Stockholm Syndrome 3 - No Beginning, No End (17 page)

It's probably not very nice for Lindsay to come into his living room and find his mother half-shirtless on the couch and his boyfriend looming over her with a felt tip, but that's his own fault for being so narrow-minded. He doesn't even say anything, he just stares at them blankly for a moment then turns right back round and leaves. They hear him slam every door between them and the front one, then the snarl of his car engine as he escapes.

"You know what, for someone so good in bed he can be a right fucking prude sometimes," Pip says without thinking, then realises and lamely adds, "Oops!" but Frances just laughs.

"He's like his dad."
"Oh yeah, he was a bit of a love machine too, was he?"

"A
prude
," she says, but she's fighting back a wicked smile. "He'd hate this. He didn't even like me driving or drinking or listening to the Clash. He never said I
couldn't
, he wouldn't have dared, but he didn't like it. He was just old-fashioned, it was a different generation. Same as you two, hey?"

Pip moves his stool a bit closer to the couch and just goes on drawing, inking little swirling mehndi-style curls into the peacock's long tail where it swoops from the front of her left shoulder down to the middle of her chest. "You do know this is gonna hurt like fuck, don't you?"

"I had my whole breast chopped off, petal, I think I can take it."

"Well. Good point, yeah." The old scar underlining his drawing is ugly and lumpy but everywhere around it is tanned. She probably sunbathes topless and fuck what everyone else thinks. "Can you see what I'm doing, does this look alright?"

"It's beautiful."
"I can wash it off and start over if you want anything different." "No, it's perfect. I trust you."

"Alright." He shuts up for a while, getting everything ready on the top tray of his wheeled stand, lining up his little ink cups and taking the lid off his Vaseline tub. "Ready?"

"Think so."

 

"I'm gonna do one little line on his crown so you can see what it feels like, yeah?"

 

"Mmhm."

 

He turns on his machine and gets started, drawing the inky needle tip down the first tiny pen line. "How's that?"

 

"For god's sake, I'm not a balloon, you won't pop me."

He laughs at that and gets started for real, working steadily over the outline of the bird's head. "Your skin's amazing. You've had work done, ain't you? Joan Collins."

"How dare you!"
"Like a facelift. Chestlift."

"You'll get a slap." There's a laugh in her voice, she's not really annoyed.

 

"How come you never got reconstruction surgery?"

"Because everybody kept telling me to, like the idea of a onetitted woman's the most disgusting thing they could think of. Like 'you really should get that sorted, you know' or 'how can you bear it, don't you get funny looks?' and 'you won't find a nice man if you're only half a woman'. Hilarious. Like that's the only thing I could possibly be living for, pulling some shallow berk not five years after my husband popped it."

"You punk. Rebel where you can, right?"

 

"I just don't want any nosy buggers telling me what to do with myself."

"Amen." He moves his hand for a second so she can rest her arm up above her head, and holds his breath to draw the long top line of the peacock's body. "I know you've got a boyfriend, though."

"You don't know any such thing."

 

"Yeah, but ladies don't wear red lacy bras if they don't want people seeing them."

 

She hesitates for a moment, then says in that same suppressedlaugh voice from before: "Busted."

 

"You
have
? That's ace, that's so cool! How long for?"

"Well I don't know, I've not met him yet. We've been talking online, there's a whole group of people meeting up from the Mescaleros fanboard tomorrow night."

"Lindsay's gonna shit himself inside out."
"Don't tell him, he'll only sneer."

"Yeah, but what did you just say? Nobody gets to tell you what to do with yourself. If you wanna go out with someone that's up to you, not him."

"But I don't want him to get all... you know." "So stop letting him get away with it." "Mm. Can you stop for a minute? I need a break."

Pip turns his machine off and holds up her water bottle so she can get at the straw without shifting. He watches her while she's drinking, how brightly her eyes are shining and how pink her cheeks are. She's blushing like a teenager. Lindsay couldn't be annoyed, how could he possibly be annoyed? Pip's never seen her look this flushed and thrilled before, and he's been to a Siouxsie gig with her.

"You should tell him. He'd be happy for you, I bet he would."

"Yeah, maybe. We'll see, he might have a face like the arse end of a cow, no point getting excited and spilling the news until I see him in the flesh." She's got her chin tucked down, looking at the dark tattooed lines on her chest. "It's wonderful, I love it."

"Will be when it's done. You ready to go again?"

 

She nods, and Pip turns his machine back on to start tracing the long flowing outlines of the tail. "Tell me about Lindsay."

 

"When he was young?"

"No, I mean
your
Lindsay." That's no good, that still covers them both. "Your husband," he amends. "Lindsay don't talk about him much. He goes all emo if I ask. Like sometimes out the blue he goes oh let's watch this film on telly tonight cos it was my dad's favourite or he points a car out and says my dad had one of them when I was little, but anything else... nope. He ain't even got pictures in the house. He's got loads of you and him but there's only that one of all three of you up on the landing wall."

"Yeah. He took it awful hard when he died, he was only eighteen."

 

"Were they close?" "Best friends. I never saw him so comfortable with anybody else in the world until you, not even Tyler."

He feels a shock of warmth in his stomach, unfurling out across his skin in every direction and making the hairs on his arms and neck stand up. "Yeah?"

"Why are you surprised?"
"Dunno. Just always am. Me and him ain't got nothing in common, we shouldn't get on. I just suddenly remember sometimes and it's like... oh yeah, he thinks I'm alright, this is amazing."

"Well, I never thought I'd marry a farmer twice my age. You can't choose things like that. How
boring
would it be if you got to choose?"

"Try telling Lindsay that next time he has a fit cos I'm wearing magenta skinnies."

"He's not allowed to say a
thing
against your clothes. I'm running out of storage space, I've brought a ton of photo albums you two can have, his old school pictures with rubbish eighties hair and those ridiculous things all the kids wore at raves."

He has to stop and turn the needle machine off again, he's laughing too much to concentrate. "You do know you're my favourite, right?"

She doesn't answer, she just gives him that familiar evil smile again and settles back against the cushions, holding the other half of her shirt down over her shocking scarlet underwear. By the time Lindsay gets home the tattoo is finished and hidden back under her shirt. He pretends it doesn't exist, and finally makes that cup of tea.

12.

Ellie phones on Christmas afternoon. Her name flashes up on Lindsay's mobile when he's not in the room and Pip's not sure what to do, leave it and let it ring or take it to find him or... this is fucking stupid, he tells himself, and answers it just before the sixth ring sends it to answerphone.

"Hey, it's Pip."
There's a little pause before she replies. "Hello."

"I think Lindsay's having a poo or something, shall I get him to ring you back?"

"I can wait. I just wanted to say happy Christmas." "Joyeux Noël in Montreal."
"Yes."

He escapes from the noisy living room and goes into the library where it's silent, like the tons of books are studio soundproofing. It's cold in here, and as he talks he manages to squirm into a cardigan Lindsay left at his desk without dropping the phone from where it's tucked between his ear and shoulder. "How are you?"

"Fine. It's been snowing. The girls still aren't used to white Christmases, I think they're trying to build an igloo in the garden."

He's trying to imagine them, all these years older than they were when he knew them, and he can't picture it. He wonders why Lindsay's got no photos of them up in the house when Pip's got loads of himself with Olly's kids – wonders how much he misses them and if he regrets anything, and wonders if Ellie hates him, or both of them. He's got this urge to apologise and doesn't know whether he should.

"We sent some stuff, did you get it?"

 

"Yes. Thank you. We're not opening anything until after dinner, it's not even eight o'clock yet."

"Oh yeah, time difference. I always forget." Lindsay's old grey cardigan is thick and slightly scratchy against Pip's bare arms, but it smells warm and comforting; not aftershave, because he doesn't shave, but soap and cigarettes and espresso and sweat. He brings the deep V up to cover his nose, but then he can't talk into the phone. He doesn't know what to say anyway. The silence drags on, excruciating and brimful of unsaid things.

Ellie is the first to crack and say something. "Are you happy?" "Yes," he says cautiously, dropping the fabric away from his face, not sure whether it's an accusation. You boyfriend-poaching whore.

"That's good."
"Yeah. So's Lindsay."
"I know."

"I'm sorry," he says, then cringes and hides in the cardigan again because he never meant to, it's only going to blast this all wide open and make it sound like he wants to talk about it when he doesn't. "I never thought nothing would all work out like this, I never meant to steal no one's boyfriend."

"You didn't. He left, he went and found you. You didn't find him."

"Spose." "I don't want things to be awkward." "No." "I don't want to waste your Christmas, I should go." "You don't have to." "There's a snowman to build." "Alright." "Will you tell Lin I phoned?" "Yeah, I'll get him to ring you back, alright?"

"We're flying over in February for my nephew's wedding, I hope we can meet up."

 

"Yeah. Cool. Me too, that'll be ace. Say happy Christmas to the girls from me."

"I will. Bye, hon." She hangs up quickly and Pip brings his socked feet up onto the cushion of the old leather armchair, pulling his knees up to his chest and stretching the cardigan right over his legs. It feels like ages later when someone taps on the door. Pip's face has gone damp and warm from his own breaths trapped in the prison of wool where he's been hiding again, and the air feels very cool on his skin when he looks up.

"Yeah?"
"Don't be rude, come back and be a good host."
"It's only our
family
, they don't count. I was on the phone."

"Oh." Lindsay closes the door behind himself, comes right over and crouches on the floorboards in front of the chair to start unbuttoning his stretched cardigan from around Pip's legs. "Is everything alright?"

"Ellie says happy Christmas and thank you for the presents and they're all coming over in February for a wedding so let's meet up." "That'll be nice," Lindsay says after a tiny pause. "I hate when you do this to my clothes, stop it."

"Sorry." Pip drops Lindsay's phone on top of the paperwork scattered across the desk and wraps his arms around his knees instead. He wishes he'd just let it ring to answerphone, wishes she'd called five minutes earlier or later when Lindsay was there to pick it up himself. "Do you talk to her lots?"

"Said the pot to the kettle."
"I'm just asking, I ain't being pissy or nothing."

"Good. There's no need." He creaks to his feet and leans over to put a kiss on the top of Pip's head. "Come on, let's go back through." "I want a proper kiss first."

 

Lindsay's smiling a bit now, threading his fingers gently through Pip's hair. "Is that so?"

"Yeah. Sit down, I want a cuddle." He gets up and manoeuvres Lindsay into the chair, curling himself awkwardly into his lap until Lindsay laughs and slips both arms around him.

"You're too big for this."
"Shut up. Nobody's ever too big for a cuddle."

It doesn't happen nearly so much any more. Back when they started it would happen all the time against Lindsay's fibbed wishes, Pip would curl up like a cat and just sit there watching telly with him or getting in the way when he was trying to read, or he'd fall asleep wrapped in Lindsay's warmth and scent until the grumbling about how heavy and bony he was woke him back up. Lindsay always let it happen, though, so he couldn't have minded that much. He's skimming his fingers down Pip's back now, slipping under the loose hem of the open cardigan and up to rub wide circles against the cotton of his t-shirt. "Don't be upset. It won't do any good. What happened happened and now it's stopped so just let it go."

"Now who's being a pot? Or a kettle. Which one are you?" "Not sure it matters."
"Do you love me?"

He feels another kiss bump gently off the top of his head, and slips the tip of his thumb between his lips because he feels tired, suddenly, and like he might cry. "I do when you behave yourself," Lindsay murmurs into his hair, never stopping the slow, warm movements of his hand.

"I am now."
"I know you are."

"I want everyone in the world to fuck off, I just wanna be with you."

 

"Don't be silly."

"I ain't even being silly, just it feels like that sometimes. Like if the whole world just disappeared I wouldn't even care long as you was still here and I was still here." Lindsay doesn't make any reply to that, unless the action of tipping Pip's chin up with his fingertips and kissing him softly counts as one. Pip clings on, sliding his fingers across the short soft hair of Lindsay's beard like it's the silky edge of a comfort blanket. "Lindsay. I love you."

"I know you do. You don't have to keep telling me, I won't forget."

"I like saying it." "Don't get offended, but you're really heavy."

"Charming." He really doesn't want to get up. He tries moving instead, spreading his weight a bit more and settling back against Lindsay's chest, tipping his head back against his shoulder so he can still see him. "Is that any better?"

"Yes. Sweetheart, come on, we can't leave them on their own all day."