Work Text:
“Am I very different?” she asked suddenly, after he’d kissed her.
“What?”
“Am I very different? After kissing Adam?”
Jonathan had known, of course, or at least suspected, that she’d seen them that night at the windmill, he and Adam saying goodbye. But in three weeks she hadn’t mentioned it.
“You saw us.” She nodded. “Why haven’t you said anything?”
“What did you expect me to say? You don’t seem to be about to run off with him, and despite that kiss I haven’t seen any evidence of a great romance between the two of you. To be honest, I’m surprised he’s your type.” The words were gentle enough, but her tone began to lean toward that cutting sarcasm she was so good at.
“It’s not like that.” He had watched her walk away from him, turning back when she reached the centre of the living room. Her expression had hardened to something expectant.
“Why don’t you tell me what it is like?”
He wondered if she’d planned to get angry, or whether hearing him confirm what she thought she knew had struck at the natural jealous streak within her.
“It’s just sex.” He had heard himself say the words, as if doing so had set them in stone, made them fact.
“You mean he’s not content to have you running around after him at the theatre, not content to send you on errands to woo his other girlfriends, now he’s screwing you as well!”
Jonathan had never known himself to get truly angry. He wasn’t honestly sure he had the capacity for it. But he imagined that what he felt at that moment was as close as he’d ever come to it. He took his coat from the arm of the chair, and left the flat. No choice. It was either that or start a row that would have ended their friendship for good.
~
Jonathan sat in the back of the taxi, his thoughts turning over and over on themselves. By the time he reached Maskelyne Manor, he’d managed to tie himself up in knots, blaming himself for hurting Maddy, for not telling her everything, but mostly for ever starting this thing with Adam. He headed over to Maskelyne to end the sporadic, intimate relationship he had with his employer. Yet even as they neared the house his treacherous body began to betray him, his memory reminding his dick of what they would be missing, suggesting an alternative end to what had already been an awful night.
What made him think Adam would let him end it anyway? The American could be so persuasive when he wanted to be. Usually he wouldn’t be bothered, but now and again that quiet cunning won him whatever he wanted. And he definitely wanted Jonathan, he’d made that crystal clear.
After paying the taxi driver he rang the doorbell, and when it wasn’t answered he let himself in with the key Adam had given him when he’d left on his European Tour.
“Adam?”
Closing the door quietly behind him, Jonathan hovered in the entrance hall for a second, listening. The alarm wasn’t making any sound, which implied Adam was home.
“Adam?”
He stepped through into the front room but everything was quiet. Checking the indoor pool was empty and the patio at the back was all locked up, he crossed back through the hall and peered into the main lounge that ran the width of the house, front to back.
They were on the luxurious white leather sofa, Adam and a woman he didn’t recognise. He was on top of her, naked, mouth sealed to hers, hands expertly engaged in removing her underwear.
Heart pounding, Jonathan ran, slamming the door in his rush to get as far away from the house as possible.
By the time Adam opened the door, standing stark naked in the floodlights illuminating the driveway, his unexpected visitor was nowhere to be seen. Of course he wasn’t. Adam knew without a doubt who it had been; an expert when it came to vanishing. Adam’s heart sank.
~
An hour later, Jonathan was staring out of a dirty window in a dusty train carriage at the blurring countryside lit only by the night’s full moon. He’d missed the last train into Billingshurst. This one would only take him as far as Horsham but from there he could take a taxi home. It wasn’t as if he couldn’t afford it. All the money Adam had paid him over the years and he only ever spent it on maintaining the windmill and keeping his cupboards stocked. Adam paid for his travel, his phone bill and a considerable sum for expenses. Was he being bought? He hadn’t thought about it before and he dismissed the idea before it could take a hold. Adam wasn’t a mean man, he looked after his staff and they remained faithful to him. In their game it was a good idea to look after the people who made Adam who he was.
All sorts of things were racing through his mind. He’d stopped running halfway down the road two roads from Adam’s place and had phoned for a taxi. And as he’d sat on the cold and lonely platform, waiting for his train, he couldn’t help but wonder if Maddy had been right. Adam used him for everything else, was he using him for sex too?
Sitting in the otherwise empty carriage, he could feel himself start to cry. He hadn’t ever expected Adam to make any kind of commitment to him, he didn’t want a commitment. He hadn’t expected the man to change his habits at all and he was still angrier at Maddy than he was Adam. But just to walk in on them…. It had hurt for some reason, hurt when he would never have believed that it would.
Miserably he stepped down off the train at Horsham and wandered out of the station. Checking his watch he saw it was five minutes off closing time. Maybe a drink before getting the taxi home. The Phoenix and Firkin was just over the road, and he headed for it.
“Double brandy please.”
“Ice?”
“No.” Jonathan reached into his pocket, digging out some change. As he sorted out a couple of pound coins, he felt a hand on his shoulder.
“Allow me.” His head snapped up, and he smiled in surprise when a familiar face grinned back at him.
“Chief Inspector Pryke, right?”
“Gideon, please, Jonathan.”
Gideon nodded, paying the barman and collecting his own drink – a single malt whisky but the looks of it – before leading the way to an empty table in the corner of the busy pub. “So what brings you out here, alone, at this time of night?”
Jonathan made a face, swallowing half his brandy in one mouthful. “Bad night. I missed the last train back to Billingshurst.”
“You need a lift home?”
Jonathan shook his head. “I’ll just get a taxi.”
“Don’t be daft! It’s not too far out of my way.” He grinned again, and Jonathan gazed uncertainly at him. “And this is the only drink I’ve had tonight, don’t worry. Wouldn’t do for me to get caught, would it?” There was a mischief in the Inspector’s eye that still worried Jonathan a little. But it would save him forty or fifty quid, as well as a long wait in a line made up of drunken revellers. He nodded finally.
“Thanks. And thanks for the drink.”
“It’s no trouble.”
Half an hour later they left the buzz of the pub behind.
“So what was so awful about tonight?” Gideon asked finally as he unlocked the doors of the Calibra.
Jonathan climbed into the leather passenger seat. Idly, he wondered how a policeman afforded a top of the range car. “Just the usual,” he said noncommittally.
Gideon correctly interpreted the answer as an end of conversation, and without a pause he changed the topic. “So how’s the crime solving business?” He started the engine and backed the car out of its spot.
“Quiet, actually.”
Gideon glanced at him before pulling forward out onto the main road, turning left to head south out of the town. “Rumour has it otherwise. Something about a maniac ex-chef and a knife?”
Jonathan nodded. “A couple of weeks ago.” He explained briefly what had happened. The newspapers had seemed to spice up the story above what was actually the truth. “I’m fine now,” he concluded.
“I’m glad to hear it.”
Gradually they left civilisation behind and Jonathan directed Gideon until they were out in the middle of nowhere.
“Don’t you get lonely out here?”
“I like it. I like living alone and I like the quiet. If I want company I just go into London.” His voice faded, and Gideon glanced at him again.
“Are you sure you don’t want to talk about it?”
“Positive, thanks.” He pointed at a turning a few hundred yards down the road. “Right here.”
“Wow.” Gideon pulled the car to a slow stop in front of the windmill and looked up out of his window. “You really live here?”
Jonathan nodded as he unfastened his seat belt. “It’s been in the family for five generations.” He reached for the door handle and looked back at his impromptu chauffeur. “Can I… get you a coffee?”
Gideon smiled, that expression he had that spoke of a contentment with the world around him that Jonathan had never quite managed to find.
“Why not?”
The telephone was ringing when he opened the door but Jonathan ignored it. He’d been ignoring his mobile too. He knew it would be Maddy or Adam trying to reach him. Probably both of them. He didn’t want to talk to either of them. Gideon sat at the uneven kitchen table while Jonathan filled and boiled the kettle.
“How long have you worked with Adam Klaus?”
The innocent question set Jonathan’s mind reeling again with images of his lover on the sofa with a strange woman. He closed his eyes briefly, trying to clear his thoughts.
“Twelve years,” he managed finally, impressed with the level tone of his voice. “I was in the states, living with my parents in Jackson, Mississippi, wondering what to do with the rest of my life. I’d been interested in magic all my life so I took some ideas around some small clubs and he contacted me. He was playing little back street clubs in Mississippi and Louisiana, doing close-up magic to small, usually drunk audiences. The first show we put on together was at a festival in New Orleans. He lived there for a few years, calls it his spiritual home.” The memory brought a smile to Jonathan’s face. “He said it was the first time people had actually paid attention to him, with my tricks. We set up on this street corner and went through the same routine about a hundred times. There were crowds around him throughout the week. We ended up doing the routine in this bar one night and he received his first standing ovation.”
Jonathan out the cafetiere on the table with two mugs, milk and sugar, and sat down.
“When I think about how it all was back then, and how it is now…. It’s difficult to believe it’s the same world.”
Gideon left a pause in the conversation before he said, “I went to see the show, after we worked together. I wasn’t really interested in seeing Adam Klaus per se, I wanted to see your work in action. You and I think the same way, we can see things literally and laterally at the same time and I wanted to see how that translated to the stage. He was very good but of course, that’s because you’re very good. So why is he living in the mansion and being driven around in the Rolls while you’re out here in the countryside taking taxis and trains?”
Jonathan smiled. He couldn’t help it. He’d never, ever thought about it that way. He had money, he just didn’t care about it. He donated to charities where Adam bought cars and holidays. They’d both worked really, really hard to get where they were now. Adam was the one with the MBE, Adam was the one with the fame. That was the very last thing Jonathan had ever wanted.
“It’s just who we are, it doesn’t mean he doesn’t respect what I do for him.” That was one thing he was sure about, Adam would never deliberately risk their professional partnership. He leaned over and pressed down on the plunger of the cafetiere. “He isn’t taking advantage of me.”
Gideon smiled, but he didn’t look convinced and that actually amused Jonathan more than it annoyed him.
“What about you and Maddy? Two more unlikely partners and all that.”
This was safer ground, he’d been angry with her in the past, and Jonathan once again told the tale of the artist and the French model. Halfway through the story the telephone rang again and again Jonathan ignored it.
It wasn’t until just before he left an hour or so later that Gideon asked, “Who is it you don’t want to speak to?”
Jonathan grimaced. “No one in particular. Everyone in general.”
Gideon nodded, “In that case, thanks for talking to me.” He smiled his patented and no doubt award-winning smile and bade Jonathan goodnight.
~
Every fifteen minutes for the next two hours the phone rang. He’d already dropped the battery out of his mobile and he tried just leaving the handset in the kitchen but at just gone two Jonathan came back down and switched the ring off. The phone upstairs was an old one and wouldn’t be switched off. At two thirty he pulled the cord out of the socket. He hoped whoever it was would get the message. Sure that there was no other method of contacting him, he buried himself under the duvet and tried to get some sleep.
But sleep wouldn’t come and just after half three his own innate curiosity got the better of him and he put the battery back into his mobile and rang his voice mail service. There was just one message.
“Jonathan, listen, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said what I did, it was out of line. Please call me.”
He ended the call and switched the phone back off. Dropping it onto the hard wood floor, he stared up out of the small window opposite the bed at the clear, dark sky. Idly he toyed with the chain around around his neck. He’d had worse nights, hadn’t he, in retrospect? If he hadn’t have gone off at the deep end with Maddy he would probably be lying in her bed right know, sated and happy. Adam was right, his love-life was almost farcical sometimes.
Finally giving up trying to sleep, he pulled on his old grey bathrobe and headed up to the lounge. Curling into one corner of the sofa he switched on the television and found an old black and white film on Channel 4 about a stage hypnotist who kept his assistant almost permanently in a state of trance and at times turned her into a large lizard, her primal self. It all seemed rather apt.
In a dark blue BMW, pulled up on the side of the country road just north of Briar Hollow, Adam sat with the engine off and the sunroof open. Leaning back in the driver’s seat he stared up at the same stars Jonathan had been looking at. One thing at least was for sure, he wouldn’t be seeing Katie again. Whatever had possessed him to drive out here, he didn’t know. Jonathan wasn’t answering his calls and by now he had to be home because he wasn’t at Maddy’s. She hadn’t sounded in a particularly great mood either.
He’d come this far, he was only minutes from the windmill. But he’d stopped because he didn’t know why he was here. He didn’t know why he’d told a beautiful, willing woman that ironically ‘something had come up and he had to go’. It was the first time, ever, in his whole life that he’d done that. He didn’t know what it meant and it scared him slightly. Certainly he’d had one woman walk in on him and another woman before, many times in fact. And usually they’d both left hurriedly, tossing back some banal insults that bounced off him without scratching the surface. On the odd occasion, his charms had been persuasive enough…
He stopped that thought in its tracks.
So he’d left the arms of a naked woman to drive out here into the middle of nowhere. It had been a final option, after being unable to reach Jonathan by any other means. He’d told himself at first that Jonathan had left the house simply because he’d found Adam otherwise engaged. But why slam the door? And when Jonathan’s mobile was switched off – something Jonathan never did – and the number at the windmill was simply ringing out, he’d known it was more.
They should never have started this – he should never have started it. It was one thing to sleep with a woman, then to end it and to life through the verbal abuse or a one-off story in a newspaper reminding the public what a pig he was. No one cared what the tabloids said. But this was Jonathan, the man his career depended on. The man who stood by him no matter what he did or what he asked. The one man he couldn’t just walk away from. But he’d known that at the beginning, so why had he started something he couldn’t finish? Perhaps… because he never intended to.
The car engine purred gently into life and he pulled away from the curb, continuing his journey to Ripley Mill.
Jonathan was surprised to hear a car pulling up outside. Usually Maddy let them both stew overnight until they’d both lost enough sleep to apologise to one another and carry on. So he waited, heard the car door and wondered what he’d say to her, whether he’d get an apology and whether he needed one. After all, she’d been right, hadn’t she?
Downstairs, the front door opened with a slight squeak. “Jonathan?”
Suddenly his heart was beating harder, and the ambient temperature seemed to rise by several degrees. He managed to compose himself enough to get up and walk calmly down the wooden stairs to the ground floor. Only once he was there did he realise what he was wearing – ratty grey dressing down, striped pyjamas and slippers. But it was too late to change. Adam was standing hesitantly in the doorway, black coat over blue jeans, watching him with uncertainty.
“Hi.” Jonathan stopped with one foot in on to the bottom stair.
“Your telephone’s switched off.” As if that would somehow explained his presence in Jonathan’s kitchen at gone four in the morning.
Jonathan nodded. “Between you and Maddy it was the only way I was going to get any sleep.”
Adam frowned. “Did I wake you?”
“No.”
Adam hesitated but he did step inside and close the door behind him, leaning back against it. A minute of looking at one another and Jonathan had to give in. “Come up.”
Jonathan poured them both generous measures of whisky and led Adam out on to the balcony. It wasn’t warm at that time but neither was it cold. “You didn’t have to come all the way out here.”
Standing close, but not too close, Adam said, “That’s not why I’m here.”
Jonathan sighed and turned, leaning back against the railing. “I shouldn’t have slammed the door. Sorry. If I’d left quietly you’d never have known I was there.”
“Until you got to the theatre this morning.” He smiled at the inevitable. “I’m here because I know after tonight you’re going to think I’m using you somehow, the way Maddy thinks I use you for everything.” He didn’t wait for an answer. “I’m not. I use other people. I try to be sure they know they’re being used, but… But not you. You mean too much to me.”
Jonathan shook his head. “You don’t have to do that, I don’t need it. We never promised each other anything. I was angry tonight but with Maddy, not with you.”
“What did Maddy do?”
“She saw us, that night when we said goodbye out here. I thought she had but she hadn’t mentioned it. Then tonight, of course… just like her to pick her moments. She said some things that… well, she just pissed me off. I don’t know why I even went over to your place. I’m sorry.”
Adam shook his head. “Don’t apologise.” He took a step closer. “I don’t want to give you up, but my reasons are entirely selfish. You said in Reykjavik that it was just something else we were really good at doing together. We could just ditch it and concentrate on everything else we do well together.”
Jonathan knocked back the rest of his drink in one. “Is that what you want?”
“No.”
That was a relief. Despite what he’d gone to Adam’s to do, he really didn’t want it to end. “Me neither.”
There was something really good about feeling Adam so close, their shoulders and arms touching, the two of them alone without the rest of the world watching. The early morning light was just touching the horizon. It was beautiful. Jonathan turned his head, tracing Adam’s familiar profile with his eyes.
“What did you tell her?”
Adam frowned. “Who?”
“The girl who was with you.”
“Oh. I told her… something had come up.”
“I bet that went down well.”
“No, now that you mention it, but it doesn’t matter.” Leaning forward, Adam touched his lips to Jonathan’s. A moment later they moved into one another, arms going around each others’ waists, empty glasses hanging from their fingers.
When they broke apart, Jonathan murmured, “Stay.”
~
Jonathan closed the balcony door behind them, turned the lights off and joined Adam across the room.
“This isn’t why I came here,” he murmured softly, but Jonathan shrugged.
“Change of plan.”
Up in the cramped bedroom, Adam kicked his shoes off before he reached for Jonathan, pulling at the ratty grey gown with his fingers, pulling a face as Jonathan shrugged out of it. In the beginning of their partnership he’d tried to persuade Jonathan to spend the money he earned, but after a couple of years he’d given up. He stripped off his lover’s red and blue striped pyjamas, unfastening the top, pushing it from his shoulders, easing the trousers off his hips and letting them fall to pool at his bare feet.
Much to Adam’s delight, Jonathan’s confidence grew with every encounter. He was undressed slowly; shirt, trousers, socks, briefs. As Jonathan stood back up, Adam grabbed his shoulders and pushed him gently back to the bed, straddling him where he fell horizontally across the sheets. Jonathan combed his fingers into Adam’s fine hair and smiled up at him. The exasperated affection there was so familiar it almost took his breath away. What the hell were they doing, messing with this?
But Jonathan reached up and pinched one of Adam’s nipples and Adam wanted to stop thinking for a while. After all, he’d already had one frustrating interrupted session tonight, he didn’t want another. “When you want me to stop, just say “windmill”. Do you understand?”
Jonathan nodded with curiosity and amusement in his eyes. Adam rolled his eyes and lowered his head over Jonathan’s right nipple, sealing his lips over the hard bud and at first simply suckling gently. Jonathan moaned softly, toes and feet curling upwards. Adam bit harder, sucking at the surrounding skin, feeling Jonathan’s fingers twisting almost painfully in his hair. Lifting his head a little, he caressed the tender nipple with his tongue, lapping at it gently before repeating the assault on the right one.
“Please, Adam....”
There was a plea in Jonathan’s taut voice that he’d hate himself for in the morning, so Adam reckoned he needed to make it worth his while. He soothed the pained nipple and rubbed his own erection into Jonathan’s painfully hard dick.
Jonathan pressed upwards, at the same time racking his fingernails down Adam’s back. He bit back his cry and stopped his lover’s apology half-way with a simple instruction, “Do that again.”
Jonathan did as he was told, drawing his short nails from Adam’s shoulder blades to the small of his back, following the upwards curve of his buttocks. Adam bit into Jonathan’s shoulder and at the spike of pain, Jonathan dug his nails into Adam’s ass, bringing them closer, rutting against him.
They came together, yelling into the early yellow light. Adam rolled off him, settling into Jonathan’s side with a kiss to his shoulder. It hadn’t quite what he’d had in mind, had been over too soon but it was both what they’d needed. They shifted until they were under the covers, spooned together, Adam at Jonathan’s back.
“I’m sorry I hurt you tonight,” he whispered, “I never ever meant to.”
He heard Jonathan sigh gently but he didn’t speak. A few minutes later he was snoring softly and Adam didn’t stay awake much longer.
~
After leaving the message on Jonathan’s mobile answering service, Maddy had known that all she could do was wait. She’d considered driving straight down to West Sussex, but things usually worked out best if she left it over night. She’d finally fallen asleep on the sofa around midnight.
But now the sun had risen and he hadn’t rung back. She tried his home telephone and his mobile once more before showering and changing and setting off for Briar Hollow.
Adam stirred as bright sunlight filtered in through the small bedroom window. It was a moment before he remembered where he was, but when he did he turned over and smiled at the back of Jonathan’s head. He hadn’t moved in the night, was still lying on his side with his back to Adam, his breathing soft and even, snoring gently on and off. Propping himself up on one elbow, Adam dropped a kiss to the back of his lover’s neck and plastered himself to the warm back.
Jonathan snorted and shifted back, pressing himself against Adam, almost purring. Adam sighed contentedly, moving his arm under the duvet, wrapping his arm around Jonathan’s warm, naked waist. “Don’t let the day in yet,” he murmured softly. Jonathan turned his head, smiling with some surprise. Adam caught the expression. “See, I can be romantic.”
Rolling onto his back, still in Adam’s arms, Jonathan stretched up for a morning kiss.
The first thing Maddy saw, as she swung the Volvo through the gate, was the dark BMW parked in front of the windmill. She swore softly, wondering when Mr Wonderful had arrived. Until now, Adam had simply been someone who’d kept Jonathan busy when she didn’t need him around. Now though he was competition, and it had to be said it looked as if he was winning.
Upstairs, oblivious to the car drawing up outside, Adam and Jonathan clung to one another, trying to eat each other alive. Jonathan wrapped his leg over Adam’s, morning wood rubbing one against the other in an ancient dance of arousal.
Parking next to the BMW and killing the engine, Maddy was suddenly hesitant about going inside. What if Adam had been here since last night? Finally making up her mind, she opened the car door and got out, slamming it shut.
“Hi.”
She looked up, surprised by the voice. Jonathan was standing on the balcony, grey robe around him.
“Jonathan.... I came to apologise about last night, I was out of line I know.” She got the whole thing out in one breath, by now she was used to apologising for her behaviour toward Jonathan.
Leaning over the railing, he nodded, accepting her apology. “Want a coffee?”
She indicated the other car. “Adam’s here.”
Jonathan nodded. “He turned up in the early hours of this morning. You weren’t the only one I had a slight misunderstanding with last night.”
Maddy frowned, wondering what in hell Adam had done. Whatever it was, he’d felt it necessary to drive thirty-five miles out of London in the middle of the night to apologise in person. “You’re sure you want me in there?”
Jonathan chose to ignore the hint of sarcasm in her voice. “I think you and I should have a chat, don’t you?”
Placing a mug of coffee in front of her, Jonathan sat down and sipped his own drink. He gave her a brief history of his and Adam’s relationship, from the night Adam had made the first advance at the side of the indoor swimming pool at Maskelyne Manor, the first night they’d first slept together, and Reykjavik. He left out all the details, and omitted mentioning anything concerning their ‘quickie’ at the theatre, or the events of this morning. He guessed she could probably work that out on her own.
“I just never imagined it,” Maddy told him eventually, after listening with stunned yet irrepressible interest. “I mean, I never thought you’d... be with a man, never mind Adam.”
“It’s because he’s Adam. He’s really the first man I’ve been even vaguely interested in. Whatever you think, he didn’t push me into this. He’s not using me.”
Maddy sighed. “I know. Like I said, I am sorry about last night. I expected competition, just not from him, not from a source I can’t possibly win over.”
Jonathan smiled gently. “He isn’t competition. We give each other something we can’t get anywhere else. It’s not a long-term commitment. I didn’t ever mean to hurt you with this.”
“I know. And you haven’t hurt me. Just... surprised me. I was pissed because you hadn’t told me.”
“It didn’t slip easily into conversation.” Jonathan reached over and took her hands into his. “I don’t know where any of this is going. I don’t want anyone getting hurt.”
“Except you.” Maddy squeezed his hand. “What happened last night between you two?”
“I went over there after I left you, walked in on him and a lady friend.”
“Oops.”
Jonathan nodded. “’Oops’ is right.” He sipped his coffee, and finding it had cooled, he drank down a mouthful. “I tell you who I did manage to speak to last night without incident, Gideon Pryke.”
The name was familiar, but it took her a few seconds to place it. “The Inspector? Handled the Carney case?” Jonathan nodded. “Where did you run into him?”
“Well, I missed the last train to Billingshurst so I went into Horsham and thought I’d get a taxi. I popped into a pub for last orders and he was in there, gave me a lift home.” He paused. “It’s odd, but I’d swear he made a pass at me.”
Fully clothed, Adam wondered down from the bedroom, taking his first good look around Jonathan’s living room. At first it seemed that there was stuff everywhere, but when he really looked he realised that everything had its place and was neatly ordered. Only the desk next to the pillar in the centre of the room was a real mess, of drawings and measurements; the details and workings of yet another great trick that would keep Adam Klaus in the ranks of the world’s greatest illusionists.
He knew he was lucky, no one had to tell him that.
He picked up a photo that had been thrown on to the pile of papers with a letter. It was of a group of men, all sitting around a table, Jonathan clones. Same hair, same coat, more or less – copies of the grey/green duffel Jonathan was wearing more recently. There was a letter under the photograph, from the ‘Jonathan Creek Fan Club’.
He put the photograph back, bemused. There was so much of Jonathan’s life that didn’t revolve around him and around the show. So much he wasn’t aware of and wasn’t a part of.
Yet looking around, it was obvious that the magic at least was the most important part of his life, the same way it was for Adam. Magic was the part that took up his energy and his passion. Just to be a part of that struck him suddenly as being incredibly important. Because there was no way he would ever be able to have more.
~
By the time Adam got back to Maskelyne, the postman had been and his pet tiger was growling about not having been fed. A couple of letters stood out amongst the usual stack forwarded to him by his agent. One caught his eye - a dark red envelope, his name and address hand written in gold in a flowing script. The letter itself was in the same hand, on paper that matched the envelope.
‘Dear Mr Klaus, we take pleasure in inviting you on stage at the club. To accept, simply let us know when you wish to perform. Yours, Francene Kay, Director, Skin.’
Adam smiled to himself, and folded the letter, sliding it back into the envelope. Picking up the digital phone handset, he dialled a number from memory and waited as it rang through.
“Jenny Page.”
“Hi, Jenny, Adam. Listen, doll, would you do me a favour? Pop down to Versace, would you, and pick up a silk shirt, medium size in a deep red? And buy yourself something devastatingly expensive while you’re there.”
~
The following day, while Jonathan was out at lunch with Maddy and her publisher Barry, a package was delivered to the windmill and left on the doorstep. It was a large, thin white box, a black and gold ribbon tied around it into an extravagant bow. Inside, a delicate silk shirt had been folded neatly around sheets of tissue paper, and on top of that lay a note.
‘Wear it for me sometime? Love ya, A.’