“You have no experience. You are a narkoman.”
The Englishman felt his blood freeze and a chill sweat seep into his palms. He could not look over and meet those eyes. He forced himself to keep moving along the wall. Never, not once, had Arkady called him a junkie. And he did not wish to know if this, at last, was it—the moment when Arkady’s scorn finally turned on him. He’d rather not be sure. He’d rather circle the room until the end of time. Keep moving. He squeezed his resolution all the harder to his threadbare breast.
“Either way, we need to get you this passport. And we need to be doing that as soon as possible.” His own voice was loathsome to him. “I am assuming you know the right people.”
Arkady said nothing.
Henry could hear her trying to open the window. He wondered if she could understand English. He passed Arkady’s bedroom door and came around in front of the sofa again. He had the sudden idea that he would shave his head. His hair was lank and ridiculous. Widow’s peak, bald patch. Penance.
“You do know people who can get us a fake passport?”
Still the Russian said nothing.
“We should have the documents they need ready—the photos and everything. For the passport. We’ll get the visa separately… when we know if it’s Britain or France. Now, the good news is that they didn’t get all my—”
“ Grisha did not get all your money.”
“We don’t know that it was Grisha. Okay, he’s… he’s a dealer. But he’s not a… not a psychopath.” Arkady swore in Russian.
Henry rushed on. “I have around a thousand pounds sterling left in another bank account,” he lied. “And we can use this to buy the passport.”
“Whatever you have, you need.”
“Please, Arkasha. Let me finish.” Henry drew shallow breath, coming past the window again. “I am not sure how much the passport will cost, but I assume this is enough. And I am not giving you the money. You can pay me back in a few years, when you are taking your huge concert fees. Or maybe right away—when you come back from meeting them! If it goes well. Who knows? Regardless. It doesn’t matter. The point is that you have to go now. And I can help you.”
“You need your money for your shit.”
Henry came to a halt at the top of his circuit. He said the words quietly, addressing the back of the Russian’s head. “I am stopping.”
Arkady laughed out loud.
“I am stopping.”
“You are never stopping. Nobody ever stops.”
Henry passed the bedroom door once more and stood at the foot of the sofa, meeting the other’s eyes for a second before taking off again along the far wall. He spoke quickly now, his bony arms jerking as if he might sheer off from his desperate orbit at any moment.
“Arkady, listen to me—I don’t want to have any money left. And I don’t want to have anything. I… I have a bet with myself. If I have nothing left and I can’t buy any more, then I will give up. Pull myself together. Yes, okay, yes… I will buy enough food and water to last until you are back. I will spend what I need to get that. Water—some food. And we will fix the hole. But that’s all. After that, I don’t want the money in the bank because I don’t want to burn it all—and that’s what will happen. I will burn it on the shit. Every penny. So this…“He indicated the room with a throw of his arm. “This is a blessing in disguise. Not the piano. But I mean all my money gone. Everything taken. Because I would only have spent it on shit… shit, shit, and more shit. And it would have gone on and on—until I ran out of money, anyway. So all that has happened is that I have the opportunity to stop sooner. To stop when you go to find your family. And I don’t want to have any more secret money in the bank. I don’t want it there. I don’t want it, because I tell you: I will go and I will spend it on shit. So you have to take my money. I want you to take it. I need you to take it. It’s a loan. That’s all. A loan until I am off. And then you can give it back to me.”
Arkady was watching Henry closely.
“Do you understand, Arkasha?”
At last the Russian sat up. “You say this now because you know there is so much more hidden in your room. But when the time comes, when you have no more, you will do anything. The money or the no-money is not the difference. When the time comes, you will do anything—you will sell your body, you will kill if you have to.”
“If it makes no difference, then take it. If the money is not the difference, then take it. Please. Let me try.”
She came out of the bedroom barefoot, wearing nothing but one of Arkady’s T-shirts. Henry tried to nod a greeting, but her expression reflected only a sudden aversion back at him. He walked quickly past the sofa and entered the wreckage of his room.
The faster he used, the faster he ran out, the faster he would get to zero.
22
Self-Help
There comes a time in every man’s life when the fucking around just has to stop. Operating (as ever) in the murky, muddy, potholed, all-sides-fired-upon, no man’s land of modern secular ethics (which might, of course, be no ethics at all), Gabriel could not be certain whether it was his mother’s death, his life stage, or the quasi-religious ache of some ancient human gene that had brought him abruptly to this realization. But once beheld, this flinty truth, he realized, could no longer be avoided. And he knew for certain that he must now make some decisions about his life—ideally, good ones, though he recognized with stolid candor (as he faced down an unnecessarily confrontational lunchtime sandwich) that any decisions at all would likely be greeted with much emotional bunting as a sign of progress.
The telephone interrupted his thoughts.
“Hi, Gabriel. Francine.”
“Hello, Francine. I was about to call you. How are you?”
“Fine, fine, fine.”
He detected more than the usual vinegar in the various acid ratios of her voice.
“Hang on… I’m in the car.” There was the sound of an ill-timed and aggressive gear change. “You know, I’m not being funny, but I really don’t think that the… the Indians know how to drive.”
He twisted the proofs around so he could read them. No, she was not being funny. Francine O’Brien was never being funny.
“Gabriel, I wanted to say that I personally am really looking forward to ‘Toxic Parents.’ And that—get this—Randy himself is taking an interest in this one. His assistant called last night from Los Angeles. Have you met her? Caroline. Lovely girl. She’s had surgery, of course, and I think it’s affecting her skin, but she’s got such a great smile in her voice. Do you know if they’ve shut the M40?”
“Haven’t heard anything here, Francine. Are you off to somewhere exciting?” His eye fled to a quarter-page advertisement for one of Randy K. Norris’s herbal “rescue remedies.” “Fight Stress,” it screamed. But surely, he thought, that’s exactly what stress wanted—a fight.
“I’ve got this half-day of brand-new treatments. Sumatran Indulgence Therapy. It’s that seventies singer’s ex-wife—God, you know who I mean, she’s in all the mags at the moment—it’s her new place.”
“Can’t think who you mean, offhand.” Gabriel knew exactly whom Francine was referring to. He’d spoken to the woman in question on the phone. Yet another avaricious, harrowingly insecure, narcissistic little claw-wielder who had recently about-faced into a guru of well-being and life balance. How did any of these people expect to be taken seriously? At least Francine let the toxins flow.