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Rick turned seventeen years old and passed his driving test the very next day. This was it. This was freedom.
[Kieren can’t feel the wind anymore. Neurotryptilline does nothing for peripheral neurogenesis. He knows it is windy if he can see it with his failing eyes, through brown-tinted contact lenses, shaking delicate leaves from slender tree branches, or if the express train rattles past and the orange and white windsock fills up with the great exhale.]
Then, though, the day after Rick turned seventeen years old and passed his driving test; then, Kieren could feel the wind between his outspread fingers as Rick drove too fast down the muddy lanes outside Roarton.
“You’ll be wanting to take girls out for a spin, I’ll bet,” said Rick’s dad, like Kieren wasn’t even there.
“Yeah, Dad,” said Rick. “Something like that.” He looked at Kieren like they were sharing a joke and Kieren smiled back at him, helpless.
Rick’s dad slapped the top of the car, a battered, white Peugeot 106, that was as old as Rick.
“On you go, lad,” he said, like Kieren wasn’t even there.
“Let’s go to the funfair,” said Rick.
From the passenger seat, Kieren could look at, and admire, the curve of Rick’s cheek and the barest hint of hair, wispy and dark, on his upper lip. Kieren’s fingers itched to touch, or to paint, and boys didn’t think other boys were beautiful but Rick and Kieren were each other’s secret.
=
“Why d’you always hang about with that fairy?” Rick’s dad asked over dinner.
Best not to answer. Best to think instead, about how Kieren’s hair was ginger, however often he said he was strawberry blonde, and to think about how Rick’s mum made strawberry pavlova for his birthday.
“They’re never out of season now, love,” she said. “And I know they’re your favourite. Wonder of the modern world, eh? They’ve come all the way from South Africa, imagine.”
Sometimes, Rick’s mum talked to fill the awkward silence left by Rick’s dad. More often, she was defeated. She wasn’t scared, though, Rick thought. Not the way Rick was.
“You’re a handsome lad,” said Rick’s dad. “Bet you’ve got your choice of the lasses at that school.”
Rick shrugged. Maybe he did but it didn’t really matter. Rick played rugby and cricket and football. He was sporty where Kieren was arty.
“Sporty spice,” said Kieren, one day, giggling into his cheap cider.
“Ginger spice,” said Rick.
“Not ginger,” said Kieren, his voice shrill in an instant.
“She was the sexy one,” said Rick. He could feel the back of his neck heating up and when he gathered up the courage to look at Kieren, Kieren’s smile was bright as the sun.
=
Ren’s parents knew about the cave, and so did Jem, but they knew it was Kieren’s place and they left it alone, till dinner time. Ren’s father called for them from the bottom of the field and his voice would echo off living trees and dead stone and they had to go back to the real world, following the thread of his voice.
Rick thought it was nice, the way Kieren’s dad loved him.
The cave was Rick’s place, too, and it was a place his dad knew nothing about. Love wasn’t a word that was heard or spoken much, in the Macy household. Sometimes, Rick’s dad loved Scholes’ latest goal or he loved the Sunday roast Rick’s mum put in front of him but Rick wasn’t sure if his dad loved another living person, so much as the idea of them.
If Rick scored a try, his dad was proud. If Rick came home a little drunk, his dad was indulgent provided Rick didn’t let on he’d gotten drunk with Ren.
If Kieren missed the bus, his dad would drive him to school with nothing more than a long-suffering sigh.
If Rick missed the bus, his dad would promise him a thrashing.
=
Sometimes, Kieren and Rick played a game. It was an imaginary game and, at first, Rick always felt like a bit of a tosser but Kieren’s eyes were so big and brown and pleading that Rick felt he could never say no for long.
Kieren loved to imagine their future. Kieren never doubted their future would be together.
[Kieren still imagines. It is a wonder that he can hope at all, after everything.
What if.
What if Rick had never joined the Army and what if he had gone with Kieren to Sheffield and what if they had lived?]
Rick liked Kieren’s game, really. Even if his future varied from the fantastical (playing for Manchester United) to the mundane (working in a coffee shop while Ren became a great artist).
He supposed he never doubted their future would be together, too.
=
“Have you thought about colleges, yet?” his mum asked one evening.
Rick’s dad let out a roar of laughter. “Why would our Rick be looking at colleges? He’s joining the Army, like I’d’ve done, given half the chance.”
Rick’s dad didn’t get into the Army. Rick wasn’t sure what kind of a man that the Army turned down but his dad was one of them.
“Where’s Kieren going, love?”
“That poof? Who bleeding cares where he’s going? Some arty place, no doubt, with all them other poofs.”
Rick put his head down and didn’t think about the college prospecti sitting in his schoolbag.
=
The Walker family went on holiday every year. For two weeks, they’d go camping, maybe in Cornwall or maybe in Scotland. Their old Volvo estate would trundle off and it would invariably be raining and Rick would always watch them go, and see how Kieren peered out through the back window, waving frantically.
When Kieren was gone, Rick kissed some girls. He went to the pub with his dad and they always served him, even though he was seventeen, because his father was Bill Macy (the kind of man that the Army turned down).
When Kieren came back, they drank cider, stolen from the corner shop, in Kieren’s cave.
The Macy family never went on holiday.
=
Kieren got into college, of couse. An art college in London.
Rick laughed because he was overjoyed for Ren, because London was a whole other world where people like Ren were okay.
Kieren and Rick’s mum kept asking what he was going to do after school.
Rick said nothing but his father knew. His father had driven him to the recruitment office one Saturday.
=
Rick’s car had a cassette player and a radio that only worked intermittently.
Kieren made him mix-tapes. He dug out his father’s old ghettoblaster and painstakingly made eight mixes for Rick. It was harder than just burning a CD or making a playlist. Kieren had to hit [REC] at just the right time and [PAUSE] and there was always a little hitch in the tape, between songs.
Kieren’s fingers drummed on his thigh and he sat in the passenger seat, slouched against the door, and he smiled at Rick.
=
[Kieren’s tear ducts itch something awful. Maybe it’s phantom pain and phantom grief but he can’t cry.]
Kieren cried when Rick told him he was joining the army. He waved his arms like an adolescent windmill and he shouted at Rick until he was hoarse.
It was all Rick could do, to gather Ren into his arms and stroke his back and tell him it would be okay. It wasn’t for ever. He’d never leave Ren for ever.
“I’m holding you to that, you utter, utter bastard,” said Kieren, his voice hoarse and hiccuping.
Rick looked at Kieren and nodded, helpless to say no.
=
“Do you’ve a girl back home?” his staff sergeant asked him, in the white hot sunlight in Afghanistan.
Rick shielded his eyes with his hand and looked up at him. “Something like that, sir.”