Gaudete (4 page)

Of course, now he had to persuade Callum of that and get him to give them a proper chance. That was going to be the difficult bit. He wandered as he thought about it, a vague peregrination around his childhood haunts. He’d been confident here, once upon a time, and he tried to remember how that had felt before the intervening years had chipped it all away. He’d had certainty, once.

It was funny to realize some of that had been because of Callum. All the fixed points in his life had been here in Aylminster: the cathedral, the music, and Callum’s arrival every Christmas. No wonder he’d frayed apart so badly when he left.

By the time he got back to the Christmas market, the traders were starting to pack up for the night. After the quiet darkness of the surrounding streets, it was a pleasant shock to stumble back into the lights and good cheer of the market, and he edged his way politely through the last of the crowds to look for Callum.

When he found the stall, he was taken aback. He hadn’t been quite sure what to expect, but it wasn’t this.
Meeching Woodcraft
sold polished wood: smooth bowls that looked like they’d been carved from one piece of wood, the patterns of the grain drawing the eye; more bowls and platters where the bark had been left on the rims; pen holders made from curls of wood; Christmas-tree decorations by the boxful; and further back, on the shelves at the back of the chalet, nativity scenes and other display pieces, rings of trees and dancers and choirboys. It was an odd mixture of the useful but lovely and pure art, and every bit of it was made of unadorned wood. It made him want to reach out and touch, to feel the shapes in the wood the carver had revealed.

Half the front of the stall was bare already, and the woman behind it turned round as he approached. “We’re packing up, love, but if you know exactly what you’re after, I can do one more sale.”

She had the same dark curls as Callum, pulled back tightly into a high ponytail, and a face that might have looked hard until she smiled. This must be the sister. Jonah cleared his throat and said, “Actually, I was looking for Callum.”

Her face lit up. “You must be his choirboy. Leanne.” She offered her hand.

He shook, noting she had a good grip. “Jonah. Nice to meet you.”

“Likewise.” She gave him a narrow grin. “Do I need to give you the ‘Don’t mess with my brother’ speech?”

“Message received,” he said hurriedly, and then thought about it and smiled. She wouldn’t be overprotective if this didn’t matter to Callum a little, would she?

At that moment, Callum came round from the back of the stall. He saw Jonah and stopped, grinning. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Jonah said, feeling all foolish and flustered.

“Oh dear God,” Leanne muttered.

“This is great,” Jonah said, waving at the stall. He reached out to touch one of the bowls, one where the wood split into three waves, twisting after each other. “It’s like the shape of a song.”

Callum’s grin just got wider, and he went a little pink.

“That squelching noise you just heard,” Leanne remarked dryly, “was my brother’s heart hitting the ground at your feet.”

“You made these?” Jonah asked, amazed. Callum had always wanted to be an artist, and he seemed to have actually realized his dream. “You’re a wood-carver?”

“Woodturner,” Callum said, coming forward to gesture at the carvings. “You shape the wood while it’s still turning on the lathe, see.”

“Art in motion,” Jonah said. He vaguely remembered seeing a demonstration once, and thought it suited Callum, who had never been still except when he was drawing. “That’s perfect.”

Callum went pink again, and then said, “I have to finish packing up, if you can wait just a few minutes.”

“Can I help?” Jonah offered, and saw Leanne nod sharply out of the corner of his eye.

“I’ll do it,” she said. “Go on, Callum. You can owe me one.”

Callum bumped elbows with her, smiling. “Thanks, Lee.” He came round the stall to touch Jonah’s elbow, turning him away from the stall. “Hey, have you eaten? Do you mind if I get some chips on the way? I’m starving.”

“I haven’t, and that’s fine. Busy day?”

“Craaaaazy,” Callum said with an exaggerated shudder. “Best sales I get all year, this, but it’s manic. Can’t wait to get back into the barn in the New Year.”

“You work in a barn?”

“Yeah, up on the edge of the forest, just north of Meeching. It’s part of the whole visitor complex in the country park, so I get a chunk off the rent for doing demonstrations in the summer, and they stock my stuff in their gift shop.”

“Sounds good.”

“Yeah, it’s a nice deal. But, hell, that’s me. I can’t believe you’re here. How long are you back?”

“I live in Brighton,” Jonah said. “Got at least two more years until I get my doctorate. After that, I don’t know, but if the program I’m working for keeps their funding, there might be a postdoc place.”

“So you’re back for good?”

“Yeah,” Jonah said, and took a quick sideways glance at Callum. His smile was just getting brighter and brighter, so Jonah took the risk of brushing their hands together. Immediately, Callum took his hand, their fingers tangling, and Jonah blushed right down to his toes, the heat rushing through him.

Then Callum let go, and said hurriedly, “Oh crap, are you actually out?”

“Yeah,” Jonah said, and repossessed Callum’s hand. “You?”

Callum laughed. “Dude, you know me. I don’t think I could stay in the closet if I tried. Well, I did try, obviously, but I still managed to out myself in front of the whole rugby team in Year Ten.”

Jonah winced.

“Nah, it was fine in the end. I only got into a few fights, and most people were kind of cool with it. And, y’know, the dude’s girlfriend was a mate of mine, and she forgave me because she thought it was funny, and then I had all the girls on my side.”

“And your family?”

“Oh, Mum didn’t care. I think she was just glad that I wasn’t going to get any girl pregnant. Yours?”

“We don’t really talk much,” Jonah said with a shrug. He didn’t think about them very often.

“Hey, I’ve been trying to get Mum to adopt you since we were nine. She still wonders what you’re doing, you know.”

“Callum,” Jonah said firmly, squeezing his hand. “I don’t want to be your brother.”

Callum stopped dead and spun round to face him, taking a step closer. They were heading across the cathedral green, along one of the treelined avenues, and the orange light of the streetlights fell through the bare branches to illuminate the curve of his cheek, his mouth as he wet his lips, his dark eyes. “This is weird, isn’t it? I mean, it’s good, don’t get me wrong, but it’s weird too. I can’t work out how to do this.”

Jonah wanted to kiss him. He would have done, if they’d been anywhere less public. Instead, he just reached up and touched Callum’s jaw, feeling the rasp of stubble against his fingertips. It made him shiver, and Callum drew a sharp breath. Jonah breathed in too, and said, “I think we just have to see how it goes. There’s no rush, is there?”

Callum turned his head a little so his lips brushed Jonah’s palm. “I don’t want you to disappear again.”

“I won’t.”

“What if this doesn’t go anywhere?”

It will
, Jonah thought, but he didn’t want to scare Callum off. He tried to think, which was hard with Callum pressing tiny, fragile kisses between his fingers and making his head swim. “Then we just try it. Tonight. Like, a trial run, and if it doesn’t work out, that’s that. Callum, that’s really distracting.”

“Yeah?” Callum murmured, and his voice had gone rough and husky.

Jonah swallowed hard and said, a little weakly, “Don’t start something you can’t finish in public.”

“I want to kiss you.”

Self-control had never been so hard. “Kissing comes after the date.”

Even in the dim light, he saw Callum’s incredulous grin. “Depends who you’re dating, doesn’t it?” And he tugged on Jonah’s arm, pulling him off the path and into the shadows. A moment later, they were pressed against a lime tree, and Callum’s mouth was warm against Jonah’s.

The air was crisp around them, the frost already settling, and the warmth of that kiss spread slowly through Jonah, making him cling to Callum to get more. It settled in his gut as a flare of longing, and made his fingers shake where they were knotted in Callum’s jacket. He poured himself back into the kiss, never wanting it to end.

It was Callum who broke it in the end, dropping his forehead down against Jonah’s shoulder. “Damn. That was meant to take the edge off.”

He was shaking slightly against Jonah, his body a sturdy line of heat. Jonah let his hands drift, tucking a loose curl back behind Callum’s ear and rubbing at the tension in his shoulders.

“Okay, so I know we’re not going to shag on the cathedral green in December, because even for me that’s a bad idea, but I really, really don’t think I can kiss you again without wanting to get you naked.”

“Mmm.”

“Jonah?”

“Callum,” Jonah sighed.

Callum took a slightly worried breath. “Jonah, did I break you?”

“You didn’t break me,” Jonah said, and wrapped his arms around Callum, pulling him in tight. He felt like he’d never been kissed before. Callum had put his mouth on him, and that was that.

“I’m not convinced,” Callum muttered and kissed his cheek lightly. “Going to let me go, there?”

“No,” Jonah muttered, but then reminded himself that he was trying not to scare Callum away. Sighing, he backed off a pace.

“So, what was your plan?” Callum asked brightly. “Something about a trial run?”

“See if this works,” Jonah said. “As if we’d never met before. If it doesn’t click, we just pick up the friendship where we left off years ago.”

Callum mulled over it. “I don’t think I can pretend never to have met you, but otherwise, yeah. Let’s do it. Chips first, okay, because I really need to eat something, then drinks in the Merry Cock, and we’ll go from there.”

“The where?”

“Oh, you wouldn’t have known the pubs, would you? The Cuckmere Arms, down by the river.”

“I’m all yours,” Jonah said gravely, and noted the way Callum shivered at that with a warm sense of triumph.

T
HAT
YEAR
,
Callum nagged and nagged and nagged until someone agreed to take him to hear the choir sing. The person who offered, in the end, was his dad’s mum, who he’d always thought saw him as a bit of a disappointment. Maybe she just felt bad because Dad kept spending all his leave with Uncle Kev and that blonde cow instead of coming home to see his kids, like any decent man would (as Mum put it over the phone when she thought he and Leanne weren’t listening).

Granny Linda had decided to take him to the Advent service, which he knew was a big deal because he’d heard Jonah talk about it last year. He wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but Mum had made him dress up smartly and promise to be on his absolute best behavior.

“He’s had his Ritalin,” she assured Granny Linda, “but don’t be afraid to march him out of there if he starts to lose it.”

“I won’t! I want to hear Jonah sing!”

“He’ll be fine,” Granny Linda said, and ushered him to her car before Mum could fuss any more. As they drove off, Callum looked at her sideways and saw she looked pleased, more so than he’d seen before. As they waited to turn out of his road, she said abruptly, “I used to take your father and his sister to this. They weren’t interested, though. I haven’t been for years. I’m rather looking forward to it.”

“I won’t spoil it,” Callum promised.

“Your only job, young man,” she said firmly, “is to enjoy
it.”

The cathedral was dark when they arrived, with people lined up outside, talking quietly. The sun had set a couple of hours ago, and Callum wondered why they didn’t put the lights on.

“Have they had a power cut?” he asked. “They need to check the fuses and then phone the electric board, unless they haven’t paid their bill. Is that why they collect money after? So they can pay the electric bill?”

Granny chuckled. “I think they rely on donations for that, but tonight it’s deliberate. The service starts in the dark.”

“But how will I see Jonah?”

She smiled at him. “Wait and see.”

They were shown to their seats by torchlight, and Callum tucked his elbows in and tried not to breathe too loudly. No one was talking, though he could tell he was surrounded by people just by the rustle of movement around him and the bobbing torches moving along where the aisles must be. He’d never been inside the cathedral before, but he knew how big it was on the outside, and he could only guess at how many people they could squash in here. He twisted around in his chair to see what he could make out in the dark, but the only thing he could see at all was a faint orange glimmer along the edge of the windows, which must be from the streetlights outside.

He turned back round again to tell Granny, but then all the torches were switched off and the last rustles stopped. It was quiet in a way that was almost scary, and the hairs stood up on the back of his neck. He wished he was still young enough to reach out and hold Granny’s hand, because the silence was pressing down on him in a way that almost hurt. Everybody was waiting, the air almost crackling with it.

Then, out of the darkness, a single voice rose, high and sweet and unearthly.

Callum shivered, and then took a breath as a single candle flared into light. It was a long way away, and he could see how far back in the cathedral they must be sitting.

A second flame and a second voice, and he watched with his fists clenched as the choristers’ faces began to show, voice after voice and light after light. As their candles lit, they began to move, processing along with that uncanny music rising out of them as if they weren’t even singing on purpose, just breathing it out. He couldn’t understand the words, which definitely weren’t in English, but that didn’t matter.

When they stopped singing, he sighed in
disappointment and slumped back, only then realizing that he had been sitting bolt upright.

The next bit was just some bloke talking about religion, and Callum stopped listening. Instead he watched as two men in cassocks moved through the cathedral, lighting candle after candle. Slowly, the cathedral itself emerged out of the shadows, and it took Callum’s breath away again. He’d never been in a building that soared before.