Out!

by JL Merrow

  Chapter Eleven

  Mark ended up hitching a lift back down into the village centre with one of the younger Spartans, Kevin, whom he hadn’t had a chance to get to know yet. Kevin’s tight-lipped wife had come to pick him up in the family people-carrier complete with two tiny children strapped into kiddie seats in their pyjamas, reeking of sour milk and martyrdom. They passed Patrick and Barry on the way, Patrick with his arm around Barry’s shoulders to steer him out of harm’s way.

  Mark told himself it was utterly ridiculous to feel a pang of jealousy.

  Mrs. Kevin didn’t stop to offer them a lift, which was probably wise. Mark wasn’t sure a ride in a moving vehicle was quite what the doctor had ordered for Barry in his current state. He strongly suspected that if he’d had one more pint, he’d have been having a few problems himself.

  Fen was in her room when he got back home. Well, unless she’d rigged up some voice-activated sound system to emit an unintelligible grunt in response to his slightly over-loud call of “I’m home, darling.” He was eighty-three percent certain that wasn’t the case. He’d seen her marks in technology.

  Mark debated knocking on her door and insisting upon a few minutes of civilised conversation, but decided in the end that discretion was the better part of slurring his words and/or breathing beery fumes over his impressionable young child. He had a horrible feeling, in any case, that all his conversation would end up being about Patrick.

  God. Patrick. He’d been… Mark sank heavily onto his sofa, then recollected that a cup of coffee might be advisable and heaved himself back up again. He filled the kettle, emptied out half the water again—Patrick, with his keen social conscience, probably wouldn’t approve of wasting energy—and switched it on. Patrick was… God, what wasn’t he? He was funny, kind, focused, energetic… And insanely attractive, which really wasn’t helping in the current circumstances.

  For some inexplicable reason, he actually seemed to like Mark too. Of course, it could just be casual friendliness… But the things he’d shared about his parents, and the things he’d encouraged Mark to share… And God, what about the teasing, and the tighter-than-necessary hold he’d kept of Mark.

  Mark wasn’t even going to think about that little scene in the gents’. Damn it, no, he wasn’t. The kettle boiled and switched itself off. Mark grabbed the coffee and spooned some into the mug. Then he spooned in a bit more, added milk and hot water, and stirred. The heady aroma that swirled upwards from the mug started to cut through some of the fog in his brain, and he cradled the mug in both hands for a few minutes, just breathing in the fumes.

  “Dad?”

  Mark looked up. It was, of course, Fen, in her Tatty Teddy pyjamas. They were a bit too short in the arms and legs, and definitely too tight in certain areas. And still her favourite pair, for all her fondness for black, skulls and general morbidity in her daytime wardrobe.

  Mark was glad he’d made his coffee strong. Hopefully its aroma would mask all traces of alcoholic breath. “Oh, hello, darling. Not gone to bed yet?”

  Expecting a withering comment about him stating the obvious, Mark was surprised when she just shook her head. “Was it all right, your charity thing?” she asked. “Did you get lots of money?”

  “Oh, um…” Mark was embarrassed to realise just how little attention he’d given to the official purpose of his evening’s outing. “It hasn’t been counted yet. But people seemed to be quite generous.”

  She nodded.

  “We’re doing a fun run next,” Mark went on, desperate to keep the conversation going now she actually seemed to want to talk. “In aid of a local charity for the disabled.”

  Fen actually looked interested. “Yeah? Can, like, anyone do it?”

  “I think so. Why, would you like to?”

  She nodded again. “Yeah, okay.” There was a pause. “People should do more of that sort of stuff.”

  “Help the disabled?”

  “Yeah.” She paused, and then came out with “Do you want to watch something on telly?”

  Mark frowned. “Is everything all right?”

  “Yeah. ’S fine.”

  It was a bit late—in fact it was very late, at least for a fourteen-year-old—but Mark ended up making her a cup of hot chocolate with the tiny marshmallows she’d insisted on him adding to the weekly shopping list and settling down on the sofa to watch Twilight with her.

  Blood-sucking creatures of the night wouldn’t have been Mark’s first choice of relaxing bedtime viewing, and he had strong objections to some of the messages the film put out—any young man who tried to get into a borderline abusive relationship with his daughter would swiftly be given his marching orders—but it was an old favourite of Fen’s.

  She didn’t say anything more to him, but she looked a lot happier by the time she’d reached the dregs of her by now surely stone-cold chocolate. “Night, Dad,” she said, and went off to bed, leaving Mark in that annoying state of bone tired yet wide awake he always seemed to reach if he stayed up too long after drinking.

  Somehow, though, he couldn’t bring himself to regret it. He just made himself a milky cup of tea and took it to bed, where he lay reading E.M. Forster’s Maurice (a classic, and therefore no need to hide it from Fen as “gay fiction”) until the early hours so he wouldn’t just brood on Patrick all night.

  * * * * *

  The next day was Sunday, a day on which Fen took it as her God-given right to sleep in until noon. This was fortunate as Mark somehow managed to remain dead to the world until gone eleven, having finally dropped off to sleep and dreamed not, as he’d expected, of Patrick, but of Fen, who wouldn’t listen to reason over her firm desire to become a vampire.

  For the first thirty seconds after he’d woken, her argument “But it’ll be perfect, cos, like, they wear black all the time and they never have to grow up” still ringing in his ears, Mark wasn’t sure what was real and what wasn’t. He staggered out of bed in a state of some confusion, heading for the kitchen and, more importantly, caffeine.

  Having downed his first cup of the life-giving elixir—coffee, that was, and not blood—Mark had just pulled his clothes on and was contemplating a second when the doorbell rang.

  Expecting to see Ellen, Mark opened the door and blinked in surprise.

  It was Patrick, looking bright and fresh in dark jeans and a lavender shirt that seemed entirely un-ironic and, more to the point, really suited him. Mark suddenly wished he’d worn some of his new clothes, rather than donning the tweedy shirt he’d rescued from David’s pile of rejects in a faint attempt to ingratiate himself with Ellen, who’d bought it for him.

  Patrick’s friendly smile had turned a little uncertain while Mark stared at him, presumably gaping like a not-overly-intelligent guppy. “All right there, mate?”

  “Yes! Fine. Sorry. Um.” Mark reminded himself feverishly that Ellen wasn’t, in fact, due for another half hour, and was almost never early. Well, not this early. “Would you like to come in?”

  “Cheers.”

  Mark stood back to let Patrick enter, his heart beating faster. Which was ridiculous, because Fen was upstairs so clearly nothing was going to happen. Not that it would have even if she hadn’t been upstairs. Obviously.

  But Patrick was here, in his house, and apparently Mark’s subconscious wasn’t going to listen to reason. At least, he preferred to think of it as his subconscious. Rather than, say, his libido.

  Oh God. He was staring again. “Coffee?” he blurted out.

  There was time for a cup of coffee before Ellen came round, wasn’t there? And even if there wasn’t, there was no reason for her to jump to conclusions if she found Patrick here.

  Except, of course, that there was every reason for her to jump to conclusions.

  Maybe Patrick would decline?

  Patrick smiled. “Thanks, coffee would be great. I just came round to drop this lot
off.” He raised a large, sturdy carrier bag emblazoned with the name Waitrose above pictures of organic vegetables and sustainably fished seafood.

  Mark raised an eyebrow. “Your shopping?”

  That earned him a chuckle, which absolutely did not make things any easier for his lib—his subconscious, damn it.

  “Nah, this is for your induction on Friday. Barry asked me to bring it round, seeing as he’s feeling a bit under the weather today, can’t think why. Oh, and he’s gonna look for the spear. Don’t ask me how you can lose a seven-foot spear, but somehow he’s managed it.”

  “My induction?” Apparently Mark had lost the ability to form complete sentences. He headed for the kitchen in the vague hope that performing a mundane task like boiling the kettle might prove sufficient distraction for it to return. If not, well, at least Patrick would get his promised cup of coffee.

  Wait. A spear?

  “Yeah…” Patrick ran a hand over his hair. It sprang straight back into position afterwards, like a carefully coiffed field of corn. Mark’s fingers itched to run through it. “I was s’posed to talk to you about it last night, but I got a bit off track. Sorry about that.”

  “No problem.” Mark successfully freed a couple of mugs from the mug tree without dislodging the others. It had been a wedding present from one of Ellen’s colleagues. Mark had never liked the woman, and he strongly suspected the feeling to have been mutual, as she’d managed to gift them with the only tree in the world that dropped its fruit not merely at the end of summer, but at the slightest provocation. “Um. Coffee all right? Or tea?”

  “Coffee’s great, cheers. Milk, no sugar. Ta.”

  Mark stirred the drinks and handed one over, hoping his reaction wasn’t too obvious when their fingers accidentally brushed. “So… A spear?”

  “Yeah… See, it’s just a bit of a laugh, really. And they’re used to it in the Three Lions. Nobody takes that much notice anymore.” Patrick sounded apologetic.

  Apparently, raised suspicions worked just fine for sorting out one’s sentence-forming ability. “Why do I get the feeling I’m not going to like what’s in that bag?”

  “Well… It’s a tradition. You join the Spartans, you get to dress up as a, well, a Spartan.”

  “As a Spartan. You mean, like the film? In sandals, a leather nappy and nothing else?” Mark was aware his voice was rising to hysteria pitch and took a gulp of coffee to calm himself.

  It could possibly be said to have worked, in that the burning sensation down his oesophagus was definitely distracting him from less immediate woes.

  “It’s not a nappy,” Patrick said reassuringly. “More of a skirt.”

  “That’s supposed to be an improvement?”

  “And you get a cloak to cover up with as well. And a helmet.”

  Mark was torn. Half of him was lusting over the mental image of Patrick dressed up—or rather down—in that outfit, and sincerely regretting that he’d never got to see it in the flesh. The other, rather larger half of him was having a panic attack over the image of himself in that outfit. “Is this…compulsory?”

  “Well, no-one’s gonna force you, but some of the lads might feel you’re letting the side down if you don’t. We’ve all done it. Even Barry, and you do not wanna see the photos of that.”

  The panic attack threatened to become full-on hysterics. “There’ll be photos?” Mark squawked. He cleared his throat.

  “Yeah, but seriously, you got nothing to worry about. You’ll look well fit.” Patrick hesitated, then stepped a bit closer. His tone dropped, becoming lower and huskier. “Been looking forward to seeing a bit more of you, personally.”

  Oh God. This was killing him. It was akin to one of those cautionary tales of the supernatural, where the protagonist got the devil to grant his wish—but only in a way that was utterly useless to him. There was no mistaking it: Patrick, for reasons both unknown and inexplicable, wanted him.

  And Mark was going to have to turn him down. Even if it killed him. He gulped as Patrick took another step. They were almost touching now, and with his back against the kitchen counter, there was nowhere for Mark to go.

  A large part of him—growing larger by the minute—didn’t want to go anywhere. But damn it, Fen was more important. And God, Ellen could be here at any moment. “We can’t,” he said weakly, his voice matching Patrick’s for huskiness and tending to give the lie to his words.

  “Why not?”

  “Fen. She’s upstairs.”

  “And?”

  “She doesn’t know I’m, well, gay.” Mark winced at Patrick’s frown.

  “Seriously? I mean, I know you said you weren’t out to anyone, but she’s your daughter. What did you tell her about you and her mum splitting up, for God’s sake?”

  “Just that we’d grown apart. She’s a child. She shouldn’t have to know about…that sort of thing.”

  Patrick’s eyebrows were fast approaching his hairline. “She’s a teenager, not a toddler. You do know they start learning about sex in primary school, right?”

  “Yes, but that’s…abstract. Clinical.”

  Patrick gave a scornful laugh. “You reckon? So where were you when they had a meeting for parents and showed that video of a cartoon woman chasing her bloke around the bedroom with a feather?”

  “At work, probably—wait, what? A feather? What the hell are they teaching kids these days? And how do you know all this, anyway?” Mark frowned. Even allowing for the age difference, Patrick surely couldn’t have been in primary school that recently.

  “Lads at the Spartans. Barry couldn’t stop going on about it for weeks, when his eldest was in year six.”

  Mark shuddered. Sex education in his day hadn’t happened until he was fourteen. It’d largely consisted of tracing a diagram of the reproductive organs of a rabbit, followed by their biology teacher handing around a photocopied sheet comparing the effectiveness of methods of contraception, with a shame-faced mutter of “For your own use.”

  “You’ve got to tell her,” Patrick was saying. “How’s she going to feel if she finds out and you haven’t told her anything about it?”

  “She’s not going to find out. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.” Mark took a deep breath. “There’s not going to be anything to find out. That’s why we can’t do this.”

  Patrick’s expression, which had been friendly, if argumentative, hardened. “What? Bollocks. You’re going to let some old-fashioned ideas about girls having to be kept innocent run your whole life? This isn’t the bloody Dark Ages.”

  Mark’s blood boiled. Just who did Patrick think he was to be telling him how to raise his daughter? “If you had children of your own—”

  “Then I bloody well hope I wouldn’t try and keep them wrapped in cotton wool. You can’t keep the whole world away from her. What’s going to happen when she leaves home and finds life isn’t a sodding picture book? You think she’ll thank you for that?”

  “For God’s sake, keep your voice down!” Mark snapped. “The foundation for a happy adulthood is a secure childhood. There’s plenty of time for her to learn about the bad things in life—”

  “You mean, like her dad wanting to shag blokes? Ever think maybe you might have one or two issues about being gay?” Patrick might have lowered his tone, but he was right up in Mark’s face now.

  “Oh, for—” Mark threw up his hands. “It’s all right for you, isn’t it? When were you born? 1990? 1991? Section 28, Glad to be Gay, it’s all ancient history to you, isn’t it? You’ve never even known a time when you had to worry about your boyfriend getting arrested because you were under twenty-one—”

  “Bollocks. Glad to be Gay? You must have still been in nappies when that song came out. You’re thirty-nine, not ninety-nine. And how many boyfriends did you have before you were twenty-one anyway? Let me guess. A big, fat zero.” Patrick slammed his coffe
e mug down on the kitchen counter. The contents sloshed over the edge and left a muddy stain on the white countertop. “Right. Well, you won’t want me hanging around here. Might corrupt your daughter, having a bloke like me in the house. And people might talk, and you wouldn’t want that, would you? I’ll see you around.”

  He stormed out, which was just as well. Any more of that and Mark might have been tempted to throw him bodily out of the house. Where the hell did he get off, speaking to Mark like that? In his own house, for Christ’s sake? Patrick quite clearly didn’t have a bloody clue what the world was like, growing up in his gay-friendly bubble.

  Mark was still fuming when the doorbell rang once more. Patrick? Already regretting his words? And so he bloody well should. Trying to ignore the jolt of hope that shot through him—because he’d be damned if he was going to forgive and forget that easily—Mark ran to open the door.

  It was Ellen, her pale eyes narrowed above a nose that seemed a lot more sharply pointed than Mark remembered. “Who was that?” she demanded in lieu of a greeting. “I saw someone leaving when I was parking the car. Who was it?”

  Mark swallowed, disappointment settling on his shoulders like a shroud. “No one. A friend. That’s all. Just a friend.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Patrick wanted to punch something as he stormed out of Mark’s house and out of his fucking life. He’d felt on top of the world, going round to see the bloke. That was why he’d gone round there—he hadn’t had to volunteer to take that kit round after popping in on Barry to check he hadn’t died of alcohol poisoning. He’d thought him and Mark could have something. Especially after last night.

  See, this, this was why he looked before he fucking leaped when it came to blokes. In case it turned out they were closet cases with attitudes so bloody medieval the Knights of the sodding Round Table would’ve thought they were a bit quaint and old-fashioned. What the hell was Mark’s problem?

  Didn’t he realise how it sounded, him lumping in non-straight people with all the bad crap he wanted to keep away from his daughter until she was thirty or something? Patrick jammed his hands in his jacket pockets as he passed the church and went to cross the road, squinting a bit in the bright spring sunshine. It was almost blinding on the yellow daffodils that sprouted in the village like little baby suns, anywhere and everywhere there was room to bung a bulb. The sky was the sort of blue you saw on postcards from Ibiza, and the breeze was mild with the promise of summer, just a whiff of winter left in to freshen it up.