Hideous Beauty

by William Hussey

  El nods. “Sure. Thanks so much, Mr D.”

  Denman gives us both a knowing grin. “Okay, boys. As you were.”

  El lets out a long breath and ends the call.

  “Wow.” I elbow him in the ribs. “Your art teacher has your number. And I thought I was the world’s biggest dweeb.”

  “Oh, Dylan.” He smiles. “You are so the world’s biggest dweeb.”

  “What?”

  I throw myself at him and we roll across the bed. I’m kissing him and I know I’m doing it right because I can feel him, hard and aching against my thigh. After a delicious forever of this, we turn onto our backs, faces to the ceiling, where a million years ago I stuck a galaxy of fluorescent stars.

  “Are you my boyfriend, Ellis?” I ask, my voice tremulous.

  “Dylan…” He rolls to face me. “Know this one thing if nothing else…” He kisses me again, soft and deep. “I am very definitely your boyfriend.”

  I hate you, El.

  I hate you.

  I stumble out of Bradley Hinchcliffe’s office and push my way across the dance floor. Someone shouts “Hey!” and starts to follow. There’s a huge mirror lined with shelves and bottles behind the bar and I can see this twenty-something reflected there, twice my size with murder in his eyes. I don’t give a shit. Let him beat the crap out of me, who cares? But then Bradley grabs his shoulder and spits a word in his ear and the guy holds up his hands. By the time I reach the bar he’s back on the dance floor, grinding against his girlfriend.

  Bradley’s reflection makes some signal to the barman, who scurries over.

  “Yes, sir?” I plunge a hand into my jeans pocket. “No, no, sir. On the house. You’re Mr Hinchcliffe’s guest, aren’t you?”

  “Sure.” I give him this death’s-head grin. “Can I get three flaming sambucas to start with?”

  I have no idea what a flaming sambuca tastes like, but Chris has told me they’re the bomb. Anyway, my own personal cocktail waiter doesn’t blink.

  “Coming right up.”

  I wait, drumming my fingers on the sticky counter. In the mirror I see Mike walking over with these huge worried eyes. The fuck has he got to be worried about…? Oh God, what am I thinking? I feel thoroughly ashamed of myself, which makes me more bitter and more angry. In fact, I’m kind of surprised I’m not crying…but no, all I can do is replay the CCTV footage in my head.

  I thought I was empty before today. I was wrong. Turns out there was a tiny part of me you hadn’t taken with you into the darkness, El. Well, you’ve taken it now. Scraped it out of me and left me hollow. You weren’t who I thought you were, Ellis Bell.

  Mike pitches up just as the drinks arrive. I turn to him and slap his shoulder, as if we’re regular drinking buddies.

  “Michael, my man. Flaming sambuca? It’ll put hairs on your head.”

  Okay, I hate myself, but I said it. I can’t unsay it now.

  “Dylan, don’t.”

  As pleas go, it’s pithy and to the point. I hand him a shot glass and blow out my own blue flame.

  “Don’t let me drink alone, Mikester.” I swallow and my whole head feels like it’s been pumped full of aniseed. It’s disgustingly glorious. “Dude! You have to try this.” When he doesn’t, I take back the glass and down it, then turn to the one on the bar. “I’m not kidding, Mike, you really need this awful stuff in your life.”

  I gesture to the barman who nods, pours and ignites.

  So which was your secret identity, El? Your Bruce Wayne? Your Peter Parker? Because if I had to make a guess based on what I’ve just seen, I got your mild-mannered schoolboy while the guy in the vid got your Dark Knight. It seems impossible that there was a side to you more intense, more passionate than the one you showed me. That first night, my birthday, when my parents were away, I thought that was as perfect for you as it was for me. But it fits, I guess. Your jackknife moods maybe echoed your jackknife affections, constantly and secretly switching. And now, downing my fourth sambuca, I remember what I once thought about you: El’s passions are intense but fleeting. I tried to fool myself then that I was the exception.

  I stare at my reflection. I’m coming apart. I know it and I don’t care. But no, let’s be fair – I lift my glass and raise a toast to your ghost – I always knew this was going to happen. How many times did I tell myself you were too good for me? That it made no Earth logic, as Mike might say, that someone as talented and clever as you would ever look at someone like me. The shy, awkward, geeky kid who can’t even take a packet of sweets out of his pocket without turning it into a comedy routine.

  In my mind I see Bradley Hinchcliffe’s video playing on an endless loop. You pressed against the boy in the denim shirt, mouths locked tight, your hand fisting his hair, his hands slipping under the band of your jeans.

  I turn to Mike.

  “He never kissed me like that. Not once.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” I throw out my arms, spilling a fifth sambuca.

  “I mean—”

  “New Year’s Eve,” I cut in. “We had two good weeks before all the weirdness started. You know when we got together properly?”

  “Your birthday,” Mike says. He tries to put an arm around my shoulder but I shrug him off.

  “Right. That whole time before school broke up was amazing. I still didn’t want to tell anyone, and El respected that, but every chance we could get… It wasn’t just sex. It was holding hands, talking. And then the holidays came and he just disappeared on me. It scared me, you know? I kept going over and over things, wondering if I’d done something or said something.”

  “It wasn’t you,” Mike soothes.

  “I thought so too, after all my usual self-accusing. You guys screwed up your last few games before term ended, and I know El thought he’d let you down. Then he was worried about his art project, with Mr Denman nitpicking all the time. So when he stopped answering my calls and texts, I thought I’d give him some space. Except it killed me, thinking he didn’t want me any more. That he’d got tired of me that quickly. I went round to his place a couple of times, but Julia always said he was out or asleep and that he’d call me later. I could tell she was covering for him because she’d give me this really guilty look.

  “And then we got together again a few days after New Year and everything was fine. He was the same old El. But I could never get him to tell me what had happened over Christmas. Well, I guess now we know.”

  I snag my fifth sambuca, or is it the sixth? Another thing I’m shit at: drinking.

  “Nothing had scared or upset him, he told me,” I say. “He just wanted a bit of time to himself. Turns out he obviously got sick of all my amateur sex and wanted to fill his boots somewhere else. You know, he told me once that we all need this secret corner for ourselves that not even the people closest to us can invade. I guess this place was his corner.”

  “Dylan, you need to stop this right now.”

  I stare blearily at my best friend. “Stop what?”

  “The self-pity,” he says. “You have absolutely no idea what was going on with El. You’ve seen a twenty-second clip of him making one massive mistake—”

  “And that makes him cheating on me okay?”

  “No, of course not. And if I’d been there, I would’ve kicked his arse for you. But you knew El better than anyone. He was a decent guy.”

  I snort.

  “And he was lucky to have you.”

  My gaze flicks along the bar and I spot this adorable kid propped sideways, a beer at his elbow, listening.

  “What’s your problem?” I grunt at him.

  He shakes his head and turns away.

  “Mate, I want you to come home with me right now,” Mike says. “I have something important to show you. Something you missed on the video.”

  “Is it some big reveal that explains why my boyfriend was snogging some other dude’s face off?”

  “No, but, Dylan, we need to talk.”


  “We’re talking now. And I’m getting free drinks. Are you going to pour me flaming sambucas at Casa Berrington? Because I’m not sure Mumzilla and Big M would be cool with that. Look, Mike, it’s okay.” I waft my hand towards the door. “You go if you want.”

  He can tell it’s pointless, and I almost give in when I see his faith in me drain away.

  “All right then,” he mutters. “If you insist. I’ll talk to you when you’re Dylan again.”

  I almost call him back. Almost.

  A smoke machine rolls mist around my feet. Red and orange lights dance on the fog and make me queasy. I think of Gemma’s party, of kids gurning in front of your picture. I think of mist on a lake and the headlights of a car flickering in the depths.

  A cool hand runs down my arm and slips over my drink. The kid takes it from me and downs it in one.

  “Hey,” he says.

  “Hey.”

  At first I think he might be the boy from along the bar, but this kid has bright red hair and sea-green eyes. He asks me if he could have another drink and I call the barman over. My new friend grins. He’s all teeth, but sort of cute.

  “I’m George.”

  “Dylan.”

  “This place is so lame.”

  “Why are you here then?”

  “All right, Oscar the Grouch.” He bats my chest. “It’s okay, I guess. Especially if handsome young men are buying me drinks. I’m not going to ask you if you come here often, because that’s so—”

  “Lame?”

  “Wow. You are moody. Okay, so here’s a plan: buy me five more of these and I promise to put a smile back on your face.”

  Time seems to shift, running through my fingers like sand. One minute we’re at the bar, George telling me about his bitch mum and his bitch sister and their bitch cat and the bitch manager at his bitch work, and then we’re in this toilet cubicle and I’m standing with my back to the wall. I guess it’s okay as nightclub cubicles go, my experience is limited. Anyway, George reliably informs me there’s no wee on the floor, so that’s fine. My brain is whirling now, turning everything over and over like one of those rolling barrels they have in funhouses. I’m not sure I want to go through with this, but George assures me I do, and I don’t have the words to argue.

  It’s like an out-of-body experience. I’m watching him but all I can think of is you. How you showed me this stuff and did it patiently and gently, talking me through what you liked, asking me what I liked. You were kind, El. You made all this scary sex stuff safe and wonderful. And I don’t believe you were that person in the video. Not really.

  I love you.

  I’m sorry.

  “No,” I mutter. “Please. Don’t.”

  I try to swat George’s hands away but he pins my wrist to the wall.

  “What’s your problem?” he snarls. “It’s only a bloody blow—”

  And then someone wrenches the door and, thank God, the lock is damaged and flies off. It strikes George in the mouth. A spray of blood hits the partition wall. Then a pair of hands reaches into the cubicle and drags my drinking partner out into the bathroom. I blunder after him in time to see the adorable kid from the bar pull George to his feet and throw him against the wall.

  “Get your dirty little hands off him.”

  “Or what, Raj?” George sleeves the blood from his mouth. “Or what?”

  Raj crosses the distance between them. “Or I’ll tell Bradley you’re hustling in the toilets and not cutting him in.”

  Raj releases him and George grumbles his way to the door. When we’re alone, Raj gives me a pained grimace.

  “I think you need some water.”

  I shake my head. Something familiar about this kid. Can’t quite…

  “You’re him,” I murmur. “You’re the one who was with Ellis at New Year.”

  Raj nods. “Okay, Dylan, I think we need to talk.”

  The digital clock above the counter flashes 00.14, and for the first time in my life I push away a slice of perfectly edible pizza. My stomach feels like a sack of rubbish churning in the machinery of a refuse truck. Whenever I look at the neon in the window of the takeaway, stars explode behind my eyes. The table’s greasy but I don’t care. I have to rest my face against something cool.

  When Raj returns with a bottle of water, I lift my head a couple of centimetres only to find a cold chip stuck to my cheek.

  “Wow.” He nods, handing me my drink. “I can totally see why Ellis fell for you.”

  I unpeel the chip. “Yeah, he thought I was a real catch, clearly.”

  This is the ultimate in weirdness – my dead boyfriend’s fling being kind and buying me food. I’m not really sure how we got here, either. One minute I’m zipping up my fly in the bathroom, next I’m waiting for a slice I never asked for, sweaty palms pressed between my knees.

  Raj takes the seat opposite and swigs his own water. And honestly, El, I can see what attracted you to him. This boy has serious eyes. I mean, onyx-dark and so freaking fathomless I can’t look away.

  “So, I heard you and your incredibly gorgeous friend talking at the bar.”

  “Yeah. Mike. He’s straight.”

  “The world is full of such tragic stories.”

  His finger makes patterns in the spilled salt on the table, jags and little darts that make me think of a pale blur on a dark road.

  “Okay,” he sighs, “I’m guessing from what you said that Bradley showed you a video of me and Ellis at New Year? So there are a few things you need to know about what you think you saw. First, and most important, there was nothing going on between me and Ellis.”

  “Really?” I arch back in my chair, suddenly wanting to put some distance between us. “Gotta say, you had me completely fooled.”

  He leans forward. He won’t let me get away. “Yeah, you know something, Dylan? A twenty-second snapshot of a person’s life can be pretty deceptive. Your regrettably straight friend was right about that. So let’s get this clear: I kissed Ellis once. Once. And what you saw on that video was the first Act, the interval, and the final curtain of our entire whirlwind romance. So I thought he was cute when I saw him come into the club that night. Are you going to blame me for that?”

  No, El, I can’t blame him for that.

  Raj scrunches up his face, trying to remember, or perhaps searching for the right words. “He looked so sad and, I don’t know, desperate.”

  “Desperate?” I nod. “Cheers.”

  “Dylan, please stop being so touchy. From what I know about you, this moody teenager act isn’t a good fit.”

  “And what exactly do you know about me?”

  “Quite a bit. Literally, after the twentieth second of that one and only kiss, Ellis broke down. Whatever you saw tonight in that video wasn’t love or affection or even lust. I’ve been around a bit, believe me, and I know what those kinds of kisses are like. All Ellis needed at that moment was someone to hold.”

  “Then why didn’t he hold me? I would’ve been there for him. He only had to pick up the phone or answer one of the million messages I’d been sending all week.”

  “Maybe he cared about you too much to bring all that darkness down on you. Because it was darkness, Dylan.” For the first time, Raj cuts his gaze away from me. “I saw it. He’d experienced something very bad.”

  My thoughts fly back to the night you died. Instinct still tells me that the darkness Raj is talking about is somehow linked to whatever frightened you at the Easter dance. But how can those two events be connected?

  “Anyway,” Raj continues, “I helped him to a booth and we pretty much talked all night. Not about whatever was upsetting him, he wouldn’t discuss that. But you know what we did talk about? What obsessed him and took up virtually every thought in his stupidly handsome head?”

  Raj grins and, reaching across the table, flicks my nose with his finger.

  “You, you moron. God, I know every little thing about you! How you can’t go five minutes without making some comic-book reference;
how crappy your taste in music is; how when you were eight years old you stood up at a wedding and told the vicar the happy couple couldn’t get married because your mum thought your cousin’s partner smelled a bit like cat food and that he had these weird tiny feet.”

  “Weird tiny hands,” I correct, and suddenly I’m smiling.

  “Whatever. I knew enough to order you that revolting pizza, didn’t I? Look, I don’t know what happened leading up to New Year’s Eve but I do know one thing. Ellis loved you. He was in pain that night and he made a stupid mistake. And God, if he had been single, I would have snapped him up then and there. But he wasn’t. And he felt so bloody guilty after he kissed me.”

  Raj’s grin is infectious, and I can’t help it, I like the guy. If you had to cry on someone’s shoulder that night, I’m glad it was his.

  “You are one lucky nerd, Dylan McKee. To be loved like that, even once in a lifetime…” A shimmer glazes those deep onyx pools. “It’s something, anyway.”

  I get up slowly from my chair and Raj mirrors me. Jeeze, this kid is psychic, I swear, he just seems to know. Anyway, before I can hold out my arms he catches me in this hug that seems to go on forever. I hug him right back. It’s nice to be held like this, and for once I don’t feel any guilt. I even hope that one day we might be friends.

  I find you again in the night. In the winding country roads we used to walk, holding hands and feeling safe holding hands, beyond the gaze of Ferrivale. I find you in these moonlit fields you loved to sketch. I find you in Raj’s words and in my renewed certainty of who you were.

  The night’s warm but still my skin goosebumps whenever I hit a familiar spot. Behind me, the town lights glower like the eyes of the old couple at the hospital. But here’s the stile I stumbled over before you caught me, swinging me in a huge circle until my feet touched back down on the ground. And here, far across the yellow field, the footpath with its wonky signpost pointing to Ferrivale, Givesby, Goodstone, Dorral; a signpost you climbed, laughing and splaying your hands over letters until all I could read was “Gives Good orral”.