Screeve - Queer Writing For A Queer World

Another Beat Of The Drum

By Taran Geary

“Mason,” he spoke barely above a whisper. I stopped and looked over my shoulder towards him. “Can we go somewhere?”

When Philip Cafferey, one time school bully and all round horrible bastard spoke those words to me on that cold night on the bandstand, I knew my life would never be the same again. At the time my mind was racing, my primary instinct was to run as fast as my rather short legs would carry me. I figured that Philip could quite easily cripple me and think nothing of it… But there was something in the way he spoke – something I recognized from myself.

We sat in quiet corner of the pub; Philip was throwing bottles of Bud down his neck like they were the last he would ever see, while I rather demurely sipped my half pint of shandy. Finally Philip broke the extremely awkward silence:

“Mason, Are you queer?” Well, there’s nothing like coming to the point I suppose. I just looked blankly at him because I hadn’t got a clue what to say. Do I say “yes” and chance spending the rest of my life in an iron lung or do I say “no” and throw away the chance of meeting a kindred spirit.

“Of course I am.” I chanced a smile. Another bottle of Bud went down without touching the sides. “What about you?”

Philip just glared at me. He seemed to be wrestling with some mighty internal demons. Again the awkward silence descended. We both jumped when the barman put some music on, it was some awful handbag house crap and we looked at each other and smiled. That was the first time I had seen Philip smile I think ever! I rolled my eyes and nodded towards the loudspeaker. He smiled again and nodded agreement. It was a lovely warm smile that he had kept hidden for too long.

“Well?” I asked.

“Want another drink?” He replied

“Ok”, I said and he wandered off to the bar. I took the time he was away to marshal my thoughts: Do I do a runner or do I prolong the agony of trying to talk to Philip and, of course, I still had the notion that he was going to beat the shit out of me as soon as we got outside.

A bottle of Bud was dumped unceremoniously in front of me I looked at it as if I had never seen one before. It was not what I wanted but I went along with it. “Thanks” I said.

“I’m going to the bog”, Philip informed me. “Don’t follow me.” Now as you have probably realized, I am a pretty easy going kind of a bloke, but this really incensed me. Just because I’m gay he assumed I’d follow him to the toilet for a cheap thrill. That really pissed me off.

He came back and slumped back down beside me. He stared straight ahead and took another slug from his bottle.

“You shouldn’t have said that,” I began.

He turned slowly and looked at me.

“Wot?” He grunted.

I banged my hands on the table and shouted, “I’m sick of this! What do you think I am? Do you really think I’d want to follow you out to the khasi just get a peek at your dick? I may not be the coolest guy in the world, but I’m certainly not a Willy watcher! I’m going.” I got up and started to put my coat on; Philip grabbed hold of my arm – not hard, but firmly. I closed my eyes and waited for the inevitable beating. When nothing happened, I opened my eyes and looked at him.

“Please don’t.” He said quietly. I looked at him for a few seconds; my mind racing as I tried to make sense of this ridiculous situation.

“Ok,” I said and sat down again. “But listen to me, will you please talk to me? And take that bloody hood off! At least let me see you.”

“You know what I look like.”

“That’s not the point. I want to see you now.” Slowly he eased the hood back from his face and over his head so that it was right off.

“Satisfied?”

“That’s much better; at least I can see who I’m talking to now.”

I’d never really looked at Philip before. I generally tried to avoid him whenever possible. I didn’t exactly dive into dustbins or anything but I always stayed out of his way. I realized for the first time that he wasn’t really bad looking; broken nose notwithstanding, he had much finer features than I realized, his face was almost delicate. I was pleasantly surprised.

“I only found out who my Dad was last year.” He said quietly. Somewhat stunned by this spontaneous sharing of personal information. I’m ashamed to say I blurted out the obvious.

“I thought you lived with your Dad.”

“So did I until last year.” Again he lapsed into sullen silence.

“Well tell me, then!” I urged

“Why?” He asked.

I sighed deeply and tutted.

“Because I’m interested; I want to know about you.”

“You won’t tell no one?”

“Of course not.”

“Your round.” He said. I sighed again and got up and bought two more bottles of Bud.

“I was over my Grans, you know, my Mum’s Mum. Me an’ my sisters. We was just playing about and went into the attic. There’s stairs up to her attic, not just a hatch like most people. I’d been up there before when I was little, but not for a long time. I found this big wooden box, I opened it and inside was this old raincoat, you know like the coppers used to wear in the old films.”

I nodded that I understood.

“It was all wrapped up in polythene but I undid it so’s I could look at it. It had a shiny silky lining and someone had written in it ‘Terry Webb’. I’d never heard of the geezer but I looked through the pockets and I found this old pair of glasses. Weird, they were, with thick black frames. The glass was so thick I couldn’t even see through ‘em at all.

Later on we was all eating and I asked ‘Who’s Terry Webb?’ You’d have thought I’d had a shit on the carpet judging by the reaction. ‘Have you been up in the loft?’ My Gran asked. I told her what I’d found. My Gran said she would tell me later, and after my sisters had gone she told me the story.

Terry was my Mum’s friend’s boyfriend and Joe Cafferey was my Mums boyfriend. They used to go out together I guess on double dates. Joe drank too much even then and one night there was a big bust up in this disco. Terry’s bird left on her own and Joe was being an arsehole. So Terry took my Mum home and left Joe to it.

When they got to Mum’s house she invited him in thinking her Mum and Dad would be there but they weren’t; they’d gone round to some friends or something. Anyway they ended up shagging.”

“Like you do.” I interrupted and immediately wished I hadn’t.

“Terry hated his glasses and only wore them when he had to so they was in his raincoat pocket. After they realized what they’d done Terry couldn’t get out fast enough and he left without his raincoat.

Terry was a scaffolder and was working on those big factories on the industrial estate. And the following day, with out his glasses on, he stepped off the edge of the building and died.

My mum never forgave herself. I reckon that’s what’s made her ill all this time. Joe begged her to go back with him which she did and they got married almost straightaway.”

“I didn’t know your Mum was ill. What’s wrong with her?”

“She’s been on pills for depression for years and sometimes she goes into hospital when it all gets too much-Which is pretty often nowadays.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Did your Dad – Joe - suspect anything?”

“I don’t see how he couldn’t have, look.” He rummaged through his pockets and brought out a crumpled photograph.

“My Gran gave me this.”

It was a photograph of a young man who could have been Philip himself except for the thick lensed, black framed glasses that he wore.

“I see what you mean,” I said. “He could be your twin brother.”

“Probably explains why Joe’s been such a fuckin’ bastard to me all my life. And my name as well.”

I looked at him quizzically.

“Terrence Philip Cafferey. I think I might change it to Webb. So people don’t think I’m related to that bastard. My Gran says Terry was real nice bloke, really funny and she always wished my Mum had gone with him instead of Joe. So do I.”

We lapsed into silence again and I felt my heart go out to Philip. I knew he’d had a rough time of it but I didn’t understand just how rough. He told me that it was Joe who broke his nose one night when he came home drunk and fancied a game of football with Philip as the ball.

I gingerly reached out a hand and put it around his shoulders, I pulled him towards me and there was no resistance. We sat there for a while; Philips head was on my shoulder and I could hear him gently crying to himself. I gently rubbed his arm and I even kissed the top of his head.

“You must think I’m a right twat,” he snuffled.

“No, of course I don’t.”

“Why not? Everyone else does. I’m an arsehole.”

“No you’re not. I don’t think you are. I admit I used to think you were when you went around hitting everyone, but I didn’t know you then.”

Philip grunted in reply. He pulled away from me slowly and looked at me with red tearstained eyes. He lunged towards me and at first I thought he was going to head butt me. But he didn’t he grabbed my head and kissed me! Full on the lips, long and hard, when the shock subsided I realized what Mama Cass had meant when she sang about “Rockets, bells and poetry”. Electric shocks ran from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet. We leaned into one another and the kiss got even more intense. When we broke away Philip just looked at me with a big sloppy grin on his face. I was smiling so widely that I feared my face would fall in half, and my heart was beating so hard that I thought it was going to leap out of my chest

“Wow,” Was the only word I could articulate. Phillip just sat there grinning. I caught my breath and wrestled to get my faculties back on an even keel. “Where did that come from?” I finally managed to blurt out.

“I just wanted to. Do you mind? I’ve never kissed another boy before.”

“Me neither, and no, I don’t mind at all. I really liked it. How was it for you?”

Philip actually giggled. An almost girly giggle and he said “It was lovely, can we do it again?”

“Damn right we can,” and I all but leapt on him and planted my lips on his. I felt his tongue working it’s way into my mouth and mine responded almost on its own and they danced a manic jig together while I tried very hard to stop from cumming in my pants. Suddenly Philip broke away and ran out of the door to the toilets. It would seem he had the same problem.

After a few moments he came back rather red in the face and slightly out of breath, but grinning like a cat in a dairy.

“Just in time,” he said between breaths. “How about you?”

“Too late,” I pulled a face as I attempted to adjust my attire. It felt like I had unloaded a couple of gallons in to my underwear. But I’m sure it wasn’t much more than the standard 10cc. I kissed him again gently on the cheek and told him that I had to go because my parents would be wondering where I was.

“No one’ll be wondering about me,” he said glumly.

“I will be,” I said. “I’ll be wondering about you all night and probably won’t sleep at all. We’ll see each other at school tomorrow. I can’t wait.”

Philip seemed to drop back to the gloomy persona that he had when he first came in the pub.

“You won’t tell no one, will you? And you’ll be cool at school won’t you? And you won’t want to kiss me in the classroom or nothing stupid, will you?”

“No, of course not. But we can be mates at school, surely.”

“Yeh, but that’s all.”

“Ok, I understand.”

We said our goodbyes and I danced my way home like I was Gene Kelly in “Singing In The Rain” Except that it wasn’t raining properly it was just that very fine drizzle that absolutely soaks you in no time at all. Thoughts were racing through my brain like I had never known. But by the time I reached my front gate, I had made three very important decisions:

I loved Philip Cafferey.

I was going to make bloody well sure that I kept him and that he doesn’t get cold feet.

I was going to tell my parents.

To be continued…