Thin Air by Storm Constantine

Gus? She reached to turn on a
table lamp, then froze. Dex’s face stared up at her from the front
of a magazine that lay on the sofa. She recognised it. It was the
big interview she’d done with him for ‘This’, shortly after they’d
met. A friend of hers had taken the accompanying photos. The
magazine had been stored in her sealed box in the wardrobe.
‘Bastard!’ she muttered, picking the magazine up.
    In the bedroom, she turned on
the main light and threw the magazine on the bed. ‘You’ve been
looking through my things! You’ve no right to look through my
things!’ Ice chinked in her glass.
    Gus appeared bleary-eyed from
the beneath the duvet. ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’
    ‘That!’ She pointed with her
free hand at the magazine, which lay like a broken bird over Gus’
legs.
    Gus stared at it. ‘What are you
on about?’
    Jay knew, even as she continued
to rant and accuse, that Gus’ perplexity was genuine. He was
essentially a simple creature and not proficient at deception. He
stared at the magazine with disgust, too phobic to flick it
away.
    Once her initial tirade had
exhausted itself, Jay sat down on the bed, gulping vodka. There was
a strained silence. Finally she said, ‘You really didn’t put it
there?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Then how did it get there?’
    ‘I don’t know. You must have...
I don’t know... had it mixed up with some papers or something. Why
does it bother you so much anyway?’ A prim, pompous tone had crept
into his voice.
    Jay shook her head. ‘Oh, just
because of the way you were earlier. I know what you think of Dex,
and how you hate the fact we lived together here once. I thought
you were trying to get at me.’
    Gus laughed coldly. ‘I don’t
want to see that slime-ball’s face. I don’t want to rake through
his ashes in your cupboard. Nothing would induce me to remind you
of him.’
    ‘I know.’ Jay reached for his
foot beneath the duvet, squeezed it. ‘I’m sorry. It just freaked me
out.’
    She got up and pulled a chair
away from the dressing table so that she could reach the top shelf
of the wardrobe. She had to check, even though she knew what she
would find. The memory box was still sealed, the tape brittle
across its uneven surface.
    Three days later, Jay met Gina
for a coffee in the West End. A shimmering Indian summer held the
city in warm hands; leaves dropped slowly from the trees in St.
Giles Circus, gradually revealing the old church that lay behind
them. Jay sat outside a bar, sipping Espresso, waiting for her
friend to arrive. The sun was strong enough to coax lunch-time
drinkers from their coats and the fresh, ripe air fermented in
Jay’s nostrils. Despite the anxiety in her mind, she felt fairly at
ease. It was impossible not to be affected by the generosity of the
day.
    Gina came swinging up on to the
patio, her red hair freshly hennaed, dark glasses opaque above her
crimson smile. She wore the tattiest jumper, jeans and leather
jacket imaginable, yet still managed to look well-groomed. She sat
down opposite Jay in a cloud of Issey Miyake perfume, clearly in
the most exuberant of spirits.
    ‘Considering the curse that has
just been pronounced upon me by the cash point, I feel remarkably
alive today,’ she said, grinning.
    ‘You have a capacity to make me
feel dull,’ Jay said, pouring Gina a cup of coffee from the
cafetiere on the table. ‘Kindly stop glowing.’
    Gina sighed. ‘I feel good. I can
hardly wait to tell you, and it nearly killed me not mentioning it
on the phone, but - guess what - I’ve sold ‘Visa Vixen’.’
    ‘That’s great news!’ Jay said.
Gina had been trying to sell her novel for years.
    ‘I know. Pull out the stops.
Order extra cream for the coffee!’
    ‘How’d it happen? Did you manage
to get an agent after all?’
    Gina shook her head, looked a
little sly. ‘No, I used the influence of friends. Three Swords
friends, as it happens.’
    Jay raised an eyebrow. ‘Sell
your soul to the devil, my