Chapter 6
Ghost cleaned himself up in a public toilet. Men had been milling around the entrance, but when he staggered out of the darkness, disheveled and bleeding, they scattered, and he was left standing alone in the pool of light by the doorway, surrounded by the tangible odour of cheap cologne and sex. It was a cottaging hotspot, and as he washed the blood from his face, he could hear the sounds of men in the cubicles behind him, the groans and squeals of non-committal pleasures. He had never been here, but he'd frequented its foreign cousins once upon a time. For a moment he was seized with a nostalgic longing for a less complex era of his life.
He steadied himself on the edge of the basin. Ghost reached up and touched his reflection in the mirror, stroking his fingers down the glass. His cheek was red, with a shiny graze over the eminence that was going to evolve into an ugly scab over a nastier bruise. His right eye was swollen, but not as badly as he'd thought it would be. He could see normally now; although his head was still aching and intermittently the room swayed dangerously around him.
Somehow, he made it back to the hotel, where he did something he'd not done for a long time: he found the smallest space in his room that he could, between the bedside cabinet and the wall, and crammed himself into it. The pressure on his skin persuaded him that he felt better, but it didn't clear the maelstrom in his head. The whole day he had swung like a pendulum between so many emotions that he had lost count, but now there was only a hollow sadness occupying the void where the anger had been.
Part of him tried to rationalise his actions: he was drunk, he'd been angry, Roach had been getting on his nerves. He realised he sounded just like his father and in that moment, he hated himself more than he'd ever done before.
Ghost had always had a temper, and the men he worked with were often quick to solve their problems with their fists. He had lost count of the meetings that descended into violence and the the arguments over trivial things that ended up with someone clutching a bleeding face. It was normal, but this felt different. Roach wasn't some bastard who'd stolen the last teabag or was hogging the remote control.
Roach is my... Ghost stopped before he said it, teetering on the edge of an emotional chasm that gaped wide enough to swallow him whole.
He wasn't going to admit to anything, even to himself, but he felt more strongly about Roach than he'd done about any man in his life before. Where others had given up and written him off as an introverted misfit, Roach had believed that there was something worth pursuing. Ghost realised now that Roach wasn't trying to annoy him deliberating with his questions: he was trying to forge a connection, a secure bridge to replace the wobbly planks of their initial passions, and Ghost had burned it.
What are you going to do? He asked himself. He knew that Roach would come back, soon. Practically, he needed to broker peace for them both to keep their jobs, but on a deeper, personal level, he wanted Roach back. Something had shifted inside him a week ago, and the demons were coming out, forcing their way through the barriers he'd spent his whole adult life building up. It occurred to him that if they'd been real: grotesque monsters with horns, wings and fifty sets of teeth, he'd have no problem gunning them down where they stood, but they were only inside his head.
He realised that it was cruelly ironic in a way that he'd ended up whoring himself out for loose change because of his stubborn pride, and all these years later he was alone, drunk and battered because he was still too obstinate to realise when he needed help. Of course, now that he realised this, there was no one left but him.
Ghost jumped at the sound. In the quiet dark, the electronic whirring of the lock was startlingly loud, jolting him awake. He was clean now, and calm. He had been sitting, still and silent in the empty dark of Roach's room for the last hour: waiting.
The lights came on, briefly blinding him. The doorway was obscured by the wall of the bathroom, so Roach didn't see him until he was in the room proper. He saw Ghost and stopped. His eyes narrowed.
Ghost glanced at Roach's face. The blood had been washed away, and his lip had been fixed: two tiny stitches were visible, the ends of the knots poking up from his skin.
I did that. He thought, ashamed. Along his jaw was a red mark that, like Ghost's face, would bruise in the days to come, but even battered, he was still beautiful. The tragedy of his ruined perfection was a knife twisted in Ghost's belly. He looked away.
Roach continued to stare at him, waiting.
“I'm sorry.” mumbled Ghost, eventually. It was such an effort to get the words out that they were barely audible.
“What?” said Roach
“I said “'I'm sorry'” repeated Ghost, louder. His face burned with guilt and shame. The
effort it took to apologise, to admit he had been wrong. “I shouldn't have hit you.”
“Well, that makes it all better.” snapped Roach, his voice unusually hard and bitter.
“I know. It's... I just... I know you don't believe me, but I mean it.” said Ghost.
“Too right I don't fucking believe it! You're fucking twisted!” Roach spat. He pointed to his temple as he spoke, as if he was screwing his finger through his own skull.
“I know.” Ghost's voice was barely above a whisper. “I know.” he said, resignedly.
This admission seemed to take Roach by surprise. He looked deflated for a second, as if he was struggling to find his place in the conversation. “What the fuck happened back there?” he asked, eventually.
Ghost sighed, closing his eyes as he exhaled. He felt the weight of the years pressing down on him and the image of himself, too stupid to just give in and go home. All this time had passed, and he was still determined to keep secrets even when it was killing him. He took a deep breath and braced himself.
“You've got a big family, right?” he said, trying to keep the tremor out of his voice: he was scared.
“This isn't about me!” snapped Roach.
“Just... listen. Please.” Ghost held up his hand.
Roach let out a resigned breath, implying Ghost was trying his patience.
“You've got your world, with your champagne bars and your fancy restaurants and your family all round a big fireplace. I don't live in your world, and there are things going on that you just don't see, all tucked up and warm in your nice, safe life.”
“So fucking what? Don't fucking try to blame me because you've got a fucking chip on your shoulder!” snarled Roach, his face tense and nebulous.
“That's not what I meant.”
“Yeah. Well that's what it fucking sounds like from here. In fact: fuck it! I don't have to put up with any of your shit. It's...” Roach glanced at his watch “One o'clock in the fucking morning and I've spent the last two hours in casualty waiting to get my face fixed. You can fuck
right off with this shit.”
“I'm trying to explain!” said Ghost. He could feel himself getting frustrated that Roach wasn't getting it.
“Explain? It doesn't need explaining! You're a fucking nutter, that's your problem!”
“I didn't ask for this to happen!” Ghost was exasperated and his voice was rising. “I don't want to be pretending I'm... like that. I don't want to go to
fucking Manchester!”
“
Jesus fucking Christ!” yelled Roach. “This job is a piece of piss! You are making out like we're invading fucking Russia ourselves! You're just making it worse! You're just being asked to stand around, looking appropriate and checking a man doesn't move! I'm the one who's supposed to be putting their arse on the line,
literally! You think I'm happy about that? Being groped by some pervy old Russian mafioso? You think I signed up for this sort of crap? You don't know, do you? Because you never even fucking asked me!” Roach spat the last word and winced. He touched his lip with his hand, checking the stitches.
This made Ghost feel worse. He'd never even considered that Roach might not be happy about what was planned, he'd been so wrapped up in his own problems that he'd forgotten about why Roach was involved in the job in the first place.
“No. None of us did, but I am trying tell you something.”
“Well, you're doing a shit job!”
“I know!” Ghost snapped. He paused and took a deep breath, trying to keep calm. “Look. You know that kid?”
“Yeah! What the fuck was that about?” Roach snorted derisively. “You get some drunk crisis of conscience over some kid begging and then punch me in the face.”
“He wasn't begging.” said Ghost
“Oh? Why you'd give him that money then?”
“Because I know what it's like to be desperate. I know what it's like to do things just to keep staying alive.” He looked at Roach, seemed bewildered by this change of direction. “I left home when I was just turning sixteen.” said Ghost “I was sick of school, because it was shit and I fucking hated it. I wanted to get out, get out of the whole place. Me and my Mum (that's my aunt really), we had a huge row about everything: the school, my Mum topping herself, what the hell I was going to do with my life... just everything. So I packed up, and left.”
Roach said nothing, so Ghost continued.
“At first it was alright, because it was summer and I could just wander about, picking up scraps of work, begging. I just got by and I really enjoyed myself then, I liked the freedom. Then it was winter, and suddenly I was alone, in Manchester. I come from bloody Hackney! It was freezing early that year, and I was starving. I should have just phoned my family, but I was too proud and too stupid.” He gave a bitter snort. “You know. Nothing's changed there really, you can appreciate that.”
Ghost had told this part of the story before, and at this point, usually launched into an alternative history that was entirely a work of fiction. It was hard to stop the words flowing out automatically, to stop and to tell the difficult truth.
“I was just sitting down by the canal one night, trying to see if anyone would spare some change. Things were really desperate, and I mean that: I hadn't had anything to eat for about two days and this old guy, he started talking to me. I knew something weird was up when he started saying how pretty I was and then he gave me a fiver and told me to get something warm.”
“What happened?” said Roach.
“Nothing, at first. I used to see him now and then and he'd drop me a few quid and we'd talk. I know now I was really fucking lucky, because he was just a harmless old bastard. He liked young lads, and he knew it was wrong. Now I know he was probably looking out for kids like me, alone, desperate and buttering them up with a few cups of tea. I didn't know it, but that bit of Manchester's where all the poofs and weirdos go, so he probably thought it was what I wanted to do.”
Ghost paused and wrung his hands together. They were shaking, and he didn't want Roach to see. He stared at the pattern on the carpet and went on.
“It went on for a few months: he'd come and pick me up, we'd go to some grotty hotel and I'd just have to lie there whilst he wanked himself off. He'd do all the work himself at first, and then he'd give me a tenner. Sometimes he'd buy me lunch too.” Ghost snorted, cynical and bitter.
“You stabbed him? What happened?”
“No. The guy I stabbed was new, I'd never seen him before. I went with him to a hotel and he gave me some booze. Except it wasn't just booze, I was such a
fucking idiot.” He spat the words out. “It probably had some of that GHB shit in mixed it. I knew something was up when I could hardly stand up, and then when he pushed me down I just freaked out. I was really lucky to get away.” He shook his head, still astounded by his own naivety.
Telling the story, it was as if a huge weight had been lifted from him. It seemed so easy now just to tell the truth, it wanted to be said. He sighed.
“I'm sorry.” said Roach. “I didn't know.” He came over to the bed and sat down beside Ghost, the mattress shifting under his weight. He leaned forward and looked at him, but Ghost couldn't look back. He was angry: at himself, at the world, at the past. It was a frustrated, impotent anger that teetered on the border of bitter sadness. He drove his fist into his lip to keep it from shaking.
“I never said nothing to nobody.” said Ghost, his voice husky with the strain “That kid standing there, that was like me and I don't want no one to have to go through that.”
Roach slid his arm across Ghost's shoulders and sighed. He squeezed Ghost's arm gently, pulling him into a half embrace.“I wish you'd told me this before.” he said, softly.
“Yeah. Because that's what you just bring up in conversation. 'I don't want to go to Manchester, Mac, because I probably killed some paedo I was going to suck off for twenty quid.'” He retorted, his voice hard and angry.
“I don't blame you.” said Roach. Ghost let his head flop onto Roach's shoulder, feeling the warmth of his skin beneath his shirt. The fabric grated over his early morning stubble. Roach rested his chin on Ghost's head. “It doesn't change what I think.”
“Yeah right. Who wants someone like me? 'This is Simon. Did you know he used to be-”
“Don't” said Roach, cutting him dead. “It's not what makes you
you. You're a survivor. You did what you had to.”
“Shut up.”
“No. You got nothing to be ashamed of.”
“
You said I was a fucking nutter.” said Ghost.
Roach sighed. “If I'd know about all this, I wouldn't have. I wish you'd told me. I wish I could get you to see that you can talk to me.” He picked up Ghost's hand in his and squeezed it. “I can't help you if you won't let me.”
Ghost felt the sadness again and braced himself against it. He didn't want to crumble in front of Roach; he didn't think he could bare the shame. He stood up, pushing off Roach's embrace, and left through the joining corridor, seeking solace in the dark.
