Page 5 of Maybe (Mis-shapes #1)

ISAAC

Back in my father’s era, Oxford University was still an exclusive institution used by rich parents to house a bunch of overprivileged kids for a few years, until they matured sufficiently to be let loose to run the City, the military, or, in my father’s case, the surgical wards.

And if they learned some law or politics or medicine in the meantime, as well as tying a Windsor knot and conquering Kloisters black runs, then that was a bonus.

Though maybe my cynicism was merely sour grapes, seeing as my application to study at my father’s alma mater was rejected.

Supposedly, Balliol College Chapel was one of the less ornate of the Oxford chapels.

Regardless, it stunk of money, from the intricately patterned gleam of the chequerboard floor tiles slapping against the soles of my dress shoes to the polished panels blanketing every wall in sombre dark oak.

All overseen by a monstrous, gilt-covered organ towering above, currently pounding out Jerusalem .

It was my father’s favourite hymn, according to those who knew him (a group that hadn’t included his children).

Until the first chord struck, I hadn’t been aware he had a favourite hymn or did, in fact, know any hymns.

Half-cut, my mother swayed at my shoulder, cheerfully belting out the first verse.

I could have done with a small shandy myself.

I didn’t remember at what point in her marriage she slid into daytime drinking; certainly, no one ever alluded to it.

I imagined it was around the same time she discovered she’d married a man more in love with himself, his job, and securing a knighthood than his wife and kids.

Whatever. She stayed loyal to him, seeing as he came with a title and more wealth than she’d ever dreamed.

Perhaps she felt obligated, given her existence literally contributed to death of another woman.

Yet, while no means perfect—and who was?

—the older I became, the more I realised she was exactly like the rest of us, getting through the day as best she could.

If that meant a liquid lunch and absolving herself of the responsibility for her grown-up children, who was I to criticise?

She could have done things differently with Ezra, perhaps, recognised the bereft child instead of berating the demon, but nonetheless, I had a protective fondness for her.

We were the only immediate family representatives.

Ezra, of course, was wherever he’d disappeared to, though I maintained one hopeful eye on the chapel entrance pretty much throughout the service.

Once the coroner released our father’s body, the twins graced us with a flying visit from the States for the private interment, but drew the line at returning again six weeks later, principally because they were having too much fun to waste an afternoon making small talk with old fogies while drinking sherry and pretending to mourn a father who’d spent most of their childhood posing for pictures with other people’s children.

Successfully shoving two fingers in the face of convention, I envied them.

“Don’t cry because it’s over—smile because it happened,” began one of my father’s old colleagues from the pulpit.

Stephen? Jeremy? Charles? I forgot who; one balding middle-aged man in a smart blazer and old school tie was very much like another.

Every one to a man relished the sound of their own voices.

This bespectacled iteration launched into a vaguely humorous monologue enumerating my father’s many and varied professional successes.

My mind floated in the direction it always did: Ezra.

This time with his guitar loosely slung around his neck, and cross-legged on my bed .

Hey, Isaac, have a go at that riff again, but like this, stretch your fingers wider.

With the hint of a smile, he’d drop his head, his silky black hair falling across his eyes.

His long fingers would wrap around the fret board like they were moulded to it and then, humming along, he’d strum the notes perfectly, as if penned with his nimble hands in mind.

Forever Mozart to my Salieri.

As a swotty, quiet, and lonely child, I’d battled a miserable adolescence.

Ezra was the only bright spot, the first boy to cement gayness in my mind.

I’d lived for Ezra’s sporadic trips home from boarding school.

At unexpected moments, he’d appear around my bedroom door, like a creature from a faraway world, a darkly romantic foreign land full of exotic beings with painted nails and flowing black clothes.

When our father wasn’t home, Ezra would make his eyes up with thick black liner.

Once, he peeled down his skinny jeans to show me the tiny secret tattoo of an eagle stamped on his pale left hip bone, trusting me never to tell.

We’d plotted the design and placement of his next one after he’d saved up the money.

Learn to fly. Fly away.

A few years dragged by before I realised every boy who aspired to go to art college dressed like that. After Ezra left for good, I persuaded myself my feelings were nothing more than rampant hormones and a childish crush.

So why did they linger, even now? Why did I glance up at the heavy oak chapel doors every few minutes?

And why did my heart sink lower and lower when he didn’t appear?

He was my fucking brother, for Christ’s sake!

Surely once I found someone else triggering the same desire, he’d be reduced to a vague, slightly cringing memory?

For years, I’d convinced myself of the latter, until Ezra sauntered into David Trethowan’s office and folded his long body into the seat next to mine.

His clothing style hadn’t changed much; those skinny grey jeans and moody countenance brought back every single agony of lust and teenage frustration as freshly as if they’d been dropped into my skull only yesterday.

Given the choice, I wouldn’t be gay. I didn’t have the bottle to be different.

I wasn’t made like Alaric, for instance, with his sassy walk and his fluttery eyelashes and his sexily crossed legs.

I wanted to blend in, an ordinary man married to an ordinary woman, living in an ordinary house and raising two ordinary children.

Instead, I inhabited a weird no-man’s-land; one foot out of the closet and the other wedging the door open, still reluctant to slam it behind me for good.

The kind of gay who, when asked if I had a girlfriend, answered in the negative and left it at that, then shrunk to the size of a button mushroom.

Internalised homophobia, alive and kicking, but only directed at myself.

I wasn’t even truly out at work, despite being fully aware we lived in the twenty-first century and the NHS was, by and large, an LGBTQ friendly employer.

Not like Alaric, sashaying around the Emergency Department, swinging his rainbow lanyard like a lasso.

Not like Damon either, nor Paul, two or our nurse practitioners, bemoaning the tedium of finger-prick HIV testing as if discussing blood glucose checks for diabetes.

Occasionally, Dr Shah, a senior consultant from the respiratory unit, would wander to the department to review a patient, a row of metal pride badges pinned to his shirt.

He’d chat about his marriage to Mark, the adoption process, his recent holiday to Portugal with Mark’s extended family.

I found myself fantasising about trading places with him, even though I’d never met bloody Mark.

Nonetheless, neither was I not out. On direct questioning, I wouldn’t deny it.

I’d even registered with the hospital’s sexual health team, blushing terribly while filling in the forms. I answered their intrusive questions as reluctantly as if admitting a criminal record or winning an award for pike fishing.

The congregation rose to its collective feet, bringing me back to the present.

Hymnals rustled as pages turned. Throats were cleared.

I joined in a half-hearted rendition of How Great Thou Art .

From wherever my father was currently looking down on us, he no doubt imagined it as homage to himself.

And then I pictured Ezra singing next to me, his low, sweet voice dancing over the sober melody as easily as his long fingers danced over a fretboard.

After an interminable hour, I escaped the chapel, but only as far as the drinks reception.

Though the chapel was considered modest by Oxford standards, the splendour of Balliol’s Long Room more than made up for it.

More dark wooden panelling and stained-glass windows, interspersed with solemn portraits of dead clever people, now simply dead.

Every one of them white, male, bespectacled, and privileged.

Christ, it was going to be a long, grim afternoon.

To a background thrum of glasses chinking and posh, braying little laughs that had my smoked trout canapés sticking in my craw, the hours rolled drearily on. I’d driven down from London and had an early shift tomorrow morning, so I stuck to orange juice. My mother mixed hers with gin.

When I glanced around, the clientele and atmosphere weren’t much different from the many drinks parties my parents used to host at home.

My father would often be unexpectedly absent from those, too.

Fêtes worth than death , my mother called them, before dolling herself up to stand at Sir Henry’s side and perform the dutiful adoring wife thing.