Commitment Issues by Ali Ryecart
Chapter Fifteen
Freddie
For the rest of the evening Gavin keeps his distance, but I’m aware of him, like an itch I can’t quite scratch.
It’s impossible to miss the curious glances he throws my way and at one point I even waved at him but he only answered with a stiff smile before he turned away. I don’t care for myself, he’s as shallow as a dried-up puddle, and I’m sure I can handle him. For the life of me, I can’t see what Elliot ever saw in him. And then I remember.
Good times, Elliot said, there’d been good times, before it all went to shit. My stomach turns over. I know all about that. The good times, and then the — not good times. A shiver runs through me, and I flex my shoulders as though to shrug off the memories scratching to get through. As for Gavin, as far as I’m concerned, Elliot had a lucky escape when the guy walked out.
Marcus also stays away. I don’t have to be nice to Gavin, in fact it’s my God given duty to dig at him and hack him off, but Marcus is a different matter. It’s the guy’s wedding I’m here for, and I owe it to Elliot to behave, but it’s difficult not to bite when he’s baring his teeth at me.
The buffet table, to my eternal disappointment, doesn’t include cocktail sausages or pineapple chunks snuggled up with rubbery cheese. We’re tucking in when a couple of guys descend on us, full of smiles and, from their florid faces, probably one too many neon cocktails. Elliot introduces me but their names go straight over my head. He’s clearly pleased to see them, and all three plunge into conversation about subjects and people I know nothing about. In other words, Elliot’s safe. With a brief squeeze of his arm, I tell him I’m going to have a wander around.
Slipping away from the flickering lights around the pool, I head in the direction of the beach. The hubbub of voices grows fainter, then disappears, and my way’s lit only by the moon.
I take my shoes off and sigh, scrunching my toes in the rough sand. Closing my eyes, I breathe in the salt-sharp air. It’s been too long since I heard the lap of waves, and I miss it. Growing up in a small community on the Suffolk coast, the sea’s in my DNA, despite what I’d said to Gavin earlier. But that sea’s a cold and wild one, where angry waves smash onto a shingle beach, a world away from where I am now, where the waves are soft and the water doesn’t freeze the blood.
I set off along the beach, walking at the water’s edge where the sand’s damp and compacted. My brain’s whirring. How am I going to last the next few days? Now I’ve had the displeasure of meeting Gavin, I’m sure I can handle anything he’ll throw at me. But, it’s not Gavin who’s the problem, it’s Elliot.
Elliot, who pushes all my buttons.
Elliot, who’s my walking, talking, breathing fantasy.
Elliot, who’s thoughtful and considerate.
Elliot, who listens to me, is interested, and who treats me with respect.
Elliot, who’ll be sleeping in the room next to me, buff naked and with those wonderful abs I just know are rippling beneath his shirt.
Okay, I don’t know for sure about the buff naked bit, but a boy can dream.
And a dream is all it’ll be, because sleeping with my kind of temporary employer is definitely not in the job description. Not that he’s shown the slightest interest in inserting said clause, but that’s got to be a good thing I suppose. I like Elliot, a lot, but I don’t want to like him too much. I liked a man like him too much before, and the only thing it got me was a first class ticket to Broken Heartsville. And a trip to the clap clinic.
I carry on walking, the only sounds the sigh of the sea and the rustle of the light breeze in the pine trees fringing the beach. And the heavy snort of breath bearing down on me from behind.
Swinging round, my heart going nineteen to the dozen, a huge, dark shape looms down on me. All my muscles quiver as fight or flight takes hold, and I get ready to run.
“Freddie?” Andrew’s deep voice booms in the darkness. “I’m sorry, did I give you a fright?”
“Just a bit.” I never knew it was possible for a grown man to squeak, but I’ve just proved that theory wrong.
“Sorry about that,” he says, coming closer. “I saw you leave, and guessed where you were going. I’ll join you.”
“Yes, please do.”
Andrew hasn’t asked, he’s told me, as he falls in next to me.
My heart hasn’t calmed down, it’s revved up. He’s going to tell me to leave, that I’m not welcome, that I’ve insulted his fiancé… I’ve been with the wedding party for no more than a couple or so hours and I’ve fallen at the first hurdle, letting Elliot down and making a fool of both him and myself. I suck in a breath because I need to say something, but he beats me to it.
“I feel I have to apologise for Marcus’ behaviour, earlier. He’s a good and loyal friend to Gavin, but I’m a good friend of Elliot’s, and as you’re with him, I expect you to be made welcome.”
“What? I mean, pardon?”
I stop dead and stare, open mouthed, at the man who towers above me. He really can just squash me like a fly if he chooses to, but instead he’s smiling. If I can see his smile, he can see my slack, village idiot gawp, and I snap my mouth closed.
“I’ve spoken to Marcus, and he realises he was out of order.”
But not enough to make a proper apology. It’s what I want to say, but don’t.
“You didn’t need to do that, because I promise I won’t cry. I’m tougher than I look.” Andrew laughs, and it’s like the rumble of distant thunder.
“I’m sure you’re very tough, and more than a match for most. Including Gavin.”
I jerk backwards, his final words kicking my legs from under me.
“Sorry?”
“Are you? I’m not. I was watching the three of you together. He didn’t look happy. But,” he says, all laughter in his voice dying, “you may be fooling him, but you’re not fooling me. You’re not really with Elliot.”
Waves of hot and cold wash over me, and I feel very slightly sick.
Oh, fuck… If Elliot’s told him, he’d say so, wouldn’t he? But Elliot said he preferred the arrangement to be kept between us…
“I don’t know what you mean,” I say, in a voice that sounds far away, and not like mine.
“You know exactly what I mean. I’m disappointed Elliot chose not to be totally transparent with me, but I suspect he has what he considers good reason.” He grunts, and shakes his big bear-like head. “I’m a barrister, and a damn good one, which means I’m rather adept at sniffing out a lie. But don’t be concerned, I’m confident nobody else has. However, you’re here with one of my oldest friends, which means you’re welcome, but you’re also a guest in my home and at my wedding, and that means I’ve a right to the truth.”
“Shouldn’t you be speaking to Elliot?”
“I’m speaking to you.”
Andrew’s voice is calm and level but I can’t mistake the hint of steel. If I bluster or deny, or just downright refuse to answer his question, I know I’ll be belittling myself in his eyes. I don’t want that for my sake, but more than that, I don’t want it for Elliot. I’m trapped, and I know Andrew knows it, too.
I take a deep breath, and launch in.
“I’m here to support Elliot. We were put in touch with each other by mutual friends, and met for the first time about a week ago.” Seven days, ten hours and fifteen minutes, to be precise, but who’s counting?
“Would one of the mutual friends be James, by any chance? It sounds like the kind of thing he’d engineer.”
“Yes, but it’s really his cousin who’s my friend.”
“So, what are you? Some form of escort, who hires himself out as a fake partner for weddings, funerals and bar mitzvahs?”
Ouch. I’m not an escort, but as for hiring myself out…
“No, and I’ve never done anything like this before. You ask me who I am, and the answer is somebody with too many bills pressing down on his shoulders. Elliot and I are helping each other out in our own way. He doesn’t really believe he needs help, but I think the thought of coming here on his own and facing Gavin was pressing down on him. I don’t doubt he could’ve got through it, but if you’re the friend you claim to be, would you want that for him, to just get through it? James certainly didn’t. He might be an infuriating sod, but he knew exactly what it was Elliot needed. And he knew what I needed, too. He just slotted us together.”
The words rush from me, leaving me breathless. I stare up at Andrew, but his face is in shadow, as a cloud scuds across the moon.
“I suppose you’re going to ask me to leave.” My shoulders sag. Why wouldn’t he tell me to go? He has every right to. “I only ask that you don’t make a fuss about it. I could make up an emergency at home, because I don’t want Elliot embarrassed by this. If you’re his friend, you won’t want that either.” In my head, I’m already repacking the bag I unpacked just a couple or so hours ago. My time in the southern French sunshine’s over before it’s begun.
“Am I going to ask you to leave?” Andrew muses, rolling the words around his tongue like a fine brandy. “I’d never put Elliot in an invidious position, but as for whether you stay or go, that really depends on what you tell me next. I want to know exactly who it is I have under my roof.”
Don’t even bother trying to lie, in other words… It’s as loud and clear as a megaphone.
And so, I tell Andrew everything.
“A PhD? In my day, we worked in restaurants or in the students’ union bar to earn extra cash.”
“Somehow, I don’t think you ever had to work to pay off student loans, or eat budget baked beans on sliced white bread.” I’ve told him the truth, so why stop now?
Andrew chuckles. “Somehow, I think you’re right.”
We carry on walking along the beach, in the warm night air, strangely companionable given the weird circumstances. Now he’s heard the whole story, I need to know if I’m staying or going. I’m about to ask, and once again he beats me to it.
“So, Norse Studies. That’s all boat building and fishing techniques, is it?”
I give a long, exasperated sigh. I even roll my eyes.
“Why does everybody think that? But yes,” I grudgingly admit, “those subjects are included.”
“And what are you going to do with yourself after you’ve finished?”
“You do realise this is beginning to sound like the and what do you intend to do with your life father-son talk?”
Now the floodgates to The Truth have been well and truly opened, I can’t seem to shut them again. I still think the most likely outcome of our less than conventional conversation is going to be him politely asking me to book a cab back to the airport in the morning, so why not be straight with him?
“Perhaps that’s because I’m old enough to be your father. As is Elliot, I should add. Not that age should be a barrier to anything in life. I’m interested, but if you’d rather not say…”
For a minute or two I don’t say. Truth is, I’m so used to people not being interested in a subject I’m geekily passionate about, I can be defensive and overly touchy. When strangers insist they’re interested, I always think they’re taking the piss. Would Andrew do that, or ask out of bland politeness? In the spotty moonlight, he looks at me seriously, and I know he wouldn’t. And so I tell him.
“You want an academic career?” He sounds thoughtful, rather than incredulous, which is how most people sound when I fess up to that, but I’m learning fast that Andrew isn’t most people.
“Yes. It’s been my ambition for as long as I can remember. Growing up, I never wanted to be a footballer, or in a boy band, like all my mates. I wanted to dig holes in the ground to find bits of long dead Vikings.” I blame watching lots of old grainy episodes of Noggin the Nog cartoons with Nana Doreen, who’d fed me tea and biscuits at the same time she’d fed my burgeoning passion. “But now I guess it’s crunch time. I’ve told you all about me, what I’m doing and why. Naturally you’ll tell Marcus, and I’m sure he’ll want me to leave. I get that. Just give me time to explain to Elliot.”
I hold my breath as I wait for the axe to fall. Of course he’ll tell Marcus, he’s marrying the guy in a couple of days, and there’s no way Marcus will want me to stay when he knows the truth.
“Go?” Andrew says, saying it as though it’s the most stupid word in the language. “Why would I want you to go? In fact, I very much believe you should stay. And, no, I shan’t be saying anything to Marcus.”
Without another word he turns and trudges off, leaving me gawping for the second time.
