by Erastes
I was getting angry again, “I knew you didn’t understand.”
He seemed to punch each word. “As far as they are concerned, Eddie, it’s not love. It’s perversion. That’s all they’ll see. Married man with his paws all over a boy.”
“It wasn’t like that. He started it.”
“Yeah, right. Tell that to the court, Eddie. And good luck with it. Oh don’t worry, I’m going, and you needn’t fret that I’ll say anything. I won’t. You’ll hang yourself soon enough. I thought I knew you, Eddie. I thought I knew you.” He gave me a look and left.
I recognised the look; it was disgust.
+ + +
It took me a while before I stopped shaking. When I got home, there were questions, more questions. “I had a row with Phil,” I said, summing it all up in one idiotic sentence, “and I don’t want to talk about it.”
I went to bed as early as I could, but Phil’s words wouldn’t leave me. I lay awake while my ulcer played havoc with my insides, and my mind churned with almost the same ferocity. I wasn’t so short-sighted not to have realised the danger I was in, and Alex too, thanks to me. But Phil’s words had shaken me. Alex’s height and maturity had made it easy to forget (or to push aside) the fact that he wasn’t an adult and wouldn’t be for two more years. We could both lose everything. I’d known it, but I’d kept the fear suffocated, pushed down deep.
That night, as I lay and looked at the ceiling, I pushed my life ahead, one move at a time like a chess game, and I ended up with checkmate every single time. The only good choice for us both was an impossible dream—taking Alex and running far, far away. He’d talked of living in some country—never England—high up in some tree-lined hills where we could love and be ourselves.
I closed my eyes. I could almost see a hillside with a dirt track disappearing into the trees—like something from Durrell’s books. Perhaps it was Corfu. I saw myself driving in a battered yellow car. Deep into some pine woods and then up a dusty track. At the top of a stone-filled slope was a rickety gate with a young man sitting on top of it, a young man with blond hair, ragged trousers and bare feet.
He’s a kid, Eddie. Phil’s voice resounded in my head like the chimes of the downstairs clock.
Phil was a bastard—I saw that now—but he was right. Running could never be an option. Even taking into account what I was running from, taking an underage boy out of the country without his parents’ consent was kidnapping, a crime as serious as child molesting. We’d not be safe, even in those dusty Greek hills.
The day after that, Alex left. I find it hard to describe the day at all. I left for work and as usual I glanced up at his window. He was there, staring down at me. I don’t know what I expected, but not the look he gave me.
We only connected for a couple of seconds. I gave a false cheery wave to him in exactly the same style I’d give to my children waving from upstairs, but his eyes burned into mine and his one palm against the glass felt as though it was warm and safe in my hand.
I spent the day at work sick at heart, my phone idle in my hand more often than not. I skipped lunch and tried to smile when my colleagues accused me of working through to catch up. It was stupid, I reminded myself constantly. There was nothing I could do. Nothing. But I wished to God he’d managed to convince his parents to take him over the weekend, so I could be there at the gate, waving him off as I was sure my family was doing.
The thought of walking back up The Avenue past his house and knowing that he was gone until Christmas pulled at me all day; what had I done before? I couldn’t remember what it had been like not to anticipate turning the corner and seeing his house in the distance. Before he had kissed me, I had hoped for the chance of a glimpse of him, but afterwards, I longed for it. It was a reward he gave me (when he could) for a day’s toil in London. It sliced time for me, the time we had to stay apart, divided it into manageable segments. It will be this long before I see him again. This amount of time. Measured and precious.
I played our last moments over and over. The feeling of his hand in mine. The fear in his face when he recognised Phil. Phil ruining the only chance we had for a last goodbye. All I felt when I remembered Alex and I together was the sick feeling I’d experienced when Phil appeared in the underpass. All I could remember clearly was the fear.
And now, with Phil’s words ringing in my ears—and he was right, damn him—I knew that Alex was gone, not just for the term, but gone forever. The very thought of it made me sick to my stomach, but I forced myself at long last to look into that bleak future that Phil had painted.
I told myself that Alex would be fine. He was adaptable, wasn’t he? I hadn’t liked university much, but then I hadn’t been the kind of young man who would kiss another man “just because” he thought he wanted him to. I had watched, avidly and from the sidelines, young men like Alexander. Young men who lit up the quad, the drama society, the debating society. Alex would find his feet, my clever boy. He would come down at Christmas, full of gossip and scandals, and he’d have so many new friends that he’d find his old life colourless and somehow restrictive. I might not have been much at university, but I could remember the first few vacs. My home life had shrunk somewhat; suddenly my parents couldn’t match up with the parents of my friends, and their views were no longer mine.
I knew, I just knew that Alex would be the same. He’d outgrow The Avenue and its middle-class aspirations as surely as I had outgrown Grover Terrace and its allotments and alleyways. And if I broke his heart—just a little—now, then he’d bounce back. One day he’d be ashamed of his older-man stockbroker lover—or perhaps he’d find what we’d had something to boast about, but not something to return to. Perhaps one day when he had an actor or an author to love. Some young man who would be able to let Alex fly.
I got through that day, and the week. And somehow, the weeks after that churned by one day at a time. Life with Valerie had reached some kind of entente cordiale, a formal alliance full of brittle politeness and over-careful manoeuvres. In spite of my assurances to her, from time to time we’d explode at each other—dried tinder-kegs sparked off with a terse comment—and the same recriminations and accusations would fly. Was I having an affair? “Tell me, Ed—I’d rather know.”
No, she wouldn’t.
Painted into a corner, I chose the coward’s path. I stuck to what I had, what I knew. What choice did I have? Each day, on the train, between calls, day after day, I rehearsed what to say to Alex. I was no actor and there was so much in that speech that was false, and so much that was bitter, undeniable truth. “We have no future.” “What do you want? I can’t leave my family.” “We should never have started this.” Implying that he should never have started it. I had a dozen speeches, and they were all lies.
He came down mid-December. It’s hard to believe it’s not even February yet. I felt like I was holding my breath on the day he came home, and the speeches I had saved up seemed nonsense. We weren’t in danger; of course we weren’t. There was no reason for anyone to find out. A hundred excuses, a hundred rebuttals.
His timing couldn’t have been worse, or better. Val had taken the children out before he called. I’d opened the door when I was on the phone in the hall, during two minutes when I hadn’t been expecting him, hadn’t been thinking of him. His grin was a mile wide and he slid into the hall with a whispered “Hello,” then stood there, leaning against the hall with his lopsided smile—the one that made my heart flip. I hardly remember the rest of the phone conversation; Alex looked so different I could hardly bear to look at him. That bubbling joy he’d often showed when we made love seemed to be pouring out of him. I think I loved him more in that small moment, in those precious seconds before I crushed his heart under my feet, than I had ever loved him before.
He lost that smile straightaway, for he’d been worried about me—about me! He demanded to know what was wrong. Funny that when Val asked me that I couldn’t answer her, but I told him all of it—my doubts, my fear, the future. And all t
he while his eyes never left mine, and the colour drained from his face.
He told me I was stupid. He told me that he had no intention of finding anyone in College. He told me he wanted me to come up and visit as soon as I could—he had a list of excuses I could use.
And all the time, I kept saying no. No. No, Alex. We can’t. The more excited and frustrated he got, the more I shrank away. Finally I had no fight left in me.
He threatened me with Val at one point. I looked at him and said, “You won’t do that, Alex, you know you won’t.” And then—unbearably—he cried. I wanted to hold him, but I’d gone too far by then.
I thought I was being kind. I didn’t watch him go. I couldn’t bear to see him go. He’d get over it. He was young. It would be better, I told myself. Next time I saw him.
Chapter 23
And then I was wrong, wasn’t I?
I never saw it coming. I thought that he was young enough to weather it. Resilient. Strong. Hadn’t he always been the strong one? I thought that he’d go back to university, complain of my cowardice, and heal. Young people heal.
It was only a love affair, Alex. Only a stupid love affair.
And thick, stupid, criminal Edward got it wrong. Again.
+ + +
The siren woke us, and we lay in bed waiting for it to go past. But it didn’t. The sirens stilled but the blue light flashed through the chink in the curtains. I got out of bed. Something seemed to be muffling my head, my ears. Val was talking but I couldn’t hear her, couldn’t work out what she was saying. I looked directly at her and I remember wondering why I was doing so.
Alex’s house was lit up top to bottom, the small attic light shining bright and clear. The children woke and Val went to them. When or how I dressed, I don’t know. How I put one foot in front of the other, I don’t know.
Then I was in the Charles’ kitchen and Sheila was standing by the cooker. Her eyes were nearly all red. At first she couldn’t speak. Her expression spoke of the primal fear I’d been hiding from. Then, “Alf’s up there with him,” she said, and I started up the stairs, sick with terror—knowing what she meant, and not realising that I shouldn’t have known, and shouldn’t be terrified.
Halfway up an ambulance man tried to hold me back. He called me sir. Sheila started to shriek, her cries echoing up the stairwell and the man dropped my arm and went to her. I ran—fled—up those stairs. No. I remember that’s all I could think—NO—but I was somewhere else. Somewhere detached. I never came back from there.
The layout was smashed. A cricket bat lay on the floor, the culprit of the destruction. I picked it up, felt the whip-cord against my palms. Another ambulance man was standing on the table, taking a rope from a beam. There was a policeman, too, his face ashen, all the colour in his eyes. He took the bat from me, gently. Then asked me for my name.
And Alex, barefoot in his favourite jeans and an old T-shirt, lay on the wreck of the layout, his eyes open, his face pale, looking grey in the light, his kiss unnatural. Purple. The policeman was trying to talk to Alf, crouched by the far wall but Alf was broken, a puppet with his strings cut. All I could do was watch as the ambulance man closed Alex’s eyes.
It wasn’t until the constable spoke to me again that I realised that I was superfluous. He led me away as the ambulance man shut the door behind us. I don’t know how I kept from being sick, but everything still seemed far away.
“Best thing you can do, sir,” he said as he led me back down, “is just to be there for the parents. The shock could affect them in funny ways. Terrible business, but it’s not uncommon for boys his age. Sad, it is.”
We walked through to their dining room and he motioned me to sit down. I held myself in check, letting the world happen around me.
“I’d be grateful if you could give me some details. Can’t expect his parents to be coherent right now.” I just stared at him. “A shock for you too, I imagine. Did you know the deceased?”
And there it was. Just a name in a report to be written up at the station. Just words. But he was asking the wrong questions. I wanted him to say: Did you know Alexander Charles? Did you ever see him smile with just the corner of his mouth? Did you ever feel his breath on your skin? What did his mouth taste like? Did you love him? Did you, sir?
I wanted to tell someone. I wanted to keep Alex in someone’s memory other than mine.
Instead it was clinical—talking of a life once known. Already a memory. Already history and nothing more.
I stammered through the details, somehow. Shock camouflaged the truth—that, and the fact I was a neighbour with children. “Won’t be easy for them, either, I’d imagine,” the policeman said. His name was Constable Johns. Funny how a stupid detail like that stays with you when so much else drifts away.
“I…no. Of course not. If you’ll excuse me?”
“Of course, sir. You’ve been helpful.”
Questions I could never ask flooded in my mind as I sat and stared at him. Where? How? Why?
As if I’d spoken, the constable led me to the door. “Like I said, sir, it’s not too unusual. You told me he was a bright lad. Oxford, wasn’t it? Lots of pressure. It’s sometimes harder for a clever boy who’s not from the system, if you know what I mean. I’ve seen it before.” He shook his head and put his helmet on.
The door closed behind me, and I walked down the path and back to my house. I stood for a long minute in the driveway before I went in.
Mrs. Tudor was putting coats on the twins. Val was shutting a small case. “I phoned Mrs. Tudor. The twins will be better off there.” Her voice was acid-cold, like nothing I’d ever heard before. The last grains fell from under my feet and I was there with nothing to support me.
“Daddy?” Mary’s eyes were huge in the hall light. “Daddy?”
“It’s all right, sweetie.” My voice was husky. I couldn’t hide it any longer. Val knew. “It will only be for a little while. You’ll be back before you know it.”
“But the ambulance…?”
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.
Valerie took over. “Just an accident, next door. Don’t worry. It’ll all be all right. Mummy will come and get you tomorrow.” The door closed on them and I watched them drive away, Mary’s face flashing blue from the ambulance’s strobe as she pressed her face against the side window of Mrs. Tudor’s Morris Minor.
Waves of nausea hit me—like seasickness, and I clung to the sideboard to prevent myself falling. Alf had been crouched like an animal in pain, and I was him, then. I don’t remember time passing, just the silent flick-flick-flick of the ambulance light, cutting the night into slices.
I lost track of everything, time and space. Where Val was I couldn’t tell. I wasn’t even aware of her until she spoke. Her voice was like a knife. Blood red, cold. But almost too soft to be heard, and sounding dusty with disuse. It was like she’d been trying to speak but had forgotten how.
“Now it all makes sense.”
I turned to her and saw the look on her face, the one she’d been hiding from the children. She’d taken her mask off, and I can’t erase that memory or forgive myself for yet another crime. Her lips were livid in a face with no colour. No life. Finally, no hope. She looked, for a moment, like him.
“You aren’t even going to deny it, are you?”
When I didn’t move, not even to shake my head, she came at me, the rage pouring from her fists and nails. Words I’d never heard from her in our entire married life flooded from her mouth, vile, terrible words. All I could do was to hold her wrists until, limp and sobbing, she stopped and leaned against the other wall.
“Something,” she said, her breath ragged, “I knew there was something. Phil’s hints, you working all hours…I asked you. I asked you! I begged you to tell me.”
There was no need to be kind anymore, so I was unnecessarily vicious. Someone else had to suffer. “What did you want me to tell you? The truth?”
She gasped at that. Her eyes were saucers as she took it in. I
guessed what she was imagining—all the pictures that were passing before her eyes.
And what could I do? Tell her that the visions she was seeing were wrong? They weren’t. They were all true. There was nothing she could imagine that was false.
Her voice shook as badly as her hands. “You…he’s a child.” Phil had said the same. I had had no answer for him, either. “Of all the things I imagined—never, never this! Tell me, Ed—tell me! Why?”
It was if my mouth wasn’t working. My lips felt leaden, closed by virtue of their own weight, never to open again. What was there to say? Who was there to say it to? What difference would it make?
+ + +
I stood on the landing and watched the ambulance drive away, its siren silent. I was still there when Valerie came back up the stairs and touched my arm. I don’t know what I expected her to say or how I expected her to act, but it was as if someone had taken her from me, and the woman who handed me the suitcase was a stranger I’d once seen from a distance. Not an angry one, but just someone who couldn’t quite work out why I was in her house and was waiting for me to leave.
We’d said was all that needed to be said. There could be no retrenching, no hope of an armistice. I was just in the way.
The cold clutched my heart as she turned and the tiny tell-tale sign of her pregnancy showed, just for second, as the fabric flowed with her movement. A younger Edward would have caressed her stomach. But there was nothing of him left.
+ + +
And there we are. Left with a man on his own in a flat. A room that he can’t bear to look around to see the little remembrances here and there. A book, cast aside and never finished. Some pennies that had fallen out of his jeans and I found under the bed. Sweets and a jar of Vaseline. Three golden hairs which I’ve kept in my wallet. Not a lot to show for the whirlwind. No picture except the one I have when I close my eyes.
The phone rang when I first moved in here, but now it’s silent. I don’t even know whether it’s still connected. I walk in the twilight, out of the station and away from The Avenue. The pavements seem dangerous, like quicksand. And yet there’s nothing more to fear. Nothing more to hide. I walk for hours, no matter how wet or cold it is. The hail stings my face and leaves it numb. It’s a good feeling. It’s a feeling.