Rainbow Milk

by Paul Mendez

  “Pardon?”

  “You still say we, and use the present tense, as if you’re still one of them.”

  * * *

  —

  It wouldn’t take at all long to get used to this new definition of what meat was supposed to be—something to be enjoyed rather than endured. He wanted to see a video of himself eating the meat he used to, resembling a cow chewing grass, turning her jaw blandly. Sometimes, between meals, when he was a child, he would eat the cardboard inner tube of a loo roll, which would act in a similar way, masticated down to a drenched, unswallowable pulp. But not this meat. Not only was it better-quality beef than anything he had ever had before, it was richly charred on the outside and practically raw in the middle. The roast potatoes were crunchy on the outside and soft within. In no time at all Owen had simmered a mushroom ragù, frying diced carrots, onion and celery in a pan with oil and butter before adding the sliced mushrooms and some herbs, bringing it up slowly with beef stock and red wine, and adding quartered cherry tomatoes towards the end. Jesse’s own spinach was served, not boiled or raw, but sautéed with butter, garlic and black pepper. Owen had bought sprouts, but the spinach was nearing its best before date so they used that instead; Owen said they could eat the sprouts with toasted walnuts and ricotta the next day, or maybe as a snack if they were hungry later. Jesse wondered what sort of meals they could have in six months, a year, ten years.

  “There’s more if you want it,” Owen said, wiping his mouth with the sheet of kitchen roll they were using as napkins, watching Jesse wolf his plate. The sun was weakening, and it was starting to get chilly. Jesse tucked his colder foot behind the other, but didn’t want to shut the back door. He didn’t want to change anything.

  “What about you?” he asked Owen. “Did you grow up religious?”

  Owen shook his head while he was still chewing. “We went to our local village church but we weren’t particularly religious.”

  “Was it Church of England or something?” Jesse asked.

  “It’s a United Reformed Church now, but was originally non-denominational with a Wesleyan minister at the time of its consecration. To be honest, I was more interested in the architecture than the services.”

  “What was it like?”

  For the first time, he looked serious. “I grew up in a place called Port Sunlight, on the Wirral, near Liverpool. Have you heard of it?”

  “No,” said Jesse.

  “It’s a very peaceful and utopian model village built by William Lever at the end of the nineteenth century, to house and enrich his workforce. Everyone who worked for Lever Brothers got a house, whether they were a managing director, a machinist or a packer, and these weren’t the sorts of cheap, identikit two-up-two-downs that pass today, but high quality, unique designs by impressive and often local architects. Lever believed that if he provided a comfortable and dignified lifestyle for his workers, they would reward him with productivity and loyalty, so I grew up, I suppose, with more of a sense of holism and possibility than your average working-class kid from Merseyside. I lived, and my mum still lives, in a Grade II–listed building surrounded by gorgeous parkland, five minutes’ walk from a world-class gallery with an incredible collection of Pre-Raphaelite paintings, Chinese ceramics and Wedgwood Jasper, a beautiful church, a school, a sports ground and a well-stocked library. I had everything on my doorstep.”

  “Sounds like paradise,” Jesse said. As Owen spoke, all Jesse could think of was how beautiful he looked, and how much he wanted to see and touch his naked body. He tried not to be seen appraising the hints of musculature, and of nipple, within Owen’s T-shirt, or to be caught drifting into thoughts of what they might do together in bed. But he was also thinking about the “New System,” and what Owen was describing sounded quite like what the Witnesses believed their future held.

  “I’ll have to take you someday,” Owen said, and smiled, brutally. Their eyes met, for the nth time, of course. Jesse couldn’t bear it and looked away.

  “I saw that,” said Owen.

  “Saw what?”

  “You just blushed.”

  Jesse broke out a smile so broad he covered his mouth. It was as if he was being tickled.

  “No, I didn’t! ’Ow can ar blush?”

  “Just because you didn’t physically redden doesn’t mean you didn’t visibly blush and that sounded very Brummie.”

  “Whatever, Scouser.”

  “It’s cute. There it goes again.”

  “Stop thinkin’ you can switch me on and off like a light!”

  “Can I not?”

  Jesse put his cutlery down and giggled, coughed, composed himself and sipped his champagne. He thought about how lucky he would be if he was able to continue this conversation HIV-negative. The Christmas pudding smelt rich and rummy in the oven. Jesse wondered how any organisation could deprive its subjects of such harmless fun as the singing of Christmas songs, a child’s participation in school Christmas plays, the consumption of delicious Christmas dinners. The wilful self-exclusion.

  “Do you believe in God?” Jesse asked, and realised he’d never answered Ginika’s interrupted question at Gilbert’s.

  “No, I’m an atheist,” Owen said, which shocked Jesse. Ignoring God was not the same as denying his existence. He didn’t know where he stood if there wasn’t a Jehovah at the top of the hierarchy. Who was, then, at the top? “I don’t think belief helps anyone. If I believed in God, I’d have to ask him a lot of very searching questions, just as you did in your prayer. I don’t see why God or any kind of institutionalised faith should encroach upon my life choices, and I understand the privilege I have, as a white Western man, to be able to live like that.”

  Jesse had a lump in his throat, and as delicious as the food was, he was now struggling to eat. They both sipped their champagne and Owen topped them up.

  “I thought that might change, on becoming a father. We want our daughters to have knowledge, and to be able to do with that as they wish. Anya’s Catholic, so if they choose to become nuns, because we raised them as Catholics, fine. If they choose to become whores because we raised them as Catholics, equally fine.” Jesse had looked away. “Of course, I don’t want my children to become whores.”

  “I wouldn’t recommend it either,” said Jesse.

  “I didn’t mean to sound like a twat,” said Owen. Jesse found he enjoyed every expression on Owen’s face, whether it was mischief, sadness or, as now, apology.

  “I know what you mean,” he said. “Of course no parent would want their child to become a whore.”

  “Do your parents know?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Do they know you’re gay, even?”

  Jesse nodded, weakly. He felt Owen suspected there was depth to his story, and saw his brow tighten.

  “I don’t suppose they’re the most supportive, are they?”

  Jesse shook his head.

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  Jesse had often wondered, when he was a child, what Armageddon would be like, and hoped that he would sleep so deeply he would wake up only when it was over. He’d slept through many a shout up the stairs meant to wake him, and Graham had even told him once: Yo’d sleep through Armageddon yo would. The tremors would have to shake the world so hard all the evildoers would die. Every building would crumble like the walls of Jericho, or the World Trade Center, and crush the little humans who didn’t worship God—not just any old god, but Jehovah alone—to death. How would those tremors begin? Would they start slowly and build to a universally destructive crescendo? Jesse thought of Owen’s pretty little model village and how it would be shaken to dust. There would be nothing anyone could do about it; Armageddon would be beyond the control of any human being or organisation. No Richter scale would survive to tell the tale. Nothing could stop God’s work if indeed it was God’s work. Whatever happen
ed now, it was too late. He was going to die. You’re gonna die at Armageddon.

  He burst into tears so powerfully Owen flinched. He choked, and coughed, and tears ran down into his mouth and mixed with his saliva. Owen stood up and carefully came around the table to put his hands on Jesse’s shoulders, then his arms around his neck.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he kept saying, cuddling him tightly. “I’m so sorry. Now, now. I’ve got you.”

  For all he couldn’t think, Jesse felt that maybe he had died, or at least the old version of himself. The Jesse he had been for the first twenty years of his life had died, and this new impostor was carrying on in Jesse’s old body as if nothing had happened. He missed him, the old Jesse, the favourite boy of his congregation. Young Brother Jesse McCarthy, who was supposed to one day become an elder and take a Witness wife and have perfect Witness children, on the cover of Awake! magazine as the perfect Witness family, whom God would shelter and shepherd through the Great Tribulation. But would he have become an elder? The elders were ten white men. Would they have ever trusted him to lead, or would he have found himself a disenfranchised ministerial servant always knocking on the door but never being allowed in? What would’ve happened if he was still a Witness? Would he still have pursued his sexual desires? This was a Great Tribulation of his own doing. Brother Jesse McCarthy. He seemed so far away, now. Why had he killed him? He missed his family. Life with them couldn’t have been that bad, couldn’t have been worse than what he was putting himself through, this moment with Owen apart. He missed his Jehovah, his fake prayers addressed to someone who would never speak back, whom he would never see. He was angry with his family for not calling the police and reporting him missing. He was angry with himself for being a hundred and twenty miles away from them and not telling them where, when or if he was coming home. He was angry because he’d made it impossible to go home. He was angry with himself for getting found out.

  “I’m sorry,” he managed to say, as Owen held him close to his chest and belly, where Jesse rather enjoyed being. Owen’s hands were warm, despite it being cold now in the kitchen.

  “Don’t be sorry. Your family should be sorry. It’s terrible, the way they’ve made you feel,” Owen said, as he cradled and settled Jesse, who was aware he was dribbling from the corner of his mouth down Owen’s beautiful forearm. “But the beauty of all this is that you get to build your own family. And there’s no place like London for that.”

  Jesse gently broke free and excused himself to the downstairs toilet, just off the kitchen, to get some tissue and blow his nose. He’d needed that cry, and was glad it had happened. He allowed himself a couple of minutes, looking at himself in the mirror above the sink, to make himself laugh, because the only thing that could ever stop him crying was to see how ugly and ridiculous he looked. (Stop crying, you look ugly, his mother had once told him.) He returned to find Owen sitting back in his chair, paler, with his hair gathered back in his hands clasped behind his head. The back door was closed; perhaps Owen was concerned what the neighbours might think of such a fuss being made. The bold shaft of orange-yellow light that had shone across the back wall had gone. It was growing dim in the kitchen. Jesse retook his seat opposite Owen.

  “I’m so sorry,” Owen said, again, shaking his head.

  “Thank you. I’m okay.”

  “Are you sure?” said Owen.

  Jesse nodded, and attempted to smile. Owen topped up his champagne, and his own, and they sat quietly for a moment. After one last small mouthful, that tasted like a vaguely remembered waking dream, Jesse pushed his plate slightly away from himself.

  “I’ll have some more later,” he said.

  “Don’t worry, whatever you want to do.” Owen sipped from his flute, which was getting grimy with grease, and folded his arms. He got up, switched the lamp on over the dining table, sat down and stretched out his feet between Jesse’s, then retracted them as he sat forward again.

  “Have you ever sought out counselling?”

  Jesse looked at him as if to say, I’m not mad.

  “I think you should,” said Owen, seriously. “You’ve been through a lot, I can tell. You shouldn’t have to go through it alone. You can talk to me. Tell me what’s happened to you.”

  * * *

  —

  He didn’t know where to start. He wanted to forget all that he had been through and start again. He wasn’t expecting this to happen. He didn’t know whether he could trust what he was thinking and feeling; white men—and it was always white men—had made him feel like this before only to withdraw their love when he was most dependent on it. Sex as fine as he’d experienced with that man turned into something that left him hungry, injured, depressed, broke, wondering who he was and where the hell he was going.

  As the kitchen got darker and darker, and as the food left on their plates congealed, Jesse told Owen of his disfellowshipping—But you did nothing wrong!—how his mother had betrayed him to the elders to suit her own needs, to absolve herself of her own guilt, to have forcibly removed from her the result of her own sin—It won’t make her feel any better, in the long run. What you’re going to do is become this really great person and she’ll realise what she missed out on. What you’re going to do is teach them how to love. How were you able to stay that long after you were…what is the word you used, “disfellowshipped”? Christ.

  In his heart of hearts Jesse wished to keep the door open to return to the organisation, be reinstated. One day he might have been able to say he wasn’t gay, actually, that he was prepared to live his life without sex, that Jehovah’s love would have been enough. He wasn’t automatically willing to break up his family for the sake of his own lack of self-control—It sounds to me like your family was already broken beyond anything you were responsible for.—He didn’t want to make them look bad for not being in control of their children. That’s what it would’ve looked like if he’d struck out on his own before getting married. And who was he supposed to marry? Why would he do that to someone? Perhaps he could’ve learned to love a woman that way. To have sex and children with her. Would he always think about men? No woman could ever make him feel the way a man of a certain kind could, just by his presence. No woman could ever smell the way Brother Thomas Woodall did. No woman’s voice could ever cloak him in such calm and repose. If he read a book by a woman, it was his mother’s voice reading to him in the way, pointing a sharp knife, she’d said, “I wish I could just put this right in you, boy.”—I wasn’t even aware of my neglect of women writers, until I read Angela Carter and Iris Murdoch.—If he read a book by a white man, it was Brother Thomas Woodall’s voice reading to him and he couldn’t get enough of it.—What about when you read a book written by a black man?—Maybe it was just his own voice, reading Baldwin.—It’s not your fault, you know. It’s because you’ve been taught that God is a white man, and that white men are the earthly embodiment of God. You’ve been taught to worship white men and to hold everything that they represent, everything they own, as the dearest, most important, most sacred thing in your life. That’s why you love their smiles, their skin, their beauty, their voices, their words, their sex. You’ve been trained to hate yourself and love and desire them.

  * * *

  —

  After a couple of mouthfuls of the Christmas pudding—Jesse’s first ever, and delicious, but too great a challenge, even lubricated with brandy butter, for his nipped appetite—they washed and packed everything up, drank coffee and Jesse told Owen about that man. Owen winced when Jesse told him about the scratched wound—contorted his body and smashed his fist on the table as if it was happening to him. He also looked a little offended that Jesse had not told him before, though they had not spoken to each other on such open terms until now. Jesse made Owen understand that he had sought medical advice and was waiting for the incubation period to expire so that he could take a second HIV test. It had been established that he w
as negative three months before the incident.

  Owen told Jesse about a split condom incident of his own, but considered himself to be less at risk because he’d been the one wearing it, though he hadn’t been to get tested since he’d become sexually active with men. Still, hearing Jesse’s story seemed to change his mood. He didn’t say anything, but Jesse thought that perhaps, given what Owen had been through with his English teacher when he was so young, it couldn’t have been easy deciding to have the sex he wanted while HIV, though no longer virtually untreatable, was still a chronic illness. He wondered whether Owen and his English teacher ever had sex, but didn’t ask.

  Chapter 4

  Owen replenished the ice bucket, opened a fourth bottle of champagne and they moved into the sitting room, the largest room in the house, directly below his bedroom. It was suddenly eight o’clock in the evening. The sound of Joy Division still resonated in Jesse’s head. Owen turned the blinds closed and switched on the two standard lamps either side of the bay window. It was usually quite dark anyway, thanks to it overlooking the front garden, which was small and overgrown, with a wild front hedge that might have been cut back for the winter, except for the privacy it afforded.

  Bryan had insisted on a stout, real Christmas tree even though he was not going to be there to enjoy it himself, and had decorated it with fine baubles from Liberty and a vintage ballerina Sindy doll for the angel. The lights were shining and projecting on the walls from the little mirrors on the disco ball hanging from the ceiling. Giant two-seat sofas were backed against three of the walls, around a working fireplace. An oak-and-glass coffee table stacked with back-copies of World of Interiors and Gay Times lived on an IKEA rug in the middle of the room, unreachable to anyone, so Owen asked Jesse to help him lift it towards where they would be sitting, on the sofa opposite the bay window.

  “I understand it might not be the best thing to give you, with what you’re going through, but I’ve got some coke upstairs,” he said. “Do you want some?”