Boats in the night (3 page)

“I’m not a child,” Giles said, frowning. “That sounds like what I did when I was eight, and my pet hamster died.”

“No, but maybe kids have got the right idea about burying animals. Come on, I was

raised to treat all life with respect. Do it for me, if you feel daft doing it for yourself, okay?”

Smutty smiled and watched to see what Giles would do. He thought the man was going to refuse or pour scorn on the idea, but was pleased to see that his words had a positive effect, pulling Giles out of his torpor and getting him up off his knees and moving around the garden.

Once the grave was a few inches deep—any deeper would be impossible without

damaging the root systems of the roses—Smutty prised some vivid green moss from the low stone wall and lined the shallow depression, then gently lifted the delicate body and placed the bird on its bed of moss. He was aware of Giles beside him, of the heat of another body and the susurrant whisper of breath against his cheek. And then Giles’s hands were next to his, arranging plucked hyacinth blossoms and miniature narcissus flowers around the body in a ring of alternating blue and yellow.

“It’s perfect,” Smutty murmured.

“Yes.” Giles cleared his throat. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Um…” He gave Smutty

a beseeching gaze.

Smutty drew in a deep breath and tried to recall Starlight’s words over the mice.

“Your body will now return to the earth and feed the plants, and you will live again in them, just as they feed the animals. So life turns full circle.”

“Amen,” Giles added, which sounded odd to Smutty’s pagan ears, but which

nevertheless seemed to fit their home-made ritual.

Both men covered over the bird with handfuls of soft, dark loam.

“My mother’s ashes were scattered here, you know,” Giles said, his tone curiously

neutral.

Smutty pondered this piece of information, wondering if it had some bearing on

Giles’s emotional reaction to the bird’s death. A recent bereavement would explain a lot of things. “It’s a beautiful place to rest. Was it somewhere special to her?”

“Yes. She spent every moment she could out here.” A wistful expression flitted across Giles’s face, and for a short moment Smutty was entranced. But then it passed, and the shutters came down again. “It was a long time ago.”

“But the gardens have been kept up. I can tell. Was it you?”

“No. A gardener. But I had to… had to let him go. Last summer. I know, I should get

someone else. I’ve just been preoccupied.”

Smutty wasn’t going to pry, no matter how much curiosity the words stirred up. But

then an idea occurred. So breathtakingly simple that he had to think it over again to make sure he wasn’t missing something important. But no, it could work.

“Listen, Giles, I’m really sorry but I can’t fix the boat just yet. There’s a cracked cylinder head and fuck knows what else I’ll find when I totally strip her out. I haven’t got the money for the parts right now but I was wondering if we could come to some kind of deal.”

“Deal?” Giles sounded so bleak Smutty wondered if it was even worth suggesting, but

ploughed on regardless.

“I can garden. It’s work I’ve grown up with. If I put in a few hours for you every day, could I stay moored up down there while I get her fixed? I won’t need paying, although if you want to give me something that’d be appreciated, but I’ve got other ways I can make a few bob. You won’t know I’m here. I promise. Well, you’ll know I’ve been doing the

gardening, but that’s all.”

Giles looked all around the garden with a thoughtful expression then met Smutty’s

eyes. “Yes. I think I’d like that,” he said softly.

Smutty grinned and stuck out a hand. “Shake on it?”

Giles only gave a small smile, but it was like a shaft of sunshine breaking through

storm clouds. “Deal,” he said, clasping Smutty’s hand. “Let me show you where the tools are.”

***

columns of figures. Numbers never had been his strong point, but surely he should have more money in his account than that? There should be funds paid in every month from his various investments, but at the moment it looked as if his sick pay was the only thing keeping his account in the black. Mind you, the only things going out this last month had been his weekly food and drink orders from Waitrose, along with the standing orders for the bills.

Damn it. He’d only bothered looking to make sure he had enough to pay Smutty for

the gardening. No doubt there was some perfectly reasonable explanation. Perhaps a new account had been set up for the funds to be paid into—it wouldn’t be the first time his accountant had played around like that, trying to find Giles the best interest rates. Yes, that would be it. He really didn’t want to have to hassle his accountant about it.

Especially as his accountant was still Fabian.

Giles rubbed at the back of his neck and contemplated the phone call. He’d need a

drink inside him first. Better wait until later. If he started drinking at this time of day it would be a slippery descent into full-blown alcoholism. He knew. He’d seen it happen with his father. It began with nothing more sinister than a G and T before lunch, but by the time Giles was twelve he’d find half-empty bottles of hidden around the house and was accustomed to the sour stench of it on Daddy’s breath.

He thought perhaps his latest canvas would restore some normality to his day. The

colours didn’t demand any thought, any discipline. Giles could place them where he wished

—wherever his muse led him. They took him through the spaces where there were no words, only feeling, only being. Yet today there was something different. Today the canvases of his last few months filled him with a vague horror. He gazed into their dark voids and his stomach rebelled. He turned them to the wall.

Giles didn’t quite know what force was guiding his hand as he started under painting on a fresh canvas. Underneath his brush, a ring of flowers appeared, sketched in with raw sienna. Yet in the centre, there was a space that didn’t want to be filled with a tiny bird. There was a woman instead. He saw her, head inclined as she tended to her precious roses. It had been many years since he’d attempted even drawing a figure—Fabian had refused to pose, saying it made his joints ache—but the lines on the canvas were sure and true.

There wasn’t any point in thinking about what he was doing. Giles simply mixed up a

moss green for the background and began to paint, losing himself in the nascent image, the language of tints and shades, of dreams and memories.

It was five hours later when he finally downed brushes and stepped back, his throat

parched and bladder bursting. It was only an under painting—only blocks of colour with no detail—but it was her. No doubt about that. He gazed on the image and it wasn’t until he registered the ache in his jaw that he realised he was smiling. Had his tears in the garden finally washed something clean inside him?

He shook his head and left his brushes in the jar of turps. There was no point thinking about it now. It would be easier with a few drinks inside him.

Later, with a glass of wine by his side, Giles stared at the phone. Fabian’s mobile

number was still programmed on speed dial. It would be so easy to call him up; he needed to know what was going on with his money, after all. But Fabian wasn’t the one he wanted to talk to right now. Giles didn’t think he could cope with the world-weary sarcasm

masquerading as wit. No, he wanted a simple conversation. One not weighted with unhappy history and past insults.

He looked out of the window and spied a flickering light through the orchard

branches.

Two minutes later, he was striding through the long grass with the bottle and a couple of glasses grasped in his hand.

Chapter Four

Giles thought he’d find a camp-fire of some sort, and was half-prepared to lecture

Smutty about the ethics of starting a fire on someone else’s land without permission, but the flickering light came from an entirely different source. Yes, there was a brazier on the ground

—what appeared to be an old washing machine drum up on bricks—but the light he’d seen from the house was higher up in the air.

Wheels of fire spun against the night sky, searing their way across Giles’s vision in an endless dance. It took a few moments for his eyes to adjust well enough to see Smutty, standing there below the spinning torches, catching and propelling them up again. Giles stayed back under the cover of the trees, not wanting to alarm the juggler and risk him causing himself an injury with the flaming clubs.

But that wasn’t the only reason he waited and watched. Smutty had stripped down to

the waist and his lean torso glowed in the ever changing illumination. His skin gleamed with sweat—he would have seemed a bronzed statue if it weren’t for the constant motion, the rippling play of his muscles catching the light in a mesmerising dance as he juggled.

Giles’s eyes felt like they’d been singed, melted into place as the heat radiated

through him, awakening desires long since stowed away in secret places. He made the effort to lift his gaze to concentrate on Smutty’s face. He’d have expected the man to look nervous, worried even, considering how close he was to getting badly burnt, yet the expression on his face was serene. It didn’t even look like he was watching the clubs so much as the space between them, his hands anticipating where each would be without the need for visual confirmation.

The pattern of the juggling changed, and now one club was spinning higher than the

others, slowing at the top of its arc before falling back again. Giles couldn’t be sure if it was the same club each time, or if the three were being swapped. Come to think of it, he wasn’t entirely sure how many clubs there were. He tried to follow just one of them, heedless of the way his feet were drawing him closer, right into the circle of light around the brazier.

The club he was following flew high into the sky, and when it came back down again

it was caught and held in the same hand as the other two. Giles looked up into Smutty’s smiling face.

“That was incredible,” Giles said, when the silence seemed to have stretched out for too long. “How d’you ever… I mean, how on earth do you learn how to do that? Don’t you get burnt?”

Smutty chuckled, a warm sound, and moved in closer, dunking the flaming torches

into a metal bucket. They hissed and a cloud of steam rose out. “I thought I told you earlier, but maybe you weren’t listening. I get the impression you’re not much of a morning person.”

Giles shook his head. “No, I’m not really. Sorry. I think I was probably a bit of an ogre, wasn’t I?”

“No worries, I’m good with ogres. Here, have a seat.” Smutty indicated the battered

old camping chair next to the brazier.

“What about you?” Giles couldn’t take the only seat. Couldn’t sit there with his eyes at nipple height, trying not to stare at what he couldn’t have.

“I’ll just get another off the boat. Won’t be a mo.”

While Smutty was gone, Giles sat and attempted to pour them both a glass of wine. It was difficult, what with having no flat surface to rest the glasses on. He’d have been better off bringing tumblers, or maybe even mugs. He ended up gripping the stems of both glasses between his thighs while he poured a small amount into each, and was so occupied in his task that he didn’t notice Smutty’s return until he looked up to see him settling down into a chair just opposite. Giles had a moment’s irritation at the black shirt that was now covering Smutty’s torso, but it was swept away when he raised his gaze.

He hadn’t allowed himself to notice yet, but Smutty was breathtaking. The firelight

brought it out—the warm tone of his skin, the generous lips, the exotic, deep brown eyes that seemed to be teasing Giles with some secret knowledge. Suddenly, the crazy dreadlocked hair made sense.

“You’re mixed race, aren’t you?” Giles blurted out before he could stop himself.

Smutty stared at him with wide, inscrutable eyes, and Giles willed the waters of the canal to rise up and sweep him away just so he could pretend he’d never said something so gauche.

“Is that going to be a problem?” Smutty asked, his voice inflectionless.

“God, no! Of course not. Why would you think— But of course, I’m sorry. You’ve

probably had to deal with all sorts of, er, unpleasantness. Racism, that kind of thing.” Giles managed to stop himself before he dug a hole too deep to pull himself out of. It didn’t help that Smutty was staring at him blankly. “I mean, I can sympathise. I’ve had to suffer other people’s prejudice myself. On account of my, er, my being gay,” he finished, his cheeks burning.

Giles risked a quick glance at Smutty. He hated outing himself. Every time he had to do it felt like the first time. That sickening lurch inside as he stumbled through the words, utterly unable to predict what reaction they would cause. He thought by now he’d seen them all: his father’s silent sorrow and reproach; the awkwardness, pity and occasional downright hatred from colleagues; and every now and then, a rare moment of calm acceptance. Right now that was the best he could hope for.

What he wasn’t expecting was laughter.

Offended, Giles watched Smutty trying to calm himself. Eventually the laughter

turned into a coughing fit, and he automatically held out a glass of wine. Smutty took it, sipped and then spat it out.

“Gods, what are you trying to do to me? I don’t drink.”

“Sorry,” Giles said, wondering how many more times he was going to end up

apologising. Maybe he should just quit now and head back to the house before he put his foot in it again. “I didn’t realise you were teetotal.” Was Smutty a recovered alcoholic? Oh God, what if the taste of wine sent Smutty back to the bottle? Giles didn’t think he could live with that responsibility weighing on him.

“No, well, it’s not like I told you, was it? Hey, Giles, chill out. You look like you’re about to hyperventilate or something.”