Boyfriend Material

by Alexis Hall

  By the time we’d got back from the dump, the washing machine was thrashing through the first of what would likely be approximately twenty-seven thousand loads, and James Royce-Royce had spread a red-and-white-checked picnic blanket across my newly visible living room floor. It was laden with goodies, and there were even clean plates to eat them off. Been a while since I’d seen those.

  We all flopped down and waited semipatiently for James Royce-Royce to introduce the food. I’d never quite figured out if it was a chef thing or a him thing, but he got borderline huffy if you tried to eat something he’d made for you before he’d told you all about it.

  “So,” he announced, “this is a traditional pork pie with hot-water crust pastry. Sorry, not suitable for Priya, but it’s a picnic. You can’t have a picnic without a pork pie.”

  Priya gave him a look. “Yes. That is absolutely true. I have all these magical childhood memories of how every summer I’d go out into the park with my family and my mum would make roti and samosas and a raita and a pie none of us could eat. Then when we got home, we’d lend it to the Jewish family next door so they could take it out on their next picnic.”

  “I’m sorry, darling. That was culturally insensitive of me. But I did make you a lovely quiche.”

  “Ooh.” She perked up. “Is it the broccoli and goat cheese one?”

  “Caramelised red onion, cream, and Stilton.”

  “Okay, I’m sold. You can keep your pie, infidels.”

  “There’s also,” went on James Royce-Royce, with typical ceremony, “a kale Waldorf salad with buttermilk dressing, a selection of handmade dips, including the hummus you were so fond of last time, Theresa, some of my home-made bread, naturally, and a range of local cheeses. Then, to finish, we have individual raspberry fools in mason jars. And, don’t worry Luc, I brought my own spoons.”

  Priya dragged a cooler out from behind my sofa. “Well, I brought beer.” She struck a Royce-Royceian pose. “It’s a sumptuous hops-based beverage served in a bottle.”

  “I’m seeing what you’re doing there, Priya.” He mock-glowered at her over the top of his black-rimmed hipster frames. “And since I’ve already blotted my cultural copybook, I’ve always wondered why you’re okay with alcohol but not with pigs.”

  “You want the long answer or the short answer?”

  “What’s the short answer?”

  “Fuck you, James.” She grinned.

  “And,” he asked warily, “the long answer?”

  “Because in case you haven’t noticed, I’m not a very good Muslim. I fuck women, I drink alcohol, and I don’t believe in God. But I grew up not eating pork, and so it still feels weird to eat an animal that rolls around in its own shit all day.”

  “Actually, pigs are very clean animals.”

  “Yeah”—she shrugged—“still not gonna eat ’em.”

  There was a brief period of calm while we all attempted to put a dent in James Royce-Royce’s characteristically excessive picnic.

  Eventually, Theresa—who clearly had better manners than the rest of us—said, “Priya tells me you have a new boyfriend, Luc. Will he be joining us?”

  “He’s got a work thing.” I waved a hunk of James Royce-Royce’s delicious home-made bread slightly sheepishly. “He’s a barrister.”

  “What speciality?”

  Help. I hadn’t prepared for the quiz. “Um…criminal stuff? He defends them and stuff.”

  “That’s very admirable. I had a friend from university who went into criminal law, but he recently moved into consultancy. I understand it can be very draining and not particularly lucrative.”

  “Well, Oliver’s got a lot of passion for it. I can’t imagine him wanting to do anything else really.”

  She looked thoughtful for a moment. “Then he’s lucky. Although in my experience there’s no one thing you need to make you happy.”

  “Is this,” said Priya, “your way of telling me you want a threesome?”

  Theresa gave her a wry smile. “Absolutely. In front of your friends at a picnic in a flat that still looks a little bit like the Siege of Constantinople is exactly how I’d choose to have that conversation.”

  “That sounds like it’s probably bad”—I went for another piece of infidel pie—“but I don’t actually know what the Siege of Constantinople looked like.”

  Theresa looked thoughtful again. I guess thoughtful was kind of the default in academia. “To be fair, it depends which siege you’re talking about, but I was thinking of the one in 1204.”

  “Oh good. Because if it had been any of the other ones, I’d have been deeply offended.”

  From which point the conversation degenerated into a mixture of quite a sophisticated description of the sack of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade (from Theresa) and some rather juvenile speculation about the presence, or otherwise, of my stripy underpants at the event (from everybody else). I would have tried to steer us onto practically any other topic, except knowing my friends, any other topic would have been just as bad. So, while they were trying to work out which bits of my laundry would be most useful against a crusading army, I found myself surreptitiously checking my phone. Turned out while I’d been dragging bags of rubbish between flat and truck and truck and dump, I’d missed a text from Oliver.

  He’d sent me a picture of Richard Chamberlain.

  Nice Dick, I sent back.

  “Oh my God, Luc,” cried James Royce-Royce. “What’s happened to your mouth?”

  I glanced up, startled. “If there’s hummus on my face, just tell me.”

  “It’s far worse than that. You were smiling.”

  “W-was I?”

  “At your phone.”

  From the uncomfortable hot feeling and the way everyone was looking at me, I was pretty sure I was blushing. “I saw something funny on the internet.”

  “Wow.” Priya put on her extra specially sardonic face she only used when I was being a total numpty. “A+ lying. Really good detail. Really sells it.”

  “It was a cat. Being scared of…something.”

  “It’s cucumbers. It’s always cumbers. And that was not a cat-meme smile. That was an ‘I’ve got a sweet message from someone I like’ smile.”

  I threw my hands up. “Fine. Oliver sent me a dick pic, okay?”

  There was a long silence.

  “Well.” James Royce-Royce drew in a long breath. “I enjoy a good penis as much as the next man, but I don’t normally go misty-eyed over them.”

  Somewhat shamefacedly, I turned my phone around and showed them the young Richard Chamberlain in a brown velvet coat, holding a glass slipper. “It’s…sort of…a joke we have.”

  Suddenly, with the exception of Theresa—who was looking very slightly confused—everyone had their phones out. And my own lit up with notifications from the WhatsApp group, which had just been renamed Don’t Luc Back in Anger.

  Bridget we have something very important to tell you

  Luc and Oliver are totally in wuv

  We are not!

  He sent him a dick pic and he got all smiley over it

  WHAT THAT MAKMES NO SENSE OLIVER WOULD NEVER DO THAT!!!!1

  It was a picture of Richard Chamberlain

  Which means they have private jokes. They’re getting married in August.

  YAAAAAAY

  Nobody is marrying anybody. It’s just a bit of friendly banter about men called Richard. It doesn’t mean ANYTHING

  IM REALLY CONFUSED BY THE MEN CALLED RICHARD THING

  I think it’s a pun on dick pic. It’s about Luc’s level.

  OMG THAT IS SO SWEEEEET LUC SEND HIM A DICK PIC BACK RIGH TNOW

  I’m not sending my boyfriend either a picture of my penis or a picture of a famous guy called Richard just because my friends told me to

  OH MY GOD YOU CALL HIM YOUR BOYFRIE
ND!!!

  ALSO G2G

  ONE OF MY AUTHORS IS BEIN G SUED BY THE STATE OF WYOMING

  Also my girlfriend is in the room and we’re ignoring her and she’s too fucking polite to mention it

  I was used to my friends teasing me about basically everything—it was how we related to each other—but that afternoon they’d hit a survivalist’s bunker’s worth of ammunition. Apparently the idea of me actually giving a shit about someone was such a novelty that it supported an endless stream of jokes, jibes, and ribbings. And, for some reason, I was totally defenceless, reduced to stuttering and blushing, when I was sure once upon a time it would all have just bounced straight off my armour of apathy.

  It took a bit of getting used to because I’d spent a long time pretending I was invulnerable. But they were so obviously happy for me, and their goal was so obviously to get me to admit that I was happy for myself, that even I couldn’t quite justify being a prick to them about it. Which meant they got to laugh at me, and I got to take it…and it didn’t entirely suck.

  Chapter 23

  I woke up the next day in a clean flat, which was fucking weird. It was almost like I’d moved house—I didn’t recognise anything, or know where anything was, and there was this sense of emptiness I hadn’t been conscious of since Miles moved out. Although there was also a sense of possibility that was completely new.

  It was so fresh and exciting that I got out of bed without my customary five-more-minutes-whoops-it’s-noon. I even considered putting actual clothes on, but I didn’t want to overwhelm myself with too much maturity all at once and shrugged into my dressing gown instead. What I did do, though, was make the bed. Not as well as Oliver would have but well enough that he wouldn’t rub his temples in dismay at the sight of it.

  I was in the kitchen, making coffee very, very carefully so as not to get grounds all over the now-shiny countertops when my phone rang.

  “Allô, Luc, mon caneton,” said Mum.

  “Hi, Mum. What’s up?”

  “I just wanted to say how proud I am that you made the effort with your father.”

  “I…” I sighed. “I guess it was the right thing to do.”

  “Of course it was the right thing to do. He has the cancer. But I would have supported you if you wanted to do the wrong thing as well.”

  “Supported me. But not been proud of me.”

  “Oh no, I would still have been proud. I admit that a tiny of part of me wishes I had the courage to tell him to go fuck himself.”

  “You wrote an entire album telling him to go fuck himself.”

  “Yes, but he did not have the cancer then.”

  “Well”—sandwiching my phone between my ear and shoulder, I tried to hold the cafetière steady while I pressed the plunger, but I must have overfilled it because it still geysered out the top—“we don’t know how it’s going to go. I may still tell him to go fuck himself.”

  “That’s fair. But I do also have a bone to pick with you, mon cher.”

  I dabbed desperately at the countertops with what was left of the kitchen roll James Royce-Royce had brought with him. “Why? What have I done?”

  “What you have done is not tell me that you have a boyfriend. And, worse, you have told your father. When we both know your father is objectively a complete oyster dick.”

  “A complete what?”

  “It loses something in translation. And that is not the point. The point is I am very upset that you have been keeping secrets from me.”

  “I’m not—” In my eagerness to mop up my minor coffee spillage, I knocked over the rest of the cafetière. Fuck.

  “You had an important piece of information to tell me about having a boyfriend, and you did not tell me about having a boyfriend. How is this not a secret?”

  “I told you I had a date.”

  “Luc, that is chopping up hairs.”

  Okay, there were two crises. Mum thought I was lying to her, and I’d already trashed my kitchen. I abandoned the coffee for now and headed back to the living room, where I lay down on the sofa so I couldn’t damage anything else. “Look, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. It’s actually a bit more complicated than that.”

  “Mon dieu, he’s married, he’s in the wardrobe, you’re secretly straight and seeing a woman—you know, I would love you anyway, even if you were a straight.”

  “No. No, it’s none of those things.”

  “Wait, I have it. You’re not really dating anybody, you’ve just persuaded some poor man to pretend to be your boyfriend because you are tired of everyone thinking you are lonely and pathetic.”

  “Um.” The problem with Mum was that she knew me far too well. “Actually, yeah. That one. Only nobody thinks I’m lonely and pathetic. As it happens, I have a very important work function that I need to take someone to.”

  A sigh gusted over the line. “What are you doing, mon caneton? This is not normal behaviour, even when your parents are estranged rock stars from the ’80s.”

  “I know, I know. But somehow it’s wound up being the most functional relationship I think I’ve ever had. Please don’t jinx it for me.”

  “Oh no, this is all my fault. I did not model positive romantic choices for you when you were growing up and now you are dating a fake man.”

  “He’s not a fake man.” I sat upright so abruptly I twisted the cushion half off the sofa. “He’s a real man.”

  “Is he even really a gay? Probably you are going to fall for him, and then it is going to turn out he is engaged to this duke, and you are going to try and steal him away from the duke, and the duke will try to have you killed, and he will have consumption and try to make you think he doesn’t love you when really he does and—”

  “Mum, is that Moulin Rouge?”

  “It could happen. I’m not saying there will be singing. But I’m worried this fake gay will break your heart.”

  I put my head in my hands. “Can you please stop using ‘gay’ as a noun?”

  “First I’m not meant to use it as a pejorative. Now I’m not meant to use it as a noun. This is very hard for me.”

  “Look. Mum.” Time for my best calm and rational voice. “I’m so sorry I didn’t explain this to you earlier. Oliver’s a real person, and he’s not Nicole Kidman, and we’ve got an arrangement where we’re going to pretend to be dating for a couple of months, just to make both our lives easier.”

  There was a long silence. “I’m just worried that someone will hurt you again.”

  “Yeah well. So was I for a long time, and I think that was hurting me more.”

  There was another long silence. Followed by “Then I want to meet him.”

  “What part,” I asked, “of fake boyfriend did you miss?”

  “I didn’t miss anything. I especially did not miss the part when you said this was the most functional relationship you had ever had.”

  Look at me being hoist by my own petard. “It’s still not real.”

  “I pay my bills with songs written by a girl I can barely remember being. Real is not something that interests me very much.”

  After twenty-eight years I’d reached the point that I only ever argued with Mum to see how I’d lose. “Fine. I’ll ask him. He’s working right now.”

  “Does he live in Canada?”

  “No. He lives in Clerkenwell.”

  She made a Gallic noise. “You should come see me anyway. Judy and I are about to start a new season of the Drag Race, and we would like you to spill the hot tea on the queens for us.”

  “I…” I glanced around my slowly de-pristining flat. If I carried on at this rate, by the time Oliver saw it, the place would be a tip again. “I’ll come over tonight.”

  “Yippee.”

  “Mum, nobody says ‘yippee.’”

  “Are you sure? I read it in a phrasebook in 1974. Anyway, Judy and I
will see you this evening. I will make my special curry.”

  “Do not make your special curry.”

  Too late. She’d gone.

  I spent the rest of the day taking twice as long to do everything—since now doing anything in my flat required me to tidy up afterwards or else undo all my friends’ hard work. And before I’d even had the chance to milk it for Oliver points. I was just getting ready to hoy for Epsom when my phone rang again.

  “Sorry to call unexpectedly,” said Oliver.

  I was glad I was alone so I could grin like an idiot without a running commentary. “Why, do you normally book your calls in advance? Do you call ahead? Are you like, Hi, this is Oliver, I’m just ringing you up to say I’m going to be ringing you up.”

  There was a tiny pause. “I did not think through how silly that was going to sound. I’m just aware that I told you I was going to be working this weekend, so you might be busy, and I wanted to be respectful of that.”

  “I Wanted to Be Respectful of That is totally the title of your sex tape.”

  “Well,” he murmured, “I can imagine worse titles.”

  “Can you? Can you really? Because I very much cannot.”

  “St. Winifred’s School Choir Presents There’s No One Quite Like Grandma?”

  My mouth dropped open. “You are a sick man.”

  “My apologies. I was just trying to prove a point.”

  “I’d say you’d ruined that song for me, but it was kind of pre-ruined by its own existence.”

  “Lucien”—he suddenly sounded deadly serious and, despite the lesson I should have learned from the bad news text, I still felt faintly nauseous—“I called because I’ve done all the work I can on my case and I’d…I’d like to see you this evening. If that’s…agreeable.”

  My heart stopped trying to choke itself to death. “Jesus, Oliver. Don’t use that voice unless you’re dumping someone or telling them their cat died. Also, did you just say…‘if that’s agreeable’?”