Lorcan Calder makes his mark

The Whitsuntide holiday found the visitors from Manor Park Grammar School taking in the strange experience of being in a small country of which they knew little. Lorcan of course had done his research. He read as much as he could find and had even borrowed half a dozen long playing records from Eastamptonshire central library and taught himself basic Fiorentine. That the Queen Dowager of Triesenbourg, was from County Cork Anglo-Irish nobility and  a member of The Church of Ireland, in a Roman Catholic country, was a matter of particular satisfaction which Lorcan kept to himself. More prosaically, triple pocket money and more from his parents, plus a £10 postal order from each set of grandparents, ensured that even when converted into the local currency, Lorcan had ample spending money.

Though not particularly attentive to it, the religious significance  of Whitsun and Pentecost was not lost on Lorcan. That he was a visitor amongst people who attached such a public and demonstrable significance to it that he had only seen within places of worship, came as a surprise to him all the same.

Whatever Pentecostal plans the Holy Spirit might have, the descent of Gregor Simpson upon himself in a never to be forgotten love affair, in a land where people, their laws and attitudes were so different from anything he knew in England or Ulster, was uppermost in Lorcan’s thoughts. The mystery he perceived in the forests and the mountains only added to the hopes he dared himself to have of Gregor Simpson. Even the 24 hour trip to the village of Geflei, where for a blissful moment it looked as though he might be billeted in the same private house, (and bedroom,) as the awesome Gregor and in the event was not, did nothing to diminish the particular warmth he somehow felt for this mountain village.

A day and 35 kilometres later, the group were being guided through the state rooms of Flandin Castle.

“The Harlequin sent you,” asserted Florian in all apparent seriousness as he lead Lorcan from the tour of Flandin Castle, into a much quieter and more intimate corner of that place.

“Your eyes are beautiful,” he continued. “Eyes so blue are rare in Triesenbourg,” added his admirer, by way of further compliment.

“Some called them, ‘bedroom blue’ eyes said Lorcan, reasonably certain that his shaky Fiorentine was accurate.

“Then I should take you to the King’s bedroom,” replied Florian slowly in his mother tongue. Most of his countrymen and countrywomen were impressed to the point of gratitude when foreigners made the effort to speak their language and Florian was no exception.

“But I think His Majesty, might object,” he added, as they kissed.

For the final full day before their departure, most decided to visit the ornate headquarters of The Loyal Order of Saint Sebastian. Motto: Ad Regem et Populum sub Dei.( For King and People under God.) Loyal Orders of another kind were not unknown to Lorcan of course. Although after a week visiting various places in the country he was becoming aware of the influence  the loyal order had had in Fiorentine society, he wanted to explore Durazno, its capital alone. Besides, who knew, he might meet someone like Florian again. Street map in hand, off he went.

Lorcan did not really need to ask a police officer. Familiar as he was with officers being armed, that did not faze him, as it had some of the group from Manor Park Grammar School. He wasn’t sure whether it was the police who wore light green uniforms and the gendarmes dark green uniforms; or the other way round.  Glancing at the map  and rehearsing in his head the correct Fiorentine words, he approached the woman in the dark green uniform. As he approached, it was clear that she was a gendarme. His knowledge of her language was sufficient to his task, even to the point of gently asking her to continue in her own language when she heard something in his accent and wondered if he were Irish, “like our dear Queen Dowager.”

“Not quite like Queen Sahrah,” was Lorcan’s tactful response as he resisted the temptation to follow the officer into English, “but Northern Irish, yes.”

“You all speak English,” he continued. “Please indulge me and let’s continue in your language.”

That is what Lorcan thought he said. But the look of mild surprise that quickly dissolved into an understanding laughter, indicated something else. The gendarme explained what he had said, so that they could both enjoy the joke.

With the gendarme’s instructions in mind, Lorcan passed across the Beohalle district with its imposing government buildings and on through the Botanic Gardens. To his left, he saw the small, architecturally modern looking   Church of Saint Brendan. From a turret of sorts flew the flag of Saint Patrick. Lorcan had found what he was looking for. It was rather apt, he decided that at one side of the church was a bakery; and at the other a taverna/café, its patrons extending into the street as they sat chatting, or just watching the world go by. Each of these establishments displayed pictures of the King, the Queen, the Harlequin and Saint Sebastian. The bakery went a step further in its constitutional devotion and also placed a picture of the Queen Dowager in its window.

 The interior of the small church was as plain as Lorcan would have expected. He was inwardly nodding his approval when a few metres in front of him he saw Gregor Simpson and Alison Forbes. They were holding hands. Quickly, he darted to the far corner and knelt in an attitude of prayer, head lowered in hope of not being noticed by them.

Fortunately he was not. He stood slowly as they left Saint Brendan’s only to find an elderly cleric at his side.

“They’re from my school in England,” he explained rather sheepishly. “As they were holding hands, I didn’t want to cause them embarrassment. It’s not something they have ever done at school.”

“Well that seems very commendable and tactful of you, replied the clergyman. “I’m Doctor Neville Thornton, by the way. Rector of this, the only Church of Ireland parish in the Balkans.”

“And from Belfast,” responded Lorcan, taking the outstretched hand in greeting.

“Sandy Row born and bred; and you I think are from Fermanagh, or perhaps south Tyrone.”

“Not quite sir. A few miles further up. More the middle of Tyrone. Harperstown, to be precise.”

“Ah..Yes. I know it quite well.”

It did not take long for the two Ulstermen abroad, coming from the same small society as they did, to establish links of acquaintance and friendship they shared.

“Thanks for the craic,” called the reverend Thornton as he bade the young visitor farewell.

The young visitor had one further place he wished to visit, before he returned to the hotel and the rest of the school group. In the old town, just below the capital’s citadel and the three 13th century towers that dominated Durazno’s character as much as its skyline and history, Lorcan stepped from the cable car and out of the port, at last finding the cobbled street he was looking for.

Ahead, at the end of the street stood the entrance to the nearest thing to a radical theatre Durazno had.

In 1880 a young Englishman with thespian ambitions but neither the talent nor funds to gratify them left his homeland taking as many of his father’s liquid assets as he could carry, with him. By 1884 he arrived in Durazno, complete with a Penny Farthing bicycle and was robbed blind, (according to the British Minster at the time,) in the purchase of a rundown stables. What the young man lacked in acting ability, he made up for in recognising that ability in others and in possessing enough organisational skills to build and manage a theatre. Thus Lorcan beheld a garish edifice depicting a life sized 19th century man in tweeds and a deer stalker hat, beside his Penny Farthing bicycle, all painted into its front wall. For the avoidance of doubt, bright lights proclaimed: ‘Theatio Penny Farthing.’

He had read about this theatre and hoped to have a look inside and perhaps chance a furtive a glass of plum brandy in its busy bar. But Lorcan was distracted, his taste for a little adventure of his own redirected.

Lorcan who had never even seen a sauna before  had a pretty shrewd idea of what he hoped might happen within its walls.  Just metres before the entrance to the theatre, signage of a more restrained but no less eye catching character invited passers-by in.

He was not unfamiliar with displays of the national flag in his homeland. In that spirit he had quite enjoyed the extent to which the Fiorentines seemed to fly their own (left to right) Black, White and Red tricolour. But outside a sauna? He doubted that if ever a sauna opened in Northern Ireland or England, the Union Flag would be displayed above its door.

He noticed a small picture of King Vadim just behind the friendly man and woman who greeted him as he approached the reception desk. His ability to be the considerate foreigner and reply in his limited Fiorentine was derailed by the unbidden thought that a similar picture of Queen Elizabeth in a sauna at home would probably cause a national scandal.

“How old are you,” asked the woman, helpfully coming to his assistance in English.

Lorcan blushed. Lorcan stammered.

“Eighteen,” he lied.

The man and woman exchanged glances. All warmth and friendliness expunged from their features.

“Your passport please. Show me your passport.”

A chill meandered down the  visitor’s spine, taking Lorcan’s power of speech with it. All was still. Even the man and woman emerging from whatever delights Lorcan’s imagination had conjured, as they stepped into the reception area, seemed to stand stock still.

“He hasn’t got one,” replied a familiar voice.

Lorcan felt himself all but die on the spot.

“Forgive me madam and sir,” continued Gregor Simpson. The calm authority with just a hint of deference sent a frisson through Lorcan that gathered itself  in his cock.

“He is with my school party. We should have kept a closer eye on him. Permit me to remove him from your establishment and you will never see him again.”

“We should call the police,” the woman said, the man’s hand hovering above the telephone.

“We run an entirely reputable business here,” the man added.

“Indeed so. I would not doubt it. And I entirely understand why you wish to call in the police.”

The man’s hand moved away from the telephone. He and the woman conferred at some length in their own tongue. He turned towards them and shrugged in the way that Gregor had noticed other Fiorentines do.

“Phhtt!! My wife and I say go,- and take this foolish child with you.”

As Lorcan and Gregor were about to step into the cobbled street the man took Gregor’s left hand.

“What is your name?”

“Gregor. Gregor Simpson.”

“This is from both my wife and I, Gregor Simpson.”

The man placed a single kiss on Gregor’s palm.

“ My wife is Julia and I am Claudio. We hope that if ever you return to our country, you will come to see us.”

“Thank you. If ever the opportunity to return arises, be assured that I shall most certainly visit you both,” he replied with great courtesy.

Gregor and Lorcan walked in silence. Gregor hardly knowing where to begin and Lorcan knew not how to begin.

“Not a word. Not a single word,” hissed Gregor, at last.

He spoke again, a few minutes later, as they sipped coffee in a café. The Harlequin, it was called. What wasn’t called the Harlequin this or that, thought Lorcan.

“You complete bloody fool. Do you know what would have happened if it had been Mr. Hardy and not me who saw you go into the sauna?”

Lorcan looked into those green eyes and realised how beautifully they sparkled in anger. He wanted to fling his arms around the gorgeous redhead’s neck and kiss him as passionately and publicly just as he had seen Fiorentines of whatever gender embrace each other. But thoughts of Mr. Hardy’s ire hit the impetuous Lorcan like a cold shower.

“I can guess,” he said making sure he looked abashed as he spoke.

“And the visit to Flandin and Flandin Castle,” those green eyes blazed anew. “Think yourself lucky I told him that the young man you went off with was only going to show you the hall of tapestries again.”

This time, Lorcan had no need to confect his abashed response. It was real.

“Yes. I noticed,” Gregor continued. “If you are not careful Lorcan, you’ll gain a reputation as something of a slut. There are murmurings about you in school as it is.”

Lorcan looked genuinely pained. He enjoyed the attention and popularity bestowed by many of his peers. But it had never seriously crossed his mind that he might be thought a slut as well.

“Nothing happened with me and the other boy at Flandin castle,” he replied, his eyes searching Gregor’s for a modicum of understanding. But as he did so he omitted to mention that it was Florian’s unwillingness to utilise the king’s bed chamber rather than any restraint on Lorcan’s part that led to nothing more passionate than snogging between them.

“How come you saw me just now,” he asked almost casually in an effort to change the subject.

“Alison wanted a last look at the Three Towers and the sundial signifying the geographical centre of Triesenbourg.”

Gregor and Lorcan glanced upwards and without thinking, towards the capital’s iconic land mark.

“I was going to  pop into the Penny Farthing theatre bar for a plum brandy,-until I saw you go into the sauna.”

“Sorry,” responded Lorcan sincerely. “I’ve heard,-only heard mind,- that the plumb brandy is a powerful wee drink.”

“Well I’ll never know now, thanks to you.”

The weary tone was belied by what Lorcan took to be a forgiving smile.

“We, Alison and I, I mean, saw you in Saint Brendan’s church. You gave a pretty good impression of trying to appear prayerfully inconspicuous by the way.”

“Thanks. I sort of guessed you both wanted not to be disturbed or acknowledged by anyone.”

“That’s kind Lorcan. Thank you. By the way, I guess you know the Rector is from Belfast?”

“And that he is the Queen Dowager’s Chaplin; and that he knows my grandparents on both sides of the family,”

 “Ahh” said Gregor.

“It’s not all that impressive,” replied the other modestly. “Doctor Thornton and I are from the same small country when it comes down to it, where everyone knows everyone else. A bit like this place, but so very different, I guess.”

                    

It was 9 o’clock in the evening when Jim Rhodes answered a delicate knock on the hotel room door.

Before him stood a familiar figure, all black curly hair, cheeks sporting dimples Jim swore had not noticed before,- and those notorious bedroom blue eyes.

“It’s your most devoted admirer,” called Jim bowing with a courtly flourish as he waived the visitor in.

The visitor blushed and for a moment,- and not for the first time that day,- lost the power of speech. He had changed into the blue denim jeans and jacket he would wear tomorrow for the return to the UK.

Gregor emerged from the bathroom.

How studful. How handsome he looked. Enveloped in a tartan dressing gown and matching slippers. It took Lorcan but a moment to take in this vision: the glimpse of chest; the hint of strong long legs with their coating of reddish hairs. It was a dead certainty that beneath the mundane dressing gown Gregor wore no pyjamas and was naked.  Only Gregor Simpson could convey such sex appeal from behind so uninspiring a choice of attire. His red hair glistened, not yet dry.

Jim Rhodes who was observing the scene with a gentle disinterest, thought to himself that if this were a Jane Austen novel he would be standing by with reviving salts against the moment that the entranced Lorcan swooned.

“I need to talk to you please,” Lorcan managed to say at last.

It was Jim who next spoke.

“Well,” said he, gathering up his lighter and a packet of cigarettes rolled from Triesenbourg tobacco. “I’ll leave you two to your own devices for a while. Don’t you go leading Gregor here astray now.”

Confident in his own heterosexual being, Jim Rhodes was able to appreciate a shapely arse when he saw one and was already preparing for whatever claims to understanding his good friend might make on the morrow, should he succumb to Lorcan’s self-evident charms tonight. The simple fact was that Lorcan was without doubt charming, caring and extremely intelligent. The very attributes likely to appeal to Gregor. More than that, the denim jeans were so tight fitting they might as well have been sprayed on, in Jim’s estimation. Someone’s going to provide Gregor’s first homosexual experience, decided Jim as he closed the door behind him; and Gregor could do a lot worse than Lorcan Calder.  

“He doesn’t think I’m a slut? You said some people at school think I am.”

Gregor paused before replying only because he couldn’t make up his mind whether or not he should give Jim at least a symbolic thick ear on his return, for causing such embarrassment to Lorcan.

“No he doesn’t Lorcan. In fact he speaks up for you and respects you very much, so far as I know. I’m just sorry he left just now like some stage primo donna.”

Each moved to sit on the edge of a single bed. Their knees almost touching. Lorcan silently hoped that he was sitting on Gregor’s bed.

“I’ve been teaching Jim how to play poker,- play it properly I mean,” began Lorcan, as if gathering his thoughts.

“Yes, I know. Him and halve of the upper sixth, I understand.”

The poker player looked surprised. Very surprised.

“So long as it does not happen on school premises it is nothing to do with me. But you are not here at this hour to tell me that, are you Lorcan?”

“No. I’m not.”

He drew a deep breath and as he did so noticed a red button dangling by a thread from a sleeve of Gregor’s dressing gown. Again he noticed the dusting of light hairs adorning the lower parts of Gregor’s legs. He drew a breath. It was now or never.

“Truth is Gregor, I want a proper boyfriend and lover. I’d be discrete. Honest to God I would. I’d never go with another boy if you would be my man.”

“Wow!,” was Gregor’s immediate response. He placed his hands over Lorcan’s hands and felt the shudder he saw passing through the younger boy’s frame.

“Oh Lorcan, Lorcan that is the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. Really it is.”

He paused for a moment recalling the cautious use of the word ‘gay’  by his cousin in New York City, America, during their regular exchange of letters. He noticed that in Triesenbourg, Fiorentines used ‘gay’ or in their own language ‘gias’ almost interchangeably, to mean the same thing.

“If I told you that I am not gay,- I mean that I’m not attracted to males, you would understand?”

The bedroom blue eyes dimmed in sad comprehension. Yes he was now aware of this new meaning of gay.

“Florian, the boy you saw me disappear with the other day, he asked me if I was gay; well told me I was actually. Seems not so strange to come to this strange land to learn a new meaning to a word.”

“Well I learnt it from a cousin, a sea and a continent away,” replied Gregor gently.

It intrigued Lorcan Calder that such a small word should have a new, and for him, important meaning. He resolved to carefully introduce it into his conversations back at school. Hardly a second later his brow furrowed as it dawned on him that in his beloved ‘Norn Irn’ his fellow Protestants would probably be  united with Roman Catholics against people like him, however friendly this new way of describing homosexual people might be.

A not unpleasant stillness fell between them giving Gregor the chance to reflect for a moment: In Jim Rhodes he had a most trusted and stalwart friend. Perhaps in Lorcan, he might have another.

“Lorcan?”

“I was just thinking,” replied Lorcan, aware that he was staring intently at the thread hanging from the sleeve of Gregor’s dressing gown and the button dangling from it. In his head someone was playing Max Bruch’s Violin Concerto, No. 1 to the accompaniment of a mathematical sequence, which in other circumstances he would have enjoyed.

“I know that Alison Forbes means a lot to you, Gregor. But I can be much more than she would ever be. More than even one as beautiful and intelligent as Alison. I want to serve and honour you. I would be your slave, if you told me to be.”

Where this promise to be Gregor’s slave came from, Lorcan knew not: and then he did.

“I love you, Gregor.”

Their eyes met. Lorcan aware in sudden insight that he had never thought of anyone in such terms before; and Gregor lost as he wondered how to respond. Gregor managed to stop himself saying ‘wow’ again.

“We can be friends,” he said with deliberate care. “Even if agreed to anything else, just for now, our last night in this land, that would be a betrayal of Alison. More than that, it would be a betrayal of my prefectorial responsibilities.”

Here they shared a wan smile, recalling the Deputy Head’s words.

“Yes. We can be friends. I’d like that very much,” agreed Lorcan,-“if you really mean it.”

“I always mean what I say.”

 The softly spoken words caused Lorcan to sigh with something like contentment. Or was it resignation? He wasn’t sure which it was.

“We had better shift before the good and tactful Jim smokes himself to death.”

Lorcan nodded in agreement and allowed himself to be Shepherded to the door. He expected to say good night and be sent on his way. Instead, the comforting warmth of Gregor’s manful right arm draped itself around his shoulders, causing Lorcan to catch his breath in delight as they walked along the hotel corridor.

“I shall date our friendship from this moment,” announced Lorcan, purring,- or so it seemed to Gregor.

Still beaming as they paused at the lift, Lorcan made another announcement.

“I have a stack of good A Levels already so there is no point in staying on at school beyond the end of the school year. So to hell with being treated like some brilliant freak and being packed off to Cambridge. I am going to get a job, work for three years and then read Balkan and Fiorentine History at Eastamptonshire University.

“Heaven knows what my Da and Ma will say but it should please the wretched Sam Hardy.”

Summon the devil they say and he is bound to appear. Before Gregor could  respond to Lorcan’s suddenly formulated plan, the lift doors opened and Mr. Hardy stepped, or was that stumbled, towards them.

Either way, he was met with the sight of Gregor with his arm round Lorcan; and Lorcan leaning into his friend and looking reasonably happy with his lot.

“You’ll be telling me next that you are looking for yet more tapestries,” snapped the teacher, more pleased with his sarcasm than he should have been as he noted that Gregor Simpson was in his slippers and dressing gown.

“Ready for bed I see, Simpson,” slurred the teacher, as Simpson caught him from slipping to the floor.

“We all know that the extremely clever Irish lovely here puts his bum about, but I am surprised at you Simpson. I never thought you would fall for his charms.”

Until that precise moment Sam Hardy had not fully appreciated that both the older and younger boy were young men and by some measure taller than himself.

“You’re pissed so you are,” hissed Lorcan, anger heightening his Tyrone accent and carrying it down the hotel corridor and along the lift shaft. The arm that was so companionable, so comforting to Lorcan, quickly firmed in restraint to forestall what would otherwise have been an angry  lunge  at the school teacher .

“That is a vile thing to say, Hardy,” glared Manor Park Grammar’s head boy, deliberately failing to observe the usual courtesies. A certain calm menace proceeded to invest his words, which impressed Lorcan and were remembered by him.

“Nothing of an improper character has taken place, never has and never would. But more than that, it is contemptable that you should speak of Lorcan in such terms. I take it ill that you even think of my friend in such a way. I do not know what you are going to do Sam Hardy, but when we return to Skelthorpe, I shall be speaking to the headmaster.”

So saying, he ushered Lorcan into the lift, leaving Mr. Hardy in a state of open mouthed shock and sliding drunkenly down the wall, to the floor.

As the lift ascended, Lorcan dared to lean into his champion again and was not rebuffed. The very lightest of kisses fell once, twice, on his dark curls.

“I really appreciate what you said and how you defended me and all Gregor. But please don’t complain to the Headmaster.”

The lift shuddered to a halt. Lorcan sighed audibly as he watched a tartan clad foot attached to a muscular hairy leg stop the doors from closing.

“Really Lorcan?”

“Truly Gregor. You are leaving school at the end of your A Levels in July.” Lorcan paused considerately before adding, “and I already have mine. So like I said I’m leaving as well. I’ll get a job for a year or two and then apply for that new degree course in Balkan and Fiorentine studies at Eastampton University.”

“Good man” responded Gregor, whose warmth of reply made Lorcan feel slightly dizzy. For a moment, he was on the verge of throwing himself at Gregor and hoping for the best. But the poker player in him came to the fore.

He shrugged in conscious imitation of what Gregor and he had seen Fiorentines do during the last 10 days.

“You do that well,” grinned his friend.

Lorcan made sure they walked towards the room he shared with Damon Trent, at a very slow pace.

“The thing is my Ma and Da don’t know yet what I’ve just told you. They entertain not very secret hopes of me becoming some kind of important genius figure. And all I want is an ordinary life and maybe come back to this wee land from time to time.”

Gregor stopped walking. Leaning against the wall just beside the room Lorcan shared with Damon, he drew Lorcan close so that Lorcan stood, his back leaning against Gregor’s front. Realizing that his denim jeans clad arse was more or less level with where Gregor’s cock reposed, Lorcan gentle moved his hips. Then he was still. Instead of seeking to rouse his friend to whatever heights of desire the moment might allow, he knew he was no slut and recalled Jim Rhodes’ amiable injunction not to lead Gregor astray.

Rather, Lorcan relaxed into him, enjoying the way Gregor held him close and the warm breath of Gregor’s words as they fell onto his neck and cheek.

“That makes sense to me,” Gregor said cautiously. “Upsetting the applecart at school just because Sam Hardy is a bit the worse the wear this evening will do no good for anyone at all.”

“Thanks,” replied Lorcan.

For a short while the two talked quietly, clearly contented in each other’s company. Suzie Wicks and Angela Dawson came into view. Lorcan tensed slightly, but Gregor made no effort to push Lorcan away as the two girls studiously noticed the pair and stopped for a quick chat.

“I must go,” announced Gregor, when the girls bade them good night and went into their room. A pang of regret hit Lorcan.

“Alison and I want to be together for an hour or two. So as you see, I must get dressed.”

Another, infinitely more painful pang of regret almost took Lorcan’s breath away.

“Of course,” responded Lorcan, rallying valiantly he thought to the occasion. “I understand.”

A slightly quizzical expression creased Gregor’s features. From his wallet he produced a card.

“I meant what I said earlier about wanting us to be friends. This is my address and telephone number. If I understood the etiquette and cultural nuances of Fiorentine hand kisses, I would kiss your hand Lorcan.”

“I understand it,” said Lorcan with a supressed urgency.- “That is to say, I’ve read a wee book about it and of course noticed what the Fiorentines do.”

“Of course you have,” came the reply without irony or surprise.

He allowed Lorcan to take his hand. Lips lightly touched Gregor’s palm,-like but not exactly the same,- as Claudio had done on behalf of his wife and himself at the sauna, that afternoon.

The red button dangling by a thread from the sleeve of Gregor’s dressing gown once again caught Lorcan’s attention. Instantly he grabbed the thread and detached the button from its precarious mooring.

“I am going to keep this as a symbol of this moment.”

Gregor took a step back and gave Lorcan another slightly quizzical look.

“OK. See you at breakfast,” he said turning with a wave.

To Be Continued.