Chapter Six #2
Gunari, see that no one gives them any trouble.”
They
made their way through the encampment, still hand in hand. Laurie
wondered if Sasha had simply forgotten. He seemed lost in thought,
and maybe the warm grip in Laurie’s was only subconscious, the same
lead Laurie automatically gave to Clara on dangerous ground. He
didn’t mind. He would take what he could get. How long had it been
since he had brought Sasha in off the street—since their one night?
More than two weeks, throughout which Sasha had been to him
forbidden fruit, a beautiful presence he could see but barely
touch, until a kiss on a clattering Tube that had gone on until
their heads were spinning, and they had broken apart before it
turned into something not publicly acceptable, even in twenty-first
century London.
Laurie
burned for him. Any touch was intoxicating. He tightened his clasp.
Glancing around, he saw the men and women of the camp getting on
with their business as the old woman had bidden them. Such a range
of faces, skin tones—many dark like Sasha, but others who looked as
ordinary as he did himself. Setting romantic preconceptions aside,
Laurie supposed there was as rich a mix of bad and good here as in
any other population, but he did not feel ashamed of holding
Sasha’s hand, as if, whatever their prejudices, a people so hunted
and disregarded might not bother with that one.
Children
and chickens dashed about between the vans, the kids warmly wrapped
up in bright, modern fleece tops. Laurie smiled. Had he expected
them to be in rags? Only Mama Luna looked the part. Thinking of
her, Laurie abruptly remembered her words and his own, as if they
had made their exchange in a dream from which the chilly air and
diamond-pale sun were only now rousing him.
“Oh, God, Sash,” he said as they approached the last caravan in
the group, a battered two-berth with its tow bar propped on a
crate. “Did I…did I freak you out back there, saying what I
did?”
Sasha halted. He looked at Laurie wonderingly. “Did
you freak me
out…?”
“Oh. Right. She did.”
“Mama Luna makes people speak the truth. If that’s your truth,
what you said to her, then…” He trailed off, and Laurie saw his
eyes brighten with tears. “Then I don’t know what to say, I’m so
bloody happy. All right?” He gave Laurie’s hand a brief shake, so
tight it hurt, then shook his head as if these things were obvious
and he needed to leave them behind to attend to more pressing
business. “Laurie. I want you to think, clearly and seriously,
about getting out of that house. Finding somewhere of your own. Do
you understand?”
“Yes,” Laurie said, startled. It was true enough. Since meeting
Sasha, he had thought every day of making his escape. But he
accepted, looking into the grave, lovely face raised to his, that
the thoughts had been fantasies—air castles into which he could
pull up Sasha and retract the ladder. “At least… It’s hard for me,
Sash. You know it is.”
“Well, try. I know how hard it is, but believe me, you have to
try.”
“For God’s sake, what did she say to you?”
Sasha
let go of his hand. He opened the caravan door and leaned inside.
“Come in. My fellow lodger’s out. I’ll make us some
tea.”
“Sasha, what?”
Sasha
turned back to him. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his
water-stained parka. He said reluctantly, “It was like she was
expecting you. She said, ‘This is the one. The one whose father is
death.’ Now I don’t care how you do it, ves’tacha—you can come and
live here if you like. But get out. Get away from him. Find a
way.”
* *
*
They sat
opposite each other at the little melamine table. The caravan had a
living room of sorts, defined by the table and the two bench seats
on either side of it. Other than that, there was a tiny galley
kitchen and one bedroom, whose open door displayed a neatly made
but solitary bed. Laurie stirred his tea and finished off the
tinned chicken soup Sasha had provided for their lunch. They had
been silent for a while, although Laurie had inadvertently made
Sasha laugh till he choked with his assumption that the soup would
have to be heated on some outdoor cook fire rather than in the
perfectly efficient microwave hidden behind a panel
door.
The space beneath the table was so tight that they could not
have avoided contact if they’d tried—and neither was trying. More
to break the tension than anything else, Laurie shot a sly glance
toward the bedroom and said, “Tell me about this
lodger, then.”
Sasha
snorted at the faint suggestive emphasis. Laurie was relieved.
Apart from Sasha’s burst of amusement at the balame’s stupidity,
he’d been quiet, as if angry with himself for translating the old
woman’s words. “He’s a fifty-five-year-old bank clerk from
Southwell. His wife left him, he had a breakdown, and he fell
through the net. He doesn’t say much, and he doesn’t snore. I’m not
sure he even knows I’m here.”
Fell through the net. Laurie cradled
his mug between his hands, looking thoughtfully at his companion.
How bloody easy it would be to do. You lose your job, your mortgage
payments, your house. You’re too middle-class, too old, to trigger
social services alarms—no one helps you, and you don’t know where
to go to get help for yourself. You fall.
Or
you’re young, rich, and stupid, and the net tightens around you
till you drown.
“Poor sod,” he said quietly. “Sash, do you believe her? The old
lady?”
Sasha
sighed. “She’s a good woman. She did everything for me when I got
here. But…don’t let her scare you. She’s old. Maybe a little
crazy.”
“Maybe. Doesn’t change the facts. The old goat probably is
death. And it was you who looked scared, love.” He watched while
Sasha absorbed the last word. Laurie ran one sock-clad toe up along
the arch of Sasha’s foot beneath the table. “Hey. Did I hear you
offer me a home here a few minutes ago?”
“Well, why not? At least I’ve got one to offer. That bench
you’re sitting on folds out, or you could bunk down with Cyril.” He
waited until Laurie had stopped laughing and was searching his face
to measure his seriousness. “Please
tell me you’ll try to get out.”
“Look, he’s not some kind of murderer, you know.” Laurie felt
his throat dry out. He could scarcely bear the intensity of Sasha’s
regard at the best of times, and now, when the midnight eyes were
full of fear and longing—a boy who had nothing, trying to offer the
millionaire’s son a refuge and a future… “Yes. I promise. Oh,
Sash.” He shivered. “I don’t want to think about this anymore. I
just want you. Is Cyril due back anytime soon?”
Sasha
grinned. Apparently he’d found the right distraction. “I don’t
know. But I tell you what. To avoid giving him a stroke, shall we…”
He stood up and put out a hand to Laurie across the table. “Let’s
go for a walk.”
On their
way out, Sasha ducked into the bedroom and took out from a bedside
drawer one packet Laurie knew well and another that he didn’t,
though he thought he’d seen the logo in the coyly marked family
planning section when he went to buy toothpaste and aspirin.
Emerging, putting the things into his pocket, Sasha gave him a shy,
warm glance. “Come on, then.”
It
turned into a run, a wild dash through lowering light. The back of
the encampment gave out onto open heath, miles and miles of it,
bordered only in the very far distance by the glimmering
streetlamps of Amersham. From here they looked like jewels, just
beginning to shine out as the December day faded. Laurie sucked in
great breaths of the frosty air and chased after Sasha, who had
broken his sedate pace by his side as soon as they were clear of
the settlement. God, he could run! Laurie—who sometimes forgot he
was only nineteen years old himself, and lightly-made and strong
from all his backstage work—watched him with a kind of envy for a
moment. Sasha was nothing but a shadow, flying out ahead of him,
caught in the wind.
“Laurie!” he yelled, spinning back to face him, hardly breaking
stride. “Come on!”
They ran
and ran. Laurie stopped thinking about their destination or
anything other than the air, the great open space all around
them—bigger here somehow than in the wildest countryside, a sense
of its vastness conveyed by its limitations, the far-flung city
tendrils that held it. Freedom defined by emblems of captivity, the
whispering highways and suburbs they were leaving behind. Laurie
ran, always in Sasha’s wake but gaining on him, almost ashamed of
the fragmented laughter that kept rising up in his throat. Clara
did that—helplessly laughed while she ran, and it was okay if you
were eight years old…
“Laurie, ves’tacha! This way!”
Brambles
caught and tore at them both unnoticed as they pelted into the
outskirts of low woodland. A tangle of oak and beech, remnant of
the great Buckinghamshire forest that once had clothed the heath.
It was colder out here, the leaf litter beginning to crisp up with
frost. Their breathless arrival sent wood pigeons clattering up
from their roosts. Watching their wild ascent, Laurie missed his
footing, slipped, and crashed down with a yell into the
undergrowth. Reflexively he turned the fall into a roll, and by the
time Sasha had stopped and come dashing back, face a pale blank of
concern, he was ready for him—grabbed him, laughing, and dumped him
into the ice-patterned ferns at his side.
Sasha
surged up straightaway. He propped himself on one elbow and stared
down into Laurie’s face, laughing and struggling for breath. “Oh,
clever,” he panted. “All right. I’m caught. What do you want to do
with your prey?”
Laurie
swallowed. His chest was still heaving, the air like glittering
light in his lungs. He knew, of course. He had played it out a
dozen times in his head, but in those yearning fantasies had
glossed straight over certain details because… “To fuck you,” he
whispered, then shuddered at himself. “Christ. That sounds
awful.”