Page 55 of Pansies

“Why would you be? You don’t know me.” Fen’s anger came out of nowhere, as sharp and brittle as frost. Just as sad, in his way, as tears might have been.

“But Iwantto know you.”

Alfie wished he could say something comforting. But he hadn’t figured out what he was trying to be comfortingabout, only that sometimes Fen seemed so lost. The silence that followed lasted well into the starters.

“This is really good,” offered Fen finally, almost pleadingly, like he was trying to get Alfie to play along and forget everything they’d just said and failed to say.

Alfie was only too happy to oblige. “I’ve no idea what you’re eating. It looks like curried polystyrene.”

“It’s cheese, Alfie.”

“Curried cheese? That’s so wrong.”

“Do you want to try it?”

He really didn’t. But Fen was waving a forkful of cheesebetween them like it was an olive branch. Leaning over the table, Alfie tried not to make too much of an arse of himself trying to eat the thing. He hesitated a moment before he took it, flicking an anxious glance about the restaurant in case the other customers were pointing in outrage or recoiling in disgust, but nobody seemed to care. So he ate curried cheese from the fork of another bloke, and it was fine. “’S’alright,” he mumbled. “Be nicer if it was meat.”

Fen laughed again. It wasn’t like last time. More of a chuckle really. But definitely a sound of amusement. A real one, vanishing too soon. “Alfie?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry about before. I didn’t mean to be snappy.”

“No, it’s okay. Nothing to be sorry for.”

“Well, I said we could talk and then shot you down when you tried. So…ask me something.”

“Um, what sort of thing?”

“Anything. Let’s just pretend this is normal.”

Alfie wanted to protest that itwasnormal. Or it could be. “What happened with your boyfriend, then?”

A clatter as Fen’s fork dropped onto his plate. “That’s not normal.”

“Yeah, it is. You brought him up.” And, honestly, Alfie wanted to know what he was up against.

“Tough. Try again.”

It felt as though every safe, neutral,normaltopic of conversation had flown clean out of his head. “What’s a lighting designer?”

Fen opened his mouth.

“And don’t say you design the lighting for shit.”

Fen’s hair fell forward as he ducked his head. Was he hiding a smile? “But I really do design the lighting for shit.”

Alfie gave him a look.

Now there was no hiding the smile. “Okay, sorry. But, at the most basic level, it’s my job to make sure you can see…um, the stage?”

“But there’s more to it than that, right?”

“Well. Yes. It’s…it’sstorytelling. I mean a set is just an illusion everybody already knows is hollow. But lighting is part of how you make people forget what they think they know.” Some of Fen’s reluctance seemed to fade, his voice quickening, his hands moving with his words. “It’s not just about how you make something look, but how you make itfeel. Like floristry, it’s a kind of art. Painting with light.”

“Wow.”

“Stop looking at me like that. You’re making me self-conscious.”

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