Other Halves

by Nick Alexander

  By the final day of the week-long half-term break, I was ready, but as Luke was in a particularly sullen mood I made myself wait for a more auspicious moment. In the end I had to wait until the following weekend for whatever adolescent cloud Luke was under to lift.

  My chance came on a cold, sunny Saturday morning. Luke looked up and spotted me watching him.

  “Everything OK?” he asked.

  I nodded. “Yes. Everything’s fine,” I said.

  “Will James be coming back again?”

  “Yes. At the beginning of March.”

  Luke nodded.

  “Is that OK?”

  He shrugged. “Sure,” but then he managed a small smile, and I knew that now was my moment.

  “Luke,” I said. “I need to talk to you about something.”

  He spooned Rice Krispies to his mouth. “OK . . .”

  “It’s a pretty big thing, and I want us to have a proper adult conversation about it. I really need to know what you think. OK? Whatever you say is fine. But I need to know what you really, honestly think.”

  Luke straightened in his seat. He looked proud that he was being consulted in this manner. “OK.”

  “You know that I’m with James now.”

  “Sure.”

  “And you’ve probably worked out that your dad and I will get a divorce.”

  “Yeah. I know that.”

  “So the question is, what happens next?”

  Luke frowned.

  “The thing is that I want to see James more often than I do.”

  “Is he moving here, like, permanently?”

  I shook my head. “He has a farm to run. It keeps him pretty busy. And I had a really great time in Australia. I really loved it there.”

  “Why can’t you move there then?”

  I swallowed hard. I was struggling to remain composed. “I could, in theory. But I’m worried about you.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Luke said matter-of-factly. “I can live with Dad.”

  “But I don’t want to lose you. I don’t think I could bear that.”

  “You wouldn’t lose me.”

  “If I couldn’t see you, I don’t think I could stand it.”

  “Oh.”

  “Now the thing is that I know you’re not keen on the idea, but I really want you to come out to Austra—”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Let me finish. I really want you to come out for a visit, just to see what it’s like. I know you don’t think you’d ever want to move there, but I think you might be wrong. The weather’s lovely, the beaches are lovely. There would be loads of fun things for you to do on the farm, and along the coast . . .”

  Luke looked disconcerted. “I’m never gonna want to move to Australia, Mum. You know that.”

  “But how can you know that? You haven’t even been there.”

  “I just do. That’s all.”

  “How?”

  “The same as you know you do. It’s never gonna happen, Mum.”

  “Then I have to stay, don’t I?”

  Luke sighed. “You said to tell you what I think. What I really think.”

  “I did.”

  “Well, I think you should go, Mum.”

  I covered my mouth with one hand. “How can you say that as if it’s so easy?” I whispered through my fingers.

  “It’s not easy, Mum. But I’d be fine with Dad. You’d be happy with James. It’s the best deal for everyone.”

  “Wouldn’t you even miss me?”

  “Course I would. But I could come and see you and stuff. And you could come here.”

  “You make it sound so easy. But I’d miss you so much. I’d miss you too much.”

  “We could talk on Skype. That’s how Billy talks to his dad.”

  I shook my head and blinked back tears. “But I love you so much, Luke,” I said.

  “I know,” he replied. “But you’ve got a life to live, Mum. And so have I.”

  I shook my head and then rested it on one hand. I stared at my son in sorrow that the idea of my moving to the other side of the world touched him so little, and in wonderment at how adult he had become. Had my separation from Cliff forced that upon him, I wondered.

  “Are we done here?” Luke asked. “’Cos I told Billy I’d be over by ten.”

  I nodded slowly. “Yes,” I said. “We’re done here. Thanks, Luke.”

  “No probs.”

  TEN

  Cliff

  One Saturday afternoon, I drove out to Billy’s council estate to pick up Luke. Though it was mid-March, the weather was unpredictable and unseasonably cold, and because it had begun to sleet, Luke phoned requesting an emergency pickup.

  Unusually, when I arrived at the house, Luke wasn’t ready. He couldn’t, he claimed, find his trainers, so after a full five minutes of polite conversation in the hallway, Brenda invited me into the lounge.

  One end of the sofa was occupied by a pretty woman with cropped orange hair – the result was more than a little Milla Jovovich – and the armchair was taken by an enormous, curled-up Alsatian.

  “This is Sue, my partner,” Brenda announced, nodding at the woman, not the dog. “Take a seat. She’s quite tame.”

  Sue smiled up at me and patted the sofa, so I perched beside her. She reached for the remote control and muted the television.

  “Please don’t do that on my behalf,” I said. “I’m sure Luke won’t be long.”

  “It’s fine,” Sue said, wrinkling her nose. “It’s just a documentary.”

  “We wanted to go walking,” Brenda explained. “But the weather turned nasty.”

  “I know. The forecast said sunshine,” I commented.

  “So how have you been?” Brenda asked.

  “Fine thanks.”

  “Luke told us. About your divorce,” she said.

  “Yes. Being single takes some getting used to, but I’m getting there.”

  “His mum’s going to Australia or something?” Brenda said.

  “Yes. He told you about that, huh?”

  She nodded knowingly.

  “What did he say?” I braced myself for an unveiling of Luke’s long-suspected angst at our divorce.

  “Just that he’ll be moving in with you and going to Australia for his hols. He seems pretty happy about it all.”

  I sighed in relief.

  “He wants Billy to go with him,” Sue added. “On holiday but—”

  “But we could never afford it,” Brenda interjected. “The flights must cost hundreds.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Well, if Luke plays his cards right, he might well be able to get Hannah and James to pay for that,” I said. “She wants him to go so much. And she wants him to enjoy it too. And Luke’s very good at playing his cards right.”

  “He’s a clever boy, that’s for sure,” Brenda said. “He’s been helping Billy lots with maths.”

  “Anyway, nothing’s settled yet,” I said. “Hannah hasn’t even decided, I don’t think.”

  At that moment, Billy entered the room, followed by Luke, who sat beside me and started to pull on his shoes.

  “So did you get your homework done?” I asked, as that was the official reason for the visit.

  “Mainly,” Luke said.

  “It didn’t sound much like homework to me,” Sue said. “It sounded a lot like Grand Auto Theft.”

  “We had to have a break,” Billy said earnestly. “Didn’t we, Luke?”

  Luke nodded and stood to pull on his coat. “And it’s Grand Theft Auto,” he said.

  We said our goodbyes and headed out to the car. As we folded down the seats for Luke’s bike, an idea came to me. “Hang on, Luke,” I said, returning to the house and ringing the bell.

  Brenda opened the door. “Did Luke forget something again? He always does!”

  “No. I was just wondering . . . as we’ve got the seats folded down and everything . . . do you want us to drop that off at the tip?”

  “The washing machine?”


  “Yes.”

  “Oh that would be amazing,” Brenda said. “It’s been doing my head in. But without a car, it’s just stuck there. Would you mind? Will it fit? With Luke’s bike, I mean?”

  “I think so. The Mégane is pretty vast once all the seats are down. I can drop it off tomorrow on my way into work. I drive right past the tip.”

  Once the machine was loaded and we were on our way, Luke said, “So you met Sue then?”

  “Yes, I did,” I replied, frowning vaguely at something in his tone of voice – a false naivety perhaps.

  “She’s Brenda’s partner,” Luke said, and I nodded and started to listen extra attentively for whatever message Luke was trying to deliver in this mock-casual tone.

  “Yes, I got that,” I said. “What’s she like?”

  “She’s great,” Luke said. “She’s funny.”

  “Well, that’s good. Does Billy like her too?”

  “Of course. Well, except for the school thing.”

  “The school thing?”

  “Yeah. They came to the open day together, and now Billy gets loads of aggro about it.”

  “About what?”

  “About Sue.”

  “I’m not sure I follow.”

  “About living with lezzas,” Luke said.

  “Right. He gets bullied because of that?”

  “A bit. They call him Ellen. But I stand up for him.”

  “ ‘Ellen’?”

  “Yeah, she’s some famous lesbian on YouTube or something.”

  “Do you need me to talk to someone about it? Someone at the school?”

  “Nah,” Luke said. “That would make it worse. We’ve got it covered, I think.”

  “They came to the open day, you say?”

  “Yeah,” Luke said. “Sue said it was a politics statement or something. But Billy said it was just stupid.”

  I thought about Luke’s “intervention” – for that was how I saw it – over the next few days.

  I wasn’t sure which of the possible interpretations corresponded with his intended meaning, but whether he had been telling me that he knew about me, or that it was OK to be gay, or that there was, quite simply, a life after divorce, I was touched by his concern.

  It forced me to realise, again, that the world had indeed moved on since my own adolescence. If Brenda could casually introduce Sue as her partner, if they could go to the school open day as a couple, and if at least some of Luke’s generation thought that was just fine, then things really had changed. On the other hand, the bullying of Billy revealed that they hadn’t completely changed either. Perhaps Luke had, in fact, been firing a warning shot across the bows, pleading with me to be discreet.

  Whatever he was trying to tell me, I continued to see Jenny, and I continued to gently push my boundaries, returning to Compton’s repeatedly, daring myself to talk to people, hoping vaguely that sexy Peter would return and chat me up again so that I could make a better job of responding. But he never did reappear.

  The fourth time I returned, I had planned to meet Tristan, but just as I rounded the corner into Compton Street my phone beeped with a message from him. The freezer in one of their biggest restaurants had broken down, he said. He would be firefighting all evening in an attempt at saving the thousands of pounds of produce stocked within. There was no way he could make it.

  Disappointed, I continued to Compton’s anyway, where I ordered my customary pint. My usual table was occupied by a couple of guys in City suits. They didn’t, to my eye, look gay at all, which was something that always cheered me up. I took a stool in the window and stared out at the fading daylight of the street.

  I knew via Luke that James was back at Hannah’s, and as I watched the evening light turn red and the streetlights flicker on, I thought about this. I was a little surprised at how much effort he was putting into their relationship if truth be told. I had always assumed that he wanted Hannah simply because she was mine, simply to spite me, but I was having to modify my beliefs on that one. If James was repeatedly spending thousands of pounds to fly across the world to be with her, then it clearly had to be about more than a simple victory over his brother. This admission that James’ soul might contain even a smidgin of humanity hurt my pride, and I was trying to analyse why this might be when a voice to my left said, “You can smile you know. It is allowed.”

  I turned to see a very short but good-looking man with a crop haircut and a full beard, wearing bright red one-piece motorcycle leathers. He waved his crash helmet towards the window. “So what ya watchin’ out there?” he asked. His accent was very East End.

  I glanced back at the street. “Oh, nothing really,” I said. “I was miles away.”

  “Daydreamin’?”

  “Yes. Kind of.”

  “Were you daydreamin’ about all the fings we’re gonna get up to together?” he asked.

  I blinked at him in surprise. “I wasn’t aware we were going to get up to anything,” I laughed.

  He grinned broadly. “Well you are now,” he said, holding out his hand. “I’m Mo, by the way.”

  I shook his hand. “Cliff.”

  “Cliff,” he said. “That’s not a name you hear much.”

  Mo’s repartee was so polished that within ten minutes we were walking through the streets towards his flat. Part of me felt excited that I had taken this bold leap, and the other part of me was watching the whole scene with disdain and a little shock. It felt as if I had split in two.

  It was only as we walked past some parked motorbikes that I asked, “So where’s your bike?”

  “Bike?” he said.

  “Yes. Your motorbike. I assume that’s what the leathers and the crash helmet are for?”

  “Oh! Of course,” Mo said, looking shifty. “I, um . . . had to leave it at the garage.”

  “What kind of bike is it?” I asked. I knew nothing about motorbikes anyway – I just wanted to see his response. Because, for some reason, against all logic, what I was picking up here was that Mo didn’t have a bike at all.

  “It’s, um, a Suzuki,” he said, leading me down an alleyway behind an electronics shop, and in through a side door to a grubby staircase.

  “What kind of Suzuki?”

  “One of the big ones,” he said unconvincingly, pausing before a door and pushing his key into the lock.

  The second he opened the door an ageing white poodle rushed to greet us, and by the time I had stepped inside, I knew definitively that the whole thing was a mistake.

  The flat was only slightly cleaner than the communal staircase, and with walls adorned with dreadful reproductions of teary-eyed children, and a sofa covered with a hand-crocheted bedspread, it felt more like a retirement home lounge than a motorbiker’s pad.

  The poodle was of the needy, whimpering kind, with tear-stained eyes that oozed the same sadness as his master, the same sadness as the flat itself. Indeed, when I went to the bathroom, I spotted an empty Prozac blister pack in the dustbin, and that lack of Prozac seemed indicative of the whole setup.

  When Mo led me through to the kitchen – complete with a stained electric hotplate and flowery melamine mugs – to offer me a cup of tea, I made a feeble attempt at escape, muttering something about not realising how late it was, but Mo grasped my elbow and looked pleadingly into my eyes. “Please stay,” he said. “At least stay for a cuppa.” And because I felt sorry for him, I capitulated.

  Once the tea was brewing (he placed a tea cosy over the pot) Mo said, “Do you wanna see my collection?” and without asking, led me through to his bedroom. He slid the wardrobe door open, revealing five or six brightly coloured motorbike outfits hanging there.

  “Wow,” I said. “You have a lot of those.”

  “I know,” Mo said, grinning unnervingly. “I’m really into bike leathers. That one’s too big for me, but it might fit you.”

  I laughed nervously.

  “Do you want to try it?” he asked.

  “Um, no thanks. You’re all right,�
� I replied. I had no intention of taking up motorbiking that day.

  “You should,” he said, lifting the hanger from the cupboard and laying it on the bed. It was lime green and said “Kawasaki” on the arms. “Bike leathers feel amazing,” he said, nodding at me encouragingly. “The leather’s really thick, you see.”

  “No thanks,” I said again, forcing a fake smile and turning to leave the room. “I reckon that tea must be ready by now, no?”

  Mo caught up with me in the kitchen. He had the green Kawasaki suit draped over his arm. It looked like a huge, deflated body. “You’d look great in bike leathers, I reckon,” he said. “Look, I’m hard just at the idea.”

  He slid his free hand down over a bump in his crotch and right there, right then, something snapped and, sorry for him or not, it all became too much for me. I glanced at my wrist, remembered that I hadn’t worn a watch for years, and then pulled my phone from my pocket. “Oh, god,” I told him. “I had no idea it was so late. I really do have to go.”

  I retrieved my jacket from the chair back and made a dash for the door.

  Mo and the Kawasaki corpse followed me into the lounge. He had a confused expression on his face. “You’re leaving?” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, that was a fucking waste of time, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes,” I agreed, as I gently kicked the poodle to one side and opened the front door. “Yes, I’m sorry about that. But I really do need to leave now.”

  Once I had left Mo’s, I headed straight for the train station. I was feeling hollow and worthless – tearful almost – at the cheapness of what had just transpired, at the visible hopelessness of Mo’s life, and somehow, by abstraction, at my own prospects for happiness.

  My thoughts were confused but underlying all of them was a worry that gay lives seemed to be hopeless, and that if this was the path I chose, the rest of my life would be an endless series of meetings with men like Mo, until I became, by association, a Mo myself.

  With hindsight this was what Jenny would call “dramatic thinking”, but it was what was going on in my head that day and I suffered as a result.