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Shit.
“Who’s that?” asks Laurence, following Becca and Audrey’s stares, where he finds my son chatting to the older drunk lurking by his table.
Suddenly, as I’m thrown into the deepest depths of my greatest fear, I wish I had something stronger than beer in my hand. I take a large gulp of it anyway. “That’s my dad.”
I don’t see the reaction on Laurence’s face, but I feel his hand on my back. “Are you okay?”
Fuck no, I’m not okay. My father is here. My father, who still thinks I’m happily married. My father, who has no idea I’m gay. My father, who will beat me and dress me up and humiliate me in this room full of people. He’ll make people laugh and stare and call me names.
Pervert.
Disgusting.
Poofter.
He’s walking towards me. I’m fourteen again. Paralysed. Helpless.
“William?” Laurence pushes.
I can’t answer.
My dad’s lips warp into a smarmy grin when he reaches my wife. He rubs the top of her arm. Pats it a few times. “Where was my invite then, eh?” are the first words spoken in his booze-soaked breath. “Brenda heard about all this from the lass in the Co-op on Wicker Road. Not like I’m the kid’s bloody grandad, or owt.”
The lass in the Co-op. Julie, it dawns on me. Our next door neighbour. My ex-neighbour, now. Her loudmouth sister works in that Co-op.
“Forgive me, Graham, but you haven’t attended any previous birthdays for Ben or Lucy. I didn’t think you’d be interested,” Becca says. She was always better at standing up to him than me.
“Nice to have the choice though, eh. Brenda was right upset, she was. Family first, she says. She’ll tell you herself when she’s parked the car.”
My dad’s latest flavour, Brenda, has never even met Ben. Maybe I’ll be brave enough to tell him as much shortly because it’s becoming clear he knows nothing about our new family dynamic, and I don’t see why that needs to change.
“Ben’s glad to see his old grandad ‘ere. Aren’t you, Ben?”
My son’s cheeks puff up at my father with a smile that will never reach his eyes no matter how hard he tries to fake it. “Sure,” he says, shrugging awkwardly.
“Present’s gonna be delayed, though, fella,” my dad goes on to tell Ben, something that’s a surprise to nobody. “See, I was gonna pawn a few records to get some cash together, but your dad let me down with that, so…”
Whoa. Okay. I can’t do this. Not here. Not ever. “I need to get out of here for a bit,” I say, heat crawling around my neck, strangling me as I start to turn away.
But as I take a step, I hear my father ask, “Who’s this then?”
Which isn’t a fraction as frightening as Ben’s answer. “That’s Laurence. Dad’s boyfriend.”
“Dad’s what?”
I start walking. I don’t look back. Laurence calls my name, but I ignore it, take off into a sprint. My knees are weak as I bound down the stairs. My hand grabs the railing, trembling as it slides along it. I feel sick. Dizzy. The one thing I’ve been terrified of since I was a child is literally happening right now.
Cold air slaps my face when I push open the doors and step outside. I welcome it, turn my face to the sky, feel it calming the sting in my eyes. Until footsteps start clacking the stairs behind me, making me carry on walking.
“Hey!”
Laurence.
I stop straight away, leaning against the cool bricks a few feet away from the entrance. “Hey.”
Laurence stands right in front of me, cups my cheek.
“Fucking running away,” I say before he gets a chance to speak. “Great example to my son, huh.”
He thumbs the soft skin below my eye, warms the side of my face with his palm. “From the limited interactions I’ve had with your son, I can already tell you’ve been a brilliant exam--”
Yelling interrupts him.
“…Between me and him!” I catch the end of my dad’s rant before he bursts through the doors to my right. He charges towards us, with Becca, her mother, and Ben following behind.
“Ben, go back inside,” Becca says, at the same moment my dad shoves Laurence to one side.
“What the hell are you doing?” The words jump out of my throat, as easy and involuntary as breathing. “You don’t touch him, you hear me?”
“But you do, do ya?” Dad says, getting right up in my face. “Is it true what our Ben says? That you’re some dirty queer?”
I try to retreat further into the bricks, until the skin on the heels of my hands begin to smart and my lungs can’t expand anymore. My mouth opens…but there’s nothing there.
His rancid breath sullies my face. “Is it? Answer me! Is this a fucking wind up, or what?”
“Grandad, stop it!” I hear Ben shout, but I can’t see past the darkness in my father’s eyes. Becca’s voice says something. Laurence’s, too. And I think there are others here now. I definitely hear Ned trying to interfere.
