Encore Encore (16 page)

Domesticity, ordinariness, all framing a warm place to snuggle down in and feel safe. They discussed schooldays over the pie, university over the cheese and fruit, although even the Chablis wouldn’t loosen their tongues on anything personal, so far, tonight. A safe haven this might be, but there was too much recent baggage being carried not to tread warily, for the moment.

“No, don’t feel you have to do that.” Tommy snatched at the plates as Francis started to clear them up.

“There’s not a lot of washing up here. Let’s get it done and then we can have a clear conscience…” Francis was about to add

“to go to bed with” but stopped himself in time. This domesticity was getting to his head.

“Only if I can wash, then. I hate bloody drying.” Tommy neatly stacked the dirty stuff, fi lling the bowl with steaming hot water and Fairy Liquid’s best bubbles. “Your Freddie must be pleased at the show being such a success.” He pushed a stray curl from his face, covering his brow with suds in the process.

ENCORE! ENCORE!
115

“Hell, I’ll have to wipe you, along with the plates. Come here.” Francis applied his tea towel to the bubbles. “I’m pleased for him—he’s been a bloody good friend to me over the years.

He picked me up and dusted me down after…well, after I lost my way a bit. Post James fucking Mannering.”

“Did they call him that at the font? Must have shocked the vicar.”

“Someone been writing your lines for you?” Francis twisted the towel and fl icked it at Tommy’s backside. “Freddie slapped my arse as well, when I needed it.” He stifl ed a yawn. “Sorry.

Keep me awake—tell me who helped you get over Rickie.”

“Dewi Roberts. He was a good bloke.” Tommy assaulted a badly stained coffee cup.

“Ripped, was he, this Dewi?”

“Face like a cabbage and ears to boot. He was our coach, back when I was a lad, and then he had a heart attack, out of the game for years. When he joined Sunbury Meteors it was like old days.” Tommy broke into a thick Welsh accent. “Ferguson! Stop daydreaming—you look like a fuckin’ tart standing on a fuckin’

street corner in fuckin’ Tiger Bay.”

“Did you stop daydreaming?” Francis wiped the plate with the tea towel, small circular movements that were like caresses.

“Nah. That was all back when I was nineteen, of course—I always tried a bit harder when he bollocked me, couldn’t let down my mates on the team, but I knew I’d never be half the player that some of them already were.” He shrugged. “I was never going to get past the ‘promising’ stage. By the time we met up again, he was content to just nudge us along and make the most of what he had to work with. He gave me a focus again, got my mind off it.”

“That sounds like the theatre. I can name two ‘promising juvenile leads’ who were still ‘promising juvenile leads’ when they had to start using the Grecian 2000.” Francis grinned, starting work on the mugs. “He was right, though, you can’t put in what God’s left out. Gotta work with what you’ve got.”
116 Cochrane ~ All That Jazz

“I can tell you exactly what God left out for me. Talent. I could see what was needed, knew where to pierce the line, had it exactly in mind the spot I had to kick the ball into, but the move never seemed to come off.” Tommy swilled the bowl around, tipped the water away then wiped his hands on the end of Francis’s tea towel. Little domestic actions, stupidly charming.

“Hey, get off. Mucky pup.” The tea towel was whisked away and put to its proper employment again. “And is there any chance you could start speaking English, because I didn’t understand a fucking word of it.”

“You’ve heard of Jonny Wilkinson? You can’t have bloody well not heard of him.”

“Oh yeah, I’ve heard of him. Built like a brick shithouse.

Looks like Heath Ledger.” Francis grinned. “Highly beddable.”

“Well he’s the bloke I realised I’d never be.” Tommy rubbed his forehead, leaving another line of suds from where his wrists had evaded the tea towel. “Actually, I never wanted to be him.

I’d have been fi ne back in the ‘good old amateur’ days,” his voice suddenly notched up a couple of social rungs, “when rugby players never made it into the tabloids, or
Hello
or any other terrible places.”

“At least they make it into
Dieux du Stade.
” The tea towel was neatly laid out over the radiator.

“You’ve heard of that as well, have you?”

“Heard of it, seen it, watched the ‘Making of ’ video.

Fantasised about it. Them.” Francis closed his eyes, a rapturous feeling shooting up his spine. “Those two Italian brothers. Not just hot. Volcanic.” His eyes shot open again, to fi nd Tommy’s looking at him, just as bright and eager. “Any blokes who looked like that in your team?”

“Think I’d be here with you if there were?” Tommy punched Francis’s arm and nudged him in the direction of the lounge.

“Fat chance. Ditch any thoughts of the Bergamascos. Imagine clouds of sweaty mist rising as if from the primeval ooze—some ENCORE! ENCORE!
117

of the blokes I played with looked like they’d have been at home there.”

“At least there was one decent looking bloke in the team.

You.” Francis resisted—just—dragging Tommy across for a long, steamy kiss, steamier by far than three packs of forwards on a winter’s night in Rotherham.

“Decent looking? The best compliment I ever got was Dewi Roberts calling me ‘that great, long streak of water out of the tap wearing the number ten shirt
.’
”

“Then they were blind.”

“Or straight, Francis. Maybe it was just because they were straight.” The wistfulness in Tommy’s voice told the old story.

“Just like at school where the fi t blokes never looked at me, and the geeks followed me around like bloodhounds.”

“That sounds like me and the blokes who come to the stage door. Present company excepted, of course. Again.” Francis shook his head at the offer of port, but accepted a seat on the settee. “I’ve got no great track record at attracting the nice guys.”

“I bet all the pervs think
you’re
the nice guy.” Tommy settled into the far end of the sofa. Domestic Prince Charming or not he clearly wasn’t going to push things too far or fast. Even if he slipped off his shoes and encouraged his guest to do the same.

“I bet your mother used to say how nice
you
were.” Francis nudged Tommy’s leg with his foot. “I can just imagine it. ‘Keeps himself to himself, my Tommy—not used to hurly burly. Doesn’t hang about with any ruffi ans.’”

“Were you listening in?” Tommy rose, crossing the room to close the curtains. He could even make that an alluring activity.

“Or does my mum send you letters about me, asking why I haven’t found a girl yet and settled down?”

“I tell her you’re living a life of vice. What about your dad?”

“He rarely says anything about me, not within my earshot, anyway.” Tommy shrugged and sat down, sending a cushion
118 Cochrane ~ All That Jazz

tumbling onto the fl oor then having to bend to get it. Why must he have such a perfect backside?

“Like
my
late lamented dad, I guess. Always sitting with his nose in a book trying to ignore that I existed. Bloody hell, if he’d seen me in
Chicago
he’d have died, right there in the stalls. Or stood up and publicly disowned me.”

“I’m sorry.” Tommy held the cushion to his stomach like a teddy bear. Or a Francis substitute.

“Because he’s dead or because I’d have never have been able to come out to him? Don’t answer, I’ll take it for both.” Francis eased his tired legs onto the settee, not objecting when Tommy started to rub his feet. “That’s even better than an apology. You out to your old man?”

“Not offi cially. Mum knows and Dad…well, he’s suspected since I was a boy and he caught me being Dusty Springfi eld in front of the dressing table mirror. Don’t fucking laugh—I wanted to do your job, once. Be on the stage.”

“You never cease to amaze me, Tommy boy. Here’s me thinking you’re the butchest queer I’ve ever known, and you were harbouring dreams of playing Roxie to my Velma.” Francis leaned over to caress his friend’s arm. “Glad you didn’t. That inch thick mascara wouldn’t have been your scene.”

“That’s rich, coming from you. Luckily he never saw me the one time I tried my mum’s lippy or he’d have tanned the hide off me.” Tommy worked his hands over Francis’s ankles and onto his calves. “Bloody hell, you could do with half an hour with our physio. Knotted like crochet, these are. Anyway, my old man thought that playing rugby would make a man of me.

Focus my mind on beating the crap out of the opposition rather than tittying about in front of a mirror with a hairbrush for a microphone.” Tommy shrugged. “I suppose it worked. Knocked singing out of my head.”

“Couldn’t change what you are, though, could it? You’re not going to tell me you never got a kick out of the showers afterwards? Or one of those big communal baths. These guys are ENCORE! ENCORE!
119

usually ripped. You must have looked.” Francis dug his fi ngers—

now bereft of the long, manicured nails which had been left behind with Juliet—into his friend’s ribs. “You’d have been mad if you hadn’t.”

“Yeah, sometimes. Not much fun though, always feeling you were going to get found out, especially at school. You know what it’s like.” Tommy tentatively brushed Francis’s hand.

“Yes, I know what it’s like.” Memories of shared dressing rooms, bodies half dressed or completely naked, swimming in and out of view, glimpses caught in mirrors. Glimpses sought out of the corner of your eye. Gorgeous, straight blokes with gorgeous, unavailable bodies.

“Early days, I’d only ever have a pint with them after training, two after a match. Couldn’t always trust myself not to press the friendship angle a bit far.” Suddenly the ceiling seemed fascinating.

“Dewi Roberts always used to tell me off for being in a tearing hurry to leave the bar. ‘I’ve never known a stand-off limit himself to a pint and a half after the match, although I suppose that’s your modern philosophy coming in. Jonny Wilkinson has got a lot to answer for.’” The Welsh accent was uncanny.

“You should have been on the stage, you know. Doing impersonations—your dad couldn’t have objected to that.” Francis’s hand meandered over his friend’s face. “You’re pretty enough for show business.” It was nice, being with Tommy. Nice, that bloody word Francis had always ridiculed when he’d heard it in the mouths of others, and yet it kept cropping up here, with this bloke. Stupid, simpering, lovely word. Maybe it was because he’d never found anyone to really apply it to, up until now—not anyone who was available. “So what excuse did you use with Dewi, if the sainted Jonny didn’t cut any ice?”

“I didn’t need an excuse. Coach used to say he thought I’d got a piece of hot totty stuck away somewhere and I couldn’t get back quick enough. ‘All that adrenaline after the match, surging around. Makes you want to nip home and get your end away.’ I denied it in such a way he’d have to think it was true.”
120 Cochrane ~ All That Jazz

“And did it? Make you want to get your end away?” Francis thought his question would never be answered, the silence that followed it so awkwardly extensive. Extensive even for Tommy, who was prone to longeurs if he was thinking hard.

“Sometimes. Still does. I avoid looking at blokes I fancy when they’re undressed, and that helps—they may all be gay but they’re not all accessible. Diffi cult to know where to look sometimes, given that even the forwards aren’t all monsters from the primeval swamp.”

“Never knew a rugby team who were.”

“And you’ve known a lot of teams?”

“You have no idea.”

“I don’t think I want to know.” Tommy slumped closer, laid his head on Francis’s shoulder. “Not now, anyway. Tell me when we know each other better. Tell me when we’re both pissed.” He reached up to fi nger Francis’s sleek dark hair. “You’ve got a nice style here. None of my other boyfriends ever bothered with a decent cut.” He tugged at a stray wisp.

“Ow. Bloody hell.” It was a miracle no one had taken a cricket bat to Tommy’s head if that was his usual response to having a heart-to-heart. “Are you always so fucking annoying?”

“Only when I try.”

“You can’t put me off the scent with diversionary tactics. You still haven’t told me if you got a thrill in the showers, when you were in the straight team.” Francis absent-mindedly played with the short, neatly cut hair that was almost in his face. Barber’s job, not a stylist’s, no designer shampoo or conditioner, probably just whatever slipped easily into Tommy’s kit bag.

“All right, you’ve outed me. The fi rst few times, maybe. And when the new number eight joined us, the one who was built like a carthorse on steroids. But I swear, none of it was real. In those days nothing felt as good as swigging back that pint after a hard couple of hours out on the pitch.” Tommy’s voice was dreamy.

“Being in the club bar with only your mates for company, no ENCORE! ENCORE!
121

hangers on or prancing fi llies scrabbling about trying to get our attention.”

“Are you going to give me all that male bonding crap?” Francis gave Tommy a nutmeg, just like the male bonding boys would have done.

“It wasn’t crap, not for me. You and the rest of the cast can be all lovey dovey and mwah mwah backstage, gay or straight.

Nobody bats an eye. But it’s not like that for the rest of us.” Tommy wrestled the hand off his hair. “Don’t laugh.”

“How the fuck can I not laugh? You’re priceless.” Francis laid his hand on Tommy’s cheek, inched his fi ngers along the line of his jaw, down to his mouth. “What are we going to do, Tommy boy, you and me?”

“Do we have to
do
anything?” Tommy nudged the fi ngers which lay against his lips, feeling, kissing, tasting them. “Apart from what we did last time. That was good.”

“So what about all that ‘don’t want to kiss you with your makeup on’ crap? It didn’t happen?” Forgiving was fi ne but they couldn’t fucking well pretend they hadn’t argued, no matter how seductive the idea of a rerun of the hand jobs was.

“You’re not wearing any now. And I know it’s not on my account but I’m bloody grateful for it.” They shared a kiss. A tentative, schoolboy kiss. “Take it as it comes, that’s what we should do. If I can get to be with Francis sometimes, then I’ll go along with Velma, too.”