‘I know. But that’s not the reason. And how come you’re away so much at weekends? Tell me to piss off if you like, but when you come back, you’re always so… I don’t know, happy, as if you’ve been shagging for the entire weekend. Now apart from that one time, I haven’t seen or heard about a girlfriend, and I think I have a clue as to why that might be.’
Christopher felt twin trickles of sweat run from his armpits down his sides. The club was hot, the air opaque. How could he explain, without having to explain everything? He would have to tell Adam he was adopted, that his adoptive parents had only told him because he’d found the note in the case, that now he’d found a family that he… he what? He preferred. That was it. That was the shameful truth of the matter. He had abandoned his old family like an unfashionable pair of jeans. Worse still, he had not told his new family that he hadn’t told his old family. No – too complicated. Better to say he had a woman on the go, a married woman. It was easier.
He opened his mouth to speak, but Adam clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Do you want to know why I’ve not gone home?’
Relief coursed through Christopher. He nodded.
‘My old man,’ said Adam. ‘My dad.’
For the first time Christopher could remember – ever, in fact – Adam looked serious. Serious or sad or cross – something that sent his brows towards each other, that turned his smile upside down.
‘Your father?’
‘If I tell you this, it stops here, OK?’
Christopher nodded. ‘Of course.’
‘He’s handy with his hands, if you catch my drift.’ Adam took a drag on his cigarette, drained his pint glass. ‘Violent. With my ma, but with me an’ all, like. Since I was thirteen. I feel like a shit staying here, leaving her there, but it’s her choice, she’s made it and I have to make mine.’
In the stinging smoke, Christopher looked hard at his friend. Adam had glanced away, to the dance floor, and was lighting a cigarette from the last one. He threw the old one to the floor and squashed it with his shoe. Odd, Christopher thought, that in the thick smog of the club, this was perhaps the first time he had seen his friend clearly.
‘Is he your real dad?’ The question was out before he could stop it.
Adam cocked his head. ‘Eh? Yes. Course he’s my real dad. Believe me, I’d love nothing better than for them to tell me they found me on the street, but unfortunately, no, I am their biological progeny.’ The last words he laced with irony, bitterness – something like that. ‘Come on, let’s get out of here.’
They headed out onto Albion Street. Adam turned his talk to the women in the club, asking Christopher if he had seen her with the dark hair, what about that one with the silver dress, did Christopher think she was a man or a woman? Thankfully, they had left the subject of him, Christopher, behind. They turned into Boar Lane. Above them a white poster covered the wall, shouted down its message in bold black letters:
DO YOU KNOW THIS MAN?
HELP US STOP THE RIPPER FROM KILLING AGAIN
CALL LEEDS (0532) 46111
A man with dead eyes stared out from a crude photofit image. Adam nodded up at the sign. ‘There’s been no more since May, has there?’
‘The sixteenth,’ said Christopher. Vera Millward. Outside Manchester Royal Infirmary. He had cut out the newspaper article and stuck it in his scrapbook with the others.
‘I know.’ Adam shuddered. ‘Sick bastard. They should cut his bloody balls off, man.’
Adam pushed open the door to the Griffin pub. Christopher followed him in and headed for the bar.
‘It’s my round,’ he said. ‘Same again?’
‘Why aye. Good man. I’ll get us a table.’
Unusually, Adam chose a table in the corner, away from the others. There were no women at all in the pub, Christopher noticed as he brought the drinks over, sat down and slid Adam’s beer over to him. Taking hold of his pint, Adam made a come-here gesture with his other hand, wanting to share another confidence, no doubt.
Christopher leaned in.
‘No, you prat,’ Adam said. ‘Fags. Your turn.’
‘Oh. Sorry.’
‘So that’s me,’ said Adam, once they’d lit up. ‘Elvis, the great pretender. I know I look like I walk on water, but that’s what comes from treading on eggshells your whole life.’ He sucked at his cigarette, blew smoke rings, met Christopher’s gaze. ‘So, buggerlugs, where do you go to, my lovely? At weekends?’
‘I…’ Christopher began, the blaze of attention making his cheeks burn. ‘It’s a long story.’
Adam put both elbows on the tabletop, rested his chin on the steeple of his hands.
‘Listen,’ he said. ‘And don’t take this the wrong way. This isn’t what I think necessarily, I’m just saying it’s OK by me, that’s all. I’m not prejudiced in any way against anyone. Black, white, yellow, straight, queer, it’s all the same to me.’ He paused, met Christopher’s gaze. ‘I’m not prejudiced, is what I’m saying.’
Christopher shook his head. ‘Me neither, I don’t think.’
‘I mean, did you see that chap in the club? The one with the pink towelling headband on his bonce doing the big moves, the spins and all that malarkey?’
‘No.’
‘Doesn’t matter.’ Adam broke his gaze, thank goodness, and rolled his cigarette tip in the ashtray so that it made a grey cone. ‘All I’m saying is, good on him. Do you know what I mean?’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
Adam shook his head, laid his hand on Christopher’s shoulder and leaned into his ear.
‘If you’re gay, it’s OK,’ he said. ‘I’m not, but if you are, what I’m saying is, that’s cool, man.’
He leant back and smiled, and Christopher held his gaze for a second. Adam didn’t laugh. He wasn’t joking. An hour earlier, he had been one kind of person; now he was almost entirely another. How sudden the shift had been. From Adam the chancer, the dancer, the romancer, to Adam who had been beaten as a child, who when he left for university had left violence behind along with his mother, who continued to endure it. Adam who asked for confidences, who promised not to judge. With the exception of Phyllis, he was possibly the kindest person Christopher had ever known. He was still looking right at Christopher, so serious, so unlike himself, but, it was possible, utterly himself, the self he normally kept under wraps. That was what he was offering: himself – the real one.
Christopher felt a smile creep across his lips. The smile widened.
‘What?’ said Adam. ‘I’m right, aren’t I? It’s OK, man, it’s OK. And I won’t tell either.’
From nowhere, Christopher exploded into laughter. Tears leaked from his eyes, his stomach hurt, he tried to speak but could not. Adam laughed too, but doubtfully.
‘Mate,’ he said. ‘People are staring. Get a grip, will you?’
‘I-I’m not,’ Christopher stuttered, when he was able. ‘I’m not gay.’
‘What? What then?’
‘It’s my mother,’ he said. ‘My real mother. That’s where I go at weekends.’
Chapter Nineteen