Our Stop(57)

‘No, dude, I didn’t mean … just. Look at her! She should go home.’

A black Prius pulled up alongside the kerb.

‘Daniel?’ the driver said through the open window.

‘All right mate, just a minute,’ Daniel said. Turning back to Lorenzo he continued, ‘Come on, she’s in no fit state. Let me cancel the cab and we’ll find the others and they can make sure she gets back okay. I think she lives with one of them.’

‘Mate,’ Lorenzo said, almost in air quotes. ‘She’s fine. The cab’s here now. Let’s just go.’

Daniel hesitated. He thought he was going home alone and now Lorenzo was there with a woman who should not, on any terms, be going anywhere except her own bed. But what was the worst that could happen? Surely Lorenzo would pass out as soon as she did anyway. And it’s not like he thought Lorenzo would do anything stupid, but … well … Daniel resented having to bear witness to it. He stepped aside and let his friend open the car door. This wasn’t his call to make, he reasoned.

‘She’s not gonna be sick, is she?’ the cabbie asked, and Lorenzo told him she was fine.

Daniel climbed into the front seat.

‘Evening,’ he said to the driver.

‘Evening.’

The four of them drove in silence, with Daniel vaguely aware of slurpy kissing noises coming from the back seat. He didn’t want to turn around, or worse, get caught staring in the rear-view mirror or the dark glass of the car, but he was increasingly uncomfortable. It didn’t seem right to him that Becky was so drunk she could barely speak, and Lorenzo was obviously taking her home to have sex with her. Did she even know where she was? He regretted having let Lorenzo get her in the car. If that was his sister, or one of his girl mates …

‘Hey, Becky – you okay back there?’ he said eventually, to which he got a mumbled reply that, in his book, meant she couldn’t be far away from either passing out, or throwing up. He stole a glance in the rear-view. Lorenzo was looking out of the far window, sleepily, but his hand was far up Becky’s leg, his long fingers stretched out so that his thumb reached into the crevice between her legs.

They pulled up at home, and the two men had to practically give Becky a fireman’s lift up the stairs to their flat. It was weird. It felt like being a caveman who had clubbed a cavewoman over the head and dragged her back.

‘She can have my room,’ Daniel said, as they opened the front door. ‘And I’ll take the sofa.’

Lorenzo laughed. ‘She’ll come in with me, stupid.’ Becky slumped into the armchair Daniel normally reserved for watching TV.

Daniel looked at her. ‘Listen, Lorenzo.’

‘Don’t “listen, Lorenzo” me.’

‘You can’t … you know. Get consent.’

‘Woah! Who said I was going to fuck her?’

‘Nobody. I didn’t mean—’

‘Fuck you, man. What are you fucking saying?’

Daniel held up his hands, in surrender. ‘I’m saying I’ll get my duvet and sleep in here, and she should go in my room with a pint of water and fully clothed. That’s all.’

Lorenzo’s face flashed purple with rage. ‘I’m not some fucking creep. What do you think I’m going to do?

‘Nothing …’ Daniel tried to sound calm. Emotionless. Non-judgmental. He kept his voice level. ‘Lorenzo, you’re drunk. Just go to bed.’

Lorenzo pushed Daniel’s shoulder. ‘You’re drunk!’ He pushed Daniel’s shoulder again. ‘Fuck you!’

Daniel pushed him back, instinctively. ‘Don’t push me.’

Lorenzo pushed him again. ‘Don’t push me!’

Daniel wasn’t sure how it happened, but one of them lunged at the other – he’d say tomorrow morning that it was Lorenzo who’d forced his hand, but he couldn’t be sure, they were both drunk and angry – and Daniel could only remember a feeling of almighty pain, the sensation of liquid running down his cheek. There was screaming. Oh god, there was screaming.

‘Stop! Ohmygod! Stop!’ It was Becky. She was crying – sobbing. Really, really, sobbing. Daniel adjusted his focus and saw Lorenzo lying on his side, groaning. He touched his hand to his face and then looked at his fingers. Blood. They’d beaten the living daylights out of each other.

Becky continued to cry – a weird, confused cry, but a cry that indicated she’d sobered up. The cushions were pulled off the sofa, the coffee table had dragged the rug underneath it into a ball, and Daniel wasn’t just breathing deeply but panting.

‘Becky,’ he said, sounding as authoritative as he could under the circumstances. ‘I’m going to call you an Uber, okay?’

Becky made eye contact with him and nodded through tears that were now stunned and silent.

‘Come on.’

It hurt Daniel to stand, and looking in the living-room mirror he understood why: there was a bruise shining brightly at the top of his right arm, which he could see because his shirt had popped open and been pulled down, and there was another shiner below his right eye too. He looked sweaty and dirty and bloodied and a mess. ‘Where’s my phone?’ he asked, and Lorenzo silently handed it to him from the floor, his eyes fixed firmly on the ground. He looked almost as bad as Daniel did.