Chapter Three What Are We Talking About?
By the end of the party Danny was drunk on rum punch having eaten nothing more than mint leaves and melon cubes.
As the sky grew dark the party became a more adult affair.
Waiters lit candles inside silk lanterns that hung from the conservatory to the chestnut tree.
Those staying late sat on oversize Marrakech-made cushions around a log-burning fire pit.
Danny shared a cushion with Luis, even though there were plenty to spare, making a show of the fact that they were the only gay couple at this party.
Someone asked how they met. Danny wondered why of all the couples here only they were being asked this question, as if their love story were all beginning and no middle.
Luis replied, ‘We’re pre-internet and pre-apps.
We met the old-fashioned way, face to face in a bar. ’
When they finally said goodbye Danny told Emma and John that their anniversary was as perfect as their wedding, a winter ceremony that took place in the great hall of a stately manor under a floral arch of delphiniums, cow parsley and lupins with a foot of snow outside.
Because Emma’s father had been terminally ill, they had brought the wedding forward to ensure that he could attend.
His short speech, in a rasping voice, moved everyone to tears.
Recalling these details Danny wondered why they hadn’t also celebrated their anniversary in the winter.
Emma replied that it didn’t matter when you celebrate so long as you celebrate.
Danny marvelled at this wisdom. John gave him a pat on the back while Emma kissed him on the cheek, calling him adorable and congratulating him on every crumb of his coconut cake being eaten.
He’d congratulated their anniversary. They’d congratulated his baking.
Uncharacteristically quiet in the cab home Danny cracked open the window to allow in a breeze. He said, ‘It didn’t bother you? The way they spoke about our relationship?’
Luis was confused by the question.
‘How did they speak about us?’
Danny took a moment to find the right word.
‘It wasn’t belittling?’
Luis shook his head.
‘It didn’t feel that way to me.’
Danny had the ability to feel fifty things at once and he often checked in with Luis for a read.
Meanwhile, Luis depended on Danny for a sensitivity to emotional undercurrents, often underestimating the value of gestures such as baking a cake rather than buying one.
With a steadying hand on Danny’s knee, Luis said, ‘We’re almost home. ’
Home was a one-bedroom attic apartment in Kennington – a Georgian townhouse divided into apartments in the 1960s, with the top floor enjoying sloping skylights, uneven wood floors and a balcony with views towards the housing estates of Elephant and Castle.
Climbing the narrow flight of communal stairs, Danny dropped his keys before reaching their front door.
‘Do you love me?’
Luis laughed.
‘Very much.’
But Danny wasn’t done.
‘You don’t need me to be more…’
Maybe he didn’t mean more at all. Maybe the word he was looking for was less. Luis kissed him on the cheek and opened the door.
While Luis showered Danny stripped down to his pistachio-coloured briefs, leaving his vintage tennis attire heaped on the couch.
He had no idea where his Slazenger racket was – lost in the herb garden somewhere.
Even though it was past midnight he filled his steel watering can and began tending to the lavender, jasmine and honeysuckle so densely arranged on their balcony that there was barely enough space to stand.
The plants in their terracotta pots were glad for a drink after the heat of the day.
Finished, he set down the watering can and leaned on the rail, following the progress of a lithe black cat walking atop a fence.
Having taken the balcony as far as it could go, Danny imagined owning a garden and tending to rows of marrows and squashes.
He pictured a crumbling stone wall for climbing vines, a cedarwood gazebo coiled with wisteria where he could read and vape.
He and Luis had bought this apartment early on in their relationship.
The property had been a wreck, a studio attic belonging to an aspiring artist who had left the interior with paint-flecked walls and populated with pinboards of nude male Polaroids.
In despair, the artist had taken his own life, a tragedy which resulted in the apartment being sold on the cheap by relatives too disgusted with their kin to inspect the property, let alone clean it up.
Luis had resisted buying it, his Catholic spirituality unnerved by the death, but Danny wanted to reverse the sadness of this space, arguing that they would never get a better chance at owning their own home.
They pooled their savings and applied for a joint mortgage which at that time required HIV tests, a demand Danny queried.
Declined by every major lender they eventually found a brokerage firm which assisted gay buyers navigate a hostile financial world.
In retrospect buying a place together had taken on the significance of a proxy commitment ceremony.
It wasn’t as fun; there had been no party, no vows, no dressing-up, no marquees and no floral arch, but there were documents to sign, and in the absence of a wedding it served as a legal expression of their devotion to each other.
Luis pointed out that gay couples had been using property law for many hundreds of years as the only way of solemnizing their union, referencing Spanish academics who found deeds in the Monastery of Celanova, in Galicia, which recorded the property purchase by Pedro Díaz and Muno Vandilaz.
The document made it clear that the two men shared their lives as well as their home – arguably the first recorded gay union in history, dating back over nine hundred years to 1061.
Property as promise. A title deed for a ring.
Emerging from the shower with a towel around his waist, Luis mixed an Old Fashioned using Macallan whisky, sculpting a coil of orange peel – a man who rarely did anything unless he could do it well. Looking towards the open balcony doors he asked if Danny wanted a drink.
‘I want a garden.’
Luis replied, ‘All I can offer right now is a drink.’
Danny stood firm.
‘What are we waiting for?’
Taking a sip of his Old Fashioned, Luis pointed out, ‘I didn’t realize we were waiting for anything.’
Guessing the inspiration for Danny’s desire, Luis added, ‘A garden in Notting Hill is out of our reach.’
Danny shook his head.
‘I don’t want their garden. I want our garden. I want to know what our garden would be. Wasn’t the best part about owning this apartment making it ours? Taking something rundown and fixing it up. I want to do that again. This time with a garden.’
Luis put down his drink.
‘A garden you’ve never mentioned before?’
Danny shot back, ‘I never realized how much I wanted one before.’
Bringing the conversation to an end, Luis asked, ‘Can we have sex and talk about it tomorrow?’
Danny weighed the proposition seriously before declaring, ‘Sure.’