Hard Tail (9 page)

I went to visit Jay after I’d eaten, hoping I’d left enough time for Olivia to be in and out before I got there—I wasn’t looking forward to seeing her again in a hurry, in case she started going on about my personal grooming issues in front of my brother. He’d never let me hear the last of it.

The private hospital, it turned out, was only a hop, skip and a jump away from Southampton General. Not, of course, that most of those admitted were up to any of that sort of thing. I supposed Jay might have managed a hop, but skipping or jumping was definitely out. The car park here was free, at least, and the reception was a lot nicer than the NHS one—more like a conference centre than a hospital, really. Visiting hours were a lot more accommodating too—basically they said turn up whenever you want, although I had a feeling they wouldn’t be too chuffed about people rolling in after the pubs had closed.

Jay had a private room here, with its own TV and en suite bathroom. He didn’t look quite so happy, though—maybe he missed chatting up the NHS nurses. “’Lo,” he muttered in reply to my exaggeratedly hearty greeting.

“What’s up?”

He shrugged. “Oh, you know. Just bored.” He looked out of the window with a wistful expression. There wasn’t a lot to see, but I guessed that wasn’t the point.

“Missing your usual fresh air and exercise?”

“Just a bit.” He turned back to me with a determined-to-stay-cheerful air. “So, how are you getting on at the shop? Matt managing to stay in one piece?”

“Yes, he’s doing okay, actually. Hasn’t trashed a single bike. His mate turned up today. Adam—you know him?”

Jay cracked a smile. “Bloody hell, how did you cope—alone in a shop with two poofs? Bet you spent the whole time with your hands over your nads and your back up against a wall.”

I stared. “Adam’s a poof? I mean, Adam is gay?” He hadn’t
looked
gay—but then, neither did Matt, did he? “And anyway, should you be using the word ‘poof’? I thought it was the sort of thing you could only say if you actually were one.”

“Nah, they don’t mind. And yeah, Adam’s as queer as they come,” Jay confirmed, looking pleased about it. I supposed he thought he was striking a blow for tolerance, one bigot at a time. “Single too, last I heard,” he added teasingly.

“Very funny.”

“You know, I’ve heard a lot of homophobes are repressed homosexuals—”

My stomach turned to ice. “I’m not homophobic! Bloody hell, Jay!”

I thought I’d been successful in keeping the volume down below a shout, but a nurse passing the open door gave me a sharp look. Jay rolled his eyes melodramatically. “All right, all right—keep your hair on. I was only joking. Don’t take everything so bloody seriously.”

Right. Yeah. Joking. I tried to breathe deeply without him noticing. “There was something I wanted to ask you about,” I said a bit abruptly because I couldn’t stand the silence a moment longer. “Are you sure Matt’s, well, honest?”

“What? Of course he is!”

“Well, it’s just—he’s been wearing this necklace—”

“Crime against humanity, is it, blokes wearing jewellery?”

“Shut up. It looked familiar, that’s all, and I suddenly realised why. It’s that one you brought back from Goa.”

“Oh, that. Yeah, that’s right. I never wear it anymore, and it seemed like his kind of thing. What’s the big deal?”

What was the big deal? “Jay, you can’t go giving jewellery to a gay bloke!”

“Why? Last time I looked there weren’t any laws against it!”

“But people are going to think—
he’s
going to think—”

“What, that we’re shagging? I pay him every month too—does that make him a rent boy? Bloody hell, Tim, have you ever listened to yourself?”

“You’re not—” I had to clear my throat. “You’re not involved with him, are you?”

“Tim, you prick, people are born gay. Or not, as the case may be. You can’t catch it. I’m as straight as you are, for fuck’s sake.”

Well, at least that proved he really had been joking about the repressed homosexual thing. I just hoped my expression wasn’t giving me away, that was all. Because I very much doubted Jay was as straight as I was. Mostly because, as it happened, I wasn’t. Straight, that is, in case you’re confused, which would be understandable in the circumstances. I certainly seemed to have spent most of my life in a state of confusion about my sexuality.

I’d decided a long time ago I didn’t want to go skipping down that yellow brick road. I didn’t fancy making friends with Dorothy, thought lavender was best left to old ladies, and green carnations made me look bilious. Basically, I didn’t
want
to be gay. Mum would hit the roof, Dad would be quietly appalled, and Jay… Well, I’d always had the impression Jay thought I was a bit prissy. Coming out as a man who liked men—my gut clenched at the thought. It’d just be one more way I’d failed to measure up.

So I’d buried those feelings in an unmarked grave and thought that was it. I’d married Kate—didn’t that prove I could be normal? Be like everyone else?

Your marriage failed
, a treacherous voice inside told me.

So what? Lots of marriages failed. Suddenly I missed Kate so badly it hurt. Life had been so much simpler while we were together. The day we got married, it had felt so right. Like I was finally doing something I could be proud of. Doing things properly.

God, I hated myself sometimes. I’d spent my whole life trying to do things properly and had been an abject bloody failure. Kate deserved more from life than marriage to a loser like me. I hoped she and Alex would be happy together, I really did.

I just wasn’t sure I ever wanted to see either of them again, that was all.

I realised with an unpleasant jolt that Jay was looking at me oddly. “What?” I said, a bit defensively.

“Nothing,” he said, still giving me the funny look. As if he’d had a glimpse of what was inside my head and was trying to work it out.

God, I was getting paranoid. I coughed. “Right. Well, I’d better be off, anyway.” Not that I
really
thought he could read my mind, but sometimes, he seemed to know me a little too well for comfort.

I was already back at my car when I remembered I
still
hadn’t asked him about the bloody cat.

Chapter Seven

The next couple of days in the shop were pretty similar to the last, except my taste buds started getting spoilt rotten by Matt bringing me in a packed lunch every day. He wouldn’t let me give him more than a couple of pounds a day, either, making his gourmet efforts cheaper than a supermarket packet of sandwiches.

His eye was healing up nicely, I was glad to see—the bruises had faded to yellow already. I’d decided I’d just been an idiot about the necklace. So he’d lied about where he’d got it—so what? He’d probably thought I’d jump to
exactly
the conclusion I had, in fact, jumped to.

Which wasn’t that unreasonable, anyway, was it? I mean, if Jay
had
been that way inclined, he’d have been bound to find Matt pretty bloody tempting—the cheeky smile, the readiness to help, the adorable klutziness… I sighed. Time to get those thoughts firmly out of my head, before I totally flipped and asked him out on a date for real.

Saturday, we were both rushed off our feet. It seemed like every five minutes someone was either bringing in a bike for repair or servicing, or coming in to pick one up. By the time six o’clock came, I was more than ready to turn the sign on the door around to “Closed”.

“Is it always this bad at the weekend?” I asked a tired-looking Matt.

“Pretty much. It’s the time of year, innit? Everyone’s getting their bikes out of the shed, clearing off the cobwebs and remembering how the chain fell off at the end of last summer and they never got around to getting it fixed.”

“Maybe we should start sending reminders round in February,” I suggested as I started to cash up the till. “You know, like the dentist.”

Matt laughed. “Can’t see it catching on.”

He was probably right. “Or…I don’t know, offer a discount on winter services?”

“That’s not a bad idea. You should suggest it to Jay. Are you seeing him tonight?”

I groaned. The thought of seeing Jay I could cope with. Dealing with Mum after the day I’d had? Not so much. “Think I’ll give it a miss tonight. Go home, slump in front of the telly.” There was bound to be a
Poirot
on somewhere. “How about you?” I asked, more out of politeness than because I really wanted to hear about all the fun times Matt was undoubtedly looking forward to with Steve.

“Same, probably. Steve’s working,” he explained.

“Oh? What does he do?”

“He works on the docks.”

Steve was a stevedore? I tried not to laugh.

Matt must have noticed my constipated expression. “I mean, he’s a supervisor; it’s a good job.”

“Oh.” I was silent a moment, trying to pluck up my nerve. Which was stupid, as this wasn’t in any way like asking a girl out on a date. Just asking another bloke if he’d like to spend some time together, that was all. As friends. “Listen, why don’t we, er, slump in front of the telly together? Yours or mine, whichever’s easiest. We could get a takeaway, a few beers…” What the hell was I saying? I didn’t even
drink
beer. It just seemed more of a blokes-together sort of drink than, say, wine. That was a date drink.

And this was most definitely not a date.

Matt didn’t seem unduly worried by my dithering and false heartiness. His face lit up like I’d bought him a puppy. “That’d be great! Um. It’d probably be better to go to yours, if that’s okay?”

“No problem! Do you know the way? We could go straight there—I’ll be finished here in a mo.”

Matt nodded. “You’re at Jay’s, right? I’ve been there loads of times.” He headed off to pick up his battered green Ford Focus that had the back seats permanently down, the better to accommodate bike frames.

I finished what I was doing, locked the shop and drove the BMW back to Eling. As expected, I found Matt on my doorstep, but he was hopping from one foot to another, looking like he’d just ridden three hundred miles on an unpadded saddle. “Everything all right?” I asked.

“I. Um. Sorry. I can’t stay.”

“Has something happened?” I was a bit worried, he looked so miserable.

“No—no, it’s just… I rang Steve, just to check when he’d be in, and he asked where I was going, so I told him, and then he said he’d be home early after all, so I’d better get back.”

“Oh. Right.” It must have been the exhausting day that was making me feel disappointed out of all proportion to the event. “No—that’s fine. I mean, of course you want to be with your… And it’s not like we were doing anything special, anyway.” I told myself to get a grip, and gave him a smile that hopefully didn’t look as fake as it felt. “I’ll see you on Monday, okay?”

“Yeah, see you then.” Head down, Matt slouched down the path back to his car.

I didn’t feel like getting a takeaway just for me, so after I’d grilled some chicken breast for Wolverine—I’d started to worry an unvaried diet of tuna might not really be healthy for him—I nuked a ready meal and sat down with it on the big, empty sofa. Wolverine jumped up beside me, took a sniff at my meal and backed away hurriedly, taking his chicken breath with him. I flicked through the channels until I found something I could bear to watch—some car-crash TV program about embarrassing ailments that fed my inner
schadenfreude
in a misery-loves-company sort of way. “At least I’ve got you, hey?” I said to the cat.

Wolverine cast me a withering glance and hopped off the sofa to lick at his nether regions.

Sunday found me in more positive mood, but still at a bit of a loose end. It just felt odd, waking up with no one to talk to except the cat. Wolverine was kind enough to wake me at the usual time, so I didn’t even get a lie-in. “Your breath’s getting worse,” I told him as I struggled to focus on the pink nose twitching impatiently only inches from my eyeball. Wolverine yawned. I tried not to gag.

Even though I’d been there only half a week, it felt strange, getting up and knowing I wouldn’t be going into the shop. Wouldn’t be seeing Matt’s infectious grin, or picking him up off the floor after his latest misstep. (Yesterday he’d managed to fall over a customer. Fortunately, the woman had been so embarrassed at thinking she’d tripped him up, she’d felt obliged to buy something.) My mood was curiously flat as I walked downstairs to the kitchen. There seemed to be a funny smell somewhere, but I couldn’t locate it and eventually decided it was just Wolverine’s breath hanging around, a sort of olfactory equivalent of the Cheshire Cat’s smile.

Karate wouldn’t start until eleven, so after I’d had a coffee, I decided to take my bike out for a spin. I’d been out with it every night when I got in from work, but the length of my rides had been constrained by the rumblings of my stomach. Today, I wanted to go a bit farther afield, so after passing by the sailing club and going up Eling Hill, I took a country lane down Marchwood way, avoiding the main road.

I pedalled easily past ploughed farmland interspersed with the odd, mysterious-looking spinney until I reached the cosily named Pooks Green. Unfortunately, I was disappointed in my hopes of seeing a hobbit or two ambling by. Perhaps they’d moved out when the railway was built; I had to stop at the level crossing to let a train clatter noisily past. I smiled as I had a flash of memory of doing just this as a child out with my gran—I could almost hear her voice telling me to “Look at the chuffa-train, Timmy!”