Boyfriend in a Dress

by Louise Kean

  Charlie is wrestling with the belt I have triple-knotted around his waist, like a child. I want to pop into WH Smith’s and get some magazines for the journey, but I think it may be a mistake to leave him on his own.

  A woman brushes past us with a German Shepherd, and I consider offering her fifty quid for the lead, before realizing that, conceivably, I have nothing on Charlie to attach it to that he isn’t likely to strip off, or try and get at with his teeth. He is swinging between sane and absolutely crazy. At least if he was acting consistently mad, I could eliminate the element of surprise. I think he might just be doing it for attention.

  I push him into Smith’s and tell him to keep quiet. I have no idea if he is going to cry or scream like a girl at any moment. In the cab, he kept putting his head on my shoulder, and trying to nuzzle under my arm and fall asleep. I slapped him on the face every time his breathing started getting deeper. I wasn’t going to let him fall asleep while I had to live through this nightmare. This is going to be a long few days.

  I phoned Charlie’s brother, Peter, from the flat to check that the cottage was free. The family has a beautiful pile of slate and wooden beams down on the South Coast, in Salcombe. I have only been there once before, for the wedding of one of Charlie’s cousins, and we stayed with Charlie’s parents and Peter and his wife, and their two sons, who are Charlie’s godsons. Even then, Charlie’s mother had been suspicious of our relationship, treating me with mild disdain, like some kind of impersonation of a girlfriend. I’m sure she noticed that we didn’t hold hands any more, never touched each other unless it was completely necessary, never exchanged distracted kisses in the kitchen, or sat with legs entwined on the sofa. Mentally she was putting two and two together: either Charlie was gay, and I was his ruse, or the relationship was dead, and I was refusing to walk. From the way she acted towards me, and the death glares I was getting, I’m not sure which one she would have preferred. In both, I was at fault, and I had either made him gay, or I wouldn’t leave him alone, while Charlie was merely incorrigible, no matter what the outcome. It was apparent we had lost whatever we had. We sat as far away from each other as possible, only having perfunctory conversations if pressed.

  Iris, Charlie’s mother, had quizzed me that afternoon.

  ‘So how long has it been now, Nicola?’ she asked me in the kitchen as I made myself a sandwich and she made herself a peppermint tea.

  ‘A while.’ I didn’t actually want to say the number of years out loud; I knew where she was going.

  ‘Yes, a long while. Peter and his wife were married and expecting after three years, you know.’ Iris picked up a cloth.

  ‘I don’t think we’re the marrying kind.’ I took a big bite of my sandwich in defiance of the dinner that would be ready in an hour and that Iris had spent all afternoon cooking.

  ‘No, maybe you’re not.’ She emphasized the word ‘you’re’ just to let me know that Charlie was the marrying kind, and I was the fly in the ointment, not her precious son.

  ‘I think Charlie’s calling me,’ I said as a means of escape.

  ‘I don’t think so, dear. Charlie brought some of his friends up for the weekend last month. Lovely bunch of boys, do you know them?’

  ‘I’ve met them, yes.’

  ‘What were their names, Nicola, I forget?’

  ‘Harry, Deacon, do you mean that lot?’

  ‘Yes, that’s it.’ Iris gave me a quizzical look, surprised that I was passing her impromptu test.

  ‘And his office in the City?’

  ‘Frank and Sturney,’ I offered, to save her from the indignity of actually having to ask its name.

  ‘Ye-ss. That’s right. Charlie tells me it’s very impressive.’

  ‘I suppose,’ I shrugged. ‘If you like that kind of thing.’

  Iris wiped a surface, and spoke without looking up. ‘You don’t like that kind of thing? I’d think most girls would be pleased to have a boyfriend who’s so successful.’

  ‘It’s fine, whatever. I’m going outside.’

  I sensed Iris stop wiping as I walked out.

  Of course I could answer all her questions, but with a little sadness. I felt like I was deceiving her in a way. A mother only wants her kids to be happy, and she could see we weren’t. I was profoundly aware that if my mother had asked the same questions of Charlie, he wouldn’t have been able to answer any of them. But it was nice to see him with the kids who brought out the most natural and least pretentious side of him – a side I hadn’t seen for a long time.

  I walked outside to watch the cricket game the boys were playing on the lawn: Charlie bowling, Peter and the kids fielding, Charlie’s dad Tom wielding his cricket bat like a professional.

  And as I watched, Charlie seemed to romp instead of run. Tom hit an easy catch to one of the boys and Charlie screamed, “Owzat!’, threw his head back and started laughing.

  ‘Good bowling,’ I shouted, surprising myself, and Charlie held up a hand to me in acknowledgement.

  He looked so happy, so relaxed, the smile didn’t seem so dirty or deceitful any more.

  As I watched Charlie pick up one of his nephews and spin him around, I felt an urge to be the one being swung around by him. I believe I could have forgiven him everything if he had. If he could just persuade me that there was still some depth there, that he wasn’t the sum of his hair and his smile, his bank account, and his suit.

  Iris stuck her head out of the window and called out that dinner was nearly ready, and smashed my daydream. Peter and the boys ran past me, and Tom winked and touched my arm as he went in. I smiled over at Charlie, who retrieved the bat and ball, and he jogged over, grinning, pleased with his performance. I folded my arms and looked at my feet as he got closer, and he slowed to a walk, until I sensed him only a few paces away. I looked up and into his eyes and felt a rush of courage. But Iris’s head darted back out of the window.

  ‘Charlie, I need you for drinks,’ she shouted, and I turned sharply to face her.

  For Christ’s sake, can’t she open a bottle of wine herself?’ I muttered, and turned back to Charlie, but he was already walking past me into the house.

  ‘She can do it!’ I practically pleaded with him, and he spun around.

  ‘Don’t start on my mother now as well,’ Charlie sighed, as if that last sentence had tired him out, and went inside.

  Iris had given me a pitying look through the window, which my pride had dismissed as her having a headache, and I had put all thoughts of a real relationship to the back of my mind for the rest of the evening.

  Later, when the kids were tucked up safely and everybody had a glass of wine, we played Trivial Pursuit, and I won. Iris said, ‘Isn’t Nicola clever! You’ve done well, Charlie, to get somebody pretty and clever to put up with you for all this time,’ in a strange voice, obviously to make a point, or try and catch us out and get us to admit something we otherwise wouldn’t. It had embarrassed the hell out of me, but Charlie had shrugged it off, although he gave me a funny look like he barely knew me, as if I was the one responsible, the one who had changed. That night I went to bed before Charlie, pleading fatigue and found myself daydreaming again that he might make his excuses and come to bed and hold me. Maybe he would just chat to me for a while. But he stayed in front of the TV, not crawling into bed until two. He didn’t even touch me. Some masochistic urge made me turn and stroke his arm to let him know I was awake, but he had merely said, ‘I don’t think we should have sex with my parents in the next room,’ snuggled into his side of the duvet, and was snoring within seconds. He managed somehow to turn it around, make me feel that I was the one who only wanted to be there for the sex. Or maybe that was my conscience knocking. I never voiced my daydreams. We never gave an inch to each other on the control stakes; it was political, it was a tiny war. The whole relationship was an exercise in who could look like they cared the least. I wasn’t as brave as I am now. I hadn’t got used to his disinterest.

  The next day at the wedding, I had start
ed to come to my senses. I caught him chatting up one of the after-dinner guests later in the evening. Some little redhead, probably no more than eighteen – he was actually showing her his credit cards. I told myself it was the wine that had made me tearful, but I wandered around in the grounds for a while to get it out of my system. Peter found me sitting outside the barn, a little red-eyed, and topped up my champagne with his.

  ‘He’s a different person out here, isn’t he? Until he gets drunk, of course. I’d almost forgotten how much of an arse he’s become,’ I said. I don’t know why I chose to spill my beans to Peter, who would obviously defend him, but surprisingly, he agreed.

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘I’ve been out with him a couple of times in town, with his work posse, and they can be a bunch of arseholes.’ We had both laughed uneasily and nodded our heads.

  ‘I don’t know why you put up with it, Nicola, you have to cope with him in his natural habitat, day in, day out, and he’s different now …’ He trailed off and I thought I caught a trace of sadness in his eyes, too. I could see he felt sorry for me.

  ‘Oh, don’t feel sorry for me,’ I mustered. ‘I’m just the same at home. We’ve both changed, Pete; London does things to people, it brings out the arsehole in them. Believe me, I can be just as bad. I barely even see him, I shop far too much for a woman in an adult relationship. We’ve both grown up, I suppose – grown up and grown apart.’ I tried to laugh it off; I didn’t actually believe what I was saying. But he shoved me along slightly and sat down next to me. We both stared out at the fields for a while; it was one of those nights when it’s so much nicer to be in love. I should have been sitting there with Charlie.

  ‘Look, honestly, don’t feel bad for me, I really am fine. This is just wedding rubbish.’ I pointed at my puffy red eyes. ‘Most of the time I’m happier than he is. I think I’m just realizing that I’ve stuck around a bit too long.’ I got a strange lump in my throat at that point, and had to gulp it down. ‘We won’t work out, you know.’ I shrugged and looked down at my half empty glass, then took a massive swig and finished it off.

  ‘Well,’ I said, brushing off my trousers, and standing up, ‘I’m going to get another drink.’

  ‘You know,’ Peter had looked at me over his shoulder, ‘he’s not ready to settle down yet, but one day he will be. I know what you two have got going, and maybe it is time for you to move on for a while.’

  I half-smiled at him, raising my eyes to heaven. ‘Just maybe?’ Another lump in my throat.

  ‘But I think he’ll come back to you, Nicola, one day. He used to be close to people, and he will be again, and I think then he’ll be a person you could … love again!’ Peter laughed at the embarrassment of saying it out loud. ‘He’s going to drop back down to earth at some point, with a bang. He can’t be everybody’s golden boy forever.’

  ‘I wouldn’t count on it! But thanks, Pete. Do you want another drink?’

  ‘No, sweetheart, I’m fine. I need some more air.’

  With that, he had staggered off down the lawn to the field below, clutching his champagne flute, singing some old tune. I had watched him go as I leaned on the barn door, thinking about what he had said. It was so obvious to anybody with eyes that one of us should leave soon.

  Moments later, Charlie staggered towards me from behind the door, bashing into me, sending me tripping forwards. He had obviously caught the end of my conversation with Peter.

  ‘Not making a pass at my brother are you?’ Charlie shot his accusation right at me.

  ‘Oh fuck off, Charlie. I could never get a man that nice.’

  Charlie’s half closed, drunken eyes tried to focus in my general direction.

  ‘You’re right, you don’t have the conversation any more,’ and it was like a punch in the stomach when he said it.

  I walked back into the reception, gulping down the lump in my throat, hearing the commotion of him falling face first into the flower border behind me. He was an arse, who looked like a person I used to love.

  The memories slap me in the face as I leave Smith’s and force Charlie out in front of me. He has gone strangely quiet, but I’m not complaining.

  By the time we board the train, Charlie hasn’t said anything for half an hour. The train is almost empty, at eleven on a Thursday night, and I find the smoking carriage practically deserted with only two people sitting at the other end. Charlie slumps into his seat, staring down at the Formica table in front of him. I position myself opposite him, and offer him a cigarette, sticking the pack under his eyes, but he just shakes his head. I inhale before we have even left the platform.

  We’re All Going On a …

  I wake up with my head against the train window, my mouth pressed awkwardly on one side; half of my face clings to the glass, while the other hangs out into the carriage for everybody to see. I focus on the outside, and try and look past the darkness and see the houses and trees and parks and offices and lives that are slipping past me by the second, never to be seen again. My eyes slide with the occasional lights that appear and disappear just as quickly. I close my eyes again.

  I can feel my contact lenses stuck to my eyeballs, only slightly uncomfortable now: they’ll be ok if I just keep my eyes shut. I want to go back to sleep and pretend I’m somewhere else. I don’t want to open my eyes and admit I am in the middle of the smoking carriage, on the middle of a train, in the middle of the West Country, in the middle of the night, in the middle of Charlie’s breakdown, in the middle of a situation I am not equipped to deal with, mentally or physically. In the middle of Charlie’s nightmare. I want to drift back into sleep with the gentle rocking of the 120mph train, and be back in my old school hall, in uniform, except it’s the McDonald’s uniform now, during assembly, but with all my new friends, not my school friends, bar one for no reason whatsoever, and then be ushered to the front of the hall and climb up the ladder and fly the trapeze to be caught by the priest who gave me my first holy communion, and then land and run over the bridge and go to the dentist’s and begin kissing the dentist who becomes the sexy internet guy I met at a work party not so long ago, and who I didn’t end up going home with, didn’t even kiss goodnight, because I had to leave to go to another work thing, pissed in a cab on dry Martinis and bottles of beer, and the whole time wishing I’d stayed at the last work thing, because that guy was really sexy, and has occupied my thoughts a little since, although he wasn’t really into me, but he could have been convinced, he just wasn’t playing along, but I could have coerced him with a little more time and a fresh coat of lipstick, although I was talking shit by that time, randomly thinking up questions in my head while he answered the last one I’d posed, so he probably thought I was an idiot, but I should have stayed because, judging by our current action in the dentist’s chair, he is a bloody good kisser and he is convincing me it is real, that I am feeling the feelings, kissing him when I am not. And now I realize I have slipped into that dream, and out of it again, and I’m back, looking into the darkness, with dry eyes, dry lenses, a dry mouth. And an idiot for company.

  I am covered by something, a makeshift duvet, and I focus on the flimsy brown arms of the mac I had made Charlie wear before we left my flat which is now making a half-hearted attempt to cover my shoulders and torso, and which Charlie has obviously placed over me. With a resolve I know will be tested to the limit in the next few minutes, no doubt the next few days, I look up and over at Charlie. He is looking out of the window, still in the dress, shivering slightly, with his hands flat on the Formica train table in front of him. He looks calm, less wild than before. His eyes look big and tired, reflected in the train window, and I stare at his reflection. He seems to be studying himself, intently, and using the fleeting countryside as some weird transvestite backdrop, framing his Lycra, his sad eyes, his flattened hair. He can’t see past himself right now.

  I sit up sleepily and as Charlie realizes I am awake, his reflection gives me a sad smile.

  ‘Charlie, take back your coat, you’re
freezing.’ My mouth is so dry I can barely get the words out, they scratch at my throat as they form, and come out sounding strange and lazy. ‘Look at you, you’re shivering, have the coat.’

  I unwrap the arms and belt from my limbs and hold it above the table so as not to dip it in the coffee or makeshift plastic coffee-cup-lid-ashtrays, and Charlie accepts it with another smile.

  ‘You looked cold, and I thought one of us might as well be comfortable,’ he says. ‘You were asleep at least. Do you feel ok?’ Charlie speaks to me quietly, and I notice that the lights have somehow dipped in our carriage, and yet he seems to be radiating with heat. His face is bright red, and he’s sweating.