The Lion Tamer Who Lost

by Louise Beech

  The other teenagers sniggered. A boy with spiked hair blew kisses at them and cried, ‘Better watch out, lads. Don’t wanna catch gay! Don’t breathe their air!’

  ‘Come on, you knobhead,’ said a scrawny kid in denim, without looking at Ben or Andrew. ‘It’s our stop. Let’s go.’

  As the gang went down the stairs, whooping and laughing, the scrawny kid looked back, and Andrew saw in the moment their eyes met that he had realised this might be how it would be for him one day, and that he was hiding who he was.

  ‘Jesus,’ hissed Ben. ‘This is such a mistake.’

  ‘What? Us?’ Andrew’s heart sank.

  ‘No.’ Ben shrugged. ‘Being out. In both senses of the word.’

  ‘So come to my flat.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes.’

  After copying Ben’s number wrong, Andrew had been quite prepared to let him go. To create the distance that had always protected him. But now, he didn’t know if he could ever let him go again.

  13

  A Private Place

  Ben’s friend Nancy, whose hair looked like custard, kissed his cheek after a game of Cheaty Chess (neither of them knew how to play Real Chess) and pinched him at the same time. Maybe without pain a kiss would be less.

  Andrew Fitzgerald, The Lion Tamer Who Lost

  Following their Saturday afternoon at the circus, Ben came to Andrew’s flat for the first time.

  They never went to Ben’s at night because of his dad. During the day they spent time in Ben’s narrow bed, making up for the dark hours they couldn’t share. Clothes were discarded, frantic kisses sticky, clammy bodies joined, fast, impatient, hungry. They urgently undressed one another, taking no time to breathe. Now Andrew wanted to share time with Ben. Proper time.

  Hardly anyone came to his flat. His friend Jill, a colleague from the library in Beverley, where he worked, sometimes visited on Fridays when they would drink gin and share gossip. But mostly, his home was where he wrote, where he reread The Brothers Grimm while making pasta, where he ate at the same time each day, tested his blood with a meter, injected insulin before meals, managed his condition. It was a private place; just his.

  Now he unlocked the second-floor door and let Ben inside.

  Ben stood in the hallway, looking nervous.

  ‘Come in,’ insisted Andrew, loving Ben’s apprehension.

  ‘I can smell fresh bread.’

  ‘Mrs Hardy, always baking. Could be worse – she boils cabbage on Tuesdays.’

  Andrew went into the kitchen and Ben followed, in step. It was a narrow, galley kitchen, the left wall bare while its opposite accommodated a colourful collection of cupboards, a worktop and tiles. Andrew watched as Ben studied his fridge magnets, the I HEART PARIS postcard, random photographs, and the 365-new-words-a-year calendar. That day’s word was patrocliny. The small print, which Andrew had read while he ate breakfast that morning, said it meant the inheritance of traits from the father.

  Ben picked up the red pot from the top of the microwave and turned it over, spilling small stones noisily and quickly scooping them up again.

  ‘You hungry?’ Andrew asked him.

  ‘Not especially.’ Ben leaned over the sink, looked out of the window into the overgrown shared garden. Andrew’s back burned where Ben had scratched it during the lion taming. ‘How about you?’

  ‘Not really,’ he said, ‘but I should eat.’

  Now Ben looked at him. ‘Is your blood sugar low?’

  Andrew had to admit it had been all over the place recently. He’d found it impossible to control that week.

  ‘What might cause that?’

  ‘Puberty.’ Andrew grinned.

  ‘Seriously,’ said Ben.

  Andrew loved how solemn he got over his condition.

  ‘My numbers rocket if I’m coming down with a cold. I’ve been tired lately too. I’ll eat, just to be safe.’ Andrew took a cereal bar from the cupboard and opened the wrapper. ‘You want a coffee?’

  ‘No. I’m fine.’ Ben still looked nervous.

  ‘Come through.’

  Andrew went into the living room; Ben trailing after him. Andrew never quite knew what to do when he had company. Accustomed to solitude, he felt odd with others in his habitat. He had always been quite private, never one for gay clubs, even as a youngster. Alone, he would turn on the computer, pull the curtains, read, moving his lips around the words. Tonight, he hardly knew where to stand. It wasn’t that he wished Ben wasn’t there, it was just how his presence affected him.

  Andrew chewed the bar slowly.

  ‘So where’s this Wish Box of yours?’ Ben emphasised the proper noun.

  ‘It’s in the northwest corner.’ He motioned to the plant by the curtain where the small silver box with an over-sized lid sat on an occasional table.

  ‘Where else would it be?’ Ben gave him a mocking smile. ‘What’s this week’s wish?’

  ‘I can’t remember.’

  ‘You’re just being devasive.’

  Andrew ignored the mis-word. ‘I’ll tell you when it comes true.’

  The wish that week was simple; I wish Ben would introduce me to his family when he’s comfortable. Just as friends is fine.

  ‘You only wish for what’s likely,’ said Ben, tone still mocking. ‘So it should come true.’

  He went to the desk by the sash window. Covered in folders and books, Andrew liked to think it was organised chaos. The Post-it notes that circled the computer screen like petals fluttered as Ben brushed past them. Andrew knew what they said: Give Ben more reason. Titles for chapters? Voice, voice, voice. Andrew loved seeing Ben with his things, loved how he picked up the soft butterfly his mother had left him and turned it over, how his boyish hands were careful.

  ‘Why doesn’t it fall apart?’

  ‘It’s been treated. You just have to be gentle with it.’

  ‘And this is where you write,’ Ben said.

  ‘It’s where I type. I write everywhere.’

  Ben pulled a book out of the pile. ‘The Early Gift,’ he read, ‘by Andrew Fitzgerald. How does it feel having your name on an actual book?’

  Andrew had to think a little. ‘Strange. Good strange. It’s not a bestseller. That’s what I’d love. One day. To see my own book in Waterstones or somewhere.’

  ‘Can I borrow it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You must be proud.’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘What’s it about?’

  ‘It’s about Elizabeth. She’s being bullied at school,’ Andrew explained. He had read it once to a group of school children on a mat; the boys had shuffled and poked one another; the girls had listened, slack-mouthed. ‘She’s got this huge birthmark on her face. At school the kids torture her.’

  Ben shuffled like the boys in Andrew’s reading session and put the book back on the desk. Then he moved the butterfly from hand to hand again.

  ‘The woman next door is a bit magic and gives Elizabeth a gift to help her through it all.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘A photograph of Elizabeth’s future.’

  ‘How does that help her?’

  ‘Knowing that she’ll one day be a successful dancer. The future is her gift.’

  ‘And that’d just make everything okay?’ asked Ben.

  Andrew decided to ignore the question. ‘What do you want to do with your future, Ben?’

  ‘I’d like to … no, doesn’t matter.’ He put the butterfly back on the desk.

  ‘Tell me,’ said Andrew.

  ‘It’s silly.’ Ben raised his eyebrows in a comical way, and Andrew knew he was trying to make light of it. Then he picked up the photo of Andrew’s mother. ‘You look like her.’

  Andrew’s mother, Anne, had been an only child too. His ancestry was a string of women who, for one reason or another, by death or circumstance, ended up alone. She married George in 1963. She never conceived during the four-year marriage. Then, just before Christmas, George admitted he w
as gay, which was still unacceptable in that otherwise-permissive decade. They divorced. Being unmarried and childless in her early forties was as frowned upon then as being married to a gay man. When Andrew came out ten years ago, she had merely shrugged as though it was nothing.

  ‘I look like my mum too,’ said Ben, pulling Andrew out of his memory. ‘Better than looking like my dad. Aunt Helen says that my eyes flash like his when I’m pissed off. Glad I’m not like him though … he’s…’

  ‘What?’ Andrew moved closer to Ben.

  ‘Emmoral.’ Ben’s eyes flashed amber and it occurred to Andrew that he messed up his words when he was emotional. The sparks in his eyes were his true language.

  ‘Why’s he immoral?’ asked Andrew gently.

  ‘Because he’s sleeping with my brother’s fiancé.’

  ‘Is he?’

  ‘He’d sleep with anything with a pulse. Probably if it didn’t, too. He was unfaithful to my mum; there were women in the house when they shouldn’t have been. Kimberley, my brother’s girlfriend, has an…’ Andrew saw Ben’s twitch at the thought ‘…intense relationship with him. He’s old and pathetic and thinks he’s some Jack the Lad..’ Ben shook his head. ‘Sorry. Don’t know why I’m telling you all this. Let’s talk about something else.’ He looked around. ‘I really like your flat.’

  ‘Would you like to see the bedroom?’ Andrew said.

  ‘I would.’ Andrew noticed Ben’s voice break a little.

  Andrew led him there. He leaned against the doorframe while Ben looked at the abstract artwork on his walls, his ornate mirror, and the stack of writing magazines on the cabinet, before finally turning to Andrew. Even then he looked at his buttons, his hair, his hands.

  Taking off his T-shirt, Ben put it neatly at the end of the bed, then kissed Andrew roughly, tugging on his belt. Andrew didn’t move from the doorway.

  Ben stopped. ‘Don’t you want to?’

  ‘Why don’t we take our time,’ Andrew said.

  ‘I’m ready now.’

  ‘But what’s the rush? We’re not worried your dad might come home. There’s no Mr Cartwright in the garden. It’s just us.’ Ben looked like he thought he’d done something wrong, so Andrew reached out and touched his cheek. ‘Let’s fight?’ He kissed him, chastely, as a sibling might another sibling.

  ‘Fight? I’d never hit you.’

  ‘No, fight with me.’ Andrew put a hand on his own top button and said, ‘Undo me slowly.’

  Ben carefully freed each button from its hole.

  Andrew felt his shirt fall open like curtains on a show. ‘I could be a lion,’ he said.

  Ben traced a patient pattern of circles over his chest with two fingers.

  ‘You could tame me,’ said Andrew.

  Ben bit Andrew’s bottom lip, tugging it away from his teeth.

  ‘Think you could get me to lie down?’ asked Andrew.

  ‘Oh, I think so.’

  When Ben tried to manoeuvre them towards the bed. Andrew stiffened against the doorframe, resisting.

  ‘Let me,’ whispered Ben, urgent.

  ‘Let’s just kiss,’ said Andrew.

  ‘But you’re not kissing – I am.’

  ‘Make me,’ he said.

  Ben studied him, breathing hard. Andrew could see the confusion in his tiny frown.

  Andrew said. ‘Be rough. Like you were in the circus today.’

  ‘Like I…?’

  ‘When you scratched me.’

  ‘Did I?’

  Andrew turned, shrugging his shirt off his shoulders to show Ben his back.

  ‘I didn’t mean…’ Ben’s pupils shone, but his face creased with concern. ‘There are red marks. When did I…?’

  ‘You dug your nails in each time the whip snapped,’ said Andrew.

  Ben’s lips parted, moisture stretching in the tiny gap. ‘I hurt you?’

  Andrew smiled. ‘It was too intense to be pain.’

  ‘Your bruises never fade.’ Ben touched the purple discolorations on Andrew’s arms and stomach. He kissed the egg-shaped mark on his arm. ‘Why not?’ Ben traced a damp line with his tongue, joining Andrew’s bruises like a puzzle.

  Andrew didn’t answer because he didn’t know. The slightest knock or bump and his skin darkened; the clouds of black took an age to fade these days. He knew he should see his diabetes nurse about it. But he was afraid. Of what, he wasn’t entirely sure. All he knew was that it had never happened before, and that he often woke in the dark from some nightmare, with a heavy sense of foreboding.

  ‘I wish I could heal them,’ said Ben.

  ‘You are.’

  Ben unfastened Andrew’s jeans. He kissed his belly button, the red needle marks, the flesh, traced a damp line along the top of his shorts, and finally kissed his open mouth.

  ‘Bite me,’ Andrew urged. He buried a hand in Ben’s hair, wrapping it around a clump and tugging on it.

  ‘I want you,’ Ben said into his mouth.

  ‘Make me then.’

  Ben pushed Andrew’s shoulders. He resisted. He saw Ben bring his knee up between his legs – he was going to try and throw him, like a cowboy in a barroom brawl. Anticipating the move, Andrew managed to resist. Now Ben pinned his arm behind his back. Andrew twisted against Ben’s strength, trying for a kiss. Then pulled away; offering, withdrawing, offering.

  ‘I said no,’ smiled Andrew.

  Ben covered Andrew’s mouth with his hand and whispered yes then undid his own zip and wriggled out of his jeans. He looked daft trying it with one hand occupied. Andrew bit his palm, pulled free, and repeated no. Ben fought back harder. They tussled until their bodies glistened with damp. When they were finally joined, neither was able to resist crying out.

  14

  A Nothing Father

  Ben was not Benjamin. He was simply Ben. And he liked that.

  Andrew Fitzgerald, The Lion Tamer Who Lost

  Much later, Andrew put a heavy arm across Ben’s chest. He was feeling sleepy. Ben asked if he should stay over and Andrew barely managed to say that he could if he wanted.

  ‘Maybe I do like the circus,’ said Ben suddenly.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘It’s why I’m here.’

  ‘Thought that was the pen.’ Andrew looked up, awake now.

  ‘The pen?’

  ‘Yeah. You said if you’d not gone back for your pen, you’d have been on the train that derailed.’

  ‘No, I meant here. Now.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I know you think it’s all that fate stuff,’ said Ben. ‘But if you look at it mathematically, it’s far more profound. If you work out the odds of you being at that station at the exact moment I was, and then in that café too…’

  ‘And what are they?’

  ‘Can’t be arsed to work it out.’

  Ben curled up a little and after a while, Andrew was sure he’d fallen asleep. He watched him. Smiled. He had never wanted anyone to stay quite so much. Andrew had never moved in with any of his previous partners, and he often hoped they would go home after sex. This was different. And the fact that it was completely overwhelmed him.

  Andrew was about go and make some toast when Ben suddenly spoke. Had he not been asleep after all? ‘When did you first wish then?’

  ‘I told you – when I realised it worked.’

  ‘How’s that possible?’ Ben asked.

  ‘I was ten the first time I accidentally wished.’

  ‘Accidentally?’ Ben’s sleepiness seemed to rest on the y.

  ‘Obviously it doesn’t work as well when you do it accidentally,’ said Andrew.

  ‘Obviously.’

  ‘I wanted this dinosaur sticker-book I’d seen in the bookshop.’ Andrew could picture the cover now, grey and black with an angry Tyrannosaurus rex on the front. ‘I wrote in my notepad; I wish Mum wouldn’t be a mean old witch and would get me it, just for once.’

  ‘And did she?’

  ‘Yes,’ Andrew said. ‘When I asked for it.’

/>   Ben laughed and said it didn’t count. ‘You asked for it.’

  ‘Ah, but she never usually got me anything I asked for.’

  ‘Doesn’t count.’ Ben sighed. Andrew felt his breath against his skin. ‘Go to sleep.’

  ‘I’m not tired now. It taught me to wish properly though. Like I was going to wish for a bigger family – then I realised this was unlikely with a mother in her fifties.’ Andrew paused. ‘I wanted to be part of a family like the one next door. What were they called? Wish I could remember.’ He glanced at Ben. ‘There’s a wish I made that’s still in the box,’ he said.

  ‘Why is it still…?’ Ben sounded sleepy.

  ‘Because it never came true. I keep the ones that haven’t. Still hoping, I guess.’

  Andrew waited for a tired ‘so what wish didn’t come true?’ but realised Ben was now really asleep.

  Andrew felt alert though. Most evenings of late he fell asleep at the computer, waking with a stiff neck and a half-written word on the screen. It wasn’t like him. Normally he could write long past midnight. Tonight, for the first time in weeks, he buzzed. Ben made him feel more alive than he had in years.

  Andrew got up, careful not to wake Ben, made toast and took it back to bed.

  ‘Mrs Robinson,’ he whispered halfway through his third bite.

  That had been his childhood neighbours’ name. The Robinsons had been Andrew’s ideal household. What he liked best was their arguments. He would put a glass to the wall and listen to the But I had it first and the Play nicely or you’ll get what-for. Andrew’s home was utterly quiet; the silence deafened him.

  When Andrew asked about his father, his mother Anne always said, ‘He was nobody; it was nothing.’ Andrew asked and asked and asked. In his head, he gave this nothing father a name: Mr Bucket, after Charlie’s dad in Charlie and The Chocolate Factory.

  Ben stirred. Andrew stopped eating, watched, but he didn’t wake.

  Two years ago, Andrew’s mother had finally told the truth.

  She’d described how he was born of a four-hour affair with a man half her age. A man who made her feel young and alive again, if only for a moment. She had been forty-three; he had been the grandson of a patient in the care home where she worked. While on a cigarette break out the back of the home – crying over nothing, she said – he had asked if she had a ciggie to spare. She hadn’t and so they had shared hers. He was in Anne’s bed within two hours.