Nick

Nick

Second floor

Telling Jess about it has brought it back—that thrill. The buzz of shunting between different cities, playing endless rounds of pokerwith a battered old deck of cards, drinking warm cans of beer. Talking shit, talking about the deep stuff—often a mixture of both. Something real. All my own. Something money couldn’t buy. It’s why I leapt at the chance to reunite with Ben, in spite of everything. It’s not the first time I’ve longed to go back there, to that innocence.

I catch myself. Talk about rose-tinted glasses. Because it wasn’t all innocent, was it?

Not when our mate Guy nearly OD-d in a Berlin nightclub and we found him pouring water into his face, had to save him from basically drowning himself.

Not when we had to pass a bribe to a Hungarian train guard, because our tickets had expired and he was threatening to dump us in the middle of a vast pine forest.

Not when we nearly got our throats slit by a gang in a back alley in Zagreb after they’d stolen all our remaining cash.

Not in Amsterdam.

I watch Jess now as she takes a drag on her cigarette. I remember Ben telling me about her in a Prague beer hall: “My half sister, Jess . . . She was the one who found Mum. She was only a kid. The bedroom door was locked, but I’d taught her how to trip a lock with a piece of wire . . . An eight-year-old should never have to see something like that. It . . . fuck—” I remember how his voice broke a little, “it eats me up, that I wasn’t there.”

I wonder what that would do to you. I study Jess, think of finding her yesterday, about to steal that bottle of wine. Or appearing in this apartment tonight, uninvited. There’s something reckless about her—it feels as though she might do anything. Unpredictable. Dangerous. And given this morning’s outing she’s clearly got issues with the police.

“I’ve never been anywhere outside the UK,” she says, suddenly. “Apart from here, of course. And look how well this is turning out.”

I stare at her. “What—this is the first time you’ve been abroad?”

“Yeah.” She shrugs. “Haven’t had any reason to go before. Or the cash, for that matter. So . . . what was Amsterdam like?”

I think back to it. The stink of the canals in the heat. We were a group of young guys so of course we went straight to the red-light district. De Wallen, it’s called. The neon glow of the windows: orange, fuchsia pink. Girls in lingerie, pressing themselves against the glass, signaling that there was more to see if you were happy to pay. And then a sign: Live Sex Show in Basement.

The others wanted to do it: of course they wanted to. We were basically still horny kids.

Down a tunnel, down some stairs. The light growing dimmer. Into a small room. Smell of stale sweat, stale cigarette smoke. Harder to breathe, like the air was getting thinner, like the walls were pressing closer. A door opening.

“I can’t do this,” I said, suddenly.

The others looked at me like I’d lost it.

“But this is what you do in Amsterdam,” Harry said. “It’s just for fun. You’re not telling me you’re scared of a bit of snatch? And anyway, it’s legal here. So it’s not like we’ll get in any trouble, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“I know,” I said. “I know but I just . . . I can’t. Look, I’ll—I’ll hang around . . . and meet all of you afterward.”

I could tell they thought I was a pussy, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t do it. Ben looked at me then. And even though he couldn’t know, I felt like somehow he got it. But that was Ben all over. Our de facto leader. The grown-up of our little group: somehow more worldly than the rest of us. The one who could talk his way into any nightclub, any hostel that claimed to be full—and out of situations too: he was the one who passed that bribe. I was so envious of that. You can’t learn or buy that sort of charm. But I had wondered if maybe just a little of that confidence, that sureness, might rub off on me.

“I’ll come with you, mate,” he said. Howls of disappointment from the others: “It’ll be weird if it’s just the two of us,” and “What’s wrong with you both? Fuck’s sake.”

But Ben slung an arm around my shoulders. “Let’s leave these losers to their cheap thrills,” he said. “How about we go find a weed café?”

We walked out into the street and instantly I felt like I could breathe easier. We wandered to a spot a couple of streets away. Sat down with our ready-rolled joints.

He leaned forward. “You all right, mate?”

“Yeah . . . fine.” I inhaled greedily, hungry for the weed haze to descend.

“What freaked you out so much?” he asked, a moment later, “about that place back there?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “It’s not something I want to talk about. If that’s OK.”

We’d started with the weaker stuff. It didn’t seem to do all that much at first. But as it kicked in I felt something shift. Actually, now I think about it, maybe it wasn’t so much the weed. It was Ben.

“Look,” he said. “I get that you don’t want to talk. But if you need to get anything off your chest, you know?” He put up his hands. “No judgment here.”

I thought of that place, the girls. I’d kept it inside me for so long, my grim little secret. Maybe it would be a kind of catharsis. I took a deep breath. A long pull of my joint. And then I started talking. Once I started I didn’t want to stop.

I told him about my sixteenth birthday present. How my dad had told me it was time for me to become a man. His gift to me. Best of the best, for his son. He wanted to give me an experience I’d never forget.

I remember the staircase leading downward. Opening that door. Telling him I didn’t want that.

“What?” My dad had stared at me. “You think you’re too good for this? You’re going to throw this back in my face? What’s wrong with you, boy?”

I told Ben how I stayed. Because I had to. And how I left that place a changed person—barely a man yet. How it left its stain on me.

All of a sudden it was just spilling out of me, all my secrets, shit I had never told anyone, like this putrid waterfall. And Ben just sat listening, in the dark of the café.

“Christ,” he said, his pupils large. “That’s seriously fucked-up.” I remember that, clearly.

“I haven’t told anyone else about it,” I said. “Don’t—don’t tell the others, yeah?”

“It’s safe with me,” Ben said.

After that we started on the stronger stuff. Egging each other on. That was when it really hit. We’d look at each other and just giggle, even though we didn’t know why.

“We didn’t see all that much of the city,” I tell Jess, now. “So I’m not exactly what you’d call an expert. If you want a good weed café I could probably tell you that much.”

If only the night had ended there. Without what came next. Without the darkness. The black water of the canal.