Note: Sorry it's been so long since I updated. I'll try not to let it happen again...
After a battle, the quiet seems quieter than before the first shots was exchanged. You can't tell if it's the quiet of peace, though, not until enough time has passed since the ceasefire for you to have figured out its terms. Until then the quiet's not peace, but a holding of breath.
:::::::
He's not here when I wake up. There's coffee here, though, which is good, a good sign: he's made a coffee for me, like he would if we were okay. And we had sex, didn't we, when I got home from work not all that many hours ago – the traces of cum crusted on the skin of my stomach tell me we did, and I remember it, remember that it's his cum because mine went into him.
There's no note. What does that mean? He must have been out because it's long past the time the decorators need letting into the club. Maybe he's back though, and taken away the note now it's no longer relevant. I sit up and touch my mug, and it's cold, and surely if he'd taken away the note he'd have taken away the cold coffee too, which means – I think it means – he never left me a note when he left in the first place. Which doesn't mean anything, necessarily: he doesn't always leave a note, does he, not if it's obvious where he's going.
I drink the cold coffee.
I hear him come in the front door.
I look at the clock again: he's been a long time if he's only just now got home, he must have stayed talking to the workmen or gone shopping or something.
He comes into the bedroom.
"Ain't that cold?" he says. "Or have you got up and made one?"
"Cold, yeah. It's fine."
He's in tracksuit and trainers and a hoodie. He must have had the hood up because it's flattened his hair a little.
"Pawel was there, like, checking how it's going. The painters'll be finished by this afternoon, so he's getting the bloke in to sort the floor tomorrow morning, and that's only gonna take an hour, tops, he says, cos it's only a few tiles want replacing, and so I've rung to get the cooker delivered and the fridges, and they must'a been waiting to get rid cos they said they'll deliver them at twelve tomorrow."
The way he's chattering, it's like normal, only his eyes barely meet mine and when they do they reflect my own uncertainty back at me.
"That's good," I say.
"That'll give the floor bloke enough time to do it and clear out. So then Pawel says, soon as the stuff's all delivered if I give him a call he'll send someone round to connect it all up. And everything else is already there, the plates and pans and that, I've just got to bring them up from the basement. Then it's just the food I've got to buy."
"Ready to roll, then."
"I used the phone in the office, is that okay?"
"Course." I didn't know he knew which of the keys on the bunch were for the office, but he knows a lot of things I guess.
"And we're not having the kids this weekend."
"Why? Because of your..?" I look at his face where my phone struck him the night before last, and the bruise – so livid yesterday – is barely visible now. "It don't hardly notice, Steven, you don't have to keep the kids away because of that."
"It's makeup, Brendan. I've got concealer on it."
"Makeup?"
"Off'a me hairdresser."
"Your hairdresser?"
"I went and got me hair cut yesterday, didn't I. In the afternoon, after you went off for your meeting."
"I know, yeah. Looks... Your haircut, it looks good."
"You saw it last night."
"I know." It was ruffled from bed when I saw it last night, though, when he spoke to me for a second in the kitchen doorway after I got in from work; and then it was dark. "Looks good."
"It's the same as I always have it."
"You got makeup on, on the..?"
"Me hairdresser put it on me, and then she gave it to me so I can put it on so people don't... So I don't get stared at."
"What did you tell her?"
"Said it was a cupboard door."
"I didn't throw it at you. The phone, I didn't throw it at you."
"I know, Brendan, I was there when it happened."
"We can still have the kids. It's only Thursday, it's gonna be faded by Saturday, ain't it, and if you put that... that..."
"Amy would see. She's a girl, she'd see if I was wearing concealer, it ain't like Pawel and them, they don't even look at you if you're a bloke, do they, not properly."
"So I'll go on my own, yeah? I'll go and pick up the kids, then we – "
"And then I'll just wear makeup all weekend, shall I, so the kids don't see me bruise and go home and tell their mum?" Saying this, he's animated for the first time, but when he speaks again he's regained the show of calmness that's like a layer of protection, for himself and maybe for me. "Anyway that's not why I cancelled them coming. I've phoned Pearl, I've asked her to come in on Saturday and cook with me so we can see what the cooker's like and she can see how the dishes are meant to turn out. And she's gonna work out the whatsnames, the nutrition things of all the dishes, like, the calories and fat and everything."
"What for?"
"You've got to, there's laws, in't there. For things people are allergic to an' all, you've got to have it wrote down for if people ask. Anyway Pearl does all that at the school, dun't she, she knows how to do it, like, properly."
"So you'll be ready to go? Get up and running next week? That's – "
"A soft launch, yeah, that's what restaurants do." Some light has come into his eyes, and he comes and sits down; out of reach though at the end of the bed, if I tried to reach him. I don't.
"'Soft launch'?"
He nods, "Yeah. It means, like, we won't have no menus printed or nothing, so, like, we can just tell the punters we've got food going – I can come up, or maybe the bar staff can tell them, y'know, run down what we've got and they can have it maybe for half price or... Just so I can get going without all the..."
"Pressure?"
"Expectations."
"You got nothing to worry about."
"So what I thought was, on Sunday I could – or we could, me and Pearl – could cook for the staff, like, the stuff that's gonna be on the menu so they can try it? Like, if they wanna come in a bit early before you open, or they can come to the kitchen in their breaks, and if anyone that doesn't work Sundays wants to come in, y'know, just drop in and have a bite to eat, then it's like, they'll be able to tell the punters what it's like. Like, describe the dishes if anyone wants to know or whatever. Plus I just thought it would be nice."
"I love you."
"And then we can do our soft launch. Not Monday, cos that's me night off and I wouldn't want Pearl to have to do the first night, so maybe Tuesday. And then if it goes okay for a few days, we'll get the menus printed off and start, like, official. Officially."
"Okay."
"I explained to Amy about the kids, I told her it's a one-off. She understands. We're gonna have to make it up to the kids the next weekend though."
"Spoil them, yeah?"
"Yeah. You gonna get up?" He stands up. "I'll put some more coffee on."
:::::::
We're watching a film together. By watching, I mean I'm barely paying attention except to work out if he's laughing at the parts he'd usually laugh at, or if he's barely paying attention either. And by together, I mean we're on the same sofa but there is no point of contact between us, no point where warmth flows.
My phone rings.
"I'm gonna..." I say, and I stand up, and then I say, "It's Alastair, so," because I think at the moment the less room left for speculation the better.
I take the call in the kitchen. Alastair's got the figures I emailed to him yesterday, and like I hoped, the upward trajectory is clear to him.
"I must admit I was worried, Brendan, but it really does look as if you've turned it around. How long is it since that newspaper came out?"
"Three weeks tomorrow."
"And the takings are heading back to where they were before they fell off a cliff, and you've gained more new members than you lost. I'm actually surprised. You know as well as I do, good will is hard to get back once it's gone."
"It was a blip, Alastair. Nothing we couldn't handle." A blip for the business; he doesn't need to know what the shockwaves have done to us.
"I'll be happier when you get some more events in the books, though. Those parties that cancelled, they'd have got good press."
"I ain't... I'm not complacent." I'm not fucking complacent. "We've got things in the pipeline, Anne's book launch for one. Mitzeee's, Mitzeee's book launch, and you've seen the kinda press she brings."
"I wasn't suggesting you're being complacent, if it sounded that way."
"It did."
"Then I apologise. I'm thinking out loud, that's all – being a back seat driver. But you've got it all in hand, I can see that." He pauses, maybe waiting for me to accept his apology, but I say nothing and in the end he gives in first and fills the silence. "And how about the kitchen renovation? Is it coming along?"
I'm on safe ground now.
"Almost done. Getting the equipment connected tomorrow, then Steven's gonna be training up the assistant chef over the weekend and briefing the bar staff so's they can promote the food, ready for a soft launch on Tuesday, and up to speed for real the following week."
"I had no idea things were so well advanced. I did wonder if it would've got derailed with everything that's gone on, you know, as your partner and his children were drawn into the whole press sting."
"Steven's focused, he knows what he's doing."
"I'll look forward to seeing for myself next time I'm up. My regards to him."
When we're done I go back to the living room. Steven hasn't paused the film; I guess he knows I wasn't really watching it.
"Sends his regards," I say.
"Who?"
"Alastair."
The film plays on.
:::::::
The work with the kitchen has gone according to plan. Me and Steven are at the club all day on Friday, seeing that the appliances are delivered and installed smoothly, and then once all the contractors are out of the way and it's just the two of us here, we both get to work fetching all the china and knives and blenders and so on from where they've been stored temporarily in the basement since he bought them. I help him unbox it all in the kitchen, put things where he tells me to put them.
"Like old times," I say to him when we meet at the bottom of the basement stairs, me on my way up with a box in my hands, him on the way down to get one.
He smiles, but then it's like he remembers things aren't right between us and just when I think I might get a kiss out of him, he looks away and the moment passes.
Later I stand leaning against the doorframe across the kitchen from him, watching him arranging the tools of his trade on hooks and shelves and in drawers.
"Think we ain't getting anywhere, Steven?"
"Mm? No, that's all the stuff from the basement, innit, so all I've got to do is finish putting it away. It'll be done and I'll be out the way before you open up if that's what you're worried about."
"I didn't... I mean us. Do you think we ain't getting anywhere?"
He's still for a moment, his back to me, then he hangs up whatever he's got in his hand – a strainer, do you call it? – and turns to face me.
"What d'you mean?" His voice and his expression are grave, guarded.
"I mean, we talked it over, didn't we, but we ain't back to normal, are we, so."
"Yeah we are."
I shake my head.
"If it's because of what I – "
"You never meant it to hit me, did you. I do know that."
" – What I said. For asking you about what you did when I was away, about what you did with... with other fellas, I... It ain't my business."
"It was only because you was away."
"Yeah, and we're going round in circles. Had the same row before, didn't we, what, six weeks back? When Chez was coming over, we had that – "
"Seven weeks."
"I asked you the same thing then, Steven, about... I accused you. And it's still, it's in my head, things I don't know, and... And it's my fault for going away, that's what you're telling me, and it kills me. Okay? And it's... it's circles, ain't it, because we had that row when Chez was coming, seven weeks ago, yeah? And now it's come back around, only this time it ain't about me going away to keep my sister safe, this time I'm leaving you for some kid who's taken my fancy according to you, and it's – "
"You blaming me now?" His words are combative but his manner doesn't match: he seems battle-weary. "I'm paranoid, am I, is that what you think?"
"No. That's not what I'm saying."
"Cos you was getting well jealous of me going for a pint with me sisters, so if you're talking about paranoid – "
"And your dad."
"What?"
"Your sisters and your dad." I pause, and I realise: "So yeah, maybe I sound paranoid."
"Just a bit." There's a flicker of a smile but it's gone so fast I can't be sure I saw it. "Brendan, what you said about going round in circles – you do know it's early days, yeah? You've only been out for nine months, so if we're, y'know, not all sorted and... normal, it's not surprising, is it? Cos think about it, right, all the things that's happened, like getting married and selling your nan's place and moving house, and that newspaper doing us over, and everything with Paddy and Declan, and... I can't even remember everything cos it's been mad, when you think about it, and we ain't hardly had time to... Cos we got interrupted, didn't we. There wouldn'a been circles, would there, if we had'a carried straight on after you told me about – "
"There would'a been circles."
"Okay, yeah, there would'a been circles, but we were alright, weren't we?"
"And we ain't alright now?"
"I'm just saying, it's not been long, not if you think about it, so if it's not, like, easy sometimes, it's only cos it's still..."
"Still what?"
"New. So you can't just give up."
"Who said I'm giving up?" I ask, and he shrugs and turns away and carries on sorting out his cooking gear. "Is that what you thought I was doing, was it, when you thought I was getting off with Damon? Giving up on us? Steven? You know there was nothing, nothing was gonna happen. You know that."
"S'pose."
"You think I want anyone else when I've got you?" I step into the room, stop at the island work station in the middle, rest my hands flat on its stainless steel top. "Steven, look at me."
He turns to me again but doesn't make a move towards me.
"What was I meant to think?" he says.
"Can't you tell from... from how I am with you, when we..? Jesus, Steven, d'you think I've been like this with anyone else? You're everything to me, okay? You've got all of me."
"I know." He nods his head. "I know, and that's what it feels like, Brendan, it's real, you and me. I know it is. It's just... it weren't about that Damien, not really."
"So tell me what it was about, or it's just gonna be circles again, ain't it."
"You know what it was about, I told you. I got scared. I get scared."
"Thinking I'm gonna leave you."
"Yeah." He nods again, looks down at the floor. His eyelashes are ridiculous.
"I've told you, I ain't gonna leave you, not for some lad, not for anything."
"You would, though."
"I can't change the past."
"I'm not talking about when you went away cos of Cheryl, Brendan. I'm talking about two weeks ago. After everything I've said, you still would'a left me two weeks ago."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"You don't even remember?"
"No. Leave you? No, what d'you even mean, 'two weeks ago'?" I look at him and I try and think, and then I remember. "Amy. When I said I'd move out till the newspaper thing blew over if it was the only way she'd let you keep the kids. That wasn't leaving you, Steven. I thought you understood why I said it?"
I remember his words, how they tore at me then and tear at me now, I'm no good without you. I thought he understood, I thought he'd forgotten it, but it's me that's forgotten it or tried to, because whatever it means – the no good he was without me – it fills me with shame to know I caused it.
"I did understand. Right, I do understand, in me head. But not here." He bunches his hands into fists and presses them into his stomach. "I need to know that leaving's never gonna be your... your..."
"Reaction? Solution?"
"Yeah, solution. Cos you leaving, it's not a solution for me, it never has been."
"I've promised, Steven, haven't I? I'll promise you again, okay, I promise I won't leave you, you don't have to worry."
"Even if you found out – "
"Don't matter. I promise."
He hesitates, then comes over, faces me across the work station and I reach out and take his head in my hand and we lean in and kiss, and it's the first time we've kissed today, and we didn't kiss yesterday, except when he told me to kiss him after he told me to fuck him in the early hours of the morning.
"You've made fingerprints," he says when we part.
I look down at the steel surface and he's right.
"So have you," I say. "Thought it was meant to be stainless."
"If you want, I'll tell you how many."
"Hm? Fingerprints?"
"Blokes. You asked me how many."
"Thought you would'a lost count," I say, and regret the sting of my words as soon as they leave my mouth.
"Give me a pencil and paper and half an hour and I'll give you a list."
"Jesus."
"Don't be stupid."
"Oh, right, yeah. Funny."
"I'll tell you if you want to know, Bren. But do you really think it's gonna help? Be honest. Cos I don't, right, I think you'll be asking me more things, like, details. I think you'll go mad with it till you've made me remember it all, and then I think you'll use it, won't you, you'll bring it up every time we're having a row."
"I won't."
"You will though. I know you. You get nasty when you argue – we both do but you're worse."
"You're assuming we're gonna carry on arguing."
"Course we are."
"Course we are. Yeah."
We lean across the worktop and kiss again, kidding ourselves that it's a protection like crossing your fingers.
"Oh." Maria's voice makes us jump apart like a couple of kids caught necking behind the bike shed. "Sorry, wondered who was in cos the alarm was off. Alright, Ste? You've got this place looking ready for action, eh?"
"Hiya. Yeah, ta."
"Glad to see yous two have kissed and made up."
"What?" Steven says, spiky. "Why, what's he been saying?"
He gives me a hell of a look from under his eyebrows.
"Nothing, babe. I just assumed, y'know, after the two of you went tearing off the other night when that young lad was here, and he's..." She turns to me then, like she's remembered I'm her boss and she maybe shouldn't be talking about me as if I'm not here. "You've seemed a bit out of sorts since then, Brendan."
"Not his usual cheery self, you mean," says Steven.
"Something like that," Maria says, and they both glance at me.
"You ladies done gossiping now? Good."
"Everyone's looking forward to sampling your cooking on Sunday anyway, Ste." Maria is moving the conversation along. "Brendan was telling us last night."
"Was you?" Steven says to me; he looks surprised, in a good way I think.
"Mentioned it, yeah," I say. "In between being out of sorts."
"Sorry if I..." says Maria.
"Don't worry about it," I say, and she goes off to get ready to open up.
"You nearly done here, Steven? I gotta go home and get changed, didn't realise the time."
"Just wanna give the place a clean ready for tomorrow. Case there's dust from the work."
"Stay for a drink with me when you're finished, yeah? When I get back."
"Can't talk though, not when there's people. Not about..."
"Just a drink. You've earned it, stay for one."
"I will if you bring me a shirt. Me jeans'll pass but this top's a state now."
"I'll bring one. Be fifteen minutes, back before we open."
"Okay."
"Good lad. I'll just... Love you. Okay."
"Love you too."
:::::::
When I get back to the club once I've been home to put a suit on, Steven is standing surveying his pristine kitchen.
"It's never gonna look like this again," he says. "All brand new."
"Brought your shirt."
"Ta." He strips his top off over his head and wipes under his arms with it, then takes the clean shirt and puts it on and does up the buttons from the bottom one upwards. "You perving on me?"
"Nope."
It's heavy cotton, the one I've brought, with narrow stripes in grey and white which when we go through to the bar will take on a kind of silvery shimmer under the lights. It fits him like skin.
"Oh yeah, Mitzeee rang."
"Mm?"
"You left your phone." He nods towards it on the worktop and I put it in my pocket. "Yeah, she's coming home tomorrow with Seth, like, flying to Manchester, gonna stay with her Maxine a coupl'a days and why she phoned was, her bloke's gonna come up from London on Monday and they want to come to the club to arrange about her book party thing. Cos him, whatsisname, Richard – he ain't seen it, has he."
"Okay."
"So I told her it's your day off but it's probably okay, and she said well, what they'll do is they'll book us a restaurant, like, for the four of us – her and Richard, you and me – so we can just come in the club just for a quick look then we can all go off and have a chat and that over dinner, so you're not in work all night on your night off. Or it'd be, like, a busman's holiday, wouldn't it."
"Wouldn't it." We look at each other. "Steven – "
"See, it's not just circles, is it. Not when you remember where we started from."
"Come on. Let's get you a drink."
:::::::
He's waiting up when I get in from work, sitting on the sofa with no lights on, only the TV.
"Alright?"
"There's a sarnie in the kitchen. You're early, a bit."
"They can close up without me for once. Wanted to come home."
I go and eat my sandwich, then get a glass and pick up the Jameson's bottle.
"Have you had a drink?" Steven is here. He's in pyjamas and he's got the dressing gown wrapped tight around him; it's funny how sometimes it swamps him, like it does tonight.
"Had one with you, didn't I." I unscrew the cap.
"Had any more though, since I came home?"
"One, maybe."
"Don't have another one now, please."
I replace the cap and put the bottle down.
He goes back to the living room and sits down. I follow him, sit a couple of places along from him on the couch. He switches off the television with the remote, and it's dark in the room now except for the light coming in from the hallway. When I look at him, all I can see is a silhouette.
"I wasn't gonna ask you," I say.
"You want to know though."
"I guess."
"What do you want to know?" he asks, and I don't know now, I don't know. "Bren?"
Okay.
"Is there... Was there anyone I know? Or knew, or... or I'm ever gonna meet?" I take a breath, keep my voice as quiet as his. "I gotta know that, Steven, cos if there's someone who... Cos if there's someone I'm talking to and they've... I can't be the one that don't know."
"No, no one."
"Okay."
"Except... D'you remember George?"
"Who? George who?"
"Well he's gone now so it dun't matter anyway."
"George who?"
"Don't know. Don't know his last name, but you would'a seen him, before. He was just a... I think he was a student."
"I don't know no students."
"Worked in Price Slice for a bit, he was that skinny lad. Anyway I... I got drunk, I got drunk on whisky, yeah, and he helped me get home, and I didn't even fancy him but I was angry, Brendan. Angry with you, I was, and Amy'd just took the kids away again, so I was drunk and I was angry and he looked at me like I was worth, like, talking to or... or being with, and I thought yeah, why not? I thought... So I done it, I fucked him. I wouldn'a done, if I had'a known it was the only time he'd ever... And I hated him after that, I just, like, steered clear."
"George? I don't remember him. George?"
"I said, he's gone. Moved away, so it dun't matter, okay?"
For a while all I can hear is my own breathing. Not his, just mine.
"When you say you fucked him, you mean..?"
"Dunno what you..."
"You fucked him?" I look at Steven in the dark, see him nod his head. "That's what you want, is it? That's what you like?"
"No."
"I must be a fucking disappointment to you." I'm not raising my voice but I'm spitting the words. "Faking it, are you? Putting up with it, cos all the time you wanna be sticking it in some – "
"Don't, Brendan."
"All the time you – "
"Do you really think I'm faking it?" He sounds incredulous, and of course not, of course I don't think he's faking it.
"No."
"I'm not."
"I know. I'm – "
"I don't want that with you. Think about it, Brendan. I was drinking whisky and I got off with some scrawny lad that knew fuck all about nothing. What d'you think I was doing?"
"Jesus."
"Yeah, so don't be getting all... Cos it was all about you, Bren, about... I never realised, not for ages, but it was."
"Acting out."
"Yeah." He's silent again, and then he says, "Anyway there weren't anyone else that you know, so... d'you wanna leave it now?"
"I know your father, don't I."
"You know that was nothing, 'cept it was a big mistake. I've told you nothing happened."
"And Douglas: I knew Douglas."
"I know, but you know about him already."
"You loved him."
"Not in that way. He loved me, right, and he was there, after me mum... After the court case, I couldn't... I was scared, I had to stay out of trouble or I would'a been inside, and I couldn't do it on me own."
"So he wormed his way back in."
"I needed someone. And he was nice to me, Brendan, he was... nice." He swallows, loud in the quiet of the night.
"No one else, then? No one I'd know, I mean."
"No, not unless..."
"Unless?"
His voice is very small when he says, "Unless you count John Paul."
"What the fuck?"
"No, I never done nothing, except he kissed me. We kissed each other, right, but it was only once, Brendan, and I was in a mess – we both were, we'd had a fight in the street – and then... he came in the deli and we sort'a got talking, about... about people we'd... And he told me about you, he said what you said to him in Dublin. He said you talked about me, he said you knew I loved you and he said you really loved me. And then... then he said we was both lonely, me and him, like we'd got something in common. And then we kissed each other. It weren't, like, sexy or nothing, it was just... it happened. But that was all, Brendan, cos I couldn't stand him. He couldn't stand me either, to be fair. And he'd slept with you, and he was with Doug before an' all, they were like, in love, and then I'd found out he was sleeping with me dad. So soon as I kissed him I realised, didn't I, it was sick. Like, proper disgusting, even having a kiss, let alone if we'd... So I went back to hating him after that. I swear down, that was all it was."
"I believe you."
"It's true."
"I said I believe you." I believe him, because the times I ever saw the two of them together, their animosity wasn't the love-to-hate kind. "John Paul McQueen, though. Jesus."
"Yeah, well, I wouldn't be getting all high and mighty, mate, okay?"
"Yeah."
"So is that all you want to know now?" He moves, half stands up. "Cos that's the only ones you could'a known, right, so – "
"What about the rest?"
He slumps back down onto the couch.
"I never bothered, not for a while, cos I was... I weren't thinking about, y'know, sex and that, cos I was..."
"You were using."
"How did you know?"
"I didn't. Least, I wasn't sure. Things you've said, Steven, I guess... Things you've not said, or..."
"What you said about that lad, that Damien – "
"Damon."
"What he was inside for. Stupid, you said he was, for doing drugs – you said you don't want his kind in your club. But you knew about me? Why didn't you say anything? I've been so scared of telling you, like ever since you got out, cos of what you always said about them people that bought it off you. But you knew I was doing it, I was the same as them, so – "
"Was, Steven. You were. I didn't know, though, did I, I wasn't sure. I hoped, okay, I hoped I was wrong, because if you... If you were doing that shit, it was because of me, and I can't..."
"It weren't because of you, it was because of everything. Doug. Losing me kids again. Just... And in any case, I wouldn'a started using if I hadn'a been dealing, cos that's why I had it in the first place."
"You shouldn'a been dealing, you had the deli, you were set up for making a living, Steven, I thought... I thought you'd be okay, I thought you'd get the kids back when Amy knew I was out of the picture – you'd be making a living from the deli. You already were, weren't you, before I went away?"
"The deli didn't mean anything though, it was... It weren't me. It was alright, yeah, when I had you, cos then it was my thing, weren't it, my thing that I was good at that made me, you know... proud of myself, and it felt like you was proud of me, like now, like how it feels like you're proud of me now for doing this thing with the kitchen at the club."
"I am. I'm proud of you, I always was."
"But it weren't enough, not on its own. The deli after you went away, it felt like nothing. It felt pathetic, with just Doug there going on about bloody types of bloody bread, and he weren't even a bloody chef, and I... I was empty, Brendan. It didn't mean anything, not on its own, not when I didn't have... Cos I couldn't walk across the road into your world no more. You just had to look at me and I felt like I was at the middle of things, sort of, where everything mattered even if I couldn't see straight sometimes. But that was gone, that... life. The deli, it just didn't matter no more, not when it was all there was."
"You could'a sold it then, sold up and had a new start, you and the kids. You shouldn'a had to start dealing. I thought you'd be okay, I..."
"I needed money fast though, cos I..."
"What for?"
"Dun't matter. Anyway I stopped dealing in the end, Brendan, honest I did, cos of the kids. Only I was using stuff by that time, and when I sold up it all went to pay off me debts, I didn't have nothing left for a new start."
"Drug debts?"
"The bloke I was working for, I had to pay him to let me stop cos he said I owed him for letting him down and for the stuff I'd used. It still weren't enough money though, I still had to get another loan. D'you remember that bloke I owed money to when you got out?"
"I paid him off, yeah."
"That was the last one."
"He was just a loan shark though, yeah? He wasn't the one you were working for?"
"Yeah, he was just the loan shark."
"So who was it? Who were you working for?"
"He's dead."
"That true?"
"It was in the news. They said it was a... Is it turf war, is that the right words?"
"Sounds likely, yeah."
"They fished him out of the river, like Danny Houston, and I... I pretended to meself it was you that done it, somehow, like you were still looking out for me."
"If I'd been here I – "
"I know. But I'm glad someone else done it, cos I'm not letting you getting banged up again."
"How did you get off the drugs?" I ask when the silence has gone on too long.
"I weren't even addicted, Brendan. Dunno why I weren't, but I weren't. I never had a feeling like I had to have a fix, I just did it because I wanted to, because, like, it was what everyone thought I was. Everyone thinks you're scum so you act like scum. And it took me mind off everything, didn't it."
I remember a lie I've been telling myself, that the pinprick marks in the crook of his elbow are from the drip he was put on in hospital. My lie collapses.
"Needles though, Steven? Jesus, you don't do that just to prove a point."
"I never. I did it because it hurt." He gulps a breath that sounds like a sob, and then his words are a torrent. "That's when I stopped, cos I had a bad turn with it and I thought about me kids, what it would be like for them if I... if they knew. And that's when I started going up to see them regular, and that's when I... Cos when I didn't have the drugs no more, I had to have something, so I started... On a Saturday or Sunday, after I dropped them back to Amy's I started going down Canal Street. You know, instead of going straight off to get me bus home. Canal Street's in Manchester, see."
"I know where Canal Street is."
"Right, so I started just... And there's no point asking their names, Brendan, cos I didn't even ask sometimes. They didn't even ask me. Cos they... The ones I went for, they were the straight blokes. Cos they didn't want... I used to look at all the lads in the bars having a good time, dancing and having a laugh and that, and it was like I weren't in the same place as them, even when they was talking to me. It was like they didn't have a clue. But the straight blokes, y'know, you can tell, like, they're going behind their girlfriends' backs, and they're scared – they think they're hiding it but I can see it, me. Cos they didn't want fun, the ones I went with. They were there cos they needed something, and when I was with them it was like they needed me."
"You don't have to... That's enough, okay, can we just – ?"
"Five times, I done that. Five blokes. Is that a lot, or is it not many?"
"I don't know."
"Would'a been six, only there was one that wanted it without a condom so I binned him off. The rest of them, they would'a done anything I wanted."
"That's enough."
"And then I got a boyfriend, the one that was living with me when you got out. He didn't like me much." He stops, and if either of us is breathing I can't hear it for the rattling of my heart; and then he gets to his feet and he sounds exhausted when he says, "That's all. That's everything. I'm gonna go to bed now. Brendan?"
"Yeah."
"Are you gonna come to bed?"
"You go. Go. I'm just..."
I just sit there when he's gone.
:::::::
I've brushed my teeth and had a shower, and brushed my teeth again to try and get rid of the taste of bile.
I drop my towel on the bedroom floor and feel in the drawers for some boxers and a T-shirt to put on.
He's left plenty of room for me on my side of the bed, and I get in and lie on my back, like him.
"Thought you wasn't gonna come," he says, and when I don't say anything he says, "I'm still the same person, Brendan. I'm still me." And then when he gets no response he rolls onto his side facing away from me.
"I never should'a done it, Steven. I should'a found another way to help my sister." I turn to him, curl my body around him, my chest against his back. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I love you."
"I'll love you till I die," he says, and he sounds entirely spent.
"Till I die, you mean. I'll go first, won't I."
"Dun't matter who goes first, I'll still love you till I die."
"I'll love you till I die," I say, and I think he stays awake just long enough to hear me say it.
:::::::
I look at Steven when I wake. He's asleep, one arm outside the cover: his left arm, with its puncture marks, and I make myself stop wondering about the bad turn he had when he injected himself, the thing that scared him into stopping. I don't think I can stand to know about it, not yet.
His skin is striped with light and shadow from the bright sun coming in through the slats of the blind. His hair is shades of gold and brown in the light. The bruise at his temple is only visible now if you know it's there: we could have had the kids today after all.
I get up without disturbing him. While the coffee's making I go to the bathroom, and on the shelf over the basin I see his tube of concealer; I drop it in the bin.
I put our mugs down on my bedside cabinet and get back into bed. He opens his eyes then sits up next to me and I pass him his coffee. He blows on it and takes a couple of sips, then looks across me at the clock.
"I wanted to be out by now, I've got to buy me ingredients for the club."
"Shops won't sell out."
"True." He hands me back his cup and I put it down. "You okay, Brendan?"
I hold his chin and kiss his forehead.
"You?" I say, and he nods. "Steven, I'm sorry for – "
"You can stop saying sorry." He kisses me; his mouth is soft and it tastes of coffee. "Just love me."
He tugs at my T-shirt and I take it off and he comes to kneel astride my lap. I strip off his pyjama top, stroke his flanks, bring him to me with my arms round him so his chest is against my face and I can feel the even beat of his heart. He kisses my hair.
I loosen my grip and he sits back and we kiss. He sticks his hand down my boxers and grabs my cock, and I think, which of those men did he practise this on? But in a second the sensations make thoughts impossible of anyone but him and me.
"These off, yeah?" I tell him, and he gets off me and strips off his pyjama bottoms and I get my boxers off and get on top of him now and kiss him.
His fingers dig into the cheeks of my arse, and my cock gets hard between his thighs. I lick his throat and bite at the stretched sinews in his neck. Every few breaths of his is a cry. I lift my head to look into his eyes and I'm as sure as I'm sure of anything that he never looked at the rest of them like this. I grip him by the hair though, tight in my fist, will him to say it and he does: "I love you." Then I kiss him, gentler now, a kiss to say it back.
I reach for the lubricant and he wriggles out from under me and kneels on the pillows facing the head of the bed. He's holding onto the top edge of the headboard. I lube him quickly – it's cold and he gasps – and slick myself with the residue, and get myself up more in the process. I prise one of his hands off the headboard and make him feel me so he knows what he's getting.
"That's for you," I say. "You want it?"
"Yeah."
I spread him with my hands and push into him, and he curves his spine to smooth my path till I fill him. Then I lay my hands on top of his on top of the headboard, and I fuck him and fuck him. He twists around to kiss me and the sideways movement of his body pulls at me, and I say, "Jesus!" and he laughs, and we fuck, and I shut my eyes and kiss the back of his head. His hair is warm.
I feel his head tilt and I open my eyes.
"You looking at us?" I ask.
He is, he's looking at the picture of us on the wall over the bed, the one made from a photo from our wedding, caught in a kiss.
"No," he says. He's lying.
"Look at us," I say, and we both do. The portrait looks different to me now, more urgent, a promise sealed in a kiss but it might as well be in blood. A promise till death because it's this, it's us, or it's oblivion.
I move my hand to his dick and make him come, and the spasm in his pelvis finishes me off and we both collapse onto the bed, and I hold him and listen as his breathing calms down till I can't hear it any more but I can feel it, rhythmic, peaceful.
We both fall asleep, just for a few minutes though because it's broad daylight.
When we wake up he says, "We better get up. That Pearl's gonna be at the club at twelve, and I've got to get down the market before then." He clambers over me, gets out and walks naked over to the window. "Looks like it's sunny out. D'you think summer's starting, Brendan? About time, if it is."