The Art of Unpacking Your Life (11 page)

‘I don't want to go on about it, but it hardly compares with Ibiza, does it now?' Alan said, yet again.

Alan was flat on his stomach, tanning his back with his head tipped to Dan's side.

‘It was luxurious in Ibiza. It was like, you know, five star. This is three star, I'm telling you, at a push.' He raised himself up on to his elbows.

Dan carefully rolled over on to his left side. He stretched his arm out for his suncream, which was in the shade on the wooden cube table beside the lounger. He had already applied suncream. The move bought him some time before he needed to respond.

Dan hated hurting anyone. He hated confrontation. It scared him. When he thought about why he loved the group, it was because they were utterly different to
him: lively, funny, opinionated and emotional. Confrontational. He often discussed his inability to express his feelings with his therapist off Harley Street, not far from his holistic nutritionist, who had recommended his therapist. He always drew Dan back to his feelings about being gay. He was convinced it was at the root of Dan's fear of confrontation or, as he called it, his ‘fear of controversy'.

Dan didn't want to be different. He never had.

He had an idyllic childhood in the countryside outside York, attending the local school where his parents worked as teachers. He was sandwiched between three siblings: two sisters and a brother. They were a close family. He kissed a girl, a friend of his younger sister, when he was fourteen. It was pleasurable, even though she had railway tracks on her teeth. He fully expected it to be the beginning of a journey, through losing his virginity to getting married young like his parents.

Bristol changed that. Away from what, he quickly discovered, was a pretty sheltered home, he looked at his sexuality afresh.

Late one night, they were in Matt's room at Wills, slumped on every available surface. Dan was sitting cross-legged at the foot of Matt's desk. Matt had the Rolling Stones loudly blaring from his cassette recorder; Connie and Luke were dancing, twisting round each other's legs. The door swung open. It was a third year, back in hall for his finals. ‘Turn that bloody racket off! I've got to leave for a race at five tomorrow morning,' he bellowed.

Guy Francis, Dan later discovered. He was a rower, generously over six feet with a mass of strawberry blond hair, tanned skin and vast hands. He looked like a farmer or a Thomas Hardy character, Dan couldn't decide. Maybe they were the same
person. As Guy leant forward to make his point known, his shirt flopped open. It wasn't his chest that caught Dan's attention, more the obviously generous bulge in his jeans. Dan's own slimline version, tucked neatly into narrow jeans, stirred.

Dan didn't tell anyone. He was ashamed of his feelings, determined to bury it as a horny coincidence rather than… what? He didn't want to know. He wasn't wild or complicated. He didn't want to be lumbered with any label, let alone gay.

He went out with a friend of Connie's for nearly a year. She was pretty, almost beautiful. A solemn, dark-haired Italian girl called Elisabetta, who was eager to please. They had sex every time they stayed the night with each other, two or three times a week. Only he didn't think about Elisabetta at night. He fantasised about Guy. Still, he never confided in his friends. He assumed they were unaware.

The first weekend of their second year, they moved in to Harley Place. Finally, a house of their own together. They barely unpacked before Matt and Luke went to the supermarket, returning with armfuls of crisps, peanuts and cakes. They had six-packs of beer under each arm. Music blaring, they ate, drank and basked like lizards on the roof terrace in Indian summer sunshine. The sun sank coolly out of sight. They were profoundly drunk and turned to ‘Truth or Dare'.

Luke went first. He chose ‘Dare'. Sara instantly dared him to walk along the stone parapet of the roof terrace. Lizzie put her hand to her mouth; Connie smiled because she knew Luke wouldn't falter. Dan was happy and secure with his close friends.

It was his turn next. He had no desire to do desperate antics, especially as he was sickly drunk.

‘Truth', he said without thinking.

It was Connie's turn. They smiled at each other. ‘Are you gay, Dan?'

Dan's embarrassment was fast followed by acute pain.

‘You are drunk, Connie. Or crazy,' he tried to say lightly. ‘I was with Elisabetta until the summer.'

The others seemed to sober up. They were eyeing each other. It dawned on Dan that they had already talked about this subject, about him. He was mortified. As he tentatively looked up, he caught Sara's eye. All he saw was concern and sympathy. He realised he couldn't deceive the group.

‘Yes, I think I am.'

They cheered. It was overwhelming. The love and support of his friends. They forced Dan to be brave and honest.

Back with the group again, Dan's concern about his relationship with Alan was increasing. The real problem with Alan was there wasn't a problem with Alan. Dan loved him – they never argued, had sex regularly and had created a home together. Yet something was missing. Something intangible, but real. A growing certainty that they couldn't move forward together. They didn't share a future. What that future was exactly, Dan was less clear.

‘I'm burning.' Alan catapulted off the sun lounger. He stood barefoot on the decking. ‘Christ, the decking's burning hot and all.' He hopped his feet into his black flip-flops. ‘It's too hot to lie in it. Ibiza is perfect for sunbathing.' He pulled his silver
Ray-Ban Aviators down his nose to inspect his body. ‘Crazy or what – I'm burnt on my elbows and knees.'

He waited for Dan's reaction.

‘Poor you. Maybe you missed those spots.' Dan was genuinely sympathetic. ‘You need to put block on your elbows and knees.'

Alan wasn't listening. ‘It's the bloody bed burning me. We need towels. In Ibiza, they brought them out automatically.'

Without another word, Alan strode towards the lodge. Dan closed his eyes. He wished they didn't have such a long break between brunch, which they had eaten quickly at nine thirty, and their drive out at five thirty this afternoon. It was too much time to think.

‘Daniel, hi there.' Katherine sat easily down on his sun lounger. Her tiny behind close to his elbow. Her red hair swung evenly out under a vast white straw sun hat, luminous above her pale yellow sundress. ‘A penny for them.'

Her enthusiasm for English idioms amused Dan. He was fond of Katherine because she had made Matt happy. Katherine was warm and kind. Qualities that Lizzie and Sara purposefully failed to spot.

‘How are you feeling?' Dan asked, touching her white arm, narrower than a child's.

‘Do you know, it's all in my head. It's the worry about Dawn, the surrogacy. The stress of the whole issue really.'

‘I can imagine.'

‘Matt has been brilliant. There isn't a man on earth who would be as supportive as he has been to me. I rely totally on him.'

‘He is wonderful, but you deserve each other.'

She eyed him penetratingly. He felt uncomfortable and sat up, reaching for his white T-shirt.

‘Back to what's on your mind. What's going on with Alan?'

He was nervous of Katherine's directness, but he couldn't help looking to see if Connie and Lizzie, who were sunbathing on the other side of the pool, had heard her.

‘Nothing,' he said automatically. He didn't want to confide in Katherine, much as he liked her. If he was going to share his thoughts with anyone, it would be Connie or Matt. ‘It's all good.'

‘Good? You don't look it,' she stared at him.

‘Every relationship has its ups and downs.' Does it? He wondered.

‘Have you talked about it?'

He was silent.

‘You must express what you feel, Daniel. Open up.'

He looked up at Katherine, hoping to evade her questions by being vague with his answers. ‘It's an issue of moving forward.'

To what? He wondered.

‘Don't get me started on that, Daniel,' she wagged an index finger vigorously. ‘It's an issue for man or woman. Gay or straight. For me, it was about moving on to a family. It was non-negotiable. Matt totally got the deal. Hey, I was up front with him.'

Dan had a disquieting sense that he didn't know what he thought, unlike Katherine and indeed all the group.

‘You need to explore it. Life is not a dress rehearsal. Tell him he needs to grow up.' Her pointed finger wagged at him. ‘Tell him what's important to you.'

What was important to him? Maybe that was the crux of the matter, but he wasn't about to explore it with Katherine. He looked hopefully for a waitress. ‘I had a wonderful fresh lime juice and water. Would you like one?'

Katherine was not in the mood to be diverted. She gripped his arm. Her hand was surprisingly cool, unaffected by the heat.

‘You know, Daniel,' she held his gaze to make it clear this was a big deal. ‘There is nothing that I wouldn't say to Matt, or Matt to me.'

Alan returned with a white-towel tower as high as his forehead. Matt watched him gingerly feel for the decked step with the toe of his left flip-flop. He eased down the first step and then the second. Dan watched him distributing the towels to Lizzie, Connie and Sara on the other side of the pool with an elaborate explanation of why they were vital to protect them from burning. Dan smiled at his childish eagerness. Alan sat on Lizzie's sun lounger for a while. Dan had noticed they were getting on well. He knew the rest of the group didn't particularly like Alan, maybe that was the reason Dan was feeling uneasy with him.

Alan started back in their direction. ‘Now's your chance,' Katherine hissed, swaying nonchalantly inside with a casual wave of her hand at Alan.

‘Is she all right?' Alan asked, as he handed Dan two towels. Alan was such a kind man, such a good man. Surely that was a more important daily consideration than some vague long-term view of his life?

‘Yes. I think that she's anxious about the baby.' It probably did explain why Katherine was eager for him to confront Alan. She was passing her own anxiety on to someone else. ‘It makes you question your life, I suppose. Wonder what it's all about.'

Subtlety never worked with Alan. The group was different. They read into Dan's silence, his pauses and his subtle asides. They understood him. After all this time, Alan should too, surely?

Alan was bending over, rubbing more suncream around his knees. Dan watched the cream get trapped in the dense brown hairs on his lower thighs until it disappeared. Alan stood up. ‘Can you do my back?'

Dan got up, took the tube and squeezed a dessertspoon on to his hand. He carefully spread it across Alan's shoulders and upper back, before rubbing it meticulously in. The conversation they needed to have wasn't one you could rush in between applications of suncream.

Alan lay back down on his back. A blank canvas mirrored in his shades. After a second's hesitation, Dan sat with his bottom wedged beside Alan's elbow. It was easier to talk to Alan while his eyes were closed and behind sunglasses. Alan didn't move.

‘Matt and Katherine, you know, their whole thing with this surrogate, Dawn.'

Alan didn't react. Dan was angry, he couldn't pinpoint why – it was something to do with his general lack of responsiveness.

‘Alan, are you listening?' He heard his own impatience and tried to breathe slowly in and out.

‘Yeah. Their surrogate, Dawn.'

‘Well, it makes you realise. We're no longer young. We have to see the big picture of our lives. Do the things that are important to us.' Dan wished he could properly articulate this feeling he had. He wasn't on the right page of his life. He wanted something more grown up. What did that mean?

Alan didn't move. Dan wondered what Alan was thinking. Or whether he was thinking at all.

‘Are you wishing we were old?' Alan finally said. ‘I mean, who the hell wants to be middle-aged? Peter Pan, that's me.'

Of course Alan would bounce back with something superficial. Perhaps it was a victory, of sorts. He had made Alan state his fear of growing up, which exactly mirrored Dan's desire for it. He wanted the conservatism of middle age and his parents' middle-aged contentment. He had been craving it since he came out.

He didn't say anything. What could he say? He couldn't – wouldn't – argue Alan out of his viewpoint. Alan was what he was. Dan didn't feel disappointed, on the contrary, reassured.

Conscious Katherine might return to haunt him, he decided to escape. He mumbled excuses: emails to do, the heat. Dan slipped his feet into his leather sandals and walked slowly back to their room. They had no wireless signal there. He carried his laptop back to the lodge where the WiFi was strongest. He retreated up the spiral stairs to the library and picked the soft beige leather sofa closest to a cabinet displaying
warthog horns. He opened up his emails. There were four from Rebecca Finkelman. She would have some complaint and he couldn't face it. He opened a note from their friends Marco and Pierre – a couple in fashion – who were suggesting a long weekend together in New York for Easter. The rest was a screenful of work emails. Was this his life? Then he spotted one from his old schoolfriend, Josephine, an artist who lived in a beamed attic in a tiny medieval hilltop town, fifteen minutes outside Florence. They had visited her once. They had slept on a futon in her art studio. Alan hated it. No beach, no luxury.

Dan clicked on her email.

Dearest Dan

I spied this house for sale on my walk yesterday.

You would appreciate the beauty of the setting. Olive groves encircle the house and lake, set in three acres right at the crown of a hill. The sunsets are spectacular.

It is derelict, but it has its original floors and beams.

Needs love, lashings of attention and taste. Which you have, of course.

A gardener's paradise for seven hundred thousand pounds!