Page 24 of Electric Boy

Rahul hissed something under his breath that sounded rather a lot like “bastard.”

“There’s something wrong about him. I don’t think it’s a good idea for Julian to be hanging around him. I know it’s none of my business anymore but --”

“No. No, no, you’re right,” Rahul cut in, agreeing with her for the first time since they’d known each other. His eyes were distant, moving back and forth as if reading something only he could see. “I’ll, uh… I’ll look into it. Thanks for coming to me about it.” His eyes refocused, and they seemed to carry a great deal more warmth than they ever had before. “I mean it, Aisling. Thank you. And, uh… And I’m sorry. For what it’s worth.”

“Not a great deal.” Aisling smiled crookedly. “But I appreciate it. You take care, all right? And you take care of Julian.”

“I will.” And he said it with such earnestness that Aisling knew she’d been right. About all of it.

* * *

Aisling found Julian just as Rahul had said. Holding court at the bar. The Ghostly Unknown Octopus fans Aisling had not believed existed were all crowded around him and the box of demo tapes he was slinging for twenty-five p a pop. He wasn’t doing so much selling as he was gesticulating with one of the little plastic rectangles, all kitted out in rainbow stickers and jagged felt-tip pen lettering labelling them as Hustle Butter’s (last year’s band name) cassette.

The gaggle that encircled him was comprised of goggle-eyed Goth girls and spotty pubescent punk chaps, all as utterly enraptured by Julian’s nonsensical musings as Aisling had been at their age. The sight of them made her want to be sick.

“That’s the thing with tarantulas,” Julian was saying, mouth working a mile a minute, tape in one hand and pint in the other. He had that wide-eyed, sweaty quality he got when he’d done too much coke. “You can never hear them coming. Is there one under your pillow? Is there one in your boot? Is there one in the toilet wearing your mum’s knickers and smoking an Embassy Gold? You won’t know till you open the door and it says ‘Don’t you knock?’ and blows smoke in your face. And that’s why I’m never going back to Sydney.”

“Julian,” Aisling said in a voice loud enough to carry and firm enough to brook no argument. He and his entire teenage cult turned to look at her as one. Pathetic little Camden clones, every one of them. The only solace was how Julian seemed to blanch and sober considerably at the sight of her. “A word please. Outside.”

She strode out through the windowless double doors without waiting to see if he was following.

The night was bitter cold and the street mostly dark in the wake of the knackered streetlamps. Drifts of rubbish crowded the gutters. A bottle glinted in the light from the club’s marquee and she kicked it into the street with a satisfying explosion of glass. It only took seconds for her to hear the click of Julian’s Chelsea boots behind her. She turned to face him, already feeling the tears stinging the corners of her eyes.

Julian looked sheepish and unsure, a rare sight for him indeed. He’d left his coat behind in his haste and he wrapped his skinny arms around his thin middle to ward off the chill that his faux-leather jacket couldn’t protect him from. The overall effect was that of a bashful teenager getting ready for a scolding by his mother. The sickness that had been welling in Aisling’s throat solidified into something hard that was difficult to swallow around.

“Don’t worry,” she said, a hot cloud of steam escaping her lips and making her words visible in the air. “I’m not here to beg you to take me back. I’ve got standards. Even if it might not look that way.”

Julian looked down at his boots and his hair fell into his face, obscuring it from view.

“Out of all the ways I thought we’d end, you having it off with somebody else didn’t even make it to the top of my list. Proves what a right twat I’ve been, eh? And don’t pretend you haven’t.” She cut him off when she saw him look up, the protests forming on his lips. “I’d hope you’d have at least enough respect for me left not to treat me like a fucking idiot.”

He bit back whatever he was going to say, a sad resignation forming in his eyes as he dropped his gaze to the pavement. The lump of sick in her throat was suffocating. It was one thing to have a guess that someone had fooled around behind your back; it was a whole other thing to have it confirmed. So Julian really had got off with the Australian model stalker.

“You know, I thought it’d feel good finding out I was right,” she mused aloud, disgusted by the tearful strangle in her own voice. “But it doesn’t feel good. It feels like shit.”

He flinched but otherwise remained motionless, eyes trained on an empty packet of crisps in the gutter.

“That’s your problem, Jules. You make everyone around you feel like shit. Because you’re vain and selfish and no one could love you as much as you love yourself. But they try. God help them, they try. Everyone falls in love with you because you’re shiny and bright and you’re the only Goddamned shiny, bright thing in this fucking city. But you only like other shiny, bright things. As soon as your newest toy gets the sheen worn off it, you’re off to the next shiny thing. But your toys don’t forget you. They still love you. They can’t help it. Only now you treat ‘em like shit because you know you can. You know they won’t leave you. You love how they love you. You feed off it. You’re a fucking vampire, is what you are. And you leave everyone around you drained and feeling like shit. The bloody shit vampire, you are.” She laughed bitterly through tears.

“Even people you threw other people over for, for Christ’s sake! You threw Rahul over for me, you threw me over for Rahul, now you’ve gone and thrown Rahul over for this new shiny pillock. You bloody love Rahul and he’s up there right now feeling like shit because of you!”

She wiped angrily at her wet cheeks before realising they were wet from more than just her tears. It had started drizzling a freezing rain and she hadn’t even noticed. Julian still wouldn’t look at her. There was something painful about that. His inaction was a violent thrust straight into her heart. It was as though he couldn’t be bothered to look at her. As if he didn’t think she was worth the effort. She was overcome with a blinding desire to make Julian feel even one tenth what he was making her feel.

“One day the sheen’s gonna be off you, you know,” she said. “No one’s going to be falling in love with you anymore. The shiny objects you’re chasing after aren’t going to want you, and you’re gonna wind up alone. You’ll die alone, Jules. ‘Cause there won’t be anyone left you haven’t buggered into hating you.”

The sharp hillocks of Julian’s shoulders rose like defensive battlements. She’d been nasty. She could admit that much. She’d just wanted to wound him like he’d wounded her. An eye for an eye. She couldn’t be sure if her words had had the desired effect. Julian’s face was a void of shadow, only the droplets of rain collecting in his hair were visible, reflecting the light of the club’s marquee like thousands of diamonds. Regardless of how he’d received her barbs, his silence spoke volumes.

A sort of icy calm came over her. It was well and truly over. The worst had passed. She’d ripped the plaster off and now could busy herself with the healing scab. She had the sort of bright-eyed clarity that comes after retching up the night’s too many drinks. It was out of her system now. She was free. Just like leaving the key behind. Unshackled.

She sniffled loudly and rose to her full height, unbothered for once how it might eclipse Julian. “Goodbye, Julian. I hope you prove me wrong.”

Then Aisling walked away.

* * *

Michael was startled awake out of a cosy dream by the ear-piercing shriek of the telephone on his bedside cabinet. He lifted the receiver groggily to his ear without fully waking. “‘Allo?” he mumbled, voice gravelly.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t wake you, did I?” came the distant, static-laced voice on the other end of the line.