by Liam Livings
Knowing it was futile to resist any further, and actually quite interested by her explanation, I agreed. "It's fucking freezing, there will be weather on the top deck with us, you do know that. On the top deck, no one else will be there with us. Fucking freezing."
"There is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing. I have this coat, and scarf and hat, and you are warm?"
"I am, yes."
"Then there is no problem?"
As I paid for the tickets I made a big show of saying I was with a friend, visiting and that I worked in a photography gallery off the High Street. Lena grabbed the tickets and my hand then strode off to the bus stop.
It was freezing cold. Ears going numb, plumes of breath when you talked, end of your nose losing feeling, cold. We were surrounded by the weather. But I enjoyed listening to the commentary: now I was a local, now this was my home. Lena took pictures throughout the journey, standing up to lean over the edge of the bus to get a better view. The bus swept along Cathedral Street, and passed the cathedral, which impressed Lena. We passed the station and she shouted out in recognition of it. She loved the wall to wall tourist shops along Sauchiehill Street, each peddling their own slight variation of tartan, shortbread and postcards. "I want to buy things to send home," she said. We passed Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery and when she asked to look around I agreed, begrudgingly, but actually enjoyed it once inside, picking up a post card for my bedroom. The botanic gardens would have looked a lot more impressive if it weren't winter, but from the top deck of the bus the layout of empty flower beds and paths showed how impressive it would look when full of flowers.
We visited the department store, and she was impressed by the beautiful building. We wondered around the perfume department and looked up at the roof of the building, as the light well cut through all four floors of the shop. She was impressed at the selection of things to buy. "It is very cosmopolitan."
I nodded. "It's Scotland, not a third world country. It's four hundred miles north of London."
"I know this. I can read maps, you know. But I did not think it would be like this outside of London."
We met Charlie, in a small bar just outside the city centre. He was in full cowboy get up: cowboy boots, dark jeans and a shirt with rhinestones. He was with family, the usual crowd: a variety of couples and singles between my and his ages.
Since the cabaret Sunday afternoon, we'd gone out a few more times and he'd introduced me to his friends. Soon they were calling me, telling me I couldn't stay in on a Friday night on my own. Sometimes I followed their lead, listened to the call of the clubs in the city. Other times I said I was staying in and that was an end to it, and I curled up with the shitty Saturday night TV and a takeaway, really enjoying my own company and where I lived for the first time in as long as I could remember. Charlie had got a bit funny about his friends asking me out. But before long we realised we were all just friends and friends of friends - family - so what difference did it make anyway? Charlie explained he'd lost some of his older gay friends in the nineties, and it had taken him a while to rebuild himself and his social circle after that. "I'm being over-precious, don't mind me. Just a bit of melancholy coming through. It's what I do." And he had looked into the distance and stared out the window for a moment, before coming back to the here and now.
I had explained, without going into too much detail, that I hadn't really had much in the way of family up to then, so this group of friends, people I had really clicked with, who'd totally accepted me, and taken me into their group, were home to me; they were my family.
Charlie had said I was much older in some ways than my years, and I'd just shrugged, saying I didn't want to fall out over family, and he'd agreed.
Now, I introduced Lena, "Here's family, and everyone, this is Lena." They all waved and introduced themselves, shaking her hand, or kissing her cheek, depending on how much they'd had to drink.
She sat next to me, and Charlie went to get us a drink. Gavin, one of the younger guys in my family who owned a florist with his boyfriend, Big Gav, perched on the table in front of us. He crossed his legs and said, with an estuarine twang, "So, Lena, my darlin', what do I have to do to get you to tell us his real name?"
She said nothing and smiled innocently, then looked at me.
"'Cause although I've a youthful complexion -" he wiped his cheeks "- I didn't just come down with the last lot of snow. I know as well as you do, he's not really called Ford, is he? Do you know what I mean?"
Lena and Gavin bonded over a slightly too strong obsession with a reality TV star with, depending on who you believed, "eyes I could dive into," or "an arse I'd get lost in." I walked back with some drinks and had no idea what they were talking about until Gavin caught me up.
Lena asked what I'd expected would be her opening gambit after proper introductions. "You are Gavin, and your boyfriend, he is Big Gav?"
Gavin nodded.
"How did you let this happen, you two? Do you tick a box on the dating site to say you only want people who have the same name as you? Is that allowed even? It is a joke!"
"Who told you it was a dating site? We might have met here, for all you know." He smoothed his eyebrows again and crossed his legs the other way.
"This is my random guess!" She smiled at him.
And Gavin explained that he'd moved to the area to find a job, and he'd always wanted to do something with flowers. One day he was wondering around the graveyard, "like you do," and he saw a beautiful arrangement next to a new grave. He looked on the card and contacted the florist.
Looking forward to hearing how they'd met, since I hadn't asked before - it seemed like they had always been together - and thinking of how beautifully serendipitous it would be, I said, "And that's where you met Big Gav?"
"Oh no. That's where I met me ex, and after that was over -" he looked to the ceiling and snapped his fingers "- then I met Big Gav, on a dating site."
"So what's with the flower shop and the ex, why did you tell us that?"
"I wanted to set the scene. Can't just jump into a story. It needs a bit of a run up I always find. Besides - if I hadn't worked in the florist with my ex, I wouldn't have suggested me and Big Gav do it, now would I?"
Well, you couldn't argue with that, so I didn't bother.
Lena held his arm. "Where is he, this Big Gav, tonight?"
"He's running late, that's where he is. I left him finishing an arrangement for a wedding tomorrow. You wouldn't think it, but his hands - they're enormous by the way - I'll just leave that out there for the moment, think about it." He winked lasciviously. "Anyway, his hands, they're enormous, but so delicate, he can weave in the baby's breath with the dainty little carnations and peonies as if his hands were the size of a doll's. It's a sight to behold, I can tell ya." He looked around then back to me and Lena. "We staying here all night, or are we going to get properly shit-faced - do it like we mean it?"
Lena looked at me, shrugged. "What is shit-faced?"
I shrugged back, then started to explain it was a good thing.
Charlie appeared, put his hands around my and Lena's shoulders and rested his smiling face between us. "Alright, what's the plan? I hear she's getting restless." He nodded at Gavin who shook his head quickly.
"I'm just wondering whether to tell Big Gav to meet us there, save him coming here to just go straight away."
Charlie looked at Gavin. "So that's it, we are going to Truvy Jones then?"
"Might as well. Better than sitting around here waiting for something to 'appen. Better show this girl how the gays really can party." Gavin smiled at Lena, then me. "I'm gonna call Big Gav, be back in a minute." He left.
Lena asked, "Is he alright, he looks worried?"
Charlie said, "He's fine. He gets like this when Big Gav isn't around. They're like two little peas in a pod. Since they met, they hardly spend any time apart. They work together, live together, have friends together, everything. Fuck knows what they talk about in the evening."
> "He is happy is he? It is a nice man, this Big Gav?'
"Oh yes, they're a great team. If that's what you want. Me, I'd find it too much, suffocating, but it seems to work for them. Mind you, I'm not sure which way things flow, in the bedroom, with those two, if you know what I mean." Charlie winked lasciviously.
"Of course, I do know what you mean. You could as well make a drawing of it. What is it with you all? All you talk about is this, sex this, sex that. You are worse than a group of women."
I started to open my mouth, fully prepared to be completely indignant and disagree with her. Mentally, I'd unshackled my indignance pony and I was getting ready to ride into town on its back.
Then Charlie started laughing. "Fair point, fair enough. We can get a bit too fixated on cock and arse sometimes."
"Sometimes?" I smirked at him.
We went to Truvy Jones, the night club. Lena danced with Big Gav - the enormous hairy bear of a man mountain, full beard, long hair and a T-Shirt with Your Disco Needs You in silver glittery letters - after he'd lifted her over his head and danced with her on his shoulders for two songs. Gavin got drunk on gin, which I already knew meant tears, but he wasn't listening to us earlier. He ended up crying into his tonic, sucking his slice of lime and saying how much he still loved his ex - despite telling me, every time I'd seen him before, that he was a bastard. At its peak, we divided and conquered: Lena took Big Gav and danced with him, while I followed Gavin to the gents' toilets to hear his woes. Mid-story, Charlie joined us, leaning against the sinks in the gents' and said, "At it again, is he?" He looked at Gavin. "He does this every time he has gin. Every time. I told him last time, I wasn't looking after him, next time he was on the mother's ruin, and look who's doing it tonight."
I frowned at Charlie for not helping the situation. "Just because Big Gav is like your ex in some ways doesn't mean he's like him in all ways. They're two different people? I mean, I could do you a drawing but it would be a very simple one." I smiled and he looked at me, attempting a smile. I misted up the mirror and drew two stick men, writing 'Big Gav' under one and 'Ex' under the other.
Gavin stood, wiped his eyes with some paper towel. "I didn't expect to be in another relationship straight after, you know. I thought I'd have chance to do all the things you do when you split up with someone. Then the computer's rhythm throws up him, and I'm arse over tit, in up to my neck in love. I can't imagine being with anyone else. He's even interested in The Contest, 'cause I love it so much. The ex used to take the piss about that. Gav and me, we take the piss out of each other you know, it's not all Howard and Hilda; but only things that don't matter to each of us. I know you lot think we're too much together, but since the ex was always away, I felt so lonely. I don't want to be with someone and still feel lonely. Besides, it's early days yet. It's always a bit 'let's do everything together and never spend any time apart' at the start isn't it?"
And I nodded, because that was exactly how Chris and I had been.
Charlie shepherded us together and, taking both our hands, led us from the gents'. "Come on, let's show his mate how us gays do carte-blanche debauchery properly."
Gavin looked at us both, drew a large appendage on the Big Gav stick man then wiped the two stick men off the mirror. "He has got an enormous … "
"And we're back to cocks, she's back everyone, she's back." Charlie shouted it around the gents' toilet between laughs.
"Sometimes, at weekends, we have this agreement, where I … "
We were back in the full blast music of the dance floor and I could no longer hear Gavin well, despite wanting to find out once and for all, which way things did flow in that relationship.
The rounds of drinks began to blur and I started not tasting the spirit in my drinks, which I knew meant I was either too drunk to notice, or someone had kindly started giving me soft drinks. I remember thinking either option was good, so just went with it; taking my drinks from my friends, and returning to the bar when one of them told me it was my turn.
I walked across the dance floor past my family dancing in a circle, as Lena gyrated and grooved to some seventies disco classic. Her eyes were closed as she moved slowly, standing from her crouching position hovering an inch or so from the floor, then standing again in time with the music.
I joined the circle between Big Gav and Gavin, now beaming across his face. Charlie was dancing opposite me and he nodded to us three, smiling each time he made eye contact.
I was in the bosom of my family, and I couldn't have been happier.
The next morning, okay afternoon if we're being pedantic, Lena and I talked about our favourite bits of the previous few days, sipping tea and black coffee.
"You are, I think, a new person. A whole new fresh person here. That's what I think." Lena smiled and sipped more of her drink, continuing to smile with her eyes over her mug.
"You think?"
"I know. This I know." She paused and rubbed my shoulder. "Since many years I haven't seen you this happy."
We sat in companionable silence, glancing at the weekend daytime TV in the background. The reality TV show containing her favourite star came on and she turned the volume up before we settled into an easy routine: she asked me how I couldn't find him attractive. I replied, he wasn't a celebrity, just someone who'd been on another reality TV programme, and now he was on Celebrity Ironing, or whatever it was. This continued back and forth easily until the programme ended and she got ready to leave.
Hugging me at the station, she said over my shoulder, "I have most of their numbers, and have been poked by Gavin and Charlie already this morning on Facebook. They say if I do not come back for a repeat, they will give me, a Glasgow kiss. What is this, do you know?"
I rolled my eyes and laughed slightly at the image of one of them head butting lovely Lena."Nothing for you to worry about. You'd have to be here to get a Glasgow kiss anyway. Just make sure you come back, okay?"
I felt her nodding over my shoulder. She picked up her bag and walked across the crowded station concourse, disappearing into the crowd of other people who would shortly leave this place, this place I now called home, in Scotland.
Chapter 9
One Monday morning, a few weeks later, I was rubbing my temples and trying to remember why I said I'd go to the after club with Gavin and Big Gav in the early hours of Sunday morning. At the same time, I was desperately trying to concentrate on setting up the lights and background for the first client, due in less than half an hour, and I heard a deep Scottish voice. "Scuse me, do you do photies?"
On the tip of my tongue was, what does it say outside the shop, but as I looked up and took in what stood before me, I composed myself, berated myself for forgetting my eye bag concealing cream Gavin had sworn by and told me to use religiously morning and night, and instead said with a smile, "Of course we do, what are you interested in?" Should I have added a 'Sir', for added affect, extra client service, customer dressing?
He was about my age, early twenties - hence no 'Sir', I suppose, my subconscious working overtime - bright ginger hair in tight curls, expertly parted to one side in a big quiff, and shaved around the edges. I noticed a little streak of blond in the front of the quiff, which ordinarily I'd have thought very naff, but now, on him, the man I'd not called Sir, it looked perfect.
He held out his pale white hand, his arm covered in freckles and light ginger hair. "Callum. I'm just after some head shots."
I shook his hand. "Ford." Head shots, what was he on about? I'd had some thoughts about head, but not what he was talking about, I guessed. "Head shots?"
"I'm an actor. For my portfolio." He smiled. Perfect white teeth. Green eyes. Bright green eyes.
Of course he was an actor, what else would he do, looking like that? He's hardly going to be a librarian is he? Bet he's as thick as shit, they always are.
He explained in a soft lilting Scottish accent, how he'd tried some other photographers, but they always ended in a request to take off his top, then just ease down h
is jeans, now take them off, now the underwear, too. And after two tries at that, from photographers' numbers in a magazine for actors I'd not heard of, he thought he'd try a shop. "I've been in a few productions, some theatre, but I really want to see what TV has to offer me." He smiled nervously as he finished his story.
At that moment, Ewan strode into the studio, banging the door with his foot, making the bell ring as he held a cardboard tray of our usual hot drinks. "Who's this, thought we had some Cub Scouts first thing." He walked to the computer, handing my drink as he passed. "That's right. I knew I'd not got it wrong. How can I help? Unless you're one of Ford's friends. I mean, I don't mind. I've nothing against 'em, takes all sorts doesn't it, but we've gotta get on, you know."
Callum stepped back from me. "No, I'm asking about some photies. Your assistant here … "
"Studio Manager." I smiled at him.
"Studio Manager, I was telling him about how I needed a professional place."
Ewan looked at me, then Callum. "Right so."
I made eye contact with Ewan then looked at the door to the next room, where we kept all the spare lights, backdrops, costumes, anything most people could ever want for a photo shoot. "I'm handling it."
Ewan left the cardboard tray on the desk and disappeared into the store room. "I'll leave you to it. Right enough," came his voice as he closed the door.
And then there were two.
Callum sat opposite me at the desk and handed me his current portfolio - a folder full of black and white pictures taken when he was in his mid teens, looking attractive, but obviously not as nice as he'd bloomed into in his twenties. I flicked through the folder and came across a few of him with dungarees and a curtains centre parting haircut slicked down with wet look hair gel.
Looking at the picture, he put his hand on mine. "Don't know what that was about. I think we were on a nineties kick, even though it was the mid noughties. I blame the photographer. That's my story and I'm clinging to it for dear life." He smiled and we made eye contact.
