by Alexis Hall
“That’s not funny, mate. Have some fucking respect.”
He couldn’t see Greg’s face, but somehow he felt him flinch down the line. “I-I’m sorry. But I don’t see what his mother dying ages ago has to do with you?”
“He’s confused and messed up about it and doesn’t want to take a chance on me on top of everything else. I get it.”
“Awww, sweetheart. Your big romantic gesture came to nothing.”
Well. Yes and no. “It wasn’t really like that,” Alfie admitted. “I kind of wrecked his bathroom and then took him for a curry. That’s not exactly ‘tread softly because you tread on my dreams.’”
Greg gave a lovelorn sigh. “You never quoted Yeats for me either.”
“It was in that Sean Bean movie you made me watch.”
“I bet he’d have wanted you if he knew you knew Yeats.”
“Yeah, that doesn’t help.”
There was a pause. Alfie watched the wavering shadows from the street moving across the sky like an upside-down reflection. There was a little piece of fading moon tucked between the clouds like it was falling out of someone’s pocket.
He’d almost forgotten he was still on the phone, when Greg spoke again. “I’m sorry, Alfie. I really am. I don’t know what to say. I mean, if you’d have been half as into me as you are into this random South Shields guy, I’d never have let you go. Not in a gazillion years.”
A gazillion years sounded like a long time. And Greg sounded like he meant it. But there were lots of things you meant at four in the morning. “What about all the gay firemen?”
“Oh. Them.”
“We have to think of the firemen.”
There was another long silence. This time, it wasn’t quite as comfortable.
“I’m such a fucking idiot,” muttered Alfie at last. “Still making the same fucking mistakes.”
“But you tried. Most people wouldn’t.”
“It’s not that. It’s not about Fen.” There was a needly draught spilling from the place the window met the sill. Alfie’s dad would probably have known how to fix it. Alfie made a half-arsed attempt to push the frame into place with one hand and then gave up. “All my life I’ve been telling myself if I only found the right person, it would all make sense somehow.”
“Doesn’t everyone?”
“Maybe, but it’s bollocks. Finding the right girl was never going to fix the fact I’m as gay as a chaise longue. And finding the right bloke isn’t going to fix the fact that . . . I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing with my life.”
Greg drew in a sharp breath. “Aren’t you overreacting a bit?”
“Probably.”
“Oh, Alfie, please come home. I’ll wrap you up in my fluffiest blanket, and we can watch the worst movies I can think of and eat ice cream straight out the tub and generally be abject stereotypes. I’ll even give you the best comfort fuck of your life.”
“Uh, ice cream’s good.”
“Okay. I’ve got pralines and cream, dulce de leche, white chocolate raspberry truffle, rocky road, and rum raisin.”
Alfie did his best to smile, because he had read somewhere that you could hear that sort of thing in someone’s voice. “That’s a lot of ice cream to keep on standby.”
“I like ice cream. And sometimes I need comforting. When will you be back?”
What had he told Fen? “Probably Sunday.”
“You’re not going to do anything stupid in the meantime, are you?”
“What sort of stupid?”
“I don’t know. Hiring a mariachi band and standing under his window singing ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off You’?”
Out of nowhere Alfie laughed, and felt a little bit closer to human again. “I’ll see you on Sunday, okay?”
“Okay.”
He hung up and sat by the window awhile longer, his thoughts circling around nothing in particular. Bits of memory, old and new, and Fen, still a little magical, with his rough hands and restlessness. Fragility and fierce eyes.
Dawn had sort of happened somehow, in that invisible way it did sometimes up north, just ever-increasing shades of light until you were getting up and calling it daytime. Everything was still and silver, but he could hear the gulls and the deeper rush of the tide going out. He thought about going down to the beach, just because he could, but he was tired and . . . and small-feeling and sad.
Stripping down to T-shirt and boxers, he crawled into bed and pulled the covers over him and round him as tightly as he could. And there, in that secret, private darkness, where nobody could see, and nobody would ever know, he absolutely didn’t cry.
He woke up to brightness and knew instinctively he’d slept past noon. He’d left his phone on the window ledge after talking to Greg. He scrambled to get it. Just in case. Just on the off chance.
Nothing.
No messages. No missed calls. Exactly what he’d expected, so why the hell was he disappointed? What a stupid way to start the day.
The day. God. A whole one.
He thought about giving up and going back to London. But there was no way Greg would want to stay in on a Saturday night, which would mean Alfie would either have to sit around on his own on his sofa of doom, or let Greg take him to Fire or Heaven or Freedom, or somewhere else he wanted to party. And then what? Drink too much, dance like a twat, say no to drugs, and shag some bloke at the end of the night because it was what you did. It wasn’t even as if there was anything wrong with that. It had been pretty exciting at first when Greg had told him he needed to sow his oats, or spread his wings, or whatever. But it wasn’t what he wanted now. The taste of a stranger in his mouth. Not after Fen.
It crossed his mind that he could—should—go and see his family. Thank his dad properly for sorting out the bathroom after he’d made such a mess. Except that would involve actually talking to him—looking him in the eye—and yesterday had been bad enough. A hot, nasty feeling churned in Alfie’s stomach, just remembering. Better to be in London, in a careless crowd, where there was neither rejection nor belonging. But that was more than enough moping for one day. He texted Kev to see if he and his missus wanted to go out that night.
Raj? Kev sent back in a minute or two.
Somewhere else? suggested Alfie. And they went back and forth for a bit until Kev came up with another place near the Laygate Roundabout, and they agreed to meet there at seven.
Alfie had expected to be basically miserable, confused and unwanted, and waiting twitchily for the call that wasn’t coming. But, actually, neither his day nor his evening were as bad as he’d thought they might be. He wandered up the road to the Minchella’s, which was the local ice-cream parlour and basically everywhere. His dad, who was weirdly into local history, had told Alfie this massive long story about how the family had emigrated to the North East at the end of the nineteenth century. There’d been bandits in it, but that was about all Alfie could remember.
The place hadn’t changed since he’d been brought here on summer Sundays for a treat. Well, maybe it was kind of smaller. Alfie could remember sharing one of these grey-leather booths with Billy, and it being infinitely capacious. Now he could barely squeeze into it. But the glitter of the Formica tables was just as bright, just as magical as it had ever been. He ordered a cheese toastie which was a cheese toastie in the most essential sense: very yellow cheese and very strong onion smooshed between two slices of very white bread, and it tasted amazing. If he’d asked for this anywhere in London, it would have been gruyere and shallots in artisan bread.
Then he had a Coke float with vanilla ice cream, and that was perfect. Right down to the way the froth bubbled up the sides of the glass. He drank it slowly, faffing about on his phone, trying to ignore the fact he was getting some odd looks. He’d forgotten there wasn’t much of a hanging-out-in-cafés culture in South Shields. If you wanted to sit around in public, you went to the pub like a normal person. If you wanted to look at the internet, that was what your house was for. The people around him were peop
le with purpose: families and their children usually. An old man came in by himself at one point, but he left again once he’d finished his cup of tea. But time slipped away pleasantly enough.
Later he met Kev and his new wife, Lisa, at The Place That Wasn’t The Raj. It was a bit awkward at first, especially since Kev thought it would be funny to start the conversation with “So, are ye still a poofter like?” But, as it turned out, it wasn’t the worst thing he could have said, because it meant Alfie and Lisa bonded over a mutual desire to smack him one. And then it was just like normal: old jokes and old affection, a friendship as familiar and comforting and slightly shabby as a favourite coat.
“So,” announced Kev over mains, “we’ve got some news, haven’t we, pet?”
“Oh aye, you tell him.”
Alfie glanced between them, slightly anxiously. “Tell me what?”
A pause, as if Kev was hoping for a drum roll, and then, “We’re expecting.”
“Expecting what?”
“A bairn, ye doylem.”
“Seriously?” Alfie nearly choked on his naan. “Already?”
Kev looked very slightly sheepish at that. “Well, te be completely honest wi’ ye, we did gerra a bit of a head start. But we was ganna do it anyway.”
Lisa—who Alfie was starting to realise was very pretty indeed, in a dark-eyed, expertly spray-tanned Newcastle way—glanced anxiously at him. “Promise ye won’t say nowt? I divvent want people te think I’m a slapper.”
“They better not,” said Kev. “Cos it took the two of us.”
They were kissing now—not making out, just tender, contented kisses. Far more intimate than all the groping and grinding and tashing that Alfie had witnessed over the years.
He took a fortifying swig from his pint. “They’d be able to figure it out, though.”
“Who?”
“Well, anyone able to do basic maths?”
Kev laughed. “This is Shields, man. I’m not worried.”
“Well, congratulations.” Alfie lifted his glass in an awkward toast. “I’m really happy for you. Um, have you thought about names yet?” That was the sort of thing you were supposed to ask, right?
Lisa nodded. “If it’s a lass, I’m thinking either Kate, after Kate Middleton, or Daenerys after Daenerys Targaryen.”
“I like Kate,” said Alfie quickly.
“Fer a lad—” Kev smirked “—I was thinking Kevin had a nice ring to it.”
Lisa punched him in the arm. “Howay, man. I’m not naming wor kid after you. He’s gorra be his own person like.”
“Anyway,” Kev went on, “we were wondering if ye wanted te be the godfather or summin.”
The fork dropped out of Alfie’s hand. “What, me?”
“No, some other bugger. Yeah, you.”
“Well . . . wow . . . I don’t know what to say. I mean, yes. Yes, of course. I’d be honoured.”
Once they were done with eating, Kev insisted they go on to the Gutter Ball, to properly round off a Saturday night on the town. The place was actually called the Glitter Ball, and back when Alfie and Kev had been mainstays of the South Shields party scene (such as it was), it had been Venue. The floors, however, were as sticky as ever, the room just as crowded, and the corners equally as dank. And it was still full of fifteen-year-olds pretending to be eighteen and thirty-year-olds pretending to be twenty. Even worse, they were having a Nineties Night, which made Alfie feel far too old. Right now they were playing a slightly half-arsed remix of “Ooh Aah . . . Just a Little Bit.” And if Alfie hadn’t been thirty, gay, and living a completely different life, he might have believed he’d gone back in time.
To top it all off, he thought he could probably remember the Eurovision dance, which was not something a man of any age should attempt in a public place. He’d long ago perfected what Greg called straight-boy dancing, a low-key, if slightly suggestive, dance floor shuffle that—when he was younger—had encouraged girls to use him like a prop. And, as much as Greg might deride the technique, it seemed to translate pretty well across orientations. After all, it hadn’t taken long for Greg to start plastering himself over Alfie that night at Fire.
When “Better Off Alone” came on, Alfie threw caution to the winds and danced the way he felt like dancing. He probably looked like an emotionally overwrought gorilla, but he didn’t care. And, while he was vigorously being better off alone, a slinky-hipped boy slipped free from his friends and slinked in Alfie’s vicinity, trying to catch his eye. Wariness, at first. Then curiosity and recognition. He was too young, but he already knew more about himself than Alfie at his age would have had a hope of unravelling. There was a boldness in him that maybe came with that sort of knowing. At last, he circled in close, and Alfie put his fingers in his belt loops and pulled him closer still.
He felt the contact ripple outwards somehow, but they were sheltered by the darkness and the disco lights, and nobody around them seemed to care, least of all the boy whose breath was hot and eager against Alfie’s throat. He smelled of hair gel and alcopops, and his hip bones ground against Alfie’s as they moved. Awkward fragments of touch, pushing together and pulling apart, never losing that edge of strangeness, which might once have been enticing. But it felt good in other ways too. Nothing Alfie could really have articulated, not with his ears full of Alice Deejay and his arms full of teenager, but some sense of possibility, like a window opened in a too-hot car.
The boy went up on tiptoes, pressing his skinny body to the length of Alfie’s, and yell-whispered in his ear that he was lush. Which was flattering.
“Like a porn star.”
Or not so much.
The boy grinned up at him, lip ring flicking pieces of multicoloured light in all directions. “You gay?”
Alfie sucked in a breath of sticky, fetid air. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m gay.”
By the time the song was done, the boy was all over him, wriggly and slick with dance sweat, gazing up at Alfie with glazed and hopeful eyes. “D’ye wanna . . .?”
Unpeeling him gently, Alfie dropped a kiss on his brow. “Not tonight, pet.”
A flash of disappointment before the lad’s friend swept him away. It didn’t take him long to find someone else to dance against and there was something oddly pleasing about that—the ease of it. Alfie couldn’t have imagined anything like it when he was growing up.
He left before midnight, alone, and he didn’t mind. The electric gleam of the curry houses and the kebab shops on Ocean Road led him back to his B&B down pavements streaked gold and silver by streetlight and starlight.
The next morning there was still no message from Fen, so he packed up his stuff in a leisurely kind of way, checked out, and then found himself seized by a weird impulse to visit the South Marine Park before he left. He knew he was stalling, but he decided to let himself get away with it. Took a circuit of the duck pond, which his memories insisted was a vast, shimmering lagoon. But really wasn’t.
And, anyway, it wasn’t just about Fen. After all, it would probably be a while before he was back here. Except he’d been gone for years before Kev’s wedding—so why was the thought unsettling now? It wasn’t like life in London was terrible. It had its limitations, sure, but so did life in South Shields. In fact, South Shields probably had more. And he could hardly keep avoiding his dad if he lived here.
Eventually, he left the pond behind and wended his way up the terraces, past the empty bandstand to the artificial waterfall right at the top, which a little plaque told him had been recently restored. It was quite a Victorian waterfall: a spill of white silk water falling between stones as neatly stacked as Jenga bricks. Alfie thought he could remember coming here on Fireworks Night, when the water had been lit from underneath with bulbs as bright as jewels, amethyst and emerald and gold. Matching the sky.
But there was only so long he could stare at a waterfall.
It was time to go. Time to get on with the life he was supposed to be living, instead of trying to magic a different one out of seafoam
and salt air.
14
As he was heading back up Ocean Road, his phone rang. Unrecognised number. Probably just a client, right? Fumble. Fumble. Panic. “Hello?”
Silence.
“Hello?”
Silence.
“Fen?”
“I . . . I’m sorry . . . This is . . . Alfie, did you really mean it when you said you’d stay?”
“Course. Where are you?”
“Marsden. At the Grotto.”
“I’ll be right there.”
Alfie ran to his car. Like literally ran. Like a maniac. Marsden was only ten minutes down Coast Road, but that seemed like forever just then, with Fen alone and waiting for him. He floored it along Ocean Road, past the park where he’d just been walking, past the lifeboat memorial and the funfair, and the Rattler where they’d kissed. Between caravan parks and sand dunes and promenades. Another branch of Minchella’s. Another bandstand. And then over the roundabout, up to the flat-topped cliffs, sandwiched between flat green grass and flat grey sky, where the ocean was just a ribbon of blue tied round the edge of the world. Another roundabout, taking him past the bottom of Lizard Lane, yet another branch of Minchella’s, and he was pulling into the car park outside the Marsden Grotto pub. It didn’t look like it was open yet, so he couldn’t use the lift shaft, which meant he had to take the hundred and thirty-two (or was it a hundred and thirty-six?) steps to the beach.
The tide was coming in, but slowly. There was still an expanse of dark, wet sand glistening beyond the shingle, and Marsden Rock itself was standing at the edge of the sea like an elephant going paddling, silver-ridged waves swirling through its caves and crevices. Fen was standing on the white-washed terrace of the Grotto, his elbows braced on the top of the wall.
What was it with this man and his provocative leaning?
Only a little bit out of breath, Alfie hurried over, and Fen turned, his calm lost with his stillness. He was wearing shabby jeans, a washed-out T-shirt with lol written on it, and slim, rimless glasses that simply exposed his eyes in all their stark, bright beauty.