by Liam Livings
"But you didn't, did you? You sang it to me, knowing Callum was here."
He shrugged.
I looked at Callum and asked him to give us a minute, then led Charlie to the bar, away from the rest of the family's flapping ears. Gavin had been practically taking notes at the earlier display. "You need to get used to the fact that," I coughed then put on a country and western accent like in the song, "I'm never ever going out with you." Back in my normal accent now, I said, "I am with him now, and that's the end of it. No more flirting, no more persevering, nothing. It's friends, or it's nothing."
"It was me who introduced you to all these friends. If it weren't for me taking you out that Sunday, you wouldn't know any of these people. They are my family."
"Fair comment, but if they had to choose between someone who's being reasonable, and someone who's veered over from enthusiastic through letchy and into bloody rude, I think I've got a pretty good guess who they'd side with."
He took his hat off and stared at the ground. "I was such a perfect gentleman when we first met. I didn't take advantage of you. I just wanted to get to know you, and thought it would come from there. I always wanted to sleep with you, as soon as I saw you. You're pretty much exactly my type; young, thin, and English as a bonus I suppose. And while I was waiting for the perfect moment, being the perfect English gentleman, you went and met him didn't you?"
I smiled and nodded. "Pretty much. What about all this stuff you're always telling us all about loving being single and not needing anyone, not looking for a boyfriend, just wanting to play the field. What happened to all that?"
"Bollocks - the lot of it. Bollocks. When you've got instant sexual gratification just a few clicks and swipes of a phone screen away it somehow doesn't seem such an achievement any more. I could have two or three guys like you a day if I kept clicking and swiping. Only they wouldn't be like you, they'd be like you to look at, but not when I wanted to talk to them afterwards."
There was nothing I could say to that, so I said nothing.
"This one guy, when we finished he got up from the bed, had a very loud shit in the bathroom while smoking then started putting his clothes on. I asked him if he wanted a drink, or to chat for a bit. He just looked at me like I was asking him to go away with him for the weekend and said, 'Why, what for? We're done.' He explained he had another 'play date' on the other side of town in an hour or so. I tried a different tactic with another guy, this time beforehand. He kept trying to take off my clothes as he was stood in my hallway wearing nothing but an eager smile. I offered him a drink to relax, a cigarette if he wanted. He asked if I was into anything kinky, 'cause he just like it straight up, in and out, wham bam thank you sir, and could we get on with it 'cause he had to be back at work in half an hour. It felt like such a chore. It had as much emotion as making some flat pack furniture: insert bracket A to hole B."
Back in a campy country and western accent, I said, "I'm telling you now, there ain't no way you're inserting your bracket into my hole, not any time soon." We both laughed nervously. "Not while I'm with Callum, anyway. And I'm happy with him. You must be able to see that, can't you?"
He nodded slowly.
"And you're my friend, aren't you?"
"What sort of a stupid question is that to ask? 'Course I am."
"Well, friends want to see each another happy. Friends don't want to split their friends up from their boyfriends to insert their bracket into their hole. Okay?"
"I suppose so."
"It's simple, either you get used to me being only your friend, and you're nice to Callum, or we can't be friends."
He started to sing the same song again, promising never to leave me when I was lost in a storm, to never desert me when my heart was torn. "And my love keeps burning like an eternal flame you can feel it, when I'm calling your name."
I shook my head. "You can do all those things for me, as a friend. And as for this eternal flame, you might just have to dampen it down a bit, 'cause I can see it from here." I looked to his groin.
"I can't control my body. My head can get round things, but that part of me will always feel the same about you." He smiled, his thumbs hooked into his pockets and his groin on full beam pointing towards me.
"You're like some sort of inappropriate dirty sexy uncle. That's what I'm going to call you from now on. Dirty Uncle Charlie. Just as long as the rest of you behaves, I'm sure we can keep that bit in check."
He shrugged, nodding to his groin. "It likes what it likes." He coughed and reassembled his features and body into a serious friend pose. "Friends?" He held his arms out, waving for me to approach him for a hug.
I leant into the hug and felt him hard against my thigh. "Inappropriate!"
"My head's fine, but the other head, it likes what it likes, I told you." He shrugged.
I whispered into his ear, "Thank you for finding me in the club that night and being such a gentleman. If you hadn't been such a gentleman, I doubt we'd still know each other. I do love you, you know." I pulled back and shook his hand formally. "But not in a funny way, alright?"
He smiled, pumped my hand up and down twice, then led me back into the club where I first met Callum's eyes staring wide at me, his mouth pursed to one side. Charlie sat at one side of our group, and I squeezed in next to Callum, so he had to perch on my lap slightly. I motioned for him to lean down and I kissed him, gently stroking his slightly hairy navel and enjoying myself respond in my underwear. He leant forward shifting himself onto my lap and reached behind himself to my groin, giving it a little squeeze. "Aye, nothing wrong down there, I see." He gave me that grin and I moved one hand up under his T-shirt to trace against his smooth chest and tweak the nearest nipple.
I noticed a clapping noise signalling the end of the current song. Gavin touched both of us on our shoulders. "Sorry to interrupt you two love birds, but if you don't mind, we're trying to watch a show, and not that sort of show. It's Glasgow, not Amsterdam. We're gonna make a move. We've got a busy day tomorrow, loads of orders to make up - fifteen funeral orders, himself's just told me."
"Fucking hell, what happened?" Callum said, "Motorway pile up, or a plane crash?"
Gavin laughed and slapped Callum's arm playfully. "No, silly, it's one funeral, but all the mourners are using us for the flowers. Someone's gran died in her sleep at ninety two. There's flowers spelling out her name, gran, nan, mum, the whole works. It's rare these days, most people want a donation to a charity, they say flowers are a waste. I don't think they are, it's a nice way to remember someone. And you can always take photos to remember them by. It cheers up a funeral no end, does flowers, I've found. But then again, I would say that, since I'm a florist … " He looked to his side where Big Gav stood, in his huge bulk, wearing a tight black T-shirt with The Locomotion in rainbow lettering across the middle.
"Come on, you, let's get going. Six o'clock tomorrow morning we're taking our first delivery and it's all hands to the pump from then on."
Gavin kissed us bye, made a comment about how magnificent Big Gav's pump was before he was forcibly removed by his boyfriend from us, kissed our cheeks again and then they were both gone.
Callum flashed that grin at me again, we made our excuses, and left. Callum shook Charlie's hand very formally, and I kissed Charlie's cheek, just a peck.
We jumped in a taxi, scrabbling at one another's clothes. He pushed my T-shirt up so he could bite my nipples greedily. When we arrived at mine he threw a note at the taxi driver and hopped up and down as I fiddled with the keys. We ran into my room, slamming the door. The window was ajar, a little breeze freshened what would have otherwise been a strong smell of unwashed laundry and sweaty bodies. He kicked some of my clothes out the way, so he could kneel in front of me and undid my trousers, pulling quickly at my underwear. I burst out of my pants and into his mouth, gasping slightly with pleasure as he took me into his mouth. After a while, I wanted to move to the more comfortable location of my cheap futon. We shed what remaining clothes we had on,
throwing them on the floor, joining the piles of other clothes, then fell on the bed. It creaked, then made a loud cracking noise. I laughed, "Looks like it's new futon time." We lay head to tail enjoying one another, our heads bobbing about in time. I caught his eye and raised my eyebrow he knew what I wanted now. He turned so we were both sat facing one another, and he licked his hand then took us both in his hands, gently pulling, gently pulling, pulling harder and harder until first he shuddered to an end, and he continued to pull on me, kissing my neck and face at the same time, until I twitched and shuddered to my finish.
We lay on the slightly broken futon, laughing and panting together. He propped himself on his elbow, kissed me and asked if I wanted some water.
"I really should tidy up in here. I can hardly see the floor. How long do you think it's been since I did laundry?"
He looked at the floor, hardly any carpet visible for clothes strewn everywhere. "Judging by those pants you were wearing today, I'd say about two to three weeks."
I slapped his chest gently. "They weren't that bad were they?"
"They'd seen better days; they were Superman ones - the first time round, so Christ alone knows how old they were."
"Rude!"
"True though. What do you think I wanted them off a ya so quick?"
He ran to the bathroom down the corridor, wrapped in only a towel and returned to the bed with a glass of water each, which we greedily gulped before falling asleep.
Chapter 14
Callum's audition was at one o'clock on Friday. After a lengthy debate about the benefits of me taking the day off and travelling down with him at stupid o'clock that morning, we had agreed I'd save the day's holiday and travel down after work.
"You'll only be sitting around waiting for me, and I don't think I'll be much company that morning, going over my piece I've prepared. I'm not gonna want to chat about stuff until I've got the audition out the way," Callum had explained.
"But I do support you; I do want you to know I'm thinking of you the whole day. I do want you to get this." We'd tentatively begun to discuss the practicalities of him living in London during the week, and me in Scotland if - and only if - he got the job.
"I know you'll be thinking of me."
Now, sat at my desk at work, I sent him a short text saying my fingers and toes were all crossed, and I was sending all my good thoughts for whichever patron saint looked after actors - Genesius of Rome, I'd looked it up and been pleasantly surprised. Normally, not one for religion or saints or that sort of malarkey, today I wanted to firmly hedge all bets and so I sat with my fingers and toes crossed, clicked send and thought of Genesius.
A hand appeared on my shoulder and Ewan commented on the website about patron saints I was looking at.
"Sorry. It's just, he's got the … "
"I know. There's nothing you can do now. Let's get on with what we have to do here and you can leave a bit early if you want, eh. Get you away down to London to see him, how's that sound?"
"Thanks."
"Aye, but it's early yet, so we've another few clients to get along with. Who's next?"
I closed the patron saint web-page and opened the computer's calendar. "A Mrs Aitken and Bobby. What's that about?"
"Have we got any newspaper? And get the mop and bucket on standby. We're gonna need it for this one."
"How old is Mrs Aitken?" I had visions of a nonagenarian woman and her carer arriving for photos.
"It's not her, it's wee Bobby we've to worry about. Have you heard of Greyfriars Bobby?"
I nodded. It was about a man's dog who lay on his grave for fourteen years after he died.
"Mrs Aitken always has a wee white Scottie dog, and they're always called Bobby. Every year she has a photo taken with him. She's been coming here since we opened, and I've friends who've taken her photo for the last twenty years, all with the same wee dog. She's a bit of a legend around here, as it goes."
"A legend of legend. That's post-modern or something isn't it?"
"Aye, less of the post-modern and a bit more of the backing card and lighting please." He shouted orders for me to set up the shoot until we had a well lit white wicker chair, a deep pink background and pink gels on half the lights to give the whole scene a candy-floss glow. She brought her own pink sheepskin rug to lie at her feet apparently.
An hour later, we had hundreds of pictures of Mrs Aitken - a small woman in a pink candy-floss skirt suit, hat, scarf, blouse and court shoes, holding a brilliant white Scottie dog called "wee Bobby", whom she fed little titbits from her jacket pocket throughout the shoot. She showed us a photo album of the other pictures she'd had taken over the years; in each one her hair became whiter and whiter until it was its current ice cream swirl of white. Throughout the pictures she wore almost exactly the same outfit, and the dog too was identical. "Thank you, gentlemen. Will you send me the invoice in the post as usual?"
Ewan nodded and helped her off the chair with a flourish.
"I must away the now, I've a houseful to see to."
I looked at Ewan and he shrugged. "Do you live with family, Mrs Aitken?"
"Ach no, son. It's all the other wee Bobbys. I've another four at home. I'll phone to arrange another sitting with the next one, once I've settled the account for this one. But now, I must away, there's an offer on instant coffee in the shop round the corner I've seen that's got my name on it." She carried the rolled up pink sheepskin rug under one arm and led the dog with the other. The bell on the door tinkled and her dog panted slightly as he walked beside her. And she was gone.
"Where does she live?"
"One of those three storey granite town houses in the city centre. Worth a fortune, so they are. She's lived there all her life, or so I'm told. Used to live with a maiden aunt until she passed, leaving it all to her."
"A maiden aunt, eh. I've heard about those. Sure it wasn't more than that." I smiled mischievously.
"Ach, you and your bloody queers - not everyone's one a yours, ya know. Besides, they didn't have lesbians then, they had little dogs and pillbox hats. Come on, who's next, then you can away yourself."
I set up the studio for the next shoot - black background card, red and white gels on the lights with yards and yards and yards of red velvet draped over a couple of wooden cubes and a coffee table. As I finished, a group of emo teenagers arrived through the door: all long shiny straight black hair over one eye, white make-up and black clothes.
Ewan raised his eyebrows and looked at the kettle.
"It's all set up as you asked." I nodded to him.
"Bring in the coffee and you can sort out some invoicing in here, then away to London if you like."
My eyes opened wide as I realised it was only two o'clock, and if I left shortly, I'd be in London for the late afternoon.
"After the invoicing, mind." Ewan waved his hand and led the emos into the studio.
I opened the invoice template and started to check details from the calendar, but before I had even typed one line into the invoice template, I found myself looking up the address where he was having the audition now. Or where he'd be just finishing the audition now. It was in Covent Garden, somewhere off the Piazza, which used to be a flowers and vegetables market, but now sold expensive crafts from stalls. I remembered looking it up with him to work out the nearest Tube station. Covent Garden; the beginning of Callum's London adventure. Or not. I knew it would mean a massive change to our relationship. I knew it would mean going back to London more often than I'd planned when I left all those months ago. If he got the job, I'd have two reasons to return: Callum and Lena. She was finding it hard to afford the trips up to Scotland as often as she wanted, and I knew I needed to share the burden and travel down to her sometimes. Two reasons to return and one big reason not to.
Lena, I wonder what she's doing. I clicked on the Skype icon on the computer's desktop and noted she was online. Turning the volume right down, I rang her.
Lena's face appeared in the middle of the screen as she waved
frantically. "What are you doing? I cannot wait to give you a big hug. Since how long has it been we have seen each other?"
I shushed her, and leant towards the screen. "I'm meant to be doing invoicing, but I can't concentrate."
"Have you heard from him about this auction he is in'"
"The audition, no; nothing."
"No news is good news, I think."
I smiled and began to explain that normally was the case when it was bad news you were expecting.
She shrugged and started to explain a Swedish idiom about sliding in on a prawn sandwich.
I nodded with a huge grin on my face, with neither the energy nor inclination to probe further about that one. I knew she was trying to be helpful, and wanted to hug her. Instead I touched the screen where her cheek was.
"A few hours and we can touch in reality." She smiled, adjusting her tall quiff slightly as it had begun to droop. "When will you arrive in King's Cross? I will collect you and we will travel back to mine together."
I explained it depended on when I got to leave work, but it could be any time between seven and nine o'clock.
"Seven is good. Nine is late. I will eat before then, I think. I cannot wait for you this long. Seven, we can go for food together. Where do we meet Callum?"
"He knows where your place is and I said I'd text him when I'm on my way. I didn't want to make plans 'cause he might not be in the mood for a big meal out if he's just been told no, and he's got a weekend in London for no reason."
She pursed her lips and coiffed her quiff. "For no reason. What do you think I am, a dish on the side?"
I heard footsteps approaching with the voices of the emo kids. I waved and quickly closed Skype, resuming where I hadn't started the invoice.
Ewan showed the kids out, locked the door behind them, turned the sign over to read Closed, then stood by the desk where my leg jangled up and down and I stared intensely at the blank invoice template.