She introduced us to the two girls who had pressed in behind her. I didn’t hear their names. I shouted some inane small talk at her, but, thankfully, it didn’t register over the beat.
Mia gestured with her head to the middle of the room. ‘Come on.’ At least that’s what my lip-reading skills suggested she had said. She set a small hand behind my elbow and I let myself be steered away from the wall.
The night of Henri Arnot’s twenty-first was the night I discovered how a large amount of music and a modest amount of beer could take five hours and zip them past you like an express train. My body, which had protested bitterly about walking the two miles from Simon’s to Elton’s, didn’t so much as murmur a complaint about sweating through a night’s dancing. I guess every generation thinks it’s born into the golden age of music, but that night it was easy to believe that nobody had had it as good as we did. Chaka Khan let us rock her, Grand Master Flash and the Furious Five had white lines for us to follow, and Frankie Goes To Hollywood demanded that we ‘Relax’.
‘Where’s Simon?’ I steered John away from the pair of Mia’s friends who seemed to be in competition for his affections.
‘Crashed.’ John nodded to the darkest corner where Simon’s head could just be seen emerging from a pile of coats. He was fast asleep.
One of the girls reclaimed John, and I found my way back to the kitchen, floating on a beer buzz and dance high. I felt rather like a stray helium balloon drifting on the currents. The kitchen was crowded, though less so than the living room, and with an older demographic. Elton’s dad stood with his back to a counter strewn with mostly empty bowls of crisps and small plates of twiglets, a foodstuff so disgusting that it was always the last to go at any party.
‘Nick. How you doing?’ Elton’s dad spoke with a deep French-Madagascan accent that I had to focus on to unravel.
‘Good, thanks.’ I grinned. ‘Great.’
‘Good.’
Like all of my friends’ dads, with the recent exception of John’s, I didn’t know his name or what he did, but I knew he was old, older than Mother, older than Demus; hair thinning and speckled with white, face lined and tired. And I knew that nearly fifteen years ago he had, at the general invitation of the British government, got on a boat in Port Suarez with his pregnant wife and four tiny sons, and spent weeks sailing toward our cold, wet island. And he’d made a home here, built a life, watched his children grow.
‘Mr Arnot . . .’ I realised that I was drunk and made an effort not to slur.
‘Jean,’ he said, offering a slow smile and nodding to someone passing.
‘Jean,’ I said. ‘Thank you. For this.’ I waved an arm at the party and was lucky not to spill anyone’s drink.
He shrugged. ‘My eldest boy is twenty-one.’
I found myself seized by a sudden desire to pontificate on the nature of the universe, which to be fair I had found out an awful lot about recently. Instead, I asked a question. ‘What . . . ? I mean, you’ve been around . . . What’s the most important piece of advice you’d give Henri? Y’know. About living.’ I restrained myself from a second arm wave.
Elton’s father smiled, as if the fundamental questions of life were common fare among boys with too much beer in them. He beckoned me closer and I leaned in.
‘Kiss the girl.’
‘That’s it?’ I frowned. I had hoped for some deeper wisdom that might help me unravel the conundrums of infinitely many universes and man’s relationship with time and memory.
‘Kiss the girl.’ He nodded and the man beside him laughed.
‘Thanks.’ I claimed a plastic cup containing an unknown dark liquid and began to drift back toward the living room. The hall clock amazed me with the claim that it was a little after two in the morning. Lionel Richie had reclaimed the record player and slowed the dance floor to a shuffle that required two to play.
‘Hello,’ Mia echoed Lionel, threading her hand into mine. I found somewhere to leave my cup, and moments later we joined the couples rocking slowly around the room.
Slow dancing is basically communal cuddling, and right then it was the best thing ever to happen to me. When Mia pressed herself against me, the tiredness of five hours of dancing, the weight of an unknown volume of beer, and the burden of my illness all fell away as if a dial had been turned to a new setting.
I saw, over Mia’s head, that John was currently locked in the arms of her friend, unable to catch my eye as his face appeared to be welded to the girl’s. I bent to mention the hot news to Mia and found her face raised to mine, my lips approaching her mouth rather than her ear. Kiss the girl.
Despite John’s endless prepping I was still taken unawares when Mia’s lips met mine only briefly, to be replaced by the questing warmth of her tongue. Immediately, we were kissing as if both of us were starving and the other was our only nourishment. It felt less real than, and far more exciting than talking to my own future self. A kind of cool electric fire ran through every vein. I was suddenly alive with a fierceness I hadn’t imagined possible, damned if I would let a tiny error in my DNA poison my blood and take this from me. I felt invincible. Unstoppable . . . Mia stopped me. She pulled back with an unreadable smile and smeared lipstick. ‘The song’s over.’
CHAPTER 18
‘Christ! It’s gone three.’
A cruel turning on of the main lights had driven the partygoers from the Arnots’ flat, and we now stood in the freezing night a few yards from the front door, the crowd around us dispersing with drunken goodbyes.
‘We’ll walk you home,’ I told Mia. John nodded, having finally disentangled himself from the girl he’d hooked up with. Simon just stood there yawning, bleary eyed. I’m not convinced he really knew where he was.
Mia shrugged as if it wasn’t necessary, but she also took my hand and laced her fingers with mine. She returned my idiot grin with one of her small but delicious smiles. We set off hand in hand, John and Simon following along behind.
By the time we reached the end of the road, John was halfway through a passable rendition of Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ and my thoughts were firmly on the goodnight kiss waiting for me outside Mia’s door.
The throaty growl of a car engine turned us around. The headlights flicked on, freezing us in full beam. The car had pulled out behind us from the opposite side of the road. Squinting, all I could see was a black paintjob and sleek sporty lines. I thought it might be Demus again in his BMW.
The driver door opened and a figure emerged. ‘I told you I’d catch you later.’
Mia and I dropped each other’s hand like naughty children caught in the act.
Ian Rust reached in to dip the headlights of his undoubtedly stolen car. ‘Mia is coming with me.’ He stepped into the light, dishevelled and with a dark stain on his upper arm as though he’d been cut. Splatters across his shirt lower down looked as if they might be someone else’s blood. Simon took to his heels.
Rust craned his neck to one side then glanced after our retreating friend. ‘I would love it if you’d try to stop me. The night’s young yet, and I’m only getting started.’
‘I’ve paid Sacks,’ Mia said, trying to sound confident. ‘He’s good with it.’
‘But I,’ Rust said, ‘am not good with Sacks. I feel it’s time for a change of management. Which means, you owe me.’
‘How much?’ I asked. It took an effort to get the question past my lips. To draw those wicked little eyes my way.
‘How much have you got, Hayes?’ Something in his tone told me that whatever I offered wouldn’t be enough. This wasn’t about money. It was about power and control. Rust had seen something in Mia that he wanted to own. He started a slow advance, daring us to run.
‘The police are after you,’ John said.
The three of us backed up a pace for each one Rust advanced, maintaining a five-yard gap.
‘If they want me, here I am.’ Rust spread his arms and devoured a yard in one swift stride. I lurched back like a frightened animal, nearly falling on my arse. I’d heard that alcohol gave you courage, but the beers I’d consumed, against medical advice, didn’t seem to be working.
Whatever John had been drinking seemed to be working fine, however. Instead of stumbling back he threw himself at Rust, as if he didn’t believe the stories we all knew were true. Rust swayed to the left and somehow John went crashing by, impacting noisily against the side of the stolen car.
‘Come on.’ Rust beckoned to Mia. ‘Or do I have to start breaking pretty boy here?’ He glanced back at John, on all fours by the car, groggy and groaning. A swift kick to the ribs laid John flat on the road. ‘Well?’