CHAPTER 32
He was smaller in the bed, but the smile was almost there. I had gone in with Darren, of course, the day after Albert had resurfaced. That smile, just the tiniest of quirks on the right side, and a tic in his speech that a stranger would miss.

He was so, so lucky, lucky that Darren had been on the spot, lucky that the medical staff were so good at their trade. And we were lucky still to have him.

Tabby was sitting on the bedside cabinet, in a dress I remembered making what seemed like geological aeons ago, back when I was Adam, fat, hairy, having just given up my attempts at self-medicating on hormones and switched to the slow but sure route to my grave that alcohol offered. I felt the way my clothes fitted, the slight discomfort left from the savage way I had all but raped Eric after the pub in my need to reaffirm life and living. That told me, if I needed telling, how far things had come, as did the way Darren held my hand at the bedside.

I was pleased to see that his expression was now one of pride in himself, rather than the terror that he would be cast adrift. It is so hard, sometimes, to believe that love can be unconditional, total, accepting; it was what I had had to be beaten into accepting, but there he was, one of the people that loved me, smiling from his bed.

“Annie, dear, we will have to get rid of the parquet if I am going to be testing it with my nose. That hurt rather a lot”

“Albert, you are a very silly man. We shall have you home as soon as we can, aye? Then you can worry about redecorating, not now. Relaxation, recovery, Darren to do all the heavy lifting, aye?”

“Well, there are a number of reasons to take a young man into the house, and the main one, of course, is as a domestic drudge. Trouble is, he doesn’t quite know that yet, do you, boy?”

Darren grinned happily, and Albert continued his teasing.

“The doctors say I must avoid excitement, but for some reason my house is being repeatedly filled by attractive young ladies, as well as my wife, of course, and that leaves me in a state of unnecessariness. Oh…I can say unnecessariness without dribbling! I am obviously taking up a bed…unnecessarily!”

“Be serious for a moment, Albert. How are they treating you?”

“As if I were Jonathan Harker, my dear. Much draining of my precious bodily fluids. Darren, Harker is a character in a book. Look on my shelves, ‘S’ for Stoker, you should recognise the title. Read “The Squaw” as well, right down your street. Annie, I should be out in a few days, but I will be rested, of course. If there is anything you need for next month’s nuptials, just ask and I will send the serf here for it”

The more he spoke, the more I picked up the minute tells that the stroke had left behind, such as the slight tremor of his right eyelid, but it was nothing at all compared to the devastation I had expected. It was clear, too, how deep the bond had become between man and boy. Both had needs that the other met, but it was more than that, simple love. Once more I felt the similarities, our early lives wasted, only now made free.

We rode back from the hospital almost singing despite the traffic, and I took Darren back by way of the airport cycle way. Merry was doing tea that day, and at my request it was going to be lamb, stewed of course, never roast. Her own take on lobscouse, I assumed, and she had promised to make us some Welsh cakes or bara brith, and of course I was hoping for both. I was now a true size 12, so I could afford to be a bit naughty.

The saddle was still a little bit uncomfortable just there, so I rode at a gentle pace, which pleased Darren. He was getting better and better at his riding, though it seemed Shan was outstripping him, but he was still on the slow side.

Nothing wrong with a nice bimble. We rode side by side after the Beehive, and he seemed happy, but once again there were little signs in his face that he had something niggling him.

“How’re you doing, Darren?”

“M’OK, you not going too fast here. Nice seeing the planes so close, yeah”

“Well, one thing about sport is having something else to do for your fitness, aye. Football’s fine, but something else, just for fun, that helps your fitness, aye?”

“Like riding a bike, yeah?”

“Like not spending all day on a computer, aye? I used to do that…”

“Yeah, an’ you got all fat, I remember. But then…”

He left the long pause that warns of an incoming dreadful joke.

“But then, you wasn’t yourself at the time, was you?”

I pulled up, and got off the bike, resting it against a signpost. Darren looked surprised as I walked over to him, but he took and returned the hug and kiss.

“Sometimes, my man Eyres, you say exactly the right thing at exactly the right time, aye? Now, something is bothering you. Want to talk?”

He looked worried at that. “Dunno, it might be the wrong thing at the wrong time, lahk”

“Give me a clue…”

He cleared his throat, looking around for distractions, and spent a little while looking up as an Emirates 777 droned overhead.

“I was talking lots to Shan, yeah. She’s really happy, now, she love her mums, they do it right, yeah? I don’t mean they let her do stuff, like what she want all the time, they got rules an’ stuff, but no nasty, no shouting, they EXPLAIN, an’ Shan, she so made up with it, what you done, you, and Eric, and all the others, an’, lahk, I only remember bits of my mum. Never knew my father, yeah, he never my dad, he just a fucking sperm donor, yeah?”

He was close to tears again, his roots dragging at him.

“Look, Annie, you, all of you, Mizz Armitage, you all treat me as normal, yeah, as REAL. I thought, I really thought, it was all gone, that Granddad was gone, that…”

“Darren, love, you ARE normal. Why did you ever think anything else? Look at me. How normal am I?”

There was a rueful grin through the tears. “You not normal at all, yeah, but you REAL now, and you SPECIAL, and thass the thing. Shan, she got two special people now, just like me, and thass real good, but…”

“Yes?”

Deep breaths. “Shan, she got two mums, yeah, and I got a Nan and a Granddad”

“Who love you to distraction, aye? You know that now, if you didn’t believe it fully before, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, but….but I ain’t got no mum, and that’s a special thing”

More deep breaths, staring around as if an answer to something important lay in the stream, or the underside of an Easyjet aeroplane.

“Annie, you my friend, yeah? My real, true friend?”

“Always and forever, Darren, and more than that. I love you, you know”

Suddenly the stare was straight and direct.

“Yeah, but could you do it as a mum?”