Anything for Him Read online

  ‘Do you remember what you said to me last night?’ I asked him as we walked.

  He thought about it. ‘No,’ he said.

  ‘You told me you love me.’

  ‘I do love you. I say it all the time.’

  ‘No, Jay. You said you really love me.’

  I watched a smile creep across his face. ‘Did I?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘And what did you say?’

  ‘I said you were pissed and had no idea what you were talking about.’

  When we got back home, I was horrified to see Georgia standing outside, leaning against the wall and looking at her phone. She was wearing skinny jeans and a thick pink jumper that made her look like an angry marshmallow. Her hair was scraped back into a messy ponytail, so the marks I’d made on her cheek were very obvious. She scowled when she saw me with Jay.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ I said, under my breath.

  Jay tried to ignore her, but she took a step towards us when we reached the door so he had to look at her. ‘What?’ he said, ‘what do you want?’

  She seemed taken aback by his tone, but quickly recovered herself. ‘I wanted to give you a chance to apologise,’ she said.

  ‘Why should I apologise?’ Jay said, ‘I never told you I wasn’t sleeping with Felicity.’

  Georgia’s eyes flicked briefly over to mine, and then she turned back to Jay and gestured at her face. ‘Look at me,’ she said, ‘look at what she did to me!’

  Jay shrugged. ‘So? You attacked her. What did you expect?’

  Georgia gave him a long look. ‘This isn’t over,’ she said eventually.

  Back inside the flat I made myself a coffee and sat at the dining table cradling the mug in both hands. In all honesty I didn’t really care what Jay had done to Georgia. I didn’t exactly think it was admirable, but he was a grown man, it was up to him what he did. He sat down beside me and watched me. ‘You think I went too far this time,’ he said.

  I looked at him. ‘You can do what you want.’

  I took a sip of coffee and he fiddled with the bandage on his hand.

  ‘What do you think Georgia was talking about?’ he asked, ‘when she said she was giving me a chance to apologise and that it wasn’t over.’

  ‘How the hell should I know?’

  ‘Do you think she’s going to go all psycho on me?’

  ‘Hopefully,’ I said, ‘it would serve you right.’

  Jay watched me curiously. ‘What’s wrong with you?’ he said, ‘why are you being like this?’

  I picked my coffee up and left him at the table on his own. I suddenly couldn’t bear to be around him.

  3

  In the afternoon Jay took himself off to the gym, and I sat down at the little desk in my room. Jay and I lived in a two bedroom flat, and while we both paid the same towards the rent, he had the big double bedroom, while I was crammed into the smaller room next to it. It didn’t matter a great deal – I didn’t have much stuff. But what I did have were all my tools and materials for making jewellery; the untidy jumble of metal, wire, tools and half-finished projects spread out across the small desk. I ended up losing an hour or so sat at the desk just thinking; looking through half finished jewellery projects and almost wanting to start something new, though nowadays I always found I had a mental block. In the end I just sat back in my chair and closed my eyes.

  Jay arrived home shortly after and instead of heading straight for the shower like he usually did, he came into my room.

  ‘It was two years ago today that it happened,’ he announced. ‘That’s why you’re in a mood.’

  I didn’t open my eyes or make any acknowledgement.

  ‘I remembered,’ he said, ‘I worked it out.’

  ‘Congratulations,’ I said, ‘what do you want? A medal?’

  I heard him walk across to me and he put his hands on my shoulders. ‘Talk to me about it, Fliss.’

  I opened my eyes and looked up at him over my shoulder. ‘You want to hear about it, do you? Really?’

  ‘Well… yeah,’ he said slowly.

  ‘No, you don’t.’

  He let go of me. ‘Fine,’ he said, ‘if that’s how you want to be. I’m having a shower.’

  I sat on my own a little longer, then I wandered into the bathroom to join him. He hated using the communal changing rooms at the gym and always came home to wash. I knew he was sensitive even about me seeing how he did it, but I’d grown used to the way he’d clean each part of himself at least twice before moving on, how he didn’t like it if any part of him aside from his hands and feet accidently touched the bath, tiled walls or shower screen, and how he hated any sort of time limit or pressure being put on his strict routine. The more stressed or unsettled he felt, the longer the whole thing would go on for. Not that he ever admitted to feeling either of those emotions, but I knew that he did.

  ‘What do you want?’ he asked me as I sat on the end of the bath, occasional sprays of water misting my face.

  ‘Look… I’m… I’m sorry I snapped at you,’ I said. ‘I know you were trying to help.’

  ‘You just don’t believe I really want to.’

  ‘Jay, you don’t have to pretend that you care. I didn’t start spending time with you, or move in with you because you cared. I did those things because you didn’t. You just treated me exactly like I was anyone else. That was all I wanted. That’s what I still want.’

  ‘It’s not though, is it?’ Jay said, ‘or you wouldn’t still get so down about it.’

  To my surprise, he turned the shower off and stepped out of the bath so he could sit on the edge of it beside me with a towel around his waist.

  ‘Fliss, I do get it, you know,’ he said. ‘After all, my mum killed my dad. What happened to you is the same but just the other way—’

  I slammed my hand so hard on the side of the bath that Jay flinched. ‘Your mum did not kill your dad!’ I said, ‘your dad died of cancer. You can’t give people cancer. My dad burned himself and my mum alive in what was supposed to be our family home. Does that sound like the same thing to you?’

  ‘Alright,’ Jay said. ‘Look, I’m not good at this. And you’re right, when I first met you I really didn’t care, but… I do now.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘Fliss, at least he waited until you were out,’ Jay said at length, ‘I mean, you hear about it on the news, don’t you? Guys who get in debt like your dad and then kill their whole family, their kids and everything.’

  I could have laughed, his attempt to console me was so ridiculous.

  ‘I’m serious,’ he said, ‘it really could have been worse. Your mum and dad were pretty old anyway. The real tragedy would have been if you had died when you’d only just started really living.’

  ‘Jay, they were my parents.’

  ‘Yeah. I know.’

  ‘My dad could have asked me for help. It’s not like I was a little kid, I was working—’

  ‘It’s pride, isn’t it?’ Jay said, ‘he wouldn’t have wanted to take money off of you.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said bitterly, ‘because what he did instead was so much better.’

  Jay touched my arm briefly. ‘Look, how about I cook something for you later? Take your mind off it. Would that help?’

  I shrugged. Dinner obviously wouldn’t help, but at least it couldn’t make it any worse.

  I actually did feel a bit better as it reached evening, and while Jay went to the little shop across the street to buy some wine and some ingredients, I curled up on the sofa with my eyes closed waiting for him to get back. About twenty minutes later I heard his key in the door, but when he burst inside he was incoherently angry, yelling and swearing before I even reached the hallway.

  ‘Jay,’ I said, ‘what on earth has—’

  I stopped as soon as I saw him. His lip was bloody and swollen, and he had a graze down one arm like he’d fallen.

  ‘Oh my God,’ I said, ‘did someone do this to you?’

  I reache
d towards him but he ignored me, pacing the hall, face white with rage.

  ‘Fucking Georgia’s brother and some other fucking prick,’ he said, gesturing towards our front door, ‘they jumped me. Right outside the building.’

  I tried to put my arm around him and steer him towards the living room, but he twisted away from me, going instead into the bathroom. I followed him inside and he spat into the basin, splattering the gleaming white porcelain with blood, and recoiling slightly when he saw it.

  ‘So you know who it was?’ I said. ‘In that case we should call the police. Georgia obviously told them to do this, she can’t—’

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘no… I’ll fucking… I’ll fucking deal with it myself.’

  He started towards the front door so I stood in his way.

  ‘Don’t even think about it,’ I said.

  He shoved me out of the way. ‘I’m going round there,’ he said.

  ‘Jay, no!’ I said, ‘you’re being ridiculous. You’re going to get yourself arrested.’

  I ran after him all the way out of the building to the car park.

  ‘Jay, please, please, don’t do this,’ I said. ‘You’re going to make it worse.’

  He got inside his van so I stood behind it, shaking with fear and adrenalin as he started the engine.

  ‘No!’ I screamed at him uselessly, ‘this is crazy!’

  He started to reverse towards me and I had no choice but to step aside, but I knew something terrible would happen if Jay got involved with Georgia’s family while he was feeling like this and I had to stop him.

  ‘Jay!’ I shouted again, as he made it out of the parking space in a screech of tyres and started speeding towards the road. At the very last second he stopped, and I ran towards the van. But he hadn’t given up on his plan, he’d just decided to let me come with him, and he swung the passenger door open so I could get inside.

  I begged and begged him not to do anything. He was driving like a lunatic, and I thought he’d end up wrecking the van, or even killing somebody.

  ‘Just let me call the police,’ I said for probably the twentieth time. ‘Please Jay, don’t go round there.’

  ‘Shut up.’

  ‘Jay, listen to me. This is what she wants. She’s angry about what you’ve done, and she wants a reaction! Either she wants you to go to over there so they can beat you up even worse, or they’ll wait for you to do something to them and call the police. Surely you can see that?’

  ‘I don’t care.’

  ‘Please,’ I said, ‘Jay, please, please, don’t let her win. Just let it go.’

  All of a sudden Jay swerved to the side of the road and slammed on the brakes, throwing us both forward in our seats.

  ‘Jay?’ I said.

  ‘Alright,’ he said flatly.

  ‘Alright what?’

  ‘I won’t go round there.’

  I tried to reach across to him but he moved out of the way. After a second or two, he looked round at the road to check nothing was coming and pulled away from the curb. I thought he’d drive us home again, but instead I realised we were making our way towards the housing estate from the night before.

  ‘Jay,’ I said, ‘why—’

  ‘I’ll tell you when we get there.’

  I stayed silent until he pulled up opposite the house he’d wanted to vandalise the night before. I’d never believed his crap about going there to settle a score over where he’d parked his van, and I could see from his expression as he looked at the house that I’d been right to doubt him. There was no way a dispute about parking could create the level of hatred I saw in his face.

  ‘Jay,’ I said slowly, ‘who lives here?’

  ‘Mark,’ he said. ‘Mark Hutchington.’

  4

  It wasn’t a name I was familiar with.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ I said, ‘who is Mark Hutchington?’

  Jay wiped his busted lip with the back of his hand, then he opened the door and spat some blood onto the street outside. ‘He used to be my friend,’ he said.

  ‘Okay.’

  Jay closed the door again and seemed to consider how best to start explaining.

  ‘You know I was sort of homeless for a bit?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I asked him for help. I went to him when he was at university, and I begged him to help me. Do you know what he did?’

  ‘No.’

  Jay looked at me grimly. ‘He threw me out,’ he said, ‘he threw me out onto the fucking street.’

  ‘Why didn’t you go home?’

  ‘Home?’ he said, ‘you mean with my mum?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Jay shook his head in disbelief.

  ‘So,’ I said, ‘I still don’t get it. If Mark was your friend, why wouldn’t he let you stay?’

  ‘Because he doesn’t want to be associated with me.’

  ‘Perhaps… perhaps he didn’t understand how bad things were for you,’ I suggested.

  ‘Oh, he understood,’ Jay said, giving the house across the street a dirty look. ‘He understood alright.’

  ‘So, then, why…’

  ‘Because I wasn’t good enough for him anymore,’ Jay said. ‘Not when he had all his posh new friends to impress. And it would be exactly the same now. He’s got it made, and he doesn’t want to be reminded that he fucked up my entire life.’

  I was quiet for a while. ‘Jay,’ I said gently, ‘all he did was refuse to let you stay. How can you say he messed up your whole life—’

  Jay slammed his hand against the steering wheel. ‘Because he did!’ he said, ‘everything that’s gone wrong for me is because of him. He doesn’t even know what he’s done. He just sits there with his fancy job, and his degree, and his car and his flat, and his family who actually care about him, and what do I have? I don’t even own my fucking van.’

  I reached out for Jay’s leg and gave it a gentle squeeze. ‘You have a flat,’ I said, ‘and you have a job. And you have… me.’

  Jay glanced round at me briefly. ‘He owns his flat,’ he said. ‘It’s the ground floor part of that house. And that’s his car.’ Jay pointed to a blue Fiesta.

  ‘And his family?’ I asked, ‘does he have a girlfriend… or a wife?’

  Jay laughed. ‘Fuck, no,’ he said. ‘I’ve been coming here for years and I’ve never seen a woman with him. In fact, he never goes anywhere. I don’t think he even has any friends.’

  ‘I thought you said he has a great life,’ I said.

  Jay made a noise of exasperation. ‘It’s better than mine.’

  I looked across the street at the house where this Mark Hutchington apparently lived. ‘You said you’ve been coming here for years?’ I said.

  ‘Yeah. I like to see what he’s doing.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘So I can work out how to teach him a lesson.’

  I struggled to take it all in. Was Jay actually being serious? Did he really blame some old friend for all his own troubles?

  ‘We’d been friends almost forever,’ Jay said. ‘Since my parents moved to Tatchley just before I started school. That’s the village where I grew up,’ he explained. ‘Tiny little place. He was the only other kid my age who lived there. For a long time, anyway.’

  I nodded. Jay didn’t often talk about his past in any detail, and although he had mentioned his parents and the little village to me briefly before, I had certainly never heard of Mark, or much else about his childhood.

  ‘I… I didn’t have a very good time when I was younger,’ he said. ‘I got a lot of stick at school. People always making digs about… stuff. Mark… Mark kind of stood up for me.’

  ‘I’m glad someone did,’ I said.

  Jay wiped some fresh blood from his lip with the back of his hand. ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘well, it only makes what he did to me even worse.’

  ‘And what was that?’

  Jay gazed out of the window. I could see a light was on in one of the downstairs rooms of the flat, though most of th
e ground floor was hidden behind the fir hedge. I waited a long time for Jay to answer, and when he did, it wasn’t what I expected. ‘He slept with my girlfriend,’ he said.

  ‘And that…’ I said slowly, ‘…that ruined your life?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I loved her. But right from the start he wasn’t having it. He did everything he could to turn us against each other, stirring things up, making me and her fall out with each other. He kept on and on and on, driving a wedge between us, and then I found out he was sleeping with her.’

  My mind was reeling. For one thing, it was extraordinary to me to think that Jay ever cared about a girl enough that this would have any impact on him, but even more remarkable was the fact his pain about it barely seemed to have faded. He was angry. He was still angry.

  ‘When… when was this?’

  Jay worked it out. ‘Eleven years ago.’

  ‘So it was when you were… what… sixteen?’ I asked, astounded.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘She was your first girlfriend?’

  ‘Yeah. She moved to the village with her parents when she was fifteen, and I… we started seeing each other. Her name… her name was Sammie.’

  I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. ‘I don’t understand this,’ I said. ‘You’re telling me that you’re still so upset about something that happened between your best friend and your girlfriend when you were kids that you actually want to get revenge?’

  Jay didn’t answer.

  ‘Jay, teenagers do stupid stuff. I did stupid stuff when I was that age. I doubt Mark ever meant to hurt you.’

  ‘He did.’

  ‘Jay—’

  ‘You don’t understand,’ Jay snapped. ‘Mark knew how much it meant to me, being with a girl who loved me like she did. He knew what losing her would do to me.’

  ‘Sometimes…’ I said gently, ‘sometimes all that isn’t enough. When you really want to be with somebody… friendship, it just goes out the window. Sex is a far stronger drive than loyalty. There’s no two ways about it. I’m sure Mark never meant to take her away from you, but in the heat of the moment he made a stupid decision.’