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Francine chased her cereal with the spoon, while in the other room Cornice received another hiding. The milk had overwhelmed the wheat flakes and they were soggy and broken down. Hiding was the word Dale always used, as in I’m going to give you a good… but it was often visible and always audible.

Personally, Francine felt Dale needed to learn his own lessons about the art of concealment; she herself had been stashing cigarettes and coins in odd places around the house for years, and not for any other reason but that she could. Even now, Cornice might empty a cupboard and a penny would roll out; or discover that the mousehole in the baseboard was not abandoned, but discreetly blocked with a decomposing Morley. Francine drew circles in the milk and assessed the severity of the lesson being taught on the basis of Cornice’s feedback.

Dale was a supply teacher and he was going above and beyond his duty, he said, to provide home schooling to Cornice. It wasn’t clear to Francine exactly what this particular lesson was about, because the ceiling fan’s troubled rotor masked much of the content. Dale was forever saying he’d fix it, but maybe there was a reason why he didn’t.

Francine grew tired of the pretense of eating. She dumped the mushed cereal in the bin, along with the spoon; another emerging habit. Cornice was always despairing at the perpetual disappearances of things like cutlery or clothing. After a moment’s consideration Francine tossed the bowl in too, covering it up with some newspaper. Once, she’d thrown Dale’s good lighter away, but regretted doing so when he’d subsequently educated Cornice on the importance of looking after his personal property.

Dale came into the kitchen and sat down to finish his breakfast. Cornice could be heard slow-ascending the stairs. Francine filled the sink and washed the pans on tip-toe. She could feel Dale’s eyes on her, then thought it was funny how she could feel anything that was so intangible. She wondered if she was wrong, that maybe Dale wasn’t looking anywhere at all – and she’d begun to doubt her instincts – but when she turned around, there he was, one hand held out, frozen in a gesture, as though he’d made an important point that she’d missed.

 ‘People need to learn,’ was all he’d say. And it was true, thought Francine. They did.

She announced her intention to go to school, as if this was an unexpected development, then put on her camo jacket and squeezed through the back door, sidling through the rainbow strips that always felt like they might, at any moment, become descending spiders. Francine waited outside for a few moments, to see what the house was like without her. It seemed less weighty, but still uneased. She calculated alternative habitation combinations: Francine + Cornice, Cornice + Dale, Francine + Dale, and knew which one was preferable, but what she couldn’t calculate was the formula by which it could be achieved.

From the bus stop across the road, Francine looked at the upper windows of the house. Through a gap in the curtains, she thought she could see Cornice, but the morning glare made it hard to be certain. The bus arrived and departed without Francine. Without thinking too much, she walked in the opposite direction to school, towards the industrial estate, where most of the town ended up working.

She saw enough people she recognized, but no one noticed she wasn’t going the right way. Possibly she just looked like someone who belonged there, a consideration that opened up new possibilities in terms of blending in, a skill she’d been honing since a young age. 

On her first day of elementary school, for example, when she’d stuffed herself into the cupboard beneath the sink in Mrs Johnson’s homeroom, and it’s taken the janitor and a pry bar to get her out. Or years later, when she’d infiltrated Miss Garbarino’s English group, in order to avoid attention in Mr. Naden’s much smaller class, whose forensic focus was unwelcome. That she’d been able to convincingly forge a letter from the principal sanctioning the transfer was a matter for the board, but it was also something Dale had taken in hand, given that he’d uncovered the deception during a rare appearance at her school.

But when Francine got to the estate, she kept walking, because there was no job yet for her to go to. She cut through empty lots, squeezed through fences and struggled over neglected areas whose prior purpose it was hard to figure. The further she walked, the more desolate and overgrown everything became, until she came to a place where the natural world asserted itself. She entered a copse that was dark and deep green; the air undiminished. Francine thought she might stay for a while. An hour or two. Forever.

The copse thickened and became woodland or a forest. Francine was unclear about distinctions between gradations of vegetated areas, but she was aware that beyond the estate was an expanse of land that was constantly being fought over between developers and conservationists; the sort of place that in later years she might be expected to frequent with her peers in the name of teenage transgression, had she been anyone other than herself. 

Slender trees broadened into mighty oaks. The forest – she had decided – became looming and dark. But at one point, over a thickerousness of felled or fallen trees, a glade opened up, in the center of which lay a body. Francine cleared a stump of leaves and took a seat to consider the matter.

The body was clearly a body, although it didn’t look like a person; a formerly-alive thing. It was supine, in the pose of a fallen asleep: one arm over the face as though post-faint, the other splayed out all a-drama. Francine thought about poking it with a stick to verify life was extinct, but something – an abstract and unclear idea – told her all she needed to know.

She wondered if a person stopped being a person when not alive, or if there was some other reason she was reluctant to apply a term more intimate than ‘it’. But she didn’t fret about this; Francine was familiar with such notions as separation and distancing with regard to coping and survival.

The body was dirty, but clothed. It was unclear as to how it might have gotten there, or what had happened post-arrival; there were no tracks, although there was trash, which included a packet of supermarket-brand potato chips.

Francine looked up and around. There were nests in the tree branches and hollows in the trunks. There might be any number of witnesses, if you counted animals, which – she imagined – no one did. Some of the clothes were torn and one of the legs was twisted the wrong way. Or else the other was; it was hard to tell. Regardless: things were out of place.

Francine had seen a body once before, but it was presentable, not like this. Outside of movies and TV, she wondered how many times the average person might reasonably be expected to be faced with death in any such way. Cornice had found one of her colleagues on the floor of the toilets that time, and Dale claimed to have discovered the chemistry teacher he was subbing for in the fume closet.

She walked around to the other side to see the face, but it was hidden by the arm, which pointed at Francine, offering up the ring on its finger. Not wanting to touch it, she put on her gloves. It made the operation tricky, but eventually the ring came off – a bright and heavy silver – and she placed it on her own finger, over the glove, where it just about fit. Nothing about this felt odd or surreal to Francine; much of what came to her in the world, she accepted. She placed a pebble at the head of the body and left.

Francine walked back the way she came, never certain if she was retracing her steps, or if the path she was taking was new, but certain signs gave her confidence: a brook looked familiar; so too a run of neglected fencing. Soon enough, the metal-stink of the estate filtered through to her, along with the echoing Doppler’s traffic. She was dry-mouthed and tired; an absence of appetite didn’t mean her body ceased to require food. Francine’s return to urbanicity felt like crossing over from an area of low pressure to high, with the corresponding pop in her ears.

She emerged into the oversprawl of the estate, not far from where she’d entered. The return leg coincided with the end of the day shift. Francine joined the rest of the workers walking home. She felt at ease among her people. There were many different jobs on the estate. Cornice had worked several times. Francine would be suited to at least one or two of them, but was indifferent as to what they might be.

Back home, Cornice was unseen, but her presence could be felt. Francine had never been able to explain it; it was as though she vibrated the air. Dale, on the other hand, seemed to exist constantly, even when not around. On this occasion, however, he was demonstrably present and might not have even moved had it not been for his shaved face and change of clothes; a gesture, in the event of a work summons, although he hadn’t been called up for weeks that seemed like months.

The table was set for dinner, but all three plates were empty and there was no aroma of the pending meal. Dale rose as Francine entered. She guessed that the school had informed him of her absence and wondered if a make-up lesson was about to be scheduled. It might have been, but Dale saw the ring on Francine’s finger and pulled at it, taking her glove off too.

No words were spoken and she was sanguine about the matter. Dale sat back at the table, appraising the item. Francine made a sandwich for herself and took it upstairs. Through a door ajar, she could see Cornice on her bed. Francine knocked softly, twice, and received the same in return. Satisfied, she went to her own room, then took up a pen and wrote quickly.

Nothing was said about her absence from school, but a few weeks later, Dale was arrested. Neither Cornice nor Francine attended the trial. Instead, they read about it online. Dale denied the charges and there wasn’t enough evidence to find him guilty, but he’d tried to sell the ring, which hadn’t looked good.

The police interviewed Francine, of course, because Dale had told them where he’d gotten it from, but she claimed to have no knowledge of anything. That alone had probably damned her somewhere further down the line, but it was a matter for future Francine to worry about. We do some fucked up things, she thought, but: no. It was more that sometimes the world oriented people in the direction of fucked-upness and they chose to walk towards it. Dale had been unable to account for his whereabouts during certain and particular dates, so he ended up being charged with the lesser offense of obstruction of justice and given a year in Gilmore.

Cornice told Francine she wouldn’t be taking him back when he was released. Even so, the announcement hardly seemed newsworthy. She might have said they were switching to skim milk, or that it was going to rain later. It was possible, Francine supposed, that Dale was innocent and that a person who bore responsibility for a thing was out there somewhere, escaping justice and amazed at their good fortune. But even then, she reasoned, if only for a short time, there was one less bad man in the world.

JL Bogenschneider has had work published in a number of print and online journals, including The Stinging Fly, Cosmonauts Avenue, The Interpreter’s House, Necessary Fiction, PANK and Ambit.

If he met her, I know he’d find her charming. Doesn’t everyone? But I won’t taunt myself with doomsday prophecies. I won’t let her gate-crash my dirty weekend.

As we gobble up tarmac on the motorway, I pinch myself. I’ve waited eight weeks and eighty lonely summers to be swept off my feet.

“I’d like to take you away somewhere,” he said. “My treat.” 

My heart was booming, but I maintained an outward calm. As if I picked up propositions at Tesco’s deli counter, with my fifty grams of Cheshire and my slice of boiled ham. “Thank you, Tommy. I’d love that.” I didn’t mention it would be my first time.

I could have told him. He’s a sympathetic sort. He’d know of girls schooled to save ourselves for marriage, virtue banked for sunny days. Our mothers didn’t tell us what to do with unclaimed capital. They assumed their darling daughters would be wives like them.

Our mothers swore by courtship economics: a lady cloaks her real self with a comelier veneer. Never show your face without make-up. Never reveal the natural colour of your hair. Never express an opinion. Never admit your age. 

Some rules are eternal. Time turns others on their heads. My once-prized virginity is shameful now I’m eighty-three. So I’ve added another step to my bedtime routine. When I’ve put away the dental floss and cold cream, I’ve practised with a dildo and a tube of KY jelly. If my mother knew, it would disgust her. The thought sustained me through a rigmarole as peachy as a cervical smear.

Of course, I dreamt of pleasing Tommy. He’d hate to hurt me, but a man has needs. Although we’ve touched no more than hands and lips, I know he’ll want more.

Giddy with my daring, I reach across the gear stick to stroke his thigh. He flashes me a smile and reroutes his gaze to the road. Mirror-shoulder-signal before overtaking, and cruise control at a steady sixty-nine, he’s a careful driver. I’m in safe hands.

I was a bag of nerves this morning, hovering in the hallway with my pink trolley-case, as time ticked on. I couldn’t mistake the date, it being Mum’s birthday. Was the whole escapade a joke? A decade younger than me, Tommy could have his pick of widows, bachelorettes and divorcees. Why select a dusty spinster from a long-forgotten shelf?

Such a magical beginning, in the books, discs and knickknacks section of the Oxfam where I volunteer once a week. Tommy brought a box of 78s in vinyl and shellac and we bonded over Glenn Miller. After our chat, he decided to keep them. For helping him realise how precious they were, he offered to buy me lunch. I assumed we’d nip into the Angler’s – they do a pensioner’s special on weekdays – but Tommy fancied Chinese. We wrangled with the chopsticks, splattered sauce on the tablecloth, noodles missing our mouths. But I wasn’t embarrassed. It was part of the fun.

Now the traffic slows, the display boards on the gantry flashing 40 above all lanes. Tommy sighs. “Seems the stars are aligned against me.”

I repeat what I said this morning when he finally arrived to collect me, blaming poorly-flagged diversions down one-way streets. “Don’t worry. We’ve got all day to get there.”

He jiggles the gearstick. The car slinks to a crawl. “Not really. I’ve reserved a table for afternoon tea.”

“Let me ring up and cancel. There’s no point getting frazzled. Besides, if we stop for lunch I won’t have room for tea.” He doesn’t answer. Have I offended him with my indifference to cucumber sandwiches and clotted cream? “Tommy? Do you want to give me your phone?”

“Let’s hang on, shall we? See how it goes.”

“Whatever you think best.” I force a smile. “Still keeping our destination a secret?” All I can deduce from the road signs is we’re heading north.

“All in good time, my dear.”

My dear! As if I’m precious. My dear! As if I’m his. I ought to be thankful I’m claimed, but it weighs on me like itchy blankets from the dark age before quilts. 

I slip off my shoes, stretch out my legs, not bothering if it looks ungainly. I feel as spent as a child on Christmas evening. Is this thanks to guilt about Mum, or qualms about Tommy taking charge?

When he proposed this weekend getaway, I took it for granted we’d compare diaries for a convenient date. So I bristled when he announced he’d booked it. I kept my counsel, but he read the frustration on my face. 

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I should’ve run it past you. But the suite looks perfect on the website and this was the only available slot.”

I’ve never stayed in a suite. Always a single room in a B&B. “Don’t break the bank for me.”

“For us, my dear. For us. But I’ll cancel if you’re unhappy. I’ll lose the deposit, of course.”

I didn’t want Tommy losing money. And I so wanted to be an us. But it was Mum’s birthday. Unable to explain why that made a difference, I pretended Betty had tickets for Gilbert and Sullivan. Tommy still looked miffed. “I suppose she can pass mine on to someone else.” To be fair, I’d said in the Chinese restaurant I stayed in most weekends.

Whereas Tommy hasn’t a spare moment, jetting here, there and everywhere, visiting his children and grandchildren, and managing his rentals in France and Spain. Churlish to insist a man with a business and a family synchronise his schedule with the whims of a woman with only a weekly commitment at Oxfam and lawn bowls in the summer months. No friends apart from Betty. No relatives apart from Mum.

I mustn’t get uppity and sour our weekend. Not after denying Betty my company at a fictional performance of The Pirates of Penzance. Not after squandering my pension on a vibrator and lacy lingerie. I stifle a giggle as the traffic speeds up again. Maybe I can enjoy a man deciding for me. Maybe I will manage afternoon tea.

It took two strong coffees to summon the courage to walk into Ann Summers. Coffee that comes crowned with foam and backboned by a tot of whisky. I expected to feel like a vegetarian in a steakhouse, but it was closer to browsing in John Lewis. Half the doodahs there are a mystery.

When an assistant approached, I thought she’d redirect me to the local library. Yet if she was surprised to encounter an octogenarian on the premises, she didn’t show it. She was politeness personified, the way I imagine Tommy’s children and grandchildren to be.

He let me see their pictures on Facebook, proud as a peacock. And why not? It must be wonderful to create a living, breathing human being. Playing God. But if they were damaged, would you be the devil? Just as well marriage and children passed me by. 

I hope to earn a stake in Tommy’s offspring eventually. He’s hinted he plans to introduce us, but they live so far away. If this weekend works out, I’ll apply for a passport. Be primed if Tommy needs a partner for a family wedding or big birthday. I’ve even considered potential outfits for winter and summer; soothing thoughts as I thrust that replica penis up my fanny. 

“How hungry are you?” he asks me now.

Did he hear my tummy rumbling? Breakfast was hours ago: a digestive biscuit and a pot of PG tips. “I am a little peckish.” We might find a country pub near the next junction. With exposed beams and a log fire. Instead, Tommy eases the car onto the service-station slip-road. “If we grab a sandwich and get off sharp, we’ll make that booking. If that’s all right with you?” What can I say? He can’t do a U-turn.

As he helps me from the car, I stumble, but Tommy catches me. “Damn hip,” I say. I wobble to the concourse, trying not to drag on his arm.

Inside, franchises clamour for attention. Dazzling lights suck moisture from my eyes. Tommy steers me towards a smell like pollock and chips at the Angler’s, and parks me at an empty table. “Sorry it’s so basic. I promise you’ll have every luxury at the hotel.”

“I’m not fussed about luxury, Tommy.” The luxury is being with you. “According to my mother, a service station is where a holiday begins. When it opened, we took a coach trip to Watford Gap.”

He looks at me as if I’m an idiot. A senile fool. As if I’m a generation older, not ten years. Swapping his frown for a smile, he asks what sandwich I fancy. I don’t mention I’m cutting back on bread.

Watching him weave between the tables to the counter, I imagine he’s as fatigued as I am. When we reach the hotel, I could give him a massage. Unpick the tension knotted in his neck.

I slide my fingers under my collar to ease the strain in my own shoulders. Why did I mention my mother? Like unlocking a wildcat’s cage. Surely Tommy won’t ask where she lives or how she is. He’ll assume I’m an orphan, like most OAPs.

The mere thought of her unsettles me, however, puts a dampener on our weekend. Was I rash to come away on her birthday? 

It’s more than the date that’s put me in a stew: we’re encroaching on Mum’s stomping ground. I don’t drive, but I can read road signs and Leeds is less than an hour away. Yorkshire born, Mum hankered to settle there. For thirty years, I’ve kept my distance, in case she has.

Oh, it’s preposterous at my age. At her age, too. One hundred and eight and confined to a care home. How can she harm me now? 

Demoralised by silly anxieties, I’ve lost sight of Tommy at the sandwich bar. I study each grey-haired man in the queue and at the counter, each person crossing the room with a tray. He’s left me. He can’t have. He’s taken me at my word – or my mother’s – that the service station’s part of the appeal. I’ll be like that man trapped at an airport in a film I saw with Betty, rinsing my smalls in the Ladies’ sink. Already in debt after paying for the negligee and lurid pink suitcase, I’ll be destitute by morning. Tommy promised to pay for everything.

When he plonks a tray on the table, I almost beg him to take me home. Instead, I unload plastic-wrapped sandwiches and lidded polystyrene cups. “They’d run out of beef,” says Tommy. “Chicken okay?”

I could be in my quiet kitchenette spreading cottage cheese on oatcakes. Filleting a lettuce, imagining meat. “Where are you taking me, Tommy? We’ve been travelling for hours. Aren’t there any nice hotels closer to home?”

At the adjacent table, a woman with a nose-ring sniggers. Tommy walks past her to sit beside me on the bench. He takes my hand, brings it to his lips. “You’re right, I should’ve chosen somewhere nearer. I’ve upset you, when I meant to treat you like a queen.”

Already, I’m ashamed. “I’ll be fine and dandy when I’ve eaten.” My hands shake as I tear through a packet labelled coronation chicken. “It’s harder for you behind the wheel.”

“I don’t mind. It’s you that matters. Listen, I reckon it’s an hour and a half to the hotel. Can you last until then?”

Will ninety minutes get us through Yorkshire? 

“Or we can jack it in altogether,” he says, “Spend the weekend at the Travelodge.”

I laugh, hoping to restore both our spirits. As Betty says, you can always act cheerful, regardless how you’re suffering under the skin.

Back in the car, Tommy reclines the passenger seat so I can snooze. I let him, but I daren’t doze off in case I snore. Besides, my mind’s too busy: in Mother’s Own Country, and on her birthday, my thoughts belong to her.

I’ve been reckless. Got carried away like a girl. Tortured myself with that damned vibrator, as if virginity were the issue. I should’ve spent today as I’ve spent all Mum’s birthdays: under the duvet with a book. 

You’ll have to come in two years’ time, she cackles. It’s a biggie. 

I won’t. I’ll see her, as I do every year, in the papers or on TV.

There’s nowhere to hide, so don’t think it. Them reporters have ways of winkling you out.

Some bright spark will try to stage a mother-child reunion if the oldest woman in England lives to a hundred and ten. But Tommy will protect me. Take me far beyond the media’s reach. Two years from now, I’ll feel robust enough to confess.

Will our relationship prosper, if it’s founded in deceit? My mother advised building marriage on artifice, but wasn’t that a lie? 

How to explain without appearing callous? Or inferring my head’s as dodgy as my hip? It’s unnatural being scared of my mother. Obscene rejecting the woman I owe my life. My advanced age lowers the likelihood of being outed. Hers intensifies the disgrace if I am. Will Tommy ditch me if I disclose that my mother’s alive, but I don’t see her? Except as a national treasure on TV. 

The tick of the indicator and crunch of tyres on gravel jolt me awake before I’m aware I’ve nodded off. “We’re here,” says Tommy. “Are you ready for afternoon tea?”

He stops the car. Through the windscreen, wisteria drapes a sandstone wall. “We made it in time?” 

As Tommy unbuckles his seat belt, I prepare my stomach for gluten, my mouth for tooth-tingling jam. Is this what having a partner means: fasting when you’re hungry and feasting when you’re not? Yet our appetites tallied at that Chinese meal.

I’m wriggling out of the car when Tommy takes my arm. “You needn’t be so independent,” he scolds. 

Now, I understand: men find strength in women’s weakness. Living alone, with no-one else to rely on, I’d blocked the principal lesson of my girlhood.  Tommy would love to shield me from my mother. I only have to ask.

With his assistance, I haul myself out onto the forecourt. Rub my hip until I’m confident it won’t collapse. “Tommy, there’s something I should’ve told you.” It’s a gamble, but silence is worse: if I’m tetchy, Tommy should know it’s not his fault.

“No problemo. You can tell me over tea.” 

Inside, my heels sink into the carpet. The staircase could’ve come from Downton Abbey; the coat-of-arms above the reception desk too. Tommy inclines his head towards a door. “Have a seat in the lounge while I get checked in.”

“I ought to freshen up first.” 

“There isn’t time to go upstairs.” Is he indifferent to my appearance, or simply ravenous? Nevertheless, I have my standards. The receptionist directs me to the loos.

Pastel tissues, cotton-wool balls, single-use terry towels, perfumed soap and hand-cream: as sumptuous as the Ladies’ in my beloved John Lewis. Cloned by legions of mirrors, my face is more lived-in than jaded. As I embellish the exterior, I remind my reflection of the scars underneath. 

Not every mother is the wellspring of loving. Mine thought loving the job of her child. And I was a dutiful daughter. Before I could talk, I’d slain my own desires.

Brushing mascara through my eyelashes, I conjure Tommy across a tiered cake stand.

Friends were unwelcome. Boyfriends taboo. I stayed at home, doing her bidding, growing stale. When I realised I wanted her dead so I could live, I cut the cord.

Having touched up my lipstick, I clamp cherry kisses on a tissue and toss it in a basket. One for every ten Tommy will give me when he hears my confession and absolves me from my sin.

Even after thirty years’ estrangement, I quake at the thought of bumping into her. Like a Venus flytrap, she’d lure me in. I’d melt into her. Be reabsorbed. 

Tommy won’t let her. I exit the Ladies’ Room keen to embark on the next stage of our affair. 

My hero rises from the shadows of the entrance hall. “Come on, everyone’s waiting.”

Everyone? As we shuffle along, arms linked, Tommy seems tense. Am I to meet his family? I’m glad I powdered my nose.

Opening a rosewood door, Tommy steps aside to usher me through. The chatter halts as people swivel in their seats. As I try to match them to Tommy’s Facebook photos, I hope I look agreeable. 

Blinded by a camera flash, I stagger. Why didn’t I bring my stick? But now Tommy, dear Tommy, is beside me, guiding me towards a wizened woman enthroned on a high-backed chair. A glittery banner on the wall behind her: CONGRATULATIONS 110 TODAY! Didn’t he say his mother was dead?

As he leads me through a funnel of beaming faces, it dawns on me they’re not Tommy’s relatives. My mouth dries, my palms swim with sweat, but I’ll be all right, won’t I? You have to flout your fears to be free. 

I can tolerate Tommy discovering I’ve held things back from him. I can tolerate Mum deceiving her own daughter about her age. I can tolerate missing my chance to tell my side of the story, as long as I can have my dirty weekend.

As I’m pushed towards my mother, a man brandishing a notebook blocks our path. A reporter to snatch a quote, I presume, yet he ignores me to pump Tommy’s hand. “Thanks, Baz, I owe you.”

Baz? Baz! There’s nothing wrong with my hearing, but Tommy doesn’t flinch. In the press, they’ll show Mum’s triumph, and my grimace, airbrushed into old-fogey versions of joy. But the internet will favour the unadulterated version. With sound effects. My plaintive howl at Tommy doing the dirty on me. Over and over, on an infinite loop.

Anne Goodwin writes entertaining fiction about identity, mental health and social justice. Her debut novel, Sugar and Snails, was shortlisted for the 2016 Polari First Book Prize. Her new novel, Matilda Windsor Is Coming Home, is inspired by her previous incarnation as a clinical psychologist in a long-stay psychiatric hospital. She has published almost 100 short stories including “With a Small Bomb in Her Chest” published in August 2018 by MIRonline. Website: annegoodwin.weebly.com

It’s three in the afternoon, and the flight from Hong Kong has not been kind. The highway flows freely and the sky is a periwinkle blue Dana loves to come home to, but neither the welcoming horizon, nor the prospect of recognisable beer and home dope, nor the thought of cruising the Castro, where the crew will likely jolly and hop until they bleed tonight, interest Dana at all. On his ride downtown, he can only think of the years that have elapsed since he joined Meridian, a big blur of code and aeroplanes and meetings in dimmed rooms with presentation screens. Dana is tired of pitching. Tired of development sprints and late nights. Tired of three AM messages and value propositions. The buyouts and partnerships. The endless chorus of middle-aged men trying to understand and keep up, eating from plates of carved fruit, hoping sugar will break their desperation. Sandwich trays and security checkpoints, cocktails with tiny red straws. Today, the Bay Area. Next week, China again. Then Wisconsin, New York, Rotterdam. Eighty-nine cents a share on his options, still thirteen per cent to vest on the long trail to freedom. He has been on this highway, coming back from the airport, perhaps hundreds of times. The long curve around South San Francisco’s bald hill feels too familiar, adding to Dana’s ongoing deja vu patterns, his unhinged rivulets of time, a continuing storm of comings and goings, endless capitulations and hollow regrets, his circadian rhythms cycling through seventy-two-hour diffusions that keep him locked into an everpresent present. After seven years working at Meridian, Dana can no longer remember who he was before he joined. It is hard to imagine a future outside of it. Hard to fathom any kind of future at all.

Traffic’s not bad, says the driver.

It’s not bad for a Friday, says Dana, looking at the gulp of swallows settling on the power lines by Brisbane Lagoon. He wonders what cliff they’ve nested in and how long their flight back to their proper South American homes will be, wanting to follow them, wanting to disappear in their murmurations, one of many, no-one at all.

You going out tonight? The driver asks.

Dana wants to tell him that there will be massive parties, huge gatherings, debauchery on a world-beating scale.

Nah imma stay home probably. Too tired.

Dana showers and watches tv in bed. Eating a pickle from a jar, he pours some vodka into a Nutella glass and takes several large gulps, flicking through streaming sites, scrolling through rows of movies that won’t do, like so many vulgar and insidious offerings.

He opens his laptop and drops the gym pants he ambitiously put on when he came in. He needs oblivion. On cam sites, he can be someone else entirely. Another self, without a face. Only a body doing whatever it is instructed, abandoning all semblance of control, all vestiges of identity. A meat robot following orders.

A few random men click through. He takes his t-shirt off, pulling his underpants down. The vodka bottle rests on his hip, obscuring his crotch, a demure mechanism to invite its removal on command. A large, hairy belly and thick, uncircumcised cock fill the screen.

Can you hear me, son? says the belly, implying a dominant protocol with which Dana is familiar, a nominative paternalism that he is happy to accept. Gruff voice, mid-sixties maybe. The hand holding the cock is wrinkled and foxed with sunspots. A thick, well-worn wedding ring presses urgently on his fat ring finger. He’s perfect.

Yes I can, he says, his voice changing already, going up in pitch, evolving into a persona his body reacts to with immediacy, grateful to be released from its suited form, arching his hips backwards, accentuating his effeminate, slender frame.

How old are you? asks the belly.

Twenty-one, Sir, Adam lies, adopting the submissive parlance he knows dom daddies expect.

Are you sure you’re not younger than that? You look young.

He does, though he is much older than his lie, which is why he never shows face. His body looks like he’s still a teen, courtesy of his Hispanic heritage. Men on cam sites often want him to be much younger than he is, and often, though he feels keenly the horror of their intention, he obliges them so they’ll give him the oblivion he wants.

Maybe, he says, afraid he’ll lose him if he doesn’t play the part. He doesn’t want to go back to random rolling. He needs to get out of himself now.

That’s ok. I don’t care if you are. Better that way, actually. You ok with that? I’m fifty-three.

Yes Sir.

What are you, Asian?

Hispanic.

Are you a good boy? says the thick cock, his wedding ring flashing dully in the screen’s light.

Yes Sir, Dana says, losing his breath a little, trembling. He can feel the man’s commitment now, his first order on the tip of his tongue, and he anticipates it with a longing he cannot explain, a hunger that soaks him through, its passion and surrender an obligation Dana feels as devotional, as an inevitable servitude. 

Grab that bottle, boy. I want you to take a really big swig of it and then put it down, ok?

Yes Sir, he says, doing what the man wants, swallowing several times, the ethanol burning his throat. He stills an urge to gag and puts the bottle down. He is already hard, and he can feel the man has noticed, his breath accelerating. The jerking motion of his arm makes his face shake. His beard rubs on the microphone, producing small rasping noises Dana feels as electrostatic tingles across his scalp, running the line of his spine downwards towards his buttocks and inner thighs.

Good boy. Slap that cock for me, boy.

He complies.

Harder, you little faggot.

He slaps himself again, ignoring the word, familiar with the way doms use it, unrelenting in their marital regret and dire need to dispense hurt. The pain travels through him, taking with it his memory and his name, his past and his future. Only his flesh remains.

Slap your balls, boy. And do it hard, so it hurts.

He does as he is told. Much deeper this time, the referred pain travels through his gut and stomach, the shared nerves and tissues between scrotum and abdomen recoiling in sympathy, tensing his whole body, locking him in. Nothing remains of him. His mind evaporates and only the pain is available, all other perceptive markers out of reach. His mouth issues a small lament, a half whimper, and he throws his head back, eyes rolling up. A comfortable and familiar blanket of nothingness engulfs him.

That’s right boy, moan for me. Now. Tuck your junk in, let me see what you look like as a girl.

This is the bit he most looks forward to, the bit he wishes all camdaddies would ask him to perform, though not all want it. It is the only time he gets to experience, even if briefly, the blissful state in which he feels like a real girl, when he sees the reflection of his ephemeral and temporary female form on their penile excitement, the acceleration in their hand as they jerk, the fat of their hairy bellies and sagging mantits shaking in febrile delight. It is the only time his too-feminine hips and hairless body make perfect sense. He basks in it for a few seconds, camdaddy moaning to himself, lost to his girlnotgirl fantasy, becoming a dump for the man’s most demeaning thoughts, his perfectly unmarital rage, his unseemly want, his morally decrepit fantasy, the screen a perfect prophylactic layer between the man and his desire to wreak havoc, his ultimate compulsion to breed and destroy. The sheer impossibility of it moves Dana, its sublime and terrible fate, and he feels for the man tenderly, open to his disaster, drinking his stupidity until he finishes, the screen going on to the next punter.

The phone buzzes.

Where are you? We’re out and we wanna play with you.

Dana sighs and taps a response.

Home. Just landed. Need sleep.

What are you, a hundred years old?

You know some people actually sleep right?

People do. You’re not people. You’re my genderfluid pansexual femboy Queen.

Yeah, ok.

You’re a split-tongue queer slut with occasional bloodplay tendencies and I want to indulge you.

Uh-huh.

I love you.

Sure you do.

And you need to leave that awful apartment and come join me.

No.

I will make your jetlag disappear.

Yes, and my health, and my dignity.

I will restore you and clean you.

Fuck off.

Come drink with me.

You’re so exhausting.

There’s someone I want you to meet.

Dana goes through a few more rows of desperately bad movies and realises that staying here will have consequences. The loneliness and absurdity of watching the obscure French movies he will eventually land on whilst getting drunk on his own. Waking up in the morning and wondering where this bed is, what city, what country, like a kidnap victim, until the slow realisation of San Franciscan gloom—leaden light licking window panes—creeps up through the apartment. An iced coffee and some diazepam later, the bus to the Valley will take Dana back to the 101, back to a desk and back to the penumbral misery of meetings and slide decks.

Ok. Where.

Where else.

Outside, breathing becomes easier. Dana’s lungs take in the smells of The Mission, mercurial and gamey, the pong and reek of piss and skunk, and he decides to walk to where his friend is waiting. The Help is a club hole with unusual and surprising dark rooms, peculiar drinks, and preternaturally queer punters. Inside, he closes his eyes and takes a deep breath through his nostrils. Sweat and alcohol. Musk and hate and cruel little twink secrets. Voodoo-like curses and plaintive suspirations, born of carefully metered and gleefully accepted pain. Dana misses this smell more than one should admit, is homesick for it all the time, even though it represents a sort of sexual fluency as remote and unavailable to him as well-intoned Mandarin. He has never been able to engage and keep up a semblance of their protocols for long enough for the game to tip in his favour.

At the end of the club, by the darkly lit booths where the crew are sitting and holding court, there is someone he doesn’t recognise, talking to them. Tall and sombre, louring over the booth and the small clutch of Dana’s friends huddled together in what looks like admiration, he points at a couple of them, finishing some sort of anecdote Dana cannot begin to fathom but which is obviously effective, as the whole booth shakes with laughter.

Dana!

You’re such a harpie. I was about to go to sleep.

Tosh. Meet Gabriel, his friend says, intoning the name as though he might be the actual archangel instead of a portly middle-aged man who looks like drunk Santa.

Hi, he says, now smiling through his beard, remnant chuckles shaking his ample belly, still laughing at his own joke. Dana spots a Montblanc on his jacket’s ticket pocket, the girth of a fat thumb. On his wrist, as he offers his substantial hand, the familiar contours and shine of a Swiss watch Dana has seen before in corporate alpha dom daddies, its lugs and crown protuberant in the dense white hair of his wrist.

Hello, says Dana, his size kink rearing its ugly head.

After a few hours of drinking and sharing bits of various powders, Dana cannot help the temptation to find out, to elevate his ever-evolving cam fantasy, his daddy eidolon, to a physical reality. When he invites him, he relents, disarmed by his candor, by his own lack of protocol or contract, by his smile. The elevator to the man’s apartment glides effortlessly, for long enough to evidence a high floor, somewhere above the fog. Dana cups Santa’s bulge softly, wanting the quivers in his mouth to never stop. His bed is a gargantuan spread of white sheets and large cushions, and as he stuffs one underneath the soft pleats of Dana’s hips, a little sound comes out of his mouth, an unintended moan when Santa enters him, the searing pain giving over to waves of a kind of corporeal rapture Dana has never before known. The man’s ears are large and hairy, their long helixes giving over to fat dangling lobes. Dana grabs both of them in his hands, pinching his lobules first, then grabbing the lugs entirely, his fingers behind their flesh, his thumbs digging into their cavernous triangular fossa, pulling on them to bring his whole face to his. His body rests then, his whole substantial weight, on Dana’s, as he manages to pull him close enough to feel his breath. The weight takes his own breath away, and he whispers harder into his mouth in short airless grunts until he feels wet hot tears running down the sides of his face, unaware of anything else than the distention inside him, the breaking dam of his consciousness only able to hold on to the pain, a pain he has never had before, odorous and tactile and benign, the injury and its anaesthetic delivered in the same effort, as though someone has rammed their hole arm through him and grabbed and stopped his heart. He stops breathing and closes his eyes. The man notices the tears and makes to stop, pushing himself up with his arms. Unavailed of his weight and warmth, Dana opens his eyes, grabs his whole head and pushes him down again, letting him kiss the tears away at the corners of his eyes, imagining the salty taste in the man’s mouth and hearing himself breathe come come come near the man’s ear again and again until he growls, the sound of it preciously analogue and close, the needful and joyous mirror of so many camdaddy barks and snarling incantations. Dana feels him stop and become still and marvels at his rigid, quiet ecstasy, looking into his eyes, big as plates, blue as shimmering steel. He feels broken and elevated, used and reborn, refashioned out of the littered strands of his fractured mind and forged into a vital form, a vast and cacophonous sea of feeling that he is unable to contain. The man puts a hand over Dana’s mouth to contain the scream, and Dana puts his own hand over it, pushing the man’s fingers into his mouth and biting them to stop himself from screaming again. The man smiles and topples over, grimacing as he takes Dana with him. On top of him now, his head on his chest, he looks out the window at the towers of the financial district and the twinkling sea of domestic lights beyond, lying like a frog on a boulder on the man’s large hairy belly. The city looks like a shimmering blanket of fireflies as he falls asleep on him, his large hand tugging Dana’s hair softly.

In the morning, Dana shakes the kidnapped fug off and quickly realises this place is not home. High above the din and hustle of lower terrarian creatures below, this bed sits somewhere near the top of what must be, Dana realises, Millenium Tower or some such outlandish edifice, towering over downtown, surrounded by Salesforce buildings. Dana runs his fingers through the folds in the sheets looking for a warm body, for corporeal evidence. None appears, but from beyond the two-storied glass walls, kitchen noises can be heard, the comforting sound of vapour being pressed through grains, plates being slid out of their cupboards. The man comes into the bedroom holding a tray, and Dana remembers him from the bar.

You’re awake.

Dana coughs in assent.

I thought you might be hungry. And possibly hungover.

Dana lifts the sheets, half-heartedly confirming nakedness, and looks for scattered clothes.

I put your clothes on the chair.

Dark Santa is wearing a white robe, his belly partly showing through the middle. He sits down on the side of the bed and places the tray down on its own little legs. He smiles and puts his hand on the small of Dana’s back, pushing down with gentle force. Dana’s whole body responds, flashes of the night before coming through now in cinematic force. A pulse runs through Dana’s body, an electric eel of phantom innervation and rapture, and every bone relaxes and distends, hips giving way, ribs softening.

Dana looks at the tray, sitting up.

Silver-cuffed cups with steaming black coffee. Little frozen shot glasses filled to the brim with vodka. Slices of lemon. Several oysters, and little porcelain dishes of red and black caviar. Thick curled butter shavings and dark black bread slices. Little croissants, two pots of orange marmalade, unlabelled jams.

I make the marmalade myself, at my farm.

Dana takes one of the shot glasses, downs it, and then, without speaking but looking at Santa’s eyes, which appear now to have shed their sombre shadings, shining with a clear, kind and tender watchfulness, takes a sip of coffee. It tastes earthy, as though the beans have been buried in wet ground. Dana can smell mushrooms, dark promises, quiet seas and low earth, and groans with pleasure, giving in.

Santa smiles.

Sumatra Mandheling. The beans are partly dried on the ground. Wonderful acidic balance, don’t you think?

What’s your name again?

Gabriel, says Santa, on a Saturday morning when leaden skies have been replaced by iridescent blue and gloriously distant elemental clouds in the shores beyond the bridge, on a morning when Dana can no longer contain the multitudes that usually inhabit this malformed husk, this multifarious vessel that can no more explain itself than it can usually host pleasure or interest any more, perhaps until right now, perhaps until this moment when Dana looks up at Gabriel’s kind face and launches for his lips, grabbing his polar bear cheeks with both hands, kissing him deeply, thinking I can be your untamed thing, your horny pet mutt, your genderweird femboy maidwife if you want. I’ll feed you boysmell-scented poppers until you choke, embarrassed by your want. I will give you everything. I will let you rain orbital bombardment-level twink obliteration on me.

Back in Shenzhen through Hong Kong, Dana sits in his caged tower and ponders the greyness of tech cities listening to a Berlin House playlist. The long Weekend club mixes he has lovingly curated over many Meridian years to make travel bearable. A sniff of white powder from the little snuff box, crushed Ritalin from pills he knows are safe to travel. A little swig from a vodka bottle, a few CBD gummy bears (also travel-friendly as they look like Haribo). Gabriel’s message streams through.

You’re far away.

So are you.

Where today?

Shenzhen.

Fixing the world?

Undoing previous fixes. Didn’t take.

You ever wonder whether it’s worth it.

Every twenty minutes or so.

Why not try something different?

You got any bright ideas?

Come work for me. My foundation.

Cannot work for you, and you know why. And I’m not done vesting Meridian.

I don’t want you to work for me personally. I want you to run the foundation.

No boss is bossless. You’d be on the board.

Complete freedom of operations.

No such thing, Santa.

Ok, anyway. San Francisco Opera are doing Les Indes Galantes.

?

Rameau.

?

French Baroque. Gayest Opera ever. There’s a homo wedding in it kinda. You’d like it, I promise. I know the director.

Oh.

Are you back on Friday?

Yes.

Come with? We can go to my farm after. You haven’t seen it yet.

Dana thinks about this and realises that for all of Gabriel’s soft and profound kindness, nothing will ever balance out. The pain of countless value proposition redesigns. The sprints and objectives and key results, the performance reviews, the endless emails and messages. One could surrender. One could spearhead something. One could get off the call and refuse to leverage the leveraged buyout, refuse the next martini, become untethered, burn out and drop off, like beef falling off a bone.

On the flight back, Dana benzos his drinks sitting at the bar, the upgrade fortuitous and welcome. The ride back is strange, the 101 spitting and sputtering like something has gone wrong farther down.

I don’t know what’s going on here, says the driver.

Something’s wrong, says Dana, looking at the water, the ripples at once normal and strangely unsettled.

The apartment is also wrong somehow. Unmoored, something worrying the block’s foundations. Dana drops the luggage and comes out again, finding an app rental car and moving through downtown, driving out of the city, wanting to focus on something menial, trying to shake the energy that is quickly engulfing everything.

Clear of downtown, Dana gets on to the Oakland bridge and looks at the sign for the Treasure Island exit with some bemusement, marvelling at the colour of the sky between Treasure Island in front and Angel Island on the left, Alcatraz just visible through the side of North Beach. A long line of thin Cirrus clouds point straight to Angel and towards Tiburon and Sausalito, and the Muir Woods beyond that. A perfect cornflower blue sky, deepening to dodger blue at the top of the skyline. If one went out to sea right now, the horizon’s offing would be a thick gradient line of Alice blue, Dana thinks. The fog flows bay-ward. The smell of brine and eucalyptus mixes with the car fumes and thick truck exhaust.

Dana feels like every cell in this body, this angular and pseudofeminine traitor, is singing and humming with the world, vibrating in sync with the coiled zing of the bridge suspension cables. Howling in resonance with the sea lions below. Atomised and dispersed into the fog, caressing the hills, on its way to the deep recesses of the bay. Dana feels like the Santa Ana winds. Mysterious and dangerous. Unhinged, perhaps, but not sad. Not sad. Sick with longing, but not unhappy. There is a raft of messages piling up on the phone perching on the dashboard, coming in and out of vision as they pop up on top of the maps app, which Dana has put on for no particular reason, not knowing where to go. The car drives through Richmond and into San Quentin, merging into the 101 at San Rafael, and there’s a sense of relief, the four lanes mostly empty now.

The Redwoods to the left, the car windows down, the faintest but still perceivable smell of eucalyptus and pine. By the time signs for Olompali State Park appear in the distance, the car and Dana are in a groove, affixed to the long, sinuous curves of the 101. Hands at the bottom of the wheel, seat reclined, head on its rest, he follows the long folds and crevices of the road. Car dealerships and fast food signs are slowly replaced by small rolling hills, shadows in the dark, interspersed with the occasional town. Peta Larentia. Santa Rosa. The 101 running just above the treeline, house lights and the odd mall underneath. He is a flying suburban condor, surveying the endless spread of ticky-tacky houses. The Old Redwood Highway spreads before him in a straight line, through Windsow and Healdsburg, through Asti and Cloverdale, the asphalt grooves softly bumping him, cradling him into a waking slumber. Vineyards and eighteen-wheelers, signs with pseudo-Italianate names. 

A sudden patch of newly-paved highway swarms the car into silence, throwing Dana into a vacuum. Something stirs within him. A new framework of despair, a looser, wider, more encompassing paradigm. A flash of a night with Gabriel brings back the feeling of something snapping into place in his body. Trying to recall it, the image of a Hippocratic board comes to mind, atlas and axis vertebrae distending and straightening, like someone fixing a spine. It is a feeling of utter relief, Dana suddenly realises with a jolt, twitching and swerving, the car losing its lane for a moment.

He gets off the 101 and takes the turn for the 128, driving for a bit with high beams on, the light changing with gloaming. Pulling over right after Alderglen Springs, leaving the car at a hairpin bend, Dana walks fast up the hill in the dark, the moonlight lighting the way as he follows the lee of the hill, finding a gap towards its shoulder and reaching its brow, where it is lighter.

The climb is exhausting. Dana stands and looks down the other side towards the brae, falling down to another vineyard, and then looks up. A cloud of bats above the crag swoop in spiralling streams, a patchwork quilt of flapping high pitch sound, granular synthesis in flight.

Sitting down, Dana’s eyes adjust to the darkness. Rolling hills lay in the distance, slumbering giants with small vineyards at their feet. A lucid, piercing clarity invades him. The air is balmy, the soft breeze from the hills rolling over the brow. Laying down softly on the heather and log grasses, Dana feels the trembling deep within the hill, the rumbling increasing, the fault slip giving way, the stress at its edge overcoming the friction, the first of the waves travelling through him, unstitching him, his heart a wingbeat, a skiff on the shoaling tide, surrendering.

David works in biometrics software. Writing is his form of resistance. He is based in London and is currently attending the MA in Creative Writing at Birkbeck College. You can contact David here

I

She called as I was turning the corner of Churn Lane. I put up my hood, put my back to the wind, to save her from asking me to repeat myself. What are you up to? she asked. Blackberry-picking, I told her. Bit late for that, surely. No, no, I said, the summer came late this year. Oh, yeah, she said, trying to recall her June and July. I found the fruit bushes, by smell as much as by sight, because they grew in front of a strew of Himalayan balsam. When I was six or seven, Dad showed me to wait for August, when it would take only a touch or a slight shake to burst the balsam seed pods. The smell would stick to us more than the seeds themselves and crept towards me now from this childhood time. How’s your dad? I asked. Oh, you know, she said, getting on. Silence told me the rest. I stopped on the hill, pulled some Tupperware from my little canvas bag, and began to pick. Reach and pick, reach and pick, while she told me about her new kitchen, the baby, her brother’s new job. As she spoke, the box became crowded with berries, like her voice was doing the picking, and I was only there to watch. I can’t believe about Mr Davies, she said. What about Mr Davies? I asked. Oh… She paused. He overdosed, she said. I snagged my hand on a thorn, and drops that could have been blackberry juice puckered my palm. Didn’t you know? No, I told her, no, I didn’t. Reach and pick, reach and pick. She told me about his daughter’s post on Facebook. Then she remembered the time he caught her smoking weed at the bus stop and let her off because she’d come first in the music competition. I sat down on the dry-stone wall while she spoke, looking down at the leaves and crisp packets by my feet. When did you last see him? she asked. I dropped a berry into the box. Cleared my throat. I think it was when he came to my gig, I said. When I was still in The Kohl. He asked for tickets for Nottingham and brought along his husband. I smiled. They definitely didn’t like our music. She laughed at that: You were a bit– alternative, weren’t you? He bought merch, though, I said. And five copies of the EP. I picked a couple more berries. Yeah, well, he was a great guy, she said. Yeah, he was, I said. The best teacher we had. I turned to rest the box on the wall, rummaged around in my bag for the lid, clamped it shut. Well, I’d better go, I said. No problem, she said. Callum should wake up from his nap any minute. I paused. Okay, speak to you soon. We said goodbye, and I lowered the box back into my bag, holding it in my hands as I walked down the hill to the dusty streets below. 

II

Jesus Christ, she said. It’s too cold for walking today. You’re making me shiver just thinking about it. Well… I like it, I said, shrugging at the hornbeam in front of me. The snow’s almost gone now. I reached the muddle of brambles and peered over the dry-stone wall. The bushes are all waterlogged, I said. I hope they don’t die. She said, I think we have other things to worry about. Mm. You’re right. I stayed a few more seconds with the brambles, barren in the winter’s cold arms. Then I walked on. She told me more about Callum: his new teeth, how his hair had turned blonde from almost black, his sweet giggling. You must be loving it, I said. She laughed. I’m exhausted. I don’t sleep. I love him, she said, but it’s awful. Oh, I said. I’m sorry about that. Marching up the hill, I became breathless, so I let her speak, and I tried to listen, but the rain got into my phone’s speaker and made her smooth voice crackle. What did you say? Sorry– it went funny for a second. Oh, she said. Where are you? Just up Warley, I said. By the churchyard. What were you saying? She paused. Um… Just that Callum’s difficult, that’s all. She sighed, but I heard only a whisper of it, as if she’d turned her head. How’s your music stuff going, anyway? she asked. Well, I said. Did I tell you about that funding we got? A cyclist rustled past, slowly, his misted breath reaching out to me. She said: No, I don’t think so. Oh, well, we got some money to put towards the album. Ooh, she said. What are you spending it on? Studio costs, better instruments, promotion– that kind of thing. Buy us a laptop, will you, she said. Then she laughed in a too-high pitch. But… yeah, it’s going well, I said. Thanks for asking. I held the phone away from my ear and listened as the rainwater in its hurry became a language-less voice on the lane. Then her voice again. What was that? I saw Sammy Davies in Tesco the other week, she said. He’s dyed his hair bright yellow. I stopped. Mr Davies’ son? Yep, she said. Can you believe that? Yeah– I mean, I remember you saying that last time. Oh, she said. I bit my lip. I’m heading back to London next week, I told her. You won’t be back for ages, she said. Yeah, probably. I’ll miss it. No, you won’t, she said. You don’t miss us at all. 

III

Take care of yourself, I told her. Yep, you too. Okay then. Okay then. Bye. Bye, she said. I turned off my phone. It was July, and for months I’d been stuck in the city with the walls, the windows. The sky had thawed and whipped white to grey to blue; a wonderful alchemy. I walked to the city library and returned with books about English plants and natural woodland. They told me the rubus fruticosus – the bramble – would be in flower this month. Its arms, wicked with thorns and serrated leaves, were prising colour from soil to flaunt at the summer. I drew them, copying photos from the Internet. I wrote a song about them. For them. Crumpled, it went in the bin. I called her. She didn’t answer. I got a text the following day saying she was busy with Callum, but we’d speak soon. The ladies downstairs were both working from home, and we’d agreed I could only practice the drums at the weekends. So, my hands itched. Really, really itched. I tore at them till they blistered and bled, and I had to fashion bandages from kitchen roll and masking tape, mending them every few hours. In the morning, the sun rolled in and blinked, with me, at my red-spotted pillowcase. From the foot of the bed I could watch the toddlers on the street being led to the nursery. Obediently hidden, I was a shade behind dusty glass. All I could think about were the blackberries. They’d be falling, covering the hill and the lane. I wished to go back home and take them, the berries trodden, blemishing my hands in that sweet nestle between ripe and decay, rotting even as I held them. I’d have dropped them on park benches. Tucked them into the collars of eager dogs. Left them at the canal, and on towards the churchyard, and on the path, and at the knotted oak tree, and the dear clean stone behind it. His names and dates chiselled there, made of absence. The berries would have fallen on his place, quiet and warm in the earth, pattering like the musical beats he taught me. I blinked. My berries fell away, and I looked again at my walls, at my window, the street below. I opened the window: put up my hood, put my back to the wind. I repeated myself. What are you up to? someone shouted to me from the street. Nothing, I said– but my voice was hoarse. I budged back inside. Bandaged my hands. And began to paint brambles on the walls.

Georgie Evans is a writer of poetry, life writing, and short fiction from Halifax, West Yorkshire. She has a BA from the University of Warwick and her current MA at Goldsmiths is funded by the Isaac Arthur Green scholarship. She was the winner of the Telegraph Cassandra Jardine Memorial Prize in 2019, the Walter Swan Poetry Prize in 2020, and has an upcoming publication in The Pomegranate magazine. Her current work-in-progress is a narrative non-fiction about deafness and dementia.

Tom went in first. I followed and put down my suitcase. My hand was shaking. I waited for him to speak.

‘Nice room,’ he said.

I thought, And does it remind you of anywhere, Tom? 

He threw his coat on a chair, took off his shoes, and flung himself on the bed. ‘Good bed.’

I still expected him to comment on the room. But he wasn’t looking at the room. Just me.

‘Join me, Steph.’

‘In a minute.’

Because I had to inspect the room, didn’t I?

Curtains covered one wall, rich brown, maybe angora. Closed because it was already dark outside. I peeped behind and found a picture window the width of the room. No street lamps, so the dark was total. The wall opposite the window was behind the bed head, above which was a wide mirror, full of grainy shadows as the bedside lamps threw light downwards. No pictures. Two walls to go.

The one with the doors (entrance and en suite), was lined with hessian. Just two pictures – flower prints, agapanthus and heuchera. One wall to go.

A chill went around my heart and my breathing became shallow. There was a large print of a painting by Matisse, the interior of some Moroccan palace. Even in the subdued lighting, the colours glowed. It was what I’d dreaded. I went to the en suite and splashed my face with water, thinking, But this is what we need: the test, better now than later.

I went back in and lay beside Tom. He turned and took me in his arms.

‘Steph, you’re tense.’

‘Sorry.’

‘What is it?’

‘Hard to explain.’

‘Is coming here together too much commitment?’

‘Not that simple. Maybe I’m superstitious.’

He looked at me solemnly. I thought, Well Tom, this is how I am, take it or leave it. He stayed still for a while, looking into my eyes, frowning a little. Then he went to the bathroom. I held my breath as he passed Morocco, but he didn’t seem to notice. 

His head poked out.

‘Going to shower. You can join me.’

‘In a minute.’

I knew it would be a long minute. I couldn’t bear to be wet and naked while he passed the print again and said, ‘Ah, Morocco, I was there in such and such a year.’ So I went on lying there, and the bouclé texture of the bedspread under my palms burned into my memory. I must have fallen asleep before he came out again, because when I woke the lights were off, the darkness and silence were intense, and Tom was lying near me on top of the counterpane. He must have crept there like a cat not to wake me. He must have felt awful.

*

The bedside clock read 3:15. I was cold, so I lifted my side of the duvet and wriggled under as far as I could with him on top. I was conscious of the weight of his body, his solid presence. It had been a long time since I slept with a man in a guest house.

In my early twenties, I was a mess. I failed my course and broke up with my boyfriend. I was all at sea, and Morgan was my anchor, mooring, lifeline – any comparison involving rope. He was also (to change metaphors) my gateway to the exotic. Okay, so his was the only way to do things. (One way to make love – you can guess.) Okay, so he chose where we holidayed. At least he made me feel confident, unlike men who forgot their passport or dropped their camera in the sea. With Morgan arrangements ran like clockwork, and we always got decent hotels.

In Venice we stood at the window and admired the crumbly Gothic tracery on the building opposite. I was mesmerised by the traffic on the canal below: very few gondolas, mainly barges loaded with beer crates and cement bags. Meanwhile Morgan, at my shoulder, said, ‘Oddly enough, this makes me think of Bruges.’

‘Bruges? In Belgium?’

‘Yes. They call it the Venice of the North, you know.’

‘Really?’

He went in. I tried to imagine Bruges. The effort detracted from the scene below. I watched as a woman in the building across the canal opened her shutters, but before I got a proper look at her Morgan called, ‘Look at this, Stephanie.’

He was looking at a framed print on the wall. It showed a man in a funny hat like a lampshade. Behind him, way below, were white buildings, a sweep of bay, an indigo sea.

 Morgan said, ‘This is Funchal, Madeira. Fascinating.’

A creepy, dislocated feeling came over me. Bits of the world were getting mashed together.

I said, ‘Who’s the guy in the hat?’

‘A chicken seller, apparently.’

‘Have you been there, Morgan?’

‘Not yet. You and I will go. Of course, it won’t look like that.’

*

But now there was Tom, and this was our first weekend away together. In a village in Wales with an unlikely name: Ffostrasol. It didn’t sound romantic, more like a brand of sun cream. We chose it by sticking a pin in the map, because neither wanted to influence the other. Tomorrow we’d do some walking. 

We didn’t know what the scenery was like. It was getting dark by the time we got away from work. We drove most of the way in silence, both preoccupied, I suppose. I was thinking, You don’t really know someone until you’ve spent a few nights away with them. I used to fall out with my best friends when we went camping. Maybe Tom was having similar doubts. What endeared me to him, when we met on a walking holiday, was when our party halted with a sunlit panorama below us, and I said, ‘I can’t describe how that makes me feel’, and he didn’t say a word, just smiled and nodded.

On a narrow road on the way to Ffostrasol, some comedian flashed us for going too slowly and screeched past, hooting. Tom laughed.

‘One more for the madhouse.’

I said, ‘Morgan wouldn’t laugh. He’d flash and hoot back, then zoom after him and tailgate him for miles.’

Tom knew about Morgan, but it was too soon to burden him with details. I thought I could put the balance right by asking about his wife. All I knew was that she died of cancer a few years earlier.

‘What was Beth like, Tom?’

He didn’t answer, and I suddenly felt hot with anxiety. He pretended to adjust his glasses, but I could tell he was wiping away a tear. We went on in silence, accompanied by the unseen presences of Morgan and Beth. I’ve blown it, I thought.

But after a few miles we touched hands across the gear lever, and said how lucky we were to have met. I said my favourite film was Spirited Away. He said he loved that too but his favourite was O Brother Where Art Thou. I said I needed to see it again to be sure and he said, ‘Then let’s.’ He said he had a sister and seven cousins, I said I was an only child with only four cousins. We didn’t talk about places, or people we’d travelled with.

I began to feel it was going well, then remembered this stage had gone well with Morgan. This stage was like arriving at a railway station and being surprised to find it clean and cheerful, then realising the train might be late, or overcrowded, or it might not arrive. When we pulled in at the guest house my heart beat faster, and the smell of pine trees and honeysuckle didn’t calm me.

*

My next holiday with Morgan was Sorrento. We took a boat tour to a marine grotto where features were picked out with spotlights. The guide gave a commentary in English.

‘Look the piece of rock. Like head of a soldier.’

‘Look the pattern in the stone. Like lace tablecloth.’

‘Look when I move the torch. Reflections like stars of the Plough.’

I muttered, loud enough for him to hear, ‘I’ll decide what looks like a soldier or lace or stars.’ Morgan shushed me.

After dinner in town we strolled back to the hotel along a winding road high above the coast. The air smelt of lemon trees.

Morgan said, ‘Oddly enough, Sorrento is like Rottingdean.’

‘Where?’

‘Rottingdean, near Brighton.’ In a tone implying that my unfamiliarity with the south coast of England was wilful ignorance. ‘Trust me, Stephanie, it’s like it.’

I had already noted the main picture in the hotel bedroom. It was a pen-and-ink study of Tower Bridge. In the unsettling moments of arrival I felt reassured by this London icon, but now, absorbing Italy into my veins, I was irritated. Once again Morgan studied the picture. He explained how the huge counterweights of the bascules fit into the bases of the towers, so the halves of the bridge can lift to let ships through. I developed a headache.

For some weeks after we got home there was a coolness between us, which only planning an activity holiday seemed to cure. We did in fact spend several pleasant months looking forward to walking in Madeira. I thought it would break the spell of the pictures in Venice and Sorrento.

In Funchal we found the exact spot where the chicken seller had stood. It was high up at the western end. Morgan was right – the place had grown, and didn’t look like the picture. Below us were new luxury hotels and timeshare apartments. Morgan began to list the places in Britain with heights at one end of a seafront. Aberystwyth, Llandudno, and Sidmouth were a few. He then moved on to France via California. He thought all those resorts could learn from studying Funchal. 

We stayed in one of the new hotels. It was pretty swish, if lacking in character, and the décor in the room pulled no punches. One entire wall was a photographic mural of the towering Rocky Mountains, seen from the Great Plains. I plonked myself down on the bed and stared at it.

Morgan studied it too. ‘I wonder what state we’re in here. Colorado?’

I knew what state I was in. I said, ‘Shut up for heaven’s sake, Morgan.’

I could sense his irritation as he forced himself to keep quiet and sat reading the tourist bumf. I stared at that wretched mural for half an hour, burning with dissatisfaction, longing to be in that dramatic scene instead of safe little Funchal. I felt as if all the places in the world had been forced into a giant food-processor, until none was whole.

*

In the embracing dark of Ffostrasol I lay wide awake. I couldn’t even make out the curtains. So different from the city. I was in a warm cocoon with Tom breathing quietly beside me, still on top of the covers. I told myself I ought to be happy, all was well, I would soon stop feeling tense. Carefully I sat up in bed, not wanting to wake Tom, who might have thought the drumbeat of my heart was a glitch in the rhythm of our life together.

The clock read 6.20. I rubbed my face against the pillow, wiping the sweat from my hairline, then lay down and tried to sleep. Impossible. I wanted to roll around to ease my agitation, but forced myself to keep still. So far Tom hadn’t commented on Morocco, or anything else that wasn’t actually there. But in the weekend ahead Morgan’s doppelgänger might put words in Tom’s mouth like a ventriloquist.

Time passed quickly, because next time I looked the clock read 7.23, and I heard clinks and bumps from below as the staff prepared early breakfasts. Grainy light through the curtains showed indistinct shapes of furniture, and the muted outline of the picture of Morocco. I thought, Let the trial begin soon and not hang over me till later.

I tried to adjust my breathing to the rhythm of Tom’s, but anxiety welled up again. I turned away and huddled up, clutching the pillow. If our relationship was a train it could so easily break down, crash, or divide with me in one half and him in the other.

*

I split with Morgan in Marrakech. In the hotel lobby, inexplicably, was a framed watercolour of the Doge’s Palace in Venice. A wave of fatigue and melancholy swamped me. The wheel had come full circle to that first holiday, as if nothing in our relationship had moved.

That evening, we went up to the hotel roof to take in the sights, and saw the Jemaa el-Fnaa with its fire-eaters and storytellers and alien music. When Morgan exclaimed that it was just like St Mark’s Square with its outdoor orchestras, I took off my shoes and threw them at him. He dodged and his glasses fell off and broke.

‘I’m here and nowhere else,’ I screamed. ‘Here! Understand?’

He didn’t.

*

A warm hand stroked my back. I sat up, startled.

‘Still tense,’ Tom said.

I turned and smiled, trying to reassure him.

‘I’m not usually like this.’

‘Would you like a cup of tea?’

‘Great.’

He had to pass Morocco on the way to the kettle.

He stopped.

He studied it.

My mouth was dry. He smoothed his hair, checking his reflection in the picture glass. The vanity of the man! Then he moved on. I breathed again. But he still had to pass it coming back.

I couldn’t stand the tension any longer. While he filled the kettle I jumped out of bed and stood beside the picture, and when he came back I said quite aggressively, ‘Well, Tom, what do you think?’ and pointed to it. Come on, Tom, I thought, bleed Ffostrasol dry before we’ve even seen it.

He said, ‘Shall I open the curtains?’

‘If you think that helps.’

By all means, Tom, see the damn thing clearly. I stared at the deep reds and vivid blues of that interior and felt Wales drain into Morocco. Still Tom wasn’t looking.

‘Steph!’ he exclaimed.

That made me jump. I turned to look at him and he pointed to the window. It was blurred.

‘Hang on,’ I said, ‘I’ll put my contacts in.’

I stood in front of the mirror to do it. The reflection of the room-wide window leapt out at me, and I caught my breath. It framed a view across a valley. A sweep of hills was crowned with a larch plantation, dark and spiky against the lightening sky. The view was itself and nowhere else. The mirror was full to bursting with the hills of Ffostrasol.

Alex Barr’s short fiction collections are ‘My Life With Eva’ (Parthian 2017) and for children ‘Take a Look At Me-e-e!’ (Gomer 2014). His recent short fiction can be read on MIR, Sam Yukta Fiction, and Litro . His creative nonfiction has appeared recently in The Blue Nib and Sarasvati. His two poetry collections are ‘Henry’s Bridge’ (Starborn 2006) and ‘Letting In The Carnival’ (Peterloo 1984). He lives in Wales.

“Line up your chipolatas on the grill pan,” bright green trousers, used to be a chef in the army, says, barking at us like we’re all dogs and he’s the alpha. Fuck me, did I know I’d be faced with this twat when I agreed to come along to the cookery class with Tony, as a favour, after his wife ran off? (Can’t blame her if I’m honest, but I don’t tell him that). Well, he’d never learnt to cook had he? They were married at twenty-one and split things in that dated-archaic 1950s Britain way, where she was the domestic half and he was the professional high-flyer (gay as Kylie Minogue’s handbag mind, but we always pretended not to notice). He’s still not come out yet, but we’ve been bumping into Ricardo from the Madrid office after cookery, more often than could be considered a coincidence. 

“My ex got hit by a bus,” Ricardo told us once, in explanation as to why he was looking like shit in Café Nero (about two months ago). My interest piqued – there’d always been something about him. He was fuckable in that irresistible Mediterranean way, but I didn’t know if he liked women, men, or both and I wasn’t brave enough to ask. Stefan, as it turns out (his ex), which meant Tony had hit the jackpot, (as long as Ricardo was willing to overlook the paunch he had developed from years of being fed). It seemed he was. I get it. For a man of forty-seven (beer-gut aside) Tony’s fit.  I even shagged him a couple of times myself when we were at Uni, back when he was trying really hard to be straight. 

When it comes to men, I am currently sitting stoically in a vast kingdom of disappointment. I divorced my second husband, Dwayne, (please don’t judge me, he was incredibly virile and had come-fuck-me-eyes) six years ago, and I’ve been living the high-life of a single parent to three children by two different fathers ever since. My first marriage started off alright. I was a journalist and he worked in finance, then the twins came along so I stopped; stopped working, stopped fucking, stopped drinking, stopped socialising, stopped bloody existing for five years. When I did, finally, manage to resuscitate myself, it came to my attention that he’d been shagging prostitutes – so I had no real choice but to get the scissors out. Two years later I met Dwayne, and it took longer than I’m proud of to realise that if I’d wanted something nice to look at I should have just bought a picture or had the garden done up. 

“I can’t believe we’re just cooking sausages and mashed potatoes,” Tony, ever-the-schoolboy, whispers in my ear. 

“I can’t believe you don’t know how to cook sausage and mash if I’m honest.” I raise my eyebrows, he looks hurt, we cuddle. I wish Tony wasn’t gay. 

*

“Well, this is a bit shit, isn’t it?” I’m averse to queuing at the best of times, but it’s raining and I’ve never even heard of the celebrity chef we’re here to see (the cookery classes having burgeoned into a full-blown obsession). 

“Suzie-Soo…” Tony purrs, trying to placate my displeasure. 

“Like…really shit. I mean, in the rain and twenty people at a fucking time! Honestly, if I’d known…”

Silence. 

“Well dear, an umbrella would be nice,” an older lady in a mackintosh, behind us in the queue. Tony smiles at her and compliments her perm, she blushes. Ever the bloody charmer. 

“She’s not wrong though, is she? An umbrella would be nice! Do you think it’s even worth going in? Shall we just sod it off and go to the pub?”

“And miss a demo from the Francois de Bois? He is a culinary fucking legend Suze! Besides, can you imagine the old major’s face when I pull off some (cue appalling French accent) haute cuisine?”

I smile. Tony is not a natural cook, although to give him his dues he is improving; his attempts in class no longer resemble something attributable to Mrs Cropley from The Vicar of Dibley. 

“Anyway,” Tony is playing with the skin around one of his fingernails, “I promised Ricardo I’d get his autograph.”

“Hmm. Ricardo’s become quite a pal, hasn’t he?” I raise an eyebrow in hope of an admission. 

“You know I’ve been temporarily working with the Madrid office.” He’s coy. I’m tempted to tell him to spit the damn thing out, I know anyway. And yet, a drizzly queue, outside the demonstration marquee at this piss-wet food festival he’s dragged me to, doesn’t seem the right place. 

“I promise we’ll go to the pub tonight.” He changes the subject. 

“Too bloody right we will, how often are all my children with their respective fathers for the weekend?”

“That sentence makes you sound like a bit of whore,” he says, laughing and runs a hand through his Jaime Lannister thick, blonde hair.  

“I am a fucking whore, Tony,” I shoot back deadpan. The old lady behind me looks like someone just ran over her cat then pegged it on her washing line. Tony notices and smiles at her. 

“Wonder if this rain’ll ever give up eh?” he says, flashing his Hollywood Smile white teeth for good measure. 

“Yes, yes dear,” she says, grinning weakly at him. “If only we could do something to make it stop.”

*

“So, Dwayne is getting married again,” I announce. We’re drinking gin in Tony’s garden.  

“Get the fuck out! I still can’t believe he found someone to marry him the first time!”

I roll my eyes but concede defeat.

“Ellie brought her invite home. Dad’s getting married, she said. On the Amalfi coast – fucker knew I always wanted something like that, but I had to make do with a registry office in Finchley. The Amalfi-fucking-coast, can you believe it?”

Tony’s laughing. “Yeah it’s Dwayne’s style, he’s still pissed off you ditched him. More importantly, has anyone got your interest at the moment?”

I sigh. In a pre-rehearsed manner, I run through the chain of disastrous dates which happened prior to him splitting up with Kat. He laughs a lot; wishes I’d told him sooner. I admit recently there’s been nothing. He looks sad then and immediately I feel a deep sense of irritation scrape away at the under-side of my skin like a cat at a scratching post. 

I momentarily consider telling Tony I’ve been meeting up with Ricardo for coffee every Thursday (while Tony’s in a senior management meeting) and that he’s told me everything. Including his worries about the width and breadth of Tony’s closet (he doesn’t use the term closet though, because he doesn’t like it. He says it’s a cliché and that people keep clothes in a closet which they wear out in public. So if you’re going to use the analogy of furniture, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that Tony is in the pant drawer – I can’t argue with his logic). 

I don’t though. 

I don’t tell Tony how I fight his corner, how I remind Ricardo that he doesn’t know what it’s like to have been married to a woman, to have kids. Then listen to him tell me how I don’t know what it’s like to grow up in a devout Catholic family in rural Spain. (I actually like the sound of it, but I can appreciate how it might have been difficult for a gay man.)

I do, however, ask Tony the same question he asked me. Is there anyone?

He looks at my almost drained Bombay Sapphire gin glass and tells me I could do with another.

“I want to hear it.” I put my right hand on top of his arm. “Tell me…everything.”

He sighs. 

“I don’t know how to say this…”

“You’re in a relationship with Ricardo.” I love Tony, but it’s been painful. Rip the plaster off or get someone to rip it off for you. He looks at me, narrows his eyes in confusion (which I know means he’s considering denying it), then nods. Resigned. 

“I’ve known for a while,” I admit, smiling.

“How?” he asks, still unsure. 

I laugh. “I’ve had sex with you…”

“What do you mean?” he asks, acting bemused. 

“I know when I’m having sex with a gay man!”

“What? No? That was…”

“Ages ago? Yeah. But you’ve always been…”

We grin at each other. 

“I tried not to be,” he says, without any hint of melancholy.

“Do you think Kat knew?” he asks, as if he has never before considered that his ex-wife might have intuited his true sexual orientation. 

“Yes.” I open my eyes wide and nod. 

“And the kids…?” He seems more bothered about this. 

“Mmmm…” I wrinkle my nose, twisting my mouth to the side, “I’m honestly not sure.”

Then we settle down into it. How it all happened, how he realised, how Ricardo asked him out, how he’s never known what it’s like to be in a happy relationship until now. I don’t tell him most people don’t ever know. I don’t know. 

*

My kids are on the Amalfi-coast. Both my ex-husbands are there too; one getting married to his new wife (Anouska, 29!) and the other (Stephen) attending as a bloody guest. They never liked each other when I was married to Dwayne, but time and a common enemy can change anything. I might be past my prime, but I decided (with the kids away) to throw a party – yes old people like parties too, I am as surprised as the next person. Tony said he and Ricardo would do the barbeque on account of it being a man’s job. I said I didn’t think that kind of gender-biased bullshit applied anymore but took them up on the offer anyway. The sun put on a stellar act by coming out and staying out and the rain didn’t make an appearance at all. Everyone from the cookery class came, although they’ve all gone now, including the major – his real name is Patrick and he’s genuinely quite nice when he’s not ordering you to cook greasy sausages. Tony and Ricardo are the only ones still here – they said they were staying to help me take my mind off my husbands, but I know they just wanted to use my new hot tub, they’re in there now.

Kat was a bitch when Tony came out, even though she’d known he was gay for at least twenty-five years. She told their two twenty-something daughters (Millie and Rosa) in disgust, but they both laughed and said they’d known for ages. They’ve moved in together now, Ricardo does all the cooking (sometimes you can’t fight the inevitable), Tony’s soft, podgy belly has all but disappeared, in fact I’m not sure I can ever remember him looking so healthy. He’s learning Spanish too, but I’ve so far managed to avoid attending another evening class; I think we’ve all had enough adult education for the time being. 

There’s something about the way I’ve been feeling recently that’s different to how I felt say at fifteen. To how we all felt at fifteen actually, as though there were something wrong with you if you didn’t want to have a boyfriend. My mother had this ingrained belief that being alone in life was one of the very worst things which could happen to a person; find someone and be happy she always used to say. I don’t know if this was because she was immeasurably happy with Dad, or if it was because the most secret desire of her heart was to find someone else who might help her become that way. Still, the echoes of her words have reverberated around my life like a spiritual mantra; the key to happiness is a thing you find hanging, like a necklace, on someone else. 

Perhaps that’s true for Tony and Ricardo. I’ve pulled the curtains shut to keep my eyes from inadvertently flicking in their direction, but I can still hear them laughing as I reach up and feel the smooth metal, which has appeared without drawing attention to itself, around my neck.

Rachael is a fiction writer and poet based in Lincolnshire, UK. She is a PhD Creative Writing student at the University of Lincoln, and has work published or forthcoming with Streetcake Magazine, Truffle, can we have our ball back?, Burning House Press, Hedgehog Poetry, The Centifictionist, Bratum Books, and Fly on the Wall Press.