Page 27 of Rhymes with Metaphor

T he next day, Reg drove Joel to the supermarket.

“It’s cold in here,” said Joel.

“Naturally. Because it’s hot outside.”

“No,” said Joel. “It’s like a refrigerator. And the air smells too fresh. Canadian supermarkets don’t smell like this. They must be pumping something into the air.”

“I’m sure they’re not trying to gas us.”

“Where’s the list?”

“What list?” said Reg.

“The list of what we need to buy.”

“I don’t have one.”

“You can’t grocery shop without a list,” said Joel. “You’ll forget things.”

“If we forget something, we’ll come back and buy it later.”

“But that’s inefficient.”

“Joel, you’re on holiday. Your job is to be inefficient.”

Joel went along each aisle, hands in his pockets. He kept glancing at the prices.

“You’re not a poor student anymore. Pick whatever you fancy.”

Joel wandered off and came back a few minutes later, looking bemused.

“There’s an entire aisle full of cookies.”

“Which ones did you get?” said Reg.

“How am I supposed to pick?” said Joel. “There are hundreds of different kinds.”

“Get some Penguins.”

“People eat penguins here?” said Joel, horrified. “Legally?”

“Penguin biscuits are legal, yes. They don’t contain any actual penguin.”

Once they were home, Reg hunted through the larder to find his grandmother’s picnic basket, which could be worn as a backpack. He began filling it with food. “Today, I’m taking you somewhere special.”

“Your bed?” said Joel.

Reg pushed him playfully. “I’m taking you on a picnic.”

“Just us?”

“Of course. Why?”

“We’ll never eat that much.”

“It’s a picnic,” said Reg. “Bringing too much food is compulsory.”

They walked to the pebble beach, Reg carrying the basket.

As the tide had receded far enough, they were able to skirt the cliff rocks.

Reg watched Joel’s expression of wonder as they rounded the rocks to the next beach, and he saw the open, green parkland and the viaduct with its stone arches one hundred feet high.

He stopped walking, and Reg brushed against him, as though he could catch Joel’s amazement.

All Reg saw when he looked at the viaduct now were memories of past summers.

Reg found a promising area of shaded grass to unroll his grandmother’s tartan picnic rug.

They ate ready-made sandwiches and pork pies and walnut cake, and drank Orangina. Afterwards, Joel lay back on the blanket and gazed at Reg with such warm regard, Reg couldn’t stop looking at him.

“Another jam tart?” said Reg.

“I’m full. I’ll explode.”

“That’s the idea of a picnic.” Reg lay beside Joel, and they basked in the sun, digesting their meal.

“I’m so tired, Reg,” Joel murmured.

“Sleep, then. I’ll keep watch.”

Joel fell asleep, and Reg watched him, feeling an unusual calm and peace, reflecting that he had never seen anything so pleasing as Joel right then, so completely unguarded.

A beetle landed on Joel’s shoulder, and Reg gently brushed it away.

And the next thing he knew, he was scrabbling for something to write with again, a poem opening up around him like a flower in the sun.

The sun was descending by the time Joel woke. Reg had already finished his poem and packed the remains of their picnic away.

“Are you up for some strenuous exercise?” said Reg.

“As long as I can rest after.”

“Good. Because the tide’s come in, and we can’t go back the way we came. We’ll have to go over the hill.”

And so, Reg took Joel to the concrete steps than rose almost vertically through the wood at the edge of the park.

Joel kept a good pace at first, but before too long, he started flagging, hauling himself up by the thin handrail.

He slowed to a crawl, then stopped and sat on one of the steps, head bowed, elbows on knees, breathing heavily.

Reg sat beside him. No one else was on the stairs—it was too ridiculously hot for climbing.

“Are you all right?” said Reg.

“Are they called ‘the Golden Stairs’ because people puke on them when they try to climb them?”

“Please don’t be sick on the stairs. You’ll be fined for littering.” Reg shrugged off the picnic basket, dug out a bottle of Orangina, and handed it to Joel.

Joel drained the bottle and passed it back to Reg.

“More?”

“Please.”

Reg handed him another. This, he couldn’t finish. When Reg reached for it to take a sip, Joel stopped him. “You’ll catch mono.”

“If I was going to catch your mono, I’d have caught it in Blackberry Lane,” said Reg, finishing the bottle.

“How much further?”

“We’re two-thirds of the way. The view from the top is worth it, I promise.”

With Reg’s help, Joel slowly got to his feet.

“This is like Martin’s cottage in Canada when I helped you upstairs.”

“That was you?”

“Yes, it was. Don’t you remember?”

“I was too out of it. I didn’t know what was real.”

“We’ll go as slowly as you like,” said Reg, thinking Flip would have vaulted the steps three at a time and been waiting for Reg at the top, mocking him for being out of condition.

They emerged from the trees onto the great and perfect dome of a grass-covered hill, two hundred feet above the beach, overlooking the stretch of coast from the beach to Friar’s Point.

“Told you it was worth it,” said Reg.

Joel toppled onto the grass and lay on his back, chest heaving.

“Are you going to be sick?”

Joel shook his head.

They rested, lying side by side on their backs, heads cradled in their arms. Reg heard the roar of the marvellously cooling wind, smelled seawater and freshly cut grass and Joel’s sweat. Joel’s breathing took a long time to quiet.

“The sky’s huge,” said Joel.

“Always has been.”

“I can feel it pulling at me. If we flew the kite up here, we’d get ripped off the hill and sucked into the sky.”

“It’s not even blowing hard. You should feel it in a storm.”

“I feel like I own the world,” said Joel. “Must be the endorphins.”

Reg’s cock felt like the clapper of a bell, ringing in the hollow of the sky, resonating in Reg’s groin. “Listen to your body. What’s it telling you?”

“My body’s remembering the train station,” said Joel. He stared at Reg, sly and calculating. “How private is it here?”

“It’s not. Anyone could see us.”

Joel inched his hand across the grass until his fingertips touched Reg’s. “Could you make me come without touching me?”

“Probably. But would you want to walk home like that afterwards?”

“Might be worth it,” said Joel, a half-smile on his face.

“If you’re a good boy and don’t come on this hill, I’ll buy you an ice lolly on the way home.”

“I haven’t had one of those since I was a kid.”

“So, not long ago,” said Reg.

Joel elbowed him, playfully.

In the end, Joel bowed to decorum, and, after they descended the other side of the hill (a much easier feat than climbing it), Reg took him into the shop on the road.

Joel was overwhelmed by the selection of ice lollies. “What should I get?”

“You’re the one who’s going to eat it. I can’t decide for you.”

“That one looks like a giant tapeworm wrapped around a stick.”

“It sounds like you know what you don’t want,” said Reg, “so, work from there.”

Joel chose a Solero.

Afterwards, as they were strolling along Beachway, Reg asked, “Do you like it?”

“It’s pretty much what I expected. Looks like a Creamsicle, tastes like a Creamsicle.”

“Don’t you like Creamsicles?”

“They’re all right.”

“Just all right? Why did you choose it, then?”

“Because I knew what it was. Maybe I should have got a Nobbly Bobbly.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I was too embarrassed to say it to the guy in the store,” said Joel.

“You weren’t embarrassed to say it in front of me just now.”

“I’ve done way more embarrassing things in front of you than saying ‘Nobbly Bobbly,’” said Joel.

“Do you want to swap yours for my Maxibon? You’ll get my germs, of course.”

“I’ve already got your germs.”

They exchanged lollies.

Joel took a bite. “This is really good.”

“That’s why I chose it.”

“It looked too high maintenance in the store,” said Joel.

“Do you even know what ‘high maintenance’ means?” said Reg.

“Unnecessarily...tricked out.”

“In other words, fabulous.”

Still eating their lollies, they wandered through the park at the end of the road to a sunken garden walled with flowers, featuring a triangular fountain at its centre.

“Over that rise are the remains of a guest house,” said Reg. “Built in Roman times.”

“This place has been special for a long time.”

“Since ancient times,” said Reg. “There’s evidence of a Stone Age settlement on the headland.”

They finished their ice lollies. Reg fished in his pockets and came out with a handful of coins. One was a black toonie. He put it in Joel’s hand.

“Throw that into the fountain,” said Reg. “Make a wish.”

“I wish you’d made me come on the hill.”

“A proper wish.”

“Don’t look,” said Joel.

Reg shut his eyes and waited. He heard the wind and the sound of Joel’s footsteps receding and then returning.

“You can open your eyes now,” said Joel.

Joel was standing in front of him with his hands in his pockets, a small smile on his face.

“What did you wish for?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Keep it to yourself, then.”

“I intend to,” said Joel.

As they strolled back to the house, Joel took Reg’s hand. It was broad daylight, and Reg’s body tightened reflexively. He and Flip had never displayed physical affection in public.

“All right?” said Reg, looking at him.

“You said I should figure out what I like. I like this.” Joel gripped Reg’s hand tighter.

And because Reg wanted to enjoy the feeling of not having to hide, he led them on a detour through the gardens across the road from the house.

Once they were inside the front door, Joel gave Reg a prolonged hug, but he didn’t try to initiate anything sexual.

“Thanks,” said Joel quietly.

“You’re welcome,” said Reg. “For what?”

Joel stepped back. “Do you have internet access here?”

“You want to look at porn?”

“I need to check my email. It’s been a while.”

Reg got him set up and left him to it in the front room. He’d had plans to revise the poem he’d written at the picnic, but he was so exhausted from the hike up the hill, he lay down in the bedroom for a short nap.

When he woke an hour later, Joel was gone.

He wasn’t in his bedroom or in the front room where Reg had left him.

He wandered to the back of the house and found him sitting on the back patio, sans laptop, drinking a glass of water and staring towards the rail embankment. Reg pulled up a chair and joined him.

“I dropped out,” said Joel.

“I dropped off too.”

“No,” said Joel. “I dropped out . Of school.”

“What? When?”

“Fifteen minutes ago.”

“What’s brought this on?”

“You said I should figure out what I want based on what I don’t want, and I don’t want to go to med school.”

“That’s why you lied to Juliet about your QDOG score?”

“Yes,” said Joel. “Are you shocked?”

“Not shocked, no,” said Reg. “Would you like to watch some pointless television?”

“Yes.”

They went into the front room and sat on the sectional.

Joel rested his head on Reg’s shoulder. Contrary to his mood in the afternoon, Joel was subdued and didn’t push for anything sexual.

After a few hours, when Reg suggested they go to bed, Joel didn’t protest. He fell asleep quickly, probably still exhausted from climbing the hill.

Owing to the nap he’d taken earlier, Reg couldn’t sleep, so he sat up revising the poem he’d written at the picnic until he dozed off.

Reg was wakened in the darkness by Joel shaking him frantically.

“What?” said Reg. “What is it?” He switched on the bedside lamp to see Joel crouched over him, wild-eyed. “Did you have a nightmare?”

“What have I done, Reg? What have I done? I don’t know what I’m doing!”

“With what?”

“My life!” said Joel. “I have no fucking clue what I’m going to do now.”

Reg burst out laughing.

“It’s not funny!” said Joel.

“It is, because you’re being ridiculous.”

“I’m serious, Reg!”

Reg sat up against the headboard. “What can I do?”

“Tell me it’s going to be all right.”

Reg laughed and ruffled Joel’s hair. “Everything’s going to be all right, cariad. Go back to sleep.”

Reg pushed Joel onto his back, tucked the covers in around him and kissed his forehead.

“This is the first time in my life I haven’t been in school,” said Joel. “What if I fucked up?”

“You can always go back.”

“I don’t want to go back,” said Joel.

“Medical school is your Solero,” said Reg. “You need to find your Maxibon.”

“But I don’t know where to start. What am I going to do?”

“If all else fails, you can get a job castrating garden gnomes. You seem to enjoy doing that.”

Joel snorted a laugh. They lay quietly in the dark, but Joel was still tense.

“Do I have to put the cat’s bell on you again?” said Reg.

“No,” said Joel, affronted.

“Meow.”

“Fuck off.”