Just You, My Man

- 1 -

The connecting flight to Saint Lucia arrived late, so Larry and Palmer mooched around the airport lounge for as long as they could. Larry bought some early-send postcards, and Palmer considered a Tee-shirt, but Larry’s pursed lips swiftly changed his mind.

‘Fancy a coffee, Lal?’ Palmer asked as he threw an arm round Larry’s shoulder.
‘I need something stronger,’ Larry said, already heading toward the bar.

A group of off-duty servicemen were seated noisily in a corner of the pub, cans and bottles of beer piling high around their table. Two of the young lads watched Palmer and Larry intently as they ordered drinks and found a place to settle.

‘That one on the end’s nice,’ Palmer whispered.
‘The blond?’
‘Mmm!’ 
‘Yeah, he is quite tasty.’ Larry studied the group. The mix brightened his mood, he even received a surprisingly warm smile from a dark haired squaddie sprawling along one of the benches. The two lads who had watched Larry and Palmer enter, came up to order more drinks. They could have been twins they looked so similar, both lithe, dark and close-cropped. The bar tender, a guy with a face as rough as his Irish brogue, leaned on a set of pumps determined to take no messing. The lads called back to their table that the bar man said there’d be no more alcohol served to them before they embarked. An empty can flew across the bar room, it hit a picture, knocking it skew. 

‘Right!’ The bar tender yelled, ‘You lot out!’

A cigarette pack hurtled toward the bar, followed by another tin can. ‘O.K. lads,’ the blonde squaddie stood up to place himself between the bar and the table, ‘quiet down.’ He turned his head toward the bar and called over, ‘soft drinks all round, mate, then we’ll go.’ A groan bit into the air, and a flow of swear words cursed everything and everyone. 

‘Should we go, Pally?’ Larry asked.
‘Nah!’ Palmer smiled carelessly with his answer.
‘Well I need a slash, I’ll not be long. Keep an eye on my drink, eh?’
‘Sure,’ Palmer nodded, his eyes fixed on the blond soldier.

The bar’s gents was cramped but clean; a urinal trough along one wall, two sinks facing it and a single cubicle at the far end. One man turned swiftly to the sinks as Larry opened door. The door to the cubicle also closed stealthily. The man at the sink and Larry shared a glance in the mirror as he passed, the look was no more than momentary, yet it spoke loud and clear. Larry nearly laughed out loud at the the number of volumes he could have written on that little experience.

The sordid pleasures of cottaging swarmed back into Larry’s mind. The risk, the variety, above all the total lack of permanence.

After checking the hot-air drier was working, the sink man splashed water on his face, then he went back to the drier and stood there pressing it a number of times. Larry unbuttoned at the urinal, leaning back a tad to examine a small peep hole in the cubicle wall. As Larry started his slash the door opened behind him. But it wasn’t the sink man leaving, he had just pressed the drier again. Larry found out who had entered in behind him soon enough.

‘Hi!’ said one of the two twined squaddies, closing in to stand beside him. 

Larry said nothing. He looked round to see if the other twin was with him. He was.

The lad at the urinal bent slightly at the knees to look at the cubicle peep hole, then he smirked at Larry. The second lad perched by the sinks. He eased back his legs to let the man by the air-drier hug past him. With the door closed he stuck one leg across the door, jamming his foot on the wall.

An uncomfortable pressed-in feeling came over Larry as he finished his piss. The whole toilet seemed to shrink even further, the walls closing in, the ceiling sinking, and the floor lifting up to push the lad beside him closer still. A rustle from the cubicle broke the crushing sweat rising over Larry’s body, the occupant was kneeling to get a better view of the action at the urinal. Larry stepped back.
‘Where d’you think you’re goin’?’ The lad at the urinal leaned across Larry as he tried to button up his jeans. He grabbed Larry’s T-shirt and twisted it into a tense knot. Leaning harder against Larry, he forced him to back up against a wall. With his head pressing down vice-like against Larry’s brow, he growled, ‘You’re a fucking poofter.’

‘Oi! You,’ Palmer called, pushing his way passed the lad by the sink, ‘what the fuck do think you're at?’ 

Without letting up on the pressure set against Larry’s forehead, the Squaddie holding Larry turned his head slowly toward Palmer, his face curled in hate. ‘You wanna make somethin’ of it?’
Palmer wasted no time, he took a swinging hold of the lad by the sink. Lifting him of his feet, he crashed him against the other lad’s shoulder. With another swift move he grabbed Larry’s arm and yanked him free. Squaring up to the lads as they steadied, he snarled, ‘Yeah, I wanna! D’you?’

‘Bloody, fucking hell!’ a voice called as it entered the toilets. The two squaddies looked away from Palmer and toward the man at the door. 

Palmer kept the lads in sight but manoeuvred Larry away from the door.

‘Look you two,’ said the blond soldier from the bar, placing himself squarely between Palmer and the squaddies, ‘can’t you keep out of bovver?’
‘It was ‘im,’ the lad from the urinal whined drunkenly, ‘it was ‘im came on to me, Corp.’
‘Yeah,’ his sidekick mumbled without conviction.
‘Right.’ The young corporal nodded toward the door, and the squaddies sidled by him. ‘I am sorry about that,’ he said to Palmer, after he had smiled at Larry. 

Larry tucked his T-shirt back into his jeans, trying to look cool about the whole thing. ‘It’s OK,’ he shrugged.

‘It’s bloody well not “OK”, no way!’ Palmer was still het up, his fists clenched tight as springs ready to let fly.
‘Please, Pally,’ Larry took a stand, ‘really, I mean it.’ He patted Palmer’s chest as he moved to separate the fields of pumping testosterone. ‘No actual harm was done.’
‘But it might’ve,’ Palmer countered.
‘You’re right, but all I can say is they really aren’t that bad usually,’ the corporal said. He put out his hand toward Larry, saying, ‘My name’s Don.’
‘Hi!’ Larry gave him a smile. ‘This is Palmer. I’m Larry.’ Larry gave Palmer a look that said shake his hand, or else. Palmer relaxed and gave the blond a firm handshake.
An awkward silence filled the space that held them apart, yet a few even more awkward shared looks seemed to draw them together. ‘Well, anyways,’ Don broke the spell, ‘I’d better get out to see they don’t start a riot or something.’
‘You all right, Lal?’ Palmer softened.
‘No,’ Larry shook his head. ‘Hold me.’ 

With a light rocking sway to comfort him, Palmer held Larry tight. They breathed together as almost one breath until a creak at the toilet door sprang them apart. They both slipped carefully to the sinks to enjoy a refreshing wash, flicking water at each other with childish glee.

The soldiers had gone when they returned to the saloon. And with a thankful roll of his eyes to the heavens, the bartender showed them that he was delighted to see the back of them. ‘Refresh your drinks, would you, sir?’ he intoned, facing no more competition than the chorus of pinging electrical game machines and the crooning beat of wallpaper rock.

Palmer looked to Larry, who pursed his face into a no.
‘Was there any trouble in there,’ the bar man thumbed toward the toilets, ‘with the grunts?’
‘Nah!’ Palmer hugged Larry’s shoulder.
‘High spirits floating on booze!’Larry laughed.
‘Listen!’ Palmer held his hand up for silence. ‘That’s us, Lal.’

The queue to the boarding lounge had already started to tail when they went to the pub for a drink, now it snaked back almost to the check-in desks. Suddenly bodies appeared and doors opened, as if by magic, to swallow up the straggling, ill-tempered crowd. 

Larry sensed Palmer’s hatred of crowds around him rising with the colour at the back of neck. He pointed at two elderly ladies in the queue, chatting and bickering away over their hand luggage. ‘A straight forward case, my dear Elias. What do you deduce?’

‘What?’ Palmer snapped tetchily, then spotted the ladies.‘Ah! well, Carter, now let me see. A blue rinse on one, with a lacquered bouffant newly administered. The other, sensible shoes, and a fresh casual wave; salon, not home permed. From Essex, I’d say, still the backbone of their Conservative club. Genteel, but no longer in touch with their onetime professional colleagues.’
‘Librarians or school marms?’ Larry saw his rouse had worked, Palmer no longer fidgeted with the cases but really entered into the spirit of the game.
‘The bouffant had been a senior administrator for the local library board. The sensible shoes,’ Palmer considered for a moment, ‘a disillusioned probation officer turned hospital visitor.’
‘Lesbians?’
‘They missed out after the war, never quite daring to speak its name.’
‘Passport and ticket, sir.’ A delicately scented official asked, looked then pointed them toward a set of doors. ‘Boarding area three, in twenty minutes,’ she said. ‘Sir!’ she called after Larry.‘Your boarding ticket.’ She gave him a sweet almost lingering smile before turning back to the fray.

‘That looks like that blond army chap you fancied.’ Larry indicated the back of a head in the mass crush of crowd ahead of them.

Palmer ignored him, guessing he was trying to distract him because he’d returned to sorting out the luggage. ‘What do you mean,’ it suddenly dawned on Palmer, ‘that I fancied him.’ 
‘I saw they way you looked at him in the pub,’ Larry quipped. ‘That was fancied, big time!’
‘Nah!’ Palmer tried to lie. ‘Well, OK, a little.’ His lie fell to shreds. ‘Yeah, tasty!’
‘Actually,’ Larry glowered, ‘now that I think of it, he was a bit of a dish.’ He gave Palmer a burning dark-eyed glare. ‘I don’t know that I approve.’
‘Away!’ Palmer threw a fake punch at Larry. ‘I can’t help feel I’ve seen him before.’
‘Oh, yes?’
‘Pu-lease! Yes.’
‘Is this your hand luggage?’ An uninterested-looking official sighed. ‘Did you pack it?’ He went on, not waiting for a proper reply. ‘Has it ever been out of you sight?’ he said to Palmer, then stopped his spiel to give him a look over. He looked Larry over too, then looked back to Palmer and gave him a gorgeous shining full-teeth smile. ‘Right ahead, sir,’ he said, ‘have a great time.’