Christmas At Leo's - Memoirs Of A Houseboy (30 page)

The next thing I knew I was on my feet, with no recollection of having stood up. I stumbled and would have fallen if Shane’s arms had not been around me. He had come for me.

There was no speech between us. He stripped off my jeans, leaving me in my t-shirt and boxers, and put me to bed. I was asleep before he got back in.

A dream bumped me awake in the early hours. My eyes flew open. I stared into the darkness, my heart fluttering in my chest, as I summoned the details. My mother had featured. I could hear her, but not see her, as if I were in another room. There was shouting followed by sobbing. I didn’t know if it was hers or mine. I was frightened, calling out for her. The dream shifted and she was there. I could see her this time. I was small, playing on the floor, looking up at her. Then something happened and she screamed, clutching at her stomach, as if she had been shot. There was blood, lots of it, and that’s when I woke up.

Sleep was lost. I got out of bed, padding over to the window alcove. Before I could twitch aside the curtain to look outside, I heard a ping, recognising it as my phone taking delivery of a message. Who the heck was texting in the early hours? It was probably Lee, having a pissheads moment and checking in after carousing all Christmas Eve. It would be unintelligible gibberish.

My jeans were looped over the end of the bed, the phone in a pocket. I picked them up and crept stealthily out of the room. I withdrew and examined my phone on the landing. The message was from my mother. Why was she writing me at ten past three in the morning? She couldn’t be ill, not if she could use a phone.

Dragging on my jeans I hurried downstairs to the lounge, closing the door behind me. I curled up on the chair closest to the banked fire to read her unusually loquacious text:
‘can’t sleep. Drinking tea downstairs. The tree lights are on. Somehow they look more magical in the early hours. I’ve been thinking about the Christmases when you were little. You’d get up so early. I used to try to make you go back to bed, but you never would. I didn’t mind. I loved watching you. I wish I could live every moment over again. Have a nice Christmas. See you soon.’

I chewed my lip for a moment, and then decided I would call her rather than reply via text. She was up and awake after all. She sounded surprised, and embarrassed, apologising if her sentimental message had somehow woken me up. I assured her I’d been awake already, suffering from insomnia just as she was.

She laughed, sounding relieved. “Are you having a nice time there with your friends, Gilli?”

“Lovely.” I lied. “How about you?”

“I’m getting spoiled, not allowed to do a thing. It feels odd. I’d prefer to be doing things, like I used to before...” she paused and then whispered. “Better go. I can hear Frank moving around.”

I scowled. Trust him to come between us. I said a quick goodbye, adding. “Happy Christmas, mam.”

“Happy Christmas, son, bye for now.”

I wanted her to tell me she loved me, but she didn’t. I couldn’t say it to her either. Such words don’t come easy between working class men and their parents. I believed she had loved me when I was very young, but I was uncertain if that love had transferred to the older, post coming out me. Even the ‘much love’ she had written in the Christmas card she had sent me pertained to the child me, rather than the man me. It was maternal loyalty to the baby she had once borne. Children get older and change, become beings that parents can’t always relate to. My mother yearned for an aspect of me that was long gone. She should have had more babies who in turn would have given her other babies to love and enjoy.

I got up and went over to the window, twitching aside the heavy curtain, easing open the blinds to look outside. The stars glimmered against the black canopy of the night sky. It took me back to when I was a kid. Like mum said, I could never sleep on Christmas Eve. I used to stand by my bedroom window, staring heavenward, searching for Santa and his flying sleigh among the sparkling planets, while praying greedy prayers for lots of material goodies. I’d also think about my dad, wondering if he was in heaven, perhaps even sitting on one of the stars, looking down at me. I’d wave, just in case.

My thoughts returned to the dream that had woken me. I tried to analyse it, sucking thoughtfully on the end of my phone. The bit about me being in another room, unable to see my mother, represented our estrangement. Then we’d got back in touch again. Mum had never been shot, not to my knowledge, so the blood was symbolic of the cervical cancer that was killing her.

Slipping my phone back in my pocket, I closed my eyes, pressing my forehead to the windowpane, feeling cold strike through me, and willing it to numb my mind. I was unsettled and fearful. Something I’d once read suddenly came swooping back. I could not remember the author for the life of me, but the words had stuck in my mind.
‘The death of a loved one disturbs the soul and mixes the memory. It removes you from the present back to a place of echoes and shadows.’
That’s where I’d been since visiting my mother, in a place of echoes and shadows. Tears welled under my closed lids.

A quiet voice spoke behind me. It was Dick’s.

“What are you doing?”

“Thinking.” I opened my eyes and lifted my head from the windowpane, but didn’t turn around.

“About what?”

“Stuff.”

“That could mean a thousand things.”

“Or nothing at all.” I crossed my arms over my chest, hugging myself.

“I’ve been thinking too. You’ve been out of sorts since your visit home. Was your stepfather there? Did you fight with him?”

“He isn’t and never has been any kind of father to me.”

“Sorry. Frank then, did you fight with him?”

“He was at work.”

“Then what happened?”

I didn’t answer, so he continued.

“I know you think Shane and I are insensitive, but we’re not so insensitive as to imagine your mother wouldn’t be on your mind. What we don’t know is what emotions are involved and how they’re affecting you. How can we, when you won’t tell us? You force us to make assumptions about why you’re behaving badly.” There was a brief pause and then he added. “Sometimes, Gilli, I wonder how well we really know you, or if in fact we know you at all in any deep sense.”

I watched my warm breath mist the cold glass, obscuring my view. “You know all that’s worth knowing.”

“Do we? I’m not so sure. Sometimes I think you’ve only ever given us the bare bones of your past.”

Bare bones were are all I had myself in some respects. I turned to face him. “There’s no mystery about me, at least nothing worth hiring a detective over. You know the story. I didn’t get on with Frank, fell out with my mother, left home, got in trouble and debt and ran away from it, ending up on your doorstep where I conned my way into a job I wasn’t qualified for.” I lapsed into my northern default setting, giving a self-deprecating laugh. “You should have kept the door bolted against me, or laid poison.”

“Gilli, please don’t talk like that. You know I don’t care for it.”

I shrugged. “Just saying, there’s not much you don’t know. I lived in a squat for a short time. I don’t think I ever told you that.”

“You didn’t. Was it fun in the squat?”

“No.” I shivered, hugging myself tighter, unwilling to reveal more about that particular sordid episode. I’d told no one how bad it was, not even Lee. I blagged it, playing the carefree card about having a great time, doing what I wanted to do without restrictions. I was a film noir anti-hero, living on the margins. Saving face I suppose. I was all mouth and trousers back then, hiding my fear under bravado and cocky talk. Your pals don’t want to be bothered by angst, no one does. People want your fun aspect rather than your fear aspect.

“You’re frozen, so am I.” Dick held out his arms. “Come here.”

“I’m fine.”

“You are not. Come to me. Now.”

I moved into his arms. It felt good, a sweet surrender.

“I’m here for you, Gilli, so is Shane. If you need or want to talk about anything, anything at all, ask, we
will
listen.”

“I know.”

He sighed. “I think you believe that in your head, but I’m not sure you feel it in your heart.”

We cuddled in silence for a few minutes and then he sighed and murmured. “I’ve been impatient with you of late. I’m sorry, honey. Forgive me. I worry far more than I used to. I suppose I’m getting old.”

“You’re not old at all, and I’m sorry too. I’ve complicated your life more than I ever meant to. I go on about things too much and I know I don’t take to change as well as I should. I’m rock hard to live with sometimes.”

“The things you say.” He gave a small laugh. “You are indeed,
rock hard
to live with sometimes. As for complicated, well, Shane and I were that before you ever came on scene.” He kissed my cheek. “Come on, bad baby, let’s get you back upstairs. It won’t do to have the head of household wake and find you missing. You’re running on empty as it is. The sound of him skelping your arse will waken the entire house.” He swept me off my feet with his favourite hero style flourish. I looped my arms around his neck and he carried me to bed, my constant ally once more.

Snuggled in his arms, I closed my eyes, seeking sleep, but my mind was still too active, insisting on dwelling on the brief conversation I’d shared with my mother. It was the closest I’d come to spending Christmas Day with her in years. There would be no more opportunities. My Adam’s apple bobbed painfully. Her allotted Christmases were drawing to a close. The lights, tinsel and ornaments on the old plastic tree would soon be removed. The stripped bare tree would be packed away along with a host of memories, its role in her life, and mine, over and done with. It would lie in the dust and darkness forever and a day, just like her.

Dick’s arms tightened around me, giving silent comfort as my silent tears soaked his chest. His hand stroking my hair soothed me to sleep.

Chapter Fifteen - Christmas Day

I awoke to find myself part of a nesting set with Shane spooning Dick and Dick spooning me. I sensed it was still early, though how early was hard to tell under the hush of winter darkness. I lay for a few moments and then eased myself free of Dick’s arms. He stirred, murmured, and lapsed back into sleep.

A look at my phone told me it was seven past seven. Padding over to the window, I peeked through the blinds. Day had yet to dilute night. Sunrise comes late in a British December. The fairy lights in the front garden were on, enhanced by a dusting of frost that lent holiday glamour to the trees and shrubs. They must have taken an age to put up, not that Leo would have done it personally. The company he contracted to keep his grounds in order probably supplied a minion to do it.

It was Christmas Day proper and, despite the garden display, I didn’t feel at all festive. There was no anticipation, just a heavy feeling in my chest. Dick had been spot on in his observation that Christmas made me unhappy.

Red Alert:
yet another houseboy analysis coming up:
maybe the sadness was because I wanted to feel the excitement I’d felt as a young child? My breath misted the cold windowpane. Such innocent joy could never be recaptured. It belonged to the past, to the child Gilli, not the now Gilli. I had a sudden moment of insight. I’m one of those people who never make a clean break from childhood. Remnants of it still haunted my mind like troubled spirits, colouring my emotions, invoking a sense of loss and of things not being quite right.

Turning away from the window, I went into the bathroom. After watering the trouser pup and washing my hands, I inspected my face in the mirror. I still looked pale. The only colour came from my nose, which was emulating Rudolph the reindeer’s and glowing red from the inflamed spots adorning it. I sighed. Maybe Shane had a point and all my scrubbing and rubbing only served to make them worse.

Despondent, I leaned my forehead against the mirror glass. I knew I harked on about my spots far more than they warranted, but I hated them, most of all, though, I hated the meds that caused them. They didn’t only blemish my skin. They dulled my mind. I felt estranged from my own being in some way. The episodes were horrible and frightening and they made me feel like shit, but in between them I felt fine, or had felt fine, until I went on daily medication. Now I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt completely myself, or completely happy. It was an unnerving thought.

Filling the hand basin with cold water, I bent over it. Cupping my hands, I filled them with water and swept it over my face several times, hoping it would cool and diminish the redness a little. It didn’t, in fact the cold made my nose glow redder still. Shit. I pulled a face at myself in the mirror, muttering, “you’re gonna be the spotty boy at the party, Gil.”

Grabbing a towel I pressed it to my face. When I took it away again, I almost lost bowel control at the sight of a dark presence looming large in the bathroom doorway. Shane. He was, it seemed, untouched by the spirit of Christmas. There was no sweet salutation, only a stern question that made my heart sink. The injunction from the day before was still in place.

“Did I give you permission to get out of bed?”