by Anna Martin
George ran upstairs to take a leak, not wanting to wait for everyone else to finish downstairs, then moseyed into the kitchen to make a cup of tea. Jodie was sitting on the counter, next to Lauren the lezzie from next door, and waving her cigarette around demonstratively. The TV in the kitchen was fairly small, and George didn’t know where it came from, but they left it playing the Sky News channel as background noise most of the time.
George made his tea, dumped the teabag in the sink, and was turning to go back into the dining room when something caught his eye.
“Who’s that?” he demanded.
Lauren smirked at him. He normally got on with her all right, for a lesbian, even better when she was keeping Jodie out of his hair. “What the fuck are you on about, George?”
“That.”
He was annoyed the TV wasn’t on in the living room; they were using it as one of the big screens, so it wasn’t hooked up to Sky like usual. That meant he couldn’t rewind and watch the news story from the beginning.
“I dunno,” Lauren said. “Looks like the Portrait Gallery. You know, down on Prince’s Street.”
George nodded and sipped his tea, frowning hard.
The names flashed up again at the bottom of the screen, and he almost dropped the mug.
“Fuck me,” he breathed.
“What?” Jodie asked, then huffed in annoyance.
George ignored her. In the red banner, there was his name. Alexander van Amsberg.
From behind him, Jodie turned the volume up to catch the last of the story.
“So what?” she demanded when it was over. “Some new exhibition. You’re being really fucking spastic, Georgie.”
“Fuck you, twat breath,” George said, and walked out of the room at a normal speed.
Alexander van Amsberg. He hadn’t exchanged last names with a hookup ever, so it wasn’t like he should know Alex’s whole name or its significance. The name bounced around his head, along with the title that went with it. Prince of the Netherlands.
Holy shit.
He’d fucked royalty.
Almost a week later, George had spent about twelve hours solid online, researching—yes, researching, not stalking—Alexander van Amsberg.
Alex was the nephew of the current king, making him fifth in line to the throne. The news article George had caught the tail end of, then followed up on online, confirmed that Alex was a postgraduate student studying architecture at Edinburgh University. His family had loaned some paintings for a new exhibition, and they had come to visit it… and that was about all George cared about. He wasn’t really a big fan of art, or architecture for that matter, and details about his European prince were frustratingly sparse.
Of course he found the article where Alex came out. It was classy, George had to admit. Alex had opted for The Observer, a Sunday broadsheet, and talked in frank terms with the interviewer about his nationality, his studies, living in London, his politics and favourite bands, all alongside the topic of his sexuality. Despite that being the headline—“Prince of the Netherlands Talks Exclusively to The Observer About Being Gay”—it took up a relatively small proportion of the article.
That article was a few years out of date, and George hadn’t been able to find anything more recent. That didn’t mean Alex wasn’t dominating his thoughts when he left the house and got into his car, preparing to brave the Saturday morning traffic to drive the four hours back to Manchester.
In and among all of his research, George had realised he had no intention of telling anyone about his encounter with Alex. Though George had certain intimate details on the prince that he was sure a tabloid newspaper would be interested in, it didn’t feel right. Alex hadn’t treated it like anything more than a casual hookup, hadn’t treated George like anything other than a normal guy. He hadn’t asked George to sign a nondisclosure before they got down to it. There was a circle of trust instead. George didn’t want to break it.
And, of course, in order to sell the story, he’d have to be prepared to come out himself. That was still a slightly touchy topic, and he was far happier skirting around it than addressing it directly.
He didn’t make many trips back home to Manchester, partly for that reason. It had been almost too easy to leave the city he’d grown up in when a job opportunity had come up in the Scottish capital. It turned out Edinburgh was just the right sort of place for him. Manchester had never really fit. He had good reasons to come back, though. His grandmother was one of them.
George stepped out of his car, slammed the door, and stretched.
It was raining here, a light, misty rain that stuck to his face and eyelashes. It had been torrential in Edinburgh, but the four-hour drive had seen the climate outside change, even if it wasn’t that dramatic. It felt warmer here, too, but George thought that might be his imagination.
Before he even made his way to his parents’ house, George stopped in to see his nan in the flat she’d lived in for as long as he could remember. It was a nice place, not one of those horrible old people’s homes, but a block that had a warden who checked in on the residents occasionally. There was a social area downstairs too, and George often told his nan that she had a better social life than he did.
He walked around the car and grabbed the box of Turkish delight from the passenger seat, then locked his old VW Golf. He’d owned the car for a few years now, and it was one of the loves of his life. His dad had bought the thing after some boy racer nearly busted the entire thing up, and they’d lovingly restored it over many weekends.
George waved at the warden as he passed the reception desk. She waved back, familiar enough with his nan’s family to not ask for his ID. They all visited fairly regularly.
Nan lived on the third floor of the building, so he took the stairs to make sure the lift was free for people who needed it. Her little flat was at the back of the building, looking out over the garden and the line of neat allotments that the residents took charge of. It really was a nice place.
She had the door open by the time he walked down the corridor.
“That you, George?” she called out.
“Yeah, it’s me, Nan.”
He quickened his pace so she could see him better. Nan’s eyes weren’t so great.
“Look at you,” she said as he leaned down to press a kiss to her cheek and press the Turkish delight into her hands. “All smart.”
He was wearing a black polo shirt and dark blue jeans. Not so smart, but most of the time his brother wore tracksuits, so in comparison….
“I try,” he said, then shut the door behind them.
“Not bringing some young lad home this time, then?” Nan asked, making her way through to the kitchen to put the kettle on.
“No, Nan,” he said with a laugh. “Not this time.”
“Not got a boyfriend?”
George ran his hand over his buzzed short hair, then slowly shook his head. His nan had taken the news of his coming out in her stride, hadn’t cared at all. George had told his mum and dad, older brother, and nan. That was it. Nan was important—he wanted her to know as much as the others. She had been a big influence on his life, his Granddad too, before he passed away. It didn’t feel right to tell the others and not her.
“Not yet,” he said, then went to sit down at the table.
Half an hour later, he made the second cup of tea while his nan broke open a new packet of biscuits for the tin. George didn’t mind spending time with her. It wasn’t like this was a chore—he wanted to be here.
“Have you had the decorators in?” he asked, looking around the living room. The previous hideous floral wallpaper had been replaced with a new hideous floral wallpaper, and the smell of paint still lingered in the air.
“Ooh, yes,” she said, apparently pleased that he’d noticed. “Me and Sal from across the hall got some very nice boys in. They did both our living rooms at the same time. What do you think?”
“Very nice.”
“Your dad recommended them, you know
. Apparently they’re Maggie’s friends. One of them was Polish, but he worked proper hard, like the rest of them.”
George was used to this casual racism and no longer bothered to correct it. His nan still called him “queer” and never gave a thought to whether or not he might find it offensive. She’d talk about “darkies” and “dirty Arabs” and “spastics,” and what could he do? The woman was pushing eighty; she was a product of her generation and correcting her only upset her.
“You going back to your mum’s tonight, then?”
“I think so, yeah. I texted Dan—you remember Dan? We were at school together—to see if he’s around, but he hasn’t text back yet. I think he’s at work today.”
“Dan’s the one with the young’un, isn’t he?”
“That’s right. Alfie.”
“Alfie.” His nan sighed. “I used to go out with an Alfie, you know that? It’s funny how all the names come round again.”
“True.”
“Emma came over the other day, with the babby,” Nan said, ushering them back to the living room with the refreshed biscuit tin. Emma was one of George’s sisters. She’d been fifteen when she fell pregnant, and the baby was born a few days after her sixteenth birthday. Now George’s mum looked after the baby when Emma was doing her exams, and Emma had moved from one of the small bedrooms to a bigger one, where there was room for the crib.
“Yeah? How is she?”
“She’s okay. Said she’s going to go do a course in hairdressing at the polytechnic when she finishes her exams.”
“The college?” George asked, amused.
“Aye, that’s it, the college. Said she’s going to be a hairdresser and get a flat and set up for herself and Lily-Rose.”
“That’ll be nice.”
“That useless boy still around?” Nan demanded.
“I have no idea,” George said honestly, kicking one ankle over his knee and sipping his tea. “I haven’t seen them in a few months, Nan.”
“Well, you ask,” she said. “Lord knows they only get upset when I do. All I said was that it’s his responsibility to take care of the babby and Emma. And if he won’t step up, then his parents should.”
“You know what it’s like on the estate,” George said, shaking his head. “Emma’s not the first to get herself knocked up at her age, nor will she be the last.”
His nan harrumphed. “Doris Lansdown, on the fourth floor, her granddaughter was thirteen. Thirteen, George. Don’t know what the world’s coming to, I don’t. Babies having babies and losing it all. Look at you. World at your feet. You didn’t go messing around with girls when you were that age.”
“I wasn’t interested in girls at that age,” George said, amused. He sipped his tea again. “I wasn’t interested in much apart from football.”
“Too true. You going tomorrow?”
“If I can convince either Dad or Maggie to let me have their season ticket, yeah.”
“Good luck with that,” she chuckled. “That Van Gaal”—she butchered the name—“has a lot to answer for, if you ask me.”
“He’s turned it around since last season.”
She harrumphed again. “Long way to go. I did like Alex Ferguson. Was sad to see the back of him.”
“Weren’t we all.”
George stayed until the tea was gone, gossiping with his nan like he was one of the ladies from across the hall, then kissed her on the cheek before heading back to the car. The rain had eased off now, and he made the short journey round to his mum’s house on autopilot, knowing this route like it was threaded through the very fabric of his brain.
The house he’d grown up in sat in the grey area between the notorious Manchester area of Moss Side, and the slightly—slightly—more respectable area of Chorlton. The red brick was pretty standard for the area, and there was a patchy front garden left where most houses had paved over their own garden space to create a driveway.
George parked up the road, since there were no spaces in front of the house, then jogged down to his mum’s with his sports bag thrown over his shoulder. The two tiny bikes abandoned in the front garden told him his youngest sisters weren’t far away.
Even though he’d moved out, George still had his house key and let himself in through the front door.
“Mum!” he yelled. “I’m home.”
She appeared in the doorway to the kitchen, which hadn’t had a door in it since George was six and Caroline was born, and grinned at him.
George’s mum was short, only five feet four, and slim. For as long as George could remember, she’d been on a diet, living off Cup-a-Soup and coffee. Her dark hair was tucked around her ears, and her makeup was neatly done, framing her features. She wore tight-fitting jeans, enormous novelty elephant slippers, and a black T-shirt and chunky grey cardigan.
“Hey, baby,” she said and practically threw herself into the hug.
George laid his head on her shoulder and smiled, and held on to his mother as tight as he could.
A few hours later, George had played with his youngest sisters until one of them—Felicity—actually threw up from laughing so much. She was only four, and George was still laughing with her as he carried her up the stairs and found a fresh, clean T-shirt. He messed about with the kids when he came home, throwing them around, making forts, hiding stuff, making them scream, generally wearing them out so they went to sleep for his mum later.
The youngest five kids, plus Emma’s daughter, still lived at home, sharing three bedrooms while his parents slept in what was supposed to be a dining room. They didn’t need a dining room, though, because they’d built a conservatory on the back of the house and the huge old dining table went in there.
“What time is Dad getting home?” George asked as he jogged back down the stairs with Felicity on his hip. She was pulling at his collar, and he didn’t care at all.
“Should be done by five,” she said. “Do you want to help ice these cakes?”
“I dunno.” He turned to Felicity. “You wanna ice cakes?”
“Yeah!”
“I guess so,” he said, carefully picking his way through the kitchen.
Since Caroline, the eldest Maguire sister, had moved out for uni, his mum didn’t have the same amount of help around the house. With five kids plus a baby, the house was often a mess. It had always been that way, though, even back when it was just George and his brother at home. Before all the girls turned up.
George set Felicity on a chair that had been pushed up to the counter and gave her a preloaded bag of icing, then hoisted himself up onto the kitchen counter to watch the carnage unfold. His mum had always been good at this sort of thing: baking cakes, sewing clothes, making amazing roast dinners—proper mum stuff. He watched as she picked a chocolate fairy cake from the rack, delicately iced it with a swirl of chocolate, then handed it to George.
“Thanks, Mum,” he said with a grin.
“So, you going out with anyone?” she asked, turning back to the girls, who were spilling sprinkles all over the counter.
“No,” he said, rolling his eyes. He carefully peeled back the wrapper, then took a big bite of the cake. “Itsh good,” he told her with his mouth still full.
“I’m just interested,” Mum said, holding her hands up in surrender. “You know I worry about you.”
“Worry about me not getting any? You’re too kind.”
She laughed. “I’m sorry. I’ll stay out of it.”
“Nan gave me a grilling,” George said.
“About not bringing a nice… person home?” She amended her words at the last moment. George hadn’t come out to the youngest kids yet. He wasn’t sure they’d understand, and he didn’t want to be the one to explain the concept of sexuality to them.
“Yes, about bringing a nice person home,” he echoed. “I don’t mind. She cares.”
“I care too!” his mum protested.
“I know you do.”
“Mum!” Felicity yelled, far louder than necessary, consider
ing her mother was standing two paces away.
“What?” Mum yelled back at the same volume, making George laugh.
“I think I did it wrong.”
When she turned around, Felicity had chocolate icing all around her mouth, and George laughed harder. It was good to be home.
Six months later
March in Edinburgh meant weak sunshine and plenty of rain.
This year it also meant humidity that the city didn’t often experience due her proximity to whipping sea winds. George hated the humidity. It stuck his shirt to his skin and turned the bow tie he was wearing into a noose that he was itching to loosen.
Speaking of itching… George had made a few mistakes in his life. He was a man, he could own up to that.
Buying a tux from ASDA was one of those mistakes.
The reasoning behind his purchase had been sound: he’d never worn a tux in the previous twenty-eight years of his life and had no intention of doing so again in the near future. His income was precious and limited, and the budget supermarket was doing an offer for a whole suit for less than fifty quid.
Two hours into the charity gala his boss had forced him to attend, George was regretting being such a cheapskate.
His day job had only the loosest connection to the fundraising that was going on for some children’s charity that was promoting healthy eating and exercise in Scottish kids. It was the Olympic connection that had drawn his boss in, since they’d had several gold medal winners endorsing the company in London, and they were hoping for even more in Rio.
George never thought of his job as particularly sexy, though it was something he loved. He was a sports engineer, designing and building protective clothing used in a variety of sports.
He sidestepped Tony from accounts, turned his back, and snagged another glass of champagne from a passing waiter. He’d pay for it in the morning, but it was the only free alcohol going, and George definitely needed alcohol to get through this evening.