Passing Time Read online

  “No. Ours is on the far side of the car park.”

  “What’s it doing all the way over there? You can’t expect my legs to carry me. Unless you’re volunteering to do the honors?” She glared at Jake, and Jake glared right back.

  “Go and get the car,” Louis told him, half expecting to be snapped at again. Jake simply stuck out his jaw, spun on the balls of his feet, and huffed away.

  “You should’ve come to see her,” Mrs. Banks said, staring after Jake’s retreating back.

  Louis sighed. Now was not a good time to try to defend himself. “She didn’t want to know me. I wrote her several times over the years. I even sent her photos, but I—”

  “Seen ’em,” she said with a sage nod.

  Louis frowned. “My mother showed you photographs of me? Are you sure?”

  “Many a time.” She sounded sure enough. “You and your special friend abroad. Not the laddo.” She gestured in Jake’s general direction with her stick. “You get around, don’t you, sonny?”

  Did she mean get around as in travel? Or did she mean with men? She’d be right on the first count. Maybe right on the second, back in the day when Carter and he would share their bed with anyone who caught their eye. Or more precisely Carter’s eye.

  “Should’ve been a wake,” she said. “Thought you people liked to party.”

  “I’m afraid I’m not the partying kind,” Louis said, his mind still focused on the possibility his mother had actually read his letters and kept his photo. “I’m not much like my mother.”

  Mrs. Banks gave him the benefit of an extra-harsh stare. “Your mother hadn’t taken a drink in twenty years.”

  Louis waited for this new information sink in. “You mean she quit?”

  “The same day you abandoned her.”

  “I didn’t abandon her.” Louis frowned. “You know what she was like. The way she was.” He paused, his breath trapped in his chest. “I needed a parent, and she was never that to me.”

  The old woman said nothing but simply watched Louis try to conceal his grief a moment before speaking up again. “Forget the port. You take me home.” She patted his hand. “Got something for you there.”

  Before he could ask what exactly it was she had for him, Jake pulled up so close Louis had to shuffle back to avoid the tires.

  “This is your car?” Mrs. Banks squinted at the small, buglike vehicle with a disdainful curl of her fleshy lips.

  “Jake’s.” Louis opened the passenger door for her.

  “Figures.”

  With Louis’s help she eased herself inside. Louis sat in the back with her stick digging into his thigh while Mrs. Banks barked directions at Jake. Louis wondered how much this woman was to be believed. She seemed sincere enough, if rather blunt. Why hadn’t his mother answered his letter or his calls? He’d done everything over the years except fly in for a visit. His father had convinced him doing so would be a bad idea by claiming if she hadn’t wanted him at fifteen, she wasn’t likely to want him at twenty-five or thirty. So he hadn’t gone. And now it was too late.

  They arrived on a street lined with familiar rows of Victorian terraces, a street Louis had last seen from a taxi’s rear window. A shiver tingled the length of his spine. Nothing much had changed, not in all these years. The cars parked along the curb were more modern, of course, and more plentiful. The little grocery shop across the road had been converted to a house, but apart from that, he might’ve just stepped back in time twenty years. He’d never expected to set foot in this street again.

  He helped Mrs. Banks up her front path to her door. She instructed him to wait while she disappeared inside, leaving the door wide and the stench of cat hanging on the breeze.

  Jake remained in the car while Louis stood on the path in his brand-new black mourning suit, eyeing the street and trying not to think back to playing in the road at three in the morning waiting for his mother to come home. He also tried desperately hard to keep his back turned to the house next door.

  A few moments later, perhaps out of boredom, Jake joined him on the path.

  “What’s she doing?” He peered through the open doorway into the murky hall beyond.

  Louis shrugged. “Fetching something.”

  “Yeah? Like what?”

  “She didn’t say.”

  Jake glanced down the street. “Where did you used to live?”

  Louis gestured to the house where he grew up. “Not much, is it?” He thought back to the cold February when they couldn’t afford coal for the fire, to the mold mottling the walls. Watching Jake scan the house piqued his own curiosity, and he turned around.

  The first thing he noticed were the Victorian sash windows, once so badly rotted they wouldn’t open. They were now double glazed. Clean net curtains concealed the rooms behind. A small lawn made up the front garden. Summer flowers bloomed along the border, and a family of gnomes huddled together on the grass. Gnomes? Since when had his mother taken a fancy to gnomes? She’d never bothered about the garden when Louis was a child. He was the one who ended up trying to cut the foot-long grass with a pair of scissors because they didn’t own a mower. Somewhere along the line his mother must have got hold of one. Perhaps around the same time she’d taken a liking to the gnomes. They weren’t exactly Louis’s cup of tea, but, still, apart from those little ceramic people, nothing struck Louis as sinister about the place anymore. He barely even recognized it.

  “Shit!” Jake took a step back, his heel pressing hard on Louis’s toes.

  “Ouch! What the…?”

  Jake pointed to a couple of cats slinking along Mrs. Bank’s hall. One parked itself in the doorway while the other ventured as far as the path before settling down to eye them with lazy suspicion.

  “I don’t like cats,” he said as a tremor rattled through his body.

  “Hey.” Louis reached around Jake’s waist, mildly amused that such a strapping guy could ooze fear like a cold sweat over such a harmless creature. “Remind me never to show you the tigers at the zoo.”

  “Cats are evil,” Jake said quietly.

  “Not evil. But they can smell fear like it’s a big chunk of rib-eye. Full of meaty goodness.” Louis nuzzled his neck and nipped the skin, inhaled the sweet-smelling aftershave. The world around him fell away. God, how he’d missed this. Holding him, touching him. He slipped his arms around Jake’s waist, and Jake leaned back against him. They stood that way until a kid on a bike sped past and bellowed “bum bandits” at them from across the road.

  “Nice neighborhood,” Jake said.

  “Some things will never change.” Louis released him. “Why don’t you go wait in the car? I’ll deal with Mrs. Banks and her cats.”

  “You mind?” Jake turned to face him.

  “No.” He touched Jake’s cheek and leaned in for a kiss, but Jake shied away. He walked off down the path and got back into the car. He was probably still smarting over that ‘just friends’ comment Louis had made about them to Martha Banks. Louis wished he could take that back, but still…friends was about all they had been this past week.

  A few moments later Mrs. Banks came inching back down the hall. The cats got up and wound their way back into the house as if, upon Jake’s retreat, their mission had been accomplished.

  “Here.” She raised a veiny claw and dropped a set of keys into his palm. “Your mother’s spare set. The house belongs to you now. Go see what kind of a woman your mother was. Not the same one you left behind.”

  He had known he’d have to see about getting a set of keys for the house sooner or later, but he’d been delaying the inevitable. “Thanks.”

  “Don’t be a stranger,” she said in her most pleasant voice yet. “You and your laddo, you stop by anytime you like. Except Tuesday evenings I’m at whist. Friday afternoons I’m at day center. Any other time, you’re welcome.”

  “Thanks.” He decided not to mention that he had no plans to come back here anytime soon. He had no choice now but to start making arrangements to return
home. To an empty apartment, a job he hated, and a boss he despised.

  When she’d closed her door, he gazed down the front path. Jake peered at him from inside the car.

  Louis held up the keys and gestured to the house. Jake nodded before Louis climbed over the low wall dividing the properties and inserted the key into the lock. He found himself already braced for a certain smell. Vodka mixed with hairspray, dust, and mold. When he took a breath in the hall, all he detected was a slight taint of damp, the way houses smelled when they’d been empty a while. Floral paper lined the walls, and clean carpet covered the floors.

  This wasn’t how Louis remembered things, although he did have to step over the pile of bills and junk heaped on the doormat. Familiar territory. The constant threat of bailiffs hanging over their heads though they never had anything worth taking. He took a breath, recognizing the slight taint of cigarette smoke on the air. A curious rustling noise sounded from the lounge. The house was supposed to be empty. Surely Mrs. Banks would have mentioned if his mother had a lodger or a boyfriend staying.

  He crossed the hall and pressed an ear to the closed door. There was definitely someone moving around inside. Louis wondered if he should sneak back out and call for Jake, just in case backup was required. But then again, Louis would end up looking pretty damn stupid if the person on the other side of the door had every right to be there. No, he’d be better off dealing with this himself. Taking a deep breath, he gripped the handle and tentatively pushed down, opening the door to the room beyond.

  Chapter Seven

  “What are you doing?” Louis asked, though the question was an unnecessary one. Carter stood at a display unit on the far side of the room with his back turned. A trail of smoke swirled toward the ceiling, and Louis watched it for a while as Carter examined the ornaments lining the glass shelves, having a good old nose through Louis’s mother’s things.

  When Carter didn’t answer, Louis turned his attention to the rest of the room. The walls were pale cream. A portable TV on a stand, a dead bunch of flowers in a glass vase on the coffee table. His mother’s reading taste hadn’t changed much, Louis mused as he approached a bookcase. The shelves were lined with Mills & Boon romances. She’d always loved a good romance. Probably because, after her husband left her, she never had opportunity to experience love in the real world again. As far as Louis knew, anyway.

  Carter chose to come and join him then, finally acknowledging his presence. “Look at that,” Carter said, pointing at a particular book on the shelf. No, not a book. A photograph album. “Bring it over here.” He moved to the floral print couch and flicked his cigarette to the carpet. He stubbed it out with his foot before taking a seat. “Come on.” He patted the space beside him.

  Louis opened his mouth to complain about Carter’s lack of respect for this mother’s house. But when he dropped his gaze to the carpet, there was no sign of a cigarette, let alone a smoldering burn. So he let his complaint go and instead carefully removed the album sandwiched between the romance books. He joined Carter on the couch and flipped open the first page. A black-and-white shot of a baby lying on a rug. Like a thousand other babies lying on a thousand other rugs. He’d seen this photo before. Not in an album, but tucked away in a drawer.

  “What am I supposed to be looking at?”

  “Turn over.” Carter urged him on with a twirl of his hand.

  Over the page, a slightly older Louis grinned at the camera. He wore shorts and a T-shirt. His father stood behind, touching Louis’s shoulder, looking ridiculously young and with hair. They were on a beach. His mother had taken the photo back in the days when she could still hold a camera steady.

  “Turn again.”

  Louis sighed. He flipped the page, and there it was. The photo his mother had shown Mrs. Banks of her son and his lover. Carter looking elegantly suave in a sand-colored linen suit. Louis in jeans and a T-shirt, a few pounds overweight, his hair curling to his shoulders. The both of them grinning like loons. He’d slung a casual arm around his lover’s shoulders. They were in Venice, on one of the tiny bridges crossing the smaller canals. Carter had asked a good-looking local to take the picture. The guy had been happy to oblige. He’d been happy to oblige them in their hotel room all afternoon too, but that was another story.

  Louis glanced at the illusion sitting beside him. He studied Carter’s profile, his straight nose, the arrogant tilt to his chin. He wanted to reach out and touch his fingers to the light trace of stubble and press his lips to that long, thin mouth. His groin stirred, and he shut the book.

  “You two still not made up yet?” Carter asked with a little smile that told Louis he knew exactly what was going on beneath the photo album.

  Louis adjusted his swollen dick. “I’ve had other things on my mind.”

  “You’ve done nothing?”

  “Not nothing. I did take your advice. I bought him something. Something he can wear. A thank-you gift. Or a good-bye gift. Call it what you will.”

  Carter raised an eyebrow. “Can I call it a cock ring?”

  “No. Although it was sickeningly expensive.”

  “How—” Carter’s attention drifted somewhere over Louis’s left shoulder.

  “Carter?” Louis frowned. “What is it?”

  “Who’s Carter?”

  Louis spun round on the couch. Jake stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame. He looked as though he’d been there awhile.

  “I…uh…I didn’t see you.” How much had he overheard this time?

  “I got that. You going to tell me who this Carter guy is, or what?”

  Louis wondered what the “or what” option involved, but perhaps now wasn’t the time to ask, only to answer.

  “Who is he? The Invisible Man?” He gave a snort of laughter. Louis lifted his gaze, and the laughter stopped. “Who’s Carter?”

  “My partner.” The words tripped off his tongue far more easily than he’d expected.

  Jake frowned. “Business partner?”

  “No, not business.”

  “Right.” Jake stuck out his bottom lip as he pondered. “So can this partner of yours hear you talking to him all the way from New York?”

  “I doubt it.”

  “No? Well, maybe he’s not listening anymore. Maybe he’s heard about you fucking another man and decided you aren’t worth the bother. Am I the only one?”

  “The only what?”

  “The only guy you fuck behind your boyfriend’s back.”

  Is that all? Didn’t he want to know why? Why Louis’s sat on the couch talking away to himself like it was the most natural thing in the world? All he wanted to know about was if there was anyone else?

  “This isn’t what you think,” he began. “I—”

  “I thought you were someone special, Louis. And now I know the only thing special about you is you talk to your absent boyfriend like he’s right here in the room. That’s not even so special. It’s fucking insane!”

  “Yes, I suppose it is,” Louis said, which only seemed to further incite Jake’s anger.

  “Is that all you’ve got to say? All these weeks we’ve been together, you never once mentioned you were already in a relationship. You even told me you hadn’t had sex for a year. How stupid does that make me?”

  “You’re not stupid,” Louis said softly to his hands he had clasped together and rested in his lap. Odd that he should feel so relaxed.

  “Well, I must be. I fell for your lies, didn’t I? How could you do this? Not even to me but to him. Your boyfriend. If you love him so much you even chat to him when he’s not here, what the fuck did you want with me? Oh. I just answered my own question, didn’t I? Sex. Our summer fling was exactly that. If I’d have known there was another guy involved, I would never have slept with you in the first place. I’ve had this done to me, Louis. I told you that before we even had sex. Why aren’t you saying anything? Aren’t you going to even try and defend yourself?”

  “You’ve not given me a chance to speak yet.”
Louis continued to stare at his hands. Perhaps relaxed was the wrong word. Distant was a better one. So distant, in fact, that Louis barely noticed when Jake resumed talking. He merely watched as Jake paraded around the room, red-faced, teary-eyed, and waving his arms around as if to punctuate his bitter words. For Louis was sure the words were bitter even though he couldn’t hear them. He felt strangely numb, as though his body belonged to someone else, and he was just lodging there for a while. In a moment, he might get up and walk away, and Jake would still be ranting out his hurt and his anger to the body on the couch. Louis wondered what sort of a man was worth all this upset and pain. Louis wasn’t. Not to someone as warmhearted and loving as Jake.

  When Jake finally paused for breath and Louis hadn’t so much as twitched, he raked his hands through his hair. “You know what?” He sounded on the verge of tears. “I’m done wasting my breath here. It’s been a tough day, and I’m sorry your mother died, but what you did…you—”