Page 90 of Has Anyone Seen My Sex Life?
‘You could do both?’ I tell him. ‘Why do they have to be mutually exclusive?’
‘Because Morton’s is a family-run business. You heard Mum the other day, I have a reputation to uphold. I can’t leave that mill, I worked so hard to get it back on track. So I suddenly do this on the side and people’s opinions change. It’s sex, it’s perverse. I lose accounts, people’s trust and suddenly I’ve jeopardised that company because I wanted to be selfish and go off and do something else.’
Stu hears those words and I see instant guilt. While he was lording it up on several different continents, Danny went and did what was right by dad and the family. He sees things through a different lens. He hears hurt, and someone being held back trying to do what’s right for them.
‘So part of you wants to do this?’
‘Well, not be some celeb and everyone know my business but…I don’t know…I like drawing, I like painting. I’ll admit, it’s a boost to know other people like it too but…’
I take his hand and look him in the eye.
‘But nothing…You can’t stick with the mill out of sheer obligation. You’ll get to sixty and wonder where your life went. You won’t be fulfilled, happy.’
‘I’ll be fine. You’re right. I can just downgrade this to a hobby and keep doing it but dump the Mintcake thing. I don’t know. Was a stupid thing that just got out of hand. I’ll be fine.’
‘How will you be fine?’
‘Because I’ll have you…’
Stu takes a step back. I hold a hand out and Danny puts his in mine.
‘You bloody idiot. So we make this work?’
‘How?’
I hadn’t really thought that far ahead but this is what he wants isn’t it? A three-way marriage with the Captain. And why not? I’ve grown quite fond of the bugger.
‘Leave that with me.’
Sixteen
I remember the first time I came down to Morton’s Paper Mill. Both my parents had been teachers and I’d grown up in a comfortable suburb in London so had very little idea of what was rural or proper blue collar. Danny and I had not really known each other long but he wanted to show me his version of The Lakes. I’ve never told him but this was the trip where I fell in love with him.
I remember exactly what he was wearing on that drive up: a light blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up, jeans and old school shell toe Adidas trainers. We drove up on a Thursday; he was a brooding driver but every so often a hand would shift from the gearstick to find mine. He still does this. It still makes my heart glow. He was a fan of a car sweet but his taste in music left much to be desired. There was a lot of very hard rock: AC/DC in particular which wasn’t the soundtrack I had in mind for a romantic weekend away.
By the time we came off the motorway at junction thirty-six, I couldn’t feel my arse cheeks and my jaws hurt from having hit three packs of Starburst quite hard. It was the expression on Danny’s face which made me fall for him I think. We hit these winding country roads, the sort where I still do a steady forty and panic every time I meet another car thinking I’ll have to mount a hedgerow. He swept through them like they were etched into his memory, a swift fifty, reversing like some stunt driver every time we encountered a tractor. But he looked at home, a hazy look in his eyes that made the muscles in his body relax.
‘Need to make a pit stop.’
I didn’t query it. I thought he just needed a wee but we swept through a little town where I admired the quaint parades of shops selling menswear and woollen goods, painted signs of farms selling eggs by the dozen, scores of brick cottages. I didn’t see the building to start off with but we stopped at a little security hut where a lad came out and grabbed his hand.
‘Are you kidding me? Danny Morton, back on the manor.’
‘Hobbsy! Now then…’
‘Big fella expecting you?’
‘Course not.’
‘You up for long? Can grab an ale maybe?’
‘Aye.’
I’d heard Danny do Northern with Stu but this was definitely a different vernacular. Hobbsy glanced over at me and raised his eyebrows like I wasn’t even sitting there and looked back at Danny.
‘C’mon, let us in yer bastard.’
That’s when I saw the sign.Morton’s Paper Millsince 1923.
