The Family Remains(33)

Kris takes a blanket from the pannier and unfurls it on to the sand. He grabs himself an alcohol-free beer from the ice bag and the half-bottle of champagne, which he uncorks and pours into a plastic glass for me. The sky across the lake is turning sugar pink; the tall buildings of the city beyond are black paper cut-outs. The air is soft June warm, and I have had a wonderful afternoon on the back of Kris’s bike, looking at a city that I have never seen before. There has been an unexpected intimacy about the experience, as if we are now somehow bonded in a small way, and I wonder if everyone who takes one of his tours feels the same way or if it’s only lonely, damaged people like me who take such strange comfort from them. I’ve barely eaten and the cheap, not-quite-cold-enough champagne goes directly to the bottom of my stomach and into my bloodstream and I find, as my eyes take in the beauty of Chicago’s skyline reflected in the rose-gold mirror of the lake, that I am crying.

I turn my head a few degrees so that Kris won’t see, and surreptitiously rub my cheeks against my shoulders.

‘Isn’t it beautiful?’ he says, and I nod, not trusting myself to speak. I am awash with emotion for which I have insufficient language. A churning in my soul of loss and emptiness and lack and incompleteness. I am incomplete. I have always felt incomplete. And I have thought at various points throughout my life that just around the next corner would be the thing that would complete me. I thought finding Libby would complete me, that returning to my childhood home would complete me, being rich and successful, being buff and pretty, having good sex with bad men, bad sex with good men, love affairs with no love, a stunning kitchen with touch-to-open cupboard doors – I have thought that all of these things would complete me and none of them has. And now I am here on the shores of Lake Michigan with a handsome man called Kris Doll sitting by my side thoughtfully sipping alcohol-free lager from the bottleneck and the sky is on fire and nobody loves me and I love nobody and I am alone, I am so, so alone and Jesus fucking Christ I have to find Phin. I have to find Phin and if finding him doesn’t fix me I swear to God I will swim across this lake and throw myself into that acid-orange sun and let myself burn to a smudge of ash.

I clear my throat and straighten my back. ‘How long have you been doing this?’ I ask Kris.

‘Oh, you know. A few years. I was on the lake before, doing boat rides, excursions, that sort of thing.’

I act as if I did not already know this. ‘So you’re from Chicago? Originally?’

‘Yup. Born and bred. What about you? Are you a born-and-bred Londoner?’

‘Yes. Yes I am. I was born in a hospital room overlooking the Houses of Parliament. Brought up on the banks of the River Thames. And now I live in central London. I am very much a born and bred Londoner.’ I pause as I try to think of a way to steer the conversation towards the information I need. Then I have it. ‘What happened with the girl from Milton Keynes?’

‘Ah, we broke up. Couldn’t hack the long-distance thing. Plus she …’ He pauses. ‘Well, she couldn’t hack my sexuality.’

My breath catches. Kris Doll is not straight?

‘You mean, you’re not just into girls?’

‘Correct.’ He runs his palms down the side of his lager bottle. ‘Yeah. I thought Brits were meant to be so liberal and tolerant. At least, all the ones I ever met before were. But not her, it transpired.’

‘Do you know a lot of British people?’

‘A few. Yeah. Guys, mainly, you know. When I’m out at bars and the like.’

‘What sort of bars do you go to? I mean, is there a particular scene for queer boys who like big bikes?’

He gives a wry laugh. ‘No. Not really. There’s a biker bar I used to go to a while back. But then I got into a kind of messy situation with a girl there and now I tend to just go to normal bars. You know.’

‘A messy situation?’

‘Yeah.’ He laughs again. ‘I was really into her, but she was really into this other guy and she played us off against each other for months and then … well. Plot twist – turned out he was bi too and he and I, well, you know …’ He laughs and grimaces. ‘She was not pleased. So, yeah, I kind of stopped going there.’

I pretend that I am still listening but I’m not. I’m busy swallowing down the fireball of shock that has just jumped from my gut to my throat at the revelation that Phin is bi, actively bi, and that Phin, my Phin, has slept with Kris Doll, this man who I am currently sitting just a few inches away from, and that if I were to touch Kris, right now, it would be almost as if I were touching Phin and I should feel jealous, maybe, or angry, but I don’t, I just feel filled with wonder and a need to be close to someone who has been close to Phin.

‘What was he like?’

‘The other guy?’

‘Yeah. The other guy.’

‘Oh, he was British too, actually! Ha! From London. Kind of … posh.’ Pash.

I swallow hard. ‘Oh, yeah?’

‘Yeah. He was kind of, possibly, the most interesting person I’ve ever met in my life.’

‘In what way?’

‘Oh, just in … He was kind of beautiful, but not vain. And he had this way of seeing the world, y’know? Just very … pure. But he also had this crazy backstory.’

‘Ooh,’ I say playfully. ‘Was he a child wizard?’