by Chris Cheek
The Navigation Quartet 1
Veering Off Course
Chris Cheek
Copyright © Chris Cheek 2018
The right of Chris Cheek to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that no part of this book is to be reproduced, in any shape or form. Or by way of trade, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser, without prior permission of the copyright holder.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Warning: This book includes material that is intended for a mature adult audience, including scenes featuring explicit sexual content, some graphic language and adult situations.
Cover images: Shutterstock, David Burrell
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-9996479-4-0
Dedication
For Gill and Mark Thomas
Here’s to more than 40 years of friendship.
You gave me my lift to London, Mark, and I am forever grateful.
“Doubt thou the stars are fire,
Doubt that the sun doth move,
Doubt truth to be a liar,
But never doubt I love.”
Hamlet
William Shakespeare.
The Navigation Quartet 1
Veering Off Course
Prologue
Sedgethwaite, West Yorkshire.
February 1997.
Alan Foreshaw and David Edgeley were both nineteen. They had been close friends for years – they’d met on Alan’s first day at their junior school aged nine. Since then, they had done everything together – gone fishing, shoplifted a couple of small items, chatted up girls, conned pub landlords into thinking they were over age – and each lost their virginity, simultaneously and in adjacent rooms in a Blackpool boarding house. Alan was pretty much the only close friend that David had ever had, though he was also close to Mona, who had been in their class at school.
And now Alan was leaving. He had always been the more adventurous one, and he’d gone and got himself a job in London. David had swapped his rest day so that they could have a farewell night out – a few drinks in the old haunts, see some mates, perhaps even pick up a couple of girls. He wanted to give Alan a last night to remember in Sedgethwaite, the Yorkshire mill town in which they’d grown up.
It was gone eleven now, and the pubs were shutting. They’d ended up in the Boot and Shoe in the town centre. The bar was packed, as it was most nights, mostly with people they knew from drinking in here – legally and illegally – ever since they could at least pass for eighteen. There were a few familiar faces from school. Couples and several pairings of girls together, out for a good time and maybe to meet some boys. Alan and David waved and exchanged greetings with several people during the evening, but they’d been much too busy drinking and talking to bother about the girls. Several had eyed them speculatively as they sat close together at a corner table. Apart from anything else, the night had seemed too important to spoil by wasting time with other people.
As the landlord called time, the two boys emerged onto the street. Sedgethwaite’s town centre was busy as all the pubs reached chucking-out time. The weather was dry now but it had only just stopped raining, leaving the streets wet and buildings still dripping. Looking down the long slope of the High Street, they could see the reflections of the blue street lights in the pavements as the stone buildings echoed to the laughter and some shouting from the revellers now headed home. A late bus came up from the bus station, announced by the hiss of its tyres on the wet road surface. As it neared them, they could hear the beat of its windscreen wipers, still moving to deal with residual spray. Then it was past them and going on up the hill, the sound of its engine reverberating against the shops and offices.
Clubbing together just before closing time, David and Alan raised enough cash to buy half a bottle of scotch and they walked slowly back to Alan’s place to drink it. He lived with his Auntie Mary and she was already in bed; she was a bit deaf anyway, meaning that they would be left alone.
They fetched glasses and settled down on the sitting-room floor. In the fuggy heat from the gas fire, they drank the scotch and reminisced about their times together.
“Do you remember our day out on Ilkley Moor?” asked Alan at one point.
“Aye, was that the time you trod in a cow pat?”
“That’s the one. In above my bloody ankle I went. Stank all the way home.”
David laughed. “God, yes. We had half the bus to ourselves ’cos nobody wanted to sit near us. I don’t know how I managed to stay with you.”
“Guilty conscience, I expect.”
“Guilty? Me? Why was that, then?”
“Because you’d pushed me.”
“I did not.”
“You did too – we were chasing that tennis ball we found and you fouled me.”
“Referee! That was a fair shoulder charge! It were no foul – well, at least not until you stepped in summat. That was certainly foul!”
“Oh ha bloody ha. You bugger.” There was no anger in Alan’s tone, though. He grinned at his pal. “We’ve had some good times, though – especially that weekend in Blackpool. What were they called? Sharon and Tracey?”
“God, I remember that – they were all over us on the back seat before we’d even got on to the motorway. By the time we got there, I was so turned on I thought I’d die.”
“Yeah, Sharon had a wicked tongue I seem to remember.”
David laughed, “Aye, in all senses of the word. A voice like a foghorn as well. We were staying near Central Pier, I seem to remember.”
“That’s right. Just two streets back from the prom.”
“Aye, Mrs Morgan, wasn’t it?”
“Well, not only did Mrs Morgan know we were at it, the whole of central Blackpool must have heard Sharon.”
Alan smiled at the memory, though a shadow flitted across his face. His own time with Tracey had been a bit more difficult. He’d managed something eventually, but he could never claim to have enjoyed the night – in fact, it was his only time ever with a girl.
The whisky had run out by now, and the flood of reminiscence slowed to a trickle. They both became drowsy. David realised that he was cradling Alan’s head in his lap. It happened sometimes during these late-night talks as they stretched out close together but tonight, somehow, it felt different.
Tentatively David reached out and touched his friend’s forehead. Alan had always been there, always been central to his existence. How was he going to cope without him? How would he get through every day without the knowledge that Alan was there, waiting for him?
“Are you asleep, Al?”
There was no reply. Looking down at Alan’s face, David had a strange feeling. He had experienced something similar a couple of times before, but somehow the moment had never been right. Now, well...
Trembling slightly, he reached out and stroked Alan’s hair. Then he leant forward and kissed him on the forehead.
Alan opened his eyes
and smiled. “You’ll never know how long I’ve waited for that, Davy.” He sat up and kissed David on the lips. They embraced and kissed again. “Come up to bed.”
For a moment, David hesitated, wondering what was going to happen and what it would mean. But this was Al, his biggest mate. Nothing could be wrong about Al. He followed his friend up the stairs. Once there, they undressed quietly, stealing kisses between shedding garments, shushing each other so as to not to waken Alan’s aunt. Once naked, they lay together on the bed, legs entwined, kissing and holding each other tightly.
Lying close to Alan and wrapped in his arms was the most beautiful sensation David had ever felt. Eventually, their passion rose; Alan arranged them so that their erections rubbed together and wrapped his fist round them both. They began to thrust, gently at first, but then with an accelerating rhythm. They reached their climaxes with seconds of each other. For both of them, it was an earth-shattering moment.
Afterwards they lay together, kissing gently once more, recovering their breath and coming down from the high they had just experienced. Alan cleaned them both up with some tissues and they rearranged themselves for sleep, still holding each other close.
Alan went out like a light but David lay awake, watching his friend sleep. What had just happened? And why now, when Alan was about to leave? It was the most pure, the most exhilarating, the most meaningful experience of his life. But it was wrong. It was so wrong… And what about the future? How was he supposed to do without his constant companion and childhood friend? Alan’s departure was going to leave a gap in his life that he had not known for nigh on ten years. Being on his own and coping with what had just happened: it was almost too much to bear.
His brain felt like a wasps’ nest – a jumble of unconnected thoughts and speculation, all buzzing around, each demanding his attention. After a few minutes, he made a conscious effort to empty his mind and to try to sleep. Finally he succeeded.
Alan woke early when he heard the first signs of Auntie Mary moving about. He shook David awake and kissed him long and hard, but neither spoke as David dressed hurriedly.
Ready to go, David kissed Alan again and then found the words he wanted. “Don’t go to London. Stay with me, Al. Please?”
Alan shook his head. “I have to go, Davy, especially after this. I’ve known for a long time, you see, at least about me. I’ve got to get away from here.” He paused and then said, “You could always come with me, you know.”
David felt a stab of fear and shook his head. “Couldn’t really.”
Alan smiled sadly. David’s reaction was what he had expected: he had always been the careful one in their friendship. “Actually, you could. But I thought you wouldn’t. Now, goodbye, Davy, and good luck.”
When David got home, his mother was just getting breakfast. She was amused by his somewhat bedraggled appearance. “You had a good night, then,” she remarked.
David grinned. “Aye, we were three sheets to t’wind, so I stayed at Alan’s – I slept on the floor.”
The lie came easily and brought him up short. Why had he said that? Why had he not just said “I stayed with Alan”? It was by no means the first time he’d slept over. Was this the start of the lies and deception he would have to practise if he did turn out to be queer? He shivered at the thought.
“Do you want some breakfast?”
“No, thanks. I’ll go up and get my head down for a couple of hours, if you don’t mind.”
Once upstairs, the turmoil he had felt during the night resurfaced. Kissing Alan, going to bed with him – how could he even begin to describe how it had felt to hold Alan in his arms? Certainly no experience with a woman had come close. But then he felt a shiver of fear; what would it mean for him, stuck here in Sedgethwaite?
There was one guy at the depot, Gerry, a clerk in the office, who was quite effeminate in his behaviour and was openly gay. On the surface at least, Gerry coped quite well with the ribbing he got from his older colleagues, but there had been the odd occasion when David had noticed him wince when remarks got a bit close to the bone. The worst bit was that David was also in a position to hear what was said about Gerry behind his back, and that was not very nice at all.
He wasn’t a fool. He read the papers and watched television: he knew how much British society had always hated queers, how the police had often targeted them and hooligans bashed them up. Things had changed, obviously – the age of consent had been reduced, and discrimination was being tackled. But changing the law didn’t always change people’s minds, particularly not in a small town like Sedgethwaite. Judging by the conversations he overhead the pub and the canteen, attitudes had hardly shifted at all. Well, he certainly wasn’t getting involved with any of that.
If Alan had still been around, if they’d been able to face it together, it might have been different. But that was not going to happen – Alan was going to London. Last night had happened and couldn’t be undone. But it must not happen again.
***
The weeks following Alan’s departure flew by. Down in London, Alan found a flat and sent David a note of his new address and phone number. He spent some weeks hoping for a letter or a card in reply but received nothing. Eventually, he gave up hoping and got on with his new life.
In Sedgethwaite, David remained resolute. He made a plan and followed it through. As a result, the next time he contacted Alan was three months later when he sent him an invitation to his wedding: he was marrying Mona.
Alan did not respond.
Chapter 1
David, six years later
David Edgeley shut the front door quietly and set off down the hill. The pavements glistened with frost and he shivered slightly in the pre-dawn cold. The view from his estate was spectacular: the West Yorkshire mill town of Sedgethwaite lay stretched out in the valley below, the streetlamps blinking in the cold air. Rows of terraced houses lined the streets, which acted like tendrils, merging and flowing together down towards the vast woollen mills – many now decaying and derelict – that stood next to the river as it snaked through the landscape in the valley bottom.
David noticed the steam from his breath and hoped that old Jim, the staff bus driver, was running on time. Still shivering, he arrived at the stop and cursed himself, not for the first time, for having a daft job that meant getting up at four-thirty in the morning. Still, he would be finished by dinnertime and, if the skies stayed clear, he might get some gardening done in the afternoon. Anyway, he’d been on the buses for nearly seven years now, since he was eighteen, and he couldn’t see himself going back into a factory.
A distant growl announced that Jim was coaxing one of the older buses up the hill to the 1930s’ council estate where David lived. He glanced at his watch: only a couple of minutes late – not bad. The bus appeared around the corner, the noise of the straining engine reverberating around the houses.
“Morning, Jim.”
“Hello, David, lad. How’s tha doin’?”
“Bloody cold.”
“Aye, there is a nip this morning.”
David sat down and they set off. There were muttered greetings from the dozen passengers already aboard, closely followed by a yell from the back of the bus. “Hello, lover boy!”
“Morning, Pat,” he responded warily.
“Are you cold, then, love?”
“Aye, bloody cold.”
“Ooh, shall I come and warm you up?”
David winced. Pat Eckersley was one of company’s growing band of women drivers, a stunner in her day, who, it was rumoured, had enjoyed the favours of many of her colleagues at the depot during her long career – and quite possibly a good few passengers as well.
Despite being fairly short at five foot seven, David was solidly built with dark brown hair and boyish good looks. This meant that most of the women had mothered him since he first joined the company, but Pat had other ideas. She’d got no response, though, and resorted instead to some very bawdy banter. He was used to it now, but it had bee
n a source of acute embarrassment to him over the years, particularly in the early days of his marriage to Mona.
“Well, lover boy? I’m waiting!”
“No thanks, Pat, love. I’ll have to make do with a nice cup of Bovril today.”
There was laughter from the rest of the staff, after which they all went quiet as they tried to come to terms with the start of another day. The silence survived, apart from muttered greetings to a few newcomers, until they reached their destination.
At the depot, they all piled out and into the office to greet the depot inspector. The building, like many depots around the country, had been built in the heyday of the industry in the 1930s and little had changed since. Polished concrete floors, gloss-painted walls in institutional brown and cream, and a distinctive odour: a mix of raw diesel, exhaust fumes, hot oil and fried food. David felt at home every day as soon as he inhaled it.
“Morning, Jack.”
“Morning, young David. What are you on then?”
“First Leeds – twenty-two duty.”
“Oh, aye. Here’s your board – you’ve got 733.”
“One of the new ones. Hey, not bad!”
“Look after it, lad – they’re too bloody expensive to go buggering about with.”
“I will, don’t you worry.”
Jack Davis smiled. When you’d been a depot inspector for fifteen years, you knew who your reliable staff were. Young Edgeley had never failed for an early turn yet, and already had three safe-driving diplomas under his belt. A steady lad – the highest compliment in Jack’s vocabulary.
***
It was said of the Sedgethwaite to Leeds service that all you needed to do was run a bus up and down the road and you could it fill it at any time of the day or night. Whether or not that was true, it was certainly the best used service in the company’s network.
Even at five-thirty in the morning, there were a good twenty people waiting as David pulled onto his stand in the bus station refreshed by a quick cuppa before leaving the depot. Most of the passengers were regulars, and there were brief greetings as they bought their tickets.