I walked into the living room three days before Christmas to find the coven was in full swing.
In case you’re thinking that sounds a bit weird, I should maybe mention I was raised by witches. Three of them, which anyone who’s read their Macbeth (or their Pratchett, for that matter) will know is the only sensible, or even possible, number of witches. I grew up with my Mum, my Aunty Des and Aunty Mags, all of us living together in the little house in Camden that used to belong to my Granny, God rest her. I’m Liam, by the way. Pleasure to make your acquaintance. I’m the one solitary male in the household, unless you count the cats. And to be honest, they’re not as male as they used to be, poor things.
There is, in fact, a fourth sister, my Aunty Gerry. Rejected by the coven on the cruel grounds of numerical superfluity, she became an Anglican priest to spite them. Well, that’s how she tells it, anyway, although I can’t say I’ve noticed a great deal of spite in their relationships.
“I pray for their souls every night,” Aunty Gerry told me piously one evening not so long ago, before collapsing into very un-Reverend-like cackles and passing the gin.
You’re probably wondering exactly what I mean by witches. Well, they don’t wear pointy hats, and I’m the only one of the family generally seen in head-to-toe black, but don’t let that fool you. They have a way of knowing things they’ve no business knowing, and although we’re not rich—far from it—still, things have a habit of turning out just the way my mum and my aunties want them to. We had some unfriendly neighbours, once, who seemed to think it their duty to pass judgement on how I live my life. You wouldn’t believe the trouble they had with that house—pipes bursting, fuses blowing, leaks in the roof, that sort of thing. They spent a fortune fixing the place up, and eventually sold it at a rock-bottom price to a young family who are as nice as you could wish for. And who haven’t had a day’s trouble with the house since they moved in.
So I learned at an early age which way was widdershins, and why it was vitally important to leave a bowl of milk on the doorstep at sunset. For the fairy folk, I thought for ages, but it turned out it was just for next door’s cat all along. They were raising it vegan, and my aunties don’t hold with that. My dad was never much on the scene. Mum likes to refer to me as her youthful indiscretion, but seeing as I’m twenty-three and she’s fifty-five…Well, you do the maths. My father was, cliché of clichés, the milkman, who popped in for a Christmas sherry and barely escaped with his (very) young life. He’s forty-two now, with a wife and a brand new baby, and who’d blame him for being embarrassed about having a grown-up son? Not I.
Me? I’m a musician. Currently between gigs, which means I spend a lot of my time on the London Underground, busking. It’s not as bad as you’d think—it’s in the warm, and I like seeing all the people go by. Wondering where they go to, and hopefully cheering them up a little on their way.
There’s one man in particular I’d like to cheer up, although not just by playing the saxophone. He wears a rumpled trench coat like Columbo, filled out nicely by a pair of broad shoulders I can just imagine laying my head on, he has iron-grey hair cut bristly on top and his eyes are the brightest blue you’ve ever seen. He never looks like he’s in a hurry, not like most of the people you’ll see in a Tube station…ah, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
“Liam, my love.” That was Aunty Des. She’s as thin as a rail, with a sharp, pointed nose. Aunty Mags is round as a peach, with soft curves that all but smother you when she gives you a hug, which she does at the drop of a hat. For years, when I was little, I used to call them Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker, and to their credit, they never spanked my cheeky young arse for it. “Where have you been? It’s nearly time for tea.”
I noticed all three of them had thrust their knitting under cushions. There’s a wealth of cushions on our sofa, as good for easing weary bones as they are for concealment. “Would those be my Christmas presents, by any chance?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. Aunty Des spent long afternoons teaching me to do that, bless her bony self.
“And what makes you think you’re getting any presents this Christmas?” Mum asked sharply. “Lord knows I don’t ask much, but it’s been my fondest wish these last ten years to see you settled with a nice young man before I shuffle off this mortal coil, and what have you done about it?”
“Mum! I was only thirteen ten years ago! And it’s not that easy, okay? You wouldn’t want me to settle for just anyone, now would you? Anyhow, you’re as strong as an ox. I reckon you’ve got another forty years at least before you start getting ready to do any shuffling.”
Aunty Mags sniffed. “The rest of us aren’t getting any younger, either. And it’s not right for a young man to be on his own at Christmas time.”
“Ah, but I’m not on my own, am I?” I said, perching on the arm of the sofa and putting my arm around her. Well, halfway around her, at any rate. “I’ve got my three lovely ladies here.”
“None of that!” Aunty Mags giggled, but Aunty Des pursed her lips. “Girls, it’s time for a confab. Liam—go and put the kettle on. And mind you take your time about it.”
I swung my feet back to the fluffy carpet and stood. “I’ll be seeing you in the New Year, then,” I said as I went out to the kitchen.
I swear they’ve put some kind of spell on that kettle. There are times you put it on and it only takes a minute to boil; and there are other times when it seems to take all day and half of the next. This was one of those times. When I finally returned to the living room, a quartet of steaming mugs in my hands, they were sitting in an expectant little row on the sofa, Aunty Mags holding something fluffy in her lap. I knew it wasn’t one of the cats, because it was livid purple.
All right, maybe I just hoped it wasn’t one of the cats. Like I said, raised by witches…Witches, I might add, with a wicked sense of humour. I put down the mugs carefully on the side table and stood waiting to be told what was going on. It’s best not to be carrying anything likely to make a mess if dropped, not when my aunties are about to make a pronouncement.
“We’ve decided,” Aunty Mags said. “You’re to have your Christmas presents early.”
You might think witches wouldn’t celebrate Christmas. You’d be dead wrong there—no witch worth her salt would ever pass up the opportunity to be given presents and get drunk on sherry at ten o’clock in the morning without censure.
“Here you go, love.” Aunty Mags held out the purple thing to me.
I took it carefully, just in case it really did have claws and teeth. “What is it?”
“It’s a hat, you numpty.” She’s a collector of words, is my Aunty Mags. And she’s generous with them, too. “Go on, put it on.”
“Aunty Mags! I can’t wear that. It’ll flatten the mohawk.”
“You’ll wear it and be grateful, my lad,” Mum said darkly.
Sighing heavily, I pulled on the baggy purple monstrosity and went to look in the mirror above the fireplace. About the best you could say for it was that the colour looked good with my pale skin and brown eyes. It was in a coarse, scratchy wool I reckoned I’d heard Aunty Mags call mohair, and had a shaggy pom-pom on top. It hadn’t, actually, flattened the mohawk—just sort of settled around it. With the height and all, it looked like someone had put an old-fashioned cosy on a teapot and bunged it on my head.
“There. That’ll keep you nice and warm when you’re out busking,” Aunty Mags said.
I sent her a pleading look. “I can’t wear this out in public! People will think I’m drunk.”
“Then you’ll be doing your bit for raising awareness of people with a drinking problem,” Aunty Des put in, with the smug piety of the professional heathen.
“Aunty Des,” I explained patiently. “Everyone’s aware of alcoholics. But they don’t go round giving them money they might spend on drink.”
“Then you’ll just have to play twice as well and convince them you’re sober, now won’t you? Be off with you now, love. Shoo!”
* * * *
When I got outside and on my way to the evening rush-hour shift, there was a steady sleet falling, which made me feel better about the godawful hat. Sleet’s death to hairstyles, and there’s nothing sadder than a droopy mohawk. Especially when there’s someone you’d like to impress. I’d put my leather trousers on special, and doubled my body weight with all the studded gear I was wearing. I was going to take the hat off once I got inside the station, but then I thought, ah, sod it. It’d dry faster on my head than off.
So I hopped on the Northern Line, filled my lungs with the heady aroma of burnt diesel, and rode down to King’s Cross, catching a few more smiles than usual from people who glanced up from their Kindles or their copies of the Evening Standard. Seems a six foot punk is a tad less intimidating when wearing a tea cosy on his head—who knew?
I made my way to my pitch at the bottom of the long escalator, got out my saxophone and launched straight into Springsteen’s “Born to Run.” Commuters like that. Everyone likes to think they’re wild and free at heart, even if they work nine to five in an air-conditioned office with no natural light. Especially then.
I don’t know if it was the Springsteen, the Christmas spirit or—God forbid—the hat, but I was soon raking in the cash. If it carried on this way, I’d be able to buy Mum the fake fur coat she had her eye on for Christmas. She’d been dropping more hints than I’d had hot dinners, quite a feat considering I lived with a trio of women who liked nothing better than to be huddled around a hot, steaming cooking pot. I let the smile in my head carry through to the music—it’s the only way I can thank people while I’m playing, after all.
And then there he was, the man I’d been waiting for. Did I say his hair was iron grey? If I hadn’t been too busy playing my saxophone I’d have bitten my tongue. Pure silver, that hair was, and underneath it, his face looked shockingly young: clean lines, chiselled jaw with just a shade of stubble. I reckoned he’d be about my dad’s age: perfect. I’ve always gone for older blokes—there’s a lot to be said for an experienced man. Most of it gasped out in words of one syllable when you’re a mite distracted at the time. He was shorter than me, but muscular, heavy-set. Probably fucked like a pile driver…Did I say that? My mum would make me wash my mouth out.
My aunties would hold me down and wash it out themselves.
I segued into my party piece, the riff from “Baker Street.” Always brings in the money, but you can’t overdo it or it loses its potency. So I always saved it for my silver fox. Child of the eighties, wasn’t he? Sexual fantasy and target market, all in one tight little trench-coated package.
As I played, my eyes tracked him down the escalator. He always stood, instead of walking down—I liked to think it was so he could hear as much of my music as possible. He never looked at me, though. Up, down, right, left—his gaze went everywhere but at me. That’s what made me think I might have a chance, if I could only manage more than thirty seconds, once a day, of his company. Because if I meant nothing to him, he’d be able to look at me. At least, that was my theory, and I was sticking to it like fake snow on a windowpane.
This time, though, he was frankly staring. Well, I couldn’t blame him, now could I? He’d probably never seen a busker with a tea cosy on his head before. He stared so long he didn’t notice the end of the escalator and practically fell on top of the woman in front. Busy apologising to her, he was swept away by the stream of commuters before he could throw the usual pound coin in my saxophone case.
Ah, well. I wasn’t going to starve for lack of a pound, and at least I’d got his attention.
I launched into the English Beat’s “Mirror in the Bathroom” to celebrate.
* * * *
I never saw him in the mornings. Not because I couldn’t manage to haul my lazy arse out of bed, mind. That pitch is a popular one, and there was another guy who had the morning shift. I lay under the duvet on the morning of the twenty-third and wondered if he missed me.
I’d explain who I was talking about, but you’ve been paying attention, haven’t you? You know I mean my silver fox. Him with the strokeable hair, the bright eyes, the broad shoulders, the stubble just waiting to burn my skin when he kissed me, the powerful frame to weigh me down as he fucked me—
Ahhhhh.
Would you pass me that box of tissues? Thanks.
* * * *
I was on my way out that evening—well, afternoon really, but when it’s pitch black outside already and the Christmas lights everywhere are twinkling, it makes more sense to call it evening—when Mum called me back.
“Liam! Liam, come here, love. Your Aunty Des has got something for you.” She frowned, hands on her hips in that pose that even in her fifties still made delivery men get hot under the collar.
She’s got an old-fashioned figure, my mum: think Marilyn Monroe or Nigella Lawson and you won’t be far wrong. Not a single straight line about her. Hair like Nigella’s, too: tumbling locks I swear she keeps that rich, dark shade of brown by black magic alone. There’s a plumbing firm that’ll only send married men to our house these days, and the pizza boys won’t deliver at all anymore.
“You’re not wearing your Aunty Mags’s hat. Do you want to hurt her feelings, now? Go put it on this instant.”
I sighed, pulling the purple monstrosity out of my pocket. “I was waiting to see if it was cold out.”
“You were waiting to see if anyone had their eye on you, and don’t you deny it, my lad. Now put it on, and come into the living room.”
I trooped in behind her, dragging my boots on the shag-pile, to find my Aunty Des sitting on the sofa with a determined look on her face and a bag on her lap. “There you are! Happy Christmas, my love,” she said, handing me the bag.
It was a big bag. It had to be, to hold the several pounds of wool that tumbled out in a multicoloured strip about twenty feet long. “Aunty Des, what the hell is this?”
“Mind your language, my boy. What if your Aunty Gerry were here? It’s a Doctor Who scarf, of course. Every boy should have one.”
“You do realise Doctor Who doesn’t wear a scarf any more, don’t you? He hasn’t done since Tom Baker packed it in. Back at the beginning of the nineteen eighties. You know, before I was born?”
Aunty Des shook her head dismissively, her long earrings jangling. “Oh, your David Tennants, your Matt Smiths, and your Peter Capaldis are all very well, but Tom Baker was the Doctor Who.”
“You fancied him, didn’t you, Aunty Des?” I said with a grin.
“And who says I don’t still?” she countered. “He’s a very attractive man even now. And oh! That voice…” We both stared into space, probably with identical dreamy expressions on our faces.
“Come on, Liam!” Mum’s voice broke the spell. “You’ll be late for rush hour.” She picked up the scarf and looped it four or five times around my neck. Since I’m six foot one, plus another three inches for the mohawk, and she’s only five foot three she had to lasso me, cowboy style, several times over. “If you sat down this’d be a whole lot easier, my lad.”
“And spoil all your fun? I wouldn’t do that to you, Mum, you know I wouldn’t.” I bent down to give her a kiss and headed off to work with a spring in my step.
The wind was blowing in from Siberia so hard I could smell the vodka and the borscht. I wrapped Aunty Des’s scarf around my neck a little tighter as I strolled along to the Tube station. The streets were full of people, most of them juggling briefcases and bulging carrier bags with rolls of wrapping paper poking out of the top. Between the hat and the scarf I got more than a few stares on the way—not to mention the odd shout of “Where’s K9?”
“He’s in the doghouse,” I called back. “Caught him humping next door’s mechanical reindeer.”
When I got going at the Tube station, takings were definitely up. I dubbed it the scarf effect. Aunty Des would be dead chuffed if I told her. And she’d probably start dropping hints about copper-bottomed saucepans, which I wouldn’t be buying for her as I happened to know Aunty Mags and Mum had clubbed together to get them already.
This time, my silver fox stared at me the whole time he was coming down the escalator. He wasn’t carrying any bags. Maybe he didn’t have anyone special to shop for? Well, a boy can dream. I launched into Hazel O’Connor’s “Will You?” and you know what? For just a moment there, I thought maybe he would—but the crowd surged and he let it carry him away from me.
Not even a pound coin to remember him by. I heaved a mental sigh, and segued into “I’m Not in Love” by 10cc.
A worn old man dropped 2p into my case. “You just keep telling yourself that, mate,” he muttered, and shuffled off into the tunnels.
* * * *
I didn’t even try to sneak out on Christmas Eve, just headed straight into the living room. The coven was lined up on the sofa, all three of them with expectant looks on their faces, as if they’d known I was on my way.
Then again, they’re witches. They’d probably known before I had.
“Come on, Mum,” I challenged her. “I’m ready for you. Do your worst.”
“It’s all for your own good, young man, so don’t you forget it. Happy Christmas, love, and here’s hoping it’ll be keeping you warm long after I’m gone.” She heaved a sigh.
“Are you off to the bingo, then, Mum?” I asked innocently.
“I’ll be off to your Aunty Gerry’s church in a minute, to pray for some respect from the fruit of my womb. Now open it, love.”
Mum’s present was all done up in recycled paper, tied with string. I opened it up carefully—handing the wrappings back to Mum so she could use them again next year—and shook out the brightly-coloured woollen…thing inside.
“It’s a cardigan, love,” Mum said, before I could ask.
“I knew that, Mum,” I said, hiding my crossed fingers under the eye-watering bundle. “It’s…great.”
Perhaps I shouldn’t go to midnight mass tonight; the Lord might strike me dead for all these lies. The sweater was so garish it threatened to make the Doctor Who scarf look staid. It had more colours in it than I thought there were colours, all clashing madly in an abstract pattern. If Joseph from that book of Bible stories Aunty Gerry bought me when I was little had seen it, he’d have been sick with jealousy. Or maybe just sick. It was that bad.
“Well, go on, love. Put it on.”
“I, uh, I don’t think it’ll go with my leather trousers,” I protested weakly.
“Your trousers are black, Liam. Black goes with everything.”
I pulled on the cardigan. It came down to about my knees, had pockets I could have fit my head in—mohawk and all—and was so thick and bulky there was probably a whole flock of sheep somewhere walking around shivering. “You won’t need to wear a coat with that—just your scarf,” Aunty Des decreed smugly. She didn’t wait for an answer, just looped it around my neck half-a-dozen times.
“And your hat,” Aunty Mags added, making to get up, so I pulled it out of my pocket and shoved it on my head quick, before she could jam it down tight and maim the mohawk for life.
The skies were clear as I walked to the Tube station, showing more stars than there were last-minute shoppers hurrying through the streets with bags in their hands and desperate looks on their faces. A pity; a bit of torrential rain—or maybe a small tornado—would’ve given passers-by something else to think about than my ridiculous get-up. As it was, I had to endure the stares and the shouts of “Oh my God, call the fashion police! There’s been an explosion in an Oxfam shop!” I didn’t answer; just held my head up high and prayed my silver fox would turn out to be colour-blind.
I was halfway through “Your Latest Trick” by Dire Straits when I saw him. There were snowflakes on the shoulders of his trench coat—it seemed the weather had turned wintry again—and there was tiredness in his eyes, but maybe just a little bit of anticipation, too? Our gazes met and held each other. I steeled myself for action. It was Christmas Eve: my last chance. After tonight he’d likely be off work until the New Year. I couldn’t wait that long.
I launched into Billy Ocean’s “Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car” and gave it all I’d got, never breaking eye contact.
And maybe there was a little bit of magic in the air, as time seemed to slow, making that escalator ride last almost as long as the song. I let the last notes fade as he stepped off and walked up to me, his hands in the pockets of his trench coat, the crowd parting before him like he was Moses. A tense line to his jaw, he waited until I’d finished playing before he spoke.
His voice was low and husky, with the barest hint of a rural accent tempering the shifty vowels of South London, and he spoke like a man about to face a firing squad. “Look, if I’m wrong about this, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t bash my head in. But I was wondering if I could buy you a drink. At a bar, I mean,” he added quickly. “Or, you know, a café—whatever’s your poison.”
I let a smile roll out across my face in a slow crescendo. “There’s a pub around the corner that does great ale. Let me pack my stuff up, and I’m all yours.”
His jaw line softened, and his eyes crinkled up at the corners. “Promises, promises.”
“My aunties would have my hide if I went around making promises I didn’t keep.” I scooped the coins out of my case so I could put away my sax. “I’m Liam, by the way.”
“Neil,” he said. Then he grinned. “That’s my name, not an order.”
“Oh?” I said, pouting just a little. I shouldn’t do that, I know. Doesn’t really go with the whole punk image. “Still, the night’s young.” I put my saxophone in the case and snapped it shut.
As we rode up the escalator side by side, Neil shook his head. “I must be off my rocker, you know. Either that or you are. It’s the only explanation.”
I gave a pointed look down at my get-up. “Well, I know who most people’s money would be on.”
He laughed. “You know, I’ve been wondering about all that. Let me guess: elderly relatives who love you very much?”
“Relatives, yes. But call them elderly where they can hear you and you’ll find they’ve put salt in your coffee. That’s if they like you, mind. If they take against you it’ll be laxatives.”
“Why does it not surprise me your family is terrifying? No, don’t answer that.”
We stepped out of the station and a blast of icy wind blew straight through us. Neil shivered. “Hey, put this on,” I told him, unwinding my scarf from my neck and wrapping it three times around his. Widdershins, in case you were wondering. I’m left handed. It’s easier that way.
“Hey, you don’t have to—”
“Haven’t you heard?” I interrupted him. “Misery loves company.”
He looked down at the ridiculous scarf, and chuckled. “I’ve always preferred A problem shared is a problem halved. You know, if we halved this scarf maybe it’d be something approaching normal length.”
“Ah, but then we’d have two of the things. They might start breeding, and then where would we be?”
“Come across a lot of sexually active scarves in your time, have you?”
“Me? No. I steer well clear of my Mum’s bottom drawer. This is the place.” I guided him through the door with a hand on his elbow for no good reason other than I wanted to touch him.
“Helping the old man up the steps, are you?” Neil asked with a twinkle in his eye.
“Just making sure you don’t make a run for it. I mean, I’d understand if you decided you couldn’t face being seen in public with a cardigan like this.”
“What, you mean any more than I have been on the way here? You do realise you’re talking to a bloke in a Doctor Who scarf, don’t you?” Neil stroked the road kill red and pond scum green stripes on his chest and looked a bit wistful as we elbowed our way to the bar through secretaries in reindeer antlers and accountants in their cups. “I’d have killed for a scarf like this when I was a kid. Course, I’d have wanted the hat, too.”
“What, this crime against humanity?” I asked, pulling off the purple tea-cosy with a grin. “Here, have it—it’s yours.”
Neil backed away, eyes wide and his mouth twisted in mock horror. “Not that one. God forbid. No, I meant one of those dark, wide-brimmed hats Tom Baker used to wear.”
“Damn,” I said with a sigh. “That’s something I’d like to see, but I wouldn’t recommend it. You’re way too sexy as it is. If you add the fedora you won’t be able to walk down the street without being mobbed.”
“Gerroff out of it!” he said, a faint pink kissing his cheeks. “I haven’t been called sexy since Maggie Thatcher was in power. And no, I’m not telling you when that was. You can Google it later when you fancy a good laugh.”
“I like a good laugh as much as the next man,” I told him. “But somehow when I look at you it’s not humour that’s on my mind.”
“Oh, yeah? Dare I ask what is, then?”
“Not unless you want me to get arrested for public indecency and have to spend Christmas in jail. What’ll you have, then?” I asked, pulling out my wallet.
“It’s all right—I’ll get them.”
“Don’t be daft. I’ve got money to burn, here. There’s this bloke keeps throwing pound coins in my case.”
“Well, in that case, I’ll have a pint of…” Neil peered at the taps. “Santa’s Butt?” His voice rose incredulously.
“And a bottle of Rudolf’s Revenge,” I added to the barman, who was already pulling Neil’s pint.
When the drinks were ready, I paid and handed Neil his glass. He sipped it with a wary air and sighed in contentment. “Ah, that’s better.”
“Been a long week, has it?”
“Been a long year. Take my advice: never work for the NHS. Or any organisation that relies on government funding. You spend half your time worrying how you’re going to make the budget stretch, and the other half justifying your existence to people who think all a health service needs is doctors and the paperwork will handle itself.”
“Ah, but at least you probably don’t get chewing gum thrown at you by kids who don’t like the music you’re playing.” Against all the odds, there was a free table just tucked around the corner from the bar, with two chairs like it’d been waiting for us to get there, so we sat down at it, our own little island of privacy in the sea of seasonal bonhomie.
“Philistines. You play great stuff. I hear you playing, it’s like I’m back in my youth. Course, I don’t know why you like all that old crap. Shouldn’t you be into…” Neil waved his pint vaguely. “I don’t know—Lady Gaga, or something?”
“Well, you’re not wrong there—there’s a great riff in Edge of Glory.” I sighed, and took a swig of my beer. “I should’ve been born twenty years earlier, though. I’d have loved it in the eighties—playing the saxophone was cool, then.”
Neil laughed, shaking his head slowly. “Speaking as someone who was born twenty years earlier, and hadn’t actually realised saxophones weren’t cool anymore…You know why I spoke to you tonight? How come I finally plucked up the courage?”
“Christmas Eve—it’s a magical time of year?”
“No, no magic involved. Not that I know of, anyway. No, it was seeing you in that, um, interesting cardigan. That, on top of the hat, and the scarf…Well. It just made me think maybe you didn’t care what anyone else thought. Maybe being cool wasn’t as important to you as I’d thought it must be—what with the punk hair-do, the leathers, all that. And maybe, just maybe, you’d agree to go for a drink with a grey-haired old codger who’s old enough to be your dad.”
“Hey—no calling my date an old codger.”
He gave a crooked smile. “Still leaves me with grey hair and old enough to be your dad.”
I put out a hand and stroked his hair. It was softer than it looked—just like Neil himself, I bet. Except where it counted, of course. “It’s not grey. It’s silver. And for your information, youth’s overrated in a boyfriend.” I grinned. “Well, with certain exceptions.”
“Oh, yeah? One of them being sax-playing punks, I presume?”
“Well, you wouldn’t want an old bloke going around in leathers and a mohawk, now would you? That’d just be sad.”
“What, so in twenty years’ time you’ll be sporting a tweed jacket and a comb-over, will you?”
“You think I’ll be old in twenty years? We age well in my family. My mum’s in her fifties, and she still has the men running after her. And my dad looks younger than you do.” I cocked my head on one side, thinking about it. “Of course, he might actually be younger than you.”
Neil shuddered. “If you’re not joking, I don’t want to know. So, no comb-over, then?”
“I might go for the tweed jacket, though—what do you think?”
“Working the Johnny Rotten look?” Neil rubbed his chin, where a teasing shadow of peppery stubble lurked. “Not convinced. I’d stick with the leathers, if I were you. Can’t go wrong with black leather.”
“Yeah, but these trousers can be a bugger to get off.” I gave him a significant look. “I might need some help, later.”
Neil choked on his pint.
My stomach growled. “Hey, the food here’s not bad—you want to grab something?”
Neil’s eyes drifted closed for a second. “Do I ever.”
We ordered and ate, sharing a platter of nachos and spicy sausage that gave plenty of opportunities for fingers to brush. The food was tasty, but not a patch on the company. There was a log fire burning not too far from where we were sitting, and with hot food warming my belly as well I soon had to take off Mum’s cardigan.
“Spooky,” Neil said. “See, now you’re intimidating again.”
I glanced down at my skull-and-blood-spatters T-shirt, and the studded belt and wristbands the cardigan had hidden. Maybe he had a point. I pulled out Aunty Mags’s hat and popped it on my head. “Better?”
“Much, God help me,” Neil said with a grin. He was still wearing Aunty Des’s scarf.
When they rang the bell for last orders my eyes darted to my watch. It was eleven o’clock. “Shit—I’ve got to go!”
Neil’s face fell. “About to turn into a pumpkin, are you? You’re a bit early—it’s still an hour to midnight.”
“Promised my Aunty Gerry I’d be at Midnight Mass,” I said, spreading my hands in apology.
“Worries about your soul, does she?”
“Well, it’s kind of her job…” I was thinking. I can do that and talk at the same time, although the results are sometimes unreliable. “Hey, do you want to come with? There’s nothing like a good Midnight Mass for getting you into the mood for Christmas.”
Neil was shaking his head again, but not that fast little jerk that means No. It was the slow, rhythmic sway that means Yes, God help me. “You know, you’re just one surprise after another. Course I’ll come. Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
“Right—this way then.” I tossed back my drink and stood, and Neil followed suit. “Grab your Oyster card—it’s just up the line at Camden.”
“Is that where you live? I’m the other end—down at Stockwell, or Saint Ockwell as it used to be known back in my youth.”
I smiled. “Two stations, both alike in dignity. Looks like we’ll have to keep meeting in the middle, then.”
“Dignity? On the Northern line? How many of those beers have you had tonight?”
“Ah, everyone knows drinks don’t count at Christmas.” I waved him ahead of me through the station entrance.
We ker-chunked our way through the turnstiles, and hot air blasted up the escalator at us. It carried the scent of sweaty commuters with alcoholic breath, all staggering home after the pubs closed. And over it all, that distinctive Northern Line smell. I breathed in deeply. “Can’t you just feel it coating your lungs with soot?”
“Worst Tube line ever for dry-cleaning bills,” Neil agreed fondly.
“Worst Tube line ever, full stop,” I said with a smile.
We stepped off the escalator and clattered down the tiled stairs to the platform, where the lights indicated there’d be a train along in two minutes. Of course, those would be Northern Line minutes, length determined by a complex algorithm including, among many other factors, the weather today; the price of fish; and whether the driver got lucky last night.
“Hey,” I said, looking up and down the half-full platform. Fresh out of the pubs like us, people were smiling and laughing, and there was more than one couple snogging who I’d bet would be mortified about it in the morning. The heady atmosphere was kind of infectious. And maybe the beers we’d downed had something to do with it, too. “If I go for the intimidating look again, do you think I could kiss you down here without getting both our heads kicked in?”
“No.” Neil smiled, and shoved his hands in his pockets. “But it’s a nice thought. We’ll save it for later.”
“I’ll hold you to that.”
“I’ll hold you to holding me. So this church we’re going to—is it a Catholic one?”
I shook my head. “Church of England. Are you Catholic? Protestant? Or what?”
“More of an ‘or what,’ to be honest. So your aunt’s a regular attender, is she?”
“It’s kind of unavoidable in her profession. She’s the vicar of St Saviour’s.” I grinned. “My Aunty Gerry’s not ashamed to call herself an Anglican priest.”
“Out and proud as C of E? Good for her.”
“How about you, Neil? Are you out and proud? As a gay man, I mean, not as an ‘or what’.”
“Well, not that there’s been a lot to be out about lately, or proud, for that matter—”
“Ah, we’ll soon change that,” I interrupted.
Neil acknowledged it with a faint blush. “—but yeah. You? Can’t imagine you ever hiding who you are.”
“My family don’t hold with hiding, so you’d be right, there.”
Neil drew in a sharp breath that was swallowed up by the sound of the train clattering into the station. “Bloody hell,” he said, as the doors opened. He paused a minute as we were warned to Mind the gap. “They’re all going to be there, aren’t they? At the church. Your whole family. What the hell do you think they’re going to make of me rolling up, old enough to be your dad?”
“Trust me,” I said with a grin, as the train lurched into motion. “They’ll love you. Can’t guarantee the feeling will be mutual, mind.”
* * * *
Churches come into their own at Christmas time—even a heathen like me can appreciate stained glass windows lit up from inside, their jewel colours like lights on a child’s Christmas tree. When we pushed open the heavy oak doors of St Saviour’s, the warm smell of candle wax and pine cones drew us in. The place was packed already—St Saviour’s has a healthy congregation all year round, due in no small part to my Aunty Gerry—but at Christmas, everyone and his dog turns up. Though the dog has to wait in the porch, mind.
“We’d better go up to the gallery,” I murmured, but Mum spotted us. Well, with me in the psychedelic cardigan topped off with Aunty Mags’s tea-cosy, and Neil still wound up in Aunty Des’s scarf, she’d have had to have been struck blind not to.
She stood up and waved frantically, and an old man in the pew behind turned puce as her breasts jiggled in front of him in her low-cut top. “We’ve saved you a couple of spaces,” she called, her voice carrying effortlessly all through the jostling, laughing crowd to where Neil and I stood by the font.
“Sorry,” I murmured to Neil. “I tried to save you.”
“We’re in a church,” he said, shrugging as we made our way up the aisle. “What’s the worst that can happen?”
“You want me to answer that?” We sidled into the pew, and I laid my saxophone case on the kneeler. “Mum, this is Neil.”
She gave him a good look up and down before extending a hand. “Lily.”
Her eyes went wide as Neil bent to brush a kiss across it. “Oh, you’ll do,” she purred. “You’ll do very well indeed. I can’t wait to get to know you better.”
“Mum! I haven’t even got to know him better myself, yet!”
“If we’re talking biblically, here,” Neil muttered in my ear, “I think your mum and me are going to have to stay nodding acquaintances.”
“Pen-pals is good, too,” I whispered back, glaring at Mum. “If you look down the pew, you’ll see my aunties.”
Just because we don’t hold with her beliefs, they’ve always said, doesn’t mean we can’t support your Aunty Gerry in her chosen profession.
He looked. Aunty Mags showed him her dimples, and Aunty Des waved a bony hand. “I knitted that,” she mouthed, pointing at the Doctor Who scarf.
“It’s great,” he mouthed back, beaming, just as the organ struck up and Aunty Gerry came out in her gleaming white, a teddy bear dressed up as an angel.
The church fell silent as she opened wide her arms, welcoming us all in, and taking a good, hard look at the lot of us at the same time. Judge not, that ye not be judged, she always says, but there’s no harm in forming a preliminary opinion. When her gaze reached me and Neil, she gave a wicked grin.
“Welcome, all of you, to our service where we put the Mass into Christmas. All are welcome in God’s house, even if they’ve only rolled in because the pubs have shut—that’s right, you lot up in the gallery, I’ve got my eye on you and so’s my boss.” It was an eye that twinkled, nonetheless.
Well, Aunty Gerry’s was, anyhow. I couldn’t answer for the big guy.
“We’re going to start with hymn number seventeen on the carol sheet, ‘Silent Night.’ And that’s no excuse for just mouthing the words. I want to hear you raise a joyful sound to the Lord!” She gave Miri at the organ a fond smile as the intro crashed out.
I could tell Neil wasn’t too sure what to do when we got to the Peace. Me, I’ve always loved that part of the service. Usually—yeah, all right, I’ll admit I’ve been to a few services, and maybe I’m not so much of a heathen as I like to pretend—usually, it’s just a handshake and a “Peace be with you.” But at Midnight Mass, the place is filled with friends and neighbours working their way down the pews to wish each other Happy Christmas with a handclasp, a kiss, maybe even a hug.
The old guy behind us nearly had a stroke when Mum leaned over the back of the pew to give him a full-on embrace. Neil swallowed. I guessed he was thinking it’d be him next. I pulled him in close and gave him a peck on the cheek—hey, we were in church. The only tongues the Good Lord allows in his house, my Aunty Gerry always says, are the ones you speak in. “Happy Christmas,” I said, and glared at Mum over his shoulder to make sure she’d restrain herself.
“Happy Christmas,” she said, and gave us each a chaste hug.
After the service, everyone had a smile on their face. I offloaded my saxophone onto Mum, and Neil and I walked out into the porch to see snowflakes drifting down from the clouds. “Will you look at that?” I said in wonder. “It never snows in London at Christmas.” I leaned down to give my Aunty Gerry a kiss. “Know someone in high places, do you?” I asked her with a grin.
“That I do, my lad, and He’s told me to remind you what naughty boys get in their stockings.”
“What’s that, then?” I asked, wide-eyed.
“A great pair of legs—what else?” She cackled, and gave Neil a nod and a handshake. “I take it Miri and I won’t be seeing you back at the Rectory, then?”
“Not this year,” I said. “But give Miri a kiss from her favourite nephew, will you?”
“I’ll give her several. From her only nephew. Now, hold on a mo, I’ve got something for you.” She reached behind her for a moment then held out a crumpled carrier bag. “Happy Christmas—and remember: if you can’t be good—”
“—be careful,” I finished for her. I was guessing she’d got me the same present as last year, then. “Thanks, Aunty Gerry. You’re a peach.”
I kissed her cheek again, and she made shooing gestures. “Now get along with you! I’ve got the rest of the parish to shake hands with!”
I shoved the present into one of my voluminous pockets—Mum’s cardigan coming up trumps again—as we crunched on settling snow back through the churchyard.
“Miri?” Neil asked
“She’s the organist. And Aunty Gerry’s significant other.”
“Right.” Neil chuckled, a warm, soft sound like mulled wine on a cold winter’s night. “That explains a few things.”
We headed away from the crowd, cutting through side streets, and stopped under a streetlamp. Its light shone off the snowflakes that had fallen in Neil’s hair, blending with the silver and turning it to white gold. It seemed like another bit of magic had happened; we were alone, not another soul on the street. This was the crossing of the ways. “So…what’s it going to be?” I asked. “Down the hill to the Tube station—or up the hill and back to my place?”
“I’ve got to go,” Neil said, sounding like the words wrenched his heart as much as they wrenched mine. “Promised my sister I’d drive down for lunch tomorrow. The kids are expecting me to bring ‘em presents—they’re five and seven. I can’t let them down. And if I don’t get some sleep tonight I’ll never make it down to Devon in one piece.”
I stroked his cheek, the stubble rasping against my fingertips. “And if you came home with me, I can guarantee you wouldn’t get any sleep,” I said softly. Neil’s eyes closed under the caress, and his breath warmed my fingers, a teasing hint of the heat we could raise between us, if we only had the time.
Desperate, I looked around—and saw the entrance to a narrow alleyway between two boarded-up shops. I grabbed Neil by the hand and pulled him down it with me. It was free of winos, pre-digested booze, and other detritus of the night, thank God for a Christmas miracle.
“So I’d reckon it’s time we had that kiss we were saving for later,” I said, my voice coming out a little breathless.
“Well, it’s definitely later, now.” Neil glanced at his watch, not that he’d be able to see it in the sallow glow of the now-distant street light. “It’s so late, if we’re not careful it’s going to start getting early.”
“Can’t have that, now, can we?” I pulled him to me and slipped my arms around his waist, inside his trench coat. He felt warm and solid—in fact a certain part of him was getting more solid by the minute. Probably warmer, too.
“Never kissed anyone with a mohawk,” he said, his voice low and rough. His hands slid up to cup my face. “Wanted to. There was this boy who lived round the corner from my mum’s—I never even spoke to him, though. He was straight, and he wouldn’t have looked twice at me even if he hadn’t been.” A smile curled his breath. “You wouldn’t have looked twice at me, if you’d known me back then. And I don’t mean just because you’d have been in nappies. Weedy little thing, I was then.”
“Filled out nicely now, though.” I let my hands slip to his arse, and kneaded it to show him just one of the areas I was talking about. “Fine wine’s not the only thing that gets better with age.”
“I wouldn’t know. Give me a pint of beer any day.”
“A pint of beer, a bag of chips, and thou?” I misquoted with a grin.
“See? There you go again. Surprising me. I wouldn’t have thought you’d know your Omar Khayyam from your elbow.”
“That’s my Aunty Des’s influence. She doesn’t only do scarves, you know.” I reached out to unloop part of the scarf from around his neck, and put it around mine. “There. Let’s see you getting out of this.”
“Where there’s a will there’s a way. And I’ll be buggered if I’ve got the slightest bit of will-power where you’re concerned, my lad.”
“Then I’d say it’s time I gave you your Christmas present,” I said softly.
“So which alternate universe did you pop to the shops in, then? I’ll warn you now, I haven’t got you anything. I might be wearing Doctor Who’s scarf but I haven’t got a bloody TARDIS.”
“Ah, well that’s the beauty of it. See, my Christmas present to you is also your Christmas present to me.” I kissed him again, and without losing eye contact, unwound the loop of the scarf that was tying us together and lowered myself to my knees. In my head, “Edge of Glory” was playing, clear as day.
Neil drew in a sharp breath, and shivered. “Sure about this? It’s brass monkey weather out here.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t let anything freeze off.”
“Gonna keep it warm for me?”
“Oh, yeah.” Slowly, I pulled down his zip. His prick was straining at his boxer shorts, so I eased it out gently with a hand. “Doesn’t look like the cold’s affected it too badly.”
“You reckon? You should see me in a heatwave. Grown men run screaming.” His eyes closed briefly as I stroked him up and down. “Nah, it’s all down to you being so…fucking…hot.”
I stuck out my tongue to lick along the length of him, savouring his saltiness and breathing in his musk.
“God, don’t stop,” Neil panted, as I palmed his balls and swirled my tongue around the head of his cock. “Fucking amazing, that is. Fan-fucking-tastic.”
“You know, you’ve got a dirty mouth on you,” I mused. Then I wrapped my lips around his cock and started to suck. He filled my mouth nicely, heavy on my tongue. My jaw was gonna ache tomorrow; it’d be something to remember him by.
“Pot—fuck! Meet kettle. Christ, don’t stop.”
His hips were jerking, and I guessed he was having a hard time holding back from just thrusting down my throat. Damn, that was hot. I love it when a man loses control. I moved a hand onto his shaft to stop him choking me by mistake, and pumped him with my fist as I alternately sucked and licked at his cock head.
Neil’s balls tightened in my hand, and the curses became one continuous groan that was swallowed up by the darkness. I was harder than cold iron, desperate for a touch, so as his cock started to pulse I thrust a hand down my trousers and pumped my aching stiffie in rhythm with his spurts. Each tug was a crescendo of ecstasy. My breath caught and my head spun as I came, swallowing Neil’s come as I shot out my own, as if his orgasm was shooting right through my body and out through my cock into my underwear.
As Neil’s cock slipped from my lips, I collapsed against his hip. I felt dizzy, and I still couldn’t catch my breath.
Then I remembered I still had my hand in my pants, so I yanked it back out again and gulped in snow-flavoured air, able to breathe once more. Damn, those leather trousers were tight.
Neil’s hands were running over my head, stroking me feverishly.
“Don’t muss the mohawk,” I told him, my voice hoarse and shaky.
“Ah. Bit late. Sorry. You might want to put your hat back on before anyone sees you.”
I yanked my hand up to feel for the damage. “Hey—there’s nothing wrong with it!”
Neil laughed, the bastard. “Course there isn’t! You think I’d mess up your crowning glory?”
“Maybe not, but I just did,” I said ruefully, realising I’d just rubbed my own spunk all over my hair. Couldn’t seem to stop smiling, though.
Neil put his hands under my elbows and helped me to my feet. Maybe the moon had come out or something, because there was enough light to see he was wearing a smile to match my own as he zipped himself back up. I gave my hand a wipe on my T-shirt, just to be sure, then put my arms around him and kissed him, letting him taste himself in my mouth.
“Better let you go,” I said at last, since neither of us seemed in all that much of a hurry. “Don’t want you falling asleep at the wheel tomorrow.”
“Wish…” Neil sighed. “Wish you could come with me. The kids would love you.”
“Ah, but my mum would kill me. And serve me up cold on Boxing Day.”
Neil’s eyes twinkled. “I wouldn’t mind eating you on Boxing Day. Make a nice change from turkey.”
“There’s nothing wrong with turkey. I like a good bit of stuffing myself, I do.”
“That joke,” Neil said with a groan, “was old when I was a nipper.”
“Joke? What joke?” I said, wide-eyed. “I was talking about my Aunty Mags’s sage and onion.”
“Course you were. Course you were. And I’m Father Christmas.”
“Will you take me for a ride on your sleigh?”
“No, but if you’re a good boy I might bring you some goodies later.”
We walked out of the alley slowly, back to the street light, and stood there again in its ersatz moonlight. The clouds up above glowed orange from the lights of the city, and a couple of stray snowflakes came down to dust our shoulders and gild our hair. “So this is where we part ways,” I said, soft as the new-fallen snow. “Drive safely, now. And come back to me soon. I’m looking forward to our second date.”
Neil quirked an eyebrow. “On our first date, I’ve met your entire family, celebrated baby Jesus’s birthday, and had a blow job in a dark alley. Is there anything left for us to do on a second date?”
“I should hope so.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out Aunty Gerry’s Christmas present—a bumper-size pack of novelty condoms. “My aunty would be really disappointed if I didn’t use her present.”
He stared at the box. “What, all one hundred forty-four of them?”
I smirked. “Well, maybe we’d better go for a third date as well.”
THE END
Author’s Note
If you enjoy this story and would like to read more about Liam and Neil, please visit jlmerrow.com/free-reads/ive-got-my-love-to-keep-me-warm/ for a short coda set a year later.