by Geoff Ryman
He turned up the street to the cafe and went in the back door from the parking lot, and the first person he saw in a booth was Dad. Michael thought about turning and running and realized that he didn't have the strength.
'Hiya Mikey,' said his father, in a voice that seemed to come from far away across a valley. 'Have a seat.'
And you thought you were being so smart: he knew you'd come here all the time. Michael sat down. The booths had tan upholstery and individual jukeboxes at each of the tables. They didn't work.
'You been in a fight? Who did that to you?' His father's voice really was different, it was higher and more gravelly at the same time. His sunglasses were different, old-fashioned, dark green, not mirrored at all.
Michael considered making up a story about how homeless people had chased him and beaten him up. But he didn't have the heart for it.
'Me,' he said. His own voice was far away too and now he understood why: neither of them wanted anyone to hear.
'You. You did that to yourself?' His father's mouth opened and shut helplessly. Michael couldn't see his eyes.
Then his father reached across and touched the bridge of Michael 's nose, and made him turn his head. His father's implacable face remained mostly unmoved but the voice shifted down an octave. 'You've broken your nose, Michael.'
In that gesture, Michael knew it hadn't gone away. The tips of his father's fingers were soft and cool. This guy was his ideal man – big, masculine, kind. Michael still wanted to marry this guy. He wanted to take him in his arms, and kiss him, and live with him. Whatever this was, it would not go away.
'What'll you have to eat?' his father said, business-like.
'I'm not hungry.'
'Yes you are, Michael.'
Michael's head hung in shame. What could he do to make up for it? Starving himself wouldn't do any good, if a broken nose couldn't. He asked for a Huevos Rancheros.
His father paused at this and seemed to ruminate. It seemed to Michael he was thinking: I thought we'd be doing this a lot. He pretended to study the menu.
'I… uh didn't tell your mother everything. I just outlined some of the basics. I couldn't say it, Mikey. I just couldn't say it about you.' He kept looking at the menu the whole time.
Michael felt relief, and felt cowardly for being relieved. 'I will tell her. After a little while.'
'I bet,' said his father, darkly.
Another voice spoke. 'Hi, what'll it be for you folks?' The waitress was too old and thin to fit the stereotype but her smile was huge and professional.
'Huevos Rancheros. Two big cups of coffee. Maybe a Danish.'
The waitress had picked up on something. Her smile went rigid and her eyes skidded sideways towards Michael. There was a bruise across his face now, he could feel it, and his clothes were torn. She looked back at Michael's father with suspicion. We look like it, thought Michael, for the first time we look like an older faggot and a poor kid he's picked up and is bribing with a meal. His ears burned.
For the first time ever his father asked, 'You wouldn't be able to serve a beer this hour of the morning would you?'
Two days later, Michael was on the aeroplane. His mother greeted him wearily at the airport, circles under her eyes. She was wearing a beige mac in summer; it was drizzling a bit. She took him in her arms and gave him a hug that was meant to say: you're still my son, whatever happens.
'Welcome home, Michael.'
What the hug actually said was: Michael, you will never go home.
Home will always be with the man you love, and nothing else will ever be the same again. The externals of his old life, everything he had thought he would escape, closed over him.
As for his father, well, early to mid-forties is a bad time in the military. If you start slipping, your career almost certainly will end. They give you courses in making the transition. It's still too big a shock for many people, to go from an ordered environment where people respect each other and work together for common aims, to a world in which loneliness and justified suspicion is the basis on which everyone must live their lives.
Dad got taken in by an investment scheme on the Salton Sea. How, they reasoned, can you ever lose on property? Look at what happened in Palm Springs. The folks who bought there early doubled, even trebled their investment. Now, this is Palm Springs with water, a lake even. A salt lake.
Michael's legacy from his Dad was an empty plot of land, on a named street without a single house on it.
His father never could handle booze. He just couldn't metabolize the stuff quickly. Nor, at forty-eight, could he get a job anywhere. He tried to stay in shape, hung around with floozies more and more, sold the condo in Oceanside for something right in the heart of where all the whores hung out. He drank and whored, which on the coast of California almost certainly means he also did drugs. He started to get fat.
He shacked up with a tough little Mexican lady. This most American of men was continually asked for his passport or identity papers. When he passed out on the street people started talking about illegal immigrants. Finally he moved back to LA, and tried to set up in his brother's law firm. He wore a suit and tried to find something to do: accounts, sales, even typing. He had a fight with his brother, and that's when he and Michael's mother lost touch. Michael's uncle said he'd heard that Louis was working as a gardener now, in Beverly Hills. 'A sad case. Not something we like to talk about, really.'
When Michael was in his twenties, his mother got a letter. Michael's father had died. The family were terribly sorry, they'd only found out themselves weeks before. They'd collected his ashes from the cremation agency and scattered them on the vast training grounds of Camp Pendleton.
'They may be sorry, but why couldn't they have told us when the service was?' Michael's mother looked baffled. Michael did not say: they didn't want us, Mom. They don't want me. They know what happened, and you don't.
Michael had a fantasy that lodged in his brain. He would return to it, even when he lived with Phil in their first full hormonal rush of love. He returned to it even now, when he loved nobody.
His father hadn't died. They made a mistake, and mis-indentified someone else's body. And one night, Michael is at an international biology congress, in LA, and for some reason it's raining, but there is a bar next door to his hotel. Michael doesn't know it's a gay bar, he has no idea. He just goes in to escape the unruffled anonymity of the hotel.
And he's leaning against the bar, and something about all these men together, big and butch or pretty and merry, starts alarm bells ringing. He's just beginning to realize what kind of bar it is, when a warm tender voice behind him says, 'Hello, Michael.'
He turns and his father is there, alive. He's still a big man, white-haired and a bit portly now. His skin is sallow, rather than brown, but he's stylish, all in black, and his eyes sparkle with love and regret. He's braver now, more willing to accept the truth. Michael books him into the room next to his in the hotel and what happens next varies, slightly, according to the scenario.
So what do you want, Michael?
Henry waited until long after Michael had finished speaking. Then he crawled up the bed in blue jeans and brown shirt and snuggled up to him.
'You know, Michael, I saw a TV programme once. There's a syndrome. Brothers and sisters who have never seen each other before, or fathers and daughters who meet for the first time as adults. They often fall in love. It's how we're designed. Either we go for someone who's totally different from us genetically. Or we fall in love with someone close to us genetically, because it's worked before. So it's not that you were perverse or bizarre or sick or just plain dumb. It's what people do.'
Michael was not to be mollified. 'So why doesn't everyone fall in love with their father?'
Henry sighed, and kissed him on the forehead. It was as if they had been lovers for decades, comfortable and relaxed and kind. 'The programme said that what makes the difference is living with them when you're young. You have to know them in childhood. There's
a kind of barrier kicks in then. In China they sometimes choose a bride for a baby boy… she's a baby girl… and they grow up together and almost always they hate the thought of getting married. They feel it's incest.'
Michael lay still. 'So what do I do about it?'
'What you're doing now. You talk about it. You put it behind you.'
Michael laid his head on Henry's chest. 'Anything else?'
'You could fall in love with someone.' Henry was smiling at him.
'I tried that. It didn't work.'
Michael's face must have looked forlorn, because Henry suddenly looked forlorn too. 'I know. It hurts.'
It was late again, they had been talking all night, and Michael need to sleep. He looked at Henry's face and a phrase came to him. 'Guardian,' he said. 'Angel.'
'That's right,' said Henry. He bundled Michael closer to him. 'If I stay the night, will you try to sleep?'
'Hmmm mmmm,' promised Michael, and felt himself settle as if sinking into Henry's chest. It must have been all he needed, because in the morning, when he woke, Henry was gone.
Michael went to work the next day feeling bright and happy and alert.
Which was good, because there was a lot to do. The deadline for the next grant application was looming, but there was also the paper he had promised for the congress in America, and several offprints that he really should read. He had even fallen behind simply signing off invoicing and accounts.
He and Ebru charged at the in-tray. She sorted all the piles of paper into different sections, and they went through it, letter by letter, invoice by invoice. He couldn't help hearing a certain note of exasperation in her voice. But there was relief as well.
By the end of the day, all her invoices had been signed. Orders had been approved for stationery, feed, even capital expenditure in the form of a new statistical software package. Ebru was happy and joking again. She even stayed late to get it all in the post.
Michael stayed late too. He got through all of his e-mail. Even after he got rid of the spam there were still forty-six real messages to be answered. He went through his paper in-tray and threw out all the sales pitches for conferences and courses. He bundled up all his journals into his bag to be read. He scanned the employment notices from the university in case there was a post coming up. Ebru stuck her head in through the door.
'My, that is a beautiful desk,' she said. 'It is so nice to see the top of it. You should let people see the top of it more often.'
'It certainly looks good,' Michael agreed.
'So nice and tidy,' she said, and made a kind of pinching gesture with her fingers that Michael did not understand.
On the Thursday night, Michael got a phone call.
'Uh, hullo?' said a voice Michael didn't recognize.
'Yes, hello,' replied Michael cautiously.
'Oh, that is Michael. Hello.' Long pause. 'Sorry, this is Philip, Michael. How are you?'
Philip sounded hesitant, well-behaved and cautious.
'I'm OK, thanks.'
'Look, Michael, I'm sorry to bother you. Are you going to be around this weekend?'
'In general, yes, why?'
Exasperation stirred. Do get on with it, Phil. Michael was disoriented. This was not like talking to Philip at all. It was as if he were talking to a particularly diffident stranger who needed to use his loo.
'Well, we've finally found a place and if it wasn't inconvenient for you, I was wondering if I might finally relieve you of all the things I've left cluttering up your flat.'
Philip sounded like his father, pure Surrey.
There were a hundred questions. Is it a nice flat? Where is it? How on earth did you afford it? Neither of you has any money.
But you don't ask a stranger things like that even if you once were married to him.
They agreed Saturday. 'See you, then,' they said as blandly as possible.
Philip showed up in a white rented van with the real Henry. They were having a row. Neither one of them was used to vans or vehicles and they had no idea where or how to park it.
Phil had gone fluttery and shaken. 'Oh, for God's sake, just leave it parked on the pavement outside the door. We're loading furniture.'
Henry looked worn. 'It's illegal to park on the pavement. We'll get a ticket.'
'So we'll have to pay the fine. I'm not lugging chests round the block!'
Michael was embarrassed and very slightly pleased. He leaned into the window. 'Hello, hi. If you leave your emergency lights flashing, the police are generally pretty good.'
'Hello, Michael,' said Philip, looking relieved.
It was surprisingly good to see him. Michael's heart warmed instantly, and he chuckled. 'How are you, Phil?' It was remarkably like seeing family, a cousin perhaps.
'Oh. Fine. Usually.'
'Hi, Henry,' said Michael. He had to remind himself. This Henry is not exactly the same one I talk to. He's a different copy.
'Hiya,' said this copy of Henry and they shook hands. There was a sense of loss with this Henry. Michael wanted to ask him: do you know that we talk?
'Come on in, have some tea, and just relax for a bit.'
As Michael unlocked the door of the flat, Philip stood like a bunny rabbit holding two paws up against his chest. He was scared of what he would feel once he saw the old place. Michael felt the undertow of the old patterns; Michael wanted to protect Philip and shelter him, as if he were a child. The old door clunked and groaned in bad temper. 'You won't find much difference.'
Philip shivered a little unhappy smile.
The flat hadn't changed. It couldn't change. Philip looked around at the hall chest still in place and the mirror hanging over it. 'It's all just the same.'
Thirteen years seemed to whisper around them like the sound of wind.
Philip was remarkably well-behaved.
There was a lovely little impressionist portrait Philip had bought at a student show. 'I know I bought that picture, but it was always meant for the bedroom, and it just won't be the same without it.'
Michael could see: Philip wanted the flat to stay the same. 'It's up to you, Phil. It's your picture. I won't mind if you take it. You're an artist, you should have some pictures.'
'Well. I suppose… I'll leave you your portrait, OK?'
Michael grinned. This was all a bit painful. 'A Philip Tolbarte original. That'll be worth something, some day. Thanks.'
Michael had been good too. He had wrapped all of Philip's family silver in soft blue protective cloth. Philip's big desk had been dismantled into parts for lugging downstairs. All his Trance Dance 97 compilations were crated up in old wooden wine boxes. Finally, all his pictures had been carefully tied into blocks, sheets of packing paper between them.
The fridge, the cooker, the washing machine were all part Philip's, but he wanted Michael to have them. There wouldn't be room where they were going, he said. Michael began to hurt for him: Phil was poor. Michael wrote out a cheque for half the value of the things new.
Philip hesitated. 'They're old, they're not worth that much.'
'Take the cheque,' said Michael, playing father. Philip reluctantly took it.
'Take the chairs, too.'
Philip shook his head no. 'That's all right.'
'Phil. Take something. You're setting up house. You'll need them.'
Henry said quietly, 'He's right, Phil.'
The logistics of loading chairs, desk, paintings and chests full of porcelain gave them all something else to think about. They spent half an hour outside in the street, trying to find ways to tie everything up so it wouldn't shift or fall. Henry hated vans, but he nipped like a monkey around the furniture, tying and securing. Henry was practical.
'Well,' said Phil. 'I think that's everything.'
'If I find anything else, I'll bring it round.'
'Oh, I nearly forgot.' Philip took out an old Tesco receipt and wrote his new address on it. It was out near South Quay on the Docklands Light Railway. Michael had never even heard of South Quay.
They shook hands outside on the street. Philip's eyes focused into Michael's wistfully. 'Thanks,' he said in a whisper.
Michael watched the van go and waved as if they were weekend guests taking leave.
'Well. That really is that,' he said aloud to himself.
Upstairs in the flat, there was a pale patch on the study wall where a picture had been. Some of the drawers were empty. Now that Philip's desk was gone, there was space in the small room for a bed again. Those were the only signs of Philip's final departure.
How could the flat be even more silent this time?
Easy. It's less full. Philip really, really has gone.
Michael sat on the sofa and sipped a sherry, like his mother always did.
So come on, Michael, he said to himself, with his mother's voice. Do you want him back, or not? And if you don't, why on earth are you sitting around feeling sorry for yourself? You've got to decide, love. You don't want someone real, you don't want someone made up. Well, love, there's nothing in between.
So what do you want, Michael?
Love. Again, that's what I want. Love.
You are a person?
Michael had all the discomfort of being a teacher's child. When he was nine, he and his mother even went to the same primary school.
Every morning there would be a harassed routine of cornflakes and bathrooms and shoelaces. His Mum couldn't afford a car, so they took the bus and walked into the playground together.
Michael was in some danger of being bullied when he was smaller. Once, a gang of older boys surrounded him and started pushing him. Michael looked up and saw his mother turn and walk back into the school, clasping her hands in front of her. Michael understood and was even grateful: he would have to cope with this himself. So he pushed back.
Michael's good grades were regarded with suspicion. His minor misbehaviours were abruptly punished to avoid any accusation of favouritism. One teacher, Mrs Podryska, who didn't like his mother, was not about to do Michael any favours. 'And did you do this homework yourself, Michael?' she asked in a loud, clear voice in front of the rest of the class. Michael still remembered Mrs Podryska's pleased little smile.
