Our Kind of Cruelty(52)

I was taller than him by a couple of inches and definitely stronger. ‘You know we were together for nine years before she met you?’

He snorted. ‘Of course I know that. You know she started seeing me before she’d finished with you?’ He shifted his weight and kept his eyes locked on mine.

My mind jolted slightly, but recalibrated itself quickly. ‘Yes, I know. I had a stupid one-night stand in America which she was furious about and this has all been to pay me back. But it’s finished now; we’ve reached the end of our Crave.’

‘Your what?’ He spat the words at me.

‘The game we play.’

‘Stop, Mike.’ We both turned to see V standing in the doorway. She looked as terrible as it is possible for V to look. She was as pale as paper, but with livid red spots high on her cheeks. Her hair was matted and stuck to her head and her tiny body was shivering inside her cotton pyjamas.

Angus took the blanket from the back of the sofa and wrapped her in it, which irritated me as I was the one who should be doing things like that. ‘What are you doing up?’

‘I heard you both,’ she said. She stayed standing close to him.

‘I’ve told him, V,’ I said. ‘It’s OK. We can leave now.’

But she started to cry. ‘Oh God, Mike, please don’t.’

Angus put his arm around her. ‘You need to fuck off, mate, before I call the police.’

I hate posh boys calling me mate, as if they have any idea how to use the word. I directed my speech only to V. ‘I know you wanted to tell him, but it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that we can be together now.’ I took a step towards them but she flinched back.

Angus stepped in front of her, his arm stretched out to me. ‘If you don’t leave in the next thirty seconds I’m calling the police.’

I turned to him then, the pathetic monkey man, thinking he had something that was clearly not his. ‘If V doesn’t love me then why were we lying together on that rug last night, pulling ourselves back from making love, planning our future?’ I swung my hand towards the hall and Angus followed my movement.

He looked between me and the rug a few times, his face dropping and falling. ‘Verity,’ he said, turning to her. ‘What’s going on?’

V was still crying, her whole body dropping downwards as she sank slowly to her knees. ‘Make him leave, Gus.’

‘I’m not going anywhere,’ I said.

But V looked up at me, her eyes hard and straight and I knew I’d angered her. ‘Leave, Mike.’ She’d told me she wanted to be the one to tell Angus, she’d even explained why that was the right thing to do, but my impatience had got the better of me.

‘I’ll be back first thing in the morning,’ I said. ‘And this time we really will be going home.’

Angus stayed mute during our exchange, no doubt seeing the superior connection which existed between us. He knew he was defeated and there was no point in saying anything more to him. I simply turned and let myself out.

I walked home to dissipate some of the energy rushing through me. I was satisfied that V wasn’t in any danger from Angus. He was simply an irritant who needed to be pushed to one side. It was highly frustrating that we would have to wait one more night, but then again, we had the rest of our lives to look forward to, so what was twelve or so hours.



I didn’t feel like eating when I got home, so instead opened a bottle of wine to cool my blood and smooth my nerves, both of which were still jumping inside my body. When I was a boy and things were bad I used to think I had an army of ants living inside me, patrolling my borders. I could never decide if they were on the same side as me or not and sometimes I would wake screaming from nightmares where they had crawled out of my nose, mouth and ears.

Maybe Mum had the same ants inside her, because when you drink they go to sleep. Then they lie down in your blood and flow through you like Moses bobbing down the river in his basket. Fetch my medicine, Mikey, Mum would say when I got big enough to open the fridge and reach for the cans on my own. I wished suddenly and violently that she could see me right now, that she could witness all I was and all I had achieved. You’re not a bad lad just because bad things have happened to you, Elaine used to say. Maybe your mum had a rough time herself when she was a girl, Elaine also used to say, maybe she just couldn’t do it right, however much she wanted to. I reached for the bottle and was surprised to find it empty. The night was dark outside and I was suddenly very tired. I went into the drawing room and lay on the couch. I wanted to cry but I couldn’t work out why.

I had no idea where I was when I woke up. I lay in the darkness with something vibrating underneath me and thought I was back in the flat with Mum getting pulverised in the next room. But where I was lying felt too soft and the air didn’t contain either bitter cold or the heavy stench of fags. And then the pieces of my mind fell into place and connected together and I knew where I was. I scrambled for the phone in my pocket, seeing an unknown number on the screen, although I knew immediately who it was.

‘Mike,’ V said. ‘Is Angus there?’

‘What? No.’ I looked at the clock on the media system; it was 2.12 a.m. ‘Why would he be here?’

‘Because he’s not here.’ Her voice was stretched and rushed. ‘I told him everything and he’s so angry. And our wedding file is open on the computer with all the names and addresses of everyone we invited, so he must have been looking you up.’