Chapter Twenty-Two A Red Sticker
Danny spoke to his parents only on their birthdays and at Christmas when they phoned each other, catching up with courteous formality as though they were former neighbours who had bumped into each other in a supermarket aisle.
An unscheduled call prompted his mother to ask if something was the matter.
Danny suggested that it would be better if they spoke face to face, remaining vague about his reasons for wanting to meet.
His mum seemed incapable of imagining that he was returning with good news.
Perhaps she supposed that he was going to tell them that he was living with HIV – a prospect his parents believed was inevitable from the day he had come out and when the joke around schools, pubs and offices was that GAY stood for Got AIDS Yet.
Growing up Danny had listened to his parents instruct the staff of their guest house to carefully disinfect any bedrooms occupied by men they suspected were gay, to double wash the towels and bedlinens and double bleach the shower and sink.
There was a cleaning ledger and when a room needed extra attention, either because the occupant owned a dog or might be gay, a red sticker was added to the room number.
Danny told Luis that it would be better for him to visit Bude alone, to try to bridge these rifts before bringing him to visit.
His parents were professional hosts, polite around strangers which was an awful way to describe his fiancé.
But Luis had never met them. Sitting on the bed Luis watched him pack and asked why he didn’t tell them on the phone.
‘I want to see their faces. When I tell them. I want to know if they can be happy for me. For real. Rather than just for show.’
Luis observed, ‘Is this an invitation? Or a test?’
Danny replied, ‘It’s like you said. When we look at our wedding guests all we should see is affection.
I don’t want anyone attending who secretly – deep inside – thinks we’re gross.
For once in our lives, we get to pick the people looking at us.
That’s not going to be true at any other time.
Not when we’re walking down the street together or enjoying a meal.
There will always be someone who rolls their eyes or makes a comment. But it can be true for one day.’
Danny thought on the fact that they never walked down the street holding hands. Luis knotted his fingers together, troubled.
‘Danny, this wedding is not separate from the world. It won’t take place in a better world.’
Danny refused to cede ground.
‘We can make our wedding separate. We can dig a moat around it. And only lower the drawbridge for the people who truly love us. So, yes, it is a test. If just twenty people and no parents pass, that’s okay.
That’s who’ll attend. For the rest of our lives, Luis, we’ll live in their world. Our wedding will be ours.’
Danny had swung from welcoming strangers off the street for their engagement party to a purity test for their wedding. After a long silence, Luis asked, ‘Does that test include me?’
Stunned at the question, Danny sat on the bed, taking Luis’s hands, about to deny the idea that Luis was being tested, only to find the lie wouldn’t come.
‘Is that how you feel?’
Luis looked at Danny, aware that his question hadn’t been answered.
‘I feel like I’m coming up short.’
Danny was quick to say, ‘I felt that way too. But we’ve found the farm. We’ve sent the cards. It was never going to be easy.’
Luis asked, ‘And your parents? What do they want from your visit?’
It was typical of Luis to reverse a line of thought and to try to see a situation from the other side, a mental discipline he had developed during his professional life. Danny was often impressed by his partner’s way of thinking but now his even-handedness bothered him.
‘My parents don’t want anything. They didn’t ask to meet me. They didn’t ask to meet you.’
Luis reacted to the sharpness in Danny’s tone.
‘There’s no point going to see them angry.’
Danny disagreed.
‘That’s the only point. They never understood my anger.’