Page 163 of Proof By Contradiction
He almost grins, almost. Then he’s gone. The door is closing. His footsteps on the stairs are quick, the pace of someone walking towards the next thing.
Laurence comes back, drying his palms. Looks at the empty sofa where Ron was.
‘Where did he go?’
‘He’s figuring something out,’ I say.
He raises an eyebrow, the Haldrey eyebrow. God, I love that eyebrow.
‘Cryptic.’
‘Not my secret to tell.’
Something softens in his face at that. Approval, maybe. Or recognition.
He sets the tea towel down. Steps towards me. Just there.
I lean into him—my forehead against his collarbone.
The dishes done, the table cleared, peace settling into the space between us.
Five people exist in this kitchen now: my mother’s hand under the table, my father’s hand on a record sleeve, my brother’s boots heading towards a tram, and this man standing in a kitchen that smells of burnt cheese and home.
His chin rests on top of my head. The weight of it. Holding. Just holding.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
July in Manchester is a rumour that occasionally comes true. The sun appears at six and doesn’t leave until half ten, as if making up for nine months of neglect, and the city responds like cities do when they’re not used to being looked at, startled. Grateful. Canal Street gets its tables out. Chorlton fills with brunch queues. The Metrolink trams carry people in T-shirts instead of parkas, which is the Mancunian equivalent of a national holiday.
I work in a bookshop in the Northern Quarter. Secondhand, mostly. Basement and a cat and old glue, and a cat named Euler who sits on the maths section and judges everyone. The owner hired me because I alphabetised the philosophy shelf without being asked and because, his words, ‘you’re the first applicant who didn’t ask if we sell candles.’
Laurence tutors. Three A-level students and two undergrads. The money isn’t much.
The position is still pending. Merton put a word in, and the paperwork moves at the speed of academic bureaucracy, which is the speed of continental drift with less urgency.
We live.
That’s the word. Live. Saturday mornings, I walk to the bookshop, and Laurence tutors at home, and we meet at the Chorlton café at noon. I’ve got dust on my fingers, and we sit at the table by the window and eat eggs, and the eating-eggs is so ordinary it makes my chest do this—thing.
We hold hands on Canal Street. In public, in daylight. His hand around mine, the grip easy, not desperate, not stolen. Just a man holding another man’s hand on a pavement in the sun. Nobody cares. A drag queen outside a bar wolf-whistles, and Laurence goes red from the collar up, and I file this underthings that are worth the entire past year.
We kiss at a traffic light on Oxford Road. Because the light was red and he was there, and I wanted to. So I kissed him. In front of two students, a bus driver, and a woman with a pram, who smiled.
Ordinary. Didn’t know I’d want it.
Somewhere in June, sex became funny again. I came home from the bookshop, and he was on the sofa reading, and I crawled on top of him, and his book fell, and we fucked on the floor with the windows open and the six o’clock news murmuring from the flat upstairs.
Afterwards, he said, ‘You’ve got carpet burn on your back,’ and I said, ‘That’s the best review I’ve ever received,’ and we ordered Thai food and ate it in bed and fucked again, and that’s what it is now.
Just a body I know meeting a body that knows me, and the knowing might be the best part.
Somewhere in June, sex became casual and funny again. I came home from the bookshop, and he was on the sofa reading, and I crawled on top of him, and his book fell, and we fucked on the sofa with the windows open and the six o’clock news murmuring from the flat upstairs.
Afterwards, he said, ‘You’ve got carpet burn on your back,’ and I said, ‘That’s the best review I’ve ever received,’ and we ordered Thai food and ate it in bed, and that’s what it is now.
Just a body I know meeting a body that knows me, and the knowing might be the best part.
July. Wales. A cottage near Harlech that Laurence found online for eighty pounds a night, which means the photos were generous. The ceiling sags. The shower makes a noise like a dying animal. The bed is narrower than the one in the halls, which I didn’t think was architecturally possible.
