Cowboys Down (29 page)

After being discharged from the hospital, Jasper had checked into a hotel and spent his time either in or by the pool allowing his body to recover. His heart didn’t do so well. His interest in visiting Yellowstone submerged under a myriad of emotions, continuing headaches and pain in his chest, and inertia tightened its hold. He’d kept telling himself everything was fine, but it wasn’t then and it wasn’t now.

Apart from the fact that he was plagued with nightmares where he suffocated in a grain silo, he couldn’t stop thinking about Calum, and when he did, he felt as though a heavy weight pressed against his chest. Feeling it was hard to breathe seemed to be the constant in his life. He’d used his inhaler more over the last couple of weeks than he had in the whole of last year. Jasper suspected he needed to talk to someone, but there was no one he wanted to tell. He could, however, tell his mum tonight, as long as she didn’t recognize him.

Once inside his office, he put the box he was carrying down on his desk. He was petrified of dropping it. Jasper hung up his jacket, sat in his chair and swiveled to look out of the window at a gray day, gray concrete and a gray pigeon. His spirits sagged to puddle in a pathetic pool at his feet. He didn’t want to work here anymore. He didn’t want to do this job anymore. He didn’t—

The telephone rang and he sighed.
It all starts again.
Caller display told him it was one of his bigger clients and Jasper turned up his cheerful button before he answered. “Good morning, Simon. Missed me?”

“Been away?”

Fuck you too.

By lunchtime Jasper was exhausted. His head ached and his eyes were sore and gritty. When the phone rang at a minute to one, he did what he’d never done before and ignored it. He picked up the box and walked out.

Fintan’s Gallery was a small boutique store selling an eclectic range of artwork. Exquisitely painted wild landscapes that Jasper loved but couldn’t afford to buy stood alongside pieces of sculpture he’d have been hard pressed to hold the right way up. He often popped in to look round and he
had
bought one small painting from the owner last year, though he’d refused the invitation to go for a drink. And all subsequent invitations though Fintan was getting more and more inventive.

“How did you know I was gay?” Jasper had asked.

“You’re gay?” Fintan raised his manicured eyebrows. “I’ll throw in dinner along with the drink.”

Fintan was a lovely guy, but flamboyantly gay and twice Jasper’s age. He hadn’t taken offense at Jasper’s refusal and invited him to all the open evenings he held for his fledging artists. Those invitations Jasper
did
accept, though on every occasion, Fintan flirted with Jasper more than anyone else. “I can’t resist gorgeous guys. I never give up,” Fintan had whispered in his ear.

He was exactly the right guy to show Calum’s work.

When Jasper pushed open the door, Fintan threw up his hands in joy—
oh bloody hell
—and rushed toward him.
Please don’t hug me.

“Jasper! I haven’t seen you in ages.”

Jasper clung onto the box. The contents had crossed the Atlantic. He didn’t want it to break now.

“Hi, Fintan. I’ve something for you to look at. I’d like your advice.”

“You only have to ask, dear boy. I’d love to handle something of yours.”

Oh God.
Jasper put the box on the counter.

“Whatever is that around your wrist? You’re wearing jewelry?”

“A present.” He pushed Angie’s bracelet back under his cuff. He knew he ought to take it off but he just couldn’t.
In case I get lost.

Fintan gently peeled away the layers of tissue paper and took out the clay model Calum had hidden in Jasper’s case. It was the figure of two men. One wearing a Stetson leaned back against a rock, knees bent. The other figure had his head resting on the cowboy’s chest, legs outstretched and crossed at the ankle. The cowboy’s hand was in the other guy’s hair. That guy was unmistakably Jasper.

“Oh my,” Fintan whispered. He looked up into Jasper’s face and gave a tiny smile. “You’ve just broken my heart.”

A shiver trickled down Jasper’s spine, as if something had passed from Fintan to him, some knowledge of which Jasper had been unaware.

Not unaware, I’m in denial.

The gallery owner examined the piece from all angles, even took out a magnifying glass, and then stood up and exhaled.

“Is it good?” Jasper asked. He knew it was, but he still wanted Fintan to say it.

“Silly, boy. It’s fantastic.” He gave a dramatic sigh. “Of course clay is hopeless. It needs to be cast. Who’s the lucky cowboy trailing his fingers in your luscious locks? The guy who made this?”

“Yes. His name’s Calum Neilson.”

“Is this yours?”

Jasper nodded. “I want it cast in bronze. Can you arrange that?”

“Of course. I could sell a bronze version of this for at least £700, maybe £1,000, though it would cost twice that to produce the first one. The most cost-effective way would be to make perhaps ten bronzes, keep one, sell the rest. I’d buy the other nine for £5000. And I’d be keeping one for myself as a memento.” He winked at Jasper. “It’s stunning. Reminiscent of Remington.”

Jasper smiled. Part of him wanted there to be only one bronze just for him. The cost of casting didn’t matter, but he imagined how thrilled Calum would be to know people wanted to buy his work.

“Okay. Ten bronzes,” Jasper said, “but I get two. And it’s still £5000.”

“Deal.” Fintan stuck out his hand.

Jasper shook on it and didn’t miss the extra squeeze.

“He’s a lucky guy,” Fintan whispered.

For a brief moment, Jasper considered telling Fintan everything, but he knew it wouldn’t make him feel better. Probably make him feel like an idiot.

“Fast as possible,” Jasper said.

“Spoilsport.” Fintan winked. “I love to go slow.”

By the time the phones stopping ringing, Wyoming was a fading dream. Back in the noise and bustle of London, those wide-open plains and dazzling Western skies seemed a lifetime away. He’d have to go back for the trial. And see Calum again. How would things be between them? Would Calum have found someone else? Jasper hoped he did and yet even as he completed the thought, pain flared in his heart.

He caught the Tube back to his house and then used his car to drive to his mother’s nursing home. It was getting dark when he arrived and lights shone in every window of the converted mansion. All the lights on and nobody home, Jasper thought with a wry smile.

Alcott House had been his mother’s residence since Ben had died. She’d slid into a state of shock and never really emerged from it. It had been as though all her energy had been put into looking after her youngest son, and when he’d gone, she had no reason to carry on.

Bronwyn Randolph had seamlessly drifted from a dreamy daze into Alzheimer’s, and because Alcott House would take anyone who could pay the exorbitant fees, she’d stayed there. The money from the sale of the family home had been far less than Jasper hoped. His father had remortgaged to buy the best of everything for Ben. His suicide meant no insurance payment because he’d taken out the policy less than two years earlier.

Jasper had managed another year at university before it became clear he couldn’t afford to continue. He didn’t want to give up his dream, but he had little choice but to leave university and take the job offer with the company run by his father’s brother. Four times the salary he’d expect for the first few years as a vet. Huge annual bonus he’d never get as a vet. All to make sure his mother had clean sheets on her bed every day and tea served in the middle of the afternoon with crusts cut off her cucumber sandwiches.

As if she’d fucking know.

Jasper lifted the bouquet of flowers from the passenger seat and climbed out of his car. He hated coming here. He planned his time of departure before he even arrived.

“Mr. Randolph, welcome,” said the woman on reception. “Come to see your mother?”

No, I thought I’d come and sit by the bed of some random stranger.
He might as well.

“I’ll call and tell them you’re coming up.”

She pressed a button, nodded for him to pass through the security doors, and he headed for the stairs. No smell of old age here. The place was like a five-star hotel. Except the guests never left. Well, only in boxes.

Jasper never knew what he was going find. A mother who knew him. A mother who thought he was Ben. A bewildered stranger. A snarling witch. Ah, that’d be the mother who knew him.

A nurse smiled at Jasper as she came out of his mother’s room. “Good evening, Mr. Randolph.”

“How is she?” he asked.

“Quite bright today. She’ll be pleased you’ve come.”

That’ll be the day.
When she
was
lucid, she railed at him for putting her in there and accused him of stealing her money when it was more like the opposite. Jasper pushed open the door. His mother sat in a recliner in front of a better TV than Jasper’s. She didn’t look up when he coughed. He moved so she could see him and she glared.

“You’re in the way,” she snapped.

“What are you watching?” He glanced at the TV. Football. Jasper almost laughed. As far as he knew, his mother had no interest in any sport.

“It’s me,” he said and just in case added, “Jasper. I brought you roses.”

He put the flowers on her lap and she smiled. “Ben, you spoil me.”

Jasper sighed and perched on the edge of the coffee table.

“Have you any news, darling? Will we soon hear the patter of tiny feet?”

“No,” he said quietly.

Her face fell. He could have said yes. She wouldn’t remember by the time he came again, probably by the time he got out of the building, but tonight he had a perverse desire not to please her. Then her chin wobbled and he regretted not lying.

“Have to find the right person first,” he whispered.

“Don’t leave it too late,” his mother said. “Life’s too short.”

And yours is too long. Oh fuck.

Jasper dragged his fingers through his short hair. “I’ve been on holiday, that’s why I haven’t been in to see you.”

“Silly boy. You were here yesterday.”

“Ah yes, I forgot,” Jasper said.

She either imagined he came every day or accused him of not visiting for months. The specialist’s advice was not to contradict, not to argue because it distressed her more.
What about distressing me? Don’t I count?

“I’m Jasper,” he said. “Ben’s not here.”

“Why not?” She turned from the screen to look at him and confusion washed her face. “Who are you?”

Jasper’s heart beat faster. “I’m your son, Jasper.”

“I don’t have a son called Jasper. My son’s called Ben. You must be in the wrong room. Go away.”

Remember me, Mum.

Jasper looked into her eyes but found no spark of recognition.

“Remember when Ben and I fell in the pond and came out covered with duck weed? You said we looked like sea monsters.”

There was no response. She looked as though she’d gone somewhere in her head, a place too far for him to pull her back. It was a waste of time visiting yet how could he not?

“’Bye, Mum,” he whispered.

As he reached the door, she called, “Jasper, thank you for the roses.”

He had to fight hard not to rush back and tell her everything, how someone had tried to kill him, how he’d found a guy he thought was perfect, how sorry he was that Ben was the one who’d died and not him. But he kept walking.

Jasper slipped back into his normal routine and one week slid into another. Gym before work—taking it easy because of his ribs. Not leaving the office before eight. Eating a meal picked up on the way home. Falling asleep in front of the TV. As the nightmare of suffocating slowly gave up its grip, Jasper switched to dreaming of Calum—the way he talked, the way he felt, the way he tasted. Thoughts of the cowboy became so much part of his life that Jasper found himself talking to him as if he were there. When that habit travelled from home to work and someone caught him addressing an empty chair, Jasper knew he had to do something, though he didn’t know what. So he muddled on, growing more and more unhappy.

It took a month before the bronzes came back from the foundry and Fintan sold them all in the first week. When he heard the exuberance in Fintan’s voice as he gave him the news, it occurred to Jasper that Calum might not have wanted to sell them, but it was too late now. Jasper shipped one to Calum, paid a fortune to have it express delivered, enclosed a check for $8,200 and wrote, after several attempts—

Dear Calum,

Hope everything is well with you and that your father is improving. I took the liberty of having your fantastic gift cast in bronze. I had ten made and the dealer sold the other eight—I kept one—I hope you don’t mind. The check is enclosed. My dealer friend is pestering for more. He’s in awe of your talent.

I’m sorry I didn’t have the courage to speak to you before I left but I felt it might make matters worse. I wish you all the best with your life. I’ll never regret a second of the time we had together. Be happy.