Blue-Eyed Stranger, page 10
“Okay. Okay, fine.” He forced the words out, still too annoyed to be properly devastated. “Effective as of . . .?”
“You will of course be given a month’s notice and pay. But frankly, Mr. Deng, I would rather you didn’t work that month. It so happens that we have an applicant for the post who can begin tomorrow. So consider it something of a gift—a month’s pay. No need to earn it.”
He tried to think of a cutting parting remark, something pithy and pointed that she would remember for years, but nothing came. Eventually he second-guessed himself into thinking that would be unprofessional and unworthy of him anyway. The appropriate Viking response, to cleave the woman’s skull and then boast about it in the assembly hall, was certainly less than helpful.
“Charlie will make sure you have the paperwork by the end of today.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I suggest you go and clear out your desk.”
Denial and sympathy got him through the rest of the day. The other teachers responded with emergency cream cakes and hand-drawn cards. It wasn’t until he had driven home and was putting his school mug on the drying rack beside his home mugs that the reaction truly hit.
Shit. He wandered empty-handed into the living room and stood amongst the detritus of his life, trying not to feel empty, even afraid. He was unemployed. With a mortgage he’d barely been able to afford as it was, in a region where there were more trained teachers than schools to employ them. He had microwave chips and a half jar of coffee in the house. The breakdown cover on his car was due.
It was Sheena’s birthday in two weeks. He hadn’t got her a present and couldn’t now afford anything decent. Thinking about his father’s reaction made him want to drink all the alcohol in the house in one go. There was a show coming up in a fortnight in Scotland, and no way he could afford the petrol to get there with the trailer containing all the society’s camping equipment.
And Billy still hadn’t called.
Martin stripped off his school clothes, putting them in the washing machine with a dose of powder and an added pang of failure. Then he had a long shower, with the radio turned up high, the hot water beating imaginary pains out of his neck and back. Clean and dressed in clothes he associated with leisure, he felt a little better. Still had a month of wages, after all. No need to starve quite yet. Something would come up. He would make something turn up.
Bretwalda’s leftover food was stacked on his kitchen counter. As he wondered what he could make with leeks, eggs, and an excessive amount of wholemeal bread, the phone jangled from its receiver in the hallway.
Thank God. His spirits lifted at the thought of speaking to Billy, whose bass voice was softened with that little country burr of his. If he was feeling well enough to ring, he might be well enough to laugh, and Martin was eager to hear that. Maybe he’d even be up to a little light phone sex, shy and awkward and cute as fuck.
“Martin Deng.” He sandwiched the phone between his ear and shoulder, almost smiling, and went back into the kitchen. Leek omelette and toast? Some kind of cheesy, eggy bread?
“Martin, it’s your father.”
Martin put down the loaf abruptly, his hand rising to hold the receiver properly. He closed his eyes for the count of three, shoved back bad news and disappointment together. “Hi, Dad.”
“Your mother asked me to remind you that it’s Sheena’s birthday coming up on the first of June.”
He was twenty-six. He was twenty-six years old, damn it. He should not have this knee-jerk defensiveness, this prickly assumption that he was being disrespected. “I know that, Dad. Sheena’s the one who forgets birthdays. I never do.”
“Well, we’re having a party for her at our house. Are you coming up to London to see us all?”
That was the Scottish show. Up in Kirkcudbright, where it never stopped raining. Martin eased himself up onto the tall stool by the breakfast bar, feeling like he needed to be sitting down for this.
“I can’t. I’m in Scotland that weekend.”
The low growl of displeasure. “It’s your sister. Your family. Once a year and you can’t be here?”
“I already told Sheena, and she said it was fine.” He picked at the laminate edge of the tabletop, feeling small and guilty and conscious of his own anger because of it. Sheena had told him that she didn’t actually want a party. If she had her choice, she’d said, she would have had a spa weekend on her own, where she could unwind from too much exposure to people, not a gathering of the clans that would leave her exhausted and down. But Martin knew he couldn’t say that, couldn’t criticise, could only take what was dished out to him, not give it back.
“Are you ashamed of us?” His father’s voice was accusing, stern. He thought he was supposed to be able to read love in it, but he could only hear the rebuke.
“No, it’s not that.” It’s that you are ashamed of me. “I just. I can’t afford to come to London, to buy the kind of suit I’d have to wear at whatever hotel you’re having this at. I can’t . . .”
I can’t afford food, rent. The thought of money was a choke chain around his neck.
“If you put a little work in, you could be head of that school. You should look the part at least. People notice these things. Success comes to the successful.”
He didn’t want to say it, wanted his father to stop being interested in his life. It would be absolutely ideal if they were never to speak again. “I lost my job, Dad.”
“What!” The tone of the conversation plummeted. “Oh, Martin. Why? Why are you like this, when we tried so hard to educate you and teach you the value of hard work? Why must you always—”
“Dad, please don’t.” Martin bowed his head into his hands. And this, this is the reason I won’t be coming to London. This is the reason I don’t visit. This is the reason I don’t call. Because when I do, you make me feel like shit. “I don’t want to talk about this right now. I’m looking at other schools. There are always more kids to be taught. It’s not the end of the world.”
“Martin.” Serious, stern. Martin knew this tone of voice. Oh, here we go, he thought, “When I was in Khartoum . . .”
“You say it’s not the end of the world, but it could be. When I was little, our neighbours heard about the civil war and they said, ‘We are peaceable people here. What has this got to do with us?’ But your grandfather sold his cattle, and when the soldiers came for our neighbours, he got us out.”
“Yes, Dad,” Martin said, trying to massage the ache out of his scalp. Repetition had worn away his sympathy a long time ago.
“‘We are safe here,’ they said, when we were in the Nuba Mountains, with all the other refugees. ‘Wars do not come here.’ But famine came instead. If your grandfather had not worked hard, saved money, we would not have been able to leave again and find work in Khartoum. If we had not been wealthy, respectable people, I would not have been able to study medicine and become a doctor, and get away to this place where war has not yet come.”
“I know that, Dad.”
“Don’t think you are safe,” his father pressed. Martin knew, intellectually, that this was the sound of concern for him, a parent’s fear for his child’s future. It just didn’t feel like that. It felt like being slowly squashed by an enormous stone.
“In Sudan, the Nuer would kill you because you were Dinka. Here that at least doesn’t matter, but they see that you are black and that puts you one step away from safety. Do not make the mistake of being poor as well.”
“I didn’t lose my job out of spite, Dad. I didn’t mean to! I’m going to find another; it’s no big deal.”
A put-upon silence, but Martin must have sounded at the end of his tether because his father let it go. “At least tell me you’re seeing a nice girl. Someone with prospects and connections, who can help you. If you can’t be a doctor, perhaps you can marry one.”
Yes, well if there had ever been a time he could face telling his father he was gay, this was not it. One deviation from respectability at a time. He slid his thumbnail under the laminate, peeled a strip off, and then wished he hadn’t. Did he say anything at all about Billy? Did he say, Well, I am seeing someone, but I’m not going to tell you anything about them for fear you’ll figure out he’s a man?
No, of course he didn’t. “I think maybe I should concentrate on the job right now, don’t you? I’ll worry about courting when I’m settled again.”
His father heaved a deep, sepulchral sigh, as if Martin’s very existence sucked all the life out of him. “I did think you would visit for your sister’s sake.”
Martin dug his thumb into the table again, and a sliver of veneer poked up under his nail like a poisoned thorn. He clasped it tight, bent over it, struggling not to swear, and earnestly tried to shut the conversation down. “Yes, well, I’ll come when I’ve got a new job and I can afford to travel. Some time in the autumn half term, I hope. Give my love to Mum.”
“She’s wondering when she’s going to get grandchildren.” He could hear the narrowed eyes, even over the phone.
“Dad, I’m twenty-six. There’s plenty of time yet. I’ll . . . um, I’ll call you when I’ve got some news. Okay?”
Another sigh, and an inaudible grumble. Fuck off, Martin thought, feeling so wound up he was almost ready to say it out loud.
“Very well. I’m sure Sheena is quite used to the disappointment by now. Take care of yourself, Martin. And do try to do better in future.”
He rolled his eyes to the ceiling, but it did nothing to help alleviate the desire to take an axe to his kitchen cupboards. “I will, Dad. Speak to you later.”
“Good-bye.”
Fucker. Fucking bastard. Martin made scrambled egg on toast with shaking hands and ate it viciously, washing it down with all the beer he had left from the weekend. The alcohol gradually took the edge off his anger and let the hurt out instead. He went to bed miserable, not sure if it made it better or worse to reflect that this must be what Billy felt like most of the time.
No wonder he hadn’t called.
The thought of Billy was what got him out of bed in the morning. With no need to go to work, he might have just rolled over and snoozed until noon, wallowing in surly self-pity, if he had not wanted to see whether Billy had sent him an email.
He hadn’t. But now he was in front of the computer, Martin felt obliged to check all the job and educational websites. He made a list of vacancies for which he could apply, updated his CV, and turned in a half-dozen applications by email, printing out copies for those stone-age institutions that still did their business by paper.
It felt better to be doing things. He felt better about himself once he was up and dressed, showered, with clean teeth and breakfast inside him. The ball of nerves and panic that had made its home in his heart at the thought of an extended period out of work was made manageable by the distraction.
After lunch—more toast—he trekked down to the post office and sent out his printed applications. Thought about going to the job centre to register as unemployed and then shoved the thought away. There was still time to fix this. It would be okay. He would only admit defeat, crawl to the government for help, next month if he hadn’t got a new job once his month’s notice was up.
But he would sign on, ask for housing benefit and jobseeker’s allowance, rather than give up the flat and skulk back to his parents’ house. It was okay. It would not come to that.
Returning home, he found that Billy had still not called. One more worry to swallow down. He pinched the top of his nose, allowed himself to bow his head for a moment under the weight, and then straightened up and gave his living room a speculative glance.
How to get the money to buy petrol to transport Bretwalda’s kit to Scotland?
A warp-weighted loom leaned against his bookshelf, but he couldn’t bear the thought of parting with that. He had more tablet weave than he strictly needed. He could maybe sell the shaving horse and then make himself a new one with some of the logs from the garden. And that wool . . .
Oh, that wool!
Martin pulled the fabric from behind the sofa and laid it ceremonially in the small expanse of free floor space. He rolled a foot of fabric out and gazed at it in reverence, reaching to rub a corner between his thumb and fingers.
Hand spun on drop spindles, hand dyed using nothing more than native dye plants and cauldrons, hand woven on the warp-weighted loom, it was a masterpiece of craft. It was as close to the real thing as humanly possible. All the threads were fine and even, the subtly speckled pattern of the orangy-red colour caused by the wool being dyed before it was spun—drying and lightening slightly on the outside of the hank, giving a flecked appearance when it was spun. The diamond-patterned weave added a further layer of complexity and texture.
It had cost him ridiculous amounts of money, and even so, he’d known he wasn’t paying enough for the amount of work that went into it. He’d been keeping it to make a cloak, a cloak that would make him the envy of every reenactor in the world. He’d just kept putting it off because it had seemed like too much of a blasphemy to cut the stuff.
Telling himself a blatant lie—that it was only a thing, that it wasn’t important—he phoned the guy who had most coveted it, the guy who thought nothing of dropping a couple of hundred pounds on a new sword, or a gold-studded belt or a replica Sutton Hoo helmet. His old group leader.
“Hi Brian. I’m clearing out some stuff. I wondered if you were still interested . . .”
The rest of the day passed without word from Billy. Martin told himself that he shouldn’t expect the guy to be prompt with his responses. Sheena was forever sending out belated birthday cards, belated Christmas cards, because she’d gotten to it as soon as she could, but that hadn’t been soon enough.
Martin was used to waiting for signs of love, concern, interest, until the other person was well enough to give them. But of course he’d grown up with Sheena and was confident of her regard. Billy might not be calling because he didn’t want to. He might have decided Martin’s impulsive visit was a bit stalkery, might be resenting the fact that Martin had pushed things faster than he was ready to go.
If so, getting in contact with the guy from his end would only be compounding the problem.
He rolled out of bed on Wednesday more reluctantly, because Brian was coming, and told himself that if Billy hadn’t called by the end of the week he would . . .
Give up?
No, he would phone, give it one last shot. It wasn’t fair to expect Billy to do all the running if the guy had difficulties in doing more than his normal routine. He just hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
Brian arrived at half two, having taken the afternoon off from his job as an IT tech in some small components firm in Trowbridge. His knock on the door brought back memories, and it was briefly pleasurable to see him come in, moving with the deceptive shamble of a silver-backed gorilla through Martin’s flat. The hall seemed too small for him. Even without armour on, the guy was impressive, his layer of fat and his substantial beer belly carried lightly on a bulk of muscle.
Brian was somewhere around sixty years of age, his white hair pulled back into a ponytail at the base of his neck. His moustache was waxed into points and his beard plaited and finished off with a red glass bead. Still a biker, with engine grease under his fingernails and interlaced tattoos up his gnarled arms.
“Well.” He looked about with curiosity and, Martin thought, condescension. Not enough engine parts on the floor, maybe. “Long time no see, Ametel. How you been doing out there on your own?”
Martin smiled and flourished a mug. It was nice that Brian had remembered his Merotic name—the name by which his reenactment character was known. Brian himself was Ketil when he was in character, which Martin secretly found hilarious.
“Not too bad,” he said, as was only right. No one asked these things because they actually wanted to know. “Cup of tea?”
“Dying for one.”
Martin ducked into the kitchen, leaving Brian at large in the living room on his own. “What about you?” he called through the open door.
“Oh, good. We’ve had a good season for recruiting. Got five newbies at once, if you believe it, from a show we did for the university.”
Martin made a mental note to try to book some events for Bretwalda where concentrations of young people hung out. Give it a couple of months and try Trowbridge to see if anyone had dropped out of their Summer Spectacular. Maybe Trowchester Academy would be interested in something for their summer ball? He wasn’t convinced by the mental picture of a bunch of drunk students in their party frocks watching a fake battle, but they could do something, surely?
“Course, a couple of them were queer as fuck.” Brian laughed, good-humouredly, inviting Martin to share the joke. Martin’s fingers clenched hard on the teaspoon with which he was adding three spoons of sugar to Brian’s tea, bending the metal with his grip.
“Seriously, you should have seen them.” Brian chuckled again. “Raging poofters, they were.”
Martin sidled into his own living room like he was unwelcome, put down the mugs of tea on one of the many wooden stools that littered the floor. The same feelings of guilt and rage, inadequacy and shame that he had when he spoke to his father were curling through him again. He felt like a toilet that had just been flushed—forced to swallow down filth. He wanted to spit it all out but couldn’t quite find certainty and footing enough.
Brian cocked a hip and made like a teapot, warbling in a falsetto voice, “Ooh, everything’s so dirty. I’m getting soot on my nice shoes.”
You’ll get a knee in your fucking balls if you carry on like that, Martin thought, but to his shame he said nothing. Just swallowed.
“Worse than the women,” Brian noted with satisfaction. “Course they didn’t last.”
