Chapter 7
The following afternoon
"No need to cook tonight, meet me at 7.30 at The Plateau wine bar in Canary Wharf," Danny's text tells Syed.
#
"We can eat here, and then head into town," he suggests, when Syed slides into the booth opposite him.
"Sounds good," he politely agrees.
After the waiter has taken their drinks order, Syed spends a few minutes looking around him at all the smartly-dressed business men and women; feeling a little under dressed in his white shirt and leather jacket.
Danny discretely studies Syed, and wonders how he always manages to look so much better than any other man in whatever room he happens to be in.
"How has your day been?" he finally asks.
"Fine."
"Restaurant busy?
"Yea."
"Are you going to give me only one-word answers?"
"Maybe," Syed says with a reluctant smile.
"Should be a fun evening, then."
"Did you have a good day today?"
"Yea, not bad."
"The other day …" Syed tentatively prompts.
"The day I came home in a foul mood?"
"You don't have to tell me …"
"Part of my job is to look after a portfolio of Eurozone investments for the bank; and, as can sometimes happen, there was an announcement by some Finance Minister in Brussels that morning which caused panic in the markets. I spent the day frantically trying to minimise the damage to the bank. And just to finish it off; before I left that evening, I had to report to my pr*ck of a manager, who gave me a load of shit about it all. It really wasn't a good day."
"Your job sounds exciting."
"Yea, it is, mostly; but sometimes it's pretty scary. Since the Banking crisis of 2008, the Government has brought in new regulations designed to make it more difficult for us to take risks with other peoples' money; which makes it harder to reach profit targets."
"Isn't that a good thing?"
"Depends on where you're coming from. If a bank takes less risks, it makes less money; resulting in staff cut backs, reduced bonuses; so my job is pretty much always on the line; it's only as secure as the next quarter's results."
"Is your job really at risk to that extent?"
"Well, maybe not my job, but definitely my bonus," Danny concedes with a sheepish smile.
"According to the media, your bonuses were too high."
"Yea, and it suited us very well," Danny grins.
"Doesn't it bother you, taking risks with other people's money?" Syed can't help asking.
"Did it bother you?"
"Have you any ideas about what you'd like to do once you've paid off your debts?" Danny asks after a moment of angry silence on Syed's part.
"I'm no longer looking for a quick fix. I think the best thing for me would be to try to find a job that pays a steady wage."
"It doesn't sound very ambitious."
"My biggest ambition in life now is to save up enough to put a deposit on a 2-bed flat. Once I have my own place, I can decorate one of the bedrooms for Yasmin; and put a plaque on the door with her name on it; so that she will always know she can come and stay with her daddy whenever she wants and for as long as she wants."
"There's no room for fun and excitement in your future, then?"
"I've had enough excitement over the past few months to last me a lifetime; I'm no longer interested in taking risks of any kind."
"Making money doesn't have to be risky; I can help you do it in a more controlled way."
"The way you helped me last time?"
"How could I resist? You were a perfect mixture of desperation and naivety; it was like taking candy from a baby," Danny fondly reminisces.
"It didn't bother you that you were going to destroy my life?"
"I had other plans for you. I figured that if you had nothing and I offered you a way out, a chance to live the good life, you'd jump at it. I didn't bank on you being so loyal to that idiot."
"Don't insult him; he's a better man than either of us could ever be."
"Only because he doesn't have the brain power to do anything exciting or vaguely interesting."
"I mean it, Danny; I won't sit here and listen to you bad mouth him," Syed warns.
"I speak as I find," he responds with a careless shrug.
"You can be so horrible sometimes," Syed cries in frustration.
"And yet, you can't resist me," Danny reminds him; he suddenly leans forward to grab his arm and pull him closer. "You're so weak, so vulnerable; and it turns me on so f**king much," he breathes, his voice low and passionate.
"Don't, not here," Syed responds huskily, blushing.
"Fuck, I wish we were somewhere more private," Danny growls, pulling back, his body language screaming his frustration. His hot gaze burns through Syed until he can no longer remember where he is.
"Danny," he whispers.
"You really have to stop looking at me like that; or I won't be able to keep my hands off you, and we'll end up getting thrown out of here for indecent behaviour," Danny huskily advises.
Syed blinks a couple of times, forcing his baser thoughts away. "I … I'm not …," he tries to say, but his voice fails him. Clearing his throat, he tries again. "I'm not the sort of guy who would …"
"You don't fool me; I know that underneath the 'nice boy' act, there's a lot going on you're trying to suppress."
"You don't really know me," Syed weakly denies.
"I got to know you pretty well that very first day, when you were trying to tell me without telling me, about your life: your conflict with your parents; living a life people wanted for you rather than the one you craved; about almost dying to be happy. I knew there was a whole personality in there trying to get out. And the more I've gotten to know you, the more you fascinate me: the nice, polite, religious boy constantly struggling to suppress the hot-blooded, sexy bad boy with a hint of corruption; what a delicious combination."
"Why did you pick me to scam?"
"It didn't start out like that; to begin with, it was just about attraction. You were serving us that day in the restaurant; I noticed you and thought, 'I'll have a bit of that'. Later when I came back and you told me about your money problems, I saw an opening. I put the bait on the hook and waited for you to bite. Making money and shagging are two of my favourite things; the chance to combine them, it was a no-brainer."
"You seemed nice," Syed remembers wistfully.
"Have you ever met a scammer who wasn't?"
"But afterwards; you had the money and … everything; so why keep coming back; why try to completely ruin me?"
"After your stag do, once I realised you were serious about marrying that, that ... Christian, I tried to walk away. Unfortunately, you're a difficult person to forget. And, well, you remember about the sex, right?" he adds with a teasing smile.
"Mmm," Syed mumbles, a blush stealing up his cheeks once more.
"The night of your stag do; when you insisted it was Christian you wanted, I knew you were lying. If your dad hadn't turned up, I'd have f**ked you right there in the restaurant; it only needed a bit more pressure, and you wouldn't have been able to resist."
"No, I made it clear …"
"Yea, you said all the right things; and if you'd been able to control your breathing when I came anywhere near you, I might have been convinced."
"I never gave you any …"
"Even after I told you your money was lost, you still struggled to resist," Danny smugly reminds him.
Syed decides not to comment any further on the matter.
"Later, the whole thing with Christian and the beating; I was pretty angry with you by that stage," Danny continues. "No one plays games with me and gets away unscathed; you weren't going to be allowed to just brush me aside. But then you turned up with half your family; and I had no choice but to walk away for the moment."
"Dad gave you no choice; he would have turned you in to the police for fraud," Syed reminds him.
"You handed me a bundle of cash, I gave you no receipt. You couldn't prove anything."
"So why did you walk away that day when my father challenged you?"
"I couldn't risk the police looking into my affairs at that time; they might have found something I didn't want them to find, something I wouldn't want the bank to know about."
"Such as?"
"I couldn't possibly say," Danny says with a sly smile.
"And if the police looked into your affairs now ..?"
"They wouldn't find anything."
"I signed a contract, back in October."
"Did you actually read the fine print?"
"You didn't care about what you were doing to me?"
"Not particularly; I wanted you, and I always get what I want. That arrogant fool you were with; he was so easy to wind up, to manipulate; no matter what happens, you're well rid."
"The way you treated Christian was despicable. He had all these plans for us, for our future together, and you destroyed them in a matter of weeks," Syed says sadly.
"If you'd been truly happy together, I wouldn't have been able to break you up."
"What chance did we have against someone like you; lying, scamming, blackmailing ..."
"I didn't blackmail you into having sex with me that first time."
Unable to deny it, Syed moves the conversation along. "Have you swindled lots of people?" he asks.
"A few; I don't plan it, but if the opportunity arises …"
"Your actions wreck lives; doesn't that bother you?"
"If someone, who doesn't know me from Adam, is stupid enough to give me a wad of cash on the vague promise of an unrealistic return on their investment, they deserve everything they get."
"Thanks," Syed says sarcastically, stung by the insult.
"You knew me for, what was it, a little over a week; and yet you trusted me with your family's savings …"
"I've learned my lesson," Syed responds bitterly.
"There you go, job done; no need to thank me," Danny says dryly.
"You have no conscience, no sense of morality," Syed says irritably.
"Are you trying to save my soul?"
"Your soul is none of my business."
"You're religious, right?"
"Yes."
"So, isn't it your duty to try to get me back on the righteous path?"
"I've never gone in for that kind of thing. I believe it is my duty to look after my own soul, and to always behave in a way that will commend me to God."
"Selling dodgy cleaning products isn't very Christian."
"I'm Musl*m."
"That's not very Kosher behaviour in any religion, I would have thought."
"No," Syed has to uncomfortably admit.
"So, if you're religious, how can you do something like that?"
"I'd made some bad decisions; things had gone against me and I'd lost my business. I was just trying to catch a quick break; take a shortcut. I needed to support my daughter, and …"
"A sin is a sin."
"I know," Syed says quietly.
"But you are human; doing stuff you're not proud of goes with the territory. 'Let he who is without sin cast the first stone', and all that."
"Are you religious?"
"Lapsed Catholic."
"So you should be riddled with guilt about just about everything," Syed points out.
"Although I was brought up a Catholic, I found it difficult to make sense of it all: all those cheap tricks; the idea that God is everywhere, etc."
"Tricks?"
"The Catholic Church prefers to call them miracles, but to me they always seemed more like magic tricks: bringing that guy Lazarus back from the dead is simply an elaborate version of the trick where a guy in a box gets sawn in half; producing an endless supply of loaves and fishes from a basket is simply a more messy version of pulling rabbits or doves out of a hat; and I've never understood why the Son of God would do something as mundane as turning water into wine, even if it was at a wedding. Ultimately, they're all cheap illusions. Maybe Jesus was nothing more than the first magician to go global? If he tried to pull all that sh*t today, he'd be laughed out of town."
"It was a simpler time back then; people would have understood those miracles," Syed reasons. "Food, wine, life and death; these are some of the things they were most concerned with. If Jesus were to pull a Smart Phone out of his pocket and show them an episode of Midsomer Murders, they would probably have run away terrified."
"I'm not talking about gimmicks," Danny persists. "If God exists, and he sent his Son to save us; why didn't he do something worthwhile like inventing antibiotics or penicillin; imagine how many more lives would have been saved if we'd known about those medicines a thousand years earlier?"
"Maybe Jesus wasn't allowed to do anything that might distort the future," Syed suggests.
"We're not talking about Michael J Fox in Back to the Future," Danny laughs.
"Get lost," Syed responds sulkily.
"If Jesus came among us today," Danny continues, warming to his theme, "and he decided to perform a miracle or two to get our attention; he could do worse than turn all the cocaine and heroin in the world into sugar; and, maybe, zap all the people who are cruel to animals, all the rapists, ped*philes and mass murderers in the world into a mass dungeon deep in the ground and seal the entrance; locking them away for ever to fight amongst themselves."
"What about investment bankers; could he zap them as well?" Syed teases.
"Very funny," Danny grins.
"And as I was saying," he adds very seriously, as if it were a plan of action which might actually one day be considered, "for his final miracle, instead of water and wine, Jesus could turn dry desserts into fresh water lakes so that everyone would have enough to drink."
"What a lovely idea," Syed smiles. "I knew that deep down you had a heart."
"Deep, deep down," Danny qualifies.
"Did you ever truly believe in God, or were you only a Catholic because your parents brought you up that way?"
"I stopped believing that there was a God around the same time I stopped believing in St Nic and his flying Reindeers; in other words, when I was old enough to think for myself," Danny reveals.
"I believe in God; my religion is very important to me," Syed stiffly responds.
"I'm not mocking your beliefs. I totally understand, and respect how important your faith is to you; but I also think it's healthy to have questions; not to just automatically accept everything."
"You mean questions like: is it wrong for two men to be in a relationship?" Syed asks with a smile.
"Exactly," Danny grins. "I'll admit, I sometimes wish I believed in God. I might not stress so much about the mundane shit we go through every day, if I thought there was something so much more important."
"No matter how bad things have ever gotten for me, I've always found great comfort in prayer," Syed murmurs.
"I get drunk and pass out after I've had a bad day," Danny admits.
"You can't get a hangover from speaking to God," Syed says with a smile.
"Good point," Danny laughs. "I haven't seen you using your prayer matt; a mate of mine at Uni used to pray five times a day."
"I pray when you're at work."
"You don't have to hide it from me; I wouldn't give you any grief about it."
"Do you ever think about what happens when we die?"
"Are you thinking of having me bumped off?"
"No," Syed laughs, "just wondering."
"I assume we rot; in fact I'm pretty sure of it. The most powerful draw of religion is that it gives people the hope of an alternative outcome, and I've always envied people who are able to buy into that."
"What about your soul?"
"I've never quite been able to grasp the concept of having a soul; if you said 'heart' or ' brain', I might be able to consider it."
"It's from your soul that you get your conscience and your feelings. They try to guide you to do good deeds. The good deeds you do in life feed your soul and make it stronger; which in turn brings you inner peace and contentment. I believe that after I die my soul will remain in a kind of soul sleep until Judgement Day; when I will be judged, and the good and bad things I've done in this life will determine my fate."
"Are you trying to convert me?"
"No, I think a person's faith or lack thereof is their own affair, I would never try to influence you in a particular direction. I just want to explain; to try to make you understand that whether or not you believe in God; if your behaviour is at odds with what is right and good, you will never find peace and happiness in this world."
"You haven't exactly done many good deeds recently," Danny reminds him.
"I know, but I want to be a good person; I strive every day to be a good person, whereas you don't care."
"It's the 'Good' people who often do the most damage, you tend to find. People who can't be bothered believing in anything usually can't be bothered sticking their noses into other peoples' lives; telling them what to do or think; and in extreme cases persecuting them because they don't wear the same 'religious badge'."
"I told you, I don't try to convert people; and I definitely don't have a problem with other religions."
"I didn't mean you; you come across as being very easy going; to the point of not wanting to rock the boat, you might say."
"I don't like to upset people," Syed admits. "I could never deliberately hurt anyone."
"Are you having a dig?" Danny asks smiling.
"Does it really not bother you when you rip people off?"
"Like I said, I only target …"
"Danny, you can't be so unfeeling; what if someone scammed your mum, your sister, your brother."
"I don't do it very often, and the people I rip off deserve …"
"Nobody deserves to lose everything they have," Syed argues, his tone growing heated.
"We're never going to agree …"
"It's not about agreeing, it's about right and wrong."
"Syed, just drop it."
"If you promise not to do it again," Syed stubbornly insists.
"What are you, my mother?"
"Danny."
"Keep your nose out of my business," he warns.
"If you want me to continue living with you ..."
"You don't really have a choice about that, remember?"
"I mean it Danny," Syed refuses to back down. "The way things stand; if I stay with you, I'm condoning your behaviour."
"You've been in my life five minutes …"
"Please Danny," he begs, "how can I be around you every day, knowing that you're putting other people through what I went through? All the misery you caused me and my family ... And what if you try to scam the wrong person; someone who seems harmless, but who has dangerous friends; and some thugs show up at the apartment …"
"I'm not a Goodfella, and we aren't living in some drug den."
"You know what I mean; you could get beaten up; you could end up in jail, or dead."
"Syed, enough," Danny growls impatiently.
"Okay, whatever you want," he responds, his tone flat. He sits back and away from him, he takes a drink from his glass and looks away, around the room; a barely discernible sigh escapes his lips.
"This really is none of your business," Danny angrily reminds him.
Syed shrugs, as if it doesn't matter; but of course it does. The mood has shifted. "I don't really feel like eating now," he says flatly. "I think maybe I'll head back to the apartment."
"I'll think about it," Danny says through gritted teeth.
"Okay," Syed says, giving him a tentative smile.
"Why did you and Christian go to the US back in November?" Danny abruptly demands, wiping the smile off his face.
"What?"
"Why did you suddenly decide to leave?"
"It was Christian's idea; he was upset that I'd let my ex-wife take our daughter Yasmin to Birmingham, and had decided to leave without me. But then we resolved our differences and agreed to go together."
"Why didn't you stay in the US?"
"The plan was to spend a few weeks there, and then move back to the UK, to Birmingham, to be near Yas. As it was a last minute decision for me to go, I hadn't filled in the online immigration ESTA form which you are required to submit at least 72 hours before you travel; so I was refused entry. I got sent back to London and went from there to Birmingham; Christian stayed with his mum and sister for a couple of weeks and then he also returned."
"How was Birmingham?"
"Fine," Syed says, his tone a little defensive.
"Were you unhappy there?"
"I'd rather not talk about it."
"Why not?"
"Why should I tell you anything about my life with Christian, after everything you've done to ruin it?"
"Technically, it was you who brought me into your lives."
"I don't want to talk about Christian," Syed barks.
"Please tell me about Birmingham," Danny urges, his hand reaching across to cover Syed's. "I won't comment; I'll just listen," he promises.
"There's not much to tell," he delays.
Danny waits.
"It wasn't much fun," he reluctantly confesses. "Apart from the odd bar shift and some poorly-paid, back-breaking construction work, we couldn't find any work. Birmingham has the highest rate of unemployment of any of the big cities in the UK. Living mostly on benefit, we could only afford a tiny bedsit with a two-ring cooker and a bathroom share; we spent a lot of time sitting around doing nothing; we got on each other's nerves a bit, it was only natural."
"It sounds rough."
"It wasn't always easy."
"But you should have known how it would be; he was getting on your nerves before you ever left the Square."
"No, he wasn't," Syed heatedly exclaims, "and I thought you weren't going to comment."
"I could see something wasn't right between you that night at the stag do, and I'd only known you a few weeks."
"We'd had sex the night before; that might have given you a bit of a clue."
"True," Danny says with a smug smile, "but it was more than that; his over-the-top 'look at me having such a good time' act was either embarrassing or irritating you so much you had to leave your own stag do; that's not a good sign."
"I left because I could see you laughing at him, and he was making it easy for you."
"You were ashamed of him."
"No," he almost shouts; but, quickly looking around and remembering where they are, manages to bite down on his anger.
"Yes, you were," Danny continues to press, "because you knew what I was thinking, it was the same thing you were thinking; what you'd been thinking for quite a while – Everything you'd originally found endearing about him: his enthusiasm, his exuberance, his love of life; you eventually found as irritating as finger nails on a chalkboard."
"When you're in love, you accept each other's faults; not that they were faults ..."
"When you're in love, you don't usually have sex with your local friendly banker."
"That was just a fling; I was under pressure, worried …"
"And once you got me out of your lives and you got away from all your pressures and worries, everything settled down again and you were happy with Christian, were you? You didn't think about me the whole time you were in Birmingham?
I take it from that cute little blush that I made a slightly stronger impression on you than a mere fling would suggest."
Syed takes a deep breath, struggling to control his growing anger.
"Why did you choose to leave with him?" Danny relentlessly pursues.
"I've told you, we discussed things …"
"Try again."
"Well, it's not like you promised me anything," he impulsively snaps, and then wishes he hadn't.
"Oh, I was supposed to, was I?"
"No, I didn't mean …"
"Of course you didn't," Danny says with a knowing smile.
"You ruthlessly took money you knew I desperately needed; there was no way I could have trusted you."
"So you went for the safe option."
"No, I went with Christian because I thought that if we were away from Walford and all our problems, that we would find a way to be happy again," he insists, "and because I still loved him," he adds as an afterthought.
"If you loved him, why did you have sex with me?"
"That was a mistake."
"Really?" Danny responds in disbelief. "I don't really think you can pass it off as a mistake; it's not like you were being impulsive; you knew what was likely to happen that night; you'd taken plenty of time to think about it before agreeing to meet for a drink; and of course you can't say you were drunk ..."
"You were nothing more than a distraction from my problems," Syed angrily hisses. "All I wanted from you was sex."
When Danny merely looks amused, he doesn't understand for a moment.
"Are you ready to order?" the waitress politely asks.
Totally mortified, Syed slowly turns to look in her direction. Her extra-large smile does nothing to ease his embarrassment.
"Um," he mumbles.
"Can you give us a few more minutes?" Danny asks, and Syed doesn't have to look in his direction to see that he's trying really hard not to laugh.
"I'm glad you're finding it funny," he snaps once they are alone once more.
"No, it's not funny, of course it's not; you just admitted that you used me for sex," Danny says, his tone filled with hurt; but the laughter in his eyes gives lie to his apparent distress.
"Yea, well you pushed me too far. I told you I didn't want to talk about Christian, but you wouldn't listen."
"I come in here regularly with clients, and that waitress often serves us. How am I going to face her now? I'll know exactly what she's thinking; and she'll tell everyone I'm gay, and easy," Danny laughingly complains.
"Well, you are easy; back in October, you practically threw yourself at me," Syed says sulkily, trying keep a straight face.
"Do you blame me? Have you seen yourself?"
"Get lost," Syed mumbles, blushing once more.
"I'm only human."
"Your colleagues, your clients; they don't know you're gay?"
"I don't shout it from the roof tops; I try to be discrete, but I don't mind people knowing."
"Yea, I don't rush to tell people either," Syed confesses.
"Whatever you're most comfortable with."
"Yea," Syed agrees, liking that idea.
"Now, back to Christian."
"I don't want to have this conversation," Syed says sharply.
"Why not?"
"Because you only want to hear about a relationship falling apart, so you can enjoy another person's misery. You've made it clear you don't like Christian ..."
"I'll admit I'm not his biggest fan; but all I'm trying to do here is understand what was going through your mind when you made the decision to leave with him."
"Please can we just talk about something else?"
"Not until you admit the truth," Danny insists.
"What do you think the truth is?" Syed asks in exasperation.
"I think that you leaving with Christian had a lot to do with the fact that without him, and with no money coming in, you wouldn't have been able to hold onto your flat; you'd have had to move back in with your parents; it would have been a step back, not exactly into the closet, but as near as makes no difference; no sex on tap, loads of hassle every time you tried to hook up with a guy ..."
"That's ridiculous," Syed cries in disbelief. "You think I would go all the way to the US …; and anyway, my parents accept that I am gay now, and they're used ..."
"They're used to you being with Christian, but how do you think they would react to seeing you with another guy; or to seeing some random guy walking down the stairs and out the door the next morning. You'd gotten used to the freedom you enjoyed with Christian; you would have suffocated at home, and you knew it."
"If you're not going to listen to me …"
"I'll listen when I hear something that sounds believable."
"That's enough," Syed warns.
"All you have to do is admit that you stayed with that muscle Mary …"
"How about, I admit that every time you insult Christian, I hate you a little more; and that it doesn't matter what you say about him or how you try to twist things, I'll never stop loving him," Syed spits the words at him in a fit of temper. He goes to get up, but Danny grabs his arm; pulling him back down.
"How touching," he sneers contemptuously.
"Let go …"
"I must admit, I've never been in love," Danny cuts across him, his voice icy. "I couldn't bear to let anyone have that kind of power over me. Maybe that's why I always go for guys I have no respect for; there's no danger of becoming attached."
"What do you mean by that?" Syed foolishly asks.
"Well, let's take you, for example: you're a thief, a liar, a cheat; and worse than that, you've nothing to show for all your deceit; you've lost your husband, your daughter, the respect of your family. I've come across guys like you before; usually when they come to the bank looking for loans; all flash in their cheap suits; fake designer shoes and watches; peddling their rubbish business ideas. They think they're charming, really selling it; but ultimately they never get the loan; because as soon as you start to dig deeper, their house of cards comes crashing down. How many times have you been turned down for a loan Syed Masood? No, don't answer; it doesn't even matter, because you don't matter; because you're one of life's losers, and you always will be."
He tightens his grip on Syed's arm, as he tries to pull away.
"Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining; you've got other much more interesting talents; Christian obviously taught you well. In fact, if you know how to play the game, you need never again worry your pretty little head about money. I can introduce you to some of my wealthy gay friends; recommend you, as it were; and once I'm done with you …"
"I don't deserve to be spoken to like that," Syed finally manages to speak; his voice trembling, his eyes bright with tears.
Having got the reaction he was looking for, Danny lets go of his arm; and he gets up and walks out.
"Did I forget to mention that finding you was the best thing that ever happened to me," he says huskily as he watches him leave. After a moment, he absently brushes a thumb across his eyes; and, picking up his glass, swallows his whiskey down in one.
