Page 32 of Happily Ever After
We sipped our coffee. I looked sideways at Jay, who, despite a fair amount of static resistance, had crossed one leg over the other. His upper sock was trailing, his sleeves were up around his elbows and his tattoo was bold along the inside of his wrist.
I had to say something.
‘Does the tattoo – does it mean something?’
The mug stopped moving. The trailing sock went still. ‘Yes.’ Jay hardly lifted his mouth from the mug to speak, so the word was echoey. ‘Yes, it does.’
Well, being gay wasn’t something to be ashamed of, was it? I mean, unless you were Lady Tanith, of course.
‘Is it, like, something to do with Pride?’ It was the best way I could think of to let him know that I knew about him, and I was rather smug about the subtlety with which I introduced the subject.
Coffee slopped down his fleecy legs. ‘What? No!’
‘I’m sorry. I know I’m not supposed to know, and I haven’t said anything, only Hugo got a bit – emotional, and he told me.’
Jay was staring at me, eyes huge. The coffee stain was spreading along his knee and the mug was still at an acute angle that meant more spillage wasn’t out of the question. ‘What the hell? I mean, what can Hugo possibly have to say aboutme?’
I stared back. ‘I know there’s an age gap, but he’s still your brother.’
Jay stood up now. His socks meant he slid a small circle on the floor, like an agitated dog trying to escape a bee. ‘No he isn’t! I’m sure I would have noticed.’
Something in my chest fell, like a suitcase from a wardrobe. ‘He’s not? You aren’t Jasper?’
‘Of course I’m not bloody Jasper! Jasper lives three houses down, but he spends most of his time in London! Why would you think I was Jasper?’
I tried to remember how I’d rationalised it all to myself. ‘You said they call you Jay?’ was the best I could come up with.
Jay crouched down in front of me. The fleecy onesie bagged just about everywhere it was possible for an all-in-one to bag. ‘My name is James,’ he said carefully. ‘James Williford. I am not, nor have I ever been, please God, related to anyone at Templewood.’ His voice shook slightly, I wasn’t sure whether with emotion or whether he was trying not to laugh. ‘Do you think,’ he said, still carefully, ‘that you might have been trying to impose narrative structure onto the randomness of life again?’
‘It seemed logical,’ I muttered into my mug, trying not to look at his face, where amusement was definitely winning out. ‘Jay – Jasper. Garden design. And I thought the tattoo might be some kind of gay symbol.’
Jay rubbed at his wrist and pulled his sleeve down to cover the image of those bursting flowers. ‘Jasper’s gay?’ he asked. ‘Well, that certainly explains a lot.’
‘Only Lady Tanith doesn’t want people to know.’
‘I bet she doesn’t.’ Jay had his eyes screwed up, as though he was trying to reframe the way he saw me. ‘So you’ve been going along all this time, thinking that I was part of that, quite frankly, lunatic set-up over at the house? Is that why you talked to me? Is that why you let me show you around the gardens?’
‘What?’
‘Well, you’ve been hanging around outside a lot. Then there was the night it rained and we met in the icehouse, and you wereverychatty when we talked about gardening. Have you been lurking around trying to befriend me because you thought I was a son of the house?’ Jay put his endangered coffee down on the pine worktop. ‘Because somehow I slotted into your literarily inclined view of how life goes?’
‘No!’ I got to my feet too. It was unpleasant, being suspected of nefarious practices by a man wearing an all-in-one sleepsuit and huge grey socks. ‘I just put two and two together…’
‘…and made eleven…’
‘Yes, maybe. But I only even suspected you might be Jasper the other day. I didn’t want to mention it before because you didn’t seem to want me to know.’
‘I didn’tknow!If I’d thought you thought I was Hugo’s brother I would have disabused you ofthatlittle notion straight away,’ Jay said, heatedly. ‘So you went round the gardens with me, thinking that I was Jasper? And not saying anything?’
‘How could I? There wasn’t much of an opportunity to bring it up, when you were quizzing me about the bus and Jude and things like that. And anyway, I thought I wasn’t supposed to know and that you were keeping quiet about your family connections,’ I finished, and put the coffee mug down next to his, only harder. ‘And I resent your implication that I would only talk to you because I thought you were Hugo’s brother.’
With that I swept my way out of the kitchen and, after a brief tussle with the front door, out onto the green. Jay made no attempt to follow me and I wasn’t surprised. Mostly, because I didn’t think he would want to be seen out in public wearing that terrifying outfit, and also because I could see his point of view.
By my own admission I’d shown that I had half-hearted designs on Hugo and then told Jay that I had found out something that had put me off him. If Ihadthought he was Jasper, particularly before I knew Jasper to be gay – would I have rewritten the story? Would I have decided that my lot was to marry the elder son, not to inherit, but to enjoy the family wealth and background?
I could see how Jay might think so.But it wasn’t true!The thought rankled. It wasn’t fair either, to assume that I was – in the words of Mrs Compton – a ‘gold digger’. All right, I may have come here in the first place with a lot of novel-inspired assumptions and conclusions but I’d put those aside, hadn’t I? I’d found out for myself that life wasn’t what books had led me to believe it would be, with its meet-cutes and its happy endings.
So, angry with myself, but even angrier with Jay, I stamped my way back across the green, still silent in the mist, and back to the house.
