by Alexis Hall
This was the problem with, well, I was going to say “the world” or “relationships” or “humanity in general,” but I guess I really meant me. Because when I let someone into my life, it went one of two ways: either they carried on putting up with me, even though I’m clearly not worth putting up with. Or else they pissed all over me and walked out, occasionally popping back to piss on me some more.
Around this point, remembering I had—for the moment—still got a job, and that job involved more than sitting in my office, making personal calls, and wallowing in self-pity, I checked my email.
Dear Mr. O’Donnell,
I have been a supporter of CRAPP for many years and have always believed that my not-insignificant contributions were being well directed towards a worthwhile cause. Having seen your recent personal conduct and made my own independent researches into your, frankly, sordid history I am forced to conclude that this belief was misguided. I do not give money to charities in order that they can pay people to gallivant off on homosexual drug binges. I am withholding all donations to your organisation for as long as it remains associated with you or your lifestyle.
Sincerely,
J. Clayborne, MBE
Needless to say, he had cc’ed it to Dr. Fairclough, the rest of the office, and possibly his entire address book.
I was just making a detailed plan to slink home, drink heavily, and pass out under a pile of at least three duvets when Alex popped his head around the door.
“Ready to go, old chap? Bit tricky to get a reservation at this notice but, you know, a fellow’s always willing to call in a marker for a fellow who needs it.”
Oh yes. That. Fuck.
Chapter 16
Alex’s club was called Cadwallader’s and it was exactly like you’d expect a club called Cadwallader’s to be. Lurking discreetly behind a door just off St James’s Street, it was made entirely of oak, leather, and men who’d been occupying the same armchair since 1922. Seeing no way to get out of the social engagement that had been arranged purely for my benefit at very short notice, I’d gone ahead with Alex.
He’d left a note with someone I thought was an honest-to-goodness butler that we were expecting guests later, and was now leading me up a staircase of Hogwartsian proportions, all gleaming mahogany and blue velvet carpeting. From there, we passed between a set of actual marble pillars and into what a little plaque informed me was the Bonar Law Room. It was sparsely occupied, allowing Alex to lay claim to a sizeable sofa directly underneath an even more sizeable portrait of the queen.
I perched on a nearby chair, uncomfortable partly because the chair itself was surprisingly hard, given that it probably cost more than my laptop, partly because my day was turning into a string of back-to-back rejections, and partly because of the surroundings. The room appeared to have been decorated on the assumption that its inhabitants would have an aneurysm if they realised we didn’t have an empire anymore. I’d never seen so many chandeliers in one place, even counting that time I’d accidentally gone to the opera.
“Well, isn’t this cosy.” Alex beamed at me. “Would you like anything while we wait for the ladies? I mean, my lady and your boylady.”
“I’m not sure ‘boylady’ is the correct term.”
“Terribly sorry. Still a bit of a novel sitch. Not that it isn’t fearfully nice that you’re a homosexual. Just never brought one to the club before. After all, they only let ladies in three years ago. They can’t join, of course. That way madness lies, let us shun that. And, actually, thinking about it, it must be terribly jolly for one’s lady to be a gentleman. You can go to all the same clubs, have the same tailor, play on the same polo team. No metaphor intended.”
“You know,” I said, “I think I will have a drink.”
He leaned over the back of the sofa and made an obscure posh gesture at a soberly dressing butling person who, I’d swear, hadn’t been standing there ten seconds ago. “The usual, James.”
“Um, what’s the usual?” I had enough experience with high-society bullshit that I knew “the usual” could have been anything from a sweet white wine to live herring that you had to eat with a soup spoon.
Alex looked momentarily confused, even by his standards. “Haven’t the foggiest. Can never quite remember, but don’t have the heart to tell the staff.”
A few minutes later, we were served two thistle-shaped glasses full of a honey-coloured liquid that I was pretty sure was something in the sherry family.
Taking a sip, Alex made a face and then set the drink down on a coffee table. “Ah yes. It’s this stuff. Dreadful.”
I really wanted to ask Alex how he had wound up with his “usual” being a drink he didn’t actually like, but I was terrified that he might answer me. And I was saved in any case by Oliver’s arrival. He was looking all sleek and professional in another of his three-piece suits—charcoal grey, this time—and it wouldn’t have been totally unfair to say I was overjoyed to see him. And maybe it was because I’d had spent the last half hour alone with Alex, or maybe it was because Oliver was the only other person in the place who wasn’t a peer, a Tory, or a Tory peer, or maybe… Oh, who I was kidding? I was just glad he was here. So I could tell him how I’d tried to do the right thing by my dad, and his manager hadn’t even believed I was me. How some prick with an MBE had sent me another one of those not-homophobic-but-clearly-homophobic emails I was so sick of being polite and gracious about. How absurd it was that we were drinking wine none of us could identify under a royalist portrait the size of Cornwall. How I’d missed him.
That was when I realised that although Oliver and I were meant to be a couple, we’d failed to establish any rules for interacting in public. Well, unless you counted “Don’t kiss me” and “Stop telling everyone the whole thing’s a sham.” And I guess in my head somehow it’d be straight back to French toast, and silly texts, and Oliver’s hand in mine in the dark. But that didn’t happen.
I stood up awkwardly and he stood awkwardly in front of me.
“Hello, um…” He paused for way too long. “Darling?”
“His name’s Luc,” offered Alex, helpfully. “Don’t worry, I forget all the time too.”
Nice going, us. Undetectable fake boyfriending. “Oliver, this is my colleague Alex Twaddle.”
Alex stood up to shake Oliver’s hand—looking way more comfortable with him than I did. “Of the Devonshire Twaddles.”
“Alex, this is my…um…boyfriend, Oliver Blackwood.”
“Are you sure?” Alex glanced between us. “I thought you didn’t have a boyfriend. Didn’t we have this entire plan where you were going to find someone to pretend to be your boyfriend because you didn’t have a boyfriend?”
I sank down into my chair. “Yes. We did. And this is him.”
“Ah. With you.” He transparently was not with us. “How about a drink, Oliver?”
“That would be lovely.” Oliver settled onto the sofa next to Alex, crossing one leg elegantly over the other, and looking very much at ease.
While I was teetering on the edge of my crap chair like I was waiting outside the headmaster’s office. At least the headmaster’s office of the kind of school Alex and Oliver had probably gone to. They probably had portraits of the queen everywhere. They probably used them as blackboards. Fuck. I might as well go home and leave my fake boyfriend to bond with the office ninny.
“Did you say the Devonshire Twaddles?” enquired Oliver smoothly. “Any relation to Richard Twaddle?”
“My father actually, God rest his soul.”
I stared at him. “Alex, you never told me your dad died.”
“Oh, he didn’t. Why would you think that?”
“Because…never mind.”
“So”—Alex turned back to Oliver—“how do you know the old bugger?”
“I don’t know him, but he’s a big advocate for restricting the right to tr
ial by jury so I have a sort of professional interest.”
“That sounds like him. Talks about it round the dinner table all the time. Says they cost the government a huge amount of money, that people are only in favour of them because of silly sentimentality, and they spread tuberculosis.”
“I’m not sure,” said Oliver, “but I think you might be getting jury trials mixed up with badgers.”
Alex snapped his fingers. “That’s them. He can’t stand the things. Little black-and-white furry bastards causing unnecessary delays in our already overstrained criminal justice system.”
Oliver opened his mouth, then closed it again. At which point we were mercifully interrupted by James returning with another glass of whatever Alex’s usual was.
“Thank you.” Oliver sampled the drink decorously. “Ah. What a fine amontillado. I feel quite spoiled.”
Trust Oliver Blackwood to be able to identify sherry by taste. It was fast becoming apparent that what I’d hoped would be me and him against the posh dingbat was actually him and the posh dingbat against me.
Alex slid his own glass over. “Have mine if you like. Can’t abide it.”
“That’s very generous of you, but I think I’ll stick to one drink at a time for now.”
“You don’t need to stand on ceremony here, old chap.” At this juncture, Alex decided to pat my fake boyfriend’s knee. “Lord Ainsworth usually has a glass in each hand the moment he walks through the door. That’s why they call him Double Fisting Ainsworth. At least, I think it is. Could be something to do with the prostitutes.”
“Yes,” agreed Oliver. “It’s always hard to tell, isn’t it?”
“So.” My voice was much louder than I expected it to be. “What’s the problem with jury trials?”
They both glanced at me, with eerily similar expressions of mild concern. Probably, with my inappropriate volume and my awkward segue, I’d deeply embarrassed both of them. But at least Oliver had remembered I exist.
He fixed his cool, silver-grey gaze on me. “Well, as far as I’m concerned, nothing. I think they form a vital part of our democracy. I believe Lord Twaddle would advance the argument that they’re slow, inefficient, and leave complex decisions in the hands of people who don’t know what they’re doing.”
“Also”—Alex wagged a finger—“they leave terrible holes all over… Sorry. Badgers again. Do disregard.”
This was honestly not an issue I’d given any thought to ever. But, goddamn it, Oliver was my fake boyfriend, not Alex Fucking Twaddle’s. We were going to have a pleasant conversation over sherry if it killed us both. “I suppose,” I arse-pulled, “that if I’d been accused of something I didn’t do, I’d be far more willing to trust a legal professional than twelve randomers. I mean, have you met people?”
Oliver gave a faint smile. “That’s an understandable position but, interestingly, one that is seldom shared by lawyers.”
“Seriously?” I asked. “Do you really want to leave your fate in the hands of a dozen people you don’t know, none of who want to be there, on the off chance one of them pulls a Henry Fonda?”
“In real life, juries aren’t made up of eleven bigots and an angel. And I would far rather leave my fate in the hands of a cross-section of the public than a single person who sees the law entirely in abstract terms.”
I adopted what I hoped was a thoughtful pose, but was largely motivated by a desire to stop my left buttock going to sleep. “But don’t you want someone to see the law in abstract terms?” What was that line from Legally Blonde? “Didn’t Socrates say, ‘The law is reason free from passion’?”
“Actually, it was Aristotle. And he was wrong. Or rather, he was right in a way, but the law is only one part of justice.”
Oliver was looking distractingly intense. I guess I could admit that, under most circumstances, he was a better-than-okay looking man. But when he was being passionate about shit, and his eyes got all sharp and his mouth got all interesting, he probably got upgraded to hot. And this was just about the worst possible time to start noticing that because, while I was noticing how attractive he could be, he was noticing what a complete piece of human garbage I was.
“Oh?” I said intelligently, while not staring.
“The point of a jury trial is that reasonable people—and before you say anything, most people are reasonable—get to decide whether the defendant truly deserves to be punished for their actions. The letter of the law is, at best, half of that question. The other half is compassion.”
“That’s the cheesiest thing I’ve ever heard.”
I think what I’d meant was, That’s the most adorable thing I’ve ever heard. But I couldn’t admit that and now wished I’d said nothing because Oliver had snapped closed like a fan in the hands of an angry drag queen. “Fortunately I don’t need you to validate my beliefs.”
Great. Now I had Dad, a random donor, and Oliver all coming at my self-esteem from different directions. And, yes, I deserved it in Oliver’s case, but that wasn’t making me feel any better.
“This is jolly interesting,” piped up Alex. At this point the odds were fifty-fifty that he still thought we were talking about badgers. “But I can’t help feel a chap is still better off with a judge. I mean, just seems more likely to be a chap’s sort of chap, you know?”
Oliver turned back to him with an effortless smile. “In your specific case, Alex, I very much agree.”
“Gosh. Really? Well, look at me. See, I’m always a bit less wrong than people think. Like a stopped clock. Oh I say, it’s Miffy.”
Alex leapt to his feet, followed more gracefully by Oliver with the instinctive courtesy of the properly brought up. I stumbled after them, listing a little because of the buttock issue.
“Hello, boys.” An immaculate gift box of a woman—mostly eyes, cheekbones, and cashmere—was gliding towards us. “So sorry I’m late. Had a beastly time getting through the photographers.”
There followed a brief flurry as she and Alex exchanged a surprisingly complex sequence of air kisses. “Don’t worry, old girl. I kept them entertained. This is Oliver Blackwood—he’s a lawyer. Frightfully clever fellow.”
More air kisses, which Oliver fielded expertly. Because apparently everybody got to touch my boyfriend—I mean, my fake boyfriend—except me.
“And this is Luc O’Donnell, who I’ve told you all about.”
She came in to kiss me and I moved my head wrong and we banged noses. “Gosh,” she said. “You look very young to be Speaker of the House.”
“Um. No. That’s not me.”
“Are you sure? That’s definitely who Ally was telling me about.”
“Is it possible,” I asked, “he’s told you about more than one person?”
She blinked. “Possibly, but that would get terribly confusing.”
“Anyway”—that was Alex again, and for possibly the first time in my entire life I was relieved he was speaking—“Luc and Oliver are boyfriends. Only not really. They just have to pretend until the Beetle Drive. It’s the most tremendous wheeze.” He blushed modestly. “My idea actually.”
“Oh, Ally. You are a smarty-pants.”
“Only don’t tell anybody because it’s a gigantic secret.”
She tapped the side of her head. “Video et taceo.”
“And this,” Alex went on, “is my… I say, Miffy, are we engaged?”
“I don’t recall. I feel like we probably should be. Let’s say we are for now and work out the details later.”
“In which case, this is my fiancée Clara Fortescue-Lettice.”
I knew I was going to regret this. But I said it anyway. “I thought she was called Miffy?”
“Yes.” Alex gave me a what-is-wrong-with-you look. “Miffy, short for Clara.”
“But it’s the same number of sylla… Never mind.”
Alex drew Miffy-Sho
rt-for-Clara’s arm through his with easy confidence. “Shall we tootle into the dining room?”
“Yes, let’s,” she agreed. “I could eat an entire dressage team.”
Oliver and I eyed each other nervously, uncertain if we had a linking-arms type of relationship, before falling into step beside each other like estranged relatives at a funeral. Yep. I’d been demoted from “Don’t kiss me” to “I cannot bear the thought of physical contact with you.”
“So,” remarked Miffy as we made our way down another absurdly opulent corridor, “what have you boys been nattering about?”
Alex glanced briefly towards us. “Actually it’s been fascinating. Oliver was just telling us about the merits and drawbacks of jury trials.”
“That does sound fascinating. My father’s against them, of course. Terrible for dairy farmers.”
Oliver moved his hand swiftly to his mouth as if to stifle a cough. But I was 99 percent certain he was smiling. Unfortunately he wouldn’t look at me, so I couldn’t even share that.
Chapter 17
It turned out there were two dining halls—the Eden Room and the Gascoyne-Cecil Room—but Alex found the Eden Room, in his words, “chummier.” Although what precisely was chummy about mustard-yellow walls, wainscoting, and massive portraits of severe-looking men dressed entirely in black, I couldn’t say. The menu offered roast chicken, roast beef, roast pork, beef Wellington, roast pheasant, game pie, and roast venison.
“Ah,” exclaimed Alex, “lovely. Just like school dinners.”
I gave him a look. Maybe if I focused on how annoying I found Alex, I’d find myself more bearable. “Often had pheasant at school, did you, Alex?”
