Opposite him, as Leonard had been speaking, Adrian had tipped his head back and begun laughing aloud.
“Couple of bloody idiots, the pair of us. My mother called it right. Men get worse at communicating as they get older.”
Leonard grinned and shook his head. He agreed with Adrian’s. Throughout his life, the straight men he knew fell over themselves to avoid talking about his sexuality. Feeling as though they had grown closer through their confessions and also taking advantage of their laughter, Leonard decided to lead the conversation in a more personal direction.
“Did you ever have anyone special, Ade?”
“No,” said Adrian, his humour gone, his tone flat and short. Leonard heard the hint of sadness in his voice. “Plenty of—um—encounters, especially in my twenties and thirties, but no keepers, if you know what I mean.”
“I’m not just saying this to be nice—and because I need a decent and reliable builder—but honestly, Ade, I really find that really hard to believe. How old are you now?”
“Forty-nine.”
“And you’re still a catch. You’re such a nice guy, with a warm personality and a great sense of humour. Oh, hang on a minute. Is this because of your fussiness? Because I heard your taste in music on the way down here. I mean, do you have a particular type or fetish? Must be over seven feet tall, Kenyan-Icelandic mix, Olympic stature, natural blond, ear and nose piercings, must have his own sex swing—”
“Yeah, all right, Lenny. If this is you getting your own back on me for the Gay Lenny thing then—”
“No, I’m serious. You’re a good-looking bloke. I’m just stunned nobody else saw that in you, enough to want to keep you around.”
At least Adrian’s coy grin had returned at Leonard’s words. But then, as his eyes seemed to lose their focus and he looked away, his smile slipped again.
“Mate, I had some very dark days during my late teens and early twenties. And after that, I just wanted things to be normal, to learn to like myself again before I even considered being with someone else for any length of time. And then, as time went on, I kind of got to like my own company. How about you? Did you have any relationships?”
Adrian didn’t want to go into any more detail. That much was clear. Something had happened during those early years. Leonard vowed to himself that when they knew each other better, he would ask again. But right now he felt ready to talk about Kris. Adrian might be one of the few who would understand.
He explained how Kris—Krishna Goswami, both of his parents originally from New Delhi—had been an economics professor at his university in Bournemouth, twenty years his senior, and how they had clicked almost instantly. At first things had been innocent but clandestine—meetings in coffee shops to talk over study materials, but mostly to be in each other’s company. Leonard had been the one to take things to the next level, pleasing Kris but also worrying him, knowing he had his position at the college to consider. They had only lived together after Leonard had graduated.
“We were together for fourteen years and lived under the same roof for ten of those. Until his death. He succumbed to pancreatic cancer at the age of only fifty-six. Everything happened so quickly. The cancer had already spread by the time he was diagnosed. His family knew nothing about us, so as soon as they did, they froze me out, didn’t want anything to do with me. I honestly believe they thought I somehow gave him the cancer.”
Leonard remembered the telephone conversation, watching helplessly as Kris tried to argue with his father but not having the strength. He remembered standing stunned as Kris agreed for them to come and fetch him before promising to call Leonard as soon as he managed to get himself settled. Leonard had argued with the parents and sister in their hallway, but he could tell he wasn’t getting through to them.
“Apart from everything else, I think they saw me as a parasite, riding his relative prestige in academic circles, living off his money. If anyone had bothered checking, they’d have found I had my own independent wealth, through my start-up companies. But instead, they simply shut the door on me.”
Despite numerous calls to the family home, and even to the hospital where Kris had initially been diagnosed, Leonard was met with stony silence. He had only met the sister and her husband one other time, four weeks later, when they’d turned up one Saturday morning to pick up Kris’ clothes and personal belongings. The sister had the same stubborn streak he had seen in Kris and had told him nothing. In retrospect, he could have shut the door in their faces—would have been completely within his rights to do so—but one thing they’d had in common was an interest in Kris’ well-being. When she had barged her way upstairs to rifle through Kris’ things, Leonard had simply let her. The husband had stayed behind with Leonard, embarrassed, and appeared genuinely sorry for him. Poor guy, he had tried to help but had known very little, only that the family physician had begun palliative care and that they had quarantined Kris, locked him away in a room in the family home.
“I only found out a year later they had taken his cremated remains back to India, to be scattered in the Ganges River, but had commissioned a plaque in a garden of remembrance near their home in London. Fortunately, when we bought the house, Kris had insisted on using my name for legal purposes to give me sole possession, said he already owned his own and his sister’s house. Maybe that was true, or perhaps he’d wanted to give me some insurance because of our age difference—it never became a topic of conversation—but whatever, that was the one thing the family couldn’t take away from me when he died.”
“I’m so sorry, Lenny.”
“Happened so long ago. But it feels good talking. I only have a few close friends, but when we do get together, the last thing I want to do is burden them with this. Especially something that happened more than ten years ago—”
“Yeah, but some things stay with you for life.”
Leonard sensed a true understanding in Adrian’s sympathetic gaze. No doubt about it, he had his own story to tell.
“They do. And you never really get over things like that, they become a part of you. But since Kris, there’s never been anyone serious for me.”
“No seven-foot-five African-Scandinavian Olympic weightlifters take your fancy?”
Leonard chuckled along with Adrian. He took a sip of his coffee then cradled the cup in his hands.
“You know, that first year in high school, I used to come along to all the home games. I stood on the sidelines, usually hiding behind the other kids. Although I would never have told you so at the time, you were bloody incredible on the field.”
By the widening of his eyes, Leonard could tell Adrian was genuinely surprised, his grin even betraying a little pleasure. All Leonard could remember was the Herculean and, frankly, sexy figure of Lamperton either wrestling another boy to the ground or standing stock-still, ready to convert a try and put the team comfortably in the lead. And all the time he’d thought this legend didn’t like him, had considered Leonard as nothing more than an insignificant gay kid.
“Most of those games that season were played in the rain.”
“They were,” said Leonard. “I viewed most from beneath someone else’s umbrella. But man, Ade, you were amazing, the way you ploughed through the opponents. All the kids in my year thought you would go on to play professionally.”
