Screwing the System (24 page)

“I’m having a party at the house next Saturday. Nothing extravagant, informal dress,” he assured Alasdair, although Alasdair knew from a previous dinner party he’d attended there that Roger’s definition of informal was a hell of a lot more swanky than Alasdair’s. “I’d like you to come and meet Boris Gainsborough. He’s just setting up a chain of bistros. There might be a contract in it for you if you play your cards right.”

Alasdair made a noncommittal noise. Saturday night with Roger and his friends no longer sounded as appealing as it used to. Not when he could be spending that time with Cosmo instead. And it was the night after Cosmo’s gig, when he’d planned to spoil him rotten. “I already have a date that night, but thank you for thinking of me.”

“Don’t mention it, old chap. But really, it’s not a problem. Just bring your date with you. Tori keeps bothering me about when she’s going to meet one of your girlfriends.”

Alasdair’s heart sank. “I’m not sure I can change my plans at this short notice.”

“Oh, come on, Ali. You only need show up for an hour or so. Just help me keep the wife happy, please?”

“Okay, well, I’ll see what I can do.”

After Roger hung up, Alasdair stared at his phone. He should have said no. Should have said his date wouldn’t be interested. He could still duck out or could call an escort agency and arrange a girl to hang on his arm for the party, but the thought made his throat constrict. No, maintaining a tactful silence on his sexuality was one thing, but actively pretending to be heterosexual was another matter entirely.

He could take Cosmo. Alasdair rolled the idea around, looking at it from all different sides. Imagining the expression on Roger’s face when they met. It might be worth it, almost for that, but would it be fair on Cosmo? If the lad had no experience of Roger’s social strata, he’d be exposing him to all sorts of ridicule. Alasdair had felt the digs directed at him plenty of times, even though they came dressed up as polite enquiries about his background. He could brush them off easily enough, didn’t bother him, but Cosmo was sensitive. He felt deeply.

Could Alasdair do that to him?

But he wanted to show Cosmo just how much he meant to him, and introducing him to people as his boyfriend was another step on the path to proving his commitment in a way Cosmo could understand. A way that went beyond ropes and sex and spankings.

Alasdair eventually put his phone back on the desk and headed up to the shower, and a hopefully wet and naked Cosmo.

A decision could wait until he’d met Cosmo’s nan and seen a bit more of what he was dealing with here. He still had the best part of a week to figure it out, didn’t he?

By the afternoon, the rain had really set in, but Alasdair happily relinquished his comfortable armchair for the prospect of their drive out to meet the mysterious Sylvia. Cosmo kept uncharacteristically quiet on the journey, barely responding to Alasdair’s observations on the weather.

Even though the rain slowed them down, they were only ten minutes late by the time they turned into Sylvia’s road.

“This is the house,” Cosmo said, pointing, even as Alasdair’s sat nav told him he’d reached his destination. Alasdair pulled up outside the tiny, terraced house and gave it the once-over. It really wasn’t as bad as he’d been expecting. From Cosmo’s warnings about his nan being a bit of a hoarder, he’d been half expecting some kind of front garden piled high with detritus like you sometimes saw on those awful TV programs. Instead, there was a plastic tub filled with red and yellow tulips sitting outside the front door and a window with lacy curtains cinched up at the bottom to reveal a row of pewter dragon figurines. A wind chime hung by the front door, but there wasn’t enough wind to stir it into voice.

“Looks nice enough,” he said. “This is where you grew up, was it?” He glanced up and down the street as he got out of the car and extended his umbrella. Although the area was obviously working class and weeds grew up between cracked paving slabs in many of the tiny front gardens, it wasn’t as rundown as some of the roads they’d driven down to reach it.

“Yeah. This is where I’m from.” Cosmo looked at his shoes and scuffed them against the low wall. “It’s a world away from your background, isn’t it?”

“You’d be surprised. I didn’t always have the big house, you know. I might have grown up on the other side of town, but it was one of the cheaper neighbourhoods. Not a great deal different to this one. And it wasn’t even a house. It was a flat over a shop.”

“You’re only saying that to make me feel better,” Cosmo said, but he didn’t sound sure of himself.

“I’m saying that because it’s true. I’ve never once lied to you. You have to trust me on that.” Alasdair stepped closer and was about to tilt Cosmo’s chin up so he’d make eye contact, but Cosmo stepped back and scanned the street warily. Okay, so no public displays of affection out here.

“Come on, let’s see Nan,” Cosmo said and stepped around Alasdair to knock on the door.

A short, pink-haired woman with a cigarette smouldering between her lips answered the door. Alasdair’s memory stirred. Where had he seen her before? Shit, he hoped he hadn’t turned her down at a job interview in the past.

“Cosmo, love, you brought your big bad boyfriend, did you? Bless, I never thought I’d see the day. Now come on inside before you drown.”

They both trailed inside, and Alasdair watched as Cosmo was enveloped in a fierce hug. Even though he protested with a “Nan! You’re squashing me,” when he turned back to Alasdair, there was a proud yet defiant smile on his face.

“Nan, this is Alasdair Grant. He’s the one I told you about.”

“Of course he is. My memory’s not that far gone, love. Sylvia Rawlins,” she said, thrusting out her hand and giving Alasdair a surprisingly firm handshake. “Since Cosmo seems to have forgotten his manners. Honestly. I hope he behaves himself better at your place. Never could train him to pick up after himself.”

“Come off it. That was years ago. I’m a reformed character.”

“You just keep telling yourself that, munchkin.”

Alasdair watched her smile fondly at her grandson, and it hit him. She was the woman from Roger’s hotel, the outgoing one he’d seen entertaining a group of her colleagues on a cigarette break. No doubt about it. The pink hair could have just been coincidence, but the moment she smiled, it sealed it. He remembered noticing her smile then, how much it had been like Cosmo’s generous grin. And Cosmo had told him she was a cleaner, hadn’t he? Of all the rotten fucking luck, that she had to be one of the ones he was about to put out of a job.

Still, maybe she hated her job. Maybe she’d be glad of a redundancy payment and take early retirement or something. Just how old was she, anyway? There were laughter lines around her eyes, but she held herself like a younger woman.

“I’ll go get the kettle on,” Sylvia was saying. “I’ve got Mr. Kipling’s Fondant Fancies in.”

“Nice one,” Cosmo said, making Alasdair smile. Yep, he should have known those sweet and sickly cakes would be a favourite of his. He’d have to order some in on his next Waitrose delivery. Did they even stock them, though?

“How d’you take your tea, love?” Sylvia asked him as he ducked under the mirrored and embroidered
thing
hanging down over the front door.

“However it comes, thanks.”

“Ooh, you must have a preference, though. I’d put you down as a builder’s brew strength, light on the milk, no sugar.”

“Sounds perfect.”

“I knew it.” Sylvia cackled as she bustled off into the adjoining room. Alasdair looked around, taking it all in. They’d entered straight from the street into the living room, but what a room. Every spare surface was covered in figurines, and when he took a closer look at the ones on the corner shelf next to him, he realised they were all dragons, elves, fairies and the like. What’s more, there were a huge amount of surfaces to cover, despite the size of the room. Shelves lined most of the walls, except for the far side of the room where a narrow open staircase led to the upper floor, and that wall was dotted with brightly coloured plates interspersed with framed snapshots, an incongruous mix of smiling people in pubs, what was unmistakably the young Cosmo, and professional pictures of a rather busty model in suggestive poses. A relative or a pinup? Alasdair had a hard time picturing Cosmo’s nan a lesbian, but then again, you never could tell by appearances. He was a case in point himself.

“I warned you,” Cosmo said, interrupting Alasdair’s scrutiny of the strangely familiar-looking model. “She never saw an ornament she could resist buying.”

“I don’t know. I don’t see any dogs or cats anywhere.”

“They’re in the bedrooms. Seaside-related tat in the bathroom, and farmyard animals in the kitchen, for some reason.”

“Ah. I see.” A smile began pulling at Alasdair’s lips. “I like it.”

Cosmo gave him the world’s most sceptical stare.

“I do. I know my place is pretty minimal, but that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate a more, er,
busy
aesthetic.”

Cosmo raised his eyebrows, but he seemed somewhat mollified by Alasdair’s words, and Alasdair was pleased to see him stand a little taller.

When Sylvia entered again with a tray of tea things and a kitsch cottage-shaped teapot, Alasdair sat in the armchair she indicated.

“So, how did you two meet?” Sylvia asked as she poured him a cup of industrial-strength tea.

“Nan, I already told you all about the interview.”

“I know, but I want to hear Alasdair’s version of events. I’ve no doubt it’s different to yours.” She gave Alasdair a wink. “My Cosmo doesn’t lie, exactly, but he’s been known to confuse fantasy and reality on occasion.”

Alasdair glanced at Cosmo and did a double take. Was he blushing? Wow. That must be some memory. Maybe he could get it out of Cosmo later, if he buttered him up really nicely.

But for now, Alasdair concentrated on charming Sylvia. It wasn’t a chore, as she was the kind of plain-spoken woman he’d always got on well with. She was like a more hippy version of Mavis. In fact, the two of them would get on well together. Perhaps Sylvia would be interested in coming to work for him. Perhaps he could even head-hunt her before she was fired. Win-win, all round.

Sylvia listened to Alasdair’s heavily edited account of the job interview with dimples in her cheeks. When he reached the end, she gave him an appraising stare. “Now I know that’s not the full story from the way Cosmo’s squirming, but maybe that’s as much as I need to know.”

Alasdair had been aware of Cosmo fidgeting all the way through his account, but now he turned to see him blushing again.

“I think it’s probably enough, yes. I don’t want to spill all Cosmo’s secrets.”

“Secrets? The boy’s an open book. Never managed to keep a secret in his life, I tell you. Way too honest for this wicked world. I used to worry about him. I still do, truth be told.”

“I am here, you know.”

She waved off Cosmo’s objections. “I just want Alasdair to understand.” She leant forward to place a hand on Cosmo’s knee but spoke directly to Alasdair. “I know he says he can look after himself, but I’ll always remember that day he was fourteen and I got back from work to find his face in a mess. Had to drag him to hospital in the end so he could get stitches, and eventually he told me he’d been in a fight with some of the lads from school. That was how he got his tooth chipped, you know? And those scars on his chin. The eyebrow was another time. I couldn’t understand what he’d been fighting about at first, because he was always a dreamy boy. Deep, not aggressive. Then I found out they were bloody gay-bashers.” Sylvia’s expression turned fierce. “And social services had the cheek to be telling me I could be prosecuted for not sending him to school. We said we were home educating after that, didn’t we, love?”

Cosmo nodded and shot Alasdair a nervous glance. So this was what he’d been afraid of Alasdair finding out, was it?

“It sounds like you’ve done a wonderful job of raising him,” he said, his eyes on Cosmo’s, seeking to reassure.

After that, it was easier, and Cosmo visibly relaxed, rolling a cigarette and asking Sylvia about her plans for the summer and getting the gossip on all the neighbours. Alasdair was grateful for the neutral ground, and when the time came to leave, he took one look at Sylvia’s outstretched hand and pulled her into a hug instead.

“Oh bless. He is a big softie after all, just like you said.”

“Cosmo said that?” Alasdair asked, amused to see Cosmo’s face flush again. “I’m not.”

“Oh, but you are. Of course you are. He wouldn’t be with you otherwise.”

They took their leave, but as Alasdair unlocked the car, Sylvia opened her front door again. “By the way, love, I spoke to your mum the other day. She said to pass on her love.”

“Yeah, right,” Cosmo muttered, his face twisting like he’d just sucked on a lemon.

“Oh, come on. You’ve got to give her a chance. She does care about you, you know.”

“She’s got a funny way of showing it.”

Alasdair stared as Cosmo slammed the car door behind him, and looked to Sylvia for an explanation. “His mum?”

Sylvia’s face shuttered down. “You’ll have to ask Cosmo. It’s his story to tell.”

Alasdair didn’t say a word about it as he got into the car and respected Cosmo’s sulk, even if he was slouching and chewing his thumb ragged. The silence stretched out until they reached the outskirts of town.