Gerard stood, excusing himself to visit the gents. Drunken me didn’t equate him briefly placing his palm on the small of my back as a step too far for a married man. When he returned, drunken me didn’t push his hand away when it settled on my thigh, not budging even when Man City scored the decisive winner in the closing minutes. Drunken me struggled to focus on the game.

  “I think it’s time to leave, don’t you?” Gerard suggested, draining the last of the wine.

  Sober me, bravely clinging on to my pissed soul suggested I should have left an hour ago. Sober me wished I’d ordered room service and plumped for an early night.

  “Yeah,” I slurred as I rose unsteadily to my feet. Christ, what the hell was happening? The room started to spin. “I’ve got a bloody job interview at nine o’clock in the morning. Need my beauty sleep. Can’t…can’t drink anymore. Need to…need to…get the job. Make wife happy.”

  “I bet you make your wife very happy.”

  Gerard’s insinuation purred in my ear, so close I could smell cheese and onion crisps on his breath. A bolt of nausea shot through me. Bloody hell, I couldn’t recall being this pissed ever. I was a two pints of lager and a packet of crisps kind of man. Especially since we’d been trying for a baby. No wonder I was so drunk. Alcohol had been added to a long list of forbidden pleasures over a year ago, alongside pleasure itself. Whereas the stranger now holding me upright, a little more intimately than strictly necessary, was offering no-strings pleasure on a plate.

  Soft, dark scruff lay just inches from my face and I so badly wanted rub my nose in it. If I tilted my head down the tiniest fraction, I’d be able to taste it, too. Taste him. One of Gerard’s narrow hips, so damned fine with a skinny grey suit stretched across it, bumped mine as we tottered out of the bar. My fingers itched to grab it, circle my big hand around that jutting hipbone and drag it closer. To rub my hard dick up and down it. To slot my groin against his. Gerard’s fingers, that promised so much as we watched the match, ghosted across my arse. I shivered.

  God, I could do this. No one would ever know. Samantha would never find out. I would invite Gerard back to my room. For one night, my hazy, pissed brain could make believe that this short, dark stranger and my Matt were one and the same. If I closed my eyes, if I concentrated, I could have my beautiful boy back once more, if only for a few hours. I could tell him what I’d wanted to tell him all those years ago and never had the chance. How much I loved him, and even though I’d tried so hard, I’d never loved anyone as much since. That I never would. That I didn’t think I ever could. That I was sorry I hadn’t been old enough to understand he was broken. That I hadn’t been old enough to fix him.

  Back then, my confused, adolescent mind hadn’t the maturity to process my inherent attraction for both sexes. Bisexuality—Christ, I hadn’t even known the term existed. But I’d understood need and want, and what I had with Matt Leeson, for those few precious months, had felt more right than anything since. My heart ached, my balls ached, my soul ached, for just one more kiss. One more touch, one more mischievous smile, one solemn promise never to run away from me again.

  As I stumbled outside with Gerard, a blast of icy onshore wind slapped me across the face, stealing the breath from my lungs as smartly as a rugby tackle to my solar plexus.

  And with that sharp, urgent jolt, sober me rallied, reminding drunken me I wasn’t that sort of husband. The cheating sort. The sort who picked up strangers in bars, of any gender, when I had a wife back at home. In horror, I recoiled, staggering away from my companion, roughly knocking him backwards against the unforgiving brick wall of the pub.

  “Ow! What the fuck?”

  “Oh God, oh God. I’m so sorry.” The words flew out of my mouth in a garbled rush. This wasn’t me; this wasn’t me. I had a wife, I was married. I was a good husband. I didn’t cheat. Beer, wine, and fatty food swirled in my guts as I buried my face in my hands, desperately trying to suck in huge gulps of the frigid night air.

  “I’m not gay. I’m so sorry. I’m not into men. I don’t do this. I don’t do this.”

  My voice sounded thick; my tongue too big for my mouth. Hot, shameful tears blurred my vision. Gerard brushed himself down angrily.

  “For fucks sake, mate. What the fuck are you doing?”

  I backed off even further, one hand clapped over my mouth. I had a dreadful feeling I was about to puke. “I’m sorry. So sorry. I…I’ve…I’m…oh God.”

  Lurching between two parked cars, I managed to turn my back on him before my guts hurled burger, chips, beer, and acidic red wine across the tarmac. From somewhere behind me, Gerard spewed a torrent of abuse. Caught between violent spasms, my stomach determined to turn itself inside out. And Gerard ceased to exist.

  A LITTLE SOUL

  (PULP)

  MATT 2005

  Question: when was the right time to leave a man who loved you very much, even when you tried your utmost to be unlovable?

  Answer: at five a.m., like a thief in the night, while your generous lover slept.

  Not possessing much in the way of belongings eased my vanishing act. Whereas both arms swathed in bandages didn’t. Fortunately, my destination—the bus stop—wasn’t far from Darren’s house. At dawn on a Sunday morning, the passengers slouched on the 276 to Stourbridge didn’t notice or care that my tracksuit bottoms trailed on the ground, or that my grubby bandages had begun to unravel. Or even that my face had taken on an unhealthy grey sheen and my hair hung lank with sweat across my forehead.

  Another piece of good fortune was that Cartwright, my old history teacher, did care. He cared a great deal, albeit in a teacherly, strict manner. If I’d let him, he’d care even more. His partner, Eric, a retired physiotherapist, cared also, and held the honour of being the only member of the health profession I had ever trusted.

  “Phil gave us a heads up,” Cartwright said after opening his front door at that ungodly hour. Which explained why neither of them were particularly surprised to see me. My more severe depressive episodes and crawling back to Cartwright tended to go arm-in-arm. Eric’s hand landed on my shoulder, giving it a squeeze.

  “Let’s get you up to bed, my poor old sausage.”

  Cartwright wrapped his paisley dressing gown more tightly around his middle. “Are you and Darren…have you…?” Concern etched into the lines of his worn face.

  I nodded, too fatigued, and nauseated to speak. There wasn’t much to say anyhow. More often than not, ending relationships also coincided with my depressive nadirs, although whether the chicken or the egg came first was hard to tell. As tempting as it was, apportioning blame for my slashed wrists on Darren’s unique brand of claustrophobic love conveniently overlooked every other precipitator, including my own sizeable hoard of demons.

  The path leading to Cartwright’s neat suburban semi, on the outskirts of town, was a well-trodden one. So much so, I even had my own room, with a familiar, brown-checked bedspread. A pile of books and CDs I’d collected then abandoned, lay stacked neatly on the bedside table. Like all the other occasions over the years I’d sought refuge in their capable, non-judgemental company, I was soon changed into a pair of worn stripy pyjamas that wouldn’t have looked out of place in an air raid shelter during the Blitz. Once they had me tucked under the brown bedspread, Eric began unwinding my dressings.

  I grew up in a so-called nuclear family. Two married parents and two kids. This traditional set up was held in esteem by society as being the ideal in which to raise children, as children in nuclear families received strength and stability from the two-parent structure. Yeah, right. So that was a fucking joke. The pair of queens currently fussing over my mangled arms, and a shiny-suited estate agent, were the closest thing to a family I’d ever had. And Brenner of course, bless his dead soul.

  “Oooh, sweetie,” clucked Eric. “You are a pickle with all these nasty cuts. Lie back and let your Uncle Eric sort them for you.”

  Cartwright said nothing, content to play Eric’s handmaiden as he redressed my arms. He never said much at first, I think he was too relieved I was still in one piece to string any words together. His assessment of my mental state and his gentle encouragement would come later after my more obvious wounds had healed.

  “‘Pickle’? I was a sausage ten minutes ago, Eric. Make your bloody mind up.”

  A whiskery kiss landed on my forehead. Eric reminded me of Phil’s mum in some ways, (minus the whiskers); how she used to fuss over him after he’d scabbed his knee or tumbled from his bike. I guess it was fairly standard mum behaviour if you were fortunate enough to be born to a mum who gave a shit about her kids. Between Eric’s pampering and Cartwright’s sternness, they filled the traditional mum and dad roles I’d never been lucky enough to experience.

  “Sweetie, you’re not a sausage or a pickle. You’re caviar and champagne. And never forget it. One day someone else will realise, and that man will count his lucky stars.”

  An alumnus of the stop-feeling-sorry-for-yourself-and-pull-yourself-together school of depression treatment, Cartwright had me back at work within a fortnight. Brisk walks in the fresh air, home-cooked food, and something to occupy my mind. If it was up to him, he’d chuck my pills in the bin. In contrast, Eric‘s feet were planted firmly in the medical camp, and he hovered over me three times a day to make sure I swallowed every tablet. Between us, we met somewhere in the middle, and the dull layers of smog blanketing my brain gradually thinned out.

  At an unmarked moment in time, between Brenner’s brains being scooped off the tarmac of the A449 and my first serious depressive episode, my dreams of a rosy future had slid out of view. Other bouts of depressive illness followed, most memorably discovering the key to a successful hanging lay in an ability to tie a reliable slipknot. I’d regretted never being a boy scout and still had a faint scar in the shape of a ghoulish smile around my neck to remind me. A succession of McJobs followed, demonstrating I possessed neither the aptitude nor attitude to hold down a humdrum nine-to-five.

  During the unpredictable windows when I was well enough, I earned my living with Cartwright, marking history exam papers for national exam boards. Totally illegal, of course, but having me alongside him at the kitchen table meant he ploughed through double the volume for double the money. He focused on medieval essay questions and I focused on the twentieth century. A win-win situation. Or a gin-gin situation, as Eric liked to call it, because as far as I could tell, that was what him and Cartwright spent most of their pensions on. Living (forty per cent) proof that booze and violence didn’t have to go hand-in-hand.

  “We could always have another go at finding you a proper job,” he murmured one afternoon, as we trawled methodically through a stack of A-Level papers.

  I’d been knee-deep in deciphering a dreadful essay on Lenin’s rise to power, my sluggish brain still struggling to regain an acceptable equilibrium. Days like this, when I had too little energy to achieve anything, zipped by, while simultaneously lasting an eternity. I see-sawed between an overwhelming urge to sleep, and headache-inducing jitteriness, which had me tossing and turning well into the small hours. Last night had been particularly bad, as Eric, who’d held my hand and stroked my hair, could attest. Cartwright had chosen to discuss my future at a vulnerable moment.

  “There are so many online courses out there now,” he continued, as lightly as if we were debating whether to buy bacon or pork chops for tea. “You wouldn’t have to go to college. I saw a librarianship course advertised in the TES only last week.”

  I knew this was coming, I just hadn’t predicted exactly when.

  “I like the job I’ve got,” I answered in a calm tone, as I struck a red slash through an entire paragraph. My aching arms prevented me working at my normal speed, as did Eric, who insisted I took a break every hour and brought me tea and crumpets on the sofa, much to Cartwright’s disapproval.

  “Exam marking is hardly sufficient to keep you in groceries for the week, let alone bills and rent, and…”

  “I gave you enough cash to cover this week, didn’t I? If you’d rather I went somewhere else, just say the word and I’ll pack my bags. You can finish this pile of essays on your tod.”

  Depression was a bugger of a chronic illness. As if shatteringly low mood and feelings of worthlessness weren’t enough, it also brought out the worst of my character traits, namely irritability and a nasty tongue.

  “We don’t want your money, Matt. We’d have you here permanently, you know that. Eric mopes like someone’s snatched his favourite toy away when you do your disappearing thing.”

  Another regrettable character trait also reared its ugly head when my depression ramped up. Unexpectedly bursting into tears. It was usually a later symptom and kicked in around now, a few weeks after things reached fever pitch. Eric would always crush me to his non-existent bosom and tell me it was a good sign, that I was on the mend, that I was starting to feel again, that the numb nothingness under the grey smog was coming to an end. I was yet to be convinced.

  Sure enough, like my fairy godmother, he materialised from the kitchen, throwing Cartwright a disapproving glare as my eyes filled with tears.

  “Shush, sweetie. You don’t need to do anything unless you feel up to it. Helping with the essays is job enough at the moment. And anyway, ignore this horrid man, because Uncle Eric is taking you on your holibobs.”

  Nothing screamed psychiatric patient as loudly as being taken on a trip to the seaside. They might as well have swaddled me in a straitjacket. I’d have found it laughable if meandering along the pier between two elderly minders wasn’t so tragic. Yet even a cynic like me couldn’t deny that filling my lungs with the fresh, salty breeze and watching small kids build sandcastles accelerated my return to baseline. It wasn’t on a par with my dreams of swimming with turtles in Hawaii, but, for the first time in a while, I’d showered without Eric’s gentle encouragement and dressed in clean clothes.

  Cartwright and Eric often brought me down to the south coast after my downers. Sometimes, I wondered that if it wasn’t for me, they’d have moved to the seaside permanently. Bundled up for my constitutional was the highlight of my day, not only an escape from the demons in my head but from heaps of essay-marking too, which followed Cartwright everywhere.

  “We’ll get that pile on the kitchen table done by teatime,” he observed, nodding to himself with satisfaction. We sat on a bench facing the sea, me wedged between the two of them. Like a pair of matching bookends, Cartwright and Eric polished off a Mr Whippy each as I idled with a bag of chips. Even when my mood improved, my appetite always dragged behind.

  “The last one I marked this morning was a shocker.” I tossed a chip to a fat seagull. Fifteen of his squawking mates immediately joined him. “The guy knew fuck all about Stalin’s response to the Spanish Civil War. His references were non-existent. I could have written it ten times better myself.”

  As lightbulb moments went, it wasn’t on a par with comprehending why apples fell from trees or understanding why water slopped over the sides when you plonked down in the bath. But for a bloke who only six weeks earlier couldn’t think beyond finding a very sharp implement with which to end his life, it wasn’t too bad.

  “That’s what I’m going to do,” I said carefully, launching another chip at the seagulls. A noisy battle ensued as they squabbled over it. “I’m going to advertise. On the Internet. I’ll write university essays and A-level essays. For cash.”

  “Students won’t buy essays.” Eric shook his head disapprovingly. “It’s cheating.”

  Cartwright, with forty years of teaching under his belt, let out an amused huff at Eric’s naivety. I frowned, trying to block out their chatter, my drugged brain chasing the idea more sluggishly than I’d have liked. A week ago, I would have left it at that and given up, let the idea float away, too fatigued to pursue it. Instead, I churned it over, squinting out towards the choppy ocean and the ominous grey clouds hanging over it.

  Along the shoreline, some distance away, a man dressed in a suit tramped through the sand, also lost in his thoughts. Maybe he was experiencing a eureka moment too. He was too far away to see properly, but from the hunch of his shoulders, it was more likely he’d just lost his job, or split from his wife or something equally miserable. I must have been on the mend if I could come up with money-making ideas and summon the emotional bandwidth to empathise with a total stranger. Perhaps the Victorians had been onto something when they flocked to the beaches to paddle in the waters.

  “There’s no reason to limit myself to the UK either,” I continued, fleshing out my idea. “I could write history essays for students in America too. Or Australia.”

  “Can you do that on the Internet?”

  Eric’s voice was full of wonder. A boxy old Dell computer squatted on their dining room table. Cartwright could frequently be found glued to it; Eric skirted it as if it radiated plutonium. I shrugged. “Yeah. It’s the World Wide Web? You advertise all over. I bet there are people out there doing this already.”

  “You’re kidding me.” Eric sounded appalled. “Listen, sweetie. It’s cheating. You’ll go to prison if you get caught.”

  Cartwright and I exchanged a look before Cartwright leaned across and patted his dear lover’s knee. “I’m not entirely sure the justice system works like that, my love.”

  Sitting back, he tilted his face up towards the watery sun, a slow smile spreading across his wrinkly features. He gave me a nudge and I almost caught myself smiling back. “There’s nothing illegal about writing essays, Leeson. Nothing at all. What people choose to do with them is entirely their business.”

  FUCK FOREVER

  (BABYSHAMBLES)

  ALEX 2005

  When I finished puking, and finally hauled myself upright again, Gerard was long gone, thank God. But his whereabouts were an irrelevance. I’d encouraged his overtures and that was enough. The fact I hadn’t followed through didn’t matter; I’d flirted back. Eagerly. I’d wanted the warm hand on my thigh to slide up to my cock. I’d wanted to cheat on my wife.