Lives of Quiet Desperation [4/4, History Boys, 2006]
Chapter 4
.
History is just one fucking thing after another.
Funny, how they’d all laughed. They’d all been young.
Some things are entirely expected, like the fact that Dakin looks so smug when he drops in the next day, in the late afternoon as opposed to late morning. Scripps was always of the opinion that Irwin and Dakin will eventually fuck -- in all manners of the word, so it’s not surprising, even if it took them ten years to get there.
Some things are altogether unexpected.
The news comes a few days later that Jimmy Lockwood is dead. Wounded by friendly fire. Scripps promptly forgets about Dakin and Irwin. He writes an obituary and sends it back to Sheffield for anyone who might be interested. Jimmy’s funeral is to be held in London, and Scripps makes funeral arrangements. Jimmy had said once that he wanted to die pretending to be a religious man. The heavens might be kinder to him that way.
He’s so busy that the days have all blurred together. Scripps does manage to guess the right day to pick up Jimmy’s mum from the station and offers her his spare room after borrowing fresh sheets from Dakin. She spends most of her time bawling and Scripps spends most of his time wondering whether to invest in soundproofing his walls.
Lockwood is suddenly Jimmy - even Dakin, who is unsentimental as fuck, calls him Jimmy, like they’ve known him all their lives, and they have. This Sunday, Scripps sprinkles in peppermint in their respective coffees and neither of them have much to say. They also try to ignore Mrs. Lockwood’s sobbing in the background, even though Dakin looks thoroughly uncomfortable, shifting from one foot from the other.
“How’s Irwin?”
“Busy.” Dakin examines the mint flecks floating in his coffee. “Why is Jimmy’s funeral in London?”
Scripps presses a hand to his throbbing temple. “Didn’t have time to make arrangements in Sheffield, and I didn't need the military to gripe at me, but I know a few people are coming. I got hold of Mrs. Lintott. Which is surprising. I don’t know if Posner’s coming. I left him a message -- several messages.” He sighs. “Timms promises not to take drugs if he remembers.”
“Oh.” After hesitating some, Dakin reaches over to clap Scripps on the shoulder. “If you need anything, I’m around.”
“You’re not the greatest person to bother under times of duress,” Scripps says flatly. “But thank you.” And then he remembers. “Actually, do you know if Irwin is coming?”
Dakin shrugs, “Haven’t rang him yet...but I’ll let you know.”
.
There is a quiet knock on his office door, and Irwin glances up from a mass of papers to see Dakin leaning against the door. His first reaction is still primarily wariness, but Dakin looks so unexpectedly sombre that the hard lines on his face eventually wear down to mild concern.
Dropping his pen, Irwin looks at him. “Stuart.”
Dakin steps into the room and closes the door behind him. He sits down in the chair across from Irwin’s desk and inhales deeply. “...You’re not going to ask me how I got past your secretary?”
“I’m sure you have a thrilling explanation.” Irwin slides a cup of lukewarm tea across the desk. “But you look horrible.”
Dakin says, “Tom, Jimmy Lockwood is dead.” He trips over the last words but manages to pick it up, along with the cup. He makes a face, but only for a moment and Irwin thinks he looks very pale.
Lockwood was...dead. Out of all the boys at Cutler’s, Irwin remembers him the least, but he remembers that they were all brilliant. They still are. He only speaks, when he’s repeated the thought in his own head a couple of times. It doesn’t sound real.
“How?”
“Wounded by friendly fire,” Dakin shrugs. “Which is a poetic way of saying some fucking bastard in his own regiment shot him in the face.” For a very long time, he does not speak, and then he says --
“I never thought Jimmy would be first.”
Irwin looks him over, “You wanted to be first?” Dakin always wants to be first.
“‘Course not,” Dakin looks away from him. “Just...not Jimmy.” He cuts himself off again. “Will you come to the funeral? Scripps is arranging with Jimmy’s mum. It’s at the church down the block from Scripps’ flat.”
James Lockwood is dead.
Past becomes present, but somehow, it doesn’t feel as if it is real. Although Irwin isn’t much good at funerals. He’s been to too many of them and even though he’s never found much of a niche, they don’t seem to be far away.
“When?”
“Friday, sometime in the late afternoon,” Dakin watches as Irwin pulls out a small black book and had the occasion been lighter, he would have made a joke about a sodding diary.
Irwin’s countenance does not change, “I’m filming Friday...that usually takes all day. Sorry.”
Dakin studies his face and finds that there is a coldness that wasn’t there before. It frightens him. He should probably argue, but he can’t find anything to argue about. “Oh.”
A woman sticks her head in; she seems surprised to see Dakin there, which is just as well because he’s not supposed to be there. “Tom? Lesley would like a quick word with you if you’ve got a minute -- preferably sometime in the next minute? He’s rather irritable today.”
Irwin says, “I’ve got a moment now.” He gets up and reaches for his cane. “Stuart.”
Dakin purses his lips, “Yeah, all right. I don’t suppose we could...do something later? After...” It’s the most vulnerable that he has ever been, but thankfully, Irwin is blind to most things, even with his glasses. Maybe that is why he keeps them on.
Irwin passes by him on his way to the door and takes a hold of his wrist; his hand is cold. Fingers skin and bone. Although it’s the first time that they’ve ever touched in public, Dakin feels his gut twist the wrong way. The usual chill shooting up his spine is strangely absent.
“Yeah, of course.” Irwin’s lips twitch, and Dakin’s stomach sinks further. He doesn’t quite know why, but he still knows.
.
“At least you lied, and lying’s good, isn’t it? We’ve established that...you ought to learn how to do it properly.” Dakin had looked so smug.
For his own part, Irwin thinks he’s already learned; more importantly, he knows he’s learned well. After he watches Dakin leave his office, he hastily shoves the planner back in his drawer. The page for Friday is blank; it’s always been, although his colleagues always try to drag him out for a drink. They film on Wednesdays because programmes usually air on Fridays. Dakin should have caught his lie, like he’s easily took apart his other lies -- or lie, rather, he’s only lied once before. About Oxford.
“Tom?”
Irwin remembers Lesley and his legendary temper, and he’s suddenly relieved. He walks out of the office, shutting the door firmly behind him.
.
The church is empty, and Scripps sits in the very last row and keeps his head bowed; silence is a prayer in itself. He wasn’t quite sure when Dakin had slipped into the pew next to him, but knows that it is unwise to comment. Churches generally give Dakin the creeps, so Scripps stays quiet and waits. There has to be a good explanation, or so he hopes.
After a moment, Dakin says, “You weren’t at home.”
“And this is the second place you looked.”
“Yep.”
Scripps heaves a sigh. “Today isn’t Sunday. What do you want?”
Dakin mirrors his sigh, and stretches his arms above his head. “About Lent. Do you just -- did you give up anything for Lent?”
This...is a bit surprising. “Of course, I gave up liquor. Lent started a week ago.”
“But you don’t drink,” Dakin points out with an equally pointed glance. “Isn’t that missing the point?”
Scripps glances at his watch and shrugs one shoulder. “It’s the next best thing, I can’t really give you up for Lent.”
“Now that’s funny.” Dakin rolls his eyes.
For the longest time, Scripps does not say anything. To Dakin, his friend’s face looks wan and pale, like he hasn’t been sleeping. If Mrs. Lockwood is still staying with him...that is no great surprise. Finally, Scripps wipes a hand across his eyes and heaves a heavy sigh. “Mrs. Lockwood is a miserable woman; I hear her talking at night.”
“What’s she say?”
“Things,” Scripps says.
As curious as he is, Dakin already has enough reasons not to sleep at night. He says, “I told Irwin about Jimmy. He’s filming on Friday. Can’t make it.”
“Oh? You’re all right, then?”
Dakin doesn’t know if he is. He merely shrugs, “I will be.” Because he always is. Besides, even if Irwin -- Dakin has lived ten fulfilling years without him; he certainly doesn’t need him. But the indignation boiling in the pit of his stomach isn’t something that can easily be explained away.
Scripps unclasps his hands and turns to study him; Dakin doesn’t flinch at all under his scrutiny. Used to it, that is the only answer. “Why were you asking me about Lent?”
His mouth suddenly itches for a cigarette, but he’s in a church, and deep down Dakin can’t deny his sense of propriety. “I don’t know.” It’s alarming, really, how the words just slip so effortlessly from his tongue, and then he says: “You’re praying.”
Scripps’ mouth curl up into a faintly ironic smile and turns his eyes to his knees once more. “Most people do not pray; they only beg.”
Dakin can’t help but agree, although he can’t quite place the quote. He too, bows his head and keeps quiet.
.
At James Lockwood’s funeral, there is a clear divide. His stiff army friends sit on the right and his friends from his private life sit on the other side. Regardless, both sides are well-attended and James Lockwood is clearly a likable young man whose life ended well before his time. Irwin doesn’t think that Lockwood has ever professed to be religious, but he was probably too preoccupied by people like Dakin to notice the little details. He purposely arrives late and finds a seat next to some stern young man in uniform who barely spares him a glance.
Irwin has also conveniently forgotten his cane at home, but he thinks that the gnawing pain in his leg is a much needed distraction. He dislikes funerals; always has. Although these boys were, and still are his crowning glory, they lead lives that he’s only dreamt about. And everything that came after has proven to be all but utter shit. (Here, he can at least pretend to feel accomplished.)
He watches as Scripps escorts a woman wrapped in a black shawl up to the stage. Lockwood’s mother, Irwin thinks, without glancing down at the programme he is crumpling with nervous hands. They have the same eyes.
She reads aloud from a piece of paper, her voice bravely steady. These are a mother’s words. Irwin closes his eyes and wonders if his own mother would ever say these things about him. It’s a futile fleeting wonder, and he opens his eyes again. He’s become old enough so that he no longer likes things that are far away and fleeting.
Irwin thinks that he recognizes the backs of some heads: Scripps, Akhtar, Timms, Rudge, there’s an elderly woman who looks suspiciously like Dorothy Lintott. And Dakin, of course Dakin. They sit in a close familiar huddle, as if time and their lives apart have made no difference. He also looks around for Posner, but does not find him.
Hadn’t exactly expected to, either.
.
Tom Irwin is a fucking bastard.
Dakin sees him, there in the back on the opposite side, next to one of Jimmy’s army friends. Again, he wonders how Lockwood managed to stay alive for so long in the army; Dakin would have put a hole through his own head out of boredom long before someone else ventured to do him the favour.
When he’d last looked, the spot next to the door had been very much unoccupied. Now Irwin sits there, looking pale and pained. He must have snuck in halfway through. Dakin looks again and sees that Irwin doesn’t have his cane with him.
The priest is bidding everyone to bow their heads in silent prayer, Dakin does, but he keeps his eyes open.
Irwin gets up to leave and --
.
“Where’s your cane?”
Irwin stops. Except he doesn’t turn around. He doesn’t even want to see Dakin’s face because then he might change his mind. Maybe he’s not as learned as he thinks he is. “I don’t need it for short excursions.”
“I suppose you don’t.” Dakin is standing close enough so that Irwin can hear him breathing. “If you finished filming early, you should have told me, rang or something.”
A sense of helplessness has gripped him, much like before. Except this time, Irwin knows that he doesn’t have the usual excuses to cling to. He breathes in deeply and exhales again. “I finished filming,” and then he adds belatedly: “On Wednesday. I actually wasn’t planning to come.”
“You lied.” At least this time, Dakin doesn’t sound surprised. (Good on him.) The sentence just sort of hangs there, unfinished.
Irwin nods. “And you believed me.” He waits for another half beat. “Again.”
Dakin does not say anything, and curiosity finally gets the better of Irwin so he turns around. “Why would you lie about something like this, anyway?” It’s an honest question, which is funny, because neither of them like honesty. They’ve even admitted it -- honestly.
“I hate funerals,” Irwin says. “Always have.”
The expression on Dakin’s face tells Irwin that he doesn’t understand. He shouldn’t. He’s a boy, a boy who has everything that he could ever want. There is a familiar pang in Irwin’s chest, making it hard for him to breathe. It could only be jealousy. “Irwin.” His mouth had looked like it wanted to form ‘Tom’ but in the end, he decides to be safe. The single word falters into a question and Irwin just watches him.
“Stuart.” The name feels awkward, like the syllables have been tangled up. “You should get back inside.”
“You’re just leaving, then.”
Irwin shrugs, “They’re your friends, aren’t they?”
Dakin sets his jaw stubbornly and stays. “Now, of all times, you’re shying away? Jesus, you’re really --”
“It’s not shying away so much as a strategic retreat,” Irwin insists, touching a hand briefly to his glasses. “Besides, Lockwood is dead...and this is mad, don’t you see?” There are much more eloquent ways to say this, but Dakin never listens to eloquence. He’ll listen to brash reason, although Irwin hardly has the reasons to give him. The only reason that he has is the fear grasping at the base of his spine and the stinging pain in his leg. “You have a future ahead of you. Miring about with the likes of me...you were a lawyer once, you should know these things.”
A bitter laugh leaves Dakin’s throat, making him sound like a strangled dying animal. Then he hisses, eyes flashing with more hurt than anger. It hurts him so much that Irwin almost has to look away. “So after a month of fucking, you suddenly decide to think about my bloody future? You’re fucking unbelievable.”
“Yes,” Irwin deadpans, noting Dakin’s white-knuckled fists. “After a month of fucking, I’ve come to my senses and I’m thinking about your future.” He pauses. “That’s all it is, isn’t it, Dakin? Fucking?”
The church bells toll above them in grave disapproval, and Irwin heads for the nearest taxi. Dakin calls after him, voice strained with something strange like exasperation, “Much madness is divinest sense.”
Suddenly, Irwin can’t even bare to look at him. So he doesn’t, but he stops at the curb and raises his hand for a taxi. “Much sense, the divinest madness -- or have you forgotten?” Boys forget easily. When he climbs into the cab, Dakin is still standing there, looking much too forlorn. He does not turn to go.
Boys forget easily. They always have, always will. Irwin clings to that thought -- even if it is a thin fraying thread, because it makes him feel a little less awful.
.
The funeral is over; there’s no body for them to view because no one wants to pay their last respects to only half of Jimmy’s face, so Dakin joins the other guests to say good-bye to a closed pine casket instead. He’s paid for it, and Mrs. Lockwood picked it out a few days before. It’s surreal, buying a coffin for one of your friends. But he can’t focus, not even when they lower him into the ground and shovel dirt over the casket.
Already, Scripps is looking at him up and down and Dakin knows that he has to start thinking of a plausible explanation. But he doesn’t find one; instead, he finds himself inviting his former schoolmates and Mrs. Lintott back to his flat for a drink (since he no longer has Sylvia to worry about). Mrs. Lintott politely refuses and the others don’t sound particularly enthusiastic, but they agree, probably because free liquor is involved.
Scripps promises to show later after he has driven Mrs. Lockwood to the train station.
.
It’s been years since all of them have gathered into one room for a proper drink. Crowther is caught up in Berlin, and of course Posner isn’t there, but of course they’d never talk about it. They’d just lost one friend, it seemed unwise to discuss the hypothetical loss of another.
A few drinks make everyone groggy, but it doesn’t make things any less awkward. Silence reigns after numerous attempts at conversation have fallen flat. Jimmy Lockwood once said something about “silence being the only proper response”. Or maybe it isn’t Jimmy, it’s some poet, who might be queer. No one remembers.
Or cares. It is at least an attempt towards a tribute.
Scripps does show when everybody is fairly drunk and Timms extends a glass to him with a somewhat shaky hand. Scripps takes it, and Dakin wonders whether to remind him that he’s given up liquor for Lent. Scripps settles on the couch between Ahktar and Rudge, who shift over to make room for him.
“So what’d I miss?”
Ahktar holds a half empty glass at a dangerous tilt and says, “Not very much, we’re getting to be too drunk for intellectual conversation.”
There are vague murmurs of agreement. Scripps pretends to sip from his drink. Dakin knows that he is pretending.
Timms finally says, “Hey, anyone heard from Irwin lately? I watch his programmes at the weekends, great stuff. I thought I saw a bloke that looked like him in the back.”
Dakin opens his mouth, but Scripps’ voice speaks for him instead. “I’m running a piece on Irwin for the magazine soon, might have sent him something. Thought it was proper.”
Proper, fuck proper. Dakin knocks back the remainder of his drink in a vicious gulp and slams the glass down on his knee.
“I wonder why he didn’t stick around to say hello?”
They are all really too drunk to care (well, except Dakin, but he’s long since perfected lying). At length, Rudge reaches to grope around on the table for a new drink, only to realise that the cans and glasses are all empty. “Don’t you have anything else to drink?”
Without missing a beat, Dakin waves hazily towards the kitchen. “...There’s probably still some bourbon or something in the fridge, help yourself.”
.
Scripps is not drunk, but he is exhausted and Dakin’s couch is comfortable. The others have stumbled off to who knows where, back to their normal lives. They’ve reached a tentative agreement to do this again sometime very soon, except next time, they’ll all chip in for the booze, even though Dakin is clearly the one who is filthy rich. Scripps has an oddly horrible feeling that ‘next time’ is probably going to be after the next funeral.
Whose? Posner’s, maybe. Or Dakin’s, more likely. Possibly Timms’, if he keeps up the drugs on the weekends.
Dakin is sitting in his armchair, flicking a lighter on and off, sucking contentedly on a cigarette. Abruptly, he changes the subject. “Irwin lied to me. He doesn’t film on Fridays.”
Scripps focuses on a strange brown stain on Dakin’s ceiling, and wonders if Dakin’s ever noticed it before. “This surprises you?”
Dakin exhales. “It’s not supposed to, is it?” He feels a bit stupid.
Now Scripps can do little else but raise an eyebrow, the mere thought of Stuart Dakin labouring over lost love -- or certainly everything that could have been, is a grand novelty. “Man is in love and loves what vanishes.” The quote tastes strange with the stale liquor in his mouth. Jimmy is dead, and for a moment they can both wonder.
Dakin thinks for a minute. “Yeats?” Someone not queer, for once. It’s refreshing. He is not quite sure what Scripps means to imply by the gobbet, but he is going to leave that particular curiosity alone. “Scripps, you gave up liquor for Lent.”
“I don’t remember.” Scripps just shrugs, rubbing at his eyes. Dakin looks at him for a long time and goes to fetch him an extra blanket. By the time he returns, Scripps is snoring softly into a cushion. Dakin curses himself for being a sentimental fuck, covers him up, and goes to bed.
.
Dakin had called Hector a ‘sad fuck’ that one night out of jest, and it’d been amusing enough in a grotesque sort of way; they'd laughed about it. Except now that Irwin thinks about it, the description is a fit for him, too.
It has started to rain again, and Irwin gives up his cane for his wheelchair. There’s a terrible pain in his leg. But it’s all right this time, there’s no one here to see. It’s been two days since Jimmy died and he hasn’t done much other than bury his copy of Housman in his closet so deep where no one would dare to find it again.
Of course he’s gone to work and signed on a new series about the Industrial Revolution, which is set, it’s not one of Irwin’s favorite subjects because it’s not at all off the beaten track, but it’s a distraction.
It seemed like so long ago, but Irwin can close his eyes and distinctively remember how sombre Hector’s eyes had looked when he’d said: “Don’t touch him. He’ll think you’re a fool.”
Irwin wonders about that; he wondered about it when Dakin came over on Saturday nights and didn’t go home until late Sunday night when Irwin reminded him he had work on Mondays. He doesn’t think that Dakin sees him as a fool; however, James Lockwood’s death reminds him that Hector is also dead. Most journalists work well on an ambiguous moral compass...but Irwin must at least try to respect the dead.
Hector knows what it’s like. He knows better than anyone else, the boys were his pride and joy. The boys used to make him unhappy. Of course he would know.
So does Carolyn. Or Irwin thinks she does, deep down, even if she hadn’t been poetic enough to find words for it.
Actually, the only person who doesn’t know is Irwin himself. Which really does shed a new light on things. His phone is ringing again, for the nineteenth time. And for the nineteenth time, Dakin will leave him a message and quote him some sort of poetry. Irwin waits until the ringing stops before he goes to listen. If it’s still ringing, he might be tempted to answer.
This time, it’s someone French. Verlaine. (Il pleure dans mon couer comme il pleute sur la ville --) Irwin’s throat is too tight and he quickly snaps his phone shut. But he keeps all of Dakin’s messages and doesn’t delete them. He knows that he really should, but he’s
Just like a sad fuck.
.
A thick pile of paper thwacks Scripps unceremoniously on the head and he usually would have cursed, except it’s Dakin standing there, so he doesn’t. “What’s this?”
“You gave it to me Thursday.”
“Oh.” Scripps glances briefly at the top page. It’s an article written by a graduate that they’d just hired. No chances for publication, but he’d asked Dakin to look it over because he needed to find something for him to do, and Dakin had slashed through it mercilessly with red ink. “I said you had a week.”
“I had some time...so.” Dakin shrugs. “What university was he at again?”
“She,” Scripps corrects him, putting the pile aside. “She was at Bristol.”
Dakin’s expression flickers, “Bristol.” He repeats the word, as if it’s some foreign term he suddenly did not know how to comprehend.
Scripps says, “Is there a problem? If everyone went to Oxford or Cambridge, we’d all be a lot less remarkable.” Dakin needs to be remarkable. “Besides, what do you have against Bristol anyway?”
Dakin bites his lip, “I haven’t anything against Bristol -- and I have a date, so don’t ring me unless it’s important.”
“With Irwin?”
Dakin does not say anything for a long moment, it’s too long of a pause. “No, with Isabelle. I met her at a poetry reading a few days ago.”
“Since when do you attend poetry readings?” Scripps raises an eyebrow, Dakin is unpredictable, but attending a poetry reading is a bit far-fetched, even in Scripps’ capable imagination; it’s nowhere near adventurous enough.
A noisy sigh leaves Dakin’s throat and he turns to leave. “Just fuck off.”
Scripps lets him go, because his phone is ringing -- “Yes, Donald Scripps speaking.”
There is a brief silence, and then: “This is Irwin.”
Irwin. Scripps considers calling for Dakin, who can’t be that far away since the lifts are at the very end of the hallway, but then again, Dakin is difficult. “Hello sir,” he says quietly. “What can I do for you?”
Irwin’s voice sounds very thin and vulnerable, not steady. “Scripps, I think I need a favour.”
Scripps says, “I’m listening.” And does.
.
“You Irwin?”
Irwin’s head snaps up, and he almost drops the phone. His mouth is suddenly itching for a cigarette, but he hasn’t smoked since his last encounter with Dakin, and really, he’d rather like to keep it that way. He hastily unclenches his fingers, noting that his knuckles are bloodless and white. On his desk, there’s a cup of tea, but no letter for him to crumple up. Dakin has stopped writing.
A man stands in his doorway, smug and suited. It’s Dakin, Irwin thinks, irrational panic suddenly filling his chest. And then he blinks again, and it isn’t. It’s a much older man who tries to hide his receding hairline by wearing loud obnoxious ties. It fools no one, but everyone is smart enough to hold their tongues. This man is Morrison, one of the executives, and Irwin has heard all sorts of horror stories about him, though he and Morrison have yet to cross paths.
Feeling suspiciously self-conscious, Irwin touches a hand to his glasses to make sure they aren’t slipping. They aren’t, and he feels safer. “Yes, I’m Tom Irwin, how may I help you, Mr. Morrison?”
Morrison looks him up and down. “Irene tells me you’ve been running late on your notes for the Industrial Revolution programme. Not up to your usual standards.”
And he has, Irwin has been running on less than an hour of sleep each night, and his notes have been getting less than spectacular as of late, filming has already been set back several times, and none of it’s because of Dakin. None of it. He searches for an excuse, does not find one, and says --
“I’m thinking of writing a book, I suppose I was preoccupied.”
“A book?” Morrison’s eyebrows look threatening, but he also looks properly perplexed, which makes for an odd expression. “What about?”
“Erm,” Irwin rubs the bridge of his nose for inspiration. None came, and he grabs the first word he can think of. “Sheffield.”
“...Sheffield, up north?”
Irwin bites his tongue. “I lived there for a while, found it a fascinating town. Everything has a history.”
Morrison seems to think this over, and he plants his hands down on Irwin’s desk. “Fine, take a few days, take a holiday and go to Sheffield. It’d help clear your head.”
“The programme,” Irwin says. “If I’m not here, it’s going to be delayed.”
“We’ll get someone else, Lewiston needs something to do. He’s nothing next to you, but we’ll manage. Besides, if you’re always off somewhere else, you’re just as bad as he is.” Morrison turns to go. “Have fun in Sheffield.”
.
This is getting ridiculous.
Dakin works up the courage to directly call the station and asks for Tom Irwin. Actually, he is at a complete loss about what to say, he only knows that he has to try to say something since assorted gobbets have already failed him. He is instead redirected to someone named Morrison, who informs him that Mr. Irwin had gone on holiday for an indeterminate amount of time.
“Where?” Dakin’s tongue feels too thick in his mouth.
There is a slight pause on the other end. “Sheffield, I think? He says he wants to write a book.”
Dakin does not say anything. He can’t.
“Anyway, would you like to leave a message with an assistant? I’ll trans --”
“No, it’s quite all right, thank you.” Dakin hangs up the phone and hits his mattress face first.
.
Irwin spends the first two days of his alleged holiday sulking in his flat, confined to his wheelchair. Sulking, because there’s no one else around to see him at his absolute worst and that in itself is liberating. He tries to read, and then he tries to write (not about Sheffield, heavens no). He is only mediocrely successful at both. Somehow, that is not so surprising.
On the third day, Irwin finally gives in and throws some clothes in a bag and takes the morning train to Sheffield. He hasn’t been back since. He never really thought that he could return. It’s the same principle of why he never sets foot into Oxford, but at the end of the day, the logic is thoroughly unreasonable.
Sheffield hasn’t changed all that much, save for a population increase, all the buildings and pubs are mostly in their proper places. He goes into one and orders a few drinks, comes out an hour later halfway tipsy and manages to book a room for a week at some inn. The sheets look like they need a few good washes. Irwin isn’t at all sure he’ll even be here a week. He genuinely hopes not.
Irwin hails a taxi and has it drive to Cutler’s. Cutler’s Grammar School looks different, as if it has undergone several renovations since his last visit. That is also not so surprising. He gets out and gazes at it, until the driver interrupts with a brusque:
“Hey, don’t you want to go in?”
“Not particularly,” Irwin says, and gets back in the cab. “I used to teach there,” he says to no one. It’s just as well; the driver is not at all impressed and offers him a cigarette. Irwin declines.
Much later, he visits the unassuming curb where Hector had his accident, and just stands there wondering if he’s just too blind to see the skid marks from ten years ago. This is how history happens.
.
It is Sunday morning and Dakin packs a few unassuming articles of clothing and extra cigarettes. He drives to Scripps’ flat and leaves his suitcase in the car.
Scripps opens the door for him and looks him up and down. “You’re not telling me something.”
Dakin shrugs. “I’m not telling you several things.”
As per their routine, Scripps leads him into the kitchen and pours him coffee with thick honey. Scripps slides the cup soundlessly across the table and fixes Dakin with one of those looks. “I thought you tell me everything.”
“You’re not my priest.” Dakin says archly.
“Ah? So you did realize that.” Scripps wears a wry smile. “It’s relieving.” He traces one finger along the rim, grazing over a chip. Dakin hastily checks his own cup, and finds no chip.
Dakin opens his mouth, and then closes it again. He contemplates likely insults, but in the end, he doesn’t say anything.
Scripps lets the silence sit on its own for a few more minutes, and then he says, “So how’d your drink go, with Isabelle?”
“Didn’t happen, I stood her up.”
“Did you?”
Dakin bristles. “She certainly didn’t stand me up.”
There were many things Scripps certainly could have said to that, but the look on Dakin’s face is enough for him. He refills both cups, changes the subject. “Irwin called me.” Irwin probably means for the conversation to be confidential, but it’s also probably fair to give Dakin some notice that he is no longer employed. He no longer has an article to write, not to mention that sleeping with interviewees is extremely bad form.
This gets Dakin’s immediate and undivided attention, as it rightly should. “Yeah?”
“He cancelled on me, and now I’ll have to find someone else, asked that I’d understand.”
“And did you?”
“Of course I did, it’s not as if I had a choice in the matter.” Scripps carefully weighs the words carefully on his tongue before letting them slip. “This means that the two of you have stopped fucking?”
Again, Dakin’s mouth opens and shuts. Finally, he says, “It’s not like that.”
“No,” Scripps’ smile is twitching, although it’s hard to say if he is actually amused. “That’s too crass, I suppose it would be more poetic. A more fitting description escapes me.”
“You’re enjoying this.” Dakin stares at him in mildly horrified admiration. Well, Scripps by his own admission doesn’t wank and all that. Sexual frustration has to go somewhere.
“I try.” Scripps turns from him to put the coffee pot in the sink. “But by the way, I was thinking -- where are you going?”
Dakin shrugs. “No idea.”
.
It takes Irwin another few days to work up the courage to really visit Cutler’s.
The place is cleaner than he remembers, and maybe the boys are less crass. He is not as young as he’d like to be. The nook where Dakin first convinced him to have a cigarette is still as suspicious as ever. The paint is still peeling from door, and he wishes he had brought cigarettes. A fleeting thought that comes and goes.
Finally, he goes and visits Felix, whose eyebrows have grown significantly whiter. He does not seem to recognize Irwin at first, but when he finally does, he shakes Irwin’s hands so hard that Irwin thinks that Felix has gone and broken several of his fingers. It’s splendid to see him, really. Just wonderful.
Dorothy Lintott ended up teaching for another number of years and just retired the year before last. Of course the miracle of ten years ago is unlikely to repeat itself again, but every year, there are one or two lucky ones to continue the tradition. By the way, Felix has heard about Lockwood, but couldn’t make the funeral, terrible tragedy, such a bright boy. Is Irwin looking back to get into teaching? There’s always a place for him here at Cutler’s. Head of History, if he’d like. The man employed right now is a bit of an idiot. To think he calls himself a Cambridge man, he’s got to be lying.
Irwin shakes his head; he’s quite happy working in television, but thanks anyway for the offer.
Upon further inquiry, Irwin finds that most of the classrooms have been moved into a new wing that was built on a generous grant a few years ago. But he’s welcome to go and look at his old classroom, they’ve mostly left it alone.
“Thanks,” Irwin says and turns to go. “I think I will.”
.
So he’s lied again. Dakin realises that lying to Scripps is becoming easier and easier to do, whatever that means. He arrives in Sheffield near eight o’ clock and drops in unexpectedly on his parents, who are overjoyed to see him. Of course, they don’t know that he’s no longer a lawyer, and they’ll continue in their ignorance. London is grand, they should really visit more often. He’s even moved into a new flat and liking it just fine.
Dakin spends the night in his old room and smokes two cigarettes by an open window. His mum has never approved of him smoking. Then again, his old man keeps drinking as a hobby, so she doesn’t say anything, except to knock on his door before she’s about to go to sleep.
“Stuart?”
“Yeah, Mum?”
“Are you happy?”
Dakin rolls the cigarette between his fingers and stares at her. “Mum, why would you ask me something like that?”
She looks old, but motherly, kind. “You look a bit miserable. I’m your mum, I know.”
Which is one of the reasons why he never comes home. Dakin turns back to the open window. “I’m not unhappy.”
“Oh.” She doesn’t move from his doorway, but she looks slightly less pale in the dark. It’s reassuring. Dakin stands up and smoothes the wrinkles out of the sheets. He walks to where she is standing, and she just gazes at him with knowing eyes. She touches the side of his face, and smiles a brave smile.
“That’s good.” Slowly, she backs away. “Good night.”
.
The next day, he drives to Cutler’s Grammar School and marvels at the familiar sea of dark uniforms rushing from one place to the next, hard to believe that he used to be like them. But then again, Dakin has never been like them, not really.
He makes his way through the crowds and stops in front of the Headmaster’s office. Considering they haven’t exactly parted on the best of terms, Dakin decides that it’s best to let that reunion well alone.
Fiona is not the secretary anymore; in her place is an equally large-chested young woman whose breasts are spilling shamelessly out of her blouse. She smiles at him, her lips lined in hideously dark rouge. Dakin smiles back and thinks that Felix might get lucky this time.
Mrs. Lintott retired the year before last, Dakin learnt that at Jimmy’s funeral. So it’s useless to look for her. The old classrooms are all but abandoned, the rooms bare.
He finds his way to that room, at the very end of the hall, almost hidden next to the row of dented lockers. He tries the knob and finds it unlocked.
.
Irwin almost trips over himself when he hears the door creaking open. He jerks his eyes from the window to the doorway, and he thinks that he must be dreaming. Or hallucinating. Or some strange nonsensical combination thereof.
“You --”
Dakin. Stuart fucking Dakin. Is here in this room. Panic rises in his chest, floods over his nerves, and Irwin presses himself flat against the wall, as if to grapple for some faraway sense of security.
“I called the station, they said you were on holiday in Sheffield,” Dakin says, because he’s the type to have a bloody explanation for everything. “So I um...wasn’t expecting this, though.”
“Neither was I.” Irwin says, and hates his own voice for not being even. Maybe Dakin won’t notice. But he always notices. “I called Scripps and said I wanted nothing to do with you. Did he forget to pass on the message?”
Dakin only shrugs. “‘‘S’not like I listen.” The gall of him to sound so fucking wise about it.
Of course he doesn’t. Irwin forgets. Right now, he’s torn between wringing his hands together and tearing out his hair. Both options are equally embarrassing, especially in front of Dakin; Irwin quickly stuffs both of his hands inside his pockets to waylay the temptation. This is getting to be awfully familiar. He is not sure if he likes that at all.
A tense silence settles between them, Irwin does not move from his uneasy post by the window; Dakin hasn’t let go of the doorknob. At last, Dakin clears his throat. “Did you suddenly forget you were fucking Lockwood behind my back? His death made you feel guilty?”
Almost immediately, Irwin pales to a hideous shade of white-gray. Obviously Dakin doesn’t really mean it, but he’s long since learned that offending someone was the easiest way to get them to talk. Intellectuals like Tom Irwin not excepted. He watches as Irwin sputters and rubs the bridge of his nose.
“No.” Irwin touches a hand to his glasses. “Why would you even -- do you honestly think I’m that easy? That I’d just shack up with the first bloke I see and fuck him?”
Dakin measures a careful pause, shrugs again. “I hardly know what to think about you, honestly. If I had to guess...you’re not easy. Took me ten years, after all. Probably should have taken me longer. You’re a bit impossible.”
“Perhaps you’re not as alluring as you’d like to think,” Irwin says blandly. “Whatever inspired you to quote me Paul Verlaine?”
“I’m probably not,” Dakin only smirks amicably, much to Irwin’s surprise. “And Verlaine because...well, he’s another one of those sad fucks. Rimbaud made him that way.” Here, he pauses to seem smug.
“So that makes you Rimbaud? If I’m Verlaine and all.” Irwin feels his own lips twitch. “You’re a bit of a l’enfant terrible.” A bit. That’s being generous. He’s also not sure how he feels being compared to a dead French poet who might or might not be insane. It’s either that or Poland, and he isn’t sure that he wants to go back to that either.
“I don’t think you’d want to shoot me,” Dakin muses, more to himself than to Irwin, it seems. He lets go of the doorknob and walks a few steps closer, and then he stops. Still enough room there between them for Irwin to keep breathing. “But...going back to Poland and Germany reminds me that I’m never going to get to Warsaw.”
“It’s all about getting somewhere with you, isn’t it?” Irwin touches a hand to his glasses, as if he is afraid that they’ll just fly off and leave him vulnerable just because Dakin wants them to.
“Is that such a bad thing? If you get somewhere, then things will happen,” Dakin flips glibly back at him, although the smirk that he forces himself to wear isn’t so reassuring.
There is a pause, Irwin sighs. “Dakin, something did happen.”
“All right, then...why have things stopped happening?” Dakin stares at him for a long long moment, “All that crap about my fucking future -- don’t you realise that my future has already passed? Tom, it’s not as if I’m a boy -” He cuts himself abruptly. “Is that what you’re worried about?”
Irwin clenches his hands tight in his pockets and then unclenches them. He draws in a deep breath. “But you were a boy when I first -- when you first...” He falters.
Dakin merely arches a mildly disbelieving eyebrow. “And that suddenly matters now why?” He moves to take a step forward, but then stops himself. Irwin already looks very much the part of a harried cornered rat. It’s rather pathetic. Dakin wonders at him sometimes, “Tom, we’re hardly the same people we were. The years teach much which the days never knew.”
“Or maybe we’ve fucked over gloriously so many times that we’ve had no choice but to learn,” Irwin says dryly. “Or you’ve suddenly turned into a sap on me.” If Verlaine is any indication.
For a moment, Dakin does, not say anything, “I’m not...” Then he looks away. “Death does funny things. I can’t come up with a gobbet for that.”
“What happened when Hector died?”
“You said this wasn’t about Hector.” Dakin’s tone is just slightly accusing.
“It isn’t really...it was more about you,” says Irwin, honest for once. “He said that I...shouldn’t touch you, that it’d make me dreadfully unhappy for the rest of my life because you’d find me despicable.”
“Was this before or after I asked you to suck me off?”
Irwin makes a frustrated noise of sorts and shifts from one foot to the other again, his cane knocking dully against the wall a few times before he speaks again. “Obviously, before. You’re missing the point, Dakin.”
“Yeah? Tell me.”
There is a lump of something not quite unfamiliar stuck in Irwin’s throat. “Aren’t you ever going to ask me about my wife?”
“I thought you might eventually tell me.” Dakin looks at him, but for once, Irwin doesn’t feel quite so threatened. “Since I did already tell you that I fucked up. It’s fair.”
“Fair?”
Dakin immediately blanches. “Well, fine. Not fair, but...I bet you haven’t ever told anyone.”
With a heavy sigh, Irwin knocks the cane against the wall again. “Would you blame me? Doesn’t exactly make for light conversations.”
“Brilliant, I’ve never been a fan of those.”
Irwin decides that Dakin is infinitely exasperating. “Stuart.” He looks down quickly at the ground, he doesn’t want to see the victorious smirk gracing Dakin’s countenance. “You don’t care about any of these things; all you want is to prove that you can get somewhere.” Another pause, he takes his hands out of his pockets. “My mother wanted me to marry as soon as possible after the accident for stability. I knew Carolyn ever since I was a boy...I didn’t think it was going to be horrible.”
Instead of offering some snide comment, Dakin is oddly thoughtful and quiet. “It was?”
“It was, I despised her so much.” Irwin’s face contorts in something like pain. “I didn’t even know why. She died a year and a half ago.” He falters briefly, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. “Run over by a drunk driver while she was crossing a street...Carolyn was pregnant with my child.”
“You had a...” Suddenly Dakin can’t finish.
“Would have had,” Irwin corrects him quietly. “I was so relieved.” Finally, he looks up. “This wasn’t like Corpus.” It wasn’t like Corpus at all.
After a dreadful silence of sorts, Dakin inclines his head. He walks a few steps closer to Irwin, but does not dare to touch him.
“I know.”
“You aren’t even going to doubt me.” For once, Irwin does not ask a question.
“I’ve grown up.”
“You’ve already said that before.”
“I was afraid you might forget.”
“You made it impossible to forget -- I couldn’t forget.”
And now, Dakin looks properly smug. Irwin is relieved again. He’s gotten what he wanted, and now he will go. Instead, Stuart doesn’t go; he stays rooted to the spot and looks his former schoolteacher up and down. Irwin bravely tries not to flinch.
“What’d you suppose would have happened if we’d gone?”
Irwin swallows. “I suppose,” he stops a moment, pretending to think. “That it would have been fantastically disastrous. You would have forgotten about me once you’ve gone off to Oxford. Sometimes, I think I would have preferred that.”
“Now you think too little of me.” Dakin steps in close, closing the distance between them, and Irwin can hear him breathing, smell the comfortingly familiar scent of cigarette smoke. “What happened after she died? Did you shack up with some useless bloke?”
“Thought about it.” Irwin refuses to look away, Dakin has already won once, he can’t win again. “Then I remembered your letters from Oxford and thought it’d be safer to cry over them at night when no one was looking.”
“Really?”
“No.”
Dakin’s mouth twitches. “You, sir, are a devil.” He sounds much too pleased.
Irwin does not say anything. His fingers only stiffen when Dakin reaches for his hand. His skin is warm and tempting. And then Dakin drops Irwin’s hand and reaches for his glasses instead; Irwin knows that he really ought to say no, but he still doesn’t say anything.
Dakin grins and says, “Warsaw.”
Irwin twitches back and says, “Funny, give them back.”
Of course Dakin has to dangle them above his head first, taunting him. Irwin could easily reach for them. “Can you see?”
“You have a mole on the side of your nose.” Irwin pretends to squint.
At this, Dakin glares at him. “I can’t believe I stood up a girl for you.”
“Did you?” Irwin feels a strange tingle of warmth creep up his spine, it reaches the back of his neck and stays there. “I’m honoured.”
“As I suspect you ought to be.” Dakin puts Irwin’s glasses back on for him and steps back. He turns briefly and glances at the door. “I keep thinking Felix’s going to come creeping around.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
Dakin shrugs, “In your own words, I’ve become less adventurous in my old age. I’m almost inclined to believe you.”
“Those words are yours,” Irwin reminds him, braver now that he has he glasses back where they belong.
“Ah, so they were,” Dakin’s lips thin into a thoughtful line. “I’ve been around you too long, then.” How much of the human life is lost in waiting? Emerson again. The fellow must have led a sad pathetic life, should have fucked Whitman when he had the chance.
“Maybe.” Irwin keeps his voice light and noncommittal as he too, steps away from the window. His elbows are numb. “That should teach you something.”
“Perhaps it already has,” Dakin is saunters towards the door, hands stuffed in his pockets; as if he’s already so damn sure that Irwin will follow that he doesn’t even have to look back. He flings the door open with a tremendous gesture, and then he turns. “We should go for a drink. A lot of new pubs have opened up...see what happens.”
Irwin says, “...Yeah, I think I’d like that.” And begins to walk towards the door..
.
THE END
.
History is just one fucking thing after another.
Funny, how they’d all laughed. They’d all been young.
Some things are entirely expected, like the fact that Dakin looks so smug when he drops in the next day, in the late afternoon as opposed to late morning. Scripps was always of the opinion that Irwin and Dakin will eventually fuck -- in all manners of the word, so it’s not surprising, even if it took them ten years to get there.
Some things are altogether unexpected.
The news comes a few days later that Jimmy Lockwood is dead. Wounded by friendly fire. Scripps promptly forgets about Dakin and Irwin. He writes an obituary and sends it back to Sheffield for anyone who might be interested. Jimmy’s funeral is to be held in London, and Scripps makes funeral arrangements. Jimmy had said once that he wanted to die pretending to be a religious man. The heavens might be kinder to him that way.
He’s so busy that the days have all blurred together. Scripps does manage to guess the right day to pick up Jimmy’s mum from the station and offers her his spare room after borrowing fresh sheets from Dakin. She spends most of her time bawling and Scripps spends most of his time wondering whether to invest in soundproofing his walls.
Lockwood is suddenly Jimmy - even Dakin, who is unsentimental as fuck, calls him Jimmy, like they’ve known him all their lives, and they have. This Sunday, Scripps sprinkles in peppermint in their respective coffees and neither of them have much to say. They also try to ignore Mrs. Lockwood’s sobbing in the background, even though Dakin looks thoroughly uncomfortable, shifting from one foot from the other.
“How’s Irwin?”
“Busy.” Dakin examines the mint flecks floating in his coffee. “Why is Jimmy’s funeral in London?”
Scripps presses a hand to his throbbing temple. “Didn’t have time to make arrangements in Sheffield, and I didn't need the military to gripe at me, but I know a few people are coming. I got hold of Mrs. Lintott. Which is surprising. I don’t know if Posner’s coming. I left him a message -- several messages.” He sighs. “Timms promises not to take drugs if he remembers.”
“Oh.” After hesitating some, Dakin reaches over to clap Scripps on the shoulder. “If you need anything, I’m around.”
“You’re not the greatest person to bother under times of duress,” Scripps says flatly. “But thank you.” And then he remembers. “Actually, do you know if Irwin is coming?”
Dakin shrugs, “Haven’t rang him yet...but I’ll let you know.”
.
There is a quiet knock on his office door, and Irwin glances up from a mass of papers to see Dakin leaning against the door. His first reaction is still primarily wariness, but Dakin looks so unexpectedly sombre that the hard lines on his face eventually wear down to mild concern.
Dropping his pen, Irwin looks at him. “Stuart.”
Dakin steps into the room and closes the door behind him. He sits down in the chair across from Irwin’s desk and inhales deeply. “...You’re not going to ask me how I got past your secretary?”
“I’m sure you have a thrilling explanation.” Irwin slides a cup of lukewarm tea across the desk. “But you look horrible.”
Dakin says, “Tom, Jimmy Lockwood is dead.” He trips over the last words but manages to pick it up, along with the cup. He makes a face, but only for a moment and Irwin thinks he looks very pale.
Lockwood was...dead. Out of all the boys at Cutler’s, Irwin remembers him the least, but he remembers that they were all brilliant. They still are. He only speaks, when he’s repeated the thought in his own head a couple of times. It doesn’t sound real.
“How?”
“Wounded by friendly fire,” Dakin shrugs. “Which is a poetic way of saying some fucking bastard in his own regiment shot him in the face.” For a very long time, he does not speak, and then he says --
“I never thought Jimmy would be first.”
Irwin looks him over, “You wanted to be first?” Dakin always wants to be first.
“‘Course not,” Dakin looks away from him. “Just...not Jimmy.” He cuts himself off again. “Will you come to the funeral? Scripps is arranging with Jimmy’s mum. It’s at the church down the block from Scripps’ flat.”
James Lockwood is dead.
Past becomes present, but somehow, it doesn’t feel as if it is real. Although Irwin isn’t much good at funerals. He’s been to too many of them and even though he’s never found much of a niche, they don’t seem to be far away.
“When?”
“Friday, sometime in the late afternoon,” Dakin watches as Irwin pulls out a small black book and had the occasion been lighter, he would have made a joke about a sodding diary.
Irwin’s countenance does not change, “I’m filming Friday...that usually takes all day. Sorry.”
Dakin studies his face and finds that there is a coldness that wasn’t there before. It frightens him. He should probably argue, but he can’t find anything to argue about. “Oh.”
A woman sticks her head in; she seems surprised to see Dakin there, which is just as well because he’s not supposed to be there. “Tom? Lesley would like a quick word with you if you’ve got a minute -- preferably sometime in the next minute? He’s rather irritable today.”
Irwin says, “I’ve got a moment now.” He gets up and reaches for his cane. “Stuart.”
Dakin purses his lips, “Yeah, all right. I don’t suppose we could...do something later? After...” It’s the most vulnerable that he has ever been, but thankfully, Irwin is blind to most things, even with his glasses. Maybe that is why he keeps them on.
Irwin passes by him on his way to the door and takes a hold of his wrist; his hand is cold. Fingers skin and bone. Although it’s the first time that they’ve ever touched in public, Dakin feels his gut twist the wrong way. The usual chill shooting up his spine is strangely absent.
“Yeah, of course.” Irwin’s lips twitch, and Dakin’s stomach sinks further. He doesn’t quite know why, but he still knows.
.
“At least you lied, and lying’s good, isn’t it? We’ve established that...you ought to learn how to do it properly.” Dakin had looked so smug.
For his own part, Irwin thinks he’s already learned; more importantly, he knows he’s learned well. After he watches Dakin leave his office, he hastily shoves the planner back in his drawer. The page for Friday is blank; it’s always been, although his colleagues always try to drag him out for a drink. They film on Wednesdays because programmes usually air on Fridays. Dakin should have caught his lie, like he’s easily took apart his other lies -- or lie, rather, he’s only lied once before. About Oxford.
“Tom?”
Irwin remembers Lesley and his legendary temper, and he’s suddenly relieved. He walks out of the office, shutting the door firmly behind him.
.
The church is empty, and Scripps sits in the very last row and keeps his head bowed; silence is a prayer in itself. He wasn’t quite sure when Dakin had slipped into the pew next to him, but knows that it is unwise to comment. Churches generally give Dakin the creeps, so Scripps stays quiet and waits. There has to be a good explanation, or so he hopes.
After a moment, Dakin says, “You weren’t at home.”
“And this is the second place you looked.”
“Yep.”
Scripps heaves a sigh. “Today isn’t Sunday. What do you want?”
Dakin mirrors his sigh, and stretches his arms above his head. “About Lent. Do you just -- did you give up anything for Lent?”
This...is a bit surprising. “Of course, I gave up liquor. Lent started a week ago.”
“But you don’t drink,” Dakin points out with an equally pointed glance. “Isn’t that missing the point?”
Scripps glances at his watch and shrugs one shoulder. “It’s the next best thing, I can’t really give you up for Lent.”
“Now that’s funny.” Dakin rolls his eyes.
For the longest time, Scripps does not say anything. To Dakin, his friend’s face looks wan and pale, like he hasn’t been sleeping. If Mrs. Lockwood is still staying with him...that is no great surprise. Finally, Scripps wipes a hand across his eyes and heaves a heavy sigh. “Mrs. Lockwood is a miserable woman; I hear her talking at night.”
“What’s she say?”
“Things,” Scripps says.
As curious as he is, Dakin already has enough reasons not to sleep at night. He says, “I told Irwin about Jimmy. He’s filming on Friday. Can’t make it.”
“Oh? You’re all right, then?”
Dakin doesn’t know if he is. He merely shrugs, “I will be.” Because he always is. Besides, even if Irwin -- Dakin has lived ten fulfilling years without him; he certainly doesn’t need him. But the indignation boiling in the pit of his stomach isn’t something that can easily be explained away.
Scripps unclasps his hands and turns to study him; Dakin doesn’t flinch at all under his scrutiny. Used to it, that is the only answer. “Why were you asking me about Lent?”
His mouth suddenly itches for a cigarette, but he’s in a church, and deep down Dakin can’t deny his sense of propriety. “I don’t know.” It’s alarming, really, how the words just slip so effortlessly from his tongue, and then he says: “You’re praying.”
Scripps’ mouth curl up into a faintly ironic smile and turns his eyes to his knees once more. “Most people do not pray; they only beg.”
Dakin can’t help but agree, although he can’t quite place the quote. He too, bows his head and keeps quiet.
.
At James Lockwood’s funeral, there is a clear divide. His stiff army friends sit on the right and his friends from his private life sit on the other side. Regardless, both sides are well-attended and James Lockwood is clearly a likable young man whose life ended well before his time. Irwin doesn’t think that Lockwood has ever professed to be religious, but he was probably too preoccupied by people like Dakin to notice the little details. He purposely arrives late and finds a seat next to some stern young man in uniform who barely spares him a glance.
Irwin has also conveniently forgotten his cane at home, but he thinks that the gnawing pain in his leg is a much needed distraction. He dislikes funerals; always has. Although these boys were, and still are his crowning glory, they lead lives that he’s only dreamt about. And everything that came after has proven to be all but utter shit. (Here, he can at least pretend to feel accomplished.)
He watches as Scripps escorts a woman wrapped in a black shawl up to the stage. Lockwood’s mother, Irwin thinks, without glancing down at the programme he is crumpling with nervous hands. They have the same eyes.
She reads aloud from a piece of paper, her voice bravely steady. These are a mother’s words. Irwin closes his eyes and wonders if his own mother would ever say these things about him. It’s a futile fleeting wonder, and he opens his eyes again. He’s become old enough so that he no longer likes things that are far away and fleeting.
Irwin thinks that he recognizes the backs of some heads: Scripps, Akhtar, Timms, Rudge, there’s an elderly woman who looks suspiciously like Dorothy Lintott. And Dakin, of course Dakin. They sit in a close familiar huddle, as if time and their lives apart have made no difference. He also looks around for Posner, but does not find him.
Hadn’t exactly expected to, either.
.
Tom Irwin is a fucking bastard.
Dakin sees him, there in the back on the opposite side, next to one of Jimmy’s army friends. Again, he wonders how Lockwood managed to stay alive for so long in the army; Dakin would have put a hole through his own head out of boredom long before someone else ventured to do him the favour.
When he’d last looked, the spot next to the door had been very much unoccupied. Now Irwin sits there, looking pale and pained. He must have snuck in halfway through. Dakin looks again and sees that Irwin doesn’t have his cane with him.
The priest is bidding everyone to bow their heads in silent prayer, Dakin does, but he keeps his eyes open.
Irwin gets up to leave and --
.
“Where’s your cane?”
Irwin stops. Except he doesn’t turn around. He doesn’t even want to see Dakin’s face because then he might change his mind. Maybe he’s not as learned as he thinks he is. “I don’t need it for short excursions.”
“I suppose you don’t.” Dakin is standing close enough so that Irwin can hear him breathing. “If you finished filming early, you should have told me, rang or something.”
A sense of helplessness has gripped him, much like before. Except this time, Irwin knows that he doesn’t have the usual excuses to cling to. He breathes in deeply and exhales again. “I finished filming,” and then he adds belatedly: “On Wednesday. I actually wasn’t planning to come.”
“You lied.” At least this time, Dakin doesn’t sound surprised. (Good on him.) The sentence just sort of hangs there, unfinished.
Irwin nods. “And you believed me.” He waits for another half beat. “Again.”
Dakin does not say anything, and curiosity finally gets the better of Irwin so he turns around. “Why would you lie about something like this, anyway?” It’s an honest question, which is funny, because neither of them like honesty. They’ve even admitted it -- honestly.
“I hate funerals,” Irwin says. “Always have.”
The expression on Dakin’s face tells Irwin that he doesn’t understand. He shouldn’t. He’s a boy, a boy who has everything that he could ever want. There is a familiar pang in Irwin’s chest, making it hard for him to breathe. It could only be jealousy. “Irwin.” His mouth had looked like it wanted to form ‘Tom’ but in the end, he decides to be safe. The single word falters into a question and Irwin just watches him.
“Stuart.” The name feels awkward, like the syllables have been tangled up. “You should get back inside.”
“You’re just leaving, then.”
Irwin shrugs, “They’re your friends, aren’t they?”
Dakin sets his jaw stubbornly and stays. “Now, of all times, you’re shying away? Jesus, you’re really --”
“It’s not shying away so much as a strategic retreat,” Irwin insists, touching a hand briefly to his glasses. “Besides, Lockwood is dead...and this is mad, don’t you see?” There are much more eloquent ways to say this, but Dakin never listens to eloquence. He’ll listen to brash reason, although Irwin hardly has the reasons to give him. The only reason that he has is the fear grasping at the base of his spine and the stinging pain in his leg. “You have a future ahead of you. Miring about with the likes of me...you were a lawyer once, you should know these things.”
A bitter laugh leaves Dakin’s throat, making him sound like a strangled dying animal. Then he hisses, eyes flashing with more hurt than anger. It hurts him so much that Irwin almost has to look away. “So after a month of fucking, you suddenly decide to think about my bloody future? You’re fucking unbelievable.”
“Yes,” Irwin deadpans, noting Dakin’s white-knuckled fists. “After a month of fucking, I’ve come to my senses and I’m thinking about your future.” He pauses. “That’s all it is, isn’t it, Dakin? Fucking?”
The church bells toll above them in grave disapproval, and Irwin heads for the nearest taxi. Dakin calls after him, voice strained with something strange like exasperation, “Much madness is divinest sense.”
Suddenly, Irwin can’t even bare to look at him. So he doesn’t, but he stops at the curb and raises his hand for a taxi. “Much sense, the divinest madness -- or have you forgotten?” Boys forget easily. When he climbs into the cab, Dakin is still standing there, looking much too forlorn. He does not turn to go.
Boys forget easily. They always have, always will. Irwin clings to that thought -- even if it is a thin fraying thread, because it makes him feel a little less awful.
.
The funeral is over; there’s no body for them to view because no one wants to pay their last respects to only half of Jimmy’s face, so Dakin joins the other guests to say good-bye to a closed pine casket instead. He’s paid for it, and Mrs. Lockwood picked it out a few days before. It’s surreal, buying a coffin for one of your friends. But he can’t focus, not even when they lower him into the ground and shovel dirt over the casket.
Already, Scripps is looking at him up and down and Dakin knows that he has to start thinking of a plausible explanation. But he doesn’t find one; instead, he finds himself inviting his former schoolmates and Mrs. Lintott back to his flat for a drink (since he no longer has Sylvia to worry about). Mrs. Lintott politely refuses and the others don’t sound particularly enthusiastic, but they agree, probably because free liquor is involved.
Scripps promises to show later after he has driven Mrs. Lockwood to the train station.
.
It’s been years since all of them have gathered into one room for a proper drink. Crowther is caught up in Berlin, and of course Posner isn’t there, but of course they’d never talk about it. They’d just lost one friend, it seemed unwise to discuss the hypothetical loss of another.
A few drinks make everyone groggy, but it doesn’t make things any less awkward. Silence reigns after numerous attempts at conversation have fallen flat. Jimmy Lockwood once said something about “silence being the only proper response”. Or maybe it isn’t Jimmy, it’s some poet, who might be queer. No one remembers.
Or cares. It is at least an attempt towards a tribute.
Scripps does show when everybody is fairly drunk and Timms extends a glass to him with a somewhat shaky hand. Scripps takes it, and Dakin wonders whether to remind him that he’s given up liquor for Lent. Scripps settles on the couch between Ahktar and Rudge, who shift over to make room for him.
“So what’d I miss?”
Ahktar holds a half empty glass at a dangerous tilt and says, “Not very much, we’re getting to be too drunk for intellectual conversation.”
There are vague murmurs of agreement. Scripps pretends to sip from his drink. Dakin knows that he is pretending.
Timms finally says, “Hey, anyone heard from Irwin lately? I watch his programmes at the weekends, great stuff. I thought I saw a bloke that looked like him in the back.”
Dakin opens his mouth, but Scripps’ voice speaks for him instead. “I’m running a piece on Irwin for the magazine soon, might have sent him something. Thought it was proper.”
Proper, fuck proper. Dakin knocks back the remainder of his drink in a vicious gulp and slams the glass down on his knee.
“I wonder why he didn’t stick around to say hello?”
They are all really too drunk to care (well, except Dakin, but he’s long since perfected lying). At length, Rudge reaches to grope around on the table for a new drink, only to realise that the cans and glasses are all empty. “Don’t you have anything else to drink?”
Without missing a beat, Dakin waves hazily towards the kitchen. “...There’s probably still some bourbon or something in the fridge, help yourself.”
.
Scripps is not drunk, but he is exhausted and Dakin’s couch is comfortable. The others have stumbled off to who knows where, back to their normal lives. They’ve reached a tentative agreement to do this again sometime very soon, except next time, they’ll all chip in for the booze, even though Dakin is clearly the one who is filthy rich. Scripps has an oddly horrible feeling that ‘next time’ is probably going to be after the next funeral.
Whose? Posner’s, maybe. Or Dakin’s, more likely. Possibly Timms’, if he keeps up the drugs on the weekends.
Dakin is sitting in his armchair, flicking a lighter on and off, sucking contentedly on a cigarette. Abruptly, he changes the subject. “Irwin lied to me. He doesn’t film on Fridays.”
Scripps focuses on a strange brown stain on Dakin’s ceiling, and wonders if Dakin’s ever noticed it before. “This surprises you?”
Dakin exhales. “It’s not supposed to, is it?” He feels a bit stupid.
Now Scripps can do little else but raise an eyebrow, the mere thought of Stuart Dakin labouring over lost love -- or certainly everything that could have been, is a grand novelty. “Man is in love and loves what vanishes.” The quote tastes strange with the stale liquor in his mouth. Jimmy is dead, and for a moment they can both wonder.
Dakin thinks for a minute. “Yeats?” Someone not queer, for once. It’s refreshing. He is not quite sure what Scripps means to imply by the gobbet, but he is going to leave that particular curiosity alone. “Scripps, you gave up liquor for Lent.”
“I don’t remember.” Scripps just shrugs, rubbing at his eyes. Dakin looks at him for a long time and goes to fetch him an extra blanket. By the time he returns, Scripps is snoring softly into a cushion. Dakin curses himself for being a sentimental fuck, covers him up, and goes to bed.
.
Dakin had called Hector a ‘sad fuck’ that one night out of jest, and it’d been amusing enough in a grotesque sort of way; they'd laughed about it. Except now that Irwin thinks about it, the description is a fit for him, too.
It has started to rain again, and Irwin gives up his cane for his wheelchair. There’s a terrible pain in his leg. But it’s all right this time, there’s no one here to see. It’s been two days since Jimmy died and he hasn’t done much other than bury his copy of Housman in his closet so deep where no one would dare to find it again.
Of course he’s gone to work and signed on a new series about the Industrial Revolution, which is set, it’s not one of Irwin’s favorite subjects because it’s not at all off the beaten track, but it’s a distraction.
It seemed like so long ago, but Irwin can close his eyes and distinctively remember how sombre Hector’s eyes had looked when he’d said: “Don’t touch him. He’ll think you’re a fool.”
Irwin wonders about that; he wondered about it when Dakin came over on Saturday nights and didn’t go home until late Sunday night when Irwin reminded him he had work on Mondays. He doesn’t think that Dakin sees him as a fool; however, James Lockwood’s death reminds him that Hector is also dead. Most journalists work well on an ambiguous moral compass...but Irwin must at least try to respect the dead.
Hector knows what it’s like. He knows better than anyone else, the boys were his pride and joy. The boys used to make him unhappy. Of course he would know.
So does Carolyn. Or Irwin thinks she does, deep down, even if she hadn’t been poetic enough to find words for it.
Actually, the only person who doesn’t know is Irwin himself. Which really does shed a new light on things. His phone is ringing again, for the nineteenth time. And for the nineteenth time, Dakin will leave him a message and quote him some sort of poetry. Irwin waits until the ringing stops before he goes to listen. If it’s still ringing, he might be tempted to answer.
This time, it’s someone French. Verlaine. (Il pleure dans mon couer comme il pleute sur la ville --) Irwin’s throat is too tight and he quickly snaps his phone shut. But he keeps all of Dakin’s messages and doesn’t delete them. He knows that he really should, but he’s
Just like a sad fuck.
.
A thick pile of paper thwacks Scripps unceremoniously on the head and he usually would have cursed, except it’s Dakin standing there, so he doesn’t. “What’s this?”
“You gave it to me Thursday.”
“Oh.” Scripps glances briefly at the top page. It’s an article written by a graduate that they’d just hired. No chances for publication, but he’d asked Dakin to look it over because he needed to find something for him to do, and Dakin had slashed through it mercilessly with red ink. “I said you had a week.”
“I had some time...so.” Dakin shrugs. “What university was he at again?”
“She,” Scripps corrects him, putting the pile aside. “She was at Bristol.”
Dakin’s expression flickers, “Bristol.” He repeats the word, as if it’s some foreign term he suddenly did not know how to comprehend.
Scripps says, “Is there a problem? If everyone went to Oxford or Cambridge, we’d all be a lot less remarkable.” Dakin needs to be remarkable. “Besides, what do you have against Bristol anyway?”
Dakin bites his lip, “I haven’t anything against Bristol -- and I have a date, so don’t ring me unless it’s important.”
“With Irwin?”
Dakin does not say anything for a long moment, it’s too long of a pause. “No, with Isabelle. I met her at a poetry reading a few days ago.”
“Since when do you attend poetry readings?” Scripps raises an eyebrow, Dakin is unpredictable, but attending a poetry reading is a bit far-fetched, even in Scripps’ capable imagination; it’s nowhere near adventurous enough.
A noisy sigh leaves Dakin’s throat and he turns to leave. “Just fuck off.”
Scripps lets him go, because his phone is ringing -- “Yes, Donald Scripps speaking.”
There is a brief silence, and then: “This is Irwin.”
Irwin. Scripps considers calling for Dakin, who can’t be that far away since the lifts are at the very end of the hallway, but then again, Dakin is difficult. “Hello sir,” he says quietly. “What can I do for you?”
Irwin’s voice sounds very thin and vulnerable, not steady. “Scripps, I think I need a favour.”
Scripps says, “I’m listening.” And does.
.
“You Irwin?”
Irwin’s head snaps up, and he almost drops the phone. His mouth is suddenly itching for a cigarette, but he hasn’t smoked since his last encounter with Dakin, and really, he’d rather like to keep it that way. He hastily unclenches his fingers, noting that his knuckles are bloodless and white. On his desk, there’s a cup of tea, but no letter for him to crumple up. Dakin has stopped writing.
A man stands in his doorway, smug and suited. It’s Dakin, Irwin thinks, irrational panic suddenly filling his chest. And then he blinks again, and it isn’t. It’s a much older man who tries to hide his receding hairline by wearing loud obnoxious ties. It fools no one, but everyone is smart enough to hold their tongues. This man is Morrison, one of the executives, and Irwin has heard all sorts of horror stories about him, though he and Morrison have yet to cross paths.
Feeling suspiciously self-conscious, Irwin touches a hand to his glasses to make sure they aren’t slipping. They aren’t, and he feels safer. “Yes, I’m Tom Irwin, how may I help you, Mr. Morrison?”
Morrison looks him up and down. “Irene tells me you’ve been running late on your notes for the Industrial Revolution programme. Not up to your usual standards.”
And he has, Irwin has been running on less than an hour of sleep each night, and his notes have been getting less than spectacular as of late, filming has already been set back several times, and none of it’s because of Dakin. None of it. He searches for an excuse, does not find one, and says --
“I’m thinking of writing a book, I suppose I was preoccupied.”
“A book?” Morrison’s eyebrows look threatening, but he also looks properly perplexed, which makes for an odd expression. “What about?”
“Erm,” Irwin rubs the bridge of his nose for inspiration. None came, and he grabs the first word he can think of. “Sheffield.”
“...Sheffield, up north?”
Irwin bites his tongue. “I lived there for a while, found it a fascinating town. Everything has a history.”
Morrison seems to think this over, and he plants his hands down on Irwin’s desk. “Fine, take a few days, take a holiday and go to Sheffield. It’d help clear your head.”
“The programme,” Irwin says. “If I’m not here, it’s going to be delayed.”
“We’ll get someone else, Lewiston needs something to do. He’s nothing next to you, but we’ll manage. Besides, if you’re always off somewhere else, you’re just as bad as he is.” Morrison turns to go. “Have fun in Sheffield.”
.
This is getting ridiculous.
Dakin works up the courage to directly call the station and asks for Tom Irwin. Actually, he is at a complete loss about what to say, he only knows that he has to try to say something since assorted gobbets have already failed him. He is instead redirected to someone named Morrison, who informs him that Mr. Irwin had gone on holiday for an indeterminate amount of time.
“Where?” Dakin’s tongue feels too thick in his mouth.
There is a slight pause on the other end. “Sheffield, I think? He says he wants to write a book.”
Dakin does not say anything. He can’t.
“Anyway, would you like to leave a message with an assistant? I’ll trans --”
“No, it’s quite all right, thank you.” Dakin hangs up the phone and hits his mattress face first.
.
Irwin spends the first two days of his alleged holiday sulking in his flat, confined to his wheelchair. Sulking, because there’s no one else around to see him at his absolute worst and that in itself is liberating. He tries to read, and then he tries to write (not about Sheffield, heavens no). He is only mediocrely successful at both. Somehow, that is not so surprising.
On the third day, Irwin finally gives in and throws some clothes in a bag and takes the morning train to Sheffield. He hasn’t been back since. He never really thought that he could return. It’s the same principle of why he never sets foot into Oxford, but at the end of the day, the logic is thoroughly unreasonable.
Sheffield hasn’t changed all that much, save for a population increase, all the buildings and pubs are mostly in their proper places. He goes into one and orders a few drinks, comes out an hour later halfway tipsy and manages to book a room for a week at some inn. The sheets look like they need a few good washes. Irwin isn’t at all sure he’ll even be here a week. He genuinely hopes not.
Irwin hails a taxi and has it drive to Cutler’s. Cutler’s Grammar School looks different, as if it has undergone several renovations since his last visit. That is also not so surprising. He gets out and gazes at it, until the driver interrupts with a brusque:
“Hey, don’t you want to go in?”
“Not particularly,” Irwin says, and gets back in the cab. “I used to teach there,” he says to no one. It’s just as well; the driver is not at all impressed and offers him a cigarette. Irwin declines.
Much later, he visits the unassuming curb where Hector had his accident, and just stands there wondering if he’s just too blind to see the skid marks from ten years ago. This is how history happens.
.
It is Sunday morning and Dakin packs a few unassuming articles of clothing and extra cigarettes. He drives to Scripps’ flat and leaves his suitcase in the car.
Scripps opens the door for him and looks him up and down. “You’re not telling me something.”
Dakin shrugs. “I’m not telling you several things.”
As per their routine, Scripps leads him into the kitchen and pours him coffee with thick honey. Scripps slides the cup soundlessly across the table and fixes Dakin with one of those looks. “I thought you tell me everything.”
“You’re not my priest.” Dakin says archly.
“Ah? So you did realize that.” Scripps wears a wry smile. “It’s relieving.” He traces one finger along the rim, grazing over a chip. Dakin hastily checks his own cup, and finds no chip.
Dakin opens his mouth, and then closes it again. He contemplates likely insults, but in the end, he doesn’t say anything.
Scripps lets the silence sit on its own for a few more minutes, and then he says, “So how’d your drink go, with Isabelle?”
“Didn’t happen, I stood her up.”
“Did you?”
Dakin bristles. “She certainly didn’t stand me up.”
There were many things Scripps certainly could have said to that, but the look on Dakin’s face is enough for him. He refills both cups, changes the subject. “Irwin called me.” Irwin probably means for the conversation to be confidential, but it’s also probably fair to give Dakin some notice that he is no longer employed. He no longer has an article to write, not to mention that sleeping with interviewees is extremely bad form.
This gets Dakin’s immediate and undivided attention, as it rightly should. “Yeah?”
“He cancelled on me, and now I’ll have to find someone else, asked that I’d understand.”
“And did you?”
“Of course I did, it’s not as if I had a choice in the matter.” Scripps carefully weighs the words carefully on his tongue before letting them slip. “This means that the two of you have stopped fucking?”
Again, Dakin’s mouth opens and shuts. Finally, he says, “It’s not like that.”
“No,” Scripps’ smile is twitching, although it’s hard to say if he is actually amused. “That’s too crass, I suppose it would be more poetic. A more fitting description escapes me.”
“You’re enjoying this.” Dakin stares at him in mildly horrified admiration. Well, Scripps by his own admission doesn’t wank and all that. Sexual frustration has to go somewhere.
“I try.” Scripps turns from him to put the coffee pot in the sink. “But by the way, I was thinking -- where are you going?”
Dakin shrugs. “No idea.”
.
It takes Irwin another few days to work up the courage to really visit Cutler’s.
The place is cleaner than he remembers, and maybe the boys are less crass. He is not as young as he’d like to be. The nook where Dakin first convinced him to have a cigarette is still as suspicious as ever. The paint is still peeling from door, and he wishes he had brought cigarettes. A fleeting thought that comes and goes.
Finally, he goes and visits Felix, whose eyebrows have grown significantly whiter. He does not seem to recognize Irwin at first, but when he finally does, he shakes Irwin’s hands so hard that Irwin thinks that Felix has gone and broken several of his fingers. It’s splendid to see him, really. Just wonderful.
Dorothy Lintott ended up teaching for another number of years and just retired the year before last. Of course the miracle of ten years ago is unlikely to repeat itself again, but every year, there are one or two lucky ones to continue the tradition. By the way, Felix has heard about Lockwood, but couldn’t make the funeral, terrible tragedy, such a bright boy. Is Irwin looking back to get into teaching? There’s always a place for him here at Cutler’s. Head of History, if he’d like. The man employed right now is a bit of an idiot. To think he calls himself a Cambridge man, he’s got to be lying.
Irwin shakes his head; he’s quite happy working in television, but thanks anyway for the offer.
Upon further inquiry, Irwin finds that most of the classrooms have been moved into a new wing that was built on a generous grant a few years ago. But he’s welcome to go and look at his old classroom, they’ve mostly left it alone.
“Thanks,” Irwin says and turns to go. “I think I will.”
.
So he’s lied again. Dakin realises that lying to Scripps is becoming easier and easier to do, whatever that means. He arrives in Sheffield near eight o’ clock and drops in unexpectedly on his parents, who are overjoyed to see him. Of course, they don’t know that he’s no longer a lawyer, and they’ll continue in their ignorance. London is grand, they should really visit more often. He’s even moved into a new flat and liking it just fine.
Dakin spends the night in his old room and smokes two cigarettes by an open window. His mum has never approved of him smoking. Then again, his old man keeps drinking as a hobby, so she doesn’t say anything, except to knock on his door before she’s about to go to sleep.
“Stuart?”
“Yeah, Mum?”
“Are you happy?”
Dakin rolls the cigarette between his fingers and stares at her. “Mum, why would you ask me something like that?”
She looks old, but motherly, kind. “You look a bit miserable. I’m your mum, I know.”
Which is one of the reasons why he never comes home. Dakin turns back to the open window. “I’m not unhappy.”
“Oh.” She doesn’t move from his doorway, but she looks slightly less pale in the dark. It’s reassuring. Dakin stands up and smoothes the wrinkles out of the sheets. He walks to where she is standing, and she just gazes at him with knowing eyes. She touches the side of his face, and smiles a brave smile.
“That’s good.” Slowly, she backs away. “Good night.”
.
The next day, he drives to Cutler’s Grammar School and marvels at the familiar sea of dark uniforms rushing from one place to the next, hard to believe that he used to be like them. But then again, Dakin has never been like them, not really.
He makes his way through the crowds and stops in front of the Headmaster’s office. Considering they haven’t exactly parted on the best of terms, Dakin decides that it’s best to let that reunion well alone.
Fiona is not the secretary anymore; in her place is an equally large-chested young woman whose breasts are spilling shamelessly out of her blouse. She smiles at him, her lips lined in hideously dark rouge. Dakin smiles back and thinks that Felix might get lucky this time.
Mrs. Lintott retired the year before last, Dakin learnt that at Jimmy’s funeral. So it’s useless to look for her. The old classrooms are all but abandoned, the rooms bare.
He finds his way to that room, at the very end of the hall, almost hidden next to the row of dented lockers. He tries the knob and finds it unlocked.
.
Irwin almost trips over himself when he hears the door creaking open. He jerks his eyes from the window to the doorway, and he thinks that he must be dreaming. Or hallucinating. Or some strange nonsensical combination thereof.
“You --”
Dakin. Stuart fucking Dakin. Is here in this room. Panic rises in his chest, floods over his nerves, and Irwin presses himself flat against the wall, as if to grapple for some faraway sense of security.
“I called the station, they said you were on holiday in Sheffield,” Dakin says, because he’s the type to have a bloody explanation for everything. “So I um...wasn’t expecting this, though.”
“Neither was I.” Irwin says, and hates his own voice for not being even. Maybe Dakin won’t notice. But he always notices. “I called Scripps and said I wanted nothing to do with you. Did he forget to pass on the message?”
Dakin only shrugs. “‘‘S’not like I listen.” The gall of him to sound so fucking wise about it.
Of course he doesn’t. Irwin forgets. Right now, he’s torn between wringing his hands together and tearing out his hair. Both options are equally embarrassing, especially in front of Dakin; Irwin quickly stuffs both of his hands inside his pockets to waylay the temptation. This is getting to be awfully familiar. He is not sure if he likes that at all.
A tense silence settles between them, Irwin does not move from his uneasy post by the window; Dakin hasn’t let go of the doorknob. At last, Dakin clears his throat. “Did you suddenly forget you were fucking Lockwood behind my back? His death made you feel guilty?”
Almost immediately, Irwin pales to a hideous shade of white-gray. Obviously Dakin doesn’t really mean it, but he’s long since learned that offending someone was the easiest way to get them to talk. Intellectuals like Tom Irwin not excepted. He watches as Irwin sputters and rubs the bridge of his nose.
“No.” Irwin touches a hand to his glasses. “Why would you even -- do you honestly think I’m that easy? That I’d just shack up with the first bloke I see and fuck him?”
Dakin measures a careful pause, shrugs again. “I hardly know what to think about you, honestly. If I had to guess...you’re not easy. Took me ten years, after all. Probably should have taken me longer. You’re a bit impossible.”
“Perhaps you’re not as alluring as you’d like to think,” Irwin says blandly. “Whatever inspired you to quote me Paul Verlaine?”
“I’m probably not,” Dakin only smirks amicably, much to Irwin’s surprise. “And Verlaine because...well, he’s another one of those sad fucks. Rimbaud made him that way.” Here, he pauses to seem smug.
“So that makes you Rimbaud? If I’m Verlaine and all.” Irwin feels his own lips twitch. “You’re a bit of a l’enfant terrible.” A bit. That’s being generous. He’s also not sure how he feels being compared to a dead French poet who might or might not be insane. It’s either that or Poland, and he isn’t sure that he wants to go back to that either.
“I don’t think you’d want to shoot me,” Dakin muses, more to himself than to Irwin, it seems. He lets go of the doorknob and walks a few steps closer, and then he stops. Still enough room there between them for Irwin to keep breathing. “But...going back to Poland and Germany reminds me that I’m never going to get to Warsaw.”
“It’s all about getting somewhere with you, isn’t it?” Irwin touches a hand to his glasses, as if he is afraid that they’ll just fly off and leave him vulnerable just because Dakin wants them to.
“Is that such a bad thing? If you get somewhere, then things will happen,” Dakin flips glibly back at him, although the smirk that he forces himself to wear isn’t so reassuring.
There is a pause, Irwin sighs. “Dakin, something did happen.”
“All right, then...why have things stopped happening?” Dakin stares at him for a long long moment, “All that crap about my fucking future -- don’t you realise that my future has already passed? Tom, it’s not as if I’m a boy -” He cuts himself abruptly. “Is that what you’re worried about?”
Irwin clenches his hands tight in his pockets and then unclenches them. He draws in a deep breath. “But you were a boy when I first -- when you first...” He falters.
Dakin merely arches a mildly disbelieving eyebrow. “And that suddenly matters now why?” He moves to take a step forward, but then stops himself. Irwin already looks very much the part of a harried cornered rat. It’s rather pathetic. Dakin wonders at him sometimes, “Tom, we’re hardly the same people we were. The years teach much which the days never knew.”
“Or maybe we’ve fucked over gloriously so many times that we’ve had no choice but to learn,” Irwin says dryly. “Or you’ve suddenly turned into a sap on me.” If Verlaine is any indication.
For a moment, Dakin does, not say anything, “I’m not...” Then he looks away. “Death does funny things. I can’t come up with a gobbet for that.”
“What happened when Hector died?”
“You said this wasn’t about Hector.” Dakin’s tone is just slightly accusing.
“It isn’t really...it was more about you,” says Irwin, honest for once. “He said that I...shouldn’t touch you, that it’d make me dreadfully unhappy for the rest of my life because you’d find me despicable.”
“Was this before or after I asked you to suck me off?”
Irwin makes a frustrated noise of sorts and shifts from one foot to the other again, his cane knocking dully against the wall a few times before he speaks again. “Obviously, before. You’re missing the point, Dakin.”
“Yeah? Tell me.”
There is a lump of something not quite unfamiliar stuck in Irwin’s throat. “Aren’t you ever going to ask me about my wife?”
“I thought you might eventually tell me.” Dakin looks at him, but for once, Irwin doesn’t feel quite so threatened. “Since I did already tell you that I fucked up. It’s fair.”
“Fair?”
Dakin immediately blanches. “Well, fine. Not fair, but...I bet you haven’t ever told anyone.”
With a heavy sigh, Irwin knocks the cane against the wall again. “Would you blame me? Doesn’t exactly make for light conversations.”
“Brilliant, I’ve never been a fan of those.”
Irwin decides that Dakin is infinitely exasperating. “Stuart.” He looks down quickly at the ground, he doesn’t want to see the victorious smirk gracing Dakin’s countenance. “You don’t care about any of these things; all you want is to prove that you can get somewhere.” Another pause, he takes his hands out of his pockets. “My mother wanted me to marry as soon as possible after the accident for stability. I knew Carolyn ever since I was a boy...I didn’t think it was going to be horrible.”
Instead of offering some snide comment, Dakin is oddly thoughtful and quiet. “It was?”
“It was, I despised her so much.” Irwin’s face contorts in something like pain. “I didn’t even know why. She died a year and a half ago.” He falters briefly, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. “Run over by a drunk driver while she was crossing a street...Carolyn was pregnant with my child.”
“You had a...” Suddenly Dakin can’t finish.
“Would have had,” Irwin corrects him quietly. “I was so relieved.” Finally, he looks up. “This wasn’t like Corpus.” It wasn’t like Corpus at all.
After a dreadful silence of sorts, Dakin inclines his head. He walks a few steps closer to Irwin, but does not dare to touch him.
“I know.”
“You aren’t even going to doubt me.” For once, Irwin does not ask a question.
“I’ve grown up.”
“You’ve already said that before.”
“I was afraid you might forget.”
“You made it impossible to forget -- I couldn’t forget.”
And now, Dakin looks properly smug. Irwin is relieved again. He’s gotten what he wanted, and now he will go. Instead, Stuart doesn’t go; he stays rooted to the spot and looks his former schoolteacher up and down. Irwin bravely tries not to flinch.
“What’d you suppose would have happened if we’d gone?”
Irwin swallows. “I suppose,” he stops a moment, pretending to think. “That it would have been fantastically disastrous. You would have forgotten about me once you’ve gone off to Oxford. Sometimes, I think I would have preferred that.”
“Now you think too little of me.” Dakin steps in close, closing the distance between them, and Irwin can hear him breathing, smell the comfortingly familiar scent of cigarette smoke. “What happened after she died? Did you shack up with some useless bloke?”
“Thought about it.” Irwin refuses to look away, Dakin has already won once, he can’t win again. “Then I remembered your letters from Oxford and thought it’d be safer to cry over them at night when no one was looking.”
“Really?”
“No.”
Dakin’s mouth twitches. “You, sir, are a devil.” He sounds much too pleased.
Irwin does not say anything. His fingers only stiffen when Dakin reaches for his hand. His skin is warm and tempting. And then Dakin drops Irwin’s hand and reaches for his glasses instead; Irwin knows that he really ought to say no, but he still doesn’t say anything.
Dakin grins and says, “Warsaw.”
Irwin twitches back and says, “Funny, give them back.”
Of course Dakin has to dangle them above his head first, taunting him. Irwin could easily reach for them. “Can you see?”
“You have a mole on the side of your nose.” Irwin pretends to squint.
At this, Dakin glares at him. “I can’t believe I stood up a girl for you.”
“Did you?” Irwin feels a strange tingle of warmth creep up his spine, it reaches the back of his neck and stays there. “I’m honoured.”
“As I suspect you ought to be.” Dakin puts Irwin’s glasses back on for him and steps back. He turns briefly and glances at the door. “I keep thinking Felix’s going to come creeping around.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
Dakin shrugs, “In your own words, I’ve become less adventurous in my old age. I’m almost inclined to believe you.”
“Those words are yours,” Irwin reminds him, braver now that he has he glasses back where they belong.
“Ah, so they were,” Dakin’s lips thin into a thoughtful line. “I’ve been around you too long, then.” How much of the human life is lost in waiting? Emerson again. The fellow must have led a sad pathetic life, should have fucked Whitman when he had the chance.
“Maybe.” Irwin keeps his voice light and noncommittal as he too, steps away from the window. His elbows are numb. “That should teach you something.”
“Perhaps it already has,” Dakin is saunters towards the door, hands stuffed in his pockets; as if he’s already so damn sure that Irwin will follow that he doesn’t even have to look back. He flings the door open with a tremendous gesture, and then he turns. “We should go for a drink. A lot of new pubs have opened up...see what happens.”
Irwin says, “...Yeah, I think I’d like that.” And begins to walk towards the door..
.
THE END