Free My Biggest Lie by Luke Brown Page B

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    Before they arrived he was on the kitchen floor, groaning. He had pulled my bag of mephedrone out of his pocket before collapsing. Fergus threw the rest of the guests out, even the actresses, and we could hear their voices rising up from the spot outside where James Cockburn had landed the night before. It was twenty pastfive. The paramedics would be getting used to this address, and the police too. Bennett could barely speak and neither the actor nor I knew what to do. I felt for his pulse: it was there, jumping. ‘I’ll stay with Craig, you just make sure you’re covered if the police come round – clean any drugs up,’ I told him and bent down over Bennett and held his hand. ‘Don’t speak,’ I said, from concern, but also because I could not imagine what I would say to him. ‘You’re going to be all right. You’re going to be fine.’ I remembered aspirins were good for heart attacks in some way. ‘Have you got any aspirin?’ I shouted through. ‘Shit, yes,’ he called back through, and came back with a tub. ‘Can you swallow?’ I asked Bennett. He nodded. ‘No, fuck that – will you crush it up?’ I asked the actor. ‘It’ll work quicker. Do a couple.’ It felt completely counter-intuitive, watching Fergus place a note over two aspirin and rake a credit card sharply over them, chopping the powder down finely as I had done so many times with ecstasy pills. I asked for some on the credit card and leaned over Bennett. ‘Can you snort? It’s aspirin – I think it will help, it thins the blood.’ I held the card against his nostrils and he rasped a breath in, blowing the powder over his chest, perhaps inhaling very small quantities. I mixed the rest up with a small amount of water and fed it to him. Then I tried once more with the card to see if he could inhale some, and that’s how the paramedics found us as they rushed in, a middle-aged writer, on his back, mid heart attack, being encouraged to snort powder from a credit card. It must have looked like attempted murder.
    Bennett lived on his own and so, in the absence of family to call, I phoned Suzy. I had never in my life been so rightfully attacked. She ordered me to ring Belinda to explain, and in a daze I tried to, but she didn’t answer. They wouldonly let one of us go in the ambulance, and Fergus, who had known Craig for a couple of years, went instead of me. I stood on my own in a street in Soho. It was not light yet, but the sky was taking on a vibrant blue, something burning behind it. I had a day of meetings at the Fair beginning at ten. The police would have to be in touch, I realised, but no one had told me to wait for them here. The paramedics had taken my name and address, and we’d told them about the drugs Bennett had been taking. I’d given them the bag of mephedrone too. I wanted more than anything in the world to ring Sarah, who was staying at her friend’s in Camden. But I flagged a cab down instead and headed to our empty bed. Here I picked up one of her jumpers and fell asleep hugging it. It smelled of the wax she rubbed on her hair when she got out of the shower to control her curls. It smelled of Sarah.
    It must have only have been an hour or two later when I was woken by a knock on the door. Two police officers, a man and a woman, looked at me with distaste. On the other side of London, the Fair was about to resume. We were a long way away from there. I invited them in, but they didn’t want to come in. My good manners had no currency here. I had to go to the station with them. ‘How’s Craig?’ I asked. I knew the answer already from their presence, from the look on their faces, but I did not know I knew it then.

Chapter 7
    W hen I finished the story, there was a silence.
    Understandably, they were deciding whether I had made most of it up. I was not as truthful then as I am now and I had left a