Chapter Twenty-Two Always Something There To Remind Me
The heat was cloying, making Michael’s clothes stick to his skin and blond fringe stick to his forehead.
The fan he’d recently acquired did nothing to take the edge off the stifling inferno.
He couldn’t recall a London summer this hot.
Making his mind up to find solace in the cool darkness of a pub -- or at least in the heady escape of a drink -- he pushed his hair off his forehead, pocketed his keys, and descended the stairs of his flat.
His shiny black oxfords had only just hit the pavement when he came up short, heart stuttering to a halt in his chest.
A thin figure stood there, garbed in a cheap, floral-print shirt and black drainpipes, pointed chin tilted upwards to regard the higher windows of the flat block.
“Julian,” Michael breathed without thinking.
Julian looked back down to him, a god deigning to acknowledge a mortal.
Julian wasn’t surprised. He was expecting him.
He looked good. Rested. Face scrubbed clean of makeup.
A bit of colour in his cheeks. His thin lips remained flat and unsmiling, something foreign to his features.
It had been nearly half a year and yet his face was as familiar to Michael as his own.
The flurry of excitement that bubbled in his breast was tempered by white hot shame which he attempted, unsuccessfully, to suppress.
“We should talk, yeah?” Julian’s usually light voice was uncharacteristically hard, like the set of his mouth.
Michael swallowed and nodded. A part of him bristled, resenting the young man’s audacity to show back up here after so long and command him about like a servant.
That part wished he’d managed to finish what he’d started so long ago, before the sight of blood had sobered him.
But he was too awake, in control, to lend that little voice any credence.
Instead, he felt nothing but a contrite desire to do whatever he was told by the person he’d been foolish enough to let walk out of his life.
Or run, as it were, after doing his head in with an ashtray.
The pub they went to was a clean, trendy establishment that was more suited to Michael’s tastes than Julian’s, but it was close, well-populated, and on neutral ground -- attributes Julian had deemed vital to the conditions of their catching up.
It was just as well. Michael hadn’t been back to The Barber & Pony since Rahul had broken his nose.
It was still crooked, as he’d never gone to hospital to have it set in place.
He hadn’t exactly been prepared to tell the doctors in the A&E that he’d been assaulted by his boyfriend’s boyfriend after he’d nearly killed him.
Oh, sure, he’d agonised over it. But, in a way, Rahul had done him a favour.
He’d felt in need of repentance for the horrors he’d inflicted.
At the time, he hadn’t felt that the great big lump on his head where Julian had bowled him over with the ashtray quite made up for what he had done to him.
When he was sprung upon by Rahul and beaten beyond recognition, he felt he was able to pay his penance, blood for blood.
He should have thanked Rahul, really. Instead, he’d kept his word and not even so much as thought about ringing Julian, or standing outside the window of the Barber on Saturday nights, though there was many a time when that needling voice had proposed it, slickly suggesting that no one would be the wiser, not even Rahul.
But the promise he’d made was part of his penance.
And if he didn’t adhere to it then he was exactly what Julian thought he was: a monster.
There was, after all, no way Julian didn’t think that of him.
And it was evident now in the way Julian sat beside him at the bar, eyes trained on the thin film of foam at the head of his beer.
There was an unmistakable tension in his shoulders, a nervousness in the bounce of his leg under the bar, Cuban heels ticking like a metronome against the metal rung of the barstool.
Why shouldn’t he be nervous around Michael? He’d only tried to kill him after all.
Michael hung his head and sipped his mediocre merlot.
Whatever Julian had come to say to him, he knew it couldn’t be good.
And this, too, he deserved. He felt the sort of melancholy peace of a martyr, one willing and ready to accept his punishment for the greater good.
He deserved this. He needed this. This might finally be the last lash of suffering he required in order to regain his old confidence, his stability if not his happiness.
He wasn’t sure he’d even been happy before Julian, so how could he return to it?
As the silence between them stretched and Michael’s tender nerves frayed, he decided to hasten the unavoidable retribution, yanking it off like a plaster. “How’ve you been?” His casual tone was as brittle as his one-dimensional smile.
“All right.” Julian nodded, fringe falling into his eyes. His hair was a bit different. Slightly shorter and lighter, more of a brown than a black. It suited him, but there was hardly anything that didn’t suit him. Michael tried to quell the resentment that welled thick in his throat like bile.
“Band’s doin’ all right,” Julian continued. “Got a manager now and everything. He sent our demo to this label and they were keen on it. Gonna cut a record soon. It’s mental.”
“That’s good,” Michael forced out, covering his naked resentment with a drink of wine. Why should he flourish when he didn’t want us? the voice in the back of his mind hissed. He breathed through his nose, willing his furiously pounding heart to abate. “Really. I’m happy for you.”
“Thanks.” Julian half-smiled without much feeling, still unable or unwilling to meet Michael’s eye. “And you? What you been up to?”
“Oh, you know.” Michael gestured vaguely in the air. “Always the same. Writing… Exercising…”
“Stalking people.”
Michael winced but tried to disguise it with a self-deprecating laugh. “Given that up, unfortunately.”
Julian didn’t laugh. “Spent a lot of time trying to work up the courage to come and see you, actually.”
“Is that so?” Michael braced himself, an excited anticipation thrumming through his veins.
This was it. This was the moment he’d been waiting for.
The tongue-lashing, the vitriol, the final penance.
He was ready. He put his shoulders back, as if making his chest a broader target for Julian to take aim.
“I tried to forgive you, you know? Thought it was important for growth or healing or whatever. But I never could. I did accept it, though. I gotta accept it’s what happened to me, or I’d never be able to move on, you know?
But I realised pretty early on that you didn’t deserve my forgiveness.
You deserved to have somebody out there who’d always hate you.
At the very least. I mean, obviously you deserve to be in jail or something.
But that’s not gonna happen, is it? Not unless somebody says something to the police, and who’s gonna do that, eh?
Go into the police station and tell the coppers a toff like you’s tried to do them in?
Get lost! Like they’d believe a cockney street urchin like me.
It’s always class, innit? Fucking country.
” He swallowed a big gulp of his pint and it seemed to centre him, cooling his rant and steering him back on track.
Michael was grateful. This chastisement wasn’t nearly as cathartic as he’d hoped.
“Anyway, I just wanted to say it wasn’t all your fault, yeah?
” This gave Michael pause. Of all the things he’d expected to come from Julian, this didn’t even scratch the list. “Thing is, I told myself over and over that I couldn’t have stopped it.
That it came out of nowhere. Couldn’t have seen it coming.
But that isn’t the truth, is it? I did see it.
There were hints. There were these moments, when you weren’t paying attention, and this anger would come out.
This, like, sickness. I’d seen it come out and I didn’t say anything -- didn’t do anything.
And I could’ve. But it scared me. That’s the truth.
I was too scared to say anything. It was always there, like a snake in the bush.
And I thought if I ignored it, it’d go away.
But it just came back and bit me. And that was my own fault, wasn’t it?
Snake can’t help being a snake. It’s always gonna bite, innit?
My fault for letting it sneak up on me. That doesn’t mean you’re not a cunt,” he added, finally looking at him, blue eyes icy.
“It just means I’m a bit of a cunt too, all right? ”
“All right.” Michael furrowed his brow, unsure of how this made him feel. Before he could further analyse it, however, Julian was continuing.
“The only reason I finally got up the courage and came here is that I wanted to prove to myself you don’t have any power over me.
I’m bloody pissing furious with you, yeah, but I’m not afraid anymore.
And I had to come and, well, tell you that you gotta get help or something.
You got this sickness, yeah? This darkness in you.
And you were lucky I got to walk away from it, but next time, next bloke, won’t be so lucky.
And somebody’s gonna get really hurt. For real this time.
I wanna be the last one, yeah? You get yourself help, all right? ”