‘You have to face him some time.’
‘When I can look at a chair on castors without wanting to throw up or knife someone, that’s time.’
‘That bad.’
‘Worse. He left me there, T.P. He left me to fucking rot.’
‘Soonest done, best mended.’
‘That’s a load of fucking shite, and you know it, Thomas Pronsias Costello.’
T.P. rested his wrists on top of the steering wheel and pursed his lips. Gaby knew that it was not because she had affronted him. He was trying to find a way for him to go into that house with her and face whatever must be faced. You stand by your friends, Gaby thought. You do not leave them in hell when it is in your power to save them. But this is not your fight, now. This is mine alone.
‘Why the hell couldn’t Jake tell me he had HIV 4?’ T.P. said after a silence.
‘Because you can’t stop yourself picking up others’ shit,’ Gaby said gently. ‘You did it with Moon, and she still left you. You just go on martyring yourself for people you care about.’
‘Ugly little habit. It’s a crashing cliche, but I can’t really believe he’s gone.’
‘He’s not dead,’ Gaby said.
‘I know that. Not dead but translated? Transfigured? What’s the religious expression? But it is death, of a kind. The Chaga, I mean. It’s there, it can’t be stopped, it draws closer every second of every day, it’s the end of all we recognize and understand. We can look at it and contemplate it when it’s far away, but when it starts to creep up on our lives and homes and work, when it starts to take things that mean something to us, it scares the living shit out of us. Go, get out of here. If the hacks come back and give you grief, call me. I know a policemen or two who owe me more than they owe anyone else.’
‘T.P.’ She held out the Moon diary to him. ‘She said I should give it back to you.’
‘Hell no. Complete the circle? I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. I don’t want the fucking thing. You take it. Do what you like with it. Shred it. Burn it. Wipe your ass on it. Gaby!’ She had been about to slam the door. ‘One thing. Go easy on Shepard. He’s only a man.’
The electronic lock yielded to her touch. She went into the dark living room and set the diary on the coffee table. She went back into the hall and up the stairs. The bedroom was dark.
‘Shepard?’ she said into the darkness. ‘I want to talk to you.’ No answer. He must be hiding from her up in Zaire or down in Tsavo. That would be good. A night, a day or two all on her own to get a perspective on what she felt, then she could see him without wanting to tear his eyes out. She went downstairs again to make herself a drink. She flicked on the living room light.
Shepard was sitting in the ugly low-backed leather armchair. His feet were flat on the floor. His hands were flat on the arm rests.
‘Christ!’
‘Gaby.’
Surprise became shock became anger, vomiting upwards like black bile. She could not stop it. She did not want to.
‘You fucker,’ she said. ‘Do you know what I have been through? Do you know what they did to me? Of course you know. You’re all in it together. You’re all one big happy family. UNECTA looks after its own, doesn’t it? Like the fucking Masons; huddling together, keeping your little fucking secrets from nasty, nosy bitches. Well, it’s out now. You thought you could keep it all quiet, keep that nasty, nosy bitch locked away where no one could ever hear her. Do you know what they did to me down there? They fed me drugs. They turned my head inside out; then they strapped me into a chair and fist-fucked me. Did you laugh when they told you? Did you tell them it was no more than the bitch deserved? Do her good? Because I sure as hell didn’t see you breaking your balls to bust me out of there, Shepard. You let them have me. You let them do it all to me. You would have let me rot in there. So why didn’t you do anything? Cost you your Peripatetic Executiveship? The red-haired bitch an embarrassment to you now? Was that what they told you? On your way up the ladder, make sure you lose the Irish bit? Asks too many favours. Asking too big a favour, was it, for the man who purports to love her, to stop his good buddies ramming their rubber-gloved hands up the place he used to ram himself? Or did they beg you for a piece of the action too?
‘OK, OK. Maybe you had an excuse. Maybe it wasn’t that you wouldn’t; you couldn’t. Maybe you were over in Zaire or the Mountains of the fucking Moon and you only found out when you got back and the whole thing was blown. But you still lied to me. You deceived me. You made me think I could trust you, and then, like every other man, every other fucking man I have ever known, you betrayed me.’
Gaby picked up the diary from the coffee table. Seeing him sitting there, immobile, emotionless, she wanted to smash that passionless face with it until blood flowed and bone cracked or he made some acknowledgement of her fury.
‘Give it to me just as you found it? The fuck you did. I know, Shepard. The dumb Irish girlie worked it out. So what did you do with the missing pages? Stuffed them into some little trinket box under the floorboards, in case this scene ever happened and you needed them to placate the Valkyrie? Or did you actually have the balls to burn them? No. No.’ She strode across the room and back. She stabbed at him with an accusing finger. ‘You wouldn’t do that. Couldn’t do that. Not Mr UNECTA Shepard. Those pages are filed neatly away somewhere, in case UNECTA ever needs them. Jesus, you gutless bastard. Did you think I wouldn’t work it out? Do you think that little of me? Or were you just blinded by this?’ She grabbed her crotch, pumped it savagely back and forth. ‘You lied to me. OK. Men do that. I should have learned by now. My fault for being naive and hopeful and expecting too much of five inches of erectile tissue. But what makes you an unforgivable bastard is that you thought I was a whore. You thought if you gave me this,’ she held up the diary, ‘I’d give you this.’ She rubbed her hand between her thighs. ‘And you kept paying and getting what you thought was your for-value-received, until one day the market bulled and the price got too high and you let the whore go. Isn’t that it? Of course it is, that’s why you aren’t saying anything. That’s why you won’t look at me. Because you’re scared. Because I’m right. Because you can’t face the truth. Well, come on, Shepard. Say something. Let’s hear it. Or am I not even worth a pathetic, half-hearted excuse? Come on, Shepard. I’m waiting. What have you to say to me?’
‘There was a fax waiting for me when I got out of the disciplinary hearing,’ Shepard said, very quietly. He did not move in his chair. He did not look at Gaby. He did not look away from her. He did not register anything on his field of vision. ‘It was from home. From my folks in Lincoln.
There was a car crash. In Santa Barbara. Carling was driving. Fraser is dead. Aaron is critical in intensive care. The car crossed the centre line – the police don’t know how yet – and hit an oncoming tanker. Carling always was a shit driver. She died instantly. Fraser was the front seat passenger. He always had to ride up front. Privilege of being oldest. They cut him out but he was dead by the time they got him to the hospital. Aaron suffered massive internal injuries. His back is broken. He may not live. If he does, it’s certain he will be paralysed from the waist down. One of my sons is dead, along with my ex-wife; the other is crippled. That is what happened to me today.’
To Gaby, it was as if he had got out of his ugly leather chair, crossed the room and driven his fist wrist-deep into her belly. She could not breathe. She could not see. The world ceased to exist. She found herself standing against the wall, head thrown back.
‘Oh, dear Jesus, Shepard.’
‘Perhaps I could have borne it, perhaps in time I could look at the world around me again and see something good and rich, if there had been someone I could trust to hold me if I put my weight on her. Someone I put my life, my career, my personal and professional integrity on the line for, someone I made a dumb mistake for, once, that grew to devour me. Someone for whom I was prepared to crucify myself before the UNECTA General Council to save her from the consequences of her impetuosity, and when the General Council said no, compromised security by leaking the information to someone in a position to do something with it. But I’m stupid; you’ve told me that, you must be right. The world isn’t like that, is it? I lean, my support seems sound, I trust it with my full weight and it snaps and I fall.’ He stood up. The movement was as slow and precise as a piece of Japanese drama. ‘I’m going out now.’