Last Man in London, page 7
‘Welcome home babes, I’ve missed you,’ she whispered. George’s heart immediately softened. It always did. He couldn’t help himself.
’Sorry I am late,’ she pleaded. ‘I was having sushi with my sister. She has boyfriend problems, do you want to hear about them.’
‘No thanks.’
’I thought not, anyway I am here now, let’s order shooters.’ George nodded, Costas overheard and, with a wave of his hand, made her wishes come true.
‘Why didn’t you answer your skyphone yesterday?’ George asked her.
‘I told you babes, I didn’t hear it. I was on my bike all afternoon. I had a lovely ride all the way along the seafront and right down to Camps Bay. And then all the way back again. Aren’t you proud of me?’
‘But you said you were on the beach.’
Mira studied his face before replying, ‘yes at Camps Bay, I saw some friends and sat with them for a while, that must have been when you tried calling.’
George thought about this and decided it was at least plausible. But something with this girl just didn’t add up. Mira didn’t make sense to George, despite how he felt about her. He decided this was the weekend he was going to tell her.
‘Come on babes drink up,’ Mira was already banging her shot glass back down onto the table before George had even reached for his. He quickly caught up by the time she had downed her third from the tray-full in the centre of the table.
George looked across towards the stage. By this time the music was beautiful but the girls raved as if they were in a school disco. One of them danced so wildly that she almost took out the drummer. She was untamed. But the mess was cleared up and put into a taxi. The band played on and the evening was gearing up to be a memorable one.
‘Man dig that geezer over there’, cried Marv as he returned from the bathroom dabbing his nose with a handkerchief. ‘He’s done so many drugs his soul is skeletal. That’s not dancing, he’s unrolling his bones. Listen Gus, imagine this. Imagine if we never came down from here. What would life be like, don’t you think, do you ever think what would happen. Is that a love dance he’s doing over there? Who is she?
Mira pressed her head into George’s shoulder and he stroked her long, brown hair. ‘Can we go soon babes?’ she asked him.
‘You’ve only been here half an hour,’ he told her.
‘Yes but can we go somewhere quieter please, please babes.’ This was typical of Mira. She thought that George’s friends didn’t like her and, in truth, they didn’t much. Especially the Cape Town friends. Will, on the other hand could take her or leave her. George signalled to him above the music, stood up, nodded to Costas and Gus and led Mira to the door.
‘You are going to have to tell him,’ Gus told Costas.
‘You tell him.’ Costas replied. They watched as George and Mira walked past the window and out of sight.
’So,’ George asked as they strolled along the street, ‘another bar? Which one?’
Mira thought for a moment, wrapped both her arms around his waist and said ‘the bar at your house. George’s bar is my favourite bar and it is such a beautiful evening. We can sit on the terrace, enjoy the view and listen to music, just the two of us. I have missed you.’
‘Yes I could see that,’ George told her, ‘by the way you were two hours late.’
‘Don’t be like that,’ she scolded him. ‘I told you, I was talking to my dad on the phone.’
‘You mean eating sushi with your sister,’ George reminded her.
‘That’s right, like I said, I was with her when my dad phoned.’
This did nothing to ease George’s troubled mind but at least they were heading for his house. He might even get laid again and so he stopped asking questions. There was no point in provoking a fight and Edgar once again reminded him, ‘don’t try too hard to understand them son.’ George liked Edgar.
‘Please babes,’ Mira pleaded, ‘I just want to be alone with you. And anyway, you know I hate those noisy bars in town. I never go there. Take me home, please.’
‘Then why didn’t you just come straight to the house in the first place?’ he asked her.
‘Look how beautiful the moon is tonight,’ she replied.
As they turned the corner from the main road everything was quiet and the rest of the city was still. They crossed Strand Street and walked up the hill. To their right hand side the harbour lights shimmered and reflected in the calm sea beyond. An amateur band rehearsed in a nearby garage and the ships in the bay lay at anchor, waiting to be called into the port. The low African sky looked as though a thousand diamonds had been thrown, at random, across a black blanket and George said so.
Mira looked up at him and squeezed his arm, ‘you say the most beautiful things,’ and then she buried her head into his shoulder. She clung onto him like a limpet. George wondered if she was trying not to fall over.
‘You choose some music and I will open a bottle of wine,’ he said quietly as he tapped in the alarm code at the front gate.
‘Shooters first, shooters first,’ she cried as she danced across the room towards the Tequila.
‘Whatever you like,’ George called after her as he reached into the cooler for a bottle of Merlot.
‘Aren’t you supposed to drink red wine at room temperature?’ Mira asked as she lined up eight shot glasses.
‘You certainly are,’ replied George, ‘if that room is in the cellar of an old manor house in the Northern Hemisphere and it is Old Calendar 1744.’
Mira gave him a blank look.
‘Here in the summer of AI43,’ he continued, ‘nobody should be drinking warm wine. Either red or white,’ and he reached for a couple of tumblers. ‘Even this isn’t cold enough,’ he remarked as he took a sip. George dropped a cube of ice into his wine and was about to do the same for Mira when she placed four of the shot glasses in front of him.
‘What are you doing?’ she demanded. ‘Don’t water my wine down.’
‘Don’t worry,’ he assured her. ‘The alcohol doesn’t jump out of the glass. Putting ice in there doesn’t make it weaker, just colder.’
‘I prefer mine without ice thank you and here, it’s shooter time.’ With that she downed another two, took her glass out onto the terrace and waited for George to catch up. He sat down opposite her and, with his arms resting on his knees, he leaned forward and quietly asked, ‘ok, what’s going on Mira? What’s with this unusual behaviour?’ She looked hurt and said nothing. He continued. ‘The missed phone calls and immediate messages, why don’t you speak to me?’
‘I told you I was on my bike.’
‘Or the beach,’ George added. ‘And that’s another thing, all those odd little stories that don’t add up and I don’t just mean this week, I mean for the last six months.’ Again, she said nothing ‘Are you going to talk to me?’ he encouraged her.
‘Ok, ok. It’s just that I am scared of losing you.’
‘You have said this before, and then go ahead and behave in exactly the way that is likely to make that happen. Lying to me, turning up late and sometimes not showing up at all. The last time I was here you sent me a message at H2 saying ‘I want you now.’ I replied telling you I was still awake and to come over. I then didn’t hear from you again for two days. Was that message even meant for me? Because that’s how to lose me Mira, we are either together or we are not. Right now it feels like we are not and yet here you are again, here we are again.’
‘I want to spend the rest of my life with you,’ she announced quietly and without looking up.
George was stunned.
She then looked straight at him with her green, shining eyes and said, ‘it’s ridiculous. The way I feel about you scares me and that’s why I keep trying to push you away, out of my mind, out of my thoughts. But you never go away. If anything the feeling gets stronger and that frightens me, it scares me to death. It frightens me that one day you will just say ‘that’s all, that’s it, go away silly girl. I couldn’t bear that. Every time I see you or hear your voice my heart starts pounding and it scares me to think that it might be for the last time.’
George reached across and took her hand.
‘How long have you felt like this?’ he asked quietly.
‘Ever since the day we first met.’
George was shocked.
‘That was four years ago. So why did you take that marriage licence and then renew it?’ He asked her.
’Because you were with somebody else and I thought you didn’t want me.’ She admitted. ‘I was desperate for you to stop me. Do you remember when I came round here and told you I had set the date? Do you remember what you said?’
George was embarrassed. ‘That I knew a good marriage licence lawyer you could use.’
‘Exactly,’ she shouted. ‘Here I was, desperate for some sort of sign from you, just something to say I shouldn’t go through with it and you congratulated me, and even offered to arrange it for me. You’re an arsehole.’
‘Yes I do remember,’ George admitted quietly. ‘I remember it clearly.’ He felt ashamed. ‘But why didn’t you say something?’
Mira snatched her hands away and pulled the hair away from in front of her face. George could see she had been crying and she then confronted him angrily.
‘Because all you could talk about was that slut you were going into contract with.’
George laughed, ‘she is not a slut but yes, I remember that too.’
Mira then spent the next thirty minutes reminding George of all the other signs she had given since the day they had met and he reluctantly had to agree with each of them. Mira remembered everything and was right about all of them. Finally George admitted he had felt the same way as she had from the very beginning.
‘You are a fucking idiot,’ she told him. You call yourself a writer? Aren’t you supposed to notice things, see things that others don’t?’ she demanded.
‘You also might have made it easy for me and simply said something,’ he replied. ‘I thought you were happy with your contract and I didn’t want to interfere.’
‘Fuck off,’ she shouted. ‘And bring some more wine when you come back.’
‘What are we going to do now we have both admitted all of this,’ George asked her.
‘Spend the rest of our lives together, have a family and be happy, but only after you have fucked off first,’ she replied. ‘And then come back.’
‘Can we start slowly by just dating properly?’ George suggested.
‘Give me some time to think about it,’ Mira said as she finally offered a small smile. And then came the uncontrollable laughter that George so adored in her. When he returned he noticed that the four remaining shots of tequila were now on the terrace table and two of them were empty.
‘Come on babes,’ she said. ‘You have some catching up to do, and we have some celebrating to do.’
George downed his tequila, sipped his wine and stood staring out into the darkness of the bay that was punctuated only by the intermittent flash of the Robben Island Lighthouse. He thought carefully about what had just happened and considered the advice Edgar had given him only days earlier. Mira, meanwhile, was tapping something into her hy-dev.
Finally George sucked air in through his teeth, tugged on his earlobe and turned around.
‘Ok, let’s do it,’ he said, against all of his instincts and Edgar’s advice. ‘Let’s be together. We can ignore the past, the other people we have been involved with. How about we never mention any of it again and start with a new screen, from right now, a brand new start.’
She looked up at him. ‘But you shagged my sister,’ she shouted. ‘I’m not sure I can forget that. Why, why why?’
‘Because, Mira, you were married to somebody else and she and I were both single at the time. And we liked each other. You encouraged us, remember?’
‘I didn’t mean to. It hurts like hell, I can’t get over it.’ Mira stood up and announced, ‘I have to go.’
George was confused. ‘We are in the middle of a conversation, where are you going?’
‘I have some friends in from Johannesburg; they have just told me they are in a bar in Long Street and I am going to join them. I don’t want to look at you right now, I can see you tomorrow.’
‘You said you didn’t like the bars in Long Street?’
‘I never said that.’ She argued.
George was becoming concerned; it was after midnight. ‘I can’t let you go back to Long Street, I will worry too much. You are drunk and it is dangerous down there at this time. You can stay here, with me or in your favourite room, you choose, but you mustn’t go to Long Street now, it’s too late.’
‘You controlling bastard, call me a taxi right now.’ She screamed.
‘Well, ok, but you can call your own taxi. If you want to leave then you can sort yourself out.’ He insisted. ‘Phone for your own taxi.’
George didn’t see the first punch coming but it caught him squarely on the side of the face, knocking the glass from his hand which then shattered across the terrace. Before he managed to react a second blow landed directly into his ribcage and the third, a kick that was aimed at his testicles, was parried away before it connected.
‘What the hell are you doing Mira,’ he shouted as she ran towards the front door and started butting it with her head in an attempt to open it. George finally restrained her, but not before taking two more blows to the face and a solid kick in the ribs. He managed to sit her back down into a chair and calm her down. ‘What on earth are you doing?’
‘I want to see my friends. I told you they were in town and you won’t let me leave.’
‘You can leave Mira, in fact I will insist, get out. After all we have just talked about I can’t believe you are behaving like this again. The door is open, now leave and don’t come back.’ Mira ran out into the night, down the road and was gone. George reached for his whiskey and when Will and Marnie finally returned they left him as they found him; fast asleep in his favourite armchair.
Chapter Five
‘But you did shag her sister,’ Will reminded him the following morning after George had re-told his tale. Partly in an attempt to make some sense of it for himself. As he gazed out to sea Will studied his face.
‘Look at the state of you; I can’t believe you got beaten up by a girl.’
‘You should see the shape of my ribs,’ George finally responded as he pulled up his shirt.
‘What the hell did she hit you with, a hammer?’ yelled Marnie when she saw the damage to George’s torso.
‘I would have hit her back,’ said Will.
‘No you wouldn’t have, but had I done that then right now I would be in the Correction Centre and with no chance of ever being granted another Marriage Licence. Besides, you don’t hit women.’
‘Very noble Georgie boy,’ said Marnie, ‘but I am afraid sometimes it is deserved. If she is going to fight like a man then she should expect you to defend yourself. I hope that’s it now, I hope you are not going to have any contact with her again?’
‘I don’t have a choice. I am sure I will hear more from her, I always do. She is probably climbing into the boot of my car right now. But Mira needs help and if she asks for it, then I will do what I can.’
‘You are a damn fool George.’ Will told him. ‘You do not need this kind of chaos in your life, why get involved?’
‘Because dear boy, you have to take care of the people who care about you. You do not abandon your friends when they need you, regardless of how they have behaved. She is not right. There is something wrong with Mira and I hope it can be fixed. But even so, if I don’t hear from her then that’s it. I will not be calling her again. That’s the last time, I promise.’
Constance had been sweeping up the broken glass on the terrace but had stopped to listen to George’s story. She said nothing but when Will caught her eye she shook her head sadly and carried on with her work. She had seen, or at least heard, something similar before. At that moment George’s hy-dev pinged him a message which he read out loud.
‘Mira: I’m sorry.’
‘That’s it, two words?’ asked Will.
‘It’s not enough,’ added Marnie.
‘No, it’s not enough,’ George agreed softly.
‘Bloody Mary?’ announced Will.
‘Bloody right,’ replied George, ‘industrial strength for me.’
‘You won’t find the answers in alcohol George,’ offered Marie.
‘Sometimes I don’t find them by asking questions either,’ he replied. ‘Will, make mine a treble and then I am off to the Hydroport. There is nothing for me in town this weekend. Run me up there will you and then you two can stay here and use the Jag for the weekend. Take her out for a long drive into the wine-lands; she could use a proper run out.’
‘Don’t mind if we do, we can celebrate our renewed licence at a restaurant in the countryside Marnie.’
‘Renewed Marriage Licence,’ thought George, ‘what a waste of time.’ He gathered his two closet friends together, gave Marnie a kiss and hugged them both. ‘Congratulations you two, you deserve each other.’ George winced in pain as Marnie held him a little too tightly around his damaged ribcage.
Back at the Central Complex Edgar was surprised when his hy-dev alerted him to George’s arrival and he tapped the icon that granted him access. He knew as soon as he saw the boy that something was wrong.
‘What’s that on your fucking face?’ he demanded.
George poured himself a whiskey, sat down and spent the next hour re-telling the entire story of the previous day’s events. Edgar looked sad.
‘I’m sorry son but there is nothing you can do. She needs professional help. For any alcoholic, recovery is a life long battle and it never goes away. But she has to realise that for herself.’
