halfaloafeach

Half a Loaf Each

I suppose I should have been suspicious when CI5's resident Scrooge started talking about Christmas at all, but, we'd been on stakeout for what felt like several years, and on long stakeouts you take your conversational subjects where you find them. So I never thought twice about it when Christmas somehow got itself added to the list of things we talked about while waiting for something to happen.

I'd probably have been more suspicious if I hadn't been so interested. Usually he takes a sort of "Lord, what fools these mortals be" line on the whole thing; so when he started talking, and particularly when he started talking about Christmas when he was a kid, I pinned back my ears. Normally he doesn't talk about his childhood, which given the way he can witter on about nothing in particular is significant in itself, so when he did seem prepared to open up, I was more than prepared to listen.

It was a strange conversation. He was talking in a very detached way, as though it had all happened to someone else--maybe that was the only way he could talk about it at all. It seems that Christmas when he was a kid was just another front in the long running War between the Doyles; with Ray in the middle, never sure whether the warring factions were going to blame him or try and recruit him, never sure whether he was in for lavish presents or a damn good hiding.

Not that it all came out like that, I had to keep prompting him with bits and pieces from my childhood to keep it coming. I should have remembered what a bloody good interrogator he is.

I didn't mind talking about it, not really. My life hasn't exactly been a picnic, but at least for the first 12 years I had it pretty damn good. We might have been piss poor but, until Gran died and that bastard moved in on Mam, I had it all, plenty of love and someone to come home to. Christmas was just the same--only more so.

I can still remember coming home from school to find the Christmas baking had started, not the cake and the puddings they were done in September, but everything else, mince pies, mince tarts, maids of honour, parkin, gingerbread men, brandy snaps, swiss rolls (Gran was the only woman I've ever met who made her own swiss rolls). The trip into town on the bus to see the Father Christmas in Blacklers; making Christmas cards at school and bringing them home shoved up my jumper to keep them dry and Mam trying to be cross because the dye from the crepe paper had come off all over my school shirt; the years when Uncle Andy's ship was in and he brought us presents from all over the world; the little curved wooden sword from Africa he gave me when I was about 8, I was Sinbad for weeks after that.

I felt a bit mean when it was over. There's him talking about Christmas at Dotheboys Hall, and I'm talking like something out of a Capra film, but he didn't seem to mind, and after a couple of days I forgot about it.

And then somehow we ended up agreeing to have a proper Christmas dinner together. At the time I thought I was doing him a favour, but when I went round the following Saturday he was making the pudding. The smell when I went through the door was like I dunno...a Tardis or something. In an instant I was back at 43 Kitchener Terrace, coming home from school. I was half-surprised to find I wasn't wearing a balaclava and mittens on a string. Proust can keep his madeleines: give me the smell of Christmas pud steaming.

It was a funny sort of day. We couldn't go out and leave the pudding--I'd forgotten how long the damn things take to steam--so we stayed in, had a few beers and watched the footy. I can't remember who was playing, I wasn't thinking about the match, I'd started to wonder.

He was going to so much trouble--the pudding and everything--but it was the presents that really got me thinking. He told me, more or less straight out, that he'd bought me a proper present. At first I thought he was just angling for a decent prezzie back, but then I realised: he just didn't want me to embarrass myself by turning up with a life-sized cardboard cut-out of Cowley, or an inflatable sheep, or any of the things I might have brought along for a laugh.

And once I realised that, I started to do the one thing life teaches you never to do--I started to hope.

You see, for a long time he'd been one of those things I wanted but knew I could never have--like a '68 Maserati or that bastard Willis' head on a platter--things inherently desirable but regrettably unobtainable. So I'd settled for what I could get, following him upstairs, enjoying the view; copping the occasional friendly feel; interested--oh yes, definitely interested--but not...not that bothered, you know?

I'm still not sure when it all changed. It must have been after Anne, because I remember being genuinely happy for him, wandering around all lit up like a Christmas tree. I hardly knew the woman but what I knew I liked, and I really thought he might make a go if it, was sorry when it didn't work out for him. So it must have been after that, and it must have been before he got shot, because I remember how afraid I was in that bloody ambulance, afraid and angry. That's supposed to be impossible, that's why they get soldiers and boxers worked up before a fight, but I can distinctly remember being scared shitless and mad as hell, as the ambulance jolted its way over every fucking pothole in Greater London.

I had no hope back then. I was 99% certain Ray was straight as a die, you can usually tell. Not that he's prejudiced, he's probably the least prejudiced man I've ever met, even if half the time that just means he treats everybody equally badly. He might even have tried it, he's not a prude and he's certainly not a coward; but if he had, it didn't "take". He just doesn't think about blokes like that; he doesn't add us into the equation when deciding where to go to get his end away.

He was the best friend I'd ever had, or was ever likely to have, and that was going to have to be enough. It wasn't his fault I'd tipped over the edge from friendly lust into something better and worse, it was mine, nobody's fault but mine. So it was up to me to take care of it, make sure he never found out, that it never made him feel guilty or uneasy or upset. My problem, I'd take care of it. I did a pretty good job of it too, though I say so myself; at least until last Christmas.

I'd always done my best not to hope, stomped on it quick when ever it raised its stupid head, but that Christmas I seemed to have lost the knack. We were dashing around like blue-arsed flies--the Christmas bombing campaign was particularly nasty that year--and I'd have to make myself concentrate on the job in hand, because every thing he did and and everything he said seemed full of hidden meaning. I found I was trying to decode everything he said for hints of what he "really" meant. Hoping, and calling myself forty kinds of fool for doing it, and completely unable to stop.

Then, after four of the most exhausting days of my life, we ended up in the Munster Arms in Kilburn, looking for a toerag called Meaney, who could probably be "persuaded" to tell us what he knew.

It's funny the things that get to you. There was a sing song going on, and I'm over by the door and Doyle's in the middle of the crowd, because his accent is better than mine. He's sitting there completely knackered, all eyes and limp curls, and he's singing Irish Republican songs; and I'm getting all choked up because he knows the words. They've got to verse about 127, and he's singing his little heart out, and I'm wondering how long I could get away with kissing him for before he decked me. I'd just about decided it might be worth it, when in strolled Hanlon and the rest is history.

After that we got three days off. I could tell Cowley had something bloody awful planned for us, but I was damned if I was going to think about that

I've always liked Doyle's flats; he's got a knack for creating at least the illusion of permanency; within a couple of days of moving in, it looks like he's lived there for years. I used to think that was a bit pathetic--grown man playing Housey--but I've come to realise that maybe he's got the right of it. My flats are clean and dry and private, which is more that can be said for most of the places I've lived in, but his are more like a home. I spend a lot of time round his place.

As soon as I got through the door, I realised he'd put the heating on for me. Usually he just uses the fire and forgets about the central heating. Today it had obviously been on since the small hours, the whole flat was warmed right through, and he was wandering around in jeans and a T-shirt. A fact that did absolutely nothing for my peace of mind.

Then he gave me my present. You know the way people buy you things they'd like themselves? Not this time, he'd bought me a sleeping bag; not one of those horrible, cheap, nylon ones Cowley allows us, not even one of the rotten bags we had in the army (for an elite force we didn't half have some crap kit). No, this was a wonderful, mountaineer's sleeping bag from Scandinavia, two thicknesses so you could pull it apart in summer, broad across the shoulders, with a quick release system, so you could get out of it in a hurry, must have cost a packet. I must have been sitting there with a fatuous smile on my face, because he made a sarky comment and dived into the kitchen. I couldn't help it, it was such a...considerate present. He doesn't feel the cold, he's the only person I've ever met who doesn't snuggle down in a sleeping bag, but he'd thought about it, and he'd bought me a present to fill a need he doesn't share.

The dinner was perfect, everything I remembered exactly as I remembered it (except for the veg, we always seemed to have our veg boiled to buggery when I was a kid).

We had a lot to drink and it wasn't long before we got to that stage where everything's hilarious. He was telling me stories from his days on the beat; the woman who dialled 999 when the turkey didn't defrost; the time he had to break down the door so the ambulance men could get to a couple, stuck together by some weird muscle spasm. So I told him about the time Tonka Harrison tried to take his wife on a second honeymoon and we abseiled down the side of the hotel and sabotaged the bed; about the time the Jehovah's Witnesses came round and Gran sent off them off with a flea in their ears; the Christmas Uncle Andy took me to Goodison Park for the Boxing Day fixture and I was sick all down his leg on the bus going home.

Which was when he told me about the man called Jack.

He was some kind of cousin, moved back into the area when Ray was still at primary school. He'd been in Bomber Command during the war, must have been in his forties by then, and he took an interest in Ray. Gave him sketch pads and coloured pencils and a real leather football; told him it was all right to hate his parents because they were hateful people. Then, come the Christmas, he took Ray to the Boxing Day match at the local rugby club, the only outing he'd had that Christmas; and gave him shop-bought mince pies and coffee laced with rum at half time. Then, on the way home, he took Ray into a dark corner and put his hand down the front of his little grey Sunday-best trousers.

He's sitting back in his chair as he tells me all this. He doesn't look upset or anything, in fact he looks faintly surprised. "I've never told anyone about that," he says.

It's an ugly story, but even so, it makes me feel warm. He'd never told anyone but he told me, and the way my mind's been working the last few days, it feels significant, like a mark of trust or something. I wanted to say something, but I couldn't think what, and he moved on to a story about a burglar who got stuck halfway through a window and someone came along and stole his trousers, and the moment was lost.

It was just after that we had the pudding--and for the first time in 20 years it's the right pudding, dark and dense and packed with fruit. I made him turn the lights out so we could see the flames when we set it alight.

By now the whole thing was starting to seem unreal because he's got the whole meal exactly right, down to the sixpenny bits in the pudding, (and where the hell did he find sixpenny bits?) I must have told him all this stuff, but I've had a fair bit to drink and I can't remember doing it. I made the mistake of asking him, and he just laughed like a drain, he could see it was driving me nuts not knowing.

Even I couldn't manage more than two helpings and we adjourned to the fire with a bottle of Irish (only produced after I solemnly promised not to tell the Cow), and I am so fucking happy. It has to mean something, it has to, all this time and trouble, it has to mean something.

He's laughing and talking, and I'm laughing and listening, and I could watch him for hours. He's got such a beautiful mouth; sometimes I think it would be enough just to kiss him--just to feed off that blatant, brazen, beautiful mouth.

This is, of course, compete bollocks. The truth is I want it all, that mouth, those hands, that skin, that throat (he's got such an edible throat), that filthy laugh, that filthy temper and everything else, from the grey in his temples to his size nine plates, by way of the fluff on his chest and the contents of his jeans.

I don't understand it, he's not even my type--usually I like 'em tall, dark and handsome. He's not particularly tall, he's not particularly dark and he's certainly not handsome, at least not most of the time. It's just sometimes...I don't know what it is, but you'll be looking at him and thinking he's nothing special and then something happens; there's a shift of the light or something, and all of a sudden he's so beautiful it hurts.

When that happens, I find myself thinking the unthinkable. What would it be like? What would it be like to lie on my belly and feel him cramming himself inside me inch by inch--in a little, out a little, in a little further, until I held him, grounded against me, all of him, all mine.

And I was thinking this and trying to decide what to do, with my heart pounding and my head thick with food and Irish and happiness, when he did it again. He stretched in his chair--a great, big, glad-to-be-alive stretch which turned his body into one, long, skinny line, gilded by the lamp light.

My mouth went dry. He dropped back into the chair, scratching at his chest, the drag of the T-shirt bringing his nipples into sharp relief and I couldn't help it. I'd been thinking about it for too long and I'd had far too much to drink to be sensible.

So I opened my big, fat, stupid mouth and said what couldn't be taken back. I said, "Ray, please...I want..." I couldn't say any more and I didn't have to.

He froze. I don't think I've ever seen him quite so shocked. He had a glass in his hand and, after a few seconds, he bent down to put it on the floor. I was desperately trying to think of something I could say, something that would make everything all right again, but before I could think of anything, he straightened up. Whatever had been on his face before had gone, and he looked at me without speaking for what felt like forever, and then he said, "All right."

Suddenly it's like I'm in freefall, there's a roaring in my ears and I'm terrified and exhilarated and there's nowhere to go but forwards, no choice, no turning back because I've wanted this for so long and now it's here. He's here: warm and real and more alive than anything I've ever seen. He walks before me into the bedroom, pulling his T-shirt over his head and the muscles in his back and shoulders flex, and I swear my heart turns over.

I should have written it down afterwards, I should have written it down. It's the first rule you learn when you join The Squad. Short term memory fades fast, doesn't matter how awful or how wonderful the memories are, you start to forget almost at once. Now I can't remember what he did, not all of it. I know he had to help me out of my clothes because my hands were trembling so badly, but what did he do next? I know I wanted to kiss him but he wouldn't let me. I remember the feel of his hands, hard and sure and gentle, I remember his breath on my skin. I remember I cried out when he took me in his mouth and I tried to hold on, to know it all, but I couldn't; and when I came, it tore me apart, the beauty and the pleasure and the wonder of it.

I would have done anything for him then; I would have rolled over for him if he'd wanted, but he didn't. So I held him against my heart as he sobbed and twisted in my arms and, when he came, I held him tight, the way I've always wanted someone to hold me, held him tight until it was over.

And afterwards there were things I knew I should say and things I knew I should do, but he was warm and boneless in my arms, and my throat was full of something hard, and so I held him in the dark and, after a while, we both slept.

I woke up alone. It was still very dark and the bedside clock said 2.30. I was lying on top of the duvet and the other half had been folded over to keep me warm. There was dead silence in the rest of the flat, and I found I was being quiet too as I fumbled around for my trousers and T-shirt.

He's sitting in front of the fire, and he's fully dressed. In fact, he's more fully dressed than I've ever seen him, collar buttoned up, cuffs buttoned down, and a jacket I'd never seen before buttoned across his chest. He's got a glass in his hand, but I take a quick look at the bottle and I'm pretty sure he's not had much.

But it's the look on his face that gets to me. I've not seen that look since Anne left him, since Cookie died. He's grieving: and because I'm so happy, I say what I think will make it all all right. I say, "I love you, Ray," and he says, "No, you don't."

I'd run this scene in my mind so many times I thought I'd come up with every possible response, from 'I love you too' to 'piss off you pervert'--it never once occurred to me that he wouldn't believe me. And the way he says it, almost indulgently, as though I'd tried a stupid leg pull even I couldn't expect to succeed.

I suppose I ought to be angry, he ought to know I wouldn't lie about a thing like that, but by now the alarm bells are going off at the back of my skull, because he's in a bad way. I can tell by how he's sitting, how he's holding his glass.

After a bit he takes a slug and says, "So, how long have you wanted me?"

I've no idea what the right answer is, so I tell him the truth. "From the beginning." And he flinches, a real honest to god physical flinch, as though I'd slapped him.

He looks down into his glass. "So, it was never friendship then?" And I can see he's close to tears and I don't understand any of this.

"Can't it be both?" I'm trying to be gentle but I don't like not understanding.

He shrugs and I can see how tired he is. "I don't know," he says. "Can it?"

I think that's the bleakest thing I've ever heard him say. I can't imagine what it must be like, never to have had someone who was lover and friend. He looks up and misunderstands completely. "It's okay," he says. "I'll still sleep with you, if you want."

I could have hit him. I love him, and after last night I thought he loved me. I don't want him like that--doing it because I want it, even if he doesn't. Can't he see that? And of course he can't. The poor bastard, knows everything there is to know about sex and bugger all about love. I wonder if he thinks he has to pay with sex to keep me around. I've always rather liked knowing I'm the only real friend he's got--I'd never thought how vulnerable that makes him.

The little antique clock on the mantelpiece chimes quarter to three, we're on duty in four and a bit hours and he hasn't slept. I take the glass out of his hands and kneel in front of him.

"We're not doing that again, Ray," I say. "Not until you want it too."

"I don't mind."

I pull him to his feet. One last go to make him understand, so I say things I thought I'd never get the chance to say out loud. I say, "I love you, Ray. That's not going to change." I say," I'm your friend and I love you. I don't want us doing it because you don't mind. I want us to do it because we both want it, because we can't help ourselves and wouldn't if we could."

He isn't saying anything. I can almost see the cogs turning as he tries to make sense of it all, and I realise I'll probably have to say it all over again in the morning, in the cold light of day with nothing to hide behind. He's too tired now to change the way he's always looked at the world.

I badly want to hug him, because this is all so sad, but I'm worried he might misunderstand. I take him into the bedroom and find his pyjamas and leave him to get undressed. I have a glass of water and a slash and when I get back, he's in bed. Then, because I don't want to lose what we've always had, I find my pants and get into bed in my underwear.

He's too tired to stay awake long but I'm not, and I lie there for hours, thinking dismal three a.m. thoughts. I wonder how badly I've hurt him. I wonder if he really thinks I've hung around all these years just for a chance to have him. I wonder if he sees me as nothing but another Jack--shop-bought mince pies and a hand down his trousers. I realise I never kissed him and now I might never get the chance. Time crawls by, and I can't help running and rerunning the conversation in my head, until I know the damn thing off by heart. Eventually, I reach for the tried and tested, and lie there dismantling small arms in my head until I fall asleep.

I wake up first. It's still 20 minutes before we have to be up and it's freezing, the heating has turned itself off. I roll over onto my side and pulled the duvet up over my ears. He's lying on his stomach with his face turned away but I can feel him, the heat of his body and the gentle movement of his breathing and, despite everything that happened, part of me is happy just to be here.

It's not the middle of the night any more, and my head isn't fuddled with sex and booze, and when I think back over yesterday, it all looks a lot different. I've remembered now when it was I told him about Christmas dinner; it was during the Janowitz stakeout and that's eight weeks ago. He'd been planning this, for me, for eight weeks, planning and keeping it secret and then enjoying the fact that I was enjoying it. Telling me about the childhood he's always hidden, just to get the details out of me, telling me things he's never told anyone, because I'm me and he trusts me.

And here, in this bed, he didn't have to do that. He could have refused, he could have thumped me, hell, the state I was in, he could have tossed me off in about 30 seconds flat--but he didn't. Maybe he did think he had to do it for some stupid reason or other, but he didn't have to do it like that, with care and gentleness and generosity. Besides, if he'd hated it, would he have come too? If his todger's anything like the standard issue, the damn thing's on automatic pilot most of the time, but I never laid a finger on him, so how did he get so desperate for it so quick? I shiver, because one thing I do remember is the way we held onto each other afterwards.

The fears of 3 a.m. look a bit silly in the cold dark of day (it won't be dawn for another couple of hours). He's not a terrified 9 year old any more, he's the most dangerous man I know. He's also the most alone. I wonder if anyone has ever put him first, has ever said, "We can't do that, there's Ray to think about."? At least I've got the memories, at least I know what it's like.

He's never had a lover who was a friend, how would he know what it feels like? Maybe he feels more than he knows, maybe he just couldn't recognise what it was he was feeling.

One thing's for sure, if something like that is lurking in his subconscious, it ain't going to stay hidden for long. I've never met anyone like him for rummaging around in the back of his own skull and picking over what he finds. Nothing he likes better than a couple of hours spent fretting over what he's done and why he's done it. Usually it drives me nuts, but for once I reckon it just might work to my...to our advantage, because if there is anything in there, he's dogged enough and brave enough to make sure he finds it.

Right, the first thing on the agenda was making sure we didn't lose the friendship, if we were going to move forward, we couldn't start by falling back. Second thing on the agenda, trying not to let hope run away with me. I was going to have to balance it all very carefully. It was all very well dissecting his motives, but it's like those conversations you practice in your head, they always sound great until the other person doesn't react the way you want. I didn't really know what was going on between his ears; I'd have to leave room for him to make his own decisions, and I'd have to make sure I could cope with whatever decision he made.

He's starting to wake up now and I roll over onto my back, so he doesn't turn over and find me peering at him from a distance of about 3 inches. He turns his head and blinks at me, instantly awake, instantly wary, so I say the first thing that comes into my head. "What happened with Jack?"

I can tell he's startled, but he answers readily enough. "Was so frightened I wet m'self." He grins his sharkish grin. "Didn't like feeling like that, so the next day I swapped the football for a flick."

Yeah, that's the Doyle I know. I'm glad he could take care of himself back then, even if I wish he hadn't had to. "What's for breakfast?"

"You've got a choice: turkey, turkey, turkey or cold Christmas pudding."

"Got any custard left?"

He shudders elaborately and swings out of bed, scratching at his chest as he heads for the bathroom. "You would an'all, wouldn't you?"

"I'm a growing boy," I protest.

"The amount you eat, you ought to be nine foot tall by now."

So that's the way he wants to play it. Well, I'd leave it like that for the time being. I was going to have to make sure he understood how it was for me, but not now. For now it's enough to know I haven't broken anything that can't be mended.

I force myself out of bed and hurry into my clothes, there's no way I can watch him getting dressed. I head for the kitchen, where I run the taps for the washing up. There's a howl of anguish from the bathroom, I hadn't noticed the shower was running.

I turn them off and put the kettle on, enjoying the familiar sound of cursing coming from the bathroom; he always did have a lovely turn of phrase.

We have breakfast together--there's bacon in the fridge--and leave for work. It's Boxing Day and the streets are almost empty. He's sprawled in the passenger seat, making rude comments about my driving and I can live like this if I have to. It isn't all I want, not by a long chalk, it's not what I'm going to try to get, but it's a hell of a lot more than I've had for 20 years, and I suspect it's more than he's ever had.

It might be only half a loaf for both of us, but it is the very best bread.

The End

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