Blood Relatives by Stevan Alcock Page B

eyeballing me. Suddenly he wor bee-lining my way.
    ‘May I sit here?’
    Before I could say owt he’d parked himsen on a buffet stool. He smiled, displaying his crooked, stained gnashers, and set his pint of Guinness on t’ polished copper tabletop. A butt-end waggled off his meaty lower lip when he spoke.
    ‘Gordon,’ he said, sticking out a hand. The palm wor thick and callused, the finger ends nicotine-stained. I shook it briefly.
    ‘I think I should start,’ Gordon started, ‘by saying that I realise perfectly well that you are young and handsome as all young men are handsome, and what is more I’m perfectly aware I’m not, that I’m certainly no beauty, indeed it is doubtful in my case that I ever was, although I have had my moments along the way, and that I fully recognise that I haven’t the slightest chance of any carnal relations with you whatsoever, so I have expunged utterly any such notion from my mind. Indeed, that’s not why I chose to come and introduce myself to your good self.’
    ‘Eh?’ Over Gordon’s shoulder I caught the pitying glances of others.
    ‘No indeedy, young sir. Quite simply, I haven’t had the chance to make myself acquainted, so I thought I would do the decent thing, and … well, I’ve done that bit, haven’t I?’
    ‘Aye.’
    ‘So now we’ve dispensed with my name, why don’t you enlighten me as to yours?’
    ‘My what?’
    ‘Your name. But that’s all right, I believe I overheard. It’s Rick, isn’t it? Brusque and to the point. Very apt. Cigarette?’
    ‘Don’t smoke.’
    ‘Good for you, my boy. There are prettier vices. Dr Choudhury says I should stop.’
    He blathered on, all t’ while sucking one ciggie down then lighting another. He coughed ’til his eyes watered.
    The gist of what I got, when I tuned in, wor that Gordon had lived alone since his mother had ‘crossed the great divide’, that he wor now ‘a man of leisure’, but he used to have his own radio and TV repair business. That he’d always been gay, although in his day one didn’t use the word, that he’d never married, that he’d had two long and secretive relationships wi’ other men, and that he only came out – ‘as they now say’ – to his sister when he wor fifty-two, and she hasn’t spoken one word to him since.
    I watched his fingers mess wi’ a match. Exhaled smoke hung about his wide mouth. I leaned back in my chair. Gordon leaned toward me.
    ‘Well, you’ve certainly sent a ripple around the room.’
    ‘Is that why no one’s talking to me?’
    ‘That, and perhaps that you give off such an air of unapproachability.’
    ‘I do?’
    ‘Utter aloofness, my boy. It’s an alluring defence mechanism in one so young. You think that anyone who talks to you wants to get their hands on you. They don’t. You’re not really standoffish at all, are you? In fact, the moment I saw you I detected a certain crackle across the airwaves. I thought, now there’s a young man who won’t think I’m trying to seduce him just because I say hello.’ Gordon smiled crookedly. ‘I accept that I repulse you.’
    ‘What makes you say that?’
    ‘The young are repulsed by everything. It’s what makes being young so unbearable.’
    I wor feeling cornered. I stood up. ‘I’m going for a refill.’
    Gordon emptied the dregs of his glass in one gulp.
    ‘You want another?’ I said, feeling obligated.
    ‘A Guinness would go down a treat.’
    While I wor waiting at the bar to be served a voice murmured into my ear, ‘One-way traffic, that one.’
    The voice had a foreign note. It belonged to a man wi’ a long, angular face, curly black hair and what Mitch always called ‘an unwashed complexion’.
    ‘Sorry?’
    I felt a hand rest on t’ small of my back.
    ‘Isn’t it always the way with the old ones? They pretend to be your friend, and then before you know it their hands are all over your deck. Trust me, dear, we’ve all suffered.’
    I looked across at Gordon, who waved at me