Wrong Room, Right Guy

by Liam Livings

  I started to explain that I was out at school, and was used to the mocking I had, mainly about being posh, and ginger, but not really gay.

  Jay appeared between us, his hand on both our shoulders. 'You done, or is this a mothers' meeting? I've gotta lock up, lads.'

  Darren jumped in, 'All done here, we were just talking about Simon's school, I thought I might have gone to the same school as a kid.'

  'And did you?'

  'Dunno yet.'

  'Right, out you two, you can carry this on in the car park, whatever, but I'm locking up.' He pushed us out of the room.

  Darren leant against my car, his arms behind him and his hips pointing towards me. Thankfully, joyously, finally, I noticed the outline of something interesting and sizeable in his tracksuit trousers. 'They take the piss 'cause you're posh, carry on.'

  I looked up from his groin area, pulled my concentration back to the here and now, and said, 'Some of the girls try to set me up with their gay uncles. You'd be surprised how many gay uncles there are in Essex actually.'

  Darren laughed.

  I laughed.

  'But this isn't school. It's a different group of people, why be ashamed of it, why not tell them?'

  'You can talk. If it wasn't for me, you'd never have said anything. I was planning to tell you all next week.'

  'Oh, planning to tell us all were you?' He mocked my accent.

  I wanted to have a row with him. I wanted to tell him to stop taking the piss out of me, but his smile was so perfect, his vintage tracksuit so alluring, and the twinkle in his eye so … twinkly, that I just laughed and continued to explain that I didn't want me being gay to be the first thing the group knew about me, or I'd always be 'gay Simon', whereas if I told them later they could all take their pick out of gay Simon, posh Simon, druggy Simon, teacher Simon - all the aspects of who I was, rather than just one. 'Look, do you fancy going to the pub.' I looked at the pub on the opposite side of the road, partly covered by large trees, a gravel car park and sign promising authentic home cooked Italian meals.

  He started to reply, but I interrupted, 'Yep, I know. Sorry. I'm still new at this, you know.'

  'We could go for a coffee, if you like. Or tea, if that's your thing. That's all I seem to drink now, since coming to the group - gallons and gallons of tea and coffee.'

  'I can do coffee.' I smiled at him, smiling back at me. 'I like coffee. I've got a coffee maker at home actually, it's got more different settings than my washing machine, and that's got enough. Yeah, coffee. Or tea, if you like tea. Do you like tea, Darren? I like it too, but I do prefer coffee I think.'

  'Put your number in there.' He handed me his phone.

  There was a bit of awkward missed call business, and between both our less than perfect mobile signals, I had his number when he'd tried to call me.

  'Got it?'

  I nodded.

  He looked at his phone. 'Me too.' He walked to the far corner of the car park and got into an old, funny looking metallic green car, with a black vinyl roof and chrome hub caps. It glided out, leaving dust, gravel and strong exhaust smell in its wake.

  So, posh gay teacher Simon has just found himself a new friend to play with. I smiled, bursting with excitement to tell Lucy, then remembering the original reason for coming to the group, and Clara-Bell and her enormous portions of warming, rib sticking food, and her three main areas of advice.

  I was going to be a busy Simon, wasn't I?

  Chapter 13

  Somehow, one Saturday, I managed to make myself a website. I even added PayPal buttons for people to pay for my freelance writing services. I included a section on ghost writing services, how I was more than happy - strange phrase, but it seemed right at the time - more than happy to write other people's blog posts, web pages, magazine columns for them for a fee. Insert PayPal button. I had a section about my stories, as a writer, and first started to write something about what I was working on at the moment. Then I realised that what I was working on at the moment was the website I was building. So I just left it as stories, and thought I'd add more there once I'd written something, using all the great stories from the Cocaine Anonymous group.

  I checked Clara-Bell's list and realised I needed to create time to write, so I spent the next couple of hours making my writing area as perfect as Clara-Bell's had seemed. This went roughly like this:

  1. Make large pot of coffee - I knew I needed that before I could start writing.

  2. Assemble a pad of paper and some Post-It notes for plotting out what I was going to write.

  3. Pick a perfect biro.

  4. Pick another perfect biro.

  5. Replace them both with a fountain pen.

  6. Search the house top to bottom for highlighter pens. Someone at the writers group had said they swore by them. I couldn't remember what for, but I knew I had to have them.

  7. Turn on laptop - update iTunes and antivirus software.

  8. Make sure the light streaming into the window was at the perfect angle. Adjust the blind for a while until it was perfect.

  9. Then I realised it was time for something to eat, so I left it all and ate something.

  10. Resume my place in front of the laptop and start to write. But just check e-mails first. BIG MISTAKE. HUGE MISTAKE.

  11. I think I must have disappeared into some sort of an internet vortex, because I checked my watch and I appeared to have lost over an hour and a half.

  12. Switch on TV, check what needed to be 'taped' on the little box for watching later, once I'd really got into writing.

  13. Doze on the sofa.

  14. Call Lucy.

  And that's where I was now. Having typed Chapter 1 on my screen, and arranged the Post-It notes on the table in a perfect line, still completely blank.

  'Hi, what you up to?' I breezed into the phone, waiting for a reply, looking at my perfectly arranged writing area of such low productivity.

  'Settling in for some Saturday night TV. You know, a few game shows which look like they've landed from the seventies, a competition which focuses more on the contestant's back story than anything to do with their talent, then I was going to dig out one of my favourite chick flicks, and dive in. You?'

  I updated her about my attempt to write. To which she laughed, and told me I was far too much of a perfectionist, and I needed to talk to my new friend, Clara-Bell again. 'Tell me about this website and blog.'

  I did, and realised I had done something so far. I had actually achieved something.

  She asked for the website address. I heard her typing it in. 'Not many pages are there? And this blog, what's that going to be about? Ooh, you've got a stories page.' There was a click. 'Nothing on it though.'

  'No, nothing on it.' I chewed my cheek absent-mindedly and looked at the laptop and Post-It notes arranged on the table. 'Thanks for your support. I think I'll go now, and drown myself in a warm bath. Can you take my lessons on Monday please?'

  'Don't be so bloody dramatic. Actually, do, but put it into a story. You do know that the latest thing Mr Farnham has got into is social media, don't you?'

  'Mr Farnham? Mr Farnham, our fusty, dusty old Head?'

  'Yep. At one the last terminal meetings he was talking about increasing the school's social media presence. He wants someone, a creative type, he said to manage the blog and set up a Twitter and Facebook account. He was on about a procurement exercise for a freelancer. Why don't you ask him?'

  'I must have nodded off when he said that. Procurement exercise, terminal meetings.' I rolled my eyes, for no one's benefit but my own. 'He won't want me, he doesn't see me as a creative type. I teach English, and ignore the curriculum.'

  'You really are thick sometimes, Simon. Approach him as a freelancer. Send him an e-mail from your new website. I note you've not used your real name. Where did you get this one from?'

  I explained the origins of my nom de plume, as I now was enjoying referring to it. I said I'd tried my mother's maiden name and first pet, but that turned out
to be my porn star name, so I hadn't opted for that, but instead went for mother's maiden name, and one of dad's 'uncle' friends, he'd been friends with since I was a boy. 'Not a real uncle, but like Mum's friends were Auntie Pat, this one was Uncle Michael. Hence, Michael Mountsford was born.'

  'Hence indeed.'

  I looked at my blank page and then flicked to my new website, which also had quite a few blank pages. 'I think I'm done for now. I'm going to go now. See you Monday.'

  'So no need to take your classes then?'

  'No need. I feel better now.' And besides, I had to concentrate on my other project, namely luring the delicious Darren into my clutches and finding out exactly what did lie beneath those tracksuit bottoms.

  Chapter 14

  I looked up towards the aisle in the dining room at school, trying to catch her eye. I'd saved a seat to my right, at the end of the teachers' table at the far end of the dining room. Either side of the aisle were benches and tables of light wood, filled with pupils eating, chatting, and generally making noise and mess.

  I heard a bang and a clatter, followed by a cheer, as in the traditional way the whole school cheered for one pupil falling and spilling their lunch over themselves and the floor. One of the lunchtime catering assistants - that's dinner ladies to everyone else - scurried into the aisle with a mop and bucket and started to clean up the mess, handing the unfortunate pupil some paper towels to wipe down his uniform.

  Lucy was by now nearing the teachers' table, looking up and down for a place to sit. I raised my hand and she caught my eye and sat next to me.

  'What is this do you think?' She forked about a plate of brown, yellow goo.

  'Moussaka. I believe. That's why I stuck with a salad. Dessert looks okay though.' I stirred the bright yellow custard surrounding the jam roly poly.

  'So what can I do for you? What's so urgent you needed to talk to me?'

  I'd spent the last two days trying to catch her for a quick chat, but we'd both been very busy, marking, extra lessons, lunchtime patrols, not together this time - we'd been like ships which passed in the night. Only during the day.

  She took a mouthful of moussaka and chewed reluctantly. 'How's the foundation studies lessons going, old Farnham gave you?'

  This had been one of the main reasons I'd had no time to see her until now. Finally, against all predictions, old Farnham had asked me to his office one evening after school at quarter past four. Who asks people to meetings at quarter past the hour, I'd thought. This is a control thing, I'm sure. I was fully prepared for a full scale bollocking, or perhaps a written warning. Again, my skills in English class had left something to be desired, when I'd lost my temper because a pupil had asked why they had to read Dickens' Oliver Twist and couldn't they just see the film instead?

  Steeled for having a strip torn off me, I'd entered his office at exactly quarter past four, and he'd told me I was to start the foundation studies cookery classes, as the helper of the ageing geography teacher Mrs Price, from next week. And was I still interested in the other foundation studies lessons? He handed me a list, and I was to get back to him by the end of the week, at quarter to four - he was going away for a golfing weekend - with my final decision.

  'Be careful what you wish for eh?' I forked some salad on my plate.

  'What?'

  'The foundation studies classes. Now I've got them, I realised I couldn't be less interested. A couple of hours with Mrs Price, stinking of gin and fags, handing out the bowls, and sticking a skewer in the cakes, but double checking with Mrs Price every time, somehow doesn't quite hit the spot.' I shrugged.

  'That's urgent is it? Okay.'

  'Sorry, no, what I meant to say was.' I looked up the table and satisfied myself none of the other teachers were eavesdropping. 'Darren's coming over!' I looked either side, expecting some alarm to go off.

  Lucy clapped. 'That's a bit intimate isn't it? What happened to dinner and a film?'

  'We couldn't go round his, 'cause he still lives with his parents.'

  'And he's in the closet to them is he? Very nineteen seventies. The plot gets thicker.' More clapping.

  'No, of course he's out to them. They knew his ex - Chris, who was practically their son-in-law. No, he just doesn't like doing the whole, meet my friend, thing with his parents, until he knows what the friend is. Is he a friend friend, or a friend. Get it?'

  She nodded, pushed the moussaka away and started on the jam roly poly. 'So you've established he is definitely on your team?'

  I nodded, gave up on my salad and dived into the pudding too. 'What about the writer thing? Have you told him about your alter ego, Michael Mountsford?'

  'So anyway, what I wanted to ask you, is, what shall I cook him? Bearing in mind it's not a date date, it's a getting to know you, friends, come round my house thing. It's not like I've just met him off the street, we've known each other for a couple of months. That's why dinner round mine felt right. It felt the right level of intimacy, like a friend. Besides, the stories we've shared we're definitely beyond nodding terms and awkward conversation at the cinema.'

  'I see.' She chewed slowly.

  'What do you say? What shall I make him?'

  'Can I just say, you're ignoring the immense elephant in the room here?'

  'What you talking about, elephant?'

  'Darling, you're going to have to brush up on your similes and metaphors, whatever they are, if you're going to be a writer. The enormous thing which you've not considered, which you've ignored despite me mentioning it twice.'

  'Yes, and?'

  'How are you going to tell him you're not in fact an ex cocaine addict, that you've never so much as seen some white powder, never mind sold your vacuum cleaner to finance it. And you are in fact a pretty middle class English teacher, trying to be a writer, who's called Michael Mountsford? That.'

  'Oh, that.' I looked at my hands, which were folded in my lap.

  'Yes, dear, Simon, that.'

  'Well, I hadn't thought about that. I was just concentrating on getting to know him a bit better. Seeing what's under his tracksuit really.'

  'Men, you're all the same. One track minds.'

  'Hardly, it's been months since I've been to Vauxhall for a bit. Months.'

  'I believe you; thousands wouldn't, but I do.' She winked. 'And?'

  'And what?'

  'The plan, for revealing to him it's all been a lie?'

  'I think of it more as a mask, a charade, an alter ego. Not so much a lie.'

  'And you're confident Darren's going to see it this way are you? You've asked him how he feels about deception and lies have you? He's fairly relaxed is he?'

  'Spag bol do you think? Or maybe that beef stew, Clara-Bell made for me. I'm sure she'd give me the recipe.'

  And then, gradually and suddenly, Darren and I were going out with each other. Dinner went well. I decided on the beef stew, Clara-Bell gleefully shared it with me, and then asked where I'd met this young man.

  Of course, I had to tell another lie to that one, and I said we'd bumped into one another at the gym. 'The gym? You go to the gym?' she had asked, as if I'd just said we'd met at the wings clipping clinic.

  'Yes, there's a little one I sometimes go to after work. Our eyes met over an inflatable buoy.' I had surprised myself at how easily this making things up came to me. Also called lying.

  Chapter 15

  He leant across the table after dinner, and grabbed my hand. He rubbed his stomach with the other hand, and leant back, revealing a sliver of skin and a little bit of dark hair on his belly button. 'Wish me mum cooked like that.'

  He told me more about why he'd started going to the group, about how the structure of weekly meetings had helped him stick to his goals. Two simple goals:

  1. Not to use cocaine

  2. To keep his job

  'Full marks to both those?' I asked nervously.

  He nodded.

  Then we had listened to music and I told him about being a teacher, why I got into it, and w
hat teaching English was like in my school.

  He said he didn't remember much of his GCSE English lessons, 'Except that I needed a C to get to college for my NVQ in plastering and home maintenance at the college.'

  'And did you?'

  'Get a C? Proudest I've ever been. I stayed up for days on end, reading and re-reading the books we were set. Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd - that's what I remember. I always thought it was maddening, but I still remember the teacher telling us what madding meant.'

  I raised my eyebrows for him to continue.

  'It means they're rushing about like headless chickens."

  I told him about the terminal meetings, and he rolled his eyes and said he was grateful he didn't have to do all that 'corporate bollocks' working for himself.

  And we talked into the night, full of my food, and knowledge about one another. I hoped he'd want to go upstairs, to stay the night, but at one in the morning, he stood, grabbed his keys, kissed me on the lips - a brief, bristly, beardy kiss, which immediately shot a jolt to my groin - and he left, promising to be in touch.

  We went for a coffee one Saturday, to which he turned up with plaster in his hair and on his old 'work tracksuit. 'I had a quick job this morning. She paid me extra for Saturday, so I said I would,' he explained.

  I found the plaster in the hair and on tracksuit disproportionately sexy, slightly distastefully sexy actually. I remembered guys I'd gone home with from the club in Vauxhall, and allowed myself to imagine doing similar things with Darren. It was an interesting concept, all that sexual tension and promise, and I knew him as a person too. He continued to surprise me by being very cultural and mentioning how he'd watched a documentary about OFSTED schools inspection, and probing me about whether I'd worked in a school under 'special measures.'