Stockholm Syndrome [01] - Stockholm Syndrome (16 page)

And that's the most annoying thing he's said so far – because he's right, because he's spewing out such a petulant fucking attitude as he says it, because he's blithely making it sound so
easy
– so, before he can change his mind and leave the room just to spite him, Lindsay says, "Alright, then," and waits for a reaction. There isn't one for a little while, then Valentine stops picking at his fingernail and finally looks up, bright-eyed with surprise and hope.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"You're gonna take me to the pub and say 'Hi everyone, Lindsay Brown 127

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here, raging poofter, and this is my boyfriend who I love very very much'?"

"...probably not in those words, no."

Or any words at all, really. He just won't deny it if anybody makes a point of asking. Tiny tiny steps. Valentine seems okay about it all the same, he seems happier, and he gets up from his spot on the floor so he can settle himself in Lindsay's lap, twining his arms around Lindsay's neck and kissing him slowly.

He's just starting to think that maybe they
won't
be off out to the pub any time soon when Valentine pulls back, breathless and smiling, and says, "Alright. I'm gonna get ready, then."

He doesn't let the kid go yet, still running his fingertips around the stripe of bare white skin between his jeans and t-shirt. "Ready for what?"

"Ready to go out."

"It's just the pub."

"Yeah, but I'm in all the papers and you're busting out the closet. I wanna look nice."

"You always look nice." It's a lie; he usually looks ridiculous, especially when he
tries
to look nice. Girls' t-shirts, children's ugly plastic jewellery, too-tight jeans, silly pointy boots. It's the right thing to say, though, because the kid beams at him, delighted, and then there's another ten minutes of kissing before he drags himself away and runs upstairs to get ready.

'Getting ready', on later investigation, appears to be a major operation.

Lindsay stands in the doorway and surveys the wreckage, then picks his way through the debris of discarded t-shirts and lonely odd shoes to go and sit on the bed and watch the kid muck about with his hair.

"It's just the pub," he says again. Valentine shows him both middle fingers and gets back to work. "You do realise you look
exactly the same
first thing in the morning when you've just woken up as you do now you've spent hours of time and gallons of stuff on your hair, right?"

"Shut up, you're putting me off, I'll poke my eye out." He's drawing a

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black line under each eye with a pencil now. Lindsay's seen him wearing make-up before, but only a couple of times – the first day they met, outside the jeweller's, and the day he came back from his parents' house, all furious tears and murder plots – but he's never watched it in progress. He's sort of fascinated and sort of repulsed at the same time.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm
trying
to get ready!"

"You look like a girl." His default is boy-in-girls'-t-shirts-and-nailpaint, but sometimes, very occasionally, he
actually
looks a bit like a girl – like now, in tight red jeans and a loose silky black shirt, a knotted string of pearls, and the very stupidest out of all the stupid shoes he owns, knee-high white monstrosities with anklebreaking platform heels. "Not even a pretty girl, just a silly girl who's cut up a load of old fashion magazines and stuck some bits together at random and gone 'Yes, that's the look for me!'"

"I see my secret method for looking a million times better than you ain't a secret no more."

"Listen, though – it's just a pub, okay? Just a pub. A normal, boring, local pub. They let people bring their
dogs
in. It's nothing fancy, you don't need to get all... tarted up."

"Don't care, I
want
to."

"Suit yourself. I just don't want you feeling like an idiot."

Valentine looks at him in the mirror for the first time since he came into the bedroom. "No," he says evenly, "you don't want
you
feeling like an idiot."

Lindsay goes to wait for him downstairs.

***

"There's seats over there." Lindsay nods at a booth in the corner, just by 129

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a window facing out onto the road. "What do you want?"

"Malibu and Coke?"

"I'm not asking for that. You're getting a beer."

"
Fine
, whatever." He sounds slightly flustered, kind of distracted – of course he does, people are looking at him. Nobody's been brave or impolite enough to say anything yet, but something seemed to ripple through the pub when they went in, even though it's half-empty, and now it feels like everybody's watching them, watching Valentine walk over to the booth in his horrific shoes, watching Lindsay walk over to the bar. The old jukebox against the wall is playing something Lindsay doesn't know. It snaps to a track off Hunky Dory while he's waiting to be served, and he doesn't have to turn round to see who the culprit is.

"It's on the house if you tell me what the story is," Carys says, all but salivating for the gossip when she puts the two pints in front of him. Lindsay tries to smile, but it feels twisted and unconvincing. At least she's keeping her voice down, she wants the exclusive all for herself.

"I don't know what you mean."

"You do!"

"There's no story." Except the one they've meticulously planned out together and rehearsed like a script. "We stayed in the same hotel last year on holiday, we emailed now and then, he needed somewhere out the way to keep his head down til the tabloids leave off..." He shrugs, affecting nonchalance like it's no big deal, but she doesn't look convinced at all.

"Is he... you know?"

He feels a bit sick but he swore he'd do it, and he will, if he only gets asked a direct question. "Is he what?"

"You know! Are you...? You are, aren't you? You and him?"

He crumbles pathetically at the last second, and forces a laugh that actually seems quite genuine, this time. "We're different
species
, love. Here." He

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puts a crumpled fiver on the bar and picks up the drinks, and imagines he can feel the nosy Welsh bint's eyes drilling into his back all the way over to the booth, and then all the way over to the door through to the gents', where he goes to have a small panic attack before braving company again.

The kid's gone, when Lindsay gets back from the toilet, and there's somebody else sitting in his place. He covers up well, he pretends he was just walking past, but then he has to carry on walking and go outside to make it look real – it's alright, though, because that's where Valentine turns out to be, leaning against the brick wall of the pub just staring unhappily at the unlit cigarette he's holding.

"What are you doing?"

"Begged a fag off someone but I ain't got a light."

"Stunts your growth," Lindsay says automatically, even as he's digging in his pockets to find his lighter. "What's wrong?"

Valentine smokes half his cigarette down before he answers, blowing the smoke straight up in the air like a steam train. "Feller who gave it me come over with a Daily Mail and wanted me to sign it for his missus, right between

'LOTTO HEIR FOUND' and that picture of my mum and dad pretending they're happy."

"...oh."

"Yeah. I mean, I always knew I was gonna be famous. It's weird, though. Weren't meant to be cos of this."

"Did you sign it?"

"Course I signed it, my signature's brilliant, me and Olly used to practice for when the band took off."

That name again. Lindsay feels hot with anger. He knows it's stupid; he tries to turn it down, but only manages to lower the level to a gentle simmer.

"Why didn't you stay in London, if this
Olly
is so great?"

Valentine gives him a dirty look. "Shut up. You don't know nothing 131

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about it."

"If you're going to keep secrets-"

"It ain't secrets, I just ain't told you. Like you even care. You've never asked me
nothing
about my life, I just tell you on my own if you ever get your cock out my mouth long enough for me to talk cos I think you might be interested, cos I think it might make you tell me stuff about you too, but you're not and it don't. I don't even know you. Ain't that funny?"

Lindsay shifts from foot to foot, uneasy. "You mind keeping your voice down?"

"Yeah, I do, actually. I thought you're meant to be telling your mates you've got a boyfriend?"

"You're not my
boyfriend
, you know I hate that word. And they're not my mates in there, they're just... people I know a bit."

"So they don't matter, then, so why do you care what they think?"

"Everything's so
easy
for you, isn't it?" Lindsay snaps, and immediately hates himself for it when the kid frowns slightly and looks away. "No. I'm sorry.

It's..." He doesn't go on, because he doesn't know
what
it is.

"You wanna know how
I
came out?" He doesn't wait for an answer, he goes on anyway. "I got off with Olly, and-"

"You told me that already."

"Yeah, but not all what happened. He kicked me in after, punched me right in the mouth cos he was embarrassed or something, cos... I mean, he kissed me all the time, that weren't the problem, long as we pretended it was all just mucking about cos the girls like it. Soon as I told him I liked him for real he was all WHOAH. And then he went off and covered up when people asked him why we weren't hanging round together no more by saying I'm a bender and I tried to have it off with him, which... that
is
what happened, yeah, but he didn't seem that grossed out when he was pulling my hair and ramming his cock down my throat, you know? Not til after, not til he thought about it. And that's the problem, innit?

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Clever people think too much."

"Maybe you don't think enough," Lindsay offers, and Valentine groans and rolls his eyes and crushes the end of his finished cigarette under his boot.

"No, you think too much. Why's it even
matter
? Ain't you happy?"

He wants to brush the question off somehow, tell the kid to shut up and stop being stupid, but then Valentine steps closer, touching him on the arm and looking up at his face so earnestly he can't think up any excuses.

"Ain't you, though? Cos I am. You're fucking hard work, but when you ain't caring so much what other people think, when it's just you and me... you do this thing sometimes, do you even know?" He slips his hand up from Lindsay's arm, up into his hair, winding a curl around his fingertip, letting it spring free, winding it again. "When we're just watching telly or something. When you've just woke up but you ain't opened your eyes yet. You play with my hair."

"No I don't!" He sounds so indignant about being caught doing something so horrible and cute that Valentine actually laughs out loud.

"You do, though. It's
me
we're talking about, I think about my hair more than necrophiles think about morgues, course I'm gonna know when something's touching it. You do it all the time. I like it. I like
you
. And I'm pretty sure you like me too cos I'm still alive, so... just be happy, yeah? Fuck everyone else, it don't matter what other people think. Just loosen up and fucking
try
being happy for once in your life. You don't know til you try, you might like it."

He's shivering in his thin clinging shirt, blowing out misty plumes of condensing breath that make it look like he's still smoking even though he's not.

Lindsay, suddenly remembering the knack of avoiding things he doesn't want to talk about, says, "I
told
you to wear a coat," and shrugs out of his own, holding it open for Valentine. The kid looks at him dubiously, like he's considering whether it'd be worse to freeze to death or wear brown corduroy, but for once practicality wins out over fashion and he slips his hands down through the sleeves. The jacket's massive on him, hanging down past his arse and over his fingers.

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"Thought we were gonna be in a nice warm pub, I never intended to have a sulk in the car park. Ain't
you
cold now?"

The wind from the sea is so cold it's like being stabbed. "I'm alright," he lies.

"You wanna go home?"

Deep breath. "Let's go back inside. I'll buy you your stupid fucking Malibu."

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"Naughty little boys who don't eat their vegetables get their bottoms smacked and go to bed without pudding," Lindsay says, as he's passing behind Valentine's chair to get them each another beer out the fridge. He can't see the kid's face until he sits down again to uncap the bottles, but it's exactly like he knew it would be – slightly open-mouthed, slightly surprised, slightly amused, slightly turned on. He's got his hand frozen in place holding his fork almost horizontally on his plate, with the prongs mashing the hated greens into sludge, then he seems to come back to himself and drops his fork to reach for the beer.

"Why do you say stuff like that to me?"

"Because nothing else flusters you. I like when your cheeks go all red and hot like that."

"Yeah, well. Ain't
all
that's getting hot," he mutters. "I'm done, I don't want no more, I ain't hungry."

"You can cook and leave as much as you want.
Until
you start cooking, you're going to finish what you're given. I'm not wasting my time making food for you to chuck in the bin."

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"But it's
broccoli
," he whines, mashing at it again with his fork and setting his mouth into a sulky, mutinous line. "And
cauliflower
."

"It's good for you. Make you grow up big and strong, you little weed."

"It's disgusting. You know what'd make this taste better?"

"What?"