Waiting
It wasn't the only pub in the area, but it was the only one he remembered. Not that he had been old enough to drink then, of course. But he found it unsatisfactory, filled with grumbling old men in flat caps playing dominoes. The music was muted as if to apologise for its existence โ and maybe it should, he thought, when he realised that it was some dull and dreary choir singing in the background. He sat alone at a small, dark table; the painted black beams above him seemed to make him want to keep his head down. Eventually, the claustrophobia got to him, and he left the pub, having had way too many brandies. But he had needed a strong drink after the day, and it was easy to get drunk in a place like that. Maybe that was the point.
He had driven up here at the last minute. All the way from London. The letter he had received some days before. It had been from his aunt, sounding gentle and weary as always, informing him that his father had died peacefully in the night. Was it possible to die peacefully? Gavin suspected not. Like all things it was a matter of perspective. And his perspective had been simple. He didn't care.
For years there had been a cold silence between them, and nothing anyone in the family did alleviated it. His father had thrown him out of the house as a teenager. He had been just nineteen. Ironically not because he had found out that his son was gay, but because he had upset his mother. Gavin had laughed at his reasons bitterly, and the old man (he had been an old man even then) had just dismissed him.
In time he and his mother had grown close again, and when she left his father, Gavin had supported her for a while. She had been a lot younger than his father had when they married, and he supposed he understood her suddenly needing to get away in her forties. His father had gained his sympathy though at that time and he found himself wanting to see him, to offer whatever comfort he could. But the old man had dismissed him again in a letter so cold and impersonal it had hurt. It was the last time he would allow his father to hurt him.
And that had turned out to be true. Gavin had decided with little time to spare that he should perhaps attend the funeral. There would never be forgiveness now, but he hardened his heart against it as the service drew to a close. The relatives he hadn't seen in so many years filed past him outside the crematorium, offering their condolences. He didn't remember half of them.
It had been a grey day from beginning to end. He had left London when it was still dark, the glittering lights of the city were easily a rival for the stars above, but they had both faded with the early morning light, and the further north he drove, the greyer the sky became. The clouds had gathered like spectators, pressing down upon him and his car, making him realise what the day was bound to be. Oppressive.
Now he felt warmer, and he considered the offer of a bed at his aunt's house. He should take it; he shouldn't drive now. But instead he found himself wandering the streets; his feet somehow remembering the ups and downs of the hills, the twists and turns in between the red bricked terraced houses. He walked past familiar things, and newer buildings, feeling the changes like insults. He supposed he was not alone in that. An old man passed him with an elderly dog, and muttered a quiet 'good evening.' Something about the old man embodied his feelings. Alone with his memories in what was really a new place. A different place. He almost wanted to ask the man if he remembered what it had been like ten years ago, but stopped himself with a self-mocking smirk. The man probably remembered what it had been like sixty years ago.
He gave his fate to his feet, walking past places he hadn't thought of for years. The entrance to the woods looked dark and forbidding, but he wondered if youths still gathered there. Soon he found himself walking a steep hill. He passed a paper shop. The lights were still on and he called in for a packet of cigarettes, giving in to the need for something to ease what was definitely not grief.
At the top of the hill was a church. One of the streetlights was out, and he found himself gladdened for that. It wouldn't be right somehow to see the glaring orange light on the headstones in the small cemetery. He walked through the gate and among the stones. Suddenly he realised that there was a fence all around the church. He frowned. The grey steel spoilt it somehow. He wanted to see the church all of a sudden. The blackened stones that hadn't changed in all this time were somewhat comforting.
This had been his father's church. Gavin had sung in the choir until he was sixteen, and then helped with the upkeep until eighteen. He had even been to Sunday school at the parish hall across the road. He smiled at that. But now it was shut. Why? He walked around until he came to a sign that was attached to the fence carelessly with plastic ties. The congregation had moved down into the small town, it said, and everyone was welcome to join them there. Gavin read further, and found that the structure had become dangerous due to subsidence. He thought with a little smile that it was about right โ the entire community was going downhill.
Then he noticed the flickering golden light coming through the gap in the door. It was very faint, but it was obvious someone was in there. Probably the place had turned into a squat, he thought with a shrug, but something stopped him turning away, made him want to investigate. It was so quiet. Silently he climbed over the useless fence and made his way to the door.
He saw nothing, and so, rather recklessly, he let himself in. This could be a den of some kind, and he wondered at his own foolishness. The city boy comes back to his hometown, only to be mugged and beaten up by a couple of druggies. He looked around carefully in the light of the few candles that were lit. There was no sign of drug use. No foil littered the old stone floor. No needles or spoons could be seen between the pews that had once been used by the faithful and penitent. Despite his relief, he began to wonder why.
It wasn't difficult to see what had happened to his home. A man would have to be blind not to see it. He had noticed the scrawled graffiti that covered spare pieces of wall, the teenagers that seemed to roam in bigger gangs than when he was young. Some of them had seemed too thin in the daylight, their clothes hanging off their skeletal bodies. He knew very well what it meant. That too seemed like an insult to this place. However much he bitterly hated it for what it was โ a closed community with little tolerance โ he couldn't deny that in a part of himself, he would always think of this place as home.
Perhaps this building had more claim on him than most, and he felt unnaturally glad that it had survived so far without being defaced or ruined. Not that he had any strong religious feelings. He didn't. When he had reached puberty and found out what his inclinations were, he hadn't been able to reconcile God and himself, and after a brief struggle, he had won and let go of his faith. God didn't exist, and if He did then there were plenty of things for Gavin to accuse Him of.
But despite his resentment towards God, that didn't mean he hated this place. In fact, Gavin quite liked churches. You didn't need a belief in God to appreciate architecture and the beauty of light shining on stained glass โ whatever it represented. Churches tended to have a welcoming, comforting, quiet atmosphere, as if the attitude of prayer and supplication had left their imprint on the stones. And sometimes, if he was honest, Gavin missed that.
There was another memory, desperate to announce itself to him, but before he could pay attention to it, there was a noise behind him. Gavin whirled around at the sound of a man clearing his throat, wondering if he would face a drug addict, or a drunk. It was neither.
He stared for a moment before breaking into a broad grin. "Paul!" he exclaimed. The memory that had been due to surface was back now in all its glory. How many years had it been? He walked forward quickly to close the distance between them, thinking that he would pull Paul into his arms, but instead he surprised himself by shaking the other man's hand. It was appropriate. They weren't the foolish youths they had once been. The day he had made that quite clear. He smiled warmly.
"Well..." he began when Paul didn't speak, the warmth in his eyes saying more than words could. "How are you?" He dimly realised through his returned sense of drunkenness that this was the last place he expected to bump into his old friend, even if it was the most fitting. "What are doing here?"
"Gavin," Paul said softly, and it seemed he had been waiting for years to hear his name spoken like that again. The memories couldn't be stopped now. For years they had been friends, even as children. They attended the same school, and the same church. They had both been in the choir here, and as they got older, and their bodies awoke, they found something else together too. Gavin smiled secretly, remembering their first fumbling kisses. And later, how Paul had been mortified to have Gavin steal touches and kisses from him in the darkened, quiet shadows of this very place. Something about his panic had been so appealing, and yet his whispered protests meant he wasn't really protesting at all...
Paul smiled a little nervously, still managing to blush after all this time. "Do you remember..." he began, and then let his words drift into silence as their eyes met. For a moment it was the same as it had been all those years ago. Gavin didn't know how he came to be embracing his old friend when barely a word had been spoken, but it seemed so right. And he claimed a kiss in the same way as he had all those years ago, holding Paul's hands behind his back โ only this time Paul didn't fight him at all.
When he drew back he laughed a little. Paul's eyes were closed, and he leaned in again to place a small kiss on his neck. "Yes," he whispered in answer, feeling Paul tremble a little.
It had been so wonderful! Forbidden and dangerous. What would happen if they were caught? But he hadn't been able to stop. Although they had never consummated their relationship back then, they had come pretty damn close to it. He remembered more than kisses now. The period of time after they were both too old for the choir, but not old enough to be legal, hiding in the little rooms off the main church to tease each other silly with lips and tongue. He smiled with real pleasure, remembering the first love bite he had given Paul, just before they were due to take their place with the congregation, and Paul's terror and panic as he tried to cover it up with his collar.
