Page 32 of The Cut
‘Er … I guess.’
‘Well, I’ve got a problem.’ Ben’s fingers grip the wheel tighter. ‘I need you to … big me up.’
‘How d’ya mean?’ Mark chews on his lips and turns his head.127
Ben runs a hand through his hair, frustrated. ‘Put in a good word for me, with Old Farmer John.’
‘Oh, I see.’ Mark’s stomach begins to sink.
‘I want to go out with Annie properly, but Annie’s dad hates me.’ Forest Hill has turned into Albert Rise and Ben crunches the gear as Mark’s street draws close.
‘Is your dad doing OK?’ The question comes out of the blue.
Ben slows to a stop just at the corner of Mark’s road, the car bucks and the engine stalls. He switches off the ignition and turns to him. ‘Not doing so good, mate.’ The streetlamp casts over the lower half of Ben’s face as he exhales, his moist eyes hidden in shadow.
‘I’m sorry.’ There is so much to say but Mark doesn’t know how. ‘If there is anything I can do …’ He can’t look at him and reaches for the door handle. ‘Thanks for the lift.’
A hand reaches over and touches his shoulder. Fingers slide across Mark’s back, pulling him in for a buddy hug. Static electricity snaps across his neck with a jolt.
‘Easy there, jumpy.’ Ben removes his arm. ‘Just put in a good word for me with Mr Maddock, that’s what you can do.’
Mark waits for a few more seconds, paralysed by Ben’s touch. A combination of terror and desire. There is a shriek from a fox in a neighbouring garden.
‘And in return, I’ll call them off. The gang. They’ll leave you alone if I tell them.’ Ben’s arm retracts and a cold breeze from the open door hits them both.
Was it as simple as that? ‘Really?’ Mark’s eyes meet Ben’s.
‘Only if you do what I’m asking. Otherwise …’ He shrugs. ‘Not much I can do about them.’
There is some kind of pact between them now, a bond. Mark has seen into Ben’s world; he has witnessed his vulnerability, and128now Ben is about to lean on Mark for something he wants. In a reversal of fortune, Ben suddenly needs him.
Mark had fantasised about this. An impossible utopia, in which he and Ben are friends; or closer than friends, perhaps. Mark’s imagination was a place he could disappear in, a place he often vanished to. His books, his artwork and music helped him to exorcise some of his demons, but there was a deeper level of contemplation where he found solace. Sometimes his dreams were so real it was hard for him to distinguish fantasy from reality.
But in that electrifying touch, in that squeeze of friendship to his shoulder, there had been something real. The glimmer of possibility.
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22
DECEMBER 2023
Ben stood in the shower, letting the hot water cascade down over his thinning crown. He turned the heat to maximum, blasting the jet into the base of his aching spine.
‘DAD … Come on! LET’S GO!’ Lily was clattering around in the kitchen. The relentless jingle of Mariah Carey’s ‘All I Want for Christmas Is You’ floated up the stairs to torment him.
Ben turned off the water and threw on a towelling robe, too lazy to dry himself; whacked some deodorant under his wet pits and took a mouthful of Listerine. He stood for a second on the threshold of the en-suite, stared at the unmade bed and searched his brain for where he was supposed to be going with Lily. For the life of him, he couldn’t remember. Sleep had eluded him in recent months. He’d been jolting awake in drenched sheets to the sound of shattering glass as Russian gangsters in motorcycle helmets swarmed his house in the middle of the night. Dave crawling up the stairs from the basement door like a monstrous chimera emerging from the mouth of hell. He couldn’t take the tossing and turning anymore and had finally resorted to Zopiclone, which left him with a metallic taste in his mouth and a blurred reality, like a video with out of sync dialogue.
‘ON MY WAY!’ Come on, Ben, snap out of it. He drifted into the bedroom and rubbed his face vigorously with his fingers to wake himself up, dropped his robe and stood in the middle of the room, naked and bewildered.130
Downstairs, Dani wandered into the kitchen, mules clattering on the polished concrete floor. Nate was slumped on the floor in the den under a makeshift tent consisting of a cashmere throw from the sofa and a clothes airer. The curtains were drawn and the room was in darkness. Lily was sitting cross-legged on a bean bag, with a tablet open on her lap, the light from the screen illuminating her face in an eerie glow as she read.
‘Say it again slowly.’ Nate poked his head out from the makeshift tent.
‘“Sod off!” The heel of a foot donkey-kicks him in the ribs. “Keep your hands to yourself, faggot.”’
‘LILY … language!’ Dani was pouring coffee from a cafetière.
‘What?’ She huffed in annoyance. ‘It’s what it says in the script. I’m testing Austin Butler here on his lines.’ She yawned and picked at the scab on her shin.
