DOES THIS LOOK right?” Henry said doubtfully, looking in the cheval mirror and buttoning his coat.
“You look perfect,” Shawn assured him as he fastened his rainbow cufflinks.
Henry frowned deeply at Shawn’s reflection behind him in the mirror. “You didn’t even look…”
Shawn sighed and moved in behind Henry, wrapping his arms around Henry’s waist. “When have you not looked perfect, sweetheart?” Shawn said, unbuttoning the bottom button of Henry’s dinner jacket.
Henry snorted. “You want a list? That looks better now,” he said, trying to figure out why.
Shawn stretched up to kiss Henry’s smooth cheek. “You ready, then?” he asked, stroking Henry’s back.
“Yeah,” Henry said, reaching for his chequered flag cufflinks in the dresser caddy.
“You’ve got your notes?” Shawn asked.
“Yes. Inside pocket. How the fuck did I let you talk me into this?”
“Because it’s for a good cause?” Shawn said. “And maybe also because you love me? And then there’s the fact that it’s really mostly talking about your sport and you’ll take any excuse to do that?”
Henry gave Shawn an unconvinced pout with a raised brow.
“I really love that pout,” Shawn said with a charming smile and offered his arm.
Henry laughed and shook his head but took it all the same. “You know…” Henry said, “I’m mildly offended that you apparently encouraged James to pop for that overnight at the Savoy with Mez a few years ago, yet we’ll just be coming home tonight…”
“I encouraged that because James was still working on convincing Merrick he was serious. We skipped that step nine months ago when you moved in.”
“Could still give me the posh treatment,” Henry said, his pout returning.
“I’ll take it under advisement,” Shawn said, fetching his umbrella from the stand by the door as he and Henry stepped outside to wait for their taxi to the gala. “Though I could be just about certain it was you who said all that ‘toff shit’ doesn’t impress you.”
“Didn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. Just that it wouldn’t impress me. And you don’t have to worry about impressing me, so…”
Shawn shook his head with a fond smile and slipped his arm around Henry’s waist. “Thank fuck for that. I’d hate to think what it would take. Breaking the bloody land speed record or some such, no doubt.”
“Well, Andy Green already broke the speed of sound on land twenty years ago in the Thrust. You can actually see it in Coventry. But it’s basically a jet without wings, like more than sixteen metres long, not a proper car at all, really.”
“Does that mean you have no interest in trying it out?” Shawn asked hopefully.
“Fuck, no. Pretty pointless if you ask me,” Henry said.
Shawn couldn’t agree more and exhaled a grateful breath as he put up the umbrella as a taxi turned onto their road. As soon as they got into the car, Henry pulled out his speech notes and started revising once again. Shawn reached over for Henry’s hand and said, “Hey, don’t overthink it, okay? You’ll be great. Don’t rely on the notes too much, just speak from the heart.”
“Easy for you to say; you do this stuff all the time,” Henry grumbled.
“Yeah, and that’s how I know you’ll be fine,” Shawn said confidently. “Besides, you’ll have had dinner and a bit of wine, so you’ll be relaxed. Just think of it like chatting with a mate.”
“Thanks, babe,” Henry said, squeezing Shawn’s hand. “Hey, don’t forget to save me a bit of the dessert, since I gotta be talking while you all stuff your gobs and have a nice boozy coffee.”
“I give you my solemn word. Cake and coffee and a bit of brandy will be your reward. And more besides, as soon as we’re home…” Shawn said, stroking Henry’s thigh and letting his fingertips run along Henry’s inseam. That would definitely take Henry’s mind off his speech!
Later that evening, Henry was sat at a table nearest the speakers’ platform with Shawn, Merrick and James, and Theo and Nigel, finishing a nice meal when the emcee of the evening got up from the table beside theirs and stepped up to the podium to thank all the attendees, make a few predictable remarks, and then introduce their honoured guest of the evening for his speech. Henry finished off his glass of wine and shifted his chair back a bit in hopes of making a smooth and graceful exit from the table when called upon.
Shawn reached for Henry’s hand and tugged him close for a quick kiss. “You’ve got this,” he said softly, “and I’m bloody proud of you.”
That gave Henry a smile and automatically made him breathe a little easier. He took his notecards from his inside pocket as the emcee welcomed him and stepped back to applaud Henry’s presence. It wasn’t entirely different from some of the award dinners he’d been to over the years, except he wasn’t just shaking somebody’s hand and reading off a list of mechanics and sponsors he wanted to thank.
“Hi,” Henry said, leaning down at the microphone. “Gimme a sec while I get this adjusted,” he said, switching off the mic long enough to raise it up to his level. “Right. Thanks for your patience with that. That’s probably going to have been the best part of this speech, so I hope you savoured it properly. I can promise an encore when I reverse the process at the end, so you’ve at least got that to look forward to. Anyway, a few people I want to thank for putting on this do and asking me to be here. And, by a few people, I basically mean my partner, Shawn Lasting, because I doubt I’d be doing this if it was anybody else who’d asked.”
Henry took a short breath. “But standing up here and saying that is pretty much unprecedented for me. The fact that you’re all sitting here tonight tells me that I don’t need to tell you what a great group this is and that no matter how much better things get, groups like this will always be needed. Social events and pub quizzes and yoga groups are fantastic ways for everybody to keep in touch with one another and the community, and these big fundraisers do so much to help us help others who really need it and who need desperately to know that there is a community here where they can find support and acceptance. And it also helps to let everybody know that, yes, we are still here, and we’re not going away any time soon.
“That’s not a world I came from though. The world I’ve inhabited most of my life is one steeped in petrol and testosterone. And it’s a world I love; it’s in my blood and will always be a massive part of who I am. But it’s also a world that, until recently, I couldn’t be myself in. Expectations and presumptions are clear as day from the start—I think I can count on one hand the number of private garages I’ve been in that didn’t have at least one poster of a scantily clad woman leaning on a sports car. The message is obvious: ‘What a combination! What more could a bloke want! How could a bloke not want that?’ And then there’s the fact that it’s inconceivable that a straight woman might spend time in a garage and prefer looking at muscle blokes as well as muscle cars, right?
“And that’s just the unspoken message. If there were any doubt, the gay jokes will put paid to it as quick as you like. And that’s usually where it comes out of the garages and into the pits and paddocks. And so, you learn to shrug it off and blend in and maybe even laugh along because you can’t begin to imagine walking away from something that’s in your veins like cars are just because of a few jokes. You think to yourself: ‘Who am I not to have a laugh at myself?’ Right? And it doesn’t really make a difference because you don’t have anybody in your life that compares to doing the job you love so much, anyway.
“Until you do. And then it’s all tits up. You know the track, you know the rules, you’ve internalized it well, and you know that that special person, who’s suddenly in your life and means so much to you doesn’t fit with that lifelong passion of yours. Not because of any fault of theirs, mind”—he held his hands up and scrunched his fingers twice to indicate a quote, saying—“it’s just the way it is. You know you can’t smile at him or hold his hand when you’re in public. You know you can’t invite him to hang out in the ‘wives and girlfriends’ section if he comes to one of your races. And if something goes wrong on the track, nobody’s going to go running to fetch him to you. He won’t know. Maybe until it’s too late.
“All of a sudden, the jokes aren’t jokes anymore. It’s not laughing at yourself anymore, not when it affects someone you love. Now all of a sudden, it matters, who you are matters, being yourself matters, and it’s because of that person you love, that person who loves you, that you now matter more to yourself and find yourself asking if your self-worth can endure the casual but deep homophobia you are confronted with just in doing the work you love.
“There’s no reason anybody should ever have to make that choice or ask themselves those questions. None.”
Henry paused a moment to take a long breath and keep from getting overly emotional. “I’ve been lucky. Ridiculously lucky. So many times I’ve had near misses on the track and a few direct hits as well—some that could have ended my career. Or ended me. Well, I call it luck, anyway. Truth is, it’s a few things and most of them not down to me. Things like mechanics and crew with years of experience and loads of practice who are diligent about safety measures, and fantastic race marshals—volunteers who are damn good at what they do to keep everybody on-track, as it were.
“It’s no different off the circuit—we all need those support crews in our lives. We need our friends and allies as well as one another. We need laws and regulations intended to keep us safe and people who take it seriously when someone contravenes those standards. Things don’t change all at once and there’s inevitable resistance to change, but you’ve got to keep working through that. People from the fans to the pit crew and a fair few drivers are gonna complain about regs like neck and shoulder harnesses being required, but they’ll get used to it and eventually realise it doesn’t destroy the sport anything like preventable loss of life and well-being does.
“I’m lucky, too, because after I crashed in Chichester last year, I decided to make sure the officials knew to contact my partner immediately in case of any future accidents. I moved back here at the end of the year, coming back to the team I raced with several years prior, and when I did, I made it clear to all involved that Shawn was my partner, and I would tolerate no disrespect of him, or of myself and my community. It was an uphill battle a lot of the way. I ended up having to find new representation and doing a lot of the legwork for sponsorships myself. For a while there, I was spending most of my time in boardrooms instead of garages. And it meant making myself crystal clear to anyone who threw me dirty looks or thought they could get away with doing shoddy work on a car I’d be driving. It meant inspecting those cars personally and carefully and raising hell a few times when something was missed that could have put my life in jeopardy.
“But I’d made my decision. I wasn’t going to be brushed off or pushed out of my career; nor was I going to behave any differently from any other driver when it came to acknowledging my partner. I decided to stand my ground and demand the same respect as anyone else. I wish I had realised so much earlier that I was my reason to demand that respect all along, but I didn’t know it until I had someone in my life who I cared for even more than I did for racing. Because I never saw anybody who was like me stand up and speak out about it. Representation matters so much because without it, you are always sure you’re the only one…and why should everybody change an ingrained system just for you? Well, because you matter, and you’re never the only one; that’s why.
“So, that’s all I’ve got. Me standing here telling you something you certainly already know, but maybe reminders don’t hurt. And asking you to keep up the support of this work because it is ongoing in a lot of ways. And I’d be deeply remiss if I didn’t thank my partner for putting up with a lot of car talk that I know he doesn’t understand, despite being the smartest person I’ve ever met, and for supporting me all the way, despite the fact that I don’t think he’ll ever watch an on-board video of one of my races again. But, hey, it’s all an improvement on how we started out! Thank you, babe,” Henry said, blowing a kiss to the front table before stepping back.
The emcee stepped up to the podium again to thank Henry after waiting for the applause to settle. Henry graciously accepted the gift of a wine and chocolates basket that was presented to him in appreciation but was exceptionally glad to get back to his seat beside Shawn where a congratulatory kiss awaited along with rich slice of Black Forest gateau and a suitably boozy coffee.
April
Llyn Fawr, Aberdare
“ALL RIGHT, MATES?” Henry said, setting aside the thick paperback copy of The Mabinogion he was reading, as Merrick and James walked into the rural rugby club that was set up with numerous tables laden with maps, computers, trays, and various other articles while volunteers and professionals processed and analysed and did loads of other things that Henry didn’t understand at all.
“How’s it going?” Merrick asked.
Henry shrugged. “Pretty good, I guess. I’m just kicking my heels until my services are called upon,” he said, nodding to the walkie-talkie sat beside him. “Every so often somebody buzzes me to come bring some more stuff down here for the pit crew to work on, and I’m running mid-morning tea and coffee up to the site in a bit, but other than that, I’ve got the sweetest job of all down here. Tell you what I’d love to be doing, though, ’cause these mountain roads, that switchback up there…? That would be a beaut of a race route! I keep hoping they’ll find a Celtic chariot or something up there and figure out they were hill-climbing this stretch like three thousand years ago and decide to include cars instead of just the cycling one.”
“I’d guess Shawn greatly prefers the area being used for archaeological purposes,” James said with a snicker.
“Yeah.” Henry nodded. “But I love ’im anyway,” he said, grinning like a fool. “So what are you kids doing until they pack it in and we can go take over the local?”
“Just had brunch with Mam-gu,” Merrick said. “We’re gonna do a bit of walking on some of the river trails now, see how many of the waterfalls we can get out to today.”
Henry hummed dubiously. “Don’t know. Sounds tranquil and all, but…didn’t you listen to TLC back in the 90s, mate? They advised rather strongly against that sort of thing…”
“Henry. When that song was out I was about six years old,” Merrick said. “I was watching Sam Tân and Miffi and Pingu, and loved Caffi Sali Mali.”
“Cut off from the outside world,” Henry murmured, shaking his head sympathetically.
Merrick gave Henry a bland look, then turned to his husband and said as innocently as ever, “Jamie, how many bags of picau-ar-y-maen did Mam-gu send us off with? It was just the two for us, wasn’t it?”
Suddenly, Henry was all ears. “You can’t fool me by using your secret codes. I know what that means and not letting you get away with it,” he said, pointing accusatorily. “Your mam-gu wouldn’t want you to lie to your best mate like that, Mez. She likes me and always sends a bag of cakes for me.”
“Not sure she’d appreciate that ‘cut off’ comment either,” Merrick said casually.
“You know, the trouble is that she sent them along for Shawn as well,” James said musingly.
“We could drop them off at the dig site,” Merrick suggested.
“Wasting your time. You’d never get access, mate,” Henry said. “Got to be official,” he said, smugly indicating his volunteer badge.
Merrick made a show of considering it before saying, “You are going to share these with Shawn, right? Not just going to scoff them all at once while you’re sat down here?”
“I’ll take ’em up with the tea and coffee, true blue,” Henry said seriously.
“Ah well, ‘true blue’ is beyond reproach, I suppose. We’re heading out anyway, so come on out to the car, and I’ll transfer the goods. And just let us know when they’re moving toward the pub, and we’ll meet you there,” Merrick said, heading back out to the car park with James and Henry.
“All right. Be careful out there on those trails,” Henry said, hugging Merrick. “Mobile service is probably shit up there, and I’d hate to think of either of you stuck with a broken leg or something.”
Merrick just rolled his eyes and handed Henry a gallon-sized zip bag filled with little spiced currant griddle cakes. Henry dutifully put them right into Shawn’s Land Rover, after sampling one for quality assurance purposes. Fortunately, it was only a few minutes later that Henry was pressed into service to run urns of coffee and tea up the hill to the dig anyway, so he didn’t have to wait long to gobble a few more of the cakes when he brought Shawn a cup of tea.
Up at the site, Henry parked by the roadside and opened the tailgate to set up the coffee and tea station for the workers. He poured out a to-go cup of tea and put just a splash of milk from the cooler in and headed over to the corner of an archaeological trench where Shawn was intently scraping away at a patch of dirt. Henry cleared his throat as he approached, half afraid to call out in case he startled Shawn and caused him to destroy some important and extremely fragile bit of very old something.
Shawn slowly sat up from where he’d been leaning over into the trench, almost as if the patch of dirt in front of him was reluctant to relinquish Shawn’s attention. He looked surprised to see Henry there. “Tea already? Bloody hell. Feels like I just got started. Thanks for that,” he said, taking the cup.
“No worries, babe,” Henry said, sitting beside Shawn on the ground outside the trench. “How’s it going up here? Find any buried treasure yet?” he asked, producing the bag of Welsh cakes from Merrick’s grandmother.
“Not quite,” Shawn smiled, happily taking a couple cakes. “They have come up with some bits of pottery on the other end of the trench, so it seems we’re on the right track and there was some activity up here.”
“Don’t blame ’em. It’s gorgeous up here,” Henry said.
“It is that,” Shawn said. “We know the lake down below was a sacred site, some of the earliest Iron Age votive offerings were found down there, and with this point having such a commanding view of the lake and valley, and being quite visible itself, just makes sense that there might have been something up here. Promontory hill fort or hilltop deposits are possible.”
“So, what’s the bit you’re scratching around in?” Henry asked.
“Not sure if it’s anything yet,” Shawn said. “But we’re looking at it because this line coming along the corner suggests it’s been dug out and then backfilled a very long time ago.” Shawn picked up his trowel and indicated the line he referred to, though Henry couldn’t begin to see any distinction. “So what I’m doing is carefully sort of combing back the dirt to see if anything turns up. Here, I’ll show you,” he said, setting his finished cup aside.
Shawn leaned in over the patch he’d been working at and started to drag the edge of his trowel along the ground, scraping off a thin layer of dirt. “And you just do this, bit by bit,” he said. “It’s quite meditative, really.”
Henry couldn’t help smiling. He loved seeing Shawn in his element, even if Shawn’s element was just about the polar opposite of his own.
Then Shawn stopped for a moment and hummed. He went back in with the trowel, but used the point to carefully scrape away at just a tiny spot rather than working along a broad space. “Bloody hell,” Shawn breathed, putting the trowel aside and reaching for a soft brush. “I think I’ve got bronze… Gwenda!” Shawn called out to the group leader. “I think I’ve got something down this end.”
Henry quietly got up and moved back to give them space to crowd around the possible find. He was fairly sure they’d be absorbed in that for some while and just headed back to the car to man the tea station and take some additional boxes of stuff back down to the base at the local rugby club.
Several hours later in a pub not far from the site, Shawn was still rather astounded about what he’d found and wasn’t even bothered about levelling the wobbly leg of the table they were sat at. He did his best to answer Henry, James, and Merrick’s questions about the find of the day. “What they can tell so far is that it was an armlet, a sort of cuff bracelet, like, on the wrist of the skeleton. And this is quite rare because a lot of the burials for that time in this area were more likely to be cremation or open-air, but there were some clear grave cuts around these, so it was definitely an inhumation and of some status. I never imagined finding something like this…”
“Some luck for a first go, mate,” James said, raising his glass.
“I can’t tell you how cool it is to know someone involved in this,” Merrick said.
“Strewth,” Henry said in agreement, shaking his head in amazement.
“It is,” Shawn said. “It’s unbe-bloody-lievable. And I never would have been here without you encouraging me,” he said to Henry, reaching for his hand. “You saw no reason I shouldn’t have something in my life that I always wanted but thought was beyond me. I shall always thank you and love you for supporting me in that.” Shawn wrapped his arm around Henry’s shoulders and pulled him in for a kiss.
“Hey, digging up some old stuff is a hell of a lot easier to support than hooning around racing circuits, but you still support me, babe,” Henry said. “I’m more than happy to return the favour.”
THAT NIGHT, AS Shawn was stepping out of the shower in the country hotel’s en suite, Henry was just ringing off the phone.
“Just talked to Theo,” Henry said, getting his arms around Shawn’s towel-wrapped waist. “They stopped by and Asher’s fine. Theo said they no sooner got in the door but the little bugger ran up to them and started climbing Nigel’s leg.”
“We warned them to wear jeans!” Shawn cackled. “Still can’t believe you talked me into getting a kitten.”
Henry grinned. “Yeah, you love ’im though.”
“Course I do. I must’ve checked that webcam a dozen times since yesterday,” Shawn admitted.
“You shoulda got a cat ages ago. Would have got you out of your own arse much sooner,” Henry said, kissing Shawn’s cheek.
“What, and deprive you of the pleasure and honour? Never!” Shawn said, pulling Henry closer for a proper kiss. He stopped midway, though, interrupted by an irrepressible yawn. “Sorry, love. I think the excitement of the day has me well and truly knackered. Definitely going to have to wear that knee brace tomorrow as well if I don’t want to be paying for it all next week.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Henry said with a soft smile. “Let’s get some sleep.”
Shawn paused for a moment, holding Henry a little tighter. “What are you gonna do with me when I’m properly old and useless one of these days?” he asked quietly.
“Reckon I’ll just bury you on top of some hill in the middle of nowhere with your oldest bottle of whiskey, so they know you were somebody important. Although, it’ll have to be empty. We don’t want to contaminate the ground water and all…” Henry said with a smirk.
Shawn huffed a laugh and said, “Don’t worry, I’ll see to emptying it before I go. Just show me one of your on-board videos and finishing off the bottle will be no trouble.”
“You know you’re not going to be useless no matter what, babe,” Henry said seriously.
“Well, thank you, but I don’t expect that I’ll always be able to keep up with you,” Shawn said.
“I don’t think keeping up with me is that important, especially when I know there are plenty of ways I could never keep up with you,” Henry said. “Did I ever tell you how I realised I was in love with you?”
“Don’t think so, not specifically,” Shawn said.
“It was after Mez and Jamie’s wedding, when I was heading back to Oz. You’d dropped me off at the terminal with a good, long pash that probably had security getting flustered, but I didn’t think too much about it until after I’d gone through all the check-ins and screenings and settled in the lounge at my gate. I suddenly got this miserable feeling like I was leaving behind everything I’d ever wanted—outside of racing, anyway. All those simple little things, like the way your eyes light up when you talk about historical stuff, the touches, the easy conversations, the sexy way you sip a martini… Even the silences aren’t uncomfortable between us, and I actually enjoy letting myself be vulnerable with you. It all just feels natural.
“And I never felt that with anybody else. Any relationship I’d ever had before, I just wasn’t ever entirely myself or genuinely relaxed. It’s not like that with you. It’s not awkward. Well…not once we’d shagged anyway, but that was just because the tension was sexual all along. Once that was resolved, turned out we really clicked, and it wasn’t just the sex. So you don’t have to worry about that, babe. I love you for way more than just your body. Even though that’s pretty hot from where I’m standing.”
“Thank you, Henry,” Shawn said softly, resting his forehead on Henry’s broad shoulder. “Thank you for sticking with me once I realised you were everything I ever wanted, too, and for helping me get my head outta my arse about it.”
“Any time, babe. But share that old whiskey with me, huh?” Henry said, smiling warmly as he rubbed his cheek against Shawn’s wet hair.
“You know it. And everything else besides,” Shawn said, pulling Henry into a long kiss.