Bang: Memoirs of a Relationship Assassin (36 page)

I wiped the snot away from my nose, astonished. I realised there was one thing I’d never known: “What was… your surname?”

Now Emma did smile, but averted her eyes. “Peel.”

Just as suddenly and uncontrollably as the tears, I burst out laughing.
“Peel?”
I gasped. “Eh-Emma Peel? Out of The Avengers? From that, that cheesy old show in the Sixties? Are you serious?”

“I love the Sixties,” she grinned.

I giggled hysterically, tears still streaming down my face. My whole body kept on shaking. Her hand slid onto my shoulder and gripped it firmly, and it felt like… I don’t know, sort of like someone had erected scaffolding around me, keeping me upright. The shakes stopped.

“I did what you did,” she said. “I turned myself into someone else. Because I didn’t really… I never really knew what I was supposed to be. You don’t know any better when you’re young, you think you’re on charge and then someone, someone comes along and, and shows you you’re not…”

I watched a memory twist Emma’s face, making her feel sick. What had happened to her?

“I
hate
who I used to be. I hated her so much I got rid of her. She was stupid and weak and she let… she let boys… she let things happen, so I turned myself into someone better and stronger and in charge of themselves, just like you did. Emma Peel. My version of Emma Peel.”

I stared into her eyes, one horribly bruised, one shining bright. Just like my own. “That’s probably why we’re good at what we do,” she went on, “although I hadn’t realised you’d been doing this for so long… and for your whole life, not just your job. Guess it’s me that’s the amateur.”

“…”

I didn’t know what to say.

Emma’s hand rubbed the back of my neck. “It doesn’t matter if you don’t know what your real name is. Or where you’re from.
You are what you do.”

And those were the words that stopped my breath in my throat. The simplicity of it hurt. Of all the ways you can look at yourself, all the different masks you can wear, the only true thing is your actions. If I did what an assassin does, then… I
was
an assassin. It was that simple.

As if reading my mind, Emma added “You might not like it sometimes, but this is you. You’re a professional, like I am. A professional faker,” she admitted, “a professional bullshitter, yeah. But that’s what we do.”

“This is us,” I said simply.

Emma nodded. “This is us.”

Neither of us made a move to hug the other – it just happened, like some sudden wind blew us together. But Emma wrapped her arms round me and I held her, tight, down on the kitchen floor.

Over her shoulder, the fifteen year old boy was gone and the kitchen was empty, but I could hear him crying. Finally, he was crying, but he was smiling too. They were tears of relief as much as anything else.

He knew who he was now.

Who
we
were.

She was sitting on the concrete steps by herself, smoking a cigarette. The street was empty. All the offices had closed hours ago. The sunlight was slanting between the buildings, stretching out the shadows, and the sky overhead was deep blue. It was as hushed as the Old Street area gets, with just a few distant footsteps and the rumble of traffic.

Becky sat alone, waiting.

John’s motorbike came grumbling softly down the road, as if the Honda was deliberately keeping its voice down. He slid to a halt outside Asquith and Bream Consolidated, where the steps led up to the main entrance.

Kickstand down, helmet off, bike keys in his pocket, leathers creaking as he swung off the pillion. He looked serious. You could tell he was dreading something. It was written all over his face.

Then Becky called out “Hey disco boy, can I see your helmet?” and suddenly he broke into a grin, with a kind of relieved laugh.

“Pervert,” he said, making her smile.

John’s chest ached. All the stupid little things they used to say.

He watched as she stood up, trod out her cigarette and walked down the steps towards him. Typically, she looked absolutely gorgeous. He couldn’t put his finger on it but for some reason she looked better than ever right now. She’d had her hair done recently: brunette curls cascading down on one side, swept behind her ear on the other side, showing a hoop earring. It was a Tuesday, so her shoulderless cream top and stone-washed jeans meant that she’d changed after work, just for him. She looked great. Everything about her was perfect, making it hurt for John to breathe.

And inside John, I thought: This has happened to me before.

They always look their best at the end.

He said how you doing, and she said fine how about you, and he said yeah I’m good. The two of them kind-of-smiling.

“I, um, I didn’t know whether this was the right way to do this.” He made a gesture that took in his leathers, helmet, motorbike: John the courier.

“It’s what I wanted,” said Becky.

Yes. Her text had made that perfectly clear.

I want to see John.

And that’s who I was giving her.

I hadn’t expected a reply. All I’d done was leave a message for her at Asquith and Bream the day before, saying that I was going to drop her mobile phone off first thing in the morning. It had sat on my kitchen worksurface for days, untouched, as I wondered what to do with it. Too scared to just go round to her flat and give it to her. Too scared to risk her being there when I walked into reception. So I gave an advance warning, come in a bit late tomorrow and your phone will be waiting for you.

And then an unknown number on my own mobile (texting from a friend’s phone, I assumed) and the very last thing I expected.

She didn’t want me. I realised that straight away. It was John she needed to see. And that’s who she was getting, in full costume. I didn’t mind. I’d have done a lot more, for the chance to see her again.

“I know you’re not…” she began, then squinted into the sunset for a moment. “I know you’re name’s not… but is it all right if I call you – ”

“John’s fine,” I smiled. “Disco boy’s okay too.”

“Hmm. I was never sure about that one. It was that or ‘easy rider’, maybe that suits you better.”

“I prefer ‘sir’, actually.”

“I prefer ‘up your arse’, actually.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Oh you do, huh?”

“Not like that!”

We giggled, and it felt great and it hurt like hell.

The last time I’d seen Becky, she had run away like I was covered in blood and carrying a chainsaw. But look how relaxed she was now, the smile on her pretty face. I realised now why she insisted on seeing me as John, and the effect the bike and the leathers and all that had. Familiarity. It wasn’t me she was relaxed around, it was him.

But we couldn’t keep pretending like this. Could we?

My pulse leapt. Hope.

“Had a visitor on Sunday,” she said brightly. “Your partner in crime. Emma.”

I probably looked thousand-volt shocked at that. Written all over my face. “Emma came to see you?” I tried to visualise the two of them together, after what had happened, and just couldn’t. Well, actually I could, but it was pretty violent. “Why?”

“To apologise. She came round to say sorry.”

I laughed. “You mean she actually
apologised
for something? That’s pretty…”

“Out of character?”

I shut up, suddenly realising why none of the confusion or fear I’d seen before was there. Becky’s face now told a different story.

Oh my God. Emma must have…

“She told me everything,” Becky went on, sun-squinting again. “She said she thought I had a right to know why she… did what she did with Sajjan. Why the two of you do the things you do. She said she needed me to know that she did it for a reason. Not sure if that makes it better or worse, but anyway, she wanted me to know the whole story. About what her and you do.

“Relationship assassin,” she said, rolling the syllables around her tongue as if practising a new language. Hearing the words in her voice felt not just wrong, but somehow final. Like she’d worked out an answer to a riddle. Or like Clark Kent taking off his glasses in front of Lois Lane. Can’t go back. Game over.

“Sounds kind of cool when you call it that,” she smiled. “I suppose that’s the point. Helps make you think you’re doing something cool.”

I hung my head. Yes. That was precisely the point.

“It’s pretty hard to believe. That all that time, when you and me were together, I was going out with an actor.”

“It wasn’t an act,” I said quickly. “Not all of it. I mean, at the beginning it was just, you know, a job, but… it wasn’t all an act, I swear. Not once I got to know you and – ”

“I know.”

“I mean it, honestly, it wasn’t – ”

“I know, John.”

We stood there for a while, just looking at each other.

“Did you enjoy it?” she asked. “Being John?”

“Loved it.” I added: “Still do.”

She bit her lip, scanning my face, and again my pulse jumped. If there was even the slightest chance…

“Such a weird life.” She shook her head. “I can’t imagine how you can do all that stuff. I mean, I can see how you might enjoy getting to sleep with all those women… although it can’t be much fun if you don’t fancy them.” She looked at me. “Unless you just don’t care and you can do it with anyone.”

This was the last thing I wanted to admit. “It’s pretty rare I do fancy them, actually. But when I do…” I grinned John’s dirty, cheeky grin.

“Three times a night?”

“Four if it’s a Friday.”

She got that reference to our first night together, blushing slightly and turning her smile away. Message received: she hadn’t been just another target. You can’t fake that much passion.

Suddenly I wanted that back. All of it.

“Becky look, I… I want to apologise as well. For what I did, and for breaking up you and Sajjan. I thought Sajjan was the one paying me to date you, so he’d have a reason to dump you. If I’d known that you and him were still okay, I’d never have got involved, I swear, I’ve got Rules that I follow, I don’t do this just for the sake of it…”

Becky nodded, counting off on her fingers: “Never kill a relationship that isn’t already dead. Never work for a third party. Don’t disrupt the target’s life unnecessarily. Walk away the instant the job’s done… were there any more?”

Whatever was written all over my face at that moment made Becky burst out laughing. “It’s all right, I’m not a mind-reader, Emma explained them all to me.”

I was stunned. Emma really had told her everything!

“She said she used to think your Rules were bloody stupid, you know. That it was ridiculous, trying to be all nicey-nicey when the whole point of your job is to split couples up. But then she said what happened last week made her change her mind. That maybe you knew what you were doing after all.”

“She said that? Really?”

“Yeah. Said she was thinking of adopting your Rules for herself.”

“She did?”

“Some super-cool assassins you two are,” Becky smirked. “You’re not meant to care, you know, you’re just meant to take the money! You freaks!”

And I laughed, hard, making her join in. She was dead right. What a pair of freaks!

This hadn’t turned out the way I’d expected at all. I thought I’d have to keep the helmet on, to protect my face against her devastating right hook. But Emma had done me the biggest favour ever, by going to see her first. She’d taken the brunt of Becky’s anger and dealt with it, allowing us to stand there face to face and just talk. No tears, no abuse, no asking how I could live my whole life as a lie, pretending to be people I wasn’t, you lying, cheating, Judas bastard… none of the things I’d been terrified to hear. The alchemy of woman-to-woman honesty had transformed all that into something else. Acceptance. And, perhaps, a chance.

I swallowed. “So, er, now that you know what happened… d’you think you and Sajjan might…?”

“No.”

“No?” I tried not to make it sound like
Good!

“I don’t blame him any more. I can’t see how any guy could resist Emma, to be honest, not once she’s got her sights set on him. She’d have had him sooner or later, I suspect. But you know, I kind of got over him really quickly, which surprised me.” She looked up at John. “I fell for you bloody fast, didn’t I? It was ridiculous, really, I rebounded like a… whassname… what were those things kids used to have, in the Seventies, those rubber things you bounced around on, two handles like this…?”

“Space Hoppers.”

“I rebounded like a Space Hopper.”

“They’re fun to bounce on.”

“Aren’t they just. So, no, I’m not going back to Sajjan. I did love him but… I’m not ready to tie the knot yet. I kind of know myself a bit better now. You know what I mean? When you kind of figure out who you are?”

“Yes,” I said with feeling.

“I know the kind of guy I like now.”

John and Becky looked at each other again, a few feet apart. Goosebumps.

Bzzt. Crackle.

“Um, while I remember…” I unzipped a pocket on my leather jacket, pulled out her mobile phone. Although I’d had it for days, only then did it occur to me that it was full of pictures of the two of us. Of John opening the front door, standing in the shower, walking in wearing a towel, asleep in bed with his gob open. Of Becky perched on my kitchen worksurface, trying to hide under the bedsheets, shoving a teaspoon up her nose, her bum as she bent down for the remote control. Of our heads side by side, pulling stupid faces into the camera. Our little affair, captured inside the Ericsson like a bubble in amber. “For you.”

“Special delivery?” smiled Becky, as if she was still on reception and I’d just come clumping in like a regular courier.

“Yeah. You don’t have to sign for this one.”

I felt her fingers through my biker gloves as she took it off me, then switched it on. There was a lopsided smirk on her face. I knew that look. She was up to something.

“I’ve got a present for you as well,” she said. And she handed the phone right back to me.

“Open it. Go to the pictures folder.”