The Beard

THE BEARD

Mark Sinclair

For anyone who thinks they’ll never find love.

ONE

“I’m not a slut!” Ash protested, genuinely shocked at the accusation.

“Well, with the best will in the world,” countered Tom, “going on a blind date with someone and failing to tell him that you’ve been seeing someone else is hardly worthy of Jane Austen, is it?”

Ash frowned in consideration of the charges laid before him and kicked at the frayed blue rug that was squeezed into the centre of his poky lounge.

“I paid for everything!” came the half-hearted reply.

“So?” said Tom, choking on his beer.

“Surely, I get some points for being a gentleman?” Ash demanded. “I mean, he got dinner and drinks out of it.”

Tom looked back at his friend, perplexed. “Well, yes… he got fed and watered. But he was probably thinking about the happy, faithful future you might have together, not whether the dinner was comp’ed.”

Ash looked astounded by the charge. “I never said we’d have a future together,” he spluttered. “To be honest, I couldn’t even see beyond the end of the meal, let alone a life together. I nearly asked for a doggy bag, just to put over his head.”

Tom looked back, aghast. “So you paid for the dinner out of guilt, rather than some misplaced chivalry?”

Ash raised his eyebrows in irritation. He’d been caught out. “Maybe,” he murmured. “But at least I did pay for it!”

“Well…” sighed Tom, “I’m not sure what Debrett’s would say on the subject but, yes, you did foot the bill.”

“Exactly!” Ash declared in triumph. He took that to be a complete and utter vindication of his policy on the subject.

Tom smiled. Ash was much younger than his years – an innocent 20-something in an unscrupulous world. A man lost at sea. Unsure of who he was or what he wanted, his desperate quest to find out usually ended in tears. It tugged at Tom’s heartstrings to see his friend flounder so badly, so often. Ash wasn’t as shrewd or as canny as he liked to think he was. As such, he waltzed blithely into emotional minefields on a regular basis. He also wore his heart on his sleeve and was routinely abused for it. He attempted to repair the cracks in his defences using sharp wit, but it was only ever a balm to the wounds that lay festering underneath. Watching him continue to fall for people who he declared were “The One”, only to be led a merry dance, was difficult to witness.

Ash was a romantic – a simple and foolish boy who talked of sleeping around and passing ships, but who still felt that physical intimacy was of greater significance than just lust or the pursuit of instant gratification. For him, it signified something. Often, he’d be duped into believing that brief, meaningless physical interactions would be the key that unlocked something more significant. Ash would succumb to every encounter, believing that both parties felt the same way; that respect was mutual. It was naive and heartbreaking to see him undone by the reality of life, time and time again. It was of no merit to warn him of making the same mistakes as last time, as every new liar brought a fresh lie. So when Ash said, “This time it’s different,” it was, in so much as it wasn’t.

Ash was one of the very few people left on the planet who trusted others implicitly – an unworldly man who’d sit by the phone after someone had blithely said, “I’ll call you,” (whether they had his number or not). Tom had seen it too many times before and genuinely feared for his friend’s state of mind. It worried him that Ash drank to forget and that he had a tiny balcony in his apartment that perched directly above a 24-hour stream of cars. As a result, his exploration of sexual and emotional expectation was as frustrating as it was upsetting.

“Besides,” said Ash definitely, “as I was paying the bill, I got chatting to the waiter and he asked me out for a drink. He said he’d just come out of a long-term relationship and was looking for something meaningful. So it’s kind of a win-win. What’s-his-name got a free meal, I got a date with someone way hotter… and quite deep.”

The cycle of hopeless expectation had already been initiated. 

“What about the guy you’re supposed to be seeing?” enquired Tom. “I thought you liked him?”

“Yeah, he’s nice,” Ash replied, straining to remember the details. Ash’s memory was on a par with a dog’s life span. Every week felt like seven, every year like an eternity. Remembering as far back as a few days ago was a herculean task. “I do like him. He’s quite funny,” he said unconvincingly. “If it doesn’t work out with the waiter, that guy looks like he might be The One.”

Tom shook his head, trying to keep up. “Have you called him recently? I mean, if you like him?”

Ash shook his head, before innocently answering, “He said he’d see me around. His phone’s broken, apparently.”

A silence enveloped the room.

“Ash,” Tom uttered quietly, looking at his feet. “Do you think that maybe, just maybe, he lied when he said that his phone’s broken? I mean… did he take your number?”

Ash, who’d begun pacing the small room, harrumphed like a chastened child and slumped into the armchair that dominated his living space, a ‘space’ that fought against a kitchen and dining area for dominance. Ash lived in a ‘starter apartment’ – something for people who wanted to ‘start’ feeling cooped up, Tom often thought.

“Why can’t I find anyone to love me?” Ash implored, his eyes darting around the room, his head collapsing into the embrace of his trusted chair. He pulled his legs up to his torso, one at a time, and cradled them (and a cushion) for comfort. As the two men sat, the room itself seemed to be louder than their silence. The ghosts of its historical sexual encounters leapt out, all demanding that their painful memories be re-lived. Like an imaginary cine film, grainy images flickered before them both. Each unfolded in exquisitely painful detail, every broken promise or hope dashed. The last remnants of the evening’s sun cast its sombre radiance over their moribund figures and further accentuated the visions of times past. A sickly smell of scented wood burners and joss sticks clung to the air – an unwelcome gift to the apartment’s new occupant from its last.

“You want another beer?” mewed Ash without any real conviction.

Tom knew the wounded look only too well. “I’ll get them,” he offered. 

Opening Ash’s fridge and surveying its beers, tub of butter and half-eaten pie, he smiled. A man who’d been forced to leave home, thanks to an abusive stepfather and a weak mother, Ash was finding his way in life the only way he knew how. Using every ounce of experience gained from such an unhappy childhood, he’d march forwards undaunted, until something momentous occurred. Tom prayed that that happiness would be given sufficient time to intervene before the strange inevitability of tragedy struck.

Tom had done his best to offer advice to his younger counsel, but had come up short, as Ash was hardwired to learn the hard way. That being the case, Tom had decided to do his best to ensure his friend’s physical, if not emotional, safety.

They’d become friends at a local sexual-health charity, where they both worked as volunteers. Tom had been struck by the vibrancy and vulnerability of this excitedly chatty young man. They were strangers who, twice a week, would join other strangers around a large, circular table in a converted warehouse to pack condoms into folded cardboard envelopes – the hope being that these resources handed out free of charge would stop the spread of sexually transmitted infections. As the disparate band of social misfits sat in silence and stuffed the condoms into each pack, Ash would regale all with high tales of his encounters. Everyone would listen in respectful silence, occasionally glancing up to exchange a knowing smile with some other strange face. Some of Ash’s stories bore the hallmarks of painful experience, whereas others were evidently a product of a vivid imagination. Ash would control all conversation, limiting such matters to his conquests. Any mention of family and he’d excuse himself from the table. It was an unspoken, and curiously well-respected, rule that no reference should be made to any of Ash’s bruises. The day he turned up bleeding, shaking and desperate for help was the only exception to that rule.

Luckily for Ash, Tom was the first person to spot him stumbling into the warehouse. He refused to tiptoe around the matter and forced Ash to deal with his abusive family. Tom and some of the other volunteers ventured to his home to collect his possessions, only to find his family already waiting on the doorstep. A tearful, but unrepentant, mother and a drunk, angry and gesticulating man greeted them. As Ash’s colleagues loaded the boxes into their respective cars, they couldn’t help feeling that they were rescuing Ash. Emotionally, he was beaten but not quite out. He needed the one thing he’d never had – support and stability; a life mentor.

As Tom packed his car with Ash’s belongings, while being accused of everything from paedophilia to spreading AIDS, by an obese man clutching a can of super-strength lager, he knew that he’d assume that very role. Whatever was wrong in Tom’s own life, he could be a better role model to Ash than what stood dribbling in the doorway.

From that point onwards, Ash’s life took a well-earned rest from the violence and improved beyond measure. His friends found him a small, but safe, apartment in the city and his confidence swelled swiftly. This was embodied in flamboyant displays of his sexuality and an attempt to show that “he’d arrived”. It was a scene that had been witnessed many times before. His outrageous behaviour played to (stereo) type, but betrayed the torrent of disillusion emerging as each day passed. Tom had committed to helping him navigate to happier and healthier times. He wasn’t sure why – it wasn’t entirely empathy but it was far more profound than sympathy.

Yet there and then, he stood, transfixed by the paltry contents of a fridge. The few morsels inside became a symbol of the abuse, disenchantment and betrayal that Ash had experienced so far in his life. Everything was half-empty, as his life had been. Everything smacked of disappointment and reeked of chaos. The light in the small fridge flickered, giving the emotional connotation a strange, strobing effect.

Tom wasn’t sure that he was the best person to offer any such guidance. His own life wasn’t exactly a model of unbridled happiness and stability. Who was he to appoint himself life mentor and guardian? He had no idea why but, in Ash, he saw a wounded soul, a genuine flicker of life that needed protecting. Right or wrong, he was going to do just that. Tom stood up and closed the fridge, leaving the beers intact. “I’ve got an idea,” he said, turning to his friend’s crumpled frame, bathed in an orange glow of a sunset’s caress. “Let’s go out and have a drink and something to eat. On me.”

Ash didn’t stir but, instead, looked forlorn. He cast a disconsolate view over his few possessions.

“What do you think?” Tom added, cheerily.

“Hmm,” Ash groaned, looking less than happy with his lot.

“Oh, come on!” said Tom, almost provocatively.

Ash looked at him as if to say, “You don’t get it, do you?” Then he jumped up like a jack-in-the-box. “OK, let’s do it!” he said, with all the exuberance of youth. Cushions fell around his feet, like apples from an autumnal orchard. “And who knows?” he added cheekily. “Maybe we’ll both find someone to love!”

Tom stared into the distance and no
dded aimlessly. “You never know,” he said, grabbing his coat and heading towards the door, where Ash stood clapping his hands at the prospect.

“Tonight’s going to be the night,” said Ash expectantly, as he closed the door. “I can feel it!”