So, all in all, it had been a sober evening, and hard-going at times, but what a beautiful day! Eleanor and James seemed happy and relaxed, and even Mrs. Davenport stopped fussing once the music started. The food was unbelievable, with so many things George had never tried before. Some dishes originated in Trinidad and Tobago, he assumed, with lots of fish, fruit and vegetables, and rich, hot sauces. There were also traditional Irish wedding foods, such as soda bread and salmon, as well as the finger buffet standards of cheeseboards and things on cocktail sticks. He recognised the sausages; as for the rest: ‘things on sticks’ pretty much covered it for now.
Then there was the cake; Wotto really had pulled out all the stops for this. It consisted of two tiers, with small, pale lemon-yellow rose buds in various stages of opening, that started from the base layer and climbed the side, then up to the top tier, with no obvious means of the two being joined together, other than via the delicate stems of the climbing roses, and he would know; the only time Andy got close to approaching Jess was when George was trying to figure out how the top cake hadn’t come crashing down onto the bottom one, although in his defence, he wasn’t the only one who was supposed to be ‘on watch’, but at that stage Josh had gone to talk to Eleanor.
Fifteen minutes had passed in this state of reminiscing, and the bed was really very cosy, so he decided to give it a little longer before he gave up on sleep entirely. It turned out to be a good choice, as the next time he awoke it was almost eight o’clock, and he could probably have slept even longer still, but for one reason.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Josh cursed, as he stumbled at the top of the stairs and lifted his foot. “Ouch!” He pulled the drawing pin out of his heel and rubbed at the injured spot. “The one bloody day I don’t put any shoes on. Typical.” He hobbled back to his room, slid his feet into a pair of loafers, and tried again, this time succeeding in getting all the way downstairs without further injury or lewd language. He filled the coffee filter with the last of the ground coffee, made a note on the magnetic shopping list, and had a good stretch. Not a bad night’s sleep, all things considered; he’d drifted off as soon as he’d got into bed, awoken with cramp at two, was asleep again by three, and then straight through until eight. Based on his previous bouts of insomnia, this was an outstanding achievement, and he mentally congratulated himself on finally cracking the best approach to falling back to sleep, which had always been his problem. The solution? To replay George’s words: he knew the truth and he still loved him. It was as simple as that.
George tried once more to turn over and go back to sleep, but the aroma of fresh coffee had floated up the stairs and under his door. He wasn’t a big fan of coffee; however, when freshly brewed it smelled divine, and was enough to bring his pseudo lie-in to an end. Reluctantly, he got out of bed, pulled his dressing gown from the hook on the door and left the room, all without opening his eyes.
“Jesus!” he shouted at the top of the stairs and lifted his foot. “Where the hell did that come from?” He braced himself and pulled the red-topped pin free from his big toe, then hobbled the rest of the way down.
“Morning,” Josh greeted him.
“Good morning. I just stood on a drawing pin.”
“You too? They must’ve fallen out of your pocket yesterday.”
“Or we brought them home on our shoes last night?”
“That’s a good point. Oh dear. I know I’m up too early when I open my mouth and terrible puns fall out of it. Coffee?”
“Yeah, thanks.” George seemed a little distracted, but then he hadn’t long woken up, Josh reasoned, and didn’t question it further. He poured two coffees and they took them through to the lounge so they could sit and talk about the wedding and the reception, revisiting Andy’s rage and Josh’s ‘taming of the beast’, agreeing that aside from this relatively minor interruption, it was definitely the best wedding they’d ever attended. Better still, they hadn’t had to choose a wedding present, because Eleanor had gone along with James’s wishes that they all donate whatever they would have spent on a gift to a charity of their choosing. George had already made his donation to a local horse and donkey sanctuary, although Josh was still trying to decide on a suitably worthy cause, which wasn’t anything to do with him seeing some as less deserving than others. Rather, he had yet to find one that inspired him to give his money over.
“I’d best get dressed,” George said, swirling the last inch or so of coffee around in the bottom of his cup. “I need to go and see my mum today, seeing as I’m not going to be about until after next weekend. I forgot to tell her, otherwise I wouldn’t bother.”
“Why don’t you give her a ring instead?”
“No phone.”
“Not even a ‘pay-as-you-go’?”
“Nope. She’s the only person I know who still uses the phone box when she needs to make calls.”
“Wow. I’m really shocked by that.”
“I did offer to buy her one,” George said, fighting a smile at the memory of it. “But she said ‘no thanks’.”
What she actually said was more along the lines of “You can stick your fuckin’ mobile phone up yer arse. What fuckin’ use am I gonna get out of it? And they give you cancer.” And then she lit another cigarette.
“Well I’m not doing anything today,” Josh said, intending it to be a subtle hint that he was available for transport, if George wanted it. He’d have just made the offer, but he didn’t feel it was right to do so; not yet. George missed the hint, and took his cup to the kitchen, then went straight upstairs. Josh finished his coffee and refilled the cup, taking this with him to his room, to wait for the bathroom to become free. His current reading material was temptingly close by, and he reached out and picked it up. It was Freud’s Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality: a volume that had always caused him more trouble than it was worth, for it was here that he could always find a particular passage, known off by heart, and capable of destroying everything he had read to the contrary since he first happened upon it at the age of nineteen:
The character of hysterics shows a degree of sexual repression in excess of the normal quantity, an intensification of resistance against the sexual instinct (which we have already met with in the form of shame, disgust and morality), and what seems like an instinctive aversion on their part to any intellectual consideration of sexual problems. As a result of this, in especially marked cases, the patients remain in complete ignorance of sexual matters right into the period of sexual maturity.
What got him every time was the “instinctive aversion…to any intellectual consideration of sexual problems”, because he could intellectualise them perfectly well—in everybody else. As far as his own sexuality was concerned (or lack thereof), the only reason he kept returning to any attempt at its intellectual consideration was because of this damned passage of text. But then he wasn’t a hysteric, usually.
The bathroom door opened and Josh glanced up in time to see George walk past on the way to his own room. He backstepped and looked in.
“You OK?” he asked.
“Sort of. I don’t want to talk about it now. It’ll make me miserable and I don’t want to be miserable.”
“OK,” George said and stepped off once more, but again, backtracked. Josh’s question came out a split second before his own.
“Would you like a lift to see your mum?”
“Do you want to come and meet my mum?”
The effect was a stuttered delivery of the word ‘mum’, followed by a silence, as they both waited for the other to answer, and then they did it again.
“Yes, please.”
“I’d like that, thanks.”
George shook his head. “We really must stop doing that.” He continued on his way, this time making it to his room.
Josh opened one of the cupboards above his fitted wardrobes, shoved the book inside, and went for a shower, although out of sight was the easy part, for the words were etched into his brain. It was a long time before he emerged
from the steamy bathroom, by which point George was dressed and waiting very impatiently in the lounge. Josh ran a brush through his hair, gave it a brief blow with the dryer and picked out a sweater and jeans at random, feeling under pressure due to the constant movement back and forth downstairs.
“What do you do in there?” George said, trying and failing to hide his irritation.
“I get lost in thought,” Josh said vaguely, because he still was. “Sorry.” He smiled guiltily.
“Never mind. Are you ready?”
“Err…” He patted his empty pockets and ran back upstairs for his phone, picking up his keys on the way down again. He’d snapped out of it and now noticed that George was very jumpy. The question should perhaps have been whether he was ready, but soon they were in the car and on their way, so there was little point to asking.
“Can we stop for breakfast somewhere?” George asked, fidgeting with his seatbelt. It always dug into his neck when he was worked up.
“Anywhere in particular?” Josh asked, calculating various routes that would take them past fast food restaurants, cafés or petrol stations.
“Somewhere that sells bacon toasties.”
“Right you are.” They turned left at the next junction and pulled up at a burger van; George was out of the car almost before it stopped. Josh turned off the engine and followed, arriving in time to be handed a slimy white roll with a droopy rasher of bacon stuffed slapdash in its centre.
“No bread, so no toast,” George explained, passing over a five pound note. The young lad behind the counter fished some coins out of the cash box and dropped them into George’s hand. “Thanks,” he said, wiping the grease on his jeans in disgust.
They walked back to the car, eating the bacon rolls in silence, but for the occasional crunch of stale bread. Josh didn’t like food being consumed in his car, which was always meticulously clean, a fact that was further exacerbating George’s anxiety. At some point soon—preferably before they arrived at the flats—he was going to have to warn Josh what to expect, for even if he had unknowingly been followed home one day, the place was far worse now than it had been back then, when there were two other blocks, flowerbeds, and maintenance people who kept on top of the litter and vandalism. In comparison to where Josh had grown up, it was a slum. There was no other word for it.
Josh wiped his hands on the rough napkin the bacon roll had been served in and looked around for a bin.
“Here,” George held out his hand, “I’ll keep hold of it for now.” Josh handed over the scrunched up, greasy paper, and then they were back in the car, with less than five minutes’ drive to their destination.
“Just so you know,” George said cagily, “the flats are due for demolition, so the council have stopped doing any work on them.”
“OK,” Josh acknowledged casually. He’d been waiting for something like this ever since they left, and there was still more.
“Also, my mum…” George began. How best to describe her? A rough diamond? A bit unpolished? The ‘salt of the earth’ type? It all sounded so twee and in any case was completely inaccurate.
“What about her?” Josh prompted.
“She’s as rough as a bear’s arse,” he said. It was a phrase she used all the time, aptly. Josh had never heard it before and it gave him the giggles.
“Define, please,” he spluttered, wiping the tears from his eyes. George didn’t look too impressed.
“She’s got a mouth like a docker, she chain-smokes and sleeps in her clothes. The flat hasn’t been decorated for years and her staple diet is tea and biscuits, supplemented by ale. She does clean though. Sort of.”
“I see. Thanks for the warning,” Josh said, becoming serious once more in order to attend to the road ahead. He was now driving into the estate and the tarmac was like a moonscape, with more potholes than level bits between. As he drove on, past the two-storey, concrete maisonettes, he was overwhelmed by the poverty and ugliness of it all. Ahead loomed the solitary tower block, its front face in full shadow, a formidable blot on an otherwise beautiful skyline.
“See what I mean?” George said, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. He was suddenly regretting asking if Josh wanted to meet his mother. At this time on a Sunday morning, she’d be watching one of the TV programmes about the countryside and telling the presenters what she thought of their rustic cottages and scenic vistas. “Pull in over there,” George indicated to a space next to a shell of a car, burnt-out and rusted almost beyond recognition. Josh did as he was told. “And make sure you lock up,” he warned.
He’d figured that much out for himself. He wanted to stop and tell him that all of this was fine. Better than fine, because here he was, not invited round to play as such, but granted access to the secret side of George’s upbringing. The respect and love he felt for him right at that moment was overwhelming. They stopped in the foyer and both sniffed, then quickly resorted to mouth-breathing.
“Stairs or lift,” George asked, sounding like he had a cold.
“Lift,” Josh replied in a similar fashion. George pulled his jacket sleeve over his hand and pressed the ‘call’ button. The lift could be heard rattling its way down from whichever floor it had last stopped. The indicator light hadn’t worked since—well, ever, now he came to think about it.
They stepped inside the steel box and it started its juddering ascent to the ninth floor. Josh braved a quick breath in so he could speak.
“Thank you for doing this,” he said, then added: “I know how hard it is for you, but I’m glad you invited me. It means a lot.” He ran out of breath. George wasn’t taking the same risk and merely nodded to confirm he had heard and understood. The lift stopped suddenly, and the doors opened part-way, George giving them a helping hand (again, with protective sleeve) so they could both step into the draughty, urine-scented corridor. He walked slightly in front, mapping out Josh’s path for him. They stopped outside a door.
“It still looks the same,” Josh said in awe.
“Of course it bloody does,” George snapped, but then checked himself. “Sorry. That was out of order. You know I’m shitting myself about this, don’t you?”
“I do. Plus, you appear to have inherited what you tell me of your mother’s propensity for cussing on the way up in the lift.”
“Says he, who woke me up this morning by shouting ‘fuck’ no less than three times!” Josh grinned and waited while George took out his keys and unlocked the door.
“Hi, Mum,” he called. She didn’t reply straight away, which was entirely usual, and when she did acknowledge him, it wasn’t with a standard greeting.
“Did that gobshite have bulls like this? Look at the size of the fuckers! They’re fuckin’ enormous. And look at the balls on ’em. That can’t be normal, surely?”
George squinted at the miniscule TV screen. “Yeah, they’re normal,” he assured her.
“Aye fuck. They’d proper make yer eyes water.” She stubbed out her cigarette end and immediately lit another.
“Where’s Monty?”
“Buggered off.”
“When?”
“Don’t bloody start. A bit ago, when I went down Paki’s. He’ll come back. He always fuckin’ does, unfortunately.”
George opened his mouth to say something and coughed instead, as a cloud of blue smoke was exhaled in his direction.
“You makin’ a brew, or what?” his mother asked, although it wasn’t a question really. “Best check the milk first, mind, it came out in friggin’ lumps yesterday. Oh.” She stopped, having suddenly noticed George was not alone. “Who are you?”
“Mum, this is Josh. We went to school together.”
“Never saw ’im before.”
Josh smiled, but for the first time in his life couldn’t string together an introduction. He’d always known about Mr. Morley abandoning them both when George was young, so should he call her Mrs. Morley? Or did she go by a different address these days? Whether he got it right or wrong probably wouldn’t make m
uch difference to her response.
“Hello,” he opted for instead.
“You’re not another one of them fuckin’ woofters, are you?”
“Err, I…” Josh stammered.
“She means are you gay,” George helped him out. “Mum! You can’t just ask people things like that. It’s personal!”
“Well you answered me question anyhow, so go and get that kettle put on. I’m spittin’ feathers ’ere.”
George stepped over the vacuum cleaner and made his way across the room, leaving Josh loitering next to the sofa.
“Go with ’im, if you like. I’m not proud,” she told him.
Josh followed George into the kitchen and looked around. His description was very accurate, he’d give him that. In general, the place was spotlessly clean, but there was so much stuff—clocks, little china dogs, vases, pots, pans, mugs—and the entire flat was covered in a sticky yellow film. George unplugged the toaster so he could plug in the kettle, jumping back in advance of the shock he knew he’d receive.
“The wiring’s a bit shot,” he explained. Josh was slowly spinning on the spot, taking in his surroundings. When he came back round, George had the biggest grin on his face.
“What?”
“I think it might actually be worth all this trauma just to see you speechless for once.”
Josh laughed nervously. “She’s a bit scary, your mum.”
“She’s not really. It’s her accent, makes her sound hard. All the lads around here used to be terrified of her.”
“She’s from Manchester?”
“Yeah. Grew up on a council estate that makes this place look like Knightsbridge.” George went through his usual routine of rinsing and scrubbing the generally unused mugs. “Wonder where Monty is? I’m gonna have to go and have a look before we leave.”
The Harder They Fall Page 30