by M. C. Adams
‘We shouldn’t be out getting wasted,’ Klein continues. ‘We should be figuring out what we’re going to do about this mess we’re in. Do you think if I just agree to pay the money then Grant will leave us alone? Problem is, most of that money is legally Charlotte’s now that I’ve got the house. The rest of my money is tied up in assets, and I don’t have time to sell any properties…’
‘Don’t worry,’ I say, giving him a kiss on the cheek and then wincing because my jawbone just brushed his and it’s really fucking sore right now. ‘Follow me.’
I take Klein’s hand and lead him over the road. I’m relieved to see that Samson still works on the door, and his eyes light up when he sees me.
‘Oh my days! Hunts! Where you been at, boy? You’s lookin’ peng. Except for that bruise. Wah’gwan?’
‘I’m fine. Just ran into a rude boy who thought he was swag,’ I say.
I look at Klein. He looks totally confused, as if we’re talking a different language. We probably are, actually. Samson uses more London slang than anyone I know, and when I’m around him, it always rubs off on me too.
‘You should get the feds on him, blood,’ he says.
‘I tried,’ I shrug. ‘Feds don’t wanna know. It’s fucking dred, man. So I thought I’d turn to my fam.’
Samson sucks in his cheeks and nods. ‘Sick. What you want me to do, Hunts? You got beef wiv someone, I can get the boys together. Got some real tonk gents workin’ here since you left.’
I spit on my hand, and he does the same, and we shake. ‘By the way,’ I say, ‘this Klein.’
‘He your hubby, yeah?’
I nod.
Klein smiles politely, but Samson goes in for a giant bear hug with him. ‘You’s a lucky man, Klein,’ he says. Hunts is da best.’
‘Yes,’ says Klein, with a more genuine grin now. ‘He really is the best. My boyfriend is the best. I’m gay.’
I laugh and give Klein a hug myself now.
‘That was amazing,’ I whisper in his ear. ‘You just came out.’
‘I know,’ he whispers back. ‘It felt good.’
Samson looks at Klein and then at me. It’s his turn to look confused now. ‘Er, yeah, me too, bruv,’ he says. ‘I’m gay too. Nice one.’ He laughs nervously.
‘He just came out,’ I explain to Samson. ‘Right then. To you.’
‘Is it? Oh my days, that’s jokes!’ shouts Samson. ‘Right, fuck this, people. Get your behinds in that club right now and put a drink on my tab, yeah? And give each other some lips. Fuck’s sake!’
Klein looks at me, laughing, and I kiss him on the lips, running my fingers through his beautiful blonde hair, inhaling his vanilla and lemon scent.
‘I’m proud of you,’ I say. ‘Now come on, let’s go in for a drink before we move on. There’s more planning I need to do, but for now, I want to celebrate this moment.’
‘It’s nothing really,’ Klein says, blushing. ‘I just said I’m gay to one person. At a gay bar in Soho. It’s not quite the same as shouting it from the rooftops, is it?’
‘The night is young,’ I say, laughing. ‘Maybe we’ll find you a rooftop later. But you know what? It doesn’t matter. Saying it for the first time is what matters. You’ve done it. You’ve told your inner truth in public. I love it.’
I turn to Samson now, with a more serious look on my face. ‘Thanks, Samson,’ I say. ‘I’m gonna need you and as many tonk guys as you can get together. Saturday night. This guy means fucking serious business. I’ll text you the deets.’
Samson nods, patting me on the back as Klein and I head down the stairs into the club.
‘What does tonk mean?’ Klein asks. ‘What does any of what you two were saying mean?’
‘Basically, Samson is going to help us. It’s all part of my plan. We’re gathering a crew together, Klein. We’re getting the boldest and the best from all the nightclubs I’ve ever worked at. Real tough dudes. That’s our mission tonight. We’re going to pay a visit to them all, one by one, and find people to join us. And then we’re going to set upon that evil bastard.’
‘You really think that’ll work? Getting your bouncer friends to… what? Attack him?’
‘God no. We’re not going to hurt him. It’s just… well, he might have connections in all sorts of communities. But I can guarantee he doesn’t have any in my community. The LGBTQ+ community. And us guys stick together. Power of numbers, you know? We’re going to make him see sense… Peacefully.’
‘But how?’
‘Men like Samson know what they’re doing. You saw how big and strong he is. Some of these guys even have military backgrounds. Then there’s Tyson – one of my best friend’s boyfriends, an actual Kickboxing black belt. We’ll be ready for him. Okay?’
Klein shrugs as we walk up to the bar. The music is loud, but not so loud that we can’t continue our conversation. Right now, it’s Lady Gaga’s ‘Born This Way’.
‘Well, I can’t think of a better plan right now,’ says Klein. ‘Obviously, I’ll reimburse these people for all their help. I just… wish there was something else I could do. It’s not even really about the money, you know? I’d give the entire lot away if it was to the right cause. Sometimes I wish I could just get shot of it all. But giving it to him… who knows what that awful man would spend that kind of cash on? It’s unthinkable.’
‘Yeah. And you getting your eye gouged out is unthinkable too. So let me handle the plan, okay? Tonight, we put together a kick-ass team. Tomorrow, I’ll sort the rest.’
‘The rest?’
‘Setting up your house. You know, so we’re ready.’
‘Should I be worried about this?’
I shake my head. ‘I’ve got it all under control.’
‘You’re crazy, Hunter. But I like you.’
It’s early, and the club is still relatively quiet. No pushy antics are needed to get served at the bar tonight. And, just for a treat, for Klein, I order champagne.
‘No, wait,’ Klein says. ‘I’ll have a beer tonight. Like the first night we met. Just… don’t let me drink four pints again. We know that three is my limit now, don’t we?’
I order us pints, then we head through the blindingly white club interior over to a dark corner and put our drinks on the table.
‘I’ve had it with fucking bullies,’ I tell Klein. ‘My dad. Your ex-wife. Now this prick. Fucking assholes.’
‘Hey, that gives me an idea,’ Klein says. ‘Charlotte knows some nasty people. She sent that person round in the middle of the night to scare me. Why don’t I see if she could help?’
‘Why would that arse-monkey help you?’
Klein sighs. ‘Well, it couldn’t hurt to ask, anyway. I was going to deliver the news about being married via my lawyer tomorrow, now that it’s all wrapped up. But perhaps I’ll just do it in person.’
‘I don’t know…’
It’s totally ridiculous, but the thought of Klein and Charlotte sitting in the same room together makes me feel weirdly jealous. Those guys were married for years. They have some serious history. What if Klein realises this has all been a terrible mistake?
‘Look, we’ll carry out your plan as well, Hunter,’ says Klein. ‘It’s just… we’ve got to explore every option.’
‘Fine,’ I say. ‘Just don’t go falling in love with her again.’
Klein smiles. ‘I never loved her in the first place, Hunter. Not passionately. Not like this.’
The song ends as Klein looks deep into my eyes.
Is he saying what I think he’s saying?
13
KLEIN
* * *
I’m glad I’ve arranged to meet Charlotte in a public place, just in case things go awry, but I probably should have thought more carefully about the venue.
I suggested we meet at the Tate Modern. It’s hard to raise your voices in an art gallery — and besides, Charlotte hates art and I like it, so it feels like ‘my territory’, which maybe gives me the upper hand.
B
ut as I approach the industrial, red-brick building, I can’t help my gaze shifting off to the right, to the iconic Oxo Tower, just five-hundred metres or so along the Thames. It’s the place where Charlotte and I went on our first date: in the restaurant up on the eighth floor, overlooking the whole city.
It’s not like it was especially romantic or anything. In fact, our conversation was awkward and stumbling. We’d been introduced via a friend of a friend, and we didn’t even know what the other one looked like before they showed up. I was a little disappointed by Charlotte’s drab appearance, but she’d been described by a friend as dependable, and after a couple of bad experiences, dependable was what I was after. Of course, the bitter irony is that dependable was not at all what she turned out to be.
Still… it’s set me free. And for that, I am thankful.
I enter the gallery and head for Room Two of the Start Display. It’s free to go into these rooms, and, as much as I still have some money to spare right now, I hardly want to pay to see Charlotte.
I chose to meet her in this room in particular because it’s got some of my favourite artworks in the whole gallery in it… ‘The Snail’ by Matisse, ‘Moonlight and Lamplight’ by Winifred Nicholson, and then that beautiful block of blue, ‘IKB 79’ by Yves Klein. One day, I’d like to design a house with that incredible colour in mind.
I look at the people in the room, all wearing coats and hats, their faces staring intently at artworks. It’s hard trying to pick Charlotte out of this crowd.
She always used to wear a nasty old khaki duffle coat that she’s had since she was twenty-one. That thing used to really smell, especially after she’d been out in the rain. But she said it had sentimental value, so unfortunately, I never got her to part with it. No sign of that coat in here today, though.
A figure to my right fidgets, and there’s something about the way she’s holding her hand that makes me instantly realise it’s Charlotte. She was always forgetting her glasses when she went out, and she has this slightly annoying habit of curling her thumb and forefinger into a tight ring, and then looking through the hole as though it was a monocle. She always used to tell me that it helped her see better, but I used to think she did it to wind me up. Now, though, she’s standing here on her own, starting at a small, white, till receipt that’s stuck to the wall, and she’s squinting at it through the hole in her fingers.
I walk closer, the low heels of my Oxford’s clacking on the polished floor, making that very slight echo that you get in galleries such as this. Clearly, it alerts Charlotte to my presence, and she turns around to look at me, her hand falling away from her eye.
‘Oh. It’s you. Hello.’
‘Hello, Charlotte.’
She’s looking old — so much older than she did just a few months ago. Her grey eyes have deep, wrinkled bags under them, and her mouth is thin and down-turned. For that moment, I feel something like concern bloom in my chest. She shouldn’t be looking this tired.
‘Kleineman,’ she says.
I wince, hearing her using my full name like that. I hate my real name. My mother was a quarter German, and gave me the name as a nod to her heritage, but I got bullied mercilessly for it at school. Little Man! the kids would shout. It was only later, once I started art college, that I took on the name of the American fashion designer, Calvin Klein. Everyone at art college found it quirky and cool, I think, but once I left, I regretted it a bit. Give me a name like John or Thomas any day of the week. There’s so much to live up to when your name promises so much.
‘I want you to know,’ I say quietly, aware that sound carries very well — too well — in a place like this. ‘I want you to know that I’m not here because I’ve missed you.’
‘Of course not,’ says Charlotte, taken aback. ‘Why would you have done? We were terrible together.’
‘We were? I mean. Yes. We were… Is that why you cheated on me?’
Charlotte sighs. ‘Are we really going to rake over the past all over again? I explained why I did it at the time. Things between us had grown… stale. Plus, I wanted to explore my sexuality.’
‘How is your fresh young teenager, by the way?’
‘If you’re talking about Kitty, she’s… fine.’
‘Must be an interesting change, having gone from my mansion to her one-bed place in Shoreditch.’ I’m being a bitch now, but I don’t care. I’ve saved up this anger for so long, and now, after everything Charlotte has done to me in the past few weeks — spray-painting my front gates, sending a man into my bedroom to threaten me — I’m going to be as harsh as I like.
‘You seem to know a lot about my private domestic arrangements,’ says Charlotte.
‘And you, Charlotte,’ I say, ‘don’t know nearly as much as you think about mine.’
‘Oh really?’
I leave Charlotte waiting to find out more, looking at the artwork on the wall in front of us. ‘Interesting thing about this receipt,’ I say, ‘is it’s called “Monochrome Till Receipt (White)”, but it’s printed on yellowing paper. The items on the list, though, the things that have been run through the till — they’re all white. White flour. Milk. Cotton wool. Sugar.’
‘That’s what it says, does it? I was having trouble without my glasses…’ Charlotte looks at the receipt again, then turns away. ‘Never understood the appeal of modern art. Just don’t get what’s so clever about it.’
‘And you say I’m the boring one,’ I say. ‘Come on, then. Let’s stroll. It’s a little hard to talk in here without disturbing everyone, anyway. Let’s go for a walk along the Thames.’
‘Just as long as you don’t push me in it, Kleineman.’
We leave the Tate — I’ll have to come back and explore the artworks another time. Maybe Hunter would like to come with me? Although I’m starting to sense that a lot of the places we’ve been so far, aside from last night’s gay clubs — not that we were really on a date last night, per se — have been my idea. Five-star hotels. The Lake District. Paris. Maybe it’s Hunter’s turn to choose. Or we should start to find common ground more often.
There must be places we’re both passionate about going. There’s so much for me to yet discover about him. I just hope that this business with Grant isn’t about to put a nasty end to all our hopes and dreams. And I feel sorry to have brought Hunter into my life at such a chaotic time.
‘Let’s go this way,’ I say, steering Charlotte in the opposite direction to the Oxo Tower. Don’t want to look like I brought her here to reminisce, because I certainly didn’t.
We follow the course of the river for a while, and then I begin to speak.
‘Listen,’ I say. ‘I’ve got something to tell you. But before I do, I’d like an apology.’
‘I’ve already apologised to you repeatedly. I shouldn’t have cheated on you, and I’m sorry. I regret it, I really do. Not because it ruined our relationship. Our relationship was already dead. And that’s no-one’s fault. We just weren’t right for each other.’
‘You called me boring,’ I say.
‘I was looking for excuses, to get myself off the hook. I’m sorry about that. I really am. You’re not boring, Klein. Look at you. You’re one of the most successful architects working in the United Kingdom. You’re attractive, you’re…’
‘You’re not trying to get back with me, are you, Charlotte?’
‘God, no. No offence to you, Klein. There was just no chemistry.’
‘Seems like the perfect formula for you is young, with massive tits.’
Charlotte grimaces.
Even as I say this, I can’t help wondering for a brief moment if I’m the same. I mean, Hunter’s younger than me… and he’s got a sensational body. But no… it’s completely different. Hunter is my soulmate. There’s so much more to him than how he looks. Even if he is gorgeous.
‘Let’s get back on track,’ I say. ‘I don’t want an apology for you cheating on me, Charlotte. I want you to say sorry for trying to scare the living daylights out of me.
And vandalising my property.’
‘Excuse me?’ She looks genuinely shocked.
‘All those shadowy figures, hanging around outside the house late at night. And then you put one of them in my bedroom. And then you spray-painted that —’
‘Hang on, hang on, I did what? That wasn’t me! What are you talking about?’
‘The man who crept into my room in the dead of night to threaten me?’
‘Jesus, Kleineman, are you okay? What happened?’ Charlotte has stopped walking now. His face is pale and he looks genuinely horrified.
‘I… you mean you haven’t been trying to scare me into giving you the house?’
Charlotte shakes her head. ‘No. The house is yours. I mean, we wrote that silly old thing into our prenuptial agreement about whoever gets married first getting to have it, but… you designed it. After I did… what I did… you know, cheated on you,’ she swallows, clearly not relishing having to say those words out loud, ‘I said some stupid things. I said I had a right to live in the house. But I was just angry about having been caught like that. Angry at myself really. I felt ashamed. And guilty.’
‘So you haven’t been trying to scare me off the property?’
My hand flies to my mouth as I realise how stupid I’ve been. Of course. It was Grant all along. Grant has been watching me, scaring me, threatening me. Charlotte — poor, dumb Charlotte — had nothing to do with it.
I begin to laugh softly now, as I realise what I’ve done.
‘What is it?’ Charlotte asks. ‘What’s so funny?’
‘I was coming here to tell you that I’m married. I got married so that I could keep the house.’
‘You did? Congratulations!’
‘No. I mean. To a stranger. Just for the contract.’
Charlotte whistles. ‘Jeez. Well played, Klein. I mean, you were the only one playing, but still… a bold move. Well played.’
‘And, I actually did something rather out-there, because I wanted you to know how interesting I am.’
I look across the Thames, trying to find the right words. I watch pigeons flying over the water, and a small boat carrying a bunch of tourists under an ornate bridge. I feel as though I’m about to say the scariest thing I’ve ever said in all my life.
