Leonard put his foot down.
“I’m going for a pint, Mum. I’ll be back later.”
Ten minutes’ walk and they entered the bright interior of the Red Lion. Despite a healthy crowd of Sunday imbibers, Eric found them a spare booth while Leonard went to the bar.
“Do you still live in Drayton?” asked Leonard as he set down the two pints of Guinness and took a seat opposite Eric.
“No," said Eric, looking vaguely disgusted. "Not anymore. Just visiting Mum and Dad. They love seeing the kids. But we’re only in Kettleston, half an hour’s drive from here. The wife, Bev’s, the designated driver today. The light of my life. Are you married yet?”
“No,” said Leonard, not wanting to discuss his private life. “Too busy.”
To deflect, he started telling Eric about the businesses he’d kicked off after university, which usually piqued people’s interest, mainly talking about the trials of renovating listed buildings, valuable antiques he had stumbled upon, and the vintage car market. Eric seemed to relish Leonard’s stories, having himself left school at sixteen and gone straight into retail. His life had been far humbler. As the manager of a small local supermarket, he made a good enough living, enough to support his family of four. Beverley, his wife, had been a checkout assistant in the store, which was how they had met. Proud of his family, Eric brought out his phone and showed Leonard snapshots of them on their recent family holiday to Turkey. Leonard let himself relax and enjoy Eric talking about the various excursions and adventures they’d enjoyed as a family. When a message popped up on the phone display, Leonard happily handed the device back.
“It’s the boss telling me we’re leaving at nine. This will have to be my last.”
After the diversion he began involving Leonard in the conversation, discussing their childhood in Drayton, about their school and the people they both knew.
“Talking of which,” said Eric, his eyes widening and with a sharp twitch of his head. “Did you see who’s over there at the bar, perched on a stool?”
Leonard peered over Eric’s shoulder to where a big man craned over his beer glass, his body squeezed against the wall at the far end of the bar. His broad back to them, he wore an untucked red and black plaid shirt and jeans, with short curly hair of dark red and naturally tan skin. With his back to them, Leonard could not make out the face.
“No idea.”
“Yeah, you do. That’s Adrian Lamperton. He went to the same high school as us.”
Leonard’s gaze darted back again. Adrian Lamperton. Sports prodigy. Mixed race. He was built like a bulldozer and insanely good-looking. How could he ever forget? Drayton didn’t have a secondary school, at least hadn’t when they were growing up, so Leonard had taken the bus each morning to attend school in Norwich. Cranmer Secondary School for Boys had been a horror from the moment he’d arrived. Older students like Adrian usually blanked the younger boys, so Leonard had been taken by surprise at being singled out by this fifth former, Lamperton, in his first week at the school. ‘Gay Lenny’, he’d called him in front of his pack of sports morons, a hardly inventive nickname which had raised an instant cackle. During the first assembly of winter term a teacher had called the register for pupils using their surnames followed by their given name, hence ‘Day, Leonard’ became Gay Leonard then Gay Lenny. From that first encounter, the name had stuck with some kids, almost at the same time as Leonard’s mind and body had begun to realise the truth in the name-calling. Never one to suffer fools, Leonard had initially ignored the taunt. Still, with handsome and sporty Lamperton soon becoming the most popular boy in the school, his entourage and followers had taken up the chant. Strangely enough, Lamperton had only ever used the name that one time. He’d seemed almost embarrassed when he’d passed Leonard in the corridor, thrusting his gaze to the floor and making every effort to avoid meeting Leonard’s glare.
Even as a fourteen-year-old, Lamperton had been big—tall, large-boned, broad-shouldered and with not an ounce of fat. His shaggy mess of curly copper hair at odds with his milky coffee West Indian complexion meant he could always be spotted across the playground or in a crowd. Leonard had noticed more than he wanted to, even though he’d told himself he did so to avoid ever running into the older boy. At school, Lamperton dazzled on the rugby field, and despite his height and size, could move like an express train. Other players had rarely found courage enough to get in his way once he took off down the field. He’d appeared uncomfortable in his skin off the pitch, often hunching forwards, his head hung low, his eyes permanently lowered. Back then, like a lot of boys, Leonard had suffered from the blight of adolescent acne. For some reason, Leonard remembered that Lamperton had managed to avoid the condition, his tan skin remaining freckled but flawless and unblemished in the year before he left.
There had been popular rumours about him being singled out by a talent coach for a rugby league team and being offered a place in their youth scholarship scheme once he reached fifteen. After his examinations, Leonard had packed his bags for college and escaped from Drayton without a backwards glance. He’d assumed Lamperton had been one of the lucky few to chase his dreams, but the melancholy-looking figure hunched at the bar seemed to tell another story.
“Yeah, I remember him now.”
“Used to play rugger. Pretty bloody good, too, if I remember right. You never played the sport, did you?”
“Not in high school. Unless I had to. But I got into tennis at college. Didn’t Lamperton get an offer to play for one of the big clubs?”
“Leeds Rhinos? Never happened. Didn’t finish school. Something to do with his father.”
“Oh, yes?”
Eric leant forwards then, his shiny nose not far from Leonard’s face, his voice lowered.
“Apparently, he’s a poofter.”
“His father?”
“No! His father’s dead. Him. Adrian Lamperton.”
“Oh.”
Leonard raised an eyebrow and looked over again. Something they had in common.
“You wouldn’t know to look at him, would you?”
Leonard threw himself back in his seat aghast and studied Eric to assess whether he truly meant the remark.
“Poofters have a look now, do they?”
