Chapter 37: I Firmly Believe that Sometimes It’s Better Not to Talk about Things, and Just Go with the Flow

Three years ago, my friend Will’s wife was killed in a car crash. They had been going out with each other since the first week at university, and they had two beautiful children. A month later, I had dinner with Will, and when I was leaving, I hugged him. We stood hugging for the longest time, just good friends.

Will was one of those people who never seemed to be in any doubt of who he was and what he wanted to do. If that makes him sound arrogant, I’m doing him a disservice. He’d never do anything to make you uncomfortable, he’d always be there for you, he’d be the first at a party and the last to leave. He’d always talk to the quiet girl, and I know because that’s what I was when I started at uni, and he didn’t do it because he was kind, he did it because he was nice, and if you don’t know the difference, then shame on you. I never yearned for him, though. He had a girlfriend, but it wasn’t that – we were just never meant for each other in that way. Maybe it made our friendship easier, but he seemed to be a similarly easy a friend with everyone, some of whom definitely fancied him, so I dare say it was just Will.

All of this is a long way of saying that, when I was consoling him, it’s not as if I was his one special friend, or that either of us was ‘the one who got away,’ or anything like that. It’s just that I had gone round to see him with a tupperware of Bolognese so he didn’t have to cook for a few days, his kids went to sleep miraculously fast, and we had a lovely evening under the awful circumstances, and then it was time to go, and we hugged as usual. Except after ten minutes we hadn’t moved. A friend of mine once said that there is nothing ever simple about holding a beautiful girl, that in the end it takes on its own momentum. I nodded, but I never understood him until that night with Will. I think we both felt so comfortable that we tried not to move in ways that meant we were both moving constantly in infinitesimal ways to fit ourselves more closely to each other, and I grew hyper-aware of all his hard and soft places, and of where he was too warm, and of where I was. I knew when my hair brushed against his neck, and I knew he was replying when he touched his chin to the top of my head, and this is the most predictable story since time began.

We were young, and not very experienced with death (I’m getting more experienced fast). We had no etiquette to guide us, and that was either a good thing or it wasn’t, but I don’t care and I’m sure Will doesn’t either. We didn’t sleep that night, and it was as if we were in a bubble separated from any history or foreknowledge, and we were both funny, and breakfast was relaxed, and we’ve never spoken about it again, except with our eyes. It was the perfect one night stand, because it really was one night, with never hope or thought of another. I think it means that Will and I, who were good friends, are more than that. We have a private intimacy we don’t share with anyone else. This is going to make me sound a freak given the specifics, but it’s the kind of intimacy I imagine you share with a brother. I thought that it would be a unique event in my life, until now, holding Johnny Depp, my hair against his neck, his chin on the top of my head. I couldn’t help making comparisons.

The similarities were glaring. He’d lost his wife, he had two children, and there was no hope for us in the long run. The differences were equally stark. Will was one of my oldest friends, who I trusted absolutely. Johnny Depp was theoretically protecting me, but two days ago I watched a video in which he said it would be better for everyone if I were dead. The only reason he didn’t kill me was that his boss, the Teacher, told him not to. But earlier this evening, while I had been effecting my miraculous escape from the enemy, I heard that the Teacher had been captured and killed, so who knew what Johnny would do to me now? That’s why I’d not told him about the Teacher.

That and the fact that there is nothing ever simple about clinging to someone, and certainly not someone like Johnny Depp, alone in a luxurious cave, holding himself together from the death of his wife, his whole body humming with suppressed tension. Also, it was hot, and wherever skin touched skin, we were slick with hot sweat. Eventually, it was if we were melding into a single whole, and breathing so deeply that every inhalation took all the oxygen out of the cave.

‘I’m here to protect you,’ he forced himself to say, eventually, trying to break the spell, in case he was doing something wrong. The hot air cooled a fraction, but I didn’t reply, and we carried on holding each other. My cheek was pressed against his olive green singlet, and I watched as a bead of perspiration grew in the hollow where the muscles of his chest joined his neck. I shifted my head, and now my cheek was touched against his skin, and he shifted so his skin was pressed against my cheek, and I kissed him, and he kissed the top of my head, and the rest of the story is the oldest story ever again, except different to all the other times, obviously, because with all due respect to Will, and without doing anything in particular that I can put my finger on, Johnny Depp was better in bed than anyone I had ever been in bed with by a factor that might as well have been infinite. It could have been the situation, but I don’t think so. I knew, as clearly as I had known with Will, and I minded as little, that it would never happen again, but I wanted it never to end. But at four in the morning, he said, ‘We’d better get ready, Mary Sue. We’ve got to get the Teacher, and we have to be ready to run.’

‘The Teacher?’

‘Yes. I’m finally going to meet him, which means the climax is coming, and there won’t be a moment to waste. He’s the only one who knows what to do next.’ I said nothing. ‘He was supposed to escape with you at five in the morning, but I presume he got you out early for some reason and then stayed behind.’ I was frozen, silent. ‘He was supposed to bring you,’ Johnny Depp repeated, ‘but obviously he must have helped you escape early for some reason.’ I said nothing again. ‘Didn’t he, Mary Sue?’