Hesitating for a moment or two, Craig finally looked at him. His expression was calm. Not for the first time, he thought there was something in Paul's face that reminded him of someone else. He just couldn't think who. He looked away.
“It's family,” he said, stuttering at first over the words and wondering how much of the truth he was really going to say. “My father. That's all. He's gone missing. He'll turn up, I'm sure. It's one of those things, that's all. Probably something to do with his church. He's very into that stuff. Everything's probably fine. I shouldn't have overreacted, but I wasn't expecting it. Not now.”
When he stopped, Paul didn't say anything at first, as if he were waiting for Craig to say more. When this didn't happen, he sighed. And Craig wondered if Paul realized how little of the truth he'd told him. The real truth.
“Why not now?” he asked.
“God, I don't know.” Craig took his mug and twisted it around in his fingers before putting it to one side. “I suppose because everything seemed to be going okay. Yes, I know it's selfish but I ... was doing all right. No problems. And my career—I'm just starting to get a little sniff at some work, maybe even repeat business. Hey, but I wouldn't want things to get boring, would I? I've never wanted an easy life.”
He snorted with laughter, but Paul didn't join in. Instead he asked another question, when Craig was hoping to divert him.
“Your father,” he said. “He's gone missing before, then?”
Only from his own head and only because he himself left first, Craig thought, but had the sense to realize that wasn't something he could say. Not to anyone, and certainly not to someone he'd just met. And liked. A lot. Nobody wanted to date a freak, did they?
“No, forget it,” he said, standing up. “I'm overstating the case. Heck, you'll get used to that if you can bear to stick around. Come on. As you're here, why don't we lighten the mood and go for a walk instead? If you fancy it?”
Craig held out his hand and, after giving him a quizzical glance, Paul took it. They walked out into crisp December sunshine. Once in the street, Paul uncurled his fingers from Craig's—a gesture he'd half-expected—and smiled.
“Where to then?”
“Ally Pally,” he said. “Where else?”
Funny really, Craig thought, seeing as he'd spent so much of his recent life trying to forget where he'd come from, that he should see grass and hills as a kind of a refuge. But it was. Perhaps once a country boy, always a country boy. Not that he ever wanted to live there again. Not after what had happened. But still....
As Paul and he walked along, Craig caught himself hissing between his teeth—a habit he'd had as a child—and stopped it at once, wondering why it had revisited him now, after so long. He'd all but forgotten he used to do it anyway. Strange how it sometimes seemed that so much happened in the course of life—
his
life—that certain parts of it disappeared from view. Or were hidden where he couldn't access them. Was it like that for everyone? Or just him? There were things ... almost-memories—not the one he refused to remember because it would be stupid to try; no not that one—but others ... if he could just....
“You okay?”
Paul's question made him jump, but he covered it by laughing. “Hey. Miles away. You know how it is.”
“You were—”
“Hissing. Yeah, I know. Bad habit. I won't do it again.”
Paul shrugged and touched Craig's hand briefly. “It doesn't bother me.”
As they passed through the entrance to the Paddock, Craig stole a quick glance at him and for a moment once again Paul reminded him of somebody else. But he still couldn't quite place who that somebody might be.
They wandered up past the great palace itself, through the car parks and toward the rose garden. Nothing now but bare twigs waiting for the summer. They talked little, but the silence wasn't strained. Hell, Craig thought, he
really
liked Paul. Even in spite of this morning's shock. He hoped to goodness all this hadn't put him off entirely. He was still here though, wasn't he? Gay Rule Number Three:
Don't stress stuff when you don't have to
. Sometimes, he simply had to trust his instincts. In some things anyway.
“The view here is beautiful,” Paul said suddenly. “Even in winter.”
Craig nodded as Paul sat down on the nearest bench and gestured for him to join him. “Yes. I love it up here. I always end up here when I'm ... thinking. It reminds me....”
“Reminds you of...?”
“Nothing. I just like it. That's all.”
That wasn't really true, of course. But he didn't want to tell Paul about home now. So when he asked Craig where he came from, he lied again.
“Oh, I'm a city boy, me. Grew up west London—Harrow way, though I was never one of the posh boys. I've lived here for always. Probably always will. How about you?”
Paul gave a short laugh, but the sound of it didn't ring true. For the first time, Craig wondered how truthful either of them was being.
“I'm from Surrey,” he said. “Maybe one of your posh boys, though I left it a long time ago. Only go back now and again these days. To see ... friends.”
He paused. Craig noticed that neither of them had mentioned family. That suited him fine. As long as he lived, he didn't want to mention family again. At least, that's what he'd told himself right up until this morning. Now things were different. Not that he felt anything at all toward his father. Hadn't for a long time even at home. Even before he left to come to London. After all, the man was a religious bigot, obsessed with doing the right thing, keeping to the narrow way, following the rules and regulations of the Lord, as filtered through the rules and regulations of the Jerusalem Pentecostal Fellowship, his beloved church. And forcing his son to do the same. He couldn't blame his mother for leaving all those years ago. Though he wished.... Never mind what he wished. It was all too late now. If he never saw either a church or a bible again, it would be a moment too soon for Craig. But still the letter worried him. He knew then that he would have to do something about it.
For a while, Paul and he chatted about work, his latest case—a divorce in North London—and Craig's shoot. Modeling work, when it turned up, was always okay money. Better than the occasional acting job he did, anyway. He must have been the only person he knew who hadn't been in The Bill. Not that he ever would; he didn't have that kind of look. He was always more the younger brother with a few lines if he was lucky, or the male totty who got dumped before the main man walked in. Probably on a digital channel no one had ever heard of either. Though in one memorable episode of EastEnders, he'd actually been a gay male totty in the street. That had been a laugh.
“So,” Craig said, putting his hand on Paul's where it lay on the bench. “Do you really work alone or have you secretly got a sultry assistant back in the office?”
Paul flinched and withdrew his hand, then shook himself and smiled as if to soften the rebuff. “Which do you think, Craig?”
“Alone. Yes, alone. I reckon you're a one-man band, you are.” He'd meant to lighten the atmosphere but, as soon as he'd spoken, he thought how much of an idiot he sounded. “Hey, didn't mean that to come out the way it did. I didn't—”
“It's okay.” He waved away Craig's apologies. Such as they were. “It's not your fault. The truth is I used to have an assistant, but I don't have one anymore. You're right. I'm on my own.”
Craig smiled. “That makes two of us then.”
Paul turned to face him. Glancing left and right, and seeing nobody nearby, he took Craig's head in his hands and kissed him. Not a full kiss, but with the promise of something to hope for later. He drew away before Craig did.
“Sorry,” he said. “I've enjoyed being with you, but I've got to go. I have business I need to attend to this afternoon. I can't put it off anymore.”
“On a Saturday?”
“Yes. On a Saturday. As I say, I work alone, and neither of us are exactly nine-to-five people, are we?”
Craig shook his head. “No, but damn. It would've been nice to—”
“Yeah. It would.” Paul sighed. Then he reached out and stroked Craig's face before resting one hand on his shoulder. “It's still bothering you, isn't it?”
“What?”
“You know what. Whatever it was you read this morning. It's bothering you.”
Craig turned away. “No. I'm fine. There's nothing wrong.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really.”
A short silence. Paul's face was unreadable. It felt as if any moment now, he might turn and stride away. And not come back. Heart beating fast, Craig grasped his arm.
“Look, what about meeting up sometime next week?” he said, the words tumbling from his mouth in an attempt to keep the other man there. “I mean, I still owe you a drink, don't I?”
For a long moment, Paul didn't reply. Then he took Craig's hand where it still lay on his elbow, and squeezed his fingers once before letting go.
“Yes,” he said. “I'd like that. Just as long as there aren't as many half-truths as you've told me here today.”
Chapter Three
With Paul gone, Craig didn't stay long. It was becoming chilly with the breeze getting up. And the thought that Paul had seen through those half-truths of his didn't make him feel any warmer. The letter lay like a stone on his leg. For another moment, he stared across the bleak grass and slopes of Ally Pally, listening to the noise of the traffic, a distant shout and, nearer, the yells of children playing, and then....
Then a flash of summer sun on grass. No, it's spring because the air is cool. A woman laughing. The feel of the wind lifting his hair and....
He sprang up from the bench and shook the picture away. He didn't like these reminders of his past life; they never told him much anyway. He'd been born in Devon, growing up there on his father's farm. They'd never got on. For a whole lot of reasons, which over the years had gotten worse. When Craig was seventeen, he'd come to London. Never gone back. The life he was living now was the one he wanted. The woman in the dream had been his mother. Laughing. So it must have been early on in his childhood, a time he couldn't rightly remember. In the time before she finally left, when he was six, he couldn't remember there being much laughter. His father, with his growing obsession with obeying the Lord, had made sure of that.
Honestly, he had to lighten up. He'd just had a great evening with a bloke he'd been desperate to see for weeks, and now—even in spite of the morning's ups and downs—Paul still wanted to see him again. Bloody hell, what could be better? He had to stop dwelling on stuff that really, truly no longer mattered. Father or no father.
He set his face for home, determined to make the most of the day just chilling and dreaming about Paul. Even the thought of him made Craig's blood tingle. He couldn't wait to see him again.
But with every step, he knew that he couldn't ignore the letter. Soon, he would have to ring the woman who sent it.
* * * *
He stared around his bedroom. He'd been sitting here for nearly two hours now and he still hadn't made that call. Not that there was much to stare at; he liked to travel light. And the room wasn't that big anyway. In fact it was the smallest in the house—with the exception of the loo, maybe—which made sense as he'd been the last one in after Maddy and Julie. They'd had the final say on him, so he was glad he'd passed the test.
Right now, all he could see was his collection of crime paperbacks, his
Friends
DVDs, and a couple of old T-shirts he hadn't gotten around to washing yet. Not much inspiration there. Or not the right kind of inspiration anyway.
Sighing, he flopped back onto the bed and keyed in the numbers on his mobile. All of them this time.
Then he canceled the call and threw the phone down.
Craig couldn't do it. All that life had been left behind seven years ago. It was impossible to do this now. It was funny how he could live his life the way he thought he wanted to—have fun, try to treat whatever happened as a laugh—but then with one moment everything could change. It could send him back to how it had been, back to what he'd run from.
More than anything right now, he longed for Paul, the need like a shaft of fire through his gut. But it was impossible to explain his life to a man he'd only just gotten together with. How could he when he couldn't make sense of it himself?
Screw it. He should just bloody well ring. His father had vanished, hadn't he? Andrea was worried. It was up to him to do something then. Besides, he needed to keep track of his enemy, get to his father before his father got to him. Wasn't that what the bible said?
Resist the devil and he will flee from you
. Christ, where had
that
come from? He needed to get a grip. Stop being quite so dramatic.
He pressed redial and waited for the rings to start.
It took four rings for her to answer, and Craig found he was shaking.
“Hello, Andrea Trowbridge speaking.”
“Mrs Trowbridge,” he said, mind buzzing at hearing again the deep Devon accent of his father's elderly neighbor. An accent he'd worked so hard to lose. “Andrea ... it's Daniel here. Daniel Clutton. Well, Craig Robertson now, I suppose. As you know.”
The sound of his birth name felt strange on his tongue. As if it wasn't really him at all. Not anymore. She didn't ask anything about why he'd left and why he hadn't come back. Thank goodness. And Craig found he couldn't bring himself to say the words they both knew he wanted to. Even though that was the whole reason for his call. So, stupidly, they talked about the farm, the latest exploits of the villagers he used to know, and whether or not the Neighborhood Watch was worth it. She even fell into the role of the almost-aunt she'd once been and asked him about London. And his life. He told her about the one or two acting jobs he'd had and the recent modeling assignments. She laughed when she heard that, the warm burr of the sound making Craig smile too.
He didn't tell her about the men or about himself—at least not in that way. It was only when the conversation had slowed and he was beginning, even against his better judgment, to relax that she caught him off-guard.