Amy Bird - Three Steps Behind You

I decide not to go straight home. Instead, I will do some more research. Some writers just sit at their desk, making up words, characters, scenes, but I know better. I know I need to live first. Writing is the after-life. I walk down the road to The Garden Gate pub.

I ask for a Jäger Train. I’ve never had one, but I’ve seen people having them, enjoying themselves. The barman suggests that I might prefer one of their fruit beers. I tell him I would not. He confesses they don’t cater for Jäger Trains at 3 p.m. on a Monday afternoon. So I order seven glasses of elderflower pressé and seven shots of Courvoisier brandy: the Hampstead equivalent. I order some lobster-tail scampi with it. Luke is no novice. He knows that eating is not cheating. The barman gives me a flower in a vase to signify my order. It is a rose.

While I’m waiting for my scampi, I line up my glasses and shots on the bar. I saw Adam do this once, at his first stag do. Or rather, he got a waitress to it for him: she just flicked her pen, and the shot glasses dominoed perfectly, nesting the shot glasses of Jägermeister into the amber of the Red Bull.

I am not inclined to ask the barman to flick his pen – as he may take it the wrong way – so I will need to do this myself. Or rather, Luke will do it. Because one night, I can imagine Luke going out to the bar with his City mates, his objective being to get very noticeably drunk. Far too drunk to drive. Whether he’s drinking to forget, or to give himself liquid courage for something happening that night, I haven’t yet decided. But he needs to drink. And so, therefore, do I. I do it with great devotion for the next five hours.

‘The sky is so bright and blue and Hampstead is so pretty – ooh! Bus! Mustn’t be squashed!’

‘Pond Street, Pond Street, I’ll get a bus from Pond Street!’

‘The bus will take me to my love, and my love roses I shall give!’

No, no, no. What am I thinking? Luke must run! Run with the roses! Scampi power legs, brandy power legs – zoom! Blood and thorns, blood and thorns. Excellent – Jesus, place your crown upon me!

My legs will take me to my love, and my love roses shall I give. His wife’ll think I’m a murderer as long as she shall live!

It’s dark outside Nicole and Adam’s by the time I get there. And I’m starting to get a same-day hangover. I contemplate knocking on the door, but it won’t help. Instead, I let myself through the side gate and stand in the back garden, looking up at the house. I identify Nicole and Adam’s bedroom.

‘Nicole!’ I shout. ‘I brought you flowers!’

There is no reply. It occurs to me the house is dark. I look at my watch. Only 9 p.m. Even they can’t be in bed now. Perhaps they’ve gone for dinner. I contemplate doing a quick search round West Hampstead eateries to find them. I’m tired, though, after my run. Better perhaps just to wait for them inside. I go back round to the front of the house, take out my emergency key and insert it in the lock. Odd. It won’t go in. I try again. Must be the drink, making my hands unsteady. I try to force it, but still it won’t go – the hole is the wrong shape, my key doesn’t match it. They’ve changed the locks.

This is Nicole. I know this is Nicole. Adam wouldn’t do this. He knows I need access, he knows I need to rescue him, in an emergency. Say the house was burning? Amber flames, grey smoke, trying to crisp him away. I’d need to be there to save him.

And what if Luke needed to get close to his beloved?

Luke punched the glass. His fist would not go through. Harder, harder, he needed more force. He must ignore the resistance, punch right through it. He tried again, raised his fist, squared it to the window. Smash! There, and he was in. Now he must make the hole bigger, deeper, so that he could get fully inside. Ignore the pain, keep powering through. He’d haul all of himself through until…

… I am sitting on the carpeted floor surrounded by glass and blood. And the rose.

Safely delivered, then. This is the power of the method. The power that will make my work the very best it can be, make it revered, and make me worthy of him.

Now I am in, all I need to do is wait for Nicole. And Adam.

Chapter 11

Adam sees me first.

‘Jesus!’ he says. It must be the blood and the roses.

Nicole stays in the darkened hallway.

‘Nic, get me some TCP!’ he shouts. I don’t think TCP is quite the thing here, but I don’t want to hurt Adam’s feelings.

Nicole stays where she is.

‘Nic, come on, he’s hurt!’ Adam calls out again. He hovers over me. I can smell wine on his breath. He is deliciously Merlot-y. I wonder if he can smell the Elderflower. It will blend in with the TCP if Nicole ever fetches it. She is still inert against the wall.

‘Fine, fine, I’ll get it. Jesus!’ he says again, as he walks away and jogs upstairs. I sit looking at Nicole. She looks back at me. We stay like that for a moment, and then she breaks the gaze. Loser, I think, as she joins Adam upstairs. Adam and I used to play that game for hours, just staring at each other. He always blinked first. What a couple they must make.

I hear whispers from upstairs, but can’t make out what is being said. Then a door slams. Adam jogs back downstairs again, holding TCP, cotton wool and Sellotape.

‘Sorry about Nic,’ he says, unscrewing the TCP lid. ‘She’s been funny all afternoon.’

I watch him dab the antiseptic on the wool, like they do with chloroform, in the films. It’s like old times. When we were younger, when I moved in with him and his parents, after the death of my own, he’d help me with cuts and grazes, when no one was watching. Making everything better.

‘First the shower, then smashing into our home,’ Adam says. ‘It’s not on, Dan. I should call the police.’

He gently wipes my bloodied wrist with cotton wool. It stings. I clench my hand slightly. Adam looks at me. The sapphire eyes dazzle. I press my tongue into my bottom teeth to suppress the pain.

‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘But it’s the method, you know? Like with the lobster?’

He shakes his head. He doesn’t know. But he will, when I’m famous.

‘Don’t call the police,’ I say. ‘I won’t hurt you. You know that.’

‘What about Nic?’ he asks.

‘I won’t hurt her either,’ I say. And it’s true, because if anyone hurts her, it will be Luke.

Adam gets out a fresh piece of cotton wool and starts unravelling the Sellotape.

‘That’s not what I meant. I meant, what will Nicole think? This kind of thing frightens her.’

‘I brought this rose for her,’ I say. ‘That’s why I’m here. To apologise again, for the misunderstanding.’

Adam looks at the rose. It has blood on the thorns and its petals are soggy.

‘Thanks,’ he says. ‘I’m sure she’ll be … delighted.’ He laughs a little. I laugh too. I can feel us both relax. ‘Here, hold this,’ says Adam, gesturing to the cotton-wool pad.

I hold the pad over my wrist, as Adam carefully winds the Sellotape round and round my wrist. With each turn around my wrist, I try to manoeuvre my hand so that his knuckles will graze my arm.

‘Keep still,’ he says.

The blood is seeping through the cotton wool, staining it.

‘You should go to A & E, really,’ he says.

‘What, and wait half the night for them to just do the same dressing? No thanks.’

‘The waiting times aren’t that bad,’ says Adam. ‘They saw me pretty swiftly after … you know.’

‘How do you know? You’d passed out.’

He looks at me, frowning slightly. ‘Right. I’d passed out.’

‘I’d best be getting home, I guess,’ I say when Adam has finished bandaging.