by Alan Keslian
‘You sharing with anyone?’
‘No, I ain’t sharing. I’ve got family not far away, but I don’t see much of them.’
‘Do they know you drink in here?’
‘Let’s say they ain’t expecting me to get married. You know how it is.’
‘Families are difficult. My sister sort of accepts that I’m gay, but we don’t see much of each other.’ The pub was filling up and we had to raise our voices above the hubbub. When our glasses were almost empty he offered to buy another round.
‘Thanks but I don’t really feel like another. Don’t let me stop you.’
‘No, already had enough for tonight. It’s not far to the flat if you felt like a stroll.’
A stroll! If his hopes were similar to mine the invitation was brilliantly understated. Controlling my voice so as not to sound too keen I said, ‘A stroll would be nice.’
Back at his flat he went through the ritual of making coffee. When he returned from the kitchen he did not join me on the sofa but sat in what was probably his usual chair. He seemed calm and relaxed, whereas my eagerness was becoming harder to hide by the minute. Surely the evening was not going to fizzle out over cups of coffee?
Earlier, when Andrew had left us, we had talked naturally and easily in the bustle of the pub, but now neither of us could find anything to say. All attempts to restart the conversation foundered, and we lapsed into two minutes of excruciating silence. At last he said, ‘Hope this isn’t the wrong thing to say but… do you want to see the bedroom?’
Relieved that the deadlock was broken I nodded. ‘Yes, please.’
He got up, reached out and took my arm to lead me through, closing the door behind us. We stood holding each other and he began to kiss me, brief cautious kisses on my lips, my cheek bones, my earlobes, my eyelids. I remained passive, surprised and delighted by this unexpected gentle foreplay. He steered me to the bed and we lay together, his kisses gradually becoming firmer, moving from my face to my torso as we undressed. This was no ordinary casual encounter between two gay men. His lips touched me again and again, now on my hands, moving up my arms, now on my chest, then back to my face. His fingers and lips moved over me, touching where he kissed, and kissing where he touched, each contact making me more hungry for the next.
How long these numerous kisses took I cannot recall, but right from the first we found we had an extraordinary degree of physical compatibility, and as caress answered caress we explored each other sexually, overwhelming each other with pleasure.
Chapter 3
The next morning I woke up alone in Tom’s bed. A faint smell of fresh paint was discernible, so faint that it had not been noticeable among the flood of powerful sensations of the previous night. When I drew back the curtains bright daylight illuminated an assortment of second-hand furniture. In the kitchen a note written on an old envelope told me he had gone off to work. He asked me to help myself to breakfast, to use anything of his I needed in the bathroom, and to call him on his mobile ’phone.
The door bell rang when I was half way through a bowl of breakfast cereal. Andrew stood outside, smiling cheerfully. ‘Hello, bet you’re surprised to see me,’ he said, evidently himself not at all surprised at seeing me.
‘Tom isn’t here.’
‘I know, he’s off doing some job or other. Fitting a kitchen or bathroom for one of the local spinsters.’
‘You don’t know which? He works for you, doesn’t he?’
‘Oh, that’s an arrangement we came to, saves him having to keep a set of accounts. He’ll do jobs for me when the need arises. He prefers building maintenance: plumbing, electrics, decorating, that kind of thing. I don’t have enough call for a handyman to keep him going full time, but he’ll help me out at Ferns and Foliage whenever I’m stuck, otherwise he finds his own work. He probably thinks gardening isn’t manly enough for him. That’s one of the reasons giving him an employment contract is difficult. You must have had a poor impression of me as businessman last night, but my arrangement with Tom is a rather unusual one. He finds work for himself, his earnings are paid in with the Ferns and Foliage takings, tax and National Insurance are deducted, and he gets back what’s left. Anyway, you’re the one I’ve come to see.’
‘Me? I’m not shaved or anything… You’ve caught me eating… You knew I’d be here?’
‘Tom uses one of my vans. He said he’d left you asleep when he came to collect it. You’re probably wondering what I’m doing here. There’s a house nearby I was interested in buying, but it proved too expensive… a promising investment for someone with the capital. I was going to have another look at it this morning, hoping for last minute inspiration before giving up on the idea. You probably have other things to do, but if you happen to have an hour or so to spare… ’
The prudent thing would have been to refuse, leave Tom a note with my telephone number, and allow a day or two for my mind to settle after the elation of the previous night. We could talk again by ’phone when my customary routines at home and at Lindler & Haliburton had brought me back to the real world, and arrange to meet again or decide calmly and sensibly that one night’s love had been enough. However the euphoria had not worn off, and the prospect of learning a little more about Tom was tempting. I vacillated. ‘I ought to be on my way. You invest in property as well as running Ferns and Foliage?’
‘I keep my eye on the local property market, and this particular Victorian house has possibilities. Of course you’ve other things planned, probably the last thing you want is to go looking at houses. I shouldn’t have bothered you. Let me get someone from the shop to give you a lift to the underground station, or all the way back to Chiswick if you like.’
Since I had nothing arranged, why not pass a couple of hours with him? He accepted the offer of a cup of Tom’s coffee while I washed and got ready to leave, and followed me around the flat talking about how he had started with one small shop, slowly built up Ferns and Foliage to its present size, and in ones and twos had bought flats in the area to let out until he had more than a dozen. Having interrogated me so thoroughly the previous night perhaps he thought it was his turn to tell me his life story, but my mind kept wandering back to Tom and I did not take in a lot of what he said.
One of Andrew’s staff drove us to the estate agent’s office to collect the keys, then on to the house, although the whole journey was less than half a mile and we could easily have walked. It was one of a pair of large semi-detached Victorian villas overlooking a junction of five roads. The one on the right had a beautifully kept garden and gleaming fresh paintwork, while the one for sale was dilapidated. The exterior paintwork had largely flaked away, a maze of cracks had spread over the bare rendering beneath, and the garden was overgrown and strewn with litter. In a patch of nettles was the wreckage of an old car.
We walked past the iron posts where the front gate once hung. ‘It saddens me to see one of these places let go like this. These grand old houses in this Victorian London suburb are part of local history. Any little patch of a garden in such a built-up area ought to be regarded as precious, and look at the state of it.’
The front garden may have looked like a small rubbish tip, but years ago the house itself clearly must have been impressive. At the end of the path steps rose between a pair of classical columns into the porch. On either side of the door were slender windows with coloured glass panels, and the words ‘Goodmans Villa’ were painted in black letters on the grimy fanlight. The hall floor was of old fashioned black and white tiles set in a diamond pattern, and the staircase had substantial banisters of cast iron. The door frames to the principal ground floor rooms were carved with an unusually delicate, sinuous, floral pattern. Partitions installed when the house was converted into flats spoiled what must originally have been the imposing overall effect of the entrance.
Andrew led me into a pitch dark room on the ground floor and flicked the light switch without result. ‘Damn! There is electricity, the two attic rooms are still occupied.’ He found his way t
o the window and struggled with the shutter fastenings until one of them creaked open, the sound echoing around the room. Bright daylight revealed faded flock wallpaper and a deep bay window. He stepped into the middle and looked around approvingly. ‘Imagine sitting down to have your dinner in a room like this!’ He shook his head at damage caused to the ornate plaster mouldings of the ceiling where a couple of central heating pipes had been hammered through, and could not resist looking inside a big fitted cupboard in one corner, which was of course empty.
‘You really would have liked to buy this place, wouldn’t you?’
‘I am looking for something, another little business expansion. Actually the size and layout of the rooms here is awkward for splitting the house up into flats, as you can see from the way the existing partitions have created inconvenient cramped little corners. One of the ideas I had was to strip them out and refurbish the building as a hotel. Gay hotels in London seem to do well generally speaking. There’s no reason why one in this area shouldn’t succeed.’
‘Do you have experience of hotels?’
‘Only from staying in them. But we’re not talking about a large scale place like the Savoy or the Dorchester, perhaps I should have said guest house or bed and breakfast rather than hotel. There are plenty of places to eat locally, you wouldn’t need to provide a restaurant. Anyway, I wasn’t thinking of managing it myself, I’d have to have someone to run it for me. That was one of the reasons for involving myself in the Hotel and Catering Exhibition, you remember I was going to send you some tickets? If someone with a bit of money to put in wanted to share the investment with me the project could still go ahead. As things stand a developer has been buying up houses in the area, restoring the facades and pulling down what lies behind to build modern flats. That’s probably what will happen here.’
If he was hoping to interest me in putting up money for the project he was about to be disappointed. ‘You might find a backer. I don’t think anyone from my firm would be likely to help finance a gay hotel, though more than likely someone will have had experience of auditing hotel accounts; I could ask around, they wouldn’t have to know it was for a gay hotel.’
‘Oh, the accounts would be fairly straightforward. Anyway, for me being open with people is one of the essentials of doing business. If someone doesn’t like gays, I’d prefer to look elsewhere for advice or custom.’
‘Is everyone who works for you gay?’
‘Yes. There’s nothing like being with your own kind, is there? How is it in your high pressure City job? Everyone gay-friendly and open minded?’
‘The subject is never mentioned. Not by me, not by anyone. They see a thirty-ish single man, no girlfriend… They’re a sharp bunch, they’ll have drawn their own conclusions.’
‘You must know some of them reasonably well… not to confide in anyone at all… But everyone compartmentalises their lives to an extent: work, home, love life, social activities… And a good thing that we do, problems in one compartment need not prevent us enjoying ourselves in the others.’
However mildly put, this was clearly a rebuke for not having come out at work. Despite all his questions in the Beckford Arms he knew little of my circumstances and the criticism irritated me. ‘Why should I feel obliged to tell people I work with about my sex life? My being gay doesn’t affect them. They should judge me on the work I do.’
‘Can’t argue with you there, but gay men working in a “straight” environment are like sun-loving plants struggling to survive in the deep shade of trees, we can never develop properly and reach our true potential. Wouldn’t you be happier with a firm where you could be more… straightforward with your colleagues?’
‘Without a reliable crystal ball that sort of question is unanswerable. How can anyone know for certain they will be happier in a different job? Will you get on with your new boss? Will the work be interesting? Will you have good career prospects? They’re the things that count, and you can only really find the answers after you’ve moved. Lindler & Haliburton is a very traditional stuffy kind of firm. My moving on won’t make them any more gay friendly, but if I’m a success there, in time, who knows?’
‘You’re right, all of those things are important. Let’s move on.’
From the ground floor we groped our way down to the musty basement, where the smell suggested a severe damp problem. We had already seen the main rooms of the house, and not wanting to linger there I said there was more to smell than there was to see and returned to the stairs.
He followed me up, but in the hall hurried past me and continued up towards the first floor, preventing me from saying that I had had enough of the place and wanted to go. By the time we reached the landing he was badly out of breath and very red in the face. He fumbled with the keys until he found the one to the door of the first floor flat, where he opened a casement window out onto a balcony at the side of the house. We sat on the balustrade looking out at the street, enjoying the fresh air and allowing him time to recover.
‘There would be plenty of work for Tom here.’
‘Too much, I’m afraid. He’s capable, but he works on his own. Never had much chance to develop management skills, and he lacks confidence. He’s not doing badly for himself now, with a bit of luck perhaps he’ll do even better.’
‘Luck, and your help?’
‘To an extent. He’s been a big help to me, always giving my work priority. Sometimes I worry that he may be… too easily led.’
‘Are you saying that I’m leading him on?’
‘That’s not what I meant. Some well educated gay men develop a taste for… ’
‘Rough trade?’
‘Ghastly phrase. For a bit of a dalliance with someone down to earth.’
‘And these well educated men, do they know from the very start that they’re leading someone on? And how this “bit of a dalliance” will end? All that is immediately obvious to them is it, being well educated?’
‘Aah… you’ve caught me again! No, as you already said, without a crystal ball… Look, however illogical the question may be, let me ask you this, please don’t be offended. Should things between you two develop, and a time comes when you have to drop him, do it as considerately as you can.’
‘All we’ve done is to spend one night together. Anyway, Tom and I are about the same age. Why should it be me who is taking advantage of him? Was that why you went to all the trouble of bringing me here, so you could say that to me?’
‘No, of course not. Tom was… so full of happiness when he came into the shop this morning. I was tempted by the idea of nipping up the stairs to the flat to see you, to say good morning, it was an impulse. Asking you to come and look at this house gave me an excuse. There was no more in my mind than that. Perhaps I am a little over protective towards him. You feel I’m interfering, wasting your time.’
‘No, no… the house is well worth seeing, it has atmosphere, character. You’re right, someone ought to rescue it. Thanks for bringing me, but we’ve seen it now.’
‘Good. I appreciate your company.’ For a minute or so we surveyed the street, with its Victorian terraces and London plane trees, then made our way indoors and back to the stairs, locking up behind us. ‘Look, if you’re free, why don’t you and Tom come to have dinner with me on Sunday?’
‘We don’t know what his plans are.’
‘Oh he’ll come… Are you free?… Good.’ He pulled a ’phone from his pocket, spoke to Tom, and without giving me time to reflect made the arrangements. Having more or less accused me of taking advantage of Tom, how odd that he should suddenly decide to bring us together the next day. We went downstairs, and refusing a lift to the underground station I left him in the porch waiting for one of his vans to collect him.
Since Andrew had prevented me from allowing normality to return over a few days before speaking to Tom again, abandoning all caution I rang him shortly after arriving home and asked him to meet me in Chiswick that evening. From that weekend the part of my life not on hir
e to Lindler & Haliburton underwent a complete change. Tom and Andrew took joint first place in my social life, and earlier friends, haunts and habits became marginal. As before the two ‘compartments’ of my world, that of Lindler & Haliburton and my life outside work, remained largely separate. I found them reasonably manageable like that.
At work on Monday my new happiness survived the morning’s onslaught of telephone enquiries and e-mail messages, and in the afternoon Peter’s antagonism at long last ended. His secretary rang to say that he wanted to see me immediately in his office. He had successfully enticed a major high street retailer away from a rival accountancy firm, and asked me to assess urgently what work would be needed on our computer network to enable us to take on their accounts. The volume of overseas transactions made special software for handling currency conversions and foreign tax regimes essential.
Of the five people in the information technology unit who might have been called on to share the burden, one was on holiday, another on a training course and a third off sick. For the rest of the week half of my time was spent in Peter’s office working through sheaves of documents with long tables of figures sent over by the new client. Fortunately Peter’s experience with a US oil company before joining Lindler & Haliburton made him very knowledgeable about overseas trading. We drew up a list of issues for discussion with the new client’s representatives, worked through lunch hours and stayed on late, determined to be well prepared at a crucial meeting with senior men who had the final say over the new arrangements.
Our conversation was entirely about business until on Friday evening he asked me to go with him for a drink to a local pub. This invitation was not to be refused, a sure sign of my return to favour. To my relief he did not mention what had happened during the trip to France, but talked mostly about Caroline, saying how the company she worked for was having problems recruiting and retaining information technology staff and being forced to rely more and more on self-employed consultants from agencies. Lindler & Haliburton had so far largely avoided trouble by increasing pay in line with rates elsewhere, but he wanted to know if I thought the trend was going to prove irresistible. I did not give him any hint that freelance work might be a future possibility for me and gave a vague response.