He stood up from his seat as Eva approached and for a moment they hovered, unsure how to greet each other in this unfamiliar setting, before settling for a tentative hug. He smelled of stale sweat with a sharp chemical undertone.
‘Are we allowed to do this?’ she mumbled into his ear.
‘What, hug? Yeah. I think so. I’m only on remand so things aren’t all that strict. You get to wear your own clothes, that sort of thing.’
Lucien withdrew awkwardly from Eva’s embrace and they sat down on the plastic chairs on either side of the table and for a moment neither of them knew what to say. He ran his fingers through his greasy hair, and then drummed them on the tabletop.
‘So, have you bent over to pick up the soap yet?’ Eva tried a joke, suddenly desperate for reassurance that he would laugh this off like he did everything else.
Instead he glared at her. ‘That’s not as funny as you think it is. You’ve been watching too much Law and Order.’
They sat in silence for another moment or two until Lucien’s frown softened.
‘Listen, thanks for coming. I didn’t want to ask Sylvie, what with the pregnancy and everything,’
‘I doubt she’d have managed it to be honest. I don’t know if you’ve seen her lately but she’s the size of a house. I’m constantly on alert for a phone call saying the baby’s on the way. I thought that was what she was calling about, actually, when she rang to tell me what had happened with you. It came at a bit of an awkward moment.’
Lucien grimaced. ‘If you were in bed with Mr Pecs I don’t want to hear about it. I’ve got enough to worry about without that image in my head.’
‘Worse, actually. Or better, depending on how you look at it. He’d just asked me to marry him.’
‘Jeez. You’re not going to are you?’
‘Why’d you say it like that? What do you have against Julian?’
‘Well, you don’t love him, for starters. And you’re not going to thank me for saying this, but he’s a bit of a plank. You know, no personality.’
His casual dismissal sparked a flare of annoyance in her. ‘Lucien, you’ve met him all of twice. How can you possibly pronounce on his personality? Anyway, you barely even know me these days, let alone who I do or don’t love.’
‘Okay, well, you asked and I told you,’ said Lucien, unruffled. ‘Maybe I’m wrong, but I reckon I know you well enough to tell how you feel about someone. We may not have seen all that much of each other lately, but we’ve got enough history for that.’
‘God, you’re arrogant. You always bloody were.’
‘Well, you tell me. Do you love him? Are you going to marry him?’
Eva sighed and looked away towards the rows of tense or sad conversations playing out all around them.
‘I don’t know,’ she admitted. ‘How do you even decide something like that? I’ve told him I want some more time to think about it. He’s not exactly delighted, but what can I do? I mean, there are so many reasons to say yes. He’s got a good heart and we have a good life together. But when I think about spending the next thirty or forty or fifty years together I’m not. . I suppose I’m just not excited. It feels like settling. Which of course is what people do, isn’t it? They settle. Everything in life’s a compromise and you’re better off just accepting that.’ She rubbed her eyes. ‘But the thing is, I can reason around it all I like but when I think about going home and telling him I’ll marry him I feel like there’s an enormous wall in front of me blocking my path. I can’t even imagine saying it, let alone actually doing it.’ She stopped. ‘Anyway, why on earth are we talking about my love life? Lucien, I’m so sorry. How are you doing?’
‘Okay. Kind of.’ He looked down at his hands and picked at a fingernail. ‘Actually, not really, to be honest. I’m shitting myself.’
Eva lowered her voice. ‘What happened? Sylvie filled me in but she didn’t seem to know very much. You got caught with a load of coke?’
‘Yeah. Two kilos, to be precise. No chance of claiming possession instead of dealing, if that’s what you’re thinking. I’m going to plead guilty and hope I get a short sentence for a first offence, but it’s definitely going to be jail time.’
‘God. What were you doing with two kilos of coke? I thought you were focusing on the promoting thing? I mean, I know you’ve always done a bit of dealing on the side but two kilos? What’s that even worth?’
‘Thirty-five grand wholesale, maybe a hundred retail. Yeah, I know,’ he said, catching the horrified look on her face. ‘I don’t need you to tell me I’ve screwed up.’
‘But why would you even take such a big risk? I mean, it’s not like you need the money, is it, what with all the club nights?’
Lucien looked away with an unusually sheepish air about him. ‘Well, obviously I gave that impression. Particularly to you, seeing as you have this stellar career and everything. But the thing is, my promotions company never really took off. I never made what you could actually call a living from it. There’s too much competition, every ageing raver calls himself a promoter, and the clubs cream off most of the money anyway. Whereas I’ve made a decent wedge selling drugs over the years. Blown most of it too, unfortunately. Anyway, I wouldn’t usually have handled that much coke but I owed someone a favour. It was only supposed to be at my flat for one night. I don’t know how but the police knew exactly what they were looking for, they kicked the door in less than twenty minutes after it had arrived.’
‘Do you know what sort of sentence you’re looking at?’
‘Maybe five years, if I’m lucky. I’d do half of it in jail and half on licence. So thirty months, minus the time I spend in here on remand. It’s doable. I’ll be somewhere low security, there’ll be a library and a gym so I can spend my time reading and exercising. It won’t be so bad.’ His voice sounded strained and raspy.
‘No, of course it won’t.’ Eva tried to force her own voice to sound upbeat. ‘We’ll visit you all the time, and it’s not even that long till you’ll be out.’
‘To be honest, I’m almost as worried about getting out as I am about being in here. What am I going to do then? Not sell drugs, that’s for sure. You’d have to be a mug to land yourself in here twice, and I’ll have a record for dealing so if I ever got caught again I’d end up doing serious time. And it’s been feeling like the party’s over for quite a while now, anyway. I just didn’t know what to do next and it’s going to be even harder when I get out, because well-paid, life-enhancing careers for ex-cons aren’t exactly in abundance, are they?’
‘Oh, Lucien. You can’t worry about that now. We’ll think of something, you’ve got us on your side.’ Eva felt desperate for him to believe it, but in all honesty she wasn’t sure what life would hold for him at the other end of a prison sentence. For a moment she thought that he might actually be about to cry, but with a visible effort he pulled himself together.
‘Listen, you’re not here to be my agony aunt. There’s a few things I need help with. Sylvie’s not much use right now and I need someone I can trust.’
‘Of course. Tell me what I can do.’
‘Well, first up I’m going to need someone to sort out my flat and put my stuff into storage. It’s rented and the landlord doesn’t know about this yet. But the most immediate issue is Herbert.’
‘Sorry, Herbert?’
‘Yeah. My guinea pig. My next-door neighbour’s got him, the cops let me take him round there after they arrested me. She’s not willing to look after him for long, and anyway, she’s keeping him in a cage and he’s going to hate that. He’s usually free range around the flat, you see.’