“Oh,” I said.
“Sorry. I expect you’ve heard that your whole life.”
“No, I know. It’s inevitable. Scientists fucking love us. We’re like, the perfect lab rats. Test and control.”
He leaned forwards on his bare elbows, his eyes full of something like mischief. “Okay,” he said, wetting his lips. “This is probably a really crass question, but I’m drunk, so…”
I knew what was coming. “So am I. And I know what you’re going to ask.”
“Do you?”
“Yes. How come he’s gay and I’m straight?”
“Yeah. You have the same DNA. And the last I heard there was pretty solid science behind the idea that there’s such a thing as a gay gene…”
I shook my head. “As far as I understand it – which is not very well, because this is so not my area – there isn’t just one gene that makes you gay. And if you have that gay genetic pattern you might not necessarily be gay, but you might be…I don’t know…straight but really good at decorating.”
He gave me a reproachful look. “That’s a terrible stereotype.”
“No, you’re right. I’m sorry. I should know better. Especially living with a gay man who has never decorated his flat, as far as I know. He’s still got the same knackered IKEA Billy bookshelves he bought when he first moved out of the halls of residence.”
“Maybe you should overhaul it,” he said, with impish innocence. “Creative shelving solutions. Create a feature wall. Maybe a decal or two.”
“What? One of those things that says BREATHE in big loopy letters, in case someone in the room forgets to consume oxygen? No, I don’t think so. Besides, those things are almost as over as Mason jars and chevrons.”
Rob, his chin propped on one hand, fluttered his eyelashes at me. “And you’re the heterosexual?” he said. “Okay.”
“I got the stylish and tasteful part of the gay gene, all right? Obviously Simon got the actual gay bit…”
He laughed. “Okay. I believe you. And you’ve never…?”
“I’ve never had a relationship with a man, no.”
“A relationship?”
“There was some experimenting in college,” I said. “Does that satisfy your curiosity?”
“Not even slightly,” he said, teasing. “I’m going to need far more sordid details than that.”
If he wasn’t seeing my brother I could have sworn he was flirting with me. Then again, we were both quite drunk. “Hand stuff,” I said. “Mostly.”
“Mostly?”
“One time I did E and it got…oral. Anyway, do I get to flip the question on you?”
“Fine,” he said. “Only fair. And yes, I did some undergrad experimenting, too. Kissing. Light fondling.” Then it seemed to dawn on him all at once, making me laugh. “Oh, and boobs. Boobs are good.”
“Boobs are amazing.”
“So much squishier than I was led to believe,” he said. “But other than that, gold star gay, I’m afraid. No scandalous heterosexual experiences.”
My glass was almost empty again, and I knew it would be nothing short of insanity to suggest another one, especially since it was getting dark. “We should probably stop drinking,” I said.
“We should, but will we?”
“I don’t know.”
“We’re still speaking in sentences,” said Rob.
“What? And you don’t consider yourself drunk until you can’t?”
“We ate a lot. Soaked up the booze. Besides, we haven’t even looked at the whisky menu yet.”
I laughed. “Uh, no. I did. Have you seen the fucking prices?” It was clear he didn’t want the night to end just yet, and to my surprise, neither did I. He was fun. Wasn’t sure how that was going to work – someone fun being in a relationship with Simon – but maybe it would be good for them both. Simon could tame Rob’s worst manic pixie dreamboy impulses and Rob could teach Simon to understand the Turner Prize.
“It’s a rip off,” I said. “I’ve got a bottle of Bruichladdich classic back at home. And Simon might be there by now. You can surprise him.”
He liked that idea, so we went back to Lavender Hill, to Simon’s elderly Billy bookcases and boxy, oversized couch. Rob immediately spotted the battered violin case beneath the windowsill. “He never told me he played.”
“He doesn’t,” I said, pouring out the whisky. No ice. Just a tiny dash of water. Rob was a purist. “He scrapes randomly at it whenever he’s trying to be Sherlock Holmes.”
“What about you?”
“Oh, I did a few grades in school. I think he wanted to join me, until he realised that playing an instrument came with the assumption that you’d then perform in the school orchestra…”
Rob took his drink from me, his fingers brushing mine. “I’m guessing that didn’t sit well with him.”
“Spot on. He came down with the vapours.”
“Poor baby,” he said, and looked at the violin once more. “It’s not a Stradivarius, is it?”
I laughed. “Fuck, no. Why would it be?”
“Random association,” he said. “Holmes had a Stradivarius. Picked it up for fifty-five shillings at a shop on Tottenham Court Road. Not sure what that is in modern money, but Watson said it was comically cheap.”
I settled in the armchair opposite. “Yeah, you see, that’s why I could never get into Sherlock Holmes. I always feel like Doyle gave him too many breaks as a character.”
Rob let out a surprised honk of laughter. “Dead on. Really?”
“Really. The rules of normal fiction don’t seem to apply to Holmes. I mean, I can see why people love the stories, but it’s like a joke I don’t get. He gets too many breaks. He’s too good: he buys the Rolls Royce of violins for a song on the Tottenham Court Road, he returns from the dead, for Christ’s sake…”
“Oh, come on,” said Rob. “You can’t blame Doyle for the resurrection. That was by popular demand, and if he hadn’t brought him back then we’d never have Hound Of The Baskervilles, which you have to admit is superb.”
“True. It’s great, but the cigar ash thing? I could buy that Holmes wrote some weird monograph about cigar ash, because that does sound like a Holmes thing to do, but for it to come to his aid in not two but three separate mysteries? It’s in Hound Of The Baskervilles, A Study In—”
“—Scarlet and The Boscombe Valley Mystery.” He looked so delighted to have found someone who thought the same way that I wanted to tell him, there and then. Confess it all – that it had been me in the bookshop and at the gallery, and that we’d kissed. No tongue, but we’d kissed, and with me under false pretences. And oh God, why did that feel so bad?
But I didn’t, because that was when Simon came in. He looked exhausted but satisfied – one of his better post-surgical looks, at least from the patient’s perspective. Better than the other post-surgical look – exhausted and anxious. “What are you doing here?” he said, clearly pleasantly surprised to see Rob.
“Um…we sort of decided to keep drinking,” said Rob.
“And it’s cheaper at home,” I said.
Simon leaned down. Rob grabbed him by the front of his shirt and pulled him down into a kiss – a real kiss, sloppy and deliberate. No ambiguity about tongue this time.
“And how drunk are you?” asked Simon.
“Tipsy.” Rob traced a straight line in the air with his hand. “I’ve plateaued. Want me to pour you a drink?”
Simon joined him on the couch. “No, I’ll just have some of yours.” He picked up the glass and swirled it around. “What is that? Melted rocks?”
“No, peasant. Dash of water.” Rob nuzzled in, pliant and friendly and happily pissed. “You don’t put ice in an Islay single malt.”
Simon looked at him the way he’d once looked at a sixteen year old, prize winning Lagavulin. I had the distinct sense that it was past my bedtime.
“I’m so sorry about tonight,” he said, but Rob shook his curls.
“It’s all right. You were busy.
Being heroic.”
And he was. Sometimes I forgot about that, because he was my brother and it was impossible to see him as anything but that, but he could do incredible things. Things that changed the course of people’s whole lives, usually for the better. “How were the ankles?” I asked.
Simon took a sip of Rob’s drink and sighed. “Unbelievably fucked up.”
“And that’s the medical term, is it?”
He leaned his head back against the couch and closed his eyes. “Nope. The medical term is FUBAR – fucked up beyond all recognition. Severe vertical trauma. Medial Malleolus completely shattered in both feet. It was like putting together a bloody jigsaw puzzle.”
“You think you saved her feet?” I said.
He sighed again and took another drink. “Hope so. Blood supply looks fairly good. As long as it stays uninterrupted and she doesn’t go necrotic.” He lifted the glass. “Well, here’s hoping, anyway.”
I got up and went to the bathroom. It was still suffocatingly hot and a slow wave of sickness crept over me, making me thirsty for water. Simon had spent the night putting a girl’s feet back together, while I had spent the day getting drunk and vomiting my guts up because a baby had shat on me. Not for the first time, I had an unpleasant sense of my own uselessness. I had the same DNA, same parents, same upbringing, and what had I managed to do with myself, while my brother was out saving lives?
When I passed the living room doorway they were kissing. Rob was on top, his loose hair a golden cloud obscuring Simon’s face. His hip was already bare under Simon’s hand and as he moved I caught a glimpse of his dark blond pubic hair, peeking out of the unbuttoned top of his jeans.
“Goodni-ght,” I called, and closed the door on them. I heard giggles and kissing sounds from behind it, and maybe thought I wasn’t so useless after all, because I’d done that. I’d helped to make that happen, and a little more love in the world was always a good thing.
7
As it turned out, you could have too much of a good thing.
I hadn’t seen Cyrano de Bergerac in years, but as far as I could remember Cyrano didn’t have to lie awake listening to Roxane take it up the arse three times a night.
Simon needed a new bed. It squeaked, and so did Rob. He also moaned, groaned and made disconcertingly sexy little gaspy noises, of a frequency somehow perfectly calibrated to slip between the walls of a mid-Victorian terrace in Clapham.
I got used to seeing Rob in the morning, flushed, rumpled and gleefully sleep-deprived, while Simon blundered around the kitchen looking like he had no idea what the hell had hit him. I watched him try to feign deep interest in the workings of the toaster as Rob slunk up to him, wrapped bare arms around his waist and gently bit the back of his shoulder. Shirtless, Rob was tiny, a skinny blond wisp of a thing with shoulder blades like wings and a nautical star tattoo on his upper arm, but size was clearly no object when it came to libido.
“You want some toast?” Simon said, while Rob continued to nuzzle and nibble.
“No. I’m okay.” Rob buried his nose in the nape of Simon’s neck. “I just want to remind myself what you smell like, before I have to go.”
“I smell the same as I did yesterday.”
“Are we on for tonight?” asked Rob. “Pleeease? Come on – Nathan can join in, too.”
“I can’t,” I said, startled. “I’m not that depraved.”
Rob laughed and Simon clarified. “He wants to show you his terrible films.”
“They’re not my films,” said Rob. “Although they are terrible. Hang on a minute – let me get my phone.”
Simon visibly exhaled as he left the room. I had to ask.
“Are you all right?” I said, sotto voce.
“Yes,” said Simon. “No. Maybe. I don’t know. I’m just so fucking tired. He’s very…affectionate.”
“Yeah, I sort of heard something about that,” I said, having moved my bed so I didn’t have to listen to Simon’s headboard slamming against the adjoining wall.
Rob came back in, phone in hand. “Here.” He handed me the phone. He was so close that I could feel the heat from his bare skin, and it was weird, because I knew what he sounded like when he came. “Press play,” he said.
I did, and I have no idea what I was expecting, but it wasn’t that. A lanky, middle-aged American was driving a car and trying to eat tuna straight out of the can at the same time. He announced – in an odd monotone – that he lived in his car and ate tuna out of the can, then the car swerved on a desert road and the clip ended. Did he crash? Why was he eating tuna in a car? Why did his hair look like that? I suddenly had so many questions.
“Okay,” I said. “What just happened? And more to the point, why?”
Rob took back the phone and giggled. “Neil Breen just happened.”
“Who?”
“Neil Breen. Greatest American filmmaker since Tommy Wiseau.”
Rob loved bad films: Plan Nine From Outer Space, The Happening, The Room, Showgirls. If had unnatural dialogue, questionable directorial decisions and special effects that looked like they’d made out of old washing-up liquid bottles and foil, Rob was in like Flynn. And based on the few seconds of bizarre footage I’d just seen, I guessed he had a brand new favourite.
“Oh God, you’re fucked,” said Simon. “He’s going to make you watch his scrote float movies.”
“His what?”
Simon swallowed his mouthful of Marmite on toast. “I’ve seen that man’s testicles,” he said, nodding in Rob’s general direction, so that for a moment I was confused. “Breen, I mean. In one of his films he does a nude scene where he’s floating face down in a pool with his legs wide open. You can see everything, bobbing around on the surface like some grisly swim bladder.”
“Okay,” I said, amused by Rob’s obvious distress. He was laughing so hard he had to hang onto the side of the kitchen surface. “And does anyone have any idea why he thought the world needed to see that?”
“Nope,” said Rob, wiping his eyes. “It’s a mystery. He shows his balls, he eats tuna in his car, he runs up and down hills in the desert, he cures cancer and owns about a gazillion elderly laptops, some of which he treats with extreme violence. Oh, and he teleports.”
“He what?”
“He teleports. Mostly when he’s being psychic hacker space Jesus.”
“Who cures cancer?”
“Yes,” said Rob, still laughing.
“Well, I’m sold,” I said.
Simon groaned. “Yay. Now there are two of you. I’m so happy.”
“This is going to be so much fun,” said Rob, kissing him on his toast-crumbed mouth. “And I should get a move on. Okay if I grab the next shower? Thanks.”
I watched him go, all tiny waist and sharp shoulders, still unable to square that narrow, boyish body with the noises I heard at night. I turned back to Simon, only one question on my mind now.
“Well?” I said, lowering my voice. “Did you tell him?”
He shook his head and stared morosely into his tea. “I…I didn’t really get that far, to tell you the truth,” he said. “I was going to tell him, but I was having a hard time finding the words and then he…he sort of pounced.”
“Pounced?”
“What?” he said, mistaking my judgement for confusion. “Do you need a diagram?”
“I absolutely fucking don’t. I’ve been listening to you knocking the back out of that for a fortnight.”
Simon rubbed the bridge of his nose. “It’s worse, isn’t it?” he said. “The longer I leave it before telling him, the worse it’s going to be.”
“Nah, it’ll be fine,” I said. “It’ll be ideal material for my best man’s speech. The perfect after-dinner anecdote about how we once pulled some Dead Ringers fuckery, and how your new husband had no idea until now that he’d almost tried to French kiss his brother-in-law. Of course it’s worse, Simon.”
He sighed and stared out of the window over the hot, grey roofs. There were no clouds. Hot da
ys, hot nights, frayed tempers.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll tell him.”
But he didn’t.
I know he didn’t, because if anything Rob was more affectionate that night, and as cheerful as someone who had nothing on his mind beyond watching one of his favourite bad movies. Simon wandered in and out during the film, and at first I couldn’t help watching him prowl, but then about five minutes in the main character – played by Neil Breen, of course – got hit by a car, and somehow the film got even stranger and I got my first gratuitous glimpse of the auteur’s arse when he rose from a hospital bed with the back opening of his gown flapping in the breeze.
“Does he get naked in all his movies?” I said.
“I think so,” said Rob, giggling. “At least you don’t see his balls in this one.”
It was madness. Absolute madness. About an hour and forty minutes of several disjointed plots. In one of them Neil’s best friend’s stepdaughter decided to start undressing poolside like fantasy Phoebe Cates in Fast Times At Ridgemont High, but then that came to an abrupt and boring end when Neil had stern words with the girl and told her to stop coming round to his house and getting her tits out. Meanwhile the best friend turned into a drunk because his wife was ‘very pissy’ (her words, hand to God) then she shot him, apparently for no other reason than for Neil to cradle his dead friend in his arms and say, “I can’t help you out of this one, buddy.” Pissy wife said it was suicide, Neil accepted it and that was the end of that, only for Neil’s wife – a pillhead so incorrigible that she was digging unflushed pills out of the toilet and swallowing them by the handful – to genuinely kill herself. But that was okay, because Neil’s wife was in the way of the plot, which said that Neil was still in love with his childhood friend Leah, who frequently appeared naked in his weird, nude dreams where they hung out together in a room lined with black bin bags.
The ending was magnificent. Neil – who had been hacking into government secrets and knew ‘everything’ – wandered out in front of a press podium and announced he was blowing the lid on all the non-specific corruption and badness in the world. Then a bunch of villains – bankers, CEOs, lawyers, politicians – who had never appeared in the movie until now, all spoke one by one about how they’d been very bad people and that they were sorry. So sorry that they then proceeded to off themselves. No, really. It was a montage of poorly acted suicides – pills, razors, ropes, potatoes up the car exhaust. Rob was hysterical, mostly from watching my reaction.
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