The flat they had built up together was in tatters, Megan’s clothes, her books, her files of writing, all strewn over the floor and trampled as Danny tore it all apart. She had left him. He’d let her buy that friggin’ pink drainer at Ikea and make believe she wanted him, and now she was gone with Jamie It was supposed to be different this time. Those two together - Oh they would sweet talk, smile and impress people in that way they did, get everyone on their side, that’s right, BANG another bookshelf hit the floor. Everyone would like them, understand them, write songs and books about them, and he, he would be abandoned, cut out and left for dead. Labelled as the wanker, the traitor, the idiot. A red rage tore right through him burning his heart and his head, here he was again, about to lose everything, if not his life this time. Danny gave himself up to whatever he could feel and smashed it to pieces, until his body relinquished and let him slip down the wall with huge racking sobs. Fucking bastard…

It was a winter afternoon before he opened his eyes again and the world was colder, he looked around at what was left of his life and his flat with a disconnection, a ripped bareness, that he had felt for so long it was just in his bones, not a memory at all. Stripped of his layers of protection, his ‘normal life’, all that he’d thought to hold dear and build his hopes around, the feeling of hard dirt on his back and a burn in his chest flowed like a dam just burst ‘Joe…’

****

Emmy blew out her cheeks and rearranged the crunchies and the lion bars into tidy rows on the counter, again. Jesus but it was boring the matinee shift, all the pensioners that came to watch the film brought their own sweets from the corner shop down the road, brought their own squash from home in old plastic bottles, and didn’t even give the popcorn a second look. Well who could blame them? It was too salty, stale and she thought probably not the best thing with dentures anyhow, perhaps in the circumstances it was better by far to stick with a fruit flavoured boiled sweets. But all the same once she had taken their money, and vouchers out of the local paper usually, there was nothing to do but wait. Oh she could go clean the projection room, or wipe down the counters but Christ, how dirty would these things get in a week? And anyway the thought of it made her mind feel numb with boredom.

Mr Crowther, the manager, had once caught her reading a magazine that she had found on one of seats after a showing and threatened her with a disciplinary warning, said he would find her some extra duties in the toilets if she had nothing to do on his money but sit around reading that ‘silly tittle tattle’ as he called it. Funny enough she might have a agreed with him had she got a chance to read about ‘Orlando’s latest love REVEALED’, as it was there wasn’t anything better to do than day dream and her mind went back to that very morning. Her landlady had caught her on the overly patterned stair carpet to tell her that a very nice young man had called for her, ‘well turned out’ she had said, invited him in for a cup of tea and everything, just to check he wasn’t like those others. Emmy smiled, he would charm the birds down from the trees with that gentle voice and that smile, and more to the point, if anyone could get a chocolate digestive biscuit out of her landlady it would be Jamie.

It was maybe just as well that Mrs Carwadine didn’t know that he’d had Emmy sitting on his lap his bare skin against hers, well apart from the strawberry flavoured condom that was, in the middle of a public cinema the night before. The austere lid of the tartan biscuit barrel might just have stayed tightly clamped shut then. ‘No more all butter shortbread triangles for you laddie’. But he’d sat on the edge of the lace trimmed settee and answered all polite and told her about his Ma and asked if she would mind if he came back when Emmy was home from work, and would she be kind enough to give Emmy the little present he had for her, all wrapped up in a little box with a tiny bow that he must have tied himself with those oh so dextrous fingers.

Emmy felt the air escape from her lips, her body bemoaning the lack of him and them, sitting back against the wall to remember some as her thumb felt the delicate contours of the animal charm in her pocket, funny thing to give to a girl she had thought, a scorpion. Emmy giggled a little, ah maybe not... As she drifted off she wondered momentarily if she wasn’t just becoming extraordinarily good at visualisation as the door pressed open and his beautiful body appeared before her, but the thought skittered away when the lazy light of the cinema booking office caught up with those dark shadows “Jesus Jamie…what’s up?”

He wasn’t up to much talking, he just wanted to hold her and Emmy reached around him, his face against her neck and his hands searching for solid and warm. Minutes passed before he would lift his head and let her look at him, dark eyes and darker rings, he looked terrible, gaunt, exhausted and terrible “what’s happened?”

He was welling up as he spoke, “you don’t know me Emmy, fuck I don’t think I know me. But I want you to come with me, please, will yer?”

Emmy frowned a little “where to? I am at work...is a few hours before I get off, and then it’s just a break, and..” He folded a bit in the middle, the salt water that had been threatening to cascade trickling over his cheeks and she picked his chin up “Jamie...where are you going?”

“Dublin, I am going to Dublin. I have to get away from London…I have no idea what the fuck is going on, but I need yer Lass, will you do it for me? Right now”

If there was ever a moment in her life that she felt what to do it was here, well every nerve and every cell screamed yes, so just her head to convince then. “How are we going to get there Jamie? I’ve no money to speak of. And what about clothes? I can’t go like this!”

In amoungst kisses that were saying ‘thank you’ because he knew she’d said yes before she did, he told her that his uncle had lent him an old banger of a car and slipped a roll of money in his pocket “You are fine as yer are lass” his fingers already tingling on those poppers despite himself “but we will buy yer something. Fuck Emmy…come with me..”

A last plaintiff “what about me job?” and she knew she may as well give up, Jamie McGuire, with his beautiful dark eyes that were pleading with her, asking her to jump off a cliff with him right now compared to a counter full of lion bars and the matinee shift. Having left a garbled message on Mr Crowthers’ office answer phone, she dragged him with her into the staff cloakroom to get her bag. It was impossible to be in the same space as him and not feel his heat and Emmy turned to look at him waiting for her, a spring ready to coil, the exact same thought in their heads and she felt her back press into the soft plush of a coat hanging behind her against the wall “Jesus Jamie, Mr Crowther will be here any minute...oh fuck…to make sure no one runs off with the takings” She wondered if she cared at all for a second as her eyes went blank, his hand reaching up under her uniform to find soft skin and damp soft cotton, while the scratch of the short bristle on his chin scraped her cheek “Jesus Jamie, we have to get out of here...before he comes..” though her sex pressing against his hand told a different story, he knew it too and kissed her hard as his fingers trailed wet down her thigh

“Aye…sorry. I am sorry. I am not meself.”

Emmy smiled and shook her head “Ah now don’t say that because then I might just change my mind” her push against his body brought a little smile “Jamie, invading Iraq- pushing in front of old ladies the queue at the bus stop, those are things to be sorry for, you doing THAT is not, believe me…now you can tell me what the rush is to get to Dublin when we are in the car” she was slipping her arms into her coat and slightly wobbly she followed him out of the back door and into next. If nothing else she was going to need new knickers.

 In the car park at Tesco’s express supermarket opposite she winced a bit, when he said old banger, he really meant it “Is this thing going to make it all along the M4 and through Wales?”

Jamie opened the door of the passenger side with something of a nervous flourish “Well I know a bit about cars, it’s easy once you understand how they work yer know?”

Emmy shook her head a little “Bloody hell Jamie, you will telling me that you cook as well next. Don’t answer that...”

He could still feel himself running as the A4 turned into the M4 and they hit the Hammersmith flyover heading west, his body flinching at every second, driving like a man possessed with the reflexes of Stirling Moss. Emmy shut her eyes at the latest swerve round a lorry and tried to concentrate on speaking “so…you going to tell me why we are getting out of Dodge? The sheriff after you?” Emmy  did her best not to look out of the window, laid her head back in the seat and watched him talk. About having a fight with his mate, the court hearing that morning, that his uncle had come with him and that he’s been given bailed to appear in a fortnight’s time “right so you aren’t technically an outlaw then, running from justice? Well I reckon that’s something’ she was joking but his tight grin was another conversation, for later. When he had figured out what to say.

He frowned a bit, no hurry to answer “well not yet, not unless I don’t come back and attend court, then they can just lock me up. Me uncle said to have a week off work, he seemed to be quite impressed that his most skinny nephew slugged Danny, and I wasn’t about to argue” Emmy had a thousand more questions, but his hands gripped the wheel so tight she thought he might explode with anything else to concentrate on.

“Look Jamie, I am here, and I may be daft setting off to Ireland with a man I don’t even know the second thing about, but I am willing to brush over that for now, I have, you will be surprised to hear I am sure, done even more stupid things.” Her hand just touched his leg, they would be lost if she went any further “You are exhausted; let me drive so you can sleep alright? Then you can tell me what the fuck we are really doing.” He swallowed hard “Also that way we might get there alive...that sound like a plan?”

Heston services might not have been the most romantic of places, the din of a hundred cars and lorries and vans passing every minute added to the smell of petrol and windscreen wash sort of put paid to that, but maybe that was for the best, she didn’t think she needed hearts and flowers when he could kiss like that, this time soft and thankful and collapsing as they passed in front of the bonnet. The car seat next to her was doing its level best to pretend to be reclining and she turned the key in the ignition before pulling out into the lines of speeding traffic. Her fingers reached for the dial of the radio, ‘Virgin FM’ blinked weakly on the display as the delicate guitar of ‘Little Wing’ crackled in the air, she grinned and he closed his eyes for the first time in 2 days.

****

Megan sat in Tom’ Lloyd’s office and tried to persuade him not to phone the coppers and file a complaint against Danny “He assaulted you Megan! You can’t go back to your flat on your own for fear of further violence, he effectively made you homeless- the bloke is a wanker!”

“I can’t Tom, I just can’t, there are some things I just can’t do and this is one of them” Megan shook her head “he was upset you know? Things he doesn’t understand”

“I don’t fucking understand either Megan! Least of all why you would let him get away with this. Jesus how many times has one or the other of us stood up in union meetings or at college and argued against women’s oppression? No ifs, no buts Megan- you said so yourself, I distinctly remember you saying that. He crossed the line, finito.”

They went back into before either of them could remember, drinking buddies and activists and stroppy buggers both and she looked up from her coffee at him with fondness” I know Tom and yes I remember all those things, and yes they are still true. He is Jamie’s friend, has been forever, there is something between them and it is for them to work it out Tom please, let Jamie sort it out. I can stay with Millie for a bit till it all blows over”

“And where is Jamie?”

Megan took a deep breath; in truth she had no idea. It had been a long night. Jamie couldn’t stop staring at that picture, going over and over how it was the same man he had seen at the side of his bed, ‘and that couldn’t be real could it? A dream for sure…oh but how was it him?’ They had read articles and articles that never got any better ‘He murdered his friend, fuck Megan what does he want with me?’ Jamie had cried while he told her could hear this voice and how he wasn’t so sure he wanted to know this Joe Byrne fella. After hours of it and holding tight and cursing and enough whiskey to float a ship on he had pulled on his jacket and left to go to court for his hearing, his final words being ‘Keep away from Danny, will yer? I don’t want him to hurt yer’.  Megan shrugged at Tom “I don’t know, but I know he will be back as soon as he can be.”

“So what do you want from me Megan? Seems like you have it all tied up” Tom’s irritation with his apparent impotence to move her was barely below the surface

“I think I know how to go about getting an interview with Heath Ledger- Orlando will do me a favour I am sure, what I need is a magazine or a paper that will pay for it- please Tom, I need the money, and the cup o’chino barely keeps me in coffee”

The man opposite her stared with his eyes closed, if such a thing was possible, while the implications worked their way through “Let me get this right- you can ask Orlando Bloom for favours and the one you have chosen is that he helps you get to interview Heath Ledger? Do you get three wishes? Tell me this isn’t the last one.....forget it…I give up…” He was shaking his head in disbelief while his fingers tapped on the phone in front of him, one of the guarded numbers in the world of journalism

“Hello! This is Tom Lloyd; can I speak to David in the Features Editing Office please?” Megan grinned at him and rubbed her tired eyes.

With the feel of Tom’s crushing hug still in her arms Megan found her way out into the cold London streets, the aspiring buildings only offered a small slice of sky and she pulled her coat tight around her, walking as fast as she could towards the edge of St James’ park. It was as far from wild as you could imagine- manicured grass, little wire arch fences that kept the children out of the ponds, and immaculately laid planting schemes spelling out some centenary or other. She sat and the bench beneath her offered no warm dry eucalyptus heat, the cold and damp seeping through her clothes instead. “Bushmen without a bush! Christ just don’t even mention Crocodile Dundee…” She watched the cycle of mothers and children with bread and excited toddlers rush up to over fed and disinterested ducks with a wry smile and felt herself shake. Jesus it was cold.

Her hand reached for the overly ornate iron work of the bench to steady her thoughts Fuck it Megan…what ARE you on about? Dead outlaws coming back to haunt us? Reincarnation? Parallel lives? She laughed out loud; none of them fitted her practical mind. Maybe it was time for some serious anti psychotic drugs. This was all just coincidence and fanciful thinking…that was it. And more to the point what the hell was she going to do about Danny?

She might have felt less willing to consider his feelings if she could see him. Danny was in fact already sure of his immediate plan as he drained another glass in The King’s Head whilst the papery embers of her files, reports and dissertations glowed white red in the grate of their flat.