“We’re clearing it out completely,” said Jack, “and turning it into an office for me. I work from home now, you know.”
I didn’t but I nodded anyway.
It crossed my mind that they had ‘got over’ their only son’s death much more than I had. In a way I felt slightly offended but then wondered if they weren’t doing the right thing. Getting on with their lives.
Edward’s belongings were in a large cardboard box in a corner of the room.
“We’ll leave you alone to sort through them,” said Leonora. “Take what you like. Everything that’s left will be got rid of.”
“Don’t you want anything?” I asked.
“We’ve taken everything we want,” said Leonora. “Some photos of Edward as a kid, and one of both of you at that barbecue.” I remembered the one – in fact I had a copy of it myself. Edward and I were standing side by side, one of his arms round my shoulder and mine round his waist. He, tall, blond and slim, me slightly shorter and darker. We were both wreathed in smiles and looked overpoweringly happy. So happy, indeed, that I’d shut my copy up in a drawer as I couldn’t bear to look at it.
They left and I started to look through the things. There were the Cocteau prints all drawn with that characteristic economy of line and, more often than not, an over large penis. I remember being slightly shocked when I’d first seen them and realised that presumably Edward’s mother must also have seen them when she dusted the room or whatever she did. Edward had laughed. “Take more than that to shock Mum,” he’d said.
Why he hadn’t brought them with him when he’d moved into the flat we shared, I’m not sure. Perhaps it was because we had wanted to get things that we’d chosen together.
Anyway I took them out in their narrow black frames and put them on the bed. Six of them there were – a reminder of that first time we’d fucked. Actually, come to think of it, I don’t think we did fuck. We’d both been a little nervous and the sex was very vanilla, a bit of sucking and finishing off, me with my prick between his legs and his in my hand. Then we’d cuddled and fallen asleep until we sort of repeated the process in the morning.
There were some clothes, obviously from his mid teens because they’d never have fitted him or me at any recent time. I’d like to have seen him as a gawky adolescent dressed in a bomber jacket and jeans. I’d have been one too and, if we’d met then, perhaps we could have had a longer time spent together. On the other hand, at that age, I was terrified that I was queer and was making every effort to pretend to be straight, boasting about the girls I’d been out with and what I’d done with them. So I’d probably have never even dared to speak to Edward if I had met him in those far-off days.
There were some books, kids stuff really, annuals. I’d never realised Edward had once been interested in football and yet there they were, the Arsenal year books for 1986, 1987 and 1988. Some comics, the Beano and the Dandy, not the sort of lurid horrors you buy in today’s ‘comics’ but innocent adventures of Dennis the Menace, Desperate Dan and Biffo the Bear. Get a good price for those now, I thought but left them.
I thought that was the lot but then noticed that there was a bit of a bump on one side of the pile of comics, hoisted them up and found a bear. Obviously it had been much loved. One of its ears was loose, a glass eye missing and the fur was rubbed almost bare on its stomach. It had a sad, hangdog appearance, as the ear drooped over and the missing eye looked as if it was winking. In my mind’s eye I could see the young Edward walking around, dragging it by the loose ear but refusing to be parted from it. It smelled a little musty but not unpleasantly so and I knew that was one thing I’d certainly take.
I went downstairs with the bear and the Cocteau drawings. “The comics are probably quite valuable,” I told Jack, “and I’ll take these drawings just so you won’t be embarrassed taking them to the Oxfam shop.”
“Oh you’ve chosen Teddy,” said Leonora. “I’m so glad. Edward did so love that bear. Once, when he thought he’d lost it, he wouldn’t eat for two days. Turned up behind the radiator though we never found out how it had got there.”
“Have a drink,” said Jack.
“The meal’s nearly ready,” said Leonora.
It was a pleasant evening but when I got home again I was even more depressed. Putting up the Cocteau pictures, occupied half an hour but when I saw them lined up round the spare room which was really a euphemism for Edward’s room which he never used as we both slept together in the larger of the two bedrooms, I suddenly didn’t like them so I took them down and shut them up in a cupboard.
It was nearly midnight but I didn’t feel tired. I sat ‘Teddy’ on a chair facing me across the room which sometimes was called the sitting room, or the lounge, or (geographically) the front room. “Welcome to your new home,” I said and looked at the bear. ‘Teddy’ winked at me. Well, he was winking all the time I suppose but as I glanced at that missing eye, it seemed as if it had suddenly shut. His loose ear hung over and he looked sad – as sad and lonely as I felt.
At about two o’clock I was ready for bed and went. I pondered whether to take Teddy with me but decided against it. Edward might have slept with it but of course, he’d slept with me much more recently and taking my late lover’s toy bear to cuddle with sounded too tacky for words.
I couldn’t sleep and I kept thinking of that ragged toy sitting alone in the front room. Of course it had been ‘alone’ in the box at Leonora’s and Jack’s for possibly years. Eventually I went and got it (him) and placed him on the pillow next to me. I slept like a log, better than I had for some time.
I dreamed of Edward, not an erotic dream, but a sort of mix up of the first time I met him.
So it seemed that the dream was set in the library where Edward had worked and where I had taken out a gay book – ‘The Swimming Pool Library’ by Alan Hollinghurst, I remember He had looked at me and smiled, that smile which, that first time and forever after always made my heart jump and my throat catch. In my dream, though, I felt as if I was choking. Something was blocking my nose and throat and I struggled to wake.
And woke up to find the bear lying across my face. There was hardly any pressure from the toy and my feelings of constriction must purely have been psychological rather than physical. My panic died and, as it did so, I suddenly felt amused.
“What were you trying to do?” I asked looking at the bear which I now placed further down the bed, sitting, arms and legs stretched out, its ear hanging loosely. It winked in the cool, dull light of dawn. The green figures of my radio alarm clicked over. It was as good as time to get up. As I did so, Teddy fell off the bed and I said, “Sorry” before picking him up and felt foolish at apologising to a stuffed bear.
In the office I sat at my desk staring at a pile of work. The telephone rang. It was Ross, my friend whom I’d shouted at so rudely when he’d asked me out and said that Edward would have wanted it. I immediately felt embarrassed for, though I’d rung him back immediately afterwards, I hadn’t tried again. But he sounded as cheerful and chatty as always. He was an incredible guy. He always knew what was going on though where he got his information from I could never understand. He’d have been a Godsend to MI5 or any intelligence organisation. Perhaps he was. I wasn’t sure exactly what he did for a job. I knew what he did for entertainment, chasing unsuitable bits of rough trade and very successfully apparently.