When Christmas Lights are Blue Read online

  She gave a cackle. “Dirty boy! My son would never talk like that. More’s the pity, mind—he’s a right boring bugger these days, now he’s got his posh job at the bank. They put too much pressure on the young ’uns these days, don’t they? Career this, career that, and then they can’t just be happy together—they have to get married, and the house, and the mortgage, and such long hours to pay for it all, they never see the place.” She paused for breath. “Or each other, for that matter.”

  I’d heard all this from my gran too, with particular urgency just before she’d died. I hadn’t taken much notice. They were good things to have, weren’t they—the career, and the house, and if Karan and I didn’t tie our knot now, when would we? He was watching me, eyebrows raised. “That cuppa seems to be doing her good,” he said, taking a blanket from the sofa and tucking it around her knees. “What do you make of her?”

  “BP’s normal. She was a bit tachycardic, but I think that was just from running around.”

  “What were you so upset about, Queenie? Can you remember?”

  “Can’t you? I told you. Something fell on my house.”

  “Well—I had a bit of a look round while the kettle boiled, and I couldn’t find anything wrong.”

  “Of course not. It’s half past seven, isn’t it? All over for this year.”

  “All right. We’ll get you to hospital for a few checks. We’ve had a bit of a prang with our ambulance, but our mates over in Hexham will soon work out there’s something wrong and come and find us.” He always had that soothing touch: Queenie was leaning back in her chair, her eyelids fluttering. He eased up off the rug and sat on the edge of the sofa. “The other thing I couldn’t find while I was looking around was a mobile signal, mate. I think we’re just gonna have to sit tight for now.”

  “That’s good. You can look at your photos.”

  We both glanced at Queenie. Her eyes were shut, and with one hand she was marking the beat of some music only she could hear. “Do you mean Ron and Catherine’s photos?” I asked cautiously. “Are you expecting them here tonight?”

  “No, not anymore. Those are yours. Have a look.”

  A leatherbound book was set out on the table. I could have sworn that it hadn’t been there before. It was rather grand for a family album, imprinted all over with little golden symbols that seemed to move and change in the firelight. “Is Catherine your daughter-in-law?”

  “No, poor thing. An American girl, going home for her holidays in the States.”

  “Oh. I, er... thought maybe, if Ron is your son—”

  “Who said that? My son’s called George. The boring banker, remember? Be quiet now, boys, and let me get forty winks. And help yourself to the sherry.”

  “Thanks, but we’re on duty. We can’t.”

  “Oh, you will. You will.”

  Chapter Three

  I sat on the sofa beside Karan, and together we opened the book. Queenie was asleep in her chair, gently snoring. The first page was a group shot from my college graduation day, and I knocked Karan’s hand away and slammed the cover down in panic. “Kaz. What the fuck...”

  “Hush. Don’t wake her. There’s two dozen people in that photo—she could be grandma to any of them.”

  “Yeah, but it’s a bit of a coincidence, isn’t it?”

  “I guess. Let’s have a look at it, though. It’s my graduation day, too.”

  Of course it was. How had I forgotten that? I folded back the cover again, and lifted the book so that half of it was in his lap and half in mine. The warm press of his thigh and shoulder stopped the chain reaction of fear that had been trying to start in me. I took a deep breath, ashamed. Ambulance workers didn’t get scared. We were the strong ones. It was just that I was still chilly, and my chest hurt for some reason. The airbag should’ve deployed when we crashed, but maybe I’d hit the wheel. “God, yes. There you are—look.”

  He was there in the front row. I’d gone to skulk at the back. “Bloody hell,” he said, laughing softly. “We look about twelve years old.”

  “It’s a bad sign when the coppers and paramedics start to look young to you, you know. It was only four years ago.”

  “Yeah. Tough paper round, though, sometimes. Isn’t it?”

  I hated to acknowledge the difficulty. Competition was fierce for the paramedic posts, even among graduates. It was what I’d wanted, what I’d worked for, and if I was finding it tough, that was my problem, no-one else’s. No-one else’s business. “Beats digging a ditch. Why aren’t we standing together, though?”

  “My mam and brother would’ve killed me if I hadn’t been in the front row. They wanted to take six million photographs. You were worried that your dad would kick up a fuss if he saw you, so you went to hide behind Longshanks Len.”

  I chuckled. I’d almost forgotten about Len, so tall that he had to crouch when he carried a stretcher or the patient would slide off into the shorter guy’s arms. “I... I couldn’t help it, about my dad, you know.”

  “No. I know that.”

  “I’d asked him to steer clear of the pub that day, but he couldn’t bloody help himself. He was rowdy enough about my being gay—I didn’t dare risk what he’d say if he saw me with...”

  “With an Asian lad.”

  I swallowed hard. Karan and I had mostly dealt with this problem by pretending it didn’t exist. “Yes, I suppose so. Should I have done something different that day?”

  He didn’t reply. He turned the page. I jumped so hard I nearly knocked the sherry bottle off the table, and I grabbed it by the neck to steady it. “Shit. Karan, that’s the party where I met you. How the hell does she have that?”

  “I don’t know.” He didn’t seem fazed. His attention was fixed on the photo—a bright, overexposed shot of the campus bar. There we both were, with Len and a couple of the others. I had one arm slung around Len, straining onto my toes to do it, and with the other—shyly, awkward, as if my left hand really didn’t know what my right was doing—I was holding Karan. The picture was absurd. “Don’t panic, Robbie. You’ve got family near Kielder, haven’t you?”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Your mam knows everyone and their granny. She’s probably sixth cousin twice removed to Queenie here. Bloody hell, we started young, didn’t we?”

  I hadn’t thought so at the time. I’d been desperate to start. But Karan was right. By the age of five, I’d decided what I wanted to do with my life, and before I’d left the campus bar that night, I’d known who I wanted to do it with. “I suppose so. How old were we?”

  “Barely nineteen.”

  I ran an unsteady finger over the photograph. There was no plastic sheeting to shield it, just old-fashioned paper corners. I still didn’t understand how it came to be in this old lady’s house, and I didn’t get why Karan wasn’t freaking out about it too. Then, he’d always taken things in his stride. He wasn’t ungainly in the picture the way I was, not rabbit-in-the-headlights blank with the flash. He just looked calm. He looked happy to have found me. “Do you think it was too soon?”

  He shrugged. “No point in wondering about stuff like that, is there? Things happen when they happen.” He turned the next page, and I barely stopped myself from grabbing his wrist to prevent him. “Look. Here we are on Christmas Eve.”

  Oh, I remembered Christmas Eve. “That was our first training run with a working crew. The suicide on the Tyne bridge.”

  “Only she wasn’t a real one. They were making a point about the festive season not being happy for everybody, I guess. And you talked her down.”

  “Yeah, great. I stood freezing my balls off for an hour, arguing black from white with an out-of-work actress. I didn’t even stop to think why the senior lads weren’t helping, or why they started laughing after a bit. What a twat I made of myself.”

  Only Karan hadn’t thought so. He’d grabbed my hand and dragged me off down an alley while the crew were having a craic with the actress, and he’d told me I’d done it beautifully. That he’d have
come down from the railings if I’d talked to him like hat. And then we’d had our first kiss, right there among the frost-coated bin bags. The trouble was—unlike the scene in the campus bar, where we’d all posed and smiled for someone, though I couldn’t remember who—there’d been nobody to take this shot. There we were in the lamplight. He’d pressed me up against the wall. His fingers were clenched at the back of my neck. We were nose to nose: I’d gone slightly cross-eyed with the shock of finding him so close, so eager and unafraid. No-one could have got that much detail, not in the dark. I could almost see the push of his hips against mine. I felt it in memory, and I covered my face with my hands. “Christ, Kaz. I don’t like this. What’s going on?”

  “Maybe Len took this one. You know how he liked to mess around with the camera on his phone.”

  “Len wasn’t even there that night.”

  “Wasn’t he? Okay. I bet you could fancy some of that sherry after all.”

  He reached for the bottle. I sprang to my feet. “Fuck that.” Queenie stirred in her chair, and I lowered my voice. “Sorry. But fuck the sherry, fuck this photo album, and fuck whatever bollocks is happening around here. I’m going out to see if there’s any sign of backup from Hexham yet.”

  “Okay.”

  I made it as far as the hall. It was astonishingly cold out there, and my first inhalation clenched my lungs with pain. I couldn’t even imagine opening the door and going outside. It would feel like jumping into icy water, depths unknown. I couldn’t impose the effort of will on myself, and after a moment I strode back into the living room.

  Karan quirked a half-amused glance at me. “Any luck?”

  “I don’t know.” The only safe place was the living room. No. The only safe place was by Karan’s side, and I made my way back there, dazzled by the flickering firelight. I sat down beside him, and this time when he offered me a sherry-filled glass, I took it and downed the drink in one like a bourbon shot. Probably a bad idea on top of whatever form of shock was making me see the things I was seeing, but it wasn’t to be helped. “It was too dark outside. Too cold.”

  He laid a warm hand on mine. “Yes, you’re freezing. Stay with me. Stay with me.”

  An odd thing to say. I was with him, wasn’t I? I’d been with him for six years. Most of our mates from college had a breakup or two under their belts by now, or were still single or searching. Karan and I were a byword of fidelity, laughed at for it and more than a bit envied. “We should both get out of here. I don’t get it, about these photos, but there’s something not right.

  “Don’t be daft. We’ve got a patient. Anyway, if we leave now, we’ll miss this.”

  He was turning to the next page. I tried to recoil, but the image sunk a hook into me, reeled me violently in. The photo—still innocently held in its faded cardboard corners—was moving, and someone was in bed with my Karan. “Christ,” I choked, trying to grab the book and close it. “What the fuck...”

  “Oh, man, what a fuss. Put the book down. She must have one of those digital frames or something.”

  “In an album? Out here? Of—oh, shit, Kaz. Who the hell was that?”

  He looked at me in absolute wonder. I could astound him, apparently, even when digital fuckery failed. “Rob, for God’s sake. It was you.”

  I tugged the book out of his hands. My own were shaking as I turned past the party and the back alleyway near the Tyne Bridge. The bedroom I saw in the third picture wasn’t the spacious one we had now, on the top floor of our Victorian townhouse in Jesmond. This was our rented box in Cowgate, affectionate known as the Bronx, where we’d holed up until we were both fully qualified and earning. Karan was lying on the bed. He was flat on his back, his legs wrapped around the waist of a graceful, well muscled guy. Karan’s tawny feet against that stranger’s pale arse were a weirdly beautiful sight, a study in contrasts.

  A loose strand of tinsel had drifted down over the bed. It shimmered as the lovers thrust and writhed. I remembered that night. We’d made a good effort to decorate our box in the Bronx that Christmas—our first one together—but by New Year’s Eve we’d been exhausted, the baubles and glitter abandoned to drift down or fall on their own. We’d ducked out on the parties and rolled into bed.

  But I wasn’t lovely. Karan was the handsome one, the one that got patted on the cheek by the grannies who’d fallen for his smile. Ah, you’re not bad for a coloured lad, one of them said in my memory, making me wince as I had then. But Karan had only shaken his head. You’re pretty fly for a white girl. Pass me the pressure kit, Rob. I rubbed my eyes. Yes, that was me on the bed. “How are we seeing this?”

  “I don’t know. Hot, though, isn’t it?”

  “No. Yes. Is that really me?”

  “You’re seeing yourself from the outside, as other people see you. As I do.”

  “Well, make it stop.” I couldn’t tear my eyes away. The couple on the bed were building up for a come, their movements growing desperate, a pair of beached dolphins fighting their way back to sea. “Switch it off, or... turn the page.”

  “Thank God it doesn’t have a soundtrack, eh?”

  “Karan.” I reached past him and flipped the page myself. There was no hidden technology here, no wafer-thin iPad screen broadcasting footage from our most intimate past. Just black paper, the kind that smelled of dust and dried your fingertips out when you touched it. Despite the madness of the situation, he’d been right: we did make a hot, sexy couple to watch, and a pang of desire went through me, sharp and sweet as our earliest days together. I turned to kiss him, and he reached back passionately and with a strange relief. How warm his mouth was, and how cold my own! I tasted coffee and blood. We’d stopped kissing like this, hadn’t we? At some point, stopped our seismic, beached-dolphin struggles to climb inside one another’s souls.

  He drew back suddenly. “That’s it,” he said hoarsely. “Good lad, Robbie. Hang on.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Just... look at this next photo. This is a normal one, don’t worry.”

  Normal, if it was normal for an old lady in the middle of Kielder Forest to be keeping photos of a stranger’s Christmas Day. This was from two years ago. My dad was sitting in the living room of our family home in Winlaton, one of the endless string of terraced pit houses that ran up and down the mined-out hillside. In many ways it was a nice family shot. He had my sister’s two kids on his knee. My mum was sitting beside him, my auntie Pat on his other side. Karan was perched on the arm of the sofa, obligingly wearing a paper hat and the hideous Christmas jumper Pat had bought him from Primark. I’d long since given up on explaining to my relatives that, although Karan joined us for Christmas, it wasn’t his festival. That he was a Sikh, even if a cheerfully irreligious one, and didn’t need to be draped in tinsel the second he walked in the door.

  And my dad was such a good old guy. Career cut off early by the pit closures, one of the young victims of that disaster whose ripples still spread and upset lives throughout the Tyne valley. How was anyone meant to recover from a blow like that? He’d had everyone’s sympathy for the past thirty years. His grandkids loved him, and even on his worst binges, he’d never been violent.

  No, he just ran his mouth. The picture jumped and came to life, and this one did have a fucking soundtrack. “Here,” he said, clapping my mam’s knee in delight at his own hilarity. “Dave down the pub told me this one. Three darkies walk into a bar...”

  Karan got up. Nobody noticed except Pat, and he dropped a reassuring wink at her and wiggled his glass. Just off to get a refill. No worries.

  No drama, no fuss. I gave up trying to work out where these pictures came from and how and why I was seeing them. “He’s a drunk, love,” I said helplessly. Then a more important point struck me. “Where the hell was I?”

  “Never mind.”

  But I’d been right there. On the other arm of the sofa, staring at my mobile, pretending nothing was going on, just like all the other hear-no-evil, see-no-evil monkeys. Before I could draw
breath, Karan was turning onwards, as if he didn’t want to remember that rotten day either, or how little I’d done to prevent it. “Look,” he said quietly. “There were things I didn’t see, either. Things I didn’t hear.”

  I was staring into a blaze of Diya lamps. Karan put up with my lot at Christmas. Least I could do had been to accept his family’s invitation to join them last Diwali. I’d been startled to be asked. Professor and Dr Batra were nice people, so immersed in their work that I wondered if they’d noticed that Karan was gay, his flatmate more than just a pal.

  His elder brother, Vishram, was a hell of a lot more observant. The house had overwhelmed me. It wasn’t palatial, but certainly had looked that way from the perspective of Winlaton. Karan had done his best to introduce me, then had been borne off by a tide of beautiful, cooing ladies in saris and glittering jewels. At least I knew what the lights were and what they meant—earthenware lamps, a row of them set out on a table in the big bay window, celebrating the release from prison of Guru Hargobind and the fifty two princes.

  Vishram appeared on the far side of the table, eclipsing the reflections from the glass. I’d met him a couple of times before. We hadn’t got on, but I assumed that was because I was a Geordie roughneck and he, to judge by his demeanour, was the fifty third prince. He gave me a cursory nod. “My parents are very busy.”

  I didn’t know what to make of the remark. I could see Dr Batra on the far side of the room, surrounded by her colleagues. The professor was deep in conversation with one of his students. “That’s all right,” I said awkwardly. “I didn’t expect them to—”

  “They’re used to looking upward for knowledge, or inward for truth. It doesn’t occur to them to look down into the dirt.”

  Generally speaking, when people insulted me, it wasn’t this abstract. “Er, right. So... I’m the dirt, am I?”

  “And so is Karan, when he rolls around in it with you. Have you heard of honour killings?”