Twenty-four

Though they’d gotten a head start, they weren’t at home when I got there, sending me into a spiral of panic.

I called his phone, which rang before going to voicemail. I rang it seven or eight more times before it went straight to voicemail without ringing at all. When I heard the front door opening, I ran toward it only to find it was Gideon.

He shot me a pitying look. “Come and have a drink with me, Jude.”

“Where is he?” I demanded. “Where are they?”

Xavier hadn’t had a suitcase when they’d arrived earlier, that thought had only occurred to me when I’d gone to Cas’s room to see if they were there. That meant he had a hotel or a flat somewhere in London. That’s where they’d gone.

“I think it’s best if you calm down before you do something you regret.” He laid a hand on my shoulder as he passed, fatherly almost, and went into the living room.

“How am I supposed to calm down when Cas is somewhere with him?” I needed to tell him, though I was sure Cas would hate me for it. I followed after him, speaking quickly as anxiety rose in my chest. “You don’t get it, Gideon, I think he’s going to hurt him. I know he is. I think Xavier was the one who broke his hand. I need to get to him, Gideon. You don’t understand.”

He was pouring something dark into a very small wine glass. Port. Gideon never missed his after-dinner glass of port.

“Oh, Jude, there’s very little I don’t understand.” When he turned, he had a very strange smile on his face. He took a small, careful sip of port. “You know that by now.”

I stared. “You knew? You know?”

“I know that love is a complex beast, violent and passionate, and that to give oneself over to it so completely is not without sacrifice.”

“Oh my fucking god, not now with this shit. What are you talking about?” I went towards him, black with fury. “This is Caspien! Cas! Your nephew, and you knew that Blackwell was…that he…” I couldn’t bring myself to say it. “You knew?”

“After how deeply he hurt you, you cannot possibly tell me that you’re not somewhat satisfied that this is the bed he now lies in?”

It felt as though he’d punched me.

I shook my head, flabbergasted. “No. Of course I’m not satisfied. What is wrong with you? What the actual fuck is wrong with you?”

Though I was shouting now, my angry tone didn’t seem to perturb him in the slightest. He carried his port to the armchair and sat down, crossing his long legs.

“You know, when I first met you, I thought you would make such a perfect playmate for him. But I’m beginning to think that I miscalculated.”

I didn’t want to hear this. Not now. Gideon going off on another one of his philosophical tangents about love and heartbreak. I’d heard it all before. I dialled Cas’s number again.

“When I saw how you looked at him that first day at the house, I thought you’d be perfect for Cas to learn his lesson on. Bright-cheeked and wide-eyed; impossibly dazzled by him. Christ, I knew how you felt about him before you yourself even did. Caspien is almost impossible to resist, but you did, Jude, for far longer than most. For far longer than Xavier did.” At this he chuckled, some hollow mean little noise that seemed to come from his throat. Cas’s phone had most certainly been switched off by now.

I turned my full attention to Gideon.

“What are you talking about? You said you didn’t know about him and Xavier. The day I came to you, after he left, you told me you didn’t know they were together until you’d read his letter.”

Gideon sipped his port and gave me a complicated look. “You think Caspien left me a letter? Caspien would never explain himself to anyone, least of all to me. As soon as he was legal, old enough not to need my blessing, he left. But it was hardly a surprise. I could see it coming the moment they met. You see, studying the minds of men is something of a hobby for me. Xavier’s wasn’t too difficult to figure out. Besides, Caspien was very much his type. I simply put Caspien in his orbit and the inevitable happened, just as I knew it would.”

I gaped at him in horror a moment before the fury rushed back in.

“Caspien was a fucking child!” I spat. “You sat back and allowed him to be groomed and abused?”

“Oh, I think you’re being a little dramatic,” Gideon said, calm in the face of my storm. “Cas was sixteen. Xavier is handsome, rich, and adores him. He’s given him a wonderful life in Boston, you should see their apartment, his wardrobe, the car he drives. Caspien is fortified enough to survive a few disagreements in order to live the life he’s been given. In fact, thanks to my guidance, I’m certain he can survive just about anything. I think you need to give him a little more credit, Jude.”

There was a loud noise in my ears, and a heat in my blood I wasn’t sure I could control.

“Your guidance?” I said, voice thin from rage. “Your guidance is the reason he’s in a relationship with a violent fucking predator.” I went to him, crowding over him. “Now tell me where he is before we find out how many disagreements you’re able to survive, Gideon.”

For the first time, I saw some alarm in his eyes. Not for Cas though, of course not, but for himself. How fucking stupid I’d been. I’d allowed myself to be taken in by him, just as Cas had always warned. I’d allowed myself to be dazzled by a fa?ade of eccentricity and flightiness. It was an act, all of it. He was septic; a pernicious, vindictive danger who should never have been allowed to look after a child.

“Where are they?” I said again, the warning clear in my voice.

“Xavier has a house in Holland Park,” he said, at last.

“I want the address.”

I ran to the end of Wilton Place and hailed another taxi. It took too long, and as the driver tried and failed to make conversation with me about all manner of nonsense, it was all I could do not to scream for him to shut up and drive faster. At some point between Belgravia and Earls Court, it began to rain, fat heavy droplets which battered the roof and windows of the taxi. I’d not worn a jacket, but it was the least of my worries as I shoved my card in the slot and bolted outside and down the street to number eighty-six.

It wasn’t as grand as Gideon’s, but Blackwell’s London house was a three-storey, opposite a park in central London, so even my outsider point of view knew it meant money.

I banged on the door and rang the bell a few times before I could hear movement behind the door.

Blackwell opened it, changed from what he’d worn at dinner into a crisp white T-shirt and dark sweatpants. He looked confused to see me for a moment, then angry. He was about to close the door in my face when I lunged, crashing into him full force, so we both went sprawling back into the hallway.

I’d never hit anyone before – or since – but when my fist collided with his face, I worried that I’d never be able to stop. The force knocked his head back on a tiled stone floor so hard I heard the impact. It shocked him into a daze, because he just lay there a moment while I hit him a few more times, my fist pummelling his face. When he gathered his wits, he tried to grab my arms, then when that failed, threw a punch into my side.

“I’ll fucking kill you!” I was saying over and over and over. “I’m going to fucking kill you for hurting him...I’ll fucking kill you!”

Just then, Cas appeared at the end of the hallway. His eyes were red-rimmed and his hair wild as he looked at me in horror. Worse than that though, was the confirmatory swelling over his right cheek and eye.

The momentary distraction was enough for Blackwell to shove me off and get himself to his feet. He began kicking me, though since he was barefoot, he used his heel to drive down into my abdomen and my legs. I barely felt it. Reaching out to hit his thighs and legs, all I heard was the sound of Cas shouting, screaming, at him to stop. He pulled and grabbed at Xavier, trying to force him off, but Blackwell was unhinged with fury.

Finally, Cas threw himself on top of me, becoming a shield between Blackwell and me. Even that didn’t stop him. He reached in to grab a fistful of Caspien’s hair and attempted to drag him off, which only made Cas scream louder and cling to me harder.

“Please, Xavier, stop,” he was shouting, pleading. “That’s enough, you’ve hurt him enough, please, stop. Please.”

The sound of Cas’s begging made me feel ill. Angry and ill and determined that the moment he let me up, I was going to kill this man. I’d go to prison for this, happily. How fucking dare he reduce Cas to this. How fucking dare he?

Eventually, Blackwell’s kicks slowed and stopped, and then the hallway was filled with the sound of our laboured breathing and the traffic noise from the street.

Blackwell straightened, T-shirt torn and bloody now, as he stared down at us both with absolute contempt. His face wasn’t quite as messed up as I’d hoped it would be, but I’d burst his lip and given him enough bruising that he’d have to explain it. I still couldn’t feel the damage he’d done to my body, though it would be enough to linger for weeks after.

He fixed his hair and then reached out a hand. Cas hesitated only a moment before he took it, allowing him to pull him up and off me. He brought Cas close, brushing his hair back from his face almost tenderly, before kissing him on the mouth. My insides felt like they were made of water.

Finally, Blackwell turned his stare to me.

“I could have you arrested for that,” he said.

On weakened legs, I stood. “And I could have you arrested for abusing a fifteen-year-old boy. Who do you think will spend more time inside a prison cell, you vile prick?”

I thought he might hit me again, in fact, I’m sure he meant to but Cas gripped onto him, holding him back

Blackwell said, “How about we add slander to that charge sheet too while we’re at it?”

“Slander my fucking arse. I saw you with my own eyes; he was fifteen. Not to mention what you’ve been doing to him for months, if not years. Think your reputation would survive that, Mr. Celebrity Lawyer?” I took a step forward, fists clenching again. They throbbed from the fight, but I’d happily beat them to a pulp on his face.

“Is that so?” Blackwell rubbed a hand over Cas’s back, and I felt something hot rise up from the pit of my stomach into my throat. “Caspien, sweetheart, if you wouldn’t mind setting your friend straight here, before that mouth of his gets him into something he can’t get out of.”

I knew what Cas was going to say before he even opened his mouth. I knew it, but it still felt like he’d thrust a knife straight into my chest.

“You’re mistaken, Jude,” he said. “I was fifteen when Xavier and I met, but I was an adult before we were together. It’s dangerous of you to insinuate otherwise.” Like he was being rewarded for speaking his lines well, Blackwell kissed him, this time on his temple.

“Now, I’m going to be a gentleman and let you say your goodbyes.” This, he said to me. “But if you contact him again, or come near him again, or if I so much as hear a whisper on the wind as to Caspien’s legality when we were first together, I will ruin you. Then, I will ruin your sister and your uncle. And then, in my spare time, I’ll make it my business to ruin everyone else you care about. Do you understand me, Mr. Alcott?”

I could barely breathe, let alone speak. I glanced at Cas to find his eyes shimmering with unshed tears. That terrible ugly bruise mottling around his right eye.

“Good. Now say goodbye and then get out of my fucking house,” he said before striding down the hallway toward the back of the house.

When I heard a door close, I grabbed Cas’s hand and pulled him out of the front door and down the street.

“He’s a fucking psychopath.” I was saying as I pulled my phone out of my pocket. “I’m phoning the police. You should have let me kill him, I wanted to fucking kill him.”

I felt Cas stop walking, the dead weight of him pulling me to a halt. He reached for my phone and snatched it out of my hand.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Jude. You’re not calling the police.”

“Why is it ridiculous? He’s a nutter, Cas. Like an actual lunatic. He should be in prison.”

“And he’ll say you came to his house and attacked him, and you’ll be arrested. There are security cameras at the front door.”

“So, then, I’ll be arrested. But when they find out what he’s been doing to you, they’ll get it.”

He stared at me, bewildered. “Sometimes it’s like you’re still a bloody child. That’s not how the world works, Jude. For Christ sake, please tell me you know that? You think they’ll just believe whatever you tell them?”

“So then you tell them.” I stepped closer and lowered my voice. “The truth about him, how old you were.” He looked away from me, unable to meet my eyes. “Look, I know why you said it in there, in front of him, but if you were safe, away from him, you could tell them the truth.”

It took some effort for him to look at me. “It wasn’t like that, you know it wasn’t. I wanted it, I wanted him.”

This, I wouldn’t hear. Couldn’t. “Maybe that’s what he’s made you believe, Cas. But it doesn’t matter, you were a child who didn’t know any better, he was a grown fucking man. He took advantage of you, I know you know that.”

“I’m not...going to do that.” He shook his head. “I wasn’t...no.”

I reached for his hand? the one Blackwell had broken, and held it up by the wrist. “And what about this? He did this to you, didn’t he? There wasn’t a fall or a fucking tennis match, was there? He did this. He hurt you because he’s a violent, despicable piece of shit.”

He looked down again, muttered, “It was my own fault.”

“You had bruises in Oxford that night, too.” I said. I’d remembered in the taxi on the way here. I’d thought they were mine, and he’d let me believe it. “Older ones. They were his, weren’t they? Not mine. How long has he been hurting you, Cas?”

He tried to pull his hand away. “Stop it, Jude.”

“Stop what? It’s why you came to London, wasn’t it? Because you were afraid of what he might do to you if you stayed. You’re afraid of him. Why are you protecting him?”

I saw his throat move as he glanced around the dark street, frightened eyes wide and panicked. “It’s not what you’re saying; it’s not always like that...”

“It should never be like that, Caspien.” I gestured to where the bruise around his eye was darkening more every minute we stood there. “What about that? For spilling his fucking wine?”

He looked at me as though I couldn’t possibly be that dense. “No, Jude. Not for that.”

I stiffened. “He knows about us.”

“Turns out, I’m not quite as clever as I think I am…” he said, obliquely.

“So then he knows. That’ll make it easier to leave him.”

Cas shook his head. “No. Jude. Nothing has changed. I chose Xavier, I chose him, and sometimes we have to see things through to the end.”

I’d never heard anything more ridiculous in my bloody life and the look on my face told him so.

“What bloody end? When he hurts you so badly, you end up in the hospital? You can’t play piano, Cas! Because of him. Tell me what the fucking end is. Help me understand what that looks like because I’m struggling to see past the bruise on your face and the broken fingers and the fact he’s a fucking predator.”

“Okay then, I leave him, and then what? In your head, where everyone gets exactly what they want, what exactly is it you have planned for us? Where do we go? Where do we live? Because I won’t ask Gideon for a single penny, and I’ve not a penny to my name until I turn twenty-five, so what is it you see happening here?” He was talking quickly, rashly, saying these things as though they were fantastical and not as though I’d spent years imagining them in very great detail.

“You come to Oxford with me,” I began. “People change schools all the time and they do teach music at Oxford. I’ve got enough from the trust fund to pay for a flat somewhere for us, or we can house share. I’ll work too. Whatever I need to do. I’ll finish this year and then do my honours while you finish, or I can just get a full-time job, and then when you’re done, we can go anywhere you want, do anything you want. I don’t care as long as I’m with you.”

He looked taken aback at the level of detail I’d supplied him with.

Still, he shook his head. “You make it sound like you’d be happy. But you wouldn’t be, not with me. I don’t make anyone happy, Jude. In fact, I’ve a great deal of skill in making people quite miserable, you included. Or had you forgotten?”

“You’re looking at it wrong,” I said. “You make me so fucking happy when we’re together, Cas. You. These last five days with you, I was happier even than I was that summer. You know why? Because you were happy, too. You can deny it, but I know it’s true: you were happy. I could see it. I could fucking feel it. We were happy together, and so that proves we can be. Look, I don’t know what Gideon’s made you believe, but you deserve to be happy. Letting people love you is okay.”

I knew I shouldn’t, not again, but I couldn’t stand the thought of him not knowing I still felt the same.

“I love you, Cas, I always have. I’ve loved you since the moment I saw you, I think. Even when I thought I hated you, I loved you. I don’t think I know how not to, so please don’t go back there. Don’t choose that, choose me. Stay with me. We’ll go to Gideon’s, pack our shit, and leave. Together.”

He looked tormented. “You’ve no idea what you’re asking.”

“Yeah, I do. I’m asking you not to go back to someone who fucking hurts you,” I said. “You’re not safe with him.”

“And you’re not safe with me,” he said. “I’m poison, remember? Like that Oleander plant you found that day in the arboretum. Best to rip out at the root.” He gave me a small, bitter, Gideon-like smile.

I shook my head and went to call that nonsense.

“No, you were right,” he said. “Really, it was the most insightful you’ve ever been. It’s true. I am. I ruin everything I touch. Christ, my own mother loathed me. I ruined her and I’ll ruin you as well and I don’t want that. I don’t want to be the one to ruin you, Jude. Not you.”

He was pulling away from me now, physically, emotionally. The rain had stopped, but it started again then, a light patter at first before it became a rushing torrent.

“Please, Cas,” I said to him. “Don’t do this again, please don’t do this.”

“Go back to Oxford and try to be happy, Jude. That’s the only way this goes. I promise you it’s for the best.”

I was shaking my head. He was looking at me the same way he had in the hut that day, except this time it felt worse, a fatal wound I would never heal from. Not again.

“If you go back there, if you choose him now, then we’re done. I’m done. I can’t watch you do this to yourself. I won’t.” The threat was the only thing I had left, a last desperate grasp at a drowning thing.

“Please try to be happy,” he said again as he took a step backward.

“I mean it, Cas, we’re not doing this again.”

He was further away now and he had to raise his voice a little to be heard over the sound of the rain. There were tears in his eyes, as there were in mine. “But this is what we do, Jude. It’s what we’ve always done.”

“Not anymore. It’s over. Don’t come to me again.”

He smiled, sadly, and nodded once. “Finally, he learns.”

Then he turned, and walked back quickly the way we’d come. I stood there for a long time after he turned the corner, the rain pounding against me the only thing that made me feel alive.

Gideon was where I left him. I didn’t bother talking off my squelching wet shoes as I walked past the living room, soaked to the skin.

“I wondered if he might actually listen to you this time,” he said from the dimly lit room.

Stopping in the wide doorway, I stared at him, loathing and heartache a ton weight on my chest.

“I think you’ve always been like this, haven’t you?” I said as I went toward him. “Even when you were a child. Maybe your parents loved your sister more, or maybe someone stole your toys as a child or maybe you had no bloody friends to play with, so you began playing with people instead. Is that it? You were already this person well before you got your heart broken. I’m pretty sure of that now.”

I never let him answer, though I wasn’t certain he was going to.

“You know, Gideon, I don’t think I ever trusted you, but I liked you. I cared for you. I even thought you were the reason I was at Oxford, that you were the person making my life that little bit better, I think even up until tonight, I still thought that. But now I know it can’t have been you. Because you, Gideon, don’t care about people. Not even your own flesh and blood, your sister’s son, who you promised to raise and love. Even he was a plaything to you. You ruined him. So much that he thinks he deserves the kind of life he’s living now with that piece of shit. You tried to ruin me too – I guess time will tell whether you did or not.” I went to walk away before I remembered something else I wanted to say.

“I’m sorry that someone broke your heart, Gideon, really I am, because there’s no pain on earth like it. But I’ve survived heartbreaks too and I still have a fucking soul. I’m still capable of love. And the fact that you’re not tells me one thing, you’re weak. Weak and sad and bitter and that’s the reason you’re going to die alone.”

His face was a mask, and I realised then that it had always been. “We all die alone, Jude.”

“Oh, there’s a very special kind of alone for people like you, Gideon,” I said and went to pack.

To:[email protected]

From:[email protected]

Dear Cas,

This is the last one of these I’m going to write. Part of me thinks it’s been an entirely unhealthy pursuit, part of me thinks it’s having been able to talk to you like this all these years, like you’ve been here with me, that’s kept me sane. Especially this last year.

Maybe it’s a bit of both: I’ve learned there are very few absolutes in life. Or love for that matter.

I finished my degree. An upper-second. Not a first, but they say an upper-second from Oxford is like a first from most other places, so I’ll take it. I’m taking some time off to go travelling; Nikita, Bast and I are heading to South America. Then, we plan to head north and up into Canada. If we run out of cash or get arrested, then I’ll call you – I assume that would count as ‘something important?’ We’ve planned on staying away for a few months, but we’ll see when we get there. I’m excited, first time abroad and all that. Should be a laugh.

Luke and Elspeth are engaged, and they’re moving away from Deveraux and across the island to look after Elspeth’s mum, who’s had a stroke. You might have already heard that from Gideon.

I haven’t spoken to Beth in over a year; she moved to Manchester with Daniel and they’re running an online recruitment business. At least I think that’s what it is.

I don’t really want to mention this next part because it makes me feel ill, but it feels weird not to: it’s all I’ve been able to think about since Finn told me. He wasn’t saying it to be mean or anything, Finn isn’t like that. He assumed I already knew. He assumed I’d heard it from Gideon. (Finn doesn’t know I haven’t spoken to Gideon since the night in London. I don’t plan to either. What was it you said that night in the rain? Rip it out at the root? Well, I’ve done that. With both of you.)

Anyway, I suppose commiserations are in order. Finn said you married him. In Italy, Verona I think. I’d honestly been unable to process much after that. I still get angry and sad when I think about it, when I think about you with him. About what you think you deserve. I hope there wasn’t a prenup and that it was for the money. Or for the house in Boston. I hope you’re happy, though I suspect you’re not. (This isn’t the comfort I wish it was, trust me.)

I still love you. I think I always will. But it’s like my parents, I’m never going to stop loving them, I’m only going to get better at living without them loving me back. So I’ll be okay again at some point. I’m trying to be happy, like you asked me to be. It’s harder some days than others, but I also know that it will get easier.

I think that’s all I wanted to say.

I’m sort of sad that this is the last one: maybe I’ll write a postcard from each city I visit? Keep them all and put them with everything else I’ve kept. The copy of Dracula you borrowed that day at the beach, the drawing of Falstaff I stole from your sketchbook, the piece of music you’d been writing that day that you threw away – I can’t read music so I don’t even know what it sounds like – the receipt from the night we went to dinner in London, the letter I wrote you when you left me the first time. I forget what else is in there, but there’s a lot of stuff in that box. The picture you painted of me is in a box in Luke and Elsbeth’s loft until I decide where I’m going to live after. I’d like to go back to London – visit those places we went together, again. I think I could be happy there. I managed to save a lot thanks to the mysterious donor, so I might be able to afford it.

Anyway, that’s all.

P.S – I didn’t mean what I said that night in the rain. You can always come back to me. You can always call me. I’ll always answer, Cas.

Love,

Jude x