Текст книги "The House on Fever Street"

Автор книги: Celina Grace

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Текущая страница: 9 (всего у книги 17 страниц)

“Off, are you?” said Mr Goldman. At last he looked at them both. He had a very slight smile on his face and for an instant, Bella was reminded powerfully of Carl. The two boys were very like their father physically but how could Jake, her Jake, be related to this rude, abrupt man?

“Yeah,” said Jake.

“Don’t let us keep you then. Why don’t you ask me for what you came for?”

The sarcastic edge to his voice made Bella shoot him a look Mr Goldman was staring at Jake as intently as he’d ignored him earlier.

“What?” said Jake.

“Aren’t you going to ask me for some money, then? That’s all you come here for, isn’t it?”

Bella flinched at the expression on Jake’s face. He said nothing for a moment, just regarding his father as if he couldn’t quite believe his eyes.

“I don’t want money, Dad,” he said eventually, through clenched teeth.

“No? Not even a fifty to tide you over? Makes a nice change, that does. Oh yes, makes a nice change.”

Bella’s face burned with embarrassment for Jake. He said nothing else, just turned and began to walk back to the house. She hesitated for a moment, muttered something that sounded like ‘goodbye’, and walked quickly after him. Bella felt them watching all the way back across the lawn. She couldn’t relax until they were out the front door and walking down the quiet, indolent street.

They walked in silence for a while. Bella ran through what had just happened, screening her own private picture show inside her head. The meeting had an air of unreality about it. No, the whole thing had an air of unreality about it. She looked back along the street, half expecting the house to have vanished. No – it was still there, huge and pushy and ugly.

Bella opened her mouth, just to break the silence. Before she could speak, Jake had grabbed her into an embrace, crushing her against him. She gave a squeak of surprise which was quickly smothered against his chest.

His voice was muffled against the side of her head.

“Bella, don’t ever leave me. I couldn’t bear it.”

“I won’t.” She could barely breath but she managed to get the words out. “I won’t, Jake.”

“Who gives a shit about the old man, anyway?” He sounded like he was talking to himself. “He’s no good. You’re all the family I need.”

Bella pushed herself a little away, so she could look into his face.

“Me and Carl,” she said, trying to smile.

He didn’t smile. He pulled her close to him again and they stood there, entwined and silent, for a long moment.

“You and Carl,” said Jake. “You and Carl. You and Carl.”

Chapter Seventeen

He kissed her goodbye, bending over her, a tall shadow in the dimness of the living room. Bella pulled the rug tighter about her neck and coughed.

“You going to be okay?” Jake put a hand on her forehead. “You feel a bit clammy.”

“I’ll be okay. I’ll just rest.”

“Okay babe. I’ll cook something tonight, yeah? Whatever you fancy. Have you called work?”

“No, I’ll wait until nine. Don’t worry about me.”

“Okay.”

Jake stroked her head again gently. Bella was suddenly reminded of Veronica doing the same thing and of her reaction. She felt a hot jab of shame.

“Go on,” she said to Jake. “You’ll be late.”

She lay still until she heard the front door close behind him, the crash reverberating up through the house. Veronica and Carl had already left – Bella had heard them arguing softly as they passed the living room door. She lay for a moment longer, breathing deeply. The enormity of what she was about to do struck her. Inescapably, she recalled how wonderful Jake had been these last few days; how kind and considerate and affectionate. And now she was going to do something terrible. Why can’t I just leave it? she asked herself. But the answer was too quick in coming back. Because I just can’t.

Bella made her call to her workplace, telling them she wasn’t well and wouldn’t be in. She didn’t have to fake the tremor in her voice. When she put the phone back in its rest, she stood for a moment in the hallway. Why can’t I just trust him? She began to walk up the stairs, dragging her feet, letting one hand trail slowly up the slippery banister. Because I just can’t.

In the bedroom, she pushed back her sleeves and tucked her hair behind her ears. Then, finally, she began to search. She lifted stacks of paper from the desk, sorting through sheet by sheet. She found the photograph again and forced herself to look at it. Carl, Jake, Veronica – and that girl. It was the girl who was driving her to do this. The identity of this strange woman was tormenting Bella. Was she a previous girlfriend of Jake’s? Of Carl’s? Of Veronica’s? Who was she?

Bella looked at the four of them on the bed. She even took the photograph over to the window to look at it in daylight. In the harsher light, she could see small details that she’d missed before. There was a glint of metal from one of the girl’s nipples – she had one of them pierced. Bella felt her mouth turn down. She looked, grimly fascinated, at Carl’s penis. He was big; bigger than Jake, she thought disloyally and felt herself go hot at the thought. She wondered again how it would feel to be naked, naked and erect, in front of a family member. To see your own brother touching your girlfriend. Fucking your girlfriend. She looked at Jake’s hand, resting on Veronica’s hip. Veronica’s breasts were shallow, her nipples almost colourless. Her eyes shone red in the flash from the camera.

Bella made herself put the photo down. She turned again to the desk, digging out more paper, careful to remember how things were set so she could replace it afterwards. She sat on the floor of the bedroom, reading through countless bills, bank statements, riffling through other, more innocuous photographs, old postcards, odd scraps of paper, discarded envelopes, curled up post-it notes and broken CD cases. There were no other photographs of the girl.

Bella piled all the paper back on the desk, fitting things back into their previous position. She sat on the bed, gnawing at her nails, baulked. The sick, self-righteous feeling she’d had since beginning to search Jake’s possessions had abated somewhat. Every time she looked at the photograph of the four of them, it ebbed away a little more. Who was that girl? Bella brushed her hair back from her face and sighed. Go downstairs, she told herself. Go downstairs and make yourself some lunch and forget about this.

No. She moved to the wardrobe and opened the door. This was Jake’s territory; his suits and jackets and shirts hung in haphazard order. One solitary dress of Bella’s was wedged at the end of the rail. Bella stood, gripping the door handle in frustration. She fetched a chair and climbed carefully up to peer at the shelf that ran along the top of the wardrobe. Jumpers, T-shirts, a brown leather belt that slithered out and dropped like a snake to the floor. Bella thrust her hand into the mass of clothes that packed the shelf. Nothing, just masses of cloth that weighed down her arm. She moved her fingers. Ah – she could feel something – the sharp corner of a box. She scrabbled for it, trying to grip the sides to draw it towards her.

It turned out to be an old cigar box, still redolent with a faint whiff of tobacco that had Bella wrinkling her nose as she raised the lid. Inside there was a jumble of cufflinks, a champagne cork, an old playing card. A scrap of newspaper. Some old copper coins, a silver dollar. Bella sighed. She climbed down from the chair, still holding the box. All of a sudden, the irrationality of her behaviour struck her anew. What was she doing? What did she hope to find? She sat back down on the bed, the box in her lap. You idiot, she told herself. Just let it go. Idly, she stirred the contents of the box with her finger. She picked up the newspaper clipping and unfolded it, and froze.

Missing. Have you Seen…? said the headline. The face below the uncompromising black letters was young, plump-cheeked; blonde hair straggling, black smudgy roots. It was the face of the girl from the picture. Bella closed her eyes for a moment, breathing deeply. Then she went to the desk and picked through the stack of paper she’d put back on the surface until she unearthed the photograph. She compared the two faces. It was the same girl. She looked younger in the newspaper clipping, her chin stippled with acne. She looked very young. Bella read the clipping, trying to hold her hand still. Have you seen Candice Stanton, she read. Candice, 15, was last seen in Camden Town on the night of July the first, 2004. She was wearing jeans and a white vest top. There is great concern for Candice because of her age. If you have any information about her disappearance, or have seen her, please call… Bella looked unheedingly at the string of numbers at the bottom of the clipping. She looked again at the face of the girl and at her name. Candice Stanton. Candice. With a shiver, she recalled Jake’s mumbling in his sleep, his bad dreams, the name from his nightmares. Candy.

She tried to think. Jake had known this girl, known her intimately. So had Carl and Veronica. And now she was missing, she’d been missing for more than a year. Or had she? You don’t know that, she told herself. She could have been found two days after the paper published that clipping. She walked back to the bedroom and picked up the scrap of newsprint again. The date of the newspaper ran along the top left hand corner of the article. 14 September 2004. Bella pressed her fingers into her forehead. So, what does that prove? This girl, this Candice, was still missing last autumn. It doesn’t mean she still missing now. And even if she is – if she is – Bella felt herself falter. She forced herself to complete the sentence in her head. Even if she is, it doesn’t mean that Jake had anything to do with it.

She put all the detritus back in the cigar box, her hands moving automatically. The other voice in her head was growing stronger. The voice of doubt, the one that had sent her to search this room in the first place. How do you know Jake had nothing to do with it? Jake and Carl and Veronica? They knew her, they had sex with her. Once, or many times? Who was she, this Candice Stanton? Where was she?

Bella read the clipping again and looked at the photograph. It was her, the same girl. She felt sick. She put the box and the photo in the dank, dust-furred space under the bed. Then she walked downstairs and poured herself a glass of wine. Her legs felt odd beneath her; she felt odd – insubstantial. As if she weren’t really there.

As she sat there at the kitchen table, swilling sour wine, she heard the sound of a key in the lock. Dully, she wondered who it was and looked at the kitchen clock, nothing with astonishment  that it was past five o’clock. She couldn’t seem to move. The front door opened and slammed closed. Footsteps moved towards the kitchen where she sat, slumped in her chair. She looked down at the table, concentrating on the rippling maroon surface of the wine in her glass.

“Hey babe…”

It was Jake. Bella felt a jolt of – something – fear, nervousness, even anger. She looked up, trying to keep her face expressionless.

“What’s up?” Jake paused for a moment in the doorway. He had his jacket slung in a crumple of denim over his arm. “How are you feeling? What’s that you’re – are you drinking?”

Bella took a deep breath. All of a sudden, she felt exhausted, bludgeoned into fatigue by the sheer weight of questions. Where on earth was she going to start? She picked up her glass and slugged back the contents.

“Bella – what the hell? Are you okay?”

Jake put his jacket and his bag down on the table without looking. He was too caught up in staring at her. Bella put the glass down and it rang briefly, its brief crystal chime echoing around the kitchen. She braced her hands against the edge of the table and stood up.

“Bella?”

He sounded almost scared. She shook her head, just too tired to even begin.

“Bella – would you please just talk to me? What’s going on?”

She said nothing, simply walked out of the kitchen and paused briefly in the hallway, before beginning to climb the stairs. Her footsteps sounded dully on the boards of the staircase. She could sense Jake standing behind her, in the doorway to the kitchen, staring at her disappearing back in perplexity.

“Bella – come on – “

She was sitting on the edge of the bed when he came into the room. Bella held the cigar box on her lap. Her fingers shook very slightly, jittering against the wooden sides of the box. The photograph lay face down on the bed beside her. She said nothing, watching Jake’s face begin to move from incomprehension to annoyance.

“Bella – would you mind telling me what the fuck is going on? Are you still feeling ill? What’s going on?”

Bella took another deep breath. With one hand she picked up the photograph, with the other, she held up the newspaper clipping. The room was utterly silent, save for the faint sound of their breathing.

“Who’s Candice Stanton?” she said.

Part Two

Chapter Eighteen

It was Veronica’s fault. It was her idea to go to the party. She was the one who started talking to the girl in the first place. Why her? Why had she picked her? What sort of malign fate had directed Veronica to catch her eye? What malicious god had decreed that this particular girl had to be sitting next to her in that darkened room? For that girl to want to talk to her? If it had been anyone else, anyone else in the entire party, in the club beforehand, in the bar before that, it wouldn’t have happened. Jake was sure of that. Which meant it was the girl’s fault too. If she hadn’t been so… so easy; so quick to join in with their suggestions, so reckless in her total, wanton disregard for their opinion. If she hadn’t been so touchy afterwards, so angry, so bitchy. So humiliated. If she hadn’t been so ugly. It was her fault, as much as anyone’s.

And it was Carl’s fault. He’d bought the drugs. He’d started it, he’d started the whole thing; it was his idea, those games they’d played. He was the one who’d turned on her afterwards, who’d said those things to her, who’d prompted her sudden, vicious attack. He’d pushed her. It was Carl’s fault.

But it wasn’t my fault. Every time Jake told himself that, he squeezed his eyes shut. It wasn’t my fault. It was the only way he could cope with what had happened, the only way to get through the long terrible days and nights afterwards. The nights were the worst. It wasn’t my fault. He found himself mouthing it like a mantra at those moments of sheer, black terror that enveloped him at four o’clock in the morning, repeating it to himself silently, hearing the syllables fall into place. It wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t my fault. The more he said it, the easier it became to believe and that was good, that was just the way it should be. It was the only way he was going to survive.

Sometimes, though, it didn’t work. He would lie in bed, clutching the duvet in two rigid hands, staring big-eyed at the ceiling. I’m going to hell. Nothing worked then, not crunching sleeping pills, not pacing the room until he wore himself out. A couple of times he’d gone down on his knees, buried his face in the bedclothes and screamed, as loudly as he could. If the others had heard him, they’d never mentioned it.

They never would. They never talked about it. Jake didn’t know if this made him feel better or worse. On one hand, he could pretend – they could all pretend – that it had never happened and the longer they went on not talking about it, the easier it became to believe the lie. As the weeks went by and the grass grew in the back garden, and there was nothing else in the newspapers, there were occasional moments of normality, as if it really had never happened. He remembered when Veronica had laughed again, for the first time since it happened and that one little thing seemed to heal something in them all. They began to do things together again, although not drinking in bars, not parties, never that. Instead, they would go for a walk on the Heath, or see a film together, something light and frothy. Nothing violent, nothing gory. They made meals together in the kitchen, listening to Classic FM on the stereo, not disco. Never Motown. They watched DVDs in the living room, and drank wine, and didn’t talk.

But on the other hand, it made things worse. He had no one to talk to, simply because they never talked about it. There was no one he could tell about the terrible dreams, the duvet-muffled screams, the mornings when he just lay under the covers and cried. Their web of silence bound them together. Occasionally the three of them would be in the kitchen, or the front room; the room fogged with cigarette smoke, warm, cosy, a silent conspiracy of three. He could feel it, the remembrance and the thought of it, trembling there in the room, waiting to be spoken. Once he’d taken a deep breath and thought, now, now I’m going to say it. Before he could properly open his mouth, Carl had jumped up and snapped on the overhead light, breaking the illusion of dim-hued intimacy. Jake’s held breath had been expelled in a rush and the smoke in the room had writhed and coiled before it. That was the closest they’d got to mentioning it again. Perhaps, thought Jake, he’d just imagined that the two of them had been thinking the same thing. Perhaps – and this was a terrible thought, worse than any of the dreams put together – perhaps they really had forgotten about it. Perhaps they’d been able to put it behind them and it was only when they looked at him, at his wasted face, at the dark smudges beneath his eyes, that they thought of it again. Jake always felt a little more of his sanity break away at this point. The idea that they might have shrugged off the events of that night as easily as a bad dream made Jake feel – what? He couldn’t put into words how that made him feel. Things got too bad for screaming then – he’d roll back and forth on the bed, curled like a foetus, digging his nails into his palms and whimpering. He was beginning to recognise the onset of those type of thoughts. His synapses fired along the same pathways, always; Veronica’s fault, her fault, Carl’s fault, his fault, not talking, the two of them forgetting, only he able to remember and to suffer – he knew the pathway now and how to damn it, divert it, head it off. When he got to the two of them forgetting, he would take a knife or a razor or something domestic but sharp, and make a neat, surgical cut in his skin. He cut skin that was hidden to public view, on his stomach or inner thighs. At the breaking of the skin and the first sight of blood, he would sigh with a relief that was almost orgasmic. But it only ever worked for so long and sometimes the fresh cuts were adjacent to a scabbed and slowly healing scar.

*

It was Veronica who had started things off, even before that night. Jake had seen her first. He could even remember his second thought on first glimpsing her, across the crowded kitchen at a party. Fateful parties… his life seemed filled with them. His second thought had been – don’t let Carl speak to her before I can. His first, of course, had been fucking hell.

For Veronica was beautiful. She had the face of a nineteen forties movie star; her features perfectly regular, her skin like flesh-toned cream. She wore her hair like her namesake Veronica Lake, hanging over one eye in a long, shining, blonde curtain. She dressed in a corresponding style. Immaculate trench coats slung across her shoulders or belted tightly around her narrow waist; pencil skirts with gossamer thin stockings and high-heeled round-toed shoes; satin pyjamas; black, draped dresses that slide artlessly around her sharp corners. She was thin, obviously, that went without saying, with high pointed breasts and a child’s delicate pelvis. Jake couldn’t remember ever having seen her wearing jeans – no, she had – just once. She’d borrowed a pair from Carl; they’d swamped her but then she’d had no choice. There was nothing in her wardrobe suitable for digging in the garden.

That was the visible Veronica, the obvious Veronica. What Jake liked to think of as the real Veronica was much harder to define. They’d been through the worst experience of their lives together; he’d seen her at her worst and yet somehow he didn’t feel as if he’d penetrated more than the first few layers of the real Veronica. It was Carl who’d gone deeper – Carl, who’d managed to get past the barbed wire, past the barricades, onto the prize that, Jake was sure, lay at the end of it. She was so opaque and yet, somehow, managed to give the impression of being totally see-through.  She flung a layer of gauze over your eyes and silhouetted herself behind it, at once sharp and obvious and yet hopelessly unclear.

He’d been the first to speak to her at the party. It had taken him two shots of Jack Daniels tossed down in one go before, blinking and gasping, he found the courage to cross the room and talk to her. She was standing alone, her arms crossed under her breasts, a cigarette drooping between her long, pale fingers. She looked bored. Gulping, Jake moved across the sticky carpet, trusting to luck that he’d be able to come up with a killer first line.

He reached her side of the kitchen and edged towards her. She still hadn’t noticed him. Still time to turn back, he thought and then castigated himself for being such a pussy. He stepped in front of her, feeling the adrenaline suddenly spike within him. She regarded him coolly, even coldly, no change of expression on her amazing face. Oh shit… Crashing and burning and I haven’t even said anything yet…

Inspiration suddenly struck. He stuck his fingers into her half-full glass and lifted out a piece of ice. Her eyebrows went up, her mouth opened. He dropped the ice on the floor and stamped on it, hard. It shattered beneath his boot, sending splinters of frigid water across the dirty floor. Veronica stood there with her mouth open, flabbergasted. He’d looked her in the eye and waited.

“I thought you were a complete mentalist,” she said to him, a lot later.

“And has anything happened to make you revise that opinion?”

She grinned at that. “Not really, no.”

But that was a lot later, another day. At the party, she’d merely looked at him, aghast, for what seemed like a fiery, scorching eternity. If I run now, thought Jake deliriously, I could be home and curled in the foetal position under my duvet in twenty minutes…

“Jake, what the fuck are you doing?”

Carl. He arrived at Jake’s shoulder and Veronica had looked at him with a pleading, save-me look on her face. Carl smiled at her, his usual, easy, eye-crinkled smile and said ‘is my little brother bothering you?’

Carl’s dismissive question, Veronica’s obvious embarrassment; Jake felt like falling down a hole somewhere, desperate to escape social death. What had he thought he’d achieve, doing that stupid ice-breaking trick? Now Carl was on the scene and Jake knew from long experience that when his older, bigger, better-looking brother arrived, any female interest in Jake went swiftly down the pan. It wasn’t fair but he was used to it. Hopeless, he told himself. Totally hopeless. I’m an imbecile. A fool. I might as well leave right now.

Carl wasted no time. He’d been carrying an opened bottle of wine and he found a clean, unbroken glass for Veronica. They began chatting easily to one another, laughing softly. Jake could feel the heat between them even over and above his own scorching embarrassment. He tried to feel happy for his brother – probably Veronica would never had been interested in him anyway – but the familiar flames of jealousy were tickling the back of his throat. It had been like this as far back as he could remember. Of course, Carl had the edge on him in age, height and looks… but Christ, was it going to be like this for the rest of his life? Jake tried to remember when the pure, clean taste of hero-worship had become tainted. Was it during the sullen, turbulent teenage years? It can’t have been earlier, when they only had each other to rely on, when only he and Carl knew each other’s grief. Two little black-haired boys, dressed up for a funeral…

“So who’s older?” said Veronica. She asked them both but she was looking at Carl, her chin tipped down slightly, glancing up at him from under her lashes. He smiled down at her.

“Guess.”

“That’s too easy,” she said and she giggled. “You’re the big brother. Am I right?”

“If it’s too easy, why bother to ask?” said Jake, grumpily, under his breath. Neither of them heard him, or if they had, took any notice. Their faces were ten inches apart, their gaze flickering between eye and lip.

Jake watched Veronica for a moment longer. He was searching for something in her appearance, her manner, anything, that would cool his ardour. He didn’t find it. Even the tiny, make-up caked spot on the edge of her jaw couldn’t dim his fervour for her – it just made her more accessible. She smelled intoxicating. He tried to shut his ears to his brother’s voice but the inevitable was happening – she was falling for Carl, right in front of Jake’s eyes.

He’d left them and moved out into the crowded living room, sulky as a child who’d just had his favourite toy taken away. Of course, he’d got over it – he had to. Carl and Veronica has spent the night together and most of the next day. Jake remembered his brother coming home at the tail end of the Sunday, tired, mussed and grinning from ear to ear. You only had to look at him to see he’d been having sex for about eighteen hours straight.

That had been the start of it, the start of Veronica-and-Carl. But also, the start of the three of them. Because it was the three of them, more often than not. Jake felt it sometimes when they were gathered in the living room, sprawled on carpet or sofa, playing cards, chinking glasses, laughing at the many little in-jokes that they shared. It was the three of them in the big, rangy kitchen, messing up the table with breadcrumbs, flour, red wine, orange peel. It was the three of them in the tangled garden, hacking sporadically at the luxuriant jungle of weeds, pausing for gulps of sun-warmed beer, smoking cigarettes in the soft summer evening. The garden held no fears for them then – it was just another room, roofed with sky. Once, they’d taken pills and lain out there all night on one scratchy blanket, looking up at the stars and talking endlessly through clenched jaws, eyes black, talking until their throats were sore and pale fingers of light were creeping across the indigo sky.

He could still remember when she’d moved in. He’d been in the kitchen, doing something hopelessly domestic – washing up or opening a tin of beans or something – and Carl had breezed through the doorway in his suit, bringing with him a smell of underground trains and spring rain. His black hair was dewed with raindrops. Jake hadn’t said much, just hi and how was your day. Carl was an investment banker and did something very profitable but very dull with fixed income derivatives. He’d given up telling Jake about his deals, as it was obviously no fun talking to someone who instantly glazed over at the mere mention of the word.

“There any beer?”

“Some in the fridge.”

Jake wiped his hands on a dirty tea towel and turned to face his brother. Carl rooted about inside the fridge for longer than was strictly necessary to find the beer.

“You alright?”

“Yeah, fine.” Carl emerged, can in hand. “By the way, Veronica’s going to be moving in.”

Jake felt his jaw drop. “What?”

“From this weekend. She needs a bit of time to get her stuff together.”

“But – but…” Jake grasped at his flailing sentence. “When did you decide this? Why didn’t you say something before? Did you even think of asking me?”

“Oh come on, little bro, don’t kick up a fuss. You like her, right? She’ll help out with the rent and stuff, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“It’s not – that’s not – that’s not what I’m talking about. You know it’s not. I thought this was our house, you know? You should have asked me.”

“Oh for Christ’s sake. You sound like the old man. It’s only Veronica, you know, not some random psycho I’ve invited in off the street.”

Jake lapsed into frustrated silence. It wasn’t that he was opposed to the change in principle, but God, it annoyed him when Carl just rode roughshod over a decision that should have been made by both of them. And what was with Carl wanting to live with his girlfriend, anyway? He’d always gone on about his need for space and independence and emotional detachment, for God’s sake – what had happened to all that?

“What about all that stuff you kept telling me?” said Jake.

“What stuff?” Carl upended the can and swallowed. Jake watched the Adam’s apple in his throat bob uneasily.

“You know, your need for space and independence and emotional attachment. That stuff.”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about, little bro. You must have been hearing things. Now, are you going to accept that V’s going to be living here or do I have to take you out the back and beat in into you?”

Jake grinned despite himself. “Yeah, you and who’s army?”

“Watch it…”

They wrestled briefly by the sink, until Carl’s beer can fell onto the floor and spurted brown foam everywhere. Giggling helplessly, Jake groped for the tea towel and dabbed at the spillage.

Carl hadn’t mentioned it again until they were sprawled in the front room, washed in the dim bluish glow of the television. Jake was slumped sideways in his armchair, legs dangling over one arm, his favourite red cushion squashed behind his head. Carl favoured the sofa, laying his long body out amongst the fusty upholstery. Both of them had lain silent for a while, glazed into immobility by the flickering pictures on the screen before them. The end of a joint smouldered into extinction in the ashtray on the coffee table between them.

“Sorry mate.”

Jake looked up in dopey surprise. Carl wasn’t looking at him but, even tired and befuddled, he could hear the sincerity in his brother’s voice.

“What?”

“Sorry. For not telling you about Veronica. You’re right, I should have asked.”