by Alexis Hall
“Come on,” yelled Judy. “Stop dawdling in the hallway. I want to meet Luc’s new beau.”
We bundled into the front room, Oliver doing a better job of navigating spaniels than I did, or, indeed, had ever done. “You must be Baroness Cholmondely-Pfaffle,” he said, with his usual effortless courtesy. “I’ve heard so much about you.”
“Pish-posh. Call me Judy. And I haven’t heard a damn thing about you because Luc doesn’t think it’s worth telling us things, do you, Luc?”
I slumped onto the sofa, as I’d been doing my entire life. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about my fake boyfriend soon enough.”
“It’s your loss. I know all about having a fake boyfriend.”
“Do you?” I asked warily. “Do you really?”
Mum—who had only interacted with about three people since the dawn of the millennium—seemed to have decided “hospitality” meant “poking.” She poked Oliver towards me. “Sit down, Oliver. Sit down. Make yourself at home.”
“Oh yes,” Judy went on, “just after my coming-out in ’56, I spent three months pretending to be engaged to this lovely Russian fellow.”
Oliver lowered himself gingerly down beside me, and all the spaniels tried to get into his lap simultaneously. Honestly, couldn’t blame ’em.
“Charles, Camilla”—Judy snapped her fingers—“Michael of Kent. Down. Leave the poor fellow alone.”
Charles, Camilla, and Michael of Kent slunk abashedly to the floor, leaving Oliver with a single more manageable spaniel. A spaniel that currently had its forepaws on his shoulders and was licking his nose lovingly, while staring deeply into his eyes. If I’d tried to do that, he’d have told me he wanted it to mean something.
“He said…” If Judy let rampaging dogs get in the way of an anecdote, she’d had never have said anything “…it was very important that people believed he had a legitimate reason for staying in England and interacting with the aristocracy. You can keep Eugenie. She’s rather a love. Looking back on it, I think he might have been in the KGB.”
“The spaniel?” asked Oliver.
“Vladislav. They pulled him out of the Thames in the end, with a small-calibre bullet in his brain. Poor fellow. I say, you’re not working for the, well, I suppose it would be the FSB now, wouldn’t it?”
“No. But that’s what I’d say if I was in the FSB.”
“He’s not in the FSB,” I interrupted before Judy could get ideas in her head. “Or the KGB. Or the NKVD. Or SPECTRE. Or Hydra. He’s a barrister. And he’s nice. Now leave him alone.”
Mum, who had been flitting back and forth from the kitchen, stuck her head through the door. “We are just interested.”
“In whether he’s a spy?”
“In general. He’s a guest. Besides, you haven’t brought a boy home in a very long time.”
“And,” I grumbled, “I’m starting to remember why.”
Oliver made a placating gesture from behind Eugenie. “Really, it’s fine. Thank you for your hospitality.”
“Oh now, doesn’t he have lovely manners,” announced Judy, as if Oliver wasn’t in the room. “I like him much more than that Miles. He had a sly look, like my third husband.”
“Miles?” Oliver tilted his head with gentle curiosity.
Fuck. I was about to have a horrible experience that could almost certainly have been avoided if I’d been more honest with the guy to begin with. It’s like there was a moral here or something.
Judy banged her fist against the arm of her chair, somewhat startling Michael of Kent. “He was a wrong’un from the start. Charming, of course, but I always knew he was going to—”
“Judy”—that was Mum, coming to my rescue, just like always…okay, like about 90 percent of the time, when she wasn’t the problem—“we are here to eat my special curry and watch the drag race. We are not here to talk about that man.”
“Then dish up, old girl. It must be ready by now.”
“My special curry, she cannot be rushed.”
“It’s been in the slow cooker since you got up this morning. If it was any less rushed, it’d be catatonic.”
My mum threw up her hands. “It is called a slow cooker. It is slow. If it was not slow, it would be called a fast cooker. Or maybe just a cooker.”
Oliver dislodged Eugenie and climbed to his feet. “Can I help at all?”
Mum and Judy gazed at him adoringly. God, he gave good parent. Worse, I was pretty sure he meant it.
“By the way,” I said. “I should have mentioned this earlier, but Oliver’s vegetarian.”
He gave me a genuinely betrayed look, as if I’d respected his ethical choices just to make him look bad in front of my mother. “Please don’t worry. It’s not a problem.”
“Of course it’s not a problem.” Mum somehow managed to turn bof into a gesture. “I’ll pick the meat out in the kitchen.”
Judy shook her head. “Don’t be a ninny, Odile. That’s very disrespectful. What you should do is fish the vegetables out and serve them separately.”
“I assure you,” Oliver protested, “neither is necessary.”
Mum turned to me. “You see? Why are you making such a big fuss over nothing, Luc? You are embarrassing yourself.”
She barrelled off again. And Oliver, mouthing a “sorry” in my direction, trotted after her. I held out a tempting pay-attention-to-me hand to Eugenie, but all I got for my trouble was a disdainful glance before she scampered out in pursuit of Oliver.
Well, fine. My perfect fake boyfriend and the cute dog could go and play with my mother in the kitchen while I was stuck in the front room with a serial divorcee in her mideighties.
“Just us, eh?” Judy had that “I’m about to start a long anecdote, and there’s nothing you can do about it” look in her eye. “I never did tell you what happened with those bullocks, did I?”
I surrendered with as much grace as I could muster. Which, admittedly, wasn’t very much. “You didn’t. How were they?”
“Terrible disappointment. I went to see the chap, expecting him to have a nice, big healthy pair of bullocks for me to get my hands on. But when I got there, I found I’d been quite misled.”
“Yeah. It happens.”
“I know. We went all the way down to his paddock and he got them out for me, and frankly they were substandard. About half the size I’d expected. I mean, I think there was something wrong with them, to tell you the truth. The one on the left had this strange swelling, and the one on the right was listing most unfortunately.”
“It sounds,” I offered tentatively, “like you were better off leaving them alone.”
“That’s what I thought. Obviously I gave them a good once-over anyway just in case. Nice firm pat-down and all that. But in the end I had to tell the fellow ‘No, I’m sorry, but I will not be handling your oddly shaped bullocks.’”
To my tremendous relief, Mum, Oliver, and Eugenie came back in with the curry before Judy could explain how he’d gone on to try to interest her in his prize rooster. Oliver handed a bowl of curry to Judy, and then he, Mum, and I squidged onto the sofa like three not especially wise monkeys.
“Has this got banana in it?” I asked, prodding nervously at what I hesitated to call my dinner.
Mum shrugged. “They put bananas in curries all the time.”
“In specific curries. Curries where the rest of the ingredients are chosen to complement banana.”
“It’s like tofu or beef. It absorbs the flavour.”
“It’s delicious, Odile,” declared Judy, loyally. “Best one you’ve ever made.”
We fell silent as we grappled with Mum’s cooking. I wasn’t exactly a wizard in the kitchen myself, but I think Mum was an evil wizard in the kitchen. It took skill, and years of practice, to be as consistently and specifically terrible at food as she was.
“So.�
�� Oliver could have been doing his social lube thing as usual or, maybe, he’d just realised that if he was talking, he didn’t have to be eating. His eyes were definitely watering. “Um. Is that your guitar?”
It was. And it usually lived in the attic. I’d like to think I would have noticed if I hadn’t been so distracted by, well, everything else.
“Ah oui. Luc’s father wants me to collaborate with him on a new album.”
I choked on curry. I mean, I’d been choking on curry already, but this time the reaction was emotional, rather than chemical. “You didn’t tell me that.”
“Well, you didn’t tell me you had a fake boyfriend.”
“That’s different. Oliver didn’t walk out on us twenty-five years ago and isn’t a complete arsehole.”
“I’m not even sure I’m going to do it, mon caneton.” Mum forked up a curried banana with what appeared to be genuine relish. “I haven’t written in years. I think I’ve run out of things to say.”
Judy glanced up from her almost-empty bowl. No wonder the queen was still going—they clearly made the aristocracy out of concrete. “’Course you haven’t. Just need to get back on the horse, that’s all.”
“I’m not sure the horse is what I remember it being. Horses get old, too, you know. Sometimes, it’s kinder to leave them out in the field, eating the apples.”
“I can’t believe you’re even thinking about this.” I stopped slightly short of yelling. “Obviously, if you want to write music, that’s great. But why do you have to do it with Jon Fucking Fleming?”
“We always had something together. And this may be the last chance I get.”
I plonked what was left of my curry on the side table. This was a perfect excuse not to eat it, but I was also kind of too angry for food right now. “You mean, the last chance he’ll get. He’s blatantly using you.”
“So? I could use him back.”
“It’s true,” added Judy. “You’re never more popular than when you’re dead. Look at Diana.”
“Yeah but”—I accidentally elbowed Oliver in my effort to gesticulate—“you’ll have to spend time with him. He doesn’t deserve to spend time with you.”
“Luc, I decide who I spend time with. Not you.”
I opened my mouth. Then closed it again. “Sorry. I…just…sorry.”
“Don’t worry, mon cher. You don’t have to look after me.” She stood up decisively. “Now, shall we tidy away the dinner things and then gag on the fierce queens?”
Chapter 26
Partly out of a desire not to look like a terrible son and partly because I needed a change of scenery, I persuaded Mum to let me deal with the cleanup. It wasn’t until I got into the kitchen that I remembered quite what carnage my mum was capable of creating, especially when she was making the special curry.
“I can see where you get it from,” said Oliver, coming in behind me, with Eugenie trailing behind him.
I dumped the bowls next to the sink, which was full of other things that should in no way have been necessary to produce anything like what we’d just eaten. “I’m sorry.” I kept on staring at the washing up, too scared to look at Oliver, in case he was horrified or disappointed or confused or contemptuous. “This is awful, isn’t it?”
“Of course it’s not awful. They’re your family, and you clearly all care about each other a lot.”
“Yeah but we’ve talked about my dad’s penis, served you a literally inedible nonvegetarian curry, and then I had a fight with my mum I really wish you hadn’t seen.”
His arms went round me, in that enfoldy sort of way he was so good at, and he pressed against my back. “It’s certainly very different from what I’m used to. But I don’t…I don’t think it’s bad. It’s honest.”
“I shouldn’t have freaked out about Jon Fleming.”
“You had a slightly emotional disagreement that I could tell came from a good place.”
I let myself lean into him, his chin settling neatly onto my shoulder as if it belonged there. “You can’t want any of this.”
“If I didn’t want this, I wouldn’t have come.”
“It must be so weird to you, though.” Turning, I discovered too late that it brought us way too close, way too quickly. Probably I should have moved away, but between the sink and the currypocalypse, there was nowhere for me to go. And, anyway, I wasn’t totally sure I wanted to. “I mean, you have two fully functional parents, and neither of them have ever been in jail or on TV. I bet you don’t row in public or ask if people are in the KGB two seconds after meeting them.”
He laughed softly, his breath warm and sweet against my lips—oddly sweet, actually, considering the curry. Must have been the banana. “No, we don’t. And I admit, I’m quite glad we don’t. But it doesn’t mean that it’s wrong you do. People express love in different ways.”
“And apparently I do it by being a dick.”
“Then”—God, his mouth right now wasn’t stern in the slightest—“you must care for me very deeply.”
“I…” I was actually dying. I was going to blush myself to death.
“Boys,” bellowed Mum, “we are tired of waiting for you, and we are starting our engines. You do not want to miss the entrances. They are a very important part of the experience.”
We startled away from each other, almost guiltily, and hurried back to the living room.
“Come, come.” Mum waved us onto the sofa. “This is my first viewing party. I am very proud.”
I couldn’t quite imagine anything worse than sitting between my mum and my boyfriend—I mean, my fake boyfriend who I might have accidentally spurted feels onto in the kitchen—on the sofa, while we watched RuPaul’s Drag Race with her best friend and four spaniels named after minor royals. So I sat on the floor instead, slightly closer to Oliver’s leg than was probably strictly necessary. Also I didn’t quite have the heart to tell Mum that me, Judy, and Oliver didn’t really add up to a viewing party. We were more like some people watching television.
Apparently Mum and Judy were up to season six already, which shouldn’t have surprised me because, as far as I could tell, Mum and Judy’s standard evening was Netflix and chill, only not a euphemism. At least, I assumed it wasn’t a euphemism. Probably best not think too much about that. They got all of one queen in before the running commentary started, and for the next two full episodes, Judy and Mum were ranking the death drops, making inaccurate predictions about who would go out, and asking us earnestly which boys we thought looked nicest.
Mum paused before episode three autoplayed. “How are enjoying the Drag Race, Oliver? You are not too confused?”
“No,” he said, “I think I’m keeping up.”
“We should probably explain that the woman who does the judging at the end and the man in the workroom at the start are actually the same person.”
I put my head in my hands.
“At the beginning, we thought it was like Project Runway and the man at the beginning is like Tim Gunn and the woman at the end is like Heidi Klum. But then Judy realised that they seem to have the same name, and that because it is a show all about men putting on dresses, she probably is actually the same man only in a dress.”
I looked up again. “Nothing gets past you, does it, Mum?”
“Yes,” agreed Oliver, ever polite, “the name did tip me off.”
“Seriously, Oliver,” I asked, nervously, “how are you finding the show? We can leave at any time. Any time at all.”
He made a hmming noise. “We don’t have to go. I’m enjoying myself. And the show is…interesting.”
“You are so right, Oliver.” Mum turned to him enthusiastically. Odds were about 60/40 in favour of her next line being wildly inappropriate. “I had not known there were so many different sorts of gays. In my day we had Elton John and Boy George, and that was it.”
“Freddie Mercu
ry?” I offered.
Judy’s mouth dropped open. “He was never? But he had a moustache and everything.”
“Famously so, I’m afraid.”
“Well, stone me if you don’t learn something new every day.” She turned to Oliver with a terrifyingly interested look in her eye. Oh God. “What about you, old man? Have you ever sissied that walk?”
“Do you mean,” he asked, “have I ever done drag?”
“Is that an insensitive question? They’re doing it on TV now, so I assumed it was fine.”
Oliver did his contemplative frown. “I’m not sure I want to set myself up as an authority on what’s insensitive. I mean, for what it’s worth, most people don’t, and I personally never have. It’s honestly not something I see the appeal of.”
There was a small pause.
“Well, it’s all larks, isn’t it?” said Judy. “Like those parties we used to have in the ’50s where the boys would get up in dresses and the girls would get up suits, and then we’d drink far too much fizz, sneak off into the bushes, and do naughty things to each other.”
Oh dear. I was perilously close to using the phrase “it exists on a spectrum” to Mum and Judy. “It’s complicated,” I tried instead. “What’s a lark for one person can be really important for another. And really problematic for someone else.”
“I think for me”—Oliver shifted slightly uncomfortably—“and I should stress I’m speaking entirely personally, I’ve never wholly identified with that particular way of signalling your identity. Which always makes me feel like I’m letting the side down a little bit.”
Mum patted him reassuringly. “Oh, Oliver, that is a sad way to think. I am sure you are one of the best gays.”
I glanced back to find Oliver looking faintly flustered. “Mum, stop ranking homosexuals. It doesn’t work like that.”
“I am not ranking anybody. I’m just saying, you should not have to feel bad because you do not like to watch men in dresses telling blue jokes. I mean, I enjoy it, but I am French.”