Swan Songs Read online

  To cheer him up I lent him my face to play with and do a makeover on. He loves doing that. He says it’s a good way of trying out new looks. Frankly, I thought he overdid the blusher. I looked as if I’d been slapped repeatedly, either that or running a fever, and the green eye shadow was also a bit startling, but I didn’t say so. Afterwards we snuggled up on the sofa together, him in his Cher wig, Janet Reger thong and pink mules and me in jeans, rugby shirt and full makeup. We fed each other ice cream while lusting after Russell Crowe in Gladiator. We’re just an ordinary couple trying to get on with life, why should we repent for that?

  4th February 2005:

  Revelation

  Well, another week almost over, where does the time go? The police have made no progress with regard to our anonymous mailer. The general attitude seems to be that no real harm has been done, apart from the minor injury I got when the brick came through the window. There’s no evidence to suggest that the brick incident is connected with the crank sending the letters. It seems we’re just expected to grin and bear it like tolerant and sporting homosexuals in the hope that the crank tires of his/her hateful little hobby.

  We went to my mother’s for dinner last evening after she complained that she hardly ever sees us, which incidentally is untrue. I’m a good and dutiful son I am. She seemed a bit down. I asked her if everything was okay and she asked me how I felt about being a big brother again? Twinks let out an ear splitting scream and said he knew, he just KNEW, she’d been carrying on with Priscilla and really at their age they should have been more responsible for heavens sake. Hadn’t they heard of condoms? Mum coldly informed him that it wasn’t she who was pregnant and then revealed who was. It transpires that it’s my dad’s girlfriend and they’re planning to marry. I was gob smacked by the news and not really sure how to react. Being a big brother is one thing, I’m big brother to my sister and I quite like it, but being big brother to a child when you’re old enough to be its father is a bit disconcerting. I was also a little bit hurt because my father hadn’t told me himself.

  Poor mum, after telling us the news she burst into tears and I tried my best to comfort her. I could understand why she was upset. It was bad enough that her husband had left her for a younger woman, but now that younger woman was pregnant, something that must accentuate the fact that she was getting older. I asked if she still missed him and was a bit taken aback by her reply. She snapped no actually, it had been a relief when he left, and miss prissy knickers was welcome to him. She only wished he’d left her earlier so that she too could have had a chance at picking up the pieces of her life and finding someone else. I said there was no reason why she shouldn’t find someone else. She told me to wake up and smell the decay beneath the full-blown rose, and didn’t I realise that women got old while men just matured and it wasn’t fair. Twinkles’ feminine side took ascendancy and putting an arm around mum he glared at me and said men could be such selfish bastards. They took a woman’s best years and left them as withered, dried out old husks…words that actually made mum cry even more. Then the gin was brought out and they sat exchanging horror stories about the women they knew who had been cruelly discarded once they’d passed their youthful prime, only in Twinkles’ case the women were actually men. Then of course he had to go and ask about her relationship with Priscilla/Eric, even though I’d told him not to poke his nose into her private business. She burst into a further paroxysm of tears and I honestly could have smacked the backs of his legs.

  Once the tears ceased, she confessed that yes, she had sort of been seeing him, but they’d had a row because she had questioned his wisdom in selecting a striped blouse to go with a checked skirt and they hadn’t spoken since. Twinks was appalled by this fashion gaffe and offered to have a word with Priscilla when he saw him at the PP over the weekend. To my relief mum declined saying she didn’t want Eric thinking she had been talking about him behind his back. She would prefer to sort things out herself, though it was sweet of Twinks to offer, which is more than her own flesh and blood had done. I just can’t win sometimes. My trying to respect her right to personal privacy had obviously been interpreted as me not caring.

  On the way home Twinkles, aided by a surfeit of gin, got maudlin and asked if I would desert him when he got past his prime, after all he was no longer an official twink anymore, not now he was twenty-five. I told him I loved him for who he was and not the way he looked, which even as I said it, sounded all wrong. Twinkles took offence and asked whether I was trying to tell him he had a nice personality, but a face like the wrong end of an old sow headed for the bacon factory? I’d had quite enough of being deliberately misread and told him to watch his attitude. All I meant was that I loved him, full stop, and I always would… a brainwave hit me…like in the film Highlander when MacLeod loyally loved his woman Heather Blossom until she died of old age. He gave me a disparaging look and snorted, ‘well, darling, I hate to break it to you, but you’re not an immortal so don’t go deluding yourself about not starting to show your age.’ He then reminded me that I was older than he was and not half as well kept. I told him that he was a bitchy little queen, which he graciously accepted as a compliment.

  He was an absolute devil to get out of bed this morning. When he did finally sit down at the breakfast table, he had a face on him that could sour milk. It soured further when he opened his credit card statement and was reminded that he had to pay for a teapot that no longer existed. I stopped the would be tantrum in its tracks, removing the statement from his hands and telling him that we would discuss it, calmly, this evening and not before. I lost patience when he deliberately dragged his heels getting ready for work. He snapped that he couldn’t understand why I was nagging. It wasn’t as if I had to get to the office. My office is being decorated and I loathe the smell of paint, it gives me a migraine, so I decided I’d work from home today. When I reminded him that he still had to be at work on time, he said that he was sick of his boring-boring-boring job and he didn’t frigging care if he was late. It had so much of a pouty childish “so-there,” about it that I felt obliged to deliver a swat to his sulky rump.

  In view of his comment about work and what I found in his trouser pockets when I was putting some laundry in the washing machine, I suspect his morning moodiness of being rooted in nervous guilt. That boy of mine just doesn’t do subterfuge very well. It unsettles him. Little Miss Stardust Twinkles had better have a good explanation.

  6th February 2005:

  Deceitful Carrot

  Twinkles did indeed have an explanation for what I found in his trouser pocket and I have to confess that it didn’t please me for a number of reasons. He came over all defensive and told me that I had no right to go laundering his trousers without asking if they needed laundering. Would he launder my trousers without asking, he didn’t think so, and anyway, he had the right to make his own choices. I reminded him that actually he didn’t, not without consulting me first. In this case I felt he had directly gone behind my back and was guilty of deception. When I put this to him, he was genuinely shocked and upset saying it wasn’t like that at all and trust me to put a negative slant on things. I laid out the facts as I saw them: he had arranged a day’s leave from work, without telling me, he had purchased a day return rail ticket to York, without telling me and why? So he could attend an open audition that he had seen advertised in ‘The Stage,’ again, without telling me. If I hadn’t decided to do the laundry and not come across the rail ticket in his trouser pocket, he apparently would have let me drive him to ‘work’ on Saturday morning, after which he would have nipped down to the station and boarded a train for York, attended an audition, returning in time for me to collect him from ‘work.’ I asked exactly when he had been planning to tell me about his little jaunt…when and if he got whatever part he was auditioning for perhaps? He hadn’t thought of it as doing something behind my back and accused me of being despotic saying I wanted to make him feel bad for doing something he wanted to do and promptly dissolved into tea
rs.

  The tears were designed to throw me off balance and deter me from pursuing the matter, but I felt it needed to be pursued. I asked if he trusted me, and he said yes, he’d trust me with his life. I asked in that case why hadn’t he trusted me enough to tell me he was going to an audition. He said he didn’t know. Anyway I knew now, so it didn’t matter and to just let it drop for God’s sake. I was like a dog with a bone once I got the bit between my teeth, and if I pointed out that was a mixed metaphor he’d have to slap me. I told him it did matter and that I wanted him to think about it very carefully. I also told him that in the circumstances I didn’t think it appropriate that we go out to the PP that evening. He was NOT happy with me, but then I wasn’t happy with him, which kind of balanced us out. We sat watching television in silence for a while, and then, just as the body count in Taggart was getting ridiculous, he plonked himself on my lap. Putting his arms around my neck he hugged me and said he was sorry if he’d hurt my feelings. I asked if he had given due consideration as to why he’d kept me in the dark with regard to this matter?

  Apparently, after a particularly dull morning at work he had been reading The Stage magazine in his lunch break and had seen an advert for auditions and decided that he wanted to go. This, he convinced himself in best Billy Liar mode was his possible big break into the exciting world of theatre. He couldn’t bring himself to tell me in case I tried to discourage him and make him feel foolish. I sternly told him that was absolute nonsense. He knew I would never knowingly put him down and he was very naughty for even suggesting that as a reason.

  The whole thing had a ring of Stardust impulse about it. He’d bedazzled himself with wild daydreams about being snatched to instant stardom. He hadn’t told me beforehand, because he knew I’d come over all boring and bubble bursting by wanting to talk about the pros and cons of the situation. He hadn’t told me afterwards, because he knew I’d reprimand him for not discussing it first, and worse, I might say he couldn’t go…was I right? He sheepishly admitted that I was. I asked why he should have discussed it with me first? Without hesitation he said because he was my partner and by definition any choices he made affected me. That it was it exactly. We were partners and as such things had to be shared, aired and discussed before decisions and choices were made. It was only fair and it was the only way of avoiding misunderstandings and bad feelings.

  To my mind he had lied by omission and I wasn’t too suited about it, reminding him that good relationships were not built on lies and deceit. He apologised. I asked what the auditions were for and he said he wasn’t sure. He’d just seen the advert for auditions and had got all excited because they were being held in a city he could access easily. It was a singing and dancing review thing. He said he knew he was a silly man and that the audition would attract thousands of stage struck wannabe’s all of who would be younger, more talented, more experienced and more qualified than he was, but he still wanted to go, please, pretty please. I told him that he could go, just for the experience and to get it out of his system, but if he imagined for a moment he was going to throw in his regular job for a six-week stint that paid peanuts, he could think again, and nor was he going off touring leaving me on my own. He flung his arms around me and said he would never go anywhere without me and when he got famous I could throw in my job and tour with him as his personal tart.

  I will never forget the look on Twinkles’ face when the man directing the auditions asked him to convey the qualities of a carrot. In his exact words, “I want you to give me a spunky carrot, a carrot with attitude, a carrot that kids are gonna want to identify with.”

  It turned out that the auditions were for people to play a range of fruit and vegetables in a musical play aimed at promoting healthier food to school kids. Twinkles told the director man where he could shove his spunky carrot and that was it. Another door to the glamorous world of showbiz slammed closed. Poor Twinkles, he felt so foolish and embarrassed by it all. I promised that I would never mention the incident to anyone. Putting my arms around him I told him that he was and always would be a beautiful, glamorous, wonderful Star to me.

  13th February 2005:

  Honoured By The Sea

  Twinkles received a phone call at work on Thursday morning. It was from someone claiming to be a doctor at our local hospital. He told Twinkles that I had been involved in a serious traffic accident and that he needed to get to the hospital as soon as he could because I was in a critical condition. Twinkles immediately went into panic overload. His boss tried to calm him saying that in his opinion it was highly unlikely that a doctor would call and impart that kind of news by telephone. If there had been a road accident it was more likely that the police would contact him with information. He was of course right and a call to me at work soon confirmed that Twinks had been a victim of a cruel hoax. He was made ill with the shock and couldn’t stop shaking. Our doctor prescribed him a mild sedative and he slept most of Thursday night. I almost wish the doctor had prescribed me one, because I was so angry I felt like I was going to explode. I called the police and had a rant at them. I didn’t feel they were treating the matter of our harassment seriously enough. Maybe I was being a bit unreasonable, but it’s all so frustrating not to mention worrying. I’m afraid that someone will hurt Twinkles or even hurt me in order to hurt him. I can’t think of anyone that we might have offended enough to make them want to treat us like this. That said, some people don’t need a reason. They see their personal prejudices as justification enough for the persecution of others.

  On a much lighter and nicer note we had some lovely news this afternoon. Feeling a need to get away for a while we drove out to the coast parking on the headland at Hartlepool. It being February we were the only people daft enough to be parked on top of a freezing cliff facing the North Sea. We cuddled up in the back seat with a blanket tucked around us, drinking coffee and eating sandwiches, while watching and listening to the sound of the ocean. Afterwards, taking advantage of the wonderful seclusion we kissed and petted a little. Things were getting interesting enough to put a serious strain on my underwear and jeans zipper when my mobile rang. It was Karen. She and Paul had finally agreed on a name for the baby. He was to be called Dominic Jonathan Tarn. We were both very honoured by the gesture, though Twinkles did say he thought it should be Jonathan Dominic Tarn, but that’s Twinks for you, a self centred little ego-maniac. It was the brightest moment in a dark few weeks, but not as bright as what followed.

  Twinkles was thrilled and phoned mum with the news, shrieking into the phone, ‘Joan, you’re going to be a god-granny.’ Yep, Karen and Paul have asked Twinkles and I to be baby Dominic’s Godparents. We’re delighted.

  18th February 2005:

  Consequences

  I was furious with Twinkles last night. My father called and said he was on his way over to see me. Twinkles immediately started pulling faces and muttering and moaning, he and dad don’t really see eye to eye at the best of times. He decided to go visit Lulu and watch highlights of London Fashion week rather than stay and take tea and make polite conversation with old dull duck (his rude name for my dad) I said fine and dropped him over at Lu’s telling him to call me when he needed a lift home, as I didn’t like the idea of him walking, not with some grudge bearing head case on the loose out there. I enjoyed dad’s visit and I must confess that it was nice to chat and spend some time alone with him without Twinks winding him up in his usual sly fashion. He’s always twice as ‘gay’ around dad as he is around anyone else and it has to be said, much as I adore him, he’s gay enough then. Despite finding it very hard to accept what happened between him and mum, I do still love and respect my dad very much. You forget sometimes that your parents are people just like any other. You somehow expect them to be different; to be perfect in fact and it isn’t realistic or fair. He apologised for not having told me about the baby. He meant to, but he was still reeling from the news himself. It hadn’t been planned and he was finding the prospect of fatherhood at his age all rath
er daunting. He admitted he was rather embarrassed by it and concerned as to how my sister and myself would take the news that we were to have a baby sibling. I told him not to worry and to give our love and congratulations to Gill. It’s Gill’s first child and she’s thrilled at the prospect of motherhood.