Straight Jacket. Adrian Deans

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      ‘How are you, Gorgeous?’

      She smiled nicely, but bunched her brows as I removed the wine cooler from the passenger seat and went to place it on the floor. But as soon as she sat down, I plonked it in her lap.

      ‘There you go, Beautiful. Look after that!’

      She went to say something, but I revved the engine and pulled into the street. It was only a couple of minutes to her friends’ place in Cremorne, and I wanted to give her minimum opportunity to instruct me on how to behave.

      ‘Can you turn the radio down, Morgen?’

      ‘Pardon?’

      ‘Could you please turn the radio down?’

      As she raised her voice, I strategically muted the radio, making it sound like she was shouting. In response, I thinned my lips and my eyes went flinty-hard. I stabbed a vicious finger at the radio console, and the car was suddenly silent.

      She just stared at me in shock for a few seconds — I’d seemed so happy only moments before.

      ‘Darling,’ she said, mystified and a trifle concerned. ‘You didn’t need to turn it off … I only asked for you to turn it down a little. I wanted to talk to you.’

      ‘No need to shout!’ I snapped.

      Her face went white and then green in the glare of neon at the top of Neutral Bay.

      ‘I didn’t mean to shout … are you alright?’

      ‘I’m fine.’

      ‘I rang your office this afternoon and they said you’d gone home early. You’re not sick are you?’ she asked, clearly hoping I was. It might explain my mood swings.

      ‘Sick? I’m not sick. It’s Feargol that’s sick.’

      ‘Feargol, your boss?’

      ‘How many Feargols do you think I know?’

      She ignored my sarcasm and soldiered on.

      ‘What’s wrong with Feargol?’

      ‘Cancer.’

      ‘Oh no … that’s terrible!’

      ‘That’s not the worst of it.’

      ‘Really … what could be worse than cancer?’

      ‘He’s gone and picked bloody Affridge to be head of Compliance.’

      ‘Morgen! How can you compare someone getting cancer with you being passed over for promotion? I had no idea you were so heartless!’

      But she seemed relieved. She obviously thought she understood the reason for my disquiet, and it was nothing to do with her.

      •

      Sonia and Derek’s house was one of those understated semi-mansions on the harbour side of Cremorne — an annoyingly long walk both uphill to the restaurants and down to the water. It was fucking inconsiderate, and I felt my sense of justice becoming engorged — even tumescent, you might say.

      There was a powerful smell of turpentine from some huge piney conifer and the marble steps were cracked, worn and yellow with age. The air temperature was perfect and there were flashes of jasmine from somewhere. The various drugs fizzing in my system made walking down a path feel like a triumphal progress with a fanfare of trumpets. Is that acid I feel?

      Before we could ring the doorbell, light streamed out and I felt my pupils twisting like an itchy demon’s, and realised I was grinning widely at the woman who materialised in the doorway.

      ‘Jill! How lovely to see you!’

      Sonia was very like Jill in appearance, but without the uncontrived aspect I’d initially found so attractive. In fact, I suddenly thought rather less of Jill for being friends with her — more judicial ammunition.

      The two women exchanged air kisses, then Sonia turned to me.

      ‘Welcome, Morgen … we’ve heard so much about you.’

      ‘Well, none of it’s true,’ I said, the drugs turning my voice theatrically bleak. ‘Jill only knows my outer surfaces … she doesn’t know the dark creature brooding in my soul.’

      The two of them stared at me in uncertain silence until I could no longer hold back the drug-fuelled grin, and they both smiled in relief.

      ‘Morgen has quite a unique sense of humour,’ said Jill, patting my arm, ‘but we forgive him.’

      Sonia led us down a long tiled hallway to a recently renovated kitchen — all polished boards and stainless steel. Then she saw the wine cooler.

      ‘Oh … I’m sorry Morgen. We don’t drink wine … so we don’t have any appropriate glasses.’

      Jill looked up at me coyly, imploring me to accept the dry dinner graciously.

      ‘That’s okay, Sonia,’ I smiled. ‘This wine is so good I could lick it out of Jill’s … navel.’

      •

      ‘Just half a glass for me, Morgen,’ said Jill, with a glance at Sonia and Derek sitting stonily opposite as I poured into thick-lipped tumblers, which at least had the virtue of making up in quantity what they lacked in quality.

      We were sitting in a candle-lit room that was obviously next on the list for renovation. The wallpaper had been stripped from the walls, but the paintings had been rehung — all dilettante originals by the look of them, with possibly one of Sonia’s? Certainly there was at least one watercolour hanging limply with exactly her shade of talentless pretension.

      I offered the bottle to our hosts and their lips tightened even further.

      ‘Our decision not to drink alcohol is a lifestyle choice,’ Derek informed me. ‘It isn’t just an eccentric whim to be relaxed when offered wine by normal people. We believe the body is a temple.’

      ‘That’s fine, Derek,’ I said. ‘I fully respect your choice.’

      I raised my glass, ‘To self-denial!’ and swilled down a few big gulps, allowing some of the wine to spill out either side of the glass and splash down my chest.

      ‘It’s not self-denial,’ said Derek, obviously struggling with his duty to be hospitable. ‘It’s no more self-denial than not drinking battery acid.’

      ‘You deny yourself acid? You don’t know what you’re missing!’

      With an almighty effort, I managed to drag myself back from being sucked into the drug laughter vortex, from which there is no return. I knew I would get there eventually, when the acid kicked in, but the night had promise and I didn’t want the whole thing to collapse too quickly. So I straightened up and asked Derek about his work, just occasionally lapsing into a two or three-second burst of the sniggers.

      Derek СКАЧАТЬ