Oskar Blows a Gasket

by Claire Davis

  “No, we’re bullying you. Let us know, OK? Send me a text now so we can check that phone is working.” Dad pulled out his phone and raised his eyebrows expectantly. Gareth obediently sent him a text—hi—using the brand-new mobile Jim had given him last night. “And let us know if you want Jim to come, or you’d rather walk.”

  “I know it’s working, Dad. We already exchanged texts,” Gareth said, but he didn’t really mind.

  “OK, I got it!” Dad laughed. “I’m sorry. I know I’m going overboard on this but I’m so scared you’ll walk out that door and I’ll never see you again.” He sniffed. “I can’t believe you’re here.”

  “I’m here, and you’re not getting rid of me that easily.” Gareth blushed. He couldn’t wait to get back to the hostel to see Oskar, but he also couldn’t wait to get back here for lunch. He glanced at Dad, who was looking back with that famous smile and shining eyes. “I really hope he comes. You look better today.” It was true. His skin had a more natural sheen, and he was groaning less. “Do you feel better?”

  “Yeah, I do. It’s because you’re here. I was so damn worried about you I couldn’t sleep or think.” Dad squeezed his hand. “Remember what I said? Be honest, tell him everything and apologise. If he’s any kind of boyfriend, he’ll listen and understand. OK? And if that doesn’t work, fall back on your beautiful face.” Dad laughed. “I mean, it always worked on the ladies but maybe not so much the guys.”

  “Like I’d know.” Gareth giggled. “Because I’m such a stud.” He blushed deeper and stood up to get away from all the feels.

  ****

  “See you at midday, then.” He smiled tightly at Jim behind the wheel and then Dad, in the back seat. “Thanks for the lift.”

  “And do you have—”

  “Yes. Got my phone and got your number,” he assured Dad. “And I promise not to vanish into a puff of smoke. And please don’t vanish either because my heart couldn’t stand it.” He stepped to the side of the car, determined to walk into the hostel. After a bit, he waved. Dad and Jim immediately waved back, so he waved again. The back window slid down.

  “Do you want me to come in with you? The wheels are in the trunk?”

  “No, no.” But he didn’t want to be the one to walk away first. “It’s just a little weird leaving you again.” Dad nodded sympathetically. “OK. I’m going now. See you soon.” He hovered, then jumped back to the car and opened the back door. “Very weird.” He kissed Dad. “Have a rest while I’m gone. OK?” Dad winked, which was much more like him than staring mournfully.

  “Go on, now.” Jim urged. “I won’t let him vanish.”

  Gareth breathed deeply, squared his shoulders and turned to face the hostel and away from the car. Oskar would ridicule him mercilessly for this show but still he looked back once, just before going inside. Dad and Jim waved.

  The hostel was silent, which only occurred very early in the morning. He frowned through his turmoil and approached Oskar’s door. No music or shouting, but the words a lie is a shard to the heart were plastered to the wood in some kind of mock-blood liquid. He knocked. “Oskar? It’s me?”

  From inside, he could hear someone moving faintly so he tried the door. It opened. He pushed it with a toe and quickly stepped aside, expecting a missile to come flying out. When nothing happened, he was half-disappointed because dealing with an explosive Oskar was relatively easy, compared to a deep sulk.

  Tentatively, he stuck his head around the door. The room seemed normal at first glance, but Oskar was lying on his bed with eyes closed. On his forehead dead had been written in lipstick. Gareth rushed across, trying not to smile.

  “Oh my god! You’re dead?” He pretended to take a pulse and feel for a heartbeat. “What should I do?” Oskar groaned as if in pain. “What’s that story where the guy kisses his love and brings them back to life?” He leaned over and kissed Oskar’s lips. He tasted of liquorice and coffee. At first, Gareth did one kiss, but when there was no resistance, he carried on until it was a deep and satisfying snog. Oskar’s eyes snapped open then shut again.

  “That was Snow White! I’m no fucking princess.”

  “No, of course you’re not. You’re a handsome boy. Man!”

  “Talk,” Oskar fired.

  “Will it bring you back to life?” Gareth was good at the playing, tantrums, and the sulks. The only thing he had no clue about was when they looked in each other’s eyes and tried to actually talk, like the time he’d cried and Oskar had been terrified.

  “Talk.”

  Gareth climbed on the bed, which involved some shifting of the slim figure. Of course, he had to move Oskar’s body so he was more or less in Gareth’s arms.

  “Shoes.”

  “Already done.” Gareth positioned them into a snuggle—being careful to avoid the forehead liquid—then he licked Oskar’s earlobe and sucked a little. “I missed you last night.”

  “Talk. Keep talking.”

  “I missed you so bad in the night.”

  “Badly. You missed me so badly.”

  “Yeah! I really did. Missed you so badly it made me miserable.”

  “How miserable?”

  He started stroking Oskar’s stomach, which was pale and slim and made Gareth’s heart race just thinking about it. “So sad! I…ached for you. Hurt like a wound.” He was useless at fancy words, but getting better. Back when they first met, he’d researched some Shakespeare sonnets and flowery words. Using them hadn’t done anything much except make Oskar narrow his gorgeous eyes, but Gareth was grateful for any attention he could get. As he stroked, Oskar moved a little. “Ached and hurt like bows and arrows.” Oskar opened his legs slightly. Gareth played with his jeans zipper, not daring to do more.

  “Talk.”

  “OK. My dad is Michael Fraser. I guess you recognised him. So. I was never allowed to mention him because no-one knew he had a kid. Or Mom either. My mother is Cindy Miller. You might not have heard of her—she’s not as big as Dad. Anyway, I was a—accident. And not allowed to mention them. I mean—never. I literally never told anyone. I never went to school, nor had any friends. I stayed with tutors and nannies while he made his movies. A lot of the time, it was shit. I was lonely and bored.” He stopped stroking and hugged instead. Slowly, Oskar’s arms came around and hugged him back. “Oh, he was a great dad! When he was there, and when he was sober. I loved him. And then he’d be off again making movies or going to rehab or whatever.”

  “Shit. What about your mum?”

  “I don’t really know.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

  Gareth realised he was crying. “I mean I don’t know. I didn’t realise me not seeing her was weird—not until I went to school and saw other moms. I just saw her couple times a year but then we moved again and it stopped. All I know is she was too busy with filming. I hardly know her at all.”

  “Shit. Total shit!”

  “Yeah. I guess so. Paid people looked after me, and none of them cared. I never complained, though, because I was always scared that one day Dad would stop coming altogether.”

  “Fucking bastard. Is that why you’re always so clueless?”

  “Maybe. Yes. I never learned how to do anything! I didn’t even have a bank account. I never went to a shop alone. I never bought clothes or knew any kids, or anything.”

  “You were a kid in a bubble?” Oskar’s voice had changed from killer-clown to might-be-sad. “Is this for real? You better not be shitting with me.”

  “It’s real. Then eighteen months ago, Dad told me he had to go away for a long time to make a movie, and I had to go to school. He took me to this awful place—a very exclusive boarding school. Not prison, but it could have been.” He kissed Oskar. “And for the whole time I was there, he didn’t contact me. Not once.

  “I made myself sick with the stress of all those kids and not having a clue what to say. I—I’m not very old, for my age. Not in some ways.” He shuddered. “Anyway. I left without telling anyone where
I’d gone because I convinced myself he didn’t want to know me anymore. I ran away with a boy and picked fruit until I came here.

  “And all the while, turns out he was in a car crash and in a coma for months. It wasn’t that he left me behind—not completely, anyway. He had a kind of breakdown. It’s very hard to explain. I don’t understand it myself! He left me there because he thought they’d look after me better than he could. He was sick.”

  “Bollocks,” Oskar sneered. “There’s a lot of holes in that story.”

  “Yeah, I know. It’s hard to understand. He took a lot of drugs and was often off his head.” He couldn’t bring himself to admit Dad had often gone six months without calling. “It’s—that’s what he was like. I mean, he was always jetting off somewhere for months on end. I wasn’t allowed to call him or anything in case—well—anyone realised he had a kid. Normally, I waited for him to come back, but at school, my head got all mixed up and sort of crazy. And…this other boy pretended to be my friend, but all the time he messed with my head.”

  “But why didn’t you insist that poncey school get hold of him? I would’ve screamed and shouted if it was me. It’s what I’m saying—you’re too trusting and easy, Lollipop.”

  Gareth closed his eyes. “I don’t know. Because I’m a jerk? Because I don’t know how to make a fuss? Because I was—ill?” He gulped. “Mentally ill. Anyway. Yesterday was the first contact I’d had with him since school.” Oskar pulled back and opened his eyes. “Oh, god. The eye thing?” He laughed as Oskar went cross-eyed. “I don’t know what’s going to happen, but right now he’s staying here and says he wants to get to know me. It was his nurse stalking us. He’s called Jim.”

  “Michael Fraser sounds like a wanker to me. What kind of dad fucks off like that?” Oskar said. “You knew it was him sending the parcels?”

  “I hoped it was, but I didn’t know. That’s why I stopped you from going to the house. Because if it hadn’t been him—” Gareth rubbed Oskar’s nose with his own. “I built my hopes up again. Do you forgive me?”

  “No. No, I don’t. But I’m not mad. Not at you, anyway. There was always something off about you, like you come from another planet. And you’re so trusting.” He curled his lip. “You need to toughen up and tell the world to fuck off. Don’t just take things lying down!” He pulled Gareth’s hair sharply. “Stupid! I missed you too,” he whispered so quietly Gareth could hardly hear. “But I can’t forget you lied to me.”

  “I didn’t really lie.”

  “Omitting to say your dad is famous as fucking Indiana Jones is a lie! I mean, I know what it’s like to be the secret kid of a superstar.” He looked away, and Gareth wondered what the fuck to say.

  “Yeah.”

  “So everything is all loved up now with your dad? You just forget the last two years?”

  “No. Not exactly. I don’t know how to be around him.” Gareth shrugged helplessly and tried to put his confusion into words. “He feels like a stranger, and he’s all cut up and sick. His voice is the same, though. This morning, I was spreading butter and he said hey kid, just the same way he always did. And for a minute I forgot it all—school, college. Then I looked up and saw that scar, and he’s lost all his confidence. I wanted to cry or something. And the other thing is, I’m not that kid he remembers. I’m grown up now, and mature and—” he ignored the snort “—having sex. Where does that all fit? You know?”

  “Do you trust him to stay around this time?”

  “No. I don’t think so. Definitely not. He will for a while, maybe. Then his agent will call, and he’ll get excited and start talking loudly and calling me sweetie. When he does that, it always means he’s about to fuck off. Then he buys me loads of stuff—stuff I don’t want—and tells me it’ll only be for a while, he loves me very much, blah, blah. And I’ll be worrying he’s sick again.” Telling Oskar the gruesome details of his childhood was far easier than talking to Dad that morning had been. “I’m so relieved, you know! I didn’t want to have secrets.”

  “Sweetie?” Oskar made gagging sounds. “Barf me out!”

  “Yeah.”

  “And that, my dearest Lollipop, is why you are a special snowflake. Not that my own mother hasn’t called me a few choice endearments—bastard, shit, fucker, to name a few.” Oskar snorted again, so Gareth joined in, though he was shocked.

  “No-one called you a sweetie?”

  “No!” Oskar shrieked. “It’s shit, right? Just think how different my life might have been if they had! I might not be such a bitter bitch, for instance.”

  “You can be my sweetie?”

  Oskar did a loud and dramatic impression of dying with one eye open. “Do you think he’s told you everything? Well?”

  “No.” Gareth’s voice got quieter with each no. “But what can I do except give him a chance? He…he’s really damaged. Doesn’t matter what he did, he’s still my dad. And my little cat’s there too. He’s called Bubble. I woke up this morning, and there he was, like old times, sleeping on my feet. And then we had breakfast, and it felt just like—I guess—how normal people feel.” Oskar drew his hand across his throat as if slitting. “I know! I know. I’m weak and dumb and it’s no wonder he left me. Do you think I should tell him to get lost?” Oskar threw the pillow across the room. It landed on a glass; shards and liquid crashed to the floor. “I will if you say so. I guess.”

  “I never said that! Fuck sake, Gareth. You’re too—nice.” The words spat from Oskar’s mouth as though distasteful. “Why do you have to be like that? The world’s a heartless place, not some kiddie story filled with kittens. You can’t just go trusting people and do whatever they tell you. Anyone who tries that on is a swamp-twat. OK?”

  Alternately, he pushed and pulled at threads of cotton from Gareth’s sweater—“He left because he’s a wanker. Simple as that.”—finding a long enough piece to wind around one finger. He concentrated intently until it snapped. “Aw. Made my finger bleed now. But no. You should definitely and categorically not tell him to get lost. No. You should do all the things. Dad things. He should be the one looking out for you, not the other way round. And don’t go forgiving him too easily! He owes you big time.”

  “Will you just hold me a while?” Gareth crept into Oskar’s arms and cried a little, but he enjoyed the kisses and hair strokes even if they were more like tugs.

  “I’m getting better at cuddling.” Oskar’s voice shook. “But it does not come natural to one such as me. Inside my core, I am a wave of sympathy—” the arms tightened around Gareth “—yet my body is at odds. You think it’s like learning to use new PlayStation controls? At first you press all the wrong things and it feels crap, but then suddenly you get the hang of it.”

  “Mm. I guess,” Gareth said. “You need more confidence. More practice.” He floated on a cloud of bliss.

  “I hate your dad.”

  “When you meet him, you won’t think he’s a wanker. Not really. More a wanker by default.” He snuggled further into the warm neck. “Life can be very demanding. Sweetie.”

  “I never thought you were weak and dumb! Being nice isn’t weak. I’m just trying not to hate your dad enough to stab him in the middle of the night. How could he piss off like that and leave you? If I was a gentleman of the eighteenth century, I may very well have stabbed him with my sword. How could he?”

  Gareth had no answer so instead, he got back to stroking Oskar’s stomach, finding sense in the dark hair around his belly button.

  “I’m not sure I can date a boy who kept secrets. The truth is a very pure and necessary part of my being.” Gareth concentrated hard on not snorting. Oskar pinched his butt cheek sharply. “Maybe you’re not the person I thought you were?” Gareth’s heart plummeted right through the floor and made its way to Australia. “I haven’t decided yet.”

  “You’re dumping me?”

  “No! No, no, no. I didn’t say that. Will you stop shoving words down my throat? Tongue yes, knob, yes. Words, no.”

  Garet
h choked. “So there’s hope?”

  “Oh, yeah. Lots of hope. More hope than all the lippie under my bed.”

  “That is a lot of hope! Dad wants to meet you properly. He thinks you’re great.”

  “I still wanna kiss you.” Oskar rolled on top and stared down. “A lot. And I want to talk and go for coffee, and laugh at the girls, and listen to music with you.” He poked Gareth’s chest. “With you. Pacifically—”

  “Specifically.”

  “Do not interrupt me, Lollipop. It does not become you. Because you—sweetie—are now a part of my life, and I am not one for sweeping yet irrelevant gestures—as you know.” He suddenly stuck his tongue into Gareth’s ear. “You’re gorgeous. So fucking gorgeous. You make my body your tool and my heart your pet. In many ways I am yours!” Gareth’s head exploded. “But don’t think I’m impressed by you being the kid of Hottie Fraser because I’m not. Not me. Fame has no allure.” He held Gareth’s head in a grip of iron and stuck his tongue down his throat aggressively. Gareth kissed back just as hard. “He thinks I’m great?” The chest tightness from all the tension melted away. He’d concentrated hard in case he’d misinterpreted, but it definitely didn’t seem like he was dumped. At least, not yet.

  “Yeah. He really does?”

  “Me? Michael Fraser wants to meet me?” Oskar climbed astride and stripped off his top. He guided Gareth’s hands to his body then watched with eyes half closed.

  “He says will you please come to lunch today? Please? I’d really love you to help me with him, because it’s all so weird. I don’t know how to be around him. I’m still worried about his mental state.”

  “I might do. I don’t want you worrying! But we’re not dating until I make up my mind. About if you are a suitable boyfriend. What else are you hiding? The Bear I know could just be an avatar for some ponce I’d hate. ’Cause you know I hate most people?” He put his head on one side expectantly so Gareth nodded. “Just because you’re a millionaire and look like a god does not mean you’re good enough for me.” He rocked slowly. “But you still look and feel like my Bear.”