Chapter Nine Zig
Present day
Zig and Si spent the rest of the evening in front of the telly, cos nobody stopped watching after one episode of a series anymore, did they?
Si had been right: Jodie Whittaker had proper cracked it.
The “fam” were okay too. The older man reminded Zig a bit of his gran’s fella, Ray, whom he hadn’t thought of in years.
But that made him think of another old man, which led him down roads he didn’t wanna tread right now, not while he was cosied up with Si.
Anyway, Jodie was the one who stole the show.
Si’s phone rang once while they were watching, and he frowned at it, rejected the call, then texted furiously for half a minute. After that, he switched his phone off.
What the hell was that all about? Zig reckoned it’d be better not to pry. Course, it might not be Si’s mum telling her son to kick him out on the streets, but best not to get into it, just in case. He didn’t want to ruin the mood.
He stretched out on the sofa, more relaxed than he’d been in fuck knew how long.
Zig hadn’t spent a lot of time with his housemates in Lewisham, mostly because they were wankers.
And his box of a room hadn’t felt like home.
Si’s place, though, felt lived in. The sort of place you could put your feet up on the table and not worry if you had a hole in your socks.
It was warm, and cosy, and there wasn’t any mould on the walls or the ceiling.
Not even in the bathroom. Si’s furniture was like the man himself: solid, comfortable, and totally unpretentious.
Jesus, Zig could get used to being here. Too bloody used to it.
After the third episode, the Rosa Parks one, Si hit Pause. “Sorry. You probably don’t wanna spend the rest of your life watching Doctor Who.”
Zig laughed. “There’s worse ways to spend it, believe me. But yeah, we could take a break. Catch up a bit. You, uh, you seeing anyone right now?”
“What, me?” Si’s eyes widened, as if Zig had asked him whether he’d done a lot of interplanetary time-travelling lately. “No. You?”
Was there something hopeful in his tone?
Or was that simply Zig hearing what he wanted to?
“No. Not for a while.” Where he’d been, for most of the time since he’d last seen Si, wasn’t the sort of place he’d have gone looking for a long-term partner.
And after that, Zig had been too busy trying to build a life on the straight and narrow to worry about finding someone for more than a hookup.
Si coughed. “So, you been here before? Glastonbury, I mean?”
“Me? Never.” Zig flashed him a grin. “I’d have looked you up if I’d been here, wouldn’t I?”
“S’pose.”
“Go on, then, tell me about the place. I know it’s got a festival, but that’s all.” Zig shuffled closer to Si on the sofa.
Si seemed to stiffen, and not in a good way. “Well, the famous thing is the tor. Glastonbury Tor.”
“Yeah, I think I’ve heard of that. Dunno what it is, though.”
“Tor’s a word for a hill, innit? In Old English or summat. You’ll have seen it on your way into town. Got a tower on top.”
“Right, that thing. Yeah, I saw it.” Pretty hard to miss, seeing as it was taller than anything else for miles around.
“Course, in German, see, a tor is a gate. I learned that off a tourist. Which is fitting, like, cos the tor’s s’posed to be a sort of gateway to the spirit realm if you ask the New Agers.
Then again, in your old Norse, gate means street, and that’s why you get streets called Stonegate or Swinegate and all that bollocks in some Northern towns that were under the Danelaw, way back when. ” Si paused for breath.
Zig laughed. “You nervous or something?”
“. . . No? Just thought you might be interested, like?” Si reddened, or at least the small amount of his face that wasn’t covered in hair did.
Zig slung an arm around Si’s shoulders. Fuck him, they were broad these days. “I’m interested, okay? Tell me more. Seduce me with your sexy dead languages.”
Si pulled away from him, eyes narrowed. “No one’s seducing anyone round here, you got that?”
It was like a stab to the gut. Zig forced a smile. “Not even for old times’ sake?”
“Not even.”
Fuck. “Well, you’re no fun these days.”
“Don’t s’pose I ever was,” Si muttered to his socks.
That twisted the knife. “Who says that? I never said that. You’re plenty fun, all right? Go on, tell me more about archaic tongues.” Zig licked his lips and quirked an eyebrow.
Si rolled his eyes, but he was smiling again. “Fine. But this is your last one. Torpenhow Hill, up north somewhere.”
“Hill-pen-how-hill?” Zig guessed.
“Nope. Better than that. It’s in three different languages—Old English, Norse, and Welsh, I reckon? So it’s hill-hill-hill-hill.”
Zig laughed, and even to him, the sound was brighter than it usually was. Cleaner. More honest. God, he’d missed this guy. Why had they ever broken up?
Because he saw you for what you were, and he knew you didn’t deserve him, a harsh voice said in his mind. Thank fuck he’d learned years ago how to ignore it.
“Got time for one more beer before bed?” he asked with a grin. He was prepared for Si to say no. It was well late now for someone who worked nine to five or whatever hours locksmiths did.
“Just the one, then,” Si said.
Internally, Zig cheered. Maybe Si had missed him too.
Maybe.