Love and Tea Bags

by C F White

  Scurrying into the kitchen, Mark glimpsed the leftover mess that proved he had actually managed to double his aforementioned number of conquests. He grabbed the nearest cloth to run under the tap, then cleaned down the surfaces.

  Bradley slapped out a bin liner and gathered up the ruined food dregs scraped into the floor. They cleared up in relative silence for a while, Bradley obviously hoping Mark might offer some more information without encouragement and Mark playing a little game to see how long the Aussie would last without pressing for more details.

  “Was it a long relationship?”

  Mark peered up to the clock on the wall. Ten minutes. Not bad.

  “Longest I’ve had.” Mark chuckled, but Bradley didn’t get in on the joke.

  “Did you live together?” Bradley had all but stopped his clearing up and placed a hand on his hips with the bin liner dangling at his side.

  “Eventually.” Mark scrubbed harder along the surfaces, wishing he could rid the memories as easy as the crusted sperm. “In London.”

  “How did you meet?” Bradley wasn’t moving a muscle, except the ones that enabled his eyes to follow whatever Mark did.

  “Mr Carroway was a teacher.” Mark twisted and stood opposite Bradley against the adjacent counter. The counter where he’d banged Bradley into oblivion moments previous. What a comedown. Better just get it all out. “My teacher, to be exact. It started as a silly crush when I was about fourteen. He was somewhat older, obviously. Being young and naive, I pursued him for a while.”

  Mark hung his head with the shame oozing through him like the custard still sliding on the floor. “He never returned any of my advances. As he shouldn’t. So I made that ridiculous speech at school in the hope he would see I was true to my feelings. My mother left that part out and always does. You can imagine how that would cause a stir around here.” Mark peered up and met with Bradley’s musing gaze. “Needless to say, I was led from the premises rather prematurely. I enrolled in a college in Canterbury to further my education. One day, I happened to bump into him out and about. Walking his dog along the cliffs. We got talking. One thing led to another and we started up something. I was eighteen, he was forty-one.”

  “Wow.” Bradley had to hold on to the counter for that revelation and Mark didn’t blame him.

  “Indeed,” Mark agreed. “This is a small town. And the fact he had been my teacher sent the rumours around that he must have been with me whilst I was still at school.” Mark scrubbed his face with his hand. “He was fired. We left for London where I went to uni, got a job, thought my life was set. Until I got older, and he, well, let’s just say, it became apparent that he preferred younger.”

  “Far out, Mark.” Bradley scraped his trainer along the floor, squeaking the sole against the linoleum.

  “I had no choice but to leave him. He’d already moved his younger model in by that point anyway. And things at home were bad with Pa losing the money and not being able to tell Mother. So, I came back here with my tail between my legs, took the first job available at Steinberg’s and George remained in London with various younger boyfriends, I believe. Like a revolving bloody door.”

  “Jesus, mate. What an arsehole. Where is he now?”

  Mark sighed. “Marsby graveyard. He died. Heart attack. But what really twisted the knife in was that he left all his stuff to me. I inherited everything but our flat, which went to whoever was on the deeds at time of death. I had a truckload of rubbish delivered in bin bags and boxes, sender unknown. I shoved it all in the loft and haven’t ventured up there since.”

  Mark felt a teensy tiny bit relieved at having said all that, but the feeling soon dissipated as Bradley didn’t move, or say anything. He couldn’t have expected anything different.

  “It kinda all makes sense now.” Bradley pushed away from the counter and flapped the bin liner into the swing- top bin.

  “What does?”

  “You.” Bradley waved his hand. “You think you’re not worthy of anyone. You think you’re too old. He did that. What an absolute bastard.”

  Mark smiled faintly at the aggressive insult and thought it best not to remind Bradley that one shouldn’t speak ill of the dead. Even if Mark had been thinking ill of George for the better part of ten years. From the moment the man had laughed in his face when linking arms through his new beau with a casual, ‘But, darling, we all have best-before dates, and yours was coming up!’

  Well, Georgey, turns out we all have use-by dates, too. And yours was quite some time ago. Maybe it is time to take that rubbish out…

  Bradley stood directly in front of him, his looming stance not as threatening this time and just a tad bit intoxicating.

  “I think you’re beautiful.” Bradley kissed him. “Exactly how you are.”

  Mark smiled, solemnly. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe Bradley. It wasn’t that he thought the man was humouring him after hearing such a pitiful story. It wasn’t that he thought Bradley was simply trying to boost him up after discovering that Mark had pretty much been hung out and dried before the age of thirty, and had never been taken down from that washing line in ten years.

  It was all down to terrible timing.

  “Well, then.” Mark hung his head, swiping his forehead across Bradley’s. “I guess it’s a real shame you’ll be leaving soon.”

  “You’ll come with me.” Bradley smiled, bright and eager. “Remember the leaves said you would travel. Come with me. To Oz. Then we’ll take on the rest of the world bit by bit.”

  “That’s impossible, not to mention ridiculous.”

  “Why?”

  “Because this. All of this.” Mark stepped back and really examined Bradley and the wide-eyed, bushy-tailed enthusiasm that dripped off him like a child at Christmas. “I can’t be him, Bradley. I can’t.”

  Bradley furrowed his brow. “Be who?”

  “George. This thing between us, it can’t last. It never could. We’re polar opposites and not just in distance, although that is a factor here too.”

  Bradley grabbed his hand. “Mark, this is meant to be. You know it. I know it. We’ve both been told it. We were meant to meet. I was meant to be here. I was meant to hear you yelling through that open door to this kitchen and come out and set both our lives on a new destiny. Yeah, we’re opposites. That’s what makes this so right. I’m the yin to your yang. Sagittarius and Aquarius. Fire and water. We’re not meant to be the same. But together we can set the world alight! It’s in the stars, Mark. It’s all written in the stars. You just have to want to read it.”

  Oh, that beautiful, zestful, youthful faith in humanity! It was such a shame that Mark had to go and bash all that out of him with an unsubtle sledgehammer.

  “Bradley, real life isn’t like that. Not one bit.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Good Riddance to Bad Rubbish

  Mark rammed his front door shut a short time later having vacated the Tea Shoppe and possibly Bradley’s life forever. He hadn’t meant to slam the door and flinched when the whole house rattled on its antique hinges. The rickety roof withstood the strain of the completely unnecessary slam—proof once more that the stars weren’t aiding him and handing out a perfectly valid reason to run and fetch Bradley back. The few pictures hanging up in his hallway wall did succumb and fell to the floor with remorseful clangs. Thank goodness for his antique carpet as the glass managed to remain intact. Had they fallen onto a hard wood floor, they would no doubt have smashed on impact. There was a reason he kept this house in its original state. Okay, it wasn’t so much low beams and open fireplaces that could sell an old-style house these days but more just 1970s décor, but still. It meant he could slam doors and not be too concerned about it.

  Except, of course, he was. Not about the house. Not anymore. Heck, let the roof cave in. He’d be quite glad to be buried under a pile of rubble now. He wasn’t sure what he had been thinking. He’d spent the best part of ten years avoiding heartache like the one he was now currently experiencing. But e
nter a particularly appealing Australian hunk and it seemed that all his carefully crafted plans to keep himself from misery had fallen to the wayside. Much like the pictures woefully littering his floor.

  Feeling a little juvenile, he kicked the frames to the wall with a huff and a pout then glanced along to his kitchen. Tea. There was the answer to everything. Everything, but perhaps not love, regardless of Bradley’s attempts to sell him to the contrary. Oddly, he didn’t much fancy a cuppa right then. Perhaps it was that he’d had a particularly pleasing mug back at Macy’s. That wouldn’t have normally prevented his overdose on the English herb—he’d counted up to twenty-two cups consumed in one day before—but something niggled at his chest. Not so much niggled as tightly clenched and restricted his breathing.

  He rubbed at the constriction, which was about near where his heart was, and hoped for some relief. Realising it was more of a mental hindrance than any actual heartburn, he huffed. He loitered in the hallway, not willing to venture any farther into the house. It was as if there was some barrier that, if he were to break through, would mean that everything that had happened moments earlier actually, well, hadn’t. One step more might mean he was going back, resigning himself to being there…forever. Where he’d been buried for the past ten years, wasting away his life that had once been so full of hope and wonderment. How would he ever get out of the hole he was in? Even if he had, momentarily, been in another hole. A beautiful, tight and pleasure-ridden one. Except now he knew that could only ever be a one-off. Like that time he had tasted coffee.

  No, that wasn’t a particularly good analogy. He had hated that cup and had wanted to spit it out on first glug. But he had been in polite company at the time, so did his best to keep calm and carry on in true Brit style. Because that was who he was, after all. So perhaps a better analogy would be the time he’d ridden the big dipper at Blackpool Pleasure Beach. Mark hadn’t ever been one to enjoy the feeling of being out of control, possibly due to the fact most of his life was spent that way, so he hadn’t expected to enjoy the roller coaster. It had been Damian who had made him board the tallest ride during their impromptu visit a couple of years back. And, yes, he had screamed like a girl. But the exhilaration at being free was something he still clung on to. Much like he had the pole that had dug into his midsection through fear of falling to his doom.

  Yes! Mark nodded profusely. That was most definitely the best way to describe how he felt about Bradley Summers. Ups, downs, flips, turns, tummy butterflies and the fear of falling. And he had fallen. To an almighty crashing end. One time only, too. Because once a person had ridden the Big Dipper, all other rides paled into insignificance. Like, what was the point? They wouldn’t match up. So it was the tea cup and saucer ride for him from then on.

  “I’m surprised, Mark Johnson, you’ve managed to make it to thirty-nine without being committed to the nut house.” The fact he spoke that aloud to himself confirmed that his statement was indeed one to be marvelled at.

  Shaking it off, he slapped a hand onto the banister—wincing when the wood actually wobbled a little—and trudged up to the second floor. If anything, he needed a shower. Slippery remnants of Better than Butter seemed to be everywhere on Mark’s body and clothing. The stench was masked a little by Bradley’s own alluring scent still noticeable on Mark’s skin, which it would be a shame to wash off, but he couldn’t linger in that too long. That had been the whole bloody point in the first place. Not to wallow, linger or get infatuated by a man eighteen years his junior and one as flighty as Damian’s undergarments.

  But by God, it had been good. Bradley was good. No, great! So cheeky, so sexy and so goddamn persistent. Mark still wasn’t completely convinced Bradley wasn’t just using the opportunity. Mark was aware of how he looked, how he acted and was more than acutely aware of who Bradley was. And there was simply no way Mark was going to turn in to George. Chasing after young bloods the way the man had into his fifties before succumbing to a dicky heart. Ha! Dicky heart. The irony.

  There was no room for Mark in Bradley’s life. He didn’t fit into it. They couldn’t just slot together because his horoscope proclaimed their star signs were a good match. That sort of thing went out with the copies of Just Seventeen magazine that Mark had pretended to buy for his mother. I mean, God, I might as well calculate our chances at successful love by the letters in our name and scribble it in the back of my rough book! He’d never been one to have faith…in God, in the stars, in tea leaves. Why start now? Rational reasoning was what counted here.

  Mark winced as he recounted his parting comment to the Aussie at Macy’s. ‘I have to be the one to have the sensible head here. I’m older than you. I’m set in my ways. This won’t work. You’ll find someone new, someone younger, someone who will whisk you off your feet and make you forget this poxy seaside town that everyone does as soon as they get home.’

  It was true. Bradley would. And Mark would be left here to rot amongst the stale, soft pink rock. Sighing, he trudged over to the bathroom where his mirror was waiting to tell him the truth this time. That he was a prick. Mark stuck his middle finger up at it. The mirror reflection stuck his tongue out in retaliation. Mark rolled his eyes and slapped his forehead to the cool glass. He’d officially gone nut house crazy.

  He wanted so hard to ignore the look Bradley’d had in his eyes as Mark had kissed his cheek like a sodding grandmother and tinkled the doorbell to leave. He’d been like a little lost puppy, doe-eyed and pouty. Until Mark had proceeded to clamber over the step from Macy’s and trip up on the pavement.

  Right. Shower. Wash hair. All orifices. Then bed. Tomorrow will always come and will always be the same monotonous cycle of indifference.

  And Australia will always be four hundred billion miles away. And sunny. And without English Breakfast!

  The shower was rather pleasant. Even if his showerhead was more a trickle of spittle than the full flowing waterfall of the hotel in London. Like his shower had decided it just couldn’t be bothered. Maybe spending so much time with Mark Johnson, everything ended up like him? Pitiful. Reminded of his laissez-faire attitude to most things, he thought of all the tasks he hadn’t managed to do in his boss’s absence that would no doubt ping up as reminders on his computer tomorrow. Bugger.

  Pyjamas and bed followed shortly and Mark pulled the duvet to his chin, staring up at the ceiling like some coma victim in a hospital. He didn’t even attempt to get comfy. No bed would ever be comfortable again. Maybe sleep would just creep up on him without any foreplay. It didn’t. He tapped his fingers on the duvet and huffed. Perhaps if he closed his eyes? He did. For all of two seconds before opening them again and peering back up at the crumbling ceiling.

  It was the weight of it all up there. The plaster tiles dipping from the burden of what lay beyond. Well, like his father had always said—no time like the present. Even if it was midnight. Clambering out from under the duvet, Mark shivered at the biting cold, then ventured over to the one place in his house he hadn’t been in for years. He felt sick and heavyhearted. He didn’t really know what was up there.

  Yanking down the rickety loft ladder, he sucked in a deep breath and glanced up at the dark hole in his ceiling. Was he really going to do this now? It seemed for the second time that evening he was going to enter into a hole that scared the utter crap out of him.

  “Bugger it.” Mark shook out his shoulders, set his bare feet on the first rung of the ladder and made his ascension into the unknown.

  He coughed. Spluttered. Fell over a few boxes that had fallen from their stacks, and cursed that brute of a workman who had obviously messed up his perfectly constructed hoard of rubbish. Crumbs, I really am a hoarder! Book me on that programme now! Maybe he could earn a few quid down the local car boot with all this rubbish?

  It wasn’t rubbish. That was the problem. Quite a fair bit of it was made up of memories. Memories that Mark had shoved away long ago, then closed the loft hatch on and got on with his nonexistent life. What had it been that mad
e him want to venture up there now and dredge up the past?

  Bradley.

  He fumbled along the slanted wall, tapping for the light switch, his bare feet sinking into the rough sponge of the insulation. It was a little damp, with a musky pungency from having not dried out properly. The hole in his roof had been there far longer than he cared to imagine. Luckily, it was now fixed, but wet cardboard would never dry out to regain its job of keeping memories safe from harm.

  Flicking the switch illuminated the dark cavity into life. Mark gasped. Christ, it was a mess. Rotten boxes, broken glass from photo frames, mouldy clothing. Mark slapped a hand over his mouth and nose and grimaced. If ever there was a reason to clear this crap, it was simply looking at it. No wonder his house smelled stale and decrepit. Everything up here was rotten.

  He rubbed his hands together and got on with the task.

  * * * *

  He wasn’t sure how long he’d been up there, but the twittering of birds and the light ray of sunshine beaming in through the gaps in the roof tiles suggested it had been a fair while. He was in the zone, chucking most things through the hole to his landing where he planned to discard them in the dump later. The other things that he simply couldn’t bear to part with were left in the one box that hadn’t succumbed to the British weather and his antique roof.

  It wasn’t until he heard the calling of his name that he stopped at all. He sucked in a breath, which didn’t help any if he had wanted to remain hidden, as the dust and mould wafted right up his nose and made him hack up a lung full of disgust.

  “Mark?”

  He tried to reply, but his childhood asthma came back full force. Now he recalled why he didn’t do that much exercise, or visit small, confined, dusty spaces. He spluttered, wheezed and gripped hold of one the wooden pillars to steady himself. His streaming eyes were no doubt bloodshot as they itched like thrush. He pressed the balls of his palms into each eye socket and rubbed. He knew that was a stupid mistake. He should have learned from his bouts of bad hay fever—attempting to scrub the soreness away would only ever make the whole thing worse.