by Geoff Ryman
‘We’re going,’ Henry said to Michael, his eyes sad.
Michael wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly. Everything started to shake. ‘Philip’s left the cups,’ he said. He took them into the kitchen; he needed to be in the kitchen with Philip.
Philip was sloshing water on plates, keeping his back towards him. Michael had to stretch round him to put the cups on the draining board.
‘Phil? Listen, Phil, I need to talk to someone. I-I-I need just to talk.’ Michael needed to have Phil around, even if it was mostly in principle, even if he mostly saw Phil when he came in late and surly.
Distracted, Phil fired a jet of water into a cup that shot back out, over his shirt.
‘So. So. When will you be back?’
Very abruptly, Philip stopped. He put the cup down on the kitchen counter and pushed past Michael back into the sitting room.
‘Will you talk to me?’ Michael demanded.
Phil stopped, sagged, and turned back. He pinched his nose and closed his eyes. ‘I won’t be back, Michael. It hasn’t worked, it isn’t working, it won’t work in the future.’ Miserable, he began to weep. ‘So I’m going. I mean, I’m leaving you.’
Michael started to babble.
‘Buh buh buh buh, but doesn’t the whole idea of it hit you? I mean you could use it in your work. I know you couldn’t photograph them, but you could talk to them, fascinating people, old movie stars, whatever, and you could paint them, you could do new portraits of them.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Phil was gazing at Michael in something approaching horror.
‘It could be a real opportunity for you, you know, the paintings will stay, at least we could try, right?’ Michael stood, as if naked, looking hopeful. He saw it now. He needed to be more involved with Philip’s work.
Phil’s head was shaking as if in disbelief. ‘You’re crazy,’ he said, and swung away. He went into the bedroom and pulled a suitcase out from under the bed.
‘Phil? You can talk to them Phil. Philip, Philip, please Philip, don’t go.’
Philip paused and left the suitcase open on the floor. He fled to the cupboard and, quivering, pulled on a jacket. ‘I’ll come back for my things when you’re at work,’ he said, moving back out into the corridor.
Michael pursued him. ‘Philip, please listen. I told you because I can’t believe it myself and I need someone to talk to about it. Philip, it’s real, OK? It’s real, it’s weird and can be quite strange and that’s why I need someone.’
Philip was at the door. His hand was on the doorknob and he looked directly at Michael. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Sorry, but I really can’t help this.’ His eyes had the utter ruthlessness of someone no longer in love.
‘Philip, please don’t go!’
Pity and disgust mingled in Phil’s eyes and all he could do was shake his head goodbye. Henry joined him, slipping around Michael. They went into the echoing corridor beyond and Michael wailed after them.
‘Philip! Phil-lip! Please! Come back!’
He heard the footsteps spiral down the staircase and the thump of the front door as it closed itself.
Michael kept talking to himself, quietly, under his breath. ‘Phil. Please. Don’t leave me alone. Phil-hil-lip. Pleeeeeeeeese.’ His voice, constrained, wheedled like a rusty hinge. His legs folded under him and he dropped onto the floor of the hallway.
It was silent. The silence grew. The silence would continue. It was the silence of an apartment with only one person in it.
Maybe he’ll come back. Maybe he’ll get bored and come back.
Maybe he won’t.
What do you want him for anyway? He was a pain in the ass.
I love him; I’ll miss him.
You should have taken better care of him, then.
He should have taken better care of me.
Why did I tell him? Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid. Who wants a miracle for a boyfriend? Things could have kept on just as they were; he was happy enough to have Henry on the side. Why did you do it? You only scared him off.
Who does he fancy? Ben Affleck, that’s right, you should have shown him Ben Affleck, not those naff Castros from that naff soap, you should have said see, isn’t this wild, fun, stylish, invite your gallery friends, you little social-climbing shit, you little Mr Trendy, you stupid untalented little fraud.
Don’t blame him.
What do I blame, then?
Michael’s knees hurt. He propped himself against the hall table and stood up. He walked back into the sitting room, still full of sunlight.
He looked at the carpet; it was the colour of sand, like a desert. The room would now have two phases: with Philip and after Philip. What was left? A few stains on the carpet from the early days when they still had parties here and wine was sloshed. There was the painting Philip did of Michael, looking stolid and holy. What else, indelibly, was due to Philip?
Almost nothing. Not the furniture, not the curtains, not the books on the shelves. Maybe that was part of the trouble.
A crawling loneliness spread out from Michael’s stomach all the way to his fingers. He was alone. Alone because Philip had left, alone because he had been singled out.
He was a target for God’s special attention. God had sent the miracle and the miracle had driven away the nearest thing Michael had to love. Who would have thought miracles felt so terrible? You could feel them break the universe. You could feel them break you.
Michael sat down on the sofa and it smelled of Henry. ‘Why are you doing this to me?’ he asked the sunlight. ‘What did I do wrong? What am I supposed to learn?’
Learn that I’m impotent? Learn that I’m so scared of Aids that I won’t kiss anyone? I knew that. Am I supposed to learn that sex is just an excuse to keep love away? Why would anyone avoid love? What’s so painful about love?
What is so very painful about being ditched after thirteen years for a young man so beautiful that you’d have done the same thing yourself, so you can’t even feel morally superior? Why would anyone mind that?
What’s so painful about being bonded in your bones to someone who has to leave you to begin to breathe? What’s so painful about opening up your entire life to someone, only to find that your life is rotten inside and both of you hate it?
And, once you learn that, what are you supposed to do with it?
The answer, it appeared, was nothing.
And, oh God, he had started his life with Phil so full of hope and trust and love. It had seemed as if his life had suddenly come right.
If you’re gay and not very good at sex, people don’t ring back. Nice people, handsome intelligent kind people who made you laugh don’t ring back. You stop even asking for addresses, stop asking people back to the flat. You do it there, in the sauna, in the park. You do it with most of your clothes on and if you finish first, you get the hell out of there. And you tell yourself it’s male sex instinct; you tell yourself it’s gay culture. And you remember afresh all over again each time when they realize, pumping away at you, that your dick is not going to react.
Then, at 26, Michael had met Phil, and suddenly, none of that mattered.
‘Show me,’ Michael asked the air.
There was the sound of a key in the front door, and excited voices in the hall, and the clunking as the heavy fireproofed panels shut.
Phil’s breathy voice said, ‘But this is fantastic! This is it? This is our flat?’
‘Yup,’ someone said. A smooth pleasant voice with a what … Australian? … accent.
‘My God,’ chuckled Phil. His voice hadn’t changed.
Philip stuck his head into the sitting room, and looked around goggle-eyed.
Was that really Phil? He looked almost skeletal, with a rockabilly haircut and jeans that swelled out at the thighs and closed at the ankles. He had huge brown eyes and bat ears and was still covered in spots. His hands darted up like startled sparrows. This young Phil had a body language that was as delicious and as comic as Charlie Chaplin’s.
/> ‘Gosh,’ he said. ‘I’ll finally be able to have dinner parties.’
This Philip’s face and body were different, the soul was different. This was a nice, young, innocent, frightened guy who had only just left home and who needed Michael for all these reasons. It was the younger Philip whom Michael loved and who was now no more.
Another Michael came in wearing a striped shirt that our Michael remembered. He was a fresh smooth square Michael, glowing pink with happiness.
Old Michael sat on the sofa bed that had not been in their version of the flat, and he was invisible to them. They thought that this was their first day. Michael had given them the grace of seeing nothing else.
Young Phil had to jump up to kiss young Mike, who was so much taller than him. ‘Thank you thank you thank you.’ Phil hugged him, and then leaned back to drink in Mike’s face, the helpless stretched smile, the crumpled eyes brimming with love. They lunged at each other’s lips and chewed them, making a smacking noise a bit like toffee.
An anguished flood of memory poured over old Michael. He had found this flat because he had found Phil. He had wanted Phil to have somewhere nice to live. Otherwise Michael would have stayed out in Harrow near the Poly. He remembered how they bought the sofa bed. They had bounced on it together in Heal’s. They had wanted the staff to know they were lovers.
Young Mike shook Philip and chuckled. ‘Oh, baby,’ he said, words flowing thickly from a grateful heart.
‘I love you,’ said Phil, quietly.
Young Mike rested his head on top of Philip’s.
‘You said let’s play house,’ said Phil. ‘But I had no idea you meant something full-size.’
‘There’s plenty of things around here that are full-sized,’ said younger Michael. He sounded debonair. ‘There’s a full-sized fridge and a full-sized shower…’ His body said that something else was full-sized too.
Oh you lucky guy, old Michael thought as the young Mike enveloped his lover, and was gratefully received. The kiss this time was long and silent, and when they parted, there was unspoken agreement in their eyes.
‘I’ll show you the bedroom,’ said Michael.
The apartment had not changed much in thirteen years. The Angels could not see the paintings on the wall that the young Phil had not yet painted. They hadn’t seen the huge TV in the corner of the sitting room. They didn’t see Michael’s computer on the desk in the bedroom.
Their big four-poster bed had been there, though.
‘My God!’ exclaimed Phil and ran coltishly towards it. ‘Wherever did you find that?’
Young Michael was beaming, flushed with pride and love and the pleasure of making someone happy. ‘A barn in Lancashire,’ he replied.
This may not have been their exact words at the time, but the spirit was right, the people were right. Young Philip flung himself onto the high mattress and kicked off his shoes, and young Michael went and pulled the bedroom curtains shut, and the wooden rings made a clicking sound that always meant they were about to make love. Then he rested his head, as if in prayer, on Phil’s tummy.
The real Michael watched them make love. They were young, excited: young Michael almost got it up, Philip tried to allow him to penetrate him. Doubt crossed both their faces. Michael collapsed and groaned, and rested his head on Philip’s shoulder. Philip kissed the top of his head.
‘Don’t worry, we’ll get better at it,’ Philip said. Michael leaned back to look at Philip. ‘For some guys a hole is just a hole. You’re not like that.’ Somehow light danced in Philip’s eyes. Young Michael breathed. Their eyes latched together, love and gratitude beaming out of them as steadily as headlamps.
They were too young to know who they were or what they wanted, so they were free to keep on trying.
Michael’s heart ached all day as he haunted them, ached for what he’d lost and could not yet accept losing.
He watched them cooking lunch excitedly in their new kitchen. He watched them eat it without a table, plates resting on a towel on the living-room carpet. They ate it naked, passing the chewed food between them as they kissed. Entangled, they went into the bedroom again and failed again, and once again that made no difference.
They washed up and dusted and hoovered, delighted with their new domesticity. They read and reread the listings magazine and decided to see Platoon.
Day became early evening. They tried on different bum-freezer jackets. Philip decided to wear the brown trousers he later gave to Henry. They were new and crisp and sharp. Phil thought they were listening to Jane Siberry and went to turn it off, and then they both chattered off into the night, to hold hands (and indeed if memory served, something else) all through the film.
And suddenly old Michael was alone, in the dark. The weather had changed. In the real world, it was raining, heavy drumming rain that smelled of leaves.
Michael walked back into the bedroom, calling quietly. There was a sound like wind in the curtains around the bed.
‘Hello, Phil,’ he said to a shadow.
‘Who the fuck are you?’ It was the younger Phil. He scuttled back naked across the surface of the bed. ‘Michael?’
‘Yes,’ said Michael, sounding uncertain of that.
‘You look so old.’
Michael sat shyly on the edge of the bed. ‘I am old, baby. Thirteen years older.’
‘You should start working out.’
Michael sighed. ‘I do. Regularly. This is me looking fit.’
The Angel grew confused. ‘This isn’t a joke, is it?’
Michael shook his head, and tried not to get weepy. ‘No, baby, it isn’t.’
The Angel lost its innocence. ‘What am I?’
‘You’re Phil. You’re the Phil that was. My Phil.’
‘I … I’m not understanding this,’ warned young Phil, with a scared chuckle.
‘We got older and different. So I called you back.’
There was a long pause. The darkness outside was as if all the lights of the world had gone out from neglect. The Angel looked about the room, processing sensations, how the world now looked. He looked at the tapestries that hung from the four-poster and seemed to see something new in them.
‘I’m not the real Phil, am I?’ he said, in a voice as low as the light.
Michael couldn’t help but edge closer to him. He couldn’t help but take him in his arms. It seemed such an imposition, a terrible thing to do to a young man in the first throes of love, finding the first anchorage of his own in the world.
‘We broke up,’ said Phil, his voice frail with disappointment.
Michael tried to cradle him, comfort him. ‘We had more than twelve years, baby. That’s pretty good going.’
‘Why?’ Phil pushed him away.
Michael retreated from him. ‘You started to go places. You didn’t need me there. I looked different. You didn’t like what I did for a living, you were bored … and…’ He sighed. ‘Someone beautiful, something beautiful came along and took you. You tried to be good about it. Which only made it worse in the end.’
There was the sound of traffic, of tyres shushing over wet streets. Where had the day gone? He hadn’t gone to work, or even rung them to say he was ill or whatever. This was worse than illness.
The young Phil looked askance at this strange man who had suddenly swollen out of the Michael he knew.
‘You want to live with me,’ the young Phil said, leaning backwards.
‘I want you back,’ said Michael, pleading against life itself.
‘No,’ said Phil.
‘Why not?’
‘Because you’re not Michael.’
‘I’m still Michael inside.’
Phil shook his head. ‘Michael would never do this to me. And … I would never do to Michael what your Phil did. So things must be pretty poor where you are. You must have let things go pretty far.’
‘Yes,’ whispered Michael.
‘Beyond repair?’ Phil leaned forward, enquiring, like a friend listening in a coffee shop.<
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‘And out the other side. I’m sorry. I’m sorry to do this to you. I want you to have hope. I want you to have joy.’
‘I will, as soon as you put me back where I’m supposed to be. With my new boyfriend in my new flat.’
Michael nodded, once, yes.
‘Will I know?’
My God, what if he did? What if he could sense it, back then?
‘Can … can you feel attachment to the real Phil … in your time?’
Phil stared. ‘Yes. Yes I can. They’re watching the movie … and Phil, Phil’s suddenly scared, he has a terrible sense that this can’t last, that you will get old. I think he can almost see you on this bed.’
There is no time, where Angels come from.
‘Send me back!’ the Angel said, fear growing in his eyes.
Michael did. Air seemed to open, and to swallow him. There was a breath as it rushed in to fill the space Phil had occupied.
Michael looked up at the ceiling and saw the lights of passing cars move across it. This would be the first of many such nights.
There was another option.
The air puckered and blew, and Phil, the older Phil, was blown into the room wearing the clothes in which he left Michael.
Business-like, this Angel kicked off his boots and began to unbuckle his belt.
‘Stop,’ said Michael. ‘Please? I want to talk.’
‘Oh. I thought that this was what it was for. Another wank session together.’ Phil sat on the bed and, bootless, lay back to stare at the ceiling.
‘Live with me,’ asked Michael. ‘Stay with me.’
‘Oh Jesus.’
‘The real Phil has his new life, he has Henry, who is rather wonderful. I know you don’t love me any more, but just do it out of kindness.’
This Philip was unmoved. ‘Wouldn’t friends get a bit confused to see me living in two places at once?’
‘I could make sure that didn’t happen.’
‘Hmm. Whisk me out of existence whenever it got inconvenient. Charmed, I’m sure.’
‘The real Phil would say do it. He’d probably say humour the poor bastard, it can’t do any harm. Phil’s still kind. He still doesn’t want to hurt me.’