Mark Chadbourn - World's end

"You've got to start getting out, you know." Dale, always the most irresponsible of his friends, suddenly sounded like some geriatric relative. Church, seeing how he was infecting others, winced with guilt.

"It's not as simple as that."

"I know it's not as simple as that. I'm not stupid," Dale bristled. He swigged from his beer bottle, then suddenly flicked it in a loop in the air and caught it without spilling a drop. "Hey! That was good, wasn't it?"

"Marvellous."

"Okay. This weekend. We get a bootful of cans and take off for Brighton. Drink them all under the pier, a few burgers, a mountain of candy floss, then off to the pleasure beach and see who's first to vomit on the rides. You know it has to be done."

Church smiled wanly; two years ago he would never have guessed Dale would have been the one to stick around. "It's a good idea, but I've got too much work on. Financial planning software, for my sins. It's got to be in by Monday."

Dale said, resignedly, "You remember the time you cancelled your holiday in Cyprus and bundled us all into the car for a week in Devon to cheer up Louise after her dad died? That was spontaneous fun."

Church shrugged. "Cyprus would have been too hot that time of year, anyway."

"You don't fool me. You'd been planning for that holiday for months. Years probably, knowing you. And you gave it up in an instant."

"I'm so selfless," Church said sarcastically. He caught Dale examining him as if searching for the person he remembered. "Of course, I've still got the photo of you at that gig we drove up to in Oxford."

Dale blanched. "Not the one where I lost my trousers when I was stage-diving?"

"Boxers too. Jesus, that was a horrible sight."

"I was expecting you to catch me, not take photos!" Dale said indignantly. "If I ever find out who pulled my keks down-"

"Serves you right for stage-diving. The rest of us were respectfully enjoying the music," Church mocked.

"Yeah, you were a real muso, weren't you? You were like the bleedin' HMV computer. Name a CD and you'd list every track on it. And you could play the guitar and the drums. Bloody show-off."

"You know you needed me. I provided the intellectual conversation while the rest of you were drinking your own weight in alcohol."

Dale chuckled at the memories. "We had some laughs too, right? You, me, Pete, Kate, Louise, Billy …"

And Marianne.

"That was a long time ago," Church said.

Dale visibly winced at his faux pas. "Listen to me. I sound like some old git reminiscing about the war." His voice trailed off, and he looked Church in the eye a little uncomfortably. "We can't keep talking around it, you know."

"I'm okay," Church protested. Here it was, as he feared, coming up on him from his blindside. "I'm not some sap mooning around who can't accept his girlfriend's gone. It's been two years!"

"Bollocks. We both know it's not about the fact she's not here. It's the way it happened. And what you saw. That would be enough to screw anybody up."

"Are you saying I'm screwed up?"

"Are you telling me you're not?" Dale dropped his bottle and the contents flooded out. "Shit. Now look what you've made me do."

"Forget it."

Dale scrubbed the beer into the carpet with his boot. "You shouldn't tear yourself apart. It wasn't your fault, you know."

"You think she'd have gone like that for no reason? Of course it was my fault."

"Listen, you're a good bloke. I'll never repeat this in company, but you're probably the most decent bloke I've ever met." He paused thoughtfully. "I know about your doctorate, you know."

"What are you talking about?" Church looked away.

"Billy's a screw-up-he always was. But you gave him that money you'd been working round the clock for a year to save so you could go back and get that qualification you'd been dreaming about ever since you were a kid. Don't deny it, Church-he told me, even though you tried to keep it a secret. I know your family never had much and you had to get a job to send some cash back to them. And then you saved Billy from all that disgrace and now look at himthe fattest of fat-cat accountants in the West End. Thanks to you. And all it cost you was your life's dream-to be a doctor of digging-up-crap. Not much to anybody else, but I know how much it meant to you. So don't go beating yourself up thinking you're some little shit because of Marianne."

Church shook his head dismissively. Dale didn't understand-how could he?

"I'm only saying these things because I'm a mate." Dale was on a roll now; Church recognised the gleam in his eye. "I remember what you used to be like. You used to enjoy yourself, all the time, even when the rest of us were miserable and it was pissing down with rain and some club wouldn't let us in because Billy was dressed like a stiff again. When Louise and Pete had one of their irritating arguments, you'd always find something positive to get them back together. You used to read more books and see more films and hear more music than anybody I knew. And now-"

"I don't."

"Exactly. Now you don't do anything. You've lost all focus. What's done is done. You've got to start living again."

Church made some concilatory sounds, but it didn't convince Dale; he'd heard it all before. In the end he departed in irritation, but Church knew he'd be back to try again. He was good like that. But Dale couldn't be expected to understand the depth of the problem, how many futile hours had been spent looking at it from every angle; if there was an easy solution he would have found it long ago. The worst thing was he felt so bad about how he'd made Dale feel over the months, he couldn't bring himself to talk about the experience under Albert Bridge.

For the rest of the evening he kept flashing back to the moment before he fainted that night, interspersed with too many memories of Marianne: on the banks of Loch Ness, at her birthday in Covent Garden, the Sunday morning she brought him a champagne breakfast in bed for no reason apart from the fact that she loved him. Finally sleep crept up on him.

"Ruth. My office. Now!"

Ruth dropped the pile of files at Milton's barked order and then cursed under her breath as she scrambled to collect them. What was wrong with her? She wasn't the nervous type, but since that morning by the river she had been permanently on edge, jumping at shadows, snapping at colleagues. Her work had always been the calm centre of her life where she could do no wrong, but now it seemed dangerously askew.

Dumping the files on her desk, she marched into Milton's glass-walled office, sensing the atmosphere before she had crossed the threshold. The senior partner glowered behind his desk.

"Close the door," he growled, his repressed anger bringing out his Highland brogue. That was always a bad sign. Ruth waited for the fireworks.

"What's wrong with you, Ruth?" he asked. "Is it drugs? Drink?"

"I don't know what you mean, Ben."

He tapped a letter that was placed precisely in the centre of his blotter. "Sir Anthony is absolutely livid. He says you hung up on him yesterday."

"It was an accident," she lied. She'd always been able to cope with the peer's toffee-nosed pomposity and condescension, but, for some reason, yesterday she'd had enough. She knew at the time she should have called him back, but she couldn't bear to listen to any more of his bluster.

"He's our top client, for God's sake! Do you know how much money he brings into this firm? And he was your client because you were the best and you could be trusted."

Ruth didn't like the sound of the past tense. "It won't happen again, Ben."

"It's not the only thing, Ruth. Not by a long shot." He angrily flicked open a thin file. "During the last two weeks you've overcharged three clients, undercharged two. Your brief to the barrister in the Mendeka case was so incompetent it's possibly actionable. You were so late in court on Friday the case had to be rescheduled. Two weeks for at least three sackable offences. Jesus Christ, what kind of a firm do you think this is?" Her ears burned. "To be honest, I don't want to know what's wrong," he continued. "I just want it sorted out. Anybody else would have been out on their ear by now, but your past record has been exemplary, Ruth. I hope you've not simply become aware of that and you're resting on your laurels."