47
December 2017
Alex
Alex was home alone. He hadn’t left the place since Ronnie had gone. And he hadn’t sobered up. How much time had passed? He couldn’t really say. Simple food, which he would occasionally remember to eat, was brought to him by a delivery service. Some crooks he found on an internet site would bring him alcohol without fail. But none of that worried him.
He drank everything going – cheap beer, vodka. He started drinking as soon as he woke up and stopped only when he could drink himself into a deep stupor. He told them at work that he had chicken pox and turned the phone off, losing all track of time.
Alex, as if facing the unavoidable might of an approaching tsunami, realized how lonely he was. A genuine, dismal, existential loneliness. Fear of a lonely death dug deep into his soul with its bony, devilish hands, roasting him on a fire for days on end.
He suddenly felt a desperate need to not be alone. He felt it with his entire essence. He needed someone to be with him. But not just anyone – someone he could be sure of. Vickey.
He needed Vickey. Now, when he was entirely deprived of confidence in himself, he needed her more than ever.
Mournfully, Alex thought about Vickey a lot and about how badly he needed her back. But some hidden force stopped him making the call. “She’s probably happy with Diana. With my Diana,” he thought. And that thought tore at his heart painfully.
During this period, Alex wrote a lot in his diary. He threw chunks of the thoughts torturing him into it. By no means all of them were smoothly written or had a beginning and an end, and they certainly hadn’t had the curse words edited out of them. He had always been a perfectionist, but now it didn’t bother him at all.
He wrote: “A person always gets what he deserves. Vickey and Diana have probably been in Africa for ages, saving sick children, and they’re probably fucking incredibly happy. That ideal picture causes me pain. But I earned that pain, realizing too late that you don’t love and want a man or a woman, you love and want a person. People can want in different ways, and that’s what makes them people.”
There was another text on the next page: “I was ready to hit her. I was too close to doing it. I remember how I wanted to hit Ronnie for his translucent, blue eyes that reminded me of my mother’s cold eyes. I’m a sadist just like her. I’m a monster. And I mustn’t be allowed to have offspring.”
And there was more: “Bizarrely, Ronnie didn’t bring me any closer to an understanding of my true desires. Or, rather, he brought me closer, but he also revealed an entirely different, unpleasant truth – I want to kill my mother. I want my mother’s death.”
And more: “I’m forever remembering how I entered her and she gave herself to me with gratitude. I didn’t value that at all. I had to lose Vickey forever in order to understand that this was what I had been in search of for so long. ‘We don’t appreciate what we have until we lose it.’ How banal.”
Alex couldn’t get texts of any other kind out of himself and he thought about how he could let them know that he was leaving the magazine. He didn’t plan on going back there, he’d got sick of his work long ago. But he didn’t want to have to explain himself to anyone, so he put it off, knowing full well what a scandal the publisher would cause if the editor-in-chief suddenly walked off towards the end of the year.
Even by looking at his own writing in the notebook he could see how he lurched back and forth between painful, whining repentance and horror and desperation, all of them linked and reinforced by fears for himself.
Alex was at home on his own, he wasn’t smashed out of his mind on drink, but then he wasn’t entirely sober either. For days and nights, he’d been swimming in the fetid swamp of a hangover that burnt through his veins, drinking beer when he was half awake, letting it course through his body to dull the pain. He was sleeping when there was a ring at the door.
Alex didn’t know what time it was. At first, he decided not to open the door. But the buzzer kept on ringing insistently. Then the ringing was accompanied by the battering of a fist on the door.
“Open up, bro, I know you’re home!” came Max’s familiar voice.
Alex couldn’t understand how he’d got through the main door on the ground floor, but Max was an ex-cop, so he was used to getting in anywhere he wanted without an invitation.
“Open up!” Max repeated, not giving up.
Again there was a knock. Alex thought that Max was about to break down the door. He got up reluctantly and trudged off to open it.
His only childhood friend stood in the doorway, flourishing with good health and the bracing frosts of December.
“Hello, pal!” Max hugged Alex with his huge arms, pressing him to his powerful chest. Having held him there for a while, he lowered him back to the floor and then wafted his hand in front of his nose to indicate how badly Alex reeked of alcohol.
“Come in,” said Alex reluctantly when Max had taken his coat and hat off.
“I was walking by and I saw the light was on. I’ll just pop in, I thought,” Max said, taking a look round. Seeing the battery of empty bottles, he added: “I see you’ve already been celebrating for a few days, non-stop Alex.”
“Kind of,” Alex replied. Amongst the debris of the kitchen, Alex searched in vain for a clean glass for Max. He cursed under his breath.
Alex walked over to the sink and tried to wash one of the dirty glasses that stood on the edge. The water pouring out of the tap, however, tumbled down like a waterfall onto the pile of dirty dishes in the sink, splashed back off it and covered Alex in a powerful wave of water from the top of his head down to his chest.
The sudden cold shower sobered him up.
“How long since I’ve seen anyone?” he thought. He shook himself and turned off the water.
Alex went over to the cupboard and confidently took out a twenty-year-old bottle of Macallan that he had been saving for a special occasion. “I don’t think I’ll ever have a better special occasion than this,” he thought gloomily.
He went over to Max, who had sat down in the only space on the sofa that was free of trash – it was Alex’s spot, but Alex didn’t complain. In a single motion he swept away everything that was on the yellow table onto the floor and placed the bottle in the center.
“Oh, that’ll do the trick!” Max nodded approvingly, seeing the bottle of whisky and trying hard not to imagine how much it cost. He was used to his friend’s eccentricities. Examining the unfamiliar but impressive label with interest, Max continued. “I didn’t just drop in by chance. There’s a job that’s cropped up.”
“You sort out the glasses and I’ll take a quick shower,” said Alex, leaving the room.
“Ok, bro, you could do with freshening up! You’re giving off a stink like a pack of pigs. Is it ok if I open a window?” Max shouted out after him.
Standing under the hot shower, Alex suddenly remembered his conversation with the prostitute in Chelsea. He remembered her metaphor for the past – the hump of a hunched back that he had to carry around with him. Suddenly, he didn’t want to carry anything anywhere, he wanted to shake it all off, to forget it all, to start from scratch. “Burn the past before it eats you up,” as a doctor had once said to him – a friend of Diana’s whose name he couldn’t remember, of course.
Returning to the room, Alex found Max where he’d left him, examining the bottle of whisky which he hadn’t dared to open. There were two clean glasses by him on the table. The room had been aired, and Alex’s lungs filled with the cold winter freshness coming in from the street. It fully sobered him up.
Alex poured the liquid into their glasses and sat opposite Max on a sofa covered in clothing. He didn’t drink the whisky immediately, instead placing his glass on the table.
Alex took joy in these rare minutes with a clear mind. He concentrated on his friend, not least because a “job” in their relations usually meant some kind of adventure, something dangerous, a breaking of the rules and the sweet taste of victory. Just what he needed in order to feel alive again. Exactly what would do Alex some good right now. Exactly what he needed.
“A job?” he asked Max impatiently.
Max nodded affirmatively, taking a sip from his glass.
“It’s a banger!” he said, excited, and Alex couldn’t work out what he was referring to – the whisky or the job he had lined up.
Max left a solemn pause, and then spoke as he exhaled. “Why don’t we rob a bank, pal?”
His words hung in the air. Alex shook his head distrustfully.
“You’re kidding, of course…”
But Max wasn’t kidding. He took a big gulp from his glass. The firewater, like an arrow, entered his mouth, he didn’t even notice it. He continued.
“You know I’m not an idiot, right?” asked Max.
“What are you talking about, Max?” asked Alex.
“Hold up,” said Max. “I know that I’m not the smartest guy around. But when it comes to anything involving crime, I know what I’m talking about.” He took a look round as if they were in a crowded place. “One job. One blow. And then a new life begins!”
Alex again shook his head mistrustfully. If it wasn’t for his hangover, he would have taken all this as a joke. Robbing a chemist on the outskirts of London was one thing, but a bank…
“I’ve got a friend, a good friend…” Max left a pause. “His name’s Greg, he’s an experienced guy. He wouldn’t just talk a lot of hot air. He knows the rules.”
Alex remained silent, continuing to burn into Max with his gaze.
“I didn’t just meet this guy yesterday, I’ve known him for years,” Max continued. “Working with the cops I often gave him ‘protection’ on his jobs. Although who was really giving ‘protection’ and who was getting it – that’s a good question. That’s not the point, though. Back then, Greg was mostly doing easy apartment burglaries. Sometimes he played around with shops. Well, we did a couple of jobs together. And it always went off without a hitch. Like clockwork, bro.”
Max always spoke frankly with Alex, hiding nothing. Alex knew about him, about almost all of his dealings, despite them meeting rarely. He didn’t judge his friend – that’s why he was a friend. Stealing as a way to earn money had also never seemed to be a terrible crime to him. The rupture between the laws of real life and Alex’s life was too great.
“He came to me with this plan a month ago,” continued Max. “I can’t tell you the details yet, but Alex, bro, this job is a sure thing. We’ll finally get to earn a pile of cash, we’ll be swimming in it! And there’s almost no risk! One blow, one job,” he repeated again.
Max drained his whisky and poured himself some more. Alex, as before, didn’t touch his glass. Listening to Max he could sense his interest in what he was hearing, slowly, as if from a deep sleep, was awakening a thirst for life in him, he could feel it tingling as it pulsed through his veins.
If Alex, broken, exhausted, unhappy, angry, lonely, had known in that moment how dearly this dubious ray of hope would cost him, Vickey, Diana and Max, he would have never agreed to it. But, of course, he couldn’t know that, and he focused his attention on every word spoken by his friend, who’d suddenly turned up at his home.
“Greg says that the actual job – the bank – will be in the summer. We’ll start getting ready in the spring, we’ll get to know each other, as it were. So you’ve got time to think about it.”
Max spoke some more. His voice periodically appeared and disappeared in Alex’s mind.
“Greg’s an experienced thief. He says we’ll do some training first, get warmed up, check each other out. The experience at the chemist’ will help. I’ll get Leon involved, my cousin, we’ve done some jobs together too.”
Alex nodded in agreement.
“He’s a smart guy too, in his field – technology, safes, that kind of thing. Maybe he’ll finally earn some money too,” said Max enthusiastically, but suddenly he stopped short. It was clear that he’d now reached the real point of his visit.
“We’re going to need a girl too,” Max said carefully. “It’s a small role – she has to be lookout, if anything goes wrong then she’s got nothing to do with it.”
A pause hung in the air. Memories of Vickey seared Alex’s brain painfully. He wanted to drink, to drink fast, but he held himself back.
“Me and Leon don’t know anything about girls, you know that,” continued Max. “And Greg? He’s more into whores. I don’t think his women would be able to play the part of a low-profile lookout.”
Vickey’s name was ringing in Alex’s head like a deafening alarm bell. He remembered Robert’s words: “Who would you call if you accidentally killed someone? Who do you trust?”
“The job is a gift. In, out,” said Max excitedly. “And there’s absolutely no risk for the girl, bro.” He left a pause, and then asked “What do you think, brother, will Vickey agree to do it?”
“Vickey’s gone,” said Alex after a long pause, breathing heavily.
“What do you mean gone?” asked Max, concerned. This was clearly a real surprise for him. He knew that Alex and Vickey had a difficult relationship, but he’d seen, and they’d all seen, the way she looked at him. You could see the love in her eyes, her determination to follow him to the end of the world if need be, even to kill for him.
“We argued, I shouted at her, and she left. She’s gone to Africa. With my best girlfriend, to be precise. She’s fine. But she doesn’t want anything to do with me,” said Alex, unexpectedly blurting out his pain, throwing out all that aching, rotting filth in one bundle, although he hadn’t planned on doing that at all.
Max remained silent, shocked. He wasn’t a specialist in the human soul. He’d always really liked Vickey and he didn’t know how to console his friend.
“We need to drink,” said Max.
“Yes!” said Alex, grabbing his glass and thirstily gulping from it. The familiar flush of heat flowed through his chest.
They finished the bottle off that night, of course. Alex couldn’t remember how long they sat there for or what they talked about. He entered the state of a real heavy drinker, when parts of the day and even days on end disappear from the memory bank. He didn’t remember that, for the first time in eight months, he phoned Vickey. He remembered almost nothing of what happened after his first gulp of an expensive Scottish whisky that had been kept in store for a special occasion.
He was woken by his mobile, which unexpectedly flared up with calls and messages, though he, of course, had no recollection of having turned it on the night before. The clock showed it was nine in the morning, and the planet had obviously got bored without him, Alex laughed bitterly to himself. He didn’t answer the calls, though, and headed for a shower.
Standing under the jet stream of water, he remembered details from the beginning of his conversation with Max.
“A bank!” rattled around his head. “A bank robbery.” Then there was a gaping black hole of oblivion. Followed by Max’s voice, speaking just before he left.
“Alex, brother, there’s no one closer to me than you. You’ll come up with an option, you were the bright one… We’ll work out the details, and the girls will follow, as they say! We’ll become millionaires – we’ll have girls even hotter than your Vickey.”
Max stopped for a second, and then continued in an absolutely sober voice.
“But from tomorrow until the job’s done we don’t drink anything stronger than beer. You got it, bro? I’m counting on you.”