Out: A Schoolboy's Tale

by David Brining

  29: Forever and Always

  CHRISTMAS Eve is the most exciting day on the (Advent) calendar - a stableful of animals and a mangerful of hay peer through the double-window marked 24. Full of anticipation, the smells of last-minute baking in the kitchen suffuse the whole house, the now-appropriate Christmas music blares from every radio station, blinking tree-lights reflect enticingly in silver baubles. It's a magical time when all things are possible.

  Mum, seemingly glued inside her Christmas apron, had spent the week seemingly working through Delia's Christmas, steaming the pudding, stuffing the turkey, smothering chocolate over a Yule-log and baking like a billion mince-pies, sausage-rolls and cheese-straws. Dad was confined to the music-room to wrap presents and finish the cards (''and write more than 'Best wishes, Roy, Beth and Jonathan' this year,'' said Mum. ''Like what?'' said Dad. ''Honestly,'' said Mum, ''Men! It's like having two bloody kids in the house.'') Meanwhile I, once I'd finished blending this gorgeous celery and blue cheese soup from page 87 of Delia and glazing the ham with orange marmalade and English mustard (page 126 of Delia) and peeling like the entire Irish potato crop, was directed to decorating the tree.

  ''What's the point?'' I said lethargically. ''We'll only have to take them down again.''

  It was the same every year, nagging to get the tree u

  p then complaining about pine needles in the carpet, arguing about the paganism of holly and mistletoe and 'putting the Christ back into Christmas', moaning it started too early but always rushing to be ready.

  Ah, Christmas. I loved it.

  Wearing the Santa hat to get me in the mood, I helped Dad drag a six-foot pine tree down the icy hill from the greengrocer on the parade then fetched several dusty cardboard boxes down from the loft.

  ''Dub-a-dub-a-dum dum, dub-a-dub-a-dum.'' I draped silver tinsel round the picture-frames and placed the snowhouse I'd made in primary three, a shoe-box covered in cotton-wool, in the centre of the mantelpiece. ''Dub-a-dum-dum-dub-a-dum dub-a-dub-a-dum…''

  Jonah Lewie. My new favourite song.

  The tree, obviously, was too short and too bushy. Mum would've got something another foot taller and with less foliage. Dad pointed out this seven-foot giant wouldn't fit in the living-room. Mum would've sawn a foot off the bottom.

  ''So what's the bloody point…?'' Dad began, then gave up and shoved it in a plastic bucket which I'd covered in red crêpe-paper, for that 'seasonal look.'

  ''I have had to fight almost every night, down throughout these centuries.

  That is when I say, oh yes yet again, Can you stop the cavalry?

  Dub-a-dub-a-dub-a-dum-dum…''

  Sticking this gold star on the top, I stood back to assess my work. No minimalist single-coloured job with just white or just blue or even just two colours for me. No chance. I went for a multi-coloured rainbow riot of orange, red, yellow and blue lanterns, gold, silver and red baubles, green tinsel – man, I wanted the tree to scream variety. Ha. Now it really was like Blackpool Illuminations, Dad! Mistletoe went up over the front door, the holly wreath on the outside, then I started on my bedroom, stringing fairy-lights round the window and tinsel from my bookshelves and the wind-chimes as another favourite song came on:

  So, this is Christmas, and what have you done?

  Another year over and a new one just begun,

  A very merry Christmas, and a happy New Year,

  Let's hope it's a good one, without any fear.

  I even made Pickles, New Bear and Ozzie little wreaths of silver tinsel and placed them ceremoniously on their heads, like Olympic athletes back in the day, or The Coronation of Napoleon Blownapart in that famous painting. Like there was no need for them to miss out on the Xmas Atmos just 'cos they were stuffed. I mean, so was the turkey, ha ha.

  What to write in Ali's card? I'd wrapped all the presents in shiny red-gold paper and deposited them under the tree and written cards for the folks and the Grunters – the usual bald seasonal greeting ('Merry Xmas and Happy New Year, Love Jonathan') – but what to write for my darling Alistair? 'To my angel' no longer seemed adequate, you know? He'd become so much more. He'd become my entire life. Laughing, I thought of writing a joke card, like Laurel and Hardy's in The Fixer-Upper:

  Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Coming Through the Rye,

  I Wish You a Merry Christmas, Even as You and I.

  Maybe not. As John and Yoko sang that 'war is over, if you want it,' I decided to write him a letter. I set Ozzie on the shelf and poured my feelings through that silver Waterman onto two sides of pale blue Basildon Bond before the song reached

  And so this is Christmas, for weak and for strong,

  For rich and the poor ones, the world is so wrong…

  I told him how he'd changed my life, how much I loved him, how much he meant to me, how I couldn't live without him, how mere words seemed so inadequate. I punctuated it with endearments and drew love-hearts round the margins. I wrote how it felt when I was with him (walking in the air). I wrote how it felt when he touched me (like stars colliding). I wrote how it felt when he kissed me (like the universe melting away). I wrote how it felt when he told me he loved me (the most precious creature on earth) and I wrote how it felt when we had sex (like time and space were suspended). It was like the most passionate thing I'd ever committed to paper, you know?

  Dad called me down to the kitchen where he'd sculpted the white icing on the Christmas cake into something resembling Antarctica, with drifts, dunes and glaciers, and now wanted advice on populating this snowscape. My suggestion that German mountain troops fight a battle with British commandoes was met with a frosty (ho ho) refusal so instead, I selected this miniature Santa, minuscule sleigh and mini skating penguins and arranged them neatly round a tiny igloo and red plastic 'Merry Xmas'. We studded the cake with silver balls then rewarded ourselves with a glass of sherry each and a warm mince-pie from the cooling-rack. Somewhere on Radio 4 'Nine Lessons and Carols' was starting. Now Christmas was really here. Bagging another mince-pie, I scampered back upstairs to finish the letter and froze in the doorway. Mum sat, sagging, on the edge of my bed, letter in hand, a confusion of shock, anger and affection swirling across her face.

  ''MUM!'' Screaming in fury, I tore it away. ''That's sooo private! You can't read that!''

  She didn't move and I didn't know what else to say so I flumped angrily into my desk-chair, folding the letter, wanting to destroy it 'cos everything in it, so personal, so intimate and for his eyes only was now exposed to someone else.

  ''It's the most beautiful thing I've ever read,'' she murmured. ''Sooo romantic. You really love him, don't you?''

  ''Yes,'' I muttered, swinging in the chair. ''I really love him.''

  ''When did it start?'' she asked in this surprisingly soft voice.

  ''In the summer,'' I said. ''I fell in love with him then but we didn't get together till Bonfire Night. That's when we kissed for the first time. Oh, Mum, it feels so right, being with him, you know? If you could only see, if you could only give him a chance, you'd like him, you'd see why I love him, and you'd see how much he loves me. We even exchanged leaves, like wedding rings?'' I showed her the evergreen in my drawer. ''I want him, Mum, forever and always. Like you and Dad.''

  She squeezed my hand. Somewhere in the background, far far away, a congregation was listening to St Matthew's story of God coming to Earth as a baby boy. She said nothing for a while, just gazed at Pickles. Eventually she sighed and said ''We love you so much, you know. We just want you to be happy.''

  Seeming to choke momentarily, she kissed my forehead and left me alone. I stared at Ozzie's googly eyes and orange felt beak and wondered if another Christmas miracle was coming. I finished the letter then, high on pure joy, cycled round to stick it through Ali's door singing 'God rest ye merry, gentlemen, let nothing you dismay... o tidings of comfort and joy' at the top of my voice.

  After a delicious dinner of roast salmon with green pesto, sautéed potatoes, green salad, a dill-and-cucumber yogurt dressing
and half a Sainsbury's white wine-box, we slumped in front of the telly. It was woefully bad. The Radio Times had a nice bright cover - three children, two girls and a boy in the middle were looking out of a window which had blue curtains. They were wearing brightly coloured red and yellow sweaters and were clutching some toys, a teddy, a yellow camel, a robot, and there was a brown dog with a yellow bow round his neck in the foreground. It looked very jolly. Unfortunately, Val Doonican's Christmas Special followed by Big Jake, a John Wayne film, and Placido Domingo's Christmas Choice didn't do it for me. I lobbied hard for Ian Dury and the Blockheads on The Old Grey Whistle Test. I fancied a bit of 'Rhythm Stick', as it were. But I lost. So thank you Lord for The Turn of the Screw, that creepy ghost story of adult Quint haunting schoolboy Miles and the Governess, über-hysterical symbol of socially moral propriety, destroying the boy whilst trying to 'save' him from himself.

  As Mum passed round the Turkish delight, I was reminded of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, where Edmund eats The White Witch's sweets and falls under her spell to such a degree he betrays his brother and sisters. Edmund was my favourite character in the Narnia books, I guess because he seemed more complex than his siblings, and also 'cos he was redeemed, brought over from the Dark Side, as it were, but also 'cos I couldn't help thinking what if Aslan actually were the villain, as the White Witch claimed? I loved all the Narnia books, especially the weird underworld of The Silver Chair, but I'd spent the last few weeks being told I was evil, treated as some kind of wicked witch, and I wasn't. I was just living in an alien environment defined by others. Like Edmund.

  Once, long ago, I thought my love of reading came from a desire to learn, or escape from my loneliness, and it was all of those. I was lonely and I did want to escape from the world I was imprisoned in, but my reading was really, deep down, an endless, as yet unfulfilled quest to find a story like mine, a character like me, a world I might belong to, a book I could relate to...

  It's why I wrote this one.

  'Cos no-one else did.

  At eleven, we left for church. Mum changed into this long grey cardigan and lighter pink shirt, a pink woolly hat and grey gloves and I put on my brown cords and rust-brown jumper. Dad, even though he was told he could wear what he liked and take whatever route he wanted, decided to stay by the fire with Midnight Eucharist from Carlisle Cathedral, Die Hard and a large Scotch. I begged to stay with him but Mum muttered something about not falling into his heathen ways so I slunk to the Sierra and clambered into the passenger seat. Bloody Rix and Wilson would be there. My heart hit the floor-mat.

  Midnight Eucharist brought its usual influx of new faces and drunkards turfed out of pubs. Perhaps they all developed a sense of guilt at Christmas or were praying in advance for forgiveness for the excesses to come. Unlikely, I thought, as they slurred the first hymn. They'd come for a jolly good knees-up. Twice in their lives they'd go to church, first in a pram and then in a hearse. Did they care about the Christmas message of peace, forgiveness and reconciliation or were they too busy gorging themselves and selling their organs to buy their kids the latest toy to cast on the Boxing Day garbage-heap with the tinsel, turkey-bones and tree? And what about the starving kids in the developing world? What about them? I'd once told Mum to stick the sprouts in an envelope and post them to Africa if she felt so strongly about it. Wrong answer. I'd spent Boxing Day scrubbing pans in the soup-kitchen.

  ''Happy Christmas, Elizabeth,'' Mrs Wilson said. ''How did Jonathan do with his grades in the end? I remember they weren't so good at half-term. Timothy did ever so well again, ten A stars. We may as well choose his Cambridge college now. And what about you, Jon-Jon? What are you planning to do?''

  Tim glared at me balefully. A strip of plaster was still stuck over the bridge of his nose and I thought I could discern a fading bruise on his left cheekbone. Holly, wrapped in a colourful scarf and matching woolly bobble-hat, clung to his arm, blinking somewhat nervously through her massive owl-like specs. Had he told her what I'd done?

  ''I can do anything I like,'' I shrugged. ''Tim may have brilliant grades in frankly useless subjects but I play two musical instruments and I sing. I win competitions. I act in plays. I win debating cups. I edit and write stories for magazines. I can do anything I like.''

  ''Oh,'' said Mrs Wilson spitefully, ''We know all about your achievements, don't we, Jenny? Everyone knows about Jailbait Jenny's adventures behind the cricket pavilion. To think you came for sleepovers. I'll have to burn the bedding, you perverted little sodomite.''

  Mum, drawing herself up to her full five-foot six, said in this steady, steely voice ''How dare you speak to my son like that, you jumped-up no-one from nowhere who married the dentist after he knocked her up. Oh, no-one else would have you, would they? So you set out to trap yourself a wealthy husband…''

  ''At least my husband can hold down a job,'' replied Mrs Wilson. ''Yours has hopped from one lame occupation to another.''

  The hope of a cat-fight cheered me up mightily.

  ''At least my husband isn't a hen-pecked wimp,'' said Mum.

  ''At least I haven't bred a queer.''

  A deafening silence boomed loudly round the vaulted ceiling. Looking Mrs Wilson straight in the eye, Mum laid her hand on my shoulder.

  ''That he may be,'' she said firmly, ''But my son, my lovely gay son, has more courage, honour, integrity and beauty than all you hypocrites bundled together. Come on, darling. Let's go home.''

  As we reached the car and I was like dragging my jaw off the pavement, I blurted that Mum so fucking awesome, you know? She slapped my shoulder and told me to stop swearing. I didn't like care, you know? I just felt excited, proud and happy.

  When I was in bed, reading A Christmas Carol under the comforting chuckle of the wind-chimes, at the part where the Ghost of Christmas Present throws Scrooge's 'are there no prisons?' remark back in his face, Mum, in pale yellow pyjamas, came to say goodnight. I asked her what'd changed.

  ''Do you know how precious you are to us?'' She stroked my hair gently. ''How much we wanted you, me and your father? We were married three years before I got pregnant. It took three years for me to get pregnant. We had tests and all sorts, Jonny, and it happened really when we'd given up and started thinking about adopting. It was like you were some miracle. It's why we called you Jonathan. It means Gift from God, and David is 'blessed' and you were, you are our blessed gift from God.'' Sighing, she picked up New Bear. ''I hated being pregnant, Jonny, hated it. I was sick all the time, my ankles were swollen like balloons, I had constipation for days then diarrhoea for a week, I needed the toilet every ten minutes… once, in Castlegate, I didn't get there in time and wet myself, in the street! Being pregnant was the worst nine months of my life, apart from actually giving birth. Six hours of sheer bloody agony, stuck on my back with my feet in the air with people peering and poking me. They shaved me, gave me an enema and left me to shit in a bucket. Then they slit me open with scissors so your shoulders could come out. Jonny, I've never EVER felt such pain as when I was giving birth to you. But we loved you so much. When you got asthma, you were so tiny. We sat by your bedside in the hospital. You were in an oxygen tent for five days, Jonny. We thought we were going to lose you.'' Her eyes filled with tears. I was holding my breath. ''That's how I felt about this, that we were going to lose you, that we had lost you, that Alistair had somehow, well, stolen you from us. You were always such a boyish boy, with your models and wargames and sport. You even play the piano like a boy, Mrs Lennox says. He changed you from the boy we thought we knew into something else, something we didn't understand, and we were scared, I was scared – your dad, he dealt with it – because we didn't know you any more. Your dad said you were scared, and when you got hurt at school… '' Her eyes seemed very bright. ''Oh, Jon-Jon, they beat you up, didn't they?'' I just nodded. ''And the school did nothing.'' I shook my head. ''I found your vest. It was…'' Mum gathered strength.

  ''When that Wilson woman said those awful things to you,'' she said, ''I
realised how terrible those weeks must've been for you and how we must've hurt you too. When you needed us most, we left you. Like the school, we did nothing, and we swore, when you were small and in that oxygen tent, that we would never leave you, never. We'd fight everything with you, like you fought the asthma.'' She was crying. ''But I didn't. I fought against you and I'm so sorry.''

  ''Mum.'' She had to know. She had to know I'd been injured and so very frightened. She had to know how she'd made me hate myself, made me hurt myself, because she feared my love for Alistair so much. She had to know. Didn't she?

  ''I love you, Mum. Happy Christmas.''

  We cried a little then she replaced the gold crucifix round my neck. At peace, at last, I turned off the light and listened to the wind-chimes gurgling happily above my head.

  When I was little, the wait for Christmas Day was quite unbearable. I'd figured out there was no Santa when I was eight. I mean, the whole thing was so implausible, right? A fat old man squeezing down a narrow chimney with a sackful of stuff and flying through the air from Norway on a sleigh pulled by reindeer was bad enough but visiting every house in the world in one short night was utterly ludicrous. There were also the three million tons of mince-pies and one-and-a-half million gallons of sherry he had to scoff. No wonder he only worked once a year! Yet those were the Action Man Years, and they were exciting. Now I was excited for a different reason. I had Love in my life. I had Alistair Rose.

  Waking at ten to the wonderful smell of frying bacon and the joyful sound of Bach's 'Jauchzet frohlocket', I hugged Pickles happy Christmas, kissed New Bear, chucked on the pale yellow T-shirt with my dark blue shorts, my yellow dressing-gown and the Santa hat and joined the family for a merry Christmas breakfast of bacon, eggs and porridge. Then we sat in the living-room with fresh coffee and warm mince-pies and exchanged presents to BBC1's backdrop of carols from romantic, medieval Warwick Castle.

  Dad seemed pleased with The Shadows and Old Spice, Mum with Mathis and Milk Tray, while I got the red Converse high-tops, a Gillette razor - ''so you don't keep borrowing mine,'' said Dad - Christopher Hogwood's ground-breaking period-instrument Messiah, an Airfix Mosquito bomber to paint and build and Susan Cooper's five-book sequence The Dark is Rising, which pitted three ordinary kids called Simon, Jane and Barney into a struggle between Light and Dark, the Old Ones like Merlin and the boy Will Stanton against Great Lords like The Black Rider, with a backdrop of Celtic mythology and Arthurian legend and King Arthur's son. I'd been wanting to read it for ages. I also had the annual satsuma and a Terry's chocolate-orange. My grandparents gave me this super-cool red Alfa Romeo 4C in a box, a lifeboats calendar from the RNLI and this really cool black-and-grey Adidas hoodie. Uncle Gordon and Aunty Linda had sent a Cadbury's selection-box and a £5 gift-voucher. Leo gave me a stuffed pink lion and Andy Paulus John Lennon's Double Fantasy. He'd marked Track 7, 'Beautiful Boy,' and quoted it in his card –

  Before you go to sleep say a little prayer.

  Every day in every way it's getting better and better, beautiful boy.

  I smiled wistfully. I still loved him, my Andrew. Then I unwrapped the two gifts from Alistair, peeling the Sellotape carefully away from the gold paper to reveal a bottle of CK One Red and this beautiful dark blue scarf.

  ''I got him a scarf,'' I said, opening his card. Then I stopped. Everything stopped. My heart stopped. I sat on the floor by the Christmas tree reading his words through a sudden tidal wave of tears. He'd written a poem. Wordlessly, I handed it to my mother. He said he knew the Meaning of Life, the answer to the question Life, the Universe and Everything. The answer was me.

  ''Ring him,'' said Mum, returning the card. ''Ring him now.''

  That dear, dear voice wished me the happiest Christmas ever and thanked me for the gifts and I told him what'd happened in the last few hours, from church to now.

  ''I don't get it,'' I said. ''Suddenly they're all 'ring Ali, get Alistair over.' I don't get it.''

  ''Christmas miracle, honey,'' he said. ''Just shows. Never stop believing in magic.''

  ''I loved your poem,'' I said. ''It made me cry.''

  ''Your letter did the same to me,'' he said. ''God, Jonathan, I'm so lucky.''

  ''We're lucky,'' I corrected him. ''Not many people find their soul-mates.''

  Dad appeared in the hall. ''Invite him to tea. Go on, ask him.''

  ''Go away,'' I hissed, flapping a hand. ''Not you. Dad wants to know if you'd like to come to our party tomorrow. Please say 'I do' my darling.''

  He did.

  Over the turkey, parsnips, sprouts and potatoes, it was like a dam'd been blown up by a bouncing-bomb. I talked non-stop about him and when the Christmas pudding, doused in dancing blue flames, arrived on the table with a jug of thick brandy-butter, I remembered my wish for acceptance on Stir-Up Sunday. My eyes filled with tears again. Wishes did come true, but you had to believe, especially when times got hard. All things pass, except the truth.

  ''What do you get,'' went Dad, ''If you eat the Christmas decorations? Tinsillitis.''

  Oh boy. I gathered up the cracker-toys, a bouncy rubber-ball, a mini yoyo, a yellow heart-shaped key-ring, as Mum read ''Why are fish easy to weigh? Because they have their own scales'' and I had ''What do vampires sing on New Year's Eve? Auld Fang Syne.'' Actually, I thought the last one was really funny. How lame had I become? Considerably, I reflected, adding the trinkets to my presents piled neatly in a corner by the Christmas tree.

  Absolutely stuffed, with a large glass of port, a yellow paper-crown pulled over my forehead, the washing-up done, the fire burning nicely in the hearth, I leafed through the lifeboat calendar thinking the facts would make a great Top Trumps game, like February (Ali's birth-month) was a Severn class with a crew of 6-7 and a maximum speed of 25 knots, and May (my birth-month) was a Mersey class with a crew of 6 and a maximum speed of 17 knots. I was quite glad his beat mine, though the best was this B-Class Atlantic 75 Inshore Lifeboat, for September. Crew of 3-4, maximum speed of 32-35 knots and a really cool, sleek design. Then we settled back for the Queen's Christmas Message, Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea and, hurrah, James Bond on ITV, The Man with the Golden Gun, Scaramanga, revolving cars, the lot.

  ''We know,'' said Her Majesty, ''That the world can never be free from conflict and pain, but Christmas also draws our attention to all that is hopeful and good in this changing world; it speaks of values and qualities that are true and permanent and it reminds us that the world we would like to see can only come from the goodness of the heart.''

  And yet the world could be 'free from conflict and pain', if we really wanted it so. I popped a segment of chocolate orange into my mouth and sneezed loudly. See? Free.

  Normally people arrived for our Boxing Day 'do' around half-one, just in the middle of Racing from Wincanton and just before the Bank Holiday footie. This year Boxing Day was a Friday which meant two matches in two days because there was a full programme today and a full programme on Saturday. Seemed barking mad to me, you know? Anyway, I was kind of looking forward to the Manchester United-Liverpool match, especially since Man U had lost 2-1 to Arsenal the previous week (Bunny would be pleased), and figured I might be able to smuggle Ali up to my room to listen to the radio commentary, especially if the locals were distracted by their team's efforts against the powerhouse of Birmingham City.

  Dressed in sexy black slip, favourite white Chinos, white socks, new hoodie and Christmas Converse, I tied Ali's friendship-band behind my trusty Timex and settled the gold crucifix round my neck but I was so skittish I couldn't settle into explaining how I'd won the big silver cup on the mantelpiece, keeping glasses full and directing people to the food in the kitchen, especially as Mum kept asking where Ali was, and was he still coming, and maybe he'd forgotten… I got so wound up I went into the street to see if I could spot him. I couldn't.

  God Almighty. Maybe he wasn't coming. Maybe I should ring him. Yes. I'd ring him. But then he might think I was nagging him… oh bollocks. What should I do?
Standing on the doorstep, I was in a froth of indecision. I should wait, of course. I straightened the front-door wreath, holly and ivy twined with berries red as wine-splashes, and returned to the excited buzz, the humdrum conversation, the anxiety…

  I knew what the horoscopes said. Gemini would experience uncertainty over a friend. Pisces needed to think carefully before making a major decision. Cheers, Russell.

  Downing a large vodka-shot, I wondered what to do. Should I phone him? I didn't want to sound needy or clingy. I sank another vodka-shot and picked up the phone. Put it down again. Picked it up. Dialled the first two digits. Put it down. Fucking hell. Grabbing my new scarf and Santa hat, I went into the garden again and, leaning over the frost-crusted gate, scoured the street, up and down. Nothing. No-one. Which way would he come? Would he come? Maybe he'd chickened out. I looked at the snowman we'd built together. His coal eyes glinted blackly back. His grin seemed evil. Suddenly I hated him. If he came alive, like the one in the film, and took me to the North Pole to meet Santa, walking in the air and all that bollocks, I'd feed him to the fucking reindeer.

  I opened the gate and, my breath forming white clouds in the freezing air, set off down the pavement, the snow packed hard under my rubber soles. I kept looking at my Timex. It was ten past two, like the last time I'd looked. Where the hell was he?

  I reached the crossroads. Should I go home? Maybe he'd come a different way? If I went left, and he was coming the other way, I'd miss him. What if he like arrived and found I'd gone out? What then? My teeth were chattering and my hands were really cold. I wished I'd brought a coat, but then I'd only intended to go to the garden-gate, you know?

  Then I saw him, heading up the hill, dressed in a white-and-charcoal jumper and black jeans and the scarf I'd given him, a bunch of red and pink flowers in one gloved hand, a bottle of Chardonnay in the other. God, he was so beautiful he took my breath away.

  ''I love this scarf,'' he said, ''And I love those shoes. I want some.'' We kissed under a street-light. ''Your face is frozen.''

  ''I came to find you.'' I wished I'd worn more clothes but better sexy than warm, eh?

  He blew on my hands, rubbing them between his, then handed me the flowers while he kept the bottle, linked arms with me and sang 'Follow the yellow-brick road, follow the yellow-brick road…we're off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of Oz.' Friends of Dorothy, we skipped together up the hill. The snowman smiled warmly.

  ''I love him,'' said Alistair. ''I never want him to melt.''

  ''If he came alive,'' I said, ''Like in the film…''

  ''I'd want him to fly you to me,'' we chorused, and laughed.

  We kicked snow off our shoes and entered the warmth of the house. Under the mistletoe, I held him for a moment so I could kiss him properly, then the scent of cloves and cinnamon drew us to the kitchen where Dad was ladelling spiced mulled wine into mugs.

  ''Alistair!'' cried Mum, gathering him into this massive hug, ''You must be half-frozen. Come and sit by the fire and Jonathan can get you some food.''

  I arranged ham, chicken-wings, sausage-rolls, apple-and-potato salad on two plates and went to sit with him on the rug by the fire, warming our hands on the mulled wine and listening to stories about my childhood. I twined my arm round his waist and snuggled in against him. Ali said, to appreciative 'ahhhs', ''I think he's amazing. I love him so much.''

  Then we gathered in the music-room for a Christmas sing-song, me at the piano and Dad on his guitar. Mum looped her arm through Ali's and led us into ''The first Nowell the angel did say, was to certain poor shepherds in fields where they lay…'' and everyone joined together, ''Nowell, nowell, nowell, nowell, born in the king of Israel.'' Then Mum said Ali was lovely. Everyone knew he was my boyfriend and everyone seemed happy for me. I sank into his arms and kissed him slowly, and then we danced, heads on shoulders, to ABBA's 'Happy New Year' while Mum and Dad held hands and smiled and their friends chattered warmly and Ali and I held each other and sang ''May we all have a vision now and then of a world where every neighbour is a friend…''

  So that was Christmas, and what had we done? One life over, another just begun. In some ways, nothing had changed but, at the same time, everything had. I lost friends, and made friends. My understanding of myself changed, totally and forever. My relationship with those around me, with the world around me, would never be the same again. Life would be viewed through the rainbow-prism of my homosexuality. Yet I still had the same hobbies, interests and ambitions, I still wanted to be a music-reviewer and I still wanted to write. Only now I wanted a boy to share my life, not a girl. No-one in the entire Universe could be as lucky as me. I was gay, queer, homosexual, whatever. I knew it and embraced it 'cos someone somewhere had decided that was what I should be. And not only that, I had been given a boy I could love and he was beautiful and loved me too, and that was the best feeling ever.

  Dad explained that he could put Ali in the spare room but knew I'd just sneak down there in the middle of the night so Ali could choose where he slept, but of course if he slept with me, there were two things he should know.

  ''First,'' says Dad, ''He makes really weird snuffling noises in his sleep, like a truffling badger or something. Just roll him onto his side and he'll stop. Second, you're under our roof for the first time. We're light sleepers. He's under-age. We're still getting our heads round this, so please, Alistair, don't screw him, all right? I understand you might want to, and you've probably done some stuff already but he is only fifteen and he's still our little boy. He'll beg and plead and wheedle, he can be very persuasive, but don't give in to him, OK?''

  Mildly drunk on spiced rum, Ali and I went to sit on the wall to enjoy the bright, sharp cold and the thousands of stars strewn across the universal blackness. Snuggling into my usual place in his shoulder and watching our breath mingle in misty cloudbursts, I had never felt so utterly, blissfully happy. We were going to have a New Year party and invite all the others. I wanted Leo, obviously, and Andy, Niall, Shelters, Ayres, Holt, Ruby, Cookie, all the gays we loved. We'd play ABBA and dance topless and drink Jaegerbombs but I also wanted Claire, Mark and Becky, Mikey and Katie. We wouldn't be exclusive.

  ''You, my darling,'' Ali began as the glowing full moon beamed fatly down, ''Are the best thing that ever happened to me. You make my life so wonderful. Your beauty, your energy, your very soul make this boring world worth living in. I love you so very much. I love every cell of your being and I swear on my life I will never leave you, not ever.''

  ''I love you with every beat of my heart and every breath in my body,'' I murmured. ''My light, my life, my world, my all. Loving you makes me so happy, so complete. I will never leave you, not till the breath leaves my lungs and the light leaves my eyes. You are my radiant light, my shining sun, my guiding star. You are every dream come true, and I adore you. So take me upstairs, my darling, darling boy, take me to bed and do whatever you want with me because I am yours, unconditionally, forever and always.''

  Finishing the warming, fiery rum, we held hands together under the stars, then I kissed him once more and let him carry me up to my bed for the best Christmas ever.

  THE END

  Also available by David Brining as ebooks and in print:

  Tombland Fair

  Norwich 1272. Nicolas de Bromholm lives with his parents and baby sister in 'The Mischief Tavern'. When his father's best friend is murdered by a monk, Nicolas' life is turned upside down. Under siege, their world in flames, Nick and his friends must choose which side they are on, that of the rulers, or that of the people.

  A Teenage Odyssey

  This epic for a new millennium describes teenager Adam Lycett’s journey from comfortable home to cardboard box when he flees his violent stepfather to find his real father somewhere in contemporary London, a Dickensian cityscape populated by gin-swilling, pill-popping juveniles bent on burglary, mugging and sex, by fat-cat lawyers and bankers swindling their clients, by an idle aristocracy abusing the poor, and by people living
, and dying, in doorways.

  Dead Boy Walking

  When Iraqi teenager Ali Al-Amin’s parents are killed by a terrorist bomb, he is recruited by Arab Intelligence to infiltrate a school for suicide bombers in Syria. There he is turned into a human bomb, a dead boy walking, and sent to murder 3000 people with sarin nerve gas. Ali has just three days to save himself and the world from total destruction.

  J.

  A Veritable Jackdaw's nest of a book containing secret societies, conspiracies and counter-conspiracies, Jacobites, Inquisitors, artists and dramatists, jays and jackdaws, velcro jumping, Jewish Zen Buddhist blues, mathematical opera, Jacobean theatre, folk and jazz, kings and popes, Jason and JASON, Bedekeepers and Beadkeepers, tarboys and jumbucks, curious ceremonies, arcane rituals, bizarre coincidences, eccentric characters, lots of fascinating but utterly useless information, plenty of ovophiles and the quest to crown a King.

  Out: A Schoolboy’s Tale

  When 15 year old Jonathan Peters falls in love for the first time, it is as unwelcome as it is unexpected because he falls in love with another boy. As his love deepens, his internal struggle with being homosexual spills into the open, impacting on his relationships with family, friends and teachers, who must all adjust their ambitions for him and the way they relate to him.

  Yo-yo's Weekend

  While spending a weekend in York, schoolboy Yo-yo's ring is stolen by Mr Vanilla, a forty stone jewel thief so he gathers together, among others, Lily Gusset, the reverse drag-artist, Mrs Lollipop, bed-ridden these forty years, Baby the talking blackbird, the custard-pie flinging Lettuce Brother clowns, an angry ichthyosaur, a weed and a pebble, a copper named Kipper, a professional Scotchman named Wee Jocko McTavish and the severed head of the Ninth Earl of Northumberland in a quest to retrieve it.