Page 27 of Pansies

“People want all kinds of pointless shit.” For better or worse, Greg had never been particularly responsive to Alfie’s angry voice. “And the game just feeds into this by treating everything you claim is a choice, like marriage to someone of the opposite gender and the gradual acquisition of money and children, as inevitable. And all that matters in the end is how much stuff you’ve got.”

“It’s a game for six- to ten-year-olds, notDas Kapital.”

“My point stands. Life is not—”

“Events and things, I get it. Except itisevents and things.”

“But not,” Greg insisted, “arbitraryevents and things.”

“Will you stop with the ‘everything is arbitrary’ shit? You sound like a teenager who’s just read Sartre.”3

“Dear me, what a philosophical evening we’re having.”

Alfie slammed his suddenly empty glass onto the coffee table that had never had coffee on it. “Look, I get this is abstract to you, but it’s real to me. I know I say ‘bastad’ not ‘barrrstarrrd,’ and my parents didn’t pay thirty grand a term for me to go to school, but just because I don’t think like you doesn’t mean I’m stupid.”

“Want some ketchup for that chip on your shoulder?” Greg always got pissed if someone drew attention to the fact he was loaded. “Just because my family happens to be wealthy doesn’t make my perspective less valid than yours.”

“All I’m saying…” Alfie paused. What was he saying? “All I’m saying is that the people who don’t care about things are the people who already have ’em.”

“That would be like”—Greg mimed being stabbed through the heart—“totally touché, except we’re sitting in your two-million-quid penthouse drinking fifty-quid wine.”

“Oi! I earned these things. I didn’t take them and nobody gave them to me. I work really hard and I fucking deserve them.”

“Yes, but you don’tlikethem. What’s the use in having them at all if they’re nothing more than symbols?”

“Jesus Christ.” Alfie stifled a groan. “That’s what I’m saying, man.”

Greg also set his glass aside and slipped off a pair of tatty canvas shoes that had probably been artfully distressed by ethically employed marsupials and cost a fortune. He twisted sideways and crossed his legs under him. Alfie stopped making dramatic gestures and shuffled backwards, fighting both the sofa and the sudden intensity of Greg’s complete attention. The first time Greg had looked at him like that, with all that hunger and focus, he’d been about to give Alfie a blowjob (the first he’d ever had from a man).

“Okay, then.” He spread his hands as if Alfie were about to fill them with confidences like bags of sand. “So what’s it for? What’s the dream?”

“There’s not…there’s not a dream. I just want normal stuff. Somebody to come home to. Build a life with. Take care of. This”—Alfie indicated the flat and the wine and the sofa—“would be for them. Except for the bit where they don’t exist and don’t need it.”

Greg’s eyes went wide. “Omigod, you want a wife!”

“What? No, I don’t.”

“Yes, you do. You want dinner on the table, how was your day dear, once-a-week sex in a boring position.”

“Actually, I don’t. You just went there on your own, Mr. No-Roles-No-Boundaries, when I said I wanted to share my life with someone.”

Greg, at least, had the grace to blush. “Okay, okay, but you do realise that you’re never going to have what your parents have.”

“Yeah, I got that memo when I realised I liked to suck cock.” Some part of Alfie was pleased at how easily he offered up the words. Not even defiant. Matter-of-fact:I like to suck cock. Unfortunately, the rest of him was pretty sure he only managed it because he was slightly drunk. “It’s just…” he went on. “It’s like…pattern recognition, you know? How else do you figure out how the world works, or what a relationship is, or anything, except by looking at what’s already there? You don’t have to do the same things, but you have to start somewhere.”

“Things aren’t their outward signs, Alfie.”

For a moment, they were still and silent, looking at each other. Greg’s eyes were soft and dark, honey-blurred at the edges like when he was being kissed. Perhaps he was slightly drunk as well.

Then Alfie let out a long, slightly exasperated breath. “That doesn’t actually mean anything. And the only message I’m getting here is you don’t have a fucking clue about any of this, and neither do I.”

“Welcome to the club, sunshine. It’s only you, me, and the rest of the world.”

There was a pause.

“I think,” said Alfie slowly, “I’ve just worked out what I want.”

“Oh?”

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