Dirty Bad Savage(58)

Then I went back to my desk.

I stared at the garage tenancy screen, hovering the mouse over the terminate button. Derek had been renting the garage for ten years, rent always paid on time, in cash, with no client visits necessary.

I gripped the garage key in my hand, taking a moment in remembrance of Derek Headley and his happy smile.

“Only live once,” he’d said to me, after a ten hour stint in the community garden. “Gotta make it mean something, else what’s the point?”

I made it mean something.

I put the key in my handbag and got the hell out of there.



I got the tube down to East Veil and wandered round in a daze, ignorant to all its dangers, its rabble of violence and seediness, and drugs and fear and hate. I passed unhindered and unnoticed, until I found Callum Jackson.

He was rolling a cigarette outside Al’s while Casey tucked into a piece of old fish by the bins. He didn’t see me at first, not until I was practically in his arms.

“Soph?” he managed to mutter before I was on him. I wrapped my arms around him without care, barely registering the cackles from the crowd on the benches down the way. He flinched as I gripped him, but it only took a heartbeat before he held me back, his lips on my hair as I cried into his hoodie. “Jesus, Soph, what’s happened?”

I shook my head, unable to find words. He didn’t push me, just held on tight until I was ready to speak. “Missed you,” I said. “Come home with me. Please, just come home with me.”

“Now? For the night, like?”

I nodded. “One night, two nights, ten nights, forever, don’t fucking care.”

“You fucking serious?”

I looked up at him through watery eyes. “What do you think?”

“I think you’re upset.”

I blinked away the tears, and that’s when I saw his face. His jaw was swollen, eyes black and blue. “Fucking hell! What happened to you?”

He shrugged, looking away. “Don’t matter.”

“It does matter!” I hissed. “Who did this to you?!”

“Leave it, Soph,” he said. “Don’t matter.”

I reached up to touch him, turning his face so I could see better. It made me suck in all my breath. “My God.”

“Said it don’t fucking matter!” he snapped. He looked down the road, scowling at the crowd gawking at us. “Let’s just go, yeah? I’ll stay one day, ten days, don’t fucking matter to me, Soph. Just wanna be where you are.”

I took his hands in mine, and they felt so alive, so real, so warm. “Just want to be where you are, too,” I smiled. “That’s all I want.”

He whistled for Casey.



***



I lay with my head on Callum’s arm, stroking his chest in the darkness. I was careful, staying away from the bruising on his side, just wishing he’d open up and tell me what the hell was going on, but he wouldn’t say a peep about it.

I’d told him about Derek Headley, told him more than I’d ever told anyone about my job, about Haygrove, about the people, about all the things I’d done there. My parents had scoffed when I’d brought any of it up, and I’d learned to stay quiet, downplaying my achievements like they meant nothing.

Callum’s voice sounded so loud in the room when he spoke.

“I lost someone,” he said simply. “Years ago, like. Still hurts, though.”

“Who did you lose?”

“Old Jimmy, guy who taught me to paint. Thought he was fucking awesome.”

“You knew him a long time?”

“Long enough.” I knew he was smiling at the memory. “Helped me out, he did, when I had no one. Shoved a spray can in my hand and let me help. Fucking loved it, best feeling in the world.”

“What happened to him?” I said, propping myself up on an elbow.

“Liked taking risks, stupid old cunt. Know the multi-storey down on Acer Street? One you can see from tower one?”

“Yeah, condemned, right?”

“Aye, but it weren’t back then. Used to go on about it, how he could do a fucking masterpiece up there. Would laugh that no fucker would be able to cover that shit up, not even with twenty men.” He laughed gently. “I weren’t there when he did it, probably arguing with Mam or some shit. He went up there, off his face, I reckon. Dangled himself from the railings but didn’t secure it properly. End of him.”

“He fell?!”

“Long fucking way. Instant, they said, wouldn’t have felt nothing.”

“Shit, I’m sorry.” I shuddered at the thought.

“He’d have wanted to go that way, ya know? Died for his art, like.”

“That must have been rough on you, how old were you?”