Is it a hundred times I've seen him sleeping?
A handful of times in the early days when our encounters rarely stretched to a night spent together. Then add on the scant three months from Dublin until that ending; take off the nights we wasted sleeping apart. And now, it's not quite eleven months since I got out and less than that since I came home, but still, add that on. Then subtract the times he's been awake when I've come to bed, the times I've fallen asleep before him, the times he's woken up before me in the mornings, the times when he's been asleep and I've been awake but it's been too dark for me to get a look at his face.
So. Call it a hundred times.
I'm sitting up in bed looking at him this morning and he looks as tranquil as he's looked on almost all of the other ninety-nine times, no sign of disquiet to hint at the secrets he holds. He's almost as careful with those secrets when he's awake, but he parted with one of them the day before yesterday when he told me that the boyfriend he sent packing when I came back had been let into his bed – and let stay there – because his money paid the rent.
Steven's hair lies in soft spikes on the pillow. I imagine knotting my fist into it, the strands tensing between my fingers and his scalp as I yank him awake, seeing what else will rattle out of his skull if I shake it hard enough. The thought is vivid. I look down at my hand expecting to see it clenched. It's not. It won't be, not against him, not ever. I doubt I know the half of it, the life he led when I was away, but these secrets are not the kind I've a right to demand no matter how much I want to. They're not like the ones he heard from me last week, about things I've done. His secrets are about things he's endured.
I slide out of bed, find my running clothes and take them with me to the bathroom. When I'm ready to go I go back to the bedroom and write in the notebook, Going to gym. I look at the clock: it's far too early for me to be up and about on my day off but there it is. Back by 9.30. B. x. I touch his hair, then go.
:::::::
Running back from the gym, my route takes me along a road where every other house seems to be undergoing some kind of renovation. Something catches my eye as I run past a skip outside one of them. I run on, but then I stop and jog back to it and take a better look. It's made of oak, looks like, and I don't know what it's meant for because it's kind of like a bedside table only it's narrower, not much more than a foot wide, and when I pull it out and stand it on the pavement it's too tall for a bedside table. A little taller than a bar stool. A square flat top with a drawer underneath it, on top of four straight legs. I try the drawer; it's intact, even if it's too small to be much use to anyone.
I glance around. Can't see anyone, let alone anyone who'd be after an argument, so I pick it up and walk the rest of the way home.
:::::::
He's on the balcony when I get in, looking out over the canal, and for a minute I stand in the room and stare at his back. His T-shirt is tight and his tracksuit bottoms are loose, and both the tightness and the looseness somehow contrive to show off that body of his.
He turns round after a minute; steps inside when he sees me.
"How long have you been stood there?" he says.
"Just this second walked in."
"Gonna be a nice day today, innit. Turned hot again. Well, you wouldn't know cos you're hot from..." And he does a movement with his arms signifying exercising. "Go on then, show us."
"Yeah?" I say, and I tense my arm so the muscles stand out, and he comes closer and nods his head. "Yeah?"
"Yeah." He gives me – and I give him – a peck on the lips, and he says, "I've not had a coffee yet, have you?"
"No. Didn't stop to make one. Thought you'd be having more of a lie-in, or I would'a left one for you."
"I'll put it on then, while you're in the shower."
"Stay there – I got something to show you first."
I go into the hallway and come back with the piece of furniture.
He frowns at it.
"What's that? Where's it come from?"
"Found it."
"'Found it'?"
"In a skip, but it's – "
"Since when was you a skip-dipper?"
"A what-what-er?"
"Someone that dips things out'a skips."
"Since today, apparently."
"Did anyone see you though?"
"See me? No, don't think so, no."
"No, but say they did though, what if they..?"
"What if they what?"
"Cos, is it against the law? I mean, I know it's like, it's stuff that people are chucking out, but – "
"Ain't the crime of the century, Steven, come on."
"No, I know, but like, I got shouted at, me, when I was looking for stuff for me and Amy's flat. Thieving bastard he called me, yeah, this bloke, like it was still his stuff even though he'd binned it off. I'm being serious, Brendan. Cos you said... You said they could bang you up again for a parking ticket, right, cos of your probation, so if someone's seen you nicking that thing, you – "
"Steven." I'm being serious too, because he is. "If some fella shouted at you it was because you were a kid, and people shout at kids, don't they. I don't know what the law is, if it's a... I dunno, maybe it's some kinda by-law or something, if that. But say someone saw me – which they didn't – they would'a had to follow me and then, what? Tell the police where to find me? They would'a got laughed at, sent away with a flea in their ear."
"Yeah, but – "
"There's no buts. I ain't getting put away for something like that, whatever my licence says. They wouldn't. They'd want to get me for something worse than that. Never gonna happen. Okay?"
He nods. He's got himself rattled though, and he gets over it by getting spiky.
"What even is it anyway?" He looks at the piece of furniture but keeps his distance, frowning like he reckons it's some kind of trick or trap.
"Search me. Just, y'know... I saw it, thought we could – "
"Is it for the plant?" He's changed in a heartbeat. There's unfiltered delight in his face as he looks at me.
"It's what I thought, yeah," I say.
"Here y'are, bring it here." He goes and picks up the plant in its pot beside the balcony door.
"Needs cleaning up a wee bit, y'know, sanding down, before we – "
"We can try it first though, eh, see what it looks like?"
I bring it over and he sets the plant down on top of it.
"Looks alright, does it?" I say.
"Looks really nice. And it'll be easier to see when it wants watering now, won't it, so we're not so likely to..."
"Kill it?" I say automatically.
"Forget it, I was gonna say."
"Okay."
"We've got some sandpaper left from when we decorated the bedroom. You can use that if you're gonna, like..."
"Oh, so it's me that gonna do the hard work, is it?"
He knocks his shoulder against mine. We stand there looking at the thing.
"What's the drawer for?" Steven says.
"Fuck knows. I dunno what the whole of it's for, the table, whatever you'd call it."
"Here, maybe it's for this, eh? Maybe it's like, it's meant to be a plant stand."
"That's a thing is it, a plant stand?"
"Don't know," he says. "I s'pose it is now anyway."
"There you are then."
"You gonna go and have your shower? I'll get the coffee on."
"Yeah, I better."
I start to go, and then he calls after me, "Or we could go out for one, Brendan, eh? Down the cafe."
"Yeah? Good."
:::::::
We've gone down the stairs and he stops at the bottom. As I move past him to open the door he stops me with the back of his hand on my chest and I turn to face him. He steps into my arms and I hold him for a moment, and then we go out.
:::::::
They don't do a full breakfast in this cafe, so we're having toast.
"Sourdough, this toast is," he says. "It's nice, innit."
"Sourdough?"
"Instead of, like, normal yeast, you use this starter, it's called. You can make it out of just normal flour and water, yeah, and you leave it till it gets all sort'a bubbly, which is..." He's searching for his memory of the right term. "Fermented. The bread doesn't rise as fast as normal bread, right, but it's got a different sort of taste."
"You got the know-how."
"I've not made it in years, not since... since the deli. I might try it at work though, eh? Cos it doesn't matter that it takes a long time cos we usually start our bread off the night before anyway."
"Sounds good to me."
"Just something a bit different, see if the punters like it."
We carry on eating our toast and drinking our coffee.
"Soda bread, that's what I remember when I was a kid," I say after a while. "Arán sóide. My ma used to make it, so."
"Your real mum, not Cheryl's?" he says.
I nod. "Just as quick as going to the shop; that's what she said anyways."
"Cos you don't leave it to rise, cos it's bicarb instead of yeast."
"You've made it?"
"No, I just know though."
"Buttermilk, she put in it." I remember catching the drip as it ran down from the spout of the carton; licking it off my finger, and my mother laughing at the face I made; I remember the smell of flour when she stroked her finger down the bridge of my nose. Jesus, I must have been young then, maybe six or seven. No more than seven.
"Bren?"
"How she forgot to buy bread but remembered to buy buttermilk I have no idea. Women, eh?"
I feel him watching me as I finish my toast.
"I'll get us another coffee, eh?" he says, and he turns round and catches the young waitress's eye – which is not difficult given the number of times she's glanced in his direction. "Hiya, alright? Can we have some more coffees please?"
"Sure. Anything else, or just the coffees?"
"Actually we could have some cake now, Brendan, couldn't we, eh?"
"Bit early for me..."
"Oh yeah, as if." He gives me a smile then he says to the waitress, "I'll come and choose."
He goes over to the counter and comes back with a slice of lemon tart (him) and ginger and lime cake (me.)
"New one, is it?" I say.
"Yeah. Is it nice?"
I fork him a mouthful of it.
"Like it?"
He nods. "Everything's nice here."
:::::::
We're walking home.
"I forgot to tell you," he says, "We're skyping on Friday."
"Mm? Who with?"
"Leah and Lucas. Amy's promised, and they won't let her forget anyway, will they."
"Why are we skyping the kids?" I look at him; he doesn't answer, just waits, and then I remember: "Because they're going on holiday on Saturday. Why didn't you remind me when I saw you off with them yesterday?"
"In case you... In case they got upset. Cos they don't like goodbyes, do they."
"No. Okay."
We walk in silence for a while.
"It'll be weird, won't it, not having them at the weekend," he says when we're stopped for a moment looking in a shop window.
"Yeah."
"I might come to the club Saturday night."
"Your sisters are gonna be there, ain't they?"
"That's the next week, Tegan's birthday."
"So it's two weekends we ain't got the kids?"
"No. They're away Saturday to Saturday. So we'll fetch them on the Sunday, the day after they've got home, and take them back on the Monday, so it'll be like a weekend."
"Wanna see if we can keep them till the next day, Steven? Amy might have other ideas, but..."
He smiles, nods. "I'll ask her. Cos they'll be back to school after that, won't they, so it's the last chance for this summer. Anyway she's changed the arrangements for Christmas, so she owes us one, eh."
"We got leverage you mean?"
"Sort of. No, I think she'll be alright about it if I ask."
"I used to have one like that." I indicate a long-sleeved T-shirt in the window display.
"That grey one? Yeah. It looks exactly the same. It's even got them buttons on it like your one had, except you never did them up, did you, cos you like showing your chest off."
"'Showing off'? Don't need to show off, do I. Just more comfortable, ain't it, if..."
"If you say so. So, you gonna buy one then or what?"
"Yeah. Come on."
:::::::
I've taken the plant stand downstairs and outside the building to work on it; rubbed it down with the sandpaper till it looks like new, and brought it back up to the flat.
"Wow. It looks mint."
"Ain't just a pretty face, am I."
We put it in its place with the plant pot on top of it, and then I go and clean the dirt off my hands.
"I know what we can put in that drawer," Steven says when I come back. "You know all the things we can never find? The scissors and, like, sellotape, and pens and that. Cos we always have to nick the kids' ones don't we. So from now on, right, we stick them in the little drawer and we'll know where they are, okay?"
I smile at how pleased he is, and he thinks I'm laughing at him, looks affronted.
"I ain't laughing, Steven. I just like that I've done something right for a change."
"Alright then."
"So d'you wanna go out tonight? A film or dinner or something?"
"You don't have to keep trying to get round me, Brendan."
"I'm not. You told Amy that Monday's our date night. Don't wanna make you out a liar, do I."
"Yeah, well, we don't have to go out. We can get a takeaway and watch a fillum on telly – that'll still count as a date."
"Will it?"
"If Amy asks, yeah."
"And by the way, I did not say fillum."
"Yeah you did. Go on then, what did you say?"
"Said film, didn't I."
"See, you said it again. Fillum." He starts laughing.
"I didn't. I fucking didn't." I go after him and he high-tails it around the sofa, and I catch up with him in the kitchen, get him cornered, and he's still laughing. "I fucking didn't."
"Did."
I kiss him, tongue to tongue, groin to groin. His arms wind around me; I feel the touch of his fingertips at the nape of my neck.
"I know what we can do next weekend when we've not got the kids," he says. His voice murmurs against my lips.
"Yeah? What's that, Steven?"
He raises his gaze from my mouth to my eyes, looks up from under his lashes.
"Paint the front room." He looks smug as fuck for wrongfooting me, and he slides past me and back to the living room, and when I've joined him there he says, "Cos we said we were gonna do it sometime, didn't we."
"Uh huh."
"What d'you think of blue?"
"Same as the bedroom?"
"No. Light blue, like..." He thumbs towards the window: the day's blue sky is still hanging on before it turns to dusk. "I think it'll look nice."
"Okay, yeah, we'll paint it blue." I think for a moment. "Go out next Monday then, if we've got the painting done."
"What d'you want tonight though? Indian? Chinese?"
"Indian, yeah?"
"Right, I'll phone up if I can find the menu thing."
"How about I phone up, and you choose the movie?"
He laughs. "Okay then."
"Or..." I walk towards him. "How about we leave it till later?"
There's a smile of affirmation at the corner of his mouth. I kiss it. We walk to the bedroom.
His T-shirt is tight enough that he has to struggle to take it off; it catches across his face and his elbows and in the seconds it takes before he's free I get a look at his sun-brown body, how it looks impossibly narrow with his arms stretched up like they are and the waist of his track pants hanging low on his hips.
I strip off. He's down to his underwear – white today – and I get to him before he takes it off, and kiss him, and fall with him onto the bed, and we lie face to face, stroking, kissing, breathing. He gets his hand in between us and around my cock. I get my hand down the back of his briefs. After a while he lets go of my cock and gets hold of his own: I feel the fabric stretch tighter across the back of my hand as it accommodates his hand down the front.
"Getting greedy?" I say.
"Fuck me then."
So I remove his hand from his dick and push him onto his back. Get a wrist in each hand, pressed to the bed. I give his nipples a going over with my tongue and my teeth, kiss the fading love-bite on his belly. Breathe hot air through the cotton straining over his crotch. Lick the inside of his thighs where the hairs are sparse, left then right. Wait there, holding my breath so I can hear if he's holding his. He is. So I give him a bite where I licked, and his breath hisses out through his teeth.
I kiss his mouth again. Let him feel the smear of pre-cum where the head of my cock touches his body.
"Feel how hard you got me?"
"Yeah."
"Want it, do you?" I say, and he makes some kind of noise and nods his head, and I kiss him and I say, "Tell me."
"Brendan..."
"Tell me what you want."
"You know though."
"Say it."
"Want you. Wanna get..."
"If you're too shy to say it you're too shy to get it."
"Buggered," he says, and for a second we stare at each other, and I get off him and lie on my back by his side, and we both lie there staring at the ceiling now and laughing, laughing.
It's easy then. I lube him up, and he props his ankles onto my shoulders, and I fill him. The whole time he's looking in my eyes, and there's no hiding place, and he sees who I am like no one else ever could. And when everything falls away and it's just us in the world, he says, I love you.
:::::::
The wariness of the staff wears off during the week. Only Georgiou is a little out of sorts still.
I bring him into a meeting with Maria and Alicia in the office one evening before we get busy, seeing as he's a DJ when he's not a barman. Maybe I'm trying to smooth things over. I don't know. Anyhow we're going through some ideas I've already talked over with Maria for themed nights to try and build up a regular clientele for the main club.
Between us we come up with a list for me to think about, and a rough plan to start off with one themed night a week, adding in a second if it looks like the punters are buying in to the idea after a month or two.
I mention what I discussed with Maria a few weeks back about putting on a live night once a month.
"Maria. Thoughts?"
"Well, same as I said to you before, Brendan, we used to have live acts on sometimes – this was before your time – and it was sometimes good but sometimes it was more trouble than it was worth, all the artists wanting different things, and it took up so much time sometimes. It would be different if we were a bigger venue because we'd pack in the crowds and it would be worth it, but for us, it was a big headache and not always much of a return."
"If it was the same act every month. Less hassle, would it be?"
"Well yeah, I suppose," says Maria.
"A house band d'you mean?" says Georgiou.
"Band, singer, whatever. It's... It was my lad suggested it, my boy Padraig, he's a... Plays the drums, god help us, but apart from that he's into music, so."
"Had a play on the decks when you brought him in, didn't he," says Georgiou.
"Yeah, that's the one. So, worth thinking about, if we could make it work."
We talk around the idea a little longer, until it's time to get back out on the floor for the night's work.
:::::::
I call in to see Steven in the kitchen.
"Alright?" I say.
"Alright, yeah. Been nice and busy so far."
There's still something about being in here, even though we're back on track: I don't know if he thinks about it, but I do. That night of revelations, when his head was fucked with what I'd told him, and we came in here and he laid himself down on the floor, and we fucked off the back of a fight, and I don't even know what it was about. Either he was attempting to exorcise me and Walker from his mind, or to compete with it, or just trying to distract himself with the physical act. I don't know what it was. All I know is it's not a good memory, and it haunts this room.
"Steven..."
"Yeah?"
"Steven..." Then I lose my nerve, change from the subject in my head. "Alicia's sister's a singer, is she?"
"Yeah, I told you that, didn't I, when we was in Brighton."
"Yeah. Only we had a meeting tonight in the office, a planning meeting, and the live music thing came up, and Alicia was sat there but she didn't say anything about her sister, so..."
"Did you ask her?"
"No. Wondered if you'd made it up or got the wrong end of the stick, so no."
"Oi, cheek. I told you, I've seen her on YouTube."
"I'll ask Alicia, then."
"Yeah, you might as well. Then it's up to her if she asks her sister, innit."
Right on cue, Alicia comes in from the bar.
"I was just gonna have my break," she says, "But I can – "
"Brendan was just saying he was gonna talk to you anyway."
"Yeah. Alicia. Steven here, he's been telling me you got a sister who's a singer, is that right?"
"That's right, yeah. What's..?"
"She's taking a break, with her baby is it?"
"She's not worked for a while, no, just being a mum."
"So tell me if there's no point asking, but – "
"Actually, I was gonna have a chat with her tomorrow, after what you were saying before," Alicia says. "I didn't want to say anything in the meeting in case she wouldn't be up for it, but if you think... I mean, shall I sound her out about it?"
"Be my guest. You got a hunch about it, Alicia? If she'd be interested or not?"
"I think she might be, yeah. I know she misses it. I mean, I know for a fact she doesn't want to be flogging it round the circuit any time soon, but a once a month thing in a nice little club, I think it might be worth asking her."
"We'll fix up a meeting if she's interested, see if it suits us both."
"Okay. Thanks, Brendan."
"Good."
I get back to work, leaving them to talk about whatever it is the staff talk about with Steven on their breaks in his kitchen.
:::::::
I'm in the car waiting while he runs back into the supermarket to get something he's forgotten.
My phone rings.
"Well," says Anne, "Thanks very much for getting back to me."
"Excuse me?"
"I phoned you."
"I answered."
"Not now, you wombat. Monday."
"I didn't get a missed call."
"Well it wasn't missed, was it. Ste answered. Did he not tell you?"
"No."
"Oh well then, I'll let you off. Ste's the wombat." Then she drops the Mitzeee tone. "So... How are things?"
"What's he told you, Anne?"
"That you've had a crisis, the two of you. He found out about what happened with you and that Walker."
"I'd be happy if I never heard that name again, it's... That all he said?"
"He told me there was more. Something else you'd done. He didn't say what."
I breathe.
"Was he okay with you, Anne? About you knowing about it before he did?"
"He was actually, yeah. Remarkably."
"He's a remarkable lad."
"I wish you'd warned me though. I didn't know what he knew and what he didn't, not until he told me, so it was a bit awkward at first."
"Sorry, I should'a... It was a rough week."
"He also said he told you some things too. He said you'd both done a lot of talking since the crisis."
"Did he tell you what the things were that he'd told me?"
"No. Just that it was about when you were in prison."
"Yeah."
"I suppose you're not going to tell me either."
"No. Not for me to tell, Anne. Not without his say-so, anyways."
"Fair enough." Then she says, "He seemed worn out with it all, the row and everything. I think that's why he didn't make an issue of me knowing about you sleeping with... he who shall not be named. I mean, he wasn't okay with it exactly, but he just seemed like he couldn't spare the energy over it."
"Him and me both."
"He just wants to get back to normal. That's what he said."
"'Normal'."
"Ha, well, the Brady-Hay version of. One minute it's confessions of dark deeds, the next minute it's all domestic-ified. You've got a house plant, I hear, and a special thing for it to stand on?"
"He told you about that?"
"You were outside doing something to it with sandpaper when I phoned you. To the stand thing, not the plant, obvs."
"Obvs."
"Ste couldn't be prouder if it was a new baby."
"Really? Okay."
"Anyway. You're okay now I hope."
"We're getting there."
"I meant you."
"Me? Yeah. Just... I get, y'know... When I think about what I've got, if I lost it, I just..."
"That's the price you pay for love."
"Is that a line from your next novel or..?"
"I'll write it down in case I want to use it."
I laugh, "Yeah, you do that." Then I see Steven heading my way. "Here comes trouble."
"How d'you mean?"
"Steven."
"Is that what you call him?"
"Among other things."
"I can only imagine," she says, and I picture her raised eyebrow as she says it. "You out and about somewhere, Brendan?"
"I'm in a supermarket car park would you believe. He forgot one thing, now he's coming back with a coupl'a bags full."
"Sounds reasonable to me."
:::::::
I wake up to the smell of coffee.
There are two mugs by the side of the bed. I sit up and pick up one of them: it's hot; he can't have put it here more than a minute or two ago.
The bedroom door opens softly and he comes in, smiles when he sees I'm awake.
"I mean," he says, "There's lie-ins and there's lie-ins. Have you seen what time it is?"
I look at the clock. It's almost half eleven.
"So sue me." I raise my cup. "Thank you for this."
"I was gonna wake you if you didn't wake up by now so you don't miss the whole day. You've got brekkie in bed out of it anyway or it'd be dinner time by the time you're up."
He hands me the tray he's carried in, then scoots round the bed and gets in that side – in his trackies and T-shirt – so as not to knock the tray flying if he'd climbed over me. When he's sat next to me I set it down on my knees and examine what he's brought.
"Is this – ?"
"It's more brunch than brekkie, as it goes."
" – Soda bread?"
"Yeah. Just this minute out of the oven. Try it on its own, just with the butter, so you can tell me if it's how it's meant to taste. Like, before you've had the bacon and beans and that. It's unsalted butter cos I thought you'd get the flavour of the bread better." He's anxious, the way he's chatting on: it matters to him that this is right. "I got the recipe online. It said it's an actual Irish one. Is it – ?"
"It's the bollocks." It is. It's perfect. I don't even know if the taste is the same as the one in my memories or if it's overlaid it, a kind of palimpsest, but this is it now.
"It might not be the exact same recipe that your mum did cos she most likely got hers from her mum, didn't she, like, handed down."
"I think she did, yeah."
"Let's have a bit, then." He helps himself; tears a piece off, scrutinises its texture, then tries it. "Yeah, it's nice, I like it."
He's brought two forks, and the rest of the breakfast is piled onto a dinner plate, enough for the both of us. We dig in, and when we've finished there's bread left so I say, "Fetch the jam, will I?"
"You've gone all Irish. I reckon it's that soda bread that's done it."
"I'm always all Irish." I slide the tray onto his lap, get up, take the empty plate with me and the mugs to top up. I come back with our coffees in one hand and a clean plate with another knife and a jar of jam balanced on it in the other. He takes them from me.
I open the window to the summer air before I get back into bed, and then we eat our fill.
I put the tray down on the floor.
"My ma used to tell me she put in a secret ingredient when she used to make that bread."
"So did it not taste the same then? I wonder what it was that she put in it. You've got flour, that buttermilk, bit of salt, bit of bicarb..."
"Love."
"What?"
I clear my throat. "It's what she said, what she made it with." So it's not a secret no more, I said when she told me. "It did, by the way."
"Eh?"
"Taste the same."
He looks at me for a moment, and then he says, "Well it would do, wouldn't it."
When I kiss him there's sweetness on his lips.
