My Biggest Lie by Luke Brown Read Free Book Online

Mick Jagger and Keith Richards had all let me down. I came to believe that he had knowledge to impart to me, knowledge that could save me: and I decided to love him.

Chapter 4
    L izzie and Arturo had been letting me speak but now Arturo interrupted. ‘How do you mean, you loved him? Like a woman or a brother?’ It was not an aggressive question but slightly exasperated. I had been careful not to reveal all I had been thinking, particularly the details about Sarah, and perhaps he could tell I was hiding something. I had probably revealed more than I meant to.
    â€˜I’ve never had a brother,’ I said to him. ‘I loved him like a friend. Or like a father.’
    Perhaps I looked sad then because Lizzie reached over and put her hand on my shoulder. ‘What happened next?’ she asked.
    Craig and I were in a cab, heading to Soho, up some stairs to be greeted by a golden-haired actor. He looked shocked then surrendered to an open-mouthed grin. ‘Craig – you came back! What a delight! What chutzpah! ’
    I hadn’t seen Bennett abashed before. He was staring past the actor at the two windows on the other side of the room.
    He hadn’t explained where we were going in the taxi, just that he’d made a new friend who’d be able to sort us out before we went to the party where we were due. ‘Now we’ve started, we’ll need it or it will seem like a dreadful evening,’ he’d insisted, though he didn’t have too much insisting to do. ‘And he’s a good man: Fergus, an actor, a pleasant host.’
    As Bennett fixated on the window I realised where we were. The cardboard crates full of empties confirmed it. We were all suddenly surprised at the situation. We probably needed more drugs. I had a sachet of mephedrone in my wallet, but it was a bit more engulfing and lasting than cocaine; not as socially acceptable. I bit my tongue and introduced myself to Fergus. ‘As you can see,’ he said, ‘the last party feels like it finished about three minutes ago.’ He pulled a mostly-full bottle of Prosecco from a cardboard box on the floor: ‘Sorry it’s not cold, fellas.’ He rinsed out three mugs – ‘God knows what became of all our glasses last night’ – and Bennett discreetly recovered himself and drew Fergus aside.
    As they conferred, I wandered over to the window and looked down to the pavement below. I don’t know what I thought I might see: a cartoon James Cockburn-sized imprint, perhaps. On the other side of the road Eros Videos and Soho Video Club seemed wildly anachronistic, as if they were funded by the council as tourist attractions. A thin ledge ran under the window and around the side of the building. Fergus was speaking into the phone now and Bennett came over to stand with me at the window. We both peered down. ‘Is this where . . . ?’ I asked. He didn’t answer. ‘Fifteen minutes,’ said Fergus, putting the phone down.
    Some people, some writers, like to lyrically describe the reveries they’ve experienced on drugs. It’s an even more boring and shameful habit than taking them. Cocaine was done and did what was expected of it. In the course of consumption we acquired two actresses and four missed calls from Bennett’s publicist, two from our mutual agent and one, worryingly, from my CEO. We had moved to an upstairs members’ club round the corner where the barmaid had greeted Bennett enthusiastically. I’d still made no contact with James Cockburn, suspecting, correctly, that I had been sent on a mission to betray him. It was midnight. We were two hours late to the party, but the party would go on late, and so I told myself that the situation wasn’t irretrievable. Bennett was perfectly happy where he was and didn’t share my CEO’s sense of the importance of meeting export buyers, foreign editors and the producers of TV book clubs. The