Chapter 2
Night tips into morning, as the revellers beyond the window dwindle to the hardy and very drunk. I leave the curtains open, and we listen to the occasional lingering whine and pop of late fireworks, a cluster of inebriated laughter, a slamming taxi door.
I’m on the end of the Chesterfield, legs curled beneath me, my head propped on one hand, wineglass trailing from the other, while Alex faces me: knee hitched up, arm stretched along the back of the leather sofa, a tumbler balanced on his thigh.
We talk for hours and don’t seem to run out of words.
I feel peace like I haven’t known in the years since I left St Andrews.
I’m warmed by the deep sense of connection.
Outside, the city quiets as the night darkens towards dawn.
Alex is easy to talk to; he always was. He was the one who prolonged every party, outstayed his welcome in whoever’s dorm room we’d piled into after a night out; discoursing, while around him eyelids drooped and voices tapered.
Although there’s plenty about him I don’t know, and it still feels a bit like I’ve invited a stranger into my home, it’s reassuring that he’s changed little.
Still, the unknown parts remind me what I’ve missed: the chance to grow up with my friends, see them become adults.
Ten years …
Like the others, Alex once knew everything about me.
It was a vital, and intense time, that first year of quasi-adulthood.
The cords and connecting fibre that held us so tightly have weakened over time, underused synapses dying off.
And yet there’s something still here. Like muscle memory.
Alex and I still understand how to be with each other, how to tease and talk.
For me, those precious St Andrews friendships didn’t fade. They didn’t get the chance. The end was no gradual diminishment, but a cataclysmic wrenching free. I severed our bonds when I left them behind, when I ran away.
I had to.
We were all in shock that night, sitting in the backs of ambulances wearing silver foil blankets around our shaking shoulders, giving statements to stoic police officers, frantically calling our parents like the half-children we still were. Clinging together, united in horror.
When I’d finished giving my interview in a Dundee police station, I walked away and didn’t glance back. I don’t remember deciding to leave, just the overwhelming need to escape. The memories are occluded, cushioned by an overprotective mind.
It takes Alex and me a while to get to that night on West Sands.
Instead, we cover the inevitable ground of catching up, filling in the decade-sized gap in our lives.
I parrot my customary response about my job, downplaying my success, but Alex frowns, wanting more.
He probes, dissects, delves, and I find myself answering every question.
I open up – tell him everything I love about my work, even the stuff that frustrates and scares me.
I describe my achievements without bragging, without shame either.
I am proud of how far I’ve come, in my work at least; my personal life less so.
‘Of course you study the mad bastards,’ Alex says. ‘You were always fascinated by what made people tick. You were fearless, Eils.’
I don’t resonate with that description. I’ve always thought of myself as someone afraid of life itself – of standing out, of conflict, of what people think of me. Someone fearless wouldn’t have run, that night.
But when it comes to my work, I suppose he’s right; I follow my curiosity. I am bold, decisive.
I take him to task for the derogatory mad bastards, and he laughs, unrepentant.
His lips stretch in a grin that holds so many memories for me.
He sails on with his praise. ‘You were the most driven of us,’ he says, his tone laden with affection – I’d put it down to the drink, but actually he’s nursed a single dram since he got here. ‘The most likely to succeed.’
I shrug off the compliment. ‘Leo was the most driven. He was the high-flier, not me.’
‘Leo was showy, driven by the wrong things. He wanted success for success’s sake. Money, status – they’re still his guiding lights. You studied to learn, to make things better.’
‘Perhaps …’ I frown, not wanting to dwell on my motivation for delving into criminal minds – my sense that there’s darkness in all of us, that good and evil are two sides of the same coin and danger is always closer than we think. ‘So what about you – what are you doing with yourself these days?’
I ask the question tentatively – I heard about the inglorious end to his university career of course, and I hope he’s made good since. The writing was on the wall for him that night, and the gossip reached me even after I’d left.
And, yes, I’ve looked online every so often, tried to keep up with what they were doing. Twisting the knife a little deeper into my flesh with each post or story or picture. I haven’t done that for a while, which I took to be a sign I am finally moving on.
But here I am, catapulted back.
Alex grimaces. ‘After they kicked me out, things were bleak for a while, I’m no’ gonnae lie. I wasn’t exactly hot property for other universities with academic dishonesty on my record.’
I bite my lip. I remember how he was even more reckless than usual that final night on West Sands. He had a meeting set up with the university authorities to discuss concerns about his latest essay submission; he knew what was coming.
Alex was a hot mess, and we all got a little tangled in his web of misdemeanour sometimes.
Leo was deeply embroiled in the scandal that ended Alex’s St Andrews career, but his rich father’s influence and an uncle high in university echelons saved him.
Alex was less fortunate and got kicked out after it came to light that Leo wrote the essay that formed twenty per cent of Alex’s end of year grade.
‘What did you do after you left?’
Alex’s brow furrows and he exhales. ‘Moved back home, got a job. A crappy one, but it paid, and I saved …’ He raises his glass to his lips but lowers it again without drinking.
‘I couldn’t stick living with my mum and her boyfriend …
It was depressing, risky, there was a good chance I’d fall into the wrong company, the wrong life – one that would have been impossible to get out of, you know? ’
I like his candour; I always did. There’s a starkness in his expression that reminds me Alex has known true hardship, lived a life some of us will never understand.
He did well to get out and stay out of the family business. His folks didn’t get rich from the drugs, only trapped.
Jameson was always worried about him. If anything had seemed likely to get Alex kicked out of uni, it was the drugs. He didn’t deal seriously, but he was always the guy at a party with pills in his pocket.
The cheating, though … It was just that one time, Leo helping him out of a bind. They were unlucky to get caught.
It was Alex who brought the pills we took on West Sands that night – the first time I gave in to temptation, and the last. I’ve always regretted it.
If I hadn’t taken the pill, maybe I’d have noticed Gen slipping away, maybe I’d have stopped her going into the water, and maybe I’d have swum harder and stronger, and managed to save her in time.
And maybe I’d remember what really happened that night.
Alex’s mouth twists, eyes crinkling. ‘I’m not saying I didn’t make some daft decisions for a while, Eils. Still do sometimes.’ He raises his tumbler, studies the amber contents speculatively, but still doesn’t drink. ‘But I also made some good ones … and I had a fair bit of help from my friends.’
‘Jameson,’ I say softly.
‘Aye. He let me move in with him. Helped me sort out my CV, bigged me up so that I felt brave enough to go for interviews. I’ve worked more places than I can count over the years, but all of them legal, thanks to him.’
Alex and Jameson were friends since primary school, growing up at opposite ends of the spectrum on the same council estate. While Jameson’s single mother preached betterment and work ethic, Alex’s pursued false pleasures and sank into a mire she couldn’t escape.
But Alex could escape, and did.
He and Jameson were both insanely clever, and somehow they made it through high school and bucked the elitist trend of our chosen university. Two fingers up to the people who thought kids like them didn’t belong in a place like St Andrews.
‘I even went back to college,’ Alex says. ‘Now I’m a graphic designer.’ His grin is self-deprecating. ‘The boy done good.’
I can’t help smiling back. There are shadows in Alex’s eyes that make me think his road has not been smooth, but I’m pleased for him …
and relieved. No one wants to be the one in the friend group voted most-likely-to-end-up-in-jail.
And no one wants that dire prediction to come true for anyone else either.
It was Leo who used to say that, like Alex was a cliché, a joke.
Sometimes Leo’s sense of humour left a lot to be desired.
‘So, you’re still pals, you and … Jameson.’ Saying his name is difficult, even after all this time.
Alex shoots me a canny look. ‘Aye, we’re proper tight. I still see Leo from time to time too – I’ve got an invite to his fancy wedding in April – but we’re not that close.’
‘Tell me about them.’ I drain my wine in a final gulp, set the glass on the coffee table and drag a blanket over myself.
It is late, and I’m tired … but in this state of wine-infused dreaminess, with the past so fresh in my mind, I don’t want the conversation to end.
Don’t want Alex – and by association, the others – to wink out of my life once more.
We’ve opened a door tonight and a bit of me wants it to stay open, wants to step right through.
He starts with Leo. ‘You won’t be surprised to hear he’s a big-shot lawyer. Lives in Glasgow – the posh bit. Massive house of course.’