Lucent (Part 3)

Saturday was the changeover day for the rental cottage next door to Guillemot Cottage, and most weekends in the season, and sometimes even in the middle of winter, there would be a flurry of activity in the morning as the outgoing tenants departed, then the cleaners would arrive at around lunchtime, followed by another session of car door slamming and luggage transference in late afternoon as the new people arrived. This particular Saturday, the first in August, the lady who organised the cleaning service tapped on my door as she was leaving.

"I'm sorry about this, but the landlord has asked me to let you know that the people taking Puffin" - the next door cottage - "this week are going to be arriving very late tonight, something about having to work today and not being able to set out from home until early evening. If it's any consolation, they're here for two weeks, so at least you won't have to put up with the hubbub next Saturday!"

"Thanks for letting me know, I'm sure they won't make too much noise - if they do, I'll let their tyres down!"

We parted laughing. In the event, their arrival must have been very late indeed, as well as very quiet, because I didn't go to bed until almost midnight, I hadn't heard them by that time and they didn't disturb me at whatever time they did eventually turn up. Arrive they had, though, because a fairly new and fairly upmarket estate car had appeared in the bay across the road, next to my unused and uncared for parking space, when I got up at 8:30 on the Sunday morning.

Not surprisingly, there were no signs of life from Puffin Cottage, even though it was a spectacularly beautiful morning, not a cloud in the sky and crystal-clear visibility as I looked out across the bay and out to sea. Far too nice a day for an artist to waste, so it wasn't long before I'd set up my easel on the patio and was setting about what was probably about the hundredth version of the view from my garden since I'd moved here, nearly two and a half years ago. After about an hour, next door began to stir. I heard the back door open, and, to judge by the voices, two teenage boys emerged into the garden, brothers, presumably.

"Wow, Lar, that's some view! It was too dark to see last night.".

"Great, isn't it. Is anyone surfing yet?"

"Nah, there's no wind, the sea's as flat as a pancake. I want to try surfing while we're here."

"You, surfing! You have trouble standing up when you're walking down the street!"

"Sod off! I'll be better at it than you, I bet! Hey, look, Lar, that guy next door is painting the view."

"Sshh. You'll disturb his concentration."

I was used to people watching me paint from over the fence, as my patio was a few feet lower than the garden of Puffin Cottage, and didn't find it a problem, unless someone fancied themselves as an art critic and started pontificating about technique.

"That's really good, look. He must be a professional. I wonder if he does portraits, I'd love one of you, Lar - as a sexy surfer dude!"

Oops, not brothers, then, or probably not, anyway! At that moment, I found I needed something, I can't remember what, from the studio. As I got up, I turned towards the right and faced towards the two previously disembodied voices next door. Two boys, both about the same height, head and shoulders above the top of the low fence, which meant about my height, 5 foot 9 or 10, as I knew from previous experience, one with fair hair, the other slightly darker. As I glanced towards the fair haired boy, on the right as I was looking, his mouth fell open and he looked like he was going to faint. I looked again, more closely, and then I saw the eyes, eyes I'd seen before, in reality and in an submerged, but now reawakened dream.

"Xan, what's the matter," the brown haired boy was saying, "Xan, talk to me, sweet."

"It's him," he whispered, almost inaudible to me, although he was only about six or seven feet away, "it's him".

"Who, sweetheart, who is it?"

"The man from the station, the man who saved me."

Five seconds later, we were both in floods of tears.

****

"It's unbelievable."

"My love, you've only said that 15 times in the last 20 minutes."

"That's because it's true. It must be more unlikely than winning the lottery three weeks in a row."

This exchange was between Malcolm and Jackie, who I'd met about 20 minutes earlier, when they dashed into the garden of their rented holiday cottage to find their son's boyfriend crying his eyes out, and a strange man in the next door garden, also sobbing uncontrollably. We were now sitting around the kitchen table in Puffin Cottage, while the two boys were snuggled in a rocking chair in the corner of the room, the dark haired boy cradling his friend's fair haired head against his chest.

"Don't you think it's unbelievable beyond words, Dan?" Malcolm asked me.

I'd only just about calmed down enough to be able to speak, so that coming up with a coherent answer to any sort of question beyond my name, rank and serial number was almost beyond me at that moment.

"I don't know what to say. It certainly wasn't what I was expecting when I got up this morning."

Malcolm turned towards his son. "How is he, Lawrence?"

"I think he'll be OK in a few minutes, he's stopped crying now." He stroked the fair head gently, lovingly.

"I'm alright now, I think." A muffled voice from the depths of the rocker.

The boys unfolded themselves from each other and from the chair, and inched towards to the table.

"I don't think we've been introduced," I said gently.

"I'm Lawrence, and this is Alex."

"And I'm Dan."

There was a moment of complete stillness, as though everyone in the room was afraid to even breathe. Then Alex took three purposeful steps, bridging the gap of time and space between us in less time than it took to think it, put his arms round my neck and, yes, he was kissing my lips in that familiar but somehow unknown sweet way, flavoured this time by the salt of his tears, feeling as though he was going to melt his way into the centre of me, that I was going to melt into him, and then he was gone, I opened my eyes half expecting to find myself in that hospital bed with my head swimming with pain, but, no, I was still in the kitchen of Puffin Cottage, Alex was just a step away from me, grinning from ear to ear.

"That wasn't the first time I've kissed you, Dan."

"I don't know how or why, but I know you're telling me the truth - tell me the story, please, soon."

"I will. Dan, thank you. Thank you for my life."

****

The five of us spent the most of the day together, I gave them the guided tour of the village, which took all of about ten minutes, before the boys wandered off to have a look at the beach. I gave Malcolm and Jackie a potted history of how I'd come to be living in Guillemot Cottage, sitting at a table outside the beach café, before asking them if they minded some questions about Lawrence and Alex.They assured me that they were happy to tell me pretty much anything, trusting to my discretion that I wouldn't ask anything too personal.

"Did you know Lawrence was gay before he met Alex?"

"Yes, we were pretty sure about Lawrence from when he was about 11. His cousin used to sleep over quite often, they were the same age - actually, they were in the same class at primary school," Jackie said. "One Friday night, I wasn't feeling well, so I went to bed early, only about ten minutes after Lawrence and Tim had gone upstairs. Lawrence's bedroom light was still on, and the door was ajar. I was going to tell them to settle down for the night, but as I got to the door, I could see what was happening - the boys were kissing, and had their hands down the front of each other's pyjamas. I talked to Malcolm about what I'd seen, and we decided to ask Lawrence about it gently."

"It seems odd, looking back," Malcolm added, "when we asked him, after Tim had gone home, about what had happened and how he felt about it, he seemed surprised that we'd had to ask. He just said 'I like boys, I don't like girls like my friends do', as though it was simply an everyday thing, like we'd asked him what his favourite flavour of ice cream was. We found some books, sex education books, appropriate for his age, and talked about the subject with him, but his outlook never changed. He just wasn't interested in girls, only boys. Then shortly before his 13th birthday, he came home from school one day waxing lyrical about this new boy who'd just started in his class, could he come to his birthday party, could he come for a sleepover, Lawrence showed every sign you could think of that he was head over heels in love."

"And that was Alex?"

"That, indeed, was Alex."

"Do you know anything about what had happened on the day I was...attacked?"

"The first we knew of it," Jackie said, "was when the phone rang at about 9:00 that morning. It was Jayne, Alex's mum, asking if I'd seen Alex. She sounded really agitated, but, of course, I couldn't help her - it was the school holidays, as you know, Lawrence was still in bed. She asked...if we knew Alex had a crush on Lawrence. I said, I don't know if I should have, but it all happened very quickly, that yes, we knew the boys were fond of each other. Then she asked, straight out, if Lawrence was gay - all I could tell her was the truth, I said yes, we think so, she called me a bitch, and slammed the phone down."

Malcolm continued. "Jackie rang me at work, I'd only just arrived. My office is quite close to the station, and I saw a police car and then an ambulance heading that way, blue lights flashing. It was obvious something was going on, though, of course, we had no idea what at that point. Jackie said it looked as though something had happened with Alex, but she didn't know any more than that. Then about 15 minutes later, she rang again, telling me I'd better come home straight away, Alex had turned up on our doorstep, absolutely hysterical, saying that his dad trying to kill him and that he was going to kill Lawrence as well. We called his mother, we called the police, and. for the rest, we only know what was in the local papers and on the TV."

"But the boys stayed together, even after what had happened?"

"It was pretty difficult for a while, as you might imagine," Jackie replied, "Jayne was being pulled all over the place, her husband was under arrest, then collapsed at the police station and was rushed to hospital - I believe he was in the same Intensive Care Unit as you, at one point - her son was refusing to go home, refusing to visit his dad in hospital, he basically just hid in Lawrence's bedroom and wouldn't budge for anyone, not even Lawrence, then they had the diagnosis, that Derek, Alex's dad, was almost certainly going to die within weeks, at which point Alex demanded to be taken to the hospital - it was all very fraught for quite a few days. As time went on, Alex pretty much moved in with us - his mother had all the problems with her husband, and his illness, and then his death - he lasted about six weeks, in the end - and, on top of that, having to come to terms with the fact that her only son, her only child, was probably gay. Officially, Alex was still living at home, and still does, but, in reality, he's probably only spent, in total, a couple of months' worth of nights sleeping in his own bedroom in his family home in the last three years. He has his own room at our house, we're pretty strict about the boys not sharing a room, certainly on schooldays, but now that they're both 16, in legal terms, at least, the choice is theirs as to what they do. They've been together for well over three years now, and, as far as we can tell, they've made a long-term commitment to each other. They're still very young, of course, and no-one can predict the future, but we certainly wouldn't be surprised if they spend the rest of their lives together. Jayne, I think, has come to terms with what Alex is and what he wants, even if she doesn't like it very much, but we think, ultimately, that she'll take the same attitude that we have towards Lawrence - what's important is not what would make us happy, but what makes his life happy."

"That is such a wonderful, magnanimous attitude to take towards your child and their life - thank you both for sharing that with me."

As that Sunday came to its end, I found myself sitting on my patio with Alex and Lawrence, Malcolm and Jackie having retreated to Puffin Cottage to read and relax. Lawrence's parents had said it was OK for the boys to have a couple of bottles of beer, in which I joined them, and we sat and chatted about anything and everything that came to mind. I told them about my life and work in the cottage, about my daughter and how I missed her, while they told me about the joys and difficulties of their lives - they got by at school, most people knew they were a couple, although they never flaunted the fact - they didn't want to be expelled, apart from anything else - they had to put up with a certain amount of verbal abuse and the odd veiled threat, but that was as far as it went, although they had both taken self-defence classes, just in case. What came through above all, though, was the fact that they genuinely loved each other, and the fact that they were young and both male was irrelevant to that fundamental point, their love was just as real and sincere as anyone else's.

"Alex, I don't want to you to think I'm being a nuisance, but you owe me a story."

"Story?"

"About a kiss."

He grinned self-consciously, and blushed a little. "Oh yeah." His smile suddenly vanished, as though another, much darker, memory had intervened. His change of mood was so obvious that Lawrence immediately took hold of his hand.

"Sorry, Alex, I shouldn't have asked."

"No, Dan, I want to tell you. It just reminded me of my dad, that's all."

"Only if you feel you can, Alex. I don't want your holiday spoiled by bad memories."

"I'm fine. There's not that much to tell, really. I didn't want to go to the hospital at first, after what happened, but when my mum told me that my dad was...as ill as he was, I changed my mind. I was really scared, but I thought that it was the right thing to do. Dad was in the intensive care place, all sorts of tubes and monitors everywhere, but he just looked like he was asleep. Then someone said, kind of in the background - I think it was one of the nurses - how it was strange that all three people who were involved 'in that business at the station' had ended up in the same room the next day. I realised you must be there as well, but I didn't know why, I didn't know you'd been hurt when you helped me, so I looked round, and saw you - well, I guessed it was you, you were so smothered in bandages and equipment, but the only other patient in there was a lady, so I knew it must be you, you were there all on your own, no visitors or nurses or anything. So I went over to your bed, and you were lying there with your eyes closed, but your face was kind of twitching, you reminded me of our old dog, he used to twitch a lot in his sleep, my mum used to say that he was dreaming of chasing rabbits. That made me think you must be dreaming, and because you'd saved me, I wanted you to have nice dreams, so I leaned down and gave you a little kiss, like my mum used to give me sometimes when I was small. It looked like you smiled a bit when I did that, so I gave you another one, a bit like the one this morning, and this time you really did smile, but then my mum saw what I was doing and told me to leave you alone. So that's it, that's how I'd kissed you before today." He blushed again, but his dark moment seemed to have passed, and he even had that little enigmatic half-smile I remembered from my dream.

"You were right, I was dreaming, a really vivid dream - I was dreaming of you, or, at least, that was how I remembered it afterwards, and I dreamed you were kissing me as well, and that they were the nicest kisses anyone had ever given me." He lowered his eyes, and really did blush, deeply. "Sorry, I shouldn't have said that, I didn't mean to embarrass you. I was right about one thing in my dream, though - I told you to save yourself for Lawrence, and you have, and it's turned out to be the right thing for both of you, from what I can see."

****