Three Ex Presidents and James Franco (11 page)

52.
We were finally sitting down together, all three of us. I had suspected that Brandon didn't want me to meet Fiona. The experience may have been too painful for me and he was protecting me. Or, he was afraid of what I might say about the two of us. The reason though was likely that the two were too busy falling in love to pay me much mind.

              My concentration was not the best, I was distracted. Distracted by the affectionate touches, smiles, stroking of each others legs. Their physical display was like some annoying fly I couldn't stop following with my eyes and desperately wanted to swat.

              I knew Brandon noticed it. And I wondered what Fiona knew. Had he told her about the two of us? Hardly. Had he told her that I was in love with him? There was a chance. It was an easy explanation as to why we'd travelled half way around the world together. She could have come to the conclusion herself. Fiona was obviously besotted by him. So it was rational for her to assume the gay friend was too.

              Either way, she knew. I could tell from the pity she was trying to mask in her eyes as she talked to me. I could tell by the way she squeezed his hand as she spoke, and then tried to suppress a smile as my eyes automatically shifted down to see their two hands entwined. I could have grimaced each time. Certainly, I was trying hard not to grimace.

              I took comfort from the fact she was a virgin. At least, I took comfort from the fact that she had been a virgin until she met Brandon. That healthy glow radiating at me could be the glow of sex, not just love. The thought distressed me greatly.

              "Hey, we boring you?" That was Brandon.

              "Not at all, not at all. I'm just under a little bit of pressure right now. I have this project to do for class, and I don't know where to go with it. What to do."

              "Project?" This was Fiona chiming in. "Wha
t’
s it in?"

              "I'm not entirely clear. I've to write a play for the class based around some moment in American history. There don't seem to be any specifics given beyond that."

              "How long?" Brandon asked. "Sounds like a lot of work."

              "There doesn't seem to be a set time. It can be as long or as short as I like. Tha
t’
s the thing, i
t’
s all so vague. I think they don't really care. They'll give me full marks if I make a polite effort at a polite length."

              "Any ideas?" To be fair to her she was acting genuinely interested. She may know I was jealous of her, but she didn't know I disliked her. She'd been a beautiful baby afterall, and noone hates beautiful babies.

              "I was thinking of using the whole Buchanan thing. Just a snapshot of something from his Presidency. You know, the family connection might impress them, it might be nice for the faculty if I used the novelty factor."

              "That sounds charming." Yes, Fiona had said charming.

              "The problem is I've never written anything in my life. I haven't a clue where to begin."

              "All you need is to get your head down for a while." Brandon said affectionately ruffling my hair. "How difficult can it be? You just need a weekend locked up doing some work."

              "I've a great idea." A light bulb had lit up over Fiona's head. "We have to go back to my father's this weekend. He's having a fundraiser. Well i
t’
s officially a fundraiser, for us its just fun. You should come along, i
t’
s upstate. Just a couple of hours in the car. A lake, mountains, clean country air. A perfect spot for inspiration."

              "I'm sure you two will want the time to..."

              "Not at all. I'll hear none of it," Fiona replied, "You're coming with us and tha
t’
s settled." And so it was settled. It seemed Fiona had decided she wanted me onside, wanted us to be friends. This flattered me, not because it was a sign she liked me, but because it was a sign that she thought getting on with me was a key to getting on with Brandon. This thought warmed me to the point that I completely forgot to fret about the trip until we'd parted company. I had committed myself to an entire weekend of sexual frustration and heartbreak. Ah well, I thought, struck down by gallows humour, at least Brandon will be there, and tha
t’
s all that counts.

53.
"Has that frigid cow done it yet?" Eric was sitting in his underwear, his attention fixed on the TV screen in front of him. He was playing some football game. He'd become quite good at it over the last few weeks. Apart from that and drink I didn't know what else he did.

              "I don't know. I've never really met a girl like her before. You are talking about sex?"

              "Yeah."

              "If it was any other couple I'd say a definite yes. But from what you've said, she isn't an ordinary girl."

              "That she isn't. She won't do it until there's some sort of commitment."

              "Like marriage?" I frightened myself as I asked the question.

              "Maybe engagement. What did your pal say?"

              "Wasn't talking to him alone. We're going to some mountain resort for the weekend. There's a fundraiser going on, she didn't say for what. Hopefully I'll have a chance to get talking to him there."

              “Oh, you're going to the famous upstate retreat?"

              "You know it?"

              "Been there before. I
t’
s an annual thing. Democrats getting together, fishing, skiing. Paying big bucks. They get some big party heads to come down and talk to them and explain why they're paying $50,000 a night. And all they ever talk about is if Clinton will make it this year. He never does. They probably don't invite him anymore, but they always suggest that he might drop in."

              "How have I got roped into that?"

              "Her father's a big fundraiser. Tha
t’
s how. Anyway you'll be too busy to be hobnobbing."

              "I really don't know if I'm ready to write the play. I don't know where I'd begin."

              "I don't mean with that. I mean with the other two. Are you going to let them hook up?" He turned his head from the computer game for the first time.

              "I
t’
s none of my business."

              "Do you want your pal to head back to Ireland with you or do you want him to settle here?"

              "Is that the choice?"

              "If she's going to do it, she's going to make him stay. Not just for another year, forever. I can't see her heading off to Europe with him, she has too many plans here. So, yes, tha
t’
s your choice."

              "You don't want them to hook up either." I was
n’
t asking a question.

              "No, I suppose I don't." He looked at me in silence for a moment and then returned to the computer screen. He gestured to me to come over. As I knelt down, he pulled his briefs lower, his attention still not seeming to move from the computer screen. "You'll work it out. I have the utmost faith in you."

54.
All I know about women I have read in books. That may not be a particularly bad thing in itself. As I do know them all, when it comes to books. Isabel Archer, Anna Karenin, Emma Bovary, Hester Prynne, Lady Chatterley.

              The list is a who's who, a must read for any independent minded woman of today. A reminder of the suffering that women once had to endure. And generally speaking, these books are about better off women. Which demands a pause for thought, when you imagine the day to day lives of the average woman on the street.

              I like these books, these classics. And I like them because they are so obviously about gay men. Each woman has in common a repression of their desire. None of these heroines end up happy in love. The parallels to the closeted lives of gay men at the time is writ large. Indeed, with Forster and Henry James, the unrepentant sodomites, the parallel is pretty explicit.

              Yes, I've read a lot about women. The problem is all these books were set over a hundred years ago. Modern women I had no experience of at all.

55.
I had never suffered from an over-abundance of ambition to begin with, but recently what little I had was beginning to dwindle. I was finding it difficult to motivate myself in my studies. Sure, I could get good grades and go on to have a good job. But then what?

              Wha
t’
s the point in having a good job? I wasn't going to have children, not in Ireland anyway. If I found myself in ten years with a fancy job, car and house what use would it be to me?

              Having a family, having kids, wasn't the answer. But it was an answer. The world seems disinclined to look beyond this motive. Giving a good life to wife and children is seen as a tangible good. And, I suppose, i
t’
s just as much of a good as anything else. If there are no answers, i
t’
s probably as close to the right answer as we're going to get.

              I could function on a day to day basis. I got up and went to class, as it was the best option for that day. I got my shit done. But had someone arrived out of nowhere and offered me a life of solitude on a deserted island, living off coconuts, I would have stopped to give it consideration. I was on a precipice of doubt.

              The only thing that was keeping me functioning was the simplicity of routine. If there was no point to success, if there was no point to anything, then going with the flow was just as good an option as anything else. Half heartedly striving for success may be just as hollow as doing nothing, but to me in my life, at that time, it was the path of least resistance.

              Philosophers, or philosophy students at least, say they are on a quest for truth. For answers. Most of them are lying. There is a vacuum in their heads, a section of their brain labelled answers or meaning or reason. This vacuum needs to be filled. Not with answers, but with more questions. Not because the questions are too big to have ready answers. I
t’
s just that those who thought they came up with ready answers, Spinoza, Nietzsche, Hume, all ended up going mad. When the option is between finding an answer and leaving it at that, or continually asking questions, humans err towards the latter. The state of constant confusion is the natural state, the state that keeps us all going, that keeps us all occupied and striving. I
t’
s a survival instinct for the brain.

              So there I was, with no clue as to what I was going to do with my life, living a routine which was just as good as any other, standing with Fiona and Brandon, two people who were destined to be on the gravy train of the family-and-success answer. Compared to me their minds were completely clear. They knew where they were going with their lives and why.

              Fiona was talking about herself. Which she did a lot. I was politely asking questions, as one does with the new partner of a friend. We were in the skiing resort, on a balcony, looking out on a vast valley with proportions that I had only ever seen in movies. Its magnificence was being droned out by Fiona, who at this stage was 16. Having taken hours to get to that age, and with the story seeming to slow rather than quicken, I caught the attention of a waiter and ordered more drink in preparation for a long evening ahead.

56.
With a name like Fiona, she obviously had some Irish blood. And like two recessive genes coming into contact, her association with Brandon had led to the emergence of a previously inert need for alcohol. Religion be damned, in this respect anyway. We had been sitting on the balcony for a few hours. Both Brandon and myself were two strangers to this world, so it was perhaps natural that we would fall into politely listening to her. I inquired after, and feigned interest, in this interloper. Brandon remained silent, learning more about her than he had so far managed, over coffee and prayer, or whatever it was they did together.