Between a Rock and a Hard Place Read online

  But that’s all that was—fantasy. And only weeks ago, he’d pretty much put paid to it ever becoming reality, hadn’t he? He shook his head. He was not going to dwell on that. Instead, he backed up to the memories of him and Will in easier times.

  CONSIDERING THEY’D known each other for years, it amazed Garry how he and Will never ran out of things to talk about.

  A few days after Will broke the news about going for the New York job, they agreed to stay in on a Saturday night. Neither of them said anything specific about discussing the job, but it was obviously on both their minds.

  Will was stretched out on Garry’s sofa, a plate balanced precariously on his belly with the final, half-eaten pizza slice on it. “You should go for promotion too, Garry.”

  Garry snorted in reply. He sat on the floor at the end of the sofa, leaning back against Will’s arm where it hung over the edge of the cushion. He was happily weighted down with his favourite food. Happy for all other kind of reasons too.

  “You got a better degree than I did,” Will said.

  “Barely, man. And let’s be honest. I’m not senior management material, am I?”

  Will didn’t protest, yet Garry knew he wasn’t judging him. With Will, he could relax—be himself. Will listened to him.

  “You must have plans, though. Dreams.”

  Garry bit back his snarky reply. Of course he did. But his were more micro than macro, like Will’s. He wanted a comfortable home, a job he enjoyed doing—which he did—and good friends. And Will. Ah yes. That too.

  Will would agree with Garry on so many things, but he’d also challenge him. Garry liked that even more. Other casual friends thought everything was just a laugh, friendship was nothing more than a drink and a moan about work. But Will didn’t think that. He always gave Garry his full attention. And if something needed discussing or considering at that time, well, then that was when he raised it. Expected Garry to tag along too.

  That night was a case in point. Will had been planning to get a cab home around ten, but he was still there. He’d probably stay over on the sofa: they both knew the other’s flat almost as well as their own. It was obvious Will wanted to talk about New York—and Garry had wanted to join in, honestly, he had. He was bloody pleased for Will, wasn’t he?—but then the conversation seemed to get distracted with recent movies, then recipes, then the idiot who lived in the flat downstairs who was learning to play the oboe and driving Garry crazy….

  “Garry?” Will’s voice was soft.

  When Garry glanced his way, Will’s face had an odd, twisted expression.

  What about future nights in his flat, when Will wouldn’t be there? Nights spent wondering what Will would have thought of a TV series, whether Will had written down anywhere the recipe for their favourite spaghetti sauce, whether Will had weird neighbours like Garry always seemed to have, what the hell Will was doing in New York on similar evenings….

  Garry sat up suddenly, pulling away from Will, brushing crumbs from his slice of pizza off his lap, and realised what he really wanted from his friendship with Will. The discovery was bright and painfully sharp, like a cartoon light bulb lighting up. Something he’d probably always known, just never questioned enough.

  He realised he wanted more than friendship. Way more.

  And that was the start of his downfall.

  WRIGGLING ON the uncomfortable airport bucket seat, Garry closed his eyes, his heart sinking. Thinking of Will wasn’t helping to pass the time constructively. Think of something else!

  The children, for example. They hadn’t really been that annoying, had they? It was probably tough for them, trapped in an airport with so few kid-friendly facilities. He’d offered a spare hour or so, and helped out. It had been his good deed for the day and had certainly taken his mind off the tedium of waiting for Will’s flight. Though they were probably back with their family now, having fleeced a late lunch out of him and redecorated his belongings with their foodstuffs, and he wasn’t sorry it was all over.

  He relaxed back into his seat, full of self-satisfaction at the thought of having helped a harassed family in their hour of need.

  Then the kids reappeared at the chairs beside him.

  The knot of tension returned, grinding relentlessly down between Garry’s shoulder blades.

  “Got you a piss moustache one,” Emily announced, holding an ice cream cone out at arm’s length. Green liquid ran down her arm to the elbow and splashed carelessly onto his boot.

  Max opened his mouth but Garry nodded quickly. “Pistachio. I got it.” He took the cone very gingerly. He hated pistachio.

  “Where are your parents now?” He didn’t expect a sensible answer, was just putting off the truly evil moment when he’d have to eat the ice cream. Anyway, it was like a game, wasn’t it? And he’d already played the first few rounds. He asked where their parents were, and they ignored the question. Simple rules.

  “Where are yours?” Emily asked, her mouth smeared with a new layer of chocolate ice cream. The last shred of her cone vanished into her mouth. She truly did have an amazing appetite.

  “I don’t have any,” he said, not really concentrating. He was wondering if green food colouring would brush off suede boots. Expensive ones. “They’re dead.”

  He wasn’t prepared for Emily’s sudden wail. The ice cream dropped to the floor with a splat, as he whirled around to face her. Her eyes were screwed into small pools of welling tearfulness, and her mouth was wide with the sound of anguish. Several people were already looking over, and a security guard was measuring the weight of his radio like he might have to use it as a weapon against an abusive adult.

  “No, wait!” Garry said desperately. “I mean… it was a long time ago. I was a kid. I mean, they didn’t die just now or anything.”

  She stopped crying at once. It was like a tap being turned off. Garry’s heart was still racing, and he turned to Max, sure that his whole expression shouted What the fuck?

  Max dropped himself back into the seat beside Garry. He shrugged at Emily’s behaviour while neatly demolishing the last of his mint chocolate chip cone. “Girls,” he said, as if that explained it all.

  Maybe, Garry thought, it does. His experience was limited, especially of that age group. He scrabbled about for some of the discarded napkins from their earlier meal, to wipe up the smashed ice cream scoop. Of course, his boots had absorbed most of the spillage. Lucky, that.

  Emily sat next to him again. Garry could tell they were in for the long haul: she kicked off her shoes and Max flipped open his Game Boy. Garry took a deep, careful breath and girded his virtual loins.

  Emily sniffed a bit and lifted the edge of her T-shirt to wipe her nose. “So why are you here? If you’re not meeting your mum and dad.”

  Garry smiled cautiously. “I’m meeting a friend.”

  “Girl? Boy?”

  Garry thought how ludicrous it seemed to call Will a boy. An involuntary smile teased the corners of his mouth. “Boy. Man, that is.”

  “What’s his name?”

  Garry felt the weight of another interrogation approaching. The kids were relentless. They should work for a ruthless enemy superpower. He looked at the state of himself and his frazzled nerves and concluded that they probably already did.

  “Will. His name’s William Royle.”

  “Like a prince.” Emily giggled.

  “Like you’re the witch,” Max snarled. She stuck her tongue out at him.

  Garry didn’t think he should have to explain his friend’s name. He was distressed that he was even considering it. He couldn’t understand where it had gone wrong—the theory about keeping the conversation to a minimum and encouraging the kids to go away.

  “Is he a good friend?” Emily pursued. “Is he a cold flea?”

  “Colleague,” Max murmured, his eyes fixed on his game.

  “He’s both,” Garry said. They had the same friends in London; they all spent time together when they could. Everyone knew what Garry was like, and w
hat Will was like. He and Will were close. They knew each other the best of all. But he wasn’t sure how he could describe that relationship. The thought was rather unsettling.

  “Don’t you like him?”

  He realised Emily was staring up into his face. She was frowning.

  “Of course I do. What do you mean?”

  “Your face screws up when you talk about him,” she said, pointing at a spot in the vicinity of his nose.

  “No, no.” Garry laughed uncertainly. “He just…. I get annoyed sometimes. That’s all.”

  “With him? Boys are like that,” Max said, like he had decades of personal experience. He stabbed his finger on a keypad button. “You fight a lot.”

  “No!” Garry’s laugh was genuine now. “Of course not. We get on very well, actually. We like the same sports, the same movies….”

  “So he must be ugly,” Emily stated. “Makes you feel sick.”

  Garry had a sudden, vivid image of Will with a scoop of pistachio ice cream for a head. “No, Emily,” he said, rather more firmly than was needed. “Actually, he’s good-looking.” Very good-looking. “Look, there’s no problem at all, right? I like him a lot.”

  Max looked at Emily and she wrinkled her nose at him.

  “How long have you known him?” the boy asked.

  Garry felt like he was at some kind of an interview, like Will’s. But he also had the upsetting suspicion he wasn’t likely to get the job. His résumé appeared to be less than acceptable.

  “I’ve known him since… oh, for years. Since we were students.”

  “So now he’s old, like you!” There was a note of triumph in Emily’s voice. “So he must be ugly.”

  “For heaven’s sake.” Max sighed. “Garry’s not ugly, is he?”

  Emily turned back towards Garry, her bright, concentrated gaze appraising him very carefully. He blushed. He found himself—for some inexplicable reason—sucking in his stomach.

  “Garr-eee’s okay,” she said. Her judgment was obviously final; he certainly wasn’t arguing with it. “His hair’s great. Curls and all. I wanted to put my Barbie clip in it, but then he woke up.”

  Garry’s mouth opened, then shut again. Sensible words escaped him. As soon as he got back from this trip, he was going to get a short back and sides.

  “So you’re good friends with Will?” Max asked. “Best friends?”

  Garry was going to laugh again, but something in Max’s child-adult tone made him hesitate. “Yes,” he said. “He is my best friend. I always look forward to seeing him. We have a laugh together.”

  “But you said you get annoyed. Why?”

  Garry puffed out some breath. How did they manage to home in on the one clumsy thing he’d said? This line of questioning was very tiring. And, rather surprisingly, it made him nervous. “Nothing. Whatever. I didn’t mean that exactly.” Was he really annoyed? And was it at Will—or at himself, for that odd, persistent undercurrent of misery, when he thought about Will’s new job? Will had been so excited about his new adventure. “We’re fine. We’re friends, like I said, and we work together—well, we do at the moment, though that’s changing soon. He lives near me, so we do most things together.” His throat felt tight. “But of course we have our own lives. It’s important we don’t get in each other’s way. It’s not like he needs me, needs my help for anything.”

  “But you do.”

  Garry turned his head so swiftly, he heard his neck crick.

  “You need him,” Emily announced gravely. “Don’t you?” And while he desperately searched for something to say that would stop this right now, she peered at his head. “You need him to do your hair, to comb those nasty dangles. It’s difficult, I know. I can’t do my plates on my own.”

  Max caught Garry’s eye. “Tangles,” he mouthed. “Plaits.”

  “No, honey,” Garry said to Emily. “I can do my own hair. I like Will’s company for… other reasons.”

  “So why aren’t you both here?”

  “Well, he’s been to an interview for his new job. In America….” He saw Emily’s eyes widen with excitement. Cute. “He’s just coming back to the UK today, for a couple of weeks.”

  “You said you work together.”

  Garry frowned. “We did. But things change, you know.”

  “So you’re here and he’ll be in America?” Max looked genuinely intrigued. “How’s that going to work?”

  Garry felt his mouth do a goldfish impression until he had breath to reply. “I don’t exactly know what you mean, Max, but that’s the way things are for adults. At least, the way things will be. It’s a fabulous job. He deserves it. A great opportunity. We’ll be fine, don’t you worry.”

  God.

  “But you’ll miss him?”

  “Yes,” Garry said slowly. Dammit, yes.

  Max shrugged. He kicked his feet against the seat, almost aimlessly. His eyes were on his Game Boy screen, but his words had that special kind of throwaway-serious that so often tilts a man’s world. “So do something about it.”

  “About…?”

  “Missing Will, ’member? You could change jobs too. Dad does it all the time.”

  “Dad gets done dancing a lot.” Emily sighed.

  “Redundancy, stupid,” Max said, but quite cheerfully. “Why don’t you do that, Garry? Go and be with Will.” He looked up and stared straight into Garry’s face.

  Garry stared back at the strange little boy whom he was beginning to suspect was the spawn of some new breed of devious, Doctor Who-type demon, endemic to airport lounges. It was like Max knew…. That a child Garry had never met before somehow knew Garry had spent most of the last two days searching the agencies for contract work abroad, notably in the New York area. Looking for old school friends over there to visit. Or thinking of maybe just getting on a plane and arriving at Will’s new front door, hoping to share the new-city life with him, to spend more time together, to joke and explore and maybe stay over, like the old days. Of course, he didn’t know if Will was likely to laugh, or be only politely interested, or—God forbid—look horrified, as if he were being stalked….

  “He’s got that screwing look again!” Emily cried, probing a damp finger into Garry’s cheek.

  “Do you want some more ice cream?” Max asked. They both stared intensely at him.

  Garry thought it wise just to shake his head. He shivered to rid himself of the clinging paranoia. His gut cramped painfully and he winced.

  “Do you need to go to the toilet?” Max hissed at him, in rather a too-loud tone.

  Garry looked with desperation across the lounge. The clock told him he’d passed another couple of hours. Only. It mocked him.

  It was the thought of more pistachio ice cream that disturbed him, that was the problem. Obviously. He folded his arms around him in a defensive position and grimaced at the kids.

  He rather suspected that resistance—as they say—was futile.

  THE KIDS had been quiet for a while. Garry had bought them a pack of cards and they proceeded to grunt and frown and whoop over a selection of games. They currently sat at his feet, using the top of his bag as a makeshift table. They slapped each card onto it with gleeful aggression. Snap had engendered too many homicidal tendencies—both between the kids themselves and for the people within earshot—so Garry had taught them blackjack. He’d clear it with the parents later, if necessary.

  Emily was currently cleaning up as the bank. Max owed her several Game Boy games and four pounds of red-heart sweets. Only on paper, so far, though Garry suspected she’d be as relentless as a Mafia casino boss in collecting her dues.

  He let his mind drift gently around their previous conversation. Not necessarily a wise move, of course, but things stuck in his mind, the way that awkward thoughts always stuck. Like those damned sweets.

  I like Will’s company for other reasons.

  And he’d finally made that blindingly obvious, hadn’t he?

  “CHEERS TO whizz-kid Will!”

  In
the bar near the office, the beery voices raised a toast to Will. The announcement of the job application had been made official that afternoon, and his travel arrangements had been finalised. The whole department had decamped to the pub after office hours. In a couple of days, Will would be travelling to the States to start the formal interview process. The first guy from this London branch to be invited to head office.

  Garry watched the other guys patting Will on the back, a couple of the girls flushed with vicarious pride. Will was always popular with women. Popular with everyone, actually.

  “Bon voyage to another Transatlantic Tosser-to-be, right?” Bernie was a loudmouth at the best of times, but a genius on computers. He nudged Garry, nearly spilling Garry’s pint. “I’ve heard what flash gits they all are over in the New York office. Bet Will fits right in with them, right? While we poor suckers are left holding the fort over here, like always. Whatcha gonna do without your partner in crime, Garry, right?”

  Garry resisted the temptation to reply “You’re the tosser, right?” and compromised with a tight smile that would hopefully discourage Bernie from any more of his insulting non-witticisms.

  Sheila from Legal Services wriggled deliberately in between Garry and Bernie, who snorted his frustration and turned away to annoy another victim.

  “Thanks for the rescue,” Garry said. He could see the top of Will’s head over Sheila’s.

  “No problem. Bernie’s a dick unless he’s plugged into his PC. But he’s right. How are you two going to cope long distance?”

  “Sorry?”

  She blinked twice. Pursed her lips. Her cheeks slowly coloured. “God. Sorry. I’ve just always assumed you two….”

  Epiphany, or what? Fuck. Garry felt he’d been kicked in the gut. His best friend, the man he’d known for most of his adult life, who’d subbed him when he ran out of money, helped him find a flat, fixed the lights on his car every time they blew, got drunk and played Final Fantasy with him, who always let Garry order the pizza according to Garry’s favourite, who was the hottest guy around and too bloody kind for his own good….