Moments later Luke hoved to, with a mineral water for Rose, a Guinness for Mac, and a pint and a large whiskey chaser for himself. Mercifully, the art students decided to pick that moment for a break in proceedings, and Mac figured he might as well make his pitch while the volume level permitted and Luke was still conscious.
He ran through the deal. The twenty-fifth-anniversary show. At the Festival Hall. Everyone was going to be there. All Luke had to do was twenty minutes. Could lead on to a whole lot of other stuff — Meltdown, All Tomorrow’s Parties. Mac had no idea whether any of this was true or not, he was just spouting the same bullshit Etheridge had given him.
“He’ll even sort out the band for you, if you want. Or you can use your own, if you’ve got one at the minute.”
“Fuck that,” said Luke, and slumped back in his seat. “Fucking wankers.”
Mac wasn’t sure who the wankers were — his band, Etheridge, the whole crew of post-punk entrepreneurial types with their post-modern music festivals in out-of-season holiday camps. Personally, he was quite happy to agree that the whole lot of them were, indeed, wankers. But that wasn’t going to get the bills paid.
“There’s good money in it.”
Luke just shook his head, but Mac knew him well enough to see something feral appearing in his eyes.
“Five grand,” said Mac, “twenty minutes work. Not too shabby.”
Luke rolled his eyes like five grand was neither here nor there. Then he leaned forward and grasped Mac’s hands in his. “I don’t give a shit about those wankers, Mac, you know that. But if you want me to do it, I’ll do it. I love you, man.”
Jesus Christ, thought Mac, wondering what chemicals Luke had imbibed along with the lake full of booze.
Mac hesitated for a moment. Say he delivered Luke to Etheridge, got him on stage with the right combination of chemicals inside him to impersonate sobriety — or at least sentience — for twenty minutes. What would be the upshot? Five grand for Luke — probably enough to kill himself. A grand for Mac — probably enough to pay off Jackie’s credit cards.
Shit, why was he feeling guilty? They were all grown-ups, weren’t they? Mac had enough to deal with in his own life, hadn’t he? And anyway, we all had a few too many once in a while, didn’t we? He looked at Luke trying to maneuver the pint of lager to his mouth without spilling it. It was blatantly obvious that he had passed the point of no return, social-drinking-wise. Dylan Thomas had that line about how an alcoholic was someone you didn’t like who drank as much as you did. Well, Mac had been fond of quoting that in his time, but he could see the shallowness of it now. Thomas’s drinking killed him, after all. Luke needed help. It was as simple as that.
“Look, I want you to promise me one thing. You do this gig, yeah? You’ll spend the money on rehab.”
“Sure,” said Luke. “I love you, man.”
Just then Rose got up to go to the loo. Luke watched her go, then leaned forward to Mac. “Isn’t she gorgeous?”
“Yeah,” said Mac, “she seems very nice, bit young though, eh?”
“Yeah,” said Luke, “goes like a fucking firecracker, though.” He knocked back his whiskey, then leaned forward again, motioning Mac to do the same. “Got some nice friends and all, if you’re interested.”
Mac was appalled to find himself considering it, by the unwelcome knowledge that somewhere inside him was the capacity to say yes, set me up with an anorexic waif of my own. Linda’s line about them being like twins was running through his head. It struck him now that it was the evil twin she liked, she wanted. It let her off the hook. Maybe he should just give in to his dark side, maybe that actually made it easier for everyone. No self-repression, no hypocrisy. Just get down in the dirt.
He looked at Rose, heading back from the toilet, stopping at the cigarette machine, all young and fresh and damaged, saw Anja in her place, remembered how much he’d wanted Anja the first time he saw her at that club in Ljubljana. He saw Luke staring at Rose, eyes full of lust and lager, saw himself in Luke, embracing death. He felt like there was no air in the room. He took a deep breath, sucked in as much as he could. Then tilted his head back and stared at the ceiling, wondering how he got to this pass. Maybe he could retrain as a social worker or something. Something useful. Something that would stop him from taking his place in the tableau in front of him. He shook his head hard and the fog seemed to clear momentarily.
He became aware of the record that was playing, some old punk thing by the Damned, probably the art students were playing it ironically. It didn’t sound ironic to Mac though, it sounded like his youth. It reminded him viscerally of what it had felt like being young then, nearly thirty years ago, playing this stupid fast music for no other reason than the sheer rush, the sheer pointless, joyous momentum of it.
And it reminded him that he wasn’t young anymore, and no matter how many Anjas or brand-new Roses he picked up, he would be nothing more than a vampire, not magically returned to the loud stupid kid he’d once been. He tilted his head back down and looked at Luke. Then it struck him, the difference between them. Luke was still the loud stupid kid he had been, still a selfish, pleasure-seeking child. Ah well, good luck to him, he supposed.
“Sorry, man,” he said, shaking his head, “not my scene.”
“Your loss,” answered Luke. “I tell you, she’s a fucking firecracker, that one. Another pint?”
“No thanks,” said Mac, but Luke was already up and lurching bar-wards again. As he did so, Rose ran over to him, threw her arms round him, and kissed him like she hadn’t seen him for a week. He said something in her ear and she nodded and reached into her bag, took out her purse, and handed him a twenty. Luke trousered it and turned toward the bar before suddenly seeming to convulse. And then, slowly and oddly gracefully, he collapsed on the floor, banging into the legs of a couple of his fellow drinkers.
“You fucking wanker!” shouted one of the drinkers, and wound up to throw a punch, before realizing that his opponent was already down and out.
Mac looked on transfixed, his attention entirely gripped by Rose, who calmly knelt down on the floor next to Luke and cradled him against her, stroking his head with one hand, a flame-haired, flat-chested Madonna and her debauched infant.
Later, sitting in the cab, resigned to being a grownup, earning his money the hard way, he found the words “damned” and “blessed” jostling for space in his brain.
The following afternoon he was woken up by the phone. It was Etheridge on the line. Mac paused for a moment, wondering what to say. He wasn’t sure he really cared what Luke did, but the thought of taking a finder’s fee for tracking him down felt weirdly unclean, seemed to somehow make him complicit in Luke’s grim debauch. On the other hand, it was undoubtedly an easy grand.
Before he could make the decision, Etheridge started talking. “Look,” he said, “not to worry about tracking down old Luke.”
“Oh,” said Mac, “decided against risking him on stage, have you?”
“No, no, not at all,” explained Etheridge, “people love a bit of drama, don’t they? No, his manager’s been in touch so it’s all sorted out. I just thought I’d let you know.”