Junction X Erastes (best motivational books of all time TXT) 📖

I interrupted. I certainly didn’t want Alex trying the punch. “I’ll get him a beer. Come and choose.” I grabbed his elbow, squeezing it gently, my pulse racing. As I left them, I turned around: “And a glass of champagne at midnight, surely?

“Half a glass,” said Sheila. They left us then, and gravitated towards the buffet.

Phil was in the kitchen, regaling several of our mutual acquaintances with a story about work. He raised a glass and there were several cheers as I entered. It was getting a little rowdier, which I liked.

I poured Alex a small glass of beer. “You can’t fool me with the angelic face,” I said. The noise in the kitchen was loud enough for me not to worry, and in any event I wasn’t saying anything too intimate. “That’s not your first beer, or boys aren’t what they used to be.”

He grinned. “My parents still think I’m twelve.”

“They always will. Even when you are married.”

His eyes clouded a little, and he took a large drink. I longed to stay with him, to settle down in one of the kitchen chairs and talk, but it was impossible. “I have to go, there’s to be another round of games before midnight.” His lips were wet from the beer and the smallest trace of foam clung to his upper lip. “But I didn’t even ask you how your Christmas went.”

“The snow was great.”

“I thought you’d have problems getting back. In fact, I thought you might have been held up because of that.”

“No such luck. We couldn’t get away until late because…well, it’s not an interesting story. I think my parents were a little surprised how eager I was to get home, what with school around the corner.”

I had a chill then; in a few short months, he would be moving away for what might as well be a lifetime. “And you came home loaded with socks?”

In reply, he looked down and raised his trouser leg a little. A garish pair of tartan socks in yellow and purple shone out from above his sensible black lace-up shoes. “Mostly. Got some good stuff for the layout too.”

“What like?” I asked, but Valerie leant in through the hatch at that point.

“Darling, could you bring the tray out from the bottom shelf of the fridge?” I swear his face clouded over when she said “Darling,” but I may have imagined it. I may be looking back at something that I just wish had happened.

“It’s all right,” he said. “I’ll go and join in the games, if…”

I told him yes, of course, and went to resume my hostly duties.

Phil followed me out of the kitchen, surprisingly sober, and I remarked upon it.

“You too,” he said.

“I generally am on New Year.”

He raised his eyebrows at me at that, which I deserved. “Are we getting old or something?”

I turned on the record player for musical chairs, and he slumped on the settee next to me as I manipulated the music so that Alex won. It wasn’t easy; he had to fight Fred for the last chair. I felt a slight guilt at my deceit until Phil growled at me, “You’d better not let that bastard win.” So that sealed Fred’s fate, and Alex got the prize, which was a small bottle of Cointreau. I looked around but Sheila and Alf were not in the lounge, so I said, “Don’t tell your parents,” and everyone laughed.

Valerie had turned on the radio. As usual the music consisted of bagpipes and more bagpipes, but thankfully they stopped fairly swiftly while the announcer gave the airwaves over to Big Ben. When the first bell tolled after the carillon, we all cheered and sang like mad things. Valerie kissed me and called everyone into the lounge where we all linked hands and sang “Auld Lang Syne” in terrible Scottish accents. With Valerie on my right and Alex on my left, I remember being stupidly happy, sure that 1963 was going to be a year I would enjoy and make the most of—at least until Alex went to university.

The song finished and Valerie slid into my arms. “Happy New Year, darling,” she said and kissed me. I opened my eyes during the kiss and saw Alex, his face pale in the festive light, sitting huddled and miserable on the chair in the corner.

I knew then that I’d been stupid, so utterly stupid. Someone—no matter what happened—was going to be hurt, and I had been stupid enough not to see it until that moment. I also realised for the first time that there was nothing I could do— and that there was no escaping it.

Chapter 16

I wonder what people would think of that last statement. More self-delusion? Perhaps. I can almost hear people thinking—was he really that short-sighted? I don’t know. Between now and then, the time that has passed has blurred the charcoal of many details and of many faces with an unforgiving brush. So much has been lost. I’m finding that it’s hard to be as truthful as I wanted to be here, for perhaps what I think I felt back then, I did not.

Maybe I’m painting myself better than I was. Or worse. But hand on heart, here and now, that party was really the first time I had the cold feeling of a path diverging before me. One step more had to be taken, just one small step, onto one path or another.

The snow continued all through New Year’s Day, dropping soft, thick and bright from skies that were full of nothing but grey. None of us had any idea, when we rushed as a nation into the garden to make our first snowmen of the year, that it would be months before the world stopped being white.

But that day, like all the Alex days, was memorable, not because it was the start of the Big Freeze, but simply because he was in it, helping the twins with their