The Trapeze Artist Page 25

  A month later he sat his exams and to everyone’s surprise received decent marks. The teachers congratulated him and said it was amazing under the circumstances that he had managed to take them at all; his mum smiled proudly and his dad, who was down from Swindon especially for his results, put his hand on his shoulder and allowed it to rest there for a few seconds. They spoke about what he would study in the sixth form, if he might want to go to college and what sort of a job he might go on to have. He saw his future being mapped out – a future of ordinary people and ordinary places, of careful steps and calculated decisions, of safety, security and above all comfort. And as his parents discussed his options while he sat there in front of them listening and not saying a word, he discovered that these things were exactly what he wanted.

  He feels the man’s tongue pushing into his mouth, his hands over his body, kneading his back, his buttocks, his thighs, their groins tightly pressed together. He thinks of Vlad, of his smile and of his furious needy kisses. Then he sees again Vlad’s face as he left, smells the departing scent of his body and hears the flippancy of his goodbye. It is too much and suddenly he is sober and unaroused.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ says the man. He has a high nasal voice very much at odds with his near hyper-masculine appearance.

  He pulls away.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘I don’t think I’m up for this.’

  The man stares at him. He feels his hands and arms dropping away from his waist and shoulders. Then the hand returns in a sudden last-ditch assault, snaking down his chest and fastening onto his crotch. He reaches down and pushes it away.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Whatever – fuck off,’ mutters the man, walking away, leaving him to his pocket of darkness at the corner of the club. His head is starting to pound in time to the ceaseless beat of the music, which seems almost to be mocking him.

  He staggers through the club looking for Paul, pushing past the crowd of hot, half-clothed bodies, naked glistening torsos and huge saucer-like eyes. He catches sight of Paul at the centre of them, his T-shirt wet and flat against his body, his limbs jerking around as if in the throes of a violent orgasm.

  He reconsiders. Turning round, he heads for the cloakroom where he collects his things. Then he walks quickly up the stairs, past the bouncers and out into the night.

  He never intended to be a carer. It felt to him that it had just happened, as if it were something predestined and beyond his control. The truth was that it was the most logical path to take, and to deviate once he had embarked upon it would have been to invite uncertainty into his life. After he finished school his mother got him a proper job working with her at the home over the summer, and he spent long hot days changing bedpans and bed sheets, helping old men to their baths and commodes, helping wheelchair users take walks and fetching an endless cycle of cups of tea and digestive biscuits. The head carer told him she thought he had a special aptitude for caring and suggested he get himself a formal training. His mum liked the idea: she was proud of him at the home and frequently told him how happy he made the residents. He applied to the local college and was accepted for a course in domestic care. Two years later he had his qualification and two caring placements, one in town and one just a few miles away in the next county, both with elderly men who had difficulty using the stairs and strongly resented having to depend on anyone else. They had been through a number of carers, finding something to complain about in each one. But they liked him, because he was quiet and polite, and because he did not answer back when they got frustrated. Though neither ever said as much, he could tell they were pleased and knew the agency was happy with the work he was doing, and he thought that it must be true: that he really did have an aptitude for caring, and it was what he was meant to do with his life.

  Years later he began to understand what a cruel joke this was. The title carer was misleading, he realised, because he didn’t actually care, he only behaved as if he did. One elderly person was much the same as the next, and if anything he had desensitised himself to the anguishing sight of human helplessness, something he witnessed day upon day at all his placements. He found himself adopting the same exaggerated cheer as his mother, making the same overly bright greetings and offering the same inane observations about inconsequential things which he had always secretly hated. But now he understood why it was done – not for the sake of the patients, but for the sake of the carer and the relatives. Not in order that they did not have to face up to the helplessness of those before them, but so that they did not have to face up to their own helplessness, in the presence of time as it marched unstoppably over the human body, ravaging and pillaging until there was nothing left but for it to surrender.

  His mum never mentioned the fact that he was gay, not even when they were watching television and the subject came up on talk shows or the news. She did not talk about him settling down, or meeting a nice partner, and he did not talk about it either. From time to time he would mention plans to move out of the house, pretending that he still had ambitions of going off to lead a more independent life one day. But the subject made his mother turn pale and look so frightened that he was soon overcome with guilt and fell silent.

  He rarely met people his own age, and when he did they were usually other carers – big-boned, round-faced girls from New Zealand and Australia, for few British people under the age of fifty seemed to aspire to be carers. Once in a while he would drive to the next town to visit its one gay club, where he would sit slowly sipping at a single pint of lager and watching the room. He was very rarely approached by any of the men he liked, the ones who went to the bar to pick up, and he never got up the courage to approach anyone either. The older men, the ones who routinely propped up the bar, tried to draw him out in conversations laden with innuendo, and with blunt questions about his sexual preferences, but he was terrified of them, though most looked as if they would soon be in need of care themselves. He responded with the same blandness as he used on the people he looked after, it was as if he was unable to speak in any other way, and when they went too far trying to get a rise out of him, saying something shocking or indecent, he would give a light laugh and ignore them as if that was all there was to it. Eventually they became used to him and stopped bothering, and he discovered he could sit there for hours completely ignored, until it was time for him to go home.

  He often had the sense that he ought to be leading a different kind of existence, that the way he lived was no life for a gay man in modern times. He fantasised about being the sort of person he saw on TV or in films, a guy who went out clubbing with his friends, sharing with them a stock of witticisms he could trawl out whatever the occasion, yet someone who also knew when to stop being witty and how to fall in love, and more importantly how to make someone else fall in love with him in return. But he knew in his heart that he was not this fantasy person, if indeed there really was such a character, and moreover he never would be.

  It will be a warm and sunny morning and he will be practising his beats with the back door open to let in the breeze, when he will become aware of a presence and look down to see Mrs Goodly waving at him from right underneath, her head inches away from his swinging feet.

  ‘Sorry to barge in!’ she will shout, oblivious to her peril. ‘I tried knocking and calling but you didn’t answer. But I knew you were here!’

  He will reach for the rope and slide down to the floor.

  ‘Gosh, look at you,’ she will say as he stands waiting to get his breath back.

  ‘You shouldn’t walk underneath me like that,’ he will pant. ‘I could have kicked your head off.’

  Mrs Goodly will giggle coquettishly.

  ‘Come to think of it,’ he will say, ‘if I don’t answer the door you shouldn’t let yourself in. This isn’t your property.’

  ‘Oh – you!’

  Her giggling will increase and she will reach out and slap his shoulder as if he is being a naughty tease. Then she will open her eyes wide with mock e
xcitement and give his bicep a proper feel.

  ‘Well I never!’ she will exclaim. ‘Would you look at that, like one of those Mr Universes. I tell you if I was thirty years younger . . . you’d have to watch out!’

  He will be so surprised to see this side of Mrs Goodly that he will be rendered almost speechless. But he will remember how not so long ago she stood in this same spot with the other women from the neighbourhood and tried to tell him how to organise his life, and will pull away and give her a cold stare.

  ‘Is there something I can do for you?’

  Mrs Goodly’s mirth will simmer down to a light chuckle.

  ‘Well, I heard you’re doing the fête –’ she will begin.

  ‘How did you know that?’

  ‘Because it’s in the paper, silly! Anyway I wanted to come round and say that I – well, we really, since I’m here on behalf of the girls – we all think it’s marvellous and a real step forward . . .’

  She will pause then award him a gigantic smile.

  ‘What I mean to say is, what’s in the past is in the past, and we just wanted you to know that we’re proud of you. Hope you understand we’ve only ever had your best interests at heart.’

  He will continue to stand there gaping at her, something Mrs Goodly will pretend not to notice. She will let out another peal of giggles and will pat his arm again. Then she will see herself out of the back door, and he will watch, still rooted to the spot in amazement, as she waddles off up the garden. From his lips, as if independently, there will come a blast of noise – a short bitter laugh.

  One day, not long after he’d turned thirty, he was on a train on his way to a new placement, when he became aware that the person in the seat opposite was staring at him and twitching his features excitedly. This man had blond hair and a ring in one ear, and wore a T-shirt so tight his nipples stuck out of it like studs. He turned his head away quickly and pretended not to have noticed, but he could tell the man was still looking from the reflection in the glass.

  ‘Oh my God – it is you!’ breathed the man all of a sudden.

  He turned back apologetically to tell the man he had the wrong person. Then he took a breath of recognition himself.

  They talked awkwardly at first. Paul was a stylist now, he told him. He had dropped out of university, much to his mother’s horror, and gone to work for a fashion magazine where one thing had led to another and he’d been given a lucky break with a minor celebrity. He’d just broken up with his boyfriend, Paul said, but he wasn’t particularly sorry because the guy had been a selfish prick and only interested in reflective surfaces, and Paul had his eye on somebody new anyway, a guy who worked for one of the agencies that booked him. Paul claimed he was saving up, and almost had enough money for a deposit on his own flat. He listened in silence as Paul went on, nodding and smiling and emitting the requisite ‘Oh’s and ‘Ah’s at what he felt to be the appropriate places. Paul chattered on endlessly, seeming to take it for granted his life was fascinating to him – and indeed he was right. He listened in amazement, taking in the gossipy, stylish and uninhibited creature the pious and quiet do-gooder he’d once known had become.

  ‘And what about you?’ Paul wanted to know finally, when he’d finished detailing the disaster he claimed was his love life. ‘My God, I’ve just gone on and on about me! What are you up to now? Where do you live? Are you seeing anyone? Fuck me – it’s been so long!’

  He tried to evade Paul’s questions but eventually it came out, and he swallowed his sense of shame and watched Paul digest the fact that he still lived in that little town, still with his mum, still in the same house. He watched it dawn on Paul just how differently their lives had turned out and felt an embarrassed silence develop, pitted only by the sound of the train rushing over its tracks.

  ‘Oh,’ Paul murmured finally, as if he had admitted to having a debilitating illness or psychological condition. ‘I had no idea.’

  ‘It’s OK. I’m a carer now.’

  ‘Well – that’s great!’

  He laughed out loud, for it was clear Paul could think of no fate worse, and he remembered how he used to feel this way himself. His laugh broke the tension, and Paul grinned and knocked his fist against his forehead.

  ‘I’m sorry. You must think I’m a total arsehole.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he reassured him. ‘You’re quite right. I’m a loser.’

  Paul let out a laugh of his own. They chatted more easily after that, for it felt as if they had got rid of all pretence, and neither cared any more for a comparison between their lives. He told Paul how his dad had died the year before after a heart attack, and how his mum had retired and never left the house any more, relying on him to shop and tend to any problems. He told him how he had been secretly saving up with a view to one day moving out and buying somewhere of his own, and then admitted that he was not seeing anyone and saw a shadow pass briefly across Paul’s face. He knew he was wondering if he had ever seen anyone after Edward, and was very tempted to come out and confess that he hadn’t. But then they pulled into his station.

  ‘Well,’ he said, putting out his hand, ‘good to see you again.’

  ‘God! What is this, Brief Encounter?’ cried Paul, standing up and throwing his arms around him.

  He was pleased by the embrace, it made his day, and just as he was getting off Paul ran down the aisle screeching at him for his email address, and he wrote it down for him on the back of his ticket. Paul blew kisses as the train pulled away, and watching it disappear he felt a sweeping sense of nostalgia. He really did not expect to hear from Paul.

  Almost a month later he received a short email in which Paul apologised in capital letters for not writing sooner, explaining he had lost the ticket with his address. It had been handed to him by the woman who collected his dry-cleaning, Paul wrote, together with a raised eyebrow and a knowing look. He laughed out loud at the message, attracting a suspicious glance from his mum who was watching television in the same room and who had an instinctive resentment towards the Internet.

  After that he and Paul got into the habit of emailing one another regularly, until gradually he came to feel that he knew this daring new adult version of the awkward boy he had once hung out with.

  He is sitting in the dark, on the ledge of the open window, looking down and watching the shadows cast by people under the seedy orange glow of street lamps as they stumble drunkenly on their way from bars and clubs. The chilly night breeze washes over his face, bringing with it the smell of traffic, grime and pollution, the essence of the city. He hears Paul unlocking the front door and then coming into the room, but he does not turn. The light comes on.

  ‘Darling – don’t do it!’

  He lets out a mirthless laugh.

  ‘You left,’ says Paul. ‘You could have said something.’

  ‘Sorry, I couldn’t find you.’

  ‘So send a text.’

  ‘I don’t have a phone.’

  There is a disbelieving pause while Paul tries to envision just what this must be like, then finally, with the air of somebody giving up, Paul says, ‘Darling, what’s really going on here?’

  The change in Paul’s tone strikes an unexpected note and he has an almost insurmountable urge to break down. He bites his lips and resists it with everything he has, telling himself he has cried too much recently and it is time to get a hold of himself. Gradually the urge subsides.

  ‘Are you thinking about him?’

  There is no question who Paul is talking about. He has a gulp of air, taking inside him the ugly molecules of the city.

  ‘Sometimes it’s like I’m always thinking about him,’ he says.

  He hears Paul moving behind him, the sound of keys clinking as they are set down on the table and of a coat being removed and thrown over the sofa. He knows Paul is using the time to think of what to say and wants to tell him not to bother saying anything, because there isn’t anything to say.

  ‘It wasn’t your fault. You know that.�
��

  Yes, he knows. He was just a child. It was not he who made Edward do it, climb the trellis, nor was he the one who made Edward slip. It was an accident, a tragedy that has no motive and nobody behind it to carry the blame. One of those senseless, meaningless, purposeless things. But the guilt is just one of those things too, that’s what he wants to tell Paul. It might not be logical, it might very well be the construct of grief – but once it has got inside you and taken hold there is no getting rid of it.

  Paul clears his throat.

  ‘I don’t just mean . . .’

  ‘It’s OK,’ he finishes for him.

  ‘No – you don’t understand!’ says Paul with sudden urgency.

  ‘Look –’

  But Paul bounds across the room to his side, with a force that could easily have sent him over the edge were it not for the way Paul clutches at him, as if the world were trying to rip him away. He sees pupils large and dark, the thinnest band of colour around them, the white expanses beyond laced with delicate tendrils of red.

  ‘If you need to blame someone it should be me!’

  He twists and stares at Paul. Then he chuckles, suddenly reminded of Vlad, the only other person he knows who is such a drama queen. Paul is out of his mind because of whatever substance he has taken.

  ‘It must be bedtime,’ he says.

  ‘It was my fault,’ says Paul. ‘He said he was going to get the moon for you and started climbing. He was laughing because he said it was so easy. He tried to get me to come up too, but I was so angry with him for throwing that dirt . . . I watched him climbing up and I wanted that little fucker to fall and break something – I wanted to see that smug face in pain for once! He was always so full of himself . . . I . . . I reached down and I picked up this stone and I took aim and I threw it! I didn’t think . . . I didn’t think I’d . . . It hardly even touched him!’