‘What is with you?’ Jake tried to shake his grip free, but he couldn’t. He stood still and held his arm up with Marcus’s hand still attached to his sleeve. ‘Is this going to be another episode like last night? Because I’m running out of bandages,’ he said sarcastically.
Marcus’s grip slackened. He let go.
‘Thank you.’ Jake lowered his voice. ‘Now suppose you tell me exactly what drugs you’re on.’ Marcus’s behaviour appeared tobe getting more erratic and paranoid. Jake knew methadone was a treatment for heroin dependence. Even so, he wanted Marcus to just admit it. Jake was thinking of the saying:you have to admit it, to quit it. If only Marcus would just acknowledge he had a serious drug problem.
Marcus’s face hardened. ‘Suppose you tell me about those.’ Marcus indicated the letters in Jake’s pocket.
‘Ok.’ Jake shrugged, realising Marcus wasn’t ready to tell him about his drug habit just yet. ‘Have it your way.’ Jake headed across the lawn to the front door. He heard Marcus’s quick footsteps on the gravel drive behind him as he approached the door too. Reaching for the doorknob, Marcus’s hand closed around it first. He did not open the door.
‘Well, aren’t you going to open it?’ Jake said impatiently. He turned to Marcus in exasperation. ‘What?’
‘I’ll tell you about the drugs.’ He held Jake’s gaze. ‘But first you have to tell me about the envelopes.’
‘All right,’ Jake interrupted, not sure why Marcus was making a big deal about the letters; they had nothing to do with him. ‘Now can we go in?’
Marcus twisted the doorknob and flung the door wide, letting Jake enter first.
As they approached the bedroom door, he glanced at Marcus and thought,your suitcase had better be packed, because I’ve just about had it with you.Jake kept that thought to himself as he walked into the room. He noted Marcus; suitcase on the floor by the door, jacket hanging from the handle. The wardrobe door was wide open and empty. There were no clothes strewn about the bed. He was packed and ready to go.
Good.
Jake zipped up his own bag, which he’d barely unpacked. He glanced at Marcus, who was moving towards the sofa.
Marcus sat.
Not good.
Jake lifted his bag off the bed.
‘The contents of those envelopes first,’ Marcus said coolly, leaning forward and tossing a cushion behind his back, making himself comfortable.
‘We’ll discuss it on the way,’ Jake said firmly, walking to the door. He felt his anger brewing like a pressure cooker about to blow. The letters had nothing to do with Marcus. He shouldn’t even be there. The time had come to leave, but Marcus was going to do his best to ruin his day.
Jake dropped his bag and retrieved the envelopes from his coat pocket. ‘These damn letters,’ he waved them at Marcus. ‘If it wasn’t for these …’ Jake crossed the room. ‘Do you think I’d come here for a holiday?’ He stared down at Marcus.
‘Have you even looked inside the envelopes?’
Jake’s temper exploded and he didn’t care if Gayle and her mother, along with the whole bloody neighbourhood heard. ‘I’m not reading the damn letters!’ He threw them on the bed; he missed, and they dropped to the floor.
Jake walked to the window and looked out. He calmed down. ‘I guess it serves me right.’ He wished he’d never taken that call from Arnold Wright.
’Why do you keep calling them letters?’
‘What do you mean?’ Jake snarled as he turned from the window and slunk to the end of the bed.
Marcus knitted his brow. ‘Give them to me and I’ll show you …’
‘No!’ Jake flopped down on the end of the bed. ‘I need to return them to Arnold.’ He bent down and picked the envelopes off the floor.
‘Who’s Arnold?’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ Jake got up from the bed in frustration and paced the floor as he recounted the whole business, fromthe phone call back in London from a stranger about Martha and the letters she had for William.. He explained that he’d been prompted to make the trip because he’d suddenly had time on his hands and had felt sorry for an old man and for an old lady who was at death’s door. ‘There, are you satisfied? I’m an idiot. I wish I’d never agreed to come.’ Jake stood in front of Marcus. ‘Can we go now?’
‘I think you need to look at the contents of those envelopes.’ The sound of Marcus’s calm voice was irritating beyond belief.
‘And I think you need to shut up!’ Jake stuffed the letters in his pocket again, and walked to the door. ‘I’m going to give them back.’ He lunged at his bag and missed, banging his hand on the doorframe.
‘Ouch,’ said Marcus. ‘I bet that hurt.’
