Chapter Seventeen

 

 

As the days passed I had cause to doubt my hypothesis about us being okay with what happened between us, or at least him being okay with it. He did one of his disappearing acts. I didn’t see sight or hear sound of him. He was like the elusive Scarlet Pimpernel.

At first I wasn’t worried. I had college to prepare for and I was due to visit my mother and sister for a few days. I was to be an usher at Jo’s wedding in the spring and she wanted to start the fittings for my suit. I tried contacting him to let him know I’d be away, but he didn’t answer his door or reply when I buzzed his apartment. I left a note in his mailbox and told him when I’d be back, inviting him to call in for a coffee. He didn’t.

I knew he had a house phone. I’d seen it in his kitchen, mounted on the wall, but I didn’t know its number and I couldn’t find one listed in the directory. I had no email address. He didn’t own a mobile. The man lived downstairs from me, but he might as well have been a hundred miles away. It was frustrating.

The first day of the new college term arrived. The first week back was always hectic with new students to get to know. It needed my full attention, but I was distracted on two counts, first with worries about Dee-Dee, and second by the constant checking of my phone for messages. I knew why. I faced it. I was hoping James would contact me to ask how the term had started and what my first impression of the new influx of students was. He didn’t. The line had been drawn. He was not going to cross it to any degree. I composed messages, rewrote them again and again and deleted them without sending. The action ended each time with me condemning myself as a fool.

My distraction didn’t go unnoticed. Tony asked if I was all right. He also warned me the principal had been voicing concerns about my apparent lack of focus and enthusiasm. I made an effort to be more professional and push aside my private life when at work.

One evening towards the end of the first week I returned from work and checked my mailbox before going up to my place, as I always did. There was a letter from my mother. I recognised her neat handwriting. I knew what it was likely to contain. She had taken to sending me pictures of male civil partnership couples cut from the wedding section of local newspapers, as if to encourage me that gay men could find love and domestic bliss if they really put their minds to it.

I also found an envelope containing a sum of money. A return of the money I had lent Dee-Dee. There was a note written on the front of the envelope. It said: ‘thank you for the loan. I’ll never forget your kindness to me.’

I frowned, suddenly angry. What the hell was going on with him? Why hadn’t he returned it in person? The note had an air of finality about it, like a goodbye. Stuffing the money in my briefcase I stalked up the stairs to my apartment. Taking off my jacket I flung it over the back of the couch and went into the kitchen to make a pot of coffee. I was pouring a cup when there was a knock on my apartment door. I wasn’t expecting anyone.

My spirits rose. I’d misjudged the tone of the note. I hurried to open the door, intending to ask where the fuck he’d been hiding himself and why. It wasn’t him. Disappointment turned my stomach over. I tried to keep it from showing on my face, smiling at my visitor. “Hi, Sue. This is a surprise.” I held the door open a little wider. “Come in. I’ve just made coffee.”

“Thanks, smells heavenly, but I haven’t got time, Simon. I have to pick up my mother as of five minutes ago to take her to the doctors.”

“What can I do for you?”

“I feel a bit silly to be honest. It’s probably nothing, but I’ve just seen Dee-Dee. I think there might be something wrong.”

“Why, where did you see him?” My heart thumped with alarm.

“He’s kneeling by the side of the road near The Unicorn pub, do you know it?”

I nodded.

“I was on my way home from work a few minutes ago when I spotted him. I couldn’t stop because of the flow of traffic. I haven’t got time to go back now. I wondered if you’d go and check if he’s okay?”

“No problem.”

Grabbing my car keys I walked down the stairs with her. “What makes you think something is wrong, Sue?”

“It’s the way he’s crouched in the gutter. I beeped my horn, but he didn’t even look up. It seems odd, even for him.”

“He’s a law unto himself all right. I haven’t seen him for over a fortnight. I’ve tried, but he’s been elusive.”

“He might have had an attack of depression.”

“What makes you say that?” I felt a wash of sick guilt.

“His uncle told Bob that Dee-Dee was prone to episodes of depression where he’d lock himself in his room and take to his bed for days if something upset him.”

The guilt increased. I hated the thought that what had happened between us had upset him enough to trigger off a bout of depression. I understood more and more why his uncle had wanted to protect him by providing him with a safe little world of his own. I felt I’d gatecrashed it.

Sue and I parted in the car park, she going off to attend to her mother and me to attend to Dee-Dee.