Page 15

Macsen

“Bye Mum, bye Dad.” I waved as Hywel and I reached the door. To my surprise, Mum pulled me into a crushing hug before I could leave.

“I’ll come and see you this week, OK?” she said.

“That would be nice.” I pulled away from the hug before she decided not to let go and jerked my head at Hywel to come with me. “Just giving him a lift back to his hotel,” I said. I didn’t know why I was explaining myself at twenty-six years old.

Both of us walked wordlessly to the car and pulled on our seatbelts. I turned on the heating to warm it up as it was getting cold.

“Well that was…” I said. Mum had been unusually attentive toward me after dinner, offering to fill my glass, asking if I wanted second helpings of anything, and then at the end offering to come and see me at work.

“Fun?” Hywel suggested. He had slumped in his seat completely, like he was letting go of all his tension at once. “Because I am not keen to do that again.”

I chuckled. “She’s given you a standing invite for Christmas dinner. Let’s not think about it. Let’s go get wasted.”

“Sounds like a plan,” said Hywel.

“How did it feel telling lies of James Bond proportions?” I asked. “If you asked my mother right now, she’d think you were a millionaire.”

“I could have almost convinced myself,” he said. I put the car into gear and pulled out of the driveway. It was funny to watch Hywel almost relax and stretch himself out as the houses in the village thinned out and we entered the leafy country lanes.

“I hate lying,” he finally said.

“I thought you’d have to lie all the time in business.”

“Nah. Well, maybe. Maybe I should have. I’ve twisted the truth, omitted facts, but the closer I get to outright lying the more I feel…bleh.”

“Have you lied to me?” I asked.

“No. Not lied.” There was more to his statement, but I was ready to get drunk. I felt like he was omitting some facts, but I didn’t need to ask him to figure them out. I’d get there in time.

We passed the garage. “Why did you move in there?” Hywel asked. “Surely with the state the upstairs is in you’d be more comfortable asking your parents for a room.”

“Fuck off, I’d have to be mad,” I said. “Living with my mother at twenty-six? No thanks.”

There was quiet again, and I felt the need to tell him. Why, I didn’t know. But when he had told me how far he’d fallen, it felt like maybe we’d entered some kind of pact. If I confessed to him now, like a priest he would be bound to silence. And absolve me of my sins.

“I lived with my grandparents in Aberystwyth during my apprenticeship and during university, and afterwards I moved in with some housemates in the town.

I thought I wanted what they wanted, they were party animals and they were crazy about going out on big nights out.

It was about a week before I realised that I prefer to live on my terms. I like partying, but when the bass was pounding through the walls every night and the boys were bring back different girls and making my bedroom walls shake, I thought this might not be for me.

“So I stuck it out, at least for a little while. I thought if I could make it to the end of my year contract I’d be in a better place to find a nice little flat of my own.

I got used to cleaning sick out of the kitchen sink and doing most of the housework myself.

There were times where I was fishing needles out of the outside drains from where they had been shooting up outside.

And then one day, about a month and a half ago, I walked out of my downstairs bedroom to find the kitchen swimming in blood.

There was glass shattered everywhere and a trail of blood running up the stairs.

One of the boys I lived with was so off his face he ended up smashing a glass and slashing himself up badly with it.

There he was, laying in a pool of his own blood on his bed.

When I tried to wake him up he just pushed me away.

There was still glass sticking out of his hand. ”

“Fucking hell,” said Hywel. “Was he OK?”

“I guess so. I checked he was breathing properly, checked his bloody wrist for a pulse and called an ambulance and the police. And then I got the fuck out of there with my clothes, telly and games. I sent the landlord pictures of the damage he’d caused and said if he tried to bill me for the rent I’d sue.

No-one has ever contacted me about it since. ”

“And this was all just over a month ago?”

“I called Alun and asked if I could use the flat if he was shacked up with Alaw now,” I said. “That’s why it was still such a mess when you arrived. I’d been living and working in the space and I had no idea where to start.”

“So what you’re saying is me turning up and having a good clean through is the best thing that could have ever happened to you?” Hywel said with a wry smile.

It got a laugh out of me. “Don’t push your fucking luck. You’re better than living with junkies, I’ll give you that.”

Aberystwyth was only a short drive from the village.

It was the maze of country lanes and steep hillsides that made us feel so isolated from the rest of the world.

But I liked it now, having been in such a wild situation.

It was nice to be able to get out of the village to somewhere with a little bit more going on.

It was just as nice to have a place to lock myself away from the world whenever I wanted to.

Which I’d been doing oh so successfully until Hywel had intruded so fucking rudely into my life.

I risked a glance over at him. He was looking out of the passenger side window at cows in a farmers’ field.

“Almost here,” I said. I pointed forward, where the fields were giving way to houses.

Just a few minutes later we were passing over the little stone bridge that straddled Afon Rheidiol, the river that ran through the town.

“Its been so long since I’ve been here,” said Hywel. “When I only knew Hiraeth, Aber seemed so…big, busy. Now…”

“It looks pokey and provincial. I know, visiting Gruff in Cardiff was a culture shock.”

“London is on a whole other level. Busy, chaotic. It was amazing when I was twenty-two, but then it all started to feel too much. So, I started hanging out at the old gay pubs rather than the clubs.” Hywel smiled, more to himself than anything.

“We lost a whole generation once upon a time. Some of those guys had such stories…”

I parked the car at one of the spaces on the seafront and Hywel got out, looking over at the sea. The sun had set but there was still a glow over the horizon. God, we were out early.

“Your uncles were part of that generation though weren’t they? Old Llywelyn and Prentis?” I asked.

“Yeah. Well, nah. Funnily enough, I don’t think AIDS ever reached their little monogamous relationship in Hiraeth.

They were part of that generation, sure, but they were protected from it.

Talking to some of those guys in London…

some of them sat with all their friends as they died, feeling guilty just for surviving. ”

I shuddered. “Come on. Enough sadness. We’re alive, aren’t we? Let’s go out and celebrate that.”

Hywel nodded and walked along the boulevard confidently.

“Wrong way, old man. It’s obviously been a very long time.”

“Oh, fuck off.” Hywel turned and walked back toward me.

He deliberately shunted me as he did, but he was grinning.

He had such a nice smile. I followed after him but swiftly took the lead.

Hywel was looking around in wonder. “I’ve been to so many nice places.

Brian and I went to the Maldives last year… ”

“Show off,” I said.

“Hush. What I was about to say is that as many places as I’ve been, it’s easy to forget just how beautiful home is. I smoked my first cigarette on that bench over there, had my first kiss in an alleyway behind one of the bars when I was seventeen and had snuck in with fake ID…”

“Oh my God, who was it?” I asked. I couldn’t help my curiosity.

Hywel groaned. “It was Tudor, OK?”

“I’m pretty sure he was every boy and girl’s first kiss in Hiraeth. Fucking hell, he got around.”

“Look at him now, shacking up with a movie star. Reckon Daniel Ellison knows how boyfriend used to be a right slag?” Hywel laughed.

“I would not want to be the one who told him if not.” I looked around us at Aberystwyth.

The Christmas lights had been switched on, illuminating so many old Victorian buildings on the seafront.

The pier was lit with families playing, and there were people walking their dogs down on the beach bundled up in duffel coats.

It was a beautiful place to be on this night.

And somehow, despite myself, I found myself smiling along with Hywel.

I pointed over at the old church that had been converted into a nightclub. “That’s where we’re going, Yr Hen Eglwys .” The Old Church. God wouldn’t be very happy if he knew what went on in there nowadays.

As we approached, the thump thump thump of the club got louder. It was an early club night, but there wasn’t any other provision for LGBT people in the nearby towns or villages despite Hiraeth’s improbably high population of flaming homos.

“Are you ready for this?” I asked Hywel as we reached the door.

“As long as the drinks are cheap and the men are hot,” he said.

“Well the drinks are cheap and the men are…they exist.”

Hywel tilted his head dramatically. “It’ll do.”

He pushed open the door and waited there for me to pass him. Two bouncers stood just inside, keeping warm rather than stand out in the cold. “ID?” One of them asked Hywel.

He looked at me incredulously and handed over his ID to the bouncers. They waved him through, and when I went to pull my ID from my wallet one of them shook their head. When I passed the bouncers and met with Hywel, he was laughing behind his hand.

“Which one of us is six years older?” he asked.

“Shut up. It’s the tattoos and beard.”