he couldn’t believe George had been so foolish as to intervene. Well, that was fair. George couldn’t believe it himself.

‘Walk on, bro,’ said the man, the smile dropping in an instant. ‘You just keep on walkin’. We got a bit of business here and you don’t want to get involved in it, I’m telling you.’

But George stood there, wanting his feet to move but somehow unable to make them. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked.

Now the man turned to fully face George. He was holding a knife in his left hand. It glinted in the cold sodium glare of the light.

Fuck it, this is crazy.

‘Hey! Move on. I won’t tell you again.’

He’s right. Do the sensible thing.

George started to walk on. Whatever was going on back there, it was not his business. Best to keep out of it. He quickened his pace. Yeah, he was going to get home, have a shower, bung something in the microwave, then go to bed and forget this whole frigging disaster movie of an evening. He passed a building swathed in scaffolding, like the ecto-skeleton of some huge insect. A few sticks and stuff were piled up just around the corner – insulation material, some discarded scraps of polythene billowing like ghosts in the faint, chilly breeze.

Sticks.

George paused and looked at the sticks. And . . . there were scaffolding poles too, just left there. He picked up a stick. Picked up a scaffolding pole, and turned on his heel.

Oh shit this is so stupid, Georgie boy, what are you thinking?

He went back along the street. The bastard was still there, flapping his arms, waving the knife at the terrified girl, shouting and bellowing. George felt as if his bowels were about to let go as he broke into a run and headed like a bullet straight for the man.

But the man heard him coming. George was heavy and wasn’t known for his lightness of tread. When he hit top gear, he made a lot of noise. He saw the man turn, and a panicky oh shit gonna die shot like wildfire through George’s brain. He let out a jittery roar that was half fear, half anger as his pace picked up and he collided with the man like half a ton of frozen meat. The man flew back and down and hit the cobbles like a sack of shit.

‘You motherfucker!’ he shrieked.

George piled in. His eyes were almost entirely focused on the knife. He felt a vicious kick land on his thigh, and he knew that later it would hurt, but right now he couldn’t feel a thing.

‘Arsehole!’ he yelled, and struck the man a hard blow on the knife hand with the stick.

The man was wriggling like an eel, cursing, throwing out a string of expletives.

‘Yeah?’ ranted George, so hyped on adrenaline he didn’t know what he was saying. ‘How’d you like this, you cunt?’

He wanted to get that knife away from him. That was all he was focused on, but the man was like rubber, bouncing around while George felt like dead weight. He felt the cold hiss of the thing go past his cheek and thought: My God he nearly got me then. I could have bled to death right here in this alley, and for what? For a stranger. For something that ain’t even my business.

George dropped the stick and clamped down on the hand holding the knife. He squeezed, pummelled the man’s fingers on the cobbles. The man was shouting, squirming and cursing and telling him that he was dead, dead and buried.

‘Yeah, well, I’ll see you in hell then, fucker,’ roared George, not even sure what was coming out of his mouth.

He was so hyped up.

He was terrified.

How did I get into this?

The man got his hand free and was halfway up, struggling under George’s superior weight but coming back with all guns blazing. He swished the cold night air, slicing through it with the blade, forcing George to flinch back. The man was grinning again; he knew he was getting the upper hand. George could feel his resolve weakening, could feel the malevolence rising off this fucker like mist off a bog.

This bastard was going to kill him, and he wasn’t even going to care. The man came up on to his knees. Fuck this, thought George as the knife whooshed down, slitting open the sleeve of his jacket. It was sharp. He had time to think that. The knife was extremely sharp. Lucky it hadn’t slashed deeper, caught the skin.

He’d ruined his best jacket.

That realization, the silly thought that the man had ruined his best jacket with that fucking knife, galvanized George. He swung the scaffolding pole round in an arc. It hit his opponent’s head with a solid clunk.

The man seemed to freeze there on his knees. Then a slow dark line bloomed along his hairline and cascaded down over his face. His eyes turned up in his head. The hand holding the knife released the blade, which clattered on to the cobbles. His mouth remained open until blackish blood poured into it, staining his pearly-whites a dingy scarlet in the cold light of the streetlamp. Almost in slow motion, like a dynamited building, he lurched sideways and collapsed.

Suddenly, there was silence.

George knelt there, gasping for breath. He stared at the man. Not a movement. Nothing. George sank back and threw the scaffolding pole aside. It hit the wall at the side of the alley with a metallic thonk, then clattered down on to the cobbles.

Maybe he was going to be sick. He felt sick. He was built like a brick shithouse but he was not a violent man. Tonight, he had surprised himself.

Then the man on the ground groaned.

All George’s senses sprang to their feet and started dancing a panicky fandango.

The fucker wasn’t dead, anyway. And George didn’t want to be here when he came round. No way.

George stumbled to his feet. The alley spun around him. He had to sit down again quickly. He slumped against the wall of the building beside the alley. The girl was three feet away, and still crying.

‘S’all right,’ panted George. ‘S’all right.’

He scrambled to his feet again. This time, he managed to stay up.

‘Hey,’ he said to the girl, trying to keep his voice gentle because she was huddled there, arms over her head, scared out of her skin. Poor little bitch. ‘Hey, come on, let’s get out of here.’

He reached down, touched one thin arm.

She flinched. Looked up. George saw a curiously an drogynous face, tear-streaked, staring up at him; big wide eyes beneath thick, strongly defined brows, a neat nose with flaring nostrils, a pouting sweet mouth, a well-defined jawline.

‘Come on,’ he said again. ‘Let’s move, right?’

He clasped the arm, feeling the silken skin, the long stretch of muscles underneath, and he thought, wait a minute, and then the girl got to her feet, and he saw the shoulders, the hips, the . . . well fuck me, thought George.

He hadn’t rescued a girl at all.

It was a boy.

* * *

The boy sat in the back of the taxi that George had flagged down, hugging himself, his teeth clattering together like casta-nets. George kept glancing at him, wondering what the hell he was going to do now. The words ‘where can I drop you?’ had been met with silence. So George had given the driver his own address.

The boy was in shock. That much was obvious. He couldn’t just leave the kid out on the streets at this hour of the night. Look at what had been happening in that alley.

Yeah, look at that, George.

George thought about it. Something was off here, something was wrong.

He glanced again at the boy. Big, blond, overlong thatch of hair. Elfin face. The boy was tall and long and thin. Not like him. He’d been heavy, solid, robust, just about forever. The boy had only been wearing a white t-shirt and jeans, no coat. It was perishing out there, bitterly cold.

‘What’s your name?’ George asked, and he saw the cab driver’s eyes flick to the rear-view mirror, saw the judgement in them. He obviously thought that this was a pick-up, a meeting of two strangers heading home for some hot and impersonal sex.

The boy didn’t answer. He was shuddering, although it was warm enough in the cab. George took his jacket off and thrust it towards him. He flinched back. How old was he? wondered George. Fourteen, fifteen, around there?

‘Go on. Put it on, mate. You’re cold.’

After a moment’s hesitation, the boy grasped the jacket and slipped it on. It was miles too big for him. He looked lost in it.

Poor little sod, thought George.

‘You can stay the night at mine,’ said George. ‘If you want. It’s not a problem.’

The boy looked at him with limpid blue eyes. Slowly, he nodded.

What is he, deaf and dumb? Or just demented? Hell, what am I inviting in here?

He caught the look from the taxi driver again.

Pair of queers, said the look.

But it wasn’t like that. Not at all.