Luke belts himself in and a female flight attendant snaps shut the locker overhead. ‘Jesus, this is weird ...’
Aaron laughs. ‘Planning on being one of those difficult customers?’
Luke grins back. ‘I’ll give them shit from start to end.’
The flight is full. Passengers sandwiched together. Strangers manoeuvring to keep their elbows and legs to themselves. There’s a baby crying somewhere up the front. Poor thing, its misery has just started. Thirteen hours to Singapore, a quick stop to refuel, then another eight hours to Sydney. It’s been a while since Luke’s been a passenger on a plane. Before Aaron, holidays were in far-flung places – Nepal, Russia, Iceland – taking advantage of generous staff discounts. In recent years he has favoured other forms of transport. Meandering car trips to Wales to see Aaron’s parents. Trains north to Edinburgh and Glasgow. A ferry over to Ireland.
He has written to his father to let him know he’s coming. A card with the cartoon image of an aeroplane on the front; flight numbers, times and dates written inside. An old-fashioned means of communication for an old-fashioned sort of man. A dinosaur who hasn’t embraced the convenience of technology. No computer or email or internet. No mobile phone or texts. None of that gay stuff either, thank you very much. Nonsense, the lot of it.
I’m bringing a friend, Luke wrote below the travel details.
What will his father make of that? What kind of reception will Aaron get? Civil, is the most Luke can hope for. Scornful is what he expects. Hostile is what he’s most afraid of.
They’re in the air, thick cloud obscuring the view of London. The drinks trolley seems to take for ever. Luke and Aaron order a wine each, on the understanding that Aaron will only drink half his and surrender the remainder to Luke. Luke needs the alcohol to numb his sense of foreboding. Duty calls him back to Sydney every three or four years: usually friends or extended family celebrating weddings or significant birthdays. He stays with Katy and other friends during these trips, calling on his father only a handful of times – the minimum he can get away with – every minute an endurance. The house is depressingly male. Everything clean and neat but woefully dated and drab. His father puts the kettle on and they try to talk about what’s happened in the years since they’ve last spoken.
‘How’s the job going?’
‘Still in the same flat?’
‘Living the same lifestyle?’
This is his way of asking if Luke is still gay. As though Luke might wake up one morning and suddenly decide he is not homosexual after all.
‘Dad, you should really redecorate in here. Make it brighter ...’
‘Why don’t you let me set you up with a computer or even an iPad?’
‘Have you met anyone special, Dad?’
Luke’s mother died when he was eight. He was shielded from the gravity of her illness, her chemotherapy sessions scheduled for when he was at school, her long periods in bed put down to the simple need to rest. He remembers her making light of it, patting her scarfed head and laughing, ‘Like my new hairstyle, Lukey? It’s all the rage.’ He didn’t understand that she was bald under the scarf until she was long dead.
Later on, when she was gravely sick, she still made a supreme effort in his presence, cuddling him on the hospital bed, sometimes entangling him in her drips and wires. Acting like she wasn’t dying and those wires weren’t pumping her with drugs to make her last a little bit longer.
‘Tell me about your day, Lukey. What’s going on at school?’
He really thought she was going to get better. That she would be home any day. Then the morning his father told him she’d passed away in her sleep. Profound shock. Crushing grief. Feeling stupid for not ‘getting it’. Later, as a young teenager who was quite certain about his sexuality, and just as certain about his father’s opinion of it, he liked to think that his mother’s presence would have softened things, made it easier for his father to accept. As an adult, having seen first-hand how obstinate and immovable human beings can be, he isn’t so sure.
He has thought a lot about his mother in the days leading up to this trip. She’s the one who comes to mind whenever he thinks about home. Her laughter, her light, her loss. Luke has surpassed her age by two years; she was only thirty-five. So fucking unfair. Why her? Why the fun-loving kind-hearted parent instead of the miserable, bigoted one? He often imagines her alive, healthy and happy in a parallel life. Visiting him in London. Shrieking in delight at the sights and shopping. Linking his arm, calling him ‘Lukey’, loving Aaron to bits. His father doesn’t feature in this parallel life. She would have divorced him long ago.
Aaron reaches across and squeezes his hand. ‘How’re you feeling?’
Luke grimaces. ‘Like I need to be perpetually drunk to get through the next few weeks.’
Aaron rolls his eyes. ‘Don’t be a moron.’
Luke’s doing this for Aaron. Because Aaron is desperate to meet his family, to see where he comes from, to get to know that part of him. Luke has tried to explain what his father’s like – aeons from Aaron’s liberal-minded welcoming parents – but Aaron remains convinced he’ll be able to charm him. Aaron is not often wrong but this time he is. Is it too late to change their arrangements and stay with Katy instead? Oh God, some fucking holiday this will be.
Now it’s the food trolley, an unappetising smell preceding it. Aaron has fallen asleep, his head on Luke’s shoulder. Luke bypasses the food and orders two more wines, on the pretence that one’s for Aaron. The flight attendant gives him a knowing look. Then her eyes flick to Aaron, snuggled into Luke’s side, and she smiles.
Sometimes acceptance throws Luke just as much as bigotry does.
His thoughts reverse to Katy, who has always accepted him, who never had an agenda other than to be his friend – until now. He loves Katy, he wants her to be happy, but even she must understand that it isn’t just sperm they’re talking about here. Luke would be a father. How involved would Katy want him to be? Doesn’t she realise how inept he is, and how scarred from his own experience? It’s not like he’s had a good role model, for fuck’s sake.
Luke finishes the wine, goes to the bathroom, checks his watch: another eleven hours before the first leg is done. Jesus Christ. Time drags when you’re sitting there, doing nothing but thinking (and drinking). He’d much rather be busy cleaning up meal trays, or tending to passengers who need water, tissues or sick bags. He contemplates sticking his head around the galley, saying hello, striking up a conversation. No, this isn’t his shift. Back to his seat where he unwraps a blanket from its cellophane and tucks it around Aaron. Unwraps another for himself. Reclines his seat. Drifts off sooner than he expected.
He dreams of Katy. The young Katy with her sunset hair and her heart on her sleeve. He’s kissing her. Her lips are soft and luscious. He’s enjoying himself. Getting into it. One hand on her breast, the other entangled in her hair. His father is there. Grinning from ear to ear. ‘I knew you weren’t a faggot,’ he declares.
Luke wakes with a start. Takes a moment to determine where he is: mid-air somewhere over Eastern Europe, his whole left side numb from Aaron’s weight. He manoeuvres Aaron off him, ignoring the sudden temptation to rouse him, to blurt out what’s been plaguing him for months: Let’s get married.
Gay marriage has become legal since Luke’s last visit home. He didn’t ask his father how he voted in the postal survey. He didn’t need to.
He presses the button for the attendant.
He needs another drink.