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With James Sinclair a familiar dead-weight against his shoulder in the hotel lobby, Mark felt the rush, not of anticipated disappointment, but the sudden and unpredictable blow of unearthed memory:- The last time he had ever seen Sinclair so far gone as this had been London, bar-crawling, not long after the death of his wife, Saida. Brydon had later been inclined to believe the meeting had not been entirely coincidental, but at the time had been on much the same route: the two of them winding up drowning their sorrows in the same bottle, staggering towards the same lift, the same room...
He dumped Sinclair onto a plush sofa, taking a seat beside him. They'd gone from wine to whiskey in the space of one evening, he recalled with a grimace; from friends, acquaintances to―
He listened to the American hotel bustling about them otherwise quick with the custom efficiency expected of its class were it not, he glanced at his watch, for the late hour of the evening; everything seemed slowed, in synch with the pervading murmur of indistinct talk from the bar, almost soporific...
The lift had been silent, empty and he remembered the smell of carpeted walls and chlorine lingering from the Basement/Swimming pool level. At the door, Mark - the haphazardly less drunk of them both - had shoved the key at the lock, scuffing it (hotel doors, futile to battle with) and stumbled into the room, one arm flung out to break his fall, the other around James. Weaving by the door in this manner, he struggled to remember which word it was that went with 'Night', that made it something to leave with rather than an uncertain statement... His lips parted around the word, slurring, at the same time James kissed him, falling heavily against him into the door frame. A dull pain in his back would register later, dimly, or maybe not at all as careless fingers tugged and fumbled at his collar, his shirt, his trousers . . .
Memory behaved strangely, but his conscience worse still; he deplored in himself the recklessness, the shoddy, so easily disposed-of inhibitions - "safe guards" - that had failed him then, failed him before with Saida... Mark had kissed back, pissed as a newt licked the taste of whiskey from his lips. He shuddered at the almost physical memory of hands clutched about him, coursing an inevitable path; hazy transition from finger-tips to tongue, the bitter slow-motion rush geared to the immediacy of burn-out, orgasm . . .
He was breathing too hard, chest sinking in time with Sinclair exhaling heavily, warmly against his neck, lips almost brushing the shadow of his jaw...
Enough, sod it! He’d let the bastard sleep there on the hotel floor at this rate; hell, even come back round to top himself with more vodka or whatever his damn poison was these days! His failings filled Mark with nothing but repugnance: the man was a crap father, an alcoholic to boot... As godfather he had obligations, fuck it!
He stood leaving James Sinclair slumped unceremoniously on the seat of the sofa. Obligations, he thought darkly. In this case, to let sleeping dogs lie.