The Make (17 page)

Chapter 37

After a hard night at the coalface keeping Sandy Cole entertained, George arrived home feeling worn out. He let himself in quietly, and passed along the hall. The lounge door was shut, and he couldn’t hear the telly going or see light spilling out from a crack under the door. Alfie must have turned in for the night. George went into the bathroom, took a piss, brushed his teeth. Then he went into his bedroom, closing the door behind him. Undressed, and fell into bed, and was out for the count in seconds.

He woke up in darkness, thinking that it was morning already. He sat up in bed. Switched on the light. Looked at the clock on the bedside table. Three forty-five. Something had woken him up. Usually he was a very sound sleeper. Maybe a motorbike passing outside on the road. An ambulance. A police car. Something.

He clicked off the light and lay back down again. And then he heard it. A faint noise . . . like someone crying.

Alfie?

He sat up and put the light back on, pulled on his robe. Alfie was having nightmares again. Poor kid.

George went through to the hall, opened the lounge door. The heart-wrenching sobs shot up in volume. Quickly, thinking that Harry must be in bed by now and asleep, and not wanting to wake the whole household, George went into the lounge and closed the door behind him. He fumbled over to the little lamp beside the telly and switched it on. Instantly the room was lit with a warm orange glow. Alfie was curled up on the sofa bed, thrashing, turning . . .

‘Hey, kid,’ said George.

Alfie was asleep, dreaming about god-knew-what horrors.

George sat down on the edge of the sofa bed and put a hand on Alfie’s shoulder.

‘Alfie! Mate. Wake up, you’re dreaming.
Wake up.
’

Suddenly the blue eyes were open. They stared up at the ceiling, their expression one of fixed, stark dread. Then Alfie blinked, turned his head. Looked full at George. Realized where he was.

‘Oh
shit
,’ moaned Alfie. He put his arm over his eyes.

‘Bad dream, uh?’ said George, patting Alfie’s shoulder awkwardly.

‘I keep on getting them,’ muttered Alfie. ‘What are they about? Do you ever remember?’

‘Jesus, remember them? I wish I could
forget
them.’ Alfie dropped his arm and gave George a weak smile. His brow was damp with sweat, his cheeks wet with tears.

‘Is it always the same dream?’ asked George, feeling more than awkward now. He didn’t know
shit
about bad dreams or good ones. Personally, he rarely dreamed; he was hardly the person to play amateur psychologist, now was he?

‘Always the same one,’ sighed Alfie, sitting up. He was naked to the waist, his skin fine and shining in the soft light. To George he looked like a painting, something ethereal and beautiful. George caught himself thinking that, and thought
what the fuck . . .?

‘It’s always Deano. That bastard.’

‘Who’s Deano?’

‘Trust me, you don’t want to know.’

‘I do. Or I wouldn’t ask.’ Maybe Alfie would tell him – at last – what had gone on before George met up with him. He’d never probed, knowing that Alfie must have been traumatized by whatever shit had gone down before the night in the alley.

And so, for the first time, Alfie told George all about Deano, and about himself. How he had been living with his dad in Surrey – his parents were divorced; mum had taken off when he was eight.

‘That’s rough,’ said George, who could understand Alfie’s distress, he really could.

‘Worst of it was my stepmum. She hated me. Thought I was getting in between her and dad. I wasn’t. I always tried to keep out of the damned way. Short of becoming invisible, there was nothing more I could do.’

‘So what happened?’ George enquired, thinking he already knew the answer.

‘I left. Came up to London. Slept rough for a bit. Then I met this bloke, Lefty, and he said he could fix me up with a job . . .’

Uh-oh
, thought George. ‘And did he?’

‘Yeah, he did. Just cleaning and washing up in a club in Soho, one of those weirdo places with orgy rooms and dungeons, where everyone wears chains and rubber, fetish stuff, you know the type of thing?’

George did, and it made his blood run ice-cold to think of sweet, angel-faced Alfie in a place like that.
Dungeons
, he thought.
The ones he dreams of.

‘Deano owns the club. And he . . . he was nice to me at first. Really nice. Then he started . . . you know.’

George stared at Alfie. ‘What, you mean he was bullying you?’

‘No.’ Alfie squirmed. ‘Coming on to me.’

George felt rage take hold of him. Poor little Alfie. What the fuck had been going on with this bastard Deano? He swallowed hard, feeling sick and furious. ‘Did he do anything to you, Alfie? Anything he shouldn’t?’

Alfie looked down. ‘Yeah. He did. He treated me like . . . like a pet, sort of. Drugged me.’ A tear slipped down Alfie’s cheek. ‘Shagged me.’ He looked up and his eyes were wet.

George was struck dumb with horror.

‘Lefty . . . the guy in the alley? Lefty kept giving me pills, I felt out of it most of the time. When I ran away, I felt . . . it was like I was drunk, I couldn’t focus on anything, couldn’t make out where I was. I couldn’t get far. I stole Lefty’s Oyster card and I got down the tube and I just
ran.
But he was following me. I couldn’t shake him off. It was like one of those dreams where you’re trying to run but your legs won’t move. So Lefty caught up with me and he was going to take me back to Deano. And then
you
showed up.’

‘Thank Christ,’ said George with feeling. To think of what Alfie had been through made him feel sick to his stomach.

If he hadn’t . . . well, he couldn’t stand to think what would have happened to Alfie if he hadn’t got there at that time. God bless drunken Laura Dixon, because if she hadn’t got so off her face, he’d have taken that cab with her and he’d never have seen Alfie being accosted in the alley by that bastard. Now he was
glad
he’d whacked the cunt with that scaffolding pole. He was only sorry he hadn’t walloped him harder.

‘Listen,’ said George. He put a reassuring hand on Alfie’s shoulder. ‘You got nothing to worry about and nothing to be scared of, not any more. You’re safe here. And you can stay as long as you like, you know that. We both like having you around. We’ll fix you up with something, some little job if you want, maybe down the casino where I work, how about that?’

‘Don’t your brother-in-law own the place?’

‘That’s the one. I’ll just say the word, he’ll fix you up,’ said George; but he wasn’t too sure about that, not really, because Lorcan was looking ready to rip someone’s head off these days and beat them with the soggy end. He didn’t like all these sickies George had been taking, but what could George do? Most of the escort work was evenings, and most of the
casino
work was evenings too. He’d give up the casino work soon, they were earning enough not to bother, but meanwhile he didn’t want to twist Lorcan’s tail too much.

‘You’ve been so damned good to me, George,’ said Alfie. ‘Thanks.’

‘Hey, what are friends for? Come in to work with me tomorrow night, we’ll see if there’s anything going.’ George smiled and stood up. ‘Now get back to sleep, okay? And no more bad dreams.’

Chapter 38

Jackie had cancelled her last booking with Harry in a terse email.

‘You’ve pissed off the cougar,’ George said, making tut-tut noises with his tongue.

Harry knew he had. And finally he caved in. He phoned her. She sounded cold, distant. Harry hated that. The truth was, he hated being at odds with Jackie; he loved seeing her, and what the hell, it wouldn’t hurt him just this once to meet up with her daughter like she wanted, bend the truth a little (okay – a lot) and have a pleasant evening with the pair of them.

How could that hurt anyone?

All right, he’d have to lie through his teeth – and Harry had always been relentlessly truthful, ever since he could crawl; he was
nothing
like George with his well-meaning but shockingly flexible half-truths and tall tales – but what the hell? And she was so pleased he relented. They were friends again.

‘You’ll love Emma,’ she promised.

‘Yeah, yeah,’ smiled Harry.

‘And she’ll love you.’

And she might have done, if fate hadn’t stuck two fingers up at the whole arrangement and cocked it up for good.

He was at her Notting Hill address, as promised, at eight o’clock that Friday. For tonight he was going to be the Harry all her friends and associates had heard about – Harry the architect who passed clients on to Jackie the interior designer, Harry who dressed a bit arty-farty because that’s what architects did, right? He’d read up on architecture over the course of the last month or so, determined to get the tone just right. He felt by now he could almost
design
a fucking building if called upon to do so. He’d dressed nicely, appropriately: a good-quality blue shirt under a tweedy jacket, black cords and Converse trainers. He’d slung a blue-knitted scarf around his neck. He looked the part. And he could see from Jackie’s expression when she opened the door to him that she was pleased he’d made a real effort to complete the deception.

‘Don’t you look great,’ he said truthfully. She was dressed up in a shell-pink dress that flattered her pale colouring. Big silver bangles decorated each well-toned arm.

‘Come in,’ she smiled, and suddenly Harry felt nerves take hold. He still felt uncomfortable with this. Blurring the lines between work and play. But she took his scarf and jacket, and led the way into her big, beautiful drawing room with its roaring open fire and huge Knoll sofas placed on either side of it.

There was a dark-haired girl with a heart-shaped face sitting on one of the couches, a half-full wineglass in her hand. When she saw her mother come in with Harry, she stood up, smiling.

He felt his heart physically
lurch
in his chest.

‘This is Emma,’ said Jackie proudly. ‘Emma, this is Harry.’

‘Hi,’ said Emma. She had a friendly, open expression.

She extended a hand. Harry shook it. He wanted to
kiss
it, stupidly enough, but that would have been just too naff for words. His heart was running around, doing cartwheels. His stomach was clenched hard, as if he’d just suffered a near-terminal blow. Jesus, she was lovely.
Stunning.

‘Hi,’ he said, finding his voice with an effort. Her eyes were pale denim-blue, like her mother’s. They were kind too, like Jackie’s. ‘How are you?’

‘Fine. Jet-lagged.’

‘Hong Kong,’ he said. ‘Wow.’

‘It’s great.
So
beautiful.’

Like you
, he thought.

‘Must be. Never been.’ Never been
anywhere,
Harry added silently to himself, and after the crashing sensation of instantaneous love came a devastating realization: she was out of his league. It was impossible.

They all sat down. Jackie poured him a glass of wine and he swigged it quickly, trying to steady himself.

Don’t be stupid
, he warned himself.
Love at first sight? What a joke.

And yet, he felt it.

He knew it was ridiculous, but there it was.

They chatted. She told him all about her life in Hong Kong, working in the PR department of a big banking conglomerate in the Jardin, and enquired about his and Jackie’s work connections. Hating to lie, Harry was still pretty good at it. He expanded at length about the projects they’d undertaken together. He was feeling worse and worse about the true story of his life. A dole-drawing loser, on the make. Taking advantage of lonely women. That was the
real
Harry Doyle.

‘I’ve booked a table at Nobu,’ said Jackie, glancing at her watch. ‘We’ll go out and get a cab, shall we?’

They were in the hall putting on their coats when the doorbell rang. Jackie wondered: ‘Now who could that be . . .?’ as she opened the door.

The woman called Camilla from Covent Garden was standing there, hard-eyed and dark-haired. She had a clutch of fabrics in her hand.

‘Jack darling, I was passing so I thought I’d drop in these samples for the bedrooms . . . oh, hello Emma! I had no idea you were home.’

‘Just got back,’ said Emma.

‘Oh, and Harry’s here. Hello again, dear.’

‘Hi,’ said Harry, feeling something coming, some stirring of trouble deep in his gut.

‘Jack tells me you and Harry were at uni together,’ said Camilla.

There was a thick, resounding silence. You could almost
cut
it, it was so profound. Harry saw Emma look with a frown of puzzlement at her mother, then her eyes skipped to Harry. Camilla was looking at all three of them expectantly.

Then Emma, bless her, said: ‘Yes, that’s right. We were, weren’t we, Harry?’

She was smiling into his eyes, but he knew he was caught out. There was a glimmer of amusement in her expression, but there was also a heavy, irritated dash of
what the fuck is going on?

‘Yeah, just catching up,’ he mumbled, feeling bad.

‘Well . . . I can see you’re going out, so I won’t hold you up,’ said Camilla. ‘Night, all.’

She handed Jackie the samples and turned and went off down the steps. Jackie closed the door slowly, her smile fading.

Silence fell in the hall again.

‘Right,’ said Emma, and she looked angry now. ‘Who’s going to tell me what the
hell
’s happening here?’

Jackie and Harry exchanged a glance.

‘Well?’ demanded Emma.

It was Jackie who bit the bullet and told her.

‘You hired a male
escort
?’ raged Emma. ‘You
hired
a man half your age?’

They were back in the drawing room. The fire had died down and the room was growing cold – like the atmosphere. They were sitting there, still wearing their coats. Emma was sitting on one side like judge and jury, Harry and Jackie were sitting opposite her like the accused.

Jesus, what a temper
, thought Harry, impressed. Slow to anger himself, he admired anyone who could so easily kick off and let rip. Emma, it seemed, could do both quite easily. He could see her fiery nature might cause a problem or two when she became Mrs Doyle, but . . . what was he thinking? She was never going to be Mrs Doyle. He’d been exposed for what he truly was, and she looked pretty damned disgusted about it.

‘It wasn’t
like
that, Emma darling,’ Jackie was protesting.

‘Oh then, what was it like?’ said Emma, breathing hard with fury.

God, she was gorgeous.

‘I was lonely. I . . . I’d lost my confidence after your father died. Couldn’t seem to get it back. I turned down every invitation, terrified of going out alone. And then I stumbled across Harry’s website, and I thought, there’s the answer. I’ll just hire an escort, and it’ll all work out well. And it
did.
Harry’s become a very dear friend of mine.’

Emma was looking from Jackie to Harry and back again. Suddenly her mouth dropped open and her nose wrinkled like she’d smelled something nasty. ‘Oh. My. God.’

‘What?’ asked Jackie.

‘You didn’t. You two, you didn’t . . .’

‘Have sex’ hung in the air, unspoken.

‘Of
course
we didn’t,’ said Jackie forcefully. ‘How can you even
think
that?’

Nicely caught
, thought Harry.

‘And you’re not an architect at all,’ said Emma.

‘No. Sorry.’ Harry looked at Jackie.
Told you this wouldn’t work out
, said his accusing gaze.

‘You just do this . . . escorting,’ she said, her delectable mouth now pursed in disapproval.

‘That’s it,’ said Harry. He felt better now it had all come out. Cleaner.

‘It’s just . . . disgusting,’ she said with a shudder.

‘Hardly that, dear,’ protested Jackie, hurt on Harry’s behalf.

‘Yes it is,’ said Emma. She got to her feet and eyed them both coldly. ‘Look, I’m going up to bed, I’m too tired for dinner. You two go on ahead. Okay?’

And she left the room.

Harry and Jackie sat there and looked at each other.

‘Dinner?’ he suggested.

She shrugged. ‘May as well.’

They stood up.

‘Do you think she’ll get over it? I mean, you can see it would be a bit of a shock.’

‘I don’t know.’ Jackie looked at him. ‘Harry?’

‘Yeah?’ He was rewrapping his scarf round his neck and wondering if it was too soon to tell Jackie that he had just fallen in love with her daughter. It was, he judged.
Way
too soon. And anyway it was hopeless. He was so far beneath her on the social scale, he could never even think of getting close.

‘Um . . . Emma. She must never know that you and I . . .’ ‘Had sex’ hung in the air again, unspoken.

‘Got it,’ said Harry. ‘She’ll never hear about it from me.’

‘Or me,’ said Jackie, and linked her hand through his arm. ‘Come on, let’s go and have dinner.’