Laying a Ghost (34 page)

He’d as hard a head as most, but drinking this much, this fast, on top of very little sleep, was making him feel detached from the scene around him. Which was probably why he didn’t notice that one of the men in the group was Michael, until he stood and headed toward the toilets.

John contemplated following him so that they could talk and then chuckled sourly, staring down into the glass he held. Aye, and wouldn’t
that
give them something to think about? The two of them in there for far longer than they needed to be and no one coming in, just in case they’d see something they didn’t want to see. Except he wouldn’t for the world have Michael brought into this.

As soon as the door closed behind Michael, the group at the table exchanged glances and leaned in closer, lowering their voices. John sat back in his chair, shifting so that he could watch them, still feeling like an onlooker in a play. He took an appreciative sip of his whiskey at the first mention of his name, and a second when it was followed by a snigger from one of the men. He was far enough away that he couldn’t catch all of what was said, but as their voices rose in an excited gabble, he heard enough.

They’d “always known,” had they? Because men like him, they “just couldn’t hide it”? At least, given that not one of them had set foot in church in years, he didn’t have to listen to God’s supposed opinion of him. Just theirs.

He carried on his own drinking game, taking a sip for every epithet, and soon had an empty glass.

Michael had headed for the bar when he came out of the toilets and was ordering some food by the looks of it. He turned to glance at his friends, a puzzled look on his face as if he didn’t know what they were talking about, but he still didn’t seem to have noticed John.

Handing over some money, Michael went back and joined the others at the table, his expression slowly changing from one of confusion into an uncertain smile when one of the lads looked at him and clapped him on the shoulder, saying something that John couldn’t make out. Michael shook his head a little bit, but he was still smiling.

Then his eyes cleared and he turned his head in John’s direction, following the gesture another of the lads made, and the smile froze on his face when their gazes met and locked.

Barely managing to keep himself from throwing the table over in the hot haze of fury that washed over him, John grabbed his jacket and left the bar, taking savage pleasure in slamming the door on his way out.

The cooler air helped clear his head as he walked over to George Dunn’s shop, determined to buy a bottle and do a proper job getting the rest of the way drunk until he didn’t need to think about anything at all; not the way his mother had looked at him, not the way Michael had, and not the ruins his life was in.

The shop was fairly busy, but his arrival brought a silence that spread in ripples until the only person speaking was Sheila’s mother, at the end of the line at the checkout with her back turned to the door, chattering away to a friend whose widened eyes and deepening flush seemed lost on Peggy.

“-- and I said, you’ll not be letting him look after those precious bairns again, I trust, not now, and she looked at me, and you’ll never guess what she -- what? What is it?” Peggy turned, her sharp face alight with interest. She met John’s level gaze and gulped. “Oh.”

“What do you want then, John?” George asked, his voice cold.

John raised his eyebrows in ironic surprise and jerked his thumb at the queue. “There’s others before me, George.”

A spark of malice flared in George’s eyes. “I’ll not refuse to serve you, but I’d rather you didn’t linger. Either tell me what you want, or leave.”

John took a step forward, the shoppers parting before him. “What did you just say? You’ll not refuse my money? Well, no, of course you wouldn’t, George. You’d serve the devil himself if he had the cash and well we both know it.” He took out his wallet and extracted some notes. “Since you’re gracious enough to still want me as a customer, despite my ... inclinations, I’ll take a bottle of whiskey and drink to your very good health.” He slammed the notes down and took the bottle from George’s hand. “And George? I’m in a hurry today, but if you ever try and throw me out of here again, I’ll do what my father did once, when you put your wicked tongue to work talking about that lassie who got pregnant over at Innistree, and break your fucking nose.”

There were gasps from more than one person as he turned and stalked back out of the shop, grateful for the solid weight of the glass bottle in his hand. He wasn’t sure he trusted himself to drive, so instead he kept walking, not looking at anything but the ground in front of him as he made his way down to the jetty.

John sat down and looked out over the water. The sun was low in the west behind him, the chill in the air encouraging him to wrench the cap off his bottle and have a drink. He did, and then another, long swigs of the amber whiskey burning on their way down and warming him from within.

This was his home. He’d spent his life here; he belonged here. He’d always thought that he did, anyway. And now he felt alien and it was a damned nasty feeling, even with the whiskey to smooth out the razor-edges of the pain in his gut when he let his thoughts stray to Michael’s face.

God, he’d never thought Michael would
do
that. He’d not fancied himself in love with Michael for a long time, and even when he had been, it’d not come near what he felt for Nick -- but Michael still mattered to him, he was still important.

“Bastard,” he muttered thickly, taking another drink. “Disloyal, two-faced bastard.”

There was a soft scuff of shoe on the sand-encrusted jetty behind him and he turned his head, scrambling to his feet and swaying, coming close to stumbling back into the water.

Nick’s hand came out and took a handful of his coat, holding him steady.

“Oh God,” John said. “I forgot all about you.”

Nick blinked and stepped back half a step without letting go of him. “You didn’t forget where to buy booze.” He waved his free hand in front of his face. “Jesus. You could light your breath on fire. Give me that.” He took the bottle of whiskey from John’s hand.

John let him take it without a struggle. “I didn’t mean -- oh Christ, that didn’t come out right at all,” he muttered. “I was looking for you, and then --” He tried to piece together the reasoning behind coming into town, but it was like scooping up seaweed; his thoughts slithered away the tighter he clutched at them. “I wanted to show them.” He made an effort to keep his words clear and distinct. “Show them that I was damned if I’d be treated like that. And then I was going to find you and tell you -- something. I forget what, but it was important.” He squinted against the setting sun, trying to decipher the expression on Nick’s face, shadowed as it was. “I’m sorry. Maybe that was what it was. I don’t remember. But I am.”

“You don’t need to be. Unless you get sick and throw up on me. Then I’ll expect multiple apologies.” Nick didn’t sound upset, and he bent to set the bottle down before taking John’s chin in his hand and making John meet his eyes as the world spun lazily in the background. “None of this is your fault, and I’m not going to let you drink yourself into a coma so that you can pretend it’s not happening. Okay?”

John tried to smile. “It wasn’t working anyway. No matter how much I drank. Could still see his face --” He shuddered, remembering Michael’s expression, and to his surprise Nick did too, swallowing dryly and letting his hand fall. Suspicion flared. “What?” he demanded. “Has someone said something to you, as well? Because I might be drunk, but not so much that I can’t teach them to keep their fucking opinions to themselves.”

“No, nothing like that.” Nick shook his head. “I’ve just been walking around -- I didn’t give anyone a chance to say anything. Come on, let’s get you home. Where’s your car?”

John indicated vaguely in the direction of Geordie’s pub, which seemed to be enough to make Nick understand and get them started walking in that direction with one arm around John’s waist.

“Whose face?” Nick asked.

“What? Oh ...” John scowled. “Michael. So-called bloody best friend, Michael. I was in the pub, and there were these pillocks having a grand time calling me all the names under the sun, and what did he do?” He didn’t wait for Nick to reply. “He
laughed
. Then he saw me, and his face ... Guilty as hell.”

At the back of his mind something was telling him that it hadn’t been quite like that, but he wasn’t listening. Each time he’d replayed that moment, Michael’s betrayal had become etched more deeply in his memory, and if the current version wasn’t quite faithful to the original it wasn’t far off, he was sure of it.

A man was walking towards them and John slung his arm around Nick’s shoulders with a defiant glare at the passerby, who, being a tourist, returned it with a puzzled smile that faded as he got close enough to smell the whiskey fumes.

“What the fuck are you staring at?” John snarled.

“Jesus Christ,” Nick muttered. “Look, do you think you can keep from verbally assaulting people until we get to the car?”

“He was looking at us!”

“Everyone’s a suspect.” Nick tightened his arm around John when the ground under their feet seemed to tilt. “Just concentrate on not falling over.”

“You wouldn’t catch me?” John stared down at the ground. It looked hard, he supposed, but somehow lying down didn’t seem like such a bad idea. “I want to rest a bit. Stop.”

“No.” Nick was speeding up, if anything. “And I would catch you, but I’d prefer it if you stayed upright a bit longer. We’re almost there.”

John lifted his head and studied their surroundings. “Down this alley.” He tugged Nick to the right. “Brings you out in the car park. Shortcut.”

“God, I hope you’re right,” Nick said half under his breath as they turned and started down the alley. “You can rest when we get to the car, okay? You’ll be home in bed before you know it.”

Home. John wasn’t quite sure where that was now, but he was certain the house he rented from his mother didn’t qualify. He couldn’t blame Nick for not wanting him at Rossneath, though. Not in the state he was in.

“I will. Thank you.” He ruined the good impression by stumbling and nearly bringing them both to the ground. “Oh, fuck. I’m just -- Nick, leave me, will you? Just -- God, I don’t know why you’re bothering with me.”

He wrenched himself out of Nick’s grasp and leaned back against the wall, willing himself not to slide down it because if he did, he doubted he’d be able to get up again.

“If you hadn’t met me, you’d have been fine,” John said morosely. “Settling in nicely, everyone pleased to see you. My fault.
Is
my fault. All my fault. I’ll tell them that, and they won’t hate you, then. Just me. And it’ll all be fine.” He pushed himself away from the wall and fished out his keys. “Don’t worry about a thing.” He managed to walk unaided to the end of the alley and up to his car.

“I’m worried about you getting behind the wheel like this.” Nick appeared as if from nowhere, unfolding John’s hand from around his keys. “And none of this is your fault, so stop saying that.”

John found himself being led around to the other side of the car and pushed into the seat there.

“Can you do the seatbelt yourself, or do you need me to do it?”

“I can do it,” John said sullenly. “I’m not
that
drunk.” Still, it took him several attempts to get the metal thing into the other thing -- whatever they were called -- and by the time he’d managed it, Nick was already in the driver’s seat.

“Okay, here we go.” Nick took several deep breaths before turning the car on. “Let me know if you think you’re going to be sick or anything, okay?”

“I’m fine.” John rested his head against the back of the seat and closed his eyes. There was a jerk as if Nick was struggling with the unfamiliar gearshift and then they began to move, the motion of the car almost enough to make John think that he
was
going to be sick, but it wasn’t as if they had far to go, after all.

Even with his eyes closed, and very drunk, he knew exactly where they were on the road, so when Nick pulled over a good mile short of John’s house after swearing and braking sharply, John forced his eyes open and turned his head.

Nick was pale, staring ahead at the road, where a sheep, ambling along unconcernedly, provided an excellent reason for their sudden stop, if not Nick’s evident distress.

Unless you knew how he felt about driving.

“Nick?” John roused from his own misery. “God, I never thought -- love, you shouldn’t be driving. I’d never have expected you to -- Are you all right?” He reached out and laid his hand over Nick’s where it gripped the wheel, and he could feel Nick trembling. “Let’s get out,” he urged him. “We can walk. It isn’t far.”

“No, I’m fine.” Nick’s shallow breathing belied his words. “We can’t just leave the car here -- someone else could come along and crash into it.” He shivered, but when the sheep finished crossing the road, he put the car into gear again and started forward slowly. “You’re right -- it’s not too much further.”

John didn’t say anything, not wanting to distract him, but kept his eyes open as they drove along, hoping that they didn’t meet another vehicle or another animal who didn’t have the sense God gave it.

Almost before he knew it, they were pulling up the long drive toward his own house. Nick didn’t say anything until the car was stopped and shut off. “Here we go.” His voice was shaking. He got out with the keys clutched in his fist and came around to the other side of the car where John was still struggling to get the seat belt unfastened. “Here, let me ...” Nick leaned in and undid the seat belt.

John leaned forward just a little and brushed his lips against Nick’s cheek. “Thank you,” he said quietly, meaning it as much as any words he’d ever spoken. He let Nick help him out of the car and then leaned against it, studying his house. The windows were dark, which hopefully meant that his mother hadn’t used her key and was sitting in there waiting for him, and as far as he could see, his prediction of vandalism, never really seriously meant, hadn’t come true.

“I’m going to sleep this off.” Nick was watching him in silence, some color returning to his face. “I want to talk to you, but I’m in no fit state right now. Can I --?” John hesitated. He’d been about to ask Nick if he could come to him later but maybe Nick wanted to be alone? Too tired to be diplomatic, and sick of evasions, he said simply, “If you’d prefer I kept away, tonight or any night, you’ve only to say, but if I’m sober enough later, do you mind if I come over?”