The O. Henry Prize Stories 2011

Adam Foulds
The Rules Are the Rules

He would have to begin any minute now; everyone else was there: the half-dozen dads on each sideline, the boys shoaling up and down the pitch with a couple of practice balls. They were getting boisterous. He stood up tall and scanned beyond the field of play to the edges of the park. To his left, the low autumn sun shone heavily into his eyes. Elsewhere it made the colors rich, pulled long shadows from the trees. Nothing. Walkers with dogs. Mothers with pushchairs. A cyclist zoomed silently along a path, spokes glittering, and disappeared for an instant behind the back of one of the fathers, who held a baby astride his right hip. Maybe eighteen months old. It narrowed its eyes in the breeze, soft hair lifted from its forehead. It held one arm up and tried to grasp with its curling fingers the moving air.

“Rev, are we gonna start?”

“Yes, we are. I was just waiting for Jack. Let’s get those balls off the pitch.”

When Reverend Peter blew his whistle he saw a few shoulders in Jack’s team drop with disappointment. The boys moved slowly into position. Peter carried the match ball to the spot on his fingertips and just as he placed it, rolling it precisely with his boot, he heard a shout. It was Jack running toward them. He had sprinted ahead of his father, whose tiny, bag-carrying form rose and fell far away, laboriously shrugging off the distance.

Peter didn’t particularly like Jack. The boy had one of those innocent, insolent faces with an upturned nose and styled brown hair. He was ten and he had a hairstyle. He looked too much like the cinema’s idea of a boy, too much like everybody’s idea of a boy, and this made him vain. He was vain of his footballing skills in particular. Moreover, he had a professional’s tendency to foul, to fake, and to celebrate his goals with excessive displays, running with his arms outstretched, his shirt pulled up over his head to reveal his white, muscled body, his blind mauve nipples. He was strong and pretty and cruel, at least in his careless mastery. Peter’s sympathy was elsewhere. It was his natural Christianity perhaps; he felt himself with the boys who weren’t as fit or as sure of themselves, the frightened ones. Those boys, however, lit up when Jack joined them.

“You’re late.”

“It was traffic. My dad …”

“People are getting annoyed. Just get into position. Right.” He pulled a fifty-pence piece from his pocket and pointed at the opposing captain. “You.”

“Heads.”

He flipped it up in a spin, swatted it down onto the back of his hand. “Heads it is.” He raised his arm, blew his whistle, and the game began.

The low sun was awkward, flashing uncomfortably whenever the game turned in its direction and heating one side of him. His neck sweated as he ran between the shouting fathers. With sharp blasts of his whistle he cut the game into sections until there was a long period of fluid play when it found its rhythm, the boys in midfield bustling back and forth quietly, the defense lines pulled forward, pushed back. After minutes of this the boys tired and the game degraded into a series of pointless long kicks, the ball lofted practically from goal mouth to goal mouth. At the end of one run up the pitch, at the end of the tether of his breath, Peter slowed to a standstill. He turned when he heard a baby crying. He saw the child rearing up on its father’s hip, its face red and mouth wide. Clear globes of tears stood on its cheeks. Its small fists trembled. The man was doing a poor job of comforting the child. Surely if he spoke soothingly to it and stroked that soft hair it would quieten. Frustrated at his powerlessness to intervene and take the child, he heard another yelp on the pitch, turned again, and saw the game halted, a knot of arguing boys around one boy lying flat on his back, rocking from side to side, his forearm over his eyes. Peter blew again and ran over. Blood: a long streak of it down one boy’s shin. It poured from a flap of startled white skin just below the knee. Jack was protesting. Of course he was. He reached for his cards. “Right, you, off.” The boys swarmed around him when he pulled out the red card, tossing their heads and flinging their arms down in despair. Jack shouted at him, “It wasn’t me! It wasn’t me!” Peter bent down and asked the injured boy, grave-faced and silent amid the uproar. “Was it him?” The boy said nothing, nodded. “Thought so.” He stood up again and felt a brief, cold dizziness of blood draining from his head. He saw Jack’s father running on.

“He didn’t do it.”

“Off the field.”

“But he didn’t.” Jack’s father’s ears were small, pink, and tightly curled.

Peter avoided his eyes. “He didn’t.”

“He did do it. The rules are the rules. He’s off.”

“You didn’t even see it. You were looking at Mike’s Janey. I saw you.”

“You and your son, off now.”

“But …”

“Off. Now!”

He raised the red card for everyone to see and blew as loudly as he could.

The bathroom was warm and heavy from Steve’s use, the air scented with shower cream and deodorant and aftershave. Peter arrived trembling from the exercise, his mind marked with the argument. The shower cubicle was warmer and heavier still. A remnant of foam still stood over the plughole, whispering away to nothing. Steve wasn’t always very tidy when he was excited to be going out on sermon night. After Peter had showered, watching the soil spiral away, he stood wrapped in a towel, pink and soft, and saw the gunpowder of Steve’s beard still in the sink. The lid of his hair gel was off, its contents lashed up into a crest by his delving fingers. Peter dried himself, added his own blasts of deodorant to the funk, then dressed, stabbed the plastic of a ready meal, and put it in the microwave.

He ate in front of the television. He told himself it was to find a neat quirk of topicality to add to his sermon, something to remind the congregation that he lived in their world, but he watched quite mindlessly the celebrity dancers in their camp little outfits, taking their turns then awaiting judgment, chests throbbing, smiling crazily, sweating through their makeup. He thought of Steve, perfumed and pristine, sitting on the Tube or already at a bar chatting to someone. Steve, who had arrived like the spring, painfully, changing everything with his provoking warmth, his beauty, who stepped in and out of Peter’s cage like it didn’t exist, who argued that it didn’t exist: Half the bloody church, Peter. All that. Steve who was getting bored, who was elsewhere.

Peter felt his rice and meat settling, looked down at his belly. He’d put on black jeans and a black top. Even when he wasn’t working, that’s what he would put on. He noticed that these two blacks didn’t match. The jeans were older than the top; their dye had grayed in the wash. It made him think something, about dailiness, about time spent. The sadness of laundry. Clothes laboring through the wash week after week. The sadness of laundry! Listen to yourself. Just write your sermon, pray, and go to bed.

The phone rang, stalling him in his seat. He let it bleat and bleat until the answerphone came on. After his own voice apologizing for his absence: “Hello, this is Steve …” No, it wasn’t. It was the wrong Steve, a non-Steve. “I’m Jack’s father, from football. I thought I’d ring you because I’m not happy, really, with the way things went this afternoon. What you did wasn’t … it just wasn’t the right call. Jack wasn’t guilty and I think you know that, more than you could let on at the time anyway. I sort of wanted to clear the air and just get things straight with you. I’ve got a very upset lad here and it’d be nice to tell him it’ll be all right next time. Maybe you can call-” the machine cut him off with a long beep. In the silence afterward Peter said out loud, “Now go away.”

Perhaps he had made his decision quickly and perhaps the evidence had been circumstantial, but a decision had to be made and he was the referee. Also, he’d sensed Jack’s guilt; he knew it was there. If he hadn’t been guilty at that precise moment, he had been at others and would be again. He was selfish and superb, a greedy player. The boy needed punishing.

Toilet, toothbrushing, prayers, and in. He read for a bit before turning the light out and wondered when he would feel the bed sink under Steve’s satisfied weight-alcohol in his bloodstream, semen in his belly-if he would feel it or whether by then he’d be too far gone.

He woke with Steve’s arm over him, Steve’s mouth against the back of his neck, breathing warmly onto his spine. The back of Steve’s hand was blotched with the stamp of a nightclub. He lifted the arm and exited as through a door. Steve rolled onto his back, chewing and murmuring in his sleep.

Peter left early. He liked to be the first person at his church. This was hard to do: his verger, Bill, also liked to be first with his keys, round-shouldered, busy, in possession of the place. Peter walked through a glorious autumn morning. The trees and cars were radiant, their edges haloed with soft sunlight. The fallen leaves were dry, skittering along the pavement in the breeze. Pigeons called from bright aerials, twanging them as they took flight.

St. John the Evangelist’s was a thick-looking Edwardian church of polychrome brick. It was homely, not beautiful, heavy and earnest and suburban. If he could have chosen his parish church, Peter would have preferred something medieval, something with the ghost of its Catholic past hovering just under the whitewash, something with a hint of the monastic, maybe a preserved anchorite’s cell. Still, St. John’s greeted him with its solid familiarity as he approached.

Someone must have forgotten to put out the sand bucket for the alcoholics last night; the doorway was littered with cigarette butts. He knelt to pick them up. That felt good: a mild abasement. The butts were bent, dingy, sadly human. He filled his left palm with them and unlocked the door. First the bin in the vestry to throw them away, then to wash the ash and odor from his hands. Stepping into the church proper, he received the unfailing shock of the sight of the cross over the altar, that jolt delivered by its strong bare shape, by its meaning. He repeated the shape onto his chest with his fingertips, sinking to his knees. In an empty pew at the front of the church, with the noise of occasional cars beyond the glowing windows, he prayed. When Bill arrived, brisk and muttering, a crinkling carrier bag in his hand, banging on the lights, he heard him fall satisfyingly silent out of respect. He gave it a minute more then stood up, smiling. “Good morning, William.”

His standard Sunday congregation was decent, about forty souls, including the three African ladies who sat in a row under their hats, smiling, and the Davises who sat at the front, either side of young Natalie. She remained placid and bored and pleased with herself, quite still under the arch of her Alice band and long, thoroughly brushed hair. Only her feet swung back and forth impatiently, counting the minutes away.

Peter had honestly tried for a while not to have a church voice but it proved impossible. His normal voice wouldn’t carry. To be audible and dignified he needed that slow ceremonial sound. He heard himself go into it at the beginning of the liturgy and it ran like a machine. He could let it function, could feel the motions of his mouth, while up behind his eyes he looked around and thought. It was thus, entering the choreography of the service and delivering solid, meaningful words, that he watched the new couple enter. The man was nervous, tiptoeing with his hands raised, in a pink polo shirt and jacket. He grimaced, baring his teeth as he maneuvered into place. His wife looked pretty and was, as Peter’s mother would have put it, “in full sail,” decidedly pregnant, her face soft and round, tan with makeup. So that was why they were here. They’d be wanting to make use of Reverend Peter’s services, arriving late enough in her pregnancy not to have to suffer too much church and soon enough to seem willing. They settled slowly at the back.

Peter spoke and sang. The rhythm of the ritual took hold, appeased him. He saw it take hold of the congregation also. Shaking hands with them at the door afterward they were clean and light, not quite tired, glazed with smiles as they were let out into the Sunday quiet. The new couple, having watched everything including the exit of all the others, were the last out.

“New faces. I’m delighted you joined us. I’m Reverend Peter.”

The man smiled, but differently to the regulars, as though amused at the thought of meeting a vicar at all, as though this too were part of a show. His fingers were short and heavy, his grip tight. A builder, maybe. His head was set low over high, muscular shoulders. A small gold stud, caught by the sun, shone in one ear-lobe.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Rob. This is my wife, Cassie.”

Cassie reached her small hand forward and smiled with a little scrunch of her nose. “Lovely to meet you, Vicar.”

“I see you’re expecting a happy event, the happiest event.”

“That’s right,” Rob replied. “Fact, that’s sort of why we came.”

“Yes, I rather thought it might be.”

“We want to get her started right. And we are local. We live just down by the Peugeot garage.”

“Well, just call the number on the sign and we’ll arrange to meet and talk about it. There are things to discuss for a christening.”

“Ah, that’s terrific. Thanks, Father.”

“It is, indeed. Another soul saved.”

Rob smiled, his head swaying slightly. “Exactly.”

Peter watched them walk away. Rob hadn’t gone five yards before he pulled a cigarette from his pocket and lit up, his smoke a lovely blue rising over his shoulder.

Peter stretched across the bed to turn the radio down. Rolling on his back, he shucked off both shoes and settled his hands behind his head to watch Steve dress.

“I’ve got a new congregant.”

“Oh yes?”

“Think you’d like him, actually. Terribly butch.”

“Is she now?”

Peter would never mention this, but sometimes Steve reminded him of his grandfather. It was the length and flatness of his back, perhaps stiffening now with middle age. That long plane made his proportions strange when he leaned forward from his waist to look through the drawer: it was straight all the way up the back of his neck.

“Are you trying to make me jealous?”

“Would I ever do that to you?”

Steve dropped his towel: brief, matter-of-fact nudity, determinedly unarousing. He kept his back to Peter. His buttocks twitched together, hollowing at their sides, when he pulled up his Y-fronts. He sat on the edge of the bed to put on his socks. Now, standing again in his underwear, he looked childish, like a sexy little boy.

“Do you have to go out tonight?”

“And what are you doing?”

“Youth mission.”

“So you’re out?”

“I’ll be back by nine.”

Steve raised his eyebrows, disbelieving.

“All right, nine-thirty. It shouldn’t be later than that.”

“Oh, I’m sure. So you want me to sit here and wait for you?”

“You know what I mean.”

Steve chose a shirt from the wardrobe, unbuttoned the top, and angled it carefully off the hanger. He slid his arms into it.

“Fine, fine.” Peter gave up. “Not tonight then. But we should do something one of these nights. I should come with you.”

“No, you shouldn’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“Not exactly your scene, dear. And what if someone should see you?”

Peter hadn’t apologized because he wasn’t wrong so there was no need to. The ball flew high over his head. He always loved that moment, the purity and stillness of it, the ball in another element, silently traveling over the noise below. It sank toward the green. Jack blocked it down with the side of his boot, turned on the spot, and looped past the defender. Peter ran toward him, feeling Jack’s father’s gaze fastened on him. Jack ran three strides and struck the ball cleanly. It shot up, humming, into the top left corner of the goal and Jack stopped still with his arms raised as his teammates rushed toward him. When they’d gone, Peter patted him on the shoulder. Jack turned round startled, shrugged the vicar’s hand from his shoulder, and ran away. Another boy shouted, “You taking sides now, ref?” Peter shook his head, back in the game. “Backchat. Don’t make me warn you twice.”

Rob waved as he and Cassie arrived. They sat at the back of the congregation as though still interlopers. Cassie pulled up her bra straps beneath her blouse, settling her heavy breasts. Rob murmured something to her and they both, simultaneously, turned their faces up to Peter. Through the ceremony they were calm and amiable but as if not quite getting the point. They looked continuously expectant, like children awaiting the end of a magic trick that never arrived. Every week they sat like that until they were released into the real world of air and cars and food and TV.

Rob was larger than Peter had remembered. Perhaps he went to the gym. Certainly he had the big cylindrical thighs of a bodybuilder. They held him up on the bulk of himself, as though he couldn’t ever properly sit down. Briefly, Peter glanced at his crotch, at his trouser front clogged with his member. Cassie’s ringed hand rested on her belly. They looked peaceful, animal, comfortably thoughtless. Rob caught Peter’s eye for a hot moment and confused Peter by giving him an inappropriate encouraging nod.

The following week Peter thought that Rob looked hungover. He sat with his arms folded, his drained gray face tilted back, observing proceedings from under half-closed eyelids. At the door he excused himself. “Bit dicky today. Must’ve been the takeaway last night.” He rubbed his stomach to illustrate but Peter wasn’t having it.

“I’m sure it was. You can’t always trust them, can you? Temperance. Temperance in all things.” That was a foolish choice of word he’d heard himself say twice. Quite probably Rob didn’t know what it meant.

He’d chosen the wrong moment to go to the shop. Peter was surrounded by schoolchildren in loud groups. They wandered erratically across the pavement in front of him, shrieking at each other, stepping off into the gutter, oblivious to oncoming cars. Before he could pay for his milk, bread, and baked beans, he had to wait behind a few of them as they bought the sugary drinks and sweets that shook their concentration into a useless noisy fizz. He rolled his eyes at the shopkeeper, who didn’t respond, seemed confused, in fact.

As Peter was leaving the shop, a man entering greeted him. It took Peter a moment to recognize Rob because Rob was wearing a suit. He’d made the standard after-work adjustment: top shirt button undone, tie pulled a little loose. Peter hadn’t thought of Rob as someone who would need to wear a suit for work.

“It’s Rob, isn’t it?”

“That’s right.”

Peter often ran into parishioners when he was out and actually quite liked to. It was contact that required only his fluent, professional self, and it made the world sometimes cheerful and friendly, familiar.

“How are you? How’s …”

“Cassie?”

“Yes, I was going to say Cassie.”

“She’s diamond. Really well. Won’t be long now.”

“No, I suppose it can’t be.”

“It’s a big relief, to be honest, Reverend. Cassie, she, um, she miscarried a couple of times.”

“Oh. Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Yeah. Well. So. So, we’re properly excited.”

“I’m sure you must be.”

“Here, I’ve got a scan I carry around I can show you.”

“Oh, don’t worry.”

“No, no, it’s just here.” Rob pulled a folded piece of paper from his wallet and handed it to Peter. “It’s a little girl.”

Peter looked at the faint white swirl, the luminous bones, the brighter white of its heart and spine. “A little girl, is it?”

“Yes. There.” Rob pointed with the nail of his little finger. “That blob there is her heart beating away.”

“Yes, I thought it was. You must be very happy.”

“We are. Anyway, I’ll let you get on. We’re seeing you next week, aren’t we, to talk through arrangements?”

“That’s right.”

“Great.” Full of his fatherhood, full of his ordinary joy, Rob gave Peter a friendly pat on the shoulder as he left the shop. Peter looked back at him and tried to smile.

Peter walked slowly to football. It was no longer a release for him, a clearing onto which he stepped once a week to move in light and air. Now it was something else that opposed him, another place of solitude without freedom. Dimly he knew that it was his fault, that his personality had seeped out and somehow stained it all.

The day was chilly also, the pitch heavy and stiff. Wind hustled the trees. Cold rain flung across and stopped, started again. The ground was waterlogged near the center circle. Running through it, the boys’ boots stamped up flashes of water that soaked their socks. They played slowly. Jack was impatient, working with more energy and will than the other boys. Peter watched his frustration and indulged the temptation to thwart him further. Three times when Jack had received the ball and was ready to start on one of his glorying flights toward goal, balanced and expert, his hair fetchingly lifted by the wind, Peter blew for offside. It was satisfying to snap the leash and watch him stop, letting the ball roll from his feet, unused. You’re not going anywhere. He knew he was doing it, that the offsides were marginal at best, and he heard confirming voices of protest from the sidelines. So he wasn’t surprised after the game when Jack’s father, his face and voice by now so familiar, approached and said, “Look, I don’t know what it is but you’ve got some sort of a problem.”

“I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t use your posh voice on me. If you don’t know, that only makes it worse. I’m not saying you’re funny with kids.”

“You better not be. That would be, that would be.”

“I’m not saying that. What I’m saying is that there’s something about you and Jack. I’ve asked him. He said there’s no funny business whatever. Point is, I’ve got a good lad here, a good player, and he’s not getting a chance to develop. I’ve found somewhere else for him, a Sunday league game he can play in. So you won’t be seeing us again.”

Peter regarded the man with narrowed eyes, that face so familiar now, the small blue eyes, the sprouting chest hair at his collar. “I have to say I’m relieved,” he said eventually.

“You what?”

“Jack’s a little cheat, isn’t he? Can’t trust him to play properly at all. It’ll be nice to get rid of him. The game will be much improved.”

“Now, listen.” Jack’s father jabbed a pointing finger at Peter then shook his head, giving up. “If you weren’t a man of the cloth, seriously …”

He turned and walked away.

Off the grid. That was how Peter thought of himself when he lost contact with God, when Jesus was a dead man and he was alone. Then the world was vast and contained nothing, nothing real, only his loneliness between hard surfaces. How long he spent like this was a secret kept between him and God, and of all his secrets this was the most private. Of course this all belonged in the category of “doubt,” which was integral to faith and sounded strong and simple, even heroic, in the spiritual lives of others. But for Peter right now it meant sitting alone in his house with the radio on, the light coming down, leftover baked beans hardening on his plate, and his soul shriveling inside him like a slug on salt. It meant thinking of Steve out there, loose in the gusty evening city. It meant wanting Steve and Steve not wanting him back.

Sometimes Peter wished for ordinary things, ordinary thoughts. He could have had what the others were having, had he been born that way. But this, apparently, was not what was destined for him.

Peter was angry with loneliness the day Rob and Cassie came to his office to discuss the christening. He sat them down without offering drinks, watched their gazes travel nervously around his bookshelves and religious images, unable to settle.

“You see, this is something to be taken very seriously. Nothing more seriously in fact. Now, I know that I serve a function. I know that’s what I do as far as some people are concerned.”

“Sorry, I don’t follow.”

Peter stared. “People need me for this and that, to get their children into the good church schools, to visit the elderly relatives they can’t be bothered to see and so on. But I have to insist, I am a servant of God, of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and He demands faith and respect-”

“I understand,” Rob cut in. “It’s a stressful job. You’re stressed.”

Cassie rolled forward over her belly. “Highly strung,” she suggested, and lapsed back.

“That’s not what I’m saying, actually.”

“And I promise you,” Rob went on, “we’re not taking the mick in any way. We’re here-aren’t we, Cass?-because we want things done right for our little girl.” Here he reached across and rested his hand lightly on his wife’s belly.

“Well, good. That’s good.” Peter felt a stab of envy: that was what it was. Recognizing it, his anger gave way. He felt his body soften with contrition, humiliation. He could behave better toward them now he knew. “That’s good. That’s what we want to hear. So, I’ll take you through the ceremony, what we’ll be doing.”

He made them a cup of tea and they talked on. A rain shower rang against the window. It made the room they were in a hushed small shelter. Peter felt close to them. He felt kind.

He walked home under lit streetlights and a mildly exhilarating sky of cold silver and long colored clouds where the sun was setting. Water clucked in the drains. The small trees shone. When he got in and found that Steve wasn’t in he didn’t pause. He changed his shirt and jacket and went out after him, walking to the station against the flow of returning commuters, tired and grim but still moving at a tough city speed. He sat in an almost empty carriage through the long, rattling journey out of the suburbs and down under the ground.

He emerged in the West End and realized that he hadn’t been into town for months. It was dark now. The place was full of entertainments. It had lost its daylight shape and now was structured by its fantasies, by the floating lit signs for different shows and shops, restaurants and bars. The people there all moved toward them or poured away around him down into the station. The traffic was loud. A bus shuddered in front of him. He walked to the street with all the gay bars, to one in particular he knew Steve visited. The street was already full, men everywhere, smoking outside the bars, talking into their phones, laughing, watching. Their hard bodies inside their T-shirts. He passed close to some to get inside once he’d found the place. He could smell them. He kept his gaze low. The music was horribly loud. Its bass thumped right through him like a new and panicking heartbeat, overruling his own. He walked around, couldn’t find Steve, and realized he was relieved. What would he have said? He sat at the bar. He could see it all happening from there, could see the desire creeping out between the men. He ordered gin and tonic, wanting to be adult there, wanting to be strict and colonial.

He drank several with a few thoughts beating in his head, like: how different this place must look in the mornings, with the lights on when the cleaners arrive, or: look at that one. The lights in there were strips of blue. Skin looked violet. Cheekbones were sharply shadowed. All this alien beauty. He drank more, expecting Steve finally to walk in. The place filled with more men but Steve did not arrive. Someone materialized next to Peter, a man of about his own age. He wore a white shirt. He looked round at him, at the shape of his shaved head, then let him slide out of view again, but the man put his hand on Peter’s. He brought his face close and shouted through the music.

“It’s not that terrible, is it? Tell Auntie what’s wrong.”

“Nothing’s wrong.”

“If you say so. All alone, though. Gloomy.”

“Why do we have to do this?”

“Don’t know what you mean.”

“All this. Why do we have to do this?”

“We don’t have to, duckie. We like it. I bet you do too.”

“Is that enough? Is that right?”

“Isn’t it enough?”

“People don’t care. They’re not ashamed.”

“Quite right. Absolutely shameless.”

“Your hand’s on my thigh.”

“What?”

“Your hand’s on my leg.”

“Is that where I left it? Shameless of me.”

“It’s not … we don’t have to.”

“But we like it. Why don’t you come with me a minute? I want to show you something.”

Back at home in the bathroom, Peter took off his shirt, splashed cold water up into his armpits and over his face. He brushed his teeth, rinsed his mouth with mouthwash. He took his clothes off and left them on the floor. He went to bed. Steve was waiting for him.

“Hello,” he said.

“Hello.”

“Where’ve you been? Blimey, you actually smell of drink.”

Peter pulled the quilt over his shoulder, lay on his side with Steve behind him. “I went looking for you.”

“I see. Did you find me?”

“No.”

“That’s a bit sad. Did you have a good time, though?”

“No. Did you?”

“Not really. Awful, actually. Place is full, everywhere’s full of just children really.”

Peter reached behind him and took hold of Steve’s wrist, lifted his arm over him, wanting to close that door again.

“Think of you. Out and about.”

“Can’t we just go to sleep?”

They weren’t there. Natalie’s feet ticked back and forth beneath the pew. They were gone, as they had said they would be, to have their baby. Imagine that, the lavish TV drama of it: hospital and pain and beeping monitors, the birth of their baby girl, the tears, the child wrapped in a soft blanket and placed in their trembling hands.

Rob and Cassie had filled the church for the christening. The pews creaked with that laden, seafaring sound that Peter liked. He looked out over the solid formation of their family and friends, the women tanned to varying shades, the men’s hair glinting with gel. Rob and Cassie were meek and well behaved, perhaps because they knew Peter’s moods and were nervous that all should go well. But for the rest of them, this was a day out, a souvenir experience, and he couldn’t reasonably ask more of them. He reminded himself of that and his anger flared during the service only when, with the godparents, they smirked at having to repeat that they rejected the Devil. Christianity: good for horror films, good for a laugh. He stared them down.

The moment that he was waiting for, that he was dreading, arrived. Rob and Cassie’s baby, to be named, with surprising good taste, Harriet Sarah, kicking her feet up inside the crisp white cotton of her gown, was placed carefully into his hands. A heaviness swelled in his stomach. It rolled up his spine, flooded his brain. He laid the beautiful small weight of her along his left forearm. Her eyes widened, struggling to focus, as her forehead rolled against his stole. The plush red triangle of her mouth opened as she breathed. The skin of her cheeks was glossy, her eyebrows faint and delicate. A baby. A baby in his arms. The Edwardian font swaying in front of him now seemed dangerously hard and massive. He placed his right hand gently on the soft throb of her belly. To have one, to be a father. He yearned as he stared down at her, feeling sweat run through his thin hair. He glanced up, and the sight of the people standing and waiting shocked the liturgy back into his mind. He said what he had to say. Then, his fingers wet with holy water, he saw a way to disrupt the sweetness of the moment, to release himself. He dipped his fingers again and painted as much water as he could carry onto her head. She looked confused and squirmed against him. He reached for more to apply the horizontal bar of the cross and did so with as heavy a touch as he dared. She rolled her eyes, shrank down into herself then expanded, screaming. Cassie took a step forward.

“Is she all right?”

“What? She’s fine. This always happens.” Peter felt sweat trickling down his right side from his armpit, cold at his waist. “Water’s a bit cold.”

“Here, I’ll take her.”

“She’s fine. She’s fine. Please.”

Peter, with difficulty, with clumsy hands, opened his front door, stepped over an ugly splash of pizza leaflets, and went and made himself a cup of tea. He put on Radio 3. He took his cup to a chair by the window that he never normally sat in and waited for his pulse to slow. The music was orchestral, late Romantic, with a winding melody that rose to mild crises of percussion and brass. It did have a calming effect sitting there out of place, a little outside of himself, somewhere not soiled with familiarity. The day beyond the window was steady: parked cars, a width of road, the house fronts opposite.

Lying in bed he heard Steve’s key in the door, the light metallic scraping. His stale anxiety woke again inside him; it felt as though Steve were fitting his key loosely into Peter’s chest, turning him over. He switched on the light and sat up. He heard Steve’s tread on the stairs. Then the strong reality of him entering the room-always sudden, always shocking, however long imagined and expected. But this time Steve looked miserable. His shoulders drooped. His gaze was low. He stood as if a bucket of something had been tipped over his head.

“What’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong?” Steve sighed. He wiped the side of his face as though clearing tears. “I’m old,” he said. “I’m too old.”

“Oh, baby. I’m sorry.”

“Course you are. Are you? You shouldn’t be.”

“I am. I am. Come here.”

Steve walked over and sat on the edge of the bed. Peter stroked his shoulders, gripped them, swayed him back and forth, and pulled him down so that his head lay in his lap.

“Sad old boy. Come here.”

“Hmm.”

“Are you sorry? Are you sorry for what you’ve done?” Peter took hold of his earlobe and pulled gently, increasingly.

“Look, if you’re going to …” Steve started to get up but Peter pressed down on the side of his head, keeping him there.

“Ow. If you’re gonna …”

“Shh. I’m sorry. I won’t.” He stroked the soft hair at his temple.

Steve stared, saying nothing, then: “Course, I’m bloody sorry.”

“Shh. It’s all right. Poor old boy. Don’t worry. Don’t worry. I’m here.”

Peter stroked down Steve’s cheek, following the line a razor would take, then over to his mouth, feeling the warm breath from his nostrils. With his forefinger he strummed Steve’s lips. Steve didn’t resist.

“We’re all right, though, aren’t we?”