Free The Liar's Chair by Rebecca Whitney Page B

presence looms through the phone. What he would do if he found us makes me more afraid for Will than for myself.
    ‘I need to go,’ I say. I’d hoped to drink less last night, to give it more time before I drove home, but the panic of knowing that David is waiting has set in.
‘I’ve stayed too long.’ I’ll drive more slowly this time, I’ll pay attention. Get a strong coffee on the way home.
    Will stops moving but doesn’t turn round. The radio crackles as the tuning slips and a burst of voices from a local taxi firm hisses across the ether. ‘Fine,’ he says.
‘Off you go.’
    With my pile of clothes in hand, I push the chair aside. One of the rubber feet has worn away and the bare metal screeches across the lino. In the lounge I gather the rest of my things: my bag,
my shoes, the cashmere sweater which Will missed, now covered in dog hair. Bessie’s eyes follow my movements, the useless guard dog and the dispassionate burglar. Will turns off the radio and
I hear his feet scuffle the carpet as he comes up behind me. He kisses my neck. His breath holds the tang of last night’s alcohol.
    ‘We can’t meet in the pub any more. In fact, we can’t do this again,’ I say in a small voice.
    ‘Please don’t leave,’ he says. I relax inside the fold of his arms. ‘Stay a bit longer.’
    Light wisps of rain have begun to fall and the morning appears closer to dusk. Across the street my new Mercedes is parked with rusty vehicles on either side. David insisted I have a duplicate
of my last car so that only the discerning would notice the change. It’s also a demonstration that nothing is irreplaceable – with enough money you can do almost anything you want.
    The vehicle in front of my car is Will’s other business opportunity. MAN PLUS VAN is etched on the side of the grubby transit, with his mobile number outdated by
one digit. Between the occasional trip to the tip and the cocaine profits which he doesn’t snort himself, he has just about enough money to scrape by. Occasionally he has a windfall, a new
leather jacket or a guitar – I never ask where the money came from – and when we meet at the pub, I always pick up the tab; the etiquette is that the dealer never pays. That way we get
round the shame of his poverty.
    Will turns me to him in the circle of his arms. A scruffy quiff flops over his right eye. Once he showed me a photo of himself in his band from twenty years ago, and nothing much has changed:
his style, his clothes, the drinking habit and the fighting – all serve as a homage to his adolescence, the glory days from which he’s been unable to evolve. Without the advantage of
youth, his image has lost some of its glamour. I twitch a smile and think about the man he should have been, and where it all went wrong for him. At what point did he realize, like me, that he was
totally alone?
    ‘We could go back to bed,’ he says.
    The fresh bruise on his eye socket is taking on a purple tint. In the pub last night, insults were spat, old lines of territory tested, then a firework of fists erupted from Will and the other
man, over in seconds. I watched with thrill and terror as Will punched the man with less effort than it took him to lift his pint. He was very good, as if he’d been fighting all his life. The
man on the floor didn’t get off as lightly; blood spilled from his nose and poured into the barmaid’s beer towel as she hollered at the retreating Will. The wounded man got up and
chased us to the door, shouting, ‘I’m not done. Come back, you and your fucking slag.’ I had to pull Will to the car, the fear and excitement giving me the same strength I’d
once used to drag a body. On the journey home, all I thought about was how easy it would be for David to find us if he really wanted to.
    Gran’s clock chimes ten. Seconds waste into rapid minutes. ‘I have to go,’ I say, taking Will’s hand in mine with a light pat before I move apart from him.
‘It’s late