Peepshow

by Clare London

  The disappointment—that Ollie wasn’t who Ken had expected—had been like a blow. But if he really thought seriously about it, what had been the chances that the man he was being set up with was actually the man he wanted? Million-to-one chance. Well, maybe not a million, because Ollie was local like the rest of them, he knew them from school, he had a job at a restaurant…. But still pretty huge odds. And Ken had taken those coincidences, added them together, and made the million-odds work in his favour.

  Robbie nudged up on the other side of him with the drinks. Ken handed them around the table, earning another warm grin from Ollie. But it was Robbie who leaned in to chat to Ken.

  “He’s not bad, is he?”

  “Ollie? No—I mean, yes. He seems like a good bloke.”

  Robbie laughed, though not as heartily as usual. “Not the geeky twat he was in school, anyway. He says his flatmate in Oxford has a couple of free tickets for that science exhibition at the Ashmolean. He’ll be happy to let me have them. Steve says he’d like to go.”

  “Look, Robbie—”

  “I know, I know, Steve and I broke up, right? But to be honest, Ken, I think there’s a chance we’ll give it another try. He was… you know… my first and everything.” Robbie shifted awkwardly on his chair, oblivious to Ken’s own distress. “It’s not like we’re student and tutor anymore. There’s no reason we shouldn’t get off together. Got a lot in common. And we know where the fuck we went wrong first time around, right? He was a tosser, I was a tosser, both of us were total bloody….” Words temporarily seemed to fail Robbie. Maybe he was trying to think of a more romantic term for a tosser.

  “No, that’s not what I meant,” Ken said. “You can go out with anyone you like.”

  “Yeah? I know we made a bloody melodrama of the whole breakup scene. Him upending that pint over my head. Me falling over that chair and smashing it. And I did apologise for you getting in the way of that punch, didn’t I?”

  “Yes,” Ken said, drily. “Several times. But if you want to go again, mine’s a double tequila, thanks.”

  Robbie snorted with laughter. “But seriously, what do you think? You don’t think I’m a—”

  “Tosser?” Ken laughed. “You like him. You always did. Go for it. But that’s not what I wanted to talk about.”

  “Yeah? What’s up?”

  But Ken never got the chance to say.

  “Ken!” Simon slapped him on the shoulder. “Ollie and I are going to Club Retro for their eighties night. Anyone else want to come?”

  “Another night, kids,” Robbie said. “I’m only here for a while. I’ve got things to see, people to do.” He was making serious inroads into his pint, apparently keen to find Steve and revive their romance as soon as possible.

  “Me neither, thanks,” Ken said. “I’ll stay here for a bit too, listen to the music.” Too bad if Si was annoyed with him not following through with Ollie, but you couldn’t force these things, could you? And Ken couldn’t help but notice that Si seemed to have dropped his ideas of matching up Ken and replaced them with a healthy interest in Ollie himself.

  “Then I hope you two don’t mind keeping my friend company for a while,” Ollie said cheerfully. “He’s a fellow serf from the restaurant trade. We used the same catering agency for a summer job. As we were both off-duty tonight and in need of a drink, I said he could meet up with us tonight. But he got held up at work and only just texted me he’s still coming. Is it okay if he joins you?”

  “Not like we bloody bite,” Robbie muttered.

  “Much,” Simon added and flushed again when Ollie laughed appreciatively.

  “He won’t want to come to the club with me and Si. He’s not into eighties music. I must admit, he prefers this kind of live acoustic stuff. Like you, Ken.”

  “Sure. Um…. Where is he?”

  Ollie gave a dismissive wave. He was keen to get going. “Somewhere around, I think—oh yes, look, there he is, just coming into the pub. Maybe see you all at the club later if you change your mind?” Ollie grabbed his jacket and nodded a distracted goodbye to Ken and Robbie. “Actually, I think you’ll probably remember him from school. Hang on, Si, yes, I’m coming.”

  Simon and Ollie sank into the crowd of customers around the stage, finding a route through to the exit. Ken had barely had time to think about turning back to watch the next singer when a young man approached their table, carrying a fresh pint.

  I think you’ll probably remember him from school.

  Ken stared. He put his own glass onto the table with exaggerated care, because he thought it might fall through his nerveless fingers.

  “It’s Jimmy! Jimmy Evans.” Robbie whistled through his teeth and clapped the man on the shoulder. “God, haven’t seen you for bloody years. Where have you been?”

  Jimmy Evans grinned, showing a healthy set of white teeth. He ran a hand through his thick dark hair, and his sparkling eyes caught the spotlight from the stage. “I’ve been in the States, working my way as a bartender. Went there almost straight from school. Always knew I wasn’t going to be an academic, eh?”

  Robbie laughed. He and Jimmy had been a couple of the most frequent visitors to detention for unfinished homework. They’d both preferred sport to study in any kind of poll. “Sounds bloody marvellous. How long are you back in town?”

  Jimmy shrugged. For the first time, he looked awkward. “Dad’s dementia is much worse and he’s getting frail, so I’m back permanently for the time being. My sister’s off to uni herself soon, and my brother can’t cope on his own. I met Ollie in town, and he recommended the catering agency for getting a job. Now I’m working at the bistro by the designer menswear store. You know it?”

  Ken couldn’t help slopping some beer on the table. His hand was shaking of its own accord.

  “Yeah, I know it.” Robbie was happily oblivious of Ken’s discomfort. “Well, you look bloody good on it. Still working out?”

  Jimmy grinned and flushed. He stretched his lean body a little self-consciously. “Just working hard. I played some sport while I was away, but I haven’t had time to set anything up here. I’m just settling in at home and looking after Dad.”

  Robbie nodded, then tipped and drained his beer. “Well, I’m off to see an ex about some sex, if you’ll pardon the phrase. You’ll have to make do with the goldfish here.”

  Jimmy’s gaze darted to Ken’s face, then away again. His grin faded to a gentle smile.

  Ken frowned at Robbie. “Do you mean me?”

  Robbie laughed loudly. “Ken, you look like someone disconnected your jaw. Gaping away like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “Leave it,” Ken said. His mouth felt dry. He couldn’t mistake the look of mischief on Robbie’s face.

  “Works for me,” Robbie said as he turned away to leave the pub, still laughing.

  THINGS WERE awkward for a few seconds. The female singer had given way to a male combo whose harmonies didn’t really work well enough, but that didn’t stop them from trying the whole back catalogue of the Beatles—the psychedelic years. Ken stared down at his pint, the very last place he wanted to be looking, but the only one he felt was safe.

  Jimmy cleared his throat. “Well,” he said finally. “Here we are.”

  Ken took a sneaky look at him out of the corner of his eye. Jimmy was exactly the same as he remembered—in all the best ways. He was still good-looking in a rangy, relaxed way. At least, he was to Ken. Jimmy had never been one to follow fashion or worry about his looks. But whether it was because he’d been good at sports, or from a natural confidence, he always looked perfectly comfortable with his own body. It had been that way all through the gangly teenage years of spots and hairiness and limbs seeming to grow at the wrong rates. Jimmy was very laid-back, whatever happened. It was charming. It gave him his own kind of charisma. Or was Ken projecting his school-day crush onto the grown man?

  Jimmy had flopped down on the seat beside Ken, and his knee was pressing against Ken’s under the table. Ken took a deep sw
allow of his beer and knew he couldn’t have said if the combo on stage had been playing Sergeant Pepper or Black Sabbath. Every nerve he possessed was alive to the other man.

  “Okay.” Ken decided he might as well be the one to poke the elephant awake—the one in the room, that was. “So it’s been you in the yard behind the bistro.” He let his voice lift at the end as if he were asking a question, but let’s face it, they both knew the answer.

  Jimmy nodded.

  “And you know I’ve been watching you.”

  Jimmy Evans—aka Waiter—smiled. It wasn’t a smirk like Si’s, or Robbie’s hearty grin. It was a smile of pleasure and interest and hardly any embarrassment. Ken felt a warm shiver through his body from neck to toes, with an extra rest stop at the groin area.

  “Yeah, I know you have. And you know I’ve been….”

  Ken raised an eyebrow.

  Jimmy had the grace to blush even as he burst out laughing. “I’m sorry, Ken. Was it really gross?”

  Hell, no. “It was risky,” Ken said. “I’m not on the cameras every night, you know.”

  Jimmy’s eyes glittered, a look Ken would have recognised by now in complete darkness, let alone a crowded pub. “Not so risky. Ollie’s been talking about you and your mates ever since he met up again with Si. He filled me in on what you were all doing, almost daily.”

  “Including my shifts? How did he know—” The answer—Simon gossiping—came to Ken’s mind even as he asked. “So, you were….” What could he say? What was this all about? “Communicating with us?”

  “You,” Jimmy said, quickly. “I was just… well. Communicating, yes. But specifically you.” He rubbed his palm a couple of times on the table. His fingers strayed closer to Ken’s hand, as if he wanted to take hold of it but wasn’t sure what reception he’d get. “I know how long I’ve been away, and I wasn’t sure what the situation was like back here.”

  “Situation?”

  Jimmy pursed his lips. “You know. If you were… seeing someone.”

  Ken didn’t reply, but it was as if someone had turned up his internal central heating.

  “Ollie said he was looking up old school friends, but I didn’t know who was still knocking around with whom, or if you’d remember me. So I thought I’d test out the water first.”

  “Through CCTV? Wasn’t that a bit weird?” The whole thing had been bloody bizarre. “You already had Ollie’s number. What’s wrong with arranging a pizza and a beer with us all, like anyone else would do?”

  “Shit.” Jimmy scowled. “Don’t make me feel an arse. I wasn’t interested in Ollie or Simon.”

  “I don’t know what you—”

  “You, Ken. I was hoping to get in contact with you. It was all… just for you.”

  “Me.” Ken swallowed. His mouth seemed very dry. Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker! His self-esteem was mounting in a very satisfactory way, even if he couldn’t help wondering what the hell would have happened if Suzie had been on duty, instead of him, the night Waiter slid his hand down the front of his trousers and started playing with himself.

  “Look, I was going to confess. It was just a joke to start with,” Jimmy said. “I… is that why you’re smiling?”

  Ken bit his lip. “Ignore me.” He met Jimmy’s gaze fully now. Jimmy had a slight tan, and Ken wondered if it was all over. Had anyone mentioned where in America Jimmy was bartending? Ken’s memory conjured up the picture of Tom Cruise in Cocktail bouncing the spirit bottles behind the bar; then it morphed into Jimmy grinning at everyone—maybe at Ken specifically?—after cricket each week. Ken felt flustered, and it wasn’t just because the pub was getting crowded. “So, Jimmy,” he said, thinking it was his turn to do some teasing. “It was a hell of an icebreaker. You’re into the whole exhibitionism thing in a big way now?”

  Jimmy was startled. “No! I mean… yes. Maybe. It may have been a laugh at the beginning, pretending to flirt with the camera. But then I got a real buzz knowing you’d be watching me—” He caught sight of the look on Ken’s face and broke into rueful laughter. “Joke? Yeah, you got me.”

  Tell us about it, Janet. “I think it was a bloody crazy thing to do.”

  “But it didn’t gross you out.”

  “Huh?”

  Jimmy took a sip of beer. There was a twinkle of mischief back in his eye. “You didn’t say it had grossed you out. So what else?”

  “What else… what?”

  “What did you really think?” Jimmy persisted. “Tell me the truth, please.”

  “Me? I felt… embarrassed. Okay, a bit excited.” A perv, Ken thought but didn’t say. It made him smile now rather than horrifying him. A very amateur perv, really.

  “I always liked you, you know.” Then Jimmy groaned. “Sorry. That’s the most disgusting, cheesy line, isn’t it? But I did. At school, especially in cricket training. Your trousers were too bloody tight.”

  “God.” Ken shook his head, mortified. “Mum insisted I got another year out of them. It wasn’t like I could wear them out anywhere else—”

  “They were really hot,” Jimmy said quietly. “I was trying to keep the whole gay thing quiet at first. Then I started getting a boner every session.”

  Ken opened his mouth to confess the same, caught Jimmy’s questioning look, and they both laughed.

  “I came out properly then,” Jimmy said. “Wasn’t going to spend the end of my school career pretending I was something else. I joined the LGBT Club and just hoped you would too.”

  “I did.”

  Jimmy nodded. “You did. And the boner got much more frequent.”

  Ken laughed again. “But why didn’t you say something? Didn’t you wonder why I was always the last one to leave the changing room?”

  “And I was the second last?” Jimmy shook his head. “God, I was thick as a brick then, wasn’t I? I just didn’t know how those things went. I’d had the piss taken out of me for years about not going out with girls. I wasn’t about to get beaten up for chasing after a boy.” He looked across at Ken with a rueful expression. “My time away gave me a chance to grow up. That’s when I realised you probably had been interested, and I’d… missed my chance.”

  “Bloody hell.” Ken sighed. “We’re as bad as each other. I didn’t know what to do either. Just moped around places where I’d catch sight of you. Robbie mocked me about it for years. Still does, actually, even now we’ve left school.”

  “And then I went abroad.”

  “Yes,” Ken said. They were quiet for a moment, though the noise in the pub swelled around them. He drained his pint, wondering whether to offer another or suggest they move on somewhere else. When he turned back to face Jimmy, they both started talking together.

  “You want to go and eat—?”

  “Ken, what about another chance—?”

  Ken laughed and Jimmy joined in. Ken enjoyed seeing that broad grin again, the way Jimmy’s nose crinkled when he laughed, the way he threw his head back. In the background, Ken heard the set change again, for a combo playing heavy reggae music. He nudged Jimmy’s arm. “Let’s go.”

  They grabbed their coats and squeezed out of the now crowded pub onto the quieter and cooler pavement. They went for a kebab and sat on a park bench by the riverside to eat it. The evening was warm enough, and Ken was pleased it gave them the chance to chat. He was fascinated to hear about Jimmy’s time in the USA and didn’t feel his stories of life in suburban London bore any comparison, but Jimmy listened intently. Ken chatted about his family, about the CCTV job and his fellow watchers, about his plans for the future. Jimmy asked questions and laughed in all the right places. Yes, Ken thought, a very good sense of humour, and kind with it. My mama always said, life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you gonna get.

  “You know Ollie’s no longer in the market for a blind date?” Jimmy said through a mouthful of salad.

  “I guessed as much from the way Si was hanging on his every word. Are they an item now?”

  Jimmy chuckled. “Yeah, o
r soon will be. They were thick as thieves from the minute they met up again. It was only a matter of time before they realised they were hot for each other too. I was watching them as they left the pub tonight, heads together, giggling and nudging up against each other. It wasn’t so much a case of ‘get a room’ as ‘get a room, bed, and matching duvet set.’ They’re a couple in the making, all right.”

  Ken liked the way Jimmy joked about their friends, but in a gentle, amusing way. “Hopefully it’ll keep Si off my back with his matchmaking now.”

  Jimmy looked at him sideways, his lids heavy like they had been on camera. “Are you sorry?”

  “Stop fishing,” Ken retorted. After all, wasn’t he meant to play harder to get? But as Jimmy’s hand rested briefly on his, he knew he wasn’t going to bother with that.

  It wasn’t a tremendously romantic start to a date that had been two years in the fermenting, but Ken didn’t think he minded. Music from a nearby pub played faintly in the distance, a soundtrack to the lap of water, an occasional quack as the ducks gathered against the bank for the night, and the rhythmic swoosh of traffic on the other side of the river. A group of half-drunk students passed them, calling to each other, playing football on the grass outside with a squashed beer can—at least, until someone lobbed a high free kick into the river. They moved on, and the air grew still and cooler. Jimmy’s voice was attractive, his laugh infectious. They’d bought some cans of beer from the late-night supermarket and opened a couple of them to toast the kebab. Like a couple of old winos, Ken protested. Jimmy just kept grinning. And when he reached over to wipe some froth off Ken’s top lip, Ken met the distance between them and kissed him.

  Jimmy’s tongue was hot and eager, and Ken let it into his mouth just as enthusiastically. The bench they’d chosen was set a few yards back, just off the main pedestrian path. No one else passed them for a long while, and they couldn’t be overlooked from the pub. Ken wriggled into a half-prone position, pulling Jimmy along with him. They were enthusiastic but quiet as they made out, apart from a couple of snorting laughs, and Ken daringly slid his hand down the back of Jimmy’s jeans. Jimmy arched against him like a cat. His hot breath panted against Ken’s neck.