The Desert Run Read online

  That summer, out in Morocco, we just bought a little for personal use, but we didn’t take anything back to Spain. We didn’t dare. We thought we’d be prime targets for the customs men in the port. Four young guys in a beat-up camper van. We joked about which of us was most likely to get the full body-cavity search. So when we drove off the ferry back into Europe, we were clean, but we still expected to get taken apart. But it didn’t happen. They didn’t even check us. Honestly, they couldn’t have been less interested. And there were loads of other vans around us, and dodgy-looking cars, and none of them got checked either. Actually, we were quite pissed off about the whole thing because that meant we had to drive the whole way home, and we didn’t have anything to smoke. When we tried to buy more, it was expensive again, and all we could get was the shit European stuff.

  2

  At the time it felt like that summer would last forever, but when it did end, reality began to bite. We had to find somewhere new to live since the halls where Ben and I stayed in our first year weren’t available to second year students. Ben and I ended up together, in a small flat near the seafront which we shared with a couple of other guys. It wasn’t particularly special, and it was more than I could really afford by then, since I hadn’t earned anything over the summer. But I had to live somewhere, so I got out a credit card to cover the deposit. Everyone was doing the same thing, spending our student loans as soon as they came in, and collecting credit cards to live off. At first it didn’t even worry me, the little pile of debt I was growing didn’t seem real. But sometimes I thought about how big it might grow with still two years left at university.

  I’d always worked, Saturday jobs and that sort of thing, so got a job then, to try and help keep my debts down. I worked a few nights a week in a petrol station. It was on the main road just out of town and I had the nighttime shift, starting at ten and finishing at six in the morning. I figured it would be quiet enough that I could write my essays between customers coming in. I thought it might even be fun, me the ruler of my own little illuminated empire. A splash of light in the darkness, with as much chocolate as I could steal from the shelves. I got that wrong though. It wasn’t fun. Any time I tried to work I got interrupted by drunk or stoned students looking for late night snacks, and you’d be amazed how many people just drive around all night. I couldn’t even steal chocolate. I had CCTV pointed at me the whole time, and I knew my boss sometimes watched it. But the extra income helped, a bit. It didn’t mean I was climbing out of debt, but it slowed the rate I was falling into it.

  What with me working, and most of us getting a bit concerned about money, we didn’t go out quite so much in the second year. We all had to work a bit harder at uni too. It meant a lot of nights we’d stay in at the flat, either working in our rooms, or more usually in the flat drinking, playing video games or just watching TV. And since none of us had really mastered cleaning in those days, the flat wasn’t the nicest place to hang out. To be honest it wasn’t even that nice when it was clean, but when the kitchen was filled with dirty plates and smelled of rotten food, and when you had to clear a space among the empty beer cans, pizza and take-away boxes to sit down in the lounge, it soon got boring. We’d all taken the piss out of the cleaning staff in the halls of residence, how we missed them now.

  I think that’s what prompted Ben to invite us to his parents’ house, well that and them being away on holiday. The idea wasn’t to have a party, not at first anyway, just for the four of us guys from the flat to spend a couple of days somewhere a bit more comfortable. A bit warmer and cleaner. I was up for it right away. The two of us were the closest friends out of the group by then, and I was keen to see where he’d grown up, but the others weren’t too sure, I think they thought it was a bit, you know, gay—just four blokes going to his parents house. Then he mentioned that the house had a swimming pool with a sauna. Somehow it wasn’t gay after that.

  I guess looking back it was always going to grow into something bigger than we first planned, but it didn’t start out that way.

  His folks lived a forty minute drive away, up towards London. It wasn’t that far from where I grew up, but whereas I was on an estate, his parents practically owned an estate, or that was the way Ben described it. And when we got there I saw he wasn’t exaggerating. The house was huge, set all alone in grounds and the only neighbours he had were screened by trees. It was like being on a film set or something. And around the back was the swimming pool house, in a giant greenhouse-like building with the sauna on one end. Ben showed us around and told us how his dad would sit in there naked.

  By then the idea of it being just the four of us had grown a bit. There were five cars that made the trip up from uni, all filled with students. And you can probably guess what happened next. The house was perfect for a party, and there were enough of us there to make it worthwhile, so a few people went off to buy booze, while the rest of us stripped down and jumped in the pool, some of the girls just in their underwear. Ben was pretty careful though. He went around locking valuables away so that nothing would get damaged if things got a bit wild, and he told us all which rooms were out of bounds. But by then the guys with the booze had returned and we had the stereo on pretty loud, so not everyone listened to him.

  I know what you’re thinking, we trashed the house, but it didn’t happen like that. Because we were so far away from the university, we didn’t have the problem of more and more people turning up that we didn’t know. And a few people brought some dope which calmed things down too. We spent hours in the pool, pissed and pushing each other in, and then things moved into what Ben called the sitting room, where someone had rigged his dad’s expensive stereo system into a proper disco, and then most people started looking for somewhere to sleep, a few of them pairing up and claiming the bedrooms, the rest of us just crashing out on the loungers in the pool room.

  But even if it wasn’t that wild twenty five students will still make a bit of a mess, and when I stumbled into the kitchen the next day in search of painkillers and coffee, it didn’t look great. But everyone was good about it. Once we sobered up a bit we organised ourselves into clear up parties. I went around collecting glasses and loading them in the dishwasher, tipping out the cigarette ends before they went in, and still demanding coffee from anyone who would listen. By mid afternoon the place was almost back to how it had been when we arrived, and a lot of people had already left, going back for afternoon lectures or whatever. Honestly, the place wasn’t that bad. If Ben’s dad had come back a few hours earlier he really would have had something to shout about.

  I was the one who saw him first. I was out the front, carrying a black bag filled with empty bottles and looking for the recycling bin when I heard the crunch of a car pulling into the driveway. I looked up and saw right away it wasn’t a student car. It was a big, silver Mercedes with an older couple at the wheel, staring at me. The guy driving parked right in the middle of the drive and got out like he’d already decided to be angry.

  “Who the hell are you? And what are doing in my house?”

  It was obvious it was Ben’s dad, he even looked like Ben, just an older, angrier version. I felt like I was still floating on a little cloud of alcohol and dope, but I sensed my high was about to be punctured.

  “I’m just a friend of Ben’s,” I replied, going red.

  “I don’t care who you are. I asked what you’re doing in my house.” He demanded again.

  I felt like saying I wasn’t in his house, just because he wound me up. But instead I just looked down at the bag I was carrying but didn’t answer. This seemed to infuriate him more.

  “What the hell has been going on here? Where is Ben?”

  Ben’s mum was out of the car now, and she tried to calm him down.

  “David dear, I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation to this.”

  “Like hell there is. Our bloody son has thrown some wild party while he thought we were away. That’s the explanation and it’s far from reasonable,” he sa
id, brushing her hand off his shoulder. “And you know what? It really caps a shitty twenty-four hours.” With this he seemed done with me. He strode away and barged through the front door.

  I met his mum’s eyes for a second.

  “I’m sorry about that,” she said, and smiled nicely. “David’s just in a bad mood. He had an emergency at work so we had to cut the holiday short, and then we couldn’t get any tickets so we had to fly back economy…” She looked hopefully at the house. “Is it a mess in there?” She frowned as if fearing the worst.

  I thought as fast as I could, thankful that it was mostly all cleaned up.

  “No, it wasn’t—wild or anything.”

  “So the house is OK?”

  “No, it’s fine now. I mean it never was that bad but…” I stopped, realising I’d said too much.

  “I’d better go in and have a look.” She smiled again but didn’t move, probably because I was sort of blocking her way with the bags.

  “OK. Oh—erm,” I said, because I was still a bit drunk. “Where do these go?”

  She looked at me and I thought I saw her shake her head a little.

  “Over by the bushes,” she pointed to where the outside bins were hidden. And when I’d dumped the bottles she’d gone inside too.

  I didn’t want to follow her in, but I didn’t have any choice, and it turned out I’d missed the worst of it by then anyway. Ben’s dad had stomped around and glared at people, but there wasn’t enough for him to be angry about so he went for a shower to freshen up before going off to work.

  Most of us left right away but I stayed. I don’t know why exactly. Maybe because I wanted to support Ben, or maybe because his mum was being nice to us by then, sitting with us in the kitchen drinking tea and telling us about their holiday in America.

  I didn’t know too much about what Ben’s dad did, just that he worked in the city somewhere. But I also knew, from looking around the house the night before, that he sometimes worked from home as well. He had a study in the house. Ben had told us not to go in there, but somehow the door got opened and a few of us had looked inside. I’d even sat in his dad’s chair, a big leather swivel affair behind a huge antique desk and I’d spun around until the walls of books and framed photographs had made me dizzy. So when Ben’s dad had announced he had to go to work, I’d imagined he was going to get back into the Merc and drive into London somewhere. It turned out that was wrong. He meant he was going into his study to do whatever it was he had to do. And that turned out to be unfortunate.

  It seemed like everything had calmed down. Ben, his mum and I were still in the kitchen, we were nearly laughing about the whole thing and getting ready to head back to university when his dad appeared in the doorway like a ghost. And from the way Ben and his mum went silent I understood something was wrong again.

  “Ben, would you like to come with me please,” he said, in this creepy-calm voice. We all looked at each other. “Margaret, I think you’d better come as well.”

  No one said anything but the expression on Ben’s face said it all. He didn’t know what this was about but it was bad.

  “You,” Ben’s dad’s voice rang out again in the silence and he pointed at me. “You too. I’m not prepared to leave you alone in this house.”

  We all got up and Ben’s dad stepped back from the doorway to let us pass. I could feel his eyes on me as I walked past. It felt like they were pouring out pure hatred.

  “Where…?” Ben began but his dad cut him off.

  “Study.”

  We walked along the hallway single file and into the study. We lined up behind the desk like school kids sent to the headmaster, and I saw right away what the problem was. Ben’s mum did too, judging by the way she gasped. I heard Ben mutter “Oh fuck” under his breath.

  “Indeed,” said his dad.

  There, in the middle of that great big desk was Charlie’s bong. An expensive glass one that he’d bought in Amsterdam, complete with stickers of weed leaves printed on it and filled with brown liquid. A few of us had used it the night before, but not for long because we ran out of dope. Clearly in the excitement of jumping in the swimming pool he’d forgotten it. And probably because the room had been technically out-of-bounds no one had been in there to check it was clean.

  “Would you mind telling me what the hell that is on my desk?” Ben’s dad said from the doorway, his voice still unpleasantly calm.

  All I could hear was Ben breathing for a moment. I guess he was working out what to say.

  “It looks like a bong,” he said, with just a little defiance.

  “A bong,” his dad repeated, emphasising the word so much it sounded ridiculous. “A bong. And what is a bong doing in my study?”

  “Look I’m sorry Dad,” Ben stepped forward to pick it up, “I did tell people they couldn’t come in here…”

  “Don’t touch it,” his Dad snapped, and Ben froze.

  “I couldn’t find the key to lock it.”

  “I said don’t touch it. It’s evidence.”

  Ben pulled his arm back but tried a small laugh. “Evidence? What, you gonna call the police? It’s just a bit of dope. It’s nothing serious.”

  “Nothing serious?” his dad turned on him now and his voice had risen. “Nothing serious? You hold a drugs party in my office, and you tell me it’s nothing serious?”

  They glared at each other and I didn’t know how this was going to end. I thought they might even start fighting.

  “Look it wasn’t a drugs party,” Ben started, backing down. “It was just a few friends over. I know I shouldn’t have done it, but I was really careful. Nothing got broken. I put all the photos away and everything…" He stopped.

  "We just needed a change of scene.” He said finally and hung his head, waiting for whatever punishment he was going to get.

  I guess his dad realised that calling the bong evidence sounded stupid because he didn’t go any further with that.

  “Get rid of it,” he said instead.

  Ben gratefully grabbed it and held it by his side, out of his dad’s view.

  “Now get out. Get out of my office and get out of my house.”

  “Dad,” Ben began but his dad just pointed at the door and Ben gave up. We started trooping out.

  “I never expected much of you Benjamin, but I never thought I'd have to face this. There will be consequences for this Benjamin. Major consequences. You realise that don’t you?”

  Ben opened his mouth to say something, but after a moment he closed it again, and just nodded.

  And with that we left.

  3

  “Your dad’s a right arsehole,” I said on the drive back. I was trying to get Ben talking again, but it wasn’t coming very naturally.

  “Yeah. He can be.” Ben said pushing the van up to seventy.

  “What do you reckon he means by major consequences?”

  “Nothing. He’s just mouthing off,” Ben replied then lapsed back into silence.

  “I mean what’s his problem?” I tried again. “The house was alright. You were really responsible…”

  “Yeah,” Ben said, “I was.”

  “So is he always like that?” I asked, and Ben took so long to answer I thought he hadn’t heard, but then he did answer.

  “He didn’t used to be. Not before.”

  I didn’t understand so I looked across at him, and at the same time he glanced back at me, uncertainty in his eyes. He sniffed, like he was fighting to hold back something.

  “Before what?”

  He paused again, but this time it was clear he was just settling himself before telling me something, so I just waited.

  “Before Julian died.” Ben took one hand from the wheel and ran it through his hair a couple of times. He didn’t wait for me to ask who Julian was.

  “My brother. He was five years older than me. He was at uni in Cambridge when it happened.”

  I felt the strongest sense of deja vu. I remembered how Ben had handled himself when I’d
told him about mum.

  “What happened?” I said, as plainly as I could.

  Ben glanced over at me uncertainly. Now he’d started this it was like he didn’t want to finish it.

  “Will you keep it to yourself?”

  “Yeah. Of course I will.”

  Ben glanced at me again, I could see the uncertainty on his face.

  “He killed himself.”

  “Oh shit!” I blurted out before I could stop myself. Then I slowed down.

  “Why? What happened?”

  Ben answered in a faraway voice. “We don’t know. He was doing well there, everyone loved him. He just…”

  I didn’t say anything, I waited to see if he’d go on.

  “His girlfriend found him. Sasha. He was supposed to meet her for a picnic or something and he didn’t turn up. She went to his room, you know, got the porter and everything to check he was alright. They found him swinging from the light fitting. He hung himself with his belt.”

  “Why?” I said again, a moment later.

  “He had… Issues. Depression, I suppose. But there was no note. There was no real reason for it, at least not that we know of.”

  For a while neither of us spoke and the only noise was the burr of the engine.

  “Julian was always Dad’s favourite, he was the clever one, good at sports and stuff. He was going to follow in Dad’s footsteps, studying law and everything. But then he died and it was just me left. It all changed. Dad’s never got over it. He’s not always a total arsehole, but it’s like he resents that I’m the one who survived.”

  “Shit," I said, stunned. "When did this happen?”

  “About five years ago.”

  I thought about that, how I'd talked to him about what happened to me. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  He sniffed again. “We don’t talk about it. The family I mean.”

  “Yeah but…”

  “I’m telling you now.”