1972
A. L. Fredericks
The heat in the train was disgusting.
Beyond the window, the countryside had begun to give way to something else. Chimneys breathed grey plumes into a low, colourless sky, and the further south they travelled, the less certain Elliott became of where the smoke ended and the clouds began.
*
'You can't be serious. Where the bloody hell am I supposed to go?'
Elliott stood motionless in his dormitory, staring at the contents of his bedside table scattered across his bed.
Axel, his roommate of a week, leaned against the narrow strip of wall between their beds. 'Preferably anywhere other than here.'
A handful of change, a book, nothing else. He had brought so little with him to London that it seemed absurd to be made homeless over it.
'Axel, whatever it is—'
'I'll not be sent to Coventry because I’m forced to share a room with a- … with you.”
The rest of Elliott's sentence died on his lips.
He could hear the traffic outside, a low rush beyond the window. Everything else had gone strangely quiet.
Elliott had known, in the abstract, that this might happen. Knowing a thing and having it happen were not the same. He felt the difference now, a coldness spreading from his stomach into his arms, leaving his hands light and useless at the ends of them.
'I’ll go,' he said.
He bent to retrieve his holdall from beneath the bed and heard Axel shift behind him.
'This will be better for you.'
Elliott straightened. Only a moment earlier, Axel had been all puffed chest and contempt, now something in his expression had slackened.
‘The only thing worse than a bigot, Axel, is a cowardly bigot. Do us both a favour and grow a spine.’
The words had barely left him before the floor heaved itself upwards.
Elliott’s ear struck the carpet first. Pain flashed through the side of his head, hot and wet, and for a few seconds he couldn't understand why he was on the ground. Then he saw Axel standing over him, fist clenched.
Fog pressed itself against the room's little window, looking for a way in.
Elliott pressed a hand to his ear. He had come to London believing that distance might be enough to make a new life. He hadn’t realised he’d taken the worst of his old one with him.
*
For six days, Elliott searched the newspaper columns, visited houses with leaking ceilings and landlords who looked him over as if he had come to steal the cutlery.
London was an obsessive city. It took you in and immediately began to bother you with its incessant noise, buses sighed at the curb, men shouted, music seeped between walls, and everywhere, the glowing ends of cigarettes glowed in the smog.
Elliott had never seen so many people determined to be looked at. Their clothes were lurid, hair enormous, shoes impractical. They moved through the streets with an uncoordinated efficiency. He liked it, though he would not have admitted as much.
On the seventh day, he stood outside an inappropriately blue end-terrace and watched his cigarette smoke wind itself into the city haze.
The front door swung open before he could finish knocking.
On the other side stood a boy with a pleasant expression. Elliott asked if there was still a room available to rent.
A head of dusky curls appeared around the doorframe. His nose was a little too strong for his face, his cheekbones a little too sharp, and his dark eyes were curious. The smile, however, was entirely unfair.
It was the kind of smile that made you want.
It suggested there were things in the world you hadn't yet been introduced to, and that if you came closer, he might let you in on them.
'You don't much look like a man selling windows.'
'I'm not—'
'What a relief!’
He spoke directly into Kit's ear, apparently unconcerned with the fact that Elliott was still standing on the doorstep.
'This is Charles,' Kit explained with latent amusement. 'He also lives here. Charles, this is—'
'Elliott.'
Charles showed him to the attic bedroom.
'It's a bit cold in winter,' he said. 'And the pipes make a dreadful noise. But you can see the stars when the weather's clear.'
Elliott looked out at the grey sky.
'How often is that?'
Charles considered.
'Well. You'll have to use your imagination.'
Elliott took the room. That evening, he sat in the kitchen with Kit and Charles while rain gathered on the windows. Someone had put a record on in the sitting room, and the music came through the walls in muffled bursts. Charles talked about a lecturer he hated, Kit complained about the price of butter, and Elliott laughed harder than he had in months.
*
One year later Elliott had learned a lot about his housemates.
Kit's footsteps were swift and near constant, Charles had a habit of stopping outside Elliott's bedroom door, standing there for a moment, and knocking only when Elliott had begun to wonder whether he was going to.
There were other things Elliott had learned.
Charles took his tea with too much sugar and never finished it. He murmured bawdy songs when he knew the others were listening and beautiful ones when he thought no one was. He could make almost anyone laugh, but when a conversation became too sincere, he would find a cigarette to roll or a record to change. He learned to listen for the genuine laugh that always preceded that rare smile. Unlike his others, the ghost of happiness lingered in his eyes for a long while afterwards.
Knowing this, Elliott thought, an unfortunate development.
They had spent the better part of the year attending lectures, drinking in pubs, wandering the midnight streets reciting Sheridan. Charles was forever dragging Elliott into some new scheme. Elliott was forever pretending he hadn't wanted to go.
They had become very good at pretending.
The city grew dirtier as autumn settled in, fog thickening over the streets, and on certain mornings London appeared to have been rubbed out and hastily redrawn.
Smoke collected in their sitting room, softening the lamplight. Steam rose from cups of tea. Their breath clouded the windows. Elliott watched the smoke drift above their heads and thought about how easily a thing could be present without being noticed.
*
The morning Charles left, Elliott was standing in the kitchen with a cup of tea. He had spent the night replaying a conversation that had taken place two evenings earlier.
The front door clicked shut and Elliott looked up, through the kitchen window, their street disappearing beneath a thick bank of fog. Charles's silhouette moved away from the house, his dark crombie coat distinct against the white.
Elliott took his coat from the hall and slipped into a pair of Kit's deck shoes. He followed Charles at a distance, far enough that he could not hear his footsteps.
The city seemed to have drawn a blanket over itself and gone back to sleep.
Elliott had always liked the hour before sunrise. Ciaran had introduced him to it years ago, during a summer so hot that the fields had turned brittle. They had spent the afternoon refusing to go home. Ciaran had eventually declared that if neither of them intended to behave sensibly, he might as well show Elliott something worth the trouble and led him through scrubby woods and wheat fields to a plum orchard. Hundreds of little plums hung from the branches, the deepest purple beneath the dusty wax bloom. They had stayed out until the sky began to lift and take on that luminous cobalt quality. The world below held onto the last of the night's shadows, wet roads glistened silver, streetlights burned amber, golden stars in a sea of blue.
Elliott turned a corner and saw Charles's blurred silhouette slip behind the iron gates of The Regents Park.
Elliott followed.
The path stretched ahead, a dark strip through the cool grass. The fog was so thick that the world seemed to end a few metres away.
Elliott kept his eyes on Charles.
He was beginning to feel foolish. Charles might have been going anywhere, perhaps an appointment, or he simply wanted a walk. Perhaps he had noticed Elliott following him and was leading him out here to ask what the hell he thought he was doing.
Elliott began readying several explanations.
Then Charles took another step and was swallowed whole by the fog.
Elliott opened his mouth to call out but his shout was silenced by embarrassment.
The fog clung to his face and dampened his hair. His chest felt tight. He had no idea where Charles had gone, and he was beginning to suspect that he had followed him into the park for no reason he could bear to admit.
The path sloped gently towards a lake. Fog slithered over the still, mercury water. At the waterlogged edge Elliott’s thoughts of Charles were pervasive, and inextricable from thoughts about himself.
His feelings for Charles were easy, the painful part was the responsibility that came with them. Elliott sometimes wished for someone else to love Charles, that way Elliott wouldn’t have to face himself.
‘A modern day Narcissus.'
Elliott startled so violently he nearly slipped.
Charles stood close, dark hair curling out from under his dew dotted, wool cap, looking exactly as he had the day Elliott first met him.
'Christ,' Elliott said, heart in his throat.
Charles smiled.
'You look as though you've seen a ghost.'
Like an idiot, he’d been caught following Charles, and there was no explanation that did not sound worse than the truth.
Charles's smile faded a little.
'All right, mate?'
Elliott nodded.
It was a lie, but Charles seemed to understand that. He stepped beside him, close enough that their shoulders touched. Elliott could feel the warmth of Charles, smell the faint traces of tobacco and soap.
'Elliott.’
Elliott looked at the water and wished for Charles to not speak. 'I'm sorry.'
He didn't know exactly what he was apologising for. Maybe for what was to come. For wanting something he could not ask for.
Elliott shook his head just once.
Charles reached a shaking hand under the fabric of Elliott’s lapel, and tugged gently so that Elliott faced him.
There was no ghost smile upon Charles’ face now, only trepidation.
‘No one can see us here.’
Elliott wanted to ask what Charles meant, had the past year been as unbearable for him as it had been for Elliott.
Instead, he stood very still.
Charles's hand slipped away before he took a stiff step backwards, eyes wide.
Far away, above the horizon, a bank of clouds was blown adrift by a feather light breath. Unveiled, the sun stretched its golden limbs across London.
Voluminous grey clouds transformed into carvings of pearls.
In the park, the fog caught fire. Swirling, golden light refracting in every direction.
Elliott closed the distance between them. They stayed like that, together, in the centre of the park, until the day’s warmth burned through the dense clouds of fog.
In forty-three years, Elliott would remember what the world granted them on that morning by the lake.
