Ari felt much better after that. He changed his mind again. He would continue to try to round up the group. He called Tiny and Billy. Billy answered the phone. And finally Ari got the sort of response he’d been hoping for from the beginning.
‘I think we’d like to meet up,’ Billy said quietly. ‘It’s been a tough time and it’s far from over yet. You’re right, Ari. There’s a lot for us to talk through. We still don’t know what it’s all been about, and we need closure, don’t we? I’ll have to check with Tiny, but I reckon we’ll be there.’
‘I’m glad,’ said Ari.
‘Oh, and we’ve got a little bit of good news,’ said Billy.
‘Great,’ said Ari, who was beginning to wonder if there was any good news left in the world.
‘Tell you when we meet.’
‘Right,’ said Ari.
Then he made the final call, the one he had always thought would be the most difficult.
‘Are you mad?’ hissed Michelle. ‘Do you really think I want to show my face to anyone, the state I’m in? It’s been over a week now and I still look like roadkill.’
‘Look,’ countered Ari stoically, ‘I just didn’t want you to feel left out, that’s all.’
Michelle’s response was waspish.
‘Oh, I don’t feel left out, I can assure you, Ari,’ she said. ‘But no doubt you do.’
And so Ari, the first to arrive, wearing his best jeans and vintage leather jacket with the biker studs on the collar, really had no idea who else would turn up at Johnny’s Place eight days after Marlena’s murder. It was five fifteen. Early. Even for Sunday Club. Ari had been on tenterhooks all day and couldn’t wait. He paused at the door to the basement restaurant then ran down the steps as if he wanted to get in there before he changed his mind. Johnny was at the piano playing ‘Someone to Watch Over Me’. Ari was aware of the gentle irony. Nobody seemed to have been watching over him or any of the others for some time now. Johnny glanced up and looked as if he was about to stop playing to speak to Ari. Ari hurried by. He couldn’t make casual conversation with Johnny, and neither did he have any wish for a more serious discussion with anyone other than the surviving members of his now devastated group of friends.
As he made his way across the room he noticed Justin, the counter attendant at Shannon’s gym, another Johnny’s regular, sitting with an unattractive older man. This was Justin’s usual sort of companion and undoubtedly well-heeled, thought Ari, who had never liked Justin and usually felt rather superior to him. After all, Ari was from one of the wealthiest and most established Asian families in the country, although he tried quite hard not to let it show. On this particular evening Ari just felt conspicuous and vulnerable. He looked away from Justin, determined to avoid any possibility of eye contact, and the heat rose in his cheeks as he approached the familiar table by the rear wall.
It stood empty, but was laid for ten as usual. Ari felt a stab of irritation. Hadn’t the staff grasped that there were no longer ten friends who might attend? One was dead, horrifically murdered, one was in jail, accused of being her killer, and one had such a bad facial injury she could not bear to be seen.
In spite of the hefty snort of coke he’d ingested minutes earlier, Ari’s courage almost deserted him. He was suddenly overwhelmed by a desire to make a run for it, and it was only the arrival of a waitress at his side, asking if he would like a drink, that averted a hasty departure. Habit took over. And innate good manners. Ari placed an order. He asked for a beer with a vodka chaser, one of his favourite combinations of alcohol, and sat down on the nearest chair, reflecting that it might well be possible that he would find himself sitting there on his own for the entire evening. Even Billy and Tiny weren’t certainties. Tiny might not have reacted the way Billy did to the prospect of meeting up at Johnny’s again.
Ari downed his beer almost in one swallow, tossed back the vodka shot, and ordered a pair of replacements straight away. His nerves were jangling. He needed to relax, but he couldn’t. The minutes passed. He knew he was early, but historically most of the friends turned up before six. Though he tried to convince himself they were often later, it did nothing to dispel the fear that he was about to spend the evening alone.
Then Bob arrived, his face pinched and strained, hurrying across the room just as Ari had done, not looking around him. Bob managed a small smile and ordered a beer, Corona, the same brand Ari was drinking, but without the vodka chaser.
‘Don’t really know what I’m doing here,’ Bob muttered. ‘Just couldn’t stay away, I suppose.’
‘I’m glad you’ve come, anyway,’ said Ari.
George was next, handsome as ever in a tan bomber jacket over a cream linen collarless shirt. But Ari could see the tension in his eyes as George stretched out his arms for a hug, and his fingernails had been bitten almost to the quick. Ari was certain he’d never seen them in that state before; George’s nails had always been well manicured and immaculately presented, just like the rest of him. No one in the group, it seemed, was immune to the pressure and anxiety which Ari was beginning to feel quite crushed by.
George hugged Ari hard and spoke into his left ear.
‘Well done, mate,’ he said. ‘You were dead right, you know. This could do us all the power of good.’
Ari smiled edgily, unsure how to respond. He decided, probably unwisely, on what he too late realized was a rather pathetic stab at the old banter.
‘No Carla then?’ he queried.
George frowned. ‘Don’t you ever know when to stop?’ he asked.
‘Sorry,’ replied Ari, mentally kicking himself.
This was an evening requiring tact and compassion, mutual understanding and shared sympathy. The last thing it needed was a cheap and flimsy attempt at humour.
The rest arrived within minutes; almost, to Ari’s surprise, the entire remaining group. Tiny and Billy first, then Greg and Karen. That only left Michelle to make up the full complement, but Ari had never really expected her to come. He knew she must be hurting mentally and physically, her shattered nose and swollen face doubtless still aching and sore, her state of mind wounded and fragile. Perhaps more to the point, she had made it clear she had no wish to show her damaged features to the world.
And so there were seven of them. Seven diverse people who had once been such good friends, albeit somewhat casual friends, suddenly quite uncomfortable with each other. Hardly anybody spoke at first. There was the kind of awkward silence at the table that had never existed before. They were all too aware of the curious stares and mouth-behind-hand whispers of other diners in Johnny’s that Sunday evening.
Their fate, because that was surely what it had become, was common knowledge now. Most of the other regulars at the restaurant must have been aware of what was going on. News travels fast and comprehensively in Covent Garden, an area of London which retains so much of the village about it, in spite of being at the apparently racy heart of a cosmopolitan city. And there’d been substantial media coverage. The story of Marlena’s brutal murder and Alfonso’s arrest had been in all the papers. Not only had he already been charged with two serious offences — the attack on Michelle and Marlena’s murder — but there were hints of more to come. Even the most cautious and bridled press of the après Leveson era had found ways to make it tantalizingly clear that a rare and tasty tale of yet-to-be revealed intrigue lurked beneath the bald statements of police and prosecution.
Ari thought there were more people in the restaurant than usual at that time on a Sunday. There were certainly more people that he didn’t recognize. He wondered if he and the others had become macabre tourist attractions, if there were people in the restaurant who’d been drawn in by the lure of a visceral thrill from seeing those touched by a high-profile murder.