The Facts of Life (43 page)

‘I won’t,’ he said. ‘But it’s quite urgent.’ As he signed, she slapped a yellow
VISITOR
sticker on his chest and consulted a grimy work book.

‘He’s on the fourth level,’ she said. ‘Out of the hut and use the lift. Stay by the gate when you get there, and I’ll call him over to you. Don’t get in anyone’s way and mind your back, for Jesus’ sake.’

‘I will,’ he grinned.

As he rode up in the rickety cage lift, her voice rang out over the Tannoy system.

‘Visitor for Sam. Visitor for Sam now.’

Someone, who presumably hadn’t seen the visitor’s gender, let out a piercing wolf-whistle. Heart racing already, Jamie looked down at the stretching drop around him and felt his stomach fall away. The cage came to a halt with an abrupt lurch. He slid aside the safety barrier and stepped out, careful now not to look down through the planks that were supporting him over the void. There was no sign of Sam. Jamie waited a few minutes as he had been told to do, then saw that Sam was at the far end of the walkway, pointedly continuing to load cement blocks onto a hoist. Jamie called his name tentatively, then louder but his voice – now he even
sounded
like Dirk Bogarde – was drowned out by a sudden burst from a pneumatic pump or generator in the half-formed stairwell that plunged down to his right. Looking straight ahead, one hand groping along the horizontal scaffolding to his left, he walked gingerly over to join him.

‘Sam?’

Sweat shone on his back, darkening the V of coarse, dark hair that curved down into his jeans at the base of his spine. As he heaved another block, a web of muscles worked across his back and shoulders like wings beneath the skin, and a single mole seemed to dart back and forth on the edge of one of his shoulder blades. Wishing more than ever that he was dressed for the occasion, Jamie took another step forward.

‘Sam?’

Sam’s tone was icy.

‘What the
fuck
are you playing at?’ he said, continuing to load blocks, as though no-one were talking to him.

‘I came … I came to find you,’ Jamie blurted out.

‘Oh yeah? And how am I supposed to explain
you
away? A visit from my friendly local bank manager, maybe? A bloke asking me to move my BMW?’

Jamie had not thought of this, having seen the awkwardness only from his own viewpoint. He wished Sam would at least turn round to acknowledge him.

‘You could say I was one of the architects,’ he suggested weakly.

Sam withered him.

‘Yes. Well. The architects keep their ties on.’

Jamie looked wretchedly down at his feet, saw through the planks below and had to steady himself against a scaffolding upright.

‘I’m sorry,’ he mumbled. ‘I’ll go away. Sorry.’

Now Sam looked over his shoulder. He raised an eyebrow, taking in Jamie’s incongruous clothes.

‘Like the hat,’ he said.

Jamie let out a snort of nervous laughter. Sam yelled up to the level above, ‘Okay! Take her up!’ and the hoist juddered into motion. He turned back to face Jamie, tugging off the bandanna again to wipe the gritty grime away from his eyes and brow. There was a flash of white dust across his hair which Jamie imagined brushing away with his fingertips. He suspected he was about to grovel. He was beyond caring.

‘You shouldn’t be up here,’ Sam muttered, glancing about him again. ‘It’s dangerous. Let’s get back over there.’ He gave Jamie a push back towards the lift barrier.

‘I’m sorry,’ Jamie repeated and realised he had never wanted anything so much as he wanted this man beside him, even if only for a single night. Even two feet away, he could smell him. Sitting, dazed, at his desk the morning after their fateful second encounter, he had caught a whiff of his musk lingering on the back of one of his hands, and had felt as naked in the spasm of desire it triggered as if Sam had just materialised beside his computer terminal in nothing but a smile and a hard hat.

‘So,’ Sam said, wilfully unhelpful. ‘What’s up? Is Alison okay?’

‘Yes. Yes, she’s fine.’ Jamie stammered with a twitch of irritation. ‘I saw her last night.’

‘Ah.’

Jamie knew he must speak now or never.

‘Sam, I … I was in the neighbourhood,’ how
wrong
that sounded, ‘and I remembered Alison had said this was where you worked.’

‘Yes?’

‘Yes and … I wondered what you were doing this evening.’

Sam scratched the back of his neck, frowning. Surely he was doing this on purpose?

‘Well, I’ll knock off here at five then I suppose I’ll find a bite to eat and crash out.’

‘Sam, I’m asking you out.’

‘You
are
?’ He looked slightly amused at the idea. ‘Ask me again. I don’t think I caught it first time around.’

The lift arrived back at their level and two vast, slack-gutted men, one of them black, both stripped to the waist, came out and strode off down the walkway laughing at something. Jamie watched them, not daring to meet Sam’s eyes.

‘I’m asking you out. Will you come out with me?’ he said.

‘Okay.’

Jamie spun around, disbelieving. Sam was looking out over the site, pretending they weren’t talking, although one corner of his mouth had curled up, dimpling, mocking him. ‘I said okay,’ he said and laughed bitterly. ‘You’ve never had to
ask
before, have you? Jesus!’

‘I have,’ Jamie lied.

‘Naa. Never.’

‘I …’ Jamie’s defences were down. He had no shame.
If Alison could see me now
, he thought.

‘But we’ve got to do it properly,’ Sam went on.

‘Of course,’ Jamie blurted, not sure what he meant precisely but willing, at that moment, to agree to anything, anything in the conceivable repertoire of pleasures.

It turned out that Sam’s requirements were endearingly conventional. As befitted a first,
proper
date, they met for dinner, then went dancing. Dinner was relatively easy, although Sam favoured a mouth-blistering Bengali curry, one mouthful of which left Jamie wondering if he would ever kiss, much less taste, again. As they ate, he watched his intake of Indian beer, wary of loosening his tongue and starting to prattle. Sam hardly spoke at first. He was obviously hungry, ordering with swift impatience and concentrating on the food once the dishes began to arrive. Jamie caught his eye now and then and smiled foolishly, to which Sam responded with shyly raised eyebrows and a diversionary offer of more naan or cooling raita. The restaurant was bustling and noisy with chatter and the sinuous wail of Bombay pop.

‘So what are the people you work with like?’ Jamie asked at last.

‘All right,’ said Sam. ‘They’re just blokes. You know.’

‘Do you talk?’

‘Not much. We don’t all take our breaks at the same time. But yeah. We talk. Go to the canteen. Eat a bit. Read a paper. You know. I’m not really a builder.’

‘I remember you saying. ‘You trained as a fitter.’

‘Yeah. Naval fitter. Devonport dockyards. My dad worked there too and my granddad.’

‘Is your dad still alive?’

‘Yeah. And my mum and my brother.’ Sam frowned. ‘At least, I think so. We don’t talk much now. It’s been a while.’

Jamie watched him dab up some sauce with a last piece of naan.

‘Ali and I don’t know who our father is, or even if we share the same one,’ he said.

‘Yeah. She said.’ Sam licked scarlet juices from his fingers. ‘Well I had a dad and a mum and I lived in a house and went to a school and had holidays at Torbay every year and I used to watch
Blue Peter
and
Jackanory
and I wanted to be a painter or a market gardener when I grew up.’

‘Why are your telling me all this?’ Jamie asked, perplexed at his hectoring manner.

‘So you can see I’m just a bloke, not some fantasy of yours.’ Sam looked up with searing directness. ‘I know what your lot are like. Plumber. Garage attendant. Trucker. Construction worker. It’s all just another fantasy. It’s got nothing to do with me.’

‘What do you mean, “my” lot?’ Jamie asked, defensive lest his thoughts had betrayed themselves.

‘You know,’ Sam said impatiently.

‘I’m no more a typical faggot than you’re a builder,’ Jamie insisted.

‘You go out to bars and pick people up,’ Sam said, lowering his tone. ‘You said so yourself.’

‘Oh. And straight men don’t do that? I was talking about stereo-types. I hate disco music, I have no eye for interior design and ever since I first saw
The Wizard of Oz
I’ve found Judy Garland plain sinister.’

‘But you don’t play rugger or anything, do you?’

‘What is this? Some kind of contest?’ Jamie protested, half laughing at the absurdity of Sam’s questions, but threatened nonetheless. ‘Look. You don’t have to prove anything. You already went to bed with me, remember? Twice. You obviously weren’t used to it, but you still knew what you were doing.’

Sam scowled as a waiter came to take away their dishes, then his expression softened.

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘You’re right. Sorry. I’m new to all this, that’s all.’

‘Well so am I.’

‘No you’re not.’

‘Sam, I’m new to
this
!’ Jamie indicated the two of them, the restaurant. ‘I’m new to dating.’

Sam grinned suddenly then looked away. Watching the people at the neighbouring table pulling on their coats, he said, from the corner of his mouth. ‘Well you’re not doing badly for a beginner. Come on. Get some coffee then we’re going dancing. I’ve heard of somewhere that’s meant to be good.’

Jamie feared dancing might involve some chichi discotheque in the West End. He was not one of nature’s dancers, loathed the way men camped around to dance music and tended to avoid such places in favour of bars, where he found he could get what he was after with less time-wasting or damage to the ear drums. If Sam were so very new to the game, Jamie found it hard to believe he would want them to dive into some sweaty-chested, laser-slashed hell-hole. Sam scoffed, however, at the very suggestion. He had somewhere much less banal in mind.

‘But this is an all-women place!’ Jamie protested, as Sam tugged him drunkenly off their bus as it pulled past a notoriously rough converted cinema, south of the river. ‘And it’s Country and Western night. Look at them all. We’ll be lynched!’

‘No we won’t, you daft twat,’ Sam said. ‘Trust me. I know the bouncer. We used to live in the same hostel. She’s a scaffolder’s mate.’

Sure enough, the awesome, beefy-armed woman on the door waved them through, without them even being charged, and her benison also seemed to confer a kind of gender immunity status on them.

‘I should warn you,’ Jamie gabbled, eyeing the denim-shirted Elvis and Tab Hunter lookalikes, ‘I really can’t dance, and anyway you’re far too tall for me. People will laugh.’

‘Shut up and come here.’ Sam towed him onto the dance floor, which shimmered beneath the ersatz starlight of a mirror ball. ‘I can’t dance either. We can just walk slowly and turn at corners.’

He pulled Jamie to him and, after jokily trying to rest his chin on the top of his head, bent down to kiss him as they shuffled slowly around the room, protected by pair after pair of urban cowgirls. After a while the ballads petered out in favour of slightly faster, line-dancing music, and there was a dancing instructor to hand who soon had them performing an approximation of the rudimentary steps necessary. Sam danced as seriously as he drank; as if it were less a pleasure than a test of strength. As he spun Jamie around in a two-step – his very height dictated he lead – pushing him away and tugging him back, Jamie caught his eye, then looked down at his feet or out at the less mismatched dancers beside them. Suddenly he felt a strange sensation churning in his chest.

‘Stop!’ he gasped to Sam, feeling as if he might burst.

‘What?’

‘Stop. We’ve got to stop. I think I’m … Come on.’ He walked swiftly out of the sunken dance floor, unconsciously leading Sam by the hand.

‘What is it? Eh?’ Sam stood beside him, a small frown distorting his brows. He touched Jamie’s chest then lifted his hand to tip Jamie’s chin so that he met his worried gaze. ‘
What
?’ he asked.

‘Nothing. I … I was so breathless suddenly,’ Jamie said. ‘I thought I was getting a stitch.’

‘You okay?’

‘I’m fine. Sure. I’m fine,’ he insisted, laughing and playfully punching Sam’s hand aside before grasping him around the waist and pulling him close. ‘I don’t believe it, that’s all,’ he went on.

‘Believe what?’ Sam had to raise his voice above the music.

‘That it’s this easy. It
is
this easy, isn’t it?’ he asked. ‘It really is!’

Sam looked away for a moment, grinning as at some sweet, private satisfaction. When he looked back, trying to compose his face, there was surprise there too, which gave Jamie some relief.

‘Looks like it,’ Sam said and it was immediately clear that they had reached that point when it was no longer bearable merely to dance cheek to cheek, thigh knocking thigh. ‘Shall we go, then?’ he added.

Although they fell to lovemaking within moments of stumbling through Jamie’s front door, not even bothering to draw down blinds or switch lights on, it was not, this time, the climactic point of the evening. That came afterwards when, in the flattering glow spilled from the bathroom, they lay still on the mattress, a few feet apart – caressing with their eyes the bodies their limbs had exhausted, tabulating differences. Sam had patches of toughened skin where Jamie’s was office smooth. Jamie’s muscles were carefully nurtured all over. Sam used some more than others, so that his long legs were quite wiry compared with his strong arms and chest. Sam had a line of black hair running up across his navel and spreading out to envelop either nipple in an unexpectedly silky mat. Jamie had blond hair on his legs and forearms but, beyond a small fan of it below his belly button, his torso was furless as marble. Sam had said nothing, but the smoothness seemed to amuse and fascinate him by turns.