Out: A Schoolboy's Tale

  17: On a night like this

  HE was standing behind me in black jeans and black Peter Storm jacket. Another firework, purple and orange, illuminated the sky. Down in the arena the fire was merrily burning, some two hundred people warming their hands by it. Up at the bandstand, in the dark, there was, at last and face to face, just Alistair Stephen Rose and Jonathan David Peters.

  ''Ill met by moonlight, proud Alistair,'' I misquoted smilingly.

  ''Wanna a drink?'' He held out this silver hip-flask. ''Warm you up.''

  ''What is it?'' I said, sniffing the open mouth suspiciously.

  ''Vodka.''

  It burned the back of my throat and made me cough but yes, it warmed me up.

  ''You here alone?'' I asked.

  ''With my brother. I'm kind of baby-sitting but he's taken off with his mates to the hot-dog van. I'll scoop him up later. You?''

  ''Mark Gray brought two girls with him,'' I said, gulping back a nervous laugh. ''I think he thinks it's some kind of double-date. Some bird called Betsy and Claire Ashton.''

  ''The Headmaster's daughter?''

  ''Yes. We're kind of… friends?''

  His face seemed to close. ''Meaning what, exactly?''

  ''She plays the oboe. I've accompanied her a few times. I think she fancies me a bit.''

  ''And that would be a problem?''

  Looking directly into his eyes, I said simply ''You know it would.''

  ''Why?'' Now his face transmuted into amusement.

  ''Because,'' I said, ''I don't fancy her.''

  I fancy you.

  I love you.

  I couldn't say it.

  The words choked in my throat. What the hell was wrong with me?

  Taking the hip-flask, I swigged another mouthful of vodka.

  Then he made it easy for me.

  ''Who do you fancy, Jonathan Peters?''

  Another swig of vodka.

  ''No-one,'' I said carelessly, ''Young, free and single, that's me,'' and felt a little part of me die as another firework blasted into the air, smearing streaks of gold on the black backcloth, and a series of sparking Catherine wheels whizzed and hissed.

  Ali looked over the top of my head towards the bonfire. Resolving something in his mind, he changed the subject. ''Good bonfire.''

  ''Yep. It's always good here.''

  ''You don't do anything at home?''

  ''Nah. Dad's too mean to buy fireworks. Says it's like setting fire to money.''

  ''Huh. Mine too. He's like 'why would I spend money burning stuff in my back garden and getting black smuts everywhere when the council does it for free?' Christ, they're so stingy. When I have kids, they'll get the lot.''

  I leaned my back against the rickety wooden wall of the bandstand and, shoving my hands miserably into my jeans pockets, jangled the half-dozen coins and keys in the left, crumpled the tissues in the right, and watched the white breath drift from my lungs away into the dark night-sky along with my hopes and excitement. I felt thoroughly wretched. Ali, although he was two feet from me, seemed a bazillion miles away.

  ''You want kids?'' I asked.

  ''Course.'' He gazed into the blackness. ''Don't you?''

  ''Fuck, no! I hate kids!''

  ''Shame,'' he said quietly, a hint of regret in his tone. ''What will Claire say?''

  ''I'm not going to marry Claire,'' I said.

  ''But she's your girlfriend.''

  ''She's not my girlfriend,'' I said strongly. ''I don't have a girlfriend.''

  ''What?'' he teased. ''A cute boy like you? Why not?''

  Because I'm, like, gay? You know? You know.

  ''Dunno,'' I said. ''Just never seemed to happen.'' Miserably I scuffed the muddy grass with my toecap. ''Anyway, I don't want a girlfriend.''

  I want you.

  ''Really? Why not?''

  God, he was feeding me opportunities and I was blowing them all.

  ''I don't have time.'' Like then. ''Besides, I'm too young for all that romantic stuff.''

  Oh fuck. His face closed again.

  To the crowd's collective gasp, a rocket burst into blue and silver globs.

  ''Give us another drink,'' I said miserably. This was such a fucking disaster.

  Wordlessly he handed me the hip-flask.

  Help me, God. Please help me.

  ''Do you want to go for a walk?'' he said. We wandered off down the slope towards the lake. It was dull, black and very still. ''I like this park.''

  ''My Dad worked here for a bit,'' I said, ''He designed the Monet Garden.''

  ''Really? My parents really like that one. I'll tell them your father did it.''

  And now conversation died in my throat. What could I say? I knew what I wanted to say. I wanted to tell him I loved him. But how? I'd played this scene so often in my mind, rehearsed the lines, but what if I was wrong? What if I'd misread him? What if the timing was wrong? We'd come close to this moment several times before, and it'd all turned to like shit. What if I declared my actual feelings and it all went wrong again? What if, though he liked me, he wasn't actually like me, you know? My hands were like shaking, man, like with fever?

  What if he hit me again, or spat at me, or rejected me, said I was sick, or mad, or both, like at the harriers meeting? I couldn't go through that again. Fear, shame, guilt and loneliness were better than seeing the face I loved twisted with hatred, scorn and contempt.

  Christ, someone just shoot me and spare me this bullshit pain.

  Passing round the top of the lake, we drifted down a path into the woods.

  ''You chosen your A Levels yet?'' he asked.

  ''English, German, History, like you.'' My voice squeaked a little.

  ''German's hard,'' he frowned. ''The advanced grammar particularly. History's boring. It's the same syllabus as GCSE. But English is brilliant. Get SPAM. She's utterly awesome.''

  ''Do you fancy her?'' I grinned, then realised what a bloody stupid question it was. I was coming across as this really thick, really immature little kid. Then I seized a possible chance for recovery. ''So who do you fancy?'' I teased. ''There must be someone close to Ali Rose's heart.''

  ''I don't have time for girls,'' he muttered hoarsely, echoing my own words.

  ''What about boys?'' I whispered, touching his hand. ''What about me? Is it me, Ali? Is it? Is it me you love?'' Then it all just tumbled out like something had burst. '' 'Cos I love you, Alistair. I love you. I really really love you. So much, you know?''

  And suddenly I was crying. Far behind us more fireworks exploded their colours. My heart thumped like a jack-hammer. My throat dried out. My life slowed to nothing. Turning to face me, he touched my cheek gently with his fingers. My hand dropped onto his hip. My lips yearned for his. I went up on tip-toe, and the whole world froze,

  Time froze,

  Heaven froze,

  Hell froze,

  Everything froze

  because

  at that moment

  he

  KISSED

  me.

  He swept me up in his arms and kissed me, strong, hard and long on the lips. A soft whimper slipped through my nose. I closed my eyes, opened my mouth and let his tongue in, and I held him so tightly, so very tightly, as my tongue twined with his. Oh God. If I died right now, I wouldn't care. I was kissing Ali Rose.

  ''Come on,'' he said, seizing my hand. ''I know somewhere.''

  ''A bank where the wild thyme grows?'' I said breathlessly.

  ''Shush.'' He dragged me from the path and into the woods. Branches scratched us, especially when we stopped to kiss again, but we ploughed on, shoulders down, heads down, hand-in-hand, till we burst into a clearing carpeted in rusty leaves. There he threw me down, following so he was on top of me, and kissed me again, and again, and again. We struggled out of our coats and kissed some more. Sweeping off my hat, he kissed my hair, then returned to my mouth. When he broke off to plaster my face with more kisses, he breathed passionately into my ear that he loved me so much. They were the best
words anyone ever said to me.

  ''I love you too,'' I breathed back, thinking how lame it sounded. But what else was there? Language is so limited. Locking my lips to his once more, I ran my hand over his back then felt his fingers fumbling at the buttons on my jeans and almost melted. I heard some long-stifled moan escape me and stretched as my passion rose and our breathing rasped, a gasp from me, a groan from him, my whole being swept by a hurricane, shaking me to my core whilst he held me so tightly, so very tightly and buried my face in his neck and cried his name as my body tingled and shuddered… I LOVE YOU, JONNY! I LOVE YOU, and, as I spurted wildly through his fingers, he jerked, swelled and pulsed and I felt it, warm on my hand…

  ''That was fucking awesome.'' I couldn't stop grinning. ''You are fucking awesome.''

  ''I'm sorry,'' he said. ''I shouldn't have…''

  ''Fuck off,'' I said strongly. ''I'm not sorry. It was amazing.'' I kissed his cheek. ''You are amazing, and I love you so very much.'' I stroked his face. ''My Awesome Alistair.''

  ''You don't know how long I've wanted to kiss you,'' he said, tears welling up in those teal-coloured eyes. ''I've loved you for years. First you were Oliver, then you were Puck and we acted together and I worshipped you, but couldn't tell you. I don't know. I just fell in love with you and I've been in love with you ever since, an' it's been so difficult, being near you and loving you and not daring to tell you.'' He sighed. ''I never thought this day would come. I never thought you might…well…'' His voice tailed away. Stroking his hair, I kissed him again. ''I dreamed of this night. I dreamed of it for two years. I've loved you that long, and you were always so far away from me, so brilliant, so perfect, so utterly, utterly wonderful. I used to cry myself to sleep over you because you never noticed me or really spoke to me.'' He laid his hand on mine. ''Oh, Jonathan. You were my world long before now. You have directed my entire life. Everything I ever did, the play-writing, the school magazine, everything was for you. It was all for you, so you might notice me, so you might… love me.'' Choking, he turned his tear-wettened eyes to me. ''I never thought you might… well...''

  ''Well, I do,'' I said, ''And I am and I will. I am yours, Alistair, yours. I will always be yours. You are everything to me, and now I've got you, I'm not ever going to let you go.''

  ''Why didn't you tell me? What was all that crap at the band-stand?''

  Kissing him gently, I stroked his face. ''Same reason you didn't tell me. It's such a risky thing to say to another boy, isn't it? I thought you might hate me. You did hate me.''

  Somewhere, far far away, another firework streaked across the night-sky and exploded in a shower of silver. Alistair, laying back on the leaves, stared at the stars.

  ''I fought this for so long. I fought you for so long. We nearly kissed a few times. At your house, at the pool, at school, and each time I stopped because I wasn't sure you wanted it, and I was scared of hurting you, or upsetting you, or something. But now it seems so right, so natural, doesn't it?''

  I kissed him yet again. ''That's because it is right and natural. You and me. Ali and Jonny, Alison and Jenny, utterly, unquestioningly, together forever, for the rest of my life. I so much want you to love me. I so much want you to be proud of me, proud to be with me, proud to be loved by me, and I'm so scared I'll let you down, embarrass you in some way, make you think I'm some silly little kid after all. You have this picture in your mind of Jonathan Peters, this perfect, wonderful prodigy who can do anything, play anything, act anything, and that isn't me, not the real me. I am a silly little kid. I laugh at jokes about fat women. I fight with my parents. I leave my socks on the floor. I don't do my homework and get yelled at by Bunny. Yes, I can play Chopin like an angel and I know every note of The Ring of the Nibelungs by heart, and in German, but inside I'm this fifteen year old kid who suddenly learned he might be…'' I paused, then plunged on ''He is homosexual because he's fallen in love with this older boy he worships, but he doesn't know if it's just a crush, like his German teacher says, or real, true, lasting love like they have in books and Casablanca, and he can't talk about it, not to anyone, in case they tell him he's sick, or dirty, or some kind of freak, and the only person he's got in the whole world is the guy he loves, and he is a fucking genius who writes plays. For this guy he'd give his life, sacrifice everything, I mean everything, and he thinks he likes him, but he's older, and smarter, and does he really love me, or is he just saying it 'cos he just wants to fuck me, like the German teacher says? And what he believes is love, forever and eternal, his parents and friends trash as garbage, worthless, sick, some insignificant crush, and that hurts him so much…''

  My shoulders started shaking violently as a lifetime-buried sob surged through me.

  ''He can't tell his parents 'cos he's scared they'll stop loving him. He can't tell his friends in case they beat him up. He can't tell anyone. He has it locked in his heart, burning, rotting, dying, decomposing, like a wound that can't be healed, and the best day of his life is when this guy tells him he loves him, and the fireworks go off over the lake. Suddenly his life makes sense. Everything makes sense, because he knows he and this guy belong together, they belong together, they were born for each other, but no-one else, not his family, not his friends, will believe that… but it's true, Ali, it's all true, I swear on my life.'' Crying properly now, I flung myself at him. ''I can't live without you. I can't. You are everything to me. I love you. You are my life. You give me life, and I love you.''

  Reeling from my outburst, he held me tightly, kissed my hair. ''What happened, J? What the hell happened?''

  ''You happened,'' I wailed, breaking down completely. ''You, Alistair. You happened.'' Silently overwhelmed by my emotional declaration, he stroked my hair as I cried ''I'd never let you down. You'll think I'm some backstreet-brat like everyone else thinks, and if you thought that, Ali, if you thought that, I couldn't bear it, I couldn't. I'd kill myself if I thought you hated me. I'd kill myself if I let you down, my darling…'' Hysterically, I clung to him like a siege-survivor clings to his rescuer. ''I'm in love with you. People will hate me. They'll try to change me. They may try to kill me. Because I love you. And I'm only fifteen and a little gay-boy so who the fuck cares? They say I don't know my heart, I don't know what I want, I'm still a child, but I know I want you, Ali, you. I'm not ashamed of it. I love you and I want the world to know it but they won't let me say it, they won't let me say 'This is Alistair, and I love him.' My love for you counts for shit, because I can't tell anyone I love you, and no-one takes it seriously and I'm not allowed to be with you and...'' That was all.

  Slowly detaching my sobbing body from his, he kissed my tears thoughtfully as I snatched up a handful of shiny evergreen leaves and gazed deep into his beautiful eyes. ''I, Jonathan David, take you, Alistair Stephen, to be my boyfriend, lover, companion and husband, from this day forward, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, in good times and bad times, for all of my life. I love you. I worship you. I will honour and obey you. You are everything in the world that is good to me. My body is yours. My soul is yours. My life is yours. All I own is yours. I, Jonathan David, am yours, for all time, till the end of time, till the day I die. I am yours, my lovely, darling, beautiful Ali, Alistair, my lovely Rose.''

  He held me for a second while I sobbed then, with a fierce expression, said

  ''I, Alistair Stephen, take you, my lovely, darling Jonathan David, as my boyfriend, lover, companion and husband, from this day forward, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, in good times and bad times, forsaking all others, till the end of my life. Darling Jonny, I love you with all my heart, my soul and my being. My life without you is nothing. My happiness without you is impossible. You are my light, my life, my love and my soul. Everything I have is yours. Everything I will ever have is yours. You are my world and my universe. I adore you, I worship you, and I will love, honour and obey you, my darling, darling Jonathan David Peters, till the end of my life, till the end of time.''

  Tears w
ere trickling down his face too. Gently I kissed them dry.

  ''My dear, my love,'' I murmured, taking him in my arms. ''Don't cry, please don't cry.''

  ''I can't help it.'' He buried his face in my neck. ''I love you so much and I'm so, so lucky to have found you, my Jonathan, my wonderful boy.''

  ''Not as lucky as me,'' I said and pressed a holly-leaf into his hand. ''It's not a ring, but it'll do. This leaf is a token of my love for you and a reminder of the promises I just made. I promise to love you for the rest of my life.''

  With a radiant smile that turned my blood to fire and my knees to water, he gave me one in return and said ''With this leaf I thee wed.''

  Laughing now, I said ''You may kiss the bride.''

  And he did, slowly and lovingly, and suddenly it was half-past nine.

  ''Oh fuck,'' I moaned. ''I've got to be home by ten, and Claire, Mark and Bessie haven't had their drinks yet.''

  ''I'd better pick up Bobby,'' he said.

  ''I don't want to go,'' I said miserably. ''I want to stay here with you.''

  ''Do you really love me?'' asked Alistair tentatively.

  I kissed his nose, then his forehead.

  ''I really love you.'' I resettled my hat. ''I love you with all my heart. I never felt anything like this before, never. I never thought I would, well, not for another guy. The strength, the depth, the speed… man, I fell for you so totally. I'm still falling.''

  ''But now I've caught you,'' he murmured.

  ''Mmm. You've caught me.'' I kissed his nose again. ''Please don't ever let me go.''

  We kissed yet again then, holding hands, struggled back through the trees. When we reached the road, I was floating with this idiotic smile plastered over my face. As we neared the arena, we let each other go. Bobby, standing with Claire, shot me a look of pure poison.

  ''I've been waiting ages,'' he complained.

  ''Where are Mark and Betty?'' I said.

  ''They left,'' said Claire, her face thunderous. ''You're lucky I waited. What happened to my hot chocolate? And she's called Becky, for God's sake. Why do you always do that? Forget people's names? You just don't give a shit about anyone but yourself, do you?''

  ''Sorry,'' I said. ''I got distracted.''

  Firing me another glare, Bobby grabbed his brother's sleeve and said he wanted to go. Ali and I exchanged a secret smile but I had like this lead lump in my throat as I watched him head up the path to the gates.

  ''You can at least walk me home.'' Claire thumped my shoulder. ''Come on. It's cold.''

  I hadn't noticed. I was still warm from Ali, you know? Looping her arm through mine, we set off. I think I still had this fucking great smile on my face, which Claire thought was for her, yeah? Inwardly, I was dancing, but not for her. I felt alive, sooo alive. I was gay, free and so very happy 'cos now, at last, after a nightmare, I had the boy of my dreams.

  Up in my room, I undressed, slammed the Grease soundtrack and, chucking my clothes all over the room, danced naked on the carpet, high on happiness, high on love, high on him. For every dream had just come true. He loved me. He really loved me, and I was hopelessly devoted to him. More than that, I did have chills, they were multiplying, and I was losing control. I did need a man, and my heart was set on him – he was the one that I want, oo-oo-oo, honey… and I had him. I was Ali's boy at last, and I was ecstatic. It really was the best feeling ever. Like, EVER!!!!