Buy Me, Sir(17)

I put his toothbrush in my mouth, and my reflection in his bathroom  cabinet makes me feel so sick, so out of control that it takes my  breath.

So I stop. Stop doing this crazy shit and focus on something more  practical  –  on finding out everything I need to know to be close to him  for real.

I clean and snoop in tandem, working so hard I get blisters on my  fingers. I buy some big white orchids for the empty vases in his living  room just because it looks so cold and bare, and just hope my streak of  initiative doesn't get me fired. I gain the confidence of Brutus as best  I can, and by the end of the week I'm sure I see him wag his tail when I  open the door, just one sweep, but it's enough to give me hope that we  really can be friends.

Friday evening comes around so ridiculously quickly. I turn down his  bed, just so, and take a lingering look at the room before I leave.

I say goodbye to Brutus on my way out and check the orchids have enough water to survive until Monday.

And then I wait.

I linger just down the street, pressed in the shadow of an ornamental  hedgerow with a decent view of his front door, the work handset in my  hand as his schedule switches from court to clear and the sky turns dark  overhead.

I wait for almost an hour until he shows, and it's worth every second to  see his car pull onto the driveway. I'd have waited an hour all over  again just to watch him climb his front steps and unlock the door I  cleaned so thoroughly this afternoon.

I watch the lights come on, imagine him walking from room to room.  Imagine the pad of paws as Brutus follows his master around the place.

Imagine the scent of orchids in the air.

Imagine the scent of Alexander Henley with my nose nuzzled into his neck.

I'm about to leave for home, really I am. I'm tired and sated and ready  for real life. Ready to cuddle with Joseph on the sofa and get him  bathed for bed. Ready to drink coffee with Dean and tell him all about  my latest adventures at Henley's palace.

I've turned on my heel and taken a step in the direction of the  underground when I hear the familiar thud of that heavy front door  closing.

I hold my breath as he locks up behind him, and my eyes are wide, because I can't believe it. It can't be.

But it is.

Alexander Henley, whose dressing room consists almost entirely of  tailored black suits and ties, is wearing a baseball cap, jeans and a  scuffed old coat that's seen better days. I dip behind a parked car,  crouching in the darkness as he passes.         

     



 

My skin prickles.

All of me prickles.

And I follow him.

Because wherever he's going, I'm now on a mission to get there too.





Chapter Twelve





Alexander



I hate taking the underground. It reminds me exactly why I have a driver.

It's a strange phenomenon that when I'm dressed to be incognito I feel  more noticeable than ever. The discomfort is palpable this evening. I  feel observed. As though every pair of eyes on this carriage are boring  into me. Staring.

They aren't, of course.

A simple three-sixty makes it obvious I'm just a guy amongst a regular  crowd going about their business. Just good old Ted Brown heading across  town to do his bit for the community.

Maybe I can add paranoia to my list of sexual-abstinence side effects.

I didn't pick some random homeless charity to absolve me of my  self-loathing. The decision to volunteer at New Start, at the Brickwood  branch, was an accidental choice, made for me one Friday evening after  too much whisky.

The tube station is the same grimy shithole it was a few months back. I  head up to the street amongst the stream of people disembarking, being  careful not to dirty my hands on the filthy handrail.

Vivian Rachel Farr, the girl who haunts my dreams, died on the streets  here. A heroin overdose. They found her body in an alleyway I'll have to  walk past this evening, a note for her parents written on a greasy old  fish and chip paper in her pocket.

That's before I managed to get her rapist an acquittal six months later,  and before her parents screamed in my face on the court steps, their  haunted faces burned into my memory for all time.

Annabel Pilcher found my drunken ass in the very same alleyway Vivian  took her last breath. She smiled down on me as though I was one of  life's unfortunates  –  just as Vivian had been  –  and offered me a mug of  hot soup. Enough to sober up my sorry ass.

Sober me up it did.

Permanently.

If Annabel Pilcher had been on hand with a mug of hot soup when Vivian  was facing her final dark night, then maybe she'd have made it through.  Taken a sip of watery tomato goodness and lived to see another day. Just  as I did.

Unfortunately New Start was just a fledgling community effort back then,  struggling for both the funding and manpower to make a difference.

In me they found both an anonymous donor  –  generous enough to finance  the opening of three branches across the East End  –  and good old Ted  Brown, on hand every Friday evening to help cook up meals in their  community kitchen and offer them out on the cold London streets.

I was worried they'd have put two and two together by now. Ideas for  expansion tossed around over cook-up time invariably led to yet another  anonymous donation. As if by magic. By miracle.

Our angel has answered our prayers again, Ted! We've got to secure another kitchen, Ted! Our donor came through again!

It doesn't mean I can sleep at night. There isn't any donation great  enough to secure that pleasure. But it enables me to face my reflection  in the bathroom mirror every morning, and as far as I'm concerned that  privilege is priceless.

People always pull a sympathetic face then they talk about the homeless.  Poor souls. So awful. They'll throw a pitiful glance along with their  loose change at a beggar on the street, then head on into a boutique  coffee shop for a huge latte with their conscience squeaky clean.

I've pondered this a lot, the disconnect between surface level  social-driven empathy and the kind of genuine desire to help the world  that people like Annabel Pilcher are consumed by.

I'm not a good man and I know it. I'm fully aware of my distinct lack of  moral fibre. I don't pretend to myself that I'm anything other than a  self-serving, ethically-corrupt sonofabitch.

It's the people in the middle that add most to the social apathy in our  world. The people who share the horror stories with a simple click of a  social media button, thank their lucky stars they're one of the ok ones,  and move along.

They wouldn't be homeless, because they don't make bad life choices.  They wouldn't be a drug addict because they have the will power to just  say No.

Poor unfortunates. So sad. But it couldn't be them. Oh no.

Except it could. It could be any of us.

Born under different circumstances, tried by life pressures greater than  we could comprehend. A few badly dealt cards from life, and that could  be any one of us, huddling in an alleyway at night, injecting poor  quality drugs just for a break from the mental torment.

I get that.

I feel that.

Most of the time these days I'm just relieved I feel something.

Annabel has a big genuine smile for Ted Brown this evening.

She wraps me in warm arms and her hair smells of cheap soap. The press  of her body to mine always feels alien and leaves me feeling strangely  emotional. I experience the simultaneous urge to push her away but hold  her for longer.         

     



 

"Ted!" Her voice is muffled by my coat. She squeezes me and then lets go. "So nice to see you!"

"Nice to be back," I tell her, and I'm not even lying.

Frank and Mary are already chopping vegetables. They smile and wave as I  hang my coat up, and I say hello as I pass them on my way to the sink. I  scrub my hands with their basic essentials anti-bacterial soap and take  up position at the hob.

Annabel unpacks the Styrofoam cups and we get to work.

I'm not much of a chef. I choose my own meals based on simple acquired  tastes and nutritional value, not from any desire for culinary  expression.

Nobody on the street cares whether I have a five star rating on food genius though.

"How have you been, Ted?" Frank calls. His eyes are kind and  well-meaning, but I hate small talk at the best of times, not least when  I'm lying through my teeth  –  which is a lot of the time.

"Same old, Frank."

He shakes his head. "You wanna tell that boss of yours to get stuffed. Works you too hard."

"Bosses, eh? All the bloody same."

He nods. "Profit, profit, profit."

Frank starts up his trademark rant on how it should be people not  profit, and my cover is safe for another week. He's a union   type,  campaigning for justice and fair treatment for all. He doesn't just do  Friday night soup kitchen, he does all three branches and he works like a  trooper.

Works and talks.

He talks a lot.

That's the thing about people. Most prefer talking to listening. Set  someone off on their own little monologue and nod in the right places,  and you'll have a friend for life.

These people think they know me. They'd call me a friend, and yet they  don't know anything much about Ted Brown. They don't know where he  lives, or which company he works for. They know he's in his forties, has  a couple of kids but no significant other.