CHAPTER 11
“Ah!”, my wife said, grinning, “How about this one?”

It wasn’t what I expected, which would have been a swimming costume shot, but rather one from one of our restaurants, with Lil pulling a face at some crustacean or cephalopodian thing.

“We experimented with the food, girls. And boys. Why go all the way down there to revisit Chippy Lane?”

Matt was nodding.

“I know what you mean. We went to that street food, Indian, place last week. Good food”

‘We’. He was steadily ticking my own ‘sound lad’ boxes. I offered my own snippet.

“Alwen told us about that, and we thought we’d have a look, or rather a taste. Good spot, lad!”

He looked slightly awkward, glancing at Amina, and I had a rush of understanding.

“Yeah, the wife’s mother sends us regular food parcels, as if she doesn’t trust her daughter’s cooking”

Amina was straight in, of course.

“I can do my own cooking, but you two, the lads, aye? You won’t understand. Sometimes it’s nice to let someone else do the work, and Matt: before you say I let my Mum do the cooking, that’s still in the family, aye? Anyway, we are here to share blackmail material, and so…”

I was astonished at the next one, which showed the Spanish police dealing with Chelsea, George and Lions, which was when I understood Amina’s strategy.

“We had had a lovely meal, and ended up in a waterfront bar, for drinkies and more tapas. Bloody coincidence, but it turned out our restaurant and the bar were both owned by the same couple. He was a Brummy… Here. They even had a Welsh flag for us. Then these three English bastards turned up, and Lil’s girlfriend slipped away, so while they were being all transphobic towards my wife, even though, aye? And fucking, sorry, racist towards me, Lil’s girl was calling the cavalry, and here… There was, to my immense satisfaction, a wonderful disregard for such concepts as ‘reasonable force’. They went down hard and stayed there. I only have one regret”

Matt was still fixed on her.

“Which was?”

“We didn’t have any popcorn, of course”

After the laughter died down, Amina moved our photos on to some shots of the lunar landscapes we had visited, Alicia replied with pics of that narrow bloody ridge on Snowdon, with a little girl and bear literally in mid-air as she was clearly skipping along scenery that had my guts clenching. Ye fucking gods!

We came to the end of our photo session, as the clock wound down, and I left our details with Clive to pass on to his brother.

“Yeah, Jen, they’ll be over the moon. There’s… Look, we’re having the christening next weekend. Are you free? I mean, I’m not my brother, but I really think he’d like you there, if you can make it. I can ask, yeah?”

“Both Tom… We’re a bit like a married couple, aye?”

Amina mumbled, “Just you’ve never been on solids, have you?”, and I shushed her.

“Clive, Tom and me, well, it’s part of the job that we have some pretty shitty times. Your Natalie, that was a real boost to us”

“Well, that bitch of a driver is up before the magistrates the day before. Fast track, aye? Apparently she had a moment of revelation and repentance once she’d been shown the dashcam footage and been played the 999 recording. Oopsies, et cetera”

I chuckled. “The traffic lads who pulled your bro, Barry and Bryn, were not happy bunnies that day. You okay if I let them know?”

Clive grinned.

“Yes please, Jen”

Lil settled into a spare seat.

“Enough’s enough; Ox is closing the tills down. What’s the game?”

Amina huffed.

“Showing this lot the blackmail footage”

“Oh. Bloody good job my reputation is already too debauched to be damaged. You in tomorrow, Alwen?”

The girl twitched, sitting a little further away from Matt.

“Er, yeah. Got a tutorial and an assignment, so only from seven o’clock”

“You in as well, Matthew?”

The boy looked round the group, then spoke to Amina.

“You’re all checking me out, aren’t you?”

To my astonishment, it was Alicia who answered.

“Yes, Matt, they are. I’m… Look. You know what sort of place I live in, and we’re there because it wasn’t safe anywhere else. I lost…”

She shuddered, and looked across to Lil.

“Any chance of something, you know, stronger?”

The woman nodded.

“Marlene will understand”

She was back in thirty seconds with an open bottle of prosecco and some glasses. She poured for Alicia, then looked at me and my wife, getting a head shake in return. Alicia took a swig of the fizzy wine before looking hard at Matt.

“Things you might have missed, Matt. It’s… we get a lot of shit, me, Alwen, girls like us. I suppose this is for you as well, Clive. My Dad is a diamond, but it took a long while to bring him round, and part of that, a huge part, was Nana Deb’s doing. What do you think of him?”

The lad looked flustered.

“He’s, dunno. A mate, now?”

“Yes. And I can tell you the exact moment Dad started seeing me as me, and not him, but he had… had a hiccup about my, well, sexuality. Me being a girl, he coped with, eventually. Me being a straight one, well…”

“But he’s sound now?”

“He is. I remember our first Christmas, the first one as myself, that is, and it was wonderful. Could you top up my glass, please?”

She almost drained the glass.

“I wasn’t the only one. I had a friend in the House, a girl called Serena, and her mother… We each went home for Christmas, me with Dad to my grandparents, and, shit, it was more than I had ever dreamt of. Serena went home to her mother’s. I got a text from her, and she was so, so happy”

She reached for the bottle herself, topped up her glass and drained it in one.

“Sorry if any of you wanted some of this… Serena had the best mother and daughter day any of us could have dreamt of, and cuddled up with her Mam for the night, and her father came home, piled up all sorts of shit at both front and back doors, and set it alight, and that is why people like Nana Deb and Jen here, and Lil, watch our backs. So, well, I know my man here, cause I’ve, we’ve talked it through. Not putting you down, Matt, but, well, we… No. I’m happy you’re sound”

The lad looked stunned.

“Thank you, I suppose”

Alicia’s smile was a tight one.

“Oh, absolutely. If we’d been unhappy, sorry, Clive, love, but despite you vouching for him, if we’d been unhappy, he’d have been told to piss off. Bollocks: was that the whole bottle?”

I looked hard at Alicia.

“Both of them?”

She simply nodded, before adding, “Enough, okay?”

Clive hugged her, then kissed her cheek again before looking at me in the most direct of ways.

“I’m local, Jen, not like this one from down West. I was at the same school as ‘Licia. It’s okay love; I’ve got you. What it is, we had a group, girls together, yeah? And there were a few digs, a few too many jokes, and then we had a funeral. That was sort of a key thing: suddenly, more people were seeing who the girls from the House were, and I know what you’re going to say, ‘Licia, those cakes from your friend helped, but it was that funeral that opened eyes. Opened mine, aye? I sort of looked back on the jokes I’d told, just like the other lads, and then we’re at Uni, and, well, decided to make amends, sort of, and the amends ended up, well. Ended up going further than I expected”

He laughed out loud, all of a sudden.

“And this one here, yeah? His bloody music!”

I nodded, a little confused.

“Folk music?”

Clive grinned again, and nodded.

“Haven’t told ‘Licia this, so it’s good blackmail stuff, or rather was, once I tell it. Matt’s in hall, so his room is handy for a bit of post-pub stuff. Can’t remember why ‘Licia wasn’t out, but me and him were, and it was one of those student things: I’ve got a sleeping bag for his floor, we tank up at the Student Union, and then it’s the Chinese and a bag full of ‘extra portions’. Couple of spare camping bowls, and divvy the portions up, fifty-fifty, while pissing off his neighbours with some sounds”

I was chuckling happily at my own memories of doing exactly that in my student days, and he noticed, giving me a tip of an imaginary hat.

“Yeah, yeah, and doing the put-the-political-world-to-rights student thing, I know. Anyway, he’s already asked me a few personal questions about ‘Licia, so I sort of explain, carefully, and he says, ‘reminds me of a song’ and digs out a CD”

Alicia finished another glass in time to ask, “Which song?”

Matt was now pink, and I wondered where this was going. Clive simply said, “You know the album, love. ‘Bright Lights Tonight’, yeah?”

His girl sprayed a bit of wine.

“You cheeky sod, Matt! That’s one of our favourites in the House, and I bet I can guess which song it was!”

Matt was looking down, but Alicia had no mercy, and started to sing, a little out of tune.

“Your boyfriend’s good looking, he’s got it all there
Looks like God made him with something to spare
You look good together, scurrying off down the street
Has he got a friend, has he got a friend for me?”

She wiped her nose, then laughed again.

“Just, we will assume that your own question was regendered”

I reached across to take Matt’s hand.

“Sorry, Matt. Alicia, Clive, a little too far, I think”

She looked a little abashed, sneaking a sideways glance at Alwen, who had simply sat in silence throughout, but then reached for Matt’s free hand.

“Jen’s right; Clive shouldn’t have told us all that stuff, but, well, makes sense”

He looked at her in silence for more than a few seconds, then asked, “Is it a problem, you know, that I asked him before I really knew you?”

“It does explain one thing, Matt, and that’s why I suddenly had an introduction to you from half my housemates”

“And is that a problem?”

“Honestly? Look, I’m a drifter, at least in my personal life. If I hadn’t met ‘Licia and the other girls, I doubt I’d be here---no, not like that! I mean, I’d probably still be sitting on that fence, too frightened to come down on the right side of it. You gave me a bit of a push. I’m pretty certain it was the right way. Just don’t expect to be mates with my own Dad”

She looked sharply at her girlfriend, who had blanched as she spoke.

“Sorry it came out like that”

“It’s okay, Alwen. We’ve just had a bit of a remembrance fest recently. I’d show you the pics, but they’re private, private to Nana Deb, yeah? I just heard the words, and it was, you know. Whatever: we’re sorry if we were matchmaking, but if it’s worked out, then, doesn’t matter, does it?”

Alwen frowned.

“It still matters, though. Matt?”

“Yes?”

“Has it worked out for you?”

He was obviously wondering if the question was a loaded one, so I squeezed his hand.

“Go on, lad”

He coughed once, then simply replied, “Yes, I think so”, and Alwen smiled, raised their joined hands and kissed his.

“Then that’s sorted. Only one thing left now, apart from the decent snog you will give me in a few: what penance shall we devise for these two?”