Crying in the Rain (Hiding Behind The Couch Character and Festive Episodes)

17 Pip, Pip…

Ade

A de was glad of Pip jollying him along. He was too worked up to think about what he needed to do, but with her arm hooked through his and the sound of her chatter to focus on, he kept going.

They reached the corner of his street, and Ade stopped. Fergus’s car was parked right outside the main door, and he was sitting behind the wheel, banging his hands in time to the thud of his obnoxiously loud music. Pip gently tugged, and Ade stumbled forward.

“What shall I do?” she asked. He didn’t know. “Wait in the living room?” He shook his head. His sofa was still full of Fergus’s piss. “Then I’ll go up and sit with Mary,” she said. “If you’re even slightly worried, you scream as loud as you can. OK?”

Ade nodded. “Yes. Scream.”

“OK.” Pip walked away from him, glancing back every couple of steps.

Ade drifted along, he wasn’t sure how, closer and closer, his eyes locked on Fergus’s outline, whilst Fergus pretended not to notice him until the very last second. The car door opened, and Ade quickened his pace. He kept walking, calling back over his shoulder, “It’s all packed up and in the hallway.”

He continued through the front entrance, up the stairs to his apartment, key now in shaking hand, trying to home in on the lock. Fergus’s large, heavy palm landed on his arm, and he froze.

“Don’t touch me.”

“Adrian, come on. Does it have to be this way? ”

Ade tried again to push the key in, but his nervousness had turned to pure fear—not of Fergus but that he wouldn’t see this through.

“I love you, Adrian. And I know what you’re going to say. I have a funny way of showing it. You’re right. I’ve fucked up, big time. But if—”

The key finally slid into the lock. Ade turned it in relief and pushed the door open. His throat was seizing up, the tension in his muscles and the pain of the bruising like a clamp around his neck that turned his voice into a strangled stream of words.

“Just get your stuff and get the fuck out of my life.”

He tried to step out of the way, but Fergus advanced on him, using his physical size to walk Ade backwards into his apartment.

“One more chance,” Fergus said, the words themselves a plea, but the tone was a command. He expected Ade’s obedience.

Ade stayed where he was, pinned against the wall with his foot positioned to stop the door from closing. “Get your things and leave.”

Fergus shifted his weight onto his left hip and scratched his head in seeming puzzlement. He attempted a genial smile, but it only made him look more sinister and intimidating. There was no gentleness or humility behind that smile. No emotion whatsoever in his eyes.

“Remember when we went to see the therapist?” Fergus asked.

Ade didn’t answer.

“Well, do you, or are you too stupid to remember anything without your little checklists?” Fergus looked around him and gave a mocking shrug. “Where’s your tablet today, Adrian? Och, you haven’t broken something else, have you? You clumsy boy.” He took a step closer and trailed his fingertips lightly over Ade’s cheek.

Ade’s breath hissed out of his nostrils, hard and fast, but he fought the instinct to close his eyes and stared right back, unblinking, as he said again, slowly and clearly, “Get your things and leave. ”

“Is that what you want?” Fergus asked, his fingers and thumb now positioned over the yellowing bruises on Ade’s jaw. He squeezed. Ade clenched his teeth tight so he didn’t respond to the spike of pain that shot up into his skull. “Well, is it or not?”

Fergus clamped harder around Ade’s chin. Unable to speak, he nodded slowly, forcing Fergus’s hand up and down.

Fergus gave him a pitying smile. “If I go this time, it’s for good, you know that?”

Ade elbowed Fergus’s arm away. Immediately, his other hand rose and struck Ade’s cheek.

Ade recoiled, but that slap seemed to ignite some vital light that had been too long extinguished.

“It ends as it began,” he said resignedly, conclusively. It was a risk to challenge Fergus, he knew that well enough, but the resolve that had brought him into the bright new morning and then wavered with the passing of the hours had returned, as dazzling and invincible as the sun. For just outside the door, where Ade could see him but Fergus could not, was Kris.

Ade nodded towards the pile behind Fergus. “Everything out of my bedroom is in the suitcase—you can keep it—and the rest is in the bag and the shoe box.”

Fergus spun on the spot and took in the curious collection of items. He turned back to Ade. “What would I want with your shitty stereo? It’s about five years out of date.”

“Take it or don’t take it. I’m not bothered either way.” That kind of talk would normally have ended with him being dragged by his hair to wherever Fergus decided suited him best.

But not this time. Fergus could feel the power being snatched away from him and was confused for real. He poked a finger at the shoe box. “What’s in it?”

“Nothing important,” Ade said dismissively. “Just the odds and bobs you left lying around my living room like you owned the place.”

“We’ll let the courts decide that one, shall we?”

“It’s my apartment, Fergus. My name is on the deeds. ”

“And how did you pay the mortgage when you went whoring after your career in radio?”

“I’ll send you a cheque.” Ade took his phone from his pocket and checked the time, trying to appear nonchalant, hoping it would hurry Fergus along.

“Where’s your watch?”

“It stopped working.”

“When?”

“It’s irrelevant. Could you hurry up, please? I have things to do.”

Ade’s masquerade of confidence was slipping, as Fergus now had the shoe box in his hands, and for one awful moment, it looked as if he was going to open it. The rest of Ade’s potentially very short life was dependent on what happened next. But then Fergus put the box under his arm and picked up the suitcase. As a parting shot, he swung the suitcase into the TV, which fell, screen down, onto the floor.

In the doorway, he stopped and looked back, sneering at the TV and the pictures on the walls. “You can keep everything else. It’s all worthless junk anyway.” And on those words, Fergus Campbell finally left Ade’s apartment and soon after left the building.

***

Kris

“Y ou can come in,” Ade called far too brightly as he picked up the TV and carried it through a doorway.

Kris stepped inside and slowly moved along the hall, watching Ade set down the TV, which appeared to be in one piece, and then flit about, flicking a speck of dust here, straightening a coaster there, examining book spines, plumping naked cushions…

“Ade. ”

…rubbing at a spot of something on the coffee table. “Would you like a drink. Cup of tea? I’ll put the kettle on. We’ll have to sit in the kitchen, I’m afraid.”

Ade moved to walk past Kris, who knew better than to try to physically stop him and stepped aside.

“How do you have your tea? Weak? Strong? You have milk, don’t you?”

Kris watched on silently as Ade lifted the kettle and flipped the lid open, turned the tap on…and fell apart. The kettle landed in the sink with an ear-ringing clunk, cold water sprayed everywhere, and Ade slid to the floor, his face broken and white.

Without a word, Kris turned off the tap and dropped to his knees beside Ade, utterly powerless, while Ade sobbed and gasped, his arms wrapped protectively around his head as if someone was raining down blows on him. Aware it might be the worst thing to do but desperate to do something, Kris gently rubbed Ade’s back to comfort him and give him some connection to reality. Ade didn’t react in any way, not even when Kris startled at a movement in his peripheral vision.

Not Fergus, thank God. It was the woman from the radio station cafeteria—presumably the ‘Pip’ who’d called Ade that morning—and she didn’t seem at all shocked by what she was witnessing.

“I need…” Ade gulped.

Kris waited, then asked, “What do you need, Ade?”

He started to get up. “I need…” He wasn’t sobbing now. He was wailing like a wounded animal.

Crying himself, Kris wrapped his arms around Ade, holding steady as Ade fell against him. He glanced up at Ade’s friend, who was biting her fist, tears streaming down her cheeks, but her eyes, locked on Kris’s, conveyed another emotion besides fear and distress. Jealousy.

I’ve taken her place. But what could he do? Ade was so out of it, he didn’t even know she was there .

Pip turned away and, after a moment’s nose blowing, turned back and stepped around them. “I’ll put that kettle on,” she said.

“No,” Ade said thickly, pulling away from Kris to peer up at her through swollen red eyes. Snot hung from both nostrils, and his usually spiky hair was a dark, sodden fringe stuck to his forehead. “Pub.”

“Pub,” Pip repeated in blatant disbelief. “Are you serious?”

Ade sniffed and nodded.

Pip studied him a moment and put the kettle back on the side. “Better wash your face first.”

Ade gargled a laugh and tried to stand again. He wobbled, and Kris caught him, eyes meeting. “Let me help,” Kris offered and slowly rose to his feet, pulling Ade up with him.

“Bathroom,” Ade said and staggered away.

Kris wiped his eyes on his sleeve and gave Pip a watery smile. “Hi, I’m Kris.”

“I know,” Pip responded dryly. She examined him suspiciously for a few seconds and then held out her hand. “Pip,” she said. Kris shook the offered hand. “I suppose, as my GBF has a serious case of love at first sight, we’d best get to know each other, huh?”

“I hope the ‘BF’ is more important than the ‘G’.” Kris tried to say it lightly, but what he’d told Ade about being out at school and the bullying he had endured all came back to the same thing. He wasn’t just out; he was outspoken, sometimes to an extreme. It mattered a great deal to him, though perhaps not as much as making a good first impression with Ade’s friends. Pip still had him under scrutiny, and he started to fret. He redressed. “Sorry if I offended you. It’s a bit of a sore point.”

Pip nodded. “For me too.” She gave him a friendly nudge. “I’m sure we’ll get along just fine.”

Kris carefully released a sigh as Ade came back into the kitchen, looking moderately more human now he’d washed his face. He’d stopped crying, although the occasional gulp still escaped.

“Have you done the introductions?” he asked them both .

“Introductions and mutual causing of offence,” Pip said with a playful wink in Kris’s direction.

“Oh good,” Ade said. “I’m glad you’re not standing on ceremony. I’m all out of tenterhooks.”

“Do you really want to go to the pub?” Pip asked. “If you do, then that’s absolutely what we’ll do, but…”

But Ade didn’t look fit to go anywhere.

“I just need to get out of here,” he said.

“OK. Fine.”

“You know,” Kris started carefully, “we could always go back to our place.”

“Your marital home?” Pip’s disapproval was clear.

“Yeah,” Kris confirmed. “It was our marital home. Now we’re just some kind of weird and wonderful housemates. Plus—” Kris turned to Ade “—I hear there’s a Ginger Appreciation Society meeting tonight.” That raised a sweet, genuine smile from Ade.

“I like your thinking. What do you say, Pip? I’ll drive there if you drive back.”

Pip hummed, and she did seem to give it serious consideration, but in the end she shook her head. “You’ll probably want to stay there tonight, and I’m on earlies again tomorrow. No, you go and wind down. We can catch up over a coffee at the weekend.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

Ade gave her a long, sniffly hug. “I love you.”

“Love you too,” she said, reaching up on tiptoes so she could kiss his cheek. She did the same with Kris. “Look after my boy.”

“You have my word.”

She locked eyes with him again, an unspoken understanding passing between them to put aside their rivalry and do all they could to help Ade through the coming months. He’d shown today how incredibly strong and determined he was; kicking Fergus out was massive, maybe the bravest thing he’d ever do, but it was only a step along the road, and a relationship like that carried a heavy toll .

After Pip left, Ade gathered a few things so he could stay overnight at Kris and Shaunna’s place. “That’s it now,” he said, zipping his toothbrush and paste into a washbag. “No more excuses about his shit still being here. No reason for him to contact me again.”

“Would it be wrong to tell you I’m proud of you?” Kris asked.

“Not for you.” Ade winked mischievously but quickly became serious. “I can’t look back, Kris. I can’t afford for him to trip me up again. One way or another, it will kill me.” He sighed shakily, then straightened his shoulders and nodded resolutely. “My turn to shine.”

“You’re already the brightest star in my universe,” Kris said, only half joking.

Ade groaned. “Come on. I want to introduce you to someone before we go.”

“Who?”

Ade didn’t answer and instead steered Kris out of the apartment, to the next one along. The door opened as Ade went to knock on it.

“Oh, Jesus!” The older woman clutched her chest and took a step back. “Ade! Are you all right? We didn’t know what to do for the best. We couldn’t hear a thing, and then there was a terrible bang, and we were about to call the police, but then we saw Fergus leaving and this young man hanging around. Are you all right?”

“Yes, Mary, thank you,” Ade said, once she stopped for breath. “This is Kris.”

“Kris? The one who—oh.” Mary’s mouth stayed in an ‘O’ as she stared at him. He had a vision of a penny being fed into that ‘O’ and ricocheting its way through her insides, like a machine in an amusement arcade, until it finally dropped. “Your new man?” she asked Ade, still eyeing Kris up.

“We’ll see, Mary. Anyway, the other reason I’ve popped round is to let you know I’ll be away for a few days. I don’t think he’ll come back, but if he does, you’ve got my number and Kris’s. Is that OK?”

“Sure it is, Ade.” A loud beep sounded from within Mary’s apartment. “That’s my tea cooked,” she said. “It’s lovely to meet you, Kris. You take care, Ade.”

“You too, Mary.”

She shuffled backwards, giving them a little wave as the door closed in their faces, followed by a male voice within asking very loudly who she was talking to.

“I knew it,” Ade muttered. “That Benny is a bad influence.”

“Benny?” Kris queried.

“He lives downstairs. He and Mary are having…relations.”

“Ah.” Kris nodded slowly, totally bemused and feeling quite weary. It had been a very stressful day and he was running on his last reserves; God only knew how Ade was still standing.

As if he had read Kris’s mind, Ade asked, “Can you drive?”

“I can. I don’t have a car, though. I’ve never needed one.”

“How would you feel about driving us to your place? My insurance will cover you, and I feel like shit.”

“Yeah, of course,” Kris agreed without hesitation. Ade moved away to go back to the apartment, and Kris caught his hand, pulling him close and giving him a soft, undemanding kiss. “You don’t look like shit.”

“I bet I do.”

“No.” Kris kissed him again to reassure him, aware that this was the first of many times to come when Ade would berate himself, but it wouldn’t be hard to tell him how handsome he was, or how intelligent, witty, desirable and loveable, because it was the truth.

*

They were at almost the halfway point when the car started playing up. At first, it was only a slight judder as they took off from traffic lights. Next, the engine started to click and clatter, then the clicking and clattering was joined by a whirring. Kris pulled over, and Ade called his roadside recovery service.

“I don’t understand,” he said. “I check everything once a week—oil, tyre pressures, brake fluid—everything. It’s never missed a service, and it’s just had an oil change. This shouldn’t be happening.”

An hour later, the mechanic arrived and quickly diagnosed the problem. “Your oil pump’s had it, mate. Your engine’s taken a right battering.”

With the MG on the back of the tow truck, Ade and Kris climbed into the cab, next to the mechanic. Kris couldn’t help thinking it was something of an anticlimax, not that he was up for any more excitement today, but it should have been a chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce or the E-Type Jaguar Ade loved so much, taking him to a big party where the Champagne flowed to celebrate what he had achieved.

No, a breakdown truck being driven by an oily mechanic was nothing like the glorious exit Kris would have liked for Ade, but it was a move in the right direction.