The edge of the world, p.16
The Edge of the World, page 16
Shay understood that. Losing himself in Ollie was magic, and as release had pulsed through him and into Ollie, he’d almost forgotten the conversation that had brought them there.
Almost, because he’d never forget Ollie’s haunted gaze.
He pressed his palm over Ollie’s thumping heart. Ollie opened his eyes. He smiled, and Shay smiled too. “You’re back.”
Ollie chuckled drowsily. “That’s the second time you’ve fucked me into a coma.”
“To be fair, I did it to myself the first time too.”
“Uh-huh.” Ollie shifted onto his side, wincing. “For what it’s worth, I’m glad this didn’t happen on the bus.”
“Me too.” Shay kissed Ollie’s cheek, then got up, padding nude across the room to the bag he’d abandoned when he’d first arrived at the flat. Inside were his harmonica, penny whistle, and the instrument Ollie had gifted him.
He brought the unnamed instrument back to the couch. “You still won’t tell me what it’s called?”
“Nope. I’d like to see you play it, though.”
Shay snorted and turned the instrument over in his hands. It was the size of a ukulele and had strings, but it also had a wind-up handle, accordion-like keys, decks, and tuning pegs. It was a melting pot of the familiar and the downright bizarre, and he didn’t have the first clue where to start. “I’ll play it if you play me some guitar.”
Ollie rolled his eyes. “I’m not playing the guitar for you—I’m shite. Give me that thing, though. I might still be able to crank something out of it.”
Shay relinquished the mutant accordion and watched, fascinated, as Ollie ran his hands over it, apparently more at home with it than he wanted Shay to know.
“This is a small one,” Ollie said. “Traditionally, they can be huge. Some even take two people to play.”
“If you want me to play with you, sweetheart, you’ve just gotta ask.”
“Very funny.”
“I try.”
“Try harder.”
“Harder. Right there.” Shay shivered as his mind took him back, unbidden, to their lovemaking on the couch minutes ago. He fought hard to focus on how Ollie was handling the strange instrument, but it was… hard. Dammit. “Um, so how do you play it?”
“Like this.”
Ollie turned the handle at the base of the instrument. A plaintive sound rose up from it, settling into an ethereal bass note. He pressed a few keys, and a simple melody played out, but with the bass notes coming from the turning handle, the finished sound was so complex Shay’s breath caught.
“Wow,” he whispered. “Keep going.”
Ollie chuckled. “I’ll have to go in a loop, this is the only tune I know.”
“I don’t care. Keep going.”
Ollie kept going, and the sound of the instrument filled the living room—delicate, and yet uncompromising. Drifting, and yet so entirely in Shay’s consciousness that he leaned closer and closer to Ollie until their heads bumped.
Finally, Ollie stopped. “You want a go?”
Shay all but snatched the instrument from him. “What were you playing?”
“You didn’t recognise it?”
“No. Was it a traditional song from wherever I come from that you won’t tell me?”
“It was ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.’ That’s pretty much all I can play on the guitar too.”
Shay experimentally turned the handle, nerves stretched to breaking until a sound he recognised as Ollie’s came out. Ollie said more words, but Shay didn’t hear him. Barely noticed when Ollie laughed and rose from the couch, kissing the top of Shay’s head before he left the room.
Closing his eyes, Shay retraced where Ollie’s fingers had been, pressing the keys. The weird Beatles interpretation played out. Shay chased it, finding the rest of the melody with the keys, but he lost the bass line. Fuck.
He went back to the start. This is gonna take a while.
“I don’t want to go out.” Shay stood mutinously in the shower while Ollie washed his hair. “I want to stay in and finish that song.”
“I know that, but you’re going back to work tomorrow, and you need some vitamin D.”
“It’s getting dark.”
“Okay. You need some fresh air, then.”
“We’re in London.”
“Do as you’re fucking told.”
Ollie spoke with a grin that warmed Shay’s heart, but he was distracted. He’d been obsessively playing the instrument Ollie had given him for endless hours, but the technicalities of the bass line still eluded him. With internet research banned, he was feeling his way in the dark, and only Ollie himself had ever caused Shay so much frustration.
It didn’t help that Ollie seemed to find it hilarious.
It always helped to see Ollie laugh.
Shay glowered at him anyway. “Where do you even want to go? You have the world’s best food in your freezer.”
“Not the world’s best,” Ollie corrected. “It’s an interpretation, and if you’ll stop moaning and put some clothes on, I’ll prove it to you.”
“Fine.”
Shay grumbled all the way through getting dressed and leaving the house but shut up sharply when Ollie led him to a bus stop. Perspective, mate. Perspective.
They stood close together on the crowded bus, close enough that Shay could slide his hand under Ollie’s clothes and stroke his bare hip, but not so close that he could tell if Ollie’s heart was slamming anxiously against his ribcage. If it wasn’t for Ollie’s teeth worrying his bottom lip, and his white knuckles, Shay wouldn’t have known he was struggling at all.
The bus took them to Waltham Forest. Shay searched his “Ollie” memories and recalled it was the borough where Ollie had grown up.
They got off the bus by the Tube station. Shay jerked his head at it. “It wouldn’t have been quicker to take the Underground?”
“It would,” Ollie said. “But I make myself take the bus when I’m feeling brave. Besides, you don’t see anything on the Tube.”
Fair enough. Shay glanced around at the bustling street. Like most working class areas in London, it was a heady mix of vibrance and grime. It was wonderful—and terrifying.
Ollie led him across the road and down a few streets, pointing things out along the way. “The Olympic Park is over there, the 491 Gallery is round the corner to the left. If you like drill music we could swing through Walthamstow.”
“That’s not the same as Waltham Forest?”
“Not quite.” Ollie spun on his heels again and pointed in a different direction. “Over there is where the German airships dropped bombs in the First World War. I’ll take you there in daylight one day.”
“Why?”
“Because it means something.”
“To me?”
“To everyone.”
As ever, Ollie’s cryptic answers meant everything and nothing. Shay wanted to punch him, to kiss him, but on the busy London street, he simply trailed Ollie to a block of sheltered housing flats around the corner from the market.
“Where are we?”
Ollie fished a set of keys from his pocket. “My grandparents’ house.”
Despite where they were, he’d have surprised Shay more if he’d said the moon, but there was no time to react. Only connect.
Ollie led him to a ground-floor flat and opened the door. Immediately the scent of paprika from the Newcastle cafe hit Shay, and he felt at home. Voices reached them. An elderly woman with a headscarf appeared in the hallway and then a man with a cane. They had dark eyes and kind smiles. They were Ollie, and so obviously pleased to see him that Shay almost cried.
Again. Fuck my life.
Shay pushed his bowl away. He could’ve eaten gallons of the amazing cabbage and sausage broth Ollie’s grandmother—Oliwia—had served him, but his blood sugar wouldn’t thank him for overeating. He caught Ollie’s eye.
Ollie nodded, and Shay excused himself to the bathroom.
When he came back, Ollie had disappeared with his grandfather, leaving Shay with Oliwia in the kitchen.
She brought a cake covered in poppy seeds to the table and cut Shay a slice small enough that it wouldn’t kill him. “No sugar. Just lemon and honey. We don’t eat many cakes around here, so they must be good.”
Her accent was Ollie’s, but her delivery was rougher. And somehow she knew Shay couldn’t handle a sugar-laden treat right now. “Thank you.”
“It is okay. Ollie told me you’re a good boy.”
“When did he tell you that?”
“A while ago. He doesn’t call us often. We are happy to see him now.”
A while ago. Shay wondered what that meant. He’d known Ollie barely a month, and their relationship had been… complicated from the start. “I think he’s happy to see you too. He misses your cooking.”
Oliwia made a clicking sound with her teeth. “Of course he does. When you are Polish, only the food of your homeland will make you right. I told him all the time when he was at school and eating all that McDonalds rubbish.”
“He didn’t get much Polish food on the road with the band. I did, though. He sent me to, uh, Eryk’s cafe in Newcastle.”
Oliwia scowled. “Eryk is from his father’s side. His goulash is wrong.”
“It’s different to yours?”
“Of course. Mine is authentic.”
The only difference Shay could recall between the goulash he’d eaten in Newcastle and the one from Ollie’s freezer was the slightly thicker consistency of Eryk’s, but he held his tongue. How many times had he heard his own relatives bicker about the best way to mash a potato?
Oliwia brought coffee to the table too. It was thick and dark, like the brutal potion Ollie drank every morning. Shay yearned for a bucket of sugar to ease the bitterness but powered through, distracting himself by glancing around the colourful kitchen. It was untidy in the best way—strings of sausages hanging from the ceiling and a sack of caraway seeds in the corner. A jet-black cat wandered in and jumped up on the counter. No one shooed it down.
I like it here. Shay settled back in his seat. After a while, he stopped missing Ollie.
“You should go and see your mother,” Feodor said.
Ollie glanced up from the Sky box he was trying to mend so his grandfather could binge watch On the Buses. “I will. Maybe. I’m hitting the road again tomorrow, so it might have to wait until I get back.”
“Why do you keep your mother waiting so much?”
“Because she’s as busy as I am. Every time I go round, there’s no one there.”
“So pick up the phone first. Not everyone can be old and housebound like us.”
“You’re not housebound. I bet you were down the bingo hall last night.”
Feodor’s sheepish grin said it all, but his searching stare remained. Ollie sighed and took another screw out of the Sky box. His grandparents had always been like this: Feodor would take him apart with his quiet interrogations while Oliwia would kill him with kindness and food. It was worse than his parents’ nagging, but he never managed to stay away for long.
“Your friend is nice,” Feodor said. “Where’s he from?”
“Derby.”
“I meant where is his family from?”
“I know you did, but I can’t tell you that because I haven’t told him. I’m making a documentary about Shay’s family tree, remember?”
“Oh yes.” Feodor’s cloudy gaze briefly cleared. “And now you have fallen in love with your subject. That’s a TV show in itself, no?”
Ollie needed a cigarette. Thankfully, Feodor puffed liked a chimney, so lighting up indoors wasn’t an issue. He chain-smoked three while he finished up with the Sky box and skirted round Feodor’s obvious curiosity about Shay.
Oliwia brought coffee and cake, but Ollie waved it away. “Thanks, but we should get going. Shay’s going back to work tomorrow.”
“I know,” Oliwia said. “He told me, and he likes my cake. You can bring him again.”
Shay appeared behind her, looking more awake than Ollie had expected to see him. “It’s true, but we should probably go. I have some things to finish up before tomorrow.”
By things, he almost certainly meant the composition he was picking his way through on the instrument Ollie had given him. Watching Shay master it with little more than instinct had been enchanting, but Ollie was fairly sure his neighbours didn’t agree. Still. Ollie didn’t know his neighbours, and he owned the freehold on his flat, so who the fuck cared?
They said goodbye. Oliwia hugged Shay hard, and Feodor didn’t remind Ollie again to go and see his mother. But he didn’t have to. Feodor said a lot, but often the message was in what he chose not to say.
At the Underground station, Shay bounced down the escalators, brimming with energy. “I like your grandparents.”
“So do I.” Ollie eyed Shay’s twitching hands and darting gaze. “Jesus, how much coffee did you drink?”
“Two mugs. Black. No sugar. I think I’m going to be awake for a week.”
Ollie didn’t argue. He was used to nuclear Polish coffee. Shay was used to PG Tips.
On the platform, Shay wandered up and down with the fascination of someone who didn’t live in London. Ollie leaned against the grubby wall and watched him, transfixed as ever but his mind also elsewhere. Kind of. The last few days with Shay had been a bubble of emotion. He was exhausted by it, but not ready to let it go. The sense of being on the edge of the rest of his life was all-consuming, but Ollie didn’t know how to jump. He had to work harder on himself, he knew that. But how?
A train pulled into the station. The pushback blew Shay’s hair out of his face. With his caffeine-widened eyes, he seemed wild, and Ollie craved that freedom more than anything.
They got on the train. Ollie pushed Shay into the corner of a carriage and took his hands. “When you go back to the tour tomorrow, I’m not coming with you.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Ollie left the van in a car park behind the O2 Academy in Brixton. Fred and Khalid were bringing a friend back with them to help with the roadie work while Ollie was gone, and they had a spare key. There was no reason for Ollie to hang around, but he found himself drifting towards the bus anyway.
It was empty, obviously, like the van. The band were in rehearsals, and he and Shay had said their goodbyes hours ago. But still. The bus seemed like the right place to be, even though he knew it wasn’t.
He sat on Shay’s bed and tore a page out of a notebook. He stole a pencil from Shay’s stash and scrawled the words he’d already said out loud.
I am coming back
Then he tucked the note under Shay’s pillow and left the bus.
Heart heavy, he took the Underground back to his flat. He had a lot to do before he could think about sharing a bed with Shay again, but first, he had a mountain of work to catch up on. Driving the van, running the roadie crew, and spending every other free moment either with Shay or thinking about him, had set him way behind.
At home, he set up his equipment in the small alcove he used as an office. He sat down and shivered. Even through his clothes, after weeks on the road, the leather chair felt strange against his skin, scarred and smooth. Everything felt strange.
I’m not the same person.
The thought was errant at first, but as Shay’s face filled the huge monitor Ollie used at home, he knew it was true. He clicked through frame after frame of footage, cataloguing Shay’s every emotion as Ollie had revealed his colourful history. Curiosity became fascination. Sadness became grief. And then a rare frame where the camera had caught them both—staring at each other, naturally. Shay’s gaze was fire. Ollie’s was guarded, but Ollie knew if he continued to scroll through the footage, that would change.
I’m not the same person.
The echo was louder this time and brought with it a creeping feeling that drove Ollie out of his chair. Shay was everything Ollie had never known he wanted, but Ollie wasn’t enough for him, not like this. He’d walked away from Shay with a plan—a plan that would be on hold until he’d caught up with his work—but Ollie was done waiting.
I need to start living.
He backed out of the office and into the kitchen. His phone was on the counter. He opened the family WhatsApp group he rarely participated in and tapped out a text.
Ollie: Mum, I need help.
They sat in the living room. Ollie’s childhood home was a riot of colour, but a lifetime had passed since he had last noticed. His parents, Jannah and Wit, were on either side of him, not touching him—they’d learned not to since the accident—but close enough so he sensed them, even with his eyes closed.
His eyes weren’t closed, though, metaphorically or otherwise. For the first time in years, he was entirely present. “I met someone.”
Wit blinked, surprised. But Jannah nodded. Of the two of them, Ollie’s mother was the most intuitive. “A boy?”
“A man, actually, but yeah.”
“So it is more than a friendship?”
“I’m trying for it to be.”
Wit got up and walked to the fireplace. His reflection in the large mirror gave him nowhere to hide, and as he ran a large hand through his dark hair, Ollie saw the cogs in his brain turning, searching for the correlation between this revelation and Ollie’s plea for help. Ollie’s parents were practical people. “Where did you meet him?”
“At work. He’s in the band I’m on tour with.”
“A musician?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s nice,” Jannah said. “Can we meet him?”
“Not yet. I mean, I want you to, but that’s kind of why I’m here. I-I need to fix some shit before… fuck, this is coming out wrong.” Ollie took a deep breath. “Mum, I’m so messed-up. You know I am, and I can’t put all that on him. It’s not fair.”
“What are you asking us for, son?” Wit turned away from the mirror. “You want us to take you to the place at Gubałówka?”
“No, Dad. I don’t want to go up a mountain to find myself, I’m right here. I just… I need… I don’t know what I need, okay? But I know I can’t do it on my own.”
