Chapter Text
London was too hot.
Tom never thought he´d say that about his hometown, having been to Italy, France and Portugal so many times, but nearly three months in Sweden had even made him reconsider the odd tendency to haphazardly cover themselves of his countrymen .
It was the middle of July and Gatwick airport swarmed like an anthill. It was late and he’d a headache that couldn’t be attributed to jet lag, or because the sun hadn’t really set behind the horizon for some time: he was back in his hometown, he was home, he should be happy.
He wasn’t.
Because he didn’t have a house in London, not anymore. He’d been forced to end the contract of his old apartment just a little after his departure for Stockholm. The landlord had talked about rent increases, plumbing works, renovations, he didn’t even know the specifics, he only knew that he really couldn’t afford to pay more money at the moment. Not for a tiny condo in that suburb anyway.
He needed to find a place to stay, as soon as possible.
Emma's house wasn’t an option, not since she shared the rent with Fred, who was studying to be a photographer who had a crush on him that bordered on fixation. He was a good kid, but he wasn’t his type and he seemed unwilling to understand that heterosexuality is not such a bad thing, just like its opposite. So, no to Emma's apartment.
Sarah was living in Mumbai for a couple of years, and she didn’t seem willing to come back home soon and Tom wouldn’t go to his father’s even if he’d lived in London and not in Oxford.
The conveyor belt was finally moving, noisily carrying the first of the bags, and he had obviously been pushed aside by the usual latecomer who pretended to see his suitcase instantly.
He sighed deeply and mentally hummed a silly little tune to calm himself. He was tired too, he wanted his luggage, he also wanted to get back to the house he didn’t have. Not even the second push was enough to get off his face the mask of obtuse indifference that he’d perfected at Eton.
His luggage was still nowhere to be seen.
Something had started vibrating in his pants pocket, and for a moment he’d been so surprised he’d not known what to do. It was obviously only his cell phone, but his temples throbbed so much that even the stupidest neural connections were slowed down. He didn’t want to answer, but he also knew it was probably his mother.
And she would reprimand him for not calling her when he’d landed, or when he’d left Stockholm. Then she would ask what she could make him for dinner.
It was after ten o'clock pm, and his mother's food was the last thing he wanted to think about. Because he was twenty-seven years old and almost ten years before he’d sworn to himself that he would not look back, that he would never ever have to choose which home to come back to. But he was twenty-seven years old, and had no choice, because he didn’t earn enough to afford a real mortgage, a home and a real life. As his father never failed to remind him.
"Hi Mum, I'm still waiting for my luggage."
"You should have called me before leaving, I was a bit worried."
"It’s not the first time I´ve been abroad, mum."
"You should call all the same. Now I fear the food will be cold when you get home. "
"No matter, it will be a while before I get home anyway."
"You sound strange darling, are you sure you’re okay?"
"Just tired. You know, the flight. I see my bag, I'll call you later. "
Lie. He’d missed his luggage and would have to wait yet another turn of the conveyor. The only consolation was that he was among the few still waiting, no more jostling. However, he’d begun to hum to himself again to create a pleasant sound over those annoying airport ones.
His mother had not remained in Oxford for long after the divorce, just long enough for Emma to end her preparatory studies for college, and for Sarah to leave for university. Tom was never considered a problem since he was already at Eton when his father had moved to another apartment.
Diana would have wanted to go back to Suffolk, where she grew up, where what remained of her family lived, but she eventually chose to return to Wimbledon, where the first years of marriage were beautiful, and where she would be closer to the West End. With her resume she’d little difficulty in finding a new job she loved and didn’t really need, and then becoming someone else’s Didi.
Tom tried not to think about it, even though he knew it was stupid after so many years: his parents had been divorced for more years than they had been married, it wasn’t so strange that they had decided to rebuild their lives away from each other, white hair or not. They had every right to do so.
A jolt of the carriage had brought him back to the reality of his enormous headache and frustration. There was still half an hour before reaching his stop and the Northern Line was fortunately almost deserted at that hour, he could indulge himself in his thoughts again comfortably on the soft seats and be soothed by the air conditioning which mitigated the seemingly endless heat of the evening.
Tom relived in his mind the latest twelve weeks in Sweden and, indeed, he couldn’t believe his euphoria had subsided so quickly.
2008 had had a great start and, honestly, he should not complain about the rest so far. Apartment issues aside, of course. But the work had gone well from the beginning, he’d been so good that Branagh had urged him to show up to the audition for a role in his next play, even before seeing him actually on a TV set.
"I saw Othello, I saw Cymbeline. I don’t need anything else. Why do you think you are playing Martinsson? "
And in fact he got the part of Lvov without much trouble.
He would still have to go to Emma’s house to get back his car, there was little to do about it, he couldn’t just rely on public transportation to get to the West End since the rehearsals would probably go on until very late at night: they only had a few months to prepare everything, Branagh had given him barely a week to work off the stress of filming for Wallander, and he’d make the best of that brief time.
Maybe some clouds really do have a silver lining, maybe that week of inactivity at his mother’s home would be useful. He could use a little pampering, to finally be able to eat healthy meals, run a little and then look for another apartment. He’d not seen her for more than three months, did he really dislike the idea of being coddled a bit so much? They could take the opportunity to see some plays or movies, just like when he was a kid, just the two of them.
He mustn´t see everything as so black, he would return to live with his mother only temporarily, only between moving from one house to another, only while he was waiting for the big occasion.
Yes, he needed to be positive.
But he still felt like crying: it's hard to learn that no one keeps their vows, not even the ones we make to ourselves.
It was past eleven o'clock when he found himself in front of the little entrance of his mother´s elegant Victorian detached house, not so unlike the house where he grew up as a child. He’d never really understood why she’d bought such a big house since she lived - in theory - alone, but Diana liked being surrounded by people, she liked to entertain friends and her sister Elizabeth visited her often.
Tom took a minute to catch his breath and place the bag on his shoulder, then he pushed open the little wooden gateway and tiredly walked towards the door, treading across the gravel of the driveway, dragging a large suitcase under a sky lit only by a narrow crescent moon.
He was dead tired for having traveled only a few hundred meters, he really, really needed to go back to more healthy habits, to get in shape. He would think about it the next day, it was late and all he wanted to do was jump in the shower and wash the journey and frustration off before crashing into bed.
He fumbled with the key that his mother had given him for emergencies, even if the lights on the first floor were still on, he’d no desire to ring the bell and bother her at that late hour; probably she’d fallen asleep on the couch while reading. It would not be the first time, it would not be the last.
Home embraced him with its familiar good smell.
It wasn’t the one in which Tom was raised as a child, but his mother had always been able to transform any home into a warm and cozy nest, despite the increasing size of the houses where they had lived, first at Wimbledon and then at Oxford. His father had always had an obsession with huge houses, huge gardens, enormous educational qualifications. Tom feared and abhorred that exaltation of grandeur, and had never understand how that fit with the small fundraising soirées for the Labour Party, to which his parents (as well as the entire maternal family) had never denied support and votes. Or, maybe, that was the point.
Eventually, the party of choice had become the only thing Tom’s parents had in common, except maybe the love for their children, and perhaps even they had not really understand how it had happened.
Tom, of course, had not understood. Sarah, at the time of the divorce, had nearly been fifteen years old and would have liked to have dyed her hair and listened to rock music at full volume, because the deafening silence of that divorce had made her skin crawl, but she would have risked being thrown out of college and their father would not have screamed at her: he would have just looked at her with disappointment and annoyance.
Tom still perfectly remembered the happy and carefree play that Sarah and Zoe wrote in the late summer of 93, shortly before Tom´s departure for Eton. They were stubbornly resolved to avoid thinking about what everyone knew would happen soon. Tom didn’t participate in the staging, still too angry with his parents who were sending him away, to agree to amuse the adults of the family as they did every summer. Sarah still reproached him playfully for that when they met alone, over a glass of white wine: without rancor, they had long understood that there is never only one way to overcome disappointments. Those created by parents were even more of a private affair.
Tom left his suitcase at the entrance to avoid damaging the parquet and walked slowly toward the living room. He could hear the strangest noises coming from the room, surely not only the TV, which was actually on even at that late hour.
He heard his mother give directions, giggling, and then another low voice, distinctly masculine, definitely not Brian’s – her mother’s partner - answer her back.
Tom stood in the antechamber, stupidly hesitant as to whether or not to walk through the small corridor that separated him from the dining room. It was obvious his mother had not heard him arrive, and he just didn’t know why he was feeling so hesitant about announcing he was there.
The bag was heavy, but it wasn’t the reason he let it fall with a loud thud on the floor at the entrance to the dining room a few minutes later.
There was a naked young man in the house. With his mother.
Or rather, the stranger´s bare back was the first thing Tom noticed, but it was the only real nudity, as the young man at least had his pants on. And shoes. He didn’t know what was so important about the shoes, but Tom felt oddly relieved.
"Honey, you're here!"
Tom's mother seemed unfazed that his son had just caught her with a naked young man in the living room, and hugged him warmly to welcome him home.
Tom couldn’t help but look at the guy who was still naked from the waist up, and was still in his mother's living room without apparent reason.
Why there was a naked guy in his mother´s living room so late at night?
The TV had on a late night comedy program that wasn’t that funny at all. Tom didn’t like that the pre-recorded laughter of the show was in the background of a situation where he was the only one finding it embarrassing. The boy – intolerably handsome, terribly blond and attractive and young - was still naked in his mother's living room, when she should have been alone in the house waiting for him.
"Could you put a shirt on, please?"
Was all he managed to rattle out even if he´d wanted to ... well, he didn’t really know what he wanted to do, the very idea of raising his voice seemed useless and ridiculous, and he couldn’t even think of showing his irritation to this stranger, because how could he? It would have been rude, no doubt. His mother would not be happy.
But there was still a naked boy in his mother's living room, he could at least humour him and get dressed.
"Oh, yeah. Excuse me, but it’s so hot I felt like fainting."
And it was true, the living room was boiling, the evening air of July in London was warm and muggy, but at home it was like a furnace.
"A big hornet from the garden came in and stuck itself in the air conditioner, blocking it. Would you believe it? This late at night! Fortunately Chris is good at this sort of thing, aren´t you darling? He saved us from asphyxiation. "
In fact Tom could see not only different tools here and there on the table and on the floor, but also a huge black beast he vaguely recognized as an insect skewered with a screwdriver. Disgusting. Meanwhile Chris had put his shirt back on, thankfully.
"Couldn’t you open the French window?"
"Honey, there's a hornet's nest somewhere in the garden, and tomorrow I will have to call an exterminator. The doors will remain locked until then, and do not even dare to open the window in your room!"
"I can think of it tomorrow morning, I played with worse things as a kid."
"Oh, don’t be silly, darling, we cannot risk you getting hurt right now. Brian will never forgive me. You're a sweetheart, but you have to look after that pretty face of yours. "
Tom could hardly think over the strange familiarity of that exchange and their conspiratorial giggling, and he didn’t really know why, but it irritated him. A lot. His mother started to fumble with the remote control of the air conditioner and squealed delightedly when a breath of fresh air began to come out easily.
"Splendid. We can sleep peaceful and cool tonight, isn’t that marvelous, Tom? "
Not so much. Tom wasn’t very happy, but he smiled anyway at his mother and smiled back to the not-naked-anymore-boy that had to look after his pretty face.
"Don’t you want to eat something before going to bed, dear? Chris has made some delicious savory crepes, we put some aside for you. "
Tom thought his face would stick if he didn’t stop smiling, but he couldn’t stop and he could only hope to look convincing and not appear like a nut job. Chris hadn’t even introduced himself, and his mother took for granted that he would eat his crepes, wonderful.
He just wanted to go to sleep and end this horrible day, waiting for a even more horrible week.