Stockholm Syndrome 3 - No Beginning, No End (11 page)

"I'm not bored, just pleased to see you."

 

"I could get used to this, being worshipped. You could let me finish my dinner first, though."

"Charming." He finally moves away, resting the side of his face against his curled fingers and his elbow on the table, watching Pip eat like he's in a zoo. Bit off-putting. Lindsay's cheeks are very faintly flushed from drink. Whiskey always slows him down, makes him lazy and affectionate, so unlike his usual self. Best taking advantage of it while it's on offer.

"Come upstairs," Pip says. His chair scrapes on the floor when he pushes it back to stand up. Lindsay stays where he is, propped up on his arm, smiling with half his mouth like he's still a bit asleep.

"Whatever for?"
"You're a dirty old man. I just wanna show you something." "I bet you do."

"Come on." He slides their fingers together, leading Lindsay by his hand like a child and picking up his bag from the foot of the stairs as they pass. There's a filthy little germ of a thought that lives in his brain, always just waiting for the right time to emerge and casually suggest a replay of that one uncomfortable switcharound all those years ago. The right time never seemed to come, there was never a time Lindsay was drunk and Pip wasn't, not until now...

He takes Lindsay into the living room instead. That can wait, but this can't.

"I have to show you this thing I got today."
"Alright."

He expects Lindsay to take his favourite armchair like he always does, but he tugs on their still-linked hands and goes to sit on the smallest couch instead, bringing Pip with him and only letting his hand go so he can wrap both arms around and cuddle him like a teddy bear. Pip's laughing again, he can't control it. It's not to mock but just because he's overwhelmed and happy. Lindsay's
never
like this, he's just not the cuddling sort. There's got to be a specific level of whiskey he needs in his bloodstream to be this pliant and agreeable. Experiments might be needed, like George's Marvellous Medicine...

"Lindsay, stop it."

Lindsay doesn't stop. Maybe it's obvious in Pip's voice that this is the sort of
stop
that means
I kind of want you stop to but oh god please don't
. His mouth is warm and insistent on Pip's neck, touching all the invisible places that make him forget how to breathe.

"Listen. I changed my name, it's all legal." He says it quickly or he won't say it at all, then sort of regrets it when Lindsay stops kissing him and sits up, wearing that familiar confused-exasperated look on his face again, all raised eyebrows and pursed lips.
"What?"

"I done it a few days ago, I didn't wanna tell you til I got the certificate through the post, look." The edge of the envelope is damp from where the rain squirmed its way inside his bag even though he thought he'd closed it tight enough, but the papers inside aren't damaged. He brings them all out and searches through to find the certificate. "Yeah, here, look. I changed my name."

"I don't think I want to look." He takes the page anyway, but holds it face-down in his lap. "You changed your name to Ziggy Stardust, didn't you?"

"No I never!"

 

"If it's Ziggy Stardust or Aladdin Sane you can change it back right now and we'll pretend this never happened."

"Don't be such a bellend, just look."
"I can't. It's something awful."

"It's
Brown
, you fucker. I got your stupid boring beige name now, alright?"

"Oh," Lindsay says, very quietly. He turns the certificate over to read it properly, then his mouth moves like he's trying really hard not to smile. "Danger?"

"Well, I didn't wanna change Philip cos I'm kinda used to it now, and I'd never change George cos of my grandad, and I can't change Valentine cos you couldn't call me that no more and I like it. Olly bet me I wouldn't do it so I had to."

"Philip George Danger Valentine Brown. You twat." "I hate people saying 'danger's my middle name', they're all dirty liars. Danger
is
my middle name."

"You need your head looking at."
"It's hilarious." "It's stupid."

"So what? You're missing the point a bit. I'm Mr. Brown now. Pip Brown, like Ladyhawke. If you won't marry me. It's... next best thing, innit?"

Lindsay's touching Pip's hair again, winding a strand around his fingertip then letting it go and sliding his whole hand in there at the back of Pip's head, tugging gently through the damp waves of black to hold him close – not a cuddle like before, not exactly, but something fierce and possessive. Pip clings on around his neck, he can't seem to get close enough. He rests his face there, cheek pressed tight against Lindsay's shoulder.

"I'm not marrying you," Lindsay says. It sounds muffled, he's talking right into Pip's hair. "It's revolting. I'm not doing it."

 

"You said you would."

 

"Silly little girls need to learn that big cruel men sometimes make promises they don't mean if they think it'll get them into bed."

"Ah, get fucked. You know I would've slept with you anyway, you didn't have to lie about nothing." It still sinks his stomach and he feels stupid because it shouldn't matter. It's just another bit of paper, like the document he can whip out if anybody ever disputes the fact that his middle name is indeed Danger. "Why's it revolting just saying you love me and writing your name down?"

"It's just... ugh. God. It's foul. It's... saying all those vile soppy things in front of everybody you know, it's just
horrible
."

 

"No it ain't horrible, you're just repressed."

 

"I'm not repressed."

 

"Just don't lie to me no more, I don't wanna be lied to over the
only
thing in the whole world what really matters, that ain't fair."

"But
why
does it matter so much? It doesn't change anything." "If it don't change anything why won't you do it."

"I can't believe I almost forgot how... fucking
irritating
you are sometimes."

I could say the same thing
. He bites it back and keeps it in his head where it can't do any more damage. Olly always said he was so persuasive he could get off a murder charge just by doing his big sad eyes at the jury, but Lindsay's tougher than that. There's a way to play him but it involves
words
, so Pip's handicapped right from the start. "I just want people to know," he says. He feels like a brat and he screws his face up, trying to sound less sulky. "All my boyfriends ever wanna do is fuck me up the arse in private then act on like we're hardly even mates in public. And I see all them people like holding hands and stuff in the street and okay, I get it, you don't wanna show off, you don't want people looking at you going urgh look at that sentimental old git thinking he's fourteen holding hands in public, which by the way they
wouldn't
cos nobody actually cares, you're just neurotic. But that's okay, you know? That's
you
, I love
you
, if I just wanted someone I could feel up when we was out dancing I could find someone in like two seconds but I don't
want
no one else, I just wanna be with you. But I want people to know. Even if it's just this one time then you never look at me ever again except where people can't see, I don't care, but I want..."

Everything
. Stupid words. It all sounds pathetic.
I wanna show people I ain't some massive brain failure who's too stupid to be with anyone whose IQ is bigger than their shoe size. I wanna tell them what it feels like needing someone so much, cos if I don't let a bit out I'll blow up like a bomb and lose it all. I want my dad to see I'm not just some festering blister who only gets in the way and ruins people's lives. I wish I could stick a tap in and drain off how much I love you like bleeding the air out your brakes but people don't work like that
.

He tries again, swallowing hard to ease away the painful lump in his throat. "It's just important. I love you. I'm yours. I need people to
know
."

"Alright," Lindsay says suddenly. He leans down to grab at Pip's bag, throwing stuff out onto the carpet, his iPod and phone and wallet and gloves and Attitude magazine until he finds what he's looking for, a green marker pen, and holds it between his teeth while he starts tugging at the hem of Pip's t-shirt. Pip's too surprised to do anything but submit, he lets Lindsay peel off his t-shirt and throw that on top of all the things from his bag then just watches as Lindsay pulls the pen out of the cap in his mouth and signs his name in big green letters on the side of Pip's stomach. He holds his breath, trying not to suck in the belly fat everybody else keeps telling him is imaginary. "There, you're mine, are you fucking happy now?" Lindsay snaps, and throws the recapped pen across the room to get lost in the bookcase somewhere. He runs his fingers through his hair and sits there like that clutching his head. He's acting like one of them's done something monumentally
wrong
and Pip's not sure which one of them it was, not sure whether he's allowed to touch. He tries it, skating hesitant fingers down Lindsay's spine. Lindsay doesn't object so Pip leans against him, his cheek on Lindsay's back, and puts an arm round his waist. They don't talk for a while. It's so still and so silent Pip can hear the thud of their syncopated heartbeats, even over the gentle rain tapping down on the windows – then Lindsay starts talking again, just like Pip thought he would. He always found it easier to talk when he didn't have to make eye contact.

"You'll get bored," he says, so quiet and hesitant he barely sounds like himself. "You say you won't but how long did it take you to get over it before? Five minutes? You'll get bored soon enough, then you'll be twenty-seven and divorced or whatever the hell you call it and-"

"I ain't after your money if that's what you're stressing about." "Shut up."
"I won't get bored. I never got over you, I just learnt to cope." "You said you wouldn't get bored of France but you did." "Yeah, but we're in
London
now. Everything's changed."

"Has it?" Pip doesn't know how to respond to that. He sits up a bit and kisses Lindsay's cheek, wasting a second of time while he tries to think of something to say, but Lindsay sighs and gets to his feet. He's still avoiding eye contact, looking vaguely out of the window and then vaguely at Pip while he tries to smooth down the hair he dislodged by holding him there. "I need a shower, I won't be long."

"Oh." Now Pip's looking out the window too, following the trickling lines of raindrops on the glass. "Alright."

"Yeah. I'll just be a minute." Still he lingers on, stroking Pip's hair and touching his face until Pip gives up being upset with him and leans against him again, giving him a clumsy hug around the legs. "You know I do," Lindsay says abruptly, still quiet and strained like it's hurting him to say it. "You shouldn't want to hear it all the time, you
know
I do and it's nobody else's business, I don't want them listening in, it's bad enough just saying it to you."

"It shouldn't be
bad
, it's a
nice
thing."

 

"I love you, Mr. Brown," Lindsay says, soft and awkward, and Pip squeezes his eyes shut so he can't cry.

 

***

He doesn't need a shower at all – he had one just before he started making dinner because he was muddy from working in the garden and getting caught in the rainstorm – but the tiny shower cubicle in his ensuite is about the only place in the house he can be alone. He doesn't want to lock himself in the bathroom, it's not Valentine's fault, putting a locked door between them would only aggravate things... shower, then. A shower behind an unlocked door, elaborate incomprehensible shorthand for "Please leave me alone but know you've done nothing wrong." Ridiculous. He knows he's acting like an arse but it's done now, and the hot water
is
helping. His skin starts reddening almost immediately when he steps under the spray. The water's only just at the right side of his threshold for pain, reinvigorating all the ghosts of Valentine's old shampoo drips so he's breathing in a thick steamy cloud of cherry.

He's just rinsing suds out of his hair when the bathroom door opens. "Alright, lobster man?" Valentine calls over the sound of the falling water. He sounds cheerful. Good, he's over it.

"Are you coming in?"

 

"No thanks, normal people don't like getting boiled alive. You got any razorblades?"

 

"Please don't slit your wrists in here. Do you know how hard it is getting blood out of grout?"

 

"Ha ha ha. I just need a shave, I ain't got no blades in my bathroom."

 

"Check under the sink."

He goes back to his hair – he never bothered with conditioner for over thirty years, until Valentine sat on him the day after he moved into the house in Wales and emptied most of a bottle onto his head, sternly informing him it was for his own good – and listens to Valentine clattering around in the cupboard. He's not soaping up his
face
when Lindsay sneaks a look at him, though...

"Philip. If you're shaving your bikini line it's over between us."

"As if I am. I'd need a blowtorch and chainsaw anyway." It's impossible to see what he's doing, hunched over like that with his back to the shower cubicle. The huge mirror is too steamed up to reflect anything.

"What are you doing?"
"Prep."
"What?"
"Just have your shower, alright? I'm busy."

Curiouser and curiouser. Lindsay's done now but he feels weird and self-conscious, he doesn't want to get out the shower while Valentine's there ready to gawp at him, so he stands there simmering in the hot water a bit longer waiting for him to finish whatever the hell it is he's doing to himself and get out. He goes eventually without another word. Bullseye: curiosity piqued. Lindsay doesn't rush through drying himself off and putting some old pyjama trousers on, he's got enough self-control for that, but his brain is racing and finding no answers.

The obviousness slaps him round the face as soon as he goes back through to the bedroom and finds Valentine lying on the bed, propped up against a pile of pillows. Of course. He's watched him at work, he knows how it's done. Valentine's whinged enough times about having to shave some gorilla's furry back ready for the ink and needles – now it's his own stomach he's bared, like a neck ready for the guillotine.
What are you doing?
Lindsay tries to say again, even though it's clear, but he can't seem to remember how to form the words so he just opens and closes his mouth a few times and gives up. Valentine's wearing rubber gloves and magenta skinny jeans and that's it, nothing else, just a look of intense concentration as he pulls his trolley full of gear and tiny plastic ink cups closer to the edge of the bed and turns the machine on.