Non Pratt - Trouble

“Hi,” I say to the barman.

“ID,” he says.

“Er, hello, pregnant?” I say and point at my stomach. “Not about to go on a bender.”

“Then how can I help you?” he says in a weird formal tone that makes me think he’s taking the piss.

“I’m looking for my friend Aaron. Dark hair, leather jacket…” That’s when I see the jacket I mean in a heap on the floor. I crouch down and use the bar to pull myself back up. “This leather jacket.”

“He’s in the beer garden,” the barman says, nodding to a rickety-looking door.

I go outside but Aaron’s not there.

Back inside I look round the room. Aaron’s definitely not in here, although I check round the corner where there’s a dartboard. I push open the door of the Gents and try to breathe as little as possible. Boy wee stinks.

“Aaron?” I call out, grateful that I can’t see any strange men in here.

“Ladies is that door, luv.” Someone comes in behind me. I glance round to see a man about Robert’s age with a tattoo nudging up from the neck of his football shirt.

“I’m looking for my friend,” I say and walk further into the toilets, trying to bend over and look for feet in the cubicles.

I push the doors and one jams up against something. “Aaron?” I say, trying to crouch down further. Neck-tattoo man bends down for me and nods.

“Someone’s in there.” He shoves the door a little harder then reaches round. There’s a groan. The man shoves the door open and I see Aaron sprawled on the floor, his face pressed up against the side of the cubicle and his hand dangling in the toilet bowl. There’s a stain on his sleeve and when he opens his eyes they’re bloodshot. They don’t stay open for long.

My helpful stranger stops me from going in and instead he drags Aaron out. He grunts for me to open the door and he takes him all the way out, down the passage and out of the fire exit. The man arranges Aaron into a sitting position on the step and goes back inside, saying he’ll get some water. I lower myself carefully next to Aaron and shrug on his leather jacket. It’s cold — which should sober him up a bit at least.

I stare at the hair on the back of his neck. He’s had it cut — for the funeral, I guess — and I wonder what it would be like to stroke it. And because he is drunk and because I want to, I put my hand on Aaron’s neck and brush my thumb over his skin and across his hair.

For a second I think that this is what he wants too… until he shakes me off and I snatch my hand away, annoyed that, even now, in the midst of an alcoholic stupor he still can’t let me in.

Then he lurches forwards and retches.

OK, I’ll let him off. But I don’t reach out to him again.

“You all right?” I ask. He’s blatantly not, but what else do you say?

Aaron shakes his head. “I lost him, Han.”

“You lost Neville? You mean his ashes?”

Aaron doesn’t say anything, but the door behind us opens and my knight in shining football strip hands me a pint of water and a Tupperware box.

“The barman said the lad would be looking for this,” he says and gives me a grin. “Just give us a shout if you need a hand with anything, darling.”

“Thanks,” I say, before holding the box up and looking at it. It’s full of ash.

Neville.

“Here,” I say and hand Aaron the box first and the water second, like I’m asking him to mix me some cement. He doesn’t say anything, but I can see his shoulders drop in relief.

“I need to sprinkle Chris’s ashes,” he says, putting the glass down and standing up.

“Chris?”

“Neville. Neville’s ashes.” Aaron sways dangerously and almost knocks over his glass of water as he starts clawing at a corner of the box’s lid, trying to prise it off.

“Stop, Aaron.” I stand up and put my fingers over his. “We’ll come back another time to do this. I don’t think Neville would mind.”

When did Hannah get here? I don’t remember that.

But she’s found Neville.

“Thank you,” I say and give her a hug. She looks nonplussed.

“You’re welcome,” she says and pats me on the shoulder.

My mouth tastes awful. There’s a glass of water on the step, so I pick it up and sip some, swilling it round my mouth and spitting it out, then take a proper drink. Although some dribbles out the side of my mouth and down the collar of my shirt, most of it makes it in.

“What are you doing here?” I ask Hannah. “I thought we weren’t talking. Are we talking?”

“You weren’t talking,” she says, frowning. “But you texted me. I called. I was worried.”

I shake my head. It’s not me she should be worrying about. She should worry about her. I’m dangerous to people who care about me.

“I killed him,” I say, letting her lead me away.

“Killed who?” Hannah says, patiently.

“Chris.”

“Yeah, so, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She’s annoyed.

“My best friend,” I say.

“What?” She stops yanking at the stiff bolt on the back gate and looks up at me and I think how pretty she is when she doesn’t try. Her hair’s all scruffy and she’s wearing hardly any make-up but that just means you get to notice her eyes more. Even in orange street light.

“My best friend,” I say, echoing something I know I’ve just said. “You’re my best friend.”

“You’re mine too. Why d’you think I came out here looking for you?” she says and starts working the bolt loose on the gate. “Who’s this Chris you keep going on about?”

Chris. Oh God, Chris. I’m so sorry. I miss you, mate. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to… I should never have… I wasn’t…

I slump down on the floor, my head folding into my hands and the tears coming so fast and wet that they almost choke me on their way out. I’m nothing but grief. It doesn’t hurt. It’s a cold, deep emptiness inside me and I want it to end. I can’t face this again. I can’t…

Shit. I have no idea what’s just happened, but Aaron’s gone into total meltdown on the floor. He’s making the most awful sound — like a wail — and he’s sobbing so hard his whole body is shaking. When he looks up at me his face is like one of those theatre masks with the mouth turned upside down and there are tears streaming down his face. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before and it scares me.

But it’s not about me, is it?

This is about my best friend.

I wake up in a strange house, in a strange bed in the middle of the night, feeling sick. There’s a plastic bucket next to me on the bed and I vomit into it then put it on the floor. That’s when I find that someone’s put out a bottle of water and a glass. I drink half the bottle and lie back, feeling like I’m on the roundabout in the park with someone spinning it faster and faster…

I wake up again, and there’s light at the window. Someone’s cleared the bucket away and given me a new one, and there’s fresh water beside me along with a packet of crisps. I scoff the crisps and gulp the water, although sitting up kills me. I feel weak with exhaustion and I need a piss, but… I collapse back onto the bed and pull the duvet up and around me. I can smell myself, which is not a good sign, but I’m past caring. I guess that’s not a great sign either.

When I wake up the third time I’m feeling a lot better. A surge of gratitude washes over me — the high the body throws up in relief that it hasn’t been annihilated by alcohol. There’s noise beyond my bedroom door and I can hear Lola running along the landing. I stand up and stretch then shuffle over to the window and look out. It’s afternoon. There’s a gentle knock on the door and Hannah’s there in tracksuit bottoms and one of her old vests that only just covers the bump.

“Mum wants to know if you’re hungry.” Her expression is completely neutral. It worries me.

“I could go another packet of crisps?” I say with a smile that is only half returned, before she tells me that I seriously need to brush my teeth.

“Use the green brush. There’s a towel and clothes for you as well.”

I take the hint and shower. After I’ve dried off, I pull on the shorts and faded Nike T-shirt she’s left out. Jay’s, but for me.

Hannah is waiting on the bed next to a tray of food: crisps, biscuits, cold pizza, slices of apple, a Mars ice cream and two cans. One Diet Coke, one lemonade. I don’t need to ask who the ice cream’s for as I sit down. That baby she’s brewing is made of the stuff.

“I’m so sorry. About last week.” I apologize from the pit of my very empty stomach before taking a slice of pizza. “And about last night.”

“You said some pretty scary shit,” is all she says in reply.

I don’t remember exactly what I said. I don’t remember much at all, only bits here and there, pieces of a puzzle that don’t give any indication of the whole.

“Like what?” I say, because it’s going to be the only way to find out. Not that I want to.

“You said you had no one.” She swallows, concentrating hard on finishing her ice cream. “That you killed your best friend, Chris.”

There’s a pause. I told her about Chris? I look down at the duvet cover, desperately trying to remember when I said that, wondering if I told her everything or nothing, or something hashed up and halfway in between.