I'll Be Home for Christmas

by Tom Becker

  “Hey, are you a fresher?”

  “Aye,” I said.

  “Geordie accent! Love it!” He’s from Sarf Landan, innit. “You in the calendar?”

  “No, mate.”

  “Oh, are you here with the Gays?”

  “NO!” I held my hands up.

  “Calm down, mate. Jesus! Fragile masculinity.” The big smile never left his face. His eyes are a lovely warm brown, like Nutella on toast. “I wasn’t implying anything. I’m Ade. I am with the Gays.”

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to be such a bag of dicks…”

  “Let me guess? Some of your best friends are gay?”

  I shook my head, embarrassed. “Not really. I just… My name’s Duncan.”

  We shook hands and it was a bit weird. His hand was firm and warm.

  “Well, Duncan, I certainly hope you’ll be in next year’s calendar. Masturbation material for a whole month.”

  I laughed. I chanced a look at the bulge in his gold Kylie hotpants. “You not into hockey?”

  “Do I fucking look like I play hockey?”

  I shrugged. “You … you’ve got the body for it.”

  “I work out, innit?” He flexed his arm. They were … good arms. “I don’t like hockey, but I do support the hockey team however I can.” His smile got even bigger. “And I’m good with secrets.” And then he ducked into the loo.

  Well, I got wankered and waited for him at the end of the night. “Can we go somewhere for a drink?” I said.

  “It’s two in the morning!” he said, getting his jacket from the cloakroom. “Where we gonna go?”

  “Dunno,” I said. P.S. a lot of this is what Ade has told me I said – I was obliterated by that point. “Have you got anything to drink at yours?”

  He shrugged. “I think there’s a bottle of vodka in the freezer. Don’t know if I’ve got anything to mix it with. Milk? Can you mix vodka and milk?”

  “I have done and it’s rank,” I told him.

  “Haven’t you had enough, mate?”

  I shook my head. “We don’t even have to drink…”

  He rolled his eyes. “Oh, come on, then. Get your coat.”

  “I didn’t bring one, like. I’m from up north – this isn’t cold.”

  He laughed and we walked (staggered) back to his place. I kept looking over my shoulder, making sure none of the hockey lads saw us leave together. I remember, even through the vodka glaze, being terrified. He put Lana Del Rey on and I perched on the very edge of the bed.

  “Maybe I should go,” I said, suddenly panicking.

  He leaned down. When he kissed me, my whole body shivered, even though his heating was on full. I didn’t want to go. All I wanted to do was touch him, touch him everywhere and let my hands go mad, but I knew what that meant.

  I knew what wanting to do that meant.

  But I couldn’t not. He looked so good, and he was red hot and he was right there on top of me.

  I was pissed. He showed me what to do and I liked it.

  When the sun came up, the sheets were covered in body paint and glitter. It looked like a massacre. We were all tangled up together – clammy, salty and naked.

  The weirdest thing of all was that I didn’t care. I just wanted us to be attached – my chest pressed to his back. I kept waiting for the freakout to happen, but it never came. He even asked.

  “Morning,” he said, rolling over. “This is the part where you tell me that if I say anything, you’ll kill me.”

  “Did someone really say that to you?”

  “Maybe I’m paraphrasing a little.”

  I rubbed my face. I felt like twice-microwaved shite. “Fuck, I’m hanging, man. But I thought what we did was mint.”

  He laughed. “Aye, it was.” He did the worst Geordie accent ever.

  “If you do that again I might kill you like,” I said. “Have you got lectures?”

  “I study English. I never have lectures.”

  “Awesome. Can I stay here for a bit?”

  “Yeah. Do you get the horn when you’re hungover?”

  “Aye.”

  It sort of feels like I never left his room after that night. That bed has become our whole world. It was never the plan to meet someone during Fresher’s month, but I did. I’ve made some mates – the psychology lot are wicked – and I’m still playing hockey with the lads, but I spend most of my time with Ade. He’s a second year, so he had his mates sorted.

  The other thing about university was that no one knew Hunky Dunc or Ellie. I never ‘came out’ because I didn’t need to. I couldn’t have kept my grubby mitts off Ade even if I’d wanted to and so people just assumed I was gay and always had been. Which is pretty accurate now I think about it. Some of the hockey lads were all like, “Oh, I didn’t know you were gay”, but they didn’t start hiding their todgers in the showers or anything like. They’re top lads. Like I said, not a single fuck given.

  Except now I do need to come out and I’m bricking it.

  See it’s always been just Mam and me. Dad jogged on when I was a baby and she never remarried or had any other kids. She’s proud of me. She’s always saying to her friends, “Ooh, I’m so made up with our Duncan, first one in the family to go off to university! Not a dummy like his mam and dad, is he?” She loved Ellie, too. She didn’t talk to us for about a week when I told her we was ending it.

  You hear though. You hear stories about gay kids who have to live on the streets and end up as rent boys and stuff. Like would she really throw me out? There’s a lesbian in the office she works at and when she married her partner, Mum always used speech marks around ‘married’ and ‘wife’. She said it was ‘a waste’ when Tom Daley came out.

  OK, I don’t think she’s gonna come at me with a knife or anything, but everything between me and Mam is priceless and perfect, like a Ming vase or something, and I’m about to smash it all to shit and be like, “Put that back together, then”. Nothing’s ever gonna be the same again.

  I’m about to kill everything we’ve got, and what I suppose it boils down to is… What if she doesn’t love me any more? That’d be shit.

  But then I think about Ade again and let all his light wash through me. Last week we went ice-skating – they’ve set up a temporary rink outside the museum. To say I’m pretty nifty on my feet on the pitch, I was freaking hopeless on ice. My knees were folding in and I had to cling to the side like a limpet while actual infants zoomed past me. Of course Ade was like fucking Torvill AND Dean, making me look even worse. “Come on, you dick, just hold my hand. I’ve got you.”

  He took my hand in one of his mittens. I was terrified I’d go down and one of the bastard kids would slice my fingers off. “Just lock your knees. I’ve got you.”

  We cautiously skated out away from the boundary. Clinging to Ade, I was able to find my feet.

  “I look like a proper wanker,” I said.

  “No one in the whole wide world has ever looked as beautiful as you do in this precise moment.”

  I laughed and almost fell flat on my arse. He caught me and we went down together.

  *

  Mam is waiting for me in the car park at Newcastle station. It’s dark by the time the train rolls in. Sorry to be a cliché, but I really have brought a mountain of laundry in a big wheelie case. Mam sees me coming in the rear-view mirror and pops the boot.

  “Hiya, pet,” she says. “How was the trip up?” She’s had her hair cut a little bit shorter and it’s blonder than when I went away.

  “Yeah, it was fine,” I say. I feel sick.

  Now is not the time.

  “Don’t fanny about, I’ve got dinner on a low heat.”

  I climb into the passenger seat. Local radio is playing. Her stilettos lie in the footwell of the passenger side because she can’t drive in heels.

  “What are we having?” I ask.

  “Cottage pie and beans,” she says. “When was the last time you had a proper meal, eh?”

  Last night. Ade cooked lamb mass
aman curry as a goodbye dinner. I could tell her that. I could just say, “My boyfriend cooks for me all the time”.

  No. Now is not the time.

  “I dunno,” I say as she pulls out of the car park.

  “I hope you’re not just eating kebabs and junk.”

  “I can’t afford kebabs,” I tell her. “It’s pasta and sauce most nights.” That’s another thing – I rely on my allowance from Mam. Sure, I’ve got my loan, but she sends two hundred quid a month and I really need it. What if she cuts me off?

  We live in Jesmond, a little drive outside of the city centre. She turns into our cul-de-sac and the familiarity feels warm. I’ve lived on this street my whole life – same semi-detached house. I’ve missed home this term, not full-on homesickness, but home is … home. This is where I’m from.

  As ever, the heating is on full-blast as we step inside and the house is thick with rich, meaty cottage pie smell. My mouth waters. The cat, an unimpressed little knobhead at the best of times, gives me the shit-eye – peering down at me through the stair rails.

  “I’ll stick a load on after dinner, just leave your case in the hall. Go wash your hands and I’ll get dinner on the plate.”

  I wonder if she’s missed having someone to fuss over. I wash my hands in the downstairs loo before kicking off my trainers and padding through to the dining room. I’d forgotten what proper carpet feels like on your feet: lovely and squishy.

  “Do you like my new wallpaper?” she calls from the kitchen.

  She’s been excited about showing me the new dining room. “Aye, it’s mint,” I call back. It’s a bit flowery for me, but she seems dead keen. Hands wrapped in cherry-red oven gloves, she carries two steaming plates through. Mam believes serving food on cold plates should be a criminal offence.

  She plonks a plate in front of me. “Do you want any sauce or anything?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “There’s more Bisto in the pan if you want it.”

  “Cool.” I tuck in.

  “So how’s your lectures going, pet?”

  “Aye, not bad.”

  “Do you still think you’ll change courses?”

  “Maybe. This is really nice, Mam.” Now that I’m here, it feels like I’m in a world without Ade, a world where I’m ten years old again. I can’t imagine telling her about my boyfriend because that person – that version of me – doesn’t live here.

  There’s a little silence. Mam puts more salt on her cottage pie.

  I can’t do it. The lights on the Christmas tree change colour every five seconds and I can’t ruin Christmas. Maybe I’ll wait until next week.

  “Listen, son. I want to talk about this gay thing.”

  I swear my heart actually stops. For a second I’m legally dead. My throat closes up. “What?” I rasp.

  Her mouth is a tight line. “I can’t have it hanging over me all Christmas,” she says. “I won’t be able to have any fun at all, so let’s just get it out of the way now.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” I lie.

  “I wasn’t born yesterday, Duncan. There I am typing ‘Gardening Centre’ into Google when ‘Gaytube’ and ‘Gaydar’ pop up, and it wasn’t me that went on those websites and it wasn’t the ruddy cat either, was it?”

  Fuck. How? I always clear my history. I only went on those sites out of nosiness anyways, like.

  Shit.

  Apparently now is the time.

  I can’t speak. I just stare at my cottage pie.

  “I’m not cross, you know,” she says, her voice tiny. “I still love yous.”

  I can’t look at her. “I was going to tell you,” I mutter.

  “I didn’t want to believe it, but then I spoke to your auntie Julie and she talked some sense into me. She said, ‘He’s still your Duncan, isn’t he?’ and I was like, ‘Aye, I suppose he is’. I just want yous to be happy, Duncan.”

  A tear rolls down my cheek and plops into my tea. “I am happy.”

  “Have you got a fella, then?”

  I nod.

  “What’s he like?”

  “I love him.”

  “Does he love you?”

  “Aye.”

  “And he treats you right?”

  “Aye.”

  “Good. What’s his name?”

  “Ade. He’s a top lad.”

  She sighs deeply. “I won’t lie, Duncan, it’s all a lot to take in. I worry about you, pet.”

  I finally look up. “You don’t have to worry about me. He’s awesome.”

  “Well, like I say, if you’re happy, I’m happy. And I mean that.” She goes to the kitchen and fetches the kitchen roll. “Here – there’s no need to cry.”

  I wipe my eyes. I feel lighter somehow. “I was so worried about coming home. I didn’t know what you were gonna say. I’ve been proper stressing about it, like.”

  She shakes her head. “Did you really think I’d kick off? You and me aren’t going anywhere, are we? There’s nothing you could say to me that’d make me love you less – you should know that. Except voting for the bastard Tories,” she says, with a wink.

  I laugh and she smiles back at me. She takes my hand and gives it a squeeze. “So tell me all about this Ade character, then.”

  And look at that, the world is still turning.

  Amir and George

  –

  Sita Brahmachari

  Road is moving too fast.

  Mr Shaw he drive high speed to Speech Day final school.

  Far I go from Kabir and Mirsa, from petrol smell of city, out from shadows of tower blocks. Only fields are here. More birds, no people. It is too quiet. Looks like Mr Shaw and me have moved to new land.

  Look out of the window, Amir, I say myself. Look out!

  Where there is houses in village, windows show Christmas tree lights shining and I feel little better. But everything I am watching from outside. Like last week in class we watch ‘Christmas Carol’ by Charles Dickens, when this boy is looking at happiness through the window. This is my first Christmas here. I still feeling on outside of window looking in. But I am not tiny boy, like this Tim. People think I am tall and strong-looking, like man. Kabir says to me, “Stop growing, Amir. Your head is already more high over mine!” My father was tall man, not like Kabir.

  Mr Shaw is feeling in festival spirit. He sings with radio some words: “Weather outside is frightful…” But he smiles at same time, relaxing in driving.

  “Why it is frightening?” I ask.

  “Is it.” Mr Shaw can’t understand how I get so good in English and then I make this simple mistake.

  “Why is it frightening?”

  “What’s frightening?”

  “The weather … in song.”

  “No, not frightening, Amir… Frightful… It means bad weather!”

  “So why are they happy to be with bad weather?”

  Mr Shaw laughs. “The lyric’s about feeling warm and comfortable in your house while the weather is cold outside.”

  It is warm in the car, but I am cold. Now I am thinking it is my fault how I come in this situation. I am for blame alone. I see this question for public-speaking competition outside Mr Shaw’s office. I sign my name on list. I say to my friend Mo, “You enter with me.” But he say, “This is not for us. They will make fools from us.” Now I wish I listen to him.

  “Have you been out of the city before?” Mr Shaw asks me.

  “No, never.”

  “You’ve come a long way, Amir, in just one year!”

  I think long, long way and this is long, long road.

  “What do you make of the countryside?”

  “I don’t know it.”

  “I’m a country boy myself. You can take the country out of the boy, Amir, but you can’t take the boy out of the country.”

  “This is true! You will never take my country out from me,” I tell Mr Shaw.

  He looks at me then back to motorway. “I’m sure that’s right, Amir.”

  Mr Shaw
is looking like he’s young man, not wearing his worrying lines across forehead like he wears in school. But I am opposite. My heart is not light, not comfortable. It fires in my chest like shelling.

  “Mr Shaw, I change my idea. I cannot give Public Speech at final.”

  Mr Shaw stops the radio. “But Amir… You persuaded me that you should do it. I wasn’t sure, but you’ve proved me wrong. You’ve done so well to get this far. Don’t give up now. Anyway, you’ve given that speech so many times – you know it off by heart.”

  “Yes, confidence is OK in the city … not in this country.”

  “But Amir, this is the same country. It’s just the countryside, that’s all.”

  “For you maybe so. You feel more in home here, I feel better in city.”

  My mind runs slow with many new pictures after we drive from the city. Too many new pictures, too much thinking – like computer when many windows are keep open. Memory is full. I am in fear I will forget my speech, forget how to speak in English. Strength in mind is leaking from me.

  *

  We leave motorway road and now car is driving on long road with sheep on one side, sheep on other. Very slowly car is judder-judder over metal.

  “Bloody cattle grids!” Mr Shaw is swearing. “Sorry, excuse my language! The school’s not far now, should be just around the corner.”

  Now my mouth is open like eating air. Speech Final school is in front like grey castle.

  We walk on stone path. Not so long past, I walked from forest on path like this, with broken shoes.

  “Shiny shoes, Amir!”

  “Kabir polished them ready and Mirsa bought this new shirt. She says old school shirt is looking grey not white. I don’t know.”

  “They did well. You look smart!”

  “They are wanting to come here today. For supporting me. I told Kabir it is not permitted. So he tells me – Amir, I will shine these shoes. Then, when you look on them, you must think Kabir’s confidence thoughts.”

  Reception is big hall with tall stairs winding round and round. I look up to the top at paintings with gold frames showing people with expression to painter saying, “I am very important person – V.I.P.” Giant faces staring on me from paintings. One woman with closed tight lips and white hair, wearing blue coat. I can hear this lady’s sharp voice in my head – says, “Go home, Amir Karoon. You do not belong here.”