The Guest List(72)

‘No,’ I say. ‘No, I know it’s not. See, I’m not laughing either. It’s not that much fun when you’re on the other end of it, is it? But you wouldn’t know, not up until now. You never did a Survival, did you, at Trevs? Somehow got out of that one too.’

I see him frown behind the blindfold. ‘You know, Johnno,’ he says, his tone light, friendly. ‘That speech … and now this – I think you might have had a bit too much of the good stuff. Seriously, mate—’

‘I’m not your mate,’ I say. ‘I think you might be able to guess why.’

I played drunker than I am, during the speech. I’m not actually all that drunk. Plus the coke has sharpened me. My mind feels very clear now, like someone’s turned on a big bright spotlight in my brain. Lots of stuff is suddenly lit up, making sense.

This is the last time anyone plays me for the fool.

‘Up until about two this afternoon I was your mate,’ I tell him. ‘But not now, not any longer.’

‘What are you talking about?’ Will asks. He’s starting to sound a bit unsure of himself. Yeah, I think. You’re right to be scared.

I could see him looking at me the whole way through that speech, wondering what the fuck I was doing. Wondering what I was going to say next, tell all his guests about him. I hope he was shitting himself. I wish I’d gone the whole hog in my speech, told them everything. But I chickened out. Like I chickened out all those years ago – when I should have gone to the teachers, too, backed up whichever kid it was that sneaked on us. Told them exactly what we had done. They wouldn’t have been able to ignore two of us, would they?

But I couldn’t do it then, and I couldn’t do it in the speech. Because I’m a fucking coward.

This is the next best thing.

‘I had an interesting chat with Piers earlier,’ I say. ‘Very educational.’

I see Will swallow. ‘Look,’ he says, carefully, his tone very reasonable, man to man. It only makes me more angry. ‘I don’t know what Piers said to you, but—’

‘You fucked me over,’ I say. ‘Piers didn’t actually need to say all that much. I worked it out for myself. Yeah, me. Stupid Johnno, must try harder. You couldn’t have me there, could you? Too much of a liability. Reminding you of what you once were. What you did.’

Will grimaces. ‘Johnno, mate, I—’

‘You and me,’ I say. ‘See, it was meant to be you and me, sticking up for each other, always. Us against the world, that’s what you said. Especially after what we’d done, what we knew about each other. I had your back, you had mine. That’s how I thought it was.’

‘It is, Johnno. You’re my best man—’

‘Can I tell you something?’ I say. ‘The whole whisky business?’

‘Oh yeah,’ Will says quickly, eagerly. ‘Hellraiser!’ He’s remembered it this time. ‘See, there you go! You’re doing so well for yourself. No need for all this bitterness—’

‘Nah.’ I cut him off again. ‘See, it doesn’t exist.’

‘What are you talking about? Those bottles you’ve given us …’

‘Are fakes.’ I shrug, even though he can’t see me. ‘It’s some single malt from the supermarket, decanted into plain bottles. Got my mate Alan to make up labels for me.’

‘Johnno, what—’

‘I mean, I did actually think I could do it at the beginning. That’s what makes it so tragic. It’s why I got Alan to mock the design up at first, to see how it might look. But do you know how hard it is to launch a whisky brand these days? Unless you’re David Beckham. Or you have rich parents to bankroll you, or connections with important people? I have none of that. I never did. All the other boys at Trevs knew it. I know some of them called me a pikey behind my back. But what we had, I thought that was solid.’

Will’s shifting on the ground, trying to sit up. I’m not going to help him. ‘Johnno, mate, Jesus—’

‘Yeah, oh, and I didn’t leave the wilderness retreat to set up the whisky brand. How pathetic is this? Wait for it … I got fired for being stoned on the job. Like a teenager. This fat bloke on a team-bonding course – I let him go down too fast on the abseil and he broke an ankle. And do you know why I was stoned?’

‘Why?’ he asks, wary.

‘Because I have to smoke it, to get by. Because it’s the only thing that helps me forget. See, it feels like my whole life stopped at that point, all those years ago. It’s like – it’s like … nothing good has happened since. The one good thing that’s happened to me in the years after Trevs was that shot at the TV show – and you took it away from me.’ I pause, take a deep breath, prepare to say what I’ve finally come to realise, after nearly twenty years. ‘But it’s not like that for you, is it? It’s like the past doesn’t affect you. It didn’t matter to you at all. You carry on taking what you need. And you always get away with it.’





HANNAH


The Plus-One


The four ushers explode back into the marquee. Peter Ramsay does a knee-slide across the laminate, nearly crashing into the table bearing the magnificent wedding cake. I see Duncan leap on to Angus’s back, his arm making a tight headlock around his neck so his face begins to turn purple. Angus staggers, half laughing, half gasping for breath. Then Femi jumps on top of both of them and they collapse in a tangled heap of limbs. They’re pumped up, excited by their stunt I suppose, carrying Will out of the marquee like that.