Page 67 of Anything but Easy
“How dare you say–” Kim started, but Henry cut her off.
“Come on, Kimmy.” He took her hand and started towards the door with her in tow. “The miserable bastard’s not worth it.”
As Kim followed after him she looked down at their joined hands. A small smile formed on her face and her expression filled with cautious hope.
I sighed as the door closed after them. Okay, so I may have been a bit of a blunt bastard, but hopefully that was the kick in the arse my brother needed. Where the hell was Kira? She’d know what to say to Henry about all this stuff. She’d be able to sort it out. Not for the first time I thought it might be time to buy her a bloody phone. Then, as if I’d conjured it from the ether, a notification flashed up onmyphone from the BBC website, showing a picture of the lady herself wrapped around a stripper pole with the caption ‘Stripper Sex Doctor’ above it.
After my detour to Kira’s work, I’d been called back to an emergency department meeting – some crisis over jobs in South Wales. Contingency plans had to be made. Assurances would have to be given to the local population – and those assurances had to be real. So I’d only made it home in the early hours of the morning, and to an empty house. When I’d questioned Sam, I was told that Kira was spending the night with her friend Mark. This was annoying as clearly Kim and Danny had made their way back here, but never mind.
I’d texted Mark (my only option given Kira’s allergy to phones) and received a goodly number of totally incomprehensible replies from Kira aboutfemale empowerment,pulling some shapesand theperfect roly poly. She’d also said how she wished I could have been there and I felt guilty.Guilty!I’d actually had trouble sleeping last night thinking I’d let her down by not coming to her charity event, and the whole time she was shaking her arse on a stripper pole?
To my annoyance, Dad’s voice floated through my mind again with words likeliabilityandloose cannon.
But I knew better than to judge without all the available information. I hadn’t got to where I was by jumping to conclusions. So I sat down heavily in one of the kitchen bar stools, read the article, and then moved on to other sources: theGuardian, theDaily Mail, theTelegraph, they all had the same story. I focused on the pictures taken of the crowds – not seedy men, not stag parties, but couples, groups of women, socialites, Urvi fucking Bailey . . . And the dancers were more like acrobats or gymnasts, not strippers. When I clicked on the charity’s website, I saw Kira standing arm-in-arm with an African woman in front of a building under the blistering sun. Both were wearing colourful African dresses and were laughing. Of course they were laughing. No matter the culture, the personality, the type of person, their situation, Kira always made them laugh.
They’d raised over fifty thousand pounds last night and donations were still coming into the charity today, thanks to all the press coverage Kira had stirred up. The last video I clicked on made my throat close over and my eyes sting: Kira speaking into a microphone at the start of the night, looking so earnest and beautiful as she talked about HIV awareness and treatment, combined with women’s empowerment and education. Her charity helped fund education, family planning and treatment centres for HIV positive women in Malawi. The papers loved her. They thought she was bloody hilarious and inspirational. They were right. I took a long breath in through my nose and let it out through my mouth.
They were right, but I knew better than anyone how quickly that could change. The press could turn on you in an instant. It wasn’t fair to ask Kira to squash her personality so that she could fit into my world. In my world you did not host charity events in strip clubs – even up-market, famous ones like The Main Event. And you certainly didn’t mount a stripper pole yourself.
I wished I could get my father’s damn voice out of my head.
I was just coming to the end of the last article when I caught sight of Henry’s name. I froze in my seat and then slowly stood, feeling the colour drain out of my face.
One of the speeches made at the event was from Henry Lucas, brother to Cabinet Minister Barclay Lucas. The former management consultant and socialite had dropped off the London scene some eighteen months back. He chose Kira Murphy’s event to announce that he himself has been diagnosed with HIV. By being open about his condition, Lucas hopes to help combat the stigma and shame often surrounding HIV, something he says he has felt acutely, and which led to a long bout of depression. He credits Dr Murphy for, as he puts it, ‘pulling my head out of my arse’. They apparently met at one of the HIV clinics at St Thomas’ Hospital, which we presume is how Dr Murphy came into contact with Barclay Lucas, and from there developed their high-profile relationship.
There it was in black and white: my brother, whom I had spent all my life protecting, laid bare for the nation to devour and spit out as they chose, all his secrets exposed. Everything I’d done with the press office to protect him, to keep my political and public life away from my family, especially its most vulnerable member, all of it had been for nothing. He would be torn apart. He’d sink back into that dark place and I’d lose him again.
Henry chose that moment to amble back into the kitchen, a now fully dressed Kim in his wake. They were smiling. If I wasn’t so bloody furious I would have been happy for them, but I was beyond any emotion other than shock at that moment. He took one look at my face and snatched my phone away to check the screen.
“Barclay, listen. Hear me out before you–”
“What were you thinking?” I pointed my finger at him and snatched back my phone. “All this effort to protect you. Everything I’ve done so they can’t get to you, and you hand yourself over to them on a platter.”
“Calm down, big man,” the bastard had the audacity to say. “It wasn’t a snap decision. I’ve been thinking about it for a while. And, what with Kira’s charity being HIV related, I just realised it was the perfect opport–”
“Didsheput you up to this?” I could feel my shock morphing to anger. Spontaneous, brave, zany, wonderful Kira. Was she the missing link in the puzzle of my brother being so fucking stupid? I’d felt bad for not making time for this event, for not supporting Kira. It never occurred to me that I should have been there to try and rein her in.
“No! But look, Barclay. She was amazing. It was a huge success last night and all the extra press is great for the charity. She’s–”
“What are youtalkingabout?” I roared. In the corner of my eye, I saw Kim take a small step back. “You slice yourself open and let your guts hang out for all to see and she’s up on stage in front of the world’s press with her leg wrapped around astripper pole. On what planet is that acceptable? I’ve put up with a lot of unconventional shit from this woman, but this has to top the lot. There’s a free spirit and then there’s a goddamnlunatic. None of the other women I’ve ever been with have caused this much hassle. And none of them would have happily sacrificed my brother to the altar of their own causes.”
“She didn’tsacrificeme. It was my decision to go up there. I’m not a child anymore, Barclay,” Henry snapped back. “And all theotherwomen you’ve been with have been bloodyboring.”
I let out a hollow laugh. “Well, I guess that’s one thing Kira’s got going for her – never a dull moment. But I think I’d like to go back to being in control of my life with my brother safe from the media circus, and be with somebody who’s not completely mental!”
Henry and Kim were looking past me towards the back door now with stricken expressions. I turned to see a dishevelled Kira standing in the doorway. Her face was pale and her eyes wide. She was wearing a man’s overcoat, which was trailing along the floor, with what appeared to be her onsie underneath it. She looked ridiculous and endearing at the same time – a combination that, I told myself, I was sick to the back teeth of. Her eyes darted between me, Henry and the retreating Kim and she forced out a shaky laugh.
“Hi,” she said, not taking any more steps into the kitchen, and I ground my teeth in frustration at the sense of longing that being in the same room as her ignited in me. This need for her was madness. She was making me just as much of a lunatic as she was. “The mentalist is back,” she joked with a small wave.
Chapter 28
If I let her go now
Barclay
Another shaky laugh from her followed and my stomach twisted before I shook my head to clear it.Shewas the one in the wrong here. I was not going to feel guilty for her overhearing the truth. It was about time she heard it, anyway.
“Is that all you’ve got to say for yourself?” I asked, crossing my arms over my chest and scowling across at her.
