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CHAPTER 1
Aloysius Frederick Lloyd Duchamps-Avery. Freddie to his friends. The boy who, quite a few years ago now, stole my overdue virginity on the same night I stole his. Stretched out naked, merely a few feet above our heads, on a prickly bed of straw in the hayloft. With the sickly-sweet scent of silage floating on the balmy autumn breeze, we’d explored each other’s bodies to the soundtrack of a few hundred cattle lowing and an unimpressed audience of field mice and spiders. Swift yet tender is my hazy recollection. And Freddie sneezing a lot, on account of the dust. What we lacked in skill and artistry, we made up for in youthful enthusiasm and lay in each other’s arms afterwards making promises we both knew neither of us would keep.
Times were much simpler then.
“Freddie Avery, as I live and breathe. I wondered when you were going to put in an appearance. Cutting things a bit fine this year?”
Freddie threw me a smile—not the GQ smile, but the other, more wicked one he reserved for those of us who knew him intimately. For times like now, when he could let down his guard. “I’m on a tight schedule, Rob, but I’ll always find space for my annual pilgrimage. Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without this particular trip down memory lane.”
“Not the entire trip, though,” I observed. “More’s the pity.”
“No.” He gave a rueful laugh. “Some memories are better left in the past. ‘When I became a man, I put away childish things.’ Isn’t that the biblical quote?”
“Fuck knows. You’re the one with the fancy education, not me. I’m just a…”
“Yeah, yeah, a penniless dairy farmer with a few hundred head of cattle and double that number of acres.” With an elegant finger, he pointed to his chest. “See this heart? Not bleeding. Now, for god’s sake, man, offer me a drink. It’s been too long.”
We fondly embraced. Nimbly avoiding cowpats, he trailed me across the muddy yard and into the cottage, a relic of those simpler times. Since my parents moved out and I moved back in, I’d achieved very little in the way of modernising. And my parents themselves had not done much since the generation before them. Aligned in a diagonal formation, three ceramic ducks adorned one of the faded, lemon-painted kitchen walls, on a futile flight to nowhere. A tired white Rayburn, scratched Formica worktops and a Belfast sink, my grandmother’s once-pristine enamel, now stained the same colour as the walls, made up the rest of the decor. I kept things clean, though, so there was that.
“I like what you’ve done to the place.” He made the same observation every year. “Fuck off, you spoiled, overprivileged, aristocratic brat. A glass of the usual?”
“Is the pope Catholic?”
Zeus, the ancient poodle I’d inherited years ago from my parents, thumped his tail at our visitor, although he couldn’t be arsed to get up, while I sorted our drinks. Sometimes, if Zeus and I were invited to a thing with other farmers and their dogs, I’d whip out a black felt-tip pen and touch up the ever-expanding grey in his muzzle. It lent him a more distinguished air, and I liked to think he appreciated my efforts.
I was mostly an ale man, but once a year, I purchased an expensive bottle of vintage champagne for the express purpose of sharing it with the dazzlingly handsome man stretching his long legs out in the rickety chair opposite. We drank it like builders drank sweet tea, out of chipped mugs, which Freddie insisted spoiled the taste, as the bubbles stuck to the ceramic. Didn’t stop us each warmly toasting the other and glugging it back. I had a set of crystal champagne flutes gathering dust somewhere—a dim and distant wedding present from my grandparents' era—but it did Freddie good to slum it occasionally. As I topped him up, he eyed the kitchen with an amused gaze.
“This place would benefit from a woman’s touch.”
I gave an uncaring shrug. “That’s a great shame, seeing as I don’t want to fuck any.”
“With that level of charm, I doubt any want to fuck you either,” he responded drily. “How about a homely, nest-building man, then? A little cutie pie in search of a daddy and a challenge? You could bring him to Lucien’s May ball; that would really get the village tongues wagging.”
Chuckling, I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, right. I’ll put an ad in the Allenmouth Chronicle. Wanted: hot young gay; must love cows, mud, splendid isolation, smelly dogs, and grumpy fuckers who get up at four a.m. Clubbers and social butterflies need not apply. That should bring them swarming to my door.”
“You’re not getting any younger, Rob.”
“I’m thirty-six.”
“Exactly. Have you considered a dating app?”
“What, like Grindr? We both know I’m hung like a donkey, but no one’s desperate enough to travel forty-five miles from Bristol for the sake of a quick fuck.”
His lips curled into a mischievous smile. For the record, I had a normal-sized cock. The mid-range, John Deere 6R of cocks. Solid and reliable whatever the situation, but not turning any heads. “Oh, so you have tried then?”
“Yeah.” Shaking my head, I grinned back at him. “The guy’s satnav dropped out just north of Allenmouth, and he ended up reversing into a ditch and virtually writing off his Ford Fiesta trying to drive up Petersham Lane during a wet November. I found myself giving him a tow out with the tractor and then making polite conversation while we waited for the RAC breakdown services to arrive. During which time we established the Grindr photo of his torso was taken from at least ten years earlier and he had a serious leather kink.”
“Tell me you fucked him anyway, after all that was sorted?”
“Nah, no chance. Fortunately, the RAC man was keen as mustard. Shame he lives on the other side of Cardiff, really.”
Champagne relaxed my tongue far more effectively than beer. Freddie knew it.
“So, what are your Christmas plans then? Plans that don’t involve fondling a gazillion sets of udders, naturally. And letting this revolting stinky dog drool all over you. Those are a given.”
At the word dog, Zeus prised open a heavy eyelid, and a noise suspiciously like a wet fart emanated from his nether regions, earning a well-bred shudder from Freddie. My mouth relaxed into a smile at my ridiculous old friend, all dressed up in his winter finery enjoying a chinwag in my mum’s faded kitchen. The same kindly man still lurked underneath, the jokey enquiry his way of checking I wouldn’t be spending the holiday season alone.
“You know me, Freddie: the usual hectic social whirl. On Christmas Eve I’ll be propping up the bar in the Rossingley Arms with the lads, getting tucked in for a few beers. I’ve got Christmas Day off. Bill’s coming to babysit the herd, so me and Zeus here," the dog weakly thumped his tail again at the sound of his name, "will be heading up to my sister, Lucy’s, for some grub. Then back here in time for the afternoon milking Boxing Day. Trust me, I’ll be ready for some peace and quiet by then. How about you? The usual homosexual hootenanny up at the big house?”
