Twenty nine

Your hands are inside my heart.

Blake stands on the embankment and watches the water rushing by.  He thinks of Lana and feels confused. There is a room inside her that he can’t enter.  It is like the room inside him that she cannot enter.  It is where she keeps all the hurts he has caused. There are other things in that room, too.  She has secrets now.  He tries to imagine what else could be hidden there.

A man talking loudly on his cell phone in some European language intrudes on his musings.  He glances away from the water at the tramps sleeping rough. For the first time in his life he sees them as people. People who have fallen on hard times because of the things that his family is doing.  They are not the real parasites.  She was right that night when she accused him and his family of being the parasites.  He has always known.  He has just never cared before. His phone rings.  He looks at it.  Marcus.

‘Hello.’

His brother gets to the point immediately. ‘Morgan just called me. Why is his loan still pending?’

‘Morgan is a crook.’

There is a shocked silence and then his brother sighs heavily. ‘What’s going on with you, Blake?’

‘Nothing.  It bugs me to approve the loan.  This green energy thing is a scam.’

‘Of course it is.  And so what?’

‘Why do we have to be part of everything crooked?’

‘My God, you’re beginning to sound like Quinn,’ his brother says referring to their youngest sibling.  Quinn turned his back on the family fortune and ran off to Paris to be an artist.’

‘I’m beginning to think Quinn had the right idea.’

‘It’s a big account—government approved.  We’re just facilitating the funds.’

‘We’re always only facilitating the funds.’

‘Father worked hard to get us on board.  The other banks will kill for an opportunity like this.’

Blake sighed. ‘I’ll sign off on the papers in the morning.’

‘I don’t care about the loan—what I care about is what’s happening to you?  You’re still in training.  You can’t get soft, Blake.  These are shark-infested waters you’re swimming in.  They’ll eat you alive.  The entire system is corrupt.  You can’t fight it.  If you try to, it will only break you.’

‘Yeah. Just having a bad day, I guess.’

‘Have you spoken to Victoria?’

Blake frowns. ‘No, why?’

‘Nothing. Her father was telling me you haven’t called in some weeks. It’s not a good thing to leave these things for too long.’

Blake does something he has never done before.  He confides in his brother.

‘I think I might have found someone.’

‘Someone?  What do you mean someone?’

‘I think I’m in love.’

‘What?’ The burst of sound is so explosive and sudden that Blake has to pull the phone away from his ear and hold it away.

‘Hell! Blake! Have you lost your mind?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Who is it?’

‘Not one of us.’

‘Set her up in an apartment and visit her every day until you are bored of her.’

Blake smiles in the dark. ‘Done that.’

‘You’ve fallen for a gold-digger!’

‘She’s not a gold-digger.’

‘They all are.’

‘Well, she’s not.’

‘Look, Blake, don’t fuck this up.  This is your future.  You have to marry Victoria.’

‘I don’t have to do anything.  I don’t want to end up like you.  A wife you detest, three kids you never see, and cold fucks with models and movie stars in luxurious apartments and hotel rooms.’

‘What’s wrong with that?’

Blake sighs.

‘You’re going to fuck this up, aren’t you?  This is not a club, Blake.  You can’t terminate your membership and walk away.  There are consequences.’

‘Quinn did.’

‘You’re not Quinn,’ he says, his voice heavy with meaning.

‘Look, I got to go.  I’ll call you soon. Bye, Marcus.’

Blake cuts the call and stands looking at the cold, black water.

‘Spare some change,’ someone says from behind him.

He turns back.  A tramp.  He puts his hand into his pocket, but there is no ‘change’ in his pocket. He never carries change.  He opens his wallet.  There is nothing there but fifty-pound notes.  He pulls one out and holds it out by the corner.  The tramp’s eyes widen.

‘God bless you, sir,’ he cries delightedly, and staggers away to spend the money on more booze.  Blake looks up and watches a star tumble from the sky.  And takes it as a sign.  He wants to go back to the apartment and get into bed beside her, but he won’t.  That will be a bad idea.  She will be asleep and he would only wake her and want to get into that beautiful body.  No, he will go back to his own apartment and tomorrow he will tell her.  He is madly in love with her.

He sends her a text:

Meet me for breakfast outside the café? 9am. X

Lana is not asleep.  She looks at his message.  Even the thought of breakfast makes her feel sick, but she will go anyway.  Perhaps she will have some black coffee and pretend she is on a diet or something.  She wonders where he is.  Why has he not come to her?  Has he begun to lose interest?  So quickly?  Alone, she goes to sleep and sleeps badly, tossing and turning.  Eventually, when she falls into a deep sleep, dawn is in the sky.

Her alarm goes off at eight a.m. and she dresses hurriedly.  She pulls an Alice hairband on, dresses in a long shirt and navy and white trousers.  There is no bump yet, but it seems like a good idea to start dressing in loose attire.  She leans against the mirror and fights the nausea.  She shouldn’t have agreed to go, but she doesn’t want to make him suspicious.  She waves to Mr. Nair and walks out of the building.

The café is only down the street.

As she walks her thoughts wander.  What will become of her and the little life growing inside her?  She puts her head down and makes a decision.

She steps onto the road and hears a shout.  ‘Watch out!’

In that split second, she sees Blake running towards her.  He is no longer shouting.  As if in slow motion she turns and sees a car speeding towards her.  But her feet are unable to move.  Rooted to the spot.  Even far into the future she will remember how she saw everything so clearly it was like looking through a very clean glass.  How Blake, his eyes urgent and full of desperate fear reached her and with both hands pushed her with such force that she was thrown backward out of harm’s way.

The car ploughs into him instead.  She lies on the ground and watches him flying in the air like a rag doll to land on the other side of the street.  Even from her prone position she can see the stream of blood running away from his head into the grey asphalt.

She stands and runs to him screaming.  He is lying on his front, but his head is turned in her direction.

‘Are you all right?’ he mumbles vaguely in the direction of her voice, but his eyes seem unable to focus.

‘I’m fine,’ she sobs, and he closes his eyes and falls into some deep, dark place.

Someone has already called the police and the ambulance is quick to arrive.  They take him to the nearest emergency room, but Lana is keenly aware that his family will want him to be taken to the best hospital.  She takes his mobile and finds Marcus’s number.

‘Hello,’ she says.  Her voice is strangely calm.  It must be the shock, she thinks.

‘Who’s this?’ comes the suspicious reply.

‘Blake has been in a road accident.’ Her voice shakes on the word accident.  ‘He’s been taken to the Hospital of St John and St Elizabeth.  I just thought you should know.’

‘How bad is he?’

‘It looks like a head injury, but there might be other internal things that I don’t know about.’

‘Are you at the hospital right now?’

‘Yes.’

‘Will you wait for me?  I’ll be right there.’