Chapter 9 The Sound of Sirens #3
“He comes here to remember that he's not alone. That there are others who understand. That the way he loves is not a sickness to be cured but simply a different way of being human.” She stubbed out her cigarette.
“And perhaps, most importantly, to remember that there can be joy.
That our lives don't have to be nothing but fear and hiding and shame.”
A knock at the door. The woman from the bar poked her head in.
“Fortuna. Dilly and Maurice are asking after you. And they've spotted our soldier friend.”
Fortuna's expression shifted, something like amusement crossing her features. “Send them up. I think this young man could benefit from multiple perspectives.”
A minute later, the small room became smaller still as Dilly and Maurice crowded in. Dilly perched on a costume trunk, his crimson lips curved in a delighted smile. Maurice leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, regarding me with the patient wariness of a man who had learned to be careful.
“Well, well,” Dilly said. “Vada who's trolled back. The mysterious soldier who follows our Arthur about.”
“Dilly,” Maurice said quietly. “Perhaps don't lead with accusations.”
“I'm not accusing. I'm observing. There's a difference.” But Dilly's smile softened slightly. “You came back. That's something. Men like you, in uniforms like that, usually we never see them again. Either they pretend the whole thing was a fever dream, or they bring friends with handcuffs.”
“I'm not going to do either of those things.”
“No?” Dilly tilted his head, birdlike. “Then what are you going to do?”
The question hung in the air. I looked at each of them in turn: Fortuna with her ancient, knowing eyes. Dilly with his sharp curiosity. Maurice with his careful patience.
“I don't know,” I said honestly. “I came here because I need to understand something.”
“Understand what?” Maurice asked.
“What Arthur found here. What you all have.” I struggled to find the words. “What it means to be... to want...”
“To want another man?” Dilly supplied, not unkindly.
The words landed like stones in still water. Ripples spreading outward, touching everything.
“Yes,” I whispered. “That.”
The silence that followed wasn't uncomfortable. It was more like the silence between heartbeats. A held breath. A moment of recognition.
“Oh, love,” Dilly said, and his voice had lost all its sharpness. “That's a big question. The biggest, maybe.”
“And not one with easy answers,” Maurice added. He uncrossed his arms and moved further into the room. “Mind if I ask you something?”
“Go ahead.”
“When did you first know? That you might be... different?”
I thought about it. Really thought, for perhaps the first time, about when the awareness had begun. “I don't know if there was a moment. More like a slow realisation. Looking at men the way I was supposed to look at women. Feeling things I couldn't explain. Couldn't allow myself to feel.”
“And Arthur?” Fortuna asked. “When did you start looking at him that way?”
The directness of the question should have startled me. Instead, it felt like relief. Someone finally asking the thing I couldn't ask myself.
“I don't know that either. It crept up on me. The way he moves. The way he thinks. Those bloody eyes of his, the way they see right through everything.” I ran a hand over my face.
“I've spent my whole life not feeling much of anything.
Keeping everything locked down tight. And then he walked into my life and suddenly I can't stop feeling things.
Can't stop wanting to protect him, to understand him, to...”
I stopped. The rest of that sentence was too much. Too soon.
“To love him?” Dilly suggested gently.
I couldn't answer that. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
“It doesn't matter what I feel,” I said instead. “Men like me don't get to have this. We don't get love stories. We get court martials and prison sentences and lives destroyed.”
“And yet,” Fortuna said, “here you are. Seeking out the very people you've been taught to fear and hate. Asking questions you're not supposed to ask. That takes courage, soldier. More than you know.”
“It doesn't feel like courage. It feels like desperation.”
“Sometimes they're the same thing.” Maurice moved to stand beside Dilly, one hand settling on his partner's shoulder with easy familiarity. The gesture was so natural, so unremarkable, and yet it spoke of years. Of history. Of love that had survived everything the world had thrown at it.
“Dilly and I,” Maurice said, “we've been together eight years.
Through arrests and near-misses and friends who didn't make it.
We've lost people to prison, to suicide, to violence from men who thought they were doing God's work by beating queers to death in alleyways.” His voice was calm, but I could hear the weight beneath it.
“And we're still here. Still loving each other. Still finding moments of happiness in the cracks.”
“How?” The question came out hoarse. “How do you keep going? Knowing what could happen?”
Dilly reached up to cover Maurice's hand with his own.
“Because the alternative is worse. Living half a life.
Pretending to be someone you're not. Marrying some poor woman who deserves better than a husband who flinches when she touches him.” His eyes met mine.
“We could hide forever, deny everything, be safe.
But safe isn't living. It's just... waiting to die.”
“There was a man,” Fortuna said quietly.
“Years ago now. Before my arrest. His name was Thomas, funny enough. Like yours. He was married, had children, the whole respectable facade. And he loved me. Truly loved me, I believe. But he could never admit it. Could never allow himself to be what he was.”
She turned to look at something on her vanity. A photograph in a small frame, old and faded.
“He died in 1919. Influenza, officially. But I think he died long before that. Died the day he decided that being respectable was more important than being real.” She looked back at me.
“Don't make his mistake, soldier. Whatever you decide about Arthur, about yourself, don't spend your life pretending to be someone you're not. The world is hard enough without lying to yourself on top of it.”
I sat with that for a long moment. The weight of their words settling over me like snow. Like the quiet accumulation of truth that had been building for weeks, months, maybe my whole life.
“Arthur,” I said finally. “He's special, isn't he? I mean, special to you. To all of you.”
“He's one of ours,” Dilly said simply. “We look after our own.”
“When he first came here,” Fortuna added, “he was so frightened. Like a deer caught in headlights. All that brilliant mind of his tied up in knots because he'd never been allowed to be himself around anyone. Never had a place where he could just... exist. Without apology or explanation.”
“He's braver than he knows,” Maurice said. “Coming to places like this. Risking everything just to feel human for a few hours. That takes a particular kind of courage. The quiet kind that nobody celebrates.”
“He doesn't think he's brave,” I said. “He thinks he's a coward. Sits behind a desk while other men fight and die.”
“Yes, well.” Fortuna's smile was sad. “That's Arthur, isn't it? Carries the weight of the whole world on his shoulders and still thinks he's not doing enough. Some of us are built that way. We feel everything too deeply, take responsibility for things that were never ours to carry.”
She stood, moving to a small cabinet where she kept bottles of various spirits. Poured four measures of something amber into mismatched glasses.
“A toast,” she said, handing them round. “To the brave and the foolish. Which, in my experience, are usually the same people.”
We drank. The liquid burned going down, but it was a good burn. Clarifying.
“So what now?” Dilly asked. “What are you going to do with all this wisdom we've imparted?”
“I don't know,” I admitted. “I came here looking for answers, and all I've found are more questions.”
“That's rather how it works,” Maurice said dryly. “The questions never really stop. You just get better at living with them.”
“One thing, though,” Fortuna said. She caught my arm as I made to stand, her grip surprisingly strong. “Arthur doesn't know you're here, does he?”
“No.”
“Good. Keep it that way, for now.” Her eyes held mine. “He needs to come to things in his own time. If he feels pursued, pressured, he'll retreat. That's how he's built. But if you give him space, let him set the pace...” She released my arm. “He might surprise you. He might surprise himself.”
“And if he doesn't? If he decides I'm too much risk?”
“Then you accept it. With grace, if you can manage it.” Her voice was gentle but firm. “We don't have the luxury of demanding love, soldier. We take what's offered and we're grateful for every moment of it. That's the bargain we make just for being who we are.”
I nodded. Stood. Felt the wobble in my legs that had nothing to do with the drink.
“Thank you,” I said. “All of you. I don't know if I understand any better than I did when I walked in, but I...”
“But you feel less alone,” Dilly finished. “That's what places like this are for. We're all lonely, soldier. Every one of us, in our own way. We just try to be lonely together.”
Maurice walked me to the door. In the corridor, away from the others, he caught my arm.
“Tom.” His voice was low, serious. “Whatever you're working out, work it out carefully. Arthur has been waiting his whole life for someone to see him properly. If you're going to be that person, be sure. If you're not, step back now before you make things worse.”
“And if I don't know yet?”
“Then figure it out. Quickly.” He held my gaze.
“Time isn't something any of us have in abundance. The war takes people without warning. So do the police, the courts, the men who think violence against queers is sport.” His grip tightened briefly, then released.
“Don't waste what little time you might have.
That's the worst sin of all, in the end. Wasting time you can't get back.”
I nodded, not trusting my voice.
“One more thing,” Maurice added. “Bona fide, that means genuine. Real. If you're going to be anything to Arthur, be bona fide. The false ones break us worse than the cruel ones.”
I walked back through the main room, past the candles and the conversations and the couples leaning close together in the dim light. Past the gramophone still playing its mournful songs. Past the woman behind the bar who watched me go with unreadable eyes.
Outside, the night was cold and clear. Stars scattered across the sky like someone had thrown a handful of diamonds at the darkness. I stood in the alley for a moment, breathing deep, trying to sort through everything I'd just heard.
They were all so brave. So defiant. Living their truth in the face of a world that wanted them erased. Building communities in the shadows, finding love in stolen moments, creating joy out of nothing but determination and hope.
And they were all so tired. So worn down by the constant vigilance, the endless performance, the knowledge that any day could be the day it all came crashing down.