10. Bad Kids

It is the best kind of winter's morning: bright, crisp, and so cold that even a vampire's breath can be seen in the air.  A tall, rakish gentleman with shaggy dark hair sits outside a fast food restaurant on Wenceslas Square, flicking cigarette ash into a cup of cheap, undrinkable coffee.  His companion, a pretty young blonde, finishes the last of her hot chocolate.  It is their final day in Prague; at the train station a few streets away they will choose a new destination.  A new adventure.

"Shall we get going?"  The man asks, rising from their tiny circular table.  The girl stands too, buttoning up her coat and pulling on a pair of gloves before responding.

"I'm not coming," she says.

"What are you talking about?"

"You need to go back to England.  You miss her, I know you do."

He tries to protest, but she shakes her head.

"It's alright.  Really, it is.  I understand.  Go home, Seth, and find your wife.  Find Mallory."

"And where will you go?"

"I haven't decided yet.  I might stay on here a little longer, or go further East.  The world's my oyster now, you saw to that."

"I..."  He begins, but can't find the words.

"It's alright," the girl says.  "I know."  She picks up her small suitcase and places a delicate kiss on his cheek.  Then, before he can say or do anything to stop her, she winks at him and promptly vanishes into the thickening morning crowd.

***

“My name’s Seth,” he says, for the first time in several months.  “And I’m an addict.”

Here we go again, Mallory thinks.  Because who wouldn’t want to spend their Saturday night with a roomful of addicts and losers…

That’s not fair, she realises.  She used to admire what Seth was trying to do, and she knows that he is only doing it for her.  He thinks it is what she wants.  And maybe it was, once.  But now, it seems naïve.  Launching oneself at a problem so huge, so unfixable, while still surrounded by so many smaller messes.

"I'm fine," she told Seth earlier, when he asked her if she was alright.  What a bare-faced lie.  She damn near murdered an Essex girl because she was hearing things.  She is anything but fine.  And her husband suspects – no, he knows as much.  “Fine” is the new half-truth they share, she realises.  Still, it’s a lesser lie than “happy”, which she supposes is progress.

It never ceases to amaze her how easy it is to share your life with somebody, without actually sharing anything.  Billy, for example.  She was going through his books the other day: a surprising number of them were in French, another little kick in the proverbial balls as clearly neither she nor Billy had seen fit to tell the other that they spoke the language.  But there they were, in black and white. 

The usual pretentious conversation starters: L’Etranger, Huis Clos.  Then there was the more salacious fare: Querelle de Brest, Histoire de l’Oeuil.  And most importantly, a tattered copy of Jean Cocteau's Les Enfants Terribles.  The funny, black little story of two people so desperate to spite each other that death is seen as one last fuck you.  Strikes more of a chord with Mallory now than it did back in '29. 

Mallory has read a lot of books over the years, but can remember almost to the day when and where she first read this one.  When Jersey and René were both behind her and she was alone again, Paris became her stomping ground for quite a while.  She and Cocteau himself enjoyed quite the dalliance.  For a man who went on to bed Marlene Dietrich, he was remarkably vanilla, but his blood made her giddy.  He was the one to end it, when he decided to kick the opium.  His body couldn't handle the strain of withdrawal on top of her drinking from him every night.

Mallory has never mentioned that to Seth.  Part of her thinks he wouldn't believe her, another part of her thinks he might get a tiny bit jealous.  But right now, an affair with The Frivolous Prince is far, far down the list of things she isn't telling him.  Right at the top is the Cassie situation.

***

“Is it just me,” Seth asks as they make their way out, “or have those things got even more fucking unbearable?”

“It’s not just you, sweetie,” Mallory bumps her shoulder against his.  They walk right past the fawning Tony who, if they were to make eye contact for the briefest of seconds, would guilt-trip them into staying for a chat.

“Drink?”  Seth asks.

“I’m actually pretty tired,” Mallory says.  “Tell you what, have a whiskey for me and I’ll see you back at the flat.”

“Are you sure darling?”  Seth already knows that this is Mallory’s way of saying she wants to be alone.

“I’m sure.  I’ll see you later.”  She kisses him goodbye on the cheek, not the lips, then turns left at the bottom of the road as he turns left.  He decides on a pub with the encouragingly traditional name of The Crown.  Less than a minute later, a stag party crash through the door, making it impossible to hear the mediocre music Seth had been pretending to enjoy.  He makes quick work of his Jack Daniels, crunching on ice cube as he steers clear of the stags and emerges onto the street again.

“Right,” he says to nobody in particular.  “Home.”

Mallory is nowhere to be found when Seth returns to the flat.  Off on one of her many, many solo walks, no doubt.  Not so long ago, it had driven him crazy if he didn’t know where she was.  It bothers him less now: Seth has yet to figure out whether that means he trusts her more or cares less.

The last of the three bottles that Billy left behind stands on the kitchen table; they teased its last drops out onto their tongues this morning, in anticipation of going back on the wagon.  It is when Seth is here alone that he feels Billy’s absence most keenly: when he and Mallory are together, they are able to fill the silence, with sex and idle conversation if not by genuinely communicating.

As if conjured by his thoughts, there is a knock at the door.

“Lose your key already?”  Seth calls out.  They had a spare cut just yesterday so that each of them could come and go as they please.  He imagines it will be a while though, before they feel like anything but guests.  He opens the door, about to ask his wife where she has been...  And finds himself looking into a pair of green eyes that he feared he might never see again.

“You're here," he breathes.  "I didn't expect you to actually come."

"What you must think of me," she says, rolling her eyes in faux horror and barging past him into the flat.  "Showing up here on your doorstep, out of the blue, a blast from the past-"

"Well I wouldn't put it like that exactly..."

"Got your message.  Was going to write.  Then I just woke up one day in this pension in Marseilles and thought to myself, I know, I'll pay the old man a visit."

"I'm not old," Seth says, trying his best to keep up.

"What can I say?"  She continues, ignoring him.  "I've missed you."

"Me too," he says soberly, closing the door.  "Sometimes I wish I'd never let you go.  Two years... It's a long time, even for someone like me."

"And I'm ashamed to say,” she turns to face him, “it's taken me two years to realise I never thanked you."  Her eyes can't quite meet his.  "Well, that, plus it's ages since I've been to the seaside."

"Don't thank me," Seth says.  "Ever.  Please."

"You gave me a gift.  I just want you to know I’m making it count."

They stand in silence for a few moments, still unsure of how to act around one another.

"Nice place," she says eventually.  "Who do you have to sleep with to get a flat like this nowadays?"

"That's a not-so-funny story actually," Seth sighs.

"And you can tell me all about it," she smiles.  "But first things first - don't I get a hug?"

He grins.

"Of course."  He throws his arms around her and resists the urge to squeeze too tightly, or to lift her up and spin her around.  He feels like he is exhaling, without ever having known he was holding his breath.

"I'm so glad you came," he whispers in her ear. "I thought you'd just write."

"Like I said," she mumbles into his shoulder.  "The seaside."

He sent her a text shortly after the Billy fiasco.  Just a brief update, with a change of address.  It didn't even enter his head that whatever letter or postcard might come from her could easily fall into the hands of a clueless Mallory.  He just wanted to reconnect.  Two years have passed since they said goodbye in that square in Prague.  And while they only spent a matter of weeks in each other's company before parting ways, she has rarely been out of his thoughts. 

Seth is no stranger to the almost comfortable guilt that comes from several lifetimes of sinning.  But this silent betrayal of his wife has weighed heavier, been harder to carry.  It isn't guilt, he knows.  It is shame.

No more, he decides.  He is sick and tired of keeping secrets, hoping against hope that he doesn't get caught like a naughty child.  As Seth embraces one of the only women to ever matter to him besides his wife, he resolves that as soon as Mallory comes home from wherever the hell she is, he is going to tell her the truth.

***

Who knew that trying to visit somebody you have assaulted while they are recovering in hospital might not go very well?  Cassie starts screaming her shrill little head off the moment she sees Mallory approaching.  There goes any hope of the girl being too drunk or high to remember, she thinks, swiftly deciding to beat a hasty retreat.  She donates the gift shop-bought flowers to an elderly lady in the bed nearest the door to the ward, then makes a run for it.

Walking home, Mallory briefly considers finding a dumb drunk to bite, just to take the edge off.  Then she laughs at her own weak will, wondering if less than twenty-four hours clean would be a personal record.  What’s that Wilde line, she thinks as she climbs the stairs to the flat.  I can resist everything but temptation.

She reaches the top of the stairs, lets herself into the flat with her new key, and walks in on a petite, pretty blonde embracing her husband.

“What the fuck is this?”  She asks.  To their credit, the pair do not leap apart the moment they are discovered.  The girl casually steps back, somehow not stumbling on her ankle boots.  Her tiny white dress is made decent only by the oversized blazer that comes down to her knees.  Mallory has snuck out of enough bedrooms in the early hours to know that the blazer originally belonged to a man.  The thought infuriates her for reasons she can’t quite articulate.

“Mallory,” Seth says, but he is predictably speechless beyond stating his wife’s name.

“You’re Mallory?”  The girl almost seems happy to see her.

“Yes,” Mallory says.  “And you are…?”

"Didn't he tell you?"  She asks, with a nod in Seth's direction.

"No," Mallory replies, her voice like steel.  "He did not.  I'm sorry, but just what is going on here?   Who are you, and what are you doing with my husband?"

"This must look bad," the girl says, with a coy little smile that shows just a hint of fang.  “Let’s start from the beginning, shall we?  I’m Lola.  Seth’s daughter."

~