Kitabı oku: «The Assistant», sayfa 5

11
Jo

We were so young. Very young and very foolish. It was the second time Tabitha and I had been to Glastonbury, it was the summer we graduated: warm and sunny.

The first time we went to Glasto it rained and our feeble tent collapsed and the experience was essentially miserable. We fled the knee-deep First World War mud after one night, dragging sleeping bags smeared with dark soil into a friend’s VW combi; we missed all the bands we’d come to see and didn’t even get properly drunk.

So this second Glasto we were determined to have fun. The forecast was excellent. Cloudless for the whole June week. Tabitha had a load of friends and relatives going, a guaranteed crowd of good timers. We arrived early, before the fuming queues of cars began to form on the narrow Somerset lanes. The tent was expensive and solid – bought by Tabitha, naturally – one of those tents that simply zoinks into position when you unzip the side. There’s your tent. We stuffed our rucksacks into a corner and went out to have the FUN we didn’t have the first time.

We saw every band possible, we checked out the mediocre comedians, we watched three lesbians in black tie playing ‘Hoppípolla’ by Sigur Rós on the ukulele – it was the song of the festival, we heard it everywhere in different versions – we met a man on stilts with maracas and devil horns, a team of pantomime llamas, a dreadlocked poet warbling his sonnets into a megaphone, we went to a sweat lodge and got gigglingly naked, then we bought some E and popped the pills just in time to get that slow rush of happiness, that building sensation of blissful, half amorous Love-the-World generosity, as the sun set red and symbolic and magically perfect over the sacred breast of Glastonbury Tor – ironically this was one of the times when religiously, I thought, who knows – then we decided to go back to our tent for some wine Tabitha had stolen from her dad’s cellar, and on the way a tall white guy in purple face-paint with yellow flame-bursts at the eyes called out to Tabitha, ‘Hey, Tabs!’ and she turned to me and rolled her eyes and laughed, and whispered, ‘He’s some old family friend, I barely know him, but his dad knows my dad. Apparently he does the best pills, though, always has the best pills.’ And so Tabs turned and smiled at Purple Man and said, ‘Hey, Whassup?’ and he came over and grinned and laughed like a loon, and then he sold us some tablets, ‘Better than E,’ he kept saying. ‘Girls, Tabs, you guys, these are better than any pills in, like, the history of forever’, and Tabitha casually handed out fifty quid for four, and then we traipsed over snogging couples and through dancing circles of teens gathered around some guitarists – ‘Hoppípolla’ naturally – and we made it to our tent where we simply started laughing, and laughing, and laughing, as we fumbled for the wine, dropping our torches and giggling as we sought out the corkscrew.

I don’t know what was so funny. I don’t remember ever being quite that happy.

Certainly not after that day.

Perhaps it was our giggling that attracted him. Or our loud raucous laughter after we discovered we didn’t have any cups so Tabitha poured wine down my throat and I did the same to her. Like we were pagan, heathen, Roman. Possibly it was the force of magical bliss that brought Jamie our way. Or it was the devil, guiding him to witches.

Whatever the cause and the context, in the sweet, warm, noisy Glastonbury twilight, a handsome face peered through the flap of our tent.

‘Jamie!’ I said.

‘Jamie Jamie Jamie!’ Tabitha said. Laughing.

He was a mutual acquaintance from university. He was a New Zealander doing a year’s study abroad. I liked his Kiwi accent. I liked him. He was properly handsome, and masculine, in a young, mop-headed way. He was easy-going and fun. We’d all got drunk at parties and danced, many times, and he was forever generously buying us drinks at the student bar. Tabs and I both fancied him, but no one had yet made a move.

And here he was. In our tent. He grinned at us. I grinned back, all E’d up and sexy. I could see the big blazing white pyramid stage beyond him. Hear the cheering. I glimpsed the sea of floodlit white arms, stripy banners, and rippling pennants, the pageantry of a hundred thousand young people all happy and singing in the dark. It felt magically ancient yet new. Like a medieval encampment on MDMA, a grand besieging army of psychedelic banners. The noise was intense; obviously some major band was playing. It could have been the Beatles reformed. We were too happy to care. Hoppípolla!

‘Jesus,’ he said. ‘You girls are having a ton of fun. What are you on?’

‘Rough cider,’ said Tabitha, snorkelling with laughter. ‘No, it’s realllllllly good.’

‘As if!’ Jamie laughed. ‘You got some E or something? You couldn’t spare me a couple of pills, could you? I can’t find anyone.’

Tabitha and I looked at each other. We giggled and grinned, and evidently had the same thought at the same time. Why not? We both liked him, he was a sweet, fun, generous guy; we were already halfway to chemical heaven, we didn’t require another rush.

‘Yes,’ I said to her, ‘go on, Tabs. We don’t need them, do we? Look at us!’

I laughed, she laughed, she reached into her hippy-chick embroidered bag and handed over the lime-green pills Purple Man had given us.

‘They’re better than E,’ she said, in a darkly conspiratorial whisper. ‘Better than any E in, like, the entire history of forever. Or something. Here, you can have them for free.’

And we fell into fits of laughter. Jamie took them with a dashing smile of thanks, and then he winked.

‘You girls are the best. See ya later in the trance tent?’

We vividly agreed. He left the scene. After that, the evening blurred even more – for a while, for a while. At one point we met some friends of Tabitha’s and we pretended to be sheep and sheep dogs, or lions and tigers, crawling between tents, babyish with hilarity, and then we went to some big orange glowing marquee with pounding drum and bass, where we danced with bare-chested jugglers and dreadlocked guys with phosphorescent hula-hoops, and then we chilled out listening to long-haired girls with violas, and then we came across Jamie, in the trance tent as promised: wild-eyed and happy, dancing and euphoric,

‘Hey, ladies!’ he whooped. ‘You LOVELY girls. Wanna come back to my tent? Chill out a bit? I got some great Kiwi wine,’ and he grinned at us both, in that boyish but manly way. ‘Tent’s a whopper as well, way out by the pylons, and all my mates are with their girls. Got it to ourselves, all night.’

And that was it, the fateful moment, the fateful choice.

Remembering that choice, I look at Electra, here, on the shelves of Tabitha’s flat. Silent and mute, she stands there. Dark and watching.

Judging.

Why did we agree to go back to the tent? Was it sex all along?

Whatever the reason, I said an eager ‘Sure!’ And then Tabs smiled a knowing smile and said, ‘Yeah, why not.’

And so we traipsed through the crowds to a distant, empty corner of the campground, lonely and dark. And true enough, Jamie had a huge empty tent with a New Zealand flag flying proudly above, and some great Sauvignon Blanc inside, still cold in a thermos. And as he tremblingly, gigglingly served up the wine he stammered,

‘Those pills, my fucking God. Those bloody pills you gave me, Tabs, they’re the fucking best. What a buzz. I owe you!’ He winked. ‘Both of you!’

Wine poured, toasts made, cuddling close, it kicked off. I don’t know who kissed Jamie first. I think it was me. But we certainly both kissed him, and then the kisses became kisses, and then he had his shirt off, and I had my top off, and the glory of his muscles shone – they glowed like rippled gold in the dim dim lamplight from somewhere distant. And then Tabitha was kissing him, and he had his hand up her dress, and I had my hand down his jeans, and I was thinking, excitedly, my first threesome, this is it, my first threesome, never done this before, oh what a memory. I felt I was growing up, leaving Thornton Heath behind, no one ever had a threesome in Thornton Heath.

And thus the night swirled and I couldn’t remember who was kissing who, or whether it mattered, and Jamie had his mouth on my breast and it made me shudder, in loud pleasure, and Tabitha was giggling as he nuzzled me, and she said, ‘Oops, I got to pee, before we all get serious,’ and then she staggered out of the tent – and I turned back to Jamie.

He was coming in for another kiss, but as he did, I recoiled, in shock, nearly retching. Because there was something pouring from his mouth like wine, but I knew it wasn’t wine. It was blood. It was drooling, thickly. Streaming trickles of blood. And he had no idea. Sickened, I jerked away.

And now, from nowhere, this was a different Jamie. He tilted his head, and mumbled, puzzled, choking on the blood; his words were slurring, wildly, and his eyes were acting strange, kind of rolling white, the pupils tiny, I called to Tabitha – Tabitha! Help! – and as I did, Jamie’s head began to shake, violently, and a line of frothing pink drool ran from his mouth, mixing with the blood, and his body was jerking, up and down, up and down,

‘Jamie, Jamie, what the fuck, what is it??’

‘Nnn—’ he said, it was all he could say – and then he vomited, like they do in horror films, horizontally, spraying the canvas walls, and his body thrashed once, twice, wildly, spasming, ‘Ffff,’ he croaked, throatily, ‘FFF those – those pills, aaa—’

Somehow he was up, and then he was out of the tent, running. Fast fast fast, into the dark. Towards the happy crowds, the wider campground, where the girls in tiny summer dresses were sending Chinese lanterns, sad and scarlet, into the dark.

For a second I sat there in the tent. Inert. Paralysed by confusion, and terror. Tabitha reappeared. Face white through the tent-flaps.

‘What is it? Where the fuck’s he gone?’

In my panic, it was all I could do to talk.

‘I don’t know. He said those pills we gave him. Made him ill. Oh God, Tabs! What have we done??’

We both rushed out, buttoning and zipping our clothes, heading towards the crowds. For two, five, ten or so minutes, we pushed through the mob, which was pushing against us; then we heard it, heard them. The police sirens, the police shouts, and then we saw the swivelling blue of ambulance lights. Coming from the direction of the main Glastonbury campground.

Everyone could sense the commotion, it rippled across the festival, like information through a hive. Lots of people were walking away from trouble, shaking their heads. Yet I wanted to push the opposite way.

‘Come on,’ I said to Tabs, ‘we have to know.’

‘No no no,’ she said. ‘Let’s go back.’

If only I had listened; if only we had gone back. I would never have seen it. Never have known, maybe.

Yet I was determined to help. Do my bit. So I pulled her through the last of the crowd. Where it thinned to allow space for the horror beyond. I saw a vacated patch of floodlit mud and grass where police were standing around, talking into radios on their shoulders. Bright light flooded from their vehicles and the open ambulance doors. Paramedics were crouched over the young man at the centre of the scene. It was like a painting by Caravaggio. I’d been studying him at uni. The darkness and light, the vivid contrasts. There is always a central figure, around which the composition revolves. And the centre of this scene was Jamie.

Of course it was Jamie. The handsome young man. No more than twenty. The rugby-playing lad who would always buy you a beer. Oh, Jamie.

It was the way his body jerked and jolted that made me feel sick with pity – and horror. He was having some truly hideous seizures: the eyes rolling back, till they were completely white, grotesque, bulging, demonic, and his body was trembling like he was possessed, rocking sideways, then up and down, up and down. And then he vomited again, red blood and yellow puke – and the last spasm was so fierce it knocked over one of the paramedics, as the others tried to stop Jamie breaking his own spine.

As we watched, horrified, I saw Tabitha turn and look at someone else, almost hidden in the press of people. It was Purple Man. Tab’s acquaintance. He didn’t say a word. He just tilted his head at Jamie, slowly, and meaningfully. Then he looked, with a questioning face, at Tabitha – and she nodded. Briefly.

Purple Man put a finger to his lips and did a zipping motion. And then – glaring at us both – he made a quick throat-slitting gesture, before disappearing into the crowd.

Then Tabitha was tugging me, more frightened than ever, but I still had to see. I looked back at Jamie. He wasn’t spasming any more, he was just still. Terribly still. And then the paramedics were all over him: pumping his upper body. They had those electric pads – defibrillators – on his chest: repeatedly they pressed them, urgently, desperately, until I saw one of the medics, a woman, reluctantly sit back and shake her head at a colleague.

Jamie was dead. I knew it. I knew, from Purple Man’s reaction, what we had done to Jamie Trewin. Given him some pills that had killed him.

Tabitha’s soft hand found mine, and this time I let her pull me, back to the tent, away from the scene. We had to escape. But I knew it was a scene I would never escape.

And, it seems, I haven’t.

Sitting here in Delancey I watch a police car swing by, sirens singing in that mad childish way. Frenzied. Overdone.

‘Electra, tell me about Jamie Trewin.’

‘Sorry, I’m not sure.’

‘Electra, how do you know what happened to me at Glastonbury Festival?’

‘Sorry, I’m not sure.’

She stops. Do I detect a hint of teasing smugness in the way she suddenly goes quiet?

I retreat to my memory.

Tabitha and I returned, in the sobering darkness, to our own little tent, no longer giggling, not clowning with corkscrews, not doing anything. For a while we sat there, Tabitha sobbing into the silence, and me on the edge of tears. Perhaps I was too shocked to cry, too sad, numbed, horrified.

After ten minutes of this, Tabitha drew a big gasping breath and said,

‘OK, we must never ever tell anyone. Ever.’

‘What?’

She shook her head. Looked up. Eyes wide. And she grasped my shoulders, one hand firmly on each, as if pinning me down to the ground, or to reality.

‘Jo, I know what happens after shit like this. The very same thing happened to my friend’s brother, Hugo. He was only twenty-two, bought some pills at a rave, handed them on without even trying them. But the guy he gave them to died. Had a major overdose. The pills were, you know, unexpectedly strong.’

‘But it wasn’t his fault? Like it wasn’t our fault?’

Tabitha’s grasp on my shoulders was almost painful.

‘Jamie is dead, don’t you see? And when it gets that bad, it doesn’t matter: there is no defence, not in the eyes of the law. Don’t you get it?’

‘Tell me,’ I said, very quietly. ‘What happened to Hugo?’

Tabitha answered with a shake of the head. ‘He was convicted of manslaughter, and he went to prison. He’s doing five years, Jo. It’s effectively ruined his life.’

Somewhere across the field that song drifted.

‘So that,’ I said, my mind wandering, ‘that was why Purple Man did that zipping and slitting thing? He must know this, the trouble we’re all in.’

Tabitha raised her voice. The Festival was still noisy enough, all around, for us not to be overheard.

‘We are not in any trouble – not if we keep cool, and tell no one, ever. Not anyone. Purple Man won’t say anything. No one will say anything. No one saw what we did, no one saw us give the pills to Jamie, no one saw us go to his tent, there’s no evidence there. It’s very unlikely he told anyone where he got the pills, or named us. We will be fine. WE WILL BE FINE.’ Her pale blue eyes burned into mine. ‘But from this moment on we make a vow, OK? We never talk about what happened tonight. Never talk about it to friends or family or anyone. No one knows. We won’t even mention it to each other. OK? As far as the rest of the world is concerned, we went to Glasto and we had some fun and smoked a bit of weed and then we went home and we know nothing about the boy that died. We know nothing. We did nothing. We saw nothing. We say nothing. Ever. Agreed?’

Her hands dropped from my shoulders. She was extending her right hand to mine. I shook her small soft hand.

‘Agreed,’ I said. Feeling a sense of relief because my best friend Tabitha had taken control. That private school of hers, breeding leadership and resourcefulness in its spirited girls, was doing its job.

Tabitha sighed. In a back-to-normal way. Forced, but necessary.

‘God, we need to sleep. I’ve got a couple of Temazepam. You want?’

‘Yes please,’ I said meekly, and Tabitha handed me the pill and I swallowed it with horrid warm cider and then we both crept into our sleeping bags. For a moment I lay there, wondering what would happen if someone else died. Surely we should warn people? But then I realized there was no way of doing that without incriminating ourselves. We would simply have to pray that Jamie was the only victim. And stay quiet.

And from that moment, we stayed quiet. We kept our vow.

When I got back to uni I read the news reports of Jamie’s death – New Zealand Student Fatally Overdoses At Music Festival, Police Search For Suppliers, No Helpful Witnesses Yet – and I looked up drug deaths and the law, to see if Tabitha was right. And she was; what we had done was viewed as manslaughter. The only upside was that Jamie was the single casualty of our trafficking. But the fact we trafficked to him unwittingly, innocently, even blamelessly, would be no defence. The drugs were illegal, we gave them to someone else, he died as a result.

Manslaughter.

Average sentence: three to five years in jail. And our lives and careers ruined. Our families shamed.

After that, it wasn’t hard to keep to the vow. The only time I broke that vow was when I told Simon, years ago. I kept getting nightmares – I still get nightmares – replaying the horrible sight, Jamie convulsing, and vomiting, the blood pouring from his mouth when he went to kiss me, and Si eventually asked me what was wrong, and I had to tell him, so I offloaded onto my husband. I knew he was entirely trustworthy with something like that. And he was duly sympathetic, and kept shtum; he saw it from our perspective, he’d done some drugs in his time as well. Could have happened to anyone, babe.

He pitied me and consoled me. In that way, he was always a good husband.

Ah, Simon.

As for Tabs, as far as I know, she hasn’t told anyone. Except, possibly, her fiancé, Arlo: the person closest to her these last three years. Certainly, Tabitha and I have rigidly stuck to the precept that we should never discuss it between ourselves. It has gone completely unmentioned.

Ironically, the effect on our friendship has been positive. What happened to Jamie, at our hands, has bonded us. We’ve been good friends ever since, loyal and kind. I am pretty sure this is why she offered me her flat at such a ludicrously generous rent.

Yet now this luxurious, beautiful flat seems less of a bargain. I stare at the Home Assistant.

‘Electra, tell me about Glastonbury.’

‘Glastonbury Festival is a festival of music and other arts, held every summer near Glastonbury Tor, in Somerset.’

I wait, tensed, for the next line. ‘It was the scene of a notorious death: twenty-year-old Geography student Jamie Trewin. The boy that you killed, the boy you murdered in his tent, even as you reached down his jeans, remember the eyes rolling white—’

But Electra does not say this. Her lights go dim. And whatever the horror of these memories, I have to get on with my life.

Have to.