‘I thought maybe it was because you weren’t celebrating.’
‘You’ve read the book, then?’
‘I’ve done more than that,’ said Max Black. ‘I’ve already bought the rights.’
‘The rights?’ Mik said, then realised what it meant. ‘Fuck, really? A film?’
‘That’s the plan. I’m getting into directing.’
‘Fuck.’ Howard hadn’t even mentioned it. Maybe he thought there would be no objection from him; it was yet more money. Probably a vast amount of money. But it was uncomfortable in a way he couldn’t immediately process. It had something to do with the difference between words on a page and images on a screen; there was less room for interpretation of events, perhaps.
‘You’re not pleased,’ Max said. ‘Listen, I’m sorry. How come Howard holds all the rights?’
‘It was easier to give control to just one of us, back when it all kicked off. Plus – and I’m aware this is a trite line – we were in love.’
‘If it makes you feel any better, he’s making you rich.’
‘Actually, it does,’ said Mik. ‘Beats the hell out of not being rich.’
Max laughed. ‘I bet it does. This is Taylor. She’s a fan of yours.’
The tall blonde in a severe suit, standing just behind Max’s shoulder, said, ‘Shut up, Max,’ in an even tone, and went back to surveying the room.
‘She’s a keen bodyguard, but an even keener Stuck-Chick.’
‘I hate that phrase,’ Mik said. There were as many male fans as female fans of the Six phenomenon; Mik had no idea why only the women got that derogatory nickname, and seemed to revel in it.
‘Me too,’ said Taylor. ‘Use it again and I’ll break your nose.’
‘She’s new,’ said Max, ‘but I really like her already.’
‘Listen, the book is true, I mean, it’s correct about a lot of stuff that happened. But it’s from Howard’s point of view.’
Max raised an eyebrow. ‘You’re saying it’s different from your point of view?’
‘Everything is different from every point of view, isn’t it?’
‘True. That’s difficult to film, though.’
Mik shrugged. ‘Isn’t it a perfect subject to try with?’ He finished his beer, and ordered another. ‘Drink?’
Max shook his head. ‘I have to get going. It was good to meet you, though.’
‘You too.’
‘Maybe – I’d like to get some thoughts about the direction the film will take – we could get together and talk it over? If you’re interested in getting your point of view up there as well.’
‘Sounds good.’
‘Taylor, give the man a card.’
The blonde reached into her suit pocket and produced a cream-coloured business card. Mik pocketed it, and she wrinkled her nose up at him, just for a moment; it was an endearing bunny-rabbit gesture at total odds with her persona.
‘See?’ said Max. ‘She only does that with the cute ones. Not with me.’
‘You’re not my type,’ she said to her employer.
‘You should talk to the others,’ said Mik. ‘Get their perspectives too. I can put you in touch, if you’d like.’
‘No thanks,’ said Max. ‘I’ve already tried them. They all said no.’
So it was a set-up, the whole thing; Max was there to meet him, to engineer a response in him, and he had the feeling Taylor was there for that reason too: to reel him in. And it had worked; it had flattered him, intrigued him. He had already made up his mind to phone the number, and get involved.
Later, after Max and Taylor had gone and Mik had given up trying to be social in favour of getting drunk and staring out over the lights of London, Howard came up behind him, and softly said, ‘Hey you.’
They hugged. Mik clung on to the familiar cushiony form of his old lover, feeling a deep nostalgia for that house they had shared on the edge of Grafham Water, and the way Howard had taken him, cherished him, managed him.
But after a brief, petulant conversation about the film rights it became obvious that everything they could say to each other would lead to disagreement at best and a shouting match at worst. If he was going to shout at any of them, it would be Howard, who always thought he was in control but cried easily and satisfyingly. Mik said goodbye, and left the party. It looked like it would happily go on all night without him.
SATURDAY, 20 JULY 2022, 6:57PM.
MIK: I should find a hotel or something.
ROSE: I told you, stay here. Can you concentrate now, please, because I’m recording again.
MIK: You were his bodyguard? Max’s?
ROSE: For a while.
<Pause>
MIK: You were lovers?
ROSE: For a while.
MIK: He told me once you were the love of his life.
ROSE: He told me that too.
MIK: You didn’t believe him? He didn’t seem to be a womaniser.
ROSE: I don’t know what love is any more.
<Pause>
ROSE: Tell me what love is. To you.
MIK: To me? That’s impossible.
ROSE: Tell me how love starts. Can you do that? How does love between six people start? It was all for the papers, wasn’t it? It couldn’t have been real. I touched the skins. They felt… artificial.
MIK: Didn’t you read the information sheet before you went in? The museum had all the skins treated with a fixative, to preserve them. It can alter the way it feels.
ROSE: No. I didn’t see that.
MIK: It was real. I promise you. It didn’t happen all at once, though. I fell for them one at a time, and they accepted me into their lives. Quite quickly, actually.
ROSE: So which one was first for you?
2009. FAST LEARNER.
‘Speak Russian to me,’ said Nicky.
They had grabbed the two seats just in front of the luggage rack, being quick to board the stopper train, and with the aisle now filled with standing students there was an illusion of privacy in their position. She had her hand on his knee; it was difficult to concentrate.
‘I think maybe I love you,’ Mik said, in his old language, enjoying that she wouldn’t understand it.
She shivered, an accentuated jostle of her shoulders, for effect. ‘It’s a beautiful language.’
‘You’re weird, did I tell you that?’
‘Do you miss speaking it?’
‘Not really. But I’m glad to speak it to you if it makes you happy.’
She held a fascination for him. It was the grace of her, the languid nature of her movements juxtaposed with that sharp brain, and her ability to win any verbal argument in minutes, particularly when it came to English literature. And yet, perhaps because of his Russian birth, she submitted to him when he spoke, and never contradicted him directly. If she did disagree with something he said, she did it with a light touch of humour. He felt such touches as marks upon his skin, and was beginning to think they were sinking through the layers to impregnate him.
‘I hope I like them,’ he said, in Russian. ‘And I hope they like me.’
‘More,’ she said.
The train slowed, and stopped at Five Ways. Students streamed from the aisle, down on to the platform. Five more stops to go.
‘Do you think they’ll like me? Isn’t this sort of an affair?’
‘Don’t be nervous. They’re fine about it. It’s not a possessive thing.’
‘It feels creepy.’ A group of five, living together in love. She had asked him not to tell anyone, and he hadn’t, but he felt as if it might have helped to describe it to somebody else. What words would he use? A commune? A gang-bang? A live-in orgy? Years in a British boarding school, sent there on the behest of his rich Anglophile father after his first moult, had given him enough language to have a few descriptive alternatives for Nicky’s arrangement, but none of them quite seemed to fit.