“Hey, Simon! Good to see you.” Mike started pulling a pint of Guinness. By the time Simon reached his usual stool at the bar, the glass was being put down on the scarred bar top to settle.
“How was Dublin?”
Mike shook his head. His tousled blond hair was a mess, as usual, and his blue eyes glistened. “Not bad. The stag couldn’t hold his drink, the best man was pick-pocketed by a stripper, and half of us ended up going for an Indian meal instead of to the nightclub.” He smiled. “I think I must be getting old.”
“You and me both, brother. That Guinness settled yet?”
Mike topped up the glass and pushed it towards Simon, his eyes scanning the bar. It wasn’t packed, but there were enough customers in there to keep him busy, especially if they all wanted serving at once. Robert, a tall, thin transvestite who drank there every night, stood by the jukebox idly flicking through the playlist. He turned and nodded at Simon, then returned his attention to the music.
“On your own tonight?” Simon took a sip of his drink, closed his eyes and savoured the cold iron taste on his tongue. It wasn’t the best pint of Guinness to be found in London, but it was good enough.
“The girl’s meant to be here, but she hasn’t arrived yet. I haven’t even had a call to tell me she’s running late.” ‘The girl’ was a short, dark-haired Goth named Betty who helped out at The Halo three or four nights a week, and more often when the place got busy. Mike had a crush on her but had never got up the nerve to make a move.
“She’ll be here. She can’t keep away from you, man.” Simon grinned.
“Fuck you, rich boy.” Mike grabbed a rag and started wiping down the bar. He moved away for a moment to serve three middle-aged men double whiskies, and then returned to stand opposite Simon.
“I’m going away, mate.” Simon put down his glass. “Tonight.”
“Prison? I told you not to shag that girl — she only looked about twelve.”
Simon stared at his friend. “I’m serious. I might be gone… for a while.”
“Is anything wrong? Can I help?” Mike leaned across the bar, falling short of grabbing Simon’s arm but clearly thinking about it.
“No, no. It’s nothing like that. No trouble. Just some stuff from my past that I need to confront.” Simon tried to smile but he didn’t quite manage a convincing attempt. “I’m going home.”
“Northumberland? I thought you’d turned your back on that place for good. Didn’t think you’d ever go back.” Mike’s eyes were hard, like chips of ice. He was worried, and that made Simon feel sad. It was nice to have someone who cared, but in truth he’d always found this kind of close personal attachment difficult to deal with.
“Nor did I, but sometimes you have to go back just so you can move forward.”
“Ah, Confucius say, ‘you pretentious prick’.”
Simon laughed; the moment was broken. The tension vanished.
“What about Natasha?” Mike raised one eyebrow. It was a comical gesture, but hidden behind it was a serious question.
“I don’t know. I really don’t. One minute I can’t get enough of her, the next I wish she’d just leave me alone.”
“Nice problem to have, that. A Russian supermodel hassling you for sex.”
“Please. I know I sound like a complete tosser, but seriously it isn’t as neat and tidy as it sounds.”
“But is it as good as it looks?” Mike threw the rag at Simon, and then stalked the length of the bar to serve a heavily tattooed young woman in a low-cut vest top. He took longer than was necessary, revelling in the attention, and Simon smiled as the woman wrote something down — probably her telephone number — on a piece of paper before handing it to him, smiling, and walking away. When she sat back down at her table, her friends let out a muted cheer.
“Jesus, mate,” said Simon, when Mike returned to his spot behind the bar. “I’ve seen you do that with at least two or three women a week ever since I’ve known you, and still you’re too scared to ask Betty out on a date.”
“Tell me about it,” said Mike, shaking his head. “I’m an idiot. But what can I do? The girl brings out my inner awkward teenager.”
Simon had almost finished his pint. He drained the glass, listening to the comforting throb of noise in the bar. “Do me a favour?” he said, finally. “Keep an eye out for Natasha while I’m away. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone or what’ll happen while I’m there, but I’d like to know that someone I trust has her back.”
Mike nodded. “It goes without saying, mate. When she and all her model friends decide to pop in here for a few pints of bitter, I’ll make sure she keeps her hands out of Robert’s fishnets.”
“I’m serious. I have a bad feeling, a weird feeling about things. Just let me know if you hear anything. Or even if you don’t hear anything and just have a suspicion that something’s wrong. Just call me. You have my number, so use it.”
Mike nodded. “Okay, man. Don’t get so heavy.”
“Sorry. Things on my mind; I’m under a lot of pressure.”
“Yeah, it must be tough being a millionaire.”
A few minutes later, after exchanging several more insults and shaking hands, the two men parted. Simon left The Halo, feeling as if he were leaving a part of himself behind, lost in the beer-smelling shadows. He glanced over his shoulder as he walked out the door, and saw Mike staring at him, a strange expression on his face. When he realised that he’d been spotted, Mike did not smile; he did nothing but raise one hand in farewell.
Simon gave the thumbs-up sign and stepped out into the night, wishing that he could turn back and order another drink, then another, and another, until he was more drunk than he’d ever been in his life. But even then, he knew, he would be unable to cut the shackles and let himself loose from the ties that bound him, the invisible chains and ropes connecting him to a past he could barely even remember.
CHAPTER TWO
SIMON LIKED TO drive at night, especially if he was going a long way. The darkness soothed him, and he had trouble sleeping anyway so the constant motion of the motorway held a strange kind of appeal. Less traffic meant that he could open up the engine and get where he was going a lot quicker than during the day, and most of the night traffic was made up of long-distance heavy-goods vehicles, hauling God-knew-what to God-knew-where, so he got to sit in the fast lane and cruise past them all.
It took him a while to get out of London, but he made good time along the A1. By the time he passed Scotch Corner and the road turned into the A1(M) it was almost two in the morning. The dual carriageway was deserted; there weren’t even vans and trucks on this stretch of road. He felt sober now. Parts of the road were badly lit, so he drove through entire stretches of darkness, glancing at the flat black fields and the occasional stunted buildings.
He began to crave coffee, so decided to stop at an all-night service station with an annexe that was done up like an American diner from the 1950s. Chrome sides, signs proclaiming 24-Hour Eats! and a large pool of yellow light in which were parked a few cars and a motorbike.
Simon sat in the car until the song playing on the radio ended. It was one of his favourites: ‘No Alarms’, by Radiohead. When the song faded he reached out and turned off the engine. Silence rushed in to swallow the retreating sound.
He got out of the car and walked across the gravel car park, feeling oddly exposed in all that open space. He glimpsed a man sitting in the window seat of the diner, drinking Coke directly from the bottle and reading from a Kindle. There was a crash helmet on the table next to him; this must be the owner of the Kawasaki he’d parked next to. Simon paused at the door and looked up. The moon seemed impossibly distant, and the sky was sharp and clear, as if it were waiting to be filled. All the Hollywood alien invasion films he’d ever seen started with a sky like this one.