Love Death and the Crucial Three – Extract Two

Before I put the extract down. The picture I put up yesterday was my first attempt at an AI picture to represent the three main characters in the book. This, in the same style, is a better representation. Wez, the object of desire, has the red tresses; Jake, the main character, has the blond do; the short goth girl is Jake’s best friend, Deb, a stroppy, no-nonsense Scottish goth. Anyway…

June 1989

“I’ve seen you around a lot,” said Deb.

“Oh?” I replied.

“I really don’t like you.”

I chuckled, “A bold statement, being as you don’t really know me,” I said, amused that a drunk woman whom I’d never met would make such an effort to insult him.

“No,” she said, “but you’re always drunk and acting like an arsehole.”

I nodded, thoughtfully, pretending to consider this insight before saying, “And you are Little Miss Perfectly Sober, are you?”

“The book Roger Hargreaves never wrote,” she cackled and promptly fell over, grazing her head on the table as she fell.

“Ow.”

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Perfectly shober thanksh,” she said, voice indignant, “Unlike you. You’re so drunk, you’re fucking…blurred.”

There was a moment of silence before a slightly weaker voice sounded from under the table.

“Anyway, I jusht thought I’d let you know.”

“Thanks,” I said, alarmed at the collapse, “I’m a better person for it already.”

I peered under the table, “You’re bleeding, by the way,” I said.

“Am I?”

“I think you need to sit down properly. Let me take a look.”

“But the floor is so nice,” she burbled.

I doubted that. The Ship may have been my favourite pub, but it was a little lax on the concept of hoovering.

“Come on. Up. Off the floor,” I said, surveying a distressing array of crisps, lemon rinds, and crushed scampi Nik-Naks on her face.

I took her hand, heaved her up from the floor and sat her on the banquette. I pulled a paper tissue from my bag and dabbed at the scratch.

“Ah, it’s surface, you won’t need stitches or anything,” I said, knocking a Nik-Nak from her cheek.

She looked a little queasy and said, “Can you call me a taxi? And don’t do that joke.”

“No problem. What’s your name? For the Taxi.”

“Deb.”

“Hi, Deb. I’m Jake.”

That was our first conversation. From that point onwards, we were virtually inseparable. Even when Deb went back home to Leuchars, we spoke almost every day. When I finally got my act together, I went to university in St Andrews, a mere six miles from Deb’s pub. She had insisted that student accommodation was out of the question, and for the small price of a few shifts, I got a free room, food, and a social life. Something I had severely neglected since her departure. Well. Sort of.

Deb had missed the aftermath of Alice’s twenty-first birthday but knew all about it and about Wez. I had confided my love for him, much as she had confided her growing attraction to Mal. Deb had understood the depth of my feeling but wanted me to move on, setting me up on dates, introducing me to single male friends, dragging me to appalling gay nights at clubs I normally wouldn’t be seen dead in.

I wasn’t ready.

“I hate HiNRG”, I would say, hiding the real reason for my lack of enthusiasm, “If I hear Hazel Deane once more, I think I’m going to scream.”

Her response was crude, but to the point.

“Well, if you want a sore arse in the morning, you’ll have to put up with it.”

I went along with it, mostly to please her. I usually sat in a shadowy corner looking miserable while she fag-hagged it up with an endless coterie of pretty, well-turned-out boys. Not my type at all. It was all so obvious. I much preferred the ambiguity of The Vault.

One night, several years later, she said, “I’m going home.”

“I’ll walk you back”, I said. With the earnestness of her voice and the concern in her eyes, I knew what she had meant, but chose to ignore it.

“No, I mean, I’m moving back to Scotland.”

“Oh,” I said, hoping she would take the hint that I wasn’t ready to talk about it. I tried to look happy for her. Instead, my eyes betrayed me and gave me away.

“Aw, Jakie” she said, “You be fine, hen.”

I didn’t believe that for a moment.

***

“Love, Death, and the Crucial Three” is available on Amazon in print and Kindle editions from February 2nd.