Under a Watchful Eye(10)

‘I haven’t seen a doctor. Not yet, because I’m not sure a doctor can help.’ Seb shrugged. ‘I think something has come back into my life. Someone.’

‘A woman.’

‘I wish it was that simple. Then I could do something.’

‘Do something?’

‘Forget the woman. There is no woman. I’m talking about a man.’

She’d looked relieved, but remained uncomfortable.

‘And no, I am not coming out. You think that’s why . . . back there, at the house? This has nothing to do with sex.’ He’d paused to swallow a draught of beer. ‘Becky, have you ever . . . hallucinated?’

‘How much are you drinking, Seb? You haven’t stopped since I got here. You know, living on your own, and writing those books, having to think about horrible things all day and night, while drinking, how can that be good for you?’

At that point, Seb covered his face with his hands, prickling with shame at how close he was to tears. The sympathetic ear, the warm familiarity of a companion combined with the drink, and he couldn’t speak.

He’d gulped at his beer to rinse away the constriction in his throat. ‘No, it’s not that. It must look like that, but it’s not. There was someone. Many years ago. A friend even, who . . . who I keep seeing now. Everywhere. But he can’t be there. It’s crazy.’

Even Becky had looked pale. ‘You’re telling me you’re seeing someone who died?’

‘I don’t know. I’ve had no contact with him for years. The last time was brief. He showed up at my place in London about twelve years ago. I tried to help him, but then I had to get rid of him.’

‘Why?’

‘He was in a bad way. Drink. Drugs. That sort of thing. He’d wanted my help, but I didn’t have any money. Not then. But I gave him somewhere to stay, for a bit. And tried to counsel him, that sort of thing. It was no use. He called me afterwards, the following year, and . . . I could have sworn that he was insane.’

‘Christ.’

‘Before that, a long time before London, we were roommates at university. Way back in the eighties. It’s a long story. But I never wanted to see him again after I graduated. No one who knew him did. He was . . . let’s just say he was difficult.’

‘Arsehole?’

‘I thought so. But there was more to it, to him.’

‘Was he dangerous?’

‘When drunk and roused he might have been. But never towards me.’ Ewan had physically restrained Seb once, after he took mushrooms. That was the only time Ewan had ever touched him, but he’d been strong.

‘He put a value on me, our friendship. He didn’t have anyone else.’

Becky had almost looked over her shoulder. ‘He’s down here?’

‘I don’t really know.’

‘If you’re seeing him then he must be.’

‘That’s what I thought.’

‘I don’t understand.’

Seb and Becky were as close as occasional lovers can be, which was not that close for this kind of admission, but he had no one else with whom he could confess. A fact that had made him sad. This was also how he felt when ill and alone.

‘He’s there and then . . . he’s not there. He’s appearing and kind of moving, or vanishing. He’s been calling my name too. Not out loud. I can hear him inside my head.’

Becky had now been unable to disguise what looked like deal-breaker discomfort. ‘Get yourself checked out, like straight away. How long has this been happening?’

‘Nearly two weeks.’

‘Two weeks! And you haven’t been to a hospital?’

‘No, because I’m not convinced . . .’

And if memory is stimulated by a scent from one’s past, and Seb had read his Proust, then what engulfed their table inspired a vivid sense of Ewan in 1988 – the long face, the forehead and cheekbones oily and red from intoxication, the morbid and haunted look that came into his eyes as if another personality inhabited him when drunk. And if the devil also appears when you speak his name, then Ewan Alexander might have been sitting at the next table.

Seb could actually smell him. No mistaking it. Layers of sweat saturating a leather jacket rarely removed in any weather. Sebaceous and harsh, but piny with fresh alcohol over stale booze, wafting from his clothes and from the furniture he’d sat upon, lingering in the rooms he’d passed through.

‘You smell that?’ Seb’s voice was no louder than a whisper.

‘You’re freaking me out. Where, Seb, where is he?’

‘There,’ he’d said in a voice so tight it hissed. He’d pointed at the windows facing the docks.

And behind that miserable statement of a man, the masts of the boats had wavered like the banners of a dishevelled army. No longer a vague apparition at a distance, Ewan had practically been in the same room. Becky’s voice had faded as the volume of the world was turned down.

When Seb had looked right at Ewan, who was near pressed against the window, the chink and clatter of tableware and the murmur of the other diners had retreated. Music failed inside his ears. It was as if Ewan had come that close to take the glare off the glass, to peer into the interior of the restaurant. He’d known Seb was inside, but not at which table.