Chapter 25

Marco looked at the mobile vibrating in his palm and after a seconds thought, closed his eyes and slipped it under his pillow. Now it was done. He snatched his satchel from the chair next to his mattress and slipped as quietly out the front door as possible.

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‘Matt, it’s Marco’. Marco pushed the receiver to his ear struggling to be heard over the noise of the traffic and crowds tearing along Charing Cross Road. The phone box window had been freshly smashed, leaving a pool a glass which crunched under his feet. Marco squeezed a finger into his ear and closed his eyes in an attempt to block out the distractions and sounds which made controlling his thoughts almost impossible.

‘Marco buddy. Where the hell have you been?’ Matt’s reply boasted not a trace of the resentment Marco had feared. He had been afraid that Matt wouldn’t answer or worse, that when he did he want to talk.

‘Shit buddy it’s been a while hasn’t it. What happened to our drinks? I tried calling you but I couldn’t seem to get through to you.’

Marco couldn’t speak. Matt was the sole connection to the life he had lived before everything had changed. Before he had screwed up everything. He had been Marco’s brother; his friend; his sole confidant in London and now, speaking to him after all this time the emotions were too much for Marco. Placing his hand firmly over the phone’s mouth piece Marco descended into tears.

‘Sorry Matt.’
Marco tried his best to keep his voice from wavering.
‘I lost my phone.’ Marco felt sick lying to Matt but he also knew this wasn’t the time to go into things in any detail.
‘That’s alright buddy, it’s great to hear from you.’

‘You too Matt, but I don’t have much time left, I’m calling from a pay phone. I really need to meet you. I really need to see you ok. I need you’re help. It’s really important.

‘Jesus mate, is everything ok.’

‘I can’t really go into it now. I’ll explain everything to you later ok. I’m really sorry about this.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. Of course I can meet you mate. Where abouts are you?’

*

Marco sat alone in an empty corner of The Horse and Carriage, the same dark and dingy pub the two had met in after the episode with Abi. The same bar he had rushed out of foolishly blaming Matt for his own problems. Nothing had changed, not that much changes in pubs like this in a matter of years, let alone a matter of months. The same statuesque regulars were riveted to the bar. The same sweet smell of stale bitter mixed with cigarette smoke hung over the place.

Facing the front door, Marco felt his nerves go through the roof every time a shadow flickered past the front door. He tried to calm himself down by focussing on something positive but it was impossible. There didn’t seem to be any positive to focus on. Let alone a way out of the hole he had let himself slip into. He gulped greedily at his pint hoping it might help to steady his nerves, staring hopefully up at the clock for the fifteenth time in as many minutes.

In a brief moment during which Marco let his guard down, Matt slipped through the door of the pub. ‘Jaysus mate you look awful’ Matt said almost cheerily as he strode towards the table and slipping his coat from his shoulders. Marco squeezed out of the gap between the table and the bench seat, forced himself to his feet, and accepted the bear like hug that Matt was offering. Again the tears started to flow and this time Marco did nothing to try to hide them. For a few moments he clung on to Matt, not wanting to let go, not wanting to have to face telling him the truth. Holding on to Matt and weaping.

‘Its ok mate’, Matt said, holding Marco tightly, and waiting a few moments for him to calm down. ‘Whatever’s happened we’ll sort it out ok. Take a few deep breaths and I’ll go get us another pint.’

Marco sat down and looked across at Matt leaning against the Bar while the bartender poured the pints. Part of his grief lay in his anger at himself for having cut Matt off. It had just been easier. He had known that what he was doing was wrong. He knew his family would think so, that Matt would think so. The two were practically the same. And he had hated lying to either of them. With his family it had been easy. They had no idea that he wasn’t still working at The Bistro. When they asked he would just say work is fine, that he was working hard and saving a little money, that he had made lots of new friends, the kind of thing parents want to hear. Sometimes they would call first thing on a Sunday morning which was a bit hard and he would have to strain to descramble his mind and talk to them normally. There was no chance they would come to London. They didn’t travel. They never had really and there was no chance they were going to start now. But with Matt it was different. Every time he spoke to Matt after leaving The Bistro he had felt guilty. Eventually it had just been easier to stop calling Matt and stop answering his calls.

‘Here we are’ Matt sat sliding into the booth opposite Marco, saying nothing more for the moment, taking a second to look at Marco. Christ, Matt thought, trying to hide any look of concern from his face and wondering what could have happened to the poor little bastard? Marco looked scared to death, pale, he had large bags under his eyes which themselves were bloodshot and nervy looking. He was sweating visibly and his hands were shaking.

‘You don’t look your normal happy old self mate’ Matt said unsure where else to start. What he should have said was Jesus you look like complete shit what the hell have you done to yourself.’

Marco took a deep breath, followed by a deep sip of his beer. He wanted to come clean with Matt. But he knew it meant telling him that he had purposefully cut him off. He also knew he had no other choice. Matt was the only person in London he knew he could rely on.

‘I’m in some serious trouble Matt.’
‘Id gathered that much already mate. But listen mate, I know we haven’t spoken for a while but none of that matters ok. Just tell me what’s been going on and we’ll see what we can do.

Marco tried to begin but the moment he opened his mouth he broke down again. His tears were tears of exhaustion, of relief to be sitting once again with Matt and of fear. Marco felt scared to death.

‘It’s ok mate, look, just do your best to relax, there’s no hurry ok. I’m going to go and order you something to eat and then you can take me through it in your own time.

Marco shut his eyes and focused on not crying. Instead he tried to force the events which had led him to now into some form of logical sequence. Things had changed so slowly and seemingly normally that it was hard to pinpoint where he should start. He certainly knew when things had changed in terms of his relationship with Matt. That was when he had stopped calling him and taking his calls. But the progression within the flat had been far more subtle. His greed had been a mistake. Moving to the Clubs had been a huge mistake. He had been making more than enough money dealing to his friends during the weekend. More money by far than when he had made working at the Bistro. The whole thing had just happened so easily; so normally. That was what had sealed it. The progression from the flat to the clubs. That’s the moment he had truly fucked things up.

Matt sat down once again, placing a large plastic order number in front of Marco, and waited patiently for him to begin.

‘I don’t know what to say Matt. I just feel so bad.’
‘Just take it easy ok. Just tell me what has happened. No matter what I’m on your side ok.’

‘Ok, but I want to tell you how sorry I am for not calling you. I have no excuse and I feel terrible and I have really missed seeing you.’

‘Listen buddy. Things like this happen. It’s not important.’

‘Ok. Well you know I was living at the Hetley in Brixton.’

‘Yep.’

‘When I was thinking of moving in to the flat, one of the guys who had been living there, a guy called Dan, told me he was leaving London but that he had been making good money by dealing at the house parties.’

‘Dealing what?’ Matt asked feeling worried for the first time in the conversation. He had thought that perhaps Marco had broken up with some girl or had had run out of money or something else he could solve with a few kind words, a bit of money or a little direction.

‘Pills’ Marco said sounding as ashamed as he felt. ‘We were talking one night before he moved out at a barbeque at the Hetley. I was telling him about how hard I was working and how I didn’t have enough money to leave my job and move in to the flat. Then he told me that he was going home to New Zealand and that if I wanted to, he could give me the rest of his pills and I could start selling them.

‘Go on mate.’ Matt tried his hardest to appear calm. He didn’t feel it.

‘Dan told me it wasn’t really like dealing. He said it was more like helping friend out and making some money at the same time.

Marco looked across at Matt and then lowered his head. Hearing himself describe what had happened and what he had done made him feel so ashamed. He knew how stupid he had been. He felt himself shivering less from the cold than from the nervous tension which was building up or being released.

‘Listen Marco, just relax ok’, Matt said warmly and seeing that Marco was struggling. ‘You’re not the first person this has happened to ok. You’ve made a mistake alright. A serious mistake but we all make mistakes. I’m not judging you. I told you I’m going to help you and I’m going to help ok so just go on and we’ll see what we can do.

Marco took a deep breath. ‘That’s how it all started. I was hanging out with the same group. There were parties every weekend. Sometimes at our house or sometimes at other peoples houses but they were always with people we knew. I started making lots of money Matt. More money than I have ever made in my life. I was really happy. I was making lots of new friends and I was really enjoying myself.

Marco stopped for a second and then lifted his gaze which had been fixed on the pint he had clutched between his hands in front of him.

‘Matt I knew you would have told me to stop so I.’ Marco trailed off.
‘Forget all that’.
Marco nodded. He hadn’t had a drop of sleep and he felt exhausted. He looked nervously around the bar to make sure no one was paying attention but the bar was now completely empty.

‘I know it was a mistake but I was making more money two nights a week than I had been making in an entire week at The Bistro. Then I started dealing in a couple of the clubs we went to. I know it was a big mistake. I don’t know what else to say. I got greedy. Most of the people in the clubs were people I knew so it stopped feeling like I was doing anything wrong. Just like in the flat. Then Shay, the girl who used to organise most of the parties at our house and knew most of the people from the other flats moved back to Melbourne so I wasn’t making as much money at home as before. I know it was stupid but I did it. The first night I made about 600 quid. The bouncers got to know me and told me if I gave them a percentage of my earnings they would make sure I wasn’t thrown out.’

‘Go on mate.’

‘About two months ago there was a really big party at the DD club in Brixton where lots of my friends. I don’t normally take pills when I’m working, but that night I did. The first one I took didn’t do anything so I took another one and then later they were both working and I was absolutely wasted. My dealer Simon was on his way in to meet me because I had run out of pills. By the time he arrived I was slumped in the corner. He must have been with a friend because they carried me out and put me in their car. This is all a bit of a haze to me. I can remember being in the back of the car. It was raining and I can remember being in the car, driving. Then there were flashing lights ahead the next thing I knew Simon and his mate were slamming the car doors and running and I was left sitting in the back, unable to do anything. The police found drugs in the car and arrested me and the next thing I knew I was in a police cell.

‘Jesus mate. This was two months ago?’

‘Yeah it will be two months tomorrow.’

‘So what happened? How the hell did you get out? Did they let you go?’

Matt did his best to hide the concern from his voice. Looking across at Marco he felt guilty. Personally responsible. Maybe he should have made more of an effort to look after Marco. He should at least have tried to track him down after he fell out of contact. He had known where he was living after all.

‘This is the problem Matt. I was sitting in there and there were these two cops. They both seemed about your age you know, quite young and they were telling me that I was in big trouble. I told them that I wanted to speak with a lawyer and then they told me that I could but they had plenty of evidence to convict me and that if they did I would probably end up in prison for at least seven years. That’s when they said I had another option.’

Again Marco paused, unsure where to look, hardly able to believe the story he was now telling and taking sanctity in the fresh beer Mat had just bought.

‘One of the cops looked at me and said that I didn’t need to go through all that. If I helped them they would help me. They said they could make the whole mess go away. They dropped me home, told me to keep quiet and said they would ring me the next day to pick me up and tell me what they wanted done. I was exhausted, tired scared and I just wanted to get out of there so I said yes. The next day they called me and I walked around the corner and met them and then we drove out to some part of the country side, I don’t know where it was but then they pulled the car over and turned off the engine. One of them then threw me a huge bag of pills. I looked at them and didn’t know what to say. I told them I didn’t understand. He told me that if I wanted to avoid going to jail I would have to work for them. They said there were two thousand pills in the bag and that I had to get rid of them. They told me that they would call me again at the end of the month. They told me that if I spoke to anyone about this I would go straight to jail and they had ways of making things a lot worse for me if they wanted to.’

‘Jesus. So what have you done?’ Matt was no longer worried about sounding unconcerned.

‘I managed to sell the bag to people over the month and some to another dealer I know and I thought I had done what they wanted. When I met them again at the end of the month to give them their money and they gave me an even bigger bag. I was meant to meet them yesterday with their money but I didn’t answer their call and I have been hiding out ever since. I don’t know what to do Matt. I’m really scared you know. I just want to get out of this mess and go home and forget all about it.

‘So what have you been doing since then?’

‘Once I missed the meeting I knew there was no way I could go back to the flat. I threw my sim card away ran to the Tube and took it to Oxford Circus and I’ve been walking around in the crowds for hours, all night, I tried to get some sleep but I couldn’t sleep. I was too scared. I’ve been walking around all morning and then that was when I called you you. I’m so sorry Marco said, tears streaming down his face, I didn’t know who else to call.