A Glass Winter 6

“what do you do when you’ve become the kind of person you used to hate? I don’t even recognise myself anymore”

Theo sat up, embraced by a torrent of sheets and pillows and blankets. They had woken late, the cool sunlight was beating past the clouds and glowed through the ornate windows. Across from him was a wide wardrobe, antique, creaking with age. A tall mirror was set into its centre. In it he saw a face staring back at him, he scanned his features; his jutting jaw, the faint wrinkles around his eyes, his bushy eyebrows. He couldn’t help but feel disconnected, quite divorced from the man looking back at him, his eyes puffy as if he’d been crying. There was some sense of malice, as if the mirror knew what he had done, laying bare his betrayal. Like Dorian Grays portrait enumerating his sins.

Beside him, wrapped in those same mottled sheets, only the small of Mathews back was visible. He wanted to cover it, having always had the notion that a bare back spoke of something damp. As if it was imminently possible that Mathew would catch a chill and die in his sleep. He remembered his mother, always pulling down his top to cover his back when he lay down beside her, on the whole he had never suffered from her neuroticism, but it seemed age was catching up with him. The wrinkled eyes in the mirror clambered for his attention once again. He ignored them. Instead he looked around the room. The moulding of the cream panelled walls, its paint peeling like dry skin; the red Persian rug underfoot shielding the uneven hardwood floors; the two wine glasses on the table, stained with a pinprick of red at their base, two empty bottles beside them. It wasn’t the finest hotel in Paris, a deliberate choice so as not to draw attention. But it was quaint, like he had walked into one of those French films Vanessa used to like.

Mathew stirred, stretching his supple arms over his head and yawning. Theo was relieved of his judgmental counterpart in the mirror. He stroked Mathews smooth back.

“Hello” he said softly.

“Hello, you” Mathew grunted, twisting to face him.

They kissed. Theo held his face hard against his own. They stayed like that for a moment, lips locked together. Skin dancing over itself; as if you couldn’t tell where one body ended and the other began.

“Let’s order breakfast”

Theo stood dressed at the window, looking out at the scene. It was beginning to rain now in earnest. The cobbled streets glistened, like a garden path off in some long-forgotten town. Wooden boxes piled high were being carted frantically past. People scurried from awning to awning hoping for some relief, seeming either disenfranchised or gleeful. There was no middle ground. A young couple walked aimlessly, clutching each other close. Oblivious in their contentment to their soaked hair and clothes, marching steadily on towards nothing in particular.

“Alright” He replied.

Mathew wore a white robe, his curly hair crumpled and wayward. Beautiful, Theo thought.

They ordered tea and French toast.

“And a mango, I want a mango Theo”

“Alright” he laughed.

When there came a knock at the door Mathew didn’t move. He just lay on the bed staring up at the dilapidated ceiling.

“Do you think, maybe you should go to the bathroom?” Theo asked tentatively.

Mathew looked slightly abashed, he resented this tempering of their happiness; he resented Theo’s fear.

“They saw us check in together”

Theo looked back, his hand on the door. He grimaced, as if to say: I’m sorry, I know, but do this for me. Mathew stumbled silently into the bathroom.

As soon as they were alone again he marched out defiantly, but again said nothing. Perhaps he had decided that they wouldn’t argue this time. They both knew it was inevitable, they both understood the reality of it. It hung over their glorious bubble, an ominous unspoken cloud. Theo threw the mango to him and smiled apologetically.

“When are you going to tell her?”

It came out of nothing, it seemed he had suddenly changed his mind. He stared unblinkingly, a spoonful of mango an inch from his face.

“Tell her what” Theo asked absently, bracing himself. Mathew raised his eyebrows.

“Its not as simple as that. You know its not”

“It could be. Call her, call her right now and tell her. I’d say it’s crueller to drag things out”

He was determined.

“You don’t understand” He looked grave, but could only bare to return Mathews violent stare for a moment.

“Don’t patronise me, I understand perfectly well. You’re afraid.”

“Of course I’m afraid!” He slammed his fist on the table. “You don’t know her, you don’t have any idea what she’s like. Do you know what she’ll do when she finds out?!”

“What is she going to do then tell me”

“That’s just it, I don’t know. You can never know. She’s not…” He hesitated, “She can become very ill Mathew. She’s… delicate”

“Delicate. Fuck. Theo you can’t protect her from this you know. Its over, you and her, finished. It has been for years you told me yourself. So…”

“So?”

“So what are you doing? Theo Winter, successful Theo, strong Theo” He taunted “Principled Theo”

“Shut it” he shouted. He hadn’t meant to, but the thought of telling Vanessa anything made his heart race, that familiar fearful lump rising in his throat.

“Right” Mathew breathed after a minute. “And where does that leave me, just some afterthought?”

“No”

“Just something to do while your life goes to shit?!”

“Mathew”

“I’m not going to be second best to your fucking crazy wife!”

Theo smacked him, hard across the face.