On Chasing Brad Through Purgatory (15 page)

There was a lot more giggling and a lot of vehemently indignant denials. “Children! Children!” said Miss Avery.

She didn't say, “Teacher!
Teacher?
”

I smiled. “I once had a girlfriend.” Dishonesty—even whilst expatiating on dishonourableness? “And she gave me a really nice present: two tickets for
Beauty and the Beast
.”

Forget about homicide, kidnapping, blackmail, hijacking—forget about every form of rape and pillage—
Beauty and the Beast
was what really got them. I had to explain it was the show and not the movie I was talking about. There raged a heated controversy over which of them had seen the film the greatest number of times. Miss Avery again needed to step in but even she couldn't prevent several muted yet impassioned attempts at getting the final word. Twenty times! Thirty! Seventy! Two thousand! I also had to explain that the tickets had been for row F in the stalls and had cost thirty-five pounds
each
. Maybe this was the only thing which could effectively have silenced them.

“Sir! Was she rich—your girlfriend?”

“One of the Spice Girls?”

“Victoria Beckham?”

“The Queen?”

I told them this had all happened at the start of the show's run and that the tickets had needed to be booked about six months in advance.

“In the meantime we split up: Philippa and I.”

“Did you like it sir?”

“What,
Beauty and the Beast
? I thought it terrific. Magical. Enchanting. The best stage show I'd ever seen.”

There was a chorus of approval: I was an all-right sort of guy. They had cut straight to the very heart of it; weren't nearly so interested in all those boring old preliminaries.

Or maybe just a few were.

“What did your girlfriend say?” … “Did you have another girlfriend by then?”

“Well that was the point. That's why I'm telling you this. When Philippa gave me the tickets it
was
a present of course but they were given on the unspoken understanding the two of us would see the show together; and really I was only looking after them because his work often took him abroad …
her
work often took
her
abroad I mean and without a lot of notice so that it was just possible I might have to find somebody else to go with …” I now felt slightly flustered and began to wonder why I'd started.

“And you did!” piped up one of them who was very plainly on the ball and looked as though he too might someday leave a trail of broken hearts.

Well in my own case hardly a trail. Merely the one. Philip's.

“At the time we broke up you see I'd forgotten all about the tickets. But then even after I'd remembered I just sort of hung onto them …”

I had addressed this last remark to the future potential heartbreaker—wondering to which sex those hearts would predominantly belong—and he, rather gratifyingly, repaid such individual attention.

“I bet you felt bad when you went to see it!”

“I should have done. And I do now. But you're completely right—you're all of you completely right—it was a highly dishonourable thing which I did and now I can't tell you how much I wish I hadn't.” I pulled a face and spread my hands.

“Seventy pounds!” said one of the little girls. I told you Brad they were spot on with their mathematics.

But of course you never knew anything about this whole sad shabby episode did you? I always pretended to myself that it was trivial yet I suppose that long before this afternoon I must have felt thoroughly ashamed of it. (Though would I have felt any less ashamed if Jonathan had proved to be lastingly worth it? I hope not.) Why had it never occurred to me to try to make up for it in some way? Perhaps send Philip two top-price tickets for
The Lion King
?

If you
had
known, Brad, you might have suggested that; even have tried to pay for the tickets yourself you old softie. Neatly defeating the whole object of the exercise it hardly needs to be said. (Just as you nearly did in a very different context when trying to pay—at the same time as your yearly subscription—my own membership fee to Amnesty International. When wisdom sometimes failed you it was only because of well-nigh irrepressible generosity.)

“But you told us
Beauty and the Beast
was wonderful. What I don't see sir is how you could enjoy yourself so much. Not when … I mean not when you'd been … all dishonourable like that.”

This frank yet somehow uncensorious observation came from my little heartbreaker; who one day Brad is patently going to be in your own world-beating class and simply romp ahead towards judgment. (Like Alan too, Alan at the refuge? But here I began to feel confused again and speedily returned my concentration to the present.) I only hope he's going to find his equal.

I only wish you had.

“I believe you may be much nicer than me,” I told him. “But anyhow. One slightly comforting thing. One of the messages of
Beauty and the Beast
is all about admitting you've been wrong and then finding out you've been forgiven. I certainly admit that I've been wrong and hope that I shall be forgiven.”

“If I was Philippa,” said one of the Asian girls very shyly, “I know I'd forgive you. And after that I'd like to marry you!” She swiftly brought her face down to the desk and buried her whole head beneath her arms.

There was uproar. Miss Avery came hurrying forward and stepped up onto the rostrum. I told the little Asian girl that I felt very grateful and very honoured but she persisted in keeping her face concealed from everybody's view. Her body proclaimed her to be giggling.

“Well class I'm sure we found that talk most interesting. Didn't we? I hope you're all going to say a big thank-you to Mr Casement for shedding such light on the subject of the Seven”—she paused and smiled at me and the smile turned into a chuckle—“of the Seven Eight or Nine, that is, Very Serious Sins.” There was a renewed scraping of chairs and shuffling of feet; the children again stood up and during the ensuing stillness obediently responded, though in an almost risibly drawn-out fashion:

“Thank you Mr Casement.”

“Perhaps Mr Casement will come back sometime to tell us about the Eleven or Twelve Commandments.”

I hoped she wasn't muddling them; but reckoned she would probably return to sort the whole thing out immediately after the break.

“I think on the whole,” I said shaking Miss Avery's hand, “it might be rather better if I didn't.”

“Oh I don't know,” she answered cheerfully. “I feel it all depends on whether you believe more in the spirit or the letter.”

Conveniently Heartbreaker and my self-offered bride—who was now peeping sparkling-eyed through her fingers—were standing at adjoining desks. As I went out I gave a general smile and a wave but was able to smile at those two in particular. Which pleased me.

16

Home!

The front door's open.

Conversation, laughter, teacups. And probably more people than at any two parties we had ever given.

Our funeral reception. Yours and mine Brad yours and mine. In that case is it possible, could it just be possible…? In the doorway to the sitting-room I stand on tiptoe and crane my neck—as though without doing that we wouldn't have been tall enough, not you nor I, either to see or be seen. People appear to come and go right through me; at first it's disconcerting, soon I scarcely notice. From sitting room to dining room. To kitchen. Then into garden. Still more people with plates and teacups—amongst them one of my brothers talking to a mutual friend from school—I walk straight through them (no mainly I still go in between). Inside again, upstairs, into each of the three bedrooms, well two bedrooms and the one we'd made into your study; even push open the door to the bathroom. But by then of course I'm losing hope. You aren't here, you just aren't here. I suppose I hadn't really been expecting it—not after what Richard and Isabella had told me of your necessary departure from the inn—yet I'd been thinking there could conceivably be a big surprise awaiting me, you always liked to give surprises, been thinking that you'd charmed the others into becoming your collaborators. (A thought which had even helped me through that dismayingly muffed teaching practice.) Oh well. I tell myself it's stupid to feel so disappointed. I go back downstairs, now make a beeline for my mother. Naturally I love my dad as well but it's to my mum that I return for comfort.

She's speaking to the three old ladies—sisters—who'd been our closest neighbours, yours and mine; and I soon discover it's they who've made the sandwiches, cakes, scones and savoury tartlets. I don't know whether perhaps they've organized this whole reception but certainly they've always had a spare key to our cottage just as we had always had a spare key to theirs. Then I hear it's your parents who—although feeling too unwell to be able to get here this afternoon—have supplied the champagne (hey, champagne?
champagne?
) and hired the glasses. My own parents have provided the flowers—tremendous flowers as now I notice—which decorate the two main rooms.

But Brad. Even if your mum and dad haven't felt quite strong enough to face it several others in your family have. Two of your cousins have driven from Torquay; an uncle has come all the way from Scotland. So where are you my love … where in heaven's name are you? Surely you've got to be here somewhere? Invisible like me of course; invisible even
to
me? Then is it, for some reason, that we're just not allowed to see one another? Not allowed to communicate—not even through something as simple as a smile? But if that's the case it's cruel. That is so cruel. It makes me want to kick at something, slam my fist against the wall. Makes me want to say I've had enough of all this, what the bloody hell is going on? Eh God? What the bloody hell is going on?

(I seem to have forgotten that until I got here I wasn't absolutely
relying
on your presence. So am I just being inconsistent? Or does my anger arise more from standing in our home but knowing that ‘home' has turned into a completely meaningless word now that I don't find you in it? Anger? Anguish, more like. I feel like a widow or a widower or anyone who's inconsolably bereft; and I seem really to experience, for the first time since Sunday morning—no, what do I mean?—for the first time ever, how it feels to be bereft.)

So, bemused, unhappy, I go and say hello to my father—symbolically. But hardly have I reached him than he breaks away from the small group he's been a part of and begins to round up everybody from the hall, dining room, kitchen and garden and shepherd them back to where he wants them. Meanwhile my two sisters are pouring the champagne and one of my brothers-in-law is circulating with a tray of it. Eventually, after the room has got so full that there's again a large overspill into the hall, my father, standing back against the fireplace in which there's now another magnificent arrangement in a borrowed vase, speaks slowly and clearly into that polite expectant hush.

“I know we've all been having a good time which I feel sure is exactly what Brad and Danny would have wanted—and I'm sorry if it looks as if I'm breaking up the party though I promise you I'm not—but perhaps the moment has arrived when we should all get together and share some thoughts or reminiscences about these two people whom we loved. And after that we'll all raise a glass and wish them
bon voyage
—in fact not simply a good journey but the very best it's possible for anyone ever to embark on. And let's hope and pray that in this they may have had a real headstart. Brutal though the time and manner of their setting out at least they did set out together. That in some hard way has to be a comfort not only to themselves but to the rest of us.”

And my father begins to cry—my old dad actually begins to cry. He blows his nose and briefly wipes his eyes and I notice that by this time many others, both men and women, are similarly affected. Indeed (could you ever beat this for foolishness?) I myself am.

And yet, I think, we didn't set out together. Not quite; my dad is only trying to be tactful. And I mightn't be standing here now feeling anything like so desolate if we had.

But why am I feeling desolate? I think I really do believe you must be here as well, yes somewhere you must be here as well, at this very moment you could be standing right beside me … and yet … why can't I draw any solace out of such a thought, be given (once more) some reassuring sign? Logical conviction of closeness accompanied by total absence of communication seems almost like the very hardest thing. If only I could feel the faintest impression of a handclasp.

Logical? Well I suppose I can't be sure if it's
that
logical.

And something else: how true is it that in reality we were two people whom everybody here loved? Had my father himself, my father and mother themselves, actually loved you? No more I thought than your own parents had actually loved me. In both parental homes there had existed a conscious attempt at broadmindedness and goodwill but it wasn't just the fact of our being gay which had worried them, there was that big discrepancy in our ages. And I hadn't looked forward to our infrequent joint visits to your family any more than you'd looked forward to our infrequent joint visits to mine—we had unfailingly on every such occasion needed to gird our loins, it had become one of our silly little jokes, “Loins girded?”—and telephone inquiries from both sides as to the health of our respective partners had always seemed duty-driven and speedily disposed of. (I remember once saying to you, “When your mother asks ‘And how is Danny?' you could easily say ‘Dead' and she would answer, ‘That's good and has anything of interest happened since we last spoke?'”) And yet now, your parents, they must have had delivered I don't know how many cases of champagne; and—well despite these sentimental tears I've just had running down my cheeks and the genuine love or gratitude I'm feeling towards everybody gathered here I could still be tempted to call out, “But why didn't you love us quite so much whilst we were actually around?” I
could
call it out of course; I'm forgetting that nobody would hear.