Played!

by JL Merrow

  And there was no parking. After circling for the third time in vain, Tristan pulled Father’s BMW in to the kerb directly beside a “No loading” sign. After all, he’d only be five minutes. What were the chances of a traffic warden happening along at this precise moment?

  He’d reckoned without the chattiness of old ladies. After listening politely to over-effusive thanks—really, he’d only brought them a load of old clothes, and whilst they’d originally been of the first quality, some of them were no doubt on their umpteenth generation of moth holes—and consenting to filling in a Gift Aid form, Tristan finally escaped only to see the waspish colours of a parking ticket being tucked under his windscreen wiper.

  He sighed. “Might one ask precisely what you have against”—Tristan glanced back at the shop to remind himself which charity he’d been supporting—“cancer sufferers?”

  The traffic warden, who happened to be tall, well-built and vaguely menacing even in the bright blue uniform favoured by his ilk in this area, turned slowly. His face did a passable impersonation of world-weary obsidian, or possibly black jasper, like a jaded Othello in the face of yet another best friend’s betrayal. “Me? I got nothing against cancer sufferers. What I do have a problem with, mate, is blokes like you who think just ’cos they’ve got a posh car they can park it anywhere they bloody well like. You wanna help cancer sufferers? Sell that bloody gas-guzzler, give ’em the money, and stop driving around like you bloody own the bloody place.”

  Tristan blinked, a little taken aback at the man’s hostility, not to mention his somewhat restricted vocabulary. “I can’t. It’s not mine.” Then he realised how that might sound. “I mean, I haven’t stolen it. It’s borrowed. And there was literally nowhere to park,” he added with a touch of righteous indignation.

  “Yeah? There is literally a bloody big car park just round the other side of the shops. Next time, try parking there and bloody well walking. That’s what us poor people do. Blokes like you don’t have a bloody clue what it’s like for the rest of us. Bloody privileged bloody establishment.” He turned and walked away, disdain in every heavy step.

  Tristan sagged. Then he rallied. “I am Jewish, you know,” he yelled after the man’s retreating back. “And I’m gay!”

  A passing gaggle of teenagers burst into helpless giggles. Well, the female ones did. The male ones gave him narrowed-eyed looks like they’d be watching him. One of them even did the pointy-fingers gesture. Defeated, Tristan got back into the BMW and drove off, the parking ticket flapping gaily in the breeze.

  That had been hours ago, and he was still rattled. Not by the parking ticket—after all, what was forty pounds to the salary he’d be earning in mere months?—but by the traffic warden’s tirade. Which had been total and utter codswallop, of course. Tristan wasn’t privileged. Well, yes, he supposed he was, actually—but honestly, just having been born to a particular background wasn’t a sin. There wasn’t a lot he could have done about the circumstances of his birth or his upbringing either, for that matter.

  But… Did he really take things for granted? Think a life of ease was somehow owed to him?

  Tristan’s conscience pricked uncomfortably when he thought of Meggie the Supplanter. There might just possibly be a grain of truth in the man’s accusations after all. Having taken over Nanna Geary’s house, Tristan supposed he might very reasonably have been expected to take over responsibility for all remaining inhabitants, yet he’d blithely accepted the neighbour’s care of her cat. All Tristan had done in return was provide a free viewing of his firm, supple body, and he strongly suspected the man hadn’t really appreciated it.

  Damn it. Clearly he owed the man an apology. And probably some form of remuneration. Tristan hadn’t the least idea of how much cat food cost, but like most things, it was probably ridiculously overpriced. And while he had no direct evidence that the neighbours had been feeding her, he presumed that if they hadn’t, she’d have eaten the whole of her mouse instead of deciding in a fit of misguided generosity to share it with Tristan.

  Of course, come to that he had no direct evidence Meggie Mark 2 even existed, seeing as he’d yet to set eyes on the wretched animal, but on the whole he’d prefer to give her the benefit of the doubt, as opposed to attributing the frog and mouse incursions to some other agency.

  So. Tristan hesitated. Should he offer the man money? Or would a gift of some kind be more neighbourly? Perhaps he should do both.

  Having reached a decision, Tristan hunted quickly through Nanna Geary’s kitchen cupboards for something both new and vaguely bottle-shaped. Hm. The gravy browning probably wouldn’t be appropriate, which was a shame as Tristan had never made gravy in his life and had no intentions of starting any time soon.

  Perhaps in the living room? There, he met with more success. There, in the bottom of the cabinet that held Nanna Geary’s sherry glasses, he found a bottle of champagne. He wondered what Nanna Geary had planned to celebrate, and felt a renewed pang of grief that she hadn’t lived to pop the cork. There was an unopened bottle of sherry in there as well, which Tristan decided would do. Thus armed, Tristan checked himself to ensure he was decently clad, then hopped over the garden wall to rap on his neighbour’s back door.

  Tit, as they say, for tat. And in any case, Tristan was a life-long fan of rear entrances.

  He waited, and after a minute his neighbour appeared, a wary look on his face. Tristan beamed at him through the glass, and held up the bottle.

  The door opened. “Yes?”

  “I wanted to apologise,” Tristan said smoothly. “I’m afraid you were subjected to something of an exhibition the other day.”

  The man’s ruddy cheeks took on an even less attractive hue. He coughed. “Quite all right. You were in your own home. No reason to think anybody would, ahem, see.” Based on current evidence, it was hard to believe that the man in front of him had seen. His gaze, Tristan couldn’t help but notice, darted towards all points of the compass in turn except, it seemed, the true north that was Tristan.

  Tristan began to feel a little irritated. Here he was apologising when, as his neighbour had just admitted, he wasn’t even in the wrong, and the man wouldn’t even look at him.

  “Although,” the man continued, “I’m not sure Shamwell is really the place for that sort of, well, lifestyle is I believe the modern term. We’re quite an old-fashioned sort of place. Now, I don’t mean to say there weren’t, ah, your sort of people back then, of course there were.”

  “Actors, you mean?” Tristan queried with wide, innocent eyes.

  “Ah…possibly.”

  “Or did you mean, earnest young fellows? In the Wildean sense.”

  “I… Ah.” The man rallied. “I think you know what I mean. And in my day, people had the good sense and common decency to keep such things firmly out of sight. I say this purely as a friendly word to the wise, you understand.”

  Tristan nodded solemnly. “Pure, disinterested advice is so rare these days. I also wanted to thank you,” he added with treacled spite.

  “Yes?”

  “For taking such good care of my pussy.” Tristan was proud of himself for keeping a straight—hah!—face as his neighbour choked. “I’m really very grateful,” he purred, when the coughing fit died down. “Is there anything I can do for you in return? Perhaps something for that nasty cough of yours? You know, I’m sure I have something I could rub on your chest.” It was perfectly true; Nanna Geary had been a firm believer in herbal vapour rubs.

  His neighbour’s colour had reached potentially dangerous levels, and he appeared lost for words.

  Tristan frowned. “Are you quite well? I think perhaps you need to lie down for a bit. Why don’t I help you?” he added, stepping forward.

  Jolting visibly out of his stupor, the man took a large step back and closed the door without so much as a thank you for Tristan’s offers.

  Tristan looked at th
e bottle in his hand, smiled, and hopped back over the wall with it.

  Nanna Geary’s sherry would have been wasted on the man, anyway.

  Chapter Fourteen

  All the World’s a Stage

  Con had left Tristan’s place with his head in a whirl. He was going to be an actor. Going to be up there on stage with Heather, Chris and all the rest he’d only ever watched before.

  Not to mention Tristan, who was an amazing actor and had actually made a living at it, instead of just playing at it like the Sham-Drams. Bloody hell, had Con completely lost his mind? What the hell was he even thinking of, trying to keep up with that? Trouble was, it’d all seemed so easy when he’d been with Tristan. Like the fact he was barely sodding literate wasn’t gonna be a problem learning lines and stuff.

  And there was another thing. Con had expected all kinds of digs about his lack of education, but Tristan hadn’t been like that at all. Not this time. More than that, he’d even tried to make Con feel better about it all.

  Maybe it wasn’t Tristan at all. Maybe he was a changeling, and the real Tristan had been stolen away by the fairies… Con grinned as he drove the van down the High Street, and a lady in a bright red Golf smiled back at him as they passed one another. He felt all light-headed, like he’d drunk too much coffee or shared some wacky baccy with that bloke over in Bishops Langley with the greenhouse that kept needing fixing. Good job he was only going down the road to hang a couple of doors for Chris’s mum’s next-door neighbour.

  He was trying really hard not to think about the other thing. The way his insides had all sort of melted when Tristan had come alive talking about acting. That was… That was just a…a thing. Which he was going to get over really soon, because nothing was ever gonna come of it. Ever. All Con would ever be to Tristan was another notch on his bedpost, and face it, there were probably so many on there already it was a miracle the whole bed hadn’t collapsed.

  Although, come to think of it, chances were he was sleeping in Mrs. Geary’s bed right now, and Con didn’t reckon there would have been all that many notches on that, and anyway, if the bed was in that sort of state Tristan would probably have asked Con to fix it, seeing as he was so keen on any opportunity to get flirty, and…

  …And seriously, Con was thinking way too much about this.

  He pulled up outside Chris’s mum’s neighbour’s house and pulled the handbrake on sharply. Time to get back to the real world.

  It was getting on for tea time by the time Con had finished with the doors. The job had been a bit of a bastard—it was an old house, and the doorways weren’t straight—but Mrs. Rogers had been really nice, even making him a sandwich for lunch. She’d kept saying how nice it was to have a man about the house again, asked him to call her Steph, and offered to cook him dinner if he didn’t mind hanging on a bit, but Con hadn’t wanted to outstay his welcome, and anyway, he’d thought he might drop in on Mr. Smith again. Alf, he reminded himself. Though it felt weird, calling someone who’d known his grandad by his first name. Gran had been a bit old-fashioned about that sort of thing—all her friends had been either Mrs. So-and-so or Auntie Whatsit to him.

  Con had felt a bit bad about freeloading the other day, so he took round a pie he’d made last night, using the bag full of cherries one of his customers had given him from her tree. Con wasn’t much for cooking—not fancy stuff, anyhow, or anything that needed a recipe—but pastry was easy. You just rubbed a lump of fat into a bowl full of flour until it looked right, and added a bit more of one or the other if it seemed to need it. And the filling was dead simple too—just fruit cooked up with sugar and a bit of cinnamon. Gran had showed him how to do it when he was little.

  Alf looked bowled over to see Con standing on his back doorstep. He blinked at him, a slow smile blooming on his face. “I’d have thought you’d have had enough of an old man rambling on.”

  Con grinned. “What? Never. Nah, I thought you might like this for your pudding. Made it myself.” He held out the pie. “It’s cherry. You can eat it cold, but it’s better if you bung it in the oven for a bit to warm it up. Nice with custard too.”

  “I’m sure it is. Well, don’t stand on the doorstep all night. Come in, come in. I was just about to put some sausages under the grill.” He turned to shuffle back into the kitchen without waiting for a reply, his worn slippers making a shushing sound as he walked.

  “Um, I didn’t come round to invite myself to tea again…” Con said, feeling a bit awkward.

  “Nonsense. They put far too many sausages in these packets anyway. Can’t eat them all myself. Don’t have the appetite I used to these days. A strapping young man like you can always use a little extra food.” One hand on the counter to support himself, Alf bent down to bung a string of sausages in the grill pan, turned on the gas and heaved himself up again. “And the potatoes will only go off if I leave them any longer. Can’t stand waste. They’re in a plastic box in the fridge, if you wanted to give me a hand.”

  “Yeah, course.” Con put the pie on the table quick and crouched down by the small fridge. Sure enough, there was a Tupperware container with a generous number of boiled potatoes nestled inside, probably left over from the last time Alf had failed to cook for one. “Want me to slice ’em for you? You’re frying ’em, right? Want the lard?”

  “My daughter always says I should use olive oil. Says animal fats are unhealthy.” Alf chuckled. “I keep telling her, if the food’s going to kill me, it’ll have to get a move on or old age is going to get there first.”

  “Nah, you’ve got years left in you,” Con said encouragingly as he pulled out a half-used packet of lard, the paper wrapper carefully tucked around the opened end. “My Gran always reckoned lard was best for frying potatoes. Well, if you haven’t got any beef dripping, that is. Which she never did, ’cos if she ever had any she used to eat it on her toast for breakfast.”

  Alf was chuckling again. “Toast and dripping? That takes me back. I haven’t eaten that in years. Did you ever try it?”

  “Er, yeah. Once.” Con tried not to shudder. He couldn’t even describe what it had tasted like. Pureed slugs that went off last week, or something. You probably had to have been alive while rationing was still on after World War Two to actually like that sort of stuff.

  “My daughter would be horrified, but what’s life without a few simple pleasures? Yes, that’s right,” Alf went on, looking at Con’s efforts with the potatoes. “Not too thin, mind. If I want to eat crisps I’ll go down to the shops and buy a packet.”

  “You’re the boss,” Con told him cheerfully, cutting the slices a bit thicker from then on. “We having any veg? Just to keep your daughter happy.”

  “There’s a packet of frozen peas in the freezer.” Con got them out as Alf put a small saucepan on the stove.

  Quarter of an hour later, they were sitting down at the kitchen table to eat, Con’s plate piled high with sausages at Alf’s insistence. Good thing his job was so physical.

  “You know,” Alf said, as he speared a slice of potato on his fork and inspected it carefully, probably to make sure it was regulation thickness. “There’s someone else in the village who could tell you about Bill Izzard. Mary Wellbeck. She’s the vicar’s daughter. The vicar as was, I should say. Pretty little thing, she was—the brightest blond curls you ever saw, and always with a ribbon in them. She used to pester Bill and me to play with her, when I came round to the vicarage to see him. Of course, we weren’t very nice to her, not then. Used to tell her we’d play hide and seek, and when she’d hidden, we’d run for the hills.” Alf sighed. “Served me right, later on, when she wouldn’t give me the time of day.”

  Despite his keen spark of interest at Alf’s words, Con grinned. “Old flame?”

  “Never burned very brightly on her end, I’m afraid. Or at all, come to that. No, she didn’t think much of me, when I was of an age to be interested in girls. Or perhaps it was yo
ung men in general she didn’t think much of. She never did marry.”

  “But she’s still in the village, right? Do you still see her at all?”

  “Every now and then, in passing. I’ve never been sure if she knows it’s me, these days—would you believe I had as fine a head of hair as you, once? She lives in one of the new sheltered flats, down by the river. Six Elms, you know it?”

  “Yeah—not done any work there, but I’ve been past.” Con chewed on a bit of sausage, frowning. “Think she’d talk to me if I went round? She might think I was trying to scam her or something.”

  “Well, I suppose I could go with you, if you’d like? Not that my company would be much of a recommendation, of course…”

  Con jumped on that as quick as he could swallow his mouthful of peas. “Yeah? Seriously, that’d be great. If you don’t mind doing it, I mean. Any idea when’d be a good time?”

  “Any time, I should think. We old people don’t tend to have a lot of standing engagements. Mid morning would probably be best—I tend to doze off after lunch, and if she has the same problem she won’t appreciate us waking her from her nap.”

  Con left Alf’s place with a pleasantly full stomach and an arrangement to go round to see Mary Wellbeck in a couple of days. Alf had been all keen to go sooner—since he “wasn’t getting any younger”—but Con had a job on tomorrow morning, regular gardening work he did for a lady in a wheelchair over Bishops Langley way, and the next day he was supposed to be clearing some guttering.