When Jimmy awoke the next morning, the sun was too bright, and the shadows were wrong; he must have slept late. Beyond that, his head was full of buzzing. His neck ached. His eyes hurt. And he had an overwhelming sense of gloom.
He rolled away from the wall and lay flat on his front. His stomach hurt. The floor smelled of wood and dust. Jimmy stared at the dust motes dancing in the air, slow and lethargic. He felt his heart rate slow as he watched the floating specks in the sunlight.
Noise. Knocking on the door. Someone shouting. Door being pushed.
Dust floating, tumbling over and around each other in a slow-motion waltz. Beautiful. Spinning in the sunlight.
Knocking. Distantly: "James? … If you don't open this door, I'm going to come in." Lovely silence for a few seconds, then rattling noise (key in lock?), door opened. "James, what on earth are you doing on the floor?"
Jimmy turned his head to lay his other cheek on the floor, and looked at Mr Carson's shoes.
"Are you ill?"
Jimmy blinked.
"Because if you are not ill, I would expect a full explanation of why you did not come downstairs to serve breakfast." Mr Carson stared at him. Jimmy waited for him to say something else. After a moment, Mr Carson drew himself up; he seemed angry. "Might I suggest you get dressed and take yourself downstairs immediately. There is work to be done. You can start with cleaning the boots."
Jimmy pushed himself laboriously off the floor, and stood opposite Mr Carson, waiting for him to move.
"I won't dismiss you, James, because you come with good references and until today you've caused no more trouble than any other footman we've had. But I have to say I have yet to see how you have earned those references." Mr Carson turned his back and Jimmy followed him down the stairs.
On his way to the boot room, Jimmy passed Anna.
"Jimmy - are you quite well?" she asked, trying to look in his eyes.
Jimmy nodded, keeping his gaze on her shoulder.
"Mr Barrow looked tired this morning as well. I hope there isn't something going round." She leaned a little closer and added conspiratorially: "I think he might have snapped at Alfred this morning; Alfred keeps glaring at him. Mr Carson can't get to the bottom of it and you know how he hates that."
Jimmy nodded again, and Anna stepped away, smiled briefly, and continued on her way. Jimmy went into the boot room and set about his duties, lining up the shoes to be cleaned and starting the process by giving the first pair of boots a rub with the stiff brush.
He loved polishing shoes. It wasn't too bright in here, and the polish was clean and pungent, and by the end he would have a pile of beautifully kept and functional shoes. Jimmy fell into the rhythm of it effortlessly, his whole mind focused on the task.
Mr Barrow came to the door after a while. "I won't be long," he said immediately. "And I won't come in. I came to fetch you for lunch. An'… I wanted to say I'm sorry. For the… misunderstanding. And I won't do it again."
You made everything wrong, Jimmy thought. I thought I knew you and you weren't supposed to do that. And now I don't know anyone else either, and it's really scary.
He hadn't known two men could do that either, so now he had to find a whole new understanding of what kissing meant, and what relationships were.
"Can you forgive me?" Mr Barrow said more quietly. After a few moments of Jimmy's silence he shifted and added: "Will you tell anyone?"
Jimmy shook his head.
Mr Barrow smiled a little. "Thank you, Jimmy. Now come on, it's lunchtime."
"Aren't you going to tell anyone?" Alfred hissed to Jimmy later, when Jimmy was back in the boot room shining His Lordship's best hunting boots. His arms were beginning to ache.
"No."
"They might think you wanted him to do it," Alfred said, sitting on the table. "Anyone might."
"But I didn't want it."
"I know that, I saw how you reacted when he did it. People might think it though, if you stay silent."
Jimmy thought about it for a moment. "Only me and you and Mr Barrow know. So they won't think anything. Because they don't know anything."
"What if I told them?"
Jimmy frowned at the boot he was polishing. Alfred was making no sense. "Why?"
"Well… it's against the law, ain't it? Don't want to stand idly by while this sort of thing goes on. To think, he's been here so long and we never knew."
"If you didn't know, does it matter? He's done no harm to anyone," Jimmy said.
Alfred was quiet for a while. "Maybe. My aunt knows something's up though, and I don't know what to tell her."
"Anna thinks Mr Barrow snapped at you and that's why you're glaring at him."
"You mean you want me to lie for him? A man like that and you want me to lie for him? We can't let him hurt people like he did you."
"He didn't hurt me," Jimmy said. "Don't make it big, Alfred. Just let us all forget about it. I just want to not have to think about it."
"All right, Jimmy," Alfred said at last.
At that point, Mr Barrow came to the door.
"Ah - Jimmy, Mr Carson wants you so he can show you which silverware to lay for tomorrow." He nodded curtly at them both and made to leave.
"He doesn't want you near him," Alfred interrupted, and Mr Barrow stopped dead, his back to them still. "We… aren't going to tell anyone what you did. I'm going to tell my aunt that you and I had a difference of opinion; she doesn't have to know it's about Jimmy. But you have to stay away from him now."
Jimmy saw Mr Barrow nod once. "Very well," he said quietly. He half-turned to glance at them both briefly, almost furtively. "Thank you," he whispered, and left.
Mr Barrow was different after that. He and Jimmy never spoke in a room on their own, unless it was for one of them to deliver the briefest of instructions to the other, and Mr Barrow was always careful to keep a good distance between the two of them. Jimmy rather liked how he had changed; there was no chance of him unexpectedly reaching out to pat him on the arm as Mrs Patmore sometimes did, and he rarely spoke of trivial things which Jimmy did not understand the point of. He never quite trusted the change, though, and tried to keep his distance. Sometimes, though, he noticed that Mr Barrow seemed sad for no apparent reason.