Chapter Twenty-One The Song Remains the Same #4
He didn’t have much more time to panic, though, because the bathroom door opened and Julian staggered out, looking like death warmed over.
He’d been pale before but he was white as a sheet now, heavy, purplish bruises under his eyes offsetting the garish blue that still stained his eyelids.
He had his pants and jeans on but no top, and red mouth-prints traced lewd tracks over his naked torso.
From where he sat, Rahul could glimpse himself in his desk mirror.
There was red still on his own mouth. Even a drunkard firmly in denial about remembering anything from the night before would be unable to deny the evidence of what had occurred here.
Julian braced himself in the doorway. He surveyed the national disaster that was the bedroom.
His gaze landed on Rahul and his nakedness and his red mouth.
Rahul held his breath, bracing himself, every possibility existing simultaneously in that one Schrodinger moment.
He searched Julian’s eyes for a clue. He couldn’t see any disgust there or shame.
But there was no joy either. There was only exhaustion.
“We were both well drunk, yeah?” Julian began, voice as tired as he looked. Rahul’s stomach sank. That wasn’t a promising start. “People do fucked-up shit when they’re pissed, right? It doesn’t mean anything, does it?”
Rahul swallowed the bile in his throat. His voice came out a pathetic croak. “No. Not a thing.”
Julian relaxed his tensed muscles, visibly relieved. Rahul’s stomach sank under the bed and through the floorboards. “We just won’t ever talk about it, yeah?”
“Like it never happened.”
“Exactly.” Julian smiled weakly. “Promise?”
“Cross my heart.”
“Likewise. There. Just like it never happened. Brilliant. What cupboard’s your tea in? I’d kill for a brew.”
A heavy lump thickened in Rahul’s throat and the backs of his eyes prickled. He had a sudden, paralysing fear that he would cry. If he cried right then he would never, ever forgive himself.
Of course Julian wanted to pretend it had never happened.
That’s what Julian did. There had been a time, what seemed like a million years ago, when that’s all Rahul had wanted, and he’d been grateful even.
But in the here and now, pretending it had never happened was somehow worse than anything else Julian could have done.
* * *
Hoxton, 1987
Mel held a bag of frozen peas to Rahul’s swollen lip as he sat on the linoleum of her kitchen floor.
He had the sort of distant look in his eye that shellshocked World War II veterans had.
Mel couldn’t recall Rahul ever being in her flat before, yet he made no effort to take in his surroundings or even awkwardly compliment her shabby home, an unnecessary gesture that would be in keeping with Rahul’s character.
In fact, he hadn’t spoken since Julian had left him in the street.
“So,” Mel began, her patented bored tone firmly in place, despite how savagely she wanted all of the dirty details. “You’re… what? Gay, then?”
“Yup,” Rahul replied tonelessly, still staring off into the middle distance, somewhere between Mel’s cabinets and the washing machine.
“And Julian’s…”
“I don’t know. Bisexual or something? You’d really have to ask him.”
“Right.” She waited a beat to see if he’d expand on that. He didn’t. So she decided to state the obvious. “You’ve really cocked this one up, haven’t you?”
Rahul’s eyes finally focused and it was to throw her a withering glare. “Thanks for that.”
“Like you didn’t already know.”
“I know, but you don’t have to go rubbing salt in my wounds, do you?” He snatched the bag of peas away from her and pressed it to his lip himself.
Now that the shock was beginning to wear off, she could see his raw anguish setting in.
If she looked closely, she could even see him beginning to tear up.
It made sense, what with him being in love with her brother and all.
And what with her brother having said he didn’t want anything to do with him anymore, even after Rahul had gone and spilled his guts out to him. But Rahul didn’t have to worry.
“It’s all right. You know Julian. This time next week, he’ll have forgotten all about it. He’s fickle as a ferret, our Julian is.”
Rahul lowered the condensation-soaked bag from his face and then fidgeted with the bag that was now in his lap. “No. Not this time. He really meant it. I could tell. I’ve never seen him like that before. Not ever.”
“Come on, if Julian never talks to you again, we’ll have to split up the band. And you know Julian loves the band more than he loves glitter, and that’s saying something.”
Rahul didn’t react other than to minutely shrug his shoulders and keep turning the bag round in his hands.
Mel hesitated before she asked, which was a first for her, but she couldn’t help herself. “You really in love with him?”
Rahul nodded, which made his black hair flop into his eyes. It reminded Mel, oddly, a little of Julian.
Mel wasn’t often prone to bouts of sentimentality, but there was something so particularly pathetic about Rahul in that moment that she felt an unprecedented stab of maternal instinct.
She put an awkward hand on Rahul’s shoulder, unused to gestures of comfort.
He looked at the offending appendage with distrust. “I’ll talk to him,” she said.
“He’ll come around. I know he will.” Rahul’s grimace told her he was less than convinced.
“I will,” she said more emphatically. Her tone, breaking its usual monotony, caught Rahul’s attention.
She added, “I’ll take care of it. Don’t I always? ”
Despite everything, the spark of hope shone in Rahul’s dark eyes.