Page 4 of Compulsion

“There’s no one!” I slammed my hand down on the tabletop, making the beer bottles rattle alarmingly. The heat rose up through my body, raging in me, bringing me almost to my feet. “He’s dead! He’s dead, okay?”

Chapter Three

THANK God the music had started up again at its loudest, or security would’ve been on their way over. I’d thrust my head forward, glowering at Jack, and a couple of people at the table next to us swiveled around on their seats, startled by my voice.

There was a shocked, still moment between the pair of us, even amid the throb of dance music and the rise and fall of party voices. I stared at Jack and he stared back, eyes wide. It was obvious we were both startled at how things had slipped out of control.

“Come out to the lobby,” he said. “It’s quieter there. Please, Max.”

I followed him, mainly for the sake of making amends. There were still patrons lined up there, paying for their entrance, but the noise level was much lower. There were also several padded chairs set against the wall, and Jack pulled me over with him to sit in a couple of these.

He leaned forward, his hand on my knee. “Shit, Max, I’m so sorry.”

“Jack, it isn’t what you think, you know?” I could hear the break in my voice even as I fought to control it. “I’m the one who’s sorry. Yelling at you like that, I just….”

“It’s okay.”

I took a deep breath. “It’s not. You’re right. I’m just not ready to talk about it yet. There was someone, but not in the way you mean. Not a lover. He was a friend. Someone I thought a hell of a lot of.”

Jack nodded, his strong hand back on my arm. “I didn’t mean to stir things up. Shit, Louis will….” He shook his head.

“He’ll go ballistic?”

Jack grimaced. “Yeah. He says I’m to leave it alone—to leave you alone. Says we have to let you open up in your own time. Give you time to….” He shrugged. “Whatever.”

Whatever. I didn’t want to talk about this, even though Jack was obviously worried. And me? I sat in a virtually public place as if I were totally alone, trying to shake off a creeping depression. I felt withdrawn from everything around me, inside a bubble of lonely misery, isolated in the middle of the fluorescent-lit lobby of a busy club on a Saturday night.

In my mind, I was scared again. I was on a cold, cracked London pavement around the back of Soho, crouched over a crumpled and bleeding body. The night air was rank with the smell of smoke, weed, and spilled alcohol. Tacky neon lighting gave a sickly cast to the scene, accompanied by the distant bass beat of dance music from a nearby building. I was crying outside a club just like this one. It looked like some cheap, corny set in a movie about the capital’s seedy underground.

But it wasn’t a scene from a film—it was a memory of real life. It was vivid because I’d been there—I’d seen the man’s blood as a dark shadow in the artificial light, the puddle underneath his torso creeping slowly and irresistibly across the concrete, his life leeching away with it. My cheeks were wet with tears of shock and grief, and my hands shook as I grasped the lapels of his coat, trying to keep him with me, trying… to make it not so.

“Max?” Jack’s hand pressed more tightly.

That was the day I realized everything had gone wrong. My move to London should have been a great adventure, a way to express my rebellion, releasing my much wilder side, embracing the independent me. Yet there I was, on my knees in a charity-shop shirt and worn jeans, sobbing pathetically over my only real friend, who lay dying in the street while everyone else backed off, scared. And I was fucking scared too.

“Max!”

This time I turned to face Jack, the club coming back into focus around me. “Sorry, man.”

“Tell me,” he said. He couldn’t hide the urgency in his tone.

“Stewart Matthews,” I said. “That was his name. About twenty years older than me, well educated, from a good family. A really great guy. Always reasonable, always fair, even when I was the most trouble I’ve ever been.”

“This was when you were first in London?”

I nodded. “It wasn’t… what I thought it’d be.” Jack was obviously a damned good friend, because he didn’t interrupt, just waited for me to go on. “I was lost, Jack. A real fucking mess. I never thought I was vulnerable, but I saw so many that were… and then I realized I was headed the same way. Thinking I was so bloody clever, picking up with a crowd because I wanted to belong, not because I felt good with them. And out of control. Too fucking fond of grabbing what was on offer, too greedy, too easy. That’s all I ever was.”

“No,” Jack said, sounding fierce. “That’s not bloody true.”

“Stewart was a youth worker at a local center. He knew a lot of the kids on the street wouldn’t come to the center unprompted, even if they needed help, so he used to go out to meet them. Just for a chat and an occasional coffee, you know?”

“You liked him.”

“Yeah. He was great to talk to. We had a similar sense of humor. I could talk about my Uni days without being mocked about getting above myself.” I smiled through the sadness. “He reminded me of you guys in some ways.” I suspected it was more like Stewart reminded me of the days when I had a decent place in life.

The friendship stalled my destructive tendencies for a while. Stewart pulled me out of the crowd, encouraged me to help him with his work at the center. We mended the pool table, set up a bike repair stall, ran a couple of football tournaments—laughable shambles but careless fun. He talked to me about things beyond the next packet of smokes and how to avoid the landlord at the latest squat. He wanted to help me, but he never pushed too hard. Knew he shouldn’t have to, that I had to find that way myself. It was obvious he’d already found his own place in life—a job he enjoyed, satisfaction, respect. I wanted that too. I always knew it, even while I was chasing the kind of excitement you get from booze and one-night gropes in dark, dirty back streets.

“Max?” Jack was looking worried again. “Do you want to tell me… how did he die?”