Chapter Thirty-Five A Perfect Man
Luis moved back in, living with Danny in the home they made together while readying it for sale.
As a couple, they had contributed different amounts to the initial deposit according to their means.
Regardless, Luis suggested they share the profit equally.
If they managed to find a path through, they would pool their money into somewhere new.
After the garden party last summer, it had been Danny’s idea to sell the apartment and move, longing for a garden of their own.
Yet now that the plans were in motion, he was haunted by memories of himself as a homeless young man who once stored his possessions in a left-luggage locker in Victoria Station while he slept on a park bench in Embankment Gardens.
The estate agent appraising their apartment was no older than thirty, dressed in a cobalt-blue flannel suit with a silver tie and polished leather shoes.
Fifteen years their junior, he addressed them as ‘lads’ as he declared their home would be perfect for a single man trying to impress a lady, or a recently married couple before they bought their first family home.
It was strange, listening to the agent rewrite the story of their apartment according to a traditional life-sequence – a bus stop of a home on the road towards a family.
Luis and Danny looked at each other. Catching their glances and sensing there were ripples of communication he didn’t understand, the agent hastily added that the place could also work for an older bachelor type.
Bringing the conversation to a close Danny asked when they should consider listing.
The agent said, ‘This summer will be strong. International buyers are returning. London is red-hot after the Olympics. The recession will be in the rear-view mirror. We’re expecting price rises of eight per cent.
Lads, you’ve done a great job. Trust me, we’ll be able to sell it in no time.
And considering how long ago you bought it you’re set to make a tidy profit.
Where are you guys moving to? Somewhere bigger? ’
Their relationship entered an experimental phase with Danny exploring the possibility of emigrating, a man who had never lived abroad or ever seriously given thought to doing so.
Considering his partner was Spanish it was a failure of imagination.
Luis’s proposal was not to create a Spanish approximation of their London life but to create a new life together – one Danny could neither describe nor envision.
The future appeared blank, except for one guiding point – home had never been the apartment; home had always been Luis.
Compared to the emotional complexities of relocating the practicalities were straightforward.
Even though they weren’t married, Danny didn’t need to apply for residency or a visa and his skills as a nurse would be in demand.
He would require competence in Spanish if he were to be employed in the ‘Sistema Nacional de Salud’ – the public health care system.
However, his seniority and pay scale wouldn’t transfer over.
He would be starting at a lower rung and confined to the private sector until his language skills improved.
When he floated the idea to his colleagues their reactions were mixed.
They had been delighted by the news of his wedding.
Many were attending. But that wedding now depended on losing a cherished member of the team.
He would be giving up years of hard-won progression at a hospital where he was respected, to begin again in a place where he would be unknown.
Part of what made him a great nurse was his ability to befriend patients and until his Spanish was fluent, he would struggle to form the same bonds, performing the mechanical tasks of a nurse without the magic of human connections.
Luis had not only learned English perfectly, he had also immersed himself in the cultural references, something Danny would need to mirror.
Where once there had been books on the monarchy and the Beatles, the bedside table now held books on Goya, Lorca and the Spanish Civil War.
The first test would come in March when they would travel to Spain, to the southern region of Andalucía, spending time in Seville and Cádiz where Luis was born and raised.
As a couple they had never visited Andalucía together.
Until this winter, Luis had only returned once to attend his grandfather’s funeral.
At the time he argued that bringing a boyfriend would be a provocation, upsetting his relatives.
It was during the early years of their relationship and Danny accepted his exclusion, accustomed to the fact that there would always be places in the world where they were not welcome together.
Yet looking back, it was not society excluding him.
It was Luis. He had built a wall around his past.
Danny began taking Spanish lessons. Each evening he and Luis spent an hour or so at the kitchen table with notebooks and verb tables.
Not since school had he studied a foreign language, an experience he found excruciating, hating the sound of his own voice, laughed at in class, not only when he mispronounced words in French but when he sounded camp in English, his native tongue sounding foreign – the essence of his voice seeming to be masculinity mispronounced.
In contrast, Luis was an excellent teacher, patient and thorough, advising him not to worry about his accent, pointing out that some of the United Nations delegates spoke with a strong accent.
Accents were story. Danny’s Spanish accent was the story of a man reshaping his life for love.
One evening their Spanish lesson centred on descriptions of a person’s romantic status, the words for ‘married’, ‘husband’, ‘partner’, ‘boyfriend’ and ‘engagement’.
Midway through the lesson Luis lost his train of thought.
When he regained his composure he said, ‘This is not the first time I’ve been engaged. ’
The piece of news was dropped into the lesson as if it was merely a practice sentence for Danny to translate.
Danny wrote down the word – comprometido – pressing the nib of the pen so hard on the paper the letters became grooves. In the adjacent column he wrote the incorrect translation – ‘compromised’. He put the pen down and fetched a glass of water, asking, ‘Who was she?’
Luis described a young woman called Isabella.
Even though he didn’t say she was beautiful, Danny pictured her so.
Born in Cádiz, she was the same age as Luis and had attended the same school.
Her passion was painting. She would paint people at work, such as the butcher, the florist or a man selling lottery tickets.
As a couple, they were attractive and popular.
Luis was academic, she was creative. For Danny coming out merely confirmed everyone’s suspicions and justified their cruel jokes.
But for Luis it had been a fall from grace and a loss of status.
As Luis spoke about Isabella his voice broke.
He had loved this woman, Danny realized.
‘How long were you together?’
Acknowledging the seriousness of the relationship Luis paused before replying, ‘Six years.’
They were school sweethearts. Like in the movies. After graduating from university, Luis proposed. At the proper time, Danny thought, the correct time, the perfect time, with their whole life ahead of them.
‘How did you do it? Propose, I mean? How did you propose to her?’
Luis looked upwards.
‘Does it matter?’
Danny had spent so long thinking about the process he was now curious about every engagement, even ones that caused him pain.
‘It might.’
Luis reluctantly recalled the scene.
‘It was in the summer. At night. We were on the beach beside Castillo de Santa Catalina in Cádiz. The ring belonged to my grandmother. She left it to me in her will. Along with a letter hoping I would give it to Isabella one day.’
Danny asked, ‘Did you go down on one knee?’
Luis nodded.
‘Yes, I went down on one knee.’
It was as traditional a proposal as could be imagined. Danny marvelled at the scene.
‘You put the ring on her finger, didn’t you? I fucked that part up. But you snatched the box from my hands. What could I do? Snatch it back? Now that I think about it, did you take it from me because it felt wrong?’
Luis was quiet for a time and then answered, ‘Yes, it felt wrong. In my gut. I took the box away from you, because I was trying to stop it from happening.’
Finally, Danny understood what had happened in the Highlands. He could play back the proposal, making sense of the hesitations and expressions.
Rejoining Luis at the table, Danny asked how long the engagement to Isabella lasted. Luis said it was only for one summer. Trying to guess why it might have ended, Danny wondered if this was the point at which Luis came out.
‘Danny, I never came out. Not in the way you mean. During my time with Isabella there were hook-ups with guys. Behind the sand dunes. In the public toilets. I thought to myself, I can keep this side of me out of sight. I need occasional relief. That’s all.
I can’t build my life around it. Those encounters were about sex and nothing more.
I never asked for names. I never told them my name.
I searched for visitors and tourists who would leave town after a few days – men who would disappear.
Despite my precautions it was a small town.
Someone told someone who told someone else.
After the engagement was announced there was a party. ’
In a quiet voice Danny amended the word.
‘An engagement party.’
Luis accepted the point, remembering that he had opposed one for the two of them.