The Zul Enigma (22 page)

‘I can’t help how it
looks. That’s what happened. Why do you doubt me? You’ve known me how long? Of
all people,
you
should believe in me.’

‘Do yourself a favour
Charlie boy, give up on Zul,’ but Carlos met Drew’s look with a hostile glare.

They continued eating in
silence until Carlos burst out, ‘And as for her, that intelligence woman. She’s
got a nerve. And she says
I’m
crazy? You know what? Wait till you hear
this. She says that I am Zul! For God’s sake! She says I dressed up as him and
filmed myself. Have you ever heard anything so…’

Drew, leaning forward,
elbows on knees, just about to take another bite of his sandwich, froze. He
looked up to find Carlos’s eyes locked onto him. Neither man looked away.

‘What?’ Carlos asked.

Drew took the sandwich
out of his mouth and put it back down on the napkin. He took a deep breath and
licked his fingers one by one.

‘You already know?’
Carlos challenged. ‘They questioned you, didn’t they? And they told you. And
what did you say behind my back, hey? What did
you
tell
them
?’

‘I told them everything.
From what you said that night at the restaurant…’

Carlos threw his
sandwich down on the table, ‘Jesus! Is nothing sacred?’ He jumped out of the
chair and started pacing.

‘Don’t you get it, mate?
I’m worried about you. You need help.’

‘From them? From those
bastards? You were the one warned me to be careful. Then you tell them
everything. What are you trying to do to me?’

‘Come on… I had no
choice.’

‘Of course you had a
choice.’

‘Carlos, stand still and
listen a minute, will you? Monday night, in the bar, they did exactly what I
said. They recorded everything.’

Carlos put his hands
over this face. ‘Oh God!’

‘They played it all back
to me, mate. I couldn’t deny it. It was all right there. Irre-fucking-futable
proof of what I thought about your state of mind.’

‘Sweet Jesus!’

‘So tell me, how the
hell could I deny it?’

‘And you believe them
too? That I’m Zul?’

Drew hesitated. ‘I… I
think you’ve been depressed, maybe had a nervous breakdown. But that you
invented Zul and videoed yourself? That’s hard to take on board. It’s no more
believable than Zul being an alien. So the honest answer, mate, is I don’t
know. But I do know you need help. A good hospital, a good doctor, get yourself
well.’

‘You’re just not
listening, are you? I am
not
ill.’

Drew raised his big
hands. ‘Hang on a minute. You’re the one not listening, me old mate. It’s
obvious you’re not well. You just can’t see it. The truth is you’re going
downhill – and fast. Now I’m beginning to lose my patience here. So
listen up. Check yourself into that hospital. You need help.’

‘Don’t tell me what to
do. You’re the one needs to listen.’ Carlos’s eyes bulged out of his head like
ping pong balls. ‘THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH ME,’ he bellowed.

Drew slapped his thighs
and muttered, ‘I rest my case.’

Carlos slumped onto the
bed. He screwed up his eyes, clenched fists pressed to his temples, and shook
his head as if trying to shake himself out of current reality. ‘After Elena
died I didn’t think things could get any worse.’

Drew stood up, opened
another beer and drank long and deep. His friend was starting to frustrate the
hell out of him.

‘Know something?’ he
said, ‘you’re beginning to piss me off big time, you and your constant
self-pity.’ He opened his arms wide, the beer bottle swinging from the fingers
of his right hand. ‘When are you going to wake up to the fact that you brought
all of it on yourself?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Your biggest mistake
was leaving NASA. You were a rising star there, but you quit to go to OOSA.
Why? Why did you do that? Look at what it cost you.’

‘I know. Elena would
still be alive,’ Carlos mumbled. 'If only I’d known, I would never have…’

‘What I don’t understand
is why you took that job, period.’

Carlos looked up. ‘It
was a fantastic offer,’ he said.

‘Oh yeah! I know. A
high-profile ex-pat package, loads of dosh. But why did you really take it? Why
did you sell yourself out?’

‘Sell out? I didn’t sell
out. You were so jealous, you didn’t even come to our leaving party.’

‘Oh Carlos! Please.
Jealous? Don’t make me laugh. Your life didn’t go downhill because Elena died,
although that’s what you’ve tried to kid yourself all these years. It was going
downhill way before that. It all started when you took that offer from OOSA.
When you gave up a brilliant career, one that you loved, a cutting edge
developmental role, for what? I’ll tell you for what. To become a bleeding
administrator!’

The virulence in Drew’s
voice startled Carlos. He had no idea what had triggered it.

‘Don’t look so
surprised. It’s what you said yourself the other night. Listen Carlos, this has
been on my mind a long while and it’s time I got it off my chest. When you quit
NASA I lost all respect for you. I thought I knew you. But I was wrong. You
shit-canned something worthwhile to inflate your own ego. So what if it was the
first time in history anyone outside OOSA had been offered its top position?
Just look what it did to you? You said it yourself. You’re a glorified clerk.
No wonder you’re losing it.’

Shocked, Carlos stared
up at Drew, who once started was not going to let up.

‘The worst of it was,
Elena knew trying to juggle all those bickering members would drive you nuts.
She said you were mad throwing in a technical career for such a big diplomatic
management role. And she was right. She knew when the novelty wore off you’d be
bored. But you wouldn’t listen, would you? You just had to have it your own
way. Elena never wanted to move to Vienna. She was dreading it. You know that.’

‘Hey, hold on. She was
excited about moving to Europe. It wasn’t easy balancing two careers. Something
had to give. The offer came at the right time. For her it was a relief to give
up her job and all that pressure.’

‘You are so full of it,
Carlos. She was
not
happy to leave DC. That’s what you made yourself
believe because you didn’t want to admit the truth. She was devastated. She
knew she’d be lonely as hell in Vienna. No friends… no family… you travelling
all the time. But you wouldn’t listen, would you? You made her do what you
wanted. You pulled the strings and she danced to your tune. You forced her to
give up her career so you could advance your own.’

‘I didn’t
force
her into anything. We discussed about it. She agreed.’

Drew lunged towards
Carlos who was sitting on the edge of the bed. Towering over him he yelled,
‘BULLSHIT! You have no idea what that woman sacrificed to keep you happy.’

For the first time ever
Carlos saw Drew on the edge of losing control. But he didn’t understand why.
Couldn’t comprehend the venom that fuelled this attack.

‘Since when do you know
my wife so well? Hey? Since when do…’ The look on Drew’s face made him stop
mid-sentence as he grasped just how incisive his question was.

Like a trap door
releasing, he felt the floor fall away as he plummeted down, down, down –
free falling without a parachute. The rush was all-consuming. His heart
clenched as if a clamp had squeezed out every drop of blood. He was going to
throw up. Throw up or pass out. He didn’t know which.

‘You? You and…?’

He had never seen Drew
so angry. ‘You fucked her over, Carlos. You fucked her over twice. The first
time when you made her leave the States and the second time the day she died.’

Drew spun round and hurled
the bottle against the wall. It exploded on impact. Slivers of glass flew
across the room and flecks of foam speckled the carpet. Beer dribbled down the
flocked wallpaper and made a murky puddle at the foot of the skirting board.

Carlos couldn’t move.
Couldn’t get up off the bed. His world had also exploded, just like the bottle.

Drew turned, struggling
to regain his control. ‘I should have told you years ago. But I didn’t. I kept
it from you. For her sake.’

Carlos stared at him,
his face blank.

‘You haven’t a clue how
badly you treated that woman. She tried to tell you – over and over. But
you never listened. You never bloody listen.’

Carlos transfixed Drew
with a gaze as if he was seeing him clearly for the first time. ‘My best
friend,’ he whispered, ‘I thought you were my best friend. And all the time,’
he said, raising his voice, ‘you were screwing my wife behind my back.’

‘It wasn’t like that
Carlos.’

Carlos sprang up and
pushed Drew in the chest with both hands, ‘HOW WAS IT LIKE, EXACTLY?’ he yelled,
his eyes on fire.

Drew shook his head.
‘You don’t want to know.’

‘You’re wrong.’

‘I tell you, you don’t
want to know.’

Carlos shoved him in the
chest again and again, his face smouldering with fury. ‘I do want to know. I
have to know. Everything.’

Drew backed away. ‘Why?
What good can it possibly do?’

Carlos’s voice cracked.
‘I don’t want to spend the rest of my life wondering. Wondering when. Wondering
where. Wondering how. Understand
cabrón
? So start talking.’

Drew walked to the chair
and sat down, elbows on his thighs, head in his hands. Carlos hovered over him
as if he might try and make a run for it.

‘For Christ’s sake…’ he
shook his head and took a deep breath, ‘it happened a few weeks before you left
for Vienna. You’d had another one of your epic rows. Arguing about the move…
again. Elena walked out on you. Remember?’

Carlos sat on the bed.
The muscles at the corner of his eye twitched. His face was pinched and pale.

Drew stared at his hands
as the memories cascaded back. ‘It’s eleven o'clock Thursday night. Lizzie’s at
my place and she’s already out of it as usual. She’s as drunk as a skunk and
off her face on weed. She’s crashed in bed and I’m pissed off, wondering why
she bothered to come all the way to visit me when she could have done exactly the
same thing on her own at home in Seattle. Then the doorbell rings and its
Elena. It was the first time she’d ever visited me alone. Without you. The
minute I open the door I know something’s up. Her make-up’s smudged all over
her face. Her nose is red and her eyes are swollen from crying. She’s shaking.
I pour her a brandy. She sits down and tells me you’ve had another row about
the move. Then she just unloads. She tells me everything. It’s the first time
she’d ever talked to me about you and I am feeling so uncomfortable. Too much
information.

‘She tells me things
haven’t been good for a while. Says perhaps they never were. That it isn’t just
the move to Vienna. It’s the foundation of your relationship. She says she
can’t stand the rollercoaster ups and downs, one minute you treating her like a
princess, then the next you treating her like shit. She says it’s making her
crazy, that she can’t do it any more. She says you don’t respect her. She knows
you love her, and that’s the point, she’s finally worked it out. It’s the way
you love her that’s not right. It’s different from the way she loves you. She
says you love her because she makes you feel good, whereas she loves you
because
she
wants to make
you
feel good. She’s fed up being on
the receiving end of your kind of love, it’s selfish and it hurts and it’s
making her life a misery.’

Carlos sounded as if he
was about to choke. Drew looked up. ‘Listen mate…’ but Carlos sprang off the
bed and opened another beer. He flung the bottle opener down on the table beside
the half-eaten sandwiches. It cracked the glass.

‘Keep talking,’ he
muttered and sat back down on the bed.

Drew stared at his hands
again.

‘She says this time it
really is over, that she wants a divorce. She says she’s sure.

‘She talks on and on until
the early hours. Finally she asks if she can crash at my place. Just for the
night or what’s left of it. Of course, I say yes. But here’s the thing,’ Drew
looked up at Carlos, ‘right from the very beginning – from the first time
I ever saw her – I felt something for that woman. Something here,’ Drew
touched his chest, ‘something I’d never felt for any woman before. You know I
asked her out and she wasn’t interested. Then she met you and that was it. It
was tough, I can tell you. There I was, your best mate, hanging out with both
of you like a spare prick at a whore’s wedding. There were times when it
crucified me seeing the two of you together. But up until that night I never,
ever thought there could be anything between Elena and me other than friendship.
And that’s the truth.’

Carlos’s expression
didn’t change. ‘Get on with it.’

‘So I tell her she can
have the spare room. She stands up. She’s completely done in. She looks so
vulnerable. Not a bit like the dazzling woman she usually was. I want to comfort
her. To stop her feeling so sad, so hurt. She stares up at me and thanks me for
listening. She apologises for dragging me into your business, but she says she
had to talk to someone. After all, she says, you know him better than anyone
else. Then she puts her hands on my shoulders, stands on her tiptoes and kisses
me on each cheek. The touch of her lips was so gentle, so tender, and I just
stand there. I don’t step forward but then again I don’t back away.