Authors: HT Pantu
“Hey, Mam. It were fine. I got stuck behind a couple o’ tourists who slowed to twenty for every goddamn bend.” There were a lot of bends on the roads around here.
“Oh goodness,” Mum said sympathetically and paused for a moment to tighten her hug.
“Grace!” my dad barked, causing my mum to jump. “We are now late leaving. Can’t you ask him this in the car?”
“Oh yes, love, sorry.” She grinned absently and let me go to finish the last of our packing. I went to the bathroom and then sat in the back of the car where Jorja was already waiting.
I feel I should clarify. My dad isn’t some kind of monster; he just stresses about traveling, he likes punctuality, and in case you don’t know, the Swedish aren’t renowned for their affectionate personalities.
As soon as Mum pulled her door shut, my dad’s shoulders relaxed and a smile slipped across his lips. “Let’s have a great holiday, everyone,” he said, and he caught my eye in the rearview mirror, finally shooting me a smile. “It’s nice to have the whole family together again.”
P
EOPLE
THINK
that bleak and beautiful are two mutually exclusive things. They’re wrong, or at least they are in my opinion. I grew up with bleak. Believe me when I tell you that the UK doesn’t get much bleaker than the Peak District on a wet winter’s day; it doesn’t get much more beautiful either. You just have to know what you’re looking for. The place me and my family were going to spend the next ten days in was one of those bleak, beautiful places in the depths of Scotland.
The campsite we pulled into sometime around seven that evening was tiny. We’d dropped off what was described as the “main road” in the directions—read: single-lane tarmac track with passing places—into a valley that we drove up until even the gravel gave way and turned into a grass track. Dad stopped to unlock the gate slung across the way with two half-tumbled stonewalls on either side. We locked it behind us and drove the last ten minutes up to the campsite bouncing in our seats while Jorja and me kept an eye on the trailer.
The campsite was half-full, but this shouldn’t give you the wrong idea: there were two tents up. The sight of them made my heart sink just that little bit further.
“Oh, Jerry and Samantha are already here.” My mum beamed.
“Cheer up, sunshine,” my sister whispered. “Yer the one that
likes
camping, remember?” I nodded and tried to drag the scowl from my face as we were jostled for the final hundred yards of the track.
The campsite was sheltered on one side by a sparse selection of struggling trees that looked like they’d been planted with good intention but little hope. A couple of them were doing okay in the harsh surrounds that were otherwise only covered with heather and low-lying willow. There was a pipe sticking up randomly through the ground with a tap on the end, so there was “running water.” I’ve been to places like this many a time. In fact, I’ve spent a few summers working in places like this, and I knew that the water was probably from a pipe buried into the side of a nearby stream.
The car stopped. I sighed again, gave myself a mental shake, and opened the door. I instantly regretted dressing for the “balmy” southern climate of home. I had on skinny knee-length shorts and a fitted tee, which had been fine in the air-conditioned car and might plausibly have been fine at midday here. The sun was still up, but it was definitely evening, and a bitter wind cut through my cotton top. I’m not a heat person, but that doesn’t mean I like windburn any better. I tugged my windbreaker from the back as I slid out of the car. Then I groaned as I sank up to my ankles in a puddle that immersed my canvas Toms completely in sludgy brown mud.
“Fricking hell.” I’d packed those shoes for the sole purpose of driving home—I hadn’t intended to even wear them again until we were safely back in relative civilization. My much more practical waterproof/mudproof/great-for-everything-except-driving trainers were right next to me, and I’d just forgotten to change them over.
I heard someone snigger and my heart actually sank into my stomach.
Great, just fricking great. That was exactly the first impression that I wanted to make. After five years, I really wanted the Jackson family’s first sight of me to be cursing about standing in a damned puddle. I’d probably waded through more shit and mud and spent more nights in a tent in the past five years than they had cumulatively. I didn’t care about mud; I just didn’t want my one good pair of shoes to look like the rest of my pairs.
With another groan, I jumped back into the car and chucked yet another pair of ruined shoes into the footwell as I changed into my more suitable footwear. Mum, Dad, and Jorja had all got out and hurried across to the waiting Jacksons. I watched for a moment from the safety of the car.
We’d been going on our summer holidays with Samantha and Jerry Jackson since I could remember. Apparently they met my parents in a campsite when I was three, they’d hit it off, and since their—then only, now eldest—children were the same age they’d agreed to go together the next year for moral support. That had turned into every summer since. Samantha and Jerry had three sons: Josh was fifteen, Vince was seventeen, and Trystan was six months older than me, six precious months he had lorded over me for thirteen agonizing summer holidays. This family was the reason I hated summer, and in particular, this man, Trystan-bloody-Jackson. The golden boy who had started growing when he was fourteen, he was always faster, stronger, taller, smarter, braver. I cannot explain to you the number of times that I have wanted to throttle that boy/man.
I slid out of the car with yet another weary sigh. I knew putting it off was not going to make it go away or go any easier. I let my head drop to one side and gave a wary smile as I jogged over through the mud.
“Hey, guys.”
“Oh, Idrys?
Look
—
at
—
you
,” Samantha cooed as she wrapped her hands around my upper arms, examining me for a moment with a look of startled awe, which is not an unusual reaction from people who haven’t seen me for a while. I am, after all, over a foot taller than the last time she saw me. I’ve always had a unique kind of look, but I’m aware it’s more noticeable now that I’m an adult, and that it is not at all diminished by my currently too-long hair. Someone asked me if I was albino once.
Samantha was dark haired like her children. She had a warm smile and dark sparkling eyes and had always been my favorite Jackson—mostly because she broke up rather than encouraged fights. “You look so well and so
tall
. I can’t believe it’s you.”
“Yeah, I finally got my growth spurt.” I laughed lightly and turned to shake Jerry Jackson’s hand. He was just the same: tall, stern, and faintly disapproving. He was also dressed entirely in this season’s most hyped outdoor gear. I stifled a sigh because I knew what he was wearing was worth at least a grand and there would be numerous outfits like that waiting to be worn.
“Aren’t you cold, lad?” He glanced down at my bare legs, and I shrugged. Jerry was a homophobe, and he generally spoke to me as little as possible. When he did, it was always with belittling comments like that one or to justify why his children’s
playing
had left bruises on me.
“Not really,” I answered with a shrug. My lightweight jacket kept off the wind and that did me just fine.
“
Eeeed
doesn’t feel the cold, remember, Dad?” the youngest Jackson chimed in, stretching out the start of my name comically as he’d done when he’d been a kid and couldn’t say it properly. Josh shot me a grin and held his hand out. Last time I’d seen Josh, I’d been sixteen and he’d been ten, and we’d been about the same height. Now he was about five nine and at that odd point where he didn’t quite look like a man or a child. We shared a mutual grimace as I was obliged to give the standard comments on his height.
“Well, it can snow up here even in summer. You better have something other than jeans and cotton T-shirts. Cotton kills, you know,” Jerry said, pulling my attention back round to him and away from the unashamed appraisal in Josh’s chocolate-brown eyes—which was definitely unexpected.
“Yeah, I know,” I said to Jerry. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes and tell him exactly how much more I knew about what he was talking about than he did, but I was almost glad for the distraction and a reason to look away from Jerry’s rather too-gorgeous-for-his-own-good youngest son.
“How you doing, Idrys?” Vince asked. I shook the middle Jackson’s hand and managed to smile back. Vince was about six foot and handsome enough, but there a was gleam of distaste in the brown eyes he shared with his brother—he was asking out of ingrained politeness rather than interest.
“Just got back from Canada yesterday, so I’m a bit jet-lagged, t’be honest,” I answered, hoping it would give me an excuse to put my tent up and retire early.
“What were you up to there?” the eldest son asked.
I didn’t let myself sigh as I turned to face the final Jackson. Have I mentioned how bloody good-looking he is? No? Well that’s because it pisses me off. I could deal with everything else, but fricking hell, why did he have to look like that?
“Trys,” I said by way of a greeting and shook his hand briefly. “Camping, walking, biking, ye know?”
“Doesn’t that mess up your shoes?” he mocked.
I ground my teeth, flicked him the finger, and ignored my mum’s outraged bleating as I headed back to the car to get my tent.
“
Idrys
,” my sister called as she hurried to catch up with me.
“He fricking started it,” I muttered through gritted teeth. I was irritated at him and at myself for getting so pissed so quickly.
“It was a joke, Ide. And yer
did
sound like a pansy when yer got out of the car.”
I chucked my head back and stared up into the cloudless blue sky. “Yeah, well, maybe I did, but I’ve not had enough sleep t’ deal wi’ this shit. Maybe if I put my six-hundred-pound tent up they’ll give it a rest, eh?”
“Or they’ll think yer a poser like Jerry. Look, Ide, just chill. I know yer tired, but we’re stuck here for now; at least try to give them a chance. They’re really not that bad these days.”
I leaned back against the boot of the car with my tent bag hooked under my elbow and pressed my fingers into my temples to squeeze them together. While I had been spending my summer desperately avoiding these holidays, Jorja had been too young to escape. By the time she was old enough to get out of going, she admitted to me that she kind of liked it—even more surprising, as she wasn’t always a fan of camping—and that she got on with the Jackson brothers okay. But that was probably because she was a girl, and a pretty one, as opposed to definitely gay me.
I’m not camp by any stretch of the imagination; I’ve always made sure of that. But when I first came out, I’d naively made the mistake of not keeping it a secret. I’d assumed that everyone would take it as easily as my family and closest friend. And so, instead of just being picked on for being short, skinny, and odd looking, I’d been ostracized and beaten up for being gay.
With a sigh, I straightened and shot my sister a grim smile. “Yeah, yer right o’ course.”
I returned to the main group, and my apology was met with a ripple of understanding that I’m sure was helped by the fact that I’d already told them I was jet-lagged. Then I was finally allowed to put up my tent. I found a nice patch of ground a good way from where the Jacksons’ tents were already up, and I unpacked the structure that would be my home and sanctuary for the next ten days.
I loved that thing: it had been my eighteenth birthday present, and thanks to many trips and a couple of summers living out of it, to me it was more than just a tent. I loved everything about it: from the slightly mossy smell, to the color it turned the light, and the tenderly patched up scars left by one hell of a storm. I gave it an affectionate pat as I drove in the final peg and was squatted in the entrance to lay out my Therm-A-Rest when I heard footsteps behind me.
“Buy that specially?” Trystan was southern born and bred. To give you an idea of how he sounds, it’s a lot like the new James Bond—yeah, Daniel Craig. He’s a twat, right…. I’m talking about Trystan obviously; I don’t know Daniel Craig, though I’d probably like to.
I smirked to myself at my internal commentary. Without saying anything, I pointed to where the carefully applied patch was.
“So you got it secondhand?” he mocked lightly.
I stood slowly, uncurling to my full height, which nine times out of ten allowed me to look down on people that are pissing me off. Unfortunately Trystan was more or less the same height as me, possibly half an inch shorter—not enough to make a difference.
“Really, Trys? Ye going to do it this way?” I kept my voice low as I stared into his smirking face.
I ran through things that irritated me to distract myself from the fact that Trystan Jackson was infuriatingly good-looking. I think I’m a masochist or something, because when I first realized I was gay, it was mostly thanks to the face currently smirking at me and the body it’s attached to.
It had happened over a couple of summers. Looking back, I’d always preferred guys, but it was when I was twelve that it finally hit me that liking other guys wasn’t normal. I was being beaten up for something—God knows what, maybe daring to win a bike race—but I remember eight-year-old Jorja rugby tackling Trystan off me. Then I’d dropped on top of him to hit him back, only I’d stopped, because everything had felt weird.
The next year Trystan had started to grow, and by then I’d more or less worked it out—which made trying to wrestle him off me very distracting. When I was fourteen, I came out to my family, and it hadn’t even crossed my mind that I should hide it from other people. The Jackson brothers—mostly Trystan and Vince—made damn sure I knew that was a mistake.
I’m not bothered anymore, not since I’ve been at uni. But that didn’t change the fact that Trystan was still gorgeous, and I disliked him intensely for it. He was your stereotypical tall, dark, and handsome—
What
? I’m easy to please—he had wayward dark-chocolate hair, matching eyes, smooth skin, a nice jaw dusted with a fashionable amount of stubble. He wasn’t super ripped, but as a gym goer I could recognize another one. I’d guess he climbed and/or biked, because his arms and shoulders were covered in well-defined cords of muscle, not like body-builder ripped, but just “hey, I look after myself” toned. He’d had a six-pack when he was sixteen, so I doubted he didn’t have one now, his hips were neat, and I would have put money on his legs having the same nice balance of definition as his arms. Unfortunately, personality-wise he left a lot to be desired.