Hideous Beauty

by William Hussey

  “Oh,” I say, “there’s dancing? Um, yeah, I’m not sure that’s really my scene.”

  I don’t tell her that me and Mike have long ago dubbed it the Dipshits Ball. She shrugs in a who-cares-what-your-scene-is-McKee? kind of way and moves on.

  I move on too, and a random realization hits me as I reach the huddle. This time last year I’d never have been able to dash through that crowd. I would have walked slowly, murmuring hellos, keeping my head down. I know what’s changed in my life, though I’m not sure how he’s done it. I guess El is just a bona fide miracle worker. But he can also be a monumental pain in the arse. For example:

  “What charming pearls, Mrs McKee! I have a set at home just like them.”

  I close my eyes, plaster on a grin, and join the party.

  “Hey, guys, what’s going on?”

  Dad is holding a paper plate bearing a wedge of cheese while Mum sips a small white wine. Lager in hand, Chris is watching El like he’s on safari and has spotted a rare and baffling specimen. El sidles closer to me and I inch marginally away.

  “So Ellis here…” My mum seems at a loss. “He’s a friend of yours, Dylan?”

  “He’s all our friend,” I say, which sounds horribly ungrammatical. Anyway, I reach onto my tiptoes and knuckle El’s head. “This joker.”

  Mum sips, Dad nibbles, Chris slurps.

  “Ellis tells us he lives with his aunt on the new estate. Are they nice apartments, Ellis? Gordon thought it was a real boost to the town when the flats were put up, didn’t you, dear?”

  “Mount Pleasant is good for the local economy, certainly.” Dad nods. “Just as long as the newcomers try their best to fit in, I think it’s great.”

  El smiles. “What exactly does that mean? Fit in?”

  “Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it?” Dad says, munching his brie between sentences. “Like any community, we have our standards and traditions. It’s up to some of the new tenants on the estate to respect our way of doing things, that’s all. Especially those from other cultures and viewpoints.”

  “But what if people like me want to make changes?” El shrugs. “Maybe we’d like our little bit of Ferrivale to reflect our culture too. Instead of us just fitting in with you, perhaps you’d like to fit in with us too? That way, we could all learn something about each other.”

  “Yes, Ellis,” my dad says, putting down his fork and casting a condescending eye. “That’s all very idealistic, I’m sure. But, well, you must understand, we were…”

  He seems unsure how to finish his sentence, and so El nods.

  “You were here first?”

  Dad turns scarlet. “No! I didn’t mean that at all!”

  “So,” Mum cuts in, “you were saying you live with your aunt? How lovely. And what does she do?”

  “El’s aunt manages Bettison’s bakery,” I say. “Sixty hours a week, plus overtime. I don’t know how she does it.”

  I dig my nails into my palms. El has shot me this tiny smile but I know how my praise of Julia has come across: as if I’m overcompensating for a failure that doesn’t exist.

  “I’ve got a question.” Chris raises his beer like he’s in one of the classes he flunked four years ago. “Have you ever been in a gang, Ellis?”

  “I have not,” El says, “but if I ever form one, you can be my first recruit.” He gives my brother a brief up-and-down look. “But I don’t know, Chris, maybe you’re already a member of my gang and you don’t even know it yet.”

  Chris follows my dad’s lead, face turning beetroot.

  “Are you in all of Dylan’s classes?” Mum twitters.

  “Only history. But Dylan’s a passionate supporter of our football team.”

  Before Mum can wonder at my sudden interest in sweaty men running around chasing a bit of thermally-bonded polyurethane, Chris butts in with:

  “You play footie?”

  “Bet your ass, Christopher.”

  “Okay.” Chris hands me his beer and goes off to steal a ball from Mike’s little cousins. Cue tears, but Chris is oblivious. “Quick kickabout then, one on one.”

  El snatches the ball and sets it dribbling at his feet. “You’re on.”

  Chris is wearing shorts and the brand-new pair of Adidas Ultraboost that Mum bought him during a post-Zumba shopping spree. Meanwhile El is in skinny jeans and biker boots. A little crowd, including Ollie Reynolds and the footie lads, form around this clash of the titan and the goon. El doesn’t need the encouragement but a general chant of “El-lis! El-lis!” starts up. I know Mum and Dad keep stealing glances at me but, screw it, I’m grinning anyway.

  El annihilates my brother. I mean, just annihilates him. Chris keeps trying to take the ball from him, even attempting sly shin-kicks and blatant shirt-holding, which provokes boos from the lads, but El coasts serenely above it all. I remember thinking once how his fingers dance, actually dance, when he’s sketching. It’s the same with his feet. He manoeuvres the ball like it’s a part of him, waltzing it above and below and around his adversary’s clumsy lunges. In the end, Chris doesn’t get in a single touch and El exits the field of combat to rapturous applause. Most people would now bow out gracefully, but my brother is the King of Cockwombles.

  “So you should know,” he pants, as he and El rejoin us, “Mum and Dad are big supporters of your lot.”

  “Oh yes?” El takes a sniff under his collar, though I can’t see a bead of sweat on his brow.

  “Yep. Big gayers, my parents. Civil partnerships, queer marriage, the whole thing.”

  El sweeps my folks with a beautiful smile. “That’s awesome of you, Mr and Mrs McKee.”

  “Well,” my dad blusters, “it’s only right that we should grant the privileges we enjoy to those who choose a different path.”

  “Choose?” El rolls the word around. “Okay.”

  “Anyway,” I say, “we really ought to check in on Mike.”

  “Charmed,” El calls over his shoulder as I march him off. I don’t even care that I’m holding his elbow, it has to be done.

  “Babe, I love you,” I say, “and I know they’re awful, but that was just…I don’t even know what that was. I think you’ve managed to piss off my entire family in five minutes flat.”

  “Do you think so? I thought they liked me.”

  “Yeah,” I inform him, “but you live in Ellis World, where everyone wears novelty Ellis ears and thinks all your rides are cool.”

  We find Mike sitting on a deckchair, surrounded by unopened presents, shaking his head and smiling at us.

  “Dudes, you know you’re getting pretty obvious, right?”

  I snatch my hand away from my boyfriend’s elbow. El pouts. Whatever. It’s time to focus on Mike. My best friend looks pretty well, considering. His cheeks are a bit pinched and his clothes are sort of baggy, but when you’re puking up your guts every couple of weeks, that’s bound to happen. We sit on the grass either side of him, like lackeys to an emperor.

  “Presents?” I suggest.

  “Presents!” He grins.

  While I rummage in the pile around him, El tries to direct me, even though he has no idea where I dumped my gifts. I snap back at him and Mike laughs.

  “You guys are becoming old-couple-cute.”

  “Bingo!” I say, lifting three parcels and plonking them in Mike’s lap. “This one first.”

  Mike’s fumbling is too slow for El, who decides to help, and after a manic flurry Mike holds up a rainbow-coloured mini umbrella attached to a headband.

  “Okay, I know you hate hats,” I tell him, “but you’re getting a bit thin on top and it’ll be summer soon. So…”

  El curls his finger through Mike’s corn-coloured locks. “You should just shave it off. You have cool hair, Mike, but I really think you’d rock the skinhead biker look.”

  We all laugh. I don’t know how he does it, but El can make the most uncomfortable conversations fly. Maybe you have to have lived a harder kind of life to become an expert in that sort of thing. I realize
I feel like this a lot when I think about him – my admiration for his grace and talents tinged with sad thoughts of how he came to be the Ellis I know and love. Thinking this, my mind returns again to Christmas. I still don’t buy the explanations he gave me for his vanishing act, and every so often I’ll catch a darkness in his mood that worries me.

  When I look up again, Mike is holding the footie shirt I bought him and the set of colouring books.

  “The shirt because you wanted it,” I say. “And those are chemo colouring books: Batman villains and alien planets of the DC universe. I’m going to time us on my phone. Fastest colourer wins one of those free NHS barf bowls. And I don’t want any but-my-colouring-arm’s-hooked-up-to-a-drip excuses.”

  “Me next,” El says, jumping on the spot. “I haven’t wrapped it, sorry.”

  He reaches into his shirt pocket and takes out this little onyx pendant on a piece of multicoloured string. I know straight away that El has fashioned and polished the stone himself, because he’d never give a gift that didn’t have a personal touch. He turns its face to the light and I see a staring symbol picked out in tiny silver pointillist dots.

  “It’s the Eye of Ra,” he says, tying the string around Mike’s neck. “An ancient symbol of protection. It’ll watch over you, keep you safe.”

  Mike’s voice is hoarse as he touches the stone. “Thanks, mate.” Then he rallies himself. “Okay, so there’s cake in fifteen minutes, but in the meantime, my bedroom’s empty.”

  “Dude,” I say, “no way! That’s where we’ve had sleepovers since were six.”

  “Dylan, we’re not six any more. Anyway, you have my permission for fifteen minutes of kissing and heavy petting.” He raises two fingers, like a blessing. “It is my gift to you on this auspicious day.”

  Me and El exchange a quick glance, then head as nonchalantly as we can back into the house. Seconds later, I’m closing the bedroom door behind us. El pulls me to him and we lose most of our time just kissing. Precious minutes hurtle by until we suddenly hear Big Mike bellowing “CAKE!” and we part, groaning in unison.

  “I hope it’s a Starburst cake,” El says. “That would be some compensation.”

  “I don’t think such a cake exists.”

  He rolls his eyes. “I hate this universe.”

  “All of it?”

  He grabs my waist and pulls me back from the door. “No, not all of it.”

  “C’mon.” I drag him with me into the corridor. “Mike’s day, remember.”

  “Oh!” He slaps his forehead. “I forgot your present! So, I thought you’d get jealous of my amazingly thoughtful Mike-gift, and I didn’t want a pouty boyfriend pouting at me all day with his beautiful pouty lips, so here you go.”

  He takes a single yellow sheet from the same pocket as Mike’s amulet and hands it to me. I unfold the sketch and blood courses into my face.

  “You are so adorable when you blush.” El grins.

  “This is…” I stare at the image. “This is pure filth, Ellis Bell!”

  El’s smile drops. He takes the drawing and holds it between us.

  “No, Dylan, it’s me and it’s you. You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in my life, and I want you to see yourself as I see you. Stop hiding away, stop doubting yourself. I love you because you’re kind and clever and funny and you’re freakin’ hot! Do you understand?”

  “Okay.” I don’t quite believe him, even though I know El wouldn’t lie about something like this. But my boyfriend isn’t infallible and… Well, I can’t look like this in real life, can I? “But where will I keep it?”

  He slings an arm around my shoulder. “Tape it under your desk drawer.”

  We separate on the bottom stair and head out through the empty kitchen. Down in the garden, Mike is being paraded around in his deckchair by the footie guys, all chanting his name, while Big Mike follows, holding the cake aloft. He really does look like a Roman emperor. Suddenly Carol’s calling me down to help cut the cake.

  In the minutes that follow, I lose track of El. Mike and I are laughing our arses off at Ollie Reynolds as he tries to beatbox along to “Happy Birthday To You” while Big Mike is showering everyone with party streamers. The crowd ebbs and flows around us. And then I catch sight of El talking again to my dad. Heart in my mouth, I’m about to head over when Ellis spots me and breaks off the conversation.

  “All good?” I ask as he reaches me.

  He looks lost for a moment, then scratches his elbow and gazes towards the road.

  “Yeah. But wow, your dad really doesn’t like to be contradicted in a debate, does he?”

  “Oh God,” I say. “What’s he said?”

  “Nothing, it’s cool. But look, Julia has this therapy meeting and I promised I’d go.” He glances at his watch. “Will you tell Mike I’m sorry I had to bail?”

  “Of course.”

  And with that he’s gone.

  I look over to where my parents stand with Chris. I just know Dad has said something to upset El, and I’d like nothing more right now than to have it out with him. But I remind myself again that this is Mike’s day, and so I plaster on a smile and rejoin the birthday boy.

  My gaze returns to the cartoon. To my father throwing money at you while you weep and while Julia screams at him to leave. To the drawing of you holding your heart in your hands and to the price tag valuing your love for me at a hundred measly pounds.

  “What did you do?” I ask them again.

  Dad starts forward, then stops dead when I hold up your drawing. It takes a moment for the images to sink in.

  “Dylan,” he begins, his eyes wide. “Dylan, we were going to talk to you about this tonight. You have to understand—”

  I hold up my forefinger. Suddenly I don’t want to hear any more. “You shut the hell up.”

  “Don’t talk to Dad like that!” shouts Chris from the kitchen doorway.

  “All of you,” I shout back, “shut the hell up until I’m done!”

  I take out my phone and watch them wait in silence while the call connects. When Julia picks up, I find I can’t look at them any more. I swing around, my free hand grasping my wrist because my phone hand’s shaking so badly. Maybe it’s a mistake on your part, El. Maybe I’m misinterpreting your cartoon. Because my family can’t be this horrifically soulless, can they?

  “Hello, sweet boy.” Julia’s voice breaks into my thoughts. She sounds tired and raspy, but there’s not that telltale drowsiness and I don’t think she’s been using again. “How lovely to hear from you. I was worried, you know, after the funeral.”

  “I’m sorry. About what happened,” I tell her. “I’m fine now.”

  “Are you, Dylan?”

  I’m glad my back’s turned to them. “No. No, not really.”

  “No,” she echoes sadly.

  “How are you, Julia?”

  “Oh, you know. It’s funny, really, because I didn’t know our boy at all until he turned up at my door back in…when was it?”

  “November. I mean, I met him in November. He came to you at the end of October, I think. Around Halloween.”

  “Poor kid. He looked a bit like a Halloween ghoul when I first saw him. ‘I’m your nephew Ellis,’ he said, ‘and unless you’re as shitty as the rest of our family, I’m hoping you’ll let me stay.’ He was dirty and stinking and his poor tooth was missing, but I don’t know, those words just made me chuckle. It always amazed me how he could do that; make you smile when you ought to be on the floor crying your bloody heart out. I miss that about him most.”

  “Me too.” Just then Mum drifts into my field of vision and I thrust out my arm and she drifts away again. I won’t let them invade this moment with the only other person who loved you as much as I did. “Julia, I need to ask—”

  “He’s here!” she says suddenly.

  And I almost lose it. There’s a brightness to her voice that I remember from all the other times I’d call and she’d open with “He’s here!” – so excited to tell you
that your boyfriend was on the line. I feel the tiles shift under my feet. I imagine that you’re there, El, snuggled up in bed at 123 or sitting at your drawing board, your fingers dancing. That none of it was real. Not the Dipshits Ball nor the accident nor the lake nor the funeral – not a single awful second of it actually happened. It was just me retreating from you again. My coward brain conjuring this nightmare in which I was rescued and you were left to drown. A smile flutters at the corner of my lips. Of course it wasn’t real. Nothing this terrible could happen to someone who loves another person the way I love you. The universe would have to be completely purposeless or else designed by some psychotic comic-book villain.

  “They sent the urn round this morning,” she goes on. “So he’s here, Dylan, if you’d like to come and take him home with you.”

  I think for a minute my legs will give way but I manage to stay upright.

  “Are you still there?”

  “Yeah… Yeah, I… Julia, I couldn’t take him away from you.”

  “Dylan,” she says slowly, “he was always more yours than he was mine. You belonged with him and he belonged with you. But it’s your decision.”

  I can’t put it off any longer. I have to ask her the question. “Julia, did my dad ever visit Ellis?” I sense movement behind me, hear a dry cough as if someone might be about to interrupt. No one does. “Did he…” It takes all I have just to force the words out. “Did my dad offer Ellis money to stop seeing me?”

  Silence down the line. Silence that confirms everything.

  “Dylan,” she says. “Oh, sweetheart. I’m not sure I—”

  “Please just tell me,” I say. “I have to know.”

  She takes a moment. “All right. It was a month or so back. I was sitting in the kitchen when I overheard your dad speaking to El out in the hall. I couldn’t believe what he was saying, so I marched straight out there and told him to sling his hook. Afterwards, we talked. I thought you had a right to know, but El, he made me swear I’d never tell you. He said it would hurt you too much.”

  I grip the phone hard and close my eyes. “Thank you, Julia.”