‘You went to a private school! You were born into privilege. Did you think I’d forgotten? You’ve never stood on your own two feet. You’ve never worked, have you? You’ve never even had a job. What’s your excuse? You don’t have one. What have you got to show for yourself? Nothing. You’re undisciplined and feckless, an overgrown adolescent. And you come here, to my home, to terrorize and criticize me? You call me a fraud? You try to threaten me with that . . . with whatever it is that you are doing? Are you so poisoned by envy?’
Part-way through Seb’s assault, Ewan had looked shocked, and even slightly remorseful. But the swinish grin eventually returned and the expression in his eyes darkened. ‘There, that. That’s more like it. You’re not trying to sound like bloody Walter de la Mare any more. That’s a bit more real. You’re making progress already.’
‘Piss off!’
‘Even better. But you still don’t get it. You can’t even see that I came here to help you. To do you a favour. To share something that’ll . . . well, that’ll make you a better writer for starters.’
Seb returned to his chair, trembling. Instability was contagious. He’d not been truly enraged for years, but was now unable to see straight. ‘I’m calling the police.’
‘Ha! And tell them what? Did I break in? No, you let me in. I’m just an old friend who’s come a long way to see you.’
‘Who’s been following me, watching me, harassing me. They’ll take one look at you and know the score.’
‘Call them!’ Ewan was excited again, as if Seb had succeeded in initiating one of his rehearsed ploys ahead of the planned time. ‘Get them to come here and escort me off the premises. Go on, do it! What are you waiting for?’
Ewan’s eyes shuttered up and down to refocus, probably from the effects of whatever he’d been drinking, or even taking, before he’d arrived. ‘You won’t call them because there’d be no point. Because I can come back, at any time, and you know it. I presume you’d like to get a good night’s sleep now and again? And to be able to go shopping, and on dates with that tart, without me just popping up, here, there and everywhere?’
He raised his long arms into the air and waggled his fingers spiderishly. ‘At any time, day or night, I can just call on you. If I want to. Tell you what, why don’t I go right now and then come back in a few hours when you’re fast asleep? How does that sound? We can get together then. You won’t need to get up and let me in, either. I’ll let myself in and we can resume our little chat, while you’re asleep or awake. I really don’t mind. What do you say to that?’
Seb felt his anger rapidly cool.
‘Now where’s my bloody beer? I’m parched.’ Ewan wafted a hand in the direction of the kitchen as if to hurry a servant along. ‘Well, go on then, get them in!’
Snoring grumbled from the adjoining room.
By nine, Ewan had finished his fifth drink and the last of the beer in the fridge. After a final salvo of slurred, repetitive reproaches, he’d fallen asleep on the sofa where he’d remained sprawled. Within the soiled clothes his relaxed limbs had looked terribly thin in contrast to the small belly and flabby neck.
He’d briefly snapped awake twice, his expression near unrecognizable, doleful and confused, as if he had been struggling to identify where he was. Ewan was not only drunk, but spent.
Reluctant to close the blinds, in case the gesture intimated that Ewan had been accepted as an overnight guest, Seb had opened a window and left the room. He’d then remained in the kitchen for an hour, his elbows set on the granite counter, chin cupped in his hands, hungry but nauseous. He realized he knew as little now of Ewan’s reasons for seeking him out as he’d known before the man had entered the house.
The time for shaking Ewan awake and asking him to leave had passed. Even if he had managed to coerce him off the premises, he imagined Ewan making a nuisance of himself on the drive, shouting drunkenly and frightening his elderly neighbours. If he did go away, he’d only turn up again, and who could tell what shape he’d be in?
He would have to kick him out in the morning when Ewan was sober, but only after forcing him to make clear his intentions.
Seb left the kitchen and retired to his room just after eleven, his chest tight and his mind racing.
He undressed, reflecting upon how he had slept in the same bed with an attractive woman the previous evening, inside his smart, modern house. A place where he’d been surrounded and confirmed by the evidence of his achievements. The sudden change in his circumstances seemed absurd, even unmoored from reality. But that was how Ewan had operated in their house at university, and in his room in London, by infecting an environment physically, and in other ways too.
Not this one. Not this time.
It was preposterous. At the age of nineteen, when he didn’t know any better, he had made the mistake of befriending a dangerous misfit. How could he still be paying for the error at the age of fifty? Maybe he would continue to pay for it until one of them died.
Until he fell asleep, Seb listened to the snoring that reverberated through the ceiling.
8
I Can See in an Absence of Light