Between a Rock and a Hard Place

by Clare London

  “And pulling down their pants in the supermarket? Wow.” Will chuckled.

  “The story about adopting the abandoned puppies was sort of cute….”

  “But not putting them in the baby’s cot! Not when they found out about the fleas, anyway.”

  Garry smiled ruefully. “Nothing but trouble, eh? Pooping and pissing babies, yelling and crying. Scrawny, slippery little toddlers, running amok, never sleeping through the night, smashing windows with footballs, drawing zoo animals on the bottom of the bath with permanent marker. Teenagers, just as bad, climbing trees, ripping clothes, smoking a whole pack of cigs then vomiting over the sofa….”

  Will was peering at him, an amused look on his face. “Um. So who did all that?”

  “I have three brothers, man.”

  “Yeah?”

  Garry scowled. “Okay, so mainly me.”

  Will chuckled again. “But I guess it’s different when they’re your own.” He didn’t look as disgusted as he had before.

  “How so? Just think—” Garry clamped his mouth shut.

  “Think what?”

  What kind of kid we’d create if it were possible. Garry couldn’t finish that sentence. He’d started it as a joke, but suddenly it felt like something different. Something that prompted a painful, emotional tweak in his chest.

  “Mini-mes,” Will continued, his eyes still on Garry, his thigh all but nudging Garry’s. “Mini-yous. Would that be so bad?”

  Garry changed the subject, pretty smartish.

  “YOU WANT one?” The little girl in the airport held out something to Garry that looked sticky and totally unappealing, vibrantly pink and green and in the shape of a heart. New sprinkles of sugar whispered off it onto their knees.

  Garry pursed his lips. He had a barely irresistible urge to brush off the white crystals as if they’d rot like poison through his jeans. “No thanks. I already ate.”

  “When?”

  He stared at her. Who did she think she was, his mother? “When I got here.”

  “You’ll need more than that,” she said bluntly. “The Delay is twelve hours now.” Her tone dignified it with capital letters, like it was some kind of alien monster, a Harbinger of Armageddon, a Premonition of Global Doom.

  Now she had him doing it, even in private. For a second he thought he might still be asleep and dreaming he was in a late-night version of The Twilight Zone. But his back and his toes were still hurting, so it looked like he was awake. Damn shame.

  “You should be with your parents,” he said, just as bluntly.

  But she didn’t seem disturbed. She put a red-and-yellow heart into her mouth and wiped her sticky fingers down her T-shirt. It proved that at least the red stain wasn’t blood. Garry wondered at what point he’d even considered that might be the case.

  “You’re grumpy,” she said. “Just like Mum.”

  “Huh?” One thing Garry did know about kids was that, if you encouraged them, they stuck like glue. Or like particularly revolting sweets. All he had to do was stifle any conversation and then, in a minute, she’d get bored of him and wander off again.

  “I’ll stay here for a while.” She patted her lap with determination. A sparkling cloud of sugar floated a few inches off the fabric, then settled back down again. Garry thought some of it might have got stuck up his nose—every time he moved he could smell the cloying sweetness anew. “Mum and Dad aren’t smiling. My uncle sent me to get some sweets.”

  Garry looked around, a little warily. Surely there’d be a couple seated somewhere close, watching their child fondly? Or they’d be walking over to her, calling her back to join them. Or they’d be running back and forth through the airport lounge, weeping and screaming for their kidnapped child, followed by armed police.

  He couldn’t see anyone taking any notice of them at all.

  “So where are they, your parents? They’ll be worrying about you. Won’t they?”

  She shrugged. A small bubble of orange popped at the side of her petite little mouth, and she giggled softly. “Unc said I should get sweets and Dad didn’t say no because he was all red in the face. Mum said I was to go off and skip.”

  Garry stared at the blonde head and re-examined the carefully pronounced words. Go off and skip? None of it made sense. Was it some new street-speak? Was it meant to make sense?

  Then another small but equally clear voice broke in. “What she means is, Mum told her to take a running jump. They were arguing about the Delay. Dad gets very tense with Delays.”

  Garry spun around to examine the speaker. When did someone arrive on his other side too? He stared into clear air, then dropped his gaze down several inches. It was another small person; a boy this time.

  “Best we keep out of the way for a while,” the boy said, very solemnly. He was just like the girl, though he looked older. Same blond hair, same blue eyes. A lot less mess on his face but, in place of it, his mouth was twisted into a very sour look. He sat rather primly on the seat, dressed in smart jeans and a denim shirt, his feet swinging slightly above the floor. A Game Boy was on his lap, his fingers still hovering over it as if he’d only just paused play.

  “So?” asked Garry. Your point is? His head was starting to hurt.

  The boy frowned at him. “Well, obviously we’ll stay here for a while until they calm down. They’re always like this when we fly.” He glared over Garry’s lap at the girl. “She should know that.”

  “Mum has men strudel,” the girl said, oblivious to the boy’s interruption. Another sweet vanished into her surprisingly capacious mouth.

  Garry’s imagination toyed with visions of a rather exotic cannibalistic dish.

  “She means menstrual. Mum gets like this every month. My sister doesn’t understand.” The boy rolled his eyes and spoke very gravely. “She’s only seven. She gets her words wrong all the time.”

  Garry looked from one to the other and felt his own eyes roll. Fuck, he thought, though he didn’t dare say it aloud. They were like a pair of matching bookends. Where was the sign on these empty seats that said Weirdos, sit here?

  The girl finished her last sweet and brushed the sugar coating off her skirt onto the floor below. And onto Garry’s boots, and his bag, tucked halfway underneath his chair. It was like a thin fall of sticky snow. “I’m glad you’ve woken up,” she said, her face creasing in a particularly beautiful smile. “You were snoring.”

  “I don’t snore!”

  “I had to turn up the volume on my Game Boy,” the boy added, nodding.

  Garry was being attacked in stereo. “You can move on if you don’t like it,” he said, rather rudely. “In fact, why don’t you—” But at the last minute, he paused, unable to find a suitably withering comment that didn’t involve references to adult sexual practices.

  The girl peered at Garry curiously, then over to her brother. He was peering at Garry too.

  “Let’s get some food!” she cried, brightly. “I’m starving!”

  SOMETIME LATER, the three of them were still sitting together, now sharing two large portions of fries and some ketchup. The boy had gone to buy them—with Garry’s money—and then the girl shared out the napkins to each of them. Her little hands were very precise as she laid the flimsy paper across her lap. It stuck immediately to the sugar trails on her skirt, tearing selected patches of paper off and adding to the mess on her clothes.

  Garry wisely kept his own napkin in his hand. He asked their names—it seemed only polite, after all, they were sharing a meal—and caught the quick glance they gave each other.

  “I’m Max,” said the boy. “She’s Emily. We won’t tell you our surname.”

  “That’s okay.” Garry wasn’t keen on hearing their life history, to be honest, but he was pleased to see they had some awareness of personal safety. “I’m Garry.”

  “Garr-eee.” The girl giggled. The boy glared at her.

  Garry surreptitiously counted the change that the boy had brought back and wondered when they’d quadrupled the p
rice of fries.

  He looked back to find Max glaring at him, obviously fully aware of what he was doing.

  “It’s the airport prices, you know,” Max snapped, in mimicry of a much older—and less tolerant—man. “Their markup is disgraceful.”

  Garry suspected Max had heard his father say it many a time.

  Emily was squeezing out some ketchup onto her napkin, or what was left of it. She held the tip of her tongue between her small teeth as she concentrated. “Dad says they’re parachutes.”

  A slight flicker of fear about flying shivered through Garry. Parachutes…?

  “She means parasites,” Max said. “He calls them commercial parasites.”

  Garry’s nervousness subsided. It was replaced instead by the feeling of a slightly unbalanced rollercoaster ride.

  “Did you tell anyone where you were?” he asked more sharply. He still hadn’t seen any sign of doting parents and the kids seemed unable to answer his questions on their whereabouts. Or maybe it was unwillingness. He knew enough about human nature—and remembered when he was younger, and used to skip both home and school with alarming frequency—to suspect they were reluctant to go back at the moment. But he thought he should continue to ask.

  Max scooped fries onto a comic book that he’d carefully unfolded and balanced across his lap. The X-Men had a dusting of salt all over their spandex suits. The boy—who, in Garry’s opinion, didn’t look like the kind of kid who’d have time for the fantastical melodrama of comic superheroes—nodded dismissively. “They know where we are.”

  “So shouldn’t you go back?”

  Max rolled his eyes again in a gesture that was alarmingly like one of Garry’s own. “I’m ten, you know. I can look after us both.”

  “He’s my garden ant,” Emily chipped in, stabbing with a fry at the ketchup dripping off the hem of her skirt. Garry watched a blob fall onto the slightly open zip of his bag, just at the same time as another blob from the end of her fry spattered onto his thigh. There were quite a few stains already on his clothes from the impromptu snack. He suspected there’d be more before the day was out.

  “Guardian,” Max translated again, even with his mouth full. “Unc says I’m to be her guardian while he sorts out Mum and Dad. He’s good at sorting them out. When they listen to him.” He looked up at Garry with a wide, sceptical gaze. “Adults don’t always listen very carefully.”

  Garry wasn’t sure if he was being included in that appraisal. Anyway, he didn’t think the kid expected any kind of a reply. That was another thing about children, in his experience—they didn’t recognise any wisdom but their own.

  He felt slightly dizzy. The scenario was increasingly surreal; he might have been right in the first place, with his suspicion of The Twilight Zone. But in the meantime, the fries tasted good, and he hadn’t realised how hungry he was. He rummaged for another mouthful.

  “Don’t take them all!” Max snapped.

  “I got the longest one!” Emily cried, waving a pale, dripping fry in the air.

  Garry bit back a sigh and resigned himself to eat the crinkled scraps in the bottom of the box.

  “There’s ice cream at the kiosk too,” Emily said quietly.

  Garry turned to her, ready to protest. Her eyes were wide and very blue, and his words caught in his throat. It hadn’t exactly been a request or begging. She’d only been making a statement, after all. But there was a tremor to her voice and a flicker of moisture in her eye that quite moved him. And had him reaching for his wallet again.

  Another thing he understood about kids; they didn’t play by the same rules. He admired Emily’s manipulative skills. She’d be good in senior management one day.

  He wondered what the hell the rest of her family was like.

  GARRY SAT back and drew breath. Last he’d seen of the children, they were running towards the food outlets, on the quest for ice cream. That was at least fifteen minutes ago, and they hadn’t come back. He sent up thanks to an unknown deity for the blessedly easy distraction of small humans. Then he rearranged his luggage under his seat, ignoring the small red spots of ketchup on the pale leather, and did some modest stretching exercises to keep his muscles from locking. There was a lump of solidified food caught in his cuff and he picked half-heartedly at it, but it’d need a stronger will than his own to shift it. Never mind. He sighed and cast a look around.

  People were still arriving at the airport, but at a slower rate. The message about the delays had obviously got through. There were bitter complaints—he saw plenty of airport staff flinching from the anger of inconvenienced passengers and families hoping to collect their loved ones. Other airport workers were bringing around trolleys of hot drinks and sandwiches, and an enterprising soul from one of the shopping outlets was trying to sell blankets. Babies cried listlessly, and adults slumped back in their chairs, clutching hastily bought paperbacks the size of thick doorstops.

  Garry let his mind wander, savouring his return to a solitary state, anticipating the holiday ahead. He’d been looking forward to this trip for months. In fact, he did every year. His friends were great, and he knew he ought to spend more time with them, but they’d all taken separate ways after university, and only he and Will stayed in London. It took organisation and planning to get them together, and those weren’t Garry’s strongest points. But Allen insisted on the annual meet and directed the whole thing like a military campaign. Thank God.

  Garry smiled to himself. That didn’t mean they all followed like sheep. Don would snark about Allen’s OCD tendencies. Beth would probably get lost, with or without a map. Tim and Eddie would be tight-lipped in the Scottish weather, missing their regular dose of Mediterranean sun. Dana would have to be gradually and almost surgically peeled away from her laptop. There’d be tears, drinking, arguments, hugs, more drinking, and probably more tears. But Allen was a bloody good facilitator. Eventually, they’d all settle down with the people who knew them best, and the rest of the holiday would be relaxed, entertaining, and rejuvenating.

  Allen and Leonard were probably already there, relaxing and enjoying the good service. Eating a good steak dinner, drinking a fine wine. Taking the best bedroom, planning the sports and events for the week ahead. Fond jealousy stabbed at Garry with many small but effective spikes. Not just envy for the hotel facilities, but for Allen and Leonard’s happiness as a couple.

  I’m pathetic.

  He glared around the airport lounge again. Some people were resigned to making the best of the Delay, getting comfortable on the seats, making jokes with their friends. There were plenty of young couples about, plugged blissfully into their headphones, concentrating fiercely on their mobiles, or draped around each other in the more rewarding occupation of discreet making out.

  Garry tore his gaze away from one particularly enraptured couple, a boy and a girl. All they had were backpacks, but it looked like they’d manage quite happily if they had to spend the whole night in the lounge. The boy’s hands were tangled in her long hair, and her hands had sneaked into his waistband, creasing his T-shirt up on the side and exposing smooth, dark brown skin. Their heads nestled perfectly against each other.

  Yeah. I’m jealous. Garry smiled ruefully to himself. The Delay was inconvenient to all concerned, but most of these people had family and lovers to go home to—to share the frustration with. That’s where he was different. But he chose to be on his own, right? He liked his own company. He had good, tolerant, enduring friends and he could have physical companionship at his own call, when he chose.

  He bit his lip. That was pretty arrogant, right? If it chose him might be more applicable. And it would still only be a passing hook-up.

  A child yelled in temper, the sound piercing the air. Its parent hauled it through the lounge, gripped under an arm. Yeah, there were plenty of people who weren’t resigned. Loving families or not, emotional fuses were getting shorter and more combustible. Garry stretched his legs out. He didn’t miss that stress, did he? He’d never had kids around
before, and hadn’t felt the need to either. Allen had all those relatives through his sisters, and now Leonard shared the extended family with him. Don and Beth and their respective partners were also surrounded by generations of family, who merged their lives with tolerant ease and familiarity. It was all very admirable, but—like he’d once told Will—not for Garry, right?

  There’d been a batch of weddings last summer, as friends got officially matched up. Garry and Will were always invited: sometimes even on the same invite. Garry had found himself tracing the names as if it were a single signature…. Garry and Will.

  Jesus. Like a silly schoolkid.

  Will never asked to bring anyone else to these events. Not that he didn’t find plenty of people to chat to, when they were there. Like Garry had thought before, they didn’t need to be in each other’s pockets. He worked the room too. Could have had plenty of dates, if he’d wanted.

  Then he’d hear Will’s laugh, or bump into him at the buffet table with a plate of food exactly the same as Garry’s choices, or watch Will searching hopelessly for his jacket when they were ready to leave. Garry knew he’d left it where he always did, over the back of his chair, but Will always forgot, and then thumped Garry playfully on the arm when he was accused of early senility, and they’d both laugh. And then leave together.

  Home and away. Together.

  But how long would that last?

  Will was moving to one of the most exciting cities in the world. He’d have his choice of high-powered, confident guys. And who wouldn’t notice Will? He was assertive and attractive; he had everything going for him. Garry had a sudden vision of Will in the middle of a group of stripped-shirt, over-oiled-torso, hair-swinging, Adonis-type men, all converging on him. And he was smiling—

  Dammit!

  Garry flushed, and shifted even more uncomfortably on the seat. A not-so-small frisson of sensuality ran its mischievous fingers along his spine. He’d obviously spent too long looking at the paperback romance covers in the airport bookshop. Or maybe that was his own fantasy, with Will starring as the stripped-shirt, oiled-torso, hair-swinging Adonis, reaching for Garry with a seductive and adoring smile….