The Beard (37 page)

“What are you doing there?” Tom hissed at Adam.

Adam walked briskly to the door, then opened it. “I was going to the front door to get out, but it was bloody well locked. It was pitch black and I couldn’t find the key – then I heard you coming. I thought you’d go into the lounge, so I hid in here. That’s all.”

“Oh,” came Tom’s reply.

“Aunt Judith has a lump?” he said, oblivious to the reality around him.

Tom looked back at Adam with kindness and embarrassment. It was one thing to blab to the husband, but to the cousin as well… “That’s what Amy says,” he shrugged. “Look, we don’t know, it’s probably nothing. Now, look,” Tom whispered, meeting Adam at the door, “you have to get going. He’ll be back soon.” At that moment, voices were heard from within the bowels of the house. “Quick, go,” said Tom, “they’re coming!”

“I’ll go into the lounge, then go back to the wedding. See you later,” said Adam, with a cheeky, quick kiss for his trip. With that, he fled and Tom returned to his seat. The voices drew nearer and louder, and Tom was sure that they came from more than just Richard and Judith.

The door opened and Richard appeared. “Come, Tom, we’ll go into the lounge.” Tom sighed and rolled his eyes, before grabbing the bottle as he walked towards the door.

Entering the living room, Tom saw Amy and her mother looking somewhat bedraggled. His eyes darted furiously around the room to spot Adam, but he couldn’t. 

“I’m not in the business of pointing fingers,” Richard opined, “but I do want some answers. Tom here has just told me that he and Amy were never once boyfriend and girlfriend, and that he pretended to be her partner to keep us happy. Is this true, Amy?”

Amy looked at Tom in part fury, part relief. She looked at her parents in turn and then, with a bow of her head, sighed, “Yes, it’s true. Sorry.”

Judith stared in shock at her daughter, amazed at what she’d just learned. “WHAT?” she shouted. “You’ve been lying to us all this time? Lying to us? Why, Amy? What have we done to you to make you
hate us like this?”

Both Tom and Amy felt duly chastened and contrite. Their immature and impish game had created more than a handful of casualties, primary among which were Amy’s parents. Judith looked at Amy in horror and at Tom with confusion. “Why?” she continued to ask with a croak in her voice.

“I’m so glad you asked that, dear,” said Richard, building up to his climax. “Why, Tom?”

Tom looked up as everyone looked at him. He hadn’t betrayed a confidence, rather inadvertently revealed something. As such, he felt it unfair to be made to feel like he was the chief culprit. “I’d rather not say,” he said, slightly irritated at his predicament.

“Luckily, I know exactly why,” Richard declared with a pompous, sweeping hand gesture. “It’s because of your ‘cancer’, my dear. The lump you have.” It was Judith’s turn to feel the force of everyone’s attention. “The lump that we found out weeks ago was nothing more than a harmless cyst.”

Amy spun around to her mother. “You knew it was fine and yet you lied to me? You made me believe t
hat you might have cancer! What? Why? I mean… did you make me think you might be dying just so that I’d bring a man home?”

Judith was in no mood for lectures. “You’re not going to talk to me about deception, are you, my dear?”

The fury swilling around in Amy was palpable. The exhaustion and the toil of the day had finally taken their toll. She wasn’t going to let this one go. “I lied because of you. I lied for you. I lied to make you happy. What’s your reason?”

Judith looked stung by the verbal volley and stunned by the ferocity of the comment. “I just forgot to tell you,” she said unconvincingly.

“No, you bloody well didn’t,” was Amy’s immediate riposte. “You deliberately told me about that lump, and how you wanted to leave this world knowing that I was happy. You shovelled a shit-load of emotional blackmail onto me, and for what? For what, mother?”

“My dear girl,”
came Judith’s withering opener, “I was aware of your so-called relationship with this man before I told you about that lump. So what was that about, then? Hmm? Did you retrospectively engineer him for my benefit?”

Tom was aware that he was now just “that man”, rather than one with a name. He looked up at Richard, who looked back as if to say, “Fight!”

“Yes, I lied to you,” spat Amy. “We lied to you. Yes, we said we were going out, but that was to keep you off my back. All the time, nag, nag, nag – you never stop. I asked Tom to help me out because he could tell what toll it was having on my life, my health. Then, when you rolled out this made-up lump and we were bloody well stuck together…”

Again, Richard looked at Tom, raising his eyebrows as if to say, “That’s gratitude for everything you’ve done for her.”

“So, yeah, we lied,” Amy continued. “But if you weren’t such a controlling, manipulative and emotional blackmailer, none of this would’ve happened.”

Judith fell into a chair and started crying. No one went to her aid, as it was evidently a tactic to wrong-foot her emotionally charged family. She was aware within seconds that it had failed. Even if the room had believed the display, everyone was too angry to comfort her.

“I cannot believe you made me think you had CANCER!” Amy shouted, almost at full pelt. “Just because you wanted me to come here with a man. What a scheming witch you are, mother!”

Richard was beginning to wonder what nature of genie he’d uncorked. The tension of the day was certainly fuelling the level of emotion, but the depth of anger at blatant deception was real enough. “Calm down,” he said to his daughter, who looked anything but calm. “Judith, your daughter deserves an apology. We all do.” 

Judith continued to sob, pretending to miss the calls for her contrition.

“Fair enough, mother,” Amy declared. “We’ll be going home tomorrow and that’s the last you’ll see of me.”

It was largely an empty threat but at the time, Amy meant it. And she meant it with some savagery.

“Look, everyone just sit down. Just sit down NOW!” This time, the vocal explosion came from Tom. The three family members looked up in shock. Judith couldn’t pretend not to hear that. Tom looked like he was close to the edge. The edge of what, no one knew. “Sit down,” he repeated. Amy did as she was bid, Richard looked on in shock. “Please?” Tom added. Richard followed and sunk into hi
s chair. “Today has been a large dollop of shit,” Tom said, opening with some passion, if not linguistic flurry. “But it isn’t going to end like that. Judith, you’re out of line. You shouldn’t have lied. Your daughter loves you and has been in tears many nights because of that news. So, you were totally out of order and you owe her an apology.”

Judith raised her head. What could she do? For all her stubborn character and guile, the simple truth was that she’d been outrageous. She had no desire to apologise after the day they’d had, but she couldn’t deny that she was, in a tiny part at least, complicit in the mess.  So, without looking at anyone, she offered an apology. “Sorry,” she mumbled sheepishly. Richard looked at Tom with wide and admiring eyes.

“Amy,” Tom continued, “you shouldn’t have lied about us. I know why we both did and I know that we’re both wrong and in this together. So, for my part – Richard, Judith, I offer my apologies. I’m sorry for the hurt and confusion that we caused. It doesn’t look like it now, but we were trying to avoid pain and heartache.” In turn, Amy also looked up and offered the room an apology. Tom remained in command. “I know that this weekend has been surreal, but one thing is blindingly obvious – deception is no good for anyone. Look at what it’s done to all of us today.”

Richard remained agog. This was more than a rant, it was an awe-inspiring speech, he thought. He looked up, the two women looked down.

The door pushed open and Tom’s parents appeared in the doorway. “Sorry to interrupt,” said Michael, “but we’re off to bed now. Thank you for all your hospitality. It’s been very much appreciated.”

Richard, still dumbstruck, just nodded.

“Mum, Dad, do you have a minute? I want to tell you something,” asserted Tom. His parents wandered slowly into the room, sensing the tension and anticipation within. “I just wanted you to know that Amy isn’t my girlfriend. I pretended to be her boyfriend to keep her parents happy, and she pretended to be my girlfriend to keep you and the guys at work happy. I’m sorry I lied to you; I should’ve just been honest. I feel awful about it. We thought we could prevent people from getting hurt. We thought that if we said we were a couple, it would please everyone and give us enough time to find someone real in our lives. But instead of doing that, we’ve done the exact opposite. We’ve made everything worse and hurt the people we love. So I’m massively, truly, massively sorry.”

A silence followed, as Michael and Sheila looked at one another.

“So this is where the party’s at!” said Ash, breezing into the room, clutching a cocktail decorated with assorted feathers and sparklers. “I was beginning to wonder!” He looked around at the macabre expressions on view. “Sorry, should I go?” he asked in a rare moment of consideration. “This looks like a family matter.”

No one spoke. The room had a motionless quality to it, as the occupants posed like statues, preserved for posterity by the chill draft of a confounding confession. “No, it’s fine,” Richard managed as the silence grew difficult. “We’re done now,” he added, slowly standing up. Then, looking at Tom, as if in the presence of a revelation, he clicked his fingers. “That explains why the two of you never kissed!” Tom and Amy looked at each other and then at Richard. “I just thought it was because of this Sam business. Why else would a handsome new couple behave like strangers, with no kisses or cuddles? I thought it was because you knew about Sam; I didn’t think it was that. Well, at least we know now!”

Ash let out a significant sigh. “Oh, thank God for that. That’s well overdue.”

“Ash!” said Tom in desperation.

“Of course they never kissed,” continued Ash. “What gay man wants to kiss a girl? No offence, dear,” he said, looking at Amy. “But when you see him with his new hubby – oo-la-la!”

Tom closed his eyes and bit his lip. He felt his body slump and sink into the ground as his faculties shut down.

“Ooops,” said Ash, as the room fell into a chasm of the most uncomfortable and awkward silence.

“What does he mean by that?” Tom’s mother asked. “I did hear correctly, didn’t I?”

Tom raced through a million different answers he could give. Was now the time? While it wasn’t exactly how he’d imagined or wanted, it was the ultimate opportunity to come out.

“Ash, stop it, they’ll believe you if you’re not careful!” he said in an over-zealous way. No one moved or spoke. The silence that followed indicated just how clumsy and embarrassing Tom’s defence had been. Had he not shouted at Ash to prevent him from revealing his secret, a defence might’ve had some credence. Now, however, it didn’t. Neither did he. It was evident that the genie was out of the bottle and no amount of shoving was going to push it back in.

“I think it’s time we went to bed,” said Judith, rising and walking towards the door, past her husband, who remained motionless. “Come along, dear. Amy, you too.” Her quest to leave the room was marked as much by respect for her guests as it was desperation.

Tom realised that whatever he wanted to do, whatever he hoped to do, was now at an end. After an extraordinary day, with drug cartels, police stations, press helicopters and a wedding thrown into the bargain, it seemed oddly fitting to be outed in front of family, friends and complete strangers.

Everyone in the room had heard clearly and understood exactly what was going on. Yet the magnitude and the resonance of the meaning had yet to sink in. They all remained in place, with only Judith trying to ferry family members out.

“Are you gay?” Tom’s father asked, looking directly at his son. Judith shuddered to a stop. Like a classroom ruler being flipped on a desk, she shook from side to side in shock. Michael was now looking directly at his son. Despite not wanting to, everyone waited silently for the answer. Some looked at the floor, others the wall, but Tom’s father was looking in one place only.

Tom had only two options left – lie or tell the truth. He could invent a wild and impassioned defence of his sexuality. He could declare that he’d only joked to Ash about a fleeting feeling once, and that Ash had extravagantly exaggerated the point. He could then marry the next girl he met and proceed to have children.

Or he could tell the truth.

The time it took for him to make a decision seemed to last an eternity, and the stare from his father shot through him like a red-hot poker. In revealing the truth, not only would he be doing something so shocking that it could damage his family forever, but he’d be doing so in front of a room full of strangers.

Michael continued to stare, as Tom’s hesitation in replying began to answer the question for him. He had to speak. He had to say something.

“Yes, I am. Ash is right. I’m gay.”

“Yes!” shouted Ash, as if he expected everyone else to join in, slapping Tom’s back and hugging.

Judith and Richard immediately looked at Tom’s mother. Michael nodded.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner,” Tom managed by means of contrition. “I should’ve.”