Reversing Over Liberace

by Jane Lovering

  “Well, I’ve seen some designs he’s done for beds.” Luke lowered his head and nibbled at my skin. “Very modern, all curves and arches. Erotic. Is that what you’d like? Oh, I know what you like.”

  “The people opposite…” I started.

  “They’re across the river. What can they see? Anyway, let them look. We’re worth watching, aren’t we? Don’t you think? I think they should pay to see this.”

  They would have got their money’s worth, that’s all I’ll say.

  Back at the office, some time later. Who am I kidding—I was severely late, bursting in through the doors with my jumper on backwards and a pink, postcoital glow that was probably visible from the moon. I looked like someone had tried to fry my face.

  Katie was waiting. “Here’s the number. You promised Cal you’d ring, and you wouldn’t want to disappoint a man like that, would you?”

  “I swear you’re a witch, Katie Gardner.”

  “Yeah, of course. By the way, Will, how did Cal get the phone number? You don’t know anything about this James.”

  “I dunno. He just did. Where’s the number?” There were more digits than in the amount I owed my credit card company.

  “But, it’s not like you can, say, ring Directory Enquiries, is it? Excuse me, I’m looking for the number for a James Fry, just a James Fry.”

  “I said, I don’t know. Why don’t you ask him yourself? Oh. Sshh.” The telephone rang in the distant United States and I held my breath. “What am I going to say?” I whispered.

  “Hello?” The voice was definitely British.

  “Is that James? James Fry? Luke’s brother?”

  “Uh, yeah. I guess. Who’s that?” American phraseology, a slight accent.

  “Look, this is going to be a surprise but, I’m engaged to your brother. We’re getting married next summer and I wanted to introduce myself. That’s all.”

  “Oh, yeah, hi there. Yeah, Luke’s told me all about you. How is he, the old bastard?”

  Katie tapped me on the shoulder and mouthed, “What’s he like?”

  I mouthed back, “Sounds really nice,” and listened to James going on about Luke and how he’d done nothing but talk about “the fantastic girl he’s going with” and how Luke was going to make his millions. James clearly liked the sound of his own voice bouncing off a satellite, so I let him jabber away, interjecting every now and then with an “is that so?” and “sounds great”. I heard that the weather in Boston right now was hot and humid, the air conditioning was bust yet again, that Luke had promised to visit sometime soon, did I know when, and that James had met a gorgeous New England girl and he hoped to be settling down, maybe just after Luke and I. “So you’ll be sure to fly over for the wedding.”

  “It will be lovely to meet you.”

  “Yeah, you too. Luke’s been real different since he met you, you know. I know he’s had his problems, but this past year he’s less restless than he was before.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Well, since he met up with you, what, last fall, he’s been like a different guy.”

  “James, Luke and I have only been together since March.” Behind me, Katie moved closer, put a hand on my arm.

  “Nah, gotta have been in the fall. I remember him talking about you on Thanksgiving, when he flew over.”

  My heart felt uncomfortably too large for my chest. “Right. Yes, sorry my mistake. Fall, autumn, yes.” My mouth was dry and my tongue stuck to my teeth. “Um, James, can I ask you, when he talks about me, what does Luke call me?” I manufactured a deathly chuckle. “Only we’re having a bit of an argument about him using my nickname.”

  “Oh, right. Yeah, I guess Dee-Dee does come over a bit childish.”

  “Dee-Dee.” I sounded hoarse. “Yes. I wish he’d use my proper name.”

  “D’you know, I don’t know if I’ve ever heard it?” James sounded distracted now. “Look, it’s been great shooting the breeze with you, but I’ve gotta get moving, I’m at work and…”

  “Work. Yes.” My lips were scything against my teeth as my chin trembled. “How is business at Sampsons these days?”

  A half-embarrassed chortle. “Sorry, I must be missing something? Company I work for, they’re called Pearson Brothers. Pearson Brothers Electrical, we do components for hot air driers.”

  I put the phone down while he was still explaining the tricky nature of hand-drier manufacture. Very, very carefully and softly, as though this was snow country in avalanche season. “Well,” I said, surprised that my voice still worked, “at least I know her name now.” It was my own stupidity that was overwhelming me, rising to my nose, my eyes, until I thought I might drown in it. Stupidity and humiliation. I was so full of it, there wasn’t even room for tears. “I’m going to the loo.”

  “You’re not going to do anything stupid.” Katie watched me with anxious eyes.

  “What, you mean more stupid than I’ve already done? I don’t think that’s possible. And anyway, in the toilet? I do have some dignity left.” I went into the women’s cloakroom and surrendered most of my dignity to a snotty weep.

  When I came back into the office, Neil and Clive, bless them, were handling my workload and Katie was waiting with an avenging angel face on. “Right. Time to talk. Clive, Neil, hold the fort.”

  “Rightcha are love.” Uncomplainingly they went back to thumping my keyboard and frowning into my telephone.

  “They’ll probably produce the works of Shakespeare while we’re gone.” My voice was tremblingly close to hysteria.

  “Those two wouldn’t recognise Shakespeare if he had a walk-on in EastEnders.” Katie hustled me out of the office and down the road to the Grape and Sprout, where Jazz was keeping a bottle of vodka company at a corner table. The two of them pressed me into a seat and Jazz poured me a drink. I noticed his hand was still shaking.

  “I…” I began, but Katie shook her head.

  “We’re just waiting for the others.”

  Others? “Are you okay, Jazz?” I asked. He looked different today, less, well, less. No platform-soled boots for a start, and no enormous black coat. It was as though someone had taken him and whittled.

  “I, Willow,” he pronounced so carefully that I wondered if he was already drunk, “am incredibly okay.”

  He’d shaved off the goatee, too, and there was a thin, pale line around his face where it had been protecting his skin from the sun. Katie caught sight of this and began to giggle.

  “You look like you’re being haunted by your own beard.”

  “I’ve turned over a new leaf. No more dark Goth. I am cleaning up my act.”

  Katie and I looked at each other dubiously. “Last time you said that, it was because you’d found the Church,” she reminded him. “I hope we’re not going to have any of that kind of thing again. It took me ages to get the smell out of the curtains after you’d practiced with the incense.”

  “Yeah, but on the plus side I’ve got a great outfit. I’m just waiting for the first Tarts and Vicars of the season.”

  Jazz had taken the Church as seriously as he took everything else, i.e., extremely, for a week. It was the celibacy that got him in the end.

  “Who’re we waiting for?” I asked, as another tiny ripple of miserable self-pity rolled its way onto my shores.

  “I asked…oh, here they are. Over here, guys.”

  To my slightly startled horror, Ash and Cal came through the doors, laughing together as though there had never been an awkward moment between them. “Oh God, Katie! I thought we were going to have a consoling drink and you two were going to tell me what an idiot I am.”

  “Yeah, and then you were going to go right out, rationalise everything, and carry on as if nothing had ever happened, weren’t you?”

  “No. Well, yes, probably. But still, why did you ring those two?”

  “Ash is really good in a relationship crisis. He tells it as it is, cuts the crap,” Jazz said, pouring two more drinks for the newcomers as they made their way
over.

  “And you invited Cal because you fancy him.” I turned fierce eyes to Katie.

  “I invited Cal because he likes you and we could really do with an alternative perspective on things here, Will. This guy, Luke, he’s got another girlfriend, definite. He’s lied about it to you, definite.”

  “He’s a cheese face, definite,” put in Jazz.

  “Er, yes. But you know all this. And look how miserable it’s making you, trying to pretend you’re not seeing what’s right in front of you.” Katie poured me a drink but avoided my eye.

  “But I didn’t know.”

  “Bull. You knew as soon as you read those messages. What else has he lied about?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Willow.”

  “All right, so he moved out of the hotel without telling me. Big bloody deal. He had a perfectly valid reason for that.”

  “And his brother? What the hell is that all about?”

  “I don’t know!” I stood up and shouted. Everyone else in the Grape and Sprout stopped talking and turned to look. Luckily they were all midafternoon wine drinkers, so their opinions didn’t count. “I don’t know,” I went on more quietly, once the chatter had resumed. “Maybe Luke’s ashamed of James, maybe James is a gambler and lost the business on the wrong card. I don’t know, but I won’t condemn Luke without evidence.”

  “Well, duh, darling, but how much evidence is it going to take to convince you?” Ash slouched in the seat next to me. “If you’re determined to take his side, you could catch the boy in flagrante and still believe him when he said he was getting a splinter out of her tush with his tongue.” He downed his vodka in one and waved a hand. “Just dump him. Plenty more fish in the sea, if the holes in your net aren’t too big.”

  “Thank you, Oscar fucking Wilde,” I snapped.

  “Oh, come on, you’re not exactly choosy, are you? I mean, most of the guys you dredge up I wouldn’t poke if my knob was on fire and they had Lake Windermere up there.”

  There was a momentary silence as we digested this particular Ash-ism.

  “But surely,” Jazz began, “if your knob was on fire—”

  The conversation which broke out was overloud and overanimated. “Drop the man, Will. No excuses. He’s lied to you.”

  “Don’t give him a reason. Or you could hint that he’s fuck-useless in bed, that always gets them.”

  “But we’re getting married, we’ve bought a flat. Why would he do all that if there’s someone else? And, I mean, Dee-Dee, what kind of a crap name is that, sounds like a bloody poodle.”

  “Is he into animals then?” That, of course, was Ash.

  “Not like you mean.”

  “I might be able to help,” Cal interrupted for the first time and we all stopped talking to look at him. “I…I mean I could…there’s ways…” he stammered his way through being the centre of attention.

  “What ways?”

  “Oh, Cal’s into all the arcane practices.”

  “Ash,” I said, warningly.

  “I don’t want to go into it, but there are things I could do, to find out.” Cal talked to me directly, into my eyes as though we were the only people in the room. The concentration stopped the stammer. “Only if you want me to.” And he held my gaze after he’d stopped speaking, which made my stomach tremble in an all-too-familiar way.

  “’Scuse.” I dashed for the doorway and the lovely, convenient drain outside.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  I lay my aching head on the pillow and thought about what a stupid idea it was to try to get over emotional traumas by drinking. I’d stopped analysing whether my raving stomach was down to the effect Cal’s eyes had on my psyche or the more prosaic effects of eight vodka shots per hour.

  It was, predictably, three in the morning. A time at which all souls are at their lowest and thoughts immediately turn to picking at the biggest scab on the psychological knee. Me, I didn’t even know where to stick the metaphorical fingernail. My mind felt like one huge raw wound now that Jazz, Katie and Ash had all had a good poke around in it. Even Cal had stuck his oar in, although admittedly only to offer his assistance.

  Why was it that they all thought they had a say in my life? Did I advise Katie on how to bring up the twins? Give Ash the benefit of my experience of club-drug culture regarding sex and promiscuity? I don’t think so. And yet they’d all given me their own versions of the ditch-the-bastard speech. Okay, so I knew that Luke wasn’t the faithful type, much too good-looking and aware of it, but fidelity wasn’t everything in a relationship, was it? There was trust, and respect and yes, right, I know that trust and respect are difficult if your partner is shagging the length of the street but, there’s affection, too. Luke had explained that as a deserted child he had problems with physical affection, but he could still do sex. And sex is a very important part of any healthy relationship. Just ask someone who isn’t getting any. Katie, come forward.

  So, all in all, Luke and I had a lot going for us.

  I rolled my head onto a cool part of the pillow—big mistake, because the whole room started rolling, too, and I had to close my eyes to stop it. But, on the plus side, I fell asleep again and woke up at eight feeling only slightly nauseous. Someone was pounding on my bedroom door.

  It was Clay. “That bloke’s back,” he said without preamble, sitting on the end of my bed and effectively pinning me down under the covers. At least he wasn’t trying to fart on my head, the intervening twenty-five years having smoothed his social edges somewhat.

  “What bloke?”

  “And I’ve got a letter from the council. Apparently they’re selling off Ganda’s allotment. For building, if you please.”

  “Yes, I did hear something.”

  But Clay was off on one. “So I thought, what I might do, what I’d really like to do. I’ve been looking for some land to build my own house on, but I didn’t want to go too far out of town. I want to design Modern Urban, do you see?”

  I refrained from mentioning that his land was York allotments, not derelict warehouse in inner-city Birmingham, but it was obviously Clay’s idea of urban. “Sounds like you’ve really thought about it. Excellent. Brilliant idea. Now, for the love of God, what bloke?”

  Clay jumped up, his mind once more on steel and chrome. “Er. You know. The one that ate all the bread and I had to—”

  “Go to Morrison’s in your pyjamas. Yes, I remember. It’s Cal. Where is he ‘back’?”

  “Downstairs.” A look of horror crossed Clay’s face. “God, I left him alone with the loaf!” He fled the room while I tried to fix my appearance so that I didn’t look like a vampire porcupine.

  “Morning.”

  I don’t know why it annoyed me that Cal sounded bright and breezy, but it did.

  “Why are you here?”

  He raised one eyebrow. “Don’t you remember? Last night?”

  I decided to try for comedy. “What, I didn’t sleep with you, did I?”

  “No,” he said into my eyes. “You would remember.”

  Whoa, where did that come from? To cover what was quite a large confusion, I started “business with kettle and mugs”. Actually, my memories of last night were a bit scattered rather than being absent altogether. I knew I’d rung Luke and called off our date, pleading a sudden onset of flu. I knew that I’d carried on drinking with Cal and Ash after leaving Katie in the bar, that Jazz had gone off to visit OC, carrying a ridiculous number of fluffy toys (where had he hidden those when we’d been in the Grape and Sprout?) and, er. “Humour me.”

  “You’re having the day off and we’re going digging.”

  Oh, great. Here I was, feeling as though I’d stubbed my brain, and I was going what? “Digging?”

  “You’ll see. Come on.”

  An hour later we were up on the moors, parking in the lay-by. The last time I’d been here Luke had parked on this spot and I’d been happy. No thoughts about other women. “Look, I’m wasting both our times here. Let’s go back to to
wn. I really should be at work anyway. It’s not fair on Katie.” But Cal was ignoring me completely, swearing under his breath as he negotiated the trackway down to the house. The mud had dried in the brief hot spell we were enjoying, but this seemed to make things even harder for him. Instead of slipping and losing his balance, he had to contend with ruts and unexpectedly deep potholes. “Cal? Did you hear? I said I ought to be going back.”

  Cal turned round, resting against one of the old oak trees that lined the path. “They said you’d do this. Katie and Ash and Jazz, they told me you’d try to deny anything was wrong. I’m looking on this as saving you from yourself, and I’m rather looking forward to it, if you want the truth. So you might as well shut up and go along with it. Right?” He crouched down suddenly and pushed aside some undergrowth until the trunk of the tree was revealed. Without its accustomed blanket of brambles and nettles, the bark looked nakedly pale. “Here. See?”

  Intrigued, despite my misery, I bent down next to him. “What is it?”

  “I carved this when I was ten. The tree was a bit smaller then. See, those are my initials, CM. Callum Moore. Bloody nearly cut my finger off doing the M and Mary slapped me sideways when she found out I’d used one of her good silver knives.”

  “I didn’t know your name was Callum Moore.”

  “You do now. I was a miserable little guy back then, loner, reckoned no one understood me—hey, look at me now, nothing lasts forever. Right, that’s you distracted, shall we go on?”

  “God, you really are weird, aren’t you?”

  “They told me you’d do that, too.” Cal turned away and led the way farther on, out into the field.

  “What?”

  “Be rude. It’s what you do, apparently. To keep people at a distance. One thing though, Willow.” He reached the gate and pushed it open, stood waiting for me to follow him through. “It’s a bit too late.”

  There were sheep in the field today, cropping down the overlong grasses and watching us in baa-filled distress. They’d eaten all the little white flowers and for some reason this made tears bubble up in my eyes. I scratched them away with a ferocious sleeve and followed Cal down into the yard. Instead of heading into the house, he produced a key and went straight to the locked barn, fiddling about with the padlock for a second. The air was suddenly overflowing with screaming siren noise. I clamped my hands over my ears but, unconcerned, Cal released the lock and went inside. Two seconds later the noise died.