Silence. A car horn beeped outside, and another, a third, muffled by the careful double glazing. London carried on outside. The room was too warm. Saz was shattered.
“So what now?” Will was slumped in his seat, no longer making any attempt to deny his exhaustion or lack of sobriety.
Andrea stood up, picked up her bag. “Nothing. It’s all said and done. Janine clearly has more sense than the rest of us. We’ve given her an hour and a half. She’s not coming. I shouldn’t have either.”
Daniel stood up, held his hand out to her, “Andrea?”
“Finished, Daniel.” She looked around at the others, “Let’s not do this again.”
“But what about Janine?” Saz asked.
“Apparently you’re the one with the big guilt, Sally. You sort her. I’m going home. I won’t be seeing any of you again. I won’t be talking about any of this again. Goodbye.”
Will waited until the door closed behind her and then shifted himself painfully from his chair to the sofa. “She’s right, it’s all done now. You had your fun, Daniel, time to run off home to your boring ordinary life now.”
“Don’t push me, Will. I could still talk about this, you know … ”
Will kicked off his shoes, punched a cushion behind his head. “Yeah, you could. And you could talk about your part in whatever happened to Janine, how you used her back then and you’ve used her again now. Taking a woman off the streets and trying to involve her in a blackmail scam? Nice. Or perhaps you’d like to talk about this kid you’ve been shagging, that’ll look great on your CV. Or maybe you just want to write it all up and turn it into a screenplay? Your terribly interesting life?” He ran a hand carefully over his face. “Like Andrea said, it’s finished. Fuck off, mate. I’m going to sleep. Let yourselves out, yeah?” He lay down, turned onto his side away from them and closed his eyes.
Saz picked up her bag with shaking hands, checked for her phone. At the front door she turned to Daniel and said, “You’re not the only one.”
“Only one what?”
“You said Will thought he was better than you. But I felt like that too, about Andrea, about loads of people. Always did. Felt like I didn’t belong, couldn’t keep up with everyone else, that you were all judging me. And I know Ewan felt it, we talked about it once. I bet Andrea did too, even though she’d never say, not then, probably not even now.” She lowered her voice. “That’s why we found each other. Because we didn’t fit with the others and being together gave us somewhere to hide. But that’s not a big deal, Daniel. No one ever thinks they belong, not when they’re kids, not when they’re adults half the time. We were lonely and scared and fucked up simply because we were kids. That’s how it is. It was just safer being lonely and scared in a group.”
Daniel ran a careful hand over his battered face. “Nice bit of psychology, Saz. Might even be true for you, and Ewan. Was true some of the time for me, Andrea occasionally. But I don’t believe it was true for Will, never has been. He really did think he was better than the rest of us.” He looked back at the man stretched out on the big soft sofa. “And he still does. It’s why you and I know that we damaged Janine Marsden, and he decided to believe it was all just a good time gone too far. Will Gallagher can’t be wrong. He doesn’t know how to be.”
They went out into the street together. Saz wasn’t going to walk away with him, but Daniel held the door for her, laughed at her for suddenly coming over all squeamish now. Asked if she was afraid of him. She was, but she wasn’t going to say so. He said goodbye in the street and she nodded her agreement. Before she had crossed the road, Saz was on her mobile calling Carrie; she wanted to hear Matilda’s voice. But their home phone and Carrie’s mobile were both ringing unanswered. Nor did Carrie respond to the seven increasingly worried texts Saz sent. She kept trying all the way home in the cab. Carrie never failed to answer her phone. Saz was very cold.