Page 40 of Pansies

Alfie laughed. But, just as he’d feared, things were sliding into awkward again. Fen had gone quiet and twitchy and wouldn’t meet his eyes.

“What now like?” he asked, after a moment or two.

“Well”—Fen shook plaster dust out of his hair, the pink tips settling haphazardly on his shoulders—“since you’ve already fucked me and embarrassed me and seen me fall into my own bath and then very nearly fucked me again…I suppose we might as well go to dinner.”

Alfie reached out and brushed his fingers up the inside of Fen’s wrist. “You sure?”

“Didn’t I just say I would?”

“Yeah, but we had a deal. And while I really want to take you out, I don’t want to force you.”

“You want enthusiastic consent for dinner?”

“I dunno what that is, but it sounds like the sort of thing I’d want for most things.” Alfie brought Fen’s hand to his mouth, turning it to expose the pale underside of his forearm. Kissed the gathering place of the veins, as blue as the irises in the shop. “So you gonna say yes?”

“Oh…oh, all right.” It wasn’t exactlyenthusiastic. But it was something.

Alfie glanced up, hopefully. “Tomorrow? I’ve got my car. I can take you somewhere nice.”

“A boy with his own car who wants to take me somewhere nice.” Fen put his spare hand to his heart. “If I was still sixteen, you’d be so in there.”

“And now?” Alfie pressed his lips to the very centre of that rough, line-scored palm.

Fen swayed, his arm stretched between them like the string of a kite. “Now you’re just pushing your luck.”

Alfie grinned and—only a little bit reluctantly—released him. “I’ll pick you up at seven, okay?”

All things considered, this could have gone a lot worse.

9

Alfie left Pansies, got back in his car, and just drove for a while, which felt weird and comforting at the same time. It wasn’t something you did down south. Nobody who lived in London got in their car for pleasure. But as a teenager, once he’d passed his test and he’d got his own ride—a rust-red, D-registered Nova his dad had bought for five hundred quid and fixed up for him—this had been how he’d spent most of his time. Just driving. Kev slouched in the passenger seat with a beer and a joint. Taking turns to choose the minidisc. And talking, always talking, about nothing he could remember now. Back when friendship had been effortless. When everything could be taken for granted.

Eventually, he headed back to the town centre and turned onto Fowler Street. It was eerie how well he knew these routes. He didn’t even have to consciously remember; he just knew where to go, like automatic writing. What he had forgotten, though, was how different things felt. There was plenty of urban ugliness to be found in London, but the transitions were less abrupt than they were up north. The moment he was off the main road, he found himself in a tangled wasteland of car parking, derelict buildings, and scrubby, undeveloped grassland lurking just behind the shopfronts. A couple of streets over, adisused timber yard and a closed-down garage which still bore a stained red-and-yellow sign reading THED’AMBROSIEFAMILY:SELLINGCARSFOR…OVER50YEARSINSOUTHTYNESIDE. Beyond that was the green-and-brown blur of the Metro tracks and the empty gas holder, casting the shadow of its skeleton against the darkening sky.1

After that, Alfie hadn’t really expected the place he was looking for to still be there, but it was. It really was. And it hadn’t changed in the last fifteen years. Same dirty white building. Same blue-and-red sign. Same diamond patterns set into the glass of the front window. He didn’t remember it being quite so small and quite so dingy, though. In his head, it had been a posh joint. It was where he’d taken all his dates. Now it kind of looked like an Indian restaurant someone’s gran was operating out of her living room.

He left his car in a space in front of the boarded-over, fenced-off building opposite and went in, nearly knocking himself out on the low ceiling. The whole place could have fit into his flat with room to spare. Inside, it hadn’t changed either. Two-tone walls in saffron and gold, fancy velvet curtains in a colour Alfie might tentatively have described as ochre, and some pretty serious plaster wibbling on the ceiling. Bar at the back, booths down the side. One of which had been Alfie’s. He’d been here on a Friday or Saturday night once, maybe twice, a month, sometimes with Kev, sometimes with a date. Who were those girls? The ones he’d pursued. Touched. Gone steady with. He couldn’t remember.

It was still early enough that it wasn’t busy, which was probably for the best given the stir Alfie caused by appearing in the doorway. Amjad, the owner’s eldest son, was behind the bar. The last time Alfie had seen him, he’d been an awkward youth. Nowhe was a grown-up and attractive enough to make Alfie uncomfortable. He grinned, flashing very white teeth, and called out: “Hey, Dad, Alfie Bell’s come back te marry oor Parvati.”

And before Alfie really knew what was happening, he’d been surrounded, pushed into his old booth, and given a pint of Cobra.

“So, I was wondering like,” he said when he could get a word in edgeways around the questions, “if I could have a table for tomorrow? For half past seven?”

Mr. Ali gestured expansively. “For you, Alfie, there will always be a table.” A pause. “Are you bringing someone special?”

Alfie, blushing, answered without thinking. “Kinda.”

Later, he sat in his car with his head resting on the steering wheel and tried not to panic. What was wrong with him? He should have said,Just a mate. How were they going to react when they discovered his definition ofspecialmeant a man? Maybe he could just not turn up and find somewhere else to take Fen. But then he wouldn’t be able to go back again. Ever. To his favourite restaurant in South Shields. Maybe the whole world. Fuck Michelin stars and hydraulic plants. The Raj was his kind of place.2 He’d grown up in it. But once he rocked up with Fen…he’d lose it anyway.

His stomach was jumpy, even though he hadn’t drunk anything like enough to merit it. He just hated having to think about this stuff. He wasn’t used to it, and it wasn’t fair. It was like being stuck in a game of hot potato you hadn’t signed up to play: there you were, just getting on with your life, and suddenly you’d realise your hands were burning and everybody was pointing and laughing at you.

When he felt a bit calmer, he drove back to the Atlantis. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had literally nothing to do. He was either working, in the gym, or out with his friends. Butan evening in South Shields stretched out in front of him like the sea.

He could leave again. Go somewhere for a drink. Like the Rattler. Or somewhere he actually liked. If he could remember somewhere he actually liked that was still there. He thought of calling Kev, or some of his other old friends, but he wasn’t sure how they felt about him, or if they’d look at him funny or treat him differently now he was a woofter.

It was so quiet. The occasional car, the distant whisper of the ocean, occasionally a gull. It was sort of…soothing. And must have sent him off to sleep, because the next thing he knew it was 5:00 a.m. and he was being trilled at because he’d forgotten to turn off his alarm. He manhandled his phone until the noise stopped, and then lay back, revelling for a little while in the realisation that he didn’t have to get up. Then he rolled over luxuriously and slept again.

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