‘Ahhhh, Johnny, poor Johnny. Chief of the sanity police, punishing me with his cures. Physician, heal thyself.’
‘Is he here?’
‘Try his office, darling.’
There didn’t appear to be anyone around as I made my way through the building, up the dark back stairway, through slashes of light from windows high up in the stairwell, and I wondered where all the residents had gone.
J. P. Walker’s office was on the first floor. It was simply furnished with a scarred desk, an office chair, and two worn old leather armchairs with the horsehair bursting through the arms. As I approached its open door I could hear someone softly sobbing. A contained sob, held back and smothered in the chest. Without thinking, I slowed my walk to push up on tiptoes so that I wouldn’t be heard.
Daylight flooding in from the office window spilled out through the open door into the darkness of the corridor, and I edged cautiously into the light, craning round the door jamb so that I could see who was crying in JP’s office.
I was stung immediately by a sense of shock. JP was sprawled in his office chair, legs stretched out in front of him, face tipped forward so that his forehead was resting in his open palm. The doctor’s face was shiny with tears, and deep, dark lines were etched into the grey skin below his eyes.
He was crying like a baby. I had no idea why, and I forgot myself for a moment, standing there and looking at him with unabashed curiosity. He lifted his head suddenly and saw me. For a moment I thought he was going to speak, then he leaned forward to push the door shut in my face.
I walked back along the corridor feeling both guilty and chastised. Guilty because of the prurient pleasure I had taken for a moment in witnessing his misery. Chastised because the door closed in my face had told me more eloquently than words that, whatever the reason for his tears, it was none of my business.
I heard voices in the common room as I came back down the stairs, and went in to find Dave and Luke and Maurie making tea. They seemed surprised, and a little embarrassed to see me.
‘You want some tea?’ Dave said.
‘Sure.’
Luke put a tea bag in a fourth mug, and Maurie said, ‘What are you doing here?’
I sat down at the end of the table, in JP’s seat, and stared at my hands in front of me. The Kinks had progressed to the final track on Side One and were so tired of waiting. Alice was still dancing and painting out in the hall.
I looked up and said, ‘I’m leaving.’
All three looked at me. Clearly surprised.
Maurie said, ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, I’m leaving. Going. Quitting. Departing. Fucking off out of here. I don’t know how else to say it.’
Luke passed me a mug of steaming tea, and the others pulled up chairs.
‘Is this because of Rachel?’ he said.
I shrugged. ‘Yes. And no. Well, I mean, she’s part of it.’ I drew a deep breath. ‘Dr Robert tried to... I don’t know how to say this... seduce me this morning.’
There was a dead stillness around the table. I was embarrassed to talk about it, as if somehow it reflected on me. But I’d started. And the rest just came pouring out of me. The whole sordid incident, ending with the punch.
‘Jeeeees,’ Dave said. ‘You actually gubbed him?’
I nodded, and could sense their collective shock. For the longest time nobody spoke. The Kinks were no longer tired of waiting, but the arm had failed to lift at the end of the album and the needle went click, click at every endless revolution of the record.
Then Dave broke the silence, his voice unusually small. ‘Happened to me, too.’
We all looked at him.
I said, ‘What do you mean?’
He flushed deeply. ‘Same thing. Wanting me to try on clothes.’ He had difficulty concealing his shame. ‘Wish I’d gubbed him, ’n all.’
Suddenly no one was looking at anyone else. Eyes were fixed on hands or cups.
Then Luke said, ‘And me.’
He became the focus of our attention, and he blushed, too. It took a moment before we all turned our eyes towards Maurie. He looked grim, but his lips remained firmly pressed together and all he did was nod.
‘Fuck’s sake!’ Dave said. And he turned blazing eyes in my direction. ‘You’re no’ going without me.’
‘Or me,’ Luke said.
And we all looked at Maurie again.
‘Is there a plan?’
But I shook my head. ‘No plan. We fucked up. Whatever it was we thought we were going to find here, we haven’t. My fault.’ I raised my hands. ‘Mea culpa.’
And I caught sight of myself in a cracked mirror on the far wall, with my bruised face, the white Elastoplast still stuck across my nose. The picture of failure.
‘But I really never meant for any of it to happen. I really didn’t.’ I glanced at Maurie. ‘And I never, ever thought I would lose my friends.’ I had to swallow my emotion.
‘You haven’t.’ Luke’s voice was stiffened by a kind of steely resolve, and he looked pointedly towards Maurie.
Maurie spoke much more quietly, and still avoided my eye. ‘You haven’t.’
‘Has to be a plan, then,’ Dave said.
‘I’m going home,’ I told them.
Maurie shrugged. ‘Then that’s the plan.’ He paused. ‘But I’m not going anywhere without Rachel. Or Jeff.’
‘Damn right.’ Dave thumped his fist on the table. ‘We came thegether, we go thegether.’
I smiled ruefully. ‘Runaway home.’
Chapter seventeen
I
It was Luke’s idea to wait until the evening before going back to the house to get our things. Dr Robert was throwing a party. We only knew about it because there had been some discussion of whether we would play at it or not. But in the end it was decided that the logistics were too complex. And the rift among us was an added complication.
So we whiled away the rest of the day in town, in cafés and pubs, talking about what we would do when we got back home, how we were going to explain everything to our folks, and what kind of reception we were likely to get. None of us was looking forward to that.
We counted up our cash and ended up at the information desk at Euston Station to calculate the cost of six single fares back to Glasgow, to see if we could afford it. We could, but only just. Maurie was dubious about whether Rachel would come with us. But at the very least, he said, he wanted to get her away from Onslow Gardens. And I harboured the secret hope that if we could persuade her to come back to Glasgow, there might just be some chance of patching up the damage between us.
We got back to the house around nine, when we knew the party would just be starting to get into full swing, and no one would notice us arriving. The place was already jumping. You could hear the music halfway down the street, and we could see partygoers dancing beyond the balustrade up on the roof terrace. Silhouettes against the evening sky. The front door was open, the hall and stairs leading up to the next floor jammed with the young and beautiful people of these Swinging Sixties. The rich and the famous from the world of music and movies, drinks in hand, spilling out from the kitchen and into the breakfast room and downstairs lounge. The Stones version of ‘Under the Boardwalk’ from their second album was blasting out of the lounge, and I could hear the single ‘Zoot Suit’ pounding down from the first floor, raw and filled with energy.
We pushed through the bodies in the hall, to the stairs leading down to the basement flat. No one wanted to party down there. It was too gloomy and cold and smelled of damp. Maurie shouted above the noise that he was going to find Rachel, and he headed off into the house.