Leaving party
I woke up on Saturday and went downstairs and bade Dusk goodbye. He had a meeting in London. About twelve pm, Archigram, his girlfriend and Jordan arrived. They, Emma and I ate goat’s cheese, Parma ham, home-made bread and sun-dried tomatoes, and drank orange juice and cups of tea. After lunch, we played a game of Cranium with much hilarity. One all-play round had Archigram and Cyp both having to whistle us Say a Little Prayer, and they both started on the same bit of tune in the same key and produced an eerie, impromptu duet and then they couldn’t whistle anymore because they were laughing so much.
We went to the shops to get some last-minute supplies and then spent the rest of the afternoon talking.
In the early evening, Richard, Haz, Dusk, Grain, my Dad, my brother, and my Mum’s friends Sue and Vince arrived. My brother began cooking like a hero and everyone milled around in the kitchen and drank a lot and talked. It made my heart glad to see my friends and family together, and to see my friends who didn’t know each other getting on. I think pretty much everyone talked to pretty much everyone.
Dusk seemed a little withdrawn, but I’m not sure why. My Mum thinks it was because he was older than most of my friends, but I’m not so sure. I think maybe he was tired and maybe he was distracted by his meeting and maybe he was phased by meeting lots of confident friends of mine. He said he has a theory that middle-class families are, fundamentally, articulate and discuss abstract concepts, whereas working-class families don’t talk about things outside their direct experience. He said this results in a higher ability of the middle classes to adapt and aspire.
We did an informal survey, and found that, of the people who identified as a person with a working class background, he, Grain and Cyp thought their families supported the theory. Archigram’s girlfriend felt her family did not.
I had been nervous about showing Dusk where I grew up, because my Mum’s house is big and has a big garden and she and my step-Dad are rich. (At the same time, I was excited to show him off to my family and other friends.) I asked him whether meeting my family and seeing our house illuminated anything about me. He said another piece had slotted into the jigsaw puzzle: the articulate and well-to-do environment I grew up in explains why I can move to a country without speaking the language or knowing anyone there. He might be right.
I wore my red clingy American Apparel dress and Cyp said, “Ruby, if you weren’t a lesbian [his word for me being queer]…” He’s so damn handsome, but I just don’t fancy him.
Three thirty a.m. came and most of us staggered off to bed. Richard and my brother stayed up and sat at the kitchen table and drank a bottle of Amaretto.
I went to bed with Grain. He kissed me on the mouth and said, Goodnight, Ruby, and he asked if I’d like to spoon and I said yes and he wrapped me up in his arms and curled terribly close around me and said I am good to snuggle because I am petite.
I didn’t really sleep that well because I preferred being snuggled to moving so I could relieve my cramp or undead a limb. So, most of the night passed in a strange half-wake half-sleep where I listened to Grain breathe and thought how nice it was to snuggle after such a long time spent with Matte’s dislike of nighttime snuggles.
We slept in lots of different positions: me with my head on Grain’s chest, turned together with legs entwined, me on my back and Grain with a knee around my hips and and our hand together and Grain’s breath on my cheek. I slowly got more and more turned on. He kissed me all over my neck. I kissed his cheek slowly and delicately.
Thing is, though, we’re friends. I feel something very deep in my heartt for Grain. But, whatever it is, my feelings about our friendship and his relationship prohibit further exploration. When I came to the next morning, my desire faded into the deepness.
We got up and I fetched Grain a bowl of Wheetos and a cup of tea. Then, we saw that everyone else was already up and had started building an igloo in the garden. We went out to help. For the next three hours, a few of us gathered snow, heaped it in a sledge, took it to the igloo and shaped it into flat blocks. Then, the others sawed it up into bricks and built the structure. Mum brought us out cups of tea and we drank those. Richard brought out beers and we drank those (I felt fantastic for twenty minutes, then rather ill, then OK). At last, Archigram, his girlfriend, Richard and my brother had a beautifully-curved structure mostly complete. We spent an hour doing the almost and then horizontal roof, and then it was done. We got candles and my Mum took a photo of all eight of us inside. It was utterly joyous: the hard work, the euphoric warmth, the beer, my family, my close friends and the utterly pointless but oh so beautiful house.