Junction X (5 page)

I was getting that way, too. I hardened to just hear him talk like that, and I loved it, for all my prudish denials. I’d never heard anyone say those things and I wondered if I would ever be able to demand the way he did. It made him dangerous and exotic to my stockbroker brain. I wanted to kiss him again, the way I had in France, to kiss him until he groaned into my mouth, but he was insistent. “Suck it,” he ordered, pushing my head down. “You can do it.”

I could, and I found out I wanted to. It was terrible but wonderful. I actually gagged at first, not from his length, but because of what was in my mouth and what I was doing to it. But as soon as Phil’s fingers tightened in my hair and he made that same noise that he had in France, I forgot everything but doing what came so unnaturally-naturally, wanting to give him more, to make him make those sounds again and again.

Out on the course, he switched back to Phil the best friend. I was always amazed how he could turn his sex drive on and off like he was two entirely different people. He played as well as ever, waved at the other golfers as they filtered onto the course and showed nothing in his face or his manner that said he’d been fucking his friend’s face an hour earlier.

At first I found it difficult. I wasn’t, I found out, the sort of man who could switch from one thing to another like he could. I wanted more than my head in his lap, his fingers wrapped around my cock. I wanted to hold him, to kiss him. I wanted to talk to him about it and, after a few months, I plucked up the courage on the train.

He was buried in the
FT
, his legs crossed. “Markerim will go through the roof this week,” he said. I was glaring angrily at the winter landscape, wishing it would snow in England sufficiently so we wouldn’t have to traipse to Switzerland with Valerie and her still-slightly-cool-to-Ed parents.

“Eddie?” He hated it when I didn’t answer him immediately; perhaps he liked to think that I was hanging on his every word.

I sighed and turned round. “Depends if they decide to make an offer on Arkinhol.” I didn’t get excited; we both knew the criteria needed for the stock to rise, and we both had clients that would want to buy if so.

“What’s wrong?” He dumped his paper on the seat and leaned forward. “Valerie? Children all right?”

I stared at him evenly. When he was like this, being the concerned friend, it was hard to believe that sometimes he was so horny he couldn’t take no for an answer. I hardly knew how to say what I wanted, but I needed to speak of it, to bring it out in the open between us. “It’s about…us.”

The atmosphere changed immediately. He sat up ramrod-straight and a look came over his face, one I’d seen in meetings when his suggestions had been disparaged. It was a face wiped of all emotion. I stumbled on, regardless, feeling my cheeks grow hot as if I were a child again and caught out in some pettiness. “Not…us, exactly.”

“Spit it out, Ed.” His voice was cold, as if I’d already insulted him.

“What is it? I mean…what do
you
think it is?” I was so stupid back then. I didn’t even have the words, words I learned later from the unlikeliest of sources. “Are we queer? Are you?”

He picked up the paper and snapped it into submission. Once again, I saw something in his face I didn’t recognise, something I didn’t like, and I wondered if Claire had seen that face—or whether his girlfriends had, those girls who’d been so desperate to keep him. “Of course not. Now shut up, Eddie, do. The gingerbread twins will be getting on soon, and they’d never understand what you were on about. God knows if I do, at times.” His voice was acerbic and I felt I’d been slapped.

I never brought it up with him again. And yes, I let him continue with his needy little episodes. Weak? Yes. But I was as needy as he was by then, addicted to the touch of hot hard flesh and the rare times he’d let me kiss him. There was no way, while he still wanted some kind of contact, that I was going to say no. And he knew it.

So, four months after he’d left The Avenue, here he was again, zipping himself up and looking smug and sated while I was still letting him run the show. I sat there staring moodily out of the window as the train rattled on towards London while the carriage filled up and the dark-suited men around me caught up with the markets. I was as hurt by Phil’s four-month silence as by his sudden reappearance. I felt that he’d only missed my mouth on his cock, not all the other things I thought we’d been to each other over the years. I wanted to shout that at him. I wanted one more dark hot night, a step back in Mr. Wells’ time machine. This time, I’d make it different. This time when I pushed him up against a wall, I imagined that I’d punch him and leave him there. Better still, I wouldn’t let him push me down onto the sand. Or I wouldn’t walk down to the beach. I wouldn’t take that cigarette.

Who was I kidding? Only myself, I suppose.

We walked from Waterloo into the city, as usual. I hated the Underground, and although Phil fell into step beside me and I should have been pleased to see him, should have caught up on our news, I was silent and troubled. The train journey had paled into insignificance against my wife’s mood and the reception I’d get tonight if I played squash and got home late.

The day, as it turned out, had other plans for me. The market was as stubborn as cold treacle and a lot of deals went as hard as they could go. I finished the day hot and bothered, having made a profit on the trading but only just and only by skipping lunch and working till the last bell. One good thing about my work was that I could usually lose myself in the daily battle of wits—me against the numbers, me against the clock. I wasn’t the best—there were men who had better cars, better houses, better wives—but I
was
good.

I remember Alex asking me once why I wasn’t higher up on the ladder, if I was so good. I didn’t know the answer then, but now, when I look back, I wasn’t just unable or unwilling to brown-nose my way into the Board’s attention like Phil had. I suppose I could have cantilevered Phil into pushing me forward, as galling as that would have been. But no. I was happiest where I was. I loved the trading floor.

I didn’t see Phil again that day, and I wasn’t surprised. He’d stayed away from me since moving from The Avenue, and we didn’t move in the same circles at work anymore. I walked back to the station on my own, lost in thought, winding down from the stressful day and letting my thoughts mull over my relationship with my best friend. The resumption of our episodes had left me feeling more resentful towards him than ever, although it was his neglect rather than his casual use of my mouth that morning that galled me the most. Next time, I swore to myself, if there is a next time, I’ll tell him no. And mean it
.

On the train home there wasn’t room to swing a cat and I had to strap-hang until three stops from the Junction. It wasn’t until I stepped onto the platform and my eyes caught the wilting begonias of the station forecourt that I remembered I had been going to buy Valerie something to try and melt the ice between us. I stood on the platform like an idiot for several minutes, assessing my options, but it was too late in the day. Everything was shut. I was going to have to go home empty-handed and face the music.

By the time I reached my front door, my nerves were about as tightly-stretched as they could be, but when I opened the front door, I found I was coming home to a completely different house than the one I’d left.

Valerie floated up the hall, a vision in something diaphanous in a colour she called “Eau de Nil,” her hair piled in Grecian layers on her head.

“Darling,” she said, scaring me senseless, “how tired you look.” She took my hat, briefcase and umbrella from me gently, wafting Chanel No. 5 with every movement of her body. I frowned, wary of this new camouflage. “Come and meet the new neighbours,” she said. “I’ve invited them for dinner to save them struggling with the packing cases for their pots and pans.”

It was, frankly, the last thing I wanted. I knew that I’d have to greet the new neighbours eventually, but I’d planned to be out in the garden, casually passing the time of day. I resented them for being in my house when I wasn’t there and I resented them for living in Phil’s house. Forced and unexpected dinner parties I could do without. With the day I’d had, all I really wanted was to down a swift couple of whiskies and then to immerse myself in Maigret on the television.

However, when Valerie entertains, it’s a stronger man than I that can resist her. She led me into the sitting room. “Here he is,” she said brightly, giving the impression that she’d been talking about me before I arrived. “Darling, this is Mr. and Mrs. Charles. And this is Ed.”

“Albert,” said the man who stood and held out his hand. “Albert and Sheila, please.”

 
I shook his hand, dutifully; he was a short and dusty-looking man, with thinning blond hair and a mouse-like expression, as if he were constantly on the alert for the snap of a trap. Sheila was plumpish, all in cherry-red and white, with a nervous little smile. I think both of them were terrified of Valerie in full “Hostess-with-the-Mostest” mode. I couldn’t blame them; she was like a battleship on crudities once she got going.

“And this is their son, Alec.”

And there he was. Gangly, taller than both of his parents, with a face that said ‘boredom’ as clearly as if he’d shouted it. He had on clothes that spoke eloquently of who he was and where he’d come from. Dark black trousers, with a shiny white shirt, slightly too big, and a maroon jumper which did nothing for his colouring at all. I guessed that they were school clothes, worn because they were “smart,” and I was right.

I wish, oh, I
really
wish, that I could say it happened then, that it was love at first sight. I wish that I could say that I looked at him and the world disappeared, or something poetic like that. But I can’t. I was annoyed at my evening being interrupted, I was smarting from Phil’s behaviour, and I was on edge that Valerie would revert to her cold war after the guests left. So I didn’t take much notice of him. He was at the back of the room and he said nothing much all evening, so he was easy to overlook.

After the greetings were over, I made my excuses and went to change. I returned, with a fixed smile and a resolve to use the evening to please Valerie, hoping that perfect behaviour would substitute for flowers. I poured us all drinks and sat down.

“Valerie tells me you work in the city,” Alfred said. “Been telling us all how successful you are.”

“Not that we couldn’t tell,” Sheila added. I was to get used to the way they spoke, in sequence, not quite finishing each other’s sentences but still managing a coherent whole. “You being so young in a lovely house like this, and your lovely wife, and cars.”

The Bentley and the Wolseley were in the garage and I felt a rush of irritation that Valerie had shown them off. It seemed like boasting to strangers.

“It’s not as glamorous as it sounds,” I said. “Honestly. What is it that you do?”

“I’m an engineer at the car plant.”

“Been there twenty-five years, got a lovely commemoration gift,” Sheila finished for him. I remember smiling and feeling like my face was aching. “I work at the hospital,” she continued. “I’m a sister in the geriatric wards.”

“Keeps them all under control, don’t you, dear?” Alfred said.

“That must be very rewarding,” I said automatically. I was surprised, though, and I wondered how they would fit in with the City brigade and the housewife Mafia. I couldn’t think of one other man on The Avenue who worked with his hands or one other woman who worked, full stop. I turned my attention to Alex at last. He was staring out of the window, if I remember, his feet kicking at Valerie’s precious Ercol chairs. “And…” I had forgotten his name.

“Alec,” his father said. “He’s the reason we moved. To get him into St. Peter’s.”

Then I understood. The children both went, of course. If you lived in The Avenue and you wanted the best grounding for your children, and if you could afford it, then there wasn’t any other choice. Living so close, of course, meant the twins didn’t have to board, so that cut down on St. Peter’s considerable fees a great deal. Even with both of the Charleses working, I reckoned in my head that they must have been on a tight budget to manage. It made sense to move, too. The catchment area was strict; if you didn’t live in the area, it was very unlikely you’d get in, and people
wanted
their children to get into St. Peter’s. It was the school that produced Oxbridge students, year after year.

“He’s bright, then,” I said, speaking of him as if he wasn’t in the room.

“Oh yes,” Sheila said. “He’s mechanically minded like his Dad, but—well, we both of us don’t really know where he got his brains from. He was at the Grammar School, of course, but his teachers there warned us he’d need to get into a good Prep school like St. Peter’s to really get noticed.”

Alfred took up the narrative. “He’s got ten O Levels.” Alex gave a sigh of exasperation at this. “They gave him such a glowing reference for his maths and physics that St. Peter’s let him in for his final year to take his A’s—we are both very proud.”