“Unless they’re animals themselves,” Connor added. “Like Kayla, I mean, who isn’t properly human.”
In the resulting scuffle, the subject of the bowling club was fortunately forgotten.
Later, after Carly had put Kayla to bed, the older two hung on in the living room. Connor was fixed on the computer, grunting at each screech of alien agony. Mia, on the other hand, was chewing her lip, darting glances between Ewan, her book, and her oblivious brother. Ewan was about to intervene when she burst out, “Connor, get lost. I want to talk to Granddad.”
“I’m not stopping you,” Connor said.
“In private.”
“I’m not listening. I’m not interested in your life.”
“I still want you to go away.”
“I’m playing my game.”
Mia’s eyes narrowed and she eyed the power switch.
Ewan thought it was time to intervene. “Finish your level, Connor, and then go and play upstairs.”
“It’s a deathmatch. It doesn’t have levels.”
“Five minutes, then.”
Five minutes later, Connor had to be ordered off the computer. He lingered in the doorway.
“Go away, Connor!”
“I’m going,” he said. “See, I’m outside the room. Now I’m two steps outside.”
“Get lost, loser.”
“You just want to tell Granddad about your gayboy friend.”
“Connor!” Ewan growled and was surprised by the force in it. That wasn’t a voice he’d ever used much on dry land.
Connor scarpered.
Mia dropped her book and came over to join him on the sofa, curling her long legs up and leaning on his shoulder. For a while, she didn’t say anything.
Then, to his surprise, she asked, “You’ve made friends with Mr. Tregarron, haven’t you?”
“Him and his dog,” Ewan said, trying to get a smile out of her, but her face stayed solemn.
“I heard them talking about him on the bus. Were him and Mr. Peter really boyfriends?”
Alex wasn’t keeping it a secret now, though he grumbled a little about the funny looks he was getting in the Post Office, so Ewan answered cautiously, “I’m not sure that’s the word they’d use, but yes.”
“And they kept it secret all their lives?”
“They did.”
“That’s the saddest thing in the world!” Mia burst out, sitting up straight. “It’s not fair that people should have to lie and keep secrets just to stay safe.”
“No, it’s not,” Ewan agreed. When she didn’t carry on, he prompted, “And your friend?”
“Josh,” Mia said. “From down the road. He’s been in my class forever.”
“Is that the wee lad who pinned your pigtails to the wall?”
“That was an age ago,” Mia said, rolling her eyes. “He’s got a boyfriend.”
“Is that so?”
“And these boys from school saw them together at the weekend, and they came after Josh on Monday, and he said, yeah, so what?”
“Brave lad.”
“And then they beat him up.” She hunched her knees. “Now the whole school are having a go at him, even stupid little kids like Connor, and it’s not fair.” Her voice rose with indignation.
“Life isn’t, love. What are you doing to help your friend?”
“All of us girls are protecting him. We’re going round with him all the time.”
“And the lads?”
“They’re pretending nothing’s happened, but none of them will even sit next to him in case people think they’re gay too.”
And people thought the old were conservative and narrow-minded, Ewan reflected. At least most of his contemporaries had learned to turn a blind eye for the sake of peace and quiet, even if they did gossip on the bus afterward.
Mia lowered her voice. “And, then today, they started calling us names. Fag hags and Josh’s lezzies and—and other stuff.”
Ewan thought about it and then said, picking his words carefully, “That’s how bullies work. They want to get their victims on their own. They’ll be trying to scare you off so they can get to your friend. You just stick together.”
“But what can we do to help?” Mia demanded.
Ewan didn’t have much of an idea, but he let her talk it out and reminded her that the Christmas holidays were coming and might give them all a break.
That night, though, lying awake on his side of the too empty bed, he thought of Peter and Alex. What had pushed them into hiding?
“PETER’S job, for a long time,” Alex answered the next day. It was Saturday again, but Connor was getting the bus to rugby, so Ewan had time to linger. “He taught at primary schools and ran the Cubs, and you know how people used to think. It was never as bad for me. I taught at the college, mostly, and everyone expects art teachers to be a little fey.”
“You taught art?” Ewan rose to his feet to look at the pieces mounted on the wall. “Are these yours, then?”
“They are,” Alex said, smiling shyly.
“I like them.” He’d been appreciating them more with each visit. They had a distinctive style, each showing a little human moment—two old women chatting, a dog leaping up at a laughing girl, a child walking along a quay wall with her arms stretched out for balance—against a softer background of sea, cliffs, looming hills, mountains.
“You’re too kind.”
“No, I mean it.” Ewan led him into the hall. “There. That’s my favourite.”
It showed a fisherman, still in his bright yellow overalls, chasing a small boy along a harbour's edge. The boy was wearing the fisherman’s hat, so big on him it slipped down over his nose, and both were laughing. Behind them, the harbour reached out quietly to layer upon layer of islands, the most distant just grey smudges on the horizon.
“After I stopped fishing,” Ewan told him. “I ran tour boats every summer and charters in the winter. Spent most of my life on the water. So, I like this one.”
“Why did you stop fishing?”
“The fish ran out. I’d been at it since I was sixteen.”
“That’s young.”
“It wasn’t then. Two of us went from school as apprentices on that boat, me and Jonno MacBride. His dad was the skipper and his two older brothers sailed with us.”
It kept coming back to him, at first light and in the quiet afternoons. He’d almost forgotten those three years with the MacBrides before he met Carole. Thinking of them reminded himself of another man he’d once been.
“It was another world,” he murmured, as much to himself as to Alex.
THAT night, he dreamed of Alex painting, those narrow hands wielding brushes gracefully, daubing reds and oranges onto the sky to create glowing sunsets. Ewan stood by his shoulder, watching the way his fingers curled around the wood, deft and firm.
And then the dream shifted, and Alex was painting him, the brush tips coasting over Ewan’s bare skin, stroking into every crease and fold and transforming his tired, wind-wearied skin into a feast of colour.
He woke from it suddenly, breathless and tingling, his body tight and his cheeks flushed. He hadn’t had a dream as charged as that in years.
CHRISTMAS roared up on them in the usual frenzy of nativity plays and carol concerts. Alex went up to London to stay with his niece, and Ewan’s bungalow filled with his son, Paul, and his daughter-in-law and all the chaos that their toddling twins created. It was January before things slowed down again, once the kids were back at school. Alex was distracted by the news that his niece was pregnant and spent half his days fretting, despite Ewan’s reassurances.
Then, one day in March, he wasn’t at the door in the morning for the first time in weeks. To Ewan, it seemed a long way back down the hill without a cup of tea to warm him.
By midmorning, he was pacing. What if something had happened? Who else did Alex have to check on him? That thought wouldn’t let up, and eventually it carried him out the front door and back up the hill. He pressed his
finger to the bell urgently.
Alex answered, and Ewan’s first flare of indignation faded when he saw the man’s face. He looked a step from death again, tear tracks on his cheeks. He started on an apology, voice shuddering.
Gently, Ewan moved them inside. “Anniversary, was it? Birthday?”
Alex shook his head. “Oh, no. I was trying to sort through Peter’s clothes.” He stumbled over the last word and then choked out, “It’s been over a year now. I’ve just been leaving them and leaving them.”
“Grief takes its own time,” Ewan said and put the kettle on. He knew where Alex kept all the makings by now, so he served it up easily, fishing the teabags out with his callused fingertips.
“Take a break,” he ordered, as he would one of the kids. “Then I’ll help. You need someone without the memories for this job.”
“You don’t have to,” Alex said, hovering in the doorway with his sad eyes. “I couldn’t possibly ask....”
“Friends helped me,” Ewan said and then changed the subject before it got uncomfortable. “Garden’s looking good for the time of year. Nice, those little pansies in the wall baskets.”
“Violas, and they’re far too early,” Alex corrected absently and sat down to drink his tea.
It was a slow job, and Alex started it in grim silence. As the afternoon passed by, though, he began to tell stories about Peter. Ewan ignored the odd hiccup to laugh in all the right places and gave all his best Carole anecdotes in return. By the end of the school day, they were almost done—one bin liner to throw away, ten bags for Oxfam, and a single drawer of things too precious or unique to give away.
“We never really planned for this,” Alex said, putting the last bag down beside the door. “I think we both thought I’d be the first to go.”
“You look in good health to me.”
“I am, as much as any of us are, but Peter—Peter lived more.”
“Don’t have to live loud to live well,” Ewan said. “As I keep telling my daughter.”
“What’s she signed you up for now?”
Ewan winced. “Some fool has started a Senior Glee club in the church hall. Me, prancing around singing and dancing? I can’t see it. Now, then, no need to laugh at me quite so much.”
ALEX was waiting with his cup of tea the next morning, already opening the door as Ewan stopped to catch his breath and look at the view. It was a fine day, warm as summer, and only the faintest hint of haze over the water.
“Do you have plans for the day?” he asked.
“Not yet,” Alex said, putting his tea down. “Not at all, really.”
“Can Saffy swim?”
“She tries. Why?”
“An idea,” Ewan said. “I’ll come back, after Kayla’s at school.”
“Not even a clue?” Alex protested, but Ewan ushered Kayla out without a further hint.
An hour later, they were driving out of the centre of Chichester, the radio up loud and the windows rolled down. As Ewan turned down the lane toward the village of Bosham, Alex shouted, laughing, “A hint. Just one!”
“You’ve had plenty,” Ewan said and drew up in the little car park opposite the craft centre. The tide was right in, washing up the lane as far as the steps of the antique shop, and Saffy tugged Alex over to investigate while Ewan unloaded the back of the car.
The churchyard was full of daffodils and bright forsythia, and the green beyond was dry underfoot. They’d lost some local rivers this spring, dry streambeds sitting hollow in the fields, but the millstream here was still high, full of ducks and their ungainly chicks.
As they walked across the green towards the sailing club, Alex said, “Ah,” and then, anxiously, “I’ve never been on a boat, unless ferries count. I won’t be much help.”
“You’re a passenger today,” Ewan told him and passed him the bag. “Buoyancy aids for you and Saffy, not that you’ll be needing them. Let me find someone to run us out to the Maid of Kintyre.”
By the time they were chugging their way out of Bosham harbour, looking back at the little quayside cottages and the forest of masts, the yacht was ready for the wind, and Ewan’s spirits were rising fast. Saffy was standing up straight in her bright orange flotation vest, ears flapping in the breeze, and Alex was sitting easily, one hand on her back and a smile on his face.
At lunchtime, they moored outside a pub farther around the harbour. Ewan lingered over his pint as Alex sketched little yachts and dinghies on his napkins— loose, evocative biro lines that captured the lure of the wind.
“That one wouldn’t sail,” Ewan said, tapping a discarded sheet. “Not with the boom stuck like that.”
Alex looked up with a start, and Ewan was reminded of Kayla caught with her hand in the biscuit tin. He put his pen down hurriedly, though his fingers hovered over it. “I’m sorry. It’s a very anti-social habit.”
“Fine by me.” Alex quirked a disbelieving eyebrow at him, so Ewan elaborated, “Interesting to watch.”
“It drove Peter mad,” Alex said, picking his pen up again. “He wanted me to draw on something he could keep.”
“I don’t know,” Ewan said, smoothing out the napkin. “You could put a frame on that. Something very simple. Make a feature of the material.”
“And you’d probably make it yourself from scratch,” Alex murmured and added a little sailor and mournful hound onto his latest sketch.
“Longer lasting and cheaper that way.”
“I still can’t quite work you out,” Alex said, not looking up. “Is it an engineer’s soul you have, or a dreamer’s?”
Ewan felt himself go red and wondered how he’d never managed to outgrow that schoolboy tendency. “I’m neither. Let me know when we’re done here. I’ll need to be home for the school run.”
EVENTUALLY, driven to grumpiness by Carly’s bright ideas, Ewan growled, “I don’t need to join any more groups. I have a friend.”
“One friend, Dad,” Carly retorted. It was just the two of them for once, all the kids out. “You spend the rest of your time running around after my horrors. You need a life of your own.”
“It’s my time, and I’ll spend it how I like.”
“And what if you want to meet someone? You’re not that old. You could even marry again.”
Ewan snorted his opinion of that.
She crossed her arms and glared. “It’s not healthy to be alone, Dad.”
“I’m fine as I am.”
“I’ve spoken to Paul, and we’re both okay with it if you want to date again.”
“It’s no more your brother’s business than it is yours,” Ewan growled at her.
“I’m just saying,” she rode over him, “that we’re not going to feel like you’re replacing Mum. You shouldn’t be sacrificing yourself for the kids, which is why—”
“I’ll show you sacrificing in a minute, missy.”
“Which is why,” she repeated, raising her voice. “I’ve signed you up for this social event next week....”
“SPEED dating?” Alex repeated, a smile quivering around the edges of his mouth. “Oh dear.”
It wasn’t until Alex had come to the door, wide-eyed and surprised, that Ewan realized he had never been here of an evening. Nonetheless, he had still been incensed enough at Carly to stomp right in and start ranting.
“Oh, laugh, do,” he grumbled. “No need to spare me any sympathy.” But Alex’s amusement was setting him back in balance. A little sheepishly, he added, “I shouldn’t be disturbing your evening.”
“You’re always welcome,” Alex told him. “Indeed, if you’d like a change of company, do join me for dinner.”
“I’d be glad.”
Alex smiled properly. “I should warn you. I only know how to cook three things, and that’s including scrambled eggs and beans on toast.”
“Meals of champions.”
As they walked into the kitchen, the phone rang.
“Oh, why always at dinnertime?” Alex complained. “That’ll be my niece. Do you mind
?”
“Go ahead.”
“Thank you. She worries.” He dived for the phone. “Juliette, darling, how are you? And the precious bump?”
Ewan headed on to examine the contents of the fridge. The man had let him gripe. The least he could do was make supper.
He shook his head at the sparse ingredients as Alex, out in the hall, cooed and murmured into the phone, his voice soft with affection.
Ten minutes later, Ewan was humming as he transferred finely chopped mushrooms into a half-formed omelette. Alex wandered in, still making listening noises into the handset. He stopped dead and exclaimed, “And you cook!” Then, to the phone, “No, not you, darling. I know quite well what a marvellous chef you are. What’s that? Yes, I do have company.” He rolled his eyes at Ewan as the voice on the other end of the phone rose in volume. “Yes, darling... Of, course... Oh, really, you needn’t... Yes, Juliette, I am always careful. I am also quite grown-up, you know.” The line between his brows was deepening and Ewan saw the moment when his patience ran out. “Actually, dearest,” he said, eyebrows arching. “I’m having an illicit and sizzling affair with the paper boy.” And then he hung up, turning to Ewan with mischief gleaming in his eyes.
Ewan stood frozen, spatula suspended above his omelette. For a moment, all he could see was how it would be if those words were true, if he could turn around from the stove and tug Alex forward so that he could press his mouth against that little smirk, if supper could be followed by lazy kisses and a slow, warm stumble into a shared bed.
For a moment, it seemed real.
But then Alex said, “Why is it that the ones we love the most have the greatest power to truly irritate us?”
“It’s a mystery,” Ewan said and put his notions aside to think through later, in the privacy of his own home and head.
NOW that summer was due, the weather had turned and they had had days of thin grey rain. It was whispering at the windows, and it seemed entirely natural to stay after dinner, settling on the sofa in front of the telly with a cup of tea each. The BBC was repeating Sherlock, and Ewan settled in happily to see if he could work it out this time. He didn’t realize he was muttering at the screen until Alex chuckled.
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