by Alan Clark
‘Granny please,’ I said.
But without looking back, she hobbled away and left me to the darkness.
FOUR
‘Tonight, let me sleep in the lee of your thigh
Breakfast on the milk that seeps from the eye
The milk that makes me whole, the milk that feeds my soul
And nourishes my dream of you and I’
Filthy isn’t it? Not to mention the shite grammar. It’s today’s ‘Partner Poem’ from Faisal. I get a few every week now, slipped under my cereal bowl or into my jacket pocket. He’s got this book, The Man-Love Manual: Same-Sex Solutions To Today’s Partnership Challenges. Among its touchy-feely suggestions is that we should write each other regular romantic verses, ‘in order to express those deepest emotions so often left unsaid in our workaday world.’ I tried it about twice, gave up and bought him a box of After Eights instead. He said it wasn’t the same. Anyway, he’s still churning them out at the speed of Barbara Cartland. He takes it all so seriously, it’s like he’s studying for another degree to add to the three he’s got already.
Tonight before dinner, I was lying on the bed contemplating Faisal’s ‘south front’. It certainly deserves to be listed. As he trimmed his beard at the bathroom mirror, his buttocks jutted out from his lower back like two furry specimens of some Pakistani peach. I’d once tried propping the Shorter Oxford Dictionary on them to see if it could be done and fuck me it could. When I’d wandered online almost a year ago and seen the pic of him in tight running gear, his nipples like two tiny volcanoes, I’d almost cum in my pants. At 5'4", a bit too tall perhaps; but nobody’s perfect. I was in there like a ferret.
DinkyDudes.com. Of all Internet sites, it’s got me into the most trouble. I’ve never understood my sporadic fetish for teeny-weeny men. Ms Prada says it’s an admirable manifestation of a caring response to perceived vulnerability, which was a relief as I’d been worried it was a wee streak of paedophilia. My platinum membership of Dinkydudes gives me access to an unlimited number of profiles and information about, inter alia, their sexual boundaries and the identity of their favourite actress, who is nearly always Dame Judi Dench. The Dinkydudes are graded by height, starting from 5'8" and working down in two-inch slots till you get to 5'0". Below that is a specialist ‘room’ where essentially we’re talking midgets. But my fetish isn’t that extreme or indeed exclusive; I’ve always been an equal opportunities predator.
When I’d messaged Faisal I’d got the standard cool response, but it had warmed up over a week or two although it was a month before he agreed to meet for coffee. This was a longer-term investment than I usually went in for and an instant dividend seemed unlikely as Dr Faisal Khan had made it plain he didn’t sleep with anyone unless there was at least a tentative commitment to, as he phrased it, exploring possibilities. He’d accepted my invitations to dinner, the movies, even to the Varsity Match at Twickenham. He’d been perfectly amiable, but somehow quite detached. He wasn’t that great at small talk either, work seemed to be his consuming passion. On every occasion, I’d reflexively tried to breach the bastion but he’d just slapped his little palm against mine and headed back to some tiny flat he rented near his hospital.
‘Ah,’ said a friend. ‘The Anne Boleyn Manoeuvre. Hope he’s worth the wait.’
One evening, I’d be given tickets for a concert by a gay choir and dragged him along. Not his sort of thing, he’d said. Not mine either; a hundred divas belting out an uneasy mixture of campy showtunes and right-on anthems about strength in the face of discrimination. But in the darkness, Faisal had reached out for my arm and I’d seen that he was crying, his shoulders shaking like an aspen in a gale. Hands from the row behind had patted him consolingly and, as we’d filed out, he’d been hugged by a black drag queen with dripping mascara. I’d been amazed; till then I’d assumed he was as hard as most of his generation seemed to me, hard as the Arab in The Catacombs. From that moment on he no longer scared me slightly like most of them did. And I think that was why I hung in there. That and the ‘south front’ of course.
That night I’d hoped my luck was in, but yet again he’d just vanished into the bowels of the Northern Line. What Stephen Sondheim couldn’t achieve, Baron Haussman did. I’d taken him to Paris; he’d never been before and was dazzled. It was the corny candlelit dinner on the bateau mouche that’d clinched it. As we’d floated past the floodlit skirts of Notre-Dame, he’d confessed that, at twenty-nine, he’d never had a serious relationship and thought he wanted to try one with me. He’d felt our souls might travel in tandem. The waiter had overheard, said the wine was on the house and sent the violinist over to our table. I’d told the violinist to piss off.
I’d splashed out on a top floor suite in my favourite hotel in the Marais. For the first ten minutes, the sex had been ok but not sensational, which I put down to our having overdone the Louvre. But then Faisal had passed me the tie he’d been wearing and held out his fists. The night had been warm, the tall windows flung wide open. I’d attached him to the railing of the Juliet balcony and given it to him from behind in time to the midnight chimes of Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois. It was utterly fucking amazing. These same bells had tolled for the doomed Huguenots on St Bartholomew’s Eve. Were they tolling now to mark the end of Rory Blaine’s confirmed bachelorhood? Was I about to let my hands be tied too?
I’d lain watching him as he slept that night, his hairy arm clamped tightly round my chest. Over the past few celibate weeks, I’d decided that he was, without a doubt, the most beautiful man I’d ever known. Not just physically, but in every way. He worked himself to death looking after the sick, helped run a soup-kitchen on the Embankment and visited his parents in Slough every Sunday. He was too good for me really, too good for this world in fact. He was Mother Teresa with an arse to die for. He was, as the saying goes, something else. It could never last.
But it’s more than nine months since Paris and it’s still going fairly well. He has a way of peering into my eyes like he really wants to know what’s behind them. The reserve has gone too. In fact, he insists on opening up more and more bits of himself like windows on an Advent Calendar: his relationship with his father and mother, with his Uncle Raj and Auntie Shazia, being gay, being gay and Asian, being gay, Asian and a doctor. I feel pretty sure he’s never opened these windows before. Why does that make me a tad uncomfortable? Is it in case he expects me to open mine too? I’m a bit out of practice with that, except with Ms Prada in the eau-de-nil room with the droopy azalea.
I’ve never totally understood this mass compulsion for partnership. I’d craved it that one time in Australia when I’d been little more than a kid, but it hadn’t worked out. Okay, that’s an understatement, like saying Hamlet gets a bit gloomy towards the end. As I’ve said, I gave it a few more goes but the only man I’d ever really wanted nattering first thing in the morning had been Terry Wogan. That’d been why the strange toothbrushes had never stayed for long. When I’d needed company, I’d gone out and got it. I’d always been essentially alone. I’d never been scared of it. But was I scared of it now then? After the Arab kid in The Catacombs turned up the light? I’d realized that’d happen sooner or later, but nothing had quite prepared me for the pain of the fall. Mind you, I’d got straight back on the horse and gone off at full gallop, till I’d had to limp in and get Rod, my genito-urinary mechanic, to treat a nasty bout of ‘recreational collateral damage.’ I’d tried to convince myself the Arab was some sort of freak, but I’d known that from then on I’d probably fall a lot more often. Of course I’d run to Ms Prada afterwards and we’d set off on an in-depth exploration of self-esteem, hacking through the jungle of false perceptions, searching for new mental pathways that I just might want to consider taking.
Anyway. Whatever the murky middle-aged psychology, here I was in a relationship again, or at least test-driving one, though it seemed clear Faisal had already signed the purchase agreement.
‘Hey, let’s dress up a bit,’ I said tonight as he cam
e back into the bedroom, his coal-black hair still damp from the shower. ‘Wear the Gaultier leathers.’
‘Must I?’ he replied, in the calm, almost sleepy voice that still carried traces of Slough. I felt a niggle of impatience. I’d frogmarched him into the coolest clothes shops in town but he rarely appeared in anything other than sweat pants and a T-shirt.
‘Oh come on Faisal, it’s his birthday. Make his pacemaker blow a gasket.’
‘Has he got one? He’s never mentioned it.’
‘I’ve no idea. It was just a figure of speech,’ I said. ‘Though I guess we might get quite a few of those.’
‘Possibly,’ said Faisal. ‘I’m going to need that sort of info before they’re accepted. I’m sure you don’t want them pegging out before their deposit’s in the bank. Right, I’d better get started on this banquet.’
Still wrapped in his towel, he went upstairs to the kitchen.
The flat was in the low L-shaped block, once dairies and storerooms, barnacled onto the east wing of Mount Royal. Out of it, we’d created several studio apartments for the live-in staff we’d need and, for myself, a two-storey maisonette nevertheless called ‘the flat’. I’d wanted it to be cool, contemporary, a total contrast to the main house. Downstairs are two bedrooms and bathrooms and, at the top of a glass staircase, a big open-plan living area with a kitchen in one corner. The wow factor is a huge sloping picture window punched into the roof and looking south over the city. It’s a kind of minimalist-Montmartre look. I’ve sent some stills to the interiors mags and there’s a good chance of a feature.
Vic had seemed a bit baffled by the flat. He’d assumed I’d want to lay claim to my grandmother’s old rooms. Was he serious? Anyhow, I’d always been clear that, when the house opened for business, I’d not want to be living right above the shop. Faisal had also been firm about our having private space if he agreed to move in. It had to be our home; he would pay rent and share the bills just like any other couple. At first, I’d pooh-poohed all that, but he’d got a solicitor to draw up two agreements, one formalizing his tenancy of the flat, the other his part-time employment as medical and nutritional adviser to Mount Royal Limited. I’d felt a bit uneasy when I’d signed the papers. They carried a gravitas the toothbrushes lacked. It seemed we were now bonded.
Upstairs Faisal, still in his towel, was chopping vegetables with the ferocity his ancestors had used to slice up mine in the Khyber Pass. One of the things I hated most about the younger generation of men was their nonchalant ability to cook. At school, Miss Elspeth Wishart had once found me with a book of recipes from the library. She’d given me a funny look, snatched it from my hand and ordered me towards the rugby pitch. Boys don’t bother about such things, she’d said.
Tonight, Faisal had pulled all the stops out. On the long glass table beside the picture window everything shimmered; glasses, silver, china, candlelight.
‘You trying to impress him?’
‘Probably,’ said Faisal. ‘He hardly seemed overjoyed to meet me.’
‘Tough. What’s your being here got to do with him? He’s my business partner, not my mother.’
It was true though. When I’d told Vic about my new relationship and that Faisal would be moving into the flat, he’d not exactly given us a Papal blessing. We’d been in the Red Damask Drawing-Room, the only one of the state rooms as yet habitable, poring over the plans for the new kitchens. The constant smile had remained in place but it sort of froze over, like the thinnest layer of ice on a pond, hardly noticeable till you looked really close. He’d knocked back half a glass of Sancerre in one gulp.
‘Well I hope it works out,’ he’d said. ‘Now, these kitchens…’
When Faisal moved in a month ago, Vic had presented him with an autographed copy of his most recent compilation CD, D’Orsay: The Ultimate Collection, on which he was photographed leaning cheek to cheek against a sculpture in his namesake Parisian museum. Faisal had thanked him politely and then examined it with the same expression he no doubt used when diagnosing terminal cancer. It wasn’t the response Vic was used to. Since then they’d had little contact, so I was pleased that Faisal was making an effort this evening. We were living at close quarters after all, our cheeks by Vic’s jowls.
When I’d met Faisal, Vic and I had been about eighteen months into the restoration. I’d flogged my stake in Blaine Rampling. Thatcher’s children hadn’t been able to believe their luck; they’d raised the loot in twenty-four hours and been like bitches on heat till they’d got me out the door. A week after my farewell party, Blaine Rampling had become Eclecsis. Hey ho. Sic transit gloria mundi. But I’d not given a damn. I’d also sold Devonshire Street and was camped out in one of Mount Royal’s dilapidated bedrooms till the flat was ready. Vic was here too by then, having cleaned up on his Chelsea place and taken possession of my grandmother’s rooms. I’d not brought Faisal to the house at first. After Paris, we’d always gone back to his place; an anodyne studio near the Whittington Hospital. Eventually of course he’d asked to see where I lived, but I’d been right not to flaunt it in his face. The appeal of Mount Royal just wasn’t on the radar of a fiercely left-wing doctor; all Faisal saw was a decrepit remnant of a discredited way of life. He toured round it with the feigned interest of the Queen in a widget factory.
‘What on earth will you do with it?’ he’d asked ‘A hotel or something?’
I’d told him that Mount Royal was about to become Britain’s first residential home for gay men. Zap! Bang! Pow! Faisal had gone straight from courteous disengagement to messianic fervour with no stops in between. I’d been drenched in admiration. He’d fast-bowled me paeans of praise and encouragement, lobbed pertinent questions, thrown in his own observations on the current state of care for the elderly and what he called the untapped possibilities for transformative advance. I’d felt myself being gently lifted onto a pedestal and I’d liked it.
‘You’ve wasted your life in advertising,’ Faisal had said. ‘Now you’re going to be giving, not just taking like you’re used to.’
‘Thanks a lot,’ I’d said, remembering the hotel bill in Paris.
It didn’t seem totally fair to be so praised for an action I’d been half-blackmailed into and which, in the wee small hours, still scared the shite out of me. Up in the cupola that day, when Vic had told me his plan, I’d thought he was crazy. But it had seeded in me and grown. I would save Mount Royal from the Chancellor and sad lonely people from a fate worse than death. If it worked at Mount Royal, it could be extended. It could make me a fortune, it could make me famous, revered even, like Jamie Oliver. My birthday might, at long last, be squeezed into that wee paragraph in The Times. In short, it could be a new beginning. Rory’s Blaine’s life would be moving upward. There would be no plateau and certainly no over-the-hill. That night, I’d had a nice dream about being knighted by King Charles III. Prince William had whispered in my ear that he batted for both teams and had slipped me his private number.
Of course, I’d not told Faisal about Vic and the will. He’d never have accepted our new life together being built on the foundation of a crime, natural justice or not. I’d simply told him that Vic was a friend of my grandmother’s who’d come into business with me. Nor did I tell him it was actually Vic’s idea; I was enjoying the view from my pedestal too much. But, for the last few months, it had been Faisal’s enthusiasm as much as Vic’s which had kept me on course as week by week, grant by grant, regulation by regulation, the project was being nudged into harbour.
Tonight, Faisal obeyed instructions and wore the black leather Gaultier pants, matching waistcoat and John Smedley knitted T-shirt which had once caused a cataclysmic collision between two waiters in the Wolseley. Vic arrived, slightly late as usual, with the star’s instinct of keeping the punters waiting. He’d dressed up too; a shiny silk suit in dove grey; his matching shoes bearing a wee silver buckle in the shape of a treble-clef. We gave him a card and a case of a very rare Burgundy. He gave us another CD, Vic Bites The Big Apple.
‘My attempt to crack the American market,’ he explained. ‘But Frank, Tony Bennett, little Andy Williams, they had it all sewn up. Don’t regret it though; my chance to break out of the artistic straightjacket of British M.O.R. Dusty did exactly the same. This is my equivalent of her Memphis album; you’ll find it rougher, bluesier than my British stuff. Bit of a cult album now in fact. Slap it on if you want, I won’t mind.’
We sipped our drinks in silence as Vic’s voice sashayed around the room. God knows why he thought it less syrupy than his usual output, every track could have clogged an artery. As Vic mimed along to his own voice, the cat jumped onto his lap. The cat was devoted to Vic; not only had he discovered it was actually a girl, he’d even given her a name. She was now Alma, after Vic’s old friend, the late-lamented Ms Cogan.
‘Shall we eat?’ shouted Faisal after about four tracks, killing the music with the remote. I wondered if anyone had ever done that in Vic’s presence before. He blinked rather rapidly but said nothing.
Faisal produced an exemplary meal but very little conversation. When he was tense, he had an odd habit of forgetting to talk. But Vic didn’t seem to notice and we nattered aimlessly about the renovations. Tomorrow an expert in William & Mary porcelain was coming from Oxford.
‘Faisal went to Oxford,’ I said, trying to reel him in.
‘Glorious town, isn’t it doc?’ said Vic, ‘Did you go for the day?’
‘No, I went for six years. I studied medicine there,’ replied Faisal.
‘Jeez,’ said Vic, ‘now there’s a thing.’
As Faisal struggled to chat about his three degrees and his Blue for running, Vic’s eyes drifted back and forth from him like a boat tugging at its anchor. I began to sense that Faisal, despite being young, gorgeous and intelligent, just didn’t interest Vic very much. Whenever I’d dragged him to meet my other gay friends, they’d all salivated. Now here was this fat old man, smiling as usual, but utterly ungobsmacked.
