Gaudete (5 page)

He wanted to draw the pillars and arches and vaults in big bold sweeping lines. More than that, he wanted to fly up and put his hands on them, to feel the shape of the stone under his fingertips. He wanted to press his palms against the cheeks of every carved face that marked the meeting point of the roof arches, and squeeze his fingers against the carved tops of every pillar.

Then the singing started again, and he closed his eyes and saw nothing but the shapes it made in his mind, the narrow bright twists of melody blurring into the same lines that underlay the cathedral, everything, song and stone and silence, reaching up and up in search of something he couldn’t understand.

At the end, he was so full up with light and music that he couldn’t speak. He let Granny steer him out, and didn’t get why she was smiling.

They were halfway home before he could get words out of his mouth again, and he said, “I want to draw it.” Then he rethought that, and corrected himself. “I want to make it.”

“Make what?” Granny asked him.

“A cathedral,” he said.

She didn’t laugh, which instantly made her much cooler than he’d ever realized before. “Do you like making things?”

“I like art,” he explained. “It’s my best subject. And I like it best when we have clay.”

“Hmm,” she said, and then quietly, in a way that didn’t seem like it was addressed quite to him, “Well, finally one of you inherited it.”

A week later, after the Christmas market had started, he tried to explain to Jonah what had happened next. “And then she told Mum that she’d have me round for the weekend, and we never go round to her house. She
always
comes to us. So I went, and Granddad Jack was there. He doesn’t go out much, because his breathing’s bad. Except he has a workshop, full of wood and tools and stuff he’s built, and he showed me how it all worked, and taught me how to whittle, and I made this.” He dug into his pocket and produced the scarred bit of wood he’d managed to produce by the end of the afternoon.

“It’s a bird,” Jonah said, his face lighting up.

Callum grinned at him. They were sitting cross-legged on the floor of Jonah’s dorm, waiting for the girls to get back from morning service, with the rain pounding on the windows. “You’re the first person to get that. Without being told, I mean.”

“It’s obvious,” Jonah said and then offered Callum a shy grin. “It’s cool.”

“It’s not very good,” Callum said, to be fair, “not yet, but Grandad says I’ll get better with practice.”

“Everything gets better with practice,” Jonah said. “I practice singing.”

“I heard you sing,” Callum informed him.

Jonah looked startled. “Really?”

“Yes, really,” Callum said indignantly. “With the candles and everything. It’s why I made this.” Jonah sang, and Callum hadn’t realized until he listened just how good it was. He spent all his time talking about what he was going to do, it seemed, and Jonah had already started. He needed to catch up.

Jonah smiled at him then, as if he’d just said the most perfect thing ever, and Callum wanted to hug him or something. He didn’t, because that would be pretty gay, but he did jump up and say, “Let’s do something.”

“Okay,” Jonah agreed. “Like what?”

“I don’t know,” Callum said, suddenly all twitchy, like his Ritalin had worn off. “Something!”

So they went and joined in the game of Bulldog the rest of the choristers were playing in the gym, and it was a bit babyish for someone who was almost ten and a half, but Callum still enjoyed it, and he ran all his jitters out.

Later that afternoon, over orange squash and scones, he told Jonah about the Ritalin, which was the best and worst thing ever.

“You seem….” Jonah shrugged, as if searching for the right word. “Still you, but less splintery.”

“I still want to do everything all at once,” Callum confessed. “But I’m not, y’know, angry under my skin all the time now.”

“So it’s good.”

“Yeah,” Callum said. “It makes me go faster too, though, and I can’t ever sleep properly. I miss sleeping.”

“What do you do, then?”

“Get up. Draw. Listen to music or audiobooks, which make me have to concentrate.” He cheered up. “I think I’m getting the
Prisoner of Azkaban
one for Christmas. Don’t tell me what happens.”

“I haven’t read them,” Jonah confessed.

“But you live in them,” Callum protested. It hadn’t occurred to him before, but now it seemed obvious. The choir school was like the nearest you could get to Hogwarts in real life.

“We’re not allowed to read things which promote a pagan agenda,” Jonah said seriously.

Callum wasn’t sure what that actually meant. “Not even in the holidays?”

Jonah considered that. “Well, I suppose no one would know.”

“Well, then,” said Callum.

It bothered him, though, so he nagged Leanne into taking him to the charity shop in town the next day and bought copies of the first three books for 20p each, carefully picking out the least tatty copies he could find. Leanne, rolling her eyes, made him put wrapping paper on them, and he presented them to Jonah that afternoon.

“You got me a present?” Jonah said, looking like somebody had tripped him up. “An actual present?”

“Yeah. What do you normally get, fake ones?”

“Auntie Carrie gets me a book token and my parents send money.” He must have seen Callum’s face, because he added hurriedly, “The choristers do a Secret Santa too.”

Callum really hated Jonah’s family, so much that it was probably a good thing he was never going to meet them.

He wasn’t expecting anything back, but Jonah shoved a parcel into his hands just before he went home. Callum ripped the paper off gleefully to find a CD, something classical looking.

“I was going to give it to Auntie Carrie,” Jonah
explained, “but she hasn’t taken the plastic wrapping off last year’s yet, and I thought you might like it to listen to when you can’t sleep.”

“This is you singing?”

“Not on my own,” Jonah explained. “Just with the choir.”

“Brilliant!” Callum breathed and had to hug him hard, even if it wasn’t manly.

T
HE
C
UCKMERE
A
RMS
was right down the bottom of the High Street, beside the tiny millstream that was the start of the River Cuckmere. It looked a little scruffy at first, with the white plaster peeling off its half-timbered frontage, but then Jonah spotted the rainbow flag hanging askew in the front window.

Inside it was warm and cozy, with a wood fire going in the barroom and worn leather sofas filling every alcove. It wasn’t very busy, not on a weeknight, but there were a few blokes at the bar who turned to look as they came in. Above the bar, a chalked sign read, “Jingle Your Bells with the Merry Cock’s Christmas specials!” and the walls were decorated with beer mats from all over the world.

“What’s your poison?” Callum asked, shrugging off his jacket with a sigh of relief. “Actually, forget that. They’ve got a couple of good local ales, but everything else is crap.”

“Half of something, then,” Jonah said. “Your choice.”

Callum waggled his eyebrows. “Only a half? Planning to take me home early, are you?”

Jonah had to laugh. “I’ll get the next round, and don’t do that. You look daft.”

“Doesn’t work on someone who knows me, I guess,” Callum said ruefully. “Go and grab a seat. I’ll be right back.”

Jonah tucked himself in near the fire, taking off his coat and unwinding his scarf quickly as the heat sank in. He stretched his legs out and relaxed. The nervous clench in his stomach had almost faded (the chips had helped a bit with that), and he was feeling grounded again for the first time in years.

Callum put their drinks down and slid in beside him, sitting close enough that their thighs pressed together warmly. “There you are. A half of Tanner’s Oak.”

“Thanks,” Jonah said, and then couldn’t think of anything else to say. He just looked at Callum, wondering at what quirk of fate had brought them both back here. Callum stared back, his eyes wide, and then groaned, dropping his face against his palm.

“I don’t know what to say.”

Jonah laughed. “First time in your life?”

“Funny.”

“I can’t believe I finally met your sister, after all these years.”

Callum looked up, making a face. “Joe, I just found you again. Can we please not talk about Leanne?”

Jonah smiled and nudged Callum with his shoulder. “Tell me what I missed, then. What have you been doing for the last eleven years?”

“The usual. School, college. Did a year of uni, but couldn’t be bothered after that. I already knew what I wanted to do, and I just wanted to get started.”

“Early achiever.”

“Yeah, well, I had this mate once who was an international musical star when he was eight. A lot to live up to, that.”

“That was just the choir,” Jonah protested, but he was pleased.

“You were part of it,” Callum said, and he sounded fond. Jonah took a drink quickly, trying to hide his blush.

Callum kissed his cheek, quick and warm, and the blush only deepened. Hastily, Jonah said, “So, why wood turning?”

And it was easy again, as if they’d never been parted. Jonah leaned back and listened to Callum talk, his enthusiasm spilling out of him as he talked about wood and art and his dreams. Now, though, he watched Callum with an adult’s eyes, and thought, as he listened, how that passion would show in bed, how deft those artist’s hands would be when they touched, how Callum’s quick mouth would soften under his.

“I’m talking too much,” Callum said.

“I don’t mind. I like listening to you.”

“You’re the only person who ever did. Everyone else just tells me to shut up in the end.”

“Their loss,” Jonah snapped. “You’re interesting.”

Callum smiled at him, not his cheeky grin, but a genuine, slightly sad smile. “You’re the only person in the world who never thinks of me as ‘that hyper kid.’”

“I know you,” Jonah said, and reached out to take his hand. “Being hyper is part of your charm.”

That actually made Callum laugh. “Wish you’d been around to tell my teachers that.”

“Never got on with them any better?”

“Art and tech and drama were okay. I got through the rest. I’m so glad to be out of school.”

“Did you ever grow out of it? The ADHD?”

“That’s a myth,” Callum said, grimacing. “People say it’s a childhood thing, but I don’t know anyone who just switched it off as an adult. Everyone in the world gets better at self-control as they grow up, don’t they? It’s just relative to where you started.”

“You still take stuff for it?”

“Not every day. I don’t need it if I’m just in the barn and working on my own. Day like today, though, where there’s so much going on around me to derail my brain—then I take something.” He grinned suddenly. “Which means I’m not going to get much sleep tonight anyway, so you could come and distract me all night long.”

“No,” Jonah said.

Callum’s face fell, almost comically. “No?”

“That’s too fast,” Jonah explained. “You don’t get to rush this. I want it to last.”

He didn’t think he’d scared Callum off, thank goodness, not when Callum was smiling at him like that. Carefully, he leaned forward and pressed a kiss against Callum’s mouth. It was meant to be light, but Callum’s lips clung to his, and the kiss lingered softly. When he drew back, he was shivering again, despite the heat of the fire, and Callum was breathing quickly against his cheek. Jonah closed his eyes and breathed in, his hand in Callum’s and his heart beating warmly.

I
T
WAS
the worst Christmas ever, after the worst year ever. First there had been a new school, with its stupid rules and stupid detentions and stupid teachers. Then Granddad Jack had died, just when Callum was finally getting to know how brilliant he was, and stupid fucking Dad had pissed off to London with that silly blonde bitch right before Christmas, and Mum kept crying when she thought they weren’t looking.

Jonah looked at him with quiet, steady kindness as he snarled it all out, standing on the old stone bridge over the river, and Callum, for a moment, hated that calmness Jonah always carried with him. He wanted to rip at Jonah and see if he could get angry too, or whether he was just perfectly good all the way down. “What, you not going to have a go at me for swearing?”

“No.”

“Isn’t it against your fucking stupid God?”

Jonah shrugged. “I don’t think he cares. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine!” Callum snapped back, so loudly and furiously that he scared a whole flight of pigeons into the air. He swung back round to lean his elbows on the parapet of the bridge and spat into the river, to hide the way his eyes were burning and his hands were shaking.

Jonah shifted to stand beside him, their elbows knocking, and Callum could almost feel him in the air, all warm and quiet by his side. It wasn’t how other people felt about their friends, he was beginning to realize, which didn’t help. Other people weren’t aware of their mates in this way. Other people looked at the girls just like he wanted to look at Jonah.

Which meant life completely and utterly sucked.

“Are you just going to stand there?” he snarled, hoping Jonah wouldn’t hear the hitch in his voice.

Jonah stiffened a little beside him. “Well, I was.” It was hard to tell sometimes, under all the good manners, but that rare tone meant Jonah was cross. “If you don’t want my company….”

“Well, I do,” Callum muttered, and elbowed Jonah lightly in the side. “Talk to me.”

“About?” Some of the frost had melted from Jonah’s voice again, but he still sounded wary.

“Anything.” It wasn’t fair, when he knew how much Jonah hated to talk, but Callum wanted to be the one listening for once; he wanted to know about someone else’s life instead of his stupid one.

“Okay.” Jonah was quiet for a moment before he said, “I might have a solo next term. Dr. Andrewson is rehearsing three of us for it.”

“That’s good, right?”

“It’s good. I want to do it, though don’t repeat that to the others. You’re supposed to be humble about these things.”