Kicking Up My Heels...in Heels

by Liam Livings

  Julie told me how Kieran had been really settling into London, to uni, to having a boyfriend, the whole London thing. I was pleased for him, how well it had been going, and agreed with her I’d come back to visit them both once Kieran had repaired himself, his broken heart, and looked his usual larger self again.

  Julie walked me to the tube station, pushed her hair behind her ears, then said, “I don’t think I can cope with all this drama, drama, drama you guys have. Please tell me things are a bit calmer for you. Please.”

  “Up and down.” I smiled. I hadn’t told her about the family planning clinic letter debacle, but she knew about my performing career, how I was travelling and performing all over the south of England now.

  “That’s fine with me.” She waved goodbye.

  I put my ticket into the barrier, waited too long for them to open, and stepped onto the platform to wait for a train. I felt as if the world had suddenly become much more fragile, like it had broken a bit, breaking off a bit in the right-hand corner of the world, that had felt so complete before. That must have been how Kieran felt, if the certainty of his friendship with Jo was no longer certain. If the certainty of his relationship with his boyfriend—who from what Kieran had told me was a Nobel peace prize winner, an underwear model and a sex god all rolled into one—could be questioned, then who knew what else was uncertain, what else could break?

  I rang Tony as I waited for my train.

  “Can’t talk, I’m at work. Everything all right, love?” he breezed down the phone.

  I could feel his smile, his positivity, his energy, his affection, his love all beaming down the phone at me. As I said, everything felt a bit exaggerated, melted, broken, tilted from where it normally was. “It is with me, but I’m here for Kieran.” I quickly told him what had happened.

  “I can’t imagine how he feels. The poor love. Did you give him a hug from me, tell him it’d all be right in the end?”

  “’Course I did. We’re like the dynamic duo of crap boyfriend experiences, aren’t we?” I smiled at my little accurate, joke.

  “Cheeky!”

  “Oh, come on, Tony, have a word with yourself. We’re both pretty useless in the old love stakes, aren’t we?”

  He paused, counting names out loud, then said, “Fair comment. I’d kill you if you ever did that to me, you know that.”

  “Me too. I’d chop you into little bits and bury you under the patio. I’d be the Fred West of Salisbury.”

  “Your mum’s not got a patio.”

  We laughed for a moment, then Tony said, “Difference is, boyfriends cheat, we’ve both had that, but I know you’d never do that to me.”

  “You neither.” I paused absorbing that thought into myself, hoping it would make the world a bit less melted, shifted, tilted, broken than it had felt earlier. “It’s been a long time coming. He’s always been a selfish fucker, that fucker Jo.”

  “He did always strike me like the type, even only from the one time I met him at London Pride. I thought, I’ve got your number, mate. And I wanted to keep him well away.”

  “Makes you appreciate things, doesn’t it?” I knew what I meant. I knew Tony knew what I meant, and we didn’t need to spell it out. Because, contrary to popular belief we weren’t over the top dramatic when it came to our friendship—everything else in our lives, oh yes siree, bring on the drama, the over the top, the excess, that was, us to a tee. But our friendship didn’t need that, not after everything we’d been through over the years; our friendship simply was, like the air you breathe, like the earth below your feet, it was solid, not melted, tilted or broken. And that, in a world of drama and upheaval, uncertainty, is exactly what you need in a friend. And I knew then, as much as I’d ever known anything, I had that in Tony, and he had that in me. And we’d very likely end up in an old people’s home together, trying to ogle the cute male nurses and complaining about how the gays of today not knowing what it was like for us, the old campaigners in the late nineties and early noughties.

  And because with me and Tony, we didn’t need to say any of that, because we knew it about each other, our friendship, Tony said after a few moments silence, “Yep. Gotta go—the wheels of retail won’t oil themselves,’ and put the phone down.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  JUNE 2000

  It was my first Out! as a proper paid youth worker, not a youth. I arrived at the Portakabin at five and set up the rooms with Bruce, putting milk in the fridge, tea, coffee and sugar out on the side.

  Taking the supplies from a plastic crate he’d carried in, he said, “It can’t stay here all the time, other groups use this place, not just us. Otherwise I’ll be paying for every knitting circle, alcoholics anonymous, mother and baby group in Wiltshire to drink tea, and it all comes out of my budget.” He went through “once more” the sort of things I should ask the young people, open questions he called them: how are you, what have you been up to, anything you want us to help with? These were all the things Bruce used to always ask me, without it even occurring to me he’d be doing it deliberately.

  “It’s to find out if they need help with anything in their lives. That’s what we’re here for,” Bruce said as we cleared the chairs away in the larger of the rooms, to give enough room for my choreography class.

  “You sure this is gonna work? Getting them to dance, learning moves. It’s not a bit too…gay?”

  “You’ll be fine. Get ’em up on their feet, some group work, perfect. If we can make balloon animals and have a good time, this will be fine. And in case you hadn’t noticed, the group’s quite…gay too. And if all else fails, give ’em loads of free johnnies and lube, and sweets for the girls. Mind you they like the lube too, I’ve noticed.”

  He’d explained, at length, the importance of the safe sex message of the group, how it was how they got their funding, how if they prevented one HIV infection per year, the group paid for itself for the next five years, or something like that. It was very mathsy, and I lost track of it somewhere between investing to save, and the politics of it all. He’d tested me with a scenario, imagining a young lad came to me, asking about condoms, while he was in a relationship.

  I rolled my eyes, and said, “Tony, can tell you all about that one,” and started to use him as an example of how love wasn’t necessarily all you needed.

  “Good, but don’t use his real name. Tony doesn’t come any more, but they might see him at the pub, and it’s best to keep it separate.”

  We were ready half an hour before the young people were due to arrive. I couldn’t stop my hands shaking, so went outside for a cigarette—no holder, this was a serious occasion.

  As I lit it, Bruce appeared, his head sticking round the door of the Portakabin. “Now you’re a worker, really you should be setting an example, and not doing that. Not on work time.”

  “Oh my God, you’re not going to be one of those bosses are you? Watching every second when I nip to the toilet, standing, tapping your watch if I’m five minutes late?”

  “Depends if you’re going to be one of those employees.” A smile spread across his face. “I’m winding you up. I didn’t realise you were that easy to wind up. Suppose I’ve not noticed before. You have it, calm down. And remember if there’s any questions you don’t know how to answer, anything you’re stuck with, come and get me.”

  I was terrified of someone asking me to write a letter for them—I’d seen people ask Bruce and the other workers before. Thrusting an official letter into his hands, babbling on about what had happened, and saying could he help, or they would probably be evicted. Those were the things I feared the most. Because, even now, I’d call Tony to help with it.

  As I finished the cigarette, I stubbed it out against the outside of the Portakabin just as a group of very young-looking lads arrived, bundling out of a very old looking car that seemed to lean towards one side, even after they’d all got out of it. “All right.” I nodded as they walked past, barely noticing me. I hadn’t recognised any of them, so t
hat made me both nervous I didn’t have them on my side, but also calmed me as they wouldn’t have known me as a youth, only Kev now, as a youth worker. It was a mix of emotions, whichever way I looked at it.

  I stood by the sink where the group was chatting and making themselves drinks. “Hi, I’m Kev, I help Bruce run the group.” I held my hand out, like a twat, and it floated there in the middle of the air, with no one to shake it, or do anything with it except stare in a confused way. I put my hand behind my back, then said, “Any of you been here before? Or are you Out! virgins?”

  That got a few giggles from two of the younger looking boys. “I’m not that anymore.” Said the oldest looking one, who had a dusting of dark brown stubble over his top lip and round his chin.

  The other boy with a ginger tiny little goatee beard giggled, knocking the mug with a teaspoon.

  “Looking forward to the activity tonight?” I persevered, reaching forward for a mug and starting to make myself a tea.

  “What’s it again?”

  “Choreography. I’m teaching dance moves. You’ll be able to use them when you’re out dancing, throwing shapes.”

  “Do we have to?” the older boy asked.

  “It’s not school.”

  “Thank fuck for that.”

  “What brings you here if it’s your first time?” I looked at all four of them, now holding their mugs, looking at their feet, shuffling from foot to foot.

  The youngest looking guy, all blond hair and blue eyes, like a little cherub, who can’t have been more than sixteen said, “I was getting bullied at school. People saying I’m queer, and gay, and bent. But I didn’t know if I was, so I wanted to see it for myself.”

  “What do you reckon so far?” I offered, with a smile.

  “I thought there’d be more fit guys here.” He shrugged.

  “It’s early yet. I’ll speak to you all later. Make sure you’re ready to dance.” I left them walking together into the smaller room.

  Bruce appeared behind me. “How you getting on?”

  “It’s like being at a party where no one wants to talk to you. And they think you’re too old to be interesting.”

  “Stop feeling sorry for yourself. It’s not gonna be like talking to your friends; you’ve not met any of these people before, it takes time, effort. Take your tea, and have a chat to the smokers, there’s always plenty of them you can bond with over the disgusting nicotine habit.” He pushed me gently outside.

  There were two teenaged girls, only just old enough to be smoking, but I’d smoked at fifteen, so who was I to judge? I pulled a cigarette from my packet, and one of the girls with red streaks in her dark hair who introduced herself as Fire, offered me a light. I inhaled deeply and thanked her. “First time?”

  They both nodded.

  Fire said, “It’s all boys. Where are the gay girls?”

  Her friend, blonde haired with two blue stripes in her fringe who said she was called Sky, said, “She only came for some lesbian loving.” Flicked her fringe out of her eyes, then laughed quietly.

  I flicked the ash onto the floor. “It’s early. There are girls, women who come. Just not yet. It’s a pretty mixed group really. Bisexuals, transsexuals too. Come one, come all. It really isn’t just gay boys.” I coughed. “Men.” Why was I nervous, this was easy, it was like it had always been, only I’d had to set up the chairs before, with Bruce. I could handle this.

  We talked for the duration of a cigarette about where they’d come from—estates the other side of Salisbury; which schools they went to—the college, studying their A levels, said with disdain, like how dare I think they were younger than that; what had they thought of Bruce’s little intro talk at his office? Bruce had explained anyone who called him was vetted like he’d done with Kieran, meeting them in his office, to check out they were really interested in the group for the right reasons, not a homophobic bully, trying to find out where the group met to cause disruption. Once you’d come along, of course you could bring other gay friends yourself, without passing Bruce first, but the cold callers, responding to the flyers in the pub and family planning clinic, they had to be vetted, every time. Bruce explained there’d been a group of straight lads who’d started going to youth groups to find out where they were and who went, mess them up on the night, and look out for the young people who’d attended and shout abuse at them if they saw them elsewhere. Vileness all round. I couldn’t believe people had that much time to be that disruptive and hateful to other people.

  Bruce had said, quietly and slowly, “People can be cunts. Some people are wonderful and giving. But others, are selfish bastards. Plain and simple.”

  Now, Sky said, “It was like a womb of gayness, drinking sweet coffee and biscuits, surrounded by all his stuff in his little office. I loved it.”

  Fire continued, her eyes lighting up and her hands moving about as she became more animated. “We went together, we’d both dared each other to call the number. Together, and so we went together. I told my mum I was staying late at college.”

  They both laughed.

  Sky said, offering me a cigarette, “He asked us why we’d called, what had made us ring him. What thing had made up our minds?” She looked at Fire, smiled and then continued. “There was this woman at work, and I’d sort of got a bit obsessed with her. She was, well she still is, married, with a daughter, but we were friends, and I sort of realised I wanted it to be more than friends. And I was talking more and more to Fire about it, and she said if I wanted to sleep with her, if I woke up from a dream when we’d been rolling about in the sleep-in room at work, that I probably was gay. A lesbian.” She looked at me. “You know.”

  I nodded. “Sleep-in room?”

  Fire explained they both worked at a residential home for adults with learning difficulties, and there was a special room where the staff who worked nights went for their breaks, a little bed set up with a bedside table. “We’re both cleaning staff, weekends. And the woman she likes is a senior carer, been there for years.”

  Sky said, “We thought we’d get a Saturday job for a bit of money, didn’t know it would turn us gay!”

  “I don’t think that’s actually turned you gay,” I said. “It was probably always there, but this has sort of brought it to the surface or something.”

  “We know. We’re joking. Funny how things come to the surface isn’t it?”

  There was a collected murmur of agreement as a car arrived, and three teenaged boys got out, kicking the ground with their trainers, pushing their floppy curtains hair from their eyes, and chatting around the car. One of the boys went straight into the Portakabin and the other two joined our group, asking if anyone had a light.

  Fire lit their cigarettes, we quickly introduced ourselves, me awkwardly as “one of the youth workers, but I used to come here as a young person before.”

  The boys were called Paul and Jon and were both from Andover, used to going to their group, but wanted to see what the Salisbury one was like.

  Introductions over, there was an awkward silence as everyone smoked and stared at their feet.

  I broke the silence with, “What sort of stuff do the Andover group get up to?”

  Paul flicked his sleek black centre parted hair back, flicked ash into the floor. “We had a barbecue last week.” He shrugged.

  Jon added, doing the same with his hair, which was in exactly the same style, but a sort of dark ginger. “I brought potato salad. My mum made it for me.”

  “Only cos you can’t boil an egg!” Paul flicked Jon round the head playfully.

  Jon flicked Paul back, told him to fuck off, then they both took a drag on their cigarettes in silence.

  Paul said, “Tell ’em what she said, your mum, when you told her you were going to a youth group.”

  “She said, ‘you can’t be gay because you play football, and don’t like musicals’.” He laughed, wiping his nose on the sleeve of his black puffer jacket.

  “That’s cos he hadn’t told her what h
e’d been doing with one of the football team at lunchtime Wednesdays and Thursdays.”

  A boy after my own heart. I was dying to know what he’d done, to get all the juicy gossip, but remembered why I was there and bit my instinct back. “The other lad not here too?”

  Jon asked, “What other lad?”

  “The one from the football team, lunchtimes.”

  “Reckons he’s not gay.” He laughed.

  Paul said, with a smile, “Last time I checked if you’re laying on the floor of the boiler room while a man…”

  Sky interrupted, putting her hands on her ears. “No more boy sex, please. I can’t cope with it.” She started singing la, la, la loudly.

  Paul tried to continue with what he’d been saying, quieter, leaning forward so Jon and I could hear. I couldn’t catch all of it, above Sky’s singing, but from what I did catch, the other lad could have done with a little chat with Bruce, in his office, with a sweet cup of coffee, but who was I to argue?

  Soon there were more smoking teenagers, and we had quite a group going, laughing and talking about various escapades people had got up to. The best was from one of the girls who had been in her bedroom “studying” with her friend, note the quotation marks, and her mum had walked in, without knocking to find them scissoring together in bed, which was evidently a popular position in bed for lesbians. This was all news to me too, so I was fascinated.

  “What did she do, your mum?” one of the lads asked, half holding his hand in front of his mouth and half leaning forward, keen to hear the end of the story.

  The girl adjusted herself in her bra. “I turned round so I could face her, said I was a lesbian, and if she had a problem with that I’d move out and live with my friend.”

  “And then what?” the lad was hanging on every word the girl was saying. He stared at her mouth, willing the next phrase to come from it.

  “She said she’d known it for years. Did I think I’d invented it. She’d tried it when she was my age and it wasn’t up to much, and where did we want her to leave the coffees we’d asked for? On the bedside table or on the desk?”