Read Online The Liar's Chair by Rebecca Whitney - Free Book Online Page A

supply is running low. He wouldn’t call himself an addict, that would be below someone of his stature – dirty – but he uses nearly every day,
apart from the small coke holidays of a week or two here and there to prove to himself he can take it or leave it. He keeps his habit hidden, therefore tidy, therefore respectable. In his eyes, the
line he snorts in the morning gets him ready for the day and sharpens his wits, and the little and often he takes until close of business maintains this tempo. The paraphernalia of his habit
– mirror, vial, silver coke straw, fine metal razor blade – are locked in a drawer of his desk at the office, and I’ve never known him, since the days he started to dabble at
university, to share his supply or to admit to anyone other than me that he uses. That would be a defeat. Drugs are not recreational, they are business.
    I buy for David. It’s always been that way, right from the early days when I knew someone in student halls who supplied, and since then we haven’t found a system that better
maintains his privacy. David wouldn’t sully himself to transact with persons of a lesser financial status, but it’s OK for me. The higher up the food chain we go, the more risk I take,
but if David is ever concerned, I insist the job is better done this way – with fewer levels involved in the process, it’s safer. Besides, I tell him I meet a man who knows a man. He
doesn’t know I go to the source. David won’t ask for names, he wants to know as little about the process as is necessary, and that way he maintains his elevation above the grime. If I
got caught in the wrong company, David’s inspector friend in the force ought to be able to pull a few strings. I suspect David has other contacts now who could easily hook him up with a
regular supply, but he likes to keep his personal tastes concealed; a need is the same as a flaw, and you never know who might want to trade on that weakness at a later date. And anyway, I’ve
always had a talent for sniffing out scumbags. Each time a source gets arrested, goes underground or joins NA, I slum it in the pubs of a different town: car parked round the corner, dress code
trashy, hang out long enough on a bar stool – it’s amazing what you get offered. The irony is I’ve only ever tried the stuff once, and the result was a teeming paranoia instead of
the expected exhilaration; an outpouring of all I keep wrapped up inside. Never again. Booze, and lots of it, is good enough for me.
    It’s a once-a-month trip to the dealer, to Will on the coast, to top up David’s supply. I’ve been buying from Will for a couple of years and sleeping with him for most of that
time. Even though we usually do the deal at his house, last night was only the second time I’d stayed over, the first being the night before the accident four weeks ago. That all-nighter
ended in such calamity it’s incredible I decided to chance it again, but these days I seem to attract chaos, or perhaps it’s a courtship, and since the accident a part of me has given
up and is throwing itself over to fate. Plus, more recently, there are only a couple of things that settle the constant buzz of dread that circulates my body: one of them is alcohol and the other
is Will.
    It’s 9.00 a.m. when I wake and I should have left hours ago, before dawn, before David realized I wasn’t in our bed at home. I’ve been on my best behaviour since the dinner
party, and have been back to my usual self at the office so David believes his authoritarian regime is working, but my absence last night will reverse all of that. I have a loose excuse – a
meeting I’d engineered at the Grand yesterday afternoon, and a room on my credit card with a receipt to show – but I should have called to let him know. If I’d heard his voice it
would have panicked me home so I chanced it, the alcohol fuelling my bravado, and now I’ll have to pay.
    I settle into an armchair in Will’s front