JAMES
5 June 1993
Thirty-three
Alec’s third-floor set felt cramped. All the third-year Libertines were there after one last blowout, the relief at having survived finals cloaking faces uncharacteristically dulled to a workhouse grey.
James stretched out in a leather armchair, feeling the effects of the champagne on top of an almost febrile exhaustion. He was dead-tired: the result of too little sleep for too many nights. He had been cramming. There had been much late-night cramming. He would get a first – his confidence was sufficiently robust for him to still think this – but it was only through taking an essay-crisis approach to exams: surviving on Pro Plus, Marlboro Lights and coffee to push him through those miserable midnight hours – then whisky to nudge him into sleep. Coke seemed superfluous. He took his papers in a state of hyper-vigilance; the most difficult economics questions braved on four hours’ kip.
It wasn’t what he had intended. He was disciplined about sport and fitness; disciplined about leavening his academic work with enjoyment. He’d almost taken that to extremes. Still, he thought he’d pulled it off: the Oxford first and the sporting blue, stamps on a passport that would take him to places few knew existed: clubs within clubs; inner circles within those he already circumnavigated with ease.
He shifted, fractious: too much caffeine and booze running through his veins. He would go for a long run tomorrow morning: to the University Parks then across to Jericho and up through Port Meadow, following the Thames to Godstow, where the first boat trained. He would skirt over Oxford’s green lungs in the clear early light, before the city got going for the day and while life felt fresh and unsullied, and he would feel like his old self once again: fit, virile, able to stretch and run without feeling the insistent pressure of needing to revise; of knowing that twenty-four hours’ worth of exams would determine his academic worth; his energy – pent up as he lounged in libraries, long legs knocking under the desk, shoulders striking the bookcases as he rocked back in his chair – finally given an outlet; muscles straining; heart pumping; blood whooshing as his trainers grew moist with dew and he pounded the sun-dappled streets.
He stretched his arms above him, feeling the nerves running up from his shoulders and casually noting his long, well-proportioned fingers. Well, you know what they say about fingers? Now that his head was rapidly emptying of the knowledge crammed in the past four weeks, he found himself thinking incessantly of one thing. The final fortnight of term lay ahead of him: drinking; rowing; punting; and sex. Lots of sex. He would take Soph upstream from the Cherwell Boat House, picnic in one of the University Parks’ fields; pluck her – that was a good Shakespearean euphemism – in the long grasses; the sun beating down on them, clouds scudding across a sky of searing blue. Perhaps they’d cycle further afield, to Woodstock and Blenheim, for he had the time now to pay her some attention. She had first-year exams but they weren’t important and it was good that she was busy. The trouble with women, apart from them lacking the courage of their convictions, was that they could be demanding. Soph seemed to realise he couldn’t be doing with neediness, but still, he sensed it: a carefully suppressed undertow that would catch him and drag him down if he gave any indication he really cared.
He shrugged the idea away; thought instead of one long hedonistic summer. He wasn’t quite sure how she would fit into this. He assumed their relationship would peter out by September when he started his new life in London but before that there was plenty of time to meet. He hadn’t suggested a holiday – he didn’t want her to get too keen – and besides, he was off to Italy for three weeks, where Nick’s parents had a villa, then sailing in St Mawes with the old dears.
But there were weeks while the parentes were away and she should come up. An empty house; a sultry summer: he could see her strewn across his bed, a sheet between her legs. A couple of carefree months; the end of a prolonged, indulged adolescence. A final period of no responsibility or expectation – except to enjoying himself. Because in September, he would be working for the leading firm of management consultants. The prospect didn’t fill him with massive enthusiasm, to be honest, but if he wanted a career in politics he needed a life before it – and the chance to earn some serious money.
He downed the tumbler of whisky Nick had filled then opened a beer. The casement windows were flung open to the night and Alec and Tom had clambered out to perch on the stone balcony overlooking the Meadows: the sound of their untrammelled laughter drifted back into the room; floated down towards the Thames.
From the roof, you could stand on the lead flashings and lean back against the slates so that you looked up at the stars; or climb along the ridge, like Alec. He could hear scampering on the tiles; sensed he was clambering. James had never liked that. Scaling walls was one thing; roofs another. He was keen to move up, not look down. Curious that he might be reckless about some things – women; study; the odd recreational class A drug now that the boat race was long finished – but that, with others, his strong sense of self-preservation kicked in.
He stumbled towards them, keen for fresh air. The night was still and despite the wide-open windows, the room was thick with smoke and the stale breath of men hammered on beer and champagne. George, crouched over a coffee table rammed with glasses and empty beer bottles, was snorting a line of coke. In the bog, Cassius, stomach bulging over his flies, retched. He felt a twinge of disgust. Now that their Oxford lives were all but over, he and Tom should distance themselves from this lot, not just out of self-preservation but self-respect.
A clatter at the other side of the room. The Hon. Alec had scrabbled back down from the roof and onto the balcony to brandish a tiny polythene bag of powder. Beside him, Tom – late after a secret-squirrel trip up to London – was trying to laugh but the tightness to his jaw betrayed his anxiety: indicated that he would really rather Alec gave the substance back, immediately. Alec, indulged and irrepressible, was unpredictable when high: capable of scattering the chemical snow down into the quad, his manic laughter a reproof to anyone concerned that it was best not to alert the college authorities to the illegal substances in his set.
He was gibbering now but he didn’t seem to want to throw it away.
‘Oh man – you genius.’ He threw an arm around Tom. ‘C’mon, let’s try it.’ His pupils were large and dulled as sloes. Whatever he’d taken, he’d had too much.
James felt a prick of apprehension; a growing awareness of some new and potentially bad experience. He scrutinised the bag, swinging like a dejected condom; took in that peculiar mix of excitement and wariness glancing across Tom’s face.
Alec was jittery, excitement crackling from him. ‘Oh man. This will be awesome!’
Tom, concentrating, nodded; drew a tube of silver foil from his duffel bag, and a drinking straw. ‘Got your lighter?’
Alec brandished his grandfather’s slightly tarnished silver heirloom and flicked it. A plume of orange burst from its top.
James’s spine tightened with a cold prickle of fear.
‘Is that what I think it is?’
Tom shrugged.
‘It’s smack?’
His best friend nodded.
‘Don’t worry. It’s top stuff. The stuff I had last week with Thynne.’
‘You’d trust that fuckwit?’
‘Oh, come on, James. He’s a mate.’
‘He’s a cokehead.’ He moved away, biting hard on his rising contempt. Tom had been partying hard since his last exam with Charlie Thynne, a trustafarian who’d graduated the year before and whose name was apposite. Tom had been full of the fact he’d tried smack with him, in town last weekend. All James could see was Charlie’s nerviness: his restlessness in his own body. He wanted to shake the man: get him running down a towpath, or push him until he was dizzy from the exertion of an ergo. His slight limbs and delicate, pallid face gave him the creeps.
He turned back to the balcony where Tom was placing the smack on a piece of foil as reverently as a vicar officiating at communion.
‘For fuck’s sake, Tom.’ He tried to focus. He couldn’t let Tom become like that: his old cross-country partner turning paranoid and pathetic; nor could either of them risk it if they wanted some sort of a political career.
‘Ease up, James. One last blowout, innit?’ Alec, all mockney insouciance, winked as Tom flicked the lighter beneath the foil and the powder began to melt into a brown liquid.
‘Like this?’ Alec, ever greedy for new sensations, took the straw and inhaled. ‘Aaaah . . . maann.’ He looked almost post-coital. A look of intense relaxation flooded his face.
The sound galvanised Tom, who grabbed the straw and copied his friend. ‘Aw . . . shiiiiiit!’ His voice deepened, his vowels melting to become ever smoother; his limbs softening against the balcony, the edges blurring between flesh and stone.
James was suddenly sober. He wrenched the straw from Tom’s hand and raced to the toilet with the screw of polythene. Cassius was coiled round the cistern. His fat body fell against him and James gave him an involuntary kick.
‘What the fuck!’
He just resisted giving him a second.
‘What the fuck, James!’
‘Shut up.’ His voice was savage as he tipped the powder in the pan and pulled the flush. The powder vortexed out of sight but the screw of polythene bobbed, irrepressible. He shoved a wad of paper on top and jerked the flush, again and again.
‘What the fuck, James. What the fuck?’
‘Shut up!’ His knuckles gripped the flush and he felt as if he was holding his breath, unable to move, to risk Cassius seeing what he was doing. ‘Thank fuck.’ His breath eased from him. The polythene was swallowed and gobbled away.
Tom. He needed to check on Tom. He ran back to the balcony, past George and Nick, who were lolling on the battered leather sofa, crowned with smoky halos.
‘James?’ Nick half-stirred.
‘Have a drink.’ George held his glass up. ‘Or some coke. Go on, man.’ He jumped up, flung a wiry arm around James and clasped him tight.
‘Not now, George.’ It was no effort to shrug off George but he did so elegantly, keeping his anger in check.
‘James!’ George was affronted, but James pushed on. He didn’t need these losers. All that mattered was Tom, his best friend for nearly ten years, now smiling beatifically at him.
‘Tom – come here, mate. Come here.’ He had to stop himself from grabbing his shoulders and shaking him as he slumped. He put his arms around him. ‘Tom – time to go, mate. You don’t need this. You don’t need fucking heroin.’ His voice dropped to a hiss. He grabbed Tom’s cheeks and tried to cut through the blurriness of his gaze; fought to keep his voice calm, though his whole being was convulsed with rage and an eviscerating sorrow that bubbled out and exploded in a coldly vicious whisper. ‘It’s in a different league to coke, you tit.’
‘Whaaat.’ Tom’s face was soft and flushed. ‘I love you.’
‘Yeah. Let’s just get out of here. Now, yeah?’ He used his anger to half-pull, half-lift Tom and hold his twelve-stone frame against him. ‘You don’t want to be like him.’ He glanced at the Hon. Alec, crumpled against the balcony. ‘Has he had too much of it?’
‘Whaaaa?’
‘Perhaps we should take that. Don’t want him to do any more, just in any case.’ James scrumpled the scorched foil and thrust it deep in his pocket, his fingers smarting at the residual heat. Even touching it made him feel dirty. ‘Come on, then. Come on.’ He flung Tom’s arm over his shoulders, began to half-drag, half-move him.
‘No . . . stay here.’ Tom’s legs seemed unable to work.
‘No!’ He was taut with anger. ‘I am not leaving you here. You are not a fucking junkie!’
And he saw a flicker of something like recognition in Tom’s eyes, then.
‘ ’K.’
‘Let’s just get the fuck out of here.’ He couldn’t say why he felt this chilling urge to flee. Just that it was strong and immediate; as intense a shot of adrenalin as any he’d experienced at the start of a race. His closest friend couldn’t slip from him like this: drift into something that would haunt or destroy him. The drug was an uncontrollable, unknown darkness: something he sensed could overwhelm Tom quickly; or would be a dirty secret that could fester and taint.
He half-carried him across the room, whispering reassurance, taking heart that Tom, despite the comfort of the drug, was letting himself be guided, his body heavy and slumped against his.
‘We’ll just go now. Alec won’t say a thing and I doubt the others will have noticed.’
‘Dizzy.’
‘Yeah. Right. Well, that’s what happens.’ He frogmarched him past the others; conscious of the ball of foil nestled against his leg.
‘Heading off,’ James called back into the panelled rooms where Nick and George were snorting fresh lines of coke. ‘Off to wake Soph. Tom’s coming.’
They were greeted by raucous brays. ‘Lucky girl.’ ‘Can she cope with you both?’ ‘Does she want a third?’ – the last from George.
‘Very good.’ James refused to be riled; almost pushed Tom back through the door and down the staircase, the oak door creaking like a sigh of relief.
And they were off – James manhandling Tom down the three flights of stairs, supporting him when he stopped on the worn steps, ambushed by dizziness. When they reached the quad, Tom leaned behind a hedge and was violently sick.
‘Better now?’
‘Hot.’ He looked flushed. ‘Dizzy.’
‘Well, let’s get the fuck out of here.’
They stumbled around the quad to the back gate, James still half-supporting him, trying to make him walk faster. It was so late they saw no one. Once they were out of the college, they paused and looked back up at Alec’s room. The windows were still flung open; and a figure was standing on the balcony, face turned up to the moon, his expression, above the cream silk blouse, and his unbuttoned waistcoat, one of intense bliss.
‘What a tosser. Probably thinks he can fly.’ James shook his head and turned away, started to stride across the sandy gravel, his arm still around Tom’s waist, half-tugging, half-coercing. It was only as they reached the edge of the Meadows that the thought – the terrible thought – began to sink in.
And then they heard the cry. The most awful sound – mad, mirth-filled and quickly mirthless – and the heavy thud of a young man’s body smacking onto gravel, followed by the slithering of slates.
‘Fuck. Run!’ The instinct was immediate: his insides turned to ice and he started to sprint.
‘But what about Alec?’ Tom dithered, waking from a stupor.
‘Run, you fucker.’ He grabbed his wrist, gripping it firmly, his fingers digging in.
‘But Alec . . .’
‘Fucking run.’ He half-dragged him and they were off through the gates and up towards the High Street, feet pounding over the dusty ground, adrenalin turning them cold sober, years of cross-country running powering them as they sped away.
‘But Alec? We need to call an ambulance.’ Tom’s voice was a bleat.
‘You can’t do that. You gave him the smack, you idiot.’
‘Fuck.’ The enormity of what had happened seemed to hit Tom and his mouth twisted as if there was too much emotion to contain.
‘Shit. I’ve still got the foil.’ James gestured at his pocket. ‘Fuck.’
‘Gotta get rid of it.’ Tom’s face hardened; self-preservation pushing away compassion. ‘Top of Brasenose Lane.’
He hung a left and they ran through the streets to the public litterbin; pressed the foil down below the empty McDonald’s cartons and chocolate wrappers, the cans of Special Brew and the banana skins.
They were crossing a Rubicon but Tom – with a ruthlessness James would see when he leapfrogged over others to secure a safe seat and manoeuvred to become party leader – had shrugged off his scruples and was racing towards his college. He chased him: heart pulsing; blackness fizzing at the edge of his brain.
At the door to his room, Tom doubled over.
‘What about an ambulance?’ He panted heavily.
‘The others will have done that. Or the porters’ lodge.’
‘You’re sure?’ Tom’s breath caught in fat sobs; he was close to tears.
‘To be frank, he’s not going to have survived that.’
‘Fuck.’ Tom’s whole face folded in on itself. ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck,’ he said.
‘Look. Go to bed; try to get some sleep. I’ll come by first thing in the morning.’ James’s whole body was shaking: adrenalin and pure, distilled fear pulsing. They hugged briefly, James slapping Tom between his shoulder blades, clasping him to him.
‘I owe you.’
‘Not in the least. We weren’t there; we didn’t see it happen.’
‘We weren’t. We didn’t,’ Tom repeated. If they said it convincingly enough, perhaps they would be believed.
‘I’ll be round first thing.’
Tom hung his head. ‘Omerta of the Libertines,’ he muttered.
James grimaced. They would have to fucking hope so.
‘Not a word from me.’
He was safe in Shrewsbury College, lying tight in Sophie’s arms, by the time the police caught up with him the next morning. They’d left the ill-fated party when it became so raucous, he told the officers. He had a beautiful girlfriend and, well, he’d rather be with her, if they caught his drift? As for drugs, they’d seen no evidence of that though they had left early. Heroin? Christ, no. Alec, though dissolute, was no junkie. Totally out of character. A one-off. No, of course they didn’t know of a supplier. James, tempted to bark in incredulity, spoke quietly, sombrely; conscious that he was using what, years later, he would think of as his compassionate Conservatism face.
The college authorities backed up their alibis; offered good character references. James was a rower: about as clean-cut as you could get. A member of the dining club, yes, but you couldn’t really drink and be a blue. He had huge self-discipline. Besides, he’d talked of going into politics; was hardly likely to be embroiled in drugs, if that was the case. And Tom? Academically brilliant: on course for a top first – his results would bear this out. Two young men with the brightest of futures ahead of them: a credit to their school and, it had been thought, to the university.
They had got away with it. They waited for someone to mention that Tom had supplied the smack but either the Omerta of the Libs held, or the rest of them were too out of it to notice. It had all been so brief, out there on the balcony, and James had quickly whisked the smack away.
The officers – who would later charge George Fortescue with possession of cocaine – gained nothing with which to implicate them, and couldn’t help but be convinced by these well-spoken students: both courteous; both clearly traumatised by the tragedy; one singled out as a future politician – you could sense he would lead.
They thanked them for their time and focused on those who were present when the Hon. Alec Fisher – well-liked geography student on course for a gentleman’s third; cricketer; violinist; beloved son and brother – tragically lost his life.