Aoife, Theo and I had gone to Mary Poppers, a small queer bar on Upper Street. It wasn’t the best venue in the world — kind of cliché with its neon lighting, booming pop music and semi-pornographic videos of muscle studs writhing on flatscreen TVs — but it was a decent place to sit and chat, and for me to scope out the mainly male clientele, if there was anyone hot, which there hadn’t been so far.
Theo was telling us excitedly about having got one of their tracks into Mixmag, their bulky hoodie and short dreads shifting as they gesticulated emphatically and Aoife listened with a calm, fond smile. I loved to watch her sometimes, the way she watched them. She and Theo were the perfect couple. I always joked that the two of them reassured me that love must be possible in the queer world, even if it had never happened for me. Theo was a person of many talents — a fashion designer, music producer and LGBT helpline volunteer, South London born and bred, kind of amazing, yet so down to earth.
While listening to their story, I suddenly found my interest caught by someone behind them, queuing at the bar.
No…
It couldn’t be.
‘… and the editor was really sweet when she contacted me; she — okay, who are you looking at?’ said Theo, locking onto me with a knowing smirk. ‘Mal, you look thirsty.’
‘Yeah, Mal, this is really big for Theo!’ said Aoife with a laugh, a hand on her partner’s shoulder. ‘Can you just focus for one second and stop drooling over boys?’
‘I’m sorry! It’s just… ’
I trailed off, watching him return to the table he shared with four friends, carefully transporting drinks. He cut a tall, striking figure, his silky brown hair pulled back in a knot, wearing a white fisherman’s jumper. A fisherman’s jumper I somehow associated with the person I thought he might be.
‘Mal?’ said Aoife.
It had been eight years, though. Eight years.
‘Mal.’ Aoife looked unsubtly over her shoulder. Theo followed suit.
‘No, don’t!’ I spluttered, ‘don’t… ‘
They both turned back to me. Aoife sipped her G&T, amused, waiting.
‘I just… thought it was a guy from way back.’
‘Oh yeah?’ Theo cocked their head.‘How far?’
‘Like, Denmark far.’
Still, I stared past them at the guy’s broad back as he settled onto his stool, sliding the drinks over to his friends. UK garage and boisterous voices rose under the vaulted ceiling. Maybe it wasn’t him. Maybe I had only noticed him because he was tall. And handsome. And the bright sweater drew my eye.
Aoife cocked her head. ‘He’s Danish?’
‘No, Faroese.’ At their uncomprehending looks, I added: ‘Faroe Islands.’
‘What?’ said Theo. ‘Faroe, like, Egyptian pharaohs?’
‘Faroese! It’s a set of islands. That belong to Denmark. But are also independent. It’s… contentious.’
‘And how’d you know him?’ asked Theo. ‘Wait, which one is he?’
‘No, don’t look,’ I said with a despairing laugh as they turned again. ‘I know him because we lived in the same hall in our uni dorm. But it’s not him! It can’t be.’
‘I don’t know. I think you should go check,’ said Theo.
‘But what would he even be doing in London?’
Aoife shrugged. ‘What are any of us doing here?’
‘Fair point. Anyway… ‘ I slammed a decisive hand on the table and clambered off my stool. ‘I need the loo. I’m gonna sneak a closer look on the way.’
‘Attaboy,’ said Theo with a grin.
I wove through the crowd toward the pink neon sign for the toilets. The sound system was blasting Sweet Female Attitude’s classic Flowers; a few people had begun to awkwardly dance in their groups. I struggled to peek past one of these without slowing my pace to a halt. There he was — laughing and talking to his friends — handsome as hell, but was it… no, I couldn’t tell. I just couldn’t.
I went on into the loo.
It couldn’t be Tjálvi.
I peed at a urinal at the back of the cool, green-tiled room. The music boomed from outside. A mirror at head-height reflected the mirror above the sinks. The door opened.
The guy came in.
I almost swore out loud. Fucking hell. It really did look like Tjálvi, in the split second his head moved past mine within infinite reflections. He moved to stand at a urinal diagonally behind me.
I went to the sink and washed my hands. My heart gently thrummed in my chest. Should I say something? There were two options. Either it was him, the big unspoken crush of my early twenties, somehow inexplicably here, or he was a stranger and I would only embarrass myself.
He came to wash his hands beside me. I looked up and caught his eyes in the mirror. He caught mine, and just then I realised he’d followed me in because he wanted to verify what he couldn’t quite believe either.
‘I’m sorry,’ he began, ‘are you… ‘
‘Yeah,’ I spluttered. ‘It’s, you’re… hej! Tjálvi!’
‘Jamen, hej! Hvad laver du her?’
Switching to Danish, we hugged, exchanged compliments and exclamations of shock. It was wild, unbelievable. Eight years! Eight years since we’d lived in the same hall of our kollegium. All those parties. Careless, boozy nights. We stood there, barely moving while people squeezed past us for the toilets or sinks.
‘What are you doing in London?’ I asked. ‘Are you visiting, are you living here?’
‘Living.’ He nodded with that sleepy half-smile I’d always adored. He’d aged well. His round face was narrower, stubblier, his eyes still bright and curious. ‘I work as a programmer for the Underpass Film Festival. Do you know it?’
‘I’ve heard of it. That’s cool! So you’re actually using what you learned in your degree. That’s great.’
Tjálvi had been a film student. I’d studied theatre — well, first a BA in graphic design, then half a year of philosophy, half a year of musicology, then a theatre BA. I had been what the Danes call a spøgelsesstuderende — a ghost student, eternally haunting campus corridors in their state-funded indecisiveness.
‘Yeah, it’s pretty fun.’ Tjálvi scratched his neck in that cute way I remembered, his lilting Faroese accent still a marvel to me. ‘And you, what do you do? Do you live here too?’
‘I do! I’m just a graphic designer now. All that education for… nothing, really. And I do stand-up comedy. So there’s that.’
As if for punctuation, a toilet flushed.
‘But that’s cool!’ said Tjálvi with an encouraging smile. ‘Stand-up is cool. That’s a form of theatre. Anyway, should we get out of here?’
‘Yes, we should.’ I laughed as we re-entered the main space. More people were dancing now, the crowd growing, the music a standard house mix.
Suddenly it was as if I remembered where we were — a queer bar — and as if my mind finally attached this fact to the man in front of me, this man I’d always had a thing for, but had assumed to be straight.
I leaned forward and raised my voice: ‘I never thought I’d see you in a place like this.’
It was a lame way to broach the topic, but better than nothing.
He smiled. ‘In a… noisy bar?’
‘Yeah. I didn’t think you liked… noisy bars!’
‘They’re all right. I’ve been in a fair few in my time. This place isn’t so different from Copenhagen bars. Except you can’t smoke inside. Which is stupid.’
Oh, come on. He knew what I meant. All around us, the gayness of the place radiated from the clientele and the screens displaying muscle hunks. So what was he doing here?
‘Yeah, you’re right,’ I said, helplessly stumped. ‘Anyway. Who are you here with?’
‘Oh, just my friends over there.’ He gestured to the table I knew was his. ‘And you?’
‘I’m with my friends over there,’ I said, stupidly echoing him, gesturing to where Aoife and Theo were throwing us barely disguised looks of vicarious excitement. ‘I should probably get back… ‘
No, what was I saying? I wanted to keep talking to him. What were these treacherous words coming out of my mouth?
‘Oh, yeah, of course,’ said Tjálvi.
‘But listen,’ I added, trying not to sound desperate, ‘I have you on Facebook, right?’
‘Yeah. I think you do.’
‘Cool! We should grab a coffee one of these days. Talk about old times.’
‘We should,’ he agreed. ‘That would be nice.’ He hesitated, his warm gaze resting on me, an awkward half-smile. ‘All right, well… see you soon!’
He hugged me, wrapping me for a sweet second within his taller frame. And just like that, it was over; I was walking back to Aoife and Theo, feeling dazed, excusing my way through the throng.
‘So?’ said Aoife as I clambered onto my stool. ‘Was it him?’
‘It was! He lives in London. Crazy.’
‘But that’s amazing!’ She beamed and clapped her hands together. ‘You should ask him on a date!’
I grimaced, sipping the last of my vodka and coke. ‘I didn’t… confirm whether he’s actually gay.’
‘Mate,’ said Theo. ‘He’s here.’
‘So?’ I said. ‘That doesn’t prove anything. Maybe one of his friends is gay.’ I squinted at the two men and the one woman at his table, all casually normcore and well put-together.
‘What about back then?’ said Aoife, in full detective mode. ‘Did he have any girlfriends back then, did you see him with any girls? Not that he couldn’t be bi… ‘
I shook my head. ‘It was funny. Everyone at the dorm was always trying to get with everyone else. I mean, we were young! And drunk, and horny, a lot of the time. But… I don’t think I ever saw him kiss or flirt with anyone. It was like he was too cool for it.’
‘Maybe he was too in the closet for it,’ said Theo.
‘Maybe.’ I stared at the melted ice cubes in my glass. I thought about how I’d once heard that a lot of gay people move away from the Faroe Islands due to the insular, homophobic culture. Not that Denmark is such a haven. The homophobia is just more out in the open, existing in the form of casual, terrible jokes. For a moment, I thought about these journeys we all make, out of necessity. Faroe Islands to Copenhagen. Copenhagen to London. Ireland to London.
‘Didn’t you ever… try anything with him?’ Aoife asked.
‘God, no.’ I shook my head. ‘I was shy back then. And so pessimistic. I thought that everyone was straight until proven otherwise.’
‘But it sounds like in this environment of drunkenness, it would have been easy to at least try… ‘
‘No, but when I say I was shy, I mean like really, really shy. Like, if he smiled at me from across the room, that would be enough. That would be a big moment for me to… squirrel away in my memory and live off. I didn’t need… I didn’t dare dream of anything else.’
‘Okay.’ Aoife gave a slow, thoughtful nod. ‘It just seems really sad to me that… maybe you two could’ve had something.’
‘Yeah, and now he’s right there, man!’ said Theo eagerly. ‘Now you have your chance! That’s, like, a fucking miracle.’
Just then, I noticed that Tjálvi’s group were leaving. Stepping down from their stools and putting on jackets.
It was okay. I’d message him. We would meet up.
Did I have him on Facebook, though?
I pulled out my phone, suddenly jittery with urgency. I opened the app and searched for his name. Nothing came up. No friends of mine named Tjálvi. Shit. Had he deleted his account at some point? Or had I deleted him, in a bid to bury past feelings? Who knows…
‘What’s wrong?’ Aoife asked.
‘Shit, sorry, I have to — ‘
And I jumped off my stool, stumbling to the other table. Tjálvi turned to face me, pleasantly surprised, as he donned a midnight blue suede jacket. ‘Mal!’
‘Hey! I just checked, and I don’t have you. On Facebook.’
‘Oh. How strange.’
His friends chatted amongst themselves, glancing at me bemusedly, this breathless intruder speaking a foreign language.
‘Hang on… ‘ Tjálvi took my phone, found himself and added the profile. ‘I’ll give you my number as well.’ And he opened up the keypad and typed it in, even though he really didn’t need to, an extra flourish which made my chest flutter with hope. He really did want to see me again. This was happening. My pessimistic mind couldn’t disprove it.
‘Thanks,’ I said as I took back my phone. ‘Where are you guys off to now?’
‘Oh, I think we’re all just going home,’ said Tjálvi, scratching his neck. ‘Knackered.’
Just then, a tall, blond guy in a flannel shirt wove towards us from the direction of the bathrooms. He picked up his jacket from the stool next to Tjálvi’s and put it on, eyeing me absently, asking Tjálvi: ‘Ready to go?’
‘Hey,’ said Tjálvi, switching back to English, putting a hand calmly around the small of the man’s back. A pit opened up in my stomach. ‘Ryan, this is Malte. Malte, this is my boyfriend Ryan.’
‘Oh, hi,’ I said with a smile. I shook Ryan’s hand. ‘Nice to meet you.’
Ryan nodded. ‘You’re Faroese as well?’
‘Oh, no. Danish.’
‘I thought I heard you two speaking Faroese?’
Tjálvi and I both gave a laugh. The confusion on Ryan’s face made me feel better, in some horrible way. ‘No, we were speaking Danish,’ Tjálvi explained, ‘he’s Danish. I knew him way back in Copenhagen. We just bumped into each other here, now. Isn’t that crazy?’
‘You speak Danish?’ asked Ryan.
‘Yeah,’ said Tjálvi, ‘I told you. Pretty much all Faroese people do.’
There was a slight impatience to his tone, which perhaps I was imagining.
‘Oh, right.’ Ryan nodded. ‘Anyway.’ He kissed Tjálvi, a quick peck which sent my mood plummeting again. ‘Shall we get going?’
‘Yeah,’ said Tjálvi. ‘So nice to see you again, Mal! Let’s definitely grab that coffee.’
I said sure, and he hugged me goodbye. He had spoken the last words in English, for the benefit of the boyfriend, who I waved a vague goodbye at. Then I turned and headed back to Aoife and Theo.
They watched me approach, eyes asking how did it go?
I grimaced, lifted a hand and flicked a line across my throat.
