The Bones of Summer (13 page)
“Your water, Daniel.”
The sound of her voice made him jump and he dropped the paper he'd been holding. It slid off the table and he bent to retrieve it. “I was just ... I didn't mean to....”
When she didn't say anything, he trailed off and took the glass she handed him. Maybe it was best if he simply shut up. Already they seemed to have moved way beyond any meaningless social niceties. But there was so much Craig wanted to know and he had no idea how or where to start. This was impossible. Maybe he should never have come. Heart beating fast, he sipped at the water. A single lemon slice floated at the top and bumped his nose. He wanted to sneeze, but managed to hold it back.
“Why don't you sit down?” she said, waving her hand at the sofa. It was covered with a deep brown throw that contrasted with her pale carpet. With children, he imagined that must be hard to keep clean. But, hell, what did he know? He sat, unsaid words crowding his throat.
He couldn't keep them inside anymore.
“Michael's missing then?” he said, clutching the glass of water until his fingers ached and staring at Mrs. Langley's carpet. “I didn't know that. I saw it on the computer. He's been missing since ... since I knew him? I don't understand. I thought he'd come back to London. After he left Devon. There was nothing else he could have done. I don't understand where he could have gone. Why he would want to even.
I don't understand
.”
With his last sentence, Craig thumped the glass down on the table, sat back on the sofa and, breathing quickly, lifted his eyes to stare at his companion.
She was crying. Sitting, ramrod-straight in the chair opposite, with her hands folded together in her lap, and crying. She made no effort to cover up her tears, which were sliding one by one down her cheeks. It was almost as if she didn't realize this was happening or that, even after so many years, crying was so familiar that she no longer made an effort to wipe the tears away.
Craig grabbed a tissue from the box under the table and offered it to her. She took it but didn't use it to wipe her face, simply crushing it over and over in her hands.
“Please,” he said. “Please, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have come. It was stupid. And I shouldn't have said what I did. It's not ... it's not my story really, is it? Not anymore. He's your brother. You've known him for a lifetime. All I had was a week. Seven years back. I don't know what's wrong with me. I'll go.”
“No,
don't
.” With unexpected strength she grabbed Craig's wrist. “Don't go. I don't want you to. I want you to stay and listen. Will you?”
Wordless now, he nodded. As she spoke, he stayed kneeling at her side, still imprisoned in her grip.
“I loved him, my brother,” she said. “We weren't always close, not when we were growing up, even though he was only two years younger than me. But later, when we'd both left home and were working, things were a lot easier. I always knew he was gay. Though he never said. It didn't matter. I just wanted him to be happy. Then when he met Peter, things were good for a while. I liked Peter. We got on fine, the four of us. Michael and Peter, Jack—my husband—and I. Sometimes we'd even go to the opera together, even though Jack's not that keen.”
“Michael loves the opera,” he interrupted, forgetting her command to listen. “He told me. It was one of the things he mentioned.”
Mrs. Langley nodded and her face softened. “Yes. He did love it. The most of all four of us. Mozart was his favorite.”
Craig hadn't known that. It felt as if he was being given a small treasure. Something to cling to. “Go on.”
Her face darkened. He thought she might cry again, but she didn't.
“Things became difficult with Peter,” she said. “I could see it. It got worse over a period of time, and then when the split finally came, it devastated Michael. He wanted to leave everything. Give up his job, his house, move away from London. Everything. I tried to persuade him not to, but he wouldn't listen. I mean, what did he think he would do? He loved the city; his job was a good one. I didn't see why just because he'd lost his partner, it had to mean that he'd give up everything he'd worked for. I went on talking to him, trying to make him see sense. And in the end he said he needed a holiday, time to think. That was the last time I saw him—the night before he left. He came round. We argued. Some of his holiday was unpaid leave and I didn't like the sound of that. I thought he was being stupid and I told him so, and we argued. Then he left. A week later, the two cards arrived. The ones with your name on. And then, nothing. Perhaps I wasn't sympathetic enough, I don't know. Perhaps that was why he went missing. Why he disappeared. And all these years. It's been ... I ... I couldn't help hoping that you might have seen him after the holiday, that you might know something else, Daniel. But you don't, do you? I can see it in your eyes. You don't know anything.”
Craig had nothing to say to that. She was right. He knew nothing. He'd come here hoping for answers to some of the puzzle of his past, but all he'd done was stir up trouble for someone else. Someone he didn't even know and hadn't heard of until now. As Mrs. Langley continued to sit there, intent on her own memories, he eased himself from her grip and headed in the direction of what he assumed to be the kitchen. She didn't appear to notice. He turned out to be right. It was the kitchen. Pretty big too. You could probably have put the whole of his own flat in it. And still have room for the luggage. Honestly, he really had to stop cracking jokes in his head when things were tough. One day, he'd say something aloud and be in real trouble. Still, it bloody well got him by, didn't it? So maybe he shouldn't be knocking it.
Back in the real world, Craig had to open a couple of cupboards before he found a glass, which he filled with water and took back to Mrs. Langley. She drank it in two gulps and then blinked up at him, as if not quite sure who he was or what he might be doing here.
“Thank you,” she said. “I'm not being the best hostess, am I?”
He shrugged and sat down once more opposite her. “I'm not sure the usual rules apply here, do they? I turn up asking about your brother when he disappeared seven years ago, and you have no real idea who I am. I'm not expecting the red-carpet treatment. I'm just glad you let me in at all.”
She smiled. “When you said who you were on the phone, I had to see you. I imagined ... well, you know what I imagined. I was being stupid. And then when I saw you, I could tell what you were thinking, about how alike Michael and I are. I could tell you'd known him. All these years and we've never been able to track down a Daniel Clutton. Not the one we wanted to anyway. And we did try. After the police gave up, we hired a private detective. He went all over Devon, asking questions, but nothing ever came of it. I was pregnant by then too, with my eldest, and that didn't help either.”
“I'd changed my name,” Craig said. “I suppose it made things difficult.”
Though in his heart he thought that Paul could have found him. He wasn't the sort who easily let anything go.
“I suppose so,” Mrs. Langley replied. “So why did you change it then?”
Hesitating, Craig wondered how much to tell her of what had happened, but then thought that she probably deserved as much of it as would be relevant. So he told her what he'd told Paul. About how he'd met Michael. Their short-lived relationship. And how it had ended and he'd left home. Of course he didn't tell her exactly the same facts as he'd told Paul, but only those she'd want to know about. Gay Rule Number Ten:
Remember that other people's boundaries aren't the same as yours, especially if they're not gay themselves.
This time, he made sure he stuck to it.
When he'd finished, she gazed at him. “How old were you then, when you met my brother?”
Craig felt his face redden again. “Seventeen. I was taking A levels, but I never got to finish them.”
“I see. And Michael was—”
“Thirty-one,” he finished the sentence for her. “I know. But please, Mrs. Langley, it wasn't like that. I
wanted
him to ... well ... be with me. The age difference didn't seem to matter and he never ... he never took advantage. If anything, it was the other way round, I swear it.”
Realizing how young and naïve he sounded even in saying those words, Craig stumbled to a halt. But Mrs. Langley leaned over and patted him on the knee.
“It's all right,” she said. “I understand. And, by the way, why don't you call me Eva?”
They talked for a while after that. About Michael's friends. His lifestyle. Why he might have decided to disappear. Craig couldn't credit that it would simply be because of a quarrel with his sister and after his father's discovery of what the two of them had been up to. It wasn't the action of the man he'd known. And he told Mrs. Langley—Eva—as much. After about half an hour, he heard the noise of the front door opening, and the next moment the living room was full of the noise of screaming children launched from the arms of an older woman who was obviously, even at first glance, Jack's mother.
Eva stood up just before being overwhelmed by the onslaught of her children. The keepers of the toys. When they'd been persuaded to calm down—a process that took at least five minutes and that required the firm hand of their father—Craig realized that there were in fact only two of them. Though, to him, it seemed more like twenty-two. One a small boy with dark hair and a ready smile, and the other a taller, blonde girl. The image of her father. The girl was called Ruth, age six. And the boy Michael. He was only three. Craig blinked when Eva told him this and couldn't help his response.
“Is that because...?”
“Yes.” It was Jack who answered, before Craig could finish his sentence and in a voice that told him this particular conversation was already over. “It is.”
He didn't stay long after that. He'd probably stirred up enough issues for one day. For all of them. It was time to leave.
At the door, however, and after exchanging business cards with Eva and promises of keeping in touch if either of them thought of another avenue to explore, Craig paused. The light-colored hallway in front of him danced a little brighter before settling down to what it should be.
“Eva?” he whispered, lowering his voice so her family couldn't hear.
“Yes?”
“You've never stopped talking about Michael in the past tense, all this time. You still think he's dead, don't you?”
Chapter Twelve
“What do
you
think?” asked Paul.
Craig didn't answer. He didn't know how. This was the first time he'd been to Paul's offices and, so far, his boyfriend wasn't making him exactly welcome. He'd come straight here after leaving Eva's and the bus had taken forever. He could have done with a drink. Paul wasn't offering. In fact, when he'd opened the door to Craig, for a moment a shadow had passed over his face and Craig had wondered if he'd even let him in at all. He was here under sufferance and he knew it.
So instead of answering, he gazed around, taking in the cabinets piled high with papers and the layer of dust on the spare desk. Didn't Paul ever tidy up in here? Not that the kitchen had seemed any better from the one glance he'd been allowed to take before Paul shut the door: unwashed mugs and an overflowing trashcan had been the impression.
“Is this where you see clients?” Craig asked.
He shrugged. “Sometimes. When the cleaner's been. Most times I take them to the café on the corner. It's quiet enough there. I'm a one-man band only, Craig.”
“Looks like you could do with some secretarial help though,” he joked, nodding toward those heaving cabinets.
He'd been aiming to lighten the mood, but it categorically didn't work. Paul sprang up, shot him a look of unmistakeable dark distaste, and took two or three strides to the window where he leaned his head on the glass and gazed out. His hands gripped the ledge, and Craig could see he was breathing heavily. The silence stretched between them.
Slowly, so slowly that Craig himself barely knew he was moving, he got up and padded toward Paul. Reaching out to touch him, he thought better of it, and brought his arm back down to his side again. His heart was beating fast.
“Look,” he whispered. “Whatever I've said that's upset you, I'm sorry for it. I didn't mean to get at you. I was trying to be funny. Sometimes I do that when I shouldn't. Maybe that's why I'm a better model than I am an actor. I'm okay if I just keep my mouth shut.”
There. He was bloody well doing it
again
. But this time, Paul gave a half-smile, turning back toward Craig as he did so. He'd been crying. Craig hadn't expected that. He thought his boyfriend had been angry. This time he reached out and touched Paul's face. His fingers came away wet.
“I love you,” Craig said.
God alone knew where
that
had come from, but it was true. Paul blinked at him, his eyelashes still wet. Bloody hell, Craig wasn't surprised he'd blinked. If Craig had been Paul, he'd right now be running down Mare Street, screaming like a child on a roller coaster. It was way too soon. Gay Rule Number Eleven:
Don't say the “L” word for at least the first six months. More if you can hang on for longer.
Why the hell was he ignoring it now?
Paul didn't bolt though. He took a step forward, took Craig's head in his hands, and gazed at him.
“Look,” Craig began to say, but Paul laid his thumb against Craig's lips for a moment to stop him talking.
“Craig,” he said. In the way he'd said it before, when they'd first met at the club. As if he liked the sound of it and wanted it to feel more familiar. It made Craig shiver.
Then Paul kissed him.
It was a long kiss. An answer of sorts, maybe. He didn't know. Didn't like to guess. Afterward, Paul let him go and gazed at him again, as if weighing him up in the balance.
“Would you like a coffee?” he asked.
Still unable to speak, Craig nodded.
“Good. Me too. And while we're drinking it, you can tell me whether you think Michael's alive or not.”
There was always a catch, wasn't there? He let Paul make the coffee and place the mug into his hands before he even thought of what he might say.
