by Fabian Black
He gave his throaty little laugh again. “Yes. He was a bit unconventional himself, especially for his age. How she plays and what she writes weren’t his perfect cup of tea, but he understood her need to express her nature, unlike her Roman Catholic parents. Anne’s father, Brian, was Desmond’s brother, but they never got on. They got on even less after Brian converted to Catholicism before his marriage. My uncle said religion was the excuse Brian had been looking for to justify his cold bigotry.”
I raised my brows. “Sounds like there was some history between the brothers.”
“I think so. Uncle didn’t talk about it a lot, but you could tell there was longstanding bitterness there. It got worse after their mam died and there was no one to smooth things over. When Anne’s parents disowned her, after she got pregnant with me, he helped her out, set her up with a flat. He viewed her as the daughter he never had. He never married you see. He liked women, but never found the right one, so he said. It’s a shame. I think he longed for a family. He was a writer too. I reckon it’s where she got the bug. He helped her get started and make the right contacts.”
“What sort of thing did he write?”
A look passed over Dee-Dee’s face. I already recognised it as his dreamy look.
“Romances mainly, straightforward het romances, well not always totally straightforward, but definitely romantic, not like Anne’s stuff. He used to read some of them to me.”
My mobile’s ring tone interrupted the conversation. It was in the bedroom, on the bed where I’d left it after changing out of my rain soaked clothes. “Excuse me, Dee.” He’d shortened my name so I didn’t see why I couldn’t shorten his. “I’d better take that. It’s probably my mum calling to ask why I haven’t called her since moving in. She worries if I don’t speak to her at least once a day. I won’t be a minute.”
It was my mother, my very conventional mother who worked in Asda and who fussed and drove me up the wall by demanding to know if I was looking after myself properly, even though I’d been living well and independently since leaving home to go to university at the age of eighteen.
I had a few words with her and said I’d ring her back as I had a visitor, only I didn’t. He’d gone, along with his damp t-shirt. My shirt was lying over the back of the sofa. I hurried to the door of my apartment and looked out into the corridor, but there was no sign of him. I called his name, but received nothing back other than a faint echo from the stairwell.
Picking up his empty coffee mug I took it into the kitchen, wondering if I’d upset him by what I’d said about my mum phoning. Maybe he wasn’t as blasé about his mother’s lack of maternal feelings as he seemed. I thought about going down to his flat, but dismissed it. The way he’d left suggested a need for space. I understood. I liked my own space.
I thought about calling James, but decided against it when a mental picture came to mind. It was of the kiss I’d witnessed in my rear view mirror when taking my leave of him and Kye. They needed their space too.
I spent the evening putting the finishing touches to my apartment, racking and shelving books, DVD’s, CD’s and computer games. I then made a ham sandwich for my supper and on a whim settled down to watch ‘LongTime Companion,’ only to find myself being more than usually affected by it, lump in the throat sort of stuff. I switched it off, speaking aloud as I did so. “It’s only a fucking film you idiot.”
Chapter Six
I suppose my ears were rather elf-like. I’d never really noticed before. I turned my head first one way and then the other, examining them in the mirror as I shaved next morning. Blow me. I pulled a face. I’d gone through twenty-five years of life without noticing I had elf ears. James had never mentioned my ears. The only comment he had ever made about my physical appearance concerned the size of my dick. I was rather well endowed in that department.
I studied my reflection critically. Ears aside I looked nothing like an elf. I’d always considered myself to have rather strong masculine features. I wasn’t drop dead good looking in an airbrushed movie star way, but nowhere near ugly. Did I really look older than my years? I leaned closer to the mirror, stroking a hand over my jaw. Mature, I decided. I had a mature look about me, unlike Dee-Dee. I was still stunned he was older than me, only by a couple of years, but still.
After dressing in jeans and a tee, I plucked the shirt I’d lent Dee-Dee from the back of the sofa and slipped it on in lieu of a jacket, intending to nip to the supermarket down the road to buy bread and milk. I smoothed the front of it and that’s when I felt the lenses he’d dropped into the breast pocket, two tiny little nubs like extra nipples.
Fishing them out I examined them as they lay in the palm of my hand, winking in the sunlight, casting specks of yellow onto my skin. There was a clear bit in the middle, to save the wearer from having a jaundiced view of the world perhaps? Should I return them or wait for him to come and ask for them?
I decided to deliver them in person. A part of me was worried by the way he’d left my apartment so abruptly. Hmm. I curled my hand over the lenses. I didn’t know him in any real capacity so why the hell should I worry about him? He was a grown man who had been looking after himself perfectly well for years. I was still worried. Obviously I’d inherited more of my mother’s genes than I’d previously thought. Returning the lenses would allow me to check he was okay. Popping them in an eggcup I covered them with a little water. I was no expert on contacts, but I reckoned it wasn’t good for them to dry out.
He wasn’t in. I knocked on the door several times, but it remained closed. After returning the lenses to my apartment I fulfilled my quest to purchase bread and milk, choosing to re-enter the bakery via the front entrance just for the sheer pleasure of walking up the broad steps leading to the original grand double doors. They were made from maple and rosewood set with acid etched glass panels. No doubt the bakery founder, Mr Arthur, had experienced a sense of pride as he arrived at his office each day.
I paused outside of the doors, near the security intercom system. Maybe Dee-Dee hadn’t heard me knocking on his door? Pressing the buzzer next to the name Mr D. Walters I waited, but again there was no response.
The crunch of wheels on tarmac alerted me to a vehicle entering the grounds. I glanced over my shoulder. It was a gas board van. My gas service was scheduled for reconnection at eleven. I glanced at my watch. It was five to. Pushing open the bakery doors I hastened to my apartment.
Over the following week I kept an eye out for Dee-Dee and once or twice buzzed his apartment, but there was never any reply, leading me to assume he’d gone away somewhere, or I had somehow upset him and he was avoiding me. The thought bothered me. There was only one thing for it, a note. I scribbled one on a sheet of graph paper saying I hoped he was all right and informing him he had left his contact lenses and was welcome to call for them whenever he wanted. I popped it in his mailbox in the front lobby. I suppose I could have put the lenses in it, but I didn’t want to risk them being scratched.
I kept busy. My engaged to be married sister Joanne brought my mother north from the south to view my new home and they stayed over for a few days. I hadn’t got around to buying a bed for the guest room, so I slept on the sofa while Mum and Jo had use of my bedroom and its double bed.
It was good to see them. Mum wanted to know all about my neighbours, and if they were nice people. I admitted I hadn’t really met any of them. I assumed most of them were professional working people who rose early and returned home late. I gave her the run down as far as I knew it.
There was a lady who looked to be in her forties living in the apartment next door to mine. I’d smiled and nodded at her once in the hall when we were respectively fumbling with our door keys. We hadn’t spoken, English reserve and all that.
There was a young couple at the end of my floor with a new baby boy or at least I assumed it was a couple, and young. I hadn’t set eyes on them. I knew there was definitely a baby boy, and he was new, because I had witnessed a floral arrangement adorned
with a huge blue balloon being delivered to their door by a local florist. The balloon made the announcement in sparkling silver letters. I could hear the baby crying sometimes in the middle of the night when I lay sleepless.
I told them about downstairs Dee-Dee, but not in any great detail and certainly nothing about his mother. Predictably, news of another gay man living in the same building brought a speculative light to mum and Jo’s eyes. They were always hoping for me to ‘get settled’ with someone. I keep telling them I’m not a settling kind of guy, but they don’t listen.
Mum hopes I’ll turn straight and opt to settle down with a girl (maternal quote: not because there’s anything wrong with being gay, love, because there certainly isn’t, only, straight men seem to find love easier than gay men. I want you to be happy, Simon, loaded pause, and grandchildren would be nice.) Unlike my downstairs neighbour, disappearing Dee-Dee, I was one hundred percent gay so mum’s hope was a forlorn one. There was no corner of my personality reserved for holidaying with women. I felt a bit guilty about the grandchildren thing, but Jo would just have to come up trumps in that respect.
Jo offered her opinion on my change of location.
“At least you did the right thing by moving and putting some decent miles between you and him. It was about time. Maybe you’ll finally get over him now.”
By him she meant James. I spoke firmly. “Make a note, Jo. There was nothing to get over. We were friends, okay, we still are. I moved because I wanted a place of my own, that’s all.”
Jo and mum exchanged a look I knew well. It signalled a good moment to make a cup of tea. Once the tea was made and being drunk I turned the conversation to ears, my ears and my sudden discovery they were pointed, like an elf’s. Jo reminded me of something I’d completely forgotten.
“We know.” She rolled her eyes. “Good grief, Simon. I can’t believe you don’t remember I used to call you pixie lugs when you were little, until mum told me not to in case it gave you a complex.”
“You used to call me loads of names, how am I meant to remember only of them. You were a horrible kid.”
“So were you. You put my favourite Barbie doll down the toilet.”
“Only because you gave my Action Man to next door’s dog. It bit his head off.”
“No bickering please. We’re here to have fun not fight. Be friends or I’ll get cross.” Mum wagged a maternal finger between us and we grinned at each other.
“Seriously, Simes. You should find yourself a man, someone to spend your life with.”
“I’m not a nesting type, Jo.”
“So you say, and say. Spare me the mantra. I don’t believe it and neither do you, if you were honest with yourself. You’ve always had a blind side.”
I reiterated. “I’m happy being single. Life is less complicated.”
“Lonely though,” said mum, sadly, “especially as you get older.”
“It’s not too late, mum,” said Jo with spirit. “I keep telling you, join a dating agency. There’s plenty that cater for mature people, and,” she turned to me, “gay people.”
It was the turn of mum and I to exchange looks. She’s bossy, my sister.
When mum and sis left to return home I packed a few things and set off to do some visiting of my own, motoring to Ormskirk, a little market town close to Edge Hill University where I’d done my teacher training and where I’d made some good friends, especially those I was visiting. Flame haired Vicky and her Celtic Ian were another ‘love story’ in the telling. They’d met on their first day at university. Something clicked and they’d been together ever since. They’d stayed in the Ormskirk area after graduating and got jobs at the same school. They were happily Mr and Mrs, only without benefit of clergy. Marriage would come later they said, when they had kids.
I admired their confidence about the longevity of their relationship. So many relationships fall apart. They don’t come with guarantees. My dad left my mother after almost nine years of marriage, and consequently left my sister and me as well. He went off to find himself, which meant he was lost to us. I was eight when he walked out and Jo was six. We never saw him again. It seems we weren’t important enough for him to want to stay in touch with us. He broke three hearts and never looked back.
I rolled my eyes and made a face when inevitably, over dinner on the first evening of my visit, Vicky asked if I was dating anyone special. I said no, because I wasn’t looking to date anyone, special or otherwise. I was perfectly content as a single man and was thinking of taking out a big ad in a national newspaper announcing the fact, if only to keep people off my case.
She scolded. “You may not be looking, but that doesn’t mean you won’t be found. The One is out there somewhere, Sime. He’ll find you and unlike that last boyfriend of yours he won’t keep you dangling on a string for three years before marrying someone else.” Her fair skin flushed with anger. “The cruel rotten bastard!”
I groaned. “How many times do I have to tell you? James was not my boyfriend.”
“You slept with him, lots.”
Not for the first time I heartily regretted the drunken confession I’d made on a New Year’s Eve two years earlier when playing a silly game of truth or dare with Ian and Vicky. I’d tried to explain more than once that having sex with a person didn’t necessarily mean you also had a romantic attachment to them. Only societal convention demanded sex had to be part of an emotional bundle.
“James is a friend, Vic, just a friend. It’s all he ever was. There was no romance. It was a convenient adult arrangement that suited us both.”
Vicky was nothing if not tenacious. “Suited him you mean, until someone better came along.”
“Better! Well, thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“You know what I mean.” She poked her tongue out at me.
“Yeah, okay.” I laughed. “Listen. We were never a couple, so he was perfectly entitled to marry Kye. I’m happy for him, really, for both of them. They suit each other.”
Picking up his wine glass Ian proposed a toast. “To true love,” he winked at me, “may it find you, whether you want it to or not.”
Later, as I helped him wash up, he said, “dolls just don’t get that guys can do sex without emotional involvement. It’s against their nature, or how their natures have been socially conditioned. Vic is convinced you were in love with James and he used the fact to use you for as long as it suited him. She thinks you’re still in love with him.”
“I’ve never been in love with anyone. I don’t intend to be in love with anyone and I don’t fancy your chances of living if Vicky ever hears you call her a socially conditioned doll. She’ll put your balls in a net and hang them out for the birds to feast on.”
I rubbed a red checked tea towel around a red checked plate. “James didn’t use me. We used each other in an agreed symbiotic way. It was good while it lasted and we’re still good as friends.”
“If he’d asked you to be his partner instead of Kye, would you have said yes?”
“It’s an irrelevant question.”
“Only because you want it to be.” Ian tipped away the washing up suds, dried his hands and patted me on the shoulder. “Come on, let’s go join my beautiful dolly bird before she finishes all the wine. You know what she’s like when she has too much wine. It inflames her passions. I won’t get any sleep tonight.”
“You hope, and anyway, since when have you been interested in sleep? You must be getting old.”
“We’re all getting old and at least I’ve got someone to grow old with. What are you going to do when the sap dries and the days stretch out in retirement?”
“Move in with you and Vicky so I can watch you bickering about who left the cap off the denture cleaner bottle.” I ouched and laughed as he dug me in the ribs.
“You need someone, Simon, someone to love, and for your information you can’t decide whether or not to fall in love. It happens without your permission.”
“To the weak willed maybe, but not t
o me.” I dodged another dig in the ribs.
Chapter Seven
On the journey home from Ormskirk on Friday afternoon the weather changed in typical fashion. Summer in England isn’t a season as such. It’s more a series of interludes between downpours. The clouds thickened, changing the sky from blue to grey. Water drops began to fleck the car windscreen like shimmering microcosms. By the time I parked up at home they’d expanded and blended and rain was flowing steadily down. Turning off the engine I sat for a few moments listening to it fall on the car roof. There was no wind to drive and antagonise it. It fell under its own power and at its own pace. It was rhythmic and soothing. Dee-Dee crept to mind, and not for the first time. Considering I’d only met him once I seemed to think of him a lot. His gentle eccentricity stayed in the mind.
Getting out of the car I walked slowly towards the bakery, allowing the rain to soak me instead of hurrying through it. The cool moisture felt good against my hot skin. I smiled. Suddenly Dee-Dee’s notion of feeling the rain speak didn’t seem so odd after all. I didn’t exactly hear poetry, but I did feel some kind of elemental connection.
I paused in the rear lobby, looking through the fire doors at the broad corridor beyond, where Dee-Dee lived. He might be home, and hankering after his missing lenses. Perhaps he’d called at my place while I’d been away? I pushed open the safety doors.
There was no reply. I knocked and waited and knocked again, but the panelled door of apartment numero uno remained shut tight. I turned away and then stepped back, giving a small gasp of fright as I came face to face with Dee-Dee. I hadn’t heard him approach. There was another reason for the fright. He was wearing contacts that blacked out his eyes entirely, making them look like empty holes in his face. The effect was alien and unsettling.
“Hello?” He delivered the salutation in a voice devoid of enthusiasm.
“Hello.” I smiled, but he didn’t smile back. He looked tired, damp and dishevelled, dirty in fact. His tee and denim cut offs were covered in stains. They were the same he’d been wearing the day I first met him and they didn’t look as if they’d been washed since. At least he’d found and was wearing his shoes, a pair of shabby canvas deck shoes with a small hole in the top right toe. “You left your contact lenses at my place.”
