The Leather Boys by Gillian Freeman

Author:Gillian Freeman [Freeman, Gillian]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Classics, Gay, Literary
ISBN: 9781939140777
Google: hOLcnQEACAAJ
Publisher: Valancourt Books
Published: 2014-01-14T13:00:00+00:00

‘I’ll ’ave a wash downstairs,’ he said. ‘Then I’d better get going.’

He paused by the bed and Dick’s heart seemed to swerve. He’s going to kiss me, he thought. Let him kiss me. But Reggie went to the door and Dick shut his eyes and swallowed.

‘Cheerybye,’ said Reggie.

‘So long,’ said Dick. And he listened as Reggie went quietly downstairs so as not to waken Gran, and heard the tap running into the sink and the faint sound of the cistern flushing outside. He lay in bed as close to the point of crying as he had been since he was a child. Perhaps Reggie might come upstairs before he left, he thought. He must want to speak about it too. But in a matter of moments he heard the door latch and the motor-bike start and the diminishing roar took Reggie away from him for the day. It might be for more than the day. Neither had spoken of more than one night yesterday, when Dick had suggested that Reggie should stay. Reggie might not come back at all. He might never refer to last night or resume even the intimacy of their friendship. He thought he would want to die if that happened. He thought he would have to force Reggie to talk to him, wait for a moment when he could be alone with him and ask him why he had left this morning without a relevant word.

He got up and dressed and went down to make Gran her cup of tea. He hadn’t told Gran that Reggie had spent the night in the house. She had been asleep when they came home for tea, snoring in the chair by the unlit fire. Quietly he had taken bread and cheese from the larder and tiptoed out again. When they had come in late Gran had been asleep again, in bed. Dick knew she wouldn’t mind. He wanted to ask her if she would let Reggie stay there for always but with a kind of superstition he felt that if he did Reggie would never return. It would be tempting providence.

‘My mate came back with me last night,’ he said, sitting on the edge of her bed. ‘ ’E ’ad nowhere to go.’

‘Not in trouble is ’e?’ asked Gran.

‘Not that sort of trouble. Only with ’is wife.’

‘That’s all right, then. I don’t mind that.’

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