Quinn

Quinn

Nexis Pas

© 2009 by the author

Nexis Pas asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

The man’s gaze lingered on Owen. He had stopped suddenly on the busy pavement, forcing the office workers streaming out of the nearby buildings to part and walk around him. Several of them glanced in the Owen’s direction to see what had attracted the man’s attention. Owen shifted uneasily in the queue and looked down the street to see if the bus was coming. He hoped no one he knew was witnessing the encounter. Owen tried not to look, but his eyes kept shifting toward the man to see if he was still staring. The man wasn’t half-bad looking, Owen decided. Not good enough to go with, but not bad. Certainly presentable enough to make his desire for Owen worth having. The man’s mouth opened slightly, and the tip of his tongue flickered over his lips. He kept his eyes on Owen’s face, willing Owen to make contact, to admit that Owen was as interested in him as he was in Owen.

The man was rocking back and forth on his feet now, his hand smoothing his tie against his chest. He glanced around at the flow of pedestrians as if looking for an opening so that he could close the gap separating him from Owen. He tilted his chin slightly and jerked it in the direction he had been headed when he stopped to look at Owen, inviting Owen to join him. Now he expects me to proposition him, thought Owen. He’s already in mid-fantasy about me, some fantasy about my wanting him. Owen grew suddenly disgusted with the encounter and pointedly turned around, breaking contact with the man.

That happened so often now. Owen would be become aware that someone, usually a man, was staring at him. He had been the focus of attention before, the looks that darted his way whenever he was in public. They had simply been a recognition of his appearance. He had received such glances since he had been a child and grown used to them. They were so common that he would have noticed them only if he had not received those brief moments of homage. He was handsome, people looked, that was only natural.

But it was different now. His cool stare challenged passersby from larger-than-life-size posters on the walls of bus shelters and the windows of upscale men’s shops, his muscled body escaping total nudity only by the few square inches of cloth hiding his groin, a few square inches that did nothing to hide the fact that he was male. The same images demanded attention from the pages of glossy magazines. There were even montages of his pictures available on YouTube, with quite explicit comments detailing what certain viewers wanted from him or wanted to do to him.

Publicly Owen complained about the attention, but occasionally, to himself, he admitted that he liked it. It was after all a form of flattery, even though there were times when it was an inconvenience to be known as the Quinn Man, the model for Quinn’s new line of underwear. The trademark x-shaped white bands highlighting his groin focussed the mind on that part of his body—‘X marks the spot,’ one of the photographer’s assistants had remarked to general groans during one of the photo sessions. There were times when he felt the heat of others’ focus on his crotch now, as if they could see the X through his trousers.

When Owen signed the contracts, he had been elated at being chosen. He hadn’t thought much about the consequences of posing for the pictures, of becoming this season’s Quinn Man. He hadn’t anticipated the loss of privacy that the ad campaign would bring. His pictures saturated public spaces, and everyone seemed to have seen them and to recognise him instantly. The slight smile on his lips and the hint of amused self-mockery in his eyes seemed to invite interest and promise accessibility to those who wanted it. Most assumed they had as much a right to stare at him as they had at his picture. Many thought he owed them more, to be as available physically as he was visually. The attention had become even more blatant in the past month, since the second series of pictures had started to appear.

It had seemed a harmless lark the time. Connor had told him of a photographer—Jimmy—who had hired him and was looking for another young man, someone who was ‘handsome but didn’t look like a model’ for a series of ads for a new line of casual clothes. Owen had gone for an interview on a whim. He was curious to see how the photographer would respond to his looks and if Jimmy would like him well enough to want him to appear in ads. Jimmy did. He offered Owen 200 pounds for a day’s work. Owen signed the release forms without bothering to read them.

Early one sunny Saturday morning, one of Jimmy’s assistants had picked Connor and Owen up in his van. They spent the day being photographed in the grounds of large country house in Essex. Jimmy posed them together and alone. The day was more tedious than Owen had expected. There were long stretches of time when they stood around trying to remain still so that the clothes wouldn’t get wrinkled or disarranged while Jimmy and the others measured distances and checked gauges and settings. These would be followed by frantic minutes of posing while Jimmy snapped hundreds of shots and shouted out directions. ‘Look over my right shoulder.’ ‘Turn your head slightly to the left.’ ‘Lower your chin just a tad.’ But it had been an easy 200 quid.

Owen’s favourite image was one of himself leaning against a tree. He was looking into the camera, his eyes frankly appraising the viewer, a slight smile on his face. The T-shirt he was wearing hugged his body, and it was clear that he was well muscled. What wasn’t apparent in the picture was that the Jimmy’s assistant had pinned the shirt in the back so that it clung to his torso. The pins were scratching his back when the shots in that sequence were taken.

The photographs had appeared online and in print ads. Several of his friends told him that they had seen them. A friend of his mother’s brought them to her attention and she rang up wanting to know why he hadn’t let her know beforehand. She would have bought copies of all the papers. He asked Jimmy for copies of the photographs to send her but was told that the company whose clothes he was modelling owned the photos and didn’t permit their distribution. It didn’t occur to Owen until later than he no longer controlled his image.

The attention died as quickly as it had flared. Two months later, Jimmy called again and asked if he would model for another series of shots—this time for underwear. The payment was higher this time, 350 pounds for a day’s work. He also had to have his body shaved and then waxed. To his chagrin, the ‘hair sculptor’ left a carefully trimmed patch just above his cock. He also had to spend several hours over the course of a week in a tanning salon getting an all-over tan.

The morning of the shoot, the hair sculptor had given him a touch-up trim. When she had finished, Jimmy and several of his crew, as well as a representative of the manufacturer and people from the ad agency, had come in and inspected the results. They discussed his body dispassionately as if it were no more than a commodity and a frame for selling underwear. The few blemishes they found were quickly covered with make-up. The young woman who did it had studied his skin carefully and then selected the concealer from a large case of cosmetics.

The soft bristles of the brush tickled and he giggled, more from embarrassment than anything else. A table piled with underwear in his size was off to one side out of the range of the set-up for the camera. He soon got used to being naked and changing from one set of underwear to the next in full view of everyone. There were many more people this time. The drawing room of an old house had been rented for the occasion. A half-dozen other models, both men and women, lounged about on sofas and chairs or stood before a fireplace. The men were wearing evening clothes, and the women formal gowns. Owen was the only person less than fully dressed. He wore only underpants in various styles, briefs, bikinis, thongs. He stood in the centre of the group, holding a cocktail glass filled with water and a skewered olive, and pretending to hold an animated conversation with the others.

Several of the other models were acting students, and they turned the shoot into a game. Each tried to outdo the others in making salacious remarks about Owen’s body while maintaining the charade of an elegant cocktail party and pretending that the nearly naked man in their midst was nothing unusual.

Owen’s body was the subject of constant primping to make it less shiny, to make it more shiny, to add highlights, to done down highlights. It was hot under the lights, and at one point, someone used cotton wool to soak up the sweat on this forehead. The next second another person stepped forward and sprayed his body with water to make it look as if he had been sweating. He smiled, he frowned, he tried to look sexy. Jimmy kept up a steady stream of instructions telling him where to look and what expression to have on his face.

The first few minutes he had felt uneasy about being the only naked person, but once the others turned it into a comedy, he relaxed and started playing the game as well. The day passed quickly. Although Owen would not see the results until later, the humorous banter came across. Despite the incongruity of a nearly naked man in the midst of a crowd of fully dressed people, the group looked as if they were enjoying themselves. After the session, a group of the others had invited him to go to a pub with them. Owen had ended up in bed with one of them.

Three weeks later Jeremy had called and invited him to his studio to meet with the advertising people. They had offered him a contract to be the Quinn Man for the next six months. The sum offered was more than double his yearly income, all for a few day’s work. The first series of ads had been variations on the drawing room scene. Owen appeared clothed in only Quinn underwear amid a throng of fully dressed people. A crowd waiting to cross a street on a rainy day, everyone in raincoats and huddled under umbrellas except for Owen. A queue waiting to buy tickets in a train station, businessmen and -women reading folded newspapers, young tourists with backpacks consulting guidebooks, and Owen wearing nothing but a red bikini brief and an expression of impatience at the slow speed of the line. A crowd in the fruit and vegetable section of a supermarket, harried mothers trying to shop and keep track of toddlers at the same time, as Owen looked askance at the bunch of bananas he was holding in one hand.

There were eighteen such shots in all. In each shot, the background and the other people had been manipulated to appear in only black-and-white. The only colour in the image was Owen and the bold logo beneath the picture. ‘Quinn.’ No other word appeared in the pictures. Just ‘Quinn.’

He was identified as the model within hours of the appearance of the first ads. He finally switched off his mobile to get some peace. The second series of shots brought even more attention. This time he was posed alone, on a bed. In the first of the series the sheets and the pillows were unruffled. Owen’s arms were stretched above his head, his right hand lightly grasping his left wrist. The pose opened his body to the camera, making it totally available to the viewer. He smiled a confident invitation. The man in the picture knew that everyone who saw him would want to join him in bed.

In the succeeding shots, the bedclothes became increasingly disarranged. The photographs caught Owen from different angles, but always with his eyes looking directly at the viewer, except in the last image. In the final shot in the series, one of the pillows had tumbled unnoticed to the floor, and the other had been pushed to the far edge of the bed. Owen’s eyes were lidded. He wore only a look of satisfied bliss. A corner of the sheet had been mounded over his crotch, covering the bare minimum needed to avoid censorship. The pair of Quinn briefs he had been wearing in the series lay artfully rumpled next to his exposed hip.

*****

‘Oh, you’re hairy.’ The man who had invited him back to his flat stared at him in dismay. Owen had just unbuttoned his shirt and started pulling it free of his trousers. ‘You’re smooth in the pictures.’

‘Sorry. They remove all my hair for the shoots.’ Owen sighed inwardly. He didn’t have a lot of body hair, just a light fuzz on his chest and stomach. Before the photos had appeared, no one had even mentioned it. Now that he was being compared to the god in the Quinn advertisements, it had become a flaw. ‘I hope it doesn’t bother you.’

Along with the increasing number of bed partners had come an increasing number of complaints that he didn’t live up to the dream in the advertisements. Some were even disappointed to discover he didn’t wear Quinn underwear. His excuse—‘It’s uncomfortable’—offended their image of him. The loose, unfashionable boxer shorts he favoured upset his public.

One man had even noticed that he had a small mole on his abdomen that had been airbrushed out of the pictures. Owen found the proof that the man had studied his photographs that carefully both exhilarating and unnerving. Exhilarating because the man had paid so much attention to his body and unnerving because he had been reduced to an object to be studied.

The other man shook his head. ‘No, I don’t mind.’ But it was clear that he did. Owen’s reality had spoiled his Quinn fantasy. The man rushed the sex and then said pointedly, ‘If you want to use the toilet before you leave, Quinn, it’s through there, off the bedroom.’

That was the thing Owen resented most. He had lost his own name. ‘Quinn’. The name followed him down the street. If he stepped into a pub or a store, he would be greeted with ‘There’s Quinn’. Strangers came up to him and called him that name, never thinking that he might have a name of his own.

The fame also brought benefits, Owen was honest enough with himself to admit that. It wasn’t just the money. He was also well paid with the coin of admiration. He could walk into the busiest club in London and have his pick of partner for the evening. Owen knew it wasn’t himself the chosen one wanted. He wanted to be seen with Owen, to be known as someone Owen had chosen, to have the cachet of his own desirability being recognised by someone everyone found desirable.

Owen would circle the club, acknowledging the salutes of the crowd, meeting eyes, and coolly appraising what was on offer that night. ‘That one, I’ll have that one,’ he would think. He would smile at the one and then stop to chat. The two of them might find themselves disappointed later, when they were alone, but for an hour or two in the club, everyone envied them. And the spark of recognition in the chosen one’s eyes, his delight upon being chosen, and the envy of others—those were enough for Owen.

Occasionally he was rebuffed. A famous singer in a boy band had smiled pleasantly and then said, ‘I have a lover.’ He had pulled another man forward and introduced him to Owen. Owen hadn’t believed him at first, he thought the man was joking. The singer could have anyone he wanted. Granted he wasn’t great-looking, but with his fame he would have been able to get someone far better-looking than himself. Instead he had chosen a rather nondescript man as his partner. The two lovers hadn’t even seemed impressed with the prospect of a threesome when Owen had hinted at the possibility. Owen had felt a twinge of envy for the way they looked at each other, the way they were together in that crowd. There were others like that. Their eyes might linger on Owen, but out of curiosity rather than a desire to possess. Owen wasn’t worth trading for what they already had or what they were waiting for.

Owen decided that he would eventually, when he was old, maybe in his mid-thirties, if his looks had started to fade, find someone to settle down with. But not now. Now there were too many opportunities to play. He would be a fool, he thought, to pass the riches life had to offer for the dull routines of married life and the monotony of the same person. Still, occasionally he found his thoughts drifting to the contentment in the singer’s voice when he had said, ‘I have a lover’.

But there weren’t many public rebuffs. Most of the time, he was successful in getting the partner he wanted. He could put off thinking about the future. And he grew less polite with those who approached him without permission, barely acknowledging their attempts at conversation, his eyes briefly resting on their face before slowly drifting elsewhere. They were not even worth the effort of an explicit refusal, his manner implied. It was, he told himself, what they deserved. The worst were those who had fantasised about him. As soon as they began speaking, it was clear that they had already been with Quinn in their minds. When Owen turned them down, they called him a ‘bitch’ or remarked loudly within his hearing that he was stuck on himself. Even some of the chosen ones got angry when Owen stubbornly resisted becoming the creature they thought they knew. Some waited until after the sex, as they hurriedly dressed, before making their disappointment known. They had wanted the Quinn Man. They didn’t want Owen, and that was increasingly all that he was willing to give them.

*****

‘You could wear dark glasses and a hat and old clothes. I’ve tried that occasionally when I want privacy. If you really want to go unrecognised, I suppose you could grow a beard and get a different haircut, even dye your hair.’ Jason idly turned the pages of a magazine he had picked up from the pile on the coffee table in Owen’s flat. He had listened patiently to Owen’s recital of grievances. Their friendship dated to their childhood and had survived Jason’s rise to fame as a member of the cast of Brighton Beach and Owen’s apotheosis as the Quinn Man.

‘Does that work?’

‘Not really. Maybe if it’s dark. Sometimes I get away with a disguise, and people don’t recognise me. It’s worse when you’re found out. Then the photos appear in the papers with captions like “Jason tries to hide from his fans”. I end up looking like a fool who’s been caught and exposed.’

‘I don’t want to be the one that has to change. I want them to change and stop thinking of me as the Quinn Man. I started chatting a guy up the other night. We were hitting it off, and then I realised he was talking to Quinn, and I lost interest. I went home by myself.’

‘Well, the ads will be over soon enough, won’t they? What is it, another two months and then there’s a new Quinn Man?’

‘Yes, the photos for that have already been shot.’

‘The problem will solve itself then. I don’t mean to be cruel, chum, but you’ll soon become “what’s-his-name?”. That’s even worse than being hounded by fans.’

‘That can’t happen soon enough for me.’

‘Do you really mean that?’ Jason tossed the magazine back on the table and took the next one in the stack. ‘Won’t you miss the attention?’

‘Not at all.’ Owen looked Jason in the eyes and tried to put as much conviction into his voice as he could.

‘Liar.’ Jason smiled at Owen with affection. ‘Why do you have all these magazines with your photos, then? Admit it, you like looking at these pictures. And you like thinking about all the people looking at them and admiring you. Wishing they were you.’

Owen shrugged. ‘Yeah, a bit. How did you know that?’

‘I have files full of pictures of myself. I’m not so bad now, but when I first became known, I was obsessive about collecting everything about myself. When Google started, I eventually had to limit myself to checking just once a day for mentions of my name. Now I try to keep it to once a week. I won’t tell you what I did when YouTube started.’

‘I probably do the same thing. All right, I like being noticed. I just don’t like the other stuff. I just wish they liked me instead of my image.’

‘One goes with the other. Face it, people want you. They have fantasies about you wanting them. Oh, this is my favourite picture of you.’

Owen slid into the seat beside Jason on the sofa. The picture was from the first set that Jimmy had taken, before he had become the Quinn Man. Only his face and the upper part of his body were visible in the picture. It was an ad for the shirt he was wearing. On the left side of the picture, a tree trunk cut diagonally across the image, obscuring one side of his face, its bark a rough contrast to the smoothness of his face.

‘Why that one? It’s not revealing.’

‘You say that as if you’re disappointed that I didn’t chose one of your nude shots.’

Owen slid down slightly and rested his head against Jason’s shoulder. The fabric of Jason’s shirt soft against his cheek. It was warm from Jason’s body. He rubbed his face against it two or three time before coming to rest. ‘Most people like the nudes. They like looking at my body.’

‘They’re okay. Sure I like looking at your body. But I felt I was intruding when I looked at those pictures. I guess I just want a more private view of you. This one, well, I suppose I like it because you look like the Owen I know.’ Jason traced the contour of Owen’s chin in the picture with the tip of a finger. ‘I wish you would look at me like that.’ Jason said that so softly that Owen wasn’t sure that he had heard.

‘What?’

Jason looked away, slightly embarrassed at being found out but equally as glad that he had made his feelings known. ‘Sorry, I have fantasies about you too. Don’t be angry.’

Owen sat up and drew apart from Jason. ‘I’m not angry. Just surprised. You’ve never said anything.’

‘Is it so surprising? I thought . . .’

‘What? What did you think?’

‘That you might know what I feel for you without my having to say anything. I guess I’m afraid that you don’t feel that way about me. That’s why I’ve never said anything. All your boyfriends and dates have always been as good-looking as you, and I thought maybe you feel that I’m not good enough for you.’ Jason finally looked at Owen, the expression on his face willing Owen to deny that statement.

The ache of Jason’s longing hung in the air between them. After a few seconds Owen moved closer again and wrapped his arms around Jason. But he had waited too long. It was a polite embrace where only a passionate one would have answered Jason in the way he wanted to be answered. Owen rubbed his palms up and down Jason’s back in a gesture meant to be comforting rather than arousing. When Jason tried to raise himself up to bring his face level with Owen’s, Owen put a hand on the back of Jason’s head and drew it into his neck. He didn’t want to risk what would follow a kiss. He owed Jason more than what would be at best charity.

Jason gave a slight sob of despair. ‘You’re so beautiful. I love you so much. I’ve wanted you for so long.’ It was, despite the words, an admission of defeat. He pushed himself back from Owen and said, ‘I’d better leave. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have spoken.’ He ran out without looking back.

The magazine had fallen to the floor when Jason stood up. Owen picked it up and looked at his image. ‘You’re so beautiful. I love you.’ A statement of cause and effect. And what if he were not so beautiful, would anyone love him then? There were ugly people who were loved. He had seen them and wondered how they managed to generate such feelings. It was not something he could experience. His looks guaranteed that he was desired for them. Everyone wanted him for his looks, not for what he was inside. Sometimes he wasn’t sure that there was an inside, just the shell that everyone wanted.

‘I wish you would look at me like that,’ Jason had said of this picture. Others read so much into Owen’s all-regarding look of wonderment and pleasure. Some saw Owen’s frank gaze as an invitation for intimacy. Some fantasized an encounter with an understanding friend, the Mr Right everyone wanted. If this were a picture of someone else, Owen speculated, what would I feel? Would I want that person?

‘What do I want?’ he asked himself. Would it be enough to be able to pull Jason forward in answer to someone hitting on him and say, ‘I have a lover’? To say it with pride, the astonishment he felt at his own good fortune apparent to everyone. Would it be worse than what he had now?

He picked up his phone and pressed the keys for Jason’s number as quickly as he could lest he pause to consider what he was doing. The phone rang several times and then the recording cut in with its automatic invitation to leave a message. ‘Come back. Please. As soon as you can.’ Owen pushed the disconnect button and sat there with his mobile in his hand, waiting.

Retirement

I am now scheduled to retire on September 30. My employer decided my services were required for three more months in order to finish several current projects. Under the terms of the early retirement offer, I have to accept the extension. I hope this is the last such demand on my life. I was beginning to plan for my retirement, and I've put off several tasks because I thought I would shortly have plenty of time to do them and in any case would soon need activities to fill my days.

Last Monday we had the usual first-of-the-month office-wide meeting and I was thinking, 'This is the last of these useless exercises I will ever have to attend.' Then it was announced that my tenure had been extended, by the grace of the executive gods, who seemed to have developed a taste for sadistic irony lately. Of all the things I will not miss about working, meetings head the list.

I had even bought a new pair of walking shoes in anticipation of starting my days with long walks as soon as it gets light each morning. Now I have another three months of taking the early train into the city and spending my weekdays in a 'climate-controlled' office and not being able to open a window because of the dirt and noise from the traffic outside.

Among the many things I had planned on doing this summer was putting several hours each day into writing, especially on three longer pieces that have been hanging fire, because I didn't have enough time (or energy after working all day) to devote to them. Each of them exists in outline, and I know what I want to say, and I was looking forward to having the time each day to write a couple thousand words.

So in answer to the latest comment, I will continue to write and post stories. I wish that I had kept up the writing I began as a teenager decades ago and not let the business of making a living interfere so much in my life. The moments when I finished one of the stories that I regard as good have been among the most satisfying of my life, and the reward has been hearing from readers who enjoyed the stories.

Nex

“Time’s Quick-Colored Fuel”

“Time’s Quick-Colored Fuel”

Nexis Pas

© 2009 by the author
Nexis Pas asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

The young whose lips and limbs are time’s quick-colored fuel.
—Babette Deutsch

Dev was gone again when I awoke. That happens frequently now. As we have gotten older, he has become more of a morning person. When both of us were still working, the world’s demands imposed similar schedules on us. But now that we have retired and are free to observe our own hours, he tends to rise even before the first light and I to sleep in.

I seldom register that he is gone until I awake. He is careful not to disturb me. Of course, I don’t wear my hearing aids in bed, and my increasing deafness makes it easy for him to move about without waking me. We are both so familiar with the spartan furnishings of our retirement cottage that we need no light to find our way about in the dark.

Occasionally he has completed his morning walk and returned before I get up. The coffee is made and he is waiting for me when I come downstairs to resume our decades-long conversation. Usually, however, he rambles further afield. Some days, especially when the weather is good, he is gone for three or four hours and doesn’t return till mid-morning. He doesn’t walk far, but he pauses and sits often, lost in his own thoughts. I can see the road from my chair in the front room. Even at a distance, Dev is recognisable. His tall thin figure, slightly stooped now, appears on the crest of the hill and meanders slowly toward our home. He stops often to examine things beside the road, poking at them with his walking stick, or to gaze into the distance.

Eventually he opens the door to the cottage. He hangs his hat and coat on the pegs in the front hall and leans his stick in the corner. He appears in the doorway to the front room and inevitably makes some remark along the lines of ‘You’re finally up. You missed a good walk.’ He says much the same thing every day. I nod and reply, ‘Coffee’s in the carafe.’ He ambles into the kitchen. The chink of his mug being set on the counter will be followed by the sounds of coffee being poured and the spoon against the cup as he adds milk. Then he comes into the front room and takes his seat opposite me and tells me what he saw on his walk or thoughts that occurred to him.

He left the photographs on the table. They were there when I came downstairs. I don’t think I had seen them before. I don’t even remember the occasion on which they were taken. There are three of them, and he had arranged them in a neat row to form a panorama. The remains of what must have been a feast, or what we would have considered a feast in our student days, clutters the top of the table. To judge from our dress, it was an informal dinner outside college. The photos would have been taken in 1961. In the one in the middle, I am the last person on the left. I am talking with someone outside the frame of the picture to my right and smiling and gesturing broadly. Paul is seated to my left. Immediately to his left is Claire Magnuson, the third person in that particular picture. She has pushed her plate out of the way and is leaning forward with her elbows on the table to support her upper body and is speaking animatedly to someone across the table.

Paul has turned in his chair and is leaning backward to see past Claire so that he can talk with the person seated to Claire’s left. His right hand rests on the back of my chair. We were no longer sleeping together by that point, but Paul was still possessive toward me. He always insisted on sitting next to me and was not shy about touching me to let others know he had a claim on me.

The photo on the right is badly framed. A woman’s upper arm is visible on the left side. I know it is Claire’s arm because the sleeve matches the sweater she is wearing in the middle picture. To her left is Jeremy, who is apparently the person Paul is talking to over Claire’s back.

The photo on the left reveals that I was sitting beside Mark. Our heads are tilted toward each other. We are laughing at something and seem oblivious to anyone else. The photographer must have stepped back from the table for this shot. A row of heads and shoulders has appeared on the opposite side of the table, their backs toward the camera. This shot has many more people in it. Beyond me, Paul has turned toward me and has a startled look on his face as if surprised by our laughter. Claire is still leaning forward, but Jeremy has also turned in our direction.

We are so young. If I have identified the time correctly, we would have been 20, 21. It has been decades since I last saw any of the other people in the pictures, other than myself, of course. The face in the picture bears so little resemblance to my current face that I hesitate to lay claim to it as mine. Did I really look like that, or is the identification just wishful thinking on my part? Would anyone who knows me now be able to identify which of these young people I once was?

And what of the happy young lad in the picture? Did he ever imagine that the unruly blond hair cascading over his forehead would shrink to a narrow horseshoe of sparse white hair above his ears, that his fair skin would become mottled with brown spots, that his taut jaw line would sag in dewlaps over his throat? And what of the future he was so blithely positive was his as he sat there laughing with Mark?

I’m not sure I want to see these pictures. I don’t understand why Dev left them for me. He has never owned a camera and seldom greets the prospect of a picture with anything but impatience. One of his sisters insists on taking a photograph every time they meet. Now that she can use her mobile to do so, she records every occasion assiduously and emails the results unbidden to everyone. She even belongs to a photo-sharing website, and pictures of her family and friends are available to anyone who cares to look. Dev, on the other hand, usually greets her offers of pictures with ‘If I can’t remember what someone looks like, then they can’t be important to me. And having a photo won’t change that.’

Years ago, when the people in these photos were important to me, I might have liked something to remember them by. But gradually over the years I have put all those people away. We slipped apart, and I ceased to care about them. My memories of them are like photographs at the bottom of a dusty box.

Except for Mark. Mark, the joy of my youth. I would like that laughter back again. Perhaps that’s why Dev left these pictures for me to see. For the laughter. Does he suspect how much I long for that?


*****

‘Why are you sitting out here? Aren’t you cold?’

‘Here’ was a bench in the back quadrangle of our college. The night sky was heavily overcast, and it felt as if it the rain that had been forecast for early the next morning might fall as sleet or even snow. I turned around to face the speaker. ‘I wanted some fresh air. And I don’t mind the cold.’

The person who had spoken to me apparently did mind it. He wore a heavy coat and had a muffler wrapped around his face and throat. Unusually for that era, he wore a wide-brimmed hat, and his face was in shadow. Another person, similarly dressed, stood about ten feet back. The lighting was bad in that area, and the curtains had been pulled in most of the rooms to shut out the cold and the draughts, making it even darker.

‘It’s Patrick Bateman, isn’t it?’

I still had no idea who was speaking to me. ‘No, my name’s Bernard Lisle,’ I corrected. ‘Patrick Bateman is that very tall man reading chemistry.’

‘Oh, I’m so sorry. You sit at the same table, and I once asked someone who the handsome man was, meaning you. He answered “Patrick Bateman”, obviously thinking it was the other handsome man that interested me. An understandable confusion, since you insist upon sitting together.’ This was said in a light tone and apparently meant to be humorous.

‘Jeremy, I’m going inside. It’s too cold to talk out here.’ The speaker’s companion brushed passed us and headed toward one of the staircases that opened onto the garden.

‘Ah, my master calls. We’re about to have some wine. Could I offer you a glass to make up for my mistake?’

I shook my head. ‘Thanks, but no. I have to get back to work.’

‘Another time, then.’ The speaker, who I had learned was named Jeremy, put his hand to the crown of his hat and lifted it a bare quarter of an inch. ‘Good night.’

And that was the first time I spoke with Jeremy. The second time occurred several days later. I was browsing in a bookstore when someone clapped me on the shoulder and said, ‘Ah, the fresh-air enthusiast. We owe you a drink.’

My face must have betrayed my bewilderment. I recognised the speaker as someone I had seen before in the crowd of faces in hall, but I had no idea who he was. ‘We spoke in the back garden last week. You were sitting outside in the middle of the night in the cold.’

‘Jeremy, Mr Lisle obviously has no idea who you are and apparently doesn’t care. You will have to forgive Jeremy.’ The last was said to me. ‘He has trouble understanding that not everyone knows who he is or wants to know. Now, could we go, Jeremy? Leave Mr Lisle alone.’ The second man didn’t wait for an answer. He walked over to a display of new books on a table and turned his back on us.

‘Oh, I remember.’ The other man’s abruptness jogged my memory. ‘You were wearing a thick scarf and a hat that night. I didn’t see your face.’

‘Well, now that you can see it, what do you think? I’m nowhere near as handsome as you, but still passable, don’t you think? Definitely not the type you would kick out of your bed?’

‘It hardly seems necessary for me to have an opinion since you are supplying them already.’

‘You could confirm them and relieve me of my anxieties.’

‘Yes, I could. But I believe your friend is becoming restless. Perhaps you should attend to him before he tears that book apart.’

‘Oh, Paul? He behaves that way whenever I flirt with anyone. He’s just jealous of you because you are receiving my undivided lust.’ Jeremy was speaking loudly, and several people turned to look at him and then at me.

I lost patience with his silliness, not the least because I felt embarrassed by his all too public attentions, and I spoke more sharply than was my habit in those days. ‘You can assure him that he has no reason to be jealous, none at all. Now I must leave. I have an appointment.’ As I walked past Paul, he winked at me and snorted.


******

‘I hope you weren’t too annoyed with Jeremy.’ The man called Paul stopped me outside the entrance to the porter’s room. ‘He lives his life on a stage of his own making surrounded by applause that only he hears. He can’t understand that others might not wish to bask in the limelight reflecting off him.’ Paul smiled at me sardonically, inviting me to share the joke.

At that moment, I associated him strongly with Jeremy and had no wish to know either of them better. Nor did Paul’s willingness to criticise a friend commend him to me. I had no desire to speak with him on any subject, let alone to discuss his annoying companion. I nodded curtly and then started to walk past him.

‘Jeremy is right about one thing.’ Paul stepped in front of me and blocked my path. ‘You are handsome. He has a good eye for that sort of thing. I should warn you that he has a good track record of getting those he wants.’

‘Does he? Then I must confess that I look forward to spoiling his record.’

‘Don’t underestimate him. I can assure you from personal experience that the rewards of being bedded by him are substantial.’

‘My interests lie elsewhere.’ I stepped around Paul and continued on my way toward the main gate.

‘Oh, I think not.’ Paul confident laughter followed me down the hall.

******

None of which explains why two weeks later I ended up in bed with Paul. It isn’t that Paul chased me or I, him. On the few occasions our paths crossed, he was ironically polite, tipping his hat to me and making some trivial remark about the weather. ‘Lovely weather, Mr Lisle.’ It could be pouring rain, and the weather would be ‘lovely’. And always ‘Mr Lisle’ as if making light of the distance between us. Until one day, he added, ‘Come up to my room.’ And I did.

I’ve always told myself that it was lust, pure and simple. But ‘lust’ isn’t correct. That would imply that I wanted Paul. What I wanted was to get off. I was horny, he was willing. End of story. Except it wasn’t. I think I can honestly say that I didn’t have much interest in Paul personally. I don’t think he had much interest in me either. His reasons, I came to suspect, were much more complicated and owed more to his feelings for Jeremy than anything else. It wasn’t that he was using me to get at Jeremy. That’s too simplistic. More than anything I was a message between the combatants in that long-standing competition. He knew Jeremy well enough to send a signal that would be understood.

‘You’ve known him for a long time, then?’ I was lying on Paul’s bed, my feet propped up on the bedclothes piled up against the footboard, where we had pushed them in our haste. I was still naked. Paul had pulled on trousers and an old sweater after we had finished. He sat on the windowsill smoking a cigarette and blowing the smoke out the open window. I felt cocky enough to quiz Paul about his friendship with Jeremy. We had just had sex, and I thought that implied a certain amount of intimacy and good feeling.

‘Oh, yes, since childhood. Our mothers thought Jeremy and I made suitable playmates for each other. I don’t think they expected us to get on quite in the fashion that we did, but they are at least happy that we have not lowered ourselves to cavorting beneath our class.’

‘You always stuck with your schoolmates from the same class then? But now that I think about it, I’m a year behind you, aren’t I?’

‘Don’t try to be witty, Bernard. And you’re never going to be behind me, always beneath me. That’s your role. Even Jeremy’s never been behind me.’

‘Why don’t you go to bed with Jeremy then?’

‘He gets bored easily and then he gets boring. Jeremy always wants someone new. When he finds someone, he uses him a few times and then he passes him on to me if I want him.’

‘And what do you do with your conquests?’

‘Why are you asking? I didn’t think you were interested in Jeremy. If you like, I can ask him if he still wants you. Now that you’re used goods, however, I suspect that your desirability has dimmed in his eyes. But to answer your question, I don’t get bored as easily as Jeremy. I keep my “conquests” around a bit longer than he does. And you’re the first person he’s wanted and hasn’t had before me. He’s quite entranced by what has happened. He can’t stop talking about it. It’s a novelty for him. So I think I’ll keep you if for no reason other than to keep him fascinated.’

‘You’ve talked about me with him? That’s—’

‘Rude and disgusting. I know. But don’t expect an apology. I went to his room to boast as soon as you left the first time. I told him to look out his window at the bloke who was limping across the quad in pain, trying to keep his sore arse cheeks tight and hoping that he wasn’t bleeding and shitting his pants. He was fascinated by the details of your naiveté. But I assured him that you were a bright lad and a fast study, and that I would soon have you trained and ready for the public loos.’

‘That’s it. I’m leaving. God, you are a pig.’

‘Oh, are its feelings hurt? You didn’t think I allowed you in here because of your personality and intellect, did you? It’s the reputation of having you that I want. My stock’s risen immeasurably since I’ve been seen with you. Fifty points for being sucked by the handsome Bernie Lisle, another hundred for taking his virginity. And, yes, I have told people about that. Your other sock is under the chair, if that’s what you’re hunting for. And don’t forget your book. Maybe someone will see you carrying it and believe we were studying in here. And try to leave quietly. I don’t want the neighbours complaining. Drop by at the same time tomorrow. I’m sure I can find a use for you then.’

I stayed away for three days. Paul’s self-assured assumption that I would tolerate his behaviour had something to do with my return. I wanted him to want me--want me more than he wanted Jeremy at least. I wanted his respect and his desire. That was part of it. I also think I felt that Paul’s contempt was the appropriate punishment for what I was doing. It was easier to have sex with someone who made it clear that sex was all that was involved and that it was a meaningless scratching of an itch. Once I accepted the role he had cast me in, it became much easier to let it become a habit.

I think I was also hoping that Jeremy would become jealous. But he never did. If anything, he regarded the association with amusement. One night he even stayed in the room while Paul took me to his bed. He remained immersed in his book and apparently unaware of what was happening a few feet away. When the three of us were together, Paul and Jeremy usually talked to each other and ignored me. I was a pet, there when wanted and expected to stay out the way when not. They were my introduction to gay sex and gay life. I assumed that their behaviour was normal.

Paul and I had sex two or three times a week for the rest of the year. The night before he left for the summer break, he told me he would not need me when college resumed in the fall. We still continued to see each other socially, however. Once he stopped having sex with me, he began to treat me with less contempt. It was as if, having discarded me, he felt no further imperative to demonstrate my inferiority to himself and to me. Contempt would have given me more importance than I deserved.

*******

I met Mark when we returned for our second year. He had to switch rooms for some reason and ended up on the same staircase as me. Mark stood out for many reasons that attracted my attention. Mostly because he and Dev were always together. And they were always happy. They could sit in the midst of a crowd, and it would be as if no one else were there. Their focus on each other was that strong. I once sat near them and was surprised to find that the subjects they spoke of were so inconsequential. They were so intent that one suspected the problems of the world were being solved.

I was envious of their relationship. They were such good friends, and one sensed the intimacy of their lives. It quickly became what I wanted--to have a friend like that. I didn’t know if they were physically intimate. I found out only much later that they had been. But that didn’t matter to me. It was the ideal of a perfect friendship that attracted me.

Of the two of them, Mark was the more lively one and much more outgoing. Dev was so staid and reserved. I suppose that’s why I singled Mark out. When we were together, he seemed the only person in the world. But it was a very one-sided relationship. I didn’t at all figure in his life with the same intensity and hope that he figured in mine.

It’s odd. I want to forget Paul and Jeremy and wish all that happened undone, but so many episodes involving the two of them remain fresh in my memory. They erupt without apparent cause into my mind in a searing geyser of embarrassment and shame. Yet, I have trouble remembering specific details about Mark. I can’t recall his voice, or anything he ever said to me. At times I can’t even recover his face. He starts to turn toward me and then slips away again. An ideal that won’t survive contact with reality. Colours in the dark. The silence at the end of the song.

The photographs had to have been taken that second year. Paul and Jeremy graduated the following spring and never reappeared. And Mark never returned for our third year.


*****

‘I see that you found the pictures.’ Dev stopped by the table. I had disarranged the pictures when I had picked them up to examine them, and he placed them again in the right order, aligning the edges carefully.

‘I was meant to, wasn’t I? Where did you find them?’

He chuckled in amusement and nodded to confirm that he had left them there for me to see. ‘I was going through a box of old records yesterday, and I found a folder with college papers in it. I must have tossed them in there with the rest of my stuff from the second year as I was packing up and forgot about them.’

‘Do you remember the occasion? I can’t recall why all of us were together. And why aren’t you there?’

‘It was toward the end of the year. I don’t think there was any special reason. We just wanted to be somewhere other than college for a few hours.’

‘We all look so young.’

Dev turned away from me. He walked over to the window and looked out. The light outside was so bright that he was silhouetted against it, and his shadow darkened the room. He paused for a minute or so before speaking again. ‘Do you think about him much?’

Not ‘Do you ever think about him?’ but ‘Do you think about him much?’ I knew who he was talking about. And Dev knew that I thought about him. It had been a shock to see this picture of Mark. That party must have taken place only a few weeks before the accident. ‘Not as much as I used to. It’s strange, but I haven’t thought about Claire or Paul or Jeremy for years, but Mark—he comes to mind quite often. Something happens, and he pops into my mind. But unlike the rest of us, he’s never grown old.’

‘Yes, it’s hard to imagine him grown old. He was always so vibrant. Not like me. I was so serious that I was rushing headlong into middle age already. But then Mark never had a chance to grow old. I suppose that’s why we never think of him that way. You seemed that way to me then, too. Destined to be an eternal youth.’

‘Time has given the lie to that notion. Those photographs made me realise how old I’ve become.’ I gave what was intended to be rueful sigh that simultaneously hoped for a denial of what I was admitting.

Dev turned to face me again but he didn’t say anything. He often does that when he feels the truth would hurt. He can never bring himself to utter the emollient lie, and the most he is willing to do is to remain silent. It took me a long time to learn, not to like, but to respect that habit. Still, there are times when I would prefer the lie.

As usual, Dev’s silence forced me to continue, to fill the voids that so often opened in our conversations. ‘Mark was so alive, and he enjoyed being alive so much. That’s what attracted me. He had found some way to be both gay and happy. After my experiences with Paul, I didn’t think that possible.’

‘Yes, he was happy.’

‘Because of you.’ I remained convinced of that truth. Dev made Mark happy. I’m sure of that.

‘Perhaps. I would like to think that.’ He is even harder on himself than on others. I think that’s one reason that makes his truthfulness, spoken or tacit, bearable—the knowledge that he is even more unforgiving of himself.

‘You know at first I had the impression that he didn’t quite approve of me. It made me try harder to win his regard.’

‘Oh, he didn’t. He didn’t like you at all. He assumed that you would be vain because of your looks, and he thought since you associated with Paul and Jeremy that you would as shallow and insensitive as they were. Then he heard you arguing about some government policy and decided there was more substance to you than he had thought. He told me that he had misjudged you.’

‘I suspected that, but I was never certain.’ I wasn’t quite sure that I welcomed confirmation of my suspicions even after so many years. ‘And what did you think?’

‘I was happy to accept his evaluation. I never thought that someone like you would pay me a moment’s notice. So it didn’t matter what I thought of you. I didn’t think it worth the time and effort to get to know you. Then, too, it was clear that you were interested in Mark, and I was half worried that you would prove attractive to him. So I was watchful and on guard against you and your “schemes”. I said something disparaging about you to Mark one day, trying to turn him against you. He didn’t say anything for a moment, and then he told me not to be silly. I had no reason to be jealous. I didn’t realise until he spoke how transparent my feelings were. At least to him.’

‘I was quite jealous of you. I couldn’t understand what he saw in you. I asked him about it, and he told me that he had won the lottery the first time he played. That he had found the person he was going to spend the rest of life with. Perhaps that was why he was so happy.’

‘It would be a comfort to believe that. Right after he was killed, I had to cling to thoughts like that. That I had made him happy.’

‘Do you ever feel . . . ?’ Once I had broached the subject, I hesitated to discuss it openly. I had wondered about it for years but never found the courage to discuss it with Dev.

‘What?’

‘In the early years, I used to feel him between us. As if he was keeping us from being completely together.’

‘He was. Isn’t that why we went to bed together the first time? Because of him?’

‘That first time I found myself thinking, “These are the lips that once he kissed,/the body that once he held.” I was making love to a ghost. There was always a third person in bed with us. You must have felt it. I hope you didn’t, but you know me too well not to have suspected.’

‘Yes I knew. I also knew when you stopped making love to both of us and began making love to me alone.’

‘Sometimes I still think of him when we’re together. But it’s more a matter of speculating what might have happened to me if he had lived. Where I would be. What I might be doing. I assume the two of you would have remained together, and that I would have never seen you again. I would have had a very different life. A much worse one. I probably would have grown more like Paul and Jeremy and ended up unhappy and wasted.’

‘Mine would have been very different too. Far less rewarding than it’s turned out to be.’

‘I hope you mean that. Why are we having this conversation now? We’ve spoken of Mark before, but never like this.’

‘It’s the pictures. They stirred up thoughts.’

‘It’s odd to see them after all this time. Why did you show them to me now? I would have been happy to remain ignorant of them.’

‘Mark gave them to me at the last minute. You remember, his parents picked him early so that they could make the flight. The person who took them had given him copies, and he asked me to show them to you. I promised him I would. Then when the news came that the plane had gone down, I was in such a hurry to leave that I shoved them into a folder along with everything else. And by the time we next spoke, I had forgotten these three. So I’m fulfilling a promise. That’s one reason.’

‘And the other reasons?’

‘I felt that finally I was ready to know.’

‘My feelings toward Mark, you mean?’ I walked over to him and took one of his hands in mine, interlacing my fingers between his. ‘I loved him. I love you.’ What more need one say if one can truthfully say that? I stared at Dev for a few seconds and then changed the subject. ‘You still haven’t told me where you were. Were you the photographer?’

‘No. I was sitting on the other side of Mark.’

‘A pity there’s no picture of that.’

‘Oh there was. It showed the three of us. Both of us were turned toward you, looking at you and laughing at something you’d just said.’

‘What happened to it? I would love to see it.’

‘After Mark died, I carried it with me everywhere. It was the last picture of him. I looked at it so much that it became creased and the edges were ragged. Even after we started living together, I kept it. I took it out every day. And then one day, I realised that it was only an image. That the reality behind the image no longer existed. So I burned it.’

I had to stop myself from telling Dev that I wished he hadn’t done that. But that would have served no purpose. He had burned the photo, and there was no going back on that. There had been enough truth for one morning. I pointed at the row on the table. ‘Should we do that with the rest of these? Finally put paid to the remnants of our youth?’

‘That would be too dramatic. It would give them more meaning that they deserve. They’re just tokens. No more meaningful than a seashell you find on the beach and bring home hoping that it will remind you of a pleasant hour.’

‘You’re right. As always. They’re just mementos of another life. It would be cowardly to burn them. If we truly felt the need to destroy them, it would as good as admitting that they do hold some power over us yet. Put them back where you found them.’ I picked the photographs up and arranged them in a stack and handed them to Dev.

Dev turned the topmost one over so that it faced the one below it and then carried them into the little room that he uses as a work space. I heard a drawer opening and then, after a few seconds, closing. He has only a small desk now. I know where he put them. I shall try not to look at them again.

The Angel of _________________

The Angel of ______________

Nexis Pas

© 2009 by the author
Nexis Pas asserts to moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

Basic idea. An angel on a mission to destroy a demon. Demon is tempting humans and angel is out to prevent that. Not an epic battle, however, contest has to be over something simple and everyday. Trivial and banal.

Title: The Angel of Golders Green? Ok, but haven’t been there in years. Check to see if there is a website or Google Earth street views. Probably better not to use an actual location, will just get more emails from doryphores about my errors. The Angel of Grantham Green? Is there a Grantham Green? Oops--lots of them. No wonder name was familiar. Granmer Green? Too close to Grammar? Grandmere? Graston Green? Now I’m stuck on Something Green. Could get something else but then would have to re-envision opening scene of discovery in park. Use what I remember of Golders Green Park but give it some other name.

The Angel: terrifying, can’t be modern wishy-washy saint. Needs to be warrior angel. Apparently amoral, indifferent at first, but open to temptation. (What would tempt an angel? Money is irrelevant. Sex implausible. Power? The prospect of doing good? Has to choose between defeating the demon and saving the world? An angel would be tempted by an opportunity of doing good.) Both angel and demon immortal, so defeat has to involve destruction of who they are, rather than death.

The Demon: Like Paul this morning. Foul mood. Demon has wings, so fowl mood? Don’t go there. Demon has taken on human guise. Attractive. Personable. Tempter.

Opening: discovery of angel’s wings. From human perspective. Why would angel leave wings behind? Who would discover wings? A grounds man would be the first person in the park in the morning. Discoverer parallels the sort of person who is object of demon’s temptations. Joined by someone—boss?—who is more demonic. Beginning implants suggestion of angel vs. demon through the two workers. Wings near some place that suggests a contest, a game.

They found the angel’s wings in __________ Green Park, near the tennis courts. The grounds men had arrived at 6:00 to prepare the park to open. Bob Liskom, who began each morning by redrawing the lines on the grass courts, was the first to see the wings. He thought it was a new sculpture. The tops of the wings rose about six feet into the air, even with lower ends bent flat against the ground. The two wings were connected halfway up by an arched, bone-like structure. His first impression was that the feathers on the sculpture were incredibly detailed and lifelike. It wasn’t until he stepped closer and touched them that he realized that the wings were indeed made of feathers.{less description of wings and more focus on L’s reaction to them}

Bob found that he enjoyed touching the feathers. They were silky and smooth beneath his fingers. They smelled fresh. It wasn’t a perfume, just a scent of cleanliness in the air. The air whispered with a faint musical harmony as he stroked the wings. More here to make him a sympathetic character, drawn to good (wings = sign of goodness). Wings make him think of his family? Rings wife on his mobile and tells her to bring the children over to see them?

‘What the bloody hell is that? Who put that here? If this is your idea of a joke, Bob Liskom, you can take that ruddy thing out of here. And you can take yourself out of here as well.’ The head ground man’s shout could be heard from a hundred feet off. Mr William ‘Bull’ Garret charged down the hill from the animal pens for the children’s petting zoo, his stubby legs windmilling, a fist pummelling the air. {nasty man, prone to anger, provokes others to reproduce his own behaviour}

His shouts attracted the attention of several other workers, and soon the wings were surrounded by a crowd. ‘They were here when I got here,” Bob explained to everyone who would listen. ‘Someone must have climbed over the fence and left them here.’ {need more interaction between the two men here. When Garret discovers the wings are real feathers, he tries to remove them. He doesn’t react to them in the same way the others do. No sense of wonder, no attraction to them.}

{much of the following will appear later in the story, if at all. Toward the end, when the angel returns to repossess his wings. Just background for me for now. But move more quickly to angel here}There was much speculation about the wings over the next several weeks. The television crews arrived with their cameras and reporters, and spoke with Bull Garret and Bob Liskom. The morning talk show hosts interviewed scientists and ornithologists. Websites were devoted to the subject of the wings. No one had an answer. ‘A sign of the end of the world.’ ‘An alien being.’ ‘A freak of nature.’ ‘A monster.’ ‘An elaborate hoax.’

The wings began to attract large crowds. Lines of sightseers formed daily from the gate on Park Hill Road to the wings. A path was quickly beaten over the once-immaculate grass of the park, and the ground was churned into mud. The park filled with litter, discarded food wrappers, cigarette butts. Oddly, however, the wings remained immaculate, no matter how many children with grubby hands touched them, no matter how many . . .

The scientists complained that their studies of the wings were being interrupted. The tennis players grumbled they couldn’t get to the courts, and a petition was circulated to have the wings moved, ‘to a safer location’ said the scientists, ‘out of here’ said the tennis players. The local council looked into the matter, sent a committee to investigate, and decided that the wings would be moved to the ___________ Green museum.

On the day appointed for the move, the lorry arrived early in the morning. The crew readied their winches and the cart. They wrapped the wings in padded blankets and tied them securely. The foreman looped a chain around the central arch of the wings. The winch man slowly began turning the drum of the winch.

A sigh rustled the leaves of the trees. The blankets fell to the ground, and the links of the chain dissolved. After several attempts, the workers gave up and reported back that the wings would not be moved. Over the next week, other means were tried, but to no avail.

Finally the council concluded that the wings could not be moved. The path was paved and a pavilion was built over the wings. A low fence was erected to keep visitors from touching the wings, and guards were hired to discourage the curious. Public access was restricted to the afternoon to allow the scientists to conduct their researches. A larger wall was built to direct the crowds away from the tennis courts.

{move this bit earlier}
The angel did not expect to be gone long. In celestial reckoning, his mission should have taken only a few moments. When he wasn’t flying around heaven, the wings were an encumbrance, and the out-of-the-way spot behind the tennis courts in the deserted park had seemed the best place to leave them. It was but a second’s work to shrug them off and stride forth clothed only in the uncreated light.{Is this a plausible reason for leaving wings. Will anyone know what the uncreated light is?} Anyone on the streets of Whatever Green at that hour of the morning would have sensed only an odd tremor in the air, a shimmering at the edge of one’s eyes.

The angel was not one of the benevolent orders of angels. He was one of the avengers, a member of the fiery troop who had barred the gates of Eden when Adam and Eve were expelled. A terrible angel. A bringer of plagues and locusts. Of death and destruction. {has to be a terrifying figure. Almost demonic in his majesty. The demon and the angel are closer to each other than to human beings}

******

‘Hello. Can I come in? I heard you pacing about and I thought it might be all right to interrupt.’

‘Sure. I need a break. I’m just sketching out a new story. How are you doing? Are you feeling better?’

‘Yeah. Look, um, I’m sorry about this morning. I didn’t mean to shout at you like that.’

‘Well, I was a bit put off at first. I know I’m more cheerful than you in the morning and I can be annoying, but it was an overreaction to the provocation. Then after you left, and I calmed down, I thought about it and realised that my perkiness wasn’t the real cause of your anger. In any case, I gave as good as I was getting.’

‘Yes, you did. In fact, I would say you gave better than you were getting.’

‘Hey, I work with words. You’re never going to win an argument with me.’

‘Oh, I’ve won a few. Just not with words.’

‘Well, you have an unfair advantage, what with that sexy body of yours, and the way you always smell of chocolate. I can’t resist either. The temptation is too great. And what are you hiding behind your back?’

‘I brought you a treat as a peace offering. It’s an idea I had this morning. It’s a triple espresso butter cream rolled in hazelnut grenache and covered with dark chocolate. Now that it’s getting colder, I thought something more substantial and stronger flavoured would sell well in the shop.’

‘Oh, that sounds so sinful. Two of my favourites—coffee and chocolate.’

‘I know. I was thinking of you when the idea came to me. Here, taste it.’

‘Mmmmh.’

‘So what do you think?’

‘That was a moan of pleasure.’

‘But more restrained than your usual moans of pleasure.’

‘Those moans have other causes. But, then, all my moans of pleasures are caused by you, come to think of it. Let me try again. Mmmmmmmmmmmmh.’

‘That good?’

‘That good! It will be another winner. Can I have another? After this morning, you owe me more than one chocolate.’

‘Not now. You’ll get fat.’

‘Why did I have to take up with a chocolatier who is concerned about my weight?’

‘One chocolate a day is healthy, two are fattening.’

‘If I were writing this scene up, at this point I would have the character heave an enormous sigh of disappointment. And you would the evil tempter. “Have a chocolate, my dear. But just the one.” Lust, gluttony, avarice—three deadly sins for the price of one chocolate. Soooooo—what was the real cause of the outburst this morning? Do you want to talk about it?’

‘Oh, I’m worried about the shop. With the economy and all, it’s not doing well. People are more cautious about spending. If they want chocolates, they can buy something cheaper.’

‘How bad are things?’

‘I may have to let one of the women who works at the counter go. I can’t let Marcy or Dev leave, because there have to be three of us to make enough chocolates to keep the shop going.’

‘I could help out. I’m as capable of waiting on customers as the average school-leaver. And you could pay me in chocolates.’

‘You have your own work. And you would eat more in chocolates than the hourly rate for counter help.’

‘Hmm. Curses. Foiled again. You’re getting to know me too well.’

‘Maybe. I was thinking about it. Maybe that was one of the causes of my outburst this morning.’

‘What?’

‘That I know I can get mad and have an argument with you and not risk having you run away. Not all the time, but occasionally I can let off steam with you, and then we can make up and it will be better.’

‘You mean that it’s safe for the two of us to argue sometimes.’

‘Yeah. I shouldn’t do it. But I felt a lot better this morning after I stormed out of here. I was a lot calmer and I could think about the future without feeling sick.’

‘So are you saying that we should have blow-ups from time to time? We could also talk about our problems, you know.’

‘I know. But it felt good to shout. And you’ve done the same thing to me.’

‘Never.’

‘Yes, remember that time you were having all the problems with that editor who was changing one of your stories. You were very irritable for a week.’

‘Oh, that. Yes, well, there was that. I was also channelling one of the characters in the story and he was a very angry man.’

‘That’s what makes it exciting to live with you. I never know who is going to be here when I get home.’

‘Do I do that often? Acting out one of my characters?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, I’m no saint, am I?

‘No, but then I’m not either. And we’re neither of us devils. And now I should let you get back to your work. How’s it coming.’

‘I’m just getting started with this one. I’m still roughing it in. It’s about an angel who’s come to earth on a mission.’

‘Oh, it’s autobiographical then. I thought you had a rule against writing about yourself.’

‘Flatterer.’

‘Mmmm. Your lips taste of chocolate. If I’m any judge, it’s 92 percent dark Madagascar chocolate. One of my favourites. We’ll make time for more taste tests later. You have to get back to work. Supper in about three hours?’

*******

The angel was not one of the benevolent orders of angels. He was one of the avengers, a member of the fiery troop who had barred the gates of Eden when Adam and Eve were expelled. A terrible angel. A bringer of plagues and locusts. Of death and destruction. {has to be a terrifying figure. Almost demonic in his majesty. The demon and the angel are closer to each other than to human beings}

or--
The angel is a member of one of the benevolent orders. He discovers someone who lives in the shadow of grace and makes love to him. They live together for the human’s lifetime. Then the angel recovers his wings and leaves. ‘In the Grace of Shadows’--maybe that for a title?

The Corpse in the Back Seat

The Corpse in the Back Seat

Nexis Pas

© 2009 by the author. Nexis Pas asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

‘‘Attention--the owner of an older-model white sedan with a dented body in the back car park, plate number 94-IH-18542. You have left your lights on.’

Like the other patrons of the café, I stopped eating for a moment and looked up as the announcement began. Half the people facing me shook their heads no in response to a question from another person at their table. Near the door a man jumped up, hastily swiped at his mouth with a napkin, and dashed outside.

‘Oh, dear, that’s not yours, is it?’

‘No, Auntie, we bought the car last year. It has an 08 number. And the lights turn off automatically.’

‘I thought when she said a dead body in the back seat that Albert was up to his old tricks again.’

‘I don’t know anyone named Albert. And I’m positive that I know no one of any name who would leave a corpse in the back seat of my car. In any case, it wasn’t a dead body. The car has dents in its body, and it’s back of the café. That’s what she was saying.’ I raised my voice as loud as I dared in the restaurant. My aunt is growing deaf.

Aunt Mary regarded me uncertainly. I suppose she could tell from my face that I had shouted and was attempting to tell her something, but I don’t think she understood my explanation of the announcement. Sometimes when she gets a wrong notion, it is hard to dislodge it from her mind. ‘Perhaps I am thinking of someone else. My memory isn’t as good as it used to be. I’m certain I know someone named Albert and he had something to do with a dead body in the back seat of our car.’ She took a large bite of her burger and chewed thoughtfully.

Aunt Mary’s lapses of memory are becoming more and more serious of late, but her appetite remains strong. I try to take her out to lunch at least once a month. She does enjoy getting out. Unfortunately she favours a café alongside the highway just north of Letterkenny. I have tried to suggest other places, ones with better food, but she always insists on this café. She knows the owners’ mother—they attend the same church—and for her that is reason enough to patronise it. The café is large and boisterous, and I think that too is part of its appeal for her. She likes watching the people in the restaurant and the traffic passing outside the windows.

There are always families with young children, and that makes her happy. The progress from the door to the table is always brought to a halt when she stops beside some harried mother attempting to placate a fractious child and asks how old the ‘darlin’ is. No matter what number the startled woman says, my aunt invariably replies, ‘Oh, that is a good age. Well, enjoy her while she is young. She’ll soon grow up and become a teenager. She’ll break your heart then.’ My aunt then walks on, leaving behind a mother seriously contemplating abandonment of the beast before it reaches an even more obnoxious stage.

Most of the waitresses are older women who have worked at the café for years. They know my aunt and fuss over her, and she also likes that. She always orders the same meal. A large burger with chips. She eats everything on the plate, but her progress is slow. I usually finish as much as I care to eat about half an hour before she does. She also takes full advantage of the opportunity of being with someone to talk, and that further slows her consumption of food. I like to think that I am a favourite nephew and that my presence cheers her. I know from experience that patience is a necessity—that and a stiff drink waiting for me at home as a reward for a good deed performed in good spirit.

‘Perhaps Albert was a friend of your father’s. You look so much like Frank that I sometimes confuse the two of you.’

‘It could well be, Auntie. And was he in the habit of putting corpses in the back seat of cars?’

‘Well, Patrick wasn’t a corpse when they left our place. Patrick Noonan, that was his name. I remember it now. He lived in Port-na-Iolair.’

‘Patrick?’

‘No, Albert. Patrick lived in . . . He lived somewhere else. You’re interrupting me so much that I’m forgetting my thoughts. I had the whole story a moment ago.’ She glowered at me and stabbed a chip with her fork. She held it up and examined it thoughtfully for a few seconds and then bit off about a third of it. She chewed slowly while looking out the window.

I waited for a few seconds to see if she would recover her train of thought. Sometimes she does. I was about to start a fresh topic when she resumed.

‘He pounded on our door after midnight. He was making an infernal racket. The countryside was much quieter back then, and it sounded much louder than it would now. The noise woke all of us up. Norah and I slept in the front bedroom and I wanted to look out the window. Norah told me not to. She was that frightened. Hissing at me, as if whoever was outside would be able to hear us if she spoke in a normal voice. “Mary Kathryn, get away from that window. You’ll get us all killed.” You would have thought the devil himself would come flying in the window if I peeked out. She tried to crawl under the bed, but that’s where we kept the presses with our winter clothes and there wasn’t room.

‘I stood at the side and just pulled the curtain enough so I could see out. There was a cart and a horse in the road. The horse was snorting and shaking her head. She didn’t want to be out at night. I couldn’t see the man making all the noise because he was still at the door. But there was another man lying on the cart. He was stretched out, and there was a cloth wrapped around part of his head. Then Da came in and pulled me away from the window and made me and Norah go into his and Mum’s bedroom, because it was at the back of the house.

‘Mum was in bed, with the bed clothes pulled up to her chin. She made us get in bed with her. She didn’t want Da to open the door. She kept saying, “Michael Gallagher, you’re not to open that door. I’ll not have that lot in my house.” But then Albert started shouting, and Frank recognised his voice. I don’t know how he knew him. Mum and Da weren’t at all happy about Frank knowing this man and him knocking on our door in the middle of the night, and the both of them went after Frank, “What have you gotten into now? You’ll bring the troubles on us.” They were that mad at him.

‘Frank paid them no attention. He never did when they scolded him. He went downstairs and opened the door. And there was lots of whispering at the door. Then Frank came back upstairs and said there had been an accident and Albert wanted him to drive Albert and the man on the cart to a doctor in Letterkenny. This man on the cart we had never seen before had been injured in a boating accident. We had the only car in the village then. Albert wasn’t the first to ask us to drive someone to a doctor.’

Aunt Mary paused to chew slowly on a bite of her burger. She was the youngest of the three siblings in my father’s family. She was six years younger than Norah and eight years younger than my father. When my father spoke of his sisters, Mary was always the ‘pretty’ one and Norah the ‘clever’ one. Mary’s reputation in the family and the village was that she was ‘slow’. In truth, she was simply average, but that counted for slow in a family with my father and the brilliant Norah. Both my father and my Aunt Norah were eloquent. Mary was born into a household of talkers, and at an early age, she apparently chose not to add to the babble around herself. For that she was called ‘slow’. To judge from the pictures, she was pretty, but so was Norah. ‘Pretty’ was simply a polite label for what the family regarded as Mary’s only saving grace.

Aunt Mary is 89 now. Unlike Norah, she married only once and was, as far as any outsider can ever tell of someone else’s marriage, content in her life with Uncle Michael. She had three children, one of whom died of polio when he was eight. My two cousins left as soon as they were adults, but they visit a few times each year. Unlike my father and Norah, she never ventured far. Her marital home was only a few miles from my grandparents’ house. She seemed not to care about that. She was interested in our life in Dublin, and she spoke with great knowledge of Norah’s far-flung travels. But never with envy or regret. She had the same interest in her neighbours. If others led more exciting lives, she was prepared to share their joys without begrudging them their happiness.

My childhood memory of her is of a slightly dowdy woman flinging open the door to her house when we drove up and rushing out to greet my parents and me. There was always a moment when she would enfold me in her warm arms and make some remark about how I had grown. Then she would usher us into her kitchen, and pour cups of strong black tea and set plates of cakes and teabreads and biscuits on the table. She liked to feed people, and she was, unusually for that area in those days, a good and adventuresome cook. If my mother protested feebly that we had just eaten or were on our way to our grandmother’s to eat, Mary would override any objection. Food was a sacred part of hospitality.

It’s strange what one remembers. Of Norah’s rare visits, I can remember in detail the stories she told of her life, the people she had met, the parties she had gone to. Our house was in constant motion when that whirlwind visited. Norah demanded attention and homage, and she got it, of course. She was entertaining and vivacious, but one went to bed exhausted from the animation of her living.

Aunt Mary, on the other hand, would sit at her deal table, the wood worn smooth and silver with years of pumicing, her elbows on the table, a dish of tea held in both hands just beneath her chin, smiling at us impishly as she told a story about her neighbours. I can’t remember any of the stories, just that she told them with great good humour and delight. She always enquired about my progress in school and my parents’ activities, and I think she may have derived more satisfaction and pride from our accomplishments than any of us.

You listened to Norah. Aunt Mary listened to you. That was the main difference between them. Norah was exciting, even Aunt Mary’s children felt that, but Aunt Mary had the heart. She was the one who relieved the pain. She knew more about that than Norah or my father. I didn’t appreciate her when I was younger. She was the boring aunt we had to visit when we stopped in the village and Norah was the exciting world traveller. But when I grew up and came to understand the value of ‘manners of the heart’, I learned to treasure Aunt Mary.

Perhaps she had dreams. If she did, she never spoke of them. She might talk of her hopes for her children and for me, but I would say that her hopes for herself, if there were any, had been put away with other childish things when she decided to cease speaking as a child. I wonder if anyone ever asked her about her dreams or thought that she might want to lead a life other than the one lived by everyone else in the village for generations.

She still lives in the house that she and Uncle Michael occupied for nearly sixty years. After my uncle died, my cousins arranged for a neighbour to check on her several times a week. The home health nurse stops by once a month. Aunt Mary is related to half the village, and she, like everyone her age, is watched. Not obtrusively--that would create an obligation. In the small world of that village, one never imposes charity on the neighbours. Help is often offered, but the automatic response is always ‘No, thank you for offering, but I’m fine’. If help is truly needed, one simply acts without asking or fussing. If my aunt’s lights are not on at the usual hour of the morning, a neighbour will knock on the door. If my aunt comes to the door, the neighbour will offer a prepared excuse--she just wants to chat for a moment, or she dropped by to see if my aunt will keep her company on a drive to the shops later in the day.

On the inevitable day when my aunt doesn’t answer the door, other neighbours will quickly be consulted. Someone will call the priest and the Garda. But before they arrive, one of the older women will be deputed to enter the house alone first to make sure that Aunt Mary is ‘decent’ and that even in death, especially in death, her dignity is preserved.

She was in hospital two winters back with the flu. The doctors were worried about pneumonia. She recovered but since then there has been a gradual deterioration. She walks very slowly now. A few years ago the cane was mostly for decoration, part of the costume of the old. Now she leans on it heavily and does not take the next step until her feet and the cane are firmly planted.

Each time I take her to the café, she dresses with care. For her, a visit to a restaurant, no matter how ordinary it may seem to others, is an event, and events demand adherence to certain standards. She wears a hat, not a headscarf, and a long black cloth coat. The wellies or trainers she uses when venturing out on the village streets are replaced by sturdy leather shoes. The loose trousers with an elastic waistband and the blouse and the fleece with a zipper in the front that are now her daily clothes are replaced by a wool skirt and a twinset. Although on the day of this story, the two parts were not twins. The jumper was light grey, and the cardigan was beige.

I had never heard the story she had begun telling. That fact alone made me wonder if it had really happened. My father and everyone else in his family cherished the stories of their lives. They retold them endlessly. By the time I was a teenager, I had heard them all. I would hear them countless times again. The Norah that I knew would have been the one at the window peeking out and would have rushed down the stairs with my father to share in the excitement of a night visitor. Certainly she would not have attempted to hide under a bed.

More and more, Aunt Mary’s stories feature herself in a leading role, one she seldom played in life. I suspect the story of Albert and Patrick happened to someone else, or perhaps it was something she saw in a television drama. She isn’t lying. She does seem to think that the events she relates really happened to her.

She turned her gaze away from the road and back to me. ‘I don’t remember what happened next. That happens more and more. I can’t remember anything. Soon I won’t be able to remember who I am.’ She looked so forlorn and alone at that moment. ‘That frightens me so much.’

I pushed my plate to the side and reached over and took her hand. It was colder and dryer than I expected, and the flesh had grown loose on the bones. ‘I heard Da tell that story more than once. He and Grandfather helped Albert move Patrick from the cart into the car. It was hard because they had to lay him out as flat as possible but the seat wasn’t long enough. And they had to be careful not to hurt him. Your mother finally left her bed, and she was upset because Patrick was bleeding. She made them put a pile of cloths under his head so that he wouldn’t bleed all over the seat of the car. And then you went and got a blanket to put over Patrick to keep him warm. You wanted to go along, but of course they wouldn’t let you go. It wouldn’t have done for a young girl to accompany the men.’

I watched her carefully as I spoke to see if the story I was crafting sparked any engagement. She eyed me warily at first, unable to match what I was saying against her memories or her imagination. But when I brought her into the story, she sat up straighter. When I paused in my narrative, she broke in.

‘No, they wouldn’t let me go. I wanted to, but they said I was too young.’

‘You were what? Eight? Ten?’

‘Twelve. I was old enough to go, but in those days they watched us so carefully. We weren’t suppose to know anything. Mum was always so frightened Norah and I would turn out to be wild. That was the worst they could imagine for girls in those days. That you would turn out wild and do something shameful. Of course, Norah did become wild when she went to London. But that was later.’

‘It was too bad about Patrick. If I remember correctly, he was a young man.’

‘Not that young. In his thirties. He had a wife and child. Well, more fool him then running about with a smuggler like Albert.’

‘Albert was a smuggler? Da never mentioned that.’

‘Oh, in those days, Port-na-Iolair was all smugglers. I don’t suppose your father wanted you to know that he used to associate with criminals. There were so many small fishing boats there before the harbour silted up. It wasn’t quiet like today. It was very busy, and there was a plant to salt the fish and an icehouse. They used to send fish to Dublin on the train every day. But everyone knew that the fishing was only a front. They all went out at night and brought in arms and men. And that’s what Patrick was. He was being smuggled back into the country. Sometimes the Garda would try to stop one of the boats and there would be a fight. I think that’s what happened that night. Patrick was shot. Did I say that?’

‘I knew he had been shot. Da did mention that part of the story.’

‘I suppose that’s why he died on the way to hospital. You know that long flat stretch just before Moncries?’

I nodded.

‘Well, in those days there weren’t many people living in that area. Not like now with that housing estate. And they didn’t have the electricity yet, of course. So it was very dark. And Frank didn’t put the lamps on because he didn’t want to attract any attention. There were plenty of people ready to report anything suspicious. And there weren’t that many people who had cars. Someone would have come round in a day or two asking questions about what they were doing out at that time of night.

‘The moon provided enough light for him to see the road. When they came over the hill, they could see lights far ahead coming toward them. So Frank pulled off the road and stopped behind an old shed. Frank and Albert got out of the car and watched between the boards of the shed. When the car got closer, they could see that it was the Garda. They waited until it was gone. When they went back to the car, they discovered that Patrick had died while they were waiting. So they put him in the shed and made it looked as if he had walked there by himself and stopped there to rest and then died.’

‘You must have been very worried waiting for Da to return.’

‘None of us could sleep. We sat up the rest of the night. Of course, we didn’t dare light the lanterns. So we waited there in the dark, Mum holding on to me as if she thought I would chase after the car. Da wanted to go out and check, but Mum wouldn’t let him leave us alone. Frank and Albert didn’t come back until the morning. Mum was so worried by that point that she didn’t say anything to them. She was so glad to have them back, even that Albert. She made him sit and have some tea and breakfast.’

‘I suppose the car was a mess.’

‘Yes. Mum made Da drive it around the back, and then sent Norah and me out with pails of water and brushes to clean the back seat. Most of the blood was on the cloths she had made them put under Patrick’s head, and she burned those, but we scrubbed the back seat for an hour and still couldn’t get all the blood out. The water turned red, and it stained my hands. I never could sit in the back after that. We couldn’t get it completely clean, and there was a dark spot. I knew it was that man’s blood, and I couldn’t bear to sit on it. But even in the front seat, it felt like we were riding with a dead man. I always had the feeling that Patrick was with us still. Even when Da finally bought another car and got rid of the old one, I still felt that Patrick was in the back seat. Even now sometimes I feel that. Can’t rid myself of that old man.’

She sat there lost in thought for a moment, haunted by ancient memories. Then her face cleared and she looked up cheerfully. ‘I would like an ice cream now.’

‘Do you want it here or would you like to go to that Maud’s farther on?’

‘Here, I think. Moira’s son owns this place. Did you know that?’

‘Yes, you’ve told me. Do you want to go shopping when we’re finished here? I can take you.’

‘Oh, I won’t impose. I know you want to get back.’

‘It’s no trouble. And I was thinking of imposing on you. Do you think you could put me up for the night?’

‘Oh, that would be nice. We can talk some more then.’

‘Yes, I would like that.’

A Heart in Port

Nexis Pas

© 2009 by the author. Nexis Pas asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

Sheephaven Bay extends deep into County Donegal in the northwest of Ireland. The name derives from a misunderstanding. In Irish, the original name was Cuan na gCurrach, ‘haven of the ships’. When the English asked what the name meant, they heard ‘sheep’ instead of ‘ship’ in the local accent. The mistranslation has become so accepted that even in Irish the bay is now often known as Cuan na gCaorach, ‘haven of the sheep’.

The lower end of the bay is placid and sheltered and lives up to the original name. The mouth, however, faces directly north into the Atlantic, and the currents and winds there can be treacherous and unpredictable. This makes the bay a favourite of sailors, both those who prefer pleasant, safe outings in calm waters and those who want a more challenging sail in turbulent seas.

The summer nights are short along Sheephaven Bay. At that latitude the sun officially sets after ten in late June and early July, but it remains light long after that. The nights are never truly dark, and the sky begins to grow light again around three. On all but the stormiest days, the bay is filled with sailboats and windsurfers from early in the morning until late at night. There are even some who would spend the entire day sailing if they could.

Early on the morning of June 23, St John’s Eve, Mark rushed into the kitchen of his family’s summer home. He had had a growth spurt that spring, and a long, bony arm peeling with sunburn snaked out to grab a piece of toast from the stack on the table as he sped past. His father caught Mark by a shoulder as he started for the door and spun him around ‘And where are you off to then?’

‘I’ve got to get the boat ready for Brian. He’ll want to go out as soon as he gets here.’

‘Your brother’ll not be here for another six hours or so. You spent all yesterday working on that boat. There can’t be much left for you to do. You can spare fifteen minutes to eat a proper breakfast.’

‘But, Da . . .’

‘But nothing. Your mother did not put breakfast on the table for you not to eat it. Now, sit and eat like a human being. And you’re not to be after your brother to take you out as soon as he gets here. He drove for several hours yesterday and spent the night on the ferry from Holyhead, and then he has to drive here from Dublin. He and his friend might want to rest before you herd them out to the bay.’

‘But the tide changes at four. Brian will want to catch the turn. And the weather report last night said fair weather and winds out of the northwest. That means great sailing. Oh, I’d better see if there’s been any change.’ Mark leaped up from the chair he had so briefly occupied and switched on the radio. ‘And his friend won’t want to go with us. It will just be Brian and me.’ A news reader’s voice blared through the static of the old receiver, drowning out all other noise.

‘Mark, turn that radio off. I want to eat breakfast in peace. Your mother and I came here to get away from the financial news for a few weeks. The weather won’t change if you have to listen to it half an hour from now. And this Luan likes sailing. That’s why Brian asked him. Now sit and eat your breakfast.’

Mark reluctantly sat down. He tore off a quarter of the slice of toast with his teeth and chewed rapidly a few times before swallowing. ‘What kind of name is Luan? It doesn’t sound like a proper name. Anyway there won’t be any room for him on the boat. He’ll have to sit here while Brian and I go out.’’

Mark’s mother lowered the newspaper that she was reading and looked over the top of it at him. ‘That boat can hold three people. It has often enough before. And I don’t know what kind of a name Luan is. Maybe he was born on a Monday. The Innleys have invited us to join them at their bonfire tonight, and I imagine Mary Innley will ask him that very question. She’ll soon have his entire history out of him, and half the county will know it by tomorrow.’

‘I don’t see why Brian can’t stay longer. Why does he have to go down to Galway? That Luan could go by himself, and Brian could stay here. He won’t be able to get much sailing in.’ Since Mark had learned of Brian’s pending visit, it had been a oft-voiced grievance that his brother planned to leave the next day after dinner.

‘The two of them are coming here to talk with us and then with Luan’s parents. If your brother wants to tell you the reason, you’ll know soon enough.’

Mark sank lower into his chair. Both of his parents returned to the pages of the newspapers they were reading. A solid wall of print confronted him. For the past few days, neither of his parents had said much to him, and they had taken to speaking to each other in whispers, whispers that were quickly replaced with nervous smiles and tightly closed lips when he walked into a room. Even his gran had picked up the habit. He sighed loudly to make his objections known and stuffed another large bite of toast into his mouth. The newspapers barely quivered. Five minutes later, he judged that he had spent enough time at the table and asked to be excused. His father made a noise deep in his throat, and Mark took that for permission to leave.

He sped out the door and grabbed his bike on the run, leaping on to it when had enough speed. Too impatient to let the bike glide down the hill, he peddled vigorously, pumping his legs to go as fast as possible and avoiding by well-practised inches all the ruts in the path. He braked at the last moment, sending a spray of sand and pebbles into the air as he reached the dock where An Ghaoth Gheal waited. A few drops of dew glistened on the taut cover over the cockpit. He wiped them off carefully before unsnapping the cover and stowing it away in the chest at the end of the dock. He swabbed the boat down and began working through the checklist Brian had devised for him many years before.

Even though he knew it was much too early for Brian to arrive, he kept an eye on the road leading down the hill into the village on the other side of the old harbour. Every low red car caught his attention. He could tell that none of them were Brian’s old MG Midget, but still he followed each of them as it went into the village, hoping that he was wrong. He waited in vain for each car to emerge from behind the row of houses that faced the harbour and then race along the road that curved along the coast toward their house, the sound of the engine changing as Brian shifted through the gears to speed toward him. But none of them did.

Around noon his father walked down to the dock bringing him a sandwich and an apple. ‘Your mother thought you might want to eat down here.’ His father’s eyes wandered up and down the boat. ‘You’ve done a good job. Brian will be proud of you. I listened to the weather report just now. The winds are at 10-15 knots out of the northwest. It will be a good sail. How far are you thinking of going?’

‘Depends on what Brian wants. Maybe to Horn Head.’ Mark wiped a minuscule spot off the teak railing. When it came to An Ghaoth Gheal, his father lacked Brian’s critical eye. He hoped that his father was right and that Brian would approve of how well he had kept the boat.

‘Don’t stay out too long. Your mother and grandmother have a big meal planned for Brian’s visit, and then we have to be at the Innleys by 10:00.’

Mark nodded and bit into the sandwich his father had brought. He thought that would be a signal to his father to leave, but instead his father kicked his shoes off and climbed aboard the boat. He sat on the side opposite Mark and stretched his legs out. He shaded his eyes with a hand and looked off into the distance. ‘A lot of boats out today. You’ll have to be careful.’

Mark nodded. The remark was so obvious it didn’t merit more of a response. His father cleared his throat a few times and then spoke to the air over Mark’s right shoulder. ‘You know, Mark, Brian may have changed since the last time he was here. He’s qualified for the provisional registration now. Another year, and then he has to chose a specialty.’

‘I know.’

‘What I’m trying to say is that he’s an adult now. He’s been one for years, and he’s contemplating some major changes in his life. That’s why he’s coming here. To talk with your mother and me. He may not be the big brother you remember. I just want to warn you not to expect him to be the same.’

‘I know. But he’ll still like sailing. That won’t change, will it?’

‘I think we can be confident of that. But he may not be able to spend as much time on the boat with you as you might want. He’s here for another reason.’

‘What? He didn’t say anything to me except to get An Ghaoth Gheal ready. And if he’s here to talk to you and mum, why is he bringing this Luan?’

‘I’ll let him explain that to you. That’s part of being an adult. You get to speak for yourself without your parents correcting you.’

‘Then I’ll be an adult right now.’

‘That day’ll come soon enough, lad. There’s no need to hurry it. And it’s less of a privilege than you might think. One other thing. Your brother will be happy if you’re nice to this Luan. And put a hat on. Your face will burn in this sun.’

‘That’s two things.’

‘Don’t be cheeky.’ His father tapped him on the shoulder and then stepped out of the boat. The motion pushed the boat away from the dock until the mooring ropes caught and pulled it back. The fenders chaffed against the dock as the boat rocked from side to side. To Mark’s mind, the boat was as anxious to be out on the bay as he was.

Mark returned to watching across the water to the road leading into the village. A solitary gull floated by, eyeing the food in his hand. He tore off a strip of crust and threw it into the water. The gull dived for it, but he had no sooner caught it in his beak and risen off the water than he was joined by another pair of gulls fighting to snatch it from him. Their raucous cries attracted more of them, and the first gull fled, pursued by the flock. The fight ended as abruptly as it began, and the gulls arranged themselves into a spiral tower, rising and falling as they drifted on the wind, watching for food.

The only sounds were the waves slapping against the side of the boat and the creaking of the timbers as the boat knocked gently against the dock. On the far side of the harbour to the east of the village, a line of three horses galloped through the shallow waters off the strand, the shouts of the riders urging them on, joined together in the pleasure of the moment. When Mark was sure that his father could no longer see him, he pulled his cap out of his pocket and smoothed it down on his head.

He knew that he looked good in the red cap and dark aviator glasses that Brian had given him. His old white shirt was half unbuttoned and its sleeves folded back to the elbows, the tails tucked carelessly into his shorts. His sockless feet were shoved into the dirty grey plimsolls he wore on the boat. They were getting too small for him. He needed to buy a new pair. Maybe, he thought, he could find an old pair of Brian’s that would fit him.

The growth spurt had left him gangly, but he knew that he would grow out, just as Brian had. Brian had been so tall and thin one summer, and then he had gone away to school and come back at Christmas a ‘fine figure of a man’ as their gran had said. He would be like Brian, follow the same path. He would qualify as a doctor, just like Brian. When he finished, he would join Brian in his practice and the two of them would work together the rest of their lives. Maybe living in the same house, or next door to each other. Brian would teach him everything he needed to know, just as he had taught him how to read the waves and see the wind in their brightness.

His eyes idly trailed a green Vauxhall down the road into the village. He shifted his gaze elsewhere when it disappeared behind the row of buildings lining the harbour side. He was only vaguely aware of it when it took the north coast road a minute or so later and came toward him. He didn’t even pay it much attention when it turned into the driveway of his parents’ house. It was, he supposed, just someone dropping in to speak to his mother. He heard the sounds of car doors, and then his parents and the people in the car talking. It wasn’t until he heard someone call his name that he turned around and looked.

Brian was standing with his arm around his mother and waving toward him. Mark leaped to his feet, barely pausing long enough to kick his plimsolls off and thrust his feet into his regular shoes. He raced up the path to the house, waving his right arm like a madman.

Brian ran a few steps toward Mark and hugged him tightly as he jumped off his bike and let it fall to the ground. ‘Lord, you’ve grown. You’re not my little brother any more.’

‘Where’s the MG? What have you done with your car? Why are you driving this piece of rubbish?’

‘Well hello and good to see you too. Now, stop choking me. Let me breathe.’ Brian held Mark at arms’ length and then grabbed the bill of Mark’s cap and pulled it lower over his forehead. ‘There now, it’s an improvement not to have to look at as much of your ugly face.’

Mark grinned at this sign of his brother’s affection and pushed the cap back in place.

‘And the MG takes more time to keep it going that I have time to give it. This “piece of rubbish” is Luan’s car.’ Brian hooked an arm around Mark’s shoulders and turned him around, still laughing. His hand tightened its grip on Mark’s shoulder as if he were afraid that Mark might run away. ‘This is Luan Cusack. Luan, this is my brother Mark. He didn’t really mean what he said about your car.’

‘Well, it is a piece of rubbish, but unlike yours at least it runs.’ His brother’s friend held out a hand to Mark and smiled at him. ‘So in addition to being an excellent sailor, you are also a good judge of cars. Brian’s told me a lot about you but he didn’t tell me that.’

Mark smiled at Luan shyly as they shook hands. He was unsure what to make of this stranger who seemed to know about him. As his father pointed out some nearby landmarks to Luan, he took advantage of the distraction to examine Luan more closely. Brian had mentioned many friends and colleagues since he had left for medical school and then the foundation programme, but this was the first one he had ever brought home. He wore a red cap and aviator glasses, much like Mark’s. He had very white, very even teeth. His dark black hair curled out from beneath his cap and stirred in the breeze. He was an inch or so taller than Brian and three or four inches taller than Mark. He looked athletic, as if he jogged and played a lot of sports.

His mother interrupted his father’s guided tour of the bay. ‘Come in. I’ll make a pot of tea. Did you eat? I can make you something if you’re hungry.’

‘Mum, Brian wants to go sailing.’ Mark tugged at his brother’s arm. ‘An Ghaoth Gheal is all ready. I got everything ready. The tide changes just after 4:00, and if we leave now we can make it to the mouth of the bay just as the tide turns and come back on a rising tide.’

Brian put his arm around his brother’s shoulders again and drew him toward the house. ‘Just let us stretch our legs for a bit. Then we can go out.’

Mark fretted throughout the next hour. Their mother had pushed them into the front lounge. In a departure from their usual practice, his parents were sharing the couch instead of sitting in their customary chairs. Both sat upright and close together, their hands in their laps and their feet planted solidly on the floor. His father had made Luan take the chair next to the fireplace, facing them. Mark took one of the window seats, as far from the others as he could. Through the open window, he could see down the hill to the bay, but the boat was hidden from view by the house. Brian had sat down briefly but soon stood up and began pacing about the room. When their mother had invited him to sit, he said that he needed to walk about. His path took him behind the sofa, forcing their parents to look around whenever they spoke to him.

The four adults seemed not to know what to say to one another. One of his parents might inquire yet again about the trip, only to be told once more that it had gone smoothly. Then all of them would take a sip of tea and look out the window rather than at any of the others. Mark couldn’t see why if they had nothing to say that it was necessary for them to sit politely pretending to have a conversation. Everyone was tense, a situation he attributed to the presence of Luan. The stranger was keeping Brian from being his usual self.

After Mark had looked pointedly at the clock several times, his brother said to him, ‘Why don’t you take Luan down to see the boat? He’ll help you get it ready. I’ll be along in a few moments.’

Mark looked uncertainly at the intruder. ‘Does he know what to do?’

‘He has a name, and you can talk to him directly. Can you try not to be so rude!’ Brian spoke sharply. ‘And yes, he knows what to do. He was sailing before you were born.’

‘It’s all right, Brian.’ Luan looked embarrassed at being the cause of a fuss.

‘No, it’s not all right. He’s fourteen years old now. He should know how to be polite.’

Brian’s sudden explosion of irritation snapped Mark to attention. ‘I was just asking.’ He couldn’t understand why Brian had reacted so angrily to his question. It was the first time in his life that his brother had taken someone’s else side over his and one of the few times Brian had criticised him. His face flushed, and he bit back the tears that suddenly came to his eyes. It was as bad as if Mark had slapped his face in front of all his friends.

Brian covered his eyes with a hand and took a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry, Mark,’ he said in a weary voice. ‘Could you just show Luan the boat? I need to talk with Mum and Da privately for a moment. Then I’ll come down.’

‘Let me get my jacket and shoes from the car, and I’ll be ready. Thank you for the tea.’ Luan quickly stood up, obviously thankful to have an excuse to leave, and walked out.

Mark looked uncertainly from his parents to his brother. None of them seemed to want to look at him. Finally his mother said, ‘Mark, please do as your brother asked. I’m sure that in any case both of you would rather be out on that damn boat than talking with your parents.’ She slammed her teacup down on its saucer and stood up. She strode over to a window and looked out, her back to the room. ‘Your brother has something to say to us, and his “friend” needs attention. You haven’t done anything this summer but worry about that boat. We don’t ask you for much. You can at least entertain Mr Cusack for us for a few minutes.’

Mark slid out of the room, half-relieved that he was allowed to leave and half-frightened by his parents’ and Brian’s unaccustomed displays of anger. The house was heavy with their unease. And he didn’t understand the reason for it. As he stepped out the door, he heard his mother say in the coldest voice he had ever heard her use, ‘I believe you have something to say to us.’

Luan stood beside his car. He had put on a yellow cagoule and held a pair of plimsolls with one hand. He looked uncertain of his welcome. Mark wasn’t in a mood to be pleasant. ‘It’s down this way. We’ll have to walk. We’ve only the one bike here.’ He hurried on, not stopping to check if Luan was following him. When they were halfway down the hill, Luan broke the silence. ‘Brian tells me that An Ghaoth Gheal belonged to your grandfather.’

Mark nodded, without turning around. If he could, he would have walked even faster. The only thing that kept him from running was a fear that Brian would not forgive that rudeness. He had been instructed to ‘entertain’ Luan. No one had ordered him to pretend to be happy about it.

‘It’s such a beautiful name. An Ghaoth Gheal.’ Luan had a Connacht accent, and he said each syllable distinctly rather than running them together, as if he had forgotten how to speak Irish in London. Mark’s ears resented even that slight proof of difference. It was a sign of Luan’s foreignness, the cause of the unhappiness in their house. He didn’t bother to correct Luan’s pronunciation.

Luan suddenly came up beside him. ‘You’re a sturdy walker, as me mum would say. How often do you get out? On the water, I mean.’

Mark shrugged. Conversation seemed unavoidable now that Luan had caught him up. Besides there were things he wanted to know, and he couldn’t find them out if he kept quiet. ‘I’m not allowed to go out on my own yet. Da will go with me once or twice a week, if I pester him. But he doesn’t really like it. He didn’t start sailing until after he married mum.’

‘There’s no one else?’

‘There’s Jimmy Innley. That’s their house there, the one with the pile of wood for the bonfire tonight. But he’s only interested in going fast. He’d be happiest if the boat capsized or ran aground. That would be a lark for him. Sometimes one of the other owners will let me crew for him, but the only practice I get steering is with Da and Jimmy.’

‘Brian and I have the same problem. We’ve met some people in London who keep a boat at the Isle of Wight. They let us crew for them, but we’re just the help then. We tried renting a boat one weekend, but it was a tub. Had no lift at all. And the Channel is too tame if you’re used to the western coast. ’

‘What do you have at home?’ In spite of himself, Mark was curious about this stranger, this “friend” Brian had brought into their home.

‘You mean in Galway? We have an old Hunter Sonata.’

‘Not too different from An Ghaoth Gheal then. Same rigging but a couple of feet longer.’

‘Brian says the Sonata’s too sluggish.’

‘Brian’s sailed on it?’

‘Yes, we go out every time he visits. He’s been on it several times now.’

‘I didn’t know. He didn’t tell me.’ The knowledge that Brian had been in Ireland without coming home stung. Mark suddenly looked several years younger, the boy he had been a few months before peeping out behind the teenage face with its hints of the adult he would become. He seemed to shrink inside his clothes. He felt betrayed--the most important person in his life had developed other loyalties. The day was bringing too many surprises, and none of them welcome.

‘You’ll have to visit next time we’re in Ireland. We’ve some great sailing. And we would be pleased to have you there.’

Mark shrugged. ‘I don’t know. It can’t be any better than our coast.’

‘You’re just like your brother then. He says the waters in Galway Bay aren’t as challenging as those off the Donegal coast. And he complains that he can’t feel the water against the tiller in the Sonata the way he can in your boat.’

‘He’s always on about that. Feeling the water against the boat and seeing the wind ahead in the waves.’

‘He says you’re a natural at that. The best he’s ever seen.’

‘Nyah.’ Mark flushed with pleasure. The unexpected praise found a warm home inside his chest. ‘That’s wrong. He’s the best.’ He looked directly at Luan for the first time. ‘Did he really say that?’

‘Yes, several times. He said he had to work to learn what he knows. But you just knew it.’

‘That’s because he was always talking on at me about it. He made me sit beside him and hold the wheel as he steered so that I could learn what it felt like to sense what the wind and the water were telling you. By the time he let me try steering by myself for the first time, I already knew what it would feel like. I used to practice on my bed, at night.’

‘He’s very proud of you, you know.’ Luan stopped suddenly, forcing Mark to face him again. ‘You mustn’t mind what he said just now. He’s tense about this visit and then the one to my parents. Although my parents will be worse than yours.’

Mark had to fight a momentary urge to defend his parents and insist that they were much better at being much worse than Luan’s could possibly be. Instead he asked, ‘What’s happening? No one will tell me.’

‘Brian will explain it to you. He wants to do that.’

‘He’s not ill, is he? It’s not cancer.’

‘No, no, nothing like that. You mustn’t worry about that.’ They rounded the final corner in the path to the dock. ‘Oh, is that An Ghaoth Gheal? What a beauty. How old is it? Nobody uses wood like that now. It’s all plastic resins and fibreglass now.’

‘My grandfather had it built in the early 1950s. In a yard in Belfast.’

‘If Brian doesn’t come soon, we’ll leave him ashore and go out by ourselves.’

It felt good to be working alongside Luan. He moved about the boat efficiently, getting it ready to sail. Mark watched him carefully for mistakes, but there were none. Perhaps he did know something about sailing after all. And he didn’t seem a bad sort. Brian appeared just as they were finishing their preparations.

‘Mum says we’re all to wear life vests. She doesn’t want to add our deaths to her troubles.’ Brian looked a bit haggard. For the first few minutes his mind was on other things. After they cast off, Mark manoeuvred the boat away from the dock using the small electric motor. When they reached deeper water, he motioned to Brian and stepped away from the wheel.

‘What are you doing?’ Brian looked surprised.

‘Don’t you want the wheel?’

‘No. I’m a tourist today. You have to do the work. I’m just along for the ride, brother. And it’s a test. If you do well, I officially turn An Ghaoth Gheal over to you. Prove to me that you deserve it.’ He grinned and began raising the mainsail. Luan stepped forward to handle the foresail. The canvas began flapping and then stretched taut as the sails filled with the wind. An Ghaoth Gheal quickly picked up speed as Mark steered the boat into a beam reach and it began to move north up Sheephaven Bay.

For the most part, Brian and Luan sat on the railing forward of the wheel, midway along the hull. They faced outward, their legs dangling over the side of the boat, shifting into action only when Mark changed course. The two of them talked quietly. Except for an occasional word, Mark couldn’t hear what they were saying. From time to time Brian would point to some feature of the bay. And Luan would nod, and then the two of them would resume their conversation.

Brian had changed since the last time Mark had seen him. He had grown older, but more in manner than in years. Brian acts more like a man now, thought Mark. The last of his youth had been shed. And he seemed happier. Whatever had troubled him earlier was quickly forgotten once they were on the water and he was talking with Luan. Occasionally when Mark manoeuvred the boat, Brian would look over his shoulder and smile and hold a thumb up in approval.

Mark soon gave his full attention to the boat. He could sense the ebbing tide moving north beneath the hull, pulling the boat along with it, and even what his grandfather had called the echoes of the waves against the shore, the reverberations of energy that flowed away from the land as the water shoaled. As he had been trained, he watched the water ahead, alert for clues to sudden shifts in the direction of the wind. ‘Watch the light dancing on the water ahead. That will tell you where the wind is and what it’s doing.’ Brian had schooled him in that over and over--to read the ‘bright wind’ that lent its name to An Ghaoth Gheal.

As they neared the mouth of Sheephaven Bay, he felt the water under An Ghaoth Gheal grow quiet as the movement of the ebbing tide slowed and then ceased. Mark waited for the moment that would soon come. He was vaguely aware that Brian and Luan had stopped talking and were watching him, but he ignored them, focussing totally on what was happening around him. And then there came a hint of a motion against the boat, the gentlest push against the keel, as the tide began to return to the bay. ‘I’m bringing it about,’ he shouted above the wind. Brian and Luan leaped up as Mark began turning the boat in a broad arc. The sails began to luff noisily as the boat briefly came head to wind. Luan backed the jib as Mark moved the tiller in the same direction, and the boom swept across the boat. In unison, Luan lowered the foresail and Brian sent the spinnaker ballooning aloft. An Ghaoth Gheal leaped forward as if that were the moment she had been awaiting.

Brian gave a great shout, of joy, of triumph, as the boat sped down the bay. The three of them were flushed with the satisfaction of a perfectly executed manoeuvre. Mark felt a renewal of comradeship with his brother. And Luan was no longer a stranger--they had shared too much for that. He never knew how to describe the feeling, even to himself. But when he was sailing and the boat was running perfectly, he was taken out of himself. It wasn’t freedom exactly because the boat still depended on the water and the wind, but it was as if all the forces of nature were working together and his spirit had soared into the sails, raising the boat out of the water and sending it flying on the wind.

When they had docked and were securing the sails, Luan turned to him and said, ‘Thanks. That was great sailing. It felt as if the boat were alive.’

Brian growled at him. ‘Not just great. It was perfection. And if the boat was alive, it was Mark’s doing.’

Luan laughed. ‘I pity people who never experience that.’ He turned to Mark. ‘We work with some people who can’t understand why we sail every chance we get. They can’t imagine anything better than clubbing and drinking. They think we’re fools to want this.’

‘A heart in port,’ said Mark.

‘Oh, I haven’t heard that in years.’ Brian stopped what he was doing and stared at a memory.

Luan waited for an explanation from one of the brothers. When none was forthcoming, he asked, ‘What’s that?’

‘It’s a line from a poem our grandfather used to quote,’ said Brian. “Futile the winds to a heart in port. Done with the something, something.” Can’t remember the rest of it.’

‘ “Futile the winds to a heart in port. Done with the compass. Done with the chart. Rowing in Eden.” ’ Mark finished the quote. ‘He always said that would be the worst thing for a sailor--to be condemned to row a boat on a calm lake in paradise.’

******

Mark sat at his bedroom window. He was supposed to be in bed. After they had returned from the Innleys, he had been sent upstairs. But he was too excited to sleep. The Innleys had built a huge bonfire, and dozens of people had shown up to celebrate midsummer night’s eve. When his mother had drifted off to talk with her friends, Brian had passed him a bottle of beer. His father had seen it, winked at him, and then looked away. And when the sun had set and the fire had died down to the embers, Mr Innley had come over and asked Mark and Brian to sing. Brian said no, he wasn’t good enough to sing with Mark, but ‘my friend Luan is.’ When Luan had protested, Brian had said simply, ‘Do it for me.’

And so Mark and Luan found themselves conferring, trying to find a song both of them knew. Several people called out favourites, but they rejected them all. Finally, Brian said, ‘Sing “Gaoth Barra na dTonn”.’ And they did. They sang it for Brian, Mark felt. The others were just bystanders listening in. The words didn’t fit the season, but they matched what he felt that evening. It was an offering of thanks to the waves and to his brother, and that was all that mattered. And Luan’s voice was as good as promised. His baritone harmonised effortlessly with Mark’s high tenor. When they finished, there was a silence and then some cheers and clapping. Others stepped forward and sang. But none were as good as Mark and Luan.

The day had started badly but it had ended well, he thought. From his bedroom window, he could see down to the bay and the dock where An Ghaoth Gheal was berthed. It was too dark to see the boat, but there was a long thin line of darkness against the reflection of the moon in the water and he imagined it was the mast. Over supper, Brian had raved about Mark’s sailing and argued strenuously that he should be allowed to sail alone. Their mother had objected that Mark was too young, but Brian had said, ‘No. He’s the best sailor on these waters, and he needs to be out on sailing every day, in every kind of weather. For the practice. He could bring home a gold medal for Ireland in the Olympics. He’s that good. But he needs to practice.’ An Ghaoth Gheal, he pointed out, was built to be rigged so that a single person could sail it, and Mark was skilled enough to do that. His father had joined in on Brian’s side. There had been further argument, but it had ended when his father had told his wife that Mark had inherited her father’s talents. That satisfied his mother. She didn’t say yes, but she stopped saying no, and Mark took that as permission. He knew that after he had sailed by himself once, she would not protest.

The conversation was much more relaxed than it had been earlier. Brian was elated about something, and he wouldn’t let anything prevent him from being happy. By the time they left for the Innleys, everyone was laughing with him. Whatever had caused the tension before had disappeared.

Even with the moon, the night was dark outside his window. A few fitful glimmerings across the bay betrayed the locations of the remains of other bonfires. Below him a rectangle of light appeared briefly on the ground as the back door of the house was opened and closed. Brian and Luan walked out to the low wall that separated the back garden from the fields beyond. They leaned against it, with their backs to him, standing closely together. The murmuring of their voices came through the open window.

Mark knew that if they turned around and looked up, they would see him at the window, but he was watching over them, not spying on them. That night he was charmed, every power was his. He would protect them and bless them.

The door opened again, and his parents stepped out. Brian and Luan turned around and walked toward them. His father shook Luan’s hand and then his mother kissed him. They repeated the action with Brian. A few words were exchanged and then all of them went back inside. Mark was still puzzling over the incident when he fell asleep.

*****

Mark had been up so late the previous evening that he slept until past seven. When he came downstairs, his parents were talking in the kitchen. He heard his mother say, ‘It’s not what I would choose for him, but Luan seems nice, and he makes Brian happy. I will try to let that be enough and be happy for him.’

As Mark came around the corner into the kitchen, his father started to say something but then stopped when he saw Mark. ‘Oh, you’re up finally. The rest of us have already eaten. There’s some toast left for you. Brian and Luan are down by the boat. They have to leave early this afternoon. Don’t keep them waiting.’

That was all Mark needed to hear. He grabbed a slice of toast and flew out the back door. He could hear his mother calling something after him, but he outsped the words.

His brother and Luan were sitting close together on the storage chest at the end of the dock. When Mark ran down the dock, Brian stood up.

‘I’m sorry to be late. Let’s go.’ Mark started to jump aboard An Ghaoth Gheal, but Brian stopped him.

‘I have something to tell you. Walk with me for a bit. Luan will watch the boat.’

Brian started up the dock to the shore. Mark looked at him and then at Luan. Luan smiled and nodded his head toward Brian. ‘Go with him. It’s important.’

When he caught Brian up, he was seated on a rock overlooking the bay. He had drawn his legs up and was resting his forearms on his knees. He moved over slightly to make a place for Mark to sit.

‘This was one of my favourite spots when I was young. I used to spend my days here watching the boats and dreaming of the time when I could sail one. Sometimes I wish I could go back to that. Things were simpler then. Do you ever feel that way?’

Mark nodded. In truth, he couldn’t wait to be fully grown, but Brian seemed to want agreement. ‘You can always come back here. Once you qualify. Not here. It’s too small, but Letterkenny or Sligo. They’re big enough to support a doctor. And you could come up on the weekends, and we could go sailing.’

‘No, rural Ireland’s not a place that would tolerate me and Luan very well. We need a different sort of country. Some place like London.’

‘But Luan doesn’t have to be here.’

‘But I have to be with Luan. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. That’s why we’re here. To tell everyone that we have to be together.’

‘I don’t understand.’ Mark shook his head from side to side, trying to chase away the knowledge that was growing inside him.

‘I love him. He loves me. Next month in London we going to register a civil partnership and go through a ceremony. Mum and Da and Gran are going to be there. We hope that you and Luan’s parents and family will join us. I would like you to sing for us.’

‘No.’ Mark jumped up and away from Brian. ‘You can’t. It’s a sin.’

‘No, that’s the one thing it’s not.’

‘You’re joking. Stop it. I won’t listen. It’s not funny.’

‘Mark, please, just listen to me. Luan completes me. He’s . . .’

‘Noooooooo.’ Mark ran off blindly, his feet stumbling over the rocks along the shore. He heard Brian chasing after him. He had run only thirty feet when Brian grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him to a stop, wrapping his arms around Mark to keep him from fleeing.

Brian put his hand on the back of Mark’s head and held it tightly against his chest. He rocked back and forth. ‘Please. Don’t run away. I need you.’

Mark pounded his fists against Brian’s back. ‘Let go of me. I hate you. You’re not my brother.’

‘I’m still the same person I always was. I still love you. It’s just that now you know something about me you didn’t before.’

‘Why did you tell me? I didn’t want to know. You can change. We can make everything like before.’ Mark felt his brother stiffen and lift his head. He knew then that Luan had walked up and was standing behind him. ‘Make him go away. I don’t want him here. Just make him go away.’

Mark sprang away from the two of them as his brother released him from his grip. Luan stepped forward and stood beside Brian. The two brothers looked at each other warily, uncertain what to say next. Then Brian put his arm around Luan’s shoulder and pulled him close.

Tears welled up into Mark’s eyes. He started running again. Behind him, he heard Luan say, ‘No, don’t. Let him go. He needs to be by himself for a time.’

Mark turned around and danced furiously in place. The stranger had no right to interfere and tell Brian what to do. ‘I hate you. I hate you. Why did you come here? You don’t belong here.’ Then, sobbing, he ran off, putting more and more distance between himself and Brian and Luan. He could tell that they weren’t following him, but he kept running until he had rounded the next spit of land and was in a rocky cove. He found a place among a pile of boulders where he could hide and there he gave vent to his misery. He cried until his throat ached. The schoolboy words echoed through his mind. All the dirty hateful words. Queer. Faggot. Gay. Perv. All the jokes about that singer in Westlife and the one in Boyzone. The sniggering over Captain Jack and Ianto in Torchwood and John and Craig in Hollyoaks. The remarks about the boys that didn’t play football, or the ones that were too good-looking or the ones like himself that didn’t quite fit in. And now his brother was one of those people.

He cried for himself and for finding himself bereft and alone. He cried because he felt tainted and would never be whole again. He was still crying when his father came several hours later. His father stood there silently for a moment and then said, ‘Come, Mark, it’s time for you to come home.’

‘Is he there?’

‘Brian and Luan left several hours ago. They were sad that you weren’t there to say good-bye, but they understood that you had to be alone.’

‘I don’t ever want to see him again. You can’t make me. I won’t.’

‘That will be your decision. However, both Brian and Luan will be welcomed in our house whenever they choose. We won’t change that for you.’

Mark nodded. ‘I’ll go away when they come.’

His father smiled sadly in reply and nodded. ‘Come, your mother’s getting worried. It’s time for supper. You didn’t have much for breakfast and you didn’t eat dinner. You must be hungry.’

The house was silent when he returned. Neither of his parents said anything about his absence or about Brian and Luan. It was as if they had decided to ignore everything that had happened. They talked about the news as they ate and spoke about their plans for the days ahead. Mark sat at the table without saying anything. When they finished, he went up to his room.

He didn’t notice the envelope at first. He threw himself onto his bed and lay there feeling miserable. He took stock of his room. All the sailing paraphernalia on the walls and propped up in the corners. All of it useless to him now. He would never sail again. He knew that. An Ghaoth Gheal was simply a reminder of a brother who had chosen another course.

The patch of whiteness on his desk glowed in the half-dark and seemed much larger than it was. He tried to ignore it, but he couldn’t. His eyes kept coming back to it. He finally gave in and opened the envelope and pulled out the piece of paper inside. He hoped it contained the news that Brian was renouncing Luan and coming back to him. But he knew even before he read it that it wouldn’t.

‘Dear Mark, I have given my heart to only two people in my life, and you are one of them. It started the day Mum and Da brought you home from hospital and let me hold you for the first time. You were a miracle to me. You still are. There aren’t words to tell you how special you have made me feel over the years since and how important it is to me that you are my brother and that you love and respect me. I know that I have hurt you, but I cannot be other than what I am, and I hope you will understand. Please accept me for what I am. Love, Brian.’

Mark crumpled the piece of paper up and tossed it toward the bin. It bounced off the rim and fell to the floor. He grabbed it up and ripped it to shreds. When he couldn’t tear it into smaller pieces, he stood there with his chest heaving, trying to stifle his sobs so that his parents wouldn’t hear him crying. He frantically began pushing the pieces of the letter about and trying to flatten them and make them whole again. He cried because there wasn’t enough sellotape in the world to put the letter back together. He cried for troubles that he couldn’t solve. He cried for envy of all the hearts in port, unperturbed by their ignorance of the winds.

The E Train Doesn't Stop at Kenmore

Nexis Pas

© 2009 by the author.
Nexis Pas asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this piece.



To Lenny’s gratification, someone spotted the resemblance almost immediately. He had entered the hall devoted to British paintings in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston twenty minutes earlier and was wandering slowly around the room, pausing before each work and gazing at it for a few minutes before moving on to the next one. He tried to look like a thoughtful connoisseur of art. He had paid several exploratory visits to museums in New York City and observed how people behaved. There were some who hurried through the rooms, stopping only briefly before one of the more famous paintings or sculptures. Those Lenny had dismissed as boors unworthy of emulation. He had finally settled on one well-dressed, distinguished-looking middle-aged man, who moved slowly about the rooms. The man positioned himself in front of each painting and regarded it attentively if impassively. Occasionally he would raise an eyebrow in amusement. A few paintings merited a quiet smile and nod of approval. When Lenny had returned to his apartment, he had practiced the look of rapt attention and the nod of satisfaction before his mirror.

For the trip to Boston, Lenny had chosen clothes to match the colors of those in the painting. He couldn’t copy the dark fur robes and the white lace collar of the figure in the painting—that would have been ridiculous and in any case beyond his means—but he wore a black crew-neck sweater over a white shirt. After he had bought a ticket and entered the MFA, he had stopped in a bathroom to check his reflection in the mirror. A few quick tugs had brought the edge of the shirt collar neatly above the neck of the sweater. The sweater emphasized his trim build. His trousers draped perfectly over his hips and buttocks and down his legs, and the cuffs broke just slightly over his polished shoes. Lenny knew that he looked good in the outfit. Elegant. That was his goal. Elegance. Not ostentatiously elegant, just nonchalantly and comfortably elegant. A gentleman who had found himself in Boston and had decided to spend a few hours strolling through the Museum, engaged in the leisurely appreciation of art.

It was a long way from Cove Point. But that why’s Lenny had moved to New York City. To get away from Cove Point and into a world where people made time for things like the leisurely appreciation of art. He had taken care to create his new, urban self slowly. He didn’t rush into things, he didn’t risk mistakes. The last thing he wanted was to make a fool of himself. He watched and studied and listened. Once he had selected the type of person he wanted to be, he watched how such people dressed. He studied how they moved. He listened to how they spoke and what they said. Only when he was sure that he understood how people behaved and how things worked for them did he begin to mimic them. And he was always careful to review his behavior and others’ reaction to it later. Had there been a moment’s hesitation in responding to him when he acted in a certain way? Were people laughing with him or at him? Did they and others accept him as one of them?

Lenny spotted the portrait as soon as he entered the hall. It hung about a third of the way down the left-hand wall. He intentionally began his circuit of the room on the right side to delay his arrival before the painting as long as possible. He was examining the third painting to the right of his target when the couple entered the room through the same entrance he had and began walking toward him along the left-hand wall, devoting a minute or two to each painting. Both of them appeared to be vigorous senior citizens--the types who kept active and still played golf or went on long walks along the shore. They were more casually dressed than Lenny. Both wore tennis shoes, and the man had on a pair of Dockers. They did, however, look alert and intelligent. And that was all that Lenny required. He could forgive their sartorial failings as long as they turned out to be appreciative of fine art.

Lenny timed his perusal of the paintings so that he stood before the painting next to his portrait when they moved in front of it. The man bent forward slightly at the waist and read the contents of the card beside the painting. “Charles Leland Roberts, 1794-1859. Portrait of John Lawrence Sommerville, 1801-1852, Fifth Marquis of Creeslough. Oils on canvas. 1826.” The man and woman contemplated the picture briefly and then turned toward Lenny to move on. Lenny stepped back and smiled vaguely in their direction, allowing them to pass in front of him.

The man gasped and then looked back and forth between Roberts’s portrait of Sommerville and Lenny. As Lenny stopped before his portrait, the man whispered into his wife’s ear. She turned casually in Lenny’s direction, letting him drift into her field of vision, and then nodded at her husband. The two of them smiled at each other. As Lenny stood before his portrait, he knew they were comparing him to the image in the painting.

The resemblance was remarkable. Lenny might have sat for the portrait only a short time before. The facial features, the general shape of the body, even the hair color matched. Luckily Sommerville had favored a simple hair style that still more or less acceptable, and Lenny’s barber had been able to come close to it after Lenny had described it to him.

The art student had brought the resemblance to Lenny’s attention. He had told Lenny his name but Lenny hadn’t bothered to remember it. He knew that he would not be seeing the guy again. When they had met in the bar, the student had told Lenny that he looked familiar. “I can’t quite place you, but I know I’ve seen you before.” Lenny tried to remember if he had had sex with the guy before. He didn’t think so. Perhaps, he thought, it was just a come-on--the guy’s way of pretending to a familiarity that didn’t exist. After another drink, they had left the bar together and gone to the other man’s apartment. It was small and crowded with books. The student had hung several of his paintings on the walls. As soon as they walked in the door and switched on the lights, he made sure that Lenny knew that he had painted them. It was practically the first thing he said. “I painted all of these.”

Lenny didn’t think they were any good but shrugged off his lack of interest to his ignorance of painting. To be polite, he made a show of looking at them. “Nice,” he said. “I like that one. It’s very colorful.” He pointed at the brightest of the paintings.

The art student ignored his comments. “I know I know you from somewhere.” He had repeated that thought about a dozen times. Lenny was beginning to get tired of hearing it. The bar had been ill-lit, and the streets had been dark. It was only when the student switched on the overhead light in his living room that he could look closely at Lenny. He stood there examining Lenny, tapping an index finger against his lips. Finally, he said, “Yes, of course” in a satisfied voice. “I know.”

He turned to a book shelf and ran his hand slowly across the spines of the books before stopping at one and pulling it out. It was obvious to Lenny that he had known from the beginning which book he wanted. He was simply making a show of searching for it. Lenny began to wonder how long he had to wait before he could suggest that they undress and get started on the main business. The student flipped slowly through the pages. Finally he stopped and held the book up so that Lenny could see the picture. “I knew I had seen you before. I never forget a face.”

The student kept talking but Lenny didn’t bother to listen. His face stared out at him from the pages of the book. Without consciously thinking about his actions, Lenny reached out and took the book from the other man and sat down, concentrating on the descriptions of the painting and the artist and sitter. The student had had to pull the book out of his hands and begin kissing him before he remembered why they were there. Lenny had bumbled his way through the next hour without interest, his body participating in the sex but not his mind. When they finished, the art student said a few polite things about how great it had been and then rolled over and went to sleep. Lenny waited until the other man was breathing regularly and then eased himself out of the bed. He picked his clothes off the back of the chair where he had hung them and his shoes from the floor. He carried them into the small living room and dressed as quietly as he could. He pulled the door to the bedroom closed and then turned on the small light next to the guy’s computer. Lenny found the book on the shelf and paged through it until he found his picture. He carefully tore the page out and then put the book back on the shelf. When he got back to his apartment, he had turned on his computer and searched the Internet for information about Sommerville. He quickly forgot the student.

He began his preparations for the trip to Boston the next day, looking up plane schedules and investigating possible places to stay. His visits to museums began the following weekend. Barely a month after he had learned of his portrait’s existence, he was standing before it. The similarity really was astounding. Lenny wished that he could touch the painting. He wanted to feel the rough surface of the paint and affirm its reality. He knew from his reading that the painting was seven feet tall. The museum had hung it well above eye level, forcing the viewer to gaze upward at Sommerville. The figure in the painting sat in a chair. His body was shown in three-quarters view, but his head was turned to look directly out from the plane of the picture. His gaze was focused high above the head of any possible spectator. His right hand held a half-opened book. He appeared to have been disturbed in his reading, and his attention drawn to something in the center of the room. Both his indifference and his disdain were palpable.

Lenny regarded the painting with excitement. He would have been dismayed if he had seen his open-mouthed stare. When he had envisioned the confrontation, he had imagined admiring throngs gaping at him as he stood coolly before the portrait for a brief moment before drifting to the next painting. They were nudging one another and whispering among themselves, speculating about the relationship of the handsome young man and the distinguished-looking Fifth Marquis of Creeslough. But when he came face to face with the painting, all thought of the impression he might be making evaporated from his mind. He was lifted up and became the man sitting in the chair and looking out at the world he owned. The world he was seeing as he regarded his marble hall was magnificent, and Lenny was one of the glorious immortals at home in it.

“Another one.”

Lenny turned toward the speaker. “What?” A young man stood beside him, beaming at him with evident pleasure and expectation.

“Another match. I’m St. Sebastian. In the Italian Room. You have to come see me. I’m almost a match. But you’re much closer. The best one is the Japanese guy in the Buddhist temple. He looks just like one of the statues there. It’s too bad it’s Thursday. He only comes in on the weekends. Or you could meet him too. And then there’s the guy in the Spanish Room who claims he’s a match for one of the Goya paintings, but he’s not. The guard told me that there was a new match in here, and I had to come see.”

The young man spoke rapidly and his words gushed out in a confused welter of sound. Lenny couldn’t make any sense of them. “I’m sorry. I’m not following you. What are you talking about?” Lenny drew back. In his own mind, he was still Sommerville, and he unconsciously spoke in what he imagined to be Sommerville’s manner. The interruption was cheating him of his glory. He wanted to shove the other man away and return to his painting. The guy was handsome, but he hadn’t come to the Museum to pick someone up.

“We’re matches. Every museum has them. Someone who looks like a person in one of the paintings. Or sometimes a statue. Someone told me there’s a man in Chicago who looks just like one of carvings of a pharaoh there.” The young man put a hand on Lenny’s forearm and then pointed to the painting of Sommerville. “Like you and this guy. It could be you.”

“There are others?” It hadn’t occurred to Lenny that there might be others like him. Living artworks. Somehow better than ordinary people, more refined, chosen and then distilled to an essence and preserved in art, there to be contemplated and appreciated. The thought that there were others, that he wasn’t alone, heartened Lenny. He wasn’t just a fluke, an oddity. If there were others, then the resemblances had to mean something. It wasn’t just an accident. There were others who had had a similar experience and could help him understand what it meant.

“Yes, there are lots of us. Though there are lots of fakes. You have to be careful.”

“Where are you?” Suddenly Lenny had to see evidence that the young man was indeed real.

“In the Italian room. It’s three halls down. Come on. I’ll show you. I’m Antony by the way.”

“Len.” The two shook hands. Antony held onto Lenny’s hand a bit longer than necessary. Before letting it go, he ran his index finger up and down Lenny’s palm.

St. Sebastian’s flesh glowed white. His hands were bound above his head to a post, and his muscular body twisted away from the arrows piercing his flesh. The athletic youth looked upward ecstatically toward an approaching angel carrying a crown of martyrdom to place on his head.

“You do look like him.”

“I used to look more like him, a couple of years ago when I was younger. I’m growing old. In a few years I won’t be able to claim that he looks like me at all.”

“But you look like him now. You are so beautiful.” Lenny wasn’t looking at Antony. He spoke to the body in the painting. He wanted to touch that flesh, to experience its wounds. He half lifted a hand and caressed St. Sebastian’s thigh in his imagination. The air felt solid beneath his fingers. The purity of Sebastian’s suffering was so sensual as he offered his body to the arrows piercing it. His flesh remained bloodless and passionate even as it closed around the wounds. Looking at it, Lenny began to understand why some people were so enthusiastic about art. It made him want to be part of that world. One of the people who felt things like art, to whom such things mattered, who was ardent about it.

“Oh, he’s more muscular than I am. I’ve tried to recreate his muscles, but I can’t train mine into the same shape.”

Lenny looked away from the painting and took a slow inventory of Antony’s body. “You must look almost like him.”

“A lot of people think so. Especially when they see me undressed, like him.” Antony nodded toward St. Sebastian in invitation. “People like to possess him. I don’t have the arrows stuck in me of course. I’m not willing to go that far.”

“Do people want that?”

“Sometimes they want to reproduce the pose. Tie my hands over my head, that sort of thing.”

“Do you let them?” Lenny licked his lips. He could see Antony/Sebastian bound.

“Never have. Too risky. Some ‘art lover’ might decide to stick me full of arrows.”

“There has to be some way of having the arrows without actually sticking them in your flesh.”

Antony shrugged. “I never gone to bed with one of the other matches. It will be a first. We can see if we can figure something out.”

It wasn’t until that point that Lenny knew that he and Antony were going to bed together. “Where do you live? I’m just here for a couple of days. I’m from New York. I’m staying in a motel near the airport tonight.”

“On Beacon Street in Brookline. It’s not far. We can take the subway. We’ll have to take the E line and then transfer to the C line to go out Beacon. Did you buy a day pass? If you did, we can change at Copley. Otherwise we’ll have to go to Arlington.”

A train was approaching the stop near the museum and they had to run to catch it, but they were at Copley within a few minutes. Antony led the way up the inbound steps and then across the street to the stairs leading down to the outbound platform. They moved away from the crowd of people and stood a bit apart. Antony faced down the tunnel staring at an approaching train.

“Is this safe? It looks like it’s falling apart.” Lenny pointed toward the peeling and cracked plaster pillars holding the ceiling of the underground platform up.

Antony shrugged. “The Green lines are the oldest ones. The tunnels must be safe, or they wouldn’t use them, would they? Oh, damn, it’s a B train. There should be a C in a moment.” He stepped away from the approaching train and leaned back against the wall of the platform.

There was a small sign affixed to wall next to Antony. Lenny read it and then pointed to it.

“Why do they tell you that? They made the same announcement on the E train when I took it to the museum.”

Antony turned to the sign and read it as if it were the first time he had seen it. “ ‘For Kenmore, take a B, C, or D train. The E Train does not stop at Kenmore.’ Oh, Copley’s the last stop on this track for the E trains. All the Green lines come through here, but after this the E line branches off. The rest of them go on to Kenmore and then they branch off too.”

“But what’s so special about Kenmore?”

“It’s where Fenway Park is.”

When Lenny looked confused, Antony continued. “It’s where the Red Sox play. I suppose the sign’s for people going to baseball games there so they don’t take the E train. Oh, here’s a C train. It will only be another fifteen minutes or so.”

Beyond Kenmore, the C train climbed a slight grade and the tunnel grew lighter. After a pause, the train emerged into the open and ran down the middle of a broad street lined with brick apartment buildings. Both sides of the road were heavily traveled. Some of the ground floors housed small shops and restaurants. The train climbed another hill and then passed through a larger shopping district. The sidewalks were crowded with people, and most of the riders on the train got off at that stop. A residential section began within a couple of blocks. Large trees arched over the roadway and the tram line.

Antony guided him off the train and to an old apartment building with the word “Empire” chiseled in the stone over the door. Two twisted wires, the metal long since corroded black, protruded from the top of a pillar that had apparently once held a lamp. The floor of the entrance was covered in cracked tiles, and the walls were painted a dark brown. Antony led him down the first floor hallway. It was so dark that he had to feel with his fingers and scrape the key against the lock to find the slot.

The apartment had high ceilings, far higher than any modern apartment would have. Directly in front of the door was the kitchen, with an old stove and a refrigerator that was humming loudly and making ticking noises. A wastebasket overflowed with food cartons and packages. A short hallway led to a large living room, with a bay window looking out over the back yard of the building next door. A fireplace centered between two bookcases occupied the opposite wall. A vase of dried flowers in the grate and the lack of soot betrayed that the fireplace was fake. Over the mantel hung a reproduction of the St. Sebastian painting. Sections of several days’ worth of newspapers littered the floor and the cushions of the sofa. The room may once have been attractive, but the walls were cracked and in need of painting. Another door led to the bedroom. A trail on the carpet marked years of footsteps from the front entrance to the bedroom. The apartment smelled of old dust.

Antony led him through to the bedroom. A double bed, a dresser, and two wooden chairs were the only pieces of furniture in the room. Clothes were draped haphazardly over one of the chairs. The back yard next door was dimly visible through a small, grimy window. Through a second window only the tarred wall of the building behind the apartment could be seen. Only a foot or so separated the two buildings. The room was quite dark even though it was early afternoon. Antony pulled off his clothes and tossed them toward the chair with his other discarded clothes. One of his socks caught on the seat of the chair and then slowly slid to the floor. “If you need to use the toilet before we get started, it’s through there.”

Lenny shook his head. “I’m fine. Thanks. Do you need to pull the shades?”

“What for?” Antony snorted. “No one can see in here. Even if they could, they’d probably enjoy it. I don’t mind if they watch.” He raised his arms over his head, and crossed them at the wrists. He leaned back against the wall and twisted his body in an approximation of St. Sebastian’s pose in the picture. His body was darker than that in the picture, except around his groin. There a white triangle highlighted his cock and balls.

“Great tan.”

“Just got back from a vacation in Puerto Rico last week.” His cock and balls swayed from side to side as he shifted his weight from one leg to the other. He pivoted his body around an imaginary rope fastening his body to a post. The tan lines on his ass revealed that he had been wearing a thong on his vacation.

His body was a close match for that of St. Sebastian in the painting. Both were lightly muscled and hairless even around the groin. Lenny began stroking Antony’s body. He didn’t know why, but he had expected Sebastian’s flesh to be cool and smooth. Antony’s was hot and slightly moist and oily as if he had been sweating. His fingers tugged at Antony’s body instead of gliding over it.

“I need to get another Brazilian wax. The stubble is beginning to show. That’s where I don’t resemble the painting. I have a lot of body hair. It’s a constant fight to keep it off. But people want me to be like the painting. You won’t have that problem. All you have to do is comb your hair like that guy in the painting and people will think you’re Lord What’s-his-name. No one knows what his body looks like. Speaking of which, Len, why don’t you get undressed and let me see what you look like.”

Lenny turned away and undressed slowly. He took his time. He sat on the chair that wasn’t piled with clothing while he unlaced his shoes. He pulled the sweater over his head and then folded it carefully before placing it on the seat of the chair. He knew that he looked good. Let Antony enjoy the visuals before they moved in closer. He turned his back to Antony and undid his belt and trousers. As he was preparing to drape his trousers over the back of the chair, he felt Antony’s hands on his ass.

Antony pulled him closer and shoved his hands up under Lenny’s shirt and T-shirt and began stroking his nipples. “Nice. I thought you would have a nice body. From the way that you look.”

Lenny unbuttoned his shirt and pulled his arms out of the sleeves. Antony had waited long enough. He impatiently pulled Lenny’s T-shirt over his head and tossed it on the floor. He grabbed Lenny and spun him around so that they were facing. He placed his hands on either side of Lenny’s face and then kissed him, forcing his tongue between Lenny’s lips and into his mouth. His breath was stale, and he tasted of garlic. Lenny tried to pull back, but Antony held him tightly. He aggressively ran his hands up and down Lenny’s body and then grabbed his cock and balls and squeezed them. His hand pumped Lenny’s cock until it grew hard.

He pulled Lenny over to the bed and then lay down, sprawling across the width of the bed and opening his legs. “Suck me until I get hard.” He pointed toward his cock and then laced his hands behind his neck with his arms spread out and resting flat on the bed. Lenny bent over and took Antony’s cock in his mouth. “That’s it. Suck it. Make me hard.” Antony pumped his cock into Lenny’s mouth a couple of times, but it was still flaccid. Lenny sucked on it as hard as he could. It tasted sour to him, and the foreskin was loose and slid up and down. He closed his lips around it and ran his tongue back and forth, trying to make it hard. He suddenly wanted the whole episode to be over as quickly as possible, to make Antony cum and then leave.

Antony grabbed the back of Lenny’s head and began fucking his face. His cock jabbed the back of Lenny’s throat, and Lenny began gagging. He thrashed about trying to get free, but that just excited Antony more. Anthony sat up on his knees and began forcing his cock even further down Lenny’s throat. Lenny felt as if he could hardly breathe. He labored to fill his lungs between Antony’s thrusts.

“Oh, yeah, bitch, suck on it. Harder. Come on. Take it all. You know you want it.” Antony never stopped talking. “Come on, your lordship. You’ve always wanted to suck a saint. Now’s your chance.” He extended an arm down Lenny’s back and pressed a finger into his anus. It was soon joined by a second finger. Antony’s nails tore at his flesh. “Oh, nice and tight. That’s going to feeeeeeeel so gooood when I fuck you.”

Lenny shook his head no and tried to speak, but Antony just shoved his cock in again. It got harder and harder to breathe as Antony got more excited and his cock swelled. Finally he withdrew and hopped off the bed. Lenny bent forward at the waist and lay his face against the cover. It was rough against his skin but he didn’t care. He was just relieved to be able to breathe normally again. His face was hot and flushed, and there were beads of sweat on his forehead. Behind him he heard Antony moving about. He hoped that he was through. He didn’t think Antony had cum but some guys didn’t have much, especially if they had had sex recently.

Antony suddenly grabbed a handful of Lenny’s hair and shoved a lubed finger deep into Lenny’s ass and plunged it in and out rapidly.

“NO, don’t. I don’t want to be fucked.” Lenny tried to pull away.

Antony pushed his face into the bed and then slapped his ass. “You’re going to take it, your lordship. I ain’t no saint.” Then he pulled his finger out and thrust his cock into Lenny.

Lenny screamed in surprise. “Oh that’s what I want to hear, bitch.” Antony started laughing.

Lenny’s hands clawed at the bedcovers and closed into fists. He pounded the bed to keep from shouting out from the pain. He bit down on the covers, taking a wad of cloth into his mouth. His head arched backwards, lifting the sheets off the bed. His eyes were tightly closed, and his face was contorted. Antony rode him for almost fifteen minutes before he came.

Lenny struggled for the first few minutes, and then he just gave up. The pounding continued. There wasn’t any pleasure in it for him. Occasionally Antony would slap Lenny’s ass to make him contract his muscles tighter around his cock. As Antony approached orgasm, his cock grew larger. Finally he came with a great shout and then collapsed on Lenny, still inside him.

Antony wrapped his arms around Lenny and squeezed him tightly. He kissed Lenny on the back of the neck, growling with pleasure. “That was a good fuck, your lordship. With a little training, you would make a first-class cocksucker. You’re already a great fuck.”

Antony pulled out and jumped up. Lenny could hear him pissing into the toilet and then the shower began running. Lenny pushed himself off the bed. He grabbed a handful of Kleenex from the box on the nightstand and began cleaning himself up. His ass felt about three times normal size, and it was slimy with fluids. When Antony finished showering and came out, Lenny rushed into the bathroom and closed the door behind him. He turned on the shower as hot as he could and scrubbed himself. He stood there for ten minutes letting the water wash Antony off. He found a towel on a shelf and used that. It smelled faintly of mildew and left him feeling in need of another shower. He would take another one when he got back to the motel.

Lenny stood behind the bathroom door for a minute and tried to hear if Antony was in the bedroom. He couldn’t tell. He eased the door open and peeked out, relieved to find that Antony was nowhere in sight. He quickly dressed and felt in his pockets to make sure that he still had his wallet and keys. When he was ready, he dashed into the living room, intending to make a quick exit.

Antony was sitting on a chair before the fireplace, with his legs crossed, wearing just a pair of shorts and flip-flops. Above him, the figure of St. Sebastian still looked upward toward the angel. Antony smiled when he saw Lenny. “There’s a Irish bar up the street. It’s pretty good. At least this time of day. Later at night, they have all these Irish bands in singing about the Old Sod. And then all the drunks start crying about how much they miss Ireland. We can go there until dinner time and then go somewhere and have something to eat and then come back here and fuck again.”

“I’m meeting some friends for dinner—in Cambridge.” It was the first lie that Lenny could think of. He didn’t know anyone in Boston, and he wasn’t even quite sure where Cambridge was.

“Oh, that’s too bad. I was hoping . . . well, never mind. It doesn’t matter. What time will you be at the Museum tomorrow? I’ll meet you there.”

“I’m going back to New York early tomorrow. I won’t have time to go to the Museum again.” Another quickly improvised lie. Lenny had planned to spend most of the day at the Museum. “How do I get to Cambridge? I take the C line out front and then I have to change somewhere, don’t I?”

“Yeah, C line to Park Street. Go downstairs to the Red Line outbound and take any train. There are several stops in Cambridge. Which one are you supposed to go to? Harvard? Central Square?”

Harvard sounded like the obvious place to go in Cambridge, and so Lenny said that.

“It’s the third or fourth stop after Park Street. I don’t remember.” Antony waved a vague hand toward his front door. “You know how to find your way out and to the train?”

“Yes, thanks. See you.” Lenny was relieved to get away so easily and so quickly. He sprinted toward the door before Antony could change his mind and decide to accompany him.

“Yeah, see you.”

A taxi was passing as Lenny stepped out the front door, and he flagged it down. He had the driver take him back to his motel. Maybe, he thought, he could get a flight back tonight on one of the shuttles. He didn’t want to stay in Boston any longer.

Nowij jezik

Thanks to those who commented on the last post. Three out of the four commentators are named "Anonymous"--that is quite a coincidence. Who can Anonymous III be? Out yourself, Sir or Madam. My curiosity about your identity has led me to postpone cleaning the fridge. Mould prospers while you dally and tempt us with promises of revelations, Cher Sir or Chere Madam.

In answer to Anonymous III, I shan't give up writing. It's just that now I can publish under my real name, Roslan Žémř, and will no longer have to struggle to express myself in English. I can revert to writing in my native language and finally produce the Great Kashubian Novel. Unfortunately there are few native speakers of Kashubian left and most of them are older even than I and seldom have access to the Internet. So unless you are one of the few Kashubian speakers with computer skills, you will have to accept my solemn word that Krasnij i karij kwadraty will be a masterpiece. Unless someone Englishes it, I am afraid that my novel is destined to be even more unread than the other works I have written. So be it. An unread work of genius will be my grand gesture to the indifferent cosmos.

I am working on several stories. Eventually all of them will be finished, and I will post each as it is ready. That will give all of you time to learn Kashubian--although I should warn you that I write in Proto-Archaic Literary Southeastern Kashubian, which is noted for, among other unique features, its incredibly difficult passive optative constructions. It is said that even speakers of Middle Kashubian often find the barriers to mastering the subtleties of PALSK, as it is affectionately known, insurmountable. However, do not, I beg you, fall into the beguiling trap of opting to learn Western Kashubian, with its simpleminded conjugations and its verbal naivete. Only those who persevere will ever know the joys of Proto-Archaic Literary Southeastern Kashubian.

More anon.

The writer formerly known as Nexis Pas

early retirement

A colleague remarked today that I looked happy. I couldn't tell her the reason why, since I can't make the announcement until April 1, but I decided over the weekend to accept my employer's offer of an early retirement package rather than wait for them to declare me redundant and hire someone at half the salary to do my job. It's such a relief to know that likely at the end of June, I will no longer owe most of my waking hours to a job (there is a slight possibility that I might have to stay until the end of December). Now that I've decided to retire, I am becoming impatient for the day. Best of all, I can shed the facade of Nexis Pas. Since no one reads this blog, I can abandon that mask long before the day. He has served his purpose.

The Good Luck Charm

The Good Luck Charm

Nexis Pas

© 2009 by the author.

‘You see that young man in the dark red knit shirt who’s waiting for an order at the bar?’

‘Oh, wow, what a stunner.’

‘He’s my good luck charm.’

‘Your what?’

‘My good luck charm. He rides the bus in the morning two or three times a month. He always sits on the bench near the front along the side of the bus. You know the loudmouth I’ve told you about who gets on at my stop—he usually sits there. So my good luck charm forces that oaf to take another seat, out of the range of my vision, which is a great plus. He’s much easier on the eyes in the morning.’

‘So that makes him your good luck charm?’

‘No. That’s because of what happened one of the first mornings he was on the bus. That was the day I persuaded Gillian Barnes to sign with us. And then the next time he was on the bus was the day I got the promotion. So every time I see him, I expect good things to happen.’

‘What’s his name?’

‘I don’t know. I’ve never spoken to him.’

‘Don’t you want to meet him?’

‘No, not really. For starters, I have you. Why would I be interested in him?’

‘Hmm. So I’m the starters now. I suppose he’s the main course. Fillet of prime-quality beef.’

‘Your starters always leave me stuffed. Can’t handle a main course after one of your starters.’

‘He could be the savoury. Or the pudding. You like Eve’s pudding. He could be that. I’m sure his apples would tempt you. Juicy and sweet and crisp.’

‘To judge from the bulge in his levis, Adam’s pudding would be more appropriate. Figs and bananas covered with double cream. But no, he’s just a bit of eye candy that brings me good luck. And we had better abandon the food comparisons. The next ones could only be a step down.’

‘You said “for starters”. I suppose you have one of your methodical lists of reasons he would not do.’

‘Let’s see. Second, I must be twenty-five years older than he is.’

‘Thirty-five would be closer to the mark.’

‘Oooh, what an awful bitch it is.’

‘Hmmm. Well, I am your bitch. It’s my role in your life.’

‘Indeed. And a very nice one you are.’

‘Is there a third reason?’

‘Third reason for what?’

‘Why you haven’t spoken to your good luck charm.’

‘Oh, he could only disappoint. As long as I know nothing about him, I can pretend he’s perfect. If I spoke to him, I might discover that he comes in second to a seagull in intelligence. Or that he has an unpleasant voice. Or what, oh, I don’t know, that he has a tattoo of a drunken sailor on his left buttock.’

‘So you have imagined his left buttock?’

‘Yes, but not to worry. Yours is much better. Or at least it was when you were his age.’

‘Touché. What about now?’

‘I haven’t seen the tattoo of the drunken sailor on your left buttock since this morning. I hesitate to commit to a comparison for fear that it may have deteriorated since last viewed.’

‘Why don’t you finish your pint? We can go home, and you can inspect it up close and personal.’

‘Well, now, I think I can leave the rest of this. Your offer of a private viewing is incomparably preferable to this inch of ale.’

‘And your good luck charm?’

‘I would say that he has discharged his duties handsomely, wouldn’t you?’

Coffee in the Morning

Coffee in the Morning

Nexis Pas

© 2008 by the author
Nexis Pas asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.


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‘Bitch.’ The word hung in the air between the two young men standing in the dark entranceway. Neither paid me the slightest attention as I approached.

******
The snow began falling around midnight. On a trip to the toilet around three, I pulled the curtains away from the hallway window and looked out. Enough had fallen by then to hide the ground. Beneath the streetlamp in front of the Lovatts’ house, the flakes spiralled slowly downward. When I awoke again at six, there were three or four inches on the ground and a fitful wind had sprung up. The snow would be whirled about in a sudden gust only to resume drifting leisurely when the wind died. The weather forecast on the radio said that the wind chill had brought the apparent temperature down to minus twelve Celsius, and the snow was expected to continue until mid-day, with another seven to eight centimetres of accumulation. I don’t think I shall ever grow accustomed to the metric system. Too many years of inches and pounds. I mentally translated the figures into around ten degrees Fahrenheit and another three inches of snow.

It was even darker outside than customary for that time of the year and that hour of the morning. I debated whether I should forgo my usual morning cup of coffee because of the cold and the snow. It didn’t take me long to decide. Coffee in the morning is a habit of a lifetime, and I’ve always liked walking in the snow, especially at night. I like the way one feels isolated within the snowflakes, the way they come cascading out of the sky in a vortex that swirls around you. The hissing noise the snow makes as it falls, and the crunch as it compacts beneath your feet. The hesitant way a flake touches your face or settles on your clothing, almost as if it were surprised at finding something in its path. Falling snow engages so many of the senses.

I wrapped a woollen scarf around my neck and jaw and then pulled on my boots and heavy coat. I decided the day demanded a knit cap and thick gloves. As I walked out, I glanced at myself in the hall mirror. ‘Stocky’ would be a generous description of my build. I looked like an aerosol spray can with a domed lid and a push button on top done up in wool. I had pulled the scarf up over my mouth and the tip of my nose, and the only part of my face visible was a narrow band around my eyes.

The snow was still fresh enough to be light and fluffy. I used the broom we keep in the small entryway between the hallway and street doors to sweep a path down the steps and along the short walkway to the street. The plough had been by earlier, but enough had fallen since then to leave an inch or so of new accumulation on the street. The snow had covered everything over and flattened the landscape, robbing it of detail. Our small front garden and those of our neighbours looked pristine and fresh beneath a smooth blanket of snow. Only humps with a few twigs poking out hinted at shrubberies growing beneath.

Kinross Street is an old residential area. The houses, all of them solid brick structures, were built in the 1890s. The street itself is narrow, and the few streetlamps are spaced widely. Beneath each light, a radiant circle of white faded quickly into thick darkness. A few of our neighbours were awake, and lights dimmed by draperies cast yellow-grey squares on the snow. It was one of those magically private moments when one feels unobserved and free.

I had to walk in the street because the pavements had not been cleared yet. No one had been out since the plough had been past. There were no tyre tracks or footprints. Mine were the first. I felt a responsibility settle on my shoulders to make my prints neat, to disturb the snow as little as possible. When I reached the corner at Strathmore Road, I looked back toward our house. It always surprises me to see evidence of how my feet turn out. I think I walk with my feet pointing straight ahead, but my footprints gave the lie to that notion. Two lines of prints, each one angled outward about thirty degrees, marked my passage down Kinross.

Strathmore is a busy street, and the council gives it priority for cleaning. The plough must have been by only a short time before. The street itself was almost free of snow. The shops begin a block from the intersection with Kinross, and some of the pavements had already been cleared and salt crystals, or whatever ‘green’ product that is used now, thrown down. The snow was already becoming slush in the gutters. Not nearly as attractive as the fresh version, but then that never lasts long. A sharp blast of wind made me suddenly feel the cold, and I began to walk more quickly. I could see the lights of the Veneto coffee bar ahead. Other than the news agent’s further down the street, it was the only shop open at that time of the morning.

Veneto opened about three years ago. The shop is long and narrow. There is a counter on one side toward the rear, with the coffee machines on a ledge built against the wall behind it. At the back are shelves with packages of coffee and brightly coloured and intricately patterned cups and plates from Italy. Travel posters featuring scenes of Venice hang on what little open wall space there is. The small floor area is packed with seven round tables, with two wire-mesh chairs at each. A well-wisher might say that the seating is snug and conducive to friendliness. Someone intent on being truthful would say that it is crowded. The tops of the tables are made of brushed stainless steel. The surface is polished enough to reflect objects and faces, but the patterns and accumulated scratches scoured into them break the images up and distort them. The odour of roasted coffee permeates everything in the shop. For a coffee lover like myself, the smell alone is a promise of heaven.

Leo, the young man who owns and runs the Veneto, isn’t from Italy, but he has a love of all things Italian. I’m not even sure that Leo is his real name. I suspect he may have been christened Leonard and was a Len for all but the past few years. His light brown hair and fair complexion argue for an English background. He is in his mid-twenties, I believe, at most late twenties. He is unfailingly polite toward his customers and friendly with those of us who are regulars. I am usually the first or one of the first customers in the morning, and we have over the years since Leo opened the Veneto chatted often. He knows me well enough to know what role Gabe plays in my life and to recognise him on the street. Leo lives above his coffee bar, and we occasionally see him in the other stores and restaurants in the neighbourhood.

Now that I think about it, I actually know very little about Leo’s personal life. I suppose I do most of the talking in the morning. I am become a garrulous old man since I retired. Well, truth be told, I was both garrulous and old long before I retired. In any case, Leo listens to me and seems to have some interest in my life.

I have always been a quiet walker. Gabe sometimes complains about my ‘sneaking up’ on him. That may have been why the two men standing in the doorway of the Veneto didn’t hear me approaching. The man with his back to me as I walked up was wearing a duffel coat. The other man had no coat on, as if he had just stepped outside for a moment. There is no light over the door and the two men were illuminated only by the light coming through the shop window beyond the entrance. They were standing very close, almost embracing, and conversing quietly. When I was within a few feet of them, I saw that the man without a coat on was Leo. The two were so intent on each other that neither registered my approach.

It was then that the man wearing the coat said, ‘What time will you be through today, bitch?’ Leo smiled at him and said something I didn’t catch. It was so cold that their words came out as white puffs that lingered in the air. Then Leo looked up and saw me. He stepped back from the other man and opened the door for me. ‘Good morning, Mr Simmons. I’ll be right with you.’ I nodded to both of them and greeted them. The other man glanced briefly at me as I went in, the polite smile on his lips quickly fading, whatever interest he may have anticipated dying as soon as he registered my age.

Even before I had divested myself of my coat and other paraphernalia, Leo came bustling into the shop and took his place behind the counter. I always order the same thing every morning, a triple caffè lungo--at least that is what Leo has taught me to call it. Whatever its name is, I love the richly nuanced bitterness of the taste. There are days when I feel almost heady after drinking it, rather like the feeling I get when drinking whiskey on an empty stomach. Without asking, Leo began tamping the coffee into the filters and wedging the holders into the espresso machines. Soon the machines started to hiss, and the coffee began straining into the pots. Leo swirled the liquid in the first pot around and then sniffed at it cautiously. He scowled and then dumped the contents into the sink and started over. When he was satisfied with the brew, he poured the contents of all three pots into a large cup for me and carried it over to my table.

‘Sorry about that earlier, Mr Simmons.’

My confusion must have shown on my face. I didn’t know what he was apologising for.

‘My friend.’ Leo tilted his head toward the door of the shop.

‘Ah.’ Comprehension. ‘Nothing to worry about. I’m glad to see that you have someone.’

Leo gave me a rather uncertain look, as if my interpretation had drawn his attention to the question of what his relationship to the man in the duffel coat was. Perhaps I had simply misread the situation, and it hadn’t occurred to him that others might see a relationship where there was none. For a second I thought he was going to speak, but then he simply nodded his head and went back behind the counter. The surface of the coffee was covered with a layer of foam. As I waited for it to cool, several of the bubbles popped, and the black liquid under the brown foam began to appear. I cautiously took several sips to gauge the temperature and then half-turned in my seat to speak to Leo. ‘Oh, that’s perfect. You worked your usual magic.’

Leo looked up from the cups he was arranging on a towel and smiled at me. ‘I think you may be the only customer this morning. No one else is about in this weather.’

‘You and your friend were the only other people I’ve seen this morning.’

‘We made a late night of it, and it had started to snow when he was ready to leave. So he stayed the night.’

‘May I ask something? It’s not personal. I am just interested in a word your friend used.’

‘Sure.’ He shrugged and looked at me with curiosity. ‘His name’s Jerome, by the way. Most people call him Jer.’

‘I’ve heard other people use the term on the telly and on the street. He called you a “bitch”--I know what the word means, but this usage is unfamiliar to me. What does it signify when one young man says it to another?’ Sometimes I sound stilted and pompous even to myself. I tend to ratchet myself up a notch when I fear that I am becoming rude--formal politeness seeking to excuse and ameliorate nosiness.

‘Means different things, doesn’t it? Depends how it’s said. Jer likes me. With him, it’s a . . . a term of affection, I guess. It also means that he’s trying to make a claim on me, calling me “his bitch”.’

‘Ah, I see. Thank you for enlightening me.’ I took another drink of coffee. I’m never sure what sorts of questions are considered too personal nowadays. The young seem to discuss everything so openly. I supposed that’s why my next remark was spoken so tentatively. ‘So this relationship with Jerome could be serious?’

Leo looked toward the ceiling as if the answer might be written there. He hesitated not, as I first feared, because he was trying to think of a polite way to tell me to mind my own business but because he wasn’t sure of the answer. After a moment, he dropped his eyes and looked at me. ‘Might be. Not yet though. I think he’s trying to rush things a bit, and I’m not sure I’m ready to be his “bitch”--or anyone else’s for that matter. I hope you weren’t offended. He was just saying goodbye. He’s affectionate, like. Very physical.’

‘No, I wasn’t offended. It’s heartening to see that two men can demonstrate their feelings toward each other on the street. It wasn’t that way years ago. So we’re--gay people, I mean--we’re making some progress. When Gabe and I were your age, it was still against the law for men to have sex with each other, even in private. We could never have kissed on the street like that.’

Leo gave me a polite half-smile and went back to his work. He wasn’t interested in ancient history. I returned to my coffee and the view out the window. Most customers at that hour of the morning read the newspaper or pull out a laptop or their phone and start tapping away. I like to look out the window and watch the traffic and the people walking past. I’ve reached an age when I enjoy being a spectator. I have all day to read the newspaper, and I feel no need to be linked electronically to everyone I know during every waking moment.

It was still dark enough outside that the interior of the shop was reflected in the glass of the window. The images in the glass weren’t as clear and ‘solid’ as those in a mirror would have been, and they overlay the background of the scene outside. What one saw depended on the focus of one’s eyes. When I looked at the reflection, I saw my outline dark against the light behind me and Leo moving about in the background. When I looked at a distance, the reflection faded away, and I saw only the snow falling. Although long delayed by the heavy overcast, the light outside was growing. The wind appeared to be getting stronger. The snowflakes were no longer floating down but were being driven almost sideways and forcibly blasted into the ground.

Gabe and I had been so circumspect when we were younger. Furtive. I suppose that lent our relationship a certain excitement. We were being daring. The camouflage of convention was as much a part of our lives as the wonders of love. Two staid young men at the beginning of their adult lives and careers secretly making out like rabbits as often as opportunity allowed. We thought we were being innovative and avant-garde. I’ve never spoken about it with Gabe, so I don’t know what he thought, but I was certain that we were re-inventing sex and creating previously unknown pleasures.

Now, of course, an hour ‘surfing the net’ provides an advanced tutorial in the sorts of activities we stumbled across by chance. But there weren’t any models for us, sexual or otherwise. The only visibly gay people were comedians and actors who exaggerated their ‘swish’ side and camped it up for effect. We knew we weren’t like that. The only examples we had were straight couples--our parents and others--and we wouldn’t have been allowed, or allowed ourselves, to copy them openly.

We didn’t dare live together at first. Gabe was a teacher in a secondary school before he retired, and in the nineteen-sixties and even up into the seventies he would have been dismissed if it were suspected that he was gay. If it had become known at the bank that I was gay, I wouldn’t have been fired, but I would probably have been shunted aside to some corner of the office doing tedious tasks that no one wanted to do, safely removed from contact with the bank’s customers and clients. I would never have been promoted or granted a rise in salary. The bank would have done everything it could to encourage me to leave.

When Gabe and I met on the street, we greeted each other with hearty handshakes. In public, we were always careful to maintain a physical separation. Straight ‘blokes’ touched their ‘mates’ in public far more often than we did. We couldn’t do that because we couldn’t afford gossip about our friendship. When I visited his flat, I always left at an early hour, and vice versa. Our visits to gay pubs and other such places were restricted to occasional trips to London. Secrecy and discretion just seemed second nature to the way we had to live, part of the price we paid for being gay lovers if we wanted to remain respected members of society. Or even if we wished to remain members of society at all. We had so many subterfuges, so many masks. People who knew us may have suspected, but we were never indiscreet enough to supply them with proof for their suspicions. ‘Such good friends’--‘Bryan and Gabriel are such good friends’--that was the arch euphemism others used to allude suggestively to our relationship.

Once in the mid-seventies, the bank sent me to San Francisco for a week to supervise the negotiations over a loan. The end of the term at Gabe’s school fortuitously coincided with the projected end of the negotiations, and I arranged to take time off to tour California. He flew over to join me. It was such a week of freedom for both of us. We weren’t making out in the streets or anything like that, but it felt so comfortable just to be able to walk around together and not have to pretend to be just friends. Nobody noticed one more couple of whatever gender or orientation. If anything, our accents attracted more attention than did the fact that we were a gay couple.

It was our first trip together. It was a wonderful luxury to share a bed for a full night with Gabe. The bed was enormous, but we occupied very little of it. When I woke up the first morning, we were curled up next to each other, my face pressed into one of his shoulders. He held me tightly against his body. We shaved and showered and then went downstairs to the restaurant on the ground floor of the hotel. Oddly enough, that was the first time we had ever had breakfast together. Gabe conformed to the waiter’s expectations and ordered a pot of tea. My lover was very surprised when I asked for black coffee.

‘I didn’t know you drank coffee in the morning. Or is that just because we’re in the States?’

‘No, I always have coffee in the morning. Don’t you?’

‘Not very often. I usually drink tea.’

We had been together for nine years by that point. Each of us knew a lot about the other, but there were many details of our personal lives that the other never saw. In some ways, ignorance was bliss. When we finally moved in together, it was just such petty details that caused the most squabbling.

That visit to San Francisco did propel us into making a big change in our lives. We decided after that we could no longer live apart. Our jobs were secure enough that we could contemplate the added expense of home owning, but at that time there were legal complications about two, unrelated men buying a place jointly. We decided that, because of my connections in the bank, I would buy the house and take out the mortgage in my name. We found the place on Kinross Street. It was made for us and our situation. A previous owner had remodelled the place so that the top floor was a separate flat, reached through a back stairway. I had the first two floors, and Gabe ‘rented’ the flat.

It proved to be a perfect arrangement. When necessary, we could keep up the fiction that Gabe was just the tenant of the rental unit. He could invite his colleagues over for drinks without confronting them with the awkward question of who I was, and I could do the same with my associates. And when we were alone, we could spend time with each other.

We had a few gay friends, most of them couples of our age. None of us flaunted our orientation. We were true to our upbringing and kept our private lives private. Two of our friends lived together fairly openly as a couple, but most of the others were as careful in public as we were. It wasn’t until nearly the end of the 1980s that I noticed a change in attitudes. Change must have been happening all along, because when it finally drew my attention, it was well developed.

Oddly enough, it was remark of my mother’s that drove home to me how much things were changing. After my father died, I began taking her out to dinner every Wednesday evening. She was a far more adventurous eater than my father had been. Unlike him, she liked to try new dishes. She read the reviews in the papers each week and was always eager to try restaurants that had impressed the critics. One Wednesday she wanted to eat at a place in the country near Chelmdene. It was raining when we arrived at the restaurant, and I let mother out at the front door and then drove off to find a parking spot. The closest one was a good quarter of a mile away.

By the time I walked back to the restaurant, mother was seated at a table and deep in conversation with the two men who ran the restaurant. While I was hanging my coat up in the entranceway, I watched her through the doorway to the dining room. She had taken her coat off, but she still wore her hat, one of the feathery confections she favoured. She belonged to a generation of women that never appeared in public with hair uncovered. In some areas, change could be tolerated, perhaps even welcomed. In others, tradition was sacrosanct. The feathers trembled lightly as she turned her head from side to side to talk to the two men. One of them, it turned out, was the chef, and the other was the maitre d’/wine steward/waiter. The three of them had already decided what I was to order. Mother liked us to eat different things so that we could sample what the other had.

The two men weren’t flamboyant, but it was clear that they were gay. They were apparently a couple. Each demonstrated a familiar joy in the other’s foibles. When I asked about the contents of the entrée that had been chosen for me, the non-cook informed me, ‘You have to be careful with Richard. He thinks certain dishes require an excess of pepper, and that’s one of them.’

‘I do not. I use only the amount of seasoning needed, never an excessive amount. If Geoff ran the restaurant, everything would be smothered in ketchup. We’d be serving sardines on toast with tomato sauce.’

‘Oooh, one of my favourites,’ said the man named Geoff. ‘That and beans on toast. Both underappreciated classics of English cooking. It takes talent to scorch toast to attain just the proper degree of crispness and burnt charcoal flavour. Not everyone can do it up right.’ He addressed his next remarks sotto voce to mother. ‘He’s been trying to educate my taste buds for years. He finally gave up and opened a restaurant so that he could feed people who appreciate his skills.’ The two men smiled at each other over our heads with easy affection.

When one left to cook our order and the other to open the bottle of wine for us, mother turned to me and said, ‘I think God makes people what they are, don’t you? What’s important is how people treat each other, not what sex they are.’

My face must have registered my shock. I didn’t know what to say in answer to that. It was a remark so unlike mother.

It was mother’s turn to look at me with easy affection. ‘It doesn’t matter so much about being gay these days. No one thinks anything of it any more.’ One of my hands was lying on the table, and she reached over and patted it and then clasped it tightly. ‘I think it’s past time that you asked Gabriel to join us, don’t you? He must get tired of sitting at home on our Wednesdays eating beans on toast or takeaway while we’re feasting. Invite him next week.’

Another sign of the change in attitudes came a year or two later when the headmaster at Gabe’s school invited me to his annual garden party for the staff. The invitation came as a surprise. Gabe had introduced me to the headmaster many years earlier, but I had no idea that he was aware of our relationship. My inclination was to decline, but Gabe was uncharacteristically insistent that I accompany him.

The party was held at the headmaster’s house, and as was my habit when Gabe and I appeared in public together, I separated from him shortly after we arrived. I was sipping at a glass of wine and examining the rose bushes when a young woman accosted me. ‘I saw you arrive with Gabe. Are you Bryan? Gabe’s always talking about you.’ She didn’t pause for answer. She turned around and waved to someone standing with a group several feet away. ‘Andy, come meet Gabe’s Bryan.’ Everyone in the group turned to look at us. Six or seven pairs of eyes looked me up and down. I suddenly felt very exposed. I couldn’t imagine what Gabe might have said about me that would generate such curiosity. I had to fight an urge to bolt down the pathway along the side of the house to the street.

The next moment, I was surrounded and people began introducing themselves. I was able to identify some of them from comments Gabe had made about them over the years, but most of them were strangers to me, but not apparently I to them. To judge from their remarks, I was already well known to them. All the other guests were colleagues of Gabe’s and their partners. Most of them were married, but there was one other gay couple, much younger than Gabe and I. I felt rather envious of the straightforward way they passed in and out of each other’s orbit and how physically comfortable they were with each other. They weren’t kissing, but they felt no hesitance about touching one another in public, the same way that any married couple might do. When Gabe came up to me later, I automatically stepped back from him. I couldn’t bring myself to stand right next to him.

Later that night, when Gabe and I were together in bed, I expressed some surprise that he had spoken freely of our relationship with this colleagues. I tried not to let my dismay at his openness about us show. It took me some thought to formulate a neutral question that would not sound critical. We often discuss the events of our day in bed after turning the lights off, and I spoke in the most casual voice I could muster, as if I were half-asleep. ‘You’re not worried what they will think?’

‘No, they’re adults. They know other gay people. And why wouldn’t I talk about you? I’m very proud of you. We all talk about our marriages and our families. Don’t you talk about me at the bank?’

‘No. The subject has never come up. Some of the staff discuss their families, but I never pay much attention to that. Does everyone at your school know about us? Surely not the students.’

‘I think everyone on the staff does. Some of the students know that a few of the teachers are gay. William and Harry’ (the other gay couple at the party) ‘are the staff advisors for the student gay, lesbian, and bisexual club.’

‘There’s a club for gay students? And they supervise it? But doesn’t that hurt them in school?’

‘No, they’re both quite popular. They’re known as the “two princes”.’

‘What about you? Do the students know about you?’

‘William and Harry asked me to talk to the GLB club about the “old days” and how it used to be. So at least those students know that I am gay. I imagine that word got out and a few more students have found out that I am gay.’

‘You talked about us?’

‘Yes. They were very interested in how we had to live. They thought it hilarious at first that we had to be so careful, but I was able to show them why it was necessary. Don’t worry. I didn’t mention your name or what you do. There won’t be students coming up to you in the streets and asking about us.’

‘I should hope not.’ The very idea of a teenager confronting me on the street for information on my relationship with their maths master appalled me.

‘You know, Bryan, we don’t have to be as secretive any more. Things are changing. At least in this area, straights realise that the world isn’t going to come to an end just because a few of us are gay. Despite what you may think, most of the neighbours have a good idea of what goes on between us.’ He kissed me on the side of the neck and burrowed his head into my shoulder. ‘We’re quite an old couple now. People can learn to accept us for what we are. If they can’t, then fuck them. Speaking of which--’

I do admit that I tend not to be very observant about strangers. I had schooled myself so strongly not to look at other men in public that I hadn’t really noticed how many gay men there were on the streets. I suppose that sounds like a stupid statement, but I had kept my own head down for so long that I truly hadn’t allowed myself to see what was there.

I did try to be a bit more open after that. But it’s hard to change the habits of a lifetime. I was so used to being in the ‘closet’ with the door tightly closed that I was reluctant to venture far outside it. I was used to it, and I had grown, perhaps not to like--that would be an inaccurate word--but at least to be comfortable with its conventions and to draw some satisfaction from the notion that I was doing the right thing and behaving correctly. It came as a surprise to me that many people regarded this as old-fashioned and asinine if not immoral.

A week or so after the headmaster’s party, Gabe and I were having dinner at a friend’s house. I mentioned my reaction to discovering that Gabe’s colleagues knew about us. It turned out that everyone at the table was ‘out’ in both their personal and their professional lives. They all agreed that they didn’t make an issue of it but saw no reason to pretend to be other than what they were. In fact, several of them chided me for not being open. One of them even accused me of being a capitulationist and of failing to speak up for the freedom to be ourselves. I was giving aid and comfort to the enemy by allowing myself to be manoeuvred into obeying ‘their’ rules. He grew quite hot on the subject. The very behaviours I had adopted to forestall a negative reaction from outsiders were being criticised by a group I thought would understand. The support I expected wasn’t forthcoming.

Of course, I took it all with a show of good humour. I even had the presence of mind to defuse the situation by mocking my own insecurities. But Gabe knows how much that sort of unpleasantness upsets me. We’ve been together long enough for him to know what to do to excite me, and what to do to comfort me. And he realised that I needed comforting that night. As we lay next to each other in our dark bedroom, he pulled the covers up around me and then rolled on to his side so that he was facing me. He held me for a while and then began gently massaging my shoulders and the back of my neck. After a while, he kissed me on the forehead and said, ‘We just have to be what we are. We’ll take things at our own pace and not worry what other people think. Their opinions of us don’t matter. This is our life.’

I hope I provide as much to Gabe as he provides to me. I would guess that most couples at some point find themselves bored with their common life and irrationally irritated by some everyday behaviour on their partner’s part. I know both Gabe and I have at times longed for things to be radically different, if only for an hour or two. But there are moments when the familiar enchants and the well-trod path confers the blessings of unexpected grace.

Gabe was being polite in using the first-person plural and in pretending that both of us were still in the closet. He would in the months to come gradually ease that door open. I’ve always done most of the cooking, but he began accompanying me on the trips to the market, pushing around the trolley and making suggestions about dishes I might prepare. Anyone who overheard him would have no doubt that we not only ate together but lived together in every sense. Occasionally someone would stare at us or pull a child away. Perhaps I gave those acts more weight than they deserved. But for the most part we attracted no more attention than any other couple shopping.

One evening when I returned home from work, Gabe was standing in our driveway talking to a neighbour. When I walked up, he put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed it. And left it there. The neighbour’s eyes drifted to his hand on my shoulder, registered it, and then looked back at us. The three of stood there conversing naturally for several more minutes.

Loosening up in public did take some effort on my part. I did finally manage during a meeting at work one day to bring myself to refer offhandedly to ‘my partner Gabe’. One of the juniors in my department asked if Gabe was the ‘distinguished white-haired man’ she had seen me playing golf with. When I nodded yes, she said that we made a handsome couple and gushed, ‘Oh, you two must have looked absolutely fabulous when you were young.’ I advised her that her flattery would have been more successful had it not been tempered with an insinuation that Gabe’s and my looks were in decline. Everyone laughed, and that was that--a brief bit of banter, and Gabe and I were officially a couple at the bank.

Small things to be sure, but I found that the sky would not fall if I acknowledged being gay. Oh, life wasn’t suddenly perfect and everyone tolerant and understanding. There are still many who feel a need to register their hatred and contempt. But one learns to accept even that. There are people whose behaviour I disapprove. But my disapproval won’t cause them to change the way they act. It took me a while to learn not to let others’ disapproval make me feel I had to change mine.

It isn’t a world I had ever expected to live in. I’m not sorry it’s here, but the habits of a lifetime still impose a certain reticence on me. I could never, for example, refer to Gabe as ‘my bitch’, even in private. I’ll tell him about the incident later. It will amuse him.

******

‘Thank you, Leo.’ I carried my empty cup over to the counter. ‘I don’t know what I would do without the Veneto. You start my day off right.’

He smiled at me with delight. ‘I’m always happy to make coffee for you. Not everyone appreciates a good cup of coffee. Most of them just want something so sweet and tarted up with other flavours that you can’t taste the coffee.’

‘My lover among them. If by some miracle I could ever persuade Gabe to come in here, he would want a weak cup of milky liquid with lots of sugar. The smell of coffee in your shop alone would be too strong a brew for him.’

‘Takes all sorts, doesn’t it? Well, it leaves more of the good stuff for those of us who appreciate it.’ He pointed to the snow falling outside. ‘Are you going to be all right walking home by yourself? I could close up and walk with you, just to make sure you make it back safely. It’s no trouble.’ He reached behind his waist and began tugging at the strings of the dark blue butcher’s apron he always wore at work.

‘Yes, it takes all sorts. And no, thanks for offering, but I’ll be fine.’

Jogging Memory

Jogging Memory

Nexis Pas

© 2008 by the author
Nexis Pas asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

I saw them when I was driving home after work. The light turned red as I approached Chestnut Hill Road. While I was stopped, they jogged up to the intersection and paused at the crossing. Two attractive men in loose running shorts and T-shirts in their early thirties--naturally I looked. I’ve never been one to pass up such an opportunity. They stood there with their hands on their hips, arms akimbo, moving in place on the pavement, lifting their legs high at the knees and twisting their torsos to keep the muscles loose and stretched. They had been running hard enough to work up a sweat, and wet triangles pointing downwards from their necks and shoulders plastered their T-shirts to their bodies. One of them lifted the bottom of his shirt to wipe his face dry, exposing a nicely muscled abdomen. Their bodies were ruddy from their exertions.

If that had been all that I saw, I would have quickly forgotten them. They would have become just two more men that I have looked at appreciatively over the years. Handsome, yes, but not memorable enough to make the all-time best list. What imprinted them on my mind was a smile. One of them turned to the other and said something, something brief, a dozen words, no more. The other replied, even more briefly. The first man said one word. And then the second man smiled--joyfully, sublimely--a smile that transformed them and made the air radiant with their happiness.

It was a smile that bespoke a history, a smile that promised a future, a smile that demanded a story.

******

‘Come on, get up. Let’s exercise that beautiful ass of yours. Keep it tight and firm.’

Bram grunted. He rolled over onto his side, turning away from Stephen, and pulled the covers up over his head. He burrowed his face into the pillow and muttered, ‘Five minutes. Let me have just five more minutes. It’s Saturday for chrissake.’

In response, Stephen tugged the cord on the blinds. The slats rose with a clatter of noise and banged against the window. ‘It’s a nice day out . . . Wait, no, I spoke too soon. Actually it’s not. It’s very foggy.’ And then with more enthusiasm. ‘But that will burn off by the time we get out.’ Stephen stepped back to the bed, grabbed the covers and yanked them off Bram.

‘Hey, put them back. It’s cold.’

‘We’ll soon have you warmed up, lover. Up, up, up! Come on, you lazy sod.’

Bram wrapped his arms around the pillow, flexed his buttocks, and ground his groin into the mattress. ‘Come back to bed. I’ll soon have you warmed up.’

‘Don’t be cheeky.’ Stephen slapped Bram’s ass playfully.

Bram groaned. He opened one eye and squinted at Stephen over his shoulder. ‘Coffee. Let me at least have a cup of coffee before you drag me out to that lake.’

‘There’s a cup of cold tea left in the pot from yesterday. That’s all you get for now. You need to work off that extra dessert you ate last night.’

‘I couldn’t let it go to waste. Lewis made that especially for you, and you wouldn’t eat more than a spoonful. Besides, all that exercising we did after we came back home burnt off more calories than Lewis fed us last night.’

‘Doesn’t count. Lying there moaning doesn’t count. I was doing all the work.’

‘Work, is it now? Out of the goodness of me heart, I let you have your way with me, and you call it work? You ought to be grateful to me for letting you get all that exercise.’

Stephen bent over and kissed Bram on the back of his neck. ‘I am. It was great. You’re great. I’m great. But you’re going to get fat if you don’t exercise more.’ Bram rolled over and grabbed Stephen by the shoulders and tried to pull him down onto the bed. ‘Now, none of that now. Later. After you’ve been a good boy and jogged for an hour.’ Stephen pushed his arms under Bram’s body and lifted him out of bed and stood him up. ‘There. If you exercised as much as I do, you could do that too.’

‘Hmm. You promise if I’m good and jog along with you, you’ll take me to bed again?’

‘Promise. Now into your jogging kit. There’s a good lad. Four times around the lake this morning.’

Bram groaned and stretched. He walked over to the window and looked out, his naked body grey in the dim light. ‘How can we run in this fog? We won’t be able to see the goose and dog shit in time to step around it.’

‘Stop making excuses. The sooner you do this and get it over with, the sooner we can get into the shower and work ourselves into a lather.’

‘Sex, sex, sex. That’s all it is with you.’

‘And exercise. I think of that too.’ Stephen began jogging in place.

Bram’s eyes fixed on Stephen’s midsection. ‘Are you wearing anything under those shorts?’

‘You’ll find out in about an hour. Sooner if you run faster today. Four times around the lake and then back here. If you’ve been good, you can rip the shorts off my sweaty body.’

‘Slave driver.’

‘You love it.’

‘I love you.’

‘Prove it. Run as if your life depended on it. Your sex life does, I can tell you that.’

******

‘Good morning, Mrs Adams.’ Stephen held the door to the building open for an elderly woman carrying a net shopping bag that bulged with groceries. ‘You’re out early today.’

‘My son’s coming over later this morning. I just needed to get a few things from the shops before he arrived. Are you two going to be warm enough in those shorts? There’s quite a chill in the air this morning. And this fog is so heavy. You won’t be able to see where you’re going.’

‘Exactly what I told him,’ said Bram, pointing to Stephen.

‘We’ll warm up once we start running. Come on, Bram. Enjoy your son’s visit, Mrs Adams.’

The fog was dense that morning. They couldn’t see ten feet ahead of themselves. It was difficult to run along the pavement. Pedestrians would suddenly appear out of the fog ahead of them. They barely had time to react and dodge to the side to avoid them. The fog grew even thicker as they jogged through the trees in the park. Both of them automatically slowed their pace as they headed down the steep hillside that led to the lake. The first indication that they had reached the gravel path that ran around the lake was the different sounds their trainers made as they left the dirt trail through the trees.

Both automatically turned to their right and began running counterclockwise around the lake. Their legs rose and fell in unison, both of them pushing themselves as usual. The fog closed in around them, limiting their vision to a circle of a few feet. ‘I wonder if anyone else is out.’ In answer to Bram’s comment, a goose off to their left in the water honked a warning signal and beat its wings against the water. Several others joined in.

‘The geese are here anyway.’

‘Yeah, we take our shoes off at the front door. I don’t want to think about what we’re stepping in here.’

‘Hmm, you can’t wait to get me undressed, can you?’

‘I want to find out what you have on under those shorts.’

‘I think you’re familiar with those bits already.’

‘Oooff.’ Bram tumbled to the ground as another runner came dashing out of the fog. The man’s shoulder hit Bram about mid-chest, pushing him sideways and onto the path. Bram broke his fall with an outstretched hand. The man didn’t even pause. He disappeared into the fog. For a short moment they could hear the sound of his feet hitting the ground and then even that was swallowed up.

‘Hey! Watch where you’re going.’ Stephen’s ineffectual shout of protest met with no response.

Bram stood up, clutching his right wrist and holding his hand open upwards. ‘Christ. That stings. I scraped half the skin off my palm.’ His breath hissed through his teeth as he shook his hand in an attempt to throw off the pain.

‘We need to get some antiseptic on that right away. This gravel must be filled with germs. Let’s go back. Can you run?’

‘My legs are fine. It’s just my hand. That guy didn’t even stop. I could have broken a leg. If you hadn’t been here, I would have been . . .’

The woman’s scream came from up ahead in the fog. A man began shouting ‘Oh my god, oh my god.’

Bram didn’t hesitate. He sprinted away through the fog in the direction of the screams. ‘Police,’ he cried out as he ran.

Stephen ran after him. When Bram wanted to put on speed, he could, and the sound of his footfalls receded as the gap between the two of them grew. His voice cut through the fog. ‘Police. This is DI Maxson of the Sussex Police. Where are you?’

‘Here. Here. We’re here.’ Both the man and the woman began shouting, their voices overlayering each other’s. ‘Come quickly. He’s hurt. Someone’s been hurt. He’s bleeding.’

‘Stephen, come here. You’re needed.’ Bram the gentle lover had become Detective Inspector Maxson. ‘Stand back. My partner’s a doctor. Stephen, hurry. Where are you?’

Stephen suddenly came upon the group. The body of a man lay on the ground. His running clothes were sodden with blood and clung to his body. In his agony, he had raked the gravel with his hands, his fingers drawing bloody grooves in the ground. Bram had torn the man’s shirt open and was bent over him, trying to close the wound in his chest with his fingers. Stephen knelt beside the man and felt his neck for a pulse. Bram reached into the pocket of Stephen’s windcheater with his free hand and pulled out the mobile phone Stephen always carried. He flipped it open and keyed in the number with his thumb.

‘This is DI Maxson. I’m on the jogging path along the old reservoir about a half-mile south of the Chestnut Hill entrance opposite the Midlands Bank there. A man’s been stabbed. We need an ambulance. He’ll need transfusions right away. Send . . .’

Stephen looked up and caught Bram’s eye. He shook his head and lifted Bram’s hand gently off the man’s chest. It was the hand that he had scraped when he fell to the ground, and all that Stephen could think of was that Bram’s open cuts were covered with a stranger’s blood.

‘Wait. Hold on a second. Dr Holloway’s here too.’ Bram looked up at Stephen.

‘We’re too late. There’s no pulse. He lost too much blood before we got here.’

‘Are you sure?’

Stephen nodded.

Bram spoke into the phone again. “Dr Holloway says the man’s dead. Send the nearest car. We’ll wait here. We’ll need the coroner and the murder scene group. Who’s on duty?’

‘Tell them--the PCs need to bring a first-aid kit.’ Stephen broke in, his voice full of urgency. ‘I’ve got to get your hand cleaned off. You don’t have anything, do you?’ Stephen turned to the woman. ‘Some perfume. Anything with alcohol in it?’

She shook her head no. Both she and the man with her were looking on with horror. ‘We were just out for our morning run. We nearly didn’t go out this morning. The fog was so thick. We didn’t see him until we were almost on him. I nearly stepped on him.’ Her voice began to sound hysterical. The man looked as if he were about to be sick. He couldn’t take his eyes off the body.

‘Do you at least have any water? I’ve got to clean Bram’s hand off.’

‘You can’t, Stephen. At least not until samples have been taken. It’s part of the crime scene now. We have to be able to account for everything found on the body. I may have introduced something by touching him.’

Stephen lowered his voice. ‘But he could have hepatitis. You don’t know. He might even have AIDS.’ He was leaning across the body and looking into Bram’s face and imploring his lover to let him treat his hand.

There was a shocked intake of breath from the woman. ‘Did you say he has AIDS? Oh my god, Henry, he had AIDS. We have to get out of here.’ The two of them turned and ran off.

‘Damn.’ Bram leaped to his feet in annoyance. ‘Stay here. There will be some PCs here in a minute. Tell them where I’ve gone.’ He ran after the couple.

******

‘Did someone take care of your hand?’ Stephen had to force himself to remain seated when Bram walked into the DCI’s office. He wanted to jump up and grab Bram and hug him tightly so that he couldn’t run off again. ‘He wouldn’t let me see to it. It needs to be treated, and he needs a tetanus shot and . . .’ He began explaining to Chief Inspector Gwillam.

‘It’s all right, Stephen. Dr Jameson cleaned it up.’ He held up his palm so that Stephen could see that it was clean. ‘There were only a few scratches. And my tetanus shot is current. Really, it’s all right.’

‘But . . .’

‘Stephen, I’m fine. Don’t fuss.’ He turned to his boss. ‘Is Stephen through assisting the police with their enquiries?’

He doesn’t want to seem soft in front of his mates, thought Stephen. He has to look professional.

Gwillam nodded. ‘We’re through with the two of you for now. You know the drill, Bram. We’ll want to speak with both of you again. Stephen, please don’t talk to any reporters. We don’t want the person who did this to know that you’re a witness.’

‘You think the man who knocked Bram down did it?’

‘It’s too soon to speculate, Stephen. He is a person of interest. We would like to talk with him--if we can find him.’ Gwillam shook Stephen’s hand. ‘You were very helpful.’ He turned to Bram. ‘He’ll make a good witness if we ever find the man.’

Bram faced away from Stephen and spoke to Gwillam, two professionals talking about their work. ‘I’ve never been questioned as a witness in a murder investigation before.’ He grinned. ‘It was a new experience for me. I kept wanting to tell Susan and Russ how to conduct the interview. “Ask me this.” “Ask me that.” It was all I could do to hold myself in and let them ask the questions.’

‘At least you didn’t request a lawyer.’ The two policeman chuckled.

‘I’m not likely to do that.’

Stephen felt shut out as the two cops reverted to their familiar relationship. It was like being a child again, sitting there on your best behaviour and trying not to fidget while the adults discussed adult matters. He had been in the DCI’s office for an hour answering Gwillam’s and another detective’s questions. When they were finally satisfied that he had nothing more to add, the detective had left, and Gwillam had spent the ten minutes before Bram arrived chatting about unimportant matters. Gwillam had tried to turn the meeting into a social occasion, the boss entertaining the partner of a member of his staff.

Stephen’s thoughts drifted back to the body of the man they had found. He was used to injuries, of course, and he had seen dead people before. But always in a hospital setting, sanitised and civilised. Surrounded by efforts to keep the person alive, the busy work of routine keeping the demon at bay. The bright lights preventing shadows. He never saw the bodies as Bram saw them--the people who had been dead for hours, days sometimes. The medical examiner took care of those, far from Stephen’s sight. Bram saw the violence. By the time it arrived in the hospital, the process of taming it had already begun. A few hours ago, he had stumbled into Bram’s world.

A jumble of images succeeded one another in his mind. The body of a stranger lying on the ground. His lover’s hand covered with blood. Geese calling out warning signals to one another. The PCs appearing suddenly out of the fog and suspicious of Stephen. Bram escorting the reluctant and sullen couple who had discovered the body back to the murder scene.

‘Stephen, are you all right?’ Bram shook him by the shoulder. ‘I’ve spoken to you twice, and you haven’t answered. We’d better get you home.’

It wasn’t until they were in the car and a few blocks away from the police station that Bram dropped out of the character of DI Maxson and became Bram again. ‘They said you made a very good witness. You didn’t go beyond what you knew. Stuck to the facts.’

‘I remembered your complaints about witnesses that try to be too helpful.’ Stephen plucked the fabric of the shirt he was wearing and pulled it away from his body. ‘They took my clothes for tests. Your Sergeant Gupta gave me these. I’ll have to have them cleaned and them give them back.’ He knew the uniform hadn’t been worn since it was last washed, but still it felt dirty on his body. He didn’t feel himself wearing it. Some other person’s memories, foreign memories, were attached to it. And he wouldn’t have been wearing it if his own clothes hadn’t become part of a murder scene. It was a symbol of what had happened. And he didn’t like it. He wanted to forget the events of that morning, not be reminded of them every time he felt the stiff starched fabric against his skin.

‘Maybe not. You look good in a uniform. I can think of several ways we can use those clothes. Two coppers getting it on. That could be hot.’

Stephen turned away and looked out the window at the passing scene. He didn’t want to think about making love. He pressed the knuckles of one hand against his mouth, trying to keep his feelings inside and not let them spill out over Bram.

Bram glanced away from the road and toward Stephen. He took his left hand off the wheel for a few seconds and squeezed Stephen’s knee and then ran his hand up and down Stephen’s thigh. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be joking. It's not a momemt for humour, is it? Tell me what’s bothering you. Please. Let me try to help.’ Bram’s voice dropped into its most intimate register, the one he used only when they were alone together.

‘You ran away. You didn’t stop. As soon as you heard those people calling for help, you ran to them. You didn’t stop to think that it might be dangerous. That you could get hurt.’

‘That’s my job, Stephen. It’s what we do. We help people. You came running up. You were there to help too.’

‘No, it wasn’t the same. You were running to help them. I was chasing you to stop you. It was you I was concerned about, not them.’

‘But you did your job, Stephen. We both did. We both do every day.’

‘You could have been hurt. You didn’t know. They could have attacked you.’

‘Yes. I could have been. Every day on the job I might get hurt. And the same is true of you. You’re exposed to all kinds of diseases in that hospital. You get crazy people there, and you put them into rooms filled with needles and sharp knives. Your job is just as dangerous as mine. But we can’t think about that, Stephen. We have to go on expecting that at the end of the day we’ll be together. That we can hold each other and find our own world for a few hours. We can’t let ourselves think about anything else. This is the only life we have. It’s the only time we have. We can’t let our fears rule our lives. We have to remember that at the end of the day, we’ll be there for each other.’

‘But what if . . .’

‘No, no what if’s. This is what we have chosen for ourselves. This is what we are, what we have. There is no safety. No guarantees. Just us. Just you. Just the wind that has been blowing around my heart since we met.’

Stephen’s eyes filled with a rush of tears. He wiped them away quickly. ‘You’re getting to know me too well. You know what buttons to push.’ Stephen allowed himself a small smile. He couldn’t quite bring himself to meet Bram’s eyes, however, but he was willing at least to look vaguely at a spot a foot in front of Bram’s face. ‘How did you get to be so wise?’

‘A lot of people helped. You remember that Detective Constable Rampe who was my partner when we first met?’

Stephen nodded. ‘I thought you and she were a couple.’

‘Not a chance. You couldn’t have thought that.’

‘You were very close.’

‘Partners tend to be. Either that, or they hate each other. There’s no in-between. Anyway, this isn’t about her and me. It’s about someone we met. She and I once took a woman whose boyfriend had stabbed her in the leg to St Brendan’s hospital. There was a daughter too. Just a kid. She had seen the whole thing, and she was hysterical by the time we got to the A&E department. The mother wasn’t in any danger, but the child didn’t understand that. The daughter wasn’t injured, but she had blood all over her clothes and she was clinging to her mother. She wouldn’t let go. And then this doctor walked up. Really cute guy, even if he did have blood splattered all over his clothes. And he stopped and talked to the girl, and in a few minutes, he had her calmed down, and she let the nurses take her away to get cleaned up.’

‘I remember that. But you know, I don’t remember your being there. I know you’ve told me you were, but I don’t remember you or Rampe. Just two PCs standing there.’

‘Because you were focused on doing your job. That’s what mattered at that moment. And later, Denise asked you how you had calmed the child down, and you said that it was all a matter of discovering what was really frightening her and then finding a story that would help her deal with it. And I thought to myself, that’s smart, that’s really smart. That’s something I need to learn how to do.’

‘So you asked me out for a coffee to learn my technique.’

‘Well, for that and for your body. It had been a long day, and I was hoping to take you home to my bed.’

‘Is this the story that helps me deal with my fears?’

‘One of them. I have more if this one doesn’t work.’

‘You won’t need them.’

‘So I not a big dumb cop.’

‘You got two out of three right. You’re big and you’re a cop.’

‘You used to think I was dumb.’

‘Only for the first fifteen minutes. Then you started to frighten me. No, that’s not right. I wasn’t frightened of you. I was frightened of what I might feel for you. It meant so many changes in my life. And so much risk.’

‘But we passed that stage. Luckily for me. You know the time I was most frightened? The night I found the courage to ask you to marry me. I was so afraid you would say no. I couldn’t think beyond that. I just couldn’t conceive being without you. I couldn’t think of what I would do if you said no.’

‘Did I ever answer your question?’

‘Not in words.’

Bram waited until the oncoming traffic cleared, his hands resting lightly on the rim of the wheel, and then turned right into the street that led to their flat. Bram does everything with such grace, Stephen thought. It was as if he never doubted that machinery would do other than what he wanted. ‘You know one of the things that first attracted me to you?’

Bram stopped the car at a parking space and began backing in. ‘No, what?’

‘You are so marvellously at ease in your body. I’ve never known anyone as comfortable in his body as you.’

‘Back to my body again. You’ve got this thing for my body.’

‘It’s hard not to with you.’ Stephen tried to leer at Bram, but he was still too unnerved to succeed at that.

‘Hmm, well maybe later. If you’ve been a good boy, and jog with me around the lake four times.’

‘What? We can’t go back there. Not now.’

‘Yes, right now. As soon as we get changed. It’s like being thrown from a horse. You have to get right back on. If we don’t go back today, we won’t go back tomorrow or the next day. You won’t even be able to see where it happened. Most of the soil has been taken away as evidence, and the rest has been cleaned up to discourage the curious and the thrill seekers. By tomorrow no one will be able to say where that man died.’

“But that’s terrible. There should be some marker, some sign, of what happened.’

‘No, there won’t be a sign. Just our memory.’

******

Two runners circle the lake four times. Their legs rise and their arms pump back and forth in unison. They may run a bit faster than most joggers, but their gait is relaxed. They make running look easy. One of them eyes the ground warily at first, but soon he raises his head and his gaze shifts forward. They do not say much to each other, as if they have been together long enough to be secure with their own and each other’s thoughts.

The light is already dimming by the time they are finished and begin jogging back. The shadows grow thick under the trees, even as the setting sun makes the top branches glow with added radiance. Each individual leaf seems more in focus, its colours brighter. The line dividing the night from the day is quite sharp. Below it all is dark and obscure, above it the world is clothed in light. The two runners are stopped by a traffic signal and stand at the crossing lifting their legs at the knees and twisting their torsos from side to side to keep the muscles loose and stretched. One of them turns to his other and says, ‘Something’s changed, hasn’t it? Our life became different today.’

‘How so?’

‘Better.’

The Gift

The Gift

Nexis Pas
© 2008 by the author
Nexis Pas asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

‘There’s a package for you, Mr Bryant.’

The building manager pulled a large box from beneath the counter by the elevators. James sighed when he recognized it as a gift from Taz. This was the first one in three or four months. He thought Taz had finally become discouraged and stopped sending him presents. ‘Thank you, Henry.’

‘Couldn’t help but notice it’s from Fern’s Unlimited, Mr Bryant. The wife likes her programme on the telly. Doesn’t miss a show.’

‘I’ve never watched it, Henry.’ James’s dismay at receiving another gift from Taz spilled over into disdain for people who watched such shows. ‘The package is from a friend. He thinks my flat needs more colour.’

Henry’s face snapped into the blank look that was his way of indicating that he disapproved of this or that aspect of one of the tenants’ behaviour. In this case, he was trying to hide his dislike of James’s life and friends--his gay life and his gay friends. James tossed his mail atop the box and picked it up. Even though James’s hands were full and he had to balance the box carefully to avoid tipping his letters on the floor, he had to press the elevator button for himself. Henry could have reached the button in one step, but he suddenly found a spot on the floor that required his attention. As the door to the elevator closed, James made a mental note to raise the issue of Henry’s continued employment at the next owners’ meeting. More than a third of the tenants are gay, thought James, and we don’t need an employee who thinks we’re sinners.

All of which, James knew, was just a way of delaying thinking about the box and who had sent it. Another gift from Taz. Another demand for attention that James did not want to supply. Another attempt to make a claim on James that James had no intention of acknowledging.

He set the box on the table in the hallway and then dropped his mail on a chair in the living room. He changed out of his suit, poured himself a generous glass of wine, and then sat down on the sofa to look through his mail. He sorted out the bills and the junk mail and stacked them into separate piles. His mother’s letter occupied his attention for several minutes. It was her usual weekly report on the weather and his sister’s family. Once she had mistakenly sent him the letter destined for his sister, and he had discovered to his amusement that it contained the same news about the weather and a report on his activities. She had summarised the contents of the letter he had written her the week before. He surmised that the information on his sister derived from a letter she had written their mother. There was a postcard from Oliver and Lucas. They were enjoying their holiday in Italy. Florence was stupendous. They were eating too much, but the food was too good to resist--and the waiters were so dishy one had to order lots to make them return again and again. James stood up and carried the mail to his desk. He tore the envelopes with the junk mail in half and threw them away. The bills went into the cubbyhole reserved for them. He reread his mother’s letter and the postcard. He would write his mother later. He made a note in his memo book to call Oliver and Lucas after they returned and invite them to dinner.

He knew that all of this activity was a way of avoiding the box on the hall table. While he was standing there, a thought occurred to him. He pulled open the centre drawer and found a black marking pen. He crossed into the hall and wrote ‘RETURN TO SENDER’ in thick letters on top of the box and then circled the address for Fern’s Unlimited and drew three arrows pointing at it. He would leave the box with Henry tomorrow morning as he left for work. He recapped the pen and regarded his handiwork with satisfaction. He wished he had thought of that sooner. Better to return these unwanted objects than stack them in the hall closet. He would take Taz’s other gifts down to his car this Saturday when he went out to do the weekly shopping and leave them at the charity donations shop on Bow Street.

The evening they met, James had been by himself at Capers. He had wandered over to the dance floor to watch. He stood there with a half-drunk pint of ale in one hand, twisting his torso in time to the beat and bending his legs back and forth at the knees just enough to serve as an enticement. One of the dancers attracted his attention. In the dim light, he looked barely old enough to be allowed in the pub. Cute, dark-haired, short, nice smile, trim body—just the physical type James liked. The boy was wearing on old trilby hat, so old that the brim was ragged and the crown collapsed on one side. A tie dangled loose around his neck and a waistcoat from a suit hung unbuttoned and open over his bare chest. Every move he made was accented by the swaying of the tie over his hairless chest. The couple in front of James moved out of the way, and James stepped forward till he was at the edge of the dance floor. The boy was a much better dancer than average, and James began to ape his movements.

The boy was dancing alone, circling the outer edge of the dance floor. As he danced, he mouthed the words to the song being played. When he passed James, he looked up and saw James watching him. He smiled and gestured an invitation to join him. James set his glass down on a table and moved forward. The boy reached out and pulled James onto to the dance floor with both hands. He lifted James’s arms so that James’s hands were clasped around the back of his neck. ‘Hi, I’m . . .’ The boy apparently said his name, but just at that moment the music jumped in volume and drowned him out.

James bent over and said, ‘I’m James,’ in the lad’s ear. In answer he found himself grasped securely around the waist and a very lithe firm young body pressed up against him. He felt the boy’s hot breath through the fabric of his shirt as the boy sang along with the record in a falsetto voice. ‘No matter what they tell us.’ Now that they were closer, James could see that the boy was a few years older than he had thought—closer to twenty-five than to eighteen. His height and his looks were deceptive. Still, James found it hard to think of him as anything other than a boy.

After they had danced a few more numbers, James asked the boy if he wanted to go back to his flat. He didn’t often do that. That night lust overcame his usual scruples about inviting a stranger into his flat. The boy laughed with delight. He pulled James over to a table, grabbed a leather jacket off the back of a chair, squeezed the shoulder of one of the men sitting at the table, and then drew James outside. The two of them almost sprinted to James’s car.

When James unlocked the door, he showed the boy into his living room and asked if he wanted a glass of wine. ‘All I have’ he explained. The boy shook his head. He took off his jacket and draped it over the back of one of the chairs. That was the first thing he did that irritated James. James didn’t like the casual way the black jacket intruded into his life. He picked up the jacket and went back into the entrance hallway to hang it in the closet. When he returned, he found the boy examining the room. The boy didn’t bother to hide his curiosity. He walked about touching the furniture and lifting things to take a closer look at them.

When the boy passed the mantle, he picked up the crystal sculpture. It was one of James’s favourite pieces. It was an irregular, tear-shaped blob of clear glass except in the centre. Somewhere inside the glass—it was hard to tell where because of the distortion caused by the wavy surface—there was a white mist of opaque material. It was a bother to keep it clean, however. The smooth glass picked up every fingerprint. When the boy set it back in place, James could see the oil from his fingers on the glass. He would have to wipe it off later.

‘That’s nice. I like that.’ He looked at James as if he were entitled to voice an opinion of James’s possessions. James didn’t welcome the judgement. The boy was presuming a right he didn’t have.

The boy continued walking about the room. He tilted his head and drew a finger along the spines of James’s CD collection. He seemed to find nothing he liked. ‘You’re not a fan of recent music then?’ James shook his head no. The boy’s accent grated on his nerves. Irish, James thought, he could be Irish with those looks. Ah, well, a sexy body was a sexy body. It wasn’t as if he were going to attempt an intellectual discussion with the boy.

James was beginning to find the boy’s presence invasive. He decided that they should proceed to the main business and then he would find some excuse to get rid of the boy as soon as they had finished. The boy had other plans, however. He was in no hurry, and he proved to be so good in bed that James felt no need to hurry matters along either. They fell asleep in a tangle of sheets and limbs.

James awoke the next morning to the noise of the shower running. The volume and the quality of the sound varied as the boy stepped in and out of the spray. The boy’s failure to ask permission rekindled James’s irritation. Shortly the water was turned off and then a few minutes later the boy emerged from the bathroom patting his hair dry with one of James’s towels. ‘We overslept. I’ve got a meeting in half an hour. Otherwise I’d ask you to have breakfast with me. I’m sorry, but I have to leave right away. Then I’m back to London. I left my mobile number for you.’ The boy pointed to the pad beside the bedroom phone. ‘I don’t get to Brighton often, but give me a call if you’re going to be in London. Maybe we can get together.’

James picked the pad up. It contained only the single word ‘Taz’ and the phone number. ‘Is that your name? Taz? I couldn’t hear it last night when you said it.’

‘You don’t know who I am, do you?’ The boy’s face lit up with a smile. ‘That’s wonderful.’

‘Should I know you?’

‘No. It’s great that you don’t. I don’t often get that kind of privacy.’ The boy babbled happily on as he pulled on his clothes. He reminded James of some pet bird chirping in the morning. When he was dressed, he walked over to James and gave him a final hug. ‘I’ll get my coat and let myself out.’ Then he was gone. A few seconds later James heard the door to his flat open and close.

James walked into the hallway and turned the deadbolt to lock it. On the way back to the bedroom, he checked the living room to make sure that everything was there. The pillow on the sofa lay flat on the middle cushion. At one point while they had chatted briefly the previous evening, Taz has picked it up and held it against his stomach, kneading it. James patted it back into shape and then placed it back in its proper place in the left corner.

His first thought was to shower and wash the residue of the boy off his body. The bathroom was still steamy from Taz’s shower. He turned the exhaust fan on and spread the towel Taz has used out on the rack to dry. It annoyed him that he couldn’t put it in the dirty clothes hamper immediately and thus rid the room of all reminders of Taz’s presence. As he was about to step into the shower, he saw a couple of black hairs stuck to the soap. He picked the dish holding the soap up by its base and upended the soap into the waste basket in the bathroom. Then he unwrapped a fresh bar for his own use and turned the water on as hot as he could stand.

The bedroom still held the faint odour of sex. James opened the windows and pulled the sheets off the bed and stuffed them into the washing machine off the kitchen. He consulted the back panel on the box of detergent and added the maximum amount recommended for ‘heavily soiled items’. It took him only a few minutes to remove all remaining traces of Taz from his flat. He carried the crystal sculpture into the kitchen and sprayed it with cleaner and then polished it with the special cloth he kept just for that task. He ended by tearing the sheet of paper with Taz’s number off the pad and ripping it into several pieces before throwing it away.

His reaction wasn’t unusual for him after one of his occasional visits to a gay pub to pick someone up. He often felt revulsion toward a partner after sex. He hated to be reminded of his ‘physical’ needs, and the ruttishness that overcame him sometimes. He wished there were some way to satisfy these desires without lowering himself to finding some lout in a bar.

He found, however, that it was easier to erase Taz from his flat than from his life. The first indication came later that day when Andrew rang him. ‘I hear you got very lucky last night and took home the prize.’ James could hear the smirk in Andrew’s voice. ‘You must come round and tell us all about Taz. You’ll be able to dine out on that story for months.’

‘Who? What are you talking about, Andrew?’

‘Taz.’

‘Who is Taz?’

‘Taz. The man you were dancing with last night. The man you left Capers with. Everyone is quite jealous over your conquest. Didn’t you recognise him? Oh, this is delicious. You don’t know, do you?’ Andrew’s fruity voice signalled that he was in his bitch-queen mode. ‘He’s the lead singer in the Ballymun Lads. That’s a famous boy band, in case you weren’t aware of that. Were you in such a hurry that you didn’t exchange names or information about each other? I wouldn’t have thought you such a slut, James. This is a new side of you. Your reputation increased immeasurably last night after being seen with him. The man who bedded Taz. Everyone will want to touch you now.’ Andrew laughed gleefully. James had the feeling that many others would soon be laughing at his expense. He rang off as soon as he could.

The next reminder of Taz came several days later. A large package was waiting for him when he arrived home. Inside, within a thick casing of moulded Styrofoam was another box. When he opened that, he found a bright red glass vase. He set it on the table in the living room, and it immediately caught all the light and covered the walls and furniture with scarlet blotches. James had carefully chosen all the furnishings in the room in consultation with a designer. The muted shades of taupe and ecru and oatmeal suited his tastes. The only touches of colour were the painting over the fireplace, which was done in shades of blue, and the pale blue pillow on the sofa, which had been intended to compliment the colours in the painting. It was if someone had tossed a can of red paint into the room. To James’s mind, the vase was lurid and ostentatious.

It wasn’t until he was clearing away the wrappings that he found the card. ‘The other night was more important to me than you can imagine. It taught me something about myself that I should have learned a long time before. With gratitude and love, Taz. PS. The vase is from Venice. I bought it the last time the band toured Europe.’

The ‘love’ and the presumptuousness of the gift galled James. The casual reference to the band touring Europe also betrayed Taz’s assumption that he had made an effort to find out who Taz was. The fact that Taz was right irked him even more. After speaking with Andrew, he had searched for the Ballymun Lads on the Internet and read the article on them in Wikipedia. He had even watched one of their videos on YouTube. As he anticipated from the apparent number of copies of their music that had been sold, he found the music insipid and uninteresting.

He tossed the card away and repacked the vase. The box was set at the back of the hall closet. Taz called that night wanting to know if he had received the gift. It wasn’t until the phone rang and he heard Taz’s voice that he realised that Taz had taken the trouble to learn not only his full name and address but his phone number as well. He thanked Taz perfunctorily and then cut short Taz’s enquiries about his activities since the night they had been together with the excuse that he would be late for a meeting if they talked further.

The vase was only the first of many gifts to arrive over the next two weeks. Each was followed by a phone call in which Taz tried to interest James in his life. After the third gift, James stopped answering the phone and began screening the calls through his answering machine. He felt as if he were being stalked, his own nightmarish version of a celebrity stalker. Taz took to leaving messages on his answering machine at odd hours. After one such call, James waited to ring the number Taz left until he knew from the list of concert dates and times on the Ballymun Lads’ website that Taz and his group were performing. He hoped that he would reach Taz’s voicemail. If anyone answered, he planned to pretend it was a wrong number. He had rehearsed the message he wanted to leave. ‘Taz, thank you for all the gifts. But really I can’t accept any more. I’m sorry, but I don’t have any interest in a relationship.’

The message had the desired effect. The gifts and the calls stopped. James was both relieved and a bit disappointed. They had been an annoyance, and he was glad that he had discouraged Taz. Still, it was almost flattering to be desired by someone who, if the stories in the papers were correct, was thought desirable by millions, even if most of them were prepubescent girls and young teens. He had to admit that he could understand Taz’s attractions after he had watched a video in which the camera had lingered on his face. After a few listens, he found himself humming the song. It was a catchy tune, although the lyrics were saccharine and puerile. But, he told himself, he was better off out of it. He had been wise to break it off before anything serious started. The YouTube video of the Very Late Late Show interview with Taz had made the young man’s intellectual and social limitations clear. Well, what could you expect from a boy from a Dublin council estate?

James even made the encounter into an amusing anecdote--his evening with someone he discovered only later to be a famous person. The self-deprecating humour with which he revealed his utter ignorance of popular music sounded perfect to his ears. He was even careful not to tell the story too often, lest he be thought to be boasting of his conquest. Only three selected groups of different people got to hear it firsthand. He knew his auditors well enough to trust them to spread the word.

The morning after receiving the last gift, he handed it back to Henry with instructions to give it to the parcel delivery man on his next appearance. That Saturday he removed the other boxes of gifts from the hall closet and left them with the woman in the charity resale shop on the way to the market. He warned her that the red vase was Venetian glass and ‘might be’ quite valuable. He didn’t tell her that it was a gift from Taz, which would, he imagined, have increased its resale value considerably. He thought it commendable of himself not to boast of the relationship.

He almost missed the announcement. It came at the end of the news. The reader with the curly blond hair--James could never remember her name--beamed at the camera in the way that indicated that the next story would be light-hearted. ‘One hundred lucky people received a present this week and an invitation to what promises to be one of the most spectacular events of this year. Taz, the lead singer of the Ballymun Lads and the heart throb of teenage girls everywhere, and his long-time companion Patrick Door announced their upcoming civil union ceremony by sending a crystal sculpture specially designed by their good friend Fern Holmes to their closest friends along with an invitation to attend the ceremony.’

The screen briefly showed an irregularly shaped slab of crystal with a faint mist of opaque glass in the middle. The image then shifted to a street scene. Taz and another young man stood with their arms around each other’s waists. Both were smiling and laughing. ‘Well,’ said Taz, ‘we decided that after four years we knew each other well enough to know that we wanted to make our commitment formal.’

The man interviewing them pointed the microphone toward himself. ‘Earlier this year there were rumours that the two of you had separated.’

The young man with Taz shrugged and looked serious for a second. ‘Yeah, we went through a bit of a rough patch. We both dated other people for a week or so, but then we talked it over and found that nobody else came close to meaning as much to us.’

‘Pat is being kind. The truth is, I was an ass and was worried about committing myself. So I went down to Brighton and picked someone up for a night. That was all I needed to learn what’s important and what’s not.’ James snapped the television off just as Taz looked up and smiled radiantly at his partner. His look of adoration lingered for a second on the screen and then abruptly disappeared, leaving only the reflection of James’s face.

The Empty Room

The Empty Room

Nexis Pas

© 2008 by the author

Nexis Pas asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.


There was nothing special about the room. It wasn’t large, perhaps 6 feet by 10. It was on the second floor of the house off one of the bedrooms. Over the years the house had settled a bit, and the door from the bedroom into the room sometimes stuck, particularly in damp weather when the wood swelled. One occasionally had to push it open by putting one’s weight against it. The door would suddenly burst open with a protest as the warped wood moved against the jamb. One had to catch at the doorknob to prevent the door from banging against the wall behind it.

The room was not inviting. It was lit during the day by a small window facing the garden at the back of the house. The houses on the next street over were barely visible through the years of grime that had accumulated on the panes. It would have been difficult to reach the window from the outside to wash it, and there was no reason to make the effort. No one would have stood at it and looked out. The walls and ceiling had been painted white many years before. They were now streaked and dirty, and cracks split the plaster. The floor was rough, barely finished boards. A single unshaded light bulb dangled by a cord from the centre of the ceiling. The switch dated from the first decade of the twentieth century, the era when the house had been built. To turn the light on, you pressed the upper button. The lower button sprang out and the light came on. Pressing the bottom button turned the light off and pushed the top button out. They conjectured that the room might have been intended as a dressing room for the bedroom.

When they bought the house forty-five years earlier, Margaret had been pregnant with Julia. The house was too big for their immediate needs, but they planned to have more children. Margaret always said that she was made to be a mother. Unfortunately there had been complications, and Margaret hadn’t been able to become pregnant again. Still, they were quite happy with Julia. She more than made up for the lack of other children.

And they were happy with the house. The extra bedrooms were often filled with guests—both Jack and Margaret had large families and many friends. Margaret liked to be surrounded by people, and she was always inviting people to dinner or to come for the weekend. The house often served as free lodgings for their friends and family when they were visiting the city. Indeed many of Margaret’s friends from her school and college days kept up with her just for that reason. ‘I know Margaret can be a bit trying, dear,’ one of them might say to her husband, ‘and Jack’s a bit dull, but it’s really just for Friday night. We’ll be at the theatre on Saturday night, and then leave on Sunday after breakfast. And it saves us the cost of a hotel.’ Later, after Julia had married and left, Jack’s mother came to live with them for three years until she died. So they put the extra space to good use.

The stairs leading up to the second floor were steep and narrow. The bedrooms on that floor were reserved for younger, more athletic guests. Jack and Margaret had turned one of the bedrooms on that floor, the one with the empty room, into Jack’s home office. Even so, he seldom went up there. Perhaps once a week, he would trudge up the stairs and sit for an hour or so at his desk paying bills or writing letters or composing a report for the office.

About the only use they made of the empty room was as a temporary hiding place for Julia’s Christmas presents. In other people’s hands, the room might have become a storage place and gradually filled with the sort of things that one imagines are still of use, the sort of thing that is gradually forgotten and rediscovered years later when, after much groaning and repeated promises to your spouse, you finally get around to clearing out ‘that room’. But Margaret did not like clutter. If they had no further use for an object, she threw it away.

From time to time, they would speculate about fixing the empty room up, perhaps into another bathroom. Only the ground and the first floors had plumbing. They had even had a builder in to give them an estimate once, but the cost and other, more urgent needs had led them to defer their plans. Gradually the room all but dropped from their consciousness. The woman who came every Monday to help with the housecleaning ran the vacuum over the floor perfunctorily and dusted the window sill when she thought of it, but she devoted very little effort to the room. Still, she spent more time in the room than either Jack or Margaret.

In their forty-third year of marriage, at the age of sixty-six, Margaret died in her sleep. There had been no hint of anything wrong. For someone so lively and full of energy, she passed without commotion, evidently without pain or even a transitory awareness that her heart had ceased beating. That would have disappointed her, had she known. She definitely would have preferred a bit of drama at the end. Oh, she wasn’t morbid and she didn’t enjoy being sick, but, still, she would have like the chance to face her death bravely and be praised for that. She wouldn’t have copied her friend Jane, whose passing came almost as a relief to her long-suffering family and friends. Jane had made sure that everyone appreciated each of her trials and shared all her pains.

Margaret wasn’t like that, however. Margaret would have set an example for others. She would have confronted her death rationally and remained active as long as she could, taking to her death bed only when she could no longer avoid it. She would have provided for Jack and made sure that he was set to continue his life without her. Her daughter and her two grandchildren would have been left with the memory of a noble woman, who suffered in silence and accepted the inevitability of death. She lived according to her principles, and she would have liked to die by them.

But that was denied her. Jack awoke when the alarm clock went off at 6:30. That in itself was unusual. The clock sat on the nightstand on Margaret’s side of the bed. She was usually quite prompt about shutting the alarm off. About a second before the alarm began buzzing, the clock clicked loudly. Both of them were so used to that sound that they treated it as the alarm. As soon as she heard the click, Margaret would press the button to shut the alarm off, even before it had even rung. She would throw back the covers impatient to get her day started and jump out of bed, calling out to Jack to make sure that he was awake and was joining her in getting up. Occasionally, however, she could be a heavy sleeper. When she failed to turn the alarm off, Jack rolled over and reached across her to push the shut-off button. He rolled back, swung his legs out of bed and sat up. He was stiff from sleeping and stretched his arms out and twisted his torso back and forth at the waist to loosen the muscles in his back. ‘Do you want a lie-in this morning, darling? I can get my own breakfast. You don’t need to get up.’

It was only as he finished speaking that he turned around to look at his wife and realised that Margaret’s mouth hung open. A line of drool ran from the lower corner of her mouth down across her chin. It had dried. Her right eyelid was half closed, and only the white part was visible. Jack grabbed her hand and shook her body by the shoulder. The coldness that met his hand was unexpected. He leaped backward, almost falling off the bed, and stood up. He wore only the bottoms to his pyjamas. He stood there in the half-light, slack jawed, with his chest uncovered.

His first thought was that it was indecent to be naked in front of Margaret’s body. He pulled on his bathrobe and belted it tightly around his waist. But even that felt too casual. A corpse, he vaguely felt, deserved more formality. He dressed hastily, pulling on the first clothes that he found. It was a Wednesday, and more out of habit than thought, he even put on a tie, as if he were preparing to go to work. It was only when he was fully clothed that he felt able to address the problem of what to do next. This was the sort of matter that Margaret had handled for the two of them. He knew that, unlike him, she would not have been at a loss.

It occurred to him that Margaret would not want to be found in a dishevelled state. He switched on the overhead light and took a closer look at her. He thought his first move should be to check that she really was dead and not just in a coma. He pulled back the covers to uncover her arm so that he could check for a pulse. As he lifted the covers, he smelled urine. A stain on her nightgown around the area of her groin confirmed to Jack that she was dead. Margaret, even in a coma, would not have ‘soiled’ herself. Soiled—that’s how he thought of it. None of the more common words occurred to him. They were unthinkable in relation to Margaret. He pulled the covers back up. After looking at the body for a second, he covered her face with the sheet.

He walked out of the room and downstairs to the phone in the front hallway. He called Julia. She allowed her annoyance at being disturbed in her morning routine of preparing her husband for work and her children for school to show. When she realised that it was her father calling, she asked, ‘Is something wrong with mother?’ Only an event of that magnitude would, she instinctively knew, prompt her father to ring her up that early. Her mother would have waited until later and then begun with the warning that she had some bad news. Her father had said only ‘It’s dad’ and then choked.

‘I think she’s dead.’

‘Dead? Are you sure?’

‘Yes. She died in her sleep, I think.’

‘Did you call for an ambulance?’

‘No, not yet. I thought you should know first.’

‘Raymond and I will be over immediately. Hang up and dial 999. The police or someone will come.’ Julia rang off. After a few seconds’ thought, she picked up the phone again and dialled 999 herself. She suspected her father might be reluctant to take a step that would inevitably initiate a sequence of actions beyond his capacity to cope. When the operator answered, she gave the information quickly and efficiently. The operator understood her brief explanation of why she and not her father was calling and promised to relay the information to the relevant local authorities.

Julia was very much her mother’s child. Margaret would have been proud of the way she handled the ‘crisis’. Indeed, that word ceased to apply as soon as Julia appeared on the scene. By the time she and her husband arrived an hour later, the local ambulance crew and police had confirmed that Margaret was dead. Jack had refused to let the body be moved until Julia had seen her mother. More to satisfy her father than herself—Jack was insistent that she look at her mother one final time—she had walked upstairs to the bedroom and viewed her mother. The police constable who accompanied her upstairs stopped at the bedroom door. ‘I’ll let you go in by yourself, Miss,’ she said as she opened the door.

Julia resented being escorted through the house she had grown up in and at being given permission to enter her parents’ bedroom by an outsider. What particularly angered her was that she was being forced into observing others’ proprieties. Without replying to the constable, she walked into the room. The curtains were still pulled and the ceiling light was off. Julia switched it on and then stepped to the bed. She lifted the sheet covering Margaret’s face and stood there looking at. She felt nothing. Death had already taken her mother’s person and left this husk. The body lying there wasn’t her mother, but the public waiting beyond the door had expectations of how one should behave. She suspected that if she whirled about suddenly, she would discover the constable observing her. When she spent what she thought was enough time to satisfy the proprieties, she stepped away and then opened the drapes and raised the shades. It was silly to think that the light might bother her mother’s corpse. The only reason for leaving the room dark, she thought, was to spare others a clear look at what lay in the room.

She briskly led the way downstairs and then arranged for the body to be transported to the local mortuary for the autopsy to determine the cause of death. She dealt with the police and gave them the information that they had been trying to elicit from Jack. The commotion in the street had drawn attention, and several neighbours had wandered in seeking information. They had stayed to comfort Jack. Julia found the house teeming with more people than necessary. She quickly sorted them out. She thanked the neighbours and sent them off with the whispered excuse that her father needed time to be alone. She deputed her husband to call the priest at Saint John’s and make arrangements for the funeral. When everyone had left, she made her father a cup of tea and sat him down at the table in the dining room while she began dealing with the task of notifying others.

Jack slept in one of the guest bedrooms for the first few nights, until he was able to replace the stained mattress. He discarded the sheets after washing them and replaced them with a set he found in the linen closet. But he was sleeping in what he quickly came to think of as ‘his’ bed even before Margaret’s funeral. Three days after her mother died, Julia sent her father away with her husband and devoted several hours to sorting through her mother’s things. The jewellery she took for her daughter. The clothes she sent out to be cleaned and then donated to charity. Except for a few photos and trinkets, Margaret had been removed from the house by the time Jack returned in late afternoon.

The service was attended by over a hundred people, most of whom were quite sincere in their expressions of loss. Jack and Julia accepted their condolences with the proper display of sobriety. Margaret and Jack were enthusiastic gardeners, and Margaret had loved flowers and kept the house filled with them. Jack sent his granddaughter out to the yard to pick a bouquet of flowers right before they left for the service. She carried them stiffly out in front of her—she was worried that they might drip and stain her new dress—as they walked to the church. The five chief mourners were dressed in sombre black. The neighbours had been much impressed by their gravity and dignity. As one of them remarked, ‘It would have pleased Margaret.’ When they reached the church, the granddaughter placed the flowers in the coffin, over Margaret’s folded hands. She stepped back away from the coffin and bowed her head in prayer. She was a pretty child, and Margaret’s sister Emily was overcome by the sight. Her loud sobs threatened to disturb the even tenor of the ceremony. and Julia had had her son escort the grief-stricken woman out of the church so that she could recover. The tea in the parish hall was all that it should be, which is to say that it was no more than Julia thought appropriate to the occasion.

No one could recall Margaret expressing a preference, but following what they imagined were her wishes, they arranged to have her body cremated and the ashes scattered over the sea. On the appointed day, Julia picked up the urn with the ashes at the crematoria and drove to Harwich. Jack drove up by himself, and they met in the car park next to the harbour. When the boat they had hired reached open waters, Julia uncapped the urn and handed it to her father. Jack stepped to the stern and bent forward at the waist over the railing. He tipped the urn over. The stream of ashes trailed out behind the boat, a momentary trail upon the water, rising and falling with the waves. It was quickly lost to view as the boat turned and made its way back to the harbour. After a minute, Jack realised that he was still holding the urn. He dropped it into the water and watched as a wave broke over it and filled the cup with water. It sank. He turned away.

Jack looked up at the sky and then surveyed the shore. He remarked that Margaret would have liked the day. Julia replied that she was glad that it was pleasant and agreed that her mother would have approved. When they reached the car park, Julia kissed her father on the cheek and the two of them drove off separately, to their own homes.

Thus, Jack found himself a widower at the age of sixty-eight. He was still healthy, a touch of arthritis and an occasional ringing in his ears being his only complaints. Neither Julia nor he even contemplated that he would give up the house. It was, of course, far larger than he needed, but then it had always been larger than they needed, even when Julia had lived there.

Jack adjusted quickly to the loss of Margaret, although he didn’t in fact think of it as a loss—that’s what others called it. An all-purpose euphemism, ‘your loss’. Jack knew that he was supposed to grieve, and when others asked how he was, he would look sad and say something brave like ‘Oh, I’m getting on. But I will miss Margaret. She was a grand person, and they’re not many like her.’ But he always unconsciously deferred the act of missing Margaret to the future, as if it were something he would get around to eventually.

It was not that he hadn’t loved Margaret. Their passion before their marriage had been genuine, and the intensity of its demands surprised both of them. Indeed, they long suspected that they were unique in the degree of their love for each other. Certainly no other couple of their acquaintance betrayed that they felt the same urgency to be together. The excitement had continued for several years into the marriage. It had gradually been replaced by a quiet sense of well-being and satisfaction. They were made to be married, and married to each other. They ‘fit’, as they put it. But for Jack, their marriage, especially its daily routines, became a habit. It was there. Now it was no longer there, and there was for the first time in years no trusted guide to tell him what to do. He knew how others thought he should act, and so that’s how he acted when circumstances dictated. But when he was alone and allowed himself to think about it, he felt like a rudderless vessel.

The day-to-day adjustments were easy. The markets provided prepared food that he could heat in the microwave. Margaret had always made sure that he ate plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables, and the habit remained with him. The salad he simply shook out of the bag it came in and slathered with bottled dressing. He ate a banana every morning with breakfast and another piece of fruit at lunch. He allowed himself one glass of red wine with dinner. He kept the few rooms that he used neat, and the cleaning woman visited once a week to do the rest. He took a walk every day. He occupied himself by working in the garden during the day and reading or watching the telly at night.

Once a month, Julia invited him for dinner. At first, she asked him to stay overnight, but he turned down each invitation with the excuse that she had enough to do and didn’t need the extra bother of caring for him. Julia did not insist. She told herself that her father preferred to sleep in his own bed. Eventually she ceased to ask.

His neighbours soon became accustomed to the absence of Margaret. When they saw that Jack was capable of caring for himself, they relegated him to the category of someone they greeted on the street as they passed by. Their visits quickly declined in number, and little by little they, too, ceased.

So Jack was left to himself. It happened so gradually that he didn’t remark on it. His days were full with the tasks he set himself and the quiet amusements he allowed himself. He had never been as actively sociable as Margaret. She had been the one who initiated the parties and invited the guests. Confronted with guests for dinner, he had supplied them with drinks and carved the meat. He was thought an ‘easy man to talk to’. But socialising had been more an activity that he was happy to carry on because Margaret had enjoyed it so much. It was not something he sought out for himself. In fact, he rather liked quiet.

He was careful not to let himself go. He continued to observe Margaret’s rules about dress. He always wore clean clothes and dressed appropriately for the weather and the occasion. He never ate the prepared meals from their containers. He set the table each meal with the necessary plates and silverware and ate the food off them. He poured the wine into a proper glass. He sat in the same spot at the table that he had always occupied. He felt that it was important not to become careless and slapdash about such matters. He ate slowly and tried to savour his food. When he finished, he carried the dishes to the kitchen and washed them and put them away. Then he made himself a small pot of tea and drank it while reading or watching the television. He kept regular hours. He was in bed by 11 each night and up again at 6:30 in the morning.

The habits of a lifetime were built into each room in the house. Over time a certain decorum appropriate to each of them had gradually evolved. There was a chair for watching the television. Margaret had read an article on the subject in one of her magazines, and the chair was set at the right distance from the screen so that he would not damage his eyes. There was another chair for reading, next to a ‘good, strong light’, ‘a proper light for reading’. There he read the paper each morning, turning each page in succession from the front of the paper to the back, reading every article that interested him from beginning to end. He took a shower every evening before going to bed, carefully spreading the damp towels on the heated drying rack that Margaret had had installed. He aired the bed linens for an hour each morning before making the bed.

It was not that he valued these actions. They had been Margaret’s routines. When they had first married, he had sometimes been amused by her insistence on her ‘domestic dogmas’ as he thought of them. But neither observing them nor rebelling against them had been important enough to him to warrant comment. It was enough that she liked things to be done in a certain way. A protest would have given them a meaning that they did not deserve.

He had behaved in a similar fashion at work. The office had its routines, and he followed them. None of them were of any consequence. The world in which one found oneself demanded that one behave in a certain manner, and Jack had done so. A colleague given to remarking on others’ behaviour had once raised a laughed by commenting that Jack was so much a creature of habit that he even had the same dream each night starting at 2:00 am and lasting until 2:18.

Toward the beginning of each month, Jack would climb the stairs to the second floor, pull his chequebook from the top drawer on the right, and pay the bills. After detaching the payment coupon, he carefully noted the number of the cheque and the date on the remaining portion of each bill and deposited it in the proper file folder. He then removed the oldest bill and then put it through the shredder. Except for the statements he needed for tax purposes, he kept the paid bills only for six months. As he put each bill into its envelope, he placed a stamp on it and sat it in the out tray on his desk.

The Saturday he chose for paying the bills in February was damp and raw. Snow had been falling steadily since the early hours of the morning. The weather report on the radio had predicted an accumulation of over six inches in the suburbs to the north of the city and had advised against unnecessary travel. Jack had gone out about 8, as soon as it became light, and shovelled the walks. He preferred to do that task while the snow was falling rather than waiting for the storm to end. Better to remove a few inches at a time than wait until the storm ended and then struggle to clear a path through deeper snow.

When he finished paying the bills, he straightened the pile of envelopes. He would carry them downstairs and then post them in the box on the corner early Monday morning, before the van arrived to pick them up. He sat for a while and looked out the window. The wind was blowing against that side of the house, and the snowflakes seemed to emerge from the air a few feet outside the window and then dash against it. The snow was smoothing over the world, robbing it of detail beneath the even blanket of white. He felt no great need to proceed to his next task. He would wait another hour or so before clearing the walks again.

Behind him, he heard a branch scrape against glass. The noise came from the empty room. He opened the door to the room to check that the window was undamaged. When he switched on the light, a shock rolled through his body and left him feeling faint and lightheaded. He grabbed at the wall for support. He knew in his mind that the room was empty, but when he had turned on the light, its essential emptiness struck him with the impact of physical blow. All the usual objects that buttressed his existence were absent, not even thinkable in this space. The nothingness of the room was palpable. His stomach cramped and bent his body violently forward at the waist. He quickly backed out of the room and slammed the door closed.

He stumbled over to the desk and fell into the chair. His heart was beating wildly, and the bile rose in his throat. When he lifted his teacup to wash his mouth out, the cup almost slipped from his hand. His hands were covered with sweat. He pulled his handkerchief from a pocket and wiped them off. He looked around the room to reassure himself of its solidity, but the familiar objects refused to give him that. They seemed to have changed into something alien and strange in the few seconds he had been in the room. The desk lamp’s shade was now green with a gold border. Had it been green before? He couldn’t remember. And he was certain that he had not left the biro sitting atop the desk. He remembered putting it back into the tray in the central drawer of the desk.

He swivelled around in the chair and stared in fright at the door to the empty room. A streak of light showed around the edges of the door, and he realised that the light was still on. He felt he emptiness of the room invading his office along the rays of the light. He had to get out, to escape. He gripped the edges of the desk and pulled himself upright. His legs were unsteady and felt unequal to the burden of the weight pressing down on his shoulders. He fell against the jamb of the door and had to hold himself up. He tottered into the hallway but then had to sit down on the floor. He reached out and pulled the door to the office shut and then crawled down the corridor to the stairway. A wave of nausea passed through him as he thought about trying to walk down the stairs. He knew his legs would not support him. The thought of attempting to stand up and then falling down the stairs terrified him. His ears were filled with the pounding of his blood. He was shivering as if he had a fever.

The light coming through the windows at both ends of the hallway on the first floor outlined the opening at the bottom of the staircase, but it penetrated no further than the first few steps. Jack pushed himself up until he was sitting and then eased his body down the steps one by one. He had to lean against the wall and slide over each riser. The light at the bottom beckoned. It seemed a haven from whatever had attacked him in the empty room. He clung to the thought that if he could only make it to his bed and lie down for a while, he would recover. As he neared the bottom of the staircase, he felt the blackness lifting a bit. He pulled himself up by bracing himself against the wall and staggered into the bathroom, vomiting into the toilet. The remains of his breakfast splashed into the bowl and splattered onto the seat.

He slumped to the floor, with his arms wrapped around himself. He was sweating with fever yet he couldn’t stop trembling. He wanted to phone for help, but every time he tried to move, the nausea swept through his body again, leaving him heaving and attempting to bring up something more from his empty stomach.

His physical suffering was nothing next to his mental anguish, the fear of the absolute nothingness that occupied the empty room upstairs. A hole has boundaries, but nothingness had no limits. It wasn’t limited by the room, that was simply where it was at the moment. He shook with fright. Of being alone. Of being finally nothing.

He lay on the bathroom floor, with the cold tiles against his cheek. His mind stopped. Time passed. He gradually became aware that somewhere someone was whimpering, a lost child deserted by his mother. He thought that perhaps he should try to help the child. He opened his eyes and stared at the room. A few feet in front of him, a green bath mat was draped over the side of the tub. He had used it that evening before when he had taken a shower. The bathroom smelled of vomit, and that made him feel queasy again. He pushed the thought away and drew himself up. The bathroom was a mess, but at the moment he didn’t have the strength to deal with it. He washed his mouth out and rinsed out the sink. He flushed the toilet by leaning on the lever with all his weight. He still felt weak and exhausted, but he was able to make it to his bed and lie down. The pillowcase felt cool and smooth against his face. He pulled the blankets up around his body, not even bothering to remove his shoes. It didn’t matter if he got the bedclothes dirty. He could wash them later. He needed to rest.

He must have eaten something bad for breakfast, he decided. Perhaps the bread had gone mouldy or there had been some chemical on the banana, something like LSD, that had caused a hallucination. Maybe some stray germs on the glue on one of the envelopes that he had licked. That was the only thing that could explain that vision. Nothingness. And the horror. That was mad. It was only an empty room. There was nothing in it. At least nothing harmful. He just needed to rest a while, then he would be all right. He burrowed his head into the pillow and pulled the covers tighter around his body, creating a warm nest for himself.

He felt much better when he awoke several hours later, better than he had felt for days. The snow had stopped but the grey light coming through the bedroom windows told him the day was still overcast. The scraping of shovels against the concrete pavements signalled that the neighbours were clearing the walks. He eased himself out of bed and stood up carefully, just to make sure that his legs would support him. He took inventory of his body, searching for any sign that he was still unwell. As far as he could tell, he was fine. Whatever had caused the problem had struck without preamble and then disappeared as quickly as it had attacked.

He straightened the covers on the bed and then tackled the mess in the bathroom. He pulled the rubber gloves and the sponge and the cleaner from the cabinet under the sink and scrubbed the sink and toilet clean. He put the floor rug to rights and refolded the towels until the edges aligned and they hung square on the rods. As he passed the staircase to the second floor, he remembered that he had left the envelopes with the bill payments in them on his desk. When he opened the door to his office, he saw that he had left the light on in the empty room.

It was a measure of his recovery, he assured himself, that he felt no hesitation in opening the door to the room. He felt no fear, sensed nothing of the horror behind the door that had assailed him earlier. It was, in any case, better to face such things immediately and not let them develop into a complex. He swung the door open confidently. Still, he was relieved to find that it was only an empty room, the light hanging by its cord from the centre of the ceiling.

The room was still empty, and he wondered why they had never bothered to use it. He couldn’t recall the last time he had been in the room. Its emptiness annoyed him slightly, as if he had failed somehow to use the house fully. A simple wooden chair sat beside the far side of the desk. It had been intended for the use of anyone who might have reason to visit his office. As far as he could recall, no one ever had sat in it. Once or twice a year, Margaret might stick her head into the office and say something to him if she were passing by, but she had never sat down to talk with him. Talking was something they did downstairs, in the living room or at the table while they were eating or in bed as they were reading or in the car. The office had never been a place for conversation.

Jack carried the chair into the empty room and set it against the long wall opposite the door. It made the room feel occupied. He knew it was silly, but he felt that having something in the room would prevent a return of the ‘odd spell’, as he had labelled it to himself. He forced himself to stand at the window and look out, just to prove to himself that no more horrors lurked in the room waiting to attack. He should, he decided, do something with the room. It was a waste to let it go unused. When he left, he didn’t pull the door shut.

Several weeks later, on a Saturday, he was sitting in the living room trying to read. The children in the neighbourhood were playing loudly in the street. The noise was quite intrusive, and he found he couldn’t concentrate. His office was at the back of house and, it was far enough away from the street that it would be quieter, he decided. He marked his place in the book and picked up his coffee mug and carried it to the second floor. The desk light was too dim for comfortable reading. After reading a few pages, he gave up on it and brought a standard lamp from one of the bedrooms. There was only one wall socket in his office, and the cord on the lamp was short. He positioned the light as close to his desk chair as he could.

That made the light much better, and he sat down to read at his desk. But he had to move his chair so that he could place his book under the light. After a half-hour or so, his lower back began to feel stiff from the unnatural position in which he was forced to sit. He was used to sitting in a softer chair to read, one that allowed him to shift about. He tried the chairs in the two bedrooms on the second floor, but neither of them felt particularly right for reading. They were more the type of chair one had because every bedroom should have something to sit on, but they were not chairs one could endure for more than a few minutes. He descended to the first floor and finally found a suitable candidate in Julia’s former bedroom. It was a tight fit getting it up the narrow staircase to the second floor, but he persevered and was able, with some effort, to get it to his office. He would, he reminded himself, have to replace it with one of the chairs from the second floor.

After looking at the chair, he decided he needed a table to hold his cup, and something to rest his feet on. Margaret had only tolerated the hassock in the living room when there were no visitors, but he liked pushing his shoes off and putting his feet up on while he read. A trip to one of the bedrooms supplied the table. The hassock was on the ground floor, and he didn’t feel like hauling it up to the second floor. Besides he would need it downstairs. He found a sturdy box at the back of a closet and brought that to his office to use temporarily. A cushion from one of the beds provided a padded surface. He made a mental note to himself to shop for a footstool the next time he went out.

His office was getting crowded with furniture, and there wasn’t much room to stretch his legs. It was then that he remembered the empty room. Well, it wasn’t really empty any more, he thought to himself, not since he had put the chair in it. But it did have the necessary room to stretch out. The light wasn’t strong enough, but he could easily move the light in. He found an extension cord in one of the bedrooms. It was the work of a few minutes to arrange everything to his satisfaction. He sat down and began reading. When he finished the book, he was surprised to find that several hours had passed. It really had been quite a good idea to use the room next to his office for reading. He closed the book with satisfaction and turned off the light. The sun was setting and lit the room with a meagre gray light. A new footstool would make it perfect. He decided to buy one in the morning, and a rug for the floor too. It would be more comfortable if he decided to slip his shoes off while he was reading. Now that he looked more closely at the unfinished boards of the floor, they looked like they would splinter easily.

He picked up his mug, and as walked downstairs to make his supper, he reviewed the food he had in the fridge. None of it appealed to him. Perhaps, he thought, he might drive down to the high street and eat in a restaurant. He hadn’t done that for a while, not since Margaret had died. There was that Italian place. He hadn’t been there for two years, but it has always been reliable. Yes, he would try that, he decided. He hummed to himself as he changed to go out.

The empty room (he found it hard to think of it by any other name) quickly became his favourite place for reading. He bought a second electric kettle and installed it in his office along with a cafetière, a teapot, and a supply of coffee and tea, so that he didn’t have to walk downstairs every time he wanted something to drink. A few days later, he added a packet of biscuits in case he got hungry. And it was no trouble at all to make himself a sandwich and take it and a piece of fruit with him up to the second floor. It saved him from having to walk down the stairs and back up again when he wanted his lunch. Rather like packing a lunch to eat in a lay-by when one was travelling.

Jack found that he quite enjoyed sitting in the room. Sometimes he didn’t even read. He would leave the light off and just sit in the chair looking at the sky visible through the dirty window. The room made no demands on him. It had no history. It didn’t expect him to follow a routine, because there was none to follow. He found the autonomy of the room peaceful. It was cut off from society and relations and all bonds. It was the first time in years that nothing was required of him. The possibilities for action were open, and yet at the same time closed. He could do anything. Or he could do nothing. It was the anarchy of total freedom. And the room had no memory. If he chose to do one thing today, it was not necessary for him to do the same thing tomorrow. The room imposed no consequences on his behaviour.

Mrs Abbott, the cleaner, noticed the change the first week. ‘Are you going to be using that small room off your office now? I see you’ve moved some furniture in there.’

Jack lowered the newspaper. He was sitting in the reading chair in the living room while she cleaned the house. He had never noticed before how uncomfortable it was. The seat was too low, and it made his knees ache. And without a fire going, the room was damp and cold. He nodded in answer to Mrs Abbott’s question. ‘Yes’ was all he said. He didn’t feel that it was necessary to justify his decision to her, and he didn’t want to discuss it. ‘I’m going out now. Will you make sure that the house is locked up when you leave?’

He found himself forgetting the habits of a lifetime when he sat in the room. One morning when he had entered the room and sat down, he was surprised to find that he had left his coffee mug on the table overnight. When he lifted it, he noticed that a black ring had formed around the top edge of the coffee remaining at the bottom of the mug. A few months before, such carelessness would have horrified him. His response was to buy a supply of disposable cups so that he didn’t have to bother with washing up.

The carelessness even crept out of the empty room into his office. It was a nuisance to have to carry the cafetière and teapot down to the kitchen to clean them out, and after a few days he had abandoned them. He bought jars of instant coffee and powdered cream for his office, but their chemical taste disgusted him. So he contented himself with making tea with tea bags. Not the best, but drinkable. And Mrs Abbott emptied the wastebasket each week and put in a new liner. So he didn’t even have to take the used cups and teabags elsewhere to dispose of them. He taught himself to take the electric kettle to the first floor when he left the empty room to go to bed. He filled it from the bathroom tap every morning before making his way upstairs.

Gradually he ceased to leave the room for what seemed increasingly trifling tasks. The phone rang about three o’clock one day. He lowered his book and thought about answering it. But it was in the front hallway down two flights of stairs and most likely the caller would hang up before he got there. In any case, it was probably just a recorded message urging him to buy something. While he sat there pondering what to do, it ceased in mid-ring. Fifteen minutes later when the phone rang again, he found it easier to ignore.

Just as, at first, he found it easy to ignore the doorbell when someone pushed it an hour later. It wasn’t until he heard footsteps in the front hallway that he began to pay attention. ‘Dad, are you there?’ Julia’s voice was filled with anxiety. Jack leaped up. He switched out the lights in the empty room and pulled the door to as quietly as he could. The cord for the lamp prevented the door from closing all the way. He tiptoed to the head of the stairway, thinking that perhaps he could make it to the first floor and pretend to be awaking from a nap in his bedroom before Julia discovered him. He did not want her to know about what he had done to the empty room. She would not approve, he knew.

‘He’s not here, mom.’ His granddaughter sounded aggrieved. ‘Can we go now? I don’t want to miss Music World. It comes on in an hour. If we leave now, I can still see the beginning.’

‘I just want to check around. Something may have happened to your grandfather.’

Jack trod noisily down the stairs. ‘I’m up here, darling. I was clearing out some old files in my office.’

As he rounded the final bend in the stairs, Julia looked up at him with concern. His granddaughter looked unhappy. She was going to miss her programme now. ‘I was just worried, Dad. I rang twice earlier, and there was no answer. I thought something might have happened to you.’

‘I was out walking for a bit. I only got in a while ago. Would you like some coffee or tea? I think I have some of those biscuits you like, Alice.’

‘I don’t eat biscuits anymore, Grandfather. They’re not good for you. Too much sugar.’ Her mouth grimaced in disdain. Sometimes, Jack felt, she could be an ugly child.

‘We can’t stay, Dad. I just wanted to check to make sure you were all right.’

‘I’m fine, dear. Thank you for coming over, but there’s nothing to worry about.’ More than anything Jack wanted them to leave. Thankfully, he apparently was not expected to feed them tea.

Julia turned around and opened the door. Alice scurried out and up the path to the street. She didn’t want to risk her mother changing her mind. Julia looked around, inventorying the front garden. ‘The flower beds need weeding, Dad, and the shrubs need to be pruned.’ She looked at him speculatively. ‘I suppose now that you have to do all the gardening by yourself, it’s getting to be a bit much. Mother used to take care of so much of this. Perhaps you need to think about getting someone in to help.’

Julia’s look was not pleasant, Jack thought. It was as if she were wondering if he was still capable of taking care of himself. ‘That’s on my schedule for tomorrow.’ Jack hoped that he sounded convincing. He hadn’t even thought about the garden for days. And Julia was right. The front was beginning to look untended.

He stood in the front door until Julia drove off. He waited until she had turned the corner before closing the door. He changed into work clothes and found the pruning shears in the shed. He spent what remained of the afternoon trimming the row of privets beneath the front windows. The activity gave him plenty of time to think. The labour of keeping the house and yards presentable began to seem unreasonable to him. After some thought, he came up with an estimate of an average of 20 hours of work a week. More in the summer when the garden needed to be tended daily. He didn’t want his newfound freedom to be curtailed by the demands of the house.

And he hadn’t liked the way Julia had looked at him. If he didn’t keep the house up to her standards, she would begin to think of him as a problem to be dealt with. She would revert to her suggestion that the house was getting to be too much for him and perhaps he should get some help. She would enjoy managing his life and watching over him. If she felt that he was really getting past it, then she would begin a campaign to encourage him to move to a retirement settlement, somewhere with planned activities and a nurse on staff. He didn’t want that. He didn’t want anyone to run his life for him.

When he finished the pruning, he stepped out to the pavement and looked at the house. It was far too large for his needs. He had stayed in it out of habit, but he suddenly felt no loyalty to the house or the neighbourhood. They had no connection with him. It had once been a house he had lived in. Now it was a structure he inhabited. It had been Margaret’s decision to buy the house, and it had been more her house than his. It was her domain, and it came to him that he had always been a guest in it, the one permanent guest.

They had bought it a price that today seemed risible. It had cost them far less than even a smallish flat went for now. The neighbours sometimes talked in awed whispers about the prices of houses in the area. Jack thought that the house would bring at least a million and half pounds, possibly even more since the grounds were more substantial than most. In any case, the selling price would be far more than he needed to buy a flat somewhere. He wanted only a bedroom and a living room. For the small amount of cooking he did, a kitchenette would be enough. The money from the sale of the house and the income from his pension and his investments would see him comfortably through the rest of his life.

A new flat would be like having a set of empty rooms. He could buy all new furniture, all new everything. He would let Julia take what she wanted from the house and then he would sell the rest or give it away. It would be like starting over again. The more he thought about the idea, the more it appealed. When he went inside, he pulled out the phonebook and checked the listings for estate agents. He recognised some of the names from signs he had seen in the area. He wrote down the names and numbers of several agents. He would begin ringing them in the morning.

Perhaps they could help him find a flat to buy as well. He would like to get away from the city. Somewhere along the south coast, Devon or maybe even Cornwall. That way Julia wouldn’t be able to drop in on him. He would visit them at holidays, but his own flat would be too small to accommodate them. Yes, that was what he would do.

He decided to eat out and think about suitable locations. He took a small map of southern England with him to consult. As he waited for his food to be served, he jotted down the names of likely places in his memo book. Later, after he returned to the house, he turned on the computer for the first time in weeks and began pulling up information on various towns and searching the listings of available flats. There were so many empty rooms.

The Fields of Evening

The Fields of Evening

Nexis Pas

© 2008 by the author

Nexis Pas asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

‘He has a beautiful voice.’

The two men sat on canvas chairs at the edge of the patio behind the house. Beyond them the green lawn was contained within rows of rhododendrons as it sloped down to the dark river. In the twilight, their scarlet blooms were still visible, heavy and drooping down. A gigantic old oak tree spread its shade over the lower half of the garden. The sun had set, leaving only a faint glow in the sky. The ground below was already shadowed and black. Lights shone behind them in the house but did not quite reach them. Through the open windows came the sound of Patrick singing.

The snatches of song floated through the night. Patrick would sing a verse or two and then would come the sounds of the fridge opening and closing, the whirring of some machine, the sound of metal striking metal as a pot lit was lowered into place. Then the song would repeat, or another melody would start.

C.S. stood and walked over to the drinks cart. He brought the bottle of whiskey back and held it out toward Allen. Allen shook his head, and C.S. poured an inch into his glass. He set the bottle on the table between them and sat down again. ‘He sings all the time. Sometimes I think it’s his way of communicating with the world. He’s not connected with life in the same way as you or I.’

‘What language is it?’

‘Irish. That much I know. Gaelige, as he would have it.’

‘His voice is so clear and pure. It has no blemishes.’

‘Everything about him is clear and pure.’

‘He has made you happy.’

‘Yes, he has. But it’s not really a question of being happy, although I am. It’s more . . . I don’t know how to explain it. I suppose it’s love. Being surrounded by love, I mean.’

‘Now I’m jealous. He doesn’t have a brother, does he?’

‘He does, but the brother’s nothing like him. The brother’s all ego, and Patrick’s no ego at all.’

‘Oh, that’s a beautiful bit there. Do you know what the words mean?’

‘No, I’ve never asked.’

‘Never? Aren’t you curious?’

‘No, there’s his songs. If he wanted me to know what they mean, he would tell me. And he isn’t singing for me. He’s singing for the world, with the world.’

‘You’re becoming poetic. I wouldn’t have suspected that of you.’

‘When I was eight, nine, somewhere in there, my father had a one-year appointment at the University of Michigan in the States filling in for someone on sabbatical. We lived outside Ann Arbor in a small town, in this big house at the end of the street. Beyond us, there was a narrow strip of woods and beyond that there were fields. We were close enough to the farm that we could hear the cows mooing in the morning. The nearest streetlamp was a block away. It was the darkest place I’ve ever lived. In the spring, it turned hot early, and we slept with the windows open.

‘I used to lie there awake listening to the night. It was so quiet there. Every house had screen doors—wire mesh that would let in the air. People would leave them open to let in the cooler air. That was in the days before air conditioning. They had springs that kept them pulled shut, and they made a very distinctive noise when they closed. They never shut fully the first time. They would bounce and then open again and then settle in place. One would hear a flap of wood hitting wood and then a creak and then another, quieter flap.

‘The sound carried so far on those nights. You could hear people talking a block away. Hollow voices in the night. Or the sound of radios or televisions. Televisions were just coming in then, and not everyone had one. There would be the sound of laughter or applause. And occasionally one would hear an animal out in the fields. A late bird calling or the snorting of cattle.’

‘It sounds magical.’

‘It was. But that’s what Patrick’s singing reminds me of. The fields of evening. So quiet, yet so filled with sound. And sometimes in the morning, I would wake up early, just as it was getting light, and I would dress and go downstairs and sit outside. They had what they call a swing on the porch—the veranda. The swing was like a bench, but it was suspended by chains from the ceiling of the porch. One could sit it in and rock back and forth, and the only sound would be the creaking of the swing.

‘I loved to do that. I was safe but all alone. I didn’t have to worry about the rules and being what other people wanted me to be. I could just sit them and rock back and forth in the air and just exist. I didn’t have to be anything. And the mornings were so calm. Even when it was raining, it was as if the air were humming to itself. And when the sun came up, the grass would glisten with the dew. The house was surrounded by lilac bushes. I remember these purple cones of flowers in the dawn against those dark green leaves and that grass and the trees with their new leaves. There were so many shades of green, and all of it was new and fresh, as if the world had just been made, and nothing was wrong with it yet. It was filled with the wonders of creation, and I was the first person to be allowed to see it.

‘I never expected to again be as contented as I was then. But that’s what Patrick has given me. So no, I don’t ask him what the songs mean. The words might mean the wrong thing or they might mean too little. He’s totally undemanding of meaning. And I’ve become afraid of meaning, that I might mean the wrong thing in his world. He doesn’t expect me to be anything but here, in his present.’

‘You’re romanticising him now.’

‘Perhaps. He’s like a gift that demands no repayment.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Most gifts come with an expectation that something will be given back in return. He’s not like that.’

‘All gifts have to be repaid in some form. Even the absence of payment is a form of payment. What does Patrick think of all this?’

‘I don’t know. You would have to ask him. But I don’t think he would answer you. It’s just what he is. He doesn’t know how to be anything else.’

‘He is happy with you?’

‘Again, it’s not a question of happiness. He is content, I think. But I don’t think he devotes much thought to being happy. He doesn’t seem to want more the minimum possessions. He enjoys cooking, as you can see. He enjoys teaching. He enjoys living here with me. But if he lost all of those things, he would still sing his songs. That might make him unhappy, if he couldn’t sing. But that might be the only thing that would.’

‘He is a saint, then.’

‘No. Not a saint, nor a sinner. The rules don’t apply to him.’

‘The rules apply to everyone.’

‘He is free of the rules. At least here, in this house. That I can give to him. A place where the rules do not apply.’

‘It is a beautiful picture. But I don’t believe it.’

‘I do. I must. I couldn’t go on now if I didn’t believe in it. I can’t go back. I have to believe in at least the possibility of Patrick.’

‘This song is so sad. One doesn’t have to know the words to know that.’

‘It would be sad only if he stopped.’

A Net to Catch the Wind

A Net to Catch the Wind

Nexis Pas

© 2008, 2009 by the Author. Nexis Pas asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

Early in 2007 I wrote a story entitled ‘Cal’. I had been exchanging emails with another poster of internet stories, and he asked me what I looked like. Since I knew that he would understand the reference, I told him I could play Caliban without makeup and appliances. In his reply, he asked me how that made me feel. Since I was already thinking about actors, I wrote a story about two actors, long-time lovers, one of whom was badly injured in an accident that left him scarred and crippled. The story relates a small incident in their lives that reveals how they cope with the consequences of the accident. The story was the first time I wrote something that I thought was good. And I shall always regard it with affection because I knew when I finished it that it was a good story and that I could write others. It wasn’t particularly successful because it depends on readers knowing the customs of the British Parliament and being familiar with The Tempest. I reread it a few weeks ago and discovered that Richard and Cal weren’t finished with me. Here’s another part of their story.

Later: to clear up a possible misunderstanding, thanks for the compliment on the title. I wish I could claim credit for it, but it's from John Webster's Devil's Lawsuit: 'Vain the ambition of kings/who seek by trophies and dead things/to leave a living name behind/and weave but nets to catch the wind.'


The small pains bother me the most now. It wasn’t that way at first. In the beginning, I didn’t even notice them.

In hospital they treated the broken bones, the torn muscles, the damaged tissues, from the accident and dealt with my recovery from the surgeries. The pain was so bad that my mind couldn’t trace its many sources. I couldn’t tell where it started. It was just there. It absorbed me into its world. And it wasn’t just my body that hurt. That pain radiated out beyond me and beyond the bed to fill that room, the hospital, the entire city. For an infinity, I knew nothing but that pain.

Pain. There is no word for it other than ‘pain’. There are no synonyms. ‘Ache’ is trivial, and the medical terms—the ‘blunt-force traumata’ and ‘hyperalgesia’—offer only the false comforts of science and its labels. They are masks and lies that do not touch the truth.

Pain like that is a solipsism. It has no parts, no degrees, no nuances. It is beyond metaphor, beyond language itself. There are no figures of speech, no words, no signs, that can encompass it and tame it into the speakable. It is a island of the mute. That pain speaks in gestures and movements—the eyes closing tightly to shut it out, the sudden shocked intake of breath escaping the polite composure of our public faces, the hand trying to claw comfort from the air. Its lexicon is restricted, its dictionaries brief, its grammar simple. It is a foreign tongue quickly learned. The scream, the groan, are its only vocabulary. Pain like that is raw and rude, a knife in the mind beyond the ability of actors to mimic.

Occasionally those pains return, searing phantasms delivered to my present reality by the triggering of a stray synapse in my brain. The wanton fires of memory offer my flesh again and again to the insatiable gods that starve on our endless burnt offerings, the gods whose hunger we cannot sate. The world lurches. Someone will rush to my side and shout that I am having one of my ‘spells’. The suddenness of the attacks makes them feel so helpless. The palliatives they offer are comical in comparison to the cause. Even the most imperturbable of my friends and associates are reduced to babbling by the spasms that roil my face. ‘Water, someone bring David a glass of water,’ they call out to the unresponsive air. Or ‘Do you need a pillow?’ they ask me.

Richard told me later that I gave no sign of being aware of my surroundings for eight days. I’m not sure when I again became conscious of something apart from the pain. It was a slow awakening, that I remember. Eventually I realised where I was and was told the reason I was there. I think I knew that I was lying in a hospital bed long before it occurred to me that I did know. There were flowers, a gigantic vase full of bronze and russet and yellow chrysanthemums. They were so big and heavy that their stems curved and the flowers hung downwards. The individual petals on each of those overwrought blooms were so clear and distinct. And I was thinking, that’s the sort of flowers you send to someone who’s sick, and then it came to me that I was in hospital and that the flowers were for me.

Of the accident itself, I have no memory. I don’t even remember what I was doing before it happened. Amnesia is a common effect of traumatic brain injury. The shock of the moment erases the recent past. Others have supplied my memories, and I have made them into a movie. One of those starkly lit black-and-white movies from the 1930s and 1940s in which the contrasts in night-time images are so strong. My own film noir. Late at night after a performance, an actor walks across a rain-slicked street. The reflections of the lights waver in the puddles as the wind ripples the water and drives gusts of rain across the road. His hat is pulled low over his face to keep the rain off, and he grasps its brim with one hand to keep it from blowing away. His shoulders are hunched forward in his coat in that futile gesture we all use in an attempt to make ourselves a smaller target for the raindrops. A car charges around the corner, its headlights briefly illuminating the actor. In a moment of indecision he half-turns toward the sound, and then his body lurches through the air to land with his torso on the pavement and his calves folded back beneath his thighs on the street. He becomes a crumpled pile of alien refuse, unhuman, beastlike, strangely silent for someone so torn. Shocked passers-by stop in mid-motion, in mid-word, immobilised for a brief moment.

Then the frantic activity. The flashing lights of the police cars, the ambulance siren approaching from the distance, and the efficient removal of the body.

‘Who was it? Did you recognise him?’

‘It was that actor. You know--the short black-haired one who played Caliban, what’s his name? Richard Somerset’s “friend”. David Scottsomething?’

I was leaving the theatre after a performance. Alexis says that we sat for a while on the stage after we had removed the makeup and changed into our street clothes, sharing a drink and gossip with the stagehands and stage manager. She and I stopped on the pavement outside and talked for a few minutes more. Then we said good night. I started across the street. She hailed a cab and got in. As it was driving off, she heard the squeal of brakes and the thud of the impact and then the empty silence. I don’t remember. We were in a production of Autumn Garden. I’m told it was a success. The production had already run for seven months. I can’t recall a single line from the play, although I must have given almost two hundred performances of it by that night.

Richard was filming outside Cardiff. Alexis rang him immediately on her mobile, awakening him. He drove back that night and waited outside the surgical theatre throughout the day. Luckily enough of the sisters and doctors read the tabloids and listened to television gossip shows to know that we were more than just friends, and they allowed him into my room as I was recovering. Richard stayed beside my bed for the first week, leaving only for an hour or two each day to change his clothes and wash up.

When I eventually saw him, he was haggard, his faced grey with exhaustion and his shoulders slumped. He tried to hide it from me, but he was furious, furious at the driver who had hit me, furious at the delays in getting me into surgery, furious at the doctors because he thought my recovery too slow, furious at the nurses doing the necessary tasks, furious at every medical indignity visited upon my unresisting body, furious at me and my carelessness for making it necessary for him to be furious.

But fury is an inadequate word to describe his feelings when Doctor Kellner broke the news that the nerves leading to my legs were too damaged to recover and that I would never walk again. It was the day before my scheduled release. Richard assured me that he had made all the arrangements the hospital had specified before they would allow me to return to our flat. When I asked what they were, he smiled and said he wanted them to be a surprise.

By then I could sit in a wheelchair for an hour or so before I became too tired to hold myself erect. When Kellner entered my room, Richard was seated by my side and holding my hand. He did that often in those days. I needed him to hold me, and I think he needed to touch me. We gave each other the reassurance of the flesh. The first day I could sit in the wheelchair, he had pushed me up and down the corridors. But both of us found that dismal. It was late winter by that point and still cold. The weather was very wet, and the sisters wouldn’t allow him to take me outside. The corridors of the hospital were filled with other patients and their visitors. Richard’s face is too well known to escape notice and comment, and we had no privacy. After a few ventures outside my room, we settled on sitting by the window and holding hands. It was all we could do.

I have forgotten the technical name for Doctor Kellner’s specialty. He oversees the rebuilding and rehabilitation of damaged bodies. Occasionally he has to admit the status quo ante cannot be restored, is not even imaginable. That day, he carried a metal clipboard. Rather than look at me, he focused on the pages in front of him, occasionally riffling through them in an apparent attempt to locate a particular fact as if the data on those sheets of paper verified the reality of my problems. He was overacting, like a bad mime clinging to a prop to lend his charade authority. His customary ability to explain the complex in simple language was replaced by a barrage of unfamiliar scientific terminology that he made no effort to clarify. Perhaps he finds it hard to deliver bad news and was hiding his discomfiture in scientific vocabulary. Richard realised before I did the import of his explanation. ‘Are you saying that David will never walk again?’

Richard is a very good actor. He never rants, never emotes. He is inward and intense. He never plays to the audience. His gaze and his energies are directed against the person to whom he is speaking, yet every member of the audience believes that Richard is addressing him or her alone. He can whisper, and every ear in the theatre feels caressed. When Doctor Kellner came into my room, Richard stood up and looked out the window with his back to us. He waited through the doctor’s tortuous explanation of the damage to my body and the hopelessness of my condition. Richard’s question may have been phrased like an innocuous request for information, but it was spoken with such quiet anger that it cut through the doctor’s circumlocutions.

‘We can’t be certain that Mr Scotthorn will never walk again, but for the foreseeable future, he will have to continue to use the wheelchair. It is unlikely that he will ever recover the full use of his legs. The damage to the sciatic nerve was severe, and there is no detectable reaction below the pelvic bone and the hip joint. In cases such as this, only limited mobility . . . ’

‘Get out.’ Richard wheeled around. In two steps he brought himself right into Doctor Kellner’s face. His arms were rigid at his sides, and his hands were bunched into fists. The doctor instinctively raised the clipboard to guard himself. Richard batted at it with the back of a hand and shoved the doctor back a step. He was so angry that the words sputtered out. ‘If you can’t help David, then get out.’ I thought he was going to hit Kellner.

‘Richard, don’t.’ I rolled the chair forward and tugged at his sleeve. ‘Please don’t.’ Richard looked at me and then back at the doctor. He glared at Kellner ferociously and then softened his posture. Every muscle of his face was telegraphing that he was labouring to bring his emotions under control. He was letting us know that he doing so only because I had intervened. He grasped the handles on the back of the chair and jerked me away from the doctor, as if the doctor were himself the danger to me and the source of my problems.

Richard placed an open hand on the back of my neck. That was one of his gestures of affection. I would be sitting in a chair, and he would walk up behind me and cup the back of my neck in his hand. There would be a slight pressure as his fingers and palm closed around my neck and then he would rub my neck with his thumb for a second before relaxing his grasp. He seldom said anything at those moments. I saw his parents do the same thing many times. He had learned it from them. I don’t suppose he thought about what he was doing or its meaning for him. It was just part of his repertoire, one of the ways he told me that he was there and that he wanted to be there.

The doctor grabbed a tissue from the box and wiped his face. His eyeglasses were speckled with fine droplets of Richard’s spit. He started to speak, but I interrupted and asked him to leave us alone for a few minutes. Kellner nodded and almost ran from the room.

‘Richard, we have to face . . .’

‘David, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He’s just a staff doctor in a city hospital. He probably can’t get a job anywhere else. I shouldn’t have left you here. This isn’t a proper hospital. It’s a warehouse. You should have had private care from the beginning. There are other doctors to consult—specialists. They’ll know how to fix this. We’ll find someone. I’ll ask. Marta’s husband is a doctor. He’ll know someone. We’re going to beat this, David. Everything will be like before. We’re going to . . .’ He knelt on the floor in front of my chair and grasped my hands in his. He went on and on reassuring himself that all would be well if he could only find the right person to put me back together again. He made it sound as if a bit of wiring had come loose inside me, and all would be made right in the end when an electrician who knew his job stepped forward. Richard was so forceful that I almost believed it myself. I wanted so much for that to be true.

I sat there, with my hands clasped in his, pretending to share his optimism. I tried very hard to be what he wanted. I was never the actor he is, but I gave a great performance as the courageous cripple that day. For an audience of one, my lion, my wonderful ferocious lion. But he wanted to believe. Suspension of belief has always been easy for Richard. Perhaps that’s why he so convincing on stage or before the camera.

By the next morning, he had organised everything. He swept into my hospital room and soon had the sisters running about packing up my things. He listened carefully to their explanations of what medicines I was supposed to take and when. He had even brought a memo pad with him and took notes. While this was going on, a young man waited patiently in the door to the corridor. I thought he was one of the porters at the hospital come to escort me out. There were several men to do the heavy work about the place, and the young man in the doorway was cut from the same mould. He wasn’t dressed in the usual hospital clothes, but he looked competent and was clearly there to help us.

When we were ready to leave, Richard handed my belongings and the bag with the medicines to the young man and said to me, ‘This is Paul Norman. He’s a registered home-care health assistant. He’ll be coming in during the day for a few weeks to help out. Just until you get back on your feet again.’ Paul smiled at me and shook my hand. He murmured that he was pleased to meet me and that he wished we were meeting under better circumstances and then in a louder voice told Richard that he would run downstairs and bring the van around to the main entrance.

When we got to the entrance, Paul jumped out of a wheelchair van and operated the lift. He quickly had the chair locked in place and me secured in it. Richard never told me how he had found Paul. Later I asked Paul directly and learned that Richard had conducted interviews several weeks ahead of my discharge from hospital, and that Paul had been on retainer to begin his employment as soon as I was allowed to come home. He had agreed to stay until I could manage for myself. The van was similarly being rented from month to month, another temporary arrangement, Richard stressed.

It wasn’t the only surprise that awaited me. Richard had had most of the doors inside our flat removed to accommodate the wheelchair. ‘They’re all stowed in the basement, and we can put them back up after you get out of that chair.’ Safety bars had been installed around the bathtub and in the toilet I was to use. Richard informed me that the builders had assured him they could be removed later and the tiles replaced so that ‘no one would ever know they had been there.’ A hospital bed had replaced the fold-out couch in the guest room. It was, Richard told me, rented and would be returned when we no longer needed it. The damage to the flat and my injuries evidently had the same status in his mind—both would disappear and leave no trace.

******

‘Richard, this is shit.’ I held up the script his agent had sent over earlier in the day. Richard had been out. For want of anything better to do, I had picked it up and began reading it. ‘Why is Nicole sending you junk like this?’ I flipped it open at a random: ‘ “Stella, think of our unborn child. Does she mean nothing to you?” This is a soap opera. A few parts like this and your reputation will be history.’

Richard snatched the script out of my hands and closed it. He set it on a high shelf of a bookcase beyond my reach from the wheelchair. ‘It’s a romantic comedy. A parody.’ Even Richard didn’t believe that. ‘And it’s not for you to decide what roles I take. At least this will allow me to stay in London with you. I’m doing it for you.’

‘Since when is taking an interest in your career out of bounds?’ I grew livid over the sacrifices he was forcing on me. He had no right to impose his charity on me. ‘And when are you going back to Wales to finish filming? Nicole asked me yesterday when she stopped by if I knew what your plans were. The producers are calling her every day.’

‘That bitch. She has no right to bother you about these things. I’m taking care of it. I’m making arrangements to finish the film here in London.’ Richard grabbed a magazine off the table and rolled it into a tight cylinder. He began beating the open palm of his left hand with it. He latched onto Nicole as a welcome target for his anger, a substitute, I think, for me. ‘If Nicole were doing her job, she would be helping me make the arrangements instead of worrying you.’

Richard seldom told me what he was doing anymore. He was often gone most of the day. In the morning, once Paul had arrived and Richard knew that I wouldn’t be alone, he would hurriedly bend over my chair, push my hair away so that he could kiss my forehead, and say, ‘I’ve have things to attend to. I’ll be back later.’ Then he would rush off without looking back. Since he usually said nothing about how he had spent his day when he returned, I sometimes wondered if he just wanted to be anywhere but the flat with its reminders of my problems. Before the accident, he had delighted in telling me in great detail what he had done while we had been apart. He had loved sharing his day with me, making sure that even though we were apart, we were together. And that’s what I wanted again--the gift of normality, not constant reminders of his awareness of my immobility and enforced inactivity.

My stupid, heedless arrogance in thinking that I led such a charmed life that I could dash across a busy road without risk was having consequences far beyond the injuries to my body. The damage to both our individual lives and our life together wasn’t confined to my medical problems. I had disrupted Richard’s career as well as mine and created an incurable problem, a problem simultaneously physical, mental, emotional, financial, professional. And the last thing I wanted was to be burdened by Richard’s guilt about being whole while I was crippled. My own load of remorse and shame was already a heavy weight.

‘Richard, why are you doing this? You’re ruining your career.’

‘It’s my career.’ He turned away from me and looked out the window, his posture truculent. He, too, was seething with anger and barely controlling it.

‘Richard, you don’t have to destroy your life to care for me.’

‘I’ll do what I want. I can’t leave you when you’re like this.’ He whirled around and faced me, shouting, daring me to argue with him. ‘You’ve never been able to accept my love. You’re always pushing me away when I try to do things for you. You’ve always held part of yourself back. You’ve never been willing to let me love you. To let me show you that I love you. I’m not like that. I can’t desert you when you need me. I’m just trying to find a job that will allow me to stay in London and work from home. So it’s a soap opera. They tape it two days every week. I won’t have to spend more than a few hours at the studio every week to say my lines.’

Richard’s rage at my condition was getting more and more intense. He hated every reminder of the restraints on my movement, and he took it out on everything that made it possible for me to get through the day. He either ignored the wheelchair and pretended that it didn’t exist or shoved it around violently, as if he loathed being in contact with it more than a moment.

Paul came in for constant carping and criticism. Any perceived delay to answer a summons would be met with bellows from Richard and sotto voce comments about his slowness. Richard seemed to resent Paul’s care, especially anything that involved physical contact. He came home one day to find Paul bathing me. Both Paul and I are Chelsea fans, and we were discussing their recent games with such enthusiasm that neither of us heard Richard opening the door to the flat. As Paul often does when bathing me, he had stripped down to his underpants to keep his clothes from getting wet. Richard appeared in the door suddenly, surprising us both in mid-laughter.

My smiles may have misled Richard. I greeted him with delight. ‘Paul says that he thinks we can take the wheelchair into the Bridge. He’s going to check on it.’ Paul was kneeling on the bathmat and leaning over the tub holding the shower hose and rinsing my hair off. He half-turned his head to acknowledge Richard’s arrival.

Richard shoved Paul aside and grabbed for the shower attachment. In the scuffle, he managed to spray more water over his clothes than me. ‘Are you out of your mind? Taking David to a football game. What if the louts decide to have a riot because their precious Blues lose again? Who’s going to protect David then?’ Both Paul and I were stunned by the violence of his outburst. Richard had ended up in possession of the shower hose and water was flying all over the bathroom as he gestured wildly.

Neither Paul nor I said anything. Paul was kneeling on the floor, water dripping down his face and body. Richard looked at the two of us and then at the shower head and his wet clothes. He dropped the hose into the bathtub and growled at Paul, ‘Clean up this mess.’ Then he rushed out. The hose had landed face up so that the water was jetting upward all over me and Paul and the walls. Paul and I didn’t move for a few seconds. We could hear Richard yanking drawers open in his bedroom, all the while muttering, ‘Idiot. A total fucking idiot.’ I don’t know which of us he meant. After a moment, Paul eased the door closed and then turned off the water. He reached for the towel and began drying me off.

Paul has been with me for over five years now, first as an attendant and now as my indispensable assistant. I try not to think about my feelings for him, that odd mix of love and gratitude and affection and a rather paternalistic pride in his accomplishments. I can’t do anything to satisfy my feelings, and Paul is happily involved with another young man. My feelings are a complication he must never have to deal with. In fairness to Paul, he has never given Richard cause for jealousy. But I probably have. Richard may have sensed my growing attachment to Paul and my regard for him. Richard long ago learned to read me and the direction of my interests. If Paul and I had met under different circumstances, I might have come to love him, perhaps even more than I do Richard.

Richard has never shared my interest in football. He regards it as one of my lower-class enthusiasms, another remnant of my wayward upbringing. It must have hurt him to find that Paul and I had found a bond that excluded him.

‘I’m sorry,’ I mouthed. ‘It’s not you he’s mad at.’

Paul shrugged and whispered. ‘It’s hard on him to see you like this. He cares about you so much.’

‘Yes, he does.’ And that was true, is true. Richard has always loved me, passionately, devotedly. And there have been times that his love was a burden. Our relationship might have been smoother had he loved me less. Sometimes I have found his love a costly gift.

And yet Richard could also be unbelievably patient with me. The second week I was home from hospital, he came into my bedroom to make sure that I had taken my pills and to ask if I needed anything before he went to bed. He had just showered and he had a towel wrapped around his waist. The room filled instantly with the soapy smell of his warm body. He was pummelling his head with another towel to dry his hair. The moisture had made his curls even tighter than usual. He was, is, beautiful.

‘Just you,’ I replied in answer to his question. I pushed the covers back. ‘If you’ll help me move over, there will be room for both of us. I just want you to . . .’ I couldn’t finish the sentence. I wanted him so much. I wanted him to do so many things that night. Just to hold me for a while, to feel his body stretched out beside mine. I wanted to touch him and pull him close to me. To be warmed by his heat to the marrow of my being. To feel his hair against my face again, his lips kissing my neck again, that sensitive spot he had found beneath my ears where the neck meets the shoulders, the spot where his kisses generated waves of pleasure that paralysed me with desire. I wanted us to wrap our legs around each other. I wanted to be normal again. I wanted an illusion that would sweep everything away and make me whole, if only for a few moments. I wanted reassurance that something once so familiar had not changed and evaporated.

‘It’s too soon. What if I hurt you?’

‘Richard, I want to make love to you. I don’t know if I can anymore, or what I can do. But I want to try.’

He stood there looking at me for a long minute. He is so rarely indecisive that I thought he was trying to find words to tell me gently that he wouldn’t. Finally, he smiled hesitantly and said, ‘Let me hang the towels up and turn out the hall lights.’ Even those innocuous remarks reminded me of the distance between us now, of Richard’s reluctance to confront my damaged body. There was a time when the towels would have been tossed immediately onto the floor and still held the dampness within their folds when we picked them up the next morning.

When he returned, he was naked. He switched off the lights and then got into bed. He lay down beside me and eased an arm under my neck and shoulders. I could feel his body down the length of my torso to about the area of the hipbones. Richard bent his uppermost leg at the knee and carefully lowered it across my thighs and began kissing me. I couldn’t feel anything in my legs. I knew his leg was there but I couldn’t feel it.

‘You know, when I would wake up in the middle of the night in hospital, I would pretend that you were there in bed with me. It was the only way I could get back to sleep. With you holding me like this.’

He was very careful that night. Richard liked to make me feel good. He enjoyed the pleasure his lovemaking gave me. He always drew excitement from my excitement. I sometimes thought that he found in his skills at arousing me a confirmation of his own desirability. For someone with so forceful a personality, he can be very insecure. In the reflection of my desire for him, he found reassurance. Applause and good reviews and recognition—we’re both actors. I wanted them as much as he.

He did all the things he knew I like. As long as he touched me above the waist, I could feel his hands and his lips. Below that the sensations quickly faded away, the lower he moved. I was genuinely aroused by his love for me, and I wasn’t faking my moans of pleasure and the wildness he was creating in me. Physically I may not have been able to feel his touch, but mentally I could. And that was more than enough.

When Richard came, I started laughing for joy. I’ve seldom felt as close to him as I did that night and never as grateful. He buried his face in my shoulder as his body buckled in one final spasm. When he had recovered, he kissed my neck and moaned with contentment. ‘You’re still a sex maniac,’ he said. ‘Thank god.’

‘Were you worried?’

‘A bit.’ He kissed me again and then stroked my stomach. ‘What about you? If I’m careful, I can suck you off without putting any weight on you.’ He reached down and took my cock in his hand. It was flaccid and unresponsive. I couldn’t feel much, not enough in any case.

‘I don’t appear to be up for it, pun intended.’ Richard shot me a bemused grimace. ‘It must be one of those painkillers I’m taking. I’ve read that they have this effect. In any case, I think you came enough for the two of us.’

Richard nodded. He was happy to accept the excuse I offered him. He quickly adopted it as the official explanation. He eased himself off me and stood up. ‘I’ll get a wet flannel. I’ll be right back. Just stay there. Don’t get up.’

He spoke without irony. It was one of those insignificant utterances that have almost no meaning. As soon as Richard started away from the bed, the literal meaning of his words came home to him. He whirled about, a stricken look on his face. He raised a hand cupped into a fist and covered his mouth. He didn’t know what to say to make up for his remarks.

‘Whatever gave you the idea that I wanted to run away from you?’ I had to offer him something, if only a joke.

‘David, I’m so sorry. I spoke without . . .’

‘Don’t. Don’t apologise for caring for me. It’s my fault that you have to do these things.’

‘No. It’s that stupid driv . . .’

‘Richard, you had better get that flannel and sponge me off. It will take you all night to get all this off if it dries.’ I drew upon my memory of a role I had once played and beamed at him in amusement. He took the offered pretext and fled from the room.

As he was cleaning us up, I said, ‘Will you stay with me tonight? I’ve missed you. I hate sleeping alone. It’s worse when I know you’re just down the hall.’

‘The bed’s too narrow. I’ll injure you if I stay.’

‘We could go back to our bed. I don’t need this hospital bed now. You can call the rental place tomorrow and have them take it away.’

‘I haven’t been sleeping at all well. I’ll keep you up, and you need your sleep.’

‘The pills will make me sleep. Please, Richard.’

He touched my face. ‘I love you.’ He looked so sad, as if the words had been stripped of their usual meaning and love were an admission of hopelessness.

‘I know. What do you think has kept me going?’ Sometimes I manipulated him so. There were times I used his guilt and his pity to get what I want.

He turned away and bent over and picked my pyjamas up from where he had tossed them on the floor earlier. I had begun wearing pyjamas in hospital and continued to do so after I came home. ‘Will you need these?’

I shook my head no. He dropped them onto a chair and then reached under me with both arms and carried me down the hall to our bed. He folded back the blankets and then laid my body on the bed. He straightened my legs out and then covered me up. A few seconds later he slid into bed beside me. ‘We’re going to make it, Davey.’ His hand covered mine and squeezed it briefly. He didn’t say anything after that. Nor did he move any closer. He was still lying there separated from me by as much distance as the bed allowed and rigidly awake when my pills kicked in and I fell asleep puzzling over ‘Davey’. He had never called me by that diminutive before.

Richard was right in saying that I pushed him away sometimes. Not always, but often enough. Most people looked at us, and they saw Richard the successful and popular actor and they saw me, a supporting actor more popular with the critics than with the public, and they concluded that Richard played the leading role in our domestic drama. It’s not that simple. Love isn’t ever that simple. Ours was a balance of giving and receiving, an economy in which tokens circulated. Sometimes they would be returned with interest, sometimes they came back with their worth deflated. Sometimes the loan on offer had unacceptable conditions attached to it. Sometimes one sacrificed present gain for future benefits.

Fear has always kept me from giving myself to Richard completely. The first time we went to bed together, I was having sex. He was making love. The sudden realisation that Richard loved me, truly loved me, engulfed me in an ecstatic joy, and I felt myself dissolving, as if the boundaries between the two of us had evaporated. And I shouted ‘no’ as the terror of ceasing to be myself overwhelmed me. A flash of ego stopped me before the David that I was sublimed into thin air and joined with Richard into another being. I was never willing to become that being. I settled for becoming the recipient of Richard’s love.

*****

‘So there’s no need for weekly appointments in the future. I’ll want to see you every two months or so, and of course you should keep up the physical therapy and exercise. It will help keep some muscle tone in the legs.’

‘They are getting so thin.’ My reactions to my injuries puzzled me at times. I had come to terms with losing the use of my legs. I didn’t like it, but I realised that I would never walk again. What I did mind was the loss of substance in my legs. They had always been one of my good points physically. I had strong, muscular legs. I looked good in tights in period dramas and even in loose-fitting trousers. And now they were shrinking. My thighs were becoming toothpicks that ended in bony knobs at the knees--at least they seemed that way to me. The muscle that did remain was getting soft and flabby. I had begun obsessively checking the size of my legs every morning to see if more of my flesh had disappeared over night. I had even had Paul consult some of his colleagues to see if there were exercises I could do to build them up. I suppose it was easier to worry about a trifle than to confront the main issue.

On the other hand, the exercises I was doing were building up my upper chest and arms. I was beginning to look like a tube of toothpaste that had been squeezed flat on the bottom forcing the top of the tube to swell out.

Doctor Allston didn’t reply to my comment. She was a kind doctor. Of all the specialists Richard had insisted I consult, she was the only one I liked. I think Richard trusted her more than he had the others. ‘You’re alone today.’ It was phrased as a statement, but I understood what she was asking.

‘Richard had to film on location in Southend today. He left early this morning. He allowed Paul to bring me but only after lecturing him for half an hour on what he should do.’ We exchanged wry smiles.

She pulled a pad over and began writing on it. ‘I’m giving you the name of therapist. He’s very good at helping people deal with conditions like yours.’ Even the doctors rarely referred to my paralysis to my face in any but the most general of benign terms. She could have been talking about a bad case of acne.

‘I’ve been attending a group session for people who’ve . . .’ I didn’t finish the sentence. I just gestured at my legs.

‘No, this is for Mr Somerset. This man helps family members, spouses—’ She lifted an eyebrow to query if the use of the term applied. When I nodded, she continued, ‘He’s very good at helping spouses cope with their partner’s loss of mobility.’

‘Richard would get very angry if I even brought the subject up.’

‘Yes, I have been on the receiving end of his anger.’ She smiled. ‘His response is not unusual. He needs to find a way of dealing with that anger and overcoming it. He’s not helping you or himself.’

‘I know. But his way of dealing with it is to insist that everything will be the way it was before the accident. He becomes furious if anyone even hints that I might not walk again. He has to believe that the paralysis is only temporary.’

‘I do not claim to know Mr Somerset well, but anyone who sees the two of you together quickly realises how much he loves you, even if he does sometimes express it in unusual ways. Try to persuade him to consult Doctor Evans. He can help Mr Somerset find a truth he can accept.’ She held out the piece of paper to me. I folded it and stuck it in my shirt pocket. I knew that Richard would not agree to see him, but I thought that I might consult the man to see if he had any ideas on how to approach Richard. I didn’t have much hope, however.

Richard was becoming worse, not better. It had been almost eleven months since the accident. It was apparent to everyone else that I would never walk again. I think even Richard knew. But he refused to admit that fact, even to himself. At times it was almost as if he didn’t see the wheelchair or acknowledge Paul or the van or the hundred other contrivances that get me through another day.

The week before my appointment with Dr Allston, he had come home to find me reading a script. He thought I was preparing to read for a part, and he was so elated at this sign of my ‘recovery’ that he began planning a celebration. In his excitement he couldn’t sit down. He rushed about the room, picking up objects only to set them on the next open surface he encountered. He was so happy I hated to interrupt him.

‘It’s not for a part. Jeremy found me a job as a director.’

‘A director?’ He halted in mid-stride, his hand clutching a book I had been reading. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘You know I’ve always planned on becoming a director. My youthful charms, such as they were, are already fading. I can’t count on my looks to carry me.’ I deliberately failed to mention the more obvious incapacity. ‘I talked it over with Jeremy and he’s almost finished making the arrangements. I’m to direct the three plays that the Silvan Repertory plans to tour with in the spring. They rehearse in Camden. I’ll work with them for two months. They will have three weeks of performances here and then they start touring. This year they’re doing As You Like It, The School for Scandal, and this—they do one new play each year. It’s interesting. It’s a dark comedy.’ The more I talked, the more excited I became about the prospect of directing. ‘I think it’s a wonderful play. It’s about a man who escapes into this imaginary life because his own life is so dull. It’s a showcase for the leading actor because he has to play so many different characters. Do you know Eoghan Macquerie? He’s taking the role. He’ll be perfect in the part. I’m looking forward to working with him.’

I held the script up. Richard snatched it out of my hands, let it fall open to a random page, read for a second, and then tossed it on a high shelf. That had become a habit of his. He may not have wanted to admit that I was in a wheelchair, but when he wanted to place things where I couldn’t get to them, he knew the exact limits of my reach. I had protested several times, but Richard persisted in the practice. In the beginning, I had asked Richard to hand me what I needed and couldn’t reach, but he did so with such obvious ill-humour that I gave up. Now I waited until he left and then had Paul retrieve things for me.

His words came rushing out, a stew of grievances, accompanied by furious pacing up and down the room.

—‘Why is this the first I have heard of this?

—‘You’ve been sneaking around behind my back. How can you do that to me after all I’ve done for you?

—‘You’re not ready to go out by yourself yet. And who’s going to watch out for you?

—‘And I won’t be able to go with you and help you out. I’ve got my own show to rehearse. You can’t think just of yourself all the time.’

Richard’s tone veered from angry to concerned to annoyed. Mostly he was cross with me, however. The explosion was just beneath the surface and building.

‘Richard, I just wanted to make sure that everything had been settled before I told you. I didn’t want to give you false hopes.’

‘You just wanted to make sure that you couldn’t back out. When were you planning to tell me? The day the rehearsals started?’

‘I can’t sit here doing nothing the rest of my life. This chair is enough of a prison. I’m not going to let you make this flat the limits of my life. It’s not up to you to make every decision for me just because I can’t walk. You’re acting like a petulant child who isn’t getting his way. You should be happy for me that I’m finally working again.’ I was already a director giving Richard the right reading for his lines.

He made a gesture of disgust with his hand, waving the air and me away from himself.

‘Sit down and listen to me. I can’t talk to you when you’re rushing about like that.’ He threw himself into a chair on the far side of the room, one that left him facing partially away from me. I wheeled my chair over to his side and took his hand between both of mine. He didn’t pull it away, but he let it rest lifelessly between my palms.

‘Richard, I know this has been hard on you.’ He turned his face away from me, his mouth set in a grimace of distaste. ‘But I’ve got to get out of the flat and start living again. I can’t sit here day after day. It’s making me insane. And I’ve got to start earning money again. My savings are almost gone.’

‘I make enough for the two of us. But I can’t do that if I have to drive you all over and watch over you.’

‘Paul will drive me to the rehearsals and help me when I need it.’

‘You shouldn’t be troubling Paul.’

‘That’s what he paid for.’

‘I suppose he already knows. You’ve already talked with him about it, haven’t you?’

‘He drove me over to look at the theatre and checked to make sure that it was accessible.’

‘So I’m the last person to find out.’

‘No, you’re the first person who matters to me that I’ve told.’

‘Don’t. Don’t you dare try to flatter me.’ He finally turned to look at me, his face filled more with disappointment at my attempt to placate him than with anger.

‘Richard, I can’t do this alone. I need you to face facts.’

‘I am facing facts, as you put it. If you settle for being a cripple in a wheelchair, that’s all you’re ever going to be. You’ve just got to try harder. That’s all it takes. You’ve just to decide that you’re going to walk again.’

‘All the doctors have said that the nerve is severed and won’t heal. Richard, I’m never going to walk again.’

‘You won’t if you have that attitude.’

The hopelessness of the situation overcame me. I bent forward and raised his hand to my forehead. It felt so cool. My head was so feverish. It hurt from all the arguments and the burden of his hopes for me. ‘I’m never going to be whole again. You mustn’t want that so much.’

‘I’ll love you as much as I damn well please.’

I thought at first that he had misheard me but then I realised he hadn’t. What he was talking about was love. He wanted so many things for me, of me, from me, not least that I be the other half of the couple that he had always wished us to be.

He pushed me away and then stood up. ‘I just want things to be better.’

‘I know, Richard, I know. I would like that to be possible. I won’t make plans without discussing them with you first. I promise. But I need your support, Richard, not your permission, but your support. I can’t go on without knowing that you’re behind me.’

‘I’ll see.’ He stood up and reached down the script I had been reading and handed it to me. ‘But you’re not giving up on walking again. I won’t let you.’ He left without looking back. A moment later the front door of the flat opened and closed.

Paul had overheard the argument. He didn’t say anything, but he stayed with me after dinner instead of going off as he usually did. He made some excuse about wanting my opinion of an old movie on the telly. We watched the show until it finished at 9:30. When Richard had not returned by 10:00, I had Paul help me into bed and then told him to leave. He positioned the wheelchair next to my bed and locked the brakes. He lowered the bar that I used to lift my body out of the bed and into the chair so that I could reach it if I needed to get up. He turned out all the lights except the nightlight in my bathroom.

I slept fitfully. It was after 1:00 when I heard the key turn in the lock. I pretended to be asleep. I wasn’t about to give Richard the satisfaction of knowing that he had kept me awake. I could feel him standing in the door to my bedroom. It’s strange but I often sense him as a physical presence even when I’m not facing him. He can walk past a room where I am sitting with my back to the door and pause to look in at me, and I know that he’s there.

That night, he stood for several minutes in the doorway and then he walked quietly over to my bedside and sat down in the wheelchair. The leather on the seat and back creaked as it stretched beneath his weight. I heard the snap of the brake lever. He manoeuvred the chair back a few feet and then rolled it forward again. He sat there for half an hour, the occasional metallic clicks of the chair as he shifted his body the only audible signs that he was there. Finally, he eased himself quietly out of the chair and walked out.

I don’t know what he was thinking. I lay there trying to breathe evenly and quietly, playing the role of a sleeping man. Once I had failed to acknowledge his return, I could hardly pretend that I wasn’t asleep. In any case, I wasn’t happy to see him, and I didn’t have the energy for another attempt to get him to address my problems realistically.

Dr Allston was right. Richard needed to learn to cope with what had happened. And I needed to learn to manage my resentment at being forced to deal with Richard. Richard didn’t have a monopoly on anger in our household. I hate being dependent on him or anyone else. At the same time, I fear being left alone to manage on my own. I can’t do that. I need others to help me, and that makes me resent them. I hate having to say ‘thank you’ dozens of times every day for the services I have to have supplied to me, things that whole people do for themselves without thought. I hate the constant reminders of things that I will never be able to do again. People talk about road rage. Well, there is wheelchair rage as well. The anger you feel when a jogger lopes nonchalantly by you, the anger that you feel when an impatient queue quickly forms behind you as you try to ease the chair through the doorway into a shop or restaurant, the anger you feel at the well-meant assistance that imposes the necessity of gratitude. Anger made worse because one has to hide it. Too much depends on the ‘kindness of strangers’.

The worst are those who think one disability begets another. The people who shout at me because they think I must be deaf too. Or those who treat me as though the loss of mobility made me simple-minded as well. But the thing I mind most is having to be the good cripple, that brave upbeat soul who doesn’t let his problems get him down, who is ‘an example to the rest of us’, who smiles through adversity, who never ever reminds anyone of the feast of horror that capricious fate has booked for each of us.

*****

The day of my appointment with Dr Allston, Richard returned about 9:00 in the evening from Southend. Paul had fed me dinner and then left. I had spent a couple of hours reviewing the script for the new play I was to direct and making notes.

Richard found me in his bedroom, seated in my wheelchair in front of the full-length mirrors we had installed in that room. It was always my habit when preparing a part to work in front of a mirror. The new play had no history, and I couldn’t call on any memories to populate it. I hit upon the scheme of inhabiting the various characters using the mirror to gauge facial expressions and, as much as was possible for me in the chair, physical postures. After a while, however, I found it hard to focus on the characters’ images instead of my own. I had started taking inventory. My body was acquiring a definite list to the right. My feet were starting to droop. The plastic surgeon had repaired most of the damage to my face. But if you looked closely, you could see that many of the lines that crossed my face weren’t natural. The set of my jaw wasn’t symmetrical, and my left eyelid drooped.

He leaned over me and kissed me. ‘What are you doing?’ He was calmer than he had been for several weeks.

‘I was working on the new play, trying out gestures and expressions. But then I began thinking that if I were cast as Caliban now, I wouldn’t need any makeup or appliances. I could play the beast as is.’

‘You were wonderful in that role. You were so full of rage at Prospero and what he had done to you and what he had made you be and for making you hide your feelings under all that fearful obsequiousness. You hated what he was and yet you were jealous of him at the same time.’

‘I won’t be modest. I was terrific. But Henry was great as Prospero. We played off each other.’

‘No, he was great only when he was on stage with you.’

‘You’re not being fair to him.’

Richard shrugged. He wasn’t interested in being fair to the actor who had played Prospero opposite my Caliban. He pulled over a chair and sat beside me. He appeared next to me in the mirror and spoke to my reflection. ‘Some day I want to play Prospero.’

‘Why wait? Any director would be glad to get you for that role.’

‘I’m not ready for it. You were Caliban right away, but I couldn’t be Prospero yet. But you, you’re Caliban.’

‘Cal, the mooncalf, a freckled hag-born whelp.’

‘Cal. I like that name. It suits you.’ His hand came to rest on the back of my neck and he rubbed the ball of his thumb against it in a circular motion.

‘Then call me Cal. The cosmic director has cast me in that role, and the play promises to have a long run. I shall never have to audition for another part.’

‘You mustn’t joke, Davey.’

‘Jokes are what remains. They’re one way of dealing with this.’ I pointed at my legs.

‘We’re not a joke.’

‘No. That would be a lie.’

Richard sat absolutely still, his eyes locked on mine in the mirror. ‘How would you cast the other roles?’ His face was expressionless and he spoke without emotion. Neither of us addressed the other directly. It was easier to talk to the image.

‘You will be Prospero, of course.’

‘Fair enough, but you’ll have to help me learn the role. Who will be Miranda.’

‘Alexis. She does naïveté so well.’

One by one we cast the play with our friends and acquaintances. It was a game. We argued, with pleasure for once, defending our choices for the minor roles with mock vigour, adducing a score of reasons why X would make a perfect Gonzalo and why he wouldn’t.

I thought we had finally cast all the roles, but after a pause Richard tapped me on the arm and asked, ‘What do they call all the spirits in that mummery toward the end?’

‘The Assorted Nymphs and Reapers?’

‘Yes, that’s it. Rob shall be the Assorted Nymphs and Reapers.’

‘He won’t like that.’

‘No, he won’t. I shall take great pleasure when he melts into air and leaves not a rack behind.’ We both laughed at the thought of Rob’s reaction if he were to learn that he had been cast in such a minor role. That was the first time we had shared a spontaneous laugh since the accident. A man both of us detested brought us together for a moment.

‘Do the speech.’ I was suddenly filled with a longing to hear Richard act in a great role. Richard the actor was preferable to Richard the accident victim.

‘How does it start? I don’t remember. Give me the cue.’

‘ “You do look, my son, in a movèd sort, as if you were dismayed. Be cheerful, Sir.” ’

‘Ah yes.’ He dipped his chin briefly and lowered his gaze as he composed himself into the part. When he raised his face and looked at me in the mirror again, he was Prospero. ‘ “Our revels now are ended. These our actors, as I foretold you, were all spirits and are melted into air, into thin air . . .” ’

For the time it took Richard to say the lines, that room became an island in the Mediterranean, and Richard its ruler. It was one of those moments cut magically out of time’s fabric that exists for itself alone. For the two of us alone. He created a place for us. His gift to me was a place for us. That has always been his gift to me.

Languages have always been easy for me. In school, I surged ahead of all my classmates. I mastered Latin long before anyone else, and I took to French as if I had been speaking it all my life. German, Italian, Spanish—a few months of study and a couple of weeks’ residence in the country, and I acquired a working acquaintance with them. Languages are only words and rules, and words and rules have never presented difficulties for me. I am even enough of an actor that I can mimic the physical aspects of native speakers successfully.

But one language has always given me trouble. Love has always been a difficult tongue for me to voice. I care too much for myself to master a language that soars as eloquently in pensive whispers as in tempests of rage. A language whose every utterance increases it. A language whose vocabulary is immense and unending, a language whose every word escapes the limits of meaning, whose every word is freighted with the burden of its smallness and its inadequacy. A language of infinite possibility. I don’t have the range for it.

But Richard does. It’s the language he wants the two of us to speak, the language he’s been trying to teach me for years. I sat there in my chair watching him in the mirror as he remained in the character of Prospero and waited for me to catch up to him. And I understood that anger was but one of his many ways of telling me that he loved me. Prospero and Caliban are the most unwilling and yet the most intimate of Shakespeare’s lovers. Their hopes for each other are so mispaid, so out of joint, so disappointed, and their ferocity is begotten from the futile strength of their desires for what might have been.

‘You are ready to be Prospero.’

‘I was inspired by you, David. I’m always trying to impress you. After all, it’s your island, and I’m only an interloper. Soon to fade away.’

‘No, don’t fade away. I couldn’t exist without you. I love you too much to let that happen. And if my being Caliban inspires you to be Prospero, then I will be Cal for you. You have but to take the stage and begin to explain to Miranda that her grief is misplaced. The sailors are not really drowned. That all is illusion.’ I gestured at the foreground, inviting Richard to step into the role.

He looked at me in the mirror for a long moment, still without expression. Then he turned toward me and started crying. I embraced him awkwardly, the chair made it hard to wrap my arms around him. He knelt down and buried his head in my lap, sobbing as I stroked his head.

And that’s how I became Cal, a reluctant player in a drama that has no end. Richard could accept me, however unenthusiastically, as an actor inhabiting a role, my infirmities part of the character I was playing, imposed on me by the author and director. I would like to think that I accepted my role out of love, and not out of convenience, not because it allows both of us some modicum of peace. But sometimes I have the heretical thought that I am Prospero, that devious manipulative magician. And Richard is Ariel, trapped into one more day of service by the promise of what he wants most.

Wild Basil

Wild Basil

Nexis Pas

© 2008

Nexis Pas asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this story.

‘I think we took the wrong turn.’

Theo and Gavin contemplated the path that meandered uncertainly through a field of tall weeds. They had left the main road several miles back. The ordnance map showed that the side road eventually arrived at the lake, near the hostel where they planned to spend the night. The main road had been filled with traffic, and the walk path beside it was muddy. All too often the choice had been taking a chance on being struck by a car or becoming mired up to their ankles.

They had stood at the entrance to the side road, regarding the map and its reassuring claim that the road would eventually get them to their destination. The narrow road stretched between rows of poplars up a slight incline to the crest of a hill a half mile off. From a farmhouse near the top of the hill came the noise of a machine, a small tractor by the sound of it. The road looked dry beneath a layer of white gravel. Their decision was made for them when a passing driver stood on his horn and cut very close to them. The wind from the car blew grit in their faces.

They turned away from the main road and began walking up the hill. As they came abreast of the farmhouse, a black dog ran to greet them, a stick in its mouth. He dropped it in front of Theo and leaned back on his hind legs with his front legs stretched out in front of him, ready to turn in any direction, his brown eyes shifting between the stick and the two of them. Theo picked the stick up and threw it as far as he could. It swung end to end through the air. The dog kept pace with it, and when it began to descend, he leaped into the air and caught it in his jaws. He whirled about, his tail wagging. He tossed the stick up with a jerk of his neck and caught it again. The noise of the machine halted, and a man walked around the corner of a building. He yelled something at the dog, who turned and ran toward him. When the man saw Theo and Gavin, he waved and then pointed down the road and shouted something at them in the local dialect.

‘Do you know what he said?’ Theo waved back at the man.

‘Something about the road ahead,’ said Gavin. ‘I think he said something about the lake.’ Gavin waved and called ‘merci’ as loudly as he could. The two of them walked on. The farmer watched them briefly and then shrugged his shoulders and returned to his work. Two miles or so further on, grass began to grow in the centre of the road and soon the tire tracks became ruts separated by a continuous hummock of grass and weeds. There had been no further houses along the road. Just the occasional opening between the poplars that led to a small turnoff and a field of grain or grove of olives between stone walls. The road was cool in the shade of the poplars, and the rustling of their leaves only made the silence more intense. The road came to a halt at a turnaround. Ahead of them was only a path that led downward through a field of grasses.

‘I think we took the wrong turn.’ Gavin eased the pack off his shoulders. It was the first time he had been hiking. Theo had assured him that a walking tour through the south of France was easy and that he would discover talents in himself he hadn’t known. So far he had discovered only that he liked hotel beds and privacy and indoor plumbing and hot showers better than the pallets and the communal toilets and the fitful supply of water in youth hostels. But he kept those thoughts to himself.

Theo, who had more map-reading skills and was the more experienced hiker, consulted the map, the compass, and his watch to check how long they had been walking. ‘We’re over halfway there. Even if the path ends, we can just keep walking southeast, and we’ll eventually run into the road by the lake.’ He held the map up and traced the probably route with his finger.

‘But you’re just pointing to the road on the map. There isn’t anything like that here.’

‘This map isn’t that old. The road was here a few years ago. The path will still be apparent. Come on. It’s just another five miles or so.’ Theo shifted his back pack on his shoulders and then started down the path. Gavin watched as Theo’s legs disappeared behind the weeds that overhung the path from both sides. Only the waving of the grasses as Theo disturbed them betrayed that he still existed below the waist.

Gavin turned around and thought about the road back. He knew that even if he made it back to the main road, he would have no idea of which way to turn. He hastily pulled on his pack and hurried after Theo. He was certain they were lost and Theo didn’t know where they were. But it was better to be lost with Theo than by himself.

*****

They almost walked past the wall. The flash of green caught the corner of Gavin’s eye and he turned to see what it was. A section of an old stone wall stuck out above a small patch of dark green plants. The wall was the first remnant of human activity they had seen along the path. ‘Let’s sit down. I need to rest my feet. We can eat lunch here.’ Gavin didn’t wait to see if Theo had adopted his suggestion. He simply walked over to the wall and sat down. He unlaced the heavy walking boots and then pushed each one off with the toes of the other boot. One of the boots fell on its side and into the green plants. A faint odour like liquorice filled the air.

‘What’s that smell?’ Theo sat his back pack atop the wall and sat down.

‘I think it comes from these plants.’ Gavin bent forward and pinched a leaf off one of the plants. He rolled it between his fingers and then sniffed at it. ‘Some herb, maybe.’ He held out the crushed leaf to hand it to Theo.

Instead Theo took Gavin’s hand in his own and drew it to his face. He took a deep breath in. ‘Oh, that is nice. It smells familiar. I don’t know what it is, though.’ He kissed Gavin’s hand and held it. ‘This is the first time we been alone together in days. I wasn’t thinking ahead when I suggested we save money by staying in hostels. We’ll have to rent a room in a hotel soon.’ Theo smiled at Gavin and nibbled on his fingertips.

‘Maybe we can find a spot on the other side of the wall. We haven’t seen anyone for an hour. And there’s no one in sight. Even if someone came over that hill, it would take them half an hour to reach us. We could spread one of the bedrolls open.’

They both turned and looked behind them on the other side of the wall. ‘Oh, there are more of these plants. We could lie down among them. It would be like making love in an herb garden.’

The day was warm and bright, and it felt good to be naked beneath the sun, with the heady scent of the plants billowing around them every time they moved. They didn’t rush. It was like being in green paradise. When they had finished, they lay tangled in each other’s limbs.

Gavin was the first to move. He rolled over on his side and lifted his head. He moaned with satisfaction as he kissed Theo on the lips. Theo opened his eyes lazily and then let them drift shut again.

‘A penny for your thoughts,’ said Gavin.

‘I was wondering if it was too soon to tell you that I love you and would like to spend my life with you.’ Theo kept his eyes closed, and his lips barely moved.

‘No, it’s not too soon at all.’

******

‘Look what I found at the market.’ Theo held out a plastic carrier bag. From the top spilled a profusion of light green leaves. ‘It’s in a peat pot. The clerk said that it’s a new way to keep it fresh. This is from Italy.’ A mild scent of liquorice filled the house.

‘Is that basil?’ Gavin inhaled deeply and laughed. ‘That brings back such memories. But it’s never as green as that wild basil in that field, is it? Remember how we ran around naked picking as many leaves of it as we could and rubbing it against ourselves. They must have thought we were crazy bursting into the hostel with our packs stuffed with those leaves and demanding to know what it was called.’

‘You smelled of it for days. Every time you moved, I could smell the basil. I hated it when we got to that hotel and you showered and then took our clothes to the laundromat to wash. Everything came out smelling of soap.’ Theo held the basil to his nose and sniffed at it again.

‘We were beginning to smell of more than basil by that point. And I don’t think we needed it any more.’

‘No, we were past that.’

‘Do you want to go back? We should be able to find that field again.’

Theo lifted an eyebrow in a rueful shrug. ‘That was forty years ago. Those plants are long gone by now.’

‘No, they’ve never been gone.’

The Canvas

The Canvas

Nexis Pas

© 2008

Nexis Pas asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

It started with a streak of cadmium yellow.

The wind had died just after noon that day, and the heat rose from the dry earth, filling the air with the resinous smell of the rosemary and oleander bushes that surrounded the cottage. Raymond was working with all the doors and windows of his studio opened and latched to the wall in an attempt to catch any breeze. The idea for the painting had come to him in the morning and he was trying to get it down before the inspiration faded. At some point during the afternoon, when the sweat had begun running down his forehead and into his eyes, he had absentmindedly tied a rag around his head. He was wearing only an old, baggy pair of khaki shorts and sandals. His paint-stained T-shirt lay on the floor behind him where he had tossed after pulling it off when it became too hot to wear. He had covered most of the canvas with wet cloths to keep the paint from drying too quickly, before he had a chance to work the next layers of paint in. Only the area he was working on was exposed.

Dell came up from the beach and walked in the open doors on the seaward side. He had been swimming and was towelling his hair dry. He wore only the old flip-flops he had found in the hallway cupboard when they had opened the cottage for the summer, and his passage up the stairs that led to the beach and then across the patio had been heralded by the sound of the heels of the sandals striking the boards of the staircase and then the stones of the patio. He stopped to examine the painting that Dell was working on and then turned to Raymond for a kiss. Raymond put an arm around Dell’s shoulders and drew in him briefly.

‘Hmm, salty.’

‘If you can tear yourself away from this, you should go for a swim. The water is just the right temperature now.’

‘Maybe later.’ Raymond gestured toward the painting to indicate why it was unlikely that he would go for a swim

‘How’s it going? Can I see?’

Raymond reached forward and lifted the cloths and draped them over the top bar of the easel. He stepped back out of Dell’s way. It was then that he saw the mark for the first time. When he had hugged Dell briefly, he had been holding a brush and it had left a smudge of paint on Dell’s back. Just a small streak of cadmium yellow, barely half an inch long. The edges were ragged. The paint glowed against Dell’s tanned skin. In the three weeks they had been at the cottage, Dell’s body had turned a rich golden brown.

‘Oh, just a minute, let me . . .’ Raymond picked up a cloth to wipe off the paint.

‘What?’ Dell turned halfway round to look over his shoulder. The muscles of his back bunched, and the streak of yellow paint rose and fell with the motion. Raymond was transfixed by it.

‘Nothing. Just a stray thought about the painting.’

‘I should let you get back to work. Dinner about nine? It should be cool by then. We can eat on the patio.’ Dell draped the cloths over the painting again and smiled.

‘I’m sorry to leave all the work to you.’ Raymond stepped back to the painting and added a streak of cadmium yellow to the patch of open canvas. It was barely half an inch long and ragged at the edges. But against the mottled greens of the background, it drew the eye.

‘I’ll take my payment later, when we go to bed. For now, just think of it as my tribute to your genius.’ Dell patted Raymond on the buttocks and walked out.

Raymond nodded absently. Dell disappeared from his mind even before he had left the studio. Raymond lifted one of the cloths and began judiciously adding a few streaks of cadmium yellow. He didn’t want too many of them, not enough that they would overwhelm the painting, just enough to convey fugitive motion on the static canvas.

The mark was still there when they ate dinner. Dell sat to Raymond’s left, and every time he leaned forward, Raymond saw the yellow patch. It had cracked a bit at the edges as it dried, but it was still there. And it was still there when they made love later that night. As Dell lay atop him, pushing him down into the bed, Raymond gingerly felt with his fingertips until he located the rough patch on Dell’s shoulder. He was careful not to brush it off. In his mind’s eye, he could see the yellow against Dell’s flesh, moving with Dell.

In the morning Raymond awoke early. The light was just beginning to come through the window. Dell lay beside him on his stomach, with the sheet bunched around his waist, his back uncovered. The mark had disappeared during the night. Raymond reached over and gently touched the area where the spot had been. Dell’s flesh was smooth and cool beneath his fingertips. His deeply tanned flesh was almost black in the half light. Raymond eased his body out of the bed, careful not to disturb Dell. Without dressing, he padded through the cottage and across the patio. In his studio, he quickly located the tube of cadmium yellow and squeezed a dab onto his palette. He dipped a brush into it and held it up. The bright yellow colour gleamed in the dawn light. It seemed even brighter than usual. He walked back through the house and into the bedroom.

He held the brush poised over Dell’s back for several seconds, searching for the right spot to paint. In the end, he was drawn to a spot just under the right shoulder blade, an inclined area where the skin was stretched taut. Once he had located the spot, his arm seemed to move without conscious thought. The brush dipped, and a yellow spot appeared on Dell’s body.

Raymond stepped back a few feet and looked at Dell. A painting took shape in his mind. He could see the colours he would use and the shapes he would create. How they would flow together on the living canvas of Dell’s body. A flat canvas on stretchers wouldn’t do for the images flowing through his mind. And oil paints would be too stiff. They would have too much texture of their own. He needed something that would flow onto the skin and look like a second skin. The brush trembled in his hand. He wanted to move forward and make another mark on Dell. He knew the exact spot the brush should touch. Dell rolled onto his side, and the images in Raymond’s mind shifted and flowed.

*****
‘What are these? I’ve never seen these names before.’ Dell held up the list of painting supplies that Raymond had just handed him through the open window of the van.

‘I have something new in mind. I wasn’t sure what will work best. So I want to try various paints.’

Dell smiled and tucked the list into his shirt pocket, along with the grocery list and the other reminders of things he needed to buy and do in Genoa. He manoeuvred the van carefully through the narrow gate. Just before he drove off, he lifted a forearm out the window and waved goodbye.

For Raymond, one of Dell’s more endearing qualities was his lack of comment about Raymond’s work. Dell never wanted to discuss the paintings. He never felt a need to chatter on about their meaning or significance. He just accepted that painting was Raymond’s life and incidentally his livelihood. In response to a polite question early in their relationship, Raymond has told Dell that if he could find the words to say what he said with painting, then he wouldn’t need to paint. Dell had nodded and never mentioned the subject again.

Dell took care of the daily tasks that would have overwhelmed Raymond. He did the shopping and the housekeeping. He put the food on the table and made sure that Raymond ate it. He dealt with the plumbers and the carpenters. When his school let out for the summer, he organised the move to the cottage on the Ligurian coast. He arranged for the boxing and shipping of the paintings and saw to it that Raymond’s agent was kept happy with a steady flow of them. He drove Raymond where he needed to be, when he needed to be there. And several times a week, he made love to Raymond. If Raymond never lacked for anything, it was because of Dell’s foresight. Raymond took it for granted that there would be clean clothes in his bureau and closet, that there would always be hot coffee in the thermos and milk in the fridge, that the dentist would see him twice a year.

It never occurred to Raymond to ask himself if Dell was happy. He didn’t think about Dell’s existence in those terms. Dell was simply Dell. He was there. Raymond was quite satisfied with the arrangements. He knew he was fortunate that Dell was willing to manage his life. There were so many tasks that were beyond his interests and hence beyond his abilities. But the question of Dell’s satisfaction never arose in Raymond’s mind. He simply assumed, without devoting much thought to the question, that Dell would not do all the things he did if he were not satisfied with their life.

Raymond stood motionless in the driveway for several minutes after Dell drove off on the weekly trip into Genoa. He was staring out the open gate. A passer-by might have thought he was studying the rock wall opposite the gate. But Raymond’s vision was filled with images of the body of his lover, its surface completely painted. A human-shaped canvas, a canvas that shifted and moved, a canvas whose images were ever-changing and never the same. A canvas that could be wiped clean and repainted as often as he liked.

*****

‘You want to paint me? But you never do portraits.’ Dell looked up from the work table in the kitchen and smiled. ‘This must be your first. I’m rather chuffed that you’ve asked me to sit for you.’

‘Not a portrait.’ It hadn’t occurred to Raymond until that moment that what he was about to propose might strike Dell as strange. The idea had been so present in his mind for the past few days that he thought that Dell would understand what he wanted. ‘I want to paint your back. At least that’s the first painting. It’s just a trial, to see what paints will stick to the surface. When I find the method that works best, then I want to paint your entire body. You’ll have to shave all your hair off, of course.’ The words rushed out. Raymond was never sure that language would bend to his meaning. Paint was much easier to manage than was speech. He looked around the kitchen for help. Everywhere shiny metallic surfaces reflected distorted images of himself and Dell. It was a domain he identified as Dell’s part of their living space, both here at the cottage and at the house in Norfolk.

‘You want to paint my body?’

Raymond nodded and held up the tube of yellow body paint he had brought with it. He handed it to Dell as if its very existence explained and justified what he wanted to do. The colours of the Cryolan paints were brighter, more lurid, than he liked, but he had experimented a bit and found that he could tone them down. He wasn’t sure what they would look like on Dell’s tanned skin or what would happen to the colour and lustre when they dried.

Dell turned the tube of paint over and over, reading all the labels. Neither man said anything for a few moments. Raymond tried not to disturb Dell’s thoughts. He was certain it was only a matter of letting Dell grow used to the idea.

‘It says to use face cream to remove the paints.’ Dell indicated the directions on the back of the tube.

‘For this kind. It will also come off with hot water and soap. I checked. The latex paints that you bought the other day will peel off. But they will take the hair with them. That’s why we need to shave your body first.’

‘But why?’

‘The idea just came to me. It’s . . . it’s an experiment. It will only take me a few hours to finish your back. Then you could show me how to operate the video recorder and I’ll take some pictures and you can remove it.’ It pained Raymond to say that. He didn’t want Dell to destroy his painting.

‘I suppose if it’s only a few hours . . .’ Dell looked Raymond in the face for the first time since he realised what Raymond was asking of him.

Raymond nodded.

‘When do you want to start?’

Raymond didn’t trust himself to speak. He wanted to start now, but he simply raised his hands and shrugged to indicate that Dell could chose the time. He didn’t want to appear to be in a hurry.

Dell looked at the vegetables that he had been chopping. ‘Just let me finish up here. It will only be ten minutes or so. Is my back hairy? Does that have to be shaved now? I’ll need your help if it does.’

The image of what he wanted to do was clear in Raymond’s mind, and Dell’s back was not as large a surface as the canvases he usually painted. The colours of the paints were more intractable, however. They didn’t blend in the same way as oils. Raymond wasn’t wholly satisfied with the results when he finished. But he could see what adjustments he would need to make the next time.

Dell had perched on a stool while Raymond painted his back. He hadn’t said anything and had barely moved the entire time it took Raymond to paint both sides of his back from the shoulders down to the waist.

‘It’s very sensual. It’s as if you were kissing each spot on my back. Tiny kisses with the tip of your tongue. Each kiss is a drop of moisture and then it dries.’

‘Do you want to see it?’

‘No, I don’t think so. I don’t know why. Somehow I think . . . I don’t know. That it would be like seeing a foreign growth on my skin. Are you happy with it?’

‘It is beautiful,’ Raymond whispered to himself. He was entranced by the look of the painting on Dell’s body. It was as if he had created something from the raw material of Dell.

‘I don’t think I have ever heard you use that word about any of your paintings before.’

Raymond set his palette and brushes down. He walked over to Dell and then kissed his back. Raymond inhaled the paint smell slowly and deeply. The odour was different from that of oils, more natural, less processed and chemical. Dell’s usually cool skin felt hot beneath Raymond’s lips. He pressed his fingertips into the painting and felt the familiar flesh give slightly as if the paint had soften Dell’s body, made it more malleable. Dell stood up and undid his shorts. The unpainted portions of his body shocked Raymond with their nakedness. He blocked them out of his mind and focused on the painting as he stepped out of his own shorts. He pressed Dell’s back against his chest, with the painting between them.

The pattern of their coupling was different. During the eight years they had been together, Dell and he had fallen into easy habits, but that afternoon Raymond felt more active. They flowed together but Raymond for once set the rhythm of their movements. Raymond wasn’t dominant or violent, but there was just more energy and intensity.

The painting was ruined. As much of the greasy body paint ended up on Raymond’s chest as on Dell’s back.

Neither of them said anything. Each separately took a shower and washed his body clean. Dell finished cooking the evening meal, and they ate it in their customary silence. Something had changed, but they didn’t want to talk about it yet.

The next day, Raymond returned to his studio and resumed work on the painting on his easel. Dell followed his usual routine of swimming and pottering about the cottage.

The second morning, Raymond rose at his customary early hour and began painting before breakfast. Around nine he heard Dell enter the studio. He half-turned around expecting Dell to call him into the house to eat.

‘I’ve removed all the hair I could.’ Dell stood there naked, his body shaved. The purity of the canvas was an ache in Raymond’s psyche, a void in his mind that called out to him to paint. Several hours later when Dell’s body had been converted into a maze of colours and shapes, Dell made him videotape the painting. The colours swirled and the shapes shifted as he walked about in front of the camera. It was as if some creature had possessed Dell, possessed the both of them. Human, inhuman, Dell, not-Dell. Created yet always already there. They awoke in the morning with the evidence of their lovemaking on their bodies and on the sheets of the bed. The two painters came together again.

That set the pattern for the summer. Every few days Raymond would paint Dell. It became an obsession, to cover Dell’s body with images, to transform the familiar, to free them from the inheritance of form and shape and colour. Dell was scrupulous about recording Raymond’s work before the two of them joyfully set about celebrating the wonder they were discovering. ‘It will be a record,’ he said. ‘You can donate the tapes to a museum.’

One week toward the end of the summer, when Dell returned from the weekly shopping in Genoa, he walked into the studio. He was dressed in his usual summer outfit of jeans and a knit shirt and wearing the wide-brimmed straw hat he favoured. ‘I got a haircut.’ He removed the hat. All the hair on his head had been shaved off. ‘I left the eyebrows. I thought my face would look too strange without them, but we can cover them with petroleum jelly, and then you should be able to paint over them.’

As the critic for the Times said, Raymond’s first painting of Dell’s body and shaven head was ‘a sublime maelstrom of rapture’.

Mr Carnovan's Little Shop of Dreams, Part 1

Mr Carnovan’s Little Shop of Dreams, Part 1

Nexis Pas

© 2008 by the author

Nexis Pas asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this story.

This was written while I was on holiday, just for fun.

‘‘Daaaaaaaa . . .’ The little boy flew out the door and over all three steps, landing with a tremendous thump as both of his feet hit the walkway. He rocked back and forth for a few seconds until he regained his balance and then ran through the front garden to the street and threw his arms around the legs of the man who had just stepped out of a taxi. ‘You’re back.’

‘And who are you?’ The man sat his suitcase down on the pavement. He stared at the boy with bewilderment and stroked his chin. ‘Do I know you?’

The child giggled, ‘It’s me, it’s me, Michael. Your son.’

‘No, you can’t be. My son is only this tall.’ The man bent forward at the waist and held his palm flat at the level of the child’s shoulders. ‘He’s not as tall as you are.’

‘I’ve grown.’ Michael stretched his arms up, asking to be picked up.

‘Hmm, you’re sure your Michael, and not some impostor who’s taking my son’s place?’

‘No, no! I’m not a pasta. . . . But are you sure you’re my father? He’s much taller than you.’ Michael held his hand up as high as he could reach and he danced around his father several times.

‘Hmm, it’s a problem, isn’t it? Well, there’s only one way to find out.’ His father reached down and put his hands under the child’s arms. He put on a great show of grunting and groaning, as though trying to lift a heavy weight. ‘All right, let go of the ground. How can I pick you up and hug you if won’t let go of the ground.’

‘I’m not. I’m not. See.’ The child hopped around, raising one knee and then the other high into the air to show that his feet were not stuck to the ground.

The man tried again, screwing his face up with pretend exertion. ‘What have you been eating, Michael? Dinosaur eggs? You’re getting so big.’

Michael gleefully adopted that suggestion. ‘Yes! Every morning for breakfast. Two! I eat two dinosaur eggs for breakfast.’ He screamed with laughter.

‘Well, since you’ve gotten too big to lift, I’ll have to bend down to you.’ The man knelt down and hugged his son. Then he wrapped one arm around Michael’s waist and stood up suddenly, so that the child’s legs hung down behind him and his chest and arms drooped down in front. With his other hand, Michael’s father picked up his suitcase and then walked toward the open door of his house, where his wife leaned against the door regarding the two of them with affection. It would be hard to choose who was enjoying the joke more, her husband or their son.

When the man reached the door, he set his son down and then he and his wife embraced. Michael briefly watched the two of them kissing and then turned away. He began twisting his body back and forth at the waist and punching the air with his small fists. He hummed one of the wordless songs he had made up. His father turned back to him and said, ‘Michael, can you take my bag upstairs?’

Michael nodded his head vigorously. He grabbed the handle of the bag with both hands and lifted it up. He put his right knee under the bag and pushed it up toward his chest until he was able to put both arms under it. He had to shift from side to side and place each foot down carefully as he climbed the steps. As he started up the staircase to the upper floor, he heard his father say, ‘He’s growing up so fast.’ And that made him feel very proud. He tried to stand a bit taller and to carry the suitcase as if it were light as a feather. And, you know, it wasn’t heavy at all, not for a boy who eats two dinosaur eggs for breakfast every day.

******

‘Would you like me to tell you a story?’ Michael’s father waited to speak until his son had finished his prayers and stood up.

‘Yes, please.’ Michael climbed into his bed and pushed his feet under the sheet all the way down to the bottom and pulled the covers up to his chin. There had been a special dinner to mark his father’s return. There had even been one of his favourite treats, a chocolate cake. His father had praised him for eating everything on his plate, even the peas, which he really didn’t like very much, and he received a larger piece of cake than he was usually given. After watching the half-hour of television he was allowed on weekday nights, he had then bathed himself and put on his pyjamas. Bathing himself was a recent change, one that he took as proof that he was growing up. The privilege had been part of a bargain with his mother. He had to hang his clothes up and keep his own bedroom neat, and he had to remember to say his prayers without being prompted.

‘Your mother says that you’ve been having nightmares.’

Michael instantly felt guilty. He knew that big boys didn’t have nightmares, but he did have them, frightening dreams about being chased by ogres who wanted to eat him and about falling from the roofs of tall buildings and being lost and alone. The only way he could escape was to wake himself up, and then he would lie there trembling and trying not to cry, because the nightmares felt so real. Murphy would come into his bedroom and hop up on his bed and try to comfort him, but even Murphy’s purring couldn’t drown out his sobbing, no matter how quiet he tried to be. And then his mother would push the door all the way open so that the light from the hallway shone into every corner, and she would pull the chair up and sit beside his bed and hold his hand and stroke his head, and tell him that it was just a dream. Nothing to worry about, it wasn’t real. It was all in his mind.

But the dreams were real. He would have liked to have denied that he was having nightmares, so that his father wouldn’t think that he was being a coward and a little boy. But even the sound of the word made the breath freeze in his chest and his stomach lurch. As soon as his father said the word, the bad dreams seem to sidle into the room and hide in the dark corners, waiting in the shadows for his father to leave and Michael to fall asleep so that they could come out and crawl into Michael’s mind, where they were all too real.

But Michael also knew that good boys didn’t lie. ‘Sometimes,’ he admitted. He plucked a bit of the sheet between his fingers and worried at it. He hoped that his admission would not bring one of his father’s lectures.

‘I brought you a present from Dunfanaghy that will cure those nightmares. You grandmother bought it for you. So tomorrow you must remember to write her a thank-you letter. I’ll help you write it and address the envelope for you.’

Michael shook his head yes and sat up a bit in bed. His father wasn’t holding anything that resembled a present.

His father stepped outside the door to Michael’s bedroom and picked a box off the hall table. It was a small box, a cube about three inches on a side. It was a dark shiny blue in colour, with a lighter blue ribbon tied around it. Large silver stars pasted on the sides of the box held the ribbon in place. ‘You can hold it for now, but you can’t open it. First you must listen to the story that comes with the box.’

Michael nodded and held out his hand for the box. ‘But it’s light. There’s nothing in it.’

‘Would your grandmother give you an empty box? Shame on you, Michael Orrin, for thinking such a thing.’

Michael nodded. ‘I’m sorry.’ He knew his father wasn’t really angry with him. He was just teasing, like earlier when he had pretended not to recognise Michael. It was just a game they were playing. He quietly hefted the box again, moving it only just enough to test the weight. It was empty, he was certain of that.

‘Turn it over. There’s a message for you on the bottom.’

Michael twisted the box around until the writing on the label was upright. He stumbled over most of the words, sounding out as many of the letters as he could. ‘Made Just for Master Míchaél Odhrán at Mr Caraogh na Prainaugh’s Little Shop of Dreams. Laínoughsboighy, Dún Na nGall, Éire.’

His father took the box and tilted it so that he could read it. ‘Made Just for Master Michael Orrin at Mr Carnovan’s Little Shop of Dreams, Lansby, Donegal, Ireland.’

‘The words are spelt all funny.’

‘That’s because they’re the proper Irish spellings. It’s filled with Irish magic, and it wouldn’t work half as well if Mr Carnovan used those cut-off, unimaginative spellings we favour nowadays, would it?’

Michael shook his head no. He had great respect for Irish magic. ‘Where is Lansby?’

‘Well, that’s part of the story you have to listen to.’ His father handed him back the box. ‘Now, don’t open it. You can hold it, but don’t open it. You’ll soon understand why.’ His father pulled the chair away from the wall and sat down next to Michael’s bed.

‘Now, you asked where Lansby is. Well, many people have asked that same question, Michael, for Lansby is a difficult place to find. The village appears on no map. You could take the biggest map of Donegal you could find and take out the strongest magnifying glass in all the world and look and look and look and still you would be no wiser how to get to Lansby. And the locals like it that way. They want to be left alone, and they long ago switched all the fingerposts that should point to Lansby so that they direct the ignorant to Maghum instead. And since as a destination Maghum is much superior to Lansby, few travellers complain of the deception. Or for that matter, either care or know that they have been deceived. “Oh,” they say to their friends, “we had ever so lovely a time at Lansby, or, as the locals call it, Maghum. And it’s such an easy drive. Just take the N56 east out of Dunfanaghy and drive straight into Sheephaven Bay and just follow the road under the Bay until you come out the other side, and there you are in Lansby.” Of course, the Maghumies are quite happy to go along with the trick. As long as the tourists spend their money in their village, the inhabitants of that seaside resort care not one skittle, not a jot or a tittle, not even a fine blue tiddlywink, that the visitors believe themselves to be in Lansby.

‘Not even the postman can find Lansby. You remember Mrs Gilsenan who runs the post office out of her shop at Dunfanaghy. Some day you must ask her to show you all the letters she has for people in Lansby. Every morning Mr Nugent, the postman, goes out in his van with a stack of letters for Lansby, and every evening he returns. And when he does, he dumps all the letters for Lansby in a special bin. There are so many letters that they spill out of the bin and pile up on the floor. There are so many that it’s been years since Mrs Gilsenan last saw the back door to her shop. A mountain of letters like a great pyramid. All the letters that never get answered, all the postcards with their pretty pictures of white sand beaches and palm trees and their “wish you were here, having a lovely time” that never get read. All of them end up in that bin of undelivered mail for Lansby.

‘ “Not found it again, Mr Nugent?” Mrs Gilsenan asks.

‘ “No, Mrs Gilsenan, I have not,” replies Mr Nugent, “I am thinking that none but the devil knows the road to Lansby. And as far as I am concerned, he may keep that knowledge to his self.”

‘Now, only those with great courage and perseverance ever find Lansby. I know you know what courage is, Michael, but do you know what perseverance is?’

‘It means to keep at something until you are finished.’

‘Yes, precisely.’ His father nodded in approval and continued with his story. ‘Now, even the inhabitants of Lansby sometimes forget where it is. Indeed, I have seen this with my own eyes, Michael. Sometimes a man from Lansby comes to Dunfanaghy to go shopping, for Lansby is but a small place and it lacks many things. And when he gets finished with his shopping and all his bags are overflowing with big yellow cheeses and sardines in red tins and good strong brown string to tie up his dog with and pens that never run out of black and green and blue ink and a bone with a bit of meat on it that he got from the butcher for the soup pot, he will stand there in the market square at Dunfanaghy looking first to the east, and then to the west, and then to the south. The poor befuddled man scratches his noggin and stares in every direction for a hint of the road that leads to Lansby. Many an unfortunate Lansbian wanders the hills of Donegal for days searching for his home, asking every man, woman, or child he meets to point out the road.

‘And if that were all the story to be told, it would be quite a minor tale indeed. But Lansby is where Mr Carnovan has made his home and where he runs his Little Shop of Dreams. How Mr Carnovan came to settle in Lansby is a long story, and I shall tell it to you another time. For now he is there, and that is all that needs to be said at this point.

‘Now Mr Carnovan is quite short, and there are those who unwisely refer to him as one of the “wee folk”. They never make that remark twice, at least not in Mr Carnovan’s hearing. It’s not that Mr Carnovan has anything against the wee folk. Indeed not. He has been seen sharing a friendly pint with many a garden gnome, the two of them laughing and joking long into the night, until the stars disappear into the west. And a special chair is reserved in a warm spot beside his fireplace for any leprechaun passing through the neighbourhood. No, he has nothing against the wee folk. It’s rather that he has too much respect for them to claim to be a wee folk himself. He is short, not wee, and he’ll thank you to remember the difference, Mr Michael Orrin.’

Michael father’s pinched Michael’s nose between his thumb and forefinger. ‘Oww,’ giggled Michael, ‘that hurts.’

‘It’s to help you remember the difference. You’ll thank me for it one day. Now, back to the story. Mr Carnovan has inherited most of the features of the Carnovans, although his nose lacks the impressive dimensions that have given us the proverb ‘As plain as the nose on a Carnovan’. The present Mr Carnovan’s nose is more reasonable in size. I believe his mother contributed that feature to his face, for his father boasted a truly enormous nose, a veritable elephant’s snout it was. Like most of his clan, the present Mr Carnovan is pleasingly formed. Indeed, were it not for his height, he would be accounted a handsome man by most. He is, moreover, a most friendly man, genial when geniality is called for and sober when sobriety is needed. I have always enjoyed his company when he has consented to grace me with his presence. He is also a man of great charm. And he shares his house with a brindled cat named Murphy.’

‘Like me!’

‘Indeed, just like you, Michael. I am glad to see that you are paying attention. And Mr Carnovan’s Murphy is just like your Murphy, a cat wise beyond his years. For it is well known that brindled cats are the wisest of cats, and they choose their companions carefully. It speaks highly of Mr Carnovan, and of young Master Michael Orrin, that cats of such intelligence have chosen them as friends.

‘Now there is nothing about the Little Shop of Dreams to catch the eye, not so that you would notice. From outside, there is no hint of the wonders to be found within. The display in the front window is in need of a good dusting. Neither your mother nor your grandmothers would tolerate such dust in their houses. In the window there are only a few blue boxes like the one you’re holding. They are stacked up in a pyramid. But truth to tell, the pyramid has become a bit lopsided over time. But Mr Carnovan’s business depends on word of mouth, and he can perhaps be excused for his lack of attention to the modern vogue for advertising.

‘Mr. Carnovan, it must be said, is not a modern man. He and his family have been in the business of providing dreams for generations now. He is too modest a man to record the year in which the firm was founded over the doorway to his establishment. I have no such hesitation. The first Little Shop of Dreams was started in 1642. It is rumoured, and I admit that I do not know if this is true, that one of Mr Carnovan’s younger brothers bestirred himself and sailed off to America and founded a branch of the shop there, in Los Angeles, I believe. We will wish him every success and allow him to enjoy the California sunshine.

‘Mr Carnovan is now a bit older than your granddads. He has, as the saying goes, earned his rest and is enjoying his life of semi-retirement in Lansby. If a customer walks in, Mr Carnovan attends to his needs with admirable thoughtfulness. But he does not put himself out to attract patrons. Perhaps twice, sometimes three times, a day, the bell over the front door to the Little Shop will jangle, and Mr Carnovan will emerge from the back room where he smokes his white pipe and reads his books with the red covers. There are, of course, more customers during the Christmas season, when Mr Carnovan follows the family tradition of offering a special sale on Christmas dreams.

‘The present Mr Carnovan never married and has no children. He sometimes talks about retiring and turning the Little Shop of Dreams over to one of his nephews. But I am getting ahead of my story. Time enough for the future in the future.’

‘But if it’s so hard to get to Lansby, how did Grandmother get there?’

‘As I said, only those with courage and perseverance ever reach Lansby, Michael. Now everyone knows that you know what courage and perseverance are.’

Michael nodded his head yes.

“And your grandmother has both in abundance. Is she not the woman who wrestled the selkie to the ground and forced him to reveal the location of the Sea King’s Treasures? Do you not remember your family history, Michael?’

‘Oh, I like that bit.’

‘Well, then, do you have any doubts your grandmother could not find Lansby? It would take more than a few mischievous Lansbians and their misdirecting fingerposts to send your grandmother astray. No, for those that need to find it, the Little Shop of Dreams is easy to find. All one has to do is set one’s right foot down on the proper path, and the rest of the steps follow. Now, where was I in my story?’

‘The shop window.’

‘Well, one bright sunny morning, just after the rains had ended and the clouds had drifted off toward the east, your grandmother wrapped her best shawl, the one that’s as blue as the grass, around her shoulders and picked up her special carrying bag made of string as green as the clouds. She chose a walking stick made of dark elderberry wood from the stand beside the front door and put on that Red Sox baseball cap your uncle sent her from Boston in America. She put it on backwards, like all the young men do, and stomped her left foot three times before she opened the door to let the spirits that protect her hearth and home know that she was leaving and that they were to watch over the house while she was away. Then she stepped outside and put the cap on straight and stomped her right f