by Marina Ford
“I did some art work for his agency.”
“So you paint, yes?” Ollie asked. “Or sculpt? Or write? Poetry or something?”
“All sorts of things.”
Ollie and Siobhan exchanged glances, as if to confirm to each other that I fell short of already low expectations.
My gaze travelled past them to the shelves on their TV unit. They held books and various decorative knick-knacks. Among them, unmistakably, framed pictures of Harry, Kieran, Siobhan, and Ollie together, their arms around one another on a windy beach, smiles on their faces. Of course.
I turned my attention to the other walls in the room.
“You have some nice prints,” I said, nodding at the framed posters on the wall next to them. “What are these, old French advertising?”
Siobhan turned around, and softening a little, she said, “They’re vintage French theatre posters. I collect them.”
“Sweet. They’re really cool. Do you like theatre?”
“I do.”
“I sometimes work for theatres,” I said. “Mostly staging and costume work. It’s a lot of fun.”
Something in her eyes came alive when I said this, but she held back.
“Once,” I said, “I was helping with a production of The Misanthrope, and it was such a fiasco.”
Her lips clenched. Ollie shifted in his seat, throwing warning looks her way.
“We had mice, for one,” I continued. “Which meant that Arsinoé’s costume had two enormous holes right here.” I drew circles with my fingers around my nipples.
Siobhan tried to stifle a laugh. Ollie took the mug out of her hand.
“And then we forgot to ready Alceste’s wig until the evening of the performance, so that when he put it on, it just looked like a grey afro.”
“What did you do?” Siobhan asked, clearly unable to help herself.
“Okay, so there’s a trick to wigs,” I said. “Normally, you have to treat them with pomade, and comb through them, and that keeps them for some time. But this wig wasn’t made out of human hair. In fact, the way it came out in the end, I’m not sure it wasn’t made from some sort of martian rodent. Anyway, nobody used any pomade on it at all; they just let it stand, and so the hair stiffened and stood on all ends. But there’s a way of getting around that— Here, let me show you.”
When the door opened twenty minutes later, and Harry came in, rushed, Siobhan, Ollie, and I froze.
Siobhan was sitting in a chair with a full-on eighteenth-century à la candor hairstyle, which Ollie and I were in the middle of decorating with items from their Christmas decoration box. She looked magnificent. Harry’s eyes widened. Siobhan’s eyes widened. Ollie’s smile checked, as if he’d been caught doing something illicit. Harry smiled.
“So, I see you met Joe.”
Siobhan, back straight, said stiffly, “We were just keeping him company while he waited for you.”
I could tell she was trying to sound like this had been a great imposition on her patience. Harry rolled his eyes slightly.
“Sure,” he said, and then, turning to me, “Shall we?”
He didn’t bother to change (and why would he, he was always very well put together), and so we left at once.
It was a cold evening, and we rushed from one indoor place to another, trying to avoid the mucky roads and the drizzle. Eventually, we found ourselves in a sushi restaurant.
We ordered two drinks, and Harry told me about Malcolm’s latest idea: to bring his cousin onto the board of directors.
“He has no assets, education, contacts, or experience,” Harry said, exasperated. “What could go wrong?”
“To be fair, Malcolm’s a muppet,” I said. “You could tell him you don’t like his cousin’s aura, and that’d probably sort it.”
This startled a laugh out of Harry, and I was pleased with myself, because he seemed careworn. I ordered two more drinks. He drank them pretty quickly.
“Can I tell you my news now?” I said.
He smiled and nodded. “Shoot.”
“Okay, do you remember how I wanted to find my birth parents and how I knew they’d left the country?”
“Yes?”
“Well, one of the waitresses at your party was from my old Kingdom Hall, and she told me someone came looking for me once. I got in touch with her afterwards, and now I’ve got a lead.”
“A lead?”
“About my birth parents.”
His eyebrows rose in surprise. “Oh! That’s fantastic! Did you find them?”
I shook my head. “Just one woman. Her name is Yvonne Bailey. She’d given up a biracial boy around the time I was born. My father, according to her, was a Jamaican labourer who’d gone back before I was born. She lives in Madrid right now.”
Harry reached across the table to squeeze my hand. “That’s wonderful. Is she nice? What’s she like?”
“We’ve only talked through Facebook. She’s been tentative about contact. I think she’s been trying for so long, she’s a bit scared of being disappointed again. I can totally understand. Right now, I’m more parts scared than excited myself. But I’m trying to warm her up to the idea of maybe talking on Skype.”
Harry thought this was reason to celebrate and I—though finding my birth mother brought up a whole mix of emotions—wanted to celebrate with him. He had put his phone on the table next to him. It kept buzzing. He ordered more drinks.
“Sorry,” he said when the phone buzzed again. He put it in his pocket. At my questioning look he said, “Kieran.”
Ah. Kieran. Yes.
Our food arrived. We didn’t talk about it. His phone buzzed in his pocket, and because we weren’t talking about it so hard, we could hear it, and know it was him, and it was like he was sitting right there between us, making annoying noises to interrupt any strand of conversation we wanted to start.
“Shit,” Harry muttered and picked his phone out of his pocket and turned it off entirely. “Sorry.”
He rubbed his face in a weary motion. I wondered what it was like going back to Siobhan’s and seeing all those pictures of Kieran. I remembered his mother and her insistence on relationship counselling. How do you break up with someone if all your family was in denial?
“What’s he want?” I asked, despite the nausea in my stomach at the thought of discussing Harry’s ex.
He sighed, took a swig of beer, shrugged. “I don’t know. He’s the one who moved out. He’s the one who’d decided he’d had it. I think he just doesn’t like it that I might move on. Like it scares him that I’m not miserable over him.”
I wanted to take the compliment, except it felt like he’d said this for my benefit.
“Do you want to get the tempura as well?” he asked, grabbing for the menu again.
“No, mate. I want to know what’s bothering you,” I said, taking the menu away from him. “You look like death. What’s the matter?”
He maintained a mutinous, annoyed silence. I ordered two more drinks. Our food came. I waited for the third beer to hit him. Then it came pouring out.
“He keeps asking all these questions, and I don’t know what else to tell him! I mean, yeah, I do miss him, of course I miss him, but it’s not like I can text him that, even if he does ask, because we’re not supposed to do that, right? When you’re broken up? I mean, it’s not rude to stop being all kissy-kissy, miss you, love you, and all that, right? Regardless of how you feel?”
An actual sensation of stabbing in my chest made me lift my hand up to rub it. “Sure.”
“It’s impossible to have a sensible conversation, of course, because nobody ever came to an agreement over text message, not in the history of the world they didn’t! In fact, if you ask me, World War III will start over a text message. It’ll be ‘CU BRB xx’ and then a mushroom cloud over London.”
I made sympathetic sounds while trying to quickly think of something to say that was neutral and didn’t sound like He’s an idiot and a bastard and you’re well rid of him.
&
nbsp; “Kieran was the one who moved out,” he repeated. “It was his idea. Not mine. He was the one with the ‘It’s not you, it’s me’ and the ‘All we’re doing is fighting.’”
He began to peel the labels off the beer bottles.
“And Siobhan . . . and my mum . . .” he muttered. “They don’t know what it was like. He made them feel comfortable, because you couldn’t tell we were together at all just looking at us when we were in company. He never called me any endearments. It was always ‘Harry’ in front of other people. He never held my hand. Never, not once, did he sit next to me at a family dinner or a party. As soon as we’d arrive somewhere, he’d split off to socialise by himself. Once, he shook my hand to congratulate me on a promotion when I found out in front of my parents. Shook my bloody hand! Like I was a colleague from work and not his bloody— I don’t even know what! Because you know what? He never, never called me his boyfriend. Or partner. Not once.”
Harry did make him sound like a tosser.
“Tosser,” I said helpfully.
Two hours later, Harry was fully drunk and I had a clear picture of how selfish Kieran had been, how emotionally distant, how difficult. He once bought a car he liked, but which Harry didn’t like, never asking Harry’s opinion. And he’d once spent two Christmases in a row in Doncaster with his family because some uncle had made a suspicious comment about how much time Kieran was spending with “this Harry person.” And he’d never book them into the same hotel room when they travelled together, lest someone in the hotel thought they were lovers.
Some of the things Harry told me didn’t sound so very bad—like that time Kieran had gone out on a colleague’s stag night and visited a strip club. I mean, sure, I could see why Harry wouldn’t be thrilled about it, but all things considered it was a pretty standard thing to do. Other things he did, though, sounded awful, like that time Kieran’s brother came to town, and Kieran was mean to Harry for three days straight, in case Kieran’s brother suspected something.
A part of me felt almost sorry for Kieran. Both for the savage verbal beating he was getting from Harry, even if he couldn’t hear it, and for how closeted he was and how that had ruined his relationship.
I know what it’s like to be in an environment where you are perfectly aware that it’s either your sexuality or everyone you love and care for. It’s a choice nobody should have to make. And if Kieran did have to make it, I simply couldn’t blame him for trying to juggle it as best he could, even if he bungled the thing terribly.
But whatever Harry was saying, all I could think was: But you stayed with him. For seven years. And you wouldn’t be so upset now if you hadn’t felt something. If there hadn’t been good, warm, affectionate moments. If you didn’t feel something still . . .
Eventually, when he was too drunk to walk straight, I got him into a cab and drove him to mine. I put him to bed, took off his shoes, covered him with my blanket, and then lay down beside him. It was a long time before I could get to sleep that night, waiting for the anxious buzzing in my head to quiet down.
“Joe?” Frank shouted. “Are ye there, pal?”
It was a bright Sunday morning a week later. Harry and I were in bed. He was reading the news on his phone, and I’d been drifting between a state of sleep and consciousness when Frank had rung.
“Yes, where are you? I can barely hear you,” I said.
“I’m at the airport about to board my plane,” he said. “I’m going to America. I was wondering . . . you wouldn’t want to come over, would you?”
“What, to the airport?”
“No, not the airport, ye numpty,” he said. “To America.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“Gabriella and I are going to Vegas! She wants to get hitched! Want to come along?”
“Christ, now?” I sprung up from bed, suddenly a hundred per cent awake.
“No, I’m over there for a conference, but afterwards. Say in a week or so. What do you say?”
“But— What— I mean— Are you serious?”
“It’s going to be epic! Come on! Google yer ticket and come over, eh? I need a best man.”
Having recently woken up, I wasn’t sure I was hearing correctly. But I said, “Okay, sure. Give me a ring when you’re over there, and I’ll see about it.”
“All right! Talk to ye later!” Frank laughed and rang off.
Seconds later my phone buzzed again. It was another message from Frank. This time it was a selfie of him and Gabriella in front of an aeroplane, smiles as bright as the sky behind them.
Harry looked up from his phone at me and smiled. I felt a little jump in my chest whenever he did that. Smiled at me, I mean.
“Do you fancy doing a trip to the States?” I asked. “I was just invited to be best man at Frank’s wedding in Vegas.”
“Really?”
“They’re both ridiculous, but don’t let that put you off.”
“When is it?”
“Next week.”
He stared at me. “Are you serious? I can’t just go to the States at a moment’s notice. I can’t believe you’d consider going yourself.”
“Why not?”
“Because!” he said. “Don’t you have, I don’t know . . . obligations?”
“Sure.” I shrugged. “But he’s my friend. And he’s getting married. Besides, I’ve never been to Vegas before. Should be fun. Wanna go?”
He looked at me in a strange way. Like I’d just sprouted wings, except the wings were really beautiful.
“You actually mean it,” he said.
“Of course.”
“And you’d just take me with you. Like that. To your friend’s wedding.”
“Why not?” I leaned in and kissed him. “We could take a room in a tacky hotel,” I said against his lips. “I’d feed you chocolate-covered strawberries. We could go to a burlesque! Oh my God, we could go and see those guys with the tigers!”
He laughed. “You mean Siegfried and Roy? I’m pretty sure they’re retired.”
“Damn it,” I muttered. Recovering, though, I said, “We’ll find something else. Cirque du Soleil! Blue Man Group! Come on, it’s going to be amazing!”
He shook his head. Then, with a slowly spreading smile, he said, “I don’t know. I’d have to check with work. I suppose I could swing it. Could be fun.”
Excited, I climbed on top of him, just to make sure he remembered how much fun we could have, away from his “obligations.” Away from his family and Kieran. The trip to Vegas, I thought, was bonkers. Not for me and Harry—that really did sound fun—but for Frank and Gabriella. I wished he’d confided in me earlier so we could have talked about it. He’d only just met Gabriella, and now he was suddenly going to marry her?
I thought, briefly, about hiring a detective to look into Gabriella, but a week wasn’t really enough time to make this happen, and then Chloe pointed out that a) unless said detective worked for blowjobs (and was hot enough for either of us to want to give them to him) this was not a financial possibility; b) Frank was unlikely to listen to the findings of a detective, especially one who worked for blowjobs; and c) it was likely that as soon as Frank stood in front of an actual altar, the idea of marriage to a scatty vicar’s daughter would strike him as laughable, and they’d give it up on their own.
Over the next few days, I emailed Harry my flight details once I booked, and focused on all the awesome stuff one could do in Vegas. There was a lot. Besides casinos, there were shows, the Grand Canyon, and amazing places to eat. I couldn’t afford to stay for long, but I meant to get the most out of my three days. With Harry.
The idea of going away with Harry suddenly struck me as grand. Not having had any experiences with relationships, I never considered that going away together was something of a milestone. It didn’t quite feel that way, but then how would I know what a milestone felt like? I had never experienced one before.
I saw a missed call from him when I came out of the Tube at Heathrow. Making my way along
the enormous, bright corridors towards the main hall of the airport and dragging my bag behind me, I rang him back.
“Hey! I just arrived, where are you?” I looked around for him. People with massive luggage on trolleys hurried past me. One family with three very loud children was testing out the echo in the corridor, so I moved towards the wall to hear Harry better.
“Joe.” His voice was low, heavy.
“Are you in Heathrow yet?”
“I’m really sorry, but I’m afraid I won’t be able to come with you this weekend.”
A moment of pregnant silence.
“Oh. Are you all right? Is it work? Is Malcolm being a little bitch again?”
“No, no, it’s not Malcolm, it’s—” he paused. “I wish we didn’t have to talk about this over the phone. It’s really not right. Listen, Kieran came over last evening . . .”
My heart plunged to the bottom of my stomach.
“Uh-huh?” I made myself say, because the expression on my face had made the cleaning lady, who’d just come out of the loos on the opposite side of me, frown in worry.
“He wants to give it another go,” Harry said. There was a pause, during which a wave of nausea overcame me and made me dizzy. I put my hand over my mouth.
“We talked all night,” he said, “and . . . I don’t know, he wore me down. After all these years, I suppose I owe him another go. Owe us another go.” I heard some noise on the other side, a rustling. Then his voice came back: “God, this is fucked up. I know you don’t want to hear this right now. You want to go and enjoy your friend’s wedding . . . I hope I didn’t spoil it for you. Can we talk when you get back, maybe? I’m really sorry.”
I wanted to say something, anything, but my jaw wouldn’t open. Pain was shooting through my chest, my hand was clenched around the phone, and I knew I was hyperventilating when Harry asked, concerned, “Joe? Are you there?”
“Yes,” I responded, more sharply than I’d intended. Like it was torn out of me. “Yeah, all right, well, I—I have to run now, so . . . say hi to Kieran, I suppose.”
“I’m sorry, Joe. I really am. I can’t express how—”