Chapter Seven #2
it. Now...” Laurie towelled off the places he'd washed, then
finished his ministrations with a kiss to Sasha's brow. “You were
tough to wake up from that one at all. Was it the forest
again?”
“Oh, great. I get to bore you now, as well as destroying your
sleep cycle and—”
“Sasha. The deal.”
Sasha lay looking up at him. Laurie was dressed for a hot
summer night, which meant in his lovely pale-ivory skin and nothing
else. His hair was rumpled, shadows of fatigue beneath his eyes.
Though he found it extraordinary that Sasha would grab a phone call
from him any time of night or day, Laurie had no idea of his own
virtues. Who else would let himself be dragged out of sleep like
this night after night, and never show a trace of
impatience? You should be a
father, Sasha thought, with sudden poignant
intensity. Sasha owed him, and so he began. “Yes. And Stefan was
never like that, you know? Never just the poor martyred poet and
rebel. He was those things, but those were the parts of him I chose to tell
you about.”
“When we first met.”
“Yes. Because you were like Sirius, like a star had come down
to stand by my blanket and talk to me. And those were the things I
could bear.”
“I understand that. I know.”
“He's a killer. I've seen him deal crack to fifteen-year-old
junkies, cut arms deals with Tajiki rebels not much older than
that. He deserved every word of testimony I gave against him,
but... when you strip away the courtroom, the lawyers, and it's
just me facing him across a clearing, looking into his eyes...”
Sasha didn't want to look at anything any more, not even his
tousled, sleep-flushed lover, and he pulled Laurie's pillow over
his face.
Gently
Laurie removed it. “But you didn't send Stefan to his death,” he
reminded him. “Just deportation.”
“It amounts to the same. He wouldn't survive long in Aiud jail,
if that's where he ended up. And if he's on the streets—well, he
betrayed too many of his own while he was over here. Maybe they
hanged him in the forest after all.”
“And your new shrink still thinks this is the best way of
dealing with this, does he? Waking you up?”
“Yeah.” It wasn't too late, Sasha told himself. He could phone
the number Olivia had given him, get set up with someone before
Laurie noticed the gap. The thought of explaining all this to a
stranger made his skin crawl, made him ache as if he were bruised
from head to foot. “For now. I dunno, Laurie. I just wish I could
get the hell away from myself for a while.”
Laurie
wrung out the flannel and folded it on the bedside table. It was
strange to hear Sasha echo his own desires of a few hours earlier,
the twitchy urge to escape that had been consuming him before he'd
seen the car. The Merc had been weighing on his conscience since
Sash had got home, mercifully too late and tired for more than a
shower and bed. Now he had a cue for confession. “You know, I might
be able to help you with that. The getting away part,
anyway.”
Sasha
tried to concentrate. Laurie's weekend-getaway treats were always
set up with the best of intentions, and Sasha did his best to take
an interest in the spa hotels and off-road driving. Then something
better occurred to him. “That charity gig down in Cornwall is this
weekend, isn't it? Are you going to do it after all?”
“Er, no. It's a bit too far. But there's nothing to say we
shouldn't blow out of town for a couple of days. Anywhere you
like.”
“Sounds good. We can hire a car.”
“That might not be necessary.”
Laurie
held out a hand. After a moment, Sasha scrambled out of bed and
allowed himself to be led to the window. The bedroom had two, both
with nice deep sills where a couple of skinny lads could curl up
together and watch the city's rivers flow. Laurie took his usual
place—oblivious to his nakedness, but the only passersby were weary
working girls who'd probably seen it all that night anyway—and
Sasha settled into his arms. “What am I meant to be looking
at?”
“The R-107 down there.”
“A type of helicopter? An Inland Revenue claim
form?”
“A car, you idiot. The little red Merc.”
Sasha
looked. He was a stranger to the Western world's obsession with
makes, models and horsepower, but he could pick out a Mercedes, and
the sleek convertible parked across the road was conspicuous. He
smiled. About bloody time Laurie stopped spending every spare penny
on their mutual, sensible good and blew some cash on himself.
“Followed you home, did she?”
“Pretty much.” Laurie squeezed him, pulled up the blanket to
keep him warm. Tremulous relief shot through him at the amusement
in his lover's voice. Sasha wasn't going to mind. Of course not.
“Honest, Sash, it's like it was meant to be. When I got her here,
didn't old Mrs Matusek shoot straight out of her flat and shove her
resident's permit into my hand? She's got to go into care, and she
said she'd be damned three times to hell if she let the council get
any money back on the space for her old Mini. She only charged me
fifty quid.”
Sasha
repressed a snort. He reckoned Mrs M was destined for the devil
anyway. The permits were free to pensioners, and non-transferable,
as the old bugger probably knew. Still, they'd cross that bridge
when the parking fine came through. “You bought her,
then?”
“Yes. The car and the permit, not Mrs Matusek.” This was the
time for Laurie to drop the flim-flam and address the nagging guilt
he'd shoved to the back of his mind. He rushed straight into it.
“Fact is, I used some of Marielle's fund. It's just been sitting
there, and I didn't want to touch our account. It's okay, isn't it?
I mean, it's a thing for both of us. We'll have fun.”
Sasha
twisted round and looked at him in wonder. When Laurie had turned
twenty-one a few months before, his mother had written him a
five-figure cheque with an insouciance that had made Sasha's head
spin. Her own funds were limited, she had explained. But she'd
wished to rectify some of the injustice done to Laurie by his
father. She'd refused to take no for an answer, and Sasha and
Laurie had kept the cheque pinned to their kitchen noticeboard for
weeks, as a kind of bewildering joke—more than half a year's salary
for either of them, tossed at them like a handful of glitter. “I
didn't even know you'd paid that in.”
“Do you mind? I know I should have asked you first. We talked
about savings, house deposits, that kind of thing...”
“You talked about them. Laurie, have I ever said anything to
you at all about that money?”
“No. You didn't seem to think it was real.” One night, long
ago, Sasha had managed to make Laurie feel like millionaire because
he had a twenty-pound note in his pocket. They saw money
differently, Laurie knew. They always would. “But we put our cash
in the same pot, so...”
“So we can take it out of the same one too.” Sasha caressed
Laurie's thigh. It was the strangest thing in the world, to be held
in the intimate tangle of those elegant naked limbs, and feel
tensions rising. Fervently Sasha tried to dispel them. “I'd never
have asked you to check with me first. You work your arse off. If
you'd wanted a car that badly, fine. We could've gone out and
bought one together.”
That was
such a nice picture. Contrition and regret hit Laurie hard. The
pair of them, wandering around the forecourts on a Sunday
afternoon, Sasha sending him off so he could haggle with the dealer
in peace... “You're right. I'll sell her, and—”
“What? Go out with me to some dodgy lot in East London and buy
her again?”
“For half the price, probably. I'm so sorry, Sash.
Really.”
Sasha
started laughing at the chagrin in his voice. “Don't be daft. I'm
glad you've got your car.”
“Our car.”
“Our car. So, where are we going this weekend?”
Sasha
listened to his plans. Rye, Glastonbury, Brighton, which band was
playing where and who on Sir Ralf’s cast had a brother who could
get them tickets... But he was weary, and somewhere in his aching
skull he could still hear the rain in the pines. Laurie's voice,
low and caressing, soothed out its own details and left Sasha to
wonder what kind of day had led his lover to fire his manager and
buy a car. Laurie could be impulsive, but...
“You're not listening to a word, are you?”
“Got me bang to rights. No.”
“I was telling you all about horsepower. I don't understand how
you weren't fascinated.”
“To fascinate a Rom, you'd have to tell him where the chassis
number was.”
Laurie
chuckled. “You spend every working day correcting that kind of
prejudice.”
“Which is why I can indulge in it at home.”
“You're pale. Does your head hurt?”
“A bit. But it's... noisy more than anything, full of stuff I
don't want to think about. And I'd give anything for a full night's
sleep.” He leaned on Laurie's shoulder. “You know what I'd really
like right now? Some proper gypsy-camp darozha.”
Laurie
could have beaten his head off the wall in frustration. He'd just
spent twenty grand, and the one thing his lover really needed was a
handful of herbs that had probably cost a fiver. “What,” he said
softly, stroking Sasha's brow, “the stuff that tastes like ancient
goat piss and does nothing for you except when you really need
it?”
“Yeah, and knocks you into a solid-gold coma when you do. Still
tastes like goat piss, though. I'll settle for an
aspirin.”
Laurie
went and got one for him. He couldn't get the darozha, not with all
his wealth or Marielle's, and so he ran to carry out this one small
service. So damn inadequate, but then so was he, banging on about
cars and concerts while Sasha's demons rampaged around in his head.
“Here,” he whispered, padding back to the window. “We'll stay home
this weekend. You can just rest.”
But
Sasha had fallen asleep, as he sometimes did between one heartbeat
and the next after a sequence of nightmares. He was awkwardly
folded on the window seat, and his eyelids were already flickering
with restive dreams. Laurie decided not to try to get him back to
bed. He tugged the duvet over, wrapped him in it as best he could
and eased a cushion between his damp brow and the glass.
Couldn't he get the darozha, though? Laurie didn't like to
think too often about Mama Luna and the Romani camp. His first
night there had been the wildest and best of his life. He'd
struggled back there with cracked ribs and a head injury that
should have put him into hospital, and the old lady had commanded
her great big skinhead of a son to mix up the darozha
for him, and he'd been healed. And the third
time...
The
third time had been apocalypse and ruin. Laurie shied away from the
memory, reverting instead to Gunari's beaming face as he'd appeared
in the caravan doorway, the steaming bowl in his hands. Gunari had
been a tough customer—with everyone but Mama Luna. He'd have
survived, Laurie was sure.
It was a long shot, but once Sasha was breathing easily,
Laurie went to switch on his laptop. Cold blue light filled the
room. He spared himself a glance in the mirror that hung over the
desk. He and Sasha hadn't known what to do about pictures, but the
previous occupant had left this large art-deco glass in such a
position that it caught and reflected movement on the bed. Once
past their embarrassment, Laurie and Sasha had discovered its
startling erotic effects. Now it only showed Laurie's face, turned
ghostly in the screen light, and the rumpled mattress where Sasha
could no longer find peace. After a moment's thought, expecting
nothing, Laurie typed Gunari,
Romanian into the search engine.
He put a hand to his mouth to stifle laughter. Sometimes the
easiest things turned out to be so damn hard, and sometimes thorny
knots could just unravel in your hands. He had been prepared to
scour all London, and the first hit had given him his
answer. Kenna Gunari—Gunari's House, a restaurant in Clapham Common Southside,
specialising in authentic Romanian food. Gunari had a website.
Laurie noted down the postcode. Then he folded down the screen so
that only leafblown lamplight held sway in the room, and he went to
resume his watch over his lover's sleep.