Taking Stock

by A. L. Lester

  “Yes, go on,” said Laurie. “And don’t worry about anything. We’ll sort it all out.”

  * * * *

  The scullery door clicked shut behind her and left the two of them alone in the silence of the kitchen with the echo of the angry words that had been thrown about. Laurie wouldn’t meet his gaze.

  Phil moved over to the range and lifted the heavy kettle from where it sat between the two hot places. Then he stepped over to the sink, filled it up, and placed it back on the hot plate to boil. He stood with his back against the Rayburn, leaning against the towel rail, hands gripping it either side of him. The heat was pleasant against his back but he still had to work to stay relaxed. Laurie wasn’t even trying.

  Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out. Don’t push him. Don’t startle him. Don’t make him angry. There’s been enough anger today. Phil just waited.

  Eventually, Laurie spoke. “The idea of family,” he said. Paused. “If I allow myself the idea of a family, Phil, I’ll go mad with wanting it.”

  “But that’s the thing,” Phil said. “You already have a family, Laurie. All around you. You’ve got Sally. And you’ve got Jimmy. And Paul and Tom.” Laurie snorted at that. “And you’ve got Cat.” He looked down at his socked feet. He’d shucked his boots in the scullery before he’d heard the ruckus from the front hallway.

  He drew a final breath. “And if you want it, you’ve got me,” he said, diffidently, not daring to look up.

  Then Laurie did meet his gaze. Even looking at the floor, Phil caught the sharp movement and slowly raised his own eyes to meet it.

  “Have I though?” Laurie said. “Aren’t you going back to your highfalutin London job, once your unpleasantness is resolved?”

  Phil shook his head. “That’s what I came to talk to you about,” he said. “My old boss, Portnoy, came to see me this morning. I’m cleared, they have evidence Richard was shagging people in sensitive positions and insider trading on the pillow talk. He’s flitted. I’m completely in the clear.” He was surprised at how calm his voice was.

  It started to shake a bit though, when he made himself say, “I don’t know, now, if I want to go back. It doesn’t seem as pressing as it did before. I wondered if, maybe…if I stayed…whether there might be a place for me here?”

  * * * *

  Laurie looked at him. “With me?” he said. His voice was also shaky. Phil felt the same. He had never made a verbal declaration before. Richard had moved in with him as a short-term matter of necessity and had simply never left. There hadn’t been any declarations until Phil had thrown him out and those had been of a very different sort.

  “If you’ll have me?” Phil said. He shuffled his feet, going for comedy value. “I mean. I know I’m not as good at cooking as Sally. And I don’t know anything about cattle insemination. Or lambing. Or anything like that.”

  Laurie snorted.

  “But I’m not bad at the accounts, am I? And I can work a twin-tub, with practice. I know not to put the hens and the turkeys in together. And I can feed the dogs?”

  He rubbed his hands on his jean-glad thighs nervously. “Laurie. I’m serious.” He choked up a bit. “I don’t have very much in London, really. Ade and Percy are good friends. And Aunt Mary is in Kent. It’s not like either place is the end of the world, is it? I don’t have to work, not really. I’ve got an income from investments. I can go back if I want. But I’d rather stay here.”

  He wasn’t going to beg. That was it. He’d laid the stall out and it was up to Laurie whether he’d take anything from it or not.

  There was a long pause and he felt his bones start to crumble. Then Laurie said, “I really like you, Phil. It’s all got muddled up, in my head.” He paused again.

  Oh, Phil thought. He’s going to say no. He’s going to send me away. He couldn’t bear it. He kept breathing and he waited for the blow to fall.

  “It’s all got muddled up and I’d forgotten, before you came, what it was like to just be me,” Laurie said.

  Oh.

  “All right,” Phil said cautiously.

  “Since you came…I know I’ve been convalescent and improving and what-not, I’d have been feeling better anyway, I know that. But since you came…since that first day we met…there’s been something there. Something between us. Hasn’t there?” He looked at Phil. “Not just the sex, I mean.”

  Phil looked back, solemnly. “You don’t like the sex?” he asked with a straight face.

  Laurie blinked at him.

  “Oh, fuck off,” he said. “You know what I mean.”

  Phil loosened his death-grip on the towel rail and stepped away from the Rayburn, back to the table, and drew out the chair on the corner next to Laurie. “I know what you mean, Laurie,” he said, as he sat down. “I feel the same way.”

  There was a short pause while they eyed each other awkwardly.

  Laurie had his bad hand clenched in his good one on the table. Phil had noticed that in times of stress or when he was thinking hard, the curling of the fingers and arm became more pronounced. At the moment he was using the good hand to try and straighten the fingers of the bad one.

  “Let me?” Phil said, stretching out his arm to gently put his hand on top of Laurie’s.

  Laurie didn’t say anything, but he allowed Phil to move his good hand to one side and begin to gently stretch and rub at the twisted digits. They both watched in silence as their fingers tangled together. Gradually his tense muscles began to relax.

  “I’m in love with you,” Laurie said, quietly, as Phil started rubbing up his forearm, pulling the arm straight as he had watched Laurie do when it pained him. “I would really like you to stay. I’d really like you to come and live here, if you wanted to. I didn’t know how much I’d miss the old men, once they were gone. You’re right, they were my family. And they made their own, just like you said.”

  Phil slid his chair forward so he was close enough to put his arm round Laurie’s shoulders and Laurie rested against his shoulder. Their fingers were still entwined on the table.

  “But Phil, I don’t know that I’m ever going to get any better than I am. No-one can tell me. I might. But I might not. I don’t want you to feel obligated to stay with a cripple.” His tone was as harsh as the words he used. “If I don’t get any better, then I’m never going to be able to drive—a car or a tractor. I can’t manage the livestock. I could probably handle a chicken if I had to…” His voice became edged with grim humour. “But if it flapped I’d be stuck.”

  He paused for breath and Phil didn’t interrupt. Laurie clearly needed to get this off his chest.

  “Anyone who lives with me…whether we’re shagging or not…is going to end up looking after me to a certain extent. I hate the idea of that. I hate the idea of being reliant on other people.”

  Phil allowed himself a dry interjection. “I had noticed,” he said.

  Laurie shoved his shoulder with his own. “Shut up,” he said. “Let me finish, else I’ll never get it all out. I hate talking about this sort of thing.”

  Phil tightened his arm where it lay across Laurie’s shoulders and said, “Go on, then.”

  “What if I never get better? And become too cranky and bitter for you?” he said.

  Phil huffed a laugh. “Everyone has low moods,” he said. “I cried on and off for the first three months I was down here. You were in hospital, so you missed it. It was only when I started emerging from the cottage and meeting people that I started to feel right again. You’ll get there, love. I promise you. A day at a time.”

  He didn’t hear he’d used the endearment until he’d stopped talking, but it was out there by then and he realised he didn’t want to take it back.

  “Love, eh?” Laurie said.

  “Yes,” Phil told him. “What? You’re allowed to say it and I’m not?”

  Laurie blushed. Phil liked it when he blushed.

  “I never…” Phil said, hesitating now he came to it. “I never really met anyone I felt this
away about before I met you,” he said. “I went through the motions, you know? Cambridge, National Service, the City. It seemed like a good career—I like maths and numbers, but I was never going to be a high flyer. I had a few boyfriends but nothing serious.”

  “Same here,” said Laurie. “I used to go up to Bristol, had a few mates up there, but no-one special. It’s not that I’m in the closet, particularly. I’m sure people guess, specially because of Matty and Rob. But I’ve never had anyone here, close to me.” He shuffled his feet under the table. “I’d like it if I did, I think.”

  He drew away again and looked at Phil. “You’re welcome to stay here,” he said. “If you’d like to. It’s not like you haven’t been here nearly every day for the last couple months anyway.”

  It was Phil’s turn to blush. “Have I been that obvious?” he said.

  “Little bit.” Laurie grinned, finally. “I like it though. How long have you got Caster’s for?”

  “October, in theory.”

  “Well then. Let’s see how we go…and after that, you can see whether you might like to come over here. It’s not like there’s not enough space to get away from each other.”

  Phil nodded. “Fair enough. You don’t mind what people will say, though?”

  “If Matty and Rob could put up with it, I guess that I can. And it’s a different age, isn’t it? Now?”

  “I hope so. I love you, Laurie. This is where I want to be.”

  Epilogue

  October, 1972

  The sheep were making a hell of a noise, making speech difficult, but it was a noise that Laurie welcomed. He leaned against the gate with Jimmy, the late September sunlight warm on his back and watched them mill about.

  “Geddon with you!” Jimmy growled at a recalcitrant ewe who had made a break for freedom rather than going toward the dip-bath and waved his stick at her. “Get on!” The ewe acquiesced and turned back.

  Laurie laughed. “There’s always the one,” he said.

  “Aye, there is,” Jimmy said. He paused. Not much for words, really, Jimmy. Then. “How’s yon lad doing, then?” he asked, nodding toward Phil, who was in overalls like Paul and Tom and Cat, manhandling ewes into the dip.

  Laurie looked at him. “Not bad, Jimmy. Not bad at all. He’s picking it up all right. Don’t you think so?”

  Jimmy glanced at him sidelong. “Yes, he is that, but that’s not what I meant.”

  Laurie swallowed. No-one had mentioned the amount of time he and Phil had been spending in each other’s company, but he supposed everyone had noticed.

  Jimmy realised he was hesitating and patted his arm with his own gnarled hand. “No, lad, don’t worry. Matt and Robert were my friends for fifty year and more, you’ve nothing to fear from me and neither did they. I was just asking, that’s all.”

  Laurie patted the old man’s hand with his own where it lay on his arm. “Then, he’s doing all right, Jimmy. And so am I. Thank you.”

  “Good to hear. That’s good to hear.” He withdrew his hand. “You gave me a proper scare last year, you did. Thought I was going to lose you.” He turned back to look over the yard, speaking without looking at Laurie. “It would have been a shame. I’m pleased you’re back up here. And that your lad is settling in. The maid, too.” He nodded at Cat.

  “She’s good with the animals, isn’t she?” Laurie commented, not wanting to dwell on his recovery. It was slow, but steady. He still walked with a stick, and his hand was never going to be much good; but he wasn’t as tired and he was getting about much more.

  “Aye, she is. Lucky to have them both, we are.” Jimmy brushed a hand over his face. “Matt and Robert would be proud of you, Laurie. They didn’t have it easy when they came back here after the war. It was a struggle to get things going properly again. You’re doing all right, you are.”

  Laurie swallowed. “I never thanked you,” he said. “I never said thank you for looking after me when I was taken bad up here last year.”

  Jimmy looked at him. “There’s no need to thank me, son. That’s what family do for each other.”

  Laurie smiled at him. He didn’t know what to say. He looked out over the swirling mass of sheep and caught Phil’s eye as he heaved a kicking ewe into the dip. Phil grinned at him, covered in sweat and dirt. Laurie had never seen him look so happy. Perhaps he didn’t need to say anything at all.

  THE END

  ABOUT A.L. LESTER

  A.L. Lester likes to read. Her favorite books are post-apocalyptic dystopian romances full of suspense, but a cornflake packet will do there's nothing else available. The gender of the characters she likes to read (and write) is pretty irrelevant so long as they are strong, interesting people on a journey of some kind.

  She has a chaotic family life and small children, and she has become the person in the village who looks after the random animals people find in the road. She is interested in permaculture gardening and anything to do with books, reading, technology, and history. She lives in a small village in rural Somerset and is seriously allergic to both rabbits and Minecraft.

  For more information, visit allester.co.uk.

  ABOUT JMS BOOKS LLC

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