My Biggest Lie (5 page)

He passed me the note. He had still not told me what happened with him and Cockburn. ‘To decency,' he said.

‘To decency,' I repeated, and leaned over.

Chapter 5

‘
Y
ou like drugs?' interrupted Arturo.

‘He
loves
drugs,' said Lizzie quickly, and I wondered how she knew before I realised she was talking about Arturo.

‘I used to like drugs,' I said. ‘But I don't take them any more.'

‘Why no?' asked Arturo.

That was the easiest and hardest question in the world to answer. Because drugs made me so hungry and irresponsible. Because that was the best thing about them.

Bennett and I exited the toilets together to a welcoming party comprising Amanda, Belinda and Suzy. They scrutinised
us and in the surge of enthusiasm the coke had inspired it felt like being caught doing something heroically wrong at school. Bennett roared with approval at the sight of them while I tried to keep a straight face. I'd examined myself in the mirror and given my face a good rub to eliminate any stray traces of powder, but under the test
of those three meticulous and knowing gazes I felt transparent. When I looked over at Bennett I could see a smudge of white on the tip of his nose.

‘
Craig
,' said Belinda. ‘I'm so glad you're getting looked after so well by Liam. Now, could I impose on you for just a few more minutes? There's a very
attractive
and also quite
important
supermarket buyer whom I'm sure you'd love to meet.'

‘I can't promise I'll fall in love with her,' said Bennett.

‘I promise you won't want to marry her,' I said, and all three women turned to look at me as though I had made a racist joke: this despite Belinda having last described the woman in question to me as ‘that half-price desperada
cunt
'.

I had been becoming someone else for quite a while, or someones, but that was the day when it became clear to me that I had chosen a role that did not become me, that was pushing the people around me into roles that did not become them. I liked these women. They were clever and sophisticated and knew far more than me about almost everything. I had wanted to be their colleague, learn from them, assist them. But as I lost my equilibrium we lost our common ground and could see each other only as cut-outs: the brash, know-nothing fool; the cold, unfeeling bitches from hell. By acting as one of these I had forced them to act as the other.

Bennett read their animosity correctly and tried to come to my rescue. ‘Thanks for setting me up with Liam, by the way. He's been a good companion.'

But he was already being walked away by Belinda and Suzy, leaving me alone with Amanda. ‘You realise, I presume, that we have not taken that as a ringing endorsement?' She made to walk away and then turned round
again. ‘What has gone on? All that earnest bullshit when you joined – commitment to editorial development, championing voices from outside the mainstream, blah, blah, blah. We all thought you were boring. We thought you were safe hands. He's got a huge rim of coke under his nose, and you're obviously fucked too. Jesus, you're not the only ones,' she said, looking around her. ‘But earlier I told you quite clearly that he had a heart condition. Can I strongly suggest you do everything you can to try to remedy this situation?' She shook her head in disgust and walked away.

That was a shock. Had I been told about a heart condition? Not by her, I was sure. But then she had spoken a lot of words to me that afternoon when she arrived at my table to brief me; had they all contained meaning? If so, she should have said. My head had been full of Sarah and now I felt awful. Bennett still had the coke. I would have to get it off him and lose it. Or
say
I'd lost it. I'm very much my mother's boy; I may be susceptible to guilt but I abhor waste. I thought Amanda was probably exaggerating or lying to cover herself, but I decided I had best be safe. I stepped off the corridor into the room where the dance floor had got going. It was entirely made up of young women. I recognised a couple who'd started with us recently; I had no idea who the others were. The women looked so lovely there, dancing with each other, un-protective and slightly embarrassed, like they were at a children's birthday party. And then we began to arrive, the men. The DJ was the publisher of Sweden's most hip literary imprint: he had put on ‘1999' by Prince and was celebrating by jumping up and down behind the decks with his hands in the air. I looked around for Craig and got sadder about Sarah. And the older people arrived on the dance floor,
the publishing legends, the members-club raconteurs, the eccentrics and the elegant, the sharks and the chic and the scouts and the Indians and the auctioneers and the earnest-faced editors-who-really-edit, the recently-fired and recently-promoted, the recently dry and the recently high, the rehabbed, reformed, retweeted. It didn't usually feel this febrile and poignant to me; perhaps it was the lyrics about ignoring the impending apocalypse. The way the book industry was about to change, we might all be out of a job in five years. But my friends were facing the prospect with courage and so I stopped feeling so sad for a second before I realised who I was missing from the centre of the floor: James Cockburn.

Cockburn and I had become friends at various ceremonies and private-members clubs during the two years when the books I published from Birmingham were winning prizes. A hedonist easily recognises another hedonist, often in the queue for a toilet cubicle, and as we were both from the North, lads in a feminine industry, we became friends quickly. At book fairs he'd introduce me to the funniest and drunkest of the foreign editors and agents. I don't believe European women are naturally more alluring than British, but at the time their accented English and the fact I hadn't met any before made them seem so. As men we were outnumbered and popular, despite the limitations of our looks and characters. I won't pretend I didn't enjoy it, that it didn't give me an impression of my attractiveness and charm I could never have believed in as a teenager; but I was in the first glorious wave of love with Sarah and never did more than flirt. James was more used to it than me, more adapted: he felt entitled to his luck and whatever else he wanted. He had made a myth and come to rely on it for his place in this world.
He had to keep creating stories for people to tell about him at book fairs; he was the notorious James Cockburn, outlaw publisher. I knew he loved this role, but I also saw how it trapped him. He was frequently in trouble with Belinda because of it, but it was also this persona that allowed him to do his job the way he did it. He was the ideal editor for a writer like Craig Bennett, and they were the very worst influences on each other.

What was certain was that there was no room for two James Cockburns in our office, and that Belinda wouldn't hesitate to sack me for similar behaviour. For both our sakes, I needed to separate that coke from Bennett – but now he was trapped between Belinda and the producer of a TV book club. As I moved closer he saw me and shouted over, ‘Liam! Cocktails! Three mojitos!'

‘Oh, I don't like rum,' said the TV producer.

‘And, of course, whatever the ladies want.'

Belinda looked hard at me. I betrayed Bennett rather than her, coming back with only one mojito and some wine for the women. Belinda was gesticulating to the TV book producer as I handed them their bowls of white, and it gave me the chance to talk under my breath to Bennett. ‘Do you mind if I do a line while you're engaged with these?' I asked. I wasn't going to mention what Amanda had told me, but I had to correct the mistake I'd made when I'd offered him a line at dinner. I'd have an accident and drop the lot in the toilet.

‘Of course I do,' he said. ‘I'll come with. Belinda! We're just going for a fag,' he called to her, ushering me away with a hand on the small of my back. He propelled me down the corridor towards the smoking balcony. I caught a glance of Belinda's face as I was pulled in a swift right angle into the toilet.

Again, I was bundled into a cubicle, and there, finally, I had to confront him. ‘Look, I'm sorry, Craig, I can't allow you to do that. Amanda's told me about your heart condition.'

He looked over his shoulder at me from where he had placed his wallet on the top of the cistern.

‘I feel awful for setting us off on this path tonight, but I can at least get us off it,' I went on.

He shook his head at me and went on doing what he was doing, opening the wrap and shaking coke out onto the surface.

‘Seriously, please give it here,' I said. ‘I can't be responsible for something else awful. And I really like you too.'

‘I do not have a fucking heart condition,' he said, not looking my way. ‘Unless maybe heartlessness.'

‘Come on, that's not you. You've got too much heart. Let's look after it.'

‘What do you fucking know about it?' he said, rounding on me. ‘It's not what they say in articles about me, is it? I'm “wantonly cruel”, “animated by spite and distrust”.'

‘Journalists, mate. I don't recognise that picture, and no one could from your books.'

‘And I don't recognise whatever picture Amanda gave you. Look at me: I'm too young to have a heart attack.'

I
was
looking at him. He was red-faced and dry-lipped, licking around his teeth.

‘They'd say anything!' he carried on. ‘They do anything to make you do what they tell you to!'

‘But let's not now, hey? We'll save it up for later.' I heard my voice as though it was someone else's. I had the forced tone of an HR assistant who'd just come back from a ‘persuasiveness' ‘workshop'. I knew I'd got it wrong.

Craig held me by the shoulders. ‘I like you,' he said,
‘because you were honest with me. You didn't flatter me. You told me about yourself and let me talk to you. Simple qualities, found in many places, but not always here. But I am free to do what I want to do, and you are not responsible for my actions. We hardly know each other. We don't know each other at all. I absolve you of any responsibility. I will not listen to you. There is nothing wrong with my heart and I intend to do a line of cocaine right now. You may join me if you like.'

Although his words were robust, they no longer sounded true. It was a performance without point, playing the version of himself he'd tried to disown to me earlier. I think I could have spoken to the man behind the face, if I had really wanted to. In fact, I'm sure I could. And it is this that makes it unforgivable that I accepted the line he offered and charged out of the toilets, past Belinda's stare and onto the dance floor, where I twirled around and poured my drink on the feet of a pretty editorial assistant, whose number I found later in my BlackBerry, ‘girl with wet feet'. I would like to say I deleted it and that I haven't thought about calling it since. I would like to say much about myself that I cannot. There is something wrong with my heart too.

Chapter 6

L
izzie sniggered. I had been hamming it up a bit. Arturo looked at her with an appalled expression.

‘Lizzie, there is something wrong with his
heart
!'

‘I'm sorry, Liam,' Lizzie said. ‘I'm sorry to hear about your heart.'

We looked at each other then, and I smiled back. I couldn't help myself. I really liked the woman. She had a forgiving smile: I know you are ridiculous, but I like the way in which you are ridiculous.

‘I didn't mean that literally,' I said to Arturo. ‘I was exaggerating too.' And in an instant his wide, innocent eyes narrowed and a sly grin cut through the concern he had affected. ‘I know, Liam,' he said, and laughed, and I realised I had made two friends.

The party in Kensal Green came to a sudden end at two, far too early for my liking and the other guests with ‘stamina'. As we queued for taxis, we gravitated towards each other, all asking the same thing: ‘Where now?' There
was a gang of about twelve of us, editors and agents, buyers for book chains. The assistants and the marketing and publicity people would have to go to work in the office tomorrow, and while it was possible to work at a book fair after only two hours' sleep and enough booze that you were still drunk at lunch – was in fact something to boast of in your half-hourly meetings – your wild eyes and slurred speech would be more noticable in the office. Fergus the actor was still here with his two friends. We waited for Bennett to appear. When he did, he was surrounded in a triangle by Amanda, Belinda and Suzy, as though he was being escorted back to prison after a day in the dock. Suzy caught my eye and immediately strode over to me. ‘Liam: are you in the middle of arranging an after-party?'

‘I think some people are –'

‘Stop it right now, or pretend to Bennett it's not taking place.'

‘But he's been to this party before. He's not really going to believe we're all going to bed now.'

‘Well, Cockburn's not here this time, is he? And can't you just
help
, Liam? He's supposed to be speaking at the Fair at midday tomorrow, chairing an event on the Argentina programme. If he carries on he won't have gone to sleep by then. He should not be doing this any more.'

Nor should I. She was right; it was time for my empty bed and Sarah's strewn clothes on the floor, to start to tidy up the mess I had made of my life.

‘Sorry. I'll go and tell everyone to pretend the after-party's off. Come and help though. They all love him, they won't want to let him go. I need you to help me threaten them.'

‘With pleasure.'

But it was too late. Fergus and the actresses had found a cab and as Suzy and I made our pact, one of them opened the door and called out to Bennett: ‘One space left, Craig, get in!' Before anyone could stop him Craig had darted towards it. ‘Craig, come back!' we all shouted. The door closed behind him and the taxi accelerated away.

‘Oh, fuck,' Suzy said.

Belinda and Amanda appeared either side of me.

‘I blame you for this,' said Belinda.

‘I was trying to help Suzy get him home,' I protested.

‘He was,' said Suzy. ‘You can still blame him, though.'

‘Do you know where he's going?' said Amanda.

‘I can find him,' I said.

‘Find him,' said Belinda. ‘Stay with him. Has your phone got power?'

‘It has,' I said.

‘If you fail to answer your phone to Amanda or me, your day will begin tomorrow with me taking a long look at your contract of employment – do you understand? I have never been so angry in my life. Just get him to his reading tomorrow, or get Amanda to him tomorrow morning in time to get him to the reading. Just take control of the situation, for fuck's sake. Sober up, stay awake and go and find him.'

I found him the first place we looked. I was in a cab with three of an endangered species, Irish booksellers, one of whom had been at the party the night before and knew exactly what had happened between Cockburn and Bennett. ‘He was fucking Cockburn's wife,' he told me. ‘It's sure. I heard them arguing over her just before it happened.'

‘I know his wife,' I said. ‘I'm pretty sure one maniac's enough for her. There's no way that was happening.'

‘Ah, you say that, but humans, you know – they're always surprising you.'

We pulled up at the scene of the crime and looked up. A man was leaning out the window, contemplating the ground beneath him. As we got out of the car he finished his cigarette, waved and bounced the glowing tip on the concrete.

‘Nice escape,' I called up.

‘Is that what I've done?' Bennett called back. ‘You better come in then.'

Three more cabs showed up: Fergus was a friendly host. Half of the guests had been at the party the night before and immediately began to whisper the story of Cockburn's fall to the half who had not, inclining their heads towards the famous window. I was busy talking to Bennett about our mutual friend Amy Casares, hoping he wouldn't notice, and he was animatedly telling me about the adventures they had had in Buenos Aires. All of a sudden, he seemed very sad. ‘Can we get out of this room?' he asked. ‘I know they're talking about me.'

We found a bedroom and Bennett shut the door behind him. We sat down on the bed. ‘It's good to talk to a friend of Amy,' he said. ‘Amy was always the one for me. When she moved to Madrid, I should have followed her. She would have let me, I'm convinced she would have. You can never know you were wrong if you never tried. That's what we want most sometimes, to know we were wrong. I'll never know. I had my set-up in Buenos Aires, I knew what I was doing there. I had attachments. But when she left, they were different, the attachments. They weren't fun any more. I can see you're being brave about your
girlfriend. And you should be brave. But I wish I had been courageous earlier so I didn't have to pretend to be now. That's what being brave is: pretending to be brave. That's what it's for. What I'm trying to ask you is, do you love her?'

‘Yes,' I said.

‘And have you thought about what that means?'

‘I've thought about it. I haven't reached an answer.'

‘Do you want
me
to tell you what it means?'

‘I think I had better work that out for myself.'

‘There may still be some hope for you. Is there any chance you can win her back? Do you deserve her?'

‘There's a chance. I hope so. I hope there's a chance.'

‘Then my advice is – should you give advice if it hasn't worked out for you? Nevertheless, I will. I am a romantic, Liam, as I see you are. People will tell you there are many more fish in the sea. And yes, there are. There will be more women if you want them, or men, some of them younger and physically more attractive than the one you love. You will always desire them. Accept that. You will always have opportunities. It is the most popular deviancy among young women: their attraction to old men. I don't see the world changing in this way. It's the imbalance of the species. I've benefited from it myself. Benefited? I've been kept young by it. When what I've wanted is to grow old. You see, the only way to grow old is to grow old with someone. Because the people who've grown old don't recognise you unless you've grown old too, and you don't get old hanging around with young women. But you're not
really
young either. Tantamount though it may be to declaring my idiocy, I am a romantic and I believe in love. If there is something unique in you that recognises something unique in her, then that can never be repeated.
You can never love in the same way, only less or only more. And for me it's only ever been less. I made the mistake of fatalism. There is a finite amount of falling in love available to you. Don't spread it too thinly. You cannot love a hundred more girls. I understand: you're curious. You want to know all of them, all of their secrets and joys and sufferings, their unique qualities, but you will not have the energy. You will not even have the memory. Win her back if you can, and if you can't, don't fuck around for too long with too many. Or you'll end up alone, and what's worse, you won't really care. I thought I was more alive when I was lying, preying. But it kills you, Liam, it makes you dead inside. It kills you. You are most alive when you love.'

We were interrupted at the close of Bennett's speech by the Irish booksellers staggering through the door, looking for somewhere to take cocaine. ‘You'll join us for a line, won't you, Craig?' they asked. He looked at me sadly. ‘Do you see what I mean?' he said. ‘Please don't,' I said. ‘Don't what?' he said, shaping his face to inflame to an insult like a Glaswegian on holiday in Blackpool. I decided it would only provoke him into taking more if I made an issue of discouraging him. ‘I'm going to look for a drink,' I told him. ‘A rum and coke, please,' he said. ‘With just a very tiny bit of coke?' I asked. ‘Just a tiny bit,' he sighed, in a calmer voice.

More people had arrived in the lounge since I had left and I became caught up saying hello to friends and strangers. I found myself repeating the speech Craig had just delivered to me. After a while I began to feel guilty that I was making fun of him, that people thought I was being ironic. I was not laughing at him. I was laughing in delight because of him, because I'd come to know him. I went to
find him. Bennett and the booksellers had been joined on the bed by the two actresses. A steady stream of people moved in and out to hear Bennett hold forth on various topics: the nature of love, the derangement of the senses, advances in vineyard machinery, the Australian literary scene, the importance of courage and its illusionary nature, where to buy cocaine in Palermo Viejo, house prices in the Gower Peninsula, etc., etc. I had lost him to the crowd. I couldn't get near him.

I told myself not to panic and rejoined the gathering in the living room. Time passed in a flurry of quick conversation. When I looked at my phone, it was
late
, 4.30 a.m. The party was thinning out. I went to use the toilet and bumped into Bennett at the door.

‘Come in here with me,' he said. ‘I need a sensible fucking conversation.' I went back in and sat on the bath. He pulled the toilet cover down and sat on that. ‘I don't even need the toilet. I just wanted a fucking breather. Don't these people on cocaine talk?'

I couldn't help laughing at this.

‘Hey, fuck
you
. There is less hypocrisy in that statement than you assume. At least I have given what I say some thought in advance. That's the way to take cocaine – you need to have prepared some interesting conversation earlier. They have not. And they keep trying to nudge me onto the subject of Cockburn without just asking me straight out what happened.'

There was an awkward silence. ‘So, what did happen?' I asked.

‘They're half right, some of them out there, you know? I was arguing with James about his wife. It was because we were arguing he ran off and tried to show off. But we weren't arguing about her for the reasons I've heard. I do
love her but I'm not
in love
with her. I think she's wonderful. Do you know her?'

I had met Ella a few times. She's a quiet, satirical woman, a psychologist Cockburn has been with since they met at university, and I like her for the economy with which she ridicules James whenever he switches into his performance role. Just a word or a look to put his feet back on the ground. She's from Manchester and has kept her accent, and it has enormous power as a corrective to his bullshit. I've neutralised my Northern accent, softening it while keeping my flat vowel-sounds. James picks and chooses his depending on his mood. When he plays James, laddish, down-to-earth football fan, who happens to be able to recite lines of poetry by Ezra Pound, he comes on like a Renaissance Gallagher brother. But in his publishing speeches, he elongates his vowels, becoming almost mid-Atlantic (apart from the rare occasions when he introduces a Northern writer, when he comes over like the manager of a cocky indie band from Salford). The difference between James and Ella disappeared when they were together: they played up to it and acquiesced to each other, they were a holiday from themselves. Ella was pregnant with their first child.

‘Yes, I love Ella too,' I said.

‘And you know he was talking about leaving her?'

‘He's not, is he? Who else would take him?'

‘Talking about it anyway. Who knows how serious that man is about anything? But if he was prepared to talk about it, I was prepared to take him seriously.'

‘But who for?'

‘For a woman not nearly as interesting a human being, not nearly as good for him. Whose very appeal is only that she's not nearly as good for him. He wants to destroy
his life, his happiness, so he feels more alive. Ah, fuck it, why did I think I had the right to get involved? In the end, this is how we measure our happiness, by how much dramatic unhappiness we have to narrate, by how much interesting misery we have inflicted on others. This is how we make our mark. Not by love but through cruelty. Isn't that what tempted you to cheat on your girlfriend? To say, I inflicted pain. I abandoned conventional morality. People
noticed
me. Yes, people thought you were a vain tosser. Just like me. Like our awful role models. What more drugs do we have, Liam? We need more drugs. Let's lift our spirits. What's that stuff you were telling me about earlier that you had, the stuff the kids are buying off the internet these days? I'm so pleased about that, that someone's worked out a use for the internet that isn't wanking. Let me have a look at that stuff.'

‘I don't think that's a good idea.'

‘To look? Oh,
come
on, don't patronise me. I'm not your granddad. Don't you owe me some trust? There's nothing wrong with me. They're just trying to make you feel bad.'

I was tired of arguing. I pulled the packet out and handed it to him. He held it to his nose and took a cautious sniff. ‘That's
quite
disgusting,' he said. It was. The powder smelled of gone-off eggs. ‘Do some,' he said. I took a dab, hoping that would be enough for him. Someone was knocking on the door of the toilet. Another gang had arrived via a deviation to the Groucho. They'd brought two famous conceptual artists with them, friends of Cockburn's. They looked past me as I opened the door. ‘Craig! How are you?' they called and pushed past, squeezing me out of the door.