dead of an overdose under a bridge, true, but Alicia was a drunk, not a user.
Ben might have succumbed, but none of Gabriel’s contacts knew of anyone who Ben – who was acutely paranoid – trusted enough to buy from while his semi-regular supplier was in stir. It was the absence of a source Ben didn’t think was trying to poison him (well, for certain values of poisoning) that had cleaned him up enough to allow the rapprochement with Ethan.
Gabriel’s phone rang out with the first few lines of the Mikado’s song from Gilbert and Sullivan. Michael. Two o’clock in the morning and Michael thought nothing of calling him. As always, an irritating warmth fluttered underneath the more usual testiness that he was calling at all.
Gabriel held the phone to his ear. ‘Piss off.’
‘Ah, Gabriel,’ came the unruffled reply. ‘It is always so refreshing to see that the passage of years that in others heralds maturity finds you as juvenile as ever.’
‘Michael, it’s so delightful to find that, as always, you’re cementing your routine as a pompous octogenarian only four decades in advance of the need. Did the foreign office send you on a special course for that, or are you accepting tutelage in Old Fartdom direct from the Chancellor of the Exchequer?’
‘I’m not with the foreign office, or the Exchequer, as you well know.’
Talking to his brother, Gabriel fell naturally back into the rhythms and vocabulary of his upbringing. ‘No. You skulk around the halls of power in Westminster with the face of a lugubrious turtle and offer a word in season to anyone who looks lost and in need of counsel, which is almost all of those tossers. What is it you do again? No wait. I remember. The secretary to the permanent secretary of the Cabinet Office. It was that or the tea lady.’
‘Gabriel–’
‘Is there an opening for the undersecretary to the secretary of the permanent secretary, or do you just want someone to help you hand out the biscuits? Because you’ll find that, as always, my answer is sod off. Would you like me to help you spell that for your diary?’
‘Grow up, Gabriel,’ snapped Michael Dare.
‘And get old before my time like you did? You’re 40, Michael, not 60.’
‘And you’re 27, not a teenager. Don’t you think it’s time you got a proper job.’
‘No, I don’t. I need to make my rent and pay for groceries and all those getting-by things that I’ve been doing for years without you and without our father. I know it pisses you both off, but what can you do?’
‘Are you quite finished?’
‘Just about. I want to remind you that I have a job at Wilcott’s Art Supplies and my paintings do sell. Don’t fall off your chair.’
‘Marvellous. Before you rally for your final bout of infantile banter, I wanted to let you know that your mother sent a postcard today from Santiago. She sends her love.’
‘And you had to let me know this in the middle of the night.’
‘First chance I’ve had to call,’ said Michael. ‘And I knew you’d be up.’
‘How?’
‘You’re an artiste,’ said Michael, and Gabriel could hear the sardonic humour in it. ‘You keep the hours of a trollop.’
Gabriel smirked, working hard to make sure his much older brother didn’t hear his smothered laugh. ‘Thanks for the Maternal Update, Michael. You can tell her I’m not dead and thanks for asking.’
‘I’ll be sure to do so.’
‘I know she didn’t ask,’ Gabriel went on softly. ‘She never does. And I know she didn’t send me a postcard. But thanks for pretending.’
Gabriel heard Michael sigh.
‘I’ve a roof over my head,’ said Gabriel firmly. ‘I’m housed and fed, I have a part time job, and my paintings are selling. You don’t have to worry about me. And I know the old man didn’t ask either, but if he does, which he won’t, I’m fine.’
‘You won’t reconsider the job offer?’ Michael asked. ‘I could use some help distributing the biscuits.’
Gabriel let his brother hear the laugh this time. ‘The civil service would drive me spare. I lack civility.’
‘I noticed.’
‘See you around, Michael.’
‘Chance would be a fine thing.’
Gabriel rang off and put the phone back on the bedside table, allowing a grudging fondness for his brother to taint his thoughts. Michael was a self-important gasbag who would have been happier hobnobbing with Disraeli and Gladstone, but for all his sins, he wasn’t a complete twat. Not like their father, who was as complete a twat as nature and disposition could make him.
Gabriel had once tried feeling sorry for his father, but it hadn’t stuck. It must have been hard, the old bastard’s first wife running off with the accountant and leaving him with a solemn seven year old to raise – a task he outsourced to boarding schools and home tutors. The next wife hadn’t even waited to find someone to run off with. She packed her bags when Gabriel was four and, apart from the occasional Christmas and birthday card, never looked back.
Gabriel had been raised, like his half-brother before him, by a succession of nannies to begin with, and then by schoolmasters and tutors – and, thank heavens, by his wonderful Helene Dupre.
Having actually met his father, Gabriel didn’t blame anyone for taking the first available escape route. He was less forgiving of his mother for not taking him with her, but screw it. She was as much a stranger to him as his father, and it didn’t matter, even though Michael thought it did. Michael thought a lot of things that weren’t true.
Like the fact Michael thought Gabriel was childish for turning his back on their father’s money, and on a high-paying job in the city or the government. Michael had more than once expressed the opinion that they should get something from their connection, even if was just a roof and an education. He thought Gabriel an idiot for choosing to sleep on the streets sometimes rather than accept a penny from their father, and for pursuing art after spending all that time gaining a chemistry degree. As though defiance was the only reason for either.
Irritated again, Gabriel shoved the blankets aside and swung his feet onto the floor. He took a deep breath and listened.
Yes. There it was. The soft, pacing footstep of James in his own room, sleepless as ever.
Gabriel was shuffling, bleary-eyed, to the kitchen in the morning when he caught sight of James darting out of the bathroom, towel wrapped around his hips, moisture dewed in the hollow of his spine and on the tips of his short brown hair. The caduceus tattoo, which he’d glimpsed on their first meeting, was strikingly dark against James’s pale skin, the central staff and wings tinted golden, one snake in solid black while its twin was a bold outline. Three red poppies were entwined around the foot of the staff.
More compelling than the tattoo was the way the towel clung to James’s waist, thighs and the shape of his arse which, Gabriel noted, continued to be fabulous.
