Chapter 20
MICHAEL
Sitting opposite me on the empty tube train, Mick looked like an empty shell of his usual self.
Normally, on a journey like this he’d be chatting and joking the whole way, but not today.
Leaning forward, with his arms over his knees, it was like he was trying to make himself smaller–invisible perhaps.
It had never occurred to me in so many words, but he was a man that took up space.
He wasn’t a large man, but his character and charm made up for his size. He never went unnoticed.
He was loud but in a funny, friendly way rather than being obnoxious.
And he had a way of including everyone in a group and making you feel special by being noticed by him.
Looking over at the quiet, sad man curled in on himself against the window of the train, you wouldn’t know it was the same person.
It killed me to see him like this. I wanted to march down to his parents’ house, bang on their front door, and ask them what the hell they thought they were playing at. Throwing away your own child like they had done was unforgivable if you’d asked me.
“We’re here.” Mick’s words shook me from my thoughts. He trudged towards the double doors, which opened with a hydraulic hissing sound.
I’d never taken the tube this far out of London, and the stations looked completely different. For one thing, they were no longer underground. I fell in step beside Mick and pointed to a hanging basket filled with pink flowers.
“Well this is charming.” I said, trying to bring up a nice topic of conversation. “I didn’t realise they made tube stations like this.”
“Oh yes, it’s very pretty. There’s a lot of that around here. Brightly coloured buildings and nice little bits of park and greenery. But it's like putting tinsel on a turd.”
A laugh escaped me; he had such a turn of phrase.
“When they built this borough out of the farms and marshlands after the war, they put all these charming bits of nonsense everywhere. Flowers, trees, stained glass. I think they thought they could pretty up the people they put here, too.”
His voice thrummed with quiet anger, and I wished I’d picked something else to comment on.
“But the people they moved in here were the hairy-arsed, hard-nosed cockneys who’d survived the blitz and didn’t want to leave. Moving them ten miles down the road and giving them flushing toilets didn’t change who they were.
“Some of them rallied against it, becoming more rough than they had been in the Whitechapel slums. And some bought into it, thinking they could make themselves proper.”
His words were heavy with bitterness, but he needed to say them. I didn’t want to interrupt, so I said nothing.
“Funny, now I think about it, my dad went one way and my mum went the other.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Well, they were among the people that were moved when the old Victorian slums were knocked down.
My dad never wanted to leave, but my mum convinced him to take the deal.
I think he felt like he might lose his identity out here, so he worked hard to keep it.
He got tougher, if anything. And he kept hold of the old attitude of helping out your own and keeping others out of it.
“Do you know how MacDonald and Sons became so successful? Most of our work is in the East End. Do you know why?”
“Good business sense?”
“In a way. Dad used his contacts in the East End as much as he could.”
I raised my eyebrows. “You mean…?”
“Yeah. His ‘friends’ made sure that there was no other competition for business in the area. And in return, sometimes some of the vans get borrowed for special deliveries. If you catch my drift?”
“I follow. Does your mum not know then?”
“I’m not sure. Sometimes I think she must know and pretends she doesn’t.
Other times I think she’s oblivious. She’s the other type of person who moved here you see.
She thinks she can make herself posh. She talks in this stupid way that doesn’t even sound posh, but she must think it does.
She doesn’t care how the money is made, as long as it’s there.
As long as she has all the mod cons, she’s happy. ”
Without warning, he stopped walking, as though he’d thought of something important. “I should have known.”
“Known what?”
“That she would react this way when she found out about me. She’s a hypocrite in every other area of her life, why not this?”
He sounded so desolate I wanted to reach out and hold his hand. More than that I wanted to hold him close and tell him that everything would be okay. That I would never reject him. That my love would be unconditional like his family’s should have been.
But I couldn’t. Not only because we were two men in public. I couldn’t do what I wished even if we’d been alone, because I wasn’t that person to him. If I told him I’d love him like he deserved, he’d think I meant like a friend and I wanted to be so much more than that to him.
I had to concentrate on being what he needed me to be.
Supportive, loving, and caring in a familial way, not the way of a lover.
I had to keep my true feelings hidden. It was important for me to be there for him.
If he found out how I felt, he would feel awkward.
Maybe he’d even try to leave and he had nowhere to go.
I needed to be strong for him, and if that meant pushing my feelings for him so deep that they had to battle a giant squid, then so be it.
God, I was starting to think like Mick talked.
After a while of walking through street after street of post-war houses that all looked the same, we turned into a park. Not one of those large rectangular spaces in the middle of a housing estate consisting of grass and gravel. This was an actual park; it was like stepping into another world.
“What the fu–”
“Cool, ain’t it?” Mick was smiling. A genuine toothy grin filled with joy. I hadn’t seen him look so happy since before he arrived on my doorstep.
“I’ll say. It's beautiful.” Spinning in a slow circle, I took in my surroundings.
There was so much greenery in the lawns and trees, but there was colour too.
The pink and white of the late spring blossom on the cherry trees made it look magical.
Flower beds gleamed with ruby, sapphire, and amethyst blooms. A pond in the distance shimmered in the sunshine, and ducks, swans, geese, and birds I couldn’t name swam in the clear water and waddled around the bank.
A large white building was at the end of the space.
It had the look of an old farmhouse that had been added to many times over the decades.
Along the paths we were walking were park benches, most of which had occupants.
Elderly couples sat hand-in-hand. Tired looking mums pushed prams as they watched their older children play.
It was so full of life.
Following the path along past the house, Mick directed us to a small home tucked away among mature trees and bushes.
“You called it a cottage, but I didn’t think it would be an actual cottage. This looks like something from an Enid Blyton novel; it’s enchanting,” I said.
Smiling at me, he knocked on the royal blue door. When it opened, Tommy gawped at us before flinging himself at Mick and wrapping him up in a huge bear hug.
“Oi! Get off! What’s this all about?” Mick’s words were muffled in his friend’s shirt. Tommy released him from the embrace but didn’t let go, gripping him by the shoulders.
“Mick MacDonald, I don’t know whether to kiss you or kill you.”
“How about neither?”
“Tommy, who is it?” Eric’s voice came from inside the cottage.
“The prodigal son returns!” Tommy shouted over his shoulder. Eric came barrelling out of the house and swept Mick into another tight hug.
“Oh thank heavens!” he cried, not letting go of Mick.
“Have you two gone mad?” Mick extricated himself from Eric’s grasp and glared at his two friends.
“Get your sorry arse in here,” growled Tommy, walking into the house.
Mick shot me a look of utter confusion over his shoulder as we entered the small home. We were greeted by a loud “miaow” from a small tortoiseshell cat, who proceeded to wind her way through everyone’s legs. When she reached me, she sat down and turned her big amber eyes up to me.
“Hello, gorgeous, what’s your name?”
"That's Mittens," Eric said with a smile, then filled the kettle from the sink. “Tea?” he asked the room, and we all responded in the affirmative. Tommy sat down at the small but sturdy kitchen table, and we followed suit. As soon as I sat down, Mittens appeared next to me. I patted my knee, and she jumped up. I’d have a job getting the cat hair off my trousers, but she was so sweet I couldn’t resist her.
“Right,” Tommy barked. “Explain.” He glared at us from across the table, and if looks could kill, I swear we’d both be dead.
“Explain what?” asked Mick.
“Where the ‘ell have you been?”
“At Michael’s.”
“Yes, I worked that much out, thank you.” His gaze switched to me for a second before locking back on Mick.
“Then what the fuck is wrong with you?”
“I didn’t know that’s where you were until three minutes ago.”
“Alright. So what? I didn’t know I had to report my comings and goings to you, Sergeant Major.”
“Eric, I’m going to kill him.”
Putting a mug of tea and an ashtray in front of Tommy, Eric kissed his partner on the cheek. “No, you’re not, sweetheart. Not after you spent the last week worrying that he was floating in a canal.”
Tommy ran his fingers through Eric’s hair which seemed to calm him. Taking a cigarette out of the packet Eric had just put in front of him calmed him even more.
“What does he mean, find me in a canal?” Mick asked. “Why did you think something had happened to me?”