The Summer We All Ran Away (26 page)

The car was easy to drive. Far easier than the decaying heap of junk belonging to her father, which pulled hard to the left and had a tendency to stall at traffic lights. It was tempting to put her foot down and scream down the outside lane as fast as she could go, but she needed to stay inconspicuous. She cruised down the M6, keeping an eye out for the police. It had been three hours. Neil's dinner was probably finished, he might already be back in the hotel room, discovering she'd cleaned him out and stolen his car.

As she approached the junction, she realised that going to London, at least in this car, was possibly the worst plan she could come up with. She'd told Neil she was headed there. If they were going to look for her anywhere, they'd be sat on a bridge over the M40, waiting for the black Audi A4 to cruise smoothly by beneath it. She flicked on her indicator and turned onto the M5.

The M5 was quieter, the traffic moving faster. She drove and drove and drove, foot pressed hard against the floor, fighting to stay awake, stopping at a quiet garage to use the Ladies (disgusting) and nick several cans of Red Bull (easy, the attendant was doing a Sudoku puzzle). The fuel gauge crept inexorably downwards; the tank had been full when she stole it, but even a car this size would run out of petrol
eventually. The motorway came to an end and forked into two A roads. Because it was the easiest choice, she picked the left-hand fork.

Now she was driving over empty moorland, nothing for miles but grass and the occasional pony. She was getting tired. She rummaged in her rucksack for another can of Red Bull, gulped it down, and carried on.

Was it safer to find a lay-by and sleep in the car? Or should she head for a big town and sleep in a doorway? She could even afford a crappy hotel room if she wanted, but she'd rather save the money for now. She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. Five hours since she'd stolen the car, it must have been reported by now. Best to ditch it. Large town it was.

As she parked up in a scruffy-looking side street, a police car nosed its way down the road towards her. The jolt of adrenalin made her jump and curse. She slung her rucksack over her shoulder and began to walk away. The police car continued its leisurely progress. A trickle of sweat ran down her spine. Had she shut the door properly? Fuck, was the interior light still on? She didn't dare look back to see.

The sound of the car slowed; the engine was idling. They'd stopped. Two coppers in the car. One to inspect the vehicle. One to run a check and see if it was reported dodgy or missing.

As soon as she reached the corner, Priss began to run. Downhill was easier, so she ran that way. Her Doc Martens thumped the pavement as she ran down and down, through traffic, over junctions, past shop windows, faintly registering the change in smell from petrol fumes and rubbish bags and frying-oil to diesel fumes and salt and rotting seaweed, getting damper, getting cooler, and then suddenly she was on a busy quay and people in going-out clothes were climbing onto a pleasure-boat, clutching plastic beer glasses and laughing in the kind of accent that made Priss want to scream and thump them very hard. She fumbled breathlessly in her rucksack, found the cash she'd stolen from Neil, hurried aboard and
collapsed onto a seat, chewing her nails until the boat pulled away from the quayside, before finally allowing herself to relax.

As she tried not to listen to the stories being told around her – stories about other superior boat trips, taken in Lausanne, Sydney, British Colombia and the heroic amounts of alcohol they'd all consumed – she saw a huge house, rose-coloured and beautiful, in the middle of what looked like empty moorland.

When Jane came back, she had an extraordinary expression on her face.

“I managed to find a number,” she said. “Eventually. It took me quite a while. You didn't tell me your friend was a famous musician. And I never knew
he
lived in the West Country. I'll be honest, when I realised whose house you were talking about I nearly didn't make the call.”

“I, um - ”

“He wasn't there,” said Jane. “But a lady called Kate answered the phone. She said it would be fine, of course Jack would want you to stay with him. She said she'd organise a train ticket for you and she'd come and meet you at the station.” She smiled faintly. “Whoever you are, Tom, you're a lucky man, do you know that?”

Davey moved feverishly about his room, bundling things into a bag. What should he pack? What would he need? It was difficult to concentrate through the taunting voice in his head; the sound of James' voice, saying the words Davey knew he would say if he was here:
Where the hell do you think you're going to go? You idiot. You're a failure, Davey. Running away is just the kind of thing I'd expect from a spineless little toe-rag like you
.

“Shut up, shut
up,”
he wailed to himself. He stopped by the drinks cabinet, took out a bottle of Stoli vodka, and swallowed several hot, oily mouthfuls.

Don't even know what to pack, do you? You've never been
anywhere on your own, have you? When I was your age I was already living on my own, fending for myself. You'd never last five minutes without me and your mother to look after you. Look at you, failed your A-levels for the second time, can't drive, you're completely bloody unemployable
.

And where the hell are you going to go, anyway?

He had no idea, but he knew he couldn't stay here any longer. He had to run. He went back up to his room, stared wildly around. What else, what else, what else?

As he slung his bag over his shoulder, he heard the key in the front door.

chapter sixteen (always)

The canopy over Davey's bed was the same faded red damask as the curtains. Last night the curtains had been tightly closed, but now they were folded tidily against the bedposts, the extravagant loops of old gold rope back in place. He'd gone to sleep with his head resting on Isaac's shoulder, but he had woken alone.

“I'm gay,” Davey said to himself, trying out the sound of the words. As personal announcements went, it felt about as significant as
I'm left-handed
.

“I'm gay,” he said, more loudly, trying for drama. Surely it should sound more apocalyptic than this? He pictured James, glowering like a basilisk. Had James sensed this about him, all those years ago? Was this why he'd tried so hard to mould Davey into someone else?

“I'm gay,” Davey told this imaginary James. But he couldn't imagine what would happen next. Sighing, he pushed back the sheets.

A tiny scrap of paper lay on the empty pillow. It was a corner torn from one of Priss' notebooks, he recognised the smooth, yellowy paper, the elegant, closely-spaced grey lines. Written in meticulous handwriting, condensed into the smallest possible space, was a brief message:

You're lovely

- I

Davey stowed the note carefully in his back pocket, and went downstairs. The horrific discoveries of last night felt distant and unreal, separated from now by an ocean of time; time in which he'd discovered he was entirely different to how he'd always imagined himself, someone greedy and needy and demanding and impetuous, someone who begged without shame and cried out in bliss, someone who did things he'd never dared to dream about. He laughed to himself as he went down to the kitchen.

“Morning,” said Priss. She looked white and tired, and as she went to the coffee pot, she limped painfully on her bandaged ankle. “You're up early. For once.”

“I'm gay,” Davey told her.

Priss poured coffee into her mug in a luxurious brown stream. “D'you want some? I've made about a gallon.”

“I said - I'm gay.”

“Duh.” Priss reached for another mug.

“What do you mean, duh?” Davey demanded. “Are you even listening to me? I only just found out myself! How can you possibly have known?”

“Because it's fucking obvious,” said Priss, yawning. “It's, like, the third thing anyone notices about you. Tall; dark hair; gay; nice shoes. Probably not a murderer.”

Davey took the mug she was offering him and sat down.

“Did you honestly not know?” asked Priss.

“No.”

“Christ.” Priss grinned to herself behind her mug.

“So where is everyone?” asked Davey crossly.

“Why? D'you want to tell them as well?”

“No! I mean, well, I suppose I - I'm not expecting them to be interested or anything, but actually, I - I think we ought to talk about, you know, the, um - ”

“I heard them talking in Kate's room last night,” said Priss. “While you and Isaac were fucking each other's brains out.” Davey blushed. “They're not sure what to do. Tom thinks Jack might have done it, he feels dead guilty about dobbing him
in. I caught him looking at the phone this morning like it was going to bite him.”

“Stop being such a wanker.”

Jack cradled the phone between his ear and his neck, and reached for the pen that lay, tantalisingly out of reach, on the smooth teak surface of the console table. The phone slipped away from him and rattled against the table leg. He picked it up guiltily.

“ - better not have thrown it at the wall,” said Alan. “Are you still there?”

“Of course I am. Sorry, I dropped the receiver.” He reached for the pen again. It was no closer than before.

“I'm not your mate,” said Alan menacingly. “I'm your manager. Or I would be, if you'd let me, you know, fucking
manage
you and your career? Ten dates. That's all I'm asking for. Ten dates. It's nothing! UK only, and we'll get a private helicopter to take you back to the country pile afterwards. They'll be the hottest tickets in the whole fucking town - ”

Jack suppressed a yawn. They'd stayed up late last night, drinking and talking out on the veranda, wrapped in blankets as the night became chillier. They were celebrating Isaac's first draft of the
Landmark
album cover, although Isaac had been oddly reluctant to show it to him. Instead he had rolled it up into a long tube and walked the five miles to the village post office to send it to Alan. Jack had only known what it was because Mathilda mentioned it at lunchtime. He'd tried not to be jealous that Isaac had confided in her. After all, Mathilda wasn't responsible for what Isaac told her, was she? It was only Mathilda's response that mattered.

He suddenly discovered a large, loopy knot in the cable. If he untangled it, the phone might stretch far enough for him to reach the pen.

“Jesus Christ,” said Alan. “I can actually hear the sound of you not listening to me.”

“I'm listening,” protested Jack.

“No you're not. You're waiting for me to get bored and start talking about something else instead. That's how well I bloody know you, Jack. I can actually sense when you're not listening to a bloody word I'm saying.”

“Sorry! Sorry, I'm listening now.”

“Forget it, pal. Now I
am
bored. For fuck's sake. That's how well
you
know
me
, right?” There was a click then a long, slow sigh as Alan drew deeply on a fresh cigarette. “How's the new album coming?”

Jack winced. “Slow. Painful.”

Alan laughed. “You always say that.”

Did he? Maybe he did. Maybe it was always this terrible. He seemed to spend hours just staring at the page, trying to fit together the words with the music in his head, getting nowhere. It was so much easier to lay down the pen and dream about Mathilda instead.

The cable was free, surely now the phone would reach. He stretched out, grabbed the pen, enjoyed the small thrill of victory. Now he just needed some paper.

“Going back to this tour,” said Alan, fortified by nicotine.

“Let's not,” suggested Jack. “I hate it when we fight.” He found a folded piece of paper in his pocket and took it out. It was covered over in writing so dense it looked like it was written in another language. Was this actually his work? He peered at it in appalled fascination.

“I've got a proposal for you.”

“I'm not marrying you.”

“Fuck off. Don't you ever call me a fucking poofter, okay?”

“Jesus. It was just a joke.”

“Yeah, well, some jokes aren't funny. Not that I've got anything against poofters, I'm sure their mothers love them. Would you do the tour if I got you a babysitter?”

“Sorry, mate, did you say a
babysitter
?”

“Yeah. Someone to look after you. Keep you on the straight and narrow. Make sure you don't end up taking anything you shouldn't.” He chuckled. “Tucking you up in bed at night.
What do you think?”

“I think you've actually lost your mind.”

“Hey, there's no shame in it, you know. Plenty of the greats have had minders. Leaves you free to concentrate on what's important, right?”

What was important, was Mathilda. She'd been restless over the last few days. She'd been on the phone for hours to her agent, a man called Irving Something, American by birth and from the sounds of it, aiming to get back home and take Mathilda with him. It was pathetic to eavesdrop but impossible not to. Everything she did mattered to him. If she wanted to go – to London, to Hollywood, to the moon – he had to know, so he could plan around it. What was Alan saying? It sounded like something about the Borgias -

“Sorry,” said Jack. “I could have sworn you said something about Lucrezia Borgia.”

“I did. I was checking to see if you were still listening. So what do you think?”

“About being babysat by Lucrezia Borgia?”

“About being babysat by Evie.” Jack spluttered. “Alright, alright, no need to fucking choke. Why not? You know her, she knows you. She'd take good care of you. She's willing to do it - ”

“If you ever mention this halfwit idea to me ever,
ever
again,” said Jack, “I'll fire you. Swear to God.”

“No you won't. No other bastard would sign you, the way you behave. Look, I'm not pushing for this tour because I'm some sort of sadist. You do know that, right? You do actually remember I'm on your side? All I'm trying to do is get a bit of exposure for your music, which, mind-bogglingly fucking brilliant as it is, is not going to sell itself.”

Jack could hear the sound of Mathilda's laughter, that low, dirty laugh that thrilled down his spine. He was bored of sitting in the hallway. Was he so difficult to work with? Was his behaviour so outrageous? Other musicians drove limousines into swimming pools. “I'll think about it,” he said.

“Liar.”

“Fuck off, Alan, I will. Okay?”

“Twenty notes says you'll hang up and forget every word I said until next time.”

“If I pay you the twenty quid will you promise not to phone again until tomorrow?”

“It's a deal.” Alan hung up without saying goodbye.

He put the phone carefully back into its cradle.

“So is this it, then?” asked Davey, following Priss as she painfully climbed the stairs to her room. “The end of the summer?”

Priss shrugged. “What do you think? You saw them last night. They'll talk a lot, but they'll give it up and call the coppers in the end. They're probably just waiting for us to get out of Dodge before they do it. So what about you? You going home to get beaten up by your dad again?”

“Stepdad. And how did you know he - ”

“Didn't take a genius to figure that one out,” said Priss. She sighed. “For God's sake, I just wish - I just wanted to know. You know?” She shook her head. “And you've got to admit, it would be pretty fucking cool to be able to say you'd lived with a murderer.”

“You know,” said Davey, “I um, I mean, you actually - ”

“You want to come in?” Priss held open the door to her room. “Special invitation.”

“Oh. Thank you. Um, I wanted to tell you - ”

Priss was staring at her bed. “What the fuch's that doing there?”

Davey looked, but couldn't see anything unusual. The smooth sunburst-orange of the bedspread was immaculately smooth; Priss' heavy black notebook lay on her pillow.

“I never make my bed until just before I get into it,” said Priss. “And I never leave my notebook out like that, it looks poncey.” She picked up the book and leafed through it. “That bastard Isaac, he's been using my notebook to
draw
in. I'll
kill him when I see him. No, hang on a minute. Shit. Okay, maybe I won't - ”

Davey peered over her shoulder. The smooth yellowy pages of her notebook were filled with black and white sketches, laid out in panels, like a graphic novel. Crowds of people swarmed up the driveway and through the door of a beautiful house – the house, Davey realised, they now stood in – while, in stark contrast, a man sat alone in the branches of the huge candelabra tree in the garden, carefully nailing up a round paper lantern.

Mathilda was pacing out the thick carpet of the chill-out room, muttering to herself under her breath, occasionally referring to the copy of
Lysistrata
in her hand. He perched on the arm of a magenta couch, unsure if she knew he was there or not. Part of her talent was to create the illusion of being alone before an audience. He was struck again by how self-contained she was, and how little she needed him to be happy. Her beauty and her separateness were a sharp pain in his chest.

At last, she put down the book and came to him. “Isaac's gone.”

“Good,” said Jack, before he could stop himself. “Shit, I didn't mean - ”

“Didn't you?”

“I just meant it's nice to have the place to ourselves again.”

“Because we were falling over each other all the time?” She was smiling, but he could sense the argument threatening to come to the surface.

“Yeah. He was such a pain, always chattering away when I was trying to work - ”

“You were jealous, weren't you?”

As always, her directness wrong-footed him. “No.”

“Yes, you were. It burns you up that he's seen me naked, doesn't it? You were lying when you said it was fine.”

He wondered if she was looking for an excuse to argue. “No, it didn't - oh, alright, yes it did. Okay? Is that what you
wanted to hear? Why did you model for him if you knew I didn't like it?”

“Because I didn't care.”

He was unsure if he'd heard her right. “I'm sorry, what?”

“This,” she said, enunciating with great care, “is my body. Not yours. Mine. You don't own it. I do.”

“I know that! But I love you. I
love
you. It's only natural to be jealous - ”

“Jealousy is for cavemen. What happened to trust?”

“I do trust you, I just - ”

“No, you don't. For God's sake, Jack, is your definition of
love
lying awake at night wondering if the woman next to you spent the afternoon fucking somebody else?”

“Well, have you? Have you been fucking him?” Jack was vaguely aware how destructive this question was, but was too angry to stop himself. The words had hovered on the end of his tongue for weeks now. He couldn't keep them caged any longer.

“Well, what if I have? What then, Jack?”

“Then - then - ”

“Then I wouldn't be all yours after all? What makes you think you get all of me anyway? Did you think I was a virgin?”

“I never really - it's none of my business, is it? I mean, obviously we're all entitled to our past.”

“And what about your past? Your past that keeps turning up on the doormat every morning?”