“Ian?” More footsteps across the slate flagstones and then into and across the hallan. Ian had left the door to the fire house open, and he said, “In here,” and waited.
Kav paused at the doorway. His gaze went from Ian to the table with its candles to the fireplace with its candles to Ian again. His gaze went then from Ian’s face to Ian’s clothes and it lingered exactly where Ian wanted it to linger. But after a moment of the kind of tension that, at one time, would have sent the two of them directly to the bedroom, Kav said, “I had to work with the blokes today. We were shorthanded. I’m filthy. I’ll have a wash and get changed,” and backed out of the room without another word. This was enough to tell Ian that his lover knew what the scene before him presaged. This was also enough to tell Ian what direction their coming conversation was, as usual, going to take. An unspoken message of this kind from Kaveh would at one time have been enough to stymie him, but Ian decided that wouldn’t be the case tonight. Three years of concealment and one year in the open had taught him the value of living as he was meant to live.
It was thirty minutes before Kaveh rejoined him, and despite the fact that the meat was ten minutes out of the oven and the vegetables were well on their way to becoming a culinary disappointment, Ian was determined not to feel affronted by the time it had taken the other man to return. He poured the wine— forty quid for the bottle, not that it mattered, considering the occasion— and he nodded to the two glasses. He picked his own up, said, “It’s a good Bordeaux,” and waited for Kav to join him for a toast. For clearly, Ian thought, Kaveh saw that a toast was Ian’s intention, else why would he be standing there with his glass lifted and an expectant smile on his face?
For a second time, Kav’s gaze took in the table. He said, “Two places? Did she ring you or something?”
“I rang her.” Ian lowered his glass.
“And what?”
“I asked for another night.”
“And she actually cooperated?”
“For once. Aren’t you having some wine, Kav? I got it in Windermere. That wine shop we were in last— ”
“I had words with bloody old George.” Kav inclined his head in the direction of the road. “He caught me on the way in. He’s complaining about the heating again. He said he’s entitled to central heating. Entitled he said.”
“He’s got plenty of coal. Why’s he not using it if the cottage is too cold?”
“He says he doesn’t want a coal fire. He wants central heating. He says if he doesn’t have it, he’s looking for another situation.”
“When he lived here, he didn’t have central heating, for God’s sake.”
“He had the house itself. I think he saw that as compensation.”
“Well, he’s going to have to learn to cope, and if he can’t do that, he’ll have to find another farm to rent. Anyway, I don’t want to spend this evening talking about George Cowley’s grievances against us. The farm was for sale. We bought it. He didn’t. Full stop.”
“You bought it.”
“A technicality soon to be taken care of, I hope, when there’ll be no I. No yours and mine. No me, no you. Only we.” Ian took up the second glass and carried it to Kav. Kav hesitated for a moment. Then he accepted it. “Jesus God, I want you,” Ian said. And then with a smile, “Want to feel how much?”
“Hmmm. No. Let’s let it build.”
“Bastard.”
“I thought that’s how you like it, Ian.”
“First time you’ve smiled since you walked in the door. Tough day?”
“Not really,” Kav said. “Just a lot of work and not enough help. You?”
“No.” They both drank then, eyes on each other. Kav smiled again. Ian moved toward him. Kav moved away. He tried to make it look as if his attention had been caught by the gleam of cutlery or the low bowl of flowers on the table, but Ian wasn’t deceived. What he thought in reaction was what any man would think when he’s twelve years older than his lover and he’s given up everything to be with him.
At twenty-eight there would be any number of reasons Kaveh could give in explanation of why he wasn’t ready to settle down. Ian wasn’t prepared to hear them, however, because he knew there was only one that served as the truth. This truth was a form of hypocrisy, and the presence of hypocrisy was central to every argument they’d had in the last year.
“Know what today is?” Ian asked, raising his glass again.
Kav nodded but he looked chagrined. “Day we met. I’d forgotten. Too much going on up at Ireleth Hall, I think. But then— ” He indicated the table. Ian knew he meant not only the setup but also the trouble he’d gone to with the dinner. “When I saw this, it came to me. And I feel like a bloody wretch, Ian. I’ve nothing for you.”
“Ah. No matter,” Ian told him. “What I want is right here and it’s yours to give.”
“You’ve already got it, haven’t you?”
“You know what I mean.”
Kaveh walked to the window and flicked the heavy closed curtains open a crack as if to check where the daylight had gone to, but Ian knew that he was trying to work out what it was he wanted to say and the thought that he might want to say what Ian didn’t want to hear caused his head to begin its telltale throbbing and a flash of bright stars to course across his vision. He blinked hard as Kaveh spoke.
“Signing a book in a registry office doesn’t make us any more official than we already are.”
“That’s bollocks,” Ian said. “It makes us more than official. It makes us legal. It gives us standing in the community and, what’s more important, it tells the world— ”
“We don’t need standing. We already have it as individuals.”
“— and what’s more important,” Ian repeated, “it tells the world— ”
“Well that’s just it, isn’t it,” Kaveh said sharply. “The world, Ian. Think about it. The world. And everyone in it.”
Carefully, Ian set his wineglass on the table. He knew he should get the meat and carve it, get the veg and serve them, sit, eat, and let the rest go. Go upstairs afterwards and have each other properly. But on this night of all nights, he couldn’t bring himself to do anything more but say what he’d already said to his partner more than a dozen times and what he’d sworn he wouldn’t say tonight: “You asked me to come out and I did. For you. Not for myself, because it didn’t matter to me and even if it had, there were too many people involved and what I did— for you— was as good as stabbing them through their throats. And that was fine by me because it was what you wanted, and I finally realised— ”
“I know all this.”
“Three years is long enough to hide, you said. You said, ‘Tonight you decide.’ In front of them you said it, Kav, and in front of them I decided. Then I walked out. With you. Have you any idea— ”
“Of course I do. D’you think I’m a stone? I have a bloody idea, Ian. But we’re not talking about just living together, are we? We’re talking about marriage. And we’re talking about my parents.”
“People adjust,” Ian said. “That’s what you told me.”
“People. Yes. Other people. They adjust. But not them. We’ve been through this before. In my culture— their culture— ”
“You’re part of this culture now. All of you.”
“That’s not how it works. One doesn’t just flee to a foreign country, take some magic pill one night, and wake up the next morning with an entirely different system of values. It doesn’t happen that way. And as the only son— the only child, for God’s sake— I have… Oh Christ, Ian, you know all this. Why can’t you be happy with what we have? With how things are?”