Then Alice
Then
Alice
Jake is cooking for Tom, Eddie, Rick and me, and he has thrown himself into it with his usual vigour and intensity. Not for him the standard student fare of spaghetti Bolognese or macaroni cheese. We are having bouillabaisse, made from fish bought at Billingsgate Market this morning (he left the flat at six to get there before it closed), and tomatoes cooked in his oven for hours until they collapsed into a sweet, garlicky mess.
He has made a rouille to go with it, and a green salad dressed with olive oil bought from the chemist, with day-old panini donated by Luigi, grilled and rubbed with cut cloves of garlic.
‘Where did you learn to cook like this?’ I ask him as I lay the table with additional knives and forks bought hastily from a junk shop near college.
‘Books,’ he says. ‘I found an old Elizabeth David cookbook and I used to read it at night when I couldn’t sleep. I’ve been collecting second-hand recipe books ever since.’
I want to ask him why he couldn’t sleep, but we are so brand new, he and I, and his face closes up whenever he talks about his childhood, so I allow the moment to slide.
Rick arrives first, a relief for me, with a bottle of wine wrapped in a twist of white tissue paper on which he has drawn felt-tipped stars and crescent moons interspersed with smiley faces. He is wearing purple corduroy bell-bottoms and a white peasant top, bought, he told me, in a boutique in Neal Street selling exclusively female fashion.
‘Let me tell you,’ he said, ‘I was not the only male browsing the rails. And they were not shopping for their girlfriends.’
‘Wow,’ he says now, looking around Jake’s burgundy, orange and purple sitting room. ‘This place is cool. The vibe of a strip joint, if you know what I mean.’
Eddie and Tom arrive and we all squash around the tiny kitchen table with our tumblers of Mateus Rosé. Jake and I have been together for almost three weeks, and I know he is holding this dinner so I can get to know the band.
‘We’re family to each other,’ he told me. ‘Especially me and Eddie. The two of us grew up in the same town. There’s nothing we don’t know about each other.’
I forced myself to ask Jake about Eddie then.
‘Why is he so distant with me? It’s as if he doesn’t like me.’
‘How could anyone not like you?’ Jake said. ‘It’s just that he’s protective of me. He knew my family – especially my wicked grandfather …’ he laughed as he said this, but I caught the sudden darkness in his eyes, a film of gloom, ‘and he’s been looking out for me ever since.’
I can tell Jake has relayed some of this conversation to Eddie, because there’s a noticeable difference in the way he treats me tonight, asking me questions about college and home.
‘Alice’s father is a prize jerk by all accounts,’ Jake says.
‘Oh yeah, the wannabe vicar. Isn’t he a churchwarden or something, Alice?’ Rick asks.
‘A canon. He gets to dole out communion on Sundays. He loves that. And sometimes he gives the sermon – and if he doesn’t, he gives it to my mother and me at the lunch table. He did a whole sermon about Soho that he called Soho-dom and Gomorrah.’
Everyone laughs at that.
Eddie says, ‘Have you heard about this gay and lesbian march that’s happening? Your father will be apoplectic when he finds out. Apparently everyone is going to walk to Hyde Park, kissing and holding hands in the street. I think it’s brilliant. We should all go along and show our support.’
Am I the only one who sees how still Rick becomes when he hears this? I’ve suspected he is gay all along, but he keeps his sexual identity resolutely hidden, even from me, his best friend.
‘Are you gay, Rick?’ Jake says, casually, almost in passing, and for a moment the air around me freezes. I force myself to meet Rick’s gaze and I see the shock that comes into his face. Shock, confusion, then something else. All of a sudden he’s laughing.
‘Oh my God! Fuck! Yes, I am gay.’ He says it slowly, like an announcement. ‘I just haven’t admitted it to anyone before.’
He’s looking at me and I’m looking at him; it’s often this way with us. As if there is no one else in the room. I reach out across the table to grab his hand.
‘Alice,’ he says.
‘I’m so proud of you,’ I tell him.
And then we are all laughing and Eddie thumps Rick on the shoulder and says, ‘Well done, mate. Who the fuck cares? Gay, straight, bisexual, whatever.’
Rick shakes his head.
‘That was so much easier than I thought.’
‘When did you find out you were gay? Or did you always know?’ Tom asks.
‘At school, when I was maybe sixteen or seventeen. Up until then I was putting up posters of Brigitte Bardot and hoping I might feel something. I’ve spent years hiding who I am, pinning my hopes on marriage and kids and the whole heterosexual dream. Like that was ever going to happen.’
The night turns into a celebration. More bottles of wine are opened and the bouillabaisse is, hands down, the most delicious thing I have ever eaten. None of us manages to do much more than groan as we dip our toasted Italian bread into the tomatoey, fishy sauce. Even the salad, with its sharp garlicky dressing, is an explosion of flavours in the mouth.
After dinner, Eddie rolls a joint, which he lights and passes to me. ‘Ladies first,’ he says with a formal mock bow, and I take a couple of tiny tokes before I move it on.
We listen to the new album from Stone the Crows, a blues act whose star is in ascension. They were playing exactly the same size venues as Disciples – the Rainbow Room, the Marquee – but overnight their popularity has soared. Tom, Eddie and Jake unpick the music, what they like, what they don’t, and throughout the entire record Rick sits in silence with a half-smile that never leaves his face. I glance at him whenever I can. No one else realises it, but tonight is monumental, the landmark moment when he catapults from one way of life to another, no turning back.
After everyone has left, Jake and l lie together on the sofa and I tell him, ‘You are a miracle worker, did you know that? Did you see how happy Rick was? He left this place looking like he was going to conquer the world.’
‘Next mission, Tom,’ Jake says. ‘But I think we’ve got a long way to go with that one.’
‘You think he’s …?’
‘I’m sure he is. But Tom doesn’t. Not yet.’
‘It must be so hard having to keep it all inside, and feeling so ashamed when there’s no reason to. But unless you tell people, they can’t help.’
‘And that, Alice Garland,’ Jake leans over to kiss my forehead, my nose, finally my mouth, ‘is the crux of everything. You can’t conquer your demons if you don’t bring them out into the open.’
I’m surprised by his lack of self-perception, this man who keeps his sadness trapped inside him. Later, in the darkness, my fingers reach for his hands, brushing lightly over his ragged, bumpy wrists, and I vow to myself that one day, someday soon, I will wrestle Jake’s demons from him and banish them for good.