Dead of Light by Chaz Brenchley Page B

you’re not saying anything, I can see you thinking about them. And you do things just because they wouldn’t, or because they wouldn’t approve. Your whole life’s still mediated by being a Macallan. It’s just that these days you’re trying to be a bad Macallan, because you know you’ll never make a good one. Striving for the opposite only confirms the potency of the original state.”
    Oh my dear, darling Laura. She talked like that sometimes, when her psychology textbooks got the better of her. When she forgot about the sympathy thing, when she was irritated enough to go for honesty and just say what she saw.
    Oh my dear, darling, clear-sighted Laura...
    â€œAnd that being so,” she added, a little more gently and a lot too late, “I’m entitled to be curious, aren’t I? About my friend’s obsessions?”
    â€œThat’s not,” I said thickly, “that’s not why. Is it? That’s just camouflage. You’re only trying to make me feel better.”
    â€œAll right, yes. I’m trying to make you feel better. That’s allowed, isn’t it? That’s legitimate? It’s not as if I have to do it, I’m not obliged. You don’t have any lien over my activities. Try being grateful, why don’t you? Just for once?”
    â€œ Grateful? Christ...”
    â€œOr if you can’t do that,” and she was pulling herself back now, reining in the sharpening anger and making one last effort to keep things peaceable between us, “at least try being sensible. It’s not like he asked me for a date or anything,” with just a hint of wistfulness in her voice, as though her curiosity stretched further than she were willing to admit even to herself. “I only said I’d go, we’d go,” touching my hand where it gripped the back of the seat in front, “I said we’d go out for a drink with him, for his birthday. What’s wrong with that, for God’s sake? It’s you he wants anyway, not me. I was just a tool, to make sure you said yes. Because you wouldn’t have, would you? If he hadn’t asked me first?”
    I wasn’t sure. A week ago, no, definitely not; but things had changed, were changing. Old loyalties were resurgent, old feelings coming to life again. I might have said yes, I thought. Or I might not, couldn’t be certain.
    But Laura had said yes, with no equivocation. “Yes,” she’d said, “I’d like to. Very much,” she’d said; and after that again I didn’t have the option. Call it jealousy, call it chivalry, call it what you will: no way was Laura going out with Jamie without me there to sit between them. I could act as a blanket, at least, even if she thought me a wet one. I could use the advantages of my blood as a weapon against the advantages of his, to keep between her and the tingle of his touch. To keep curiosity from turning to fatal fascination. For her own good, I could act as insulation.
    â€œHe said you were like brothers,” she told me, “when you were kids. And it was almost like losing a brother, when you walked out. He said that. He said, when Marty died, he said it was almost like the second time around. He wants you back, Ben, that’s all. What’s wrong with that?”
    There was plenty wrong with that, and she should have known it without asking. Hard to believe that she could be so naïve.
    If it were true, if Jamie did want me back, he wasn’t the only one. Allan would welcome this straying sheep’s return, that was clear. Jamie might simply be his missionary, his message-bearer...
    I sat there on the bus, silent for the rest of the journey, thinking about the implications; but when Laura nudged me, “Wake up, guy. I want to get off, if you don’t,” I still hadn’t come to any resolutions.
    Specifically, I still hadn’t worked out which scared me more: that Jamie had been