When Skies Have Fallen

by Debbie McGowan

  Chapter Twenty: January, 1946

  That first night Jim was back in England he was fit for nought: after he and Arty had welcomed each other, they slept until seven o’clock, when Arty heard the communal front door close, followed by Jean and Charlie’s not-so-hushed voices. Arty lay still and silent, or as still as he could when he was shivering, naked and in a tangle of limbs. He placed a light kiss on Jim’s cheek and quietly spoke his name. Jim stirred with a groan and folded his arms around Arty, pulling him close.

  “Jean and Charlie are home,” Arty whispered.

  “So soon?” Jim said, stretching but otherwise doing little to suggest he would be getting up from the bed any time soon. Arty tickled his back, which made him wriggle and grin; still he didn’t shift.

  “You at least need to go and say hello,” Arty reasoned.

  Jim took a deep breath, released it as a reluctant sigh and…stayed put. Arty poked him in the side, prepared to do it again if need be, but the effect was immediate. Jim rolled away and sat on the edge of the bed, his back turned. Arty cringed, for now he realised he had just poked the welt he wasn’t allowed to mention—the welt he could now see was caused by a whip and extended diagonally across the full width of Jim’s back.

  Oblivious, Jim stretched again and yawned. “All right, you win,” he said, wearily rolling to the side of the bed. “But first I need to wash up.”

  “I can run you a bath,” Arty offered.

  “We got a shower?”

  “Yes.”

  “I can have a bath another day. Which way to the bathroom?”

  Arty got up and fetched his and Jim’s dressing gowns—he had purchased a full wardrobe of clothing on Jim’s behalf—and led him to the bathroom, where he set the shower running for him. On his way back to the bedroom to wait out his turn, a knock came at the door to the apartment. Knowing it would be Jean, Arty answered it.

  “Good evening,” Jean greeted, eyeing his attire. She raised a pencilled eyebrow and grinned. “He got home safely, I take it?”

  Arty grinned back at her. “Oh yes, he did. He’s just having a wash. Shall we come up to you when we’re ready?”

  “Perfect.” Jean gave him a swift embrace and stepped off towards the stairs. “There’s no rush,” she called back over her shoulder.

  Arty gave her a stern look and she winked at him before continuing on her way. Arty closed the door and returned to the bedroom, wondering if he’d always feel so self-conscious about people knowing what he and Jim got up to. There again, it was only Jean, and hadn’t she been the instigator in all of this? Perhaps it was no more than after so long apart, being reunited had heightened all of his emotions, because he was feeling overly affected by everything. Silky’s kittens were due any day, yet it had not occurred to him that anything could go wrong. Now his mind insisted on revisiting the loss of Socks and Soot’s brother, and he was once again in mourning for the tiny boy who didn’t make it.

  After seven months of waiting, the last week of which he’d spent constantly fretting over gales and other unfavourable conditions reported in the shipping forecast, Arty was emotionally drained. He had long ago been ready to embark on their life together. Planning all of the things they would do was what got him through their time apart, first at Minton, then in hospital and finally when Jim was waiting on his immigration papers. Now the much-anticipated elation was being tempered by the requirement that he forget about Jim’s father’s parting gift to his son. Even if Arty hadn’t promised to let it go, it would do no good to raise the matter again, for it was one of the unspeakables, the stuff Jim simply could not give voice to, which, Arty rationalised, was no bad thing.

  Corporal R. T. Clarke is a thinker and a dreamer—Jim’s words from the first time he caught Arty daydreaming echoed often in his mind, for what Jim had said was true: Arty had always been a thinker and a dreamer. Chasing butterflies, absorbing himself in tales of romance and adventure, learning to dance…were it not for the war he likely would have followed his father into academia, pursued the life of the ‘well-to-do intelligentsia’ with which D H Lawrence had been so enamoured, and to which Antonio Adessi belonged. In those circles, being homosexual was not a norm as such, though it was accepted as part of the nature of man and, to a lesser extent, woman. It occurred to Arty that where reason was granted the opportunity to prevail, little significance was placed on how one might behave in private.

  Perhaps, then, given time and the social insurance scheme the government was instituting, reason might eventually prevail over society as a whole, for it was very difficult to think grand thoughts with an empty belly and nowhere to call home. Or perhaps it was just wishful thinking, more Arty Clarke pipe dreams, but how wonderful to imagine that the conversation he and Jim would be having with Jean and Charlie that evening might one day be in preparation of their own marriage. Who would they invite? Jean and Charlie, of course, Sissy and Antonio, Molly and Daphne, Joshua and his girlfriend Louisa, Jim’s mother—what story would they tell Jim’s father? And who would bear the brunt of his wrath then?

  He had been so deep in thought that only when Jim cleared his throat did Arty notice he was no longer alone. Jim remained just inside the doorway, his usually neat blonde hair darker for its wetness and sticking out in all directions from being vigorously rubbed with a towel. His eyes, ringed by fatigue, studied Arty with a deep, probing intensity that had clearly seen past the heroic shield of indifference he had almost succeeded in raising. Jim shrugged and offered a defeated smile.

  “Go take a shower, darlin’, and I’ll tell you what you need to know.”

  Arty walked over to Jim and took his hands. “You don’t need to tell me anything.”

  “I do, for you to let it be.” Jim kissed him on the forehead, his lips lingering awhile, his warm breath lifting Arty’s hair and setting off new shivers of desire. “Go shower,” Jim repeated, “then we’ll talk.”

  “All right,” Arty agreed. He stepped past Jim, out into the hallway. “Your clothes are in the four-drawer chest.”

  “My clothes?”

  “I hope they fit. Charlie said you and he were a similar size, so I took his word for it.”

  Jim squared his shoulders and stood tall. “Charlie’s shorter than me.”

  “An inch, if that.”

  “And…scrawnier,” Jim added with a grin. Arty raised his eyes and continued on his way. “But you’re mine,” Jim added as an afterthought.

  “Yes, I am,” Arty called back as he shut the bathroom door. He opened it again. “You still here?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “Just checking.” Arty smiled to himself. Jim’s home. He left the door ajar and turned the shower tap.