OF DREAMS AND CEREMONIES (5 page)

"Okay. Where are we going?" Dave asked as they reached the road that ran past the mansion house.

"You wanted sky - "

"Well, just a bit more of it. You know what Aussie skies are like." England's skies were mild and pleasant but seemed so much smaller. Which was probably impossible, but also undeniably true.

"It's all right. I can give you sky. Turn left," said Nicholas. Once Dave had done so, Nicholas announced, "We're going to Ivinghoe Beacon."

Which didn't mean anything at all to Dave, but between the satnav and Nicholas's supplementary guidance, he got them there safely - and the Jaguar proved to be a sinfully smooth way of doing so. Ivinghoe Beacon turned out to be the last hill of a long curving range. Once they'd climbed the chalky paths to the top, then all of Buckinghamshire and probably a fair bit beyond it lay spread before them like a patchwork quilt in greens and browns. Importantly, there was plenty of sky, and with their backs turned to the other hills, it felt as if the earth had risen beneath their feet and thrust them halfway up into the air.

The two of them ended up sitting on the grassy slope just beyond the edge of the hilltop, just before it got steep. Nicholas lay back to dream up into the sky, while Dave simply gazed at the horizon, so very much more distant than the other English horizons he'd encountered so far.

After a while, Nicholas's hand slipped into Dave's, and they continued there connected in a companionable silence, not caring if they startled the nearby model plane enthusiasts who were making great use of updrafts on the north side of the hill. Occasionally a plane swooped past them or circled above. Not exactly butterflies, but they'd do!

Eventually Nicholas asked, "What d'you think?"

"It's great. Thanks. Just what I needed."

A brief pause before Nicholas continued, "This is one end of an old path called the Ridgeway. It leads down across England all the way to Avebury in Wiltshire. There's a stone circle there that you've probably heard of, or seen pictures of. Though I think the path originally continued on right down to the coast in Devon or Dorset or somewhere. It's been used for thousands of years."

"Cool," said Dave.

"I know it's not anything like your Australian songlines - it's more of a practical road, really - but I thought you'd like it."

"I do." He clasped Nicholas's hand tighter for a moment, as the man seemed to need reassurance. "And you know, songlines were practical, too."

Nicholas abruptly sat up. "God, you've only been here a few days, and you're already finding it a bit much, aren't you? I mean, my family and everything."

"Well," he started slowly … "I guess I am used to living on my own. And in my own house. But that's okay."

"It's not usually like this. Even when we try to all get together, it's rare that everyone's there. But it won't be for much longer. Lilibet and her lot are heading home tomorrow, and Michael is, too, because of work, though Amanda and the kids are staying on for an extra couple of days. It won't be long before it's just, well, the six of us - seven, with you - and Simon and so on. I suppose even that's going to be too much for you at times!"

"It'll be fine," Dave insisted. "Just maybe if we can do this sort of thing every now and then. If it can be just us two sometimes."

"Of course. Of course. We can go chasing butterflies, while the weather's still warm."

"Sure. I'll drive you wherever you like. See a bit of the country."

"What else d'you want to do?"

"You," said Dave in his best deadpan. "I want to do you."

Nicholas snorted. "And in between times … ?"

"Whatever you're doing. Planning the wedding and all that. Potting orchids. Teasing Robin. Housework! I'm used to looking after my own place, remember. Do the servants do
everything
for you?"

"Not everything, no."

"So I'll help with that - or the cars, or the garden. And otherwise we can just hang out."

"For three months?"

Dave shrugged. "Well, we just hung out at the waterhole, didn't we? That wasn't so bad."

"It wasn't, was it?" Nicholas sighed. "And what you said before? You must know … I want it to be just the two of us."

"I know you love your family, Nicholas. I know you need to be with them, too. It's obvious you all get on really well." He sighed. "I really get that, you know. I don't remember much about my mum, but I know we were happy. And I adored my dad. He was my best friend." Dave confessed, "I don't know that I'd have been willing to leave him behind. Even for you."

"Oh,
David
." Nicholas leaned in closer, and wrapped a firm arm around Dave's shoulders. "It'll break my heart to leave my father, like I know it would have broken yours. But there's one major difference."

"What's that?"

"Your father only had you. It was just the two of you, and Denise. Of course you couldn't have left him. My father has three other sons and a daughter, and all but one are married or as good as, and they've all got children. He'll hardly even notice I'm gone."

"You know he will," Dave said roughly, "cos you're the one he loves best."

Nicholas echoed in a forlorn little voice, "I'm the one he loves best."

"But he's a really decent guy, isn't he? He wants you to be happy. More than anything."

"And I'm happy with you, David. I'm happiest with you."

"I know." And they sat together there, hand in hand, halfway up in the sky.

Dave wasn't sure what woke him up that night. Nicholas was at his computer with the desk lamp on, but that wasn't anything very unusual. What with the last lingering effects of Dave's jetlag, and their spontaneous bouts of sex and napping, neither of them were keeping regular hours. But Nicholas wasn't just reading or surfing or answering emails - he was upset about something. Dave could tell from his edgy posture, if nothing else.

"Hey, what's up?" Dave murmured, shifting onto his elbows and trying to focus properly. "Nicholas?"

"Nothing. It's fine." Nicholas turned his head to offer a smile which was patently false. "It's fine, David.

Go back to sleep."

Bugger that for an idea. Dave hauled himself up out of the bed, and padded over to rest his hands on Nicholas's shoulders, to lean in and find out what had troubled his love. He wasn't very surprised to discover an Australian Government website on the screen, and specifically a page titled
Visas, Immigration and Refugees
. "Ah. That's something I haven't looked into yet, I have to say. Except I worked out that at least they treat us like any other de facto couple. They'll give us a fair go, Nicholas, even if they don't consider us married."

The man looked up at him woefully, with his hands knotted together in his lap. "They want us to have lived together for twelve months before I can apply for a visa as your partner, and I doubt they'll count the time we spent together in Australia. I'd been thinking we could go live there right after our honeymoon, but if - Well, I know you can't stay here with me for a whole year. You have a business to run! Not to mention a life."

"Nah, there has to be a way. Look - " Dave glanced around, but he already knew there wasn't another straight-back chair in the room. "Look, bring that over here and sit with me. We'll work this out."

Dave ended up tucked into an armchair, with Nicholas curled up beside him with his thighs across Dave's lap, and the computer balanced somehow between them. "Okay," said Dave. "So, you need a Partner visa, right?"

"Yes. I can apply for a temporary one either while we're here or while we're in Australia, and it lasts for two years, and then if we're still together - "

"Which we will be."

" - which we will be, they'll consider making it permanent."

"So far, so good."

"We have to prove that we have a real relationship."

Various untoward thoughts drifted through his head. "Um …"

Nicholas shook with a weak chuckle. "Mind out of the gutter, David Taylor. I'm talking statements from friends, and a joint bank account."

"We'll go open one tomorrow."

"But there's still this twelve-month rule. I can't ask you to stay here with me, and my current visa only lets me stay in Australia for up to three months at a time …

I don't see how we're going to even make this work at all!"

"I realise there are going to be hoops we need to jump through, but they can't have made it completely impossible!"

"Can't they?" Nicholas asked darkly.

"Show me the page." And Dave watched as Nicholas clicked through a number of screens before he settled on
Eligibility
, and scrolled down. "So … there's a waiver of the twelve months if we have children, if your partner - that's me - holds a humanitarian visa - which obviously I don't - or … if we've registered our de facto relationship."

"But that's in Australia. The civil partnership doesn't count!"

"All right," Dave said soothingly. "No worries. Let's see if we can do this registration thing as well." He freed his arm from around Nicholas's waist, opened a new tab in the browser, and soon found the right pages on the Queensland Government site. He read through them - silently this time - and concluded, "This will work. Only one of us has to already live there, and there's nothing to say we couldn't apply right away. And that means we can see about waiving the twelve months."

Nicholas was still gazing at him rather woefully, as if convinced it was never going to happen.

Dave gathered his thoughts. "Tell me why this won't work, then: We go ahead with the civil partnership ceremony. That's got to count as proof of our commitment, if nothing else. After the honeymoon, we travel to Australia. You still have your short-term visa from when you came out in May, right? So you can travel on that. As soon as we're settled, we register our relationship. Then you apply for a Partner visa. And we get on with life."

Hope was dawning on Nicholas's mutable face, though he warned, "It costs almost four thousand dollars to apply."

Dave didn't even blink. "So? I've got the money - and I'd pay a damned sight more than that to keep you with me."

Nicholas began smiling helplessly.

"It'll work!" Dave insisted.

But then the dawning smile faltered. "No, it won't. I can't stay longer than three months on my tourist visa, and they take up to six months to process a Partner visa application!"

Dave's face fell, too, for a moment - but then he rallied. "Look, if they're going to take that long, that's not our problem, is it? Surely there's a way of applying to extend your visa, or getting some other kind of temporary visa - all completely legit - while we're waiting for the outcome."

The outcome.

The words hung between them for a long moment.

Nicholas whispered, "What if they don't approve it?"

"They will."

"But what if they don't?"

"Well, I'm a British citizen, too, remember? I'll come live here with you. Maybe not
here
here," he added, casting a glance at the huge old mansion house surrounding them. "But, you know.
Here
."

"You'd really give up Australia … ?"

"For you, Nicholas," Dave said, in deceptively light tones, "I'd even give up Australia."

They stared at each other solemnly. Nicholas's eyes grew damp, and Dave's started prickling a little.

"So," Dave continued rather more robustly, "the Department of Immigration doesn't scare me. It'll cost a bit, and take a bit of work, but we'll jump through the hoops. And in the meantime we can have fun gathering evidence to prove our relationship. Like …" He cast around him, but didn't have to look far. There was a tiny camera lens in the lid of the laptop. "Like photos. We can take a photo of us here together right now, and it'll be date-stamped and everything. And we already have a couple of others, don't we? Lilibet took photos of us on that first night with your dad, and you took one of us with your phone when we were on the Beacon today."

By this time Nicholas was grinning in delight. "We'll take a photo every day!" he said. "You know, one a day, but at different times and places." His long pale fingers were calling up the laptop's camera even as he spoke. "And I could start up a blog! Yes, that's what I'll do. I'll blog every day, about us, and about all of what we're going through. That'll be proof, won't it?"

"It sounds
perfect
."

Nicholas tucked his head in beside Dave's, adjusted the angle of the computer, and they both grinned while the camera faked a shutter sound. There wasn't enough light in the room for a quality photo, but their happiness came shining through sure enough. "That really is perfect," said Nicholas, so quietly that he himself might not have been aware of it. He carefully saved the photo, and then closed the laptop's lid. "Let's go to bed," he said, in rather more normal tones.

"You," said Dave, "always with the good ideas …"

"Ah, but in this case, it definitely takes two."

It wasn't that night but on another one not long after, that Dave felt like rewarding Nicholas. Dave was supposed to be the organised one of the pair of them, but Nicholas had been as good as his word; he'd set up his blog on wordpress.com, chosen a theme he liked, and diligently made an entry every day, each featuring a photograph of the two of them. He'd even created extra entries to cover the preceding few days, though being absolutely scrupulous about not fudging the date and time stamps on either the photos or the posts - and he was planning to also start a sequence of posts telling his story about how they'd first met and got together. His writing style was charmingly chatty and easy to read, no matter whether he was talking about Dave or their wedding plans or the visa rigmarole, describing where they'd gone that day, or waxing lyrical about butterflies. Dave figured that only an immigration officer without a soul could possibly remain unmoved or unconvinced. Dave himself was so moved that he'd had to force himself not to comment on the posts, for fear of making a complete arse of himself. About which he just couldn't tell any more.

On a more pragmatic level, Nicholas had realised they couldn't open a joint bank account until Dave could provide proof of where he was living. So Nicholas had made an appointment to introduce him to the family solicitors in order to ask for a formal letter to confirm matters. In response to which, Dave had said, "I should see about making a new will. I guess we can get things started on that while we're there, as well, yeah?"