That summer I started seeing a lot of Tjálvi. It happened casually, easily, as if no time at all had passed since we’d been kollegie-hallmates. And also, I guess, as if he didn’t have a boyfriend, one who might find it alarming, this recent closeness with someone with whom he could literally speak in a language of our own, or at least a language rarely heard, even in melting-pot London.
We had drinks and watched drag queens perform. We saw an exhibition at the Hayward Gallery — Damien Hirst, lot of skinned animal carcasses. Tjálvi smirked and said he didn’t particularly like these types of things, but he enjoyed bringing Ryan along sometimes, to watch his squeamish reactions. I took note of this callous disregard for his boyfriend. Also, squeamish? What did that say about Ryan, I wondered — specifically, in terms of sex? I’m ashamed to say I’d given a lot of thought to that. Their sex life. And who might be top or bottom — they both had the same lean, tall body type, not that physique is necessarily an indicator. But squeamish sounded bottom-y. I wanted Tjálvi to be a top, obviously, so that we might fit better, at least in my imagination, which was probably as far as it would ever go.
I tried to clear my head of all thoughts of fucking and focus on the rotting cow’s head in front of me.
At first we talked a lot about old times — memories of Copenhagen people, vague gossip, verified by social media, about what they were doing now (mainly they all seemed to be raising kids and to have stayed in Denmark.) This quickly got boring. But I was intrigued by Tjálvi’s job as a film festival programmer, and he loved hearing me bitch about being a graphic designer, and was even more fascinated by my stand-up and how I’d been headhunted for the queer comedy night by Dom. I’d sent him the ‘straight people’ clip, and he’d replied with five crying-laughing emojis and an all-caps: DET HER ER FANTASTISK!, this is fantastic.
He was determined to see me live, and did the following Sunday, with Ryan in tow. I did all my tried-and-tested bits — how Grindr is like a buffet of enticing snacks, if all the snacks were racist, struggling not to giggle when a gym trainer called an exercise ‘the reacharound’, pointing out how that reacharound joke really divided the room into those who knew and those who didn’t (‘Sometimes within the same couple! You might want to… figure out what’s going on there… ‘) I finished with the story about being rejected mid-hookup for not being hot enough, but didn’t get to the point (about how the sex hadn’t been very good in the end, anyway) before my time was up.
‘Det var så godt,’ said Tjálvi as he hugged me, tightly, in the bar. ‘Du er så god.’
‘That was really good,’ said Ryan, nodding curtly as if simply here to unwittingly translate.
‘Thank you!’ I smiled and hugged him too.
‘Although I don’t know about that Grindr joke,’ said Ryan with a grimace. ‘Is everyone on Grindr racist?’
‘Well, no, but… the exaggeration is what sells the joke.’
‘But how would you know, as a white person? That they’re all racist?’
‘Uh… ‘ I shrugged. Wow, he was really determined to poke holes in me. ‘I’ve just been told that. By friends. It’s kind of common knowledge. You know, all the no black people, no Asians profiles… ‘
‘Yeah, but that’s only a small number of people, surely.’ Ryan sipped his wine.
‘Why are you so eager to defend Grindr?’ I asked, bemused. ‘Do you work for them or something?’
‘I think Ryan just has a soft spot for Grindr because it’s how we met,’ said Tjálvi smoothly.
Ryan frowned at him. ‘Why would you tell him that?’
‘What?’ Tjálvi grinned affably. ‘It’s not a secret! We met for a hookup and then it turned into — something nicer… ‘ He took his boyfriend’s head in his hands, drew him close and planted a sloppy kiss on his jaw, then his mouth, Ryan giving a reluctant smile before kissing back. (Yeah, Tjálvi was definitely the top.)
I looked away from this unwelcome display. Thankfully, Dom came up just then and touched my arm. ‘Hey, Mal! You were brilliant tonight.’
‘Thanks! Thank you for coming to support!’ This was the third time I’d seen him, having gone with him a few nights ago to see Faye perform at a venue in Vauxhall (she’d been hilarious.)
‘Are you still up for meeting at mine this Sunday? To brainstorm?’
We’d discussed sitting down together to write some copy for the event and, of course, to come up with a name.
‘Yeah! Let’s do it.’ Noticing Tjálvi and Ryan watching awkwardly, I introduced them to Dom, wondering why so much of my life suddenly involved platonic hang-outs with handsome, yet unavailable men. Well — Dom wasn’t unavailable, as far as I knew. But maybe it was better not to mix business with pleasure.
***
Tjálvi was taken. That much was clear. The word blinked in my head like an alarm every time we met — taken! Taken! Taken! — and I found myself swooning slightly at something he did — the way he gracefully dismounted his bike, the cute gap in his front teeth when he smiled, the way he would quickly untie and re-tie his hair in its top knot. ‘You should leave it down,’ I said one time when he did this, as we walked in Regent’s Park with takeaway coffees, me holding both while his hands worked.
‘What?’ He glanced over.
I felt immediately embarrassed. What a sleazy line. I hoped the noise of the crowd around us had swallowed it. ‘Nothing.’
‘No. You said I should leave it down.’ He smiled and let his hands drop. His hair fluttered, Jesus-like, around his taut cheeks. ‘Do you think it looks better?’
‘Yeah, I guess.’ I handed him back his coffee, suddenly feeling very hot and prickly in the faint August sun.
‘Then I’ll keep it like this. What Malte wants, Malte gets… ‘ And he wrapped one arm around me and held me close for a second, until we had to part to move around two women with prams.
He couldn’t do that, I thought. Hold me like that. It wasn’t fair.
Taken. Taken. Taken.
I liked when he used my full name. Few people did, in London.
I liked a lot of things about him. I liked how similar he was to me (God, aren’t crushes always narcissistic? We love meeting our own mirror image.) Neither of us sure how long we should stay here, in crazy Brexit-land, but equally unsure where else to move. We talked about it, that day in the park. ‘I mean, I came here on a gap year between my Bachelor’s and my Master’s, and then the gap year just turned into… my life, and now it’s been almost a decade. And some part of my brain is still like… but what about your Master’s?’
‘You freed yourself from it,’ Tjálvi quipped. ‘You killed your Master’s.’
‘Yeah. Now I’m just in the school of life, I guess.’ I slurped the last of my coffee and chucked it in a bin. ‘What about Ryan? He seems to have his shit together. What’s his five-year-plan?’
‘Oh God, Ryan doesn’t have a five-year-plan. He has, like, a five-decade plan… ‘
I glanced at him, my interest piqued — as it always was when Tjálvi spoke of Ryan in disparaging tones.
‘He wants to become CTO of his firm. He wants to buy a house in Hampstead. He wants, like, at least one dog. He wants me to become… I don’t know, something higher-up than I am now.’ He circled back to throw his own empty cup in the bin. ‘And yes, his plan includes me as well. He has a plan for everyone.’
‘How god-like.’
‘It’s funny because I often think that… this schematic way of thinking, it’s in his taste in culture, too. He doesn’t like the artsier, weirder films I’ve tried to show him. He likes, you know, the most formulaic… made-by-committee, Netflix type shit.’
‘Oh, no… ‘ Inside, I glowed with delight. I’d never heard him criticise Ryan so much.
Tjálvi shrugged and hopped aside to dodge two kids duelling with plastic lightsabers. ‘But… I shouldn’t complain so much. There are other things I do love about him.’
The sex? I thought. Is he amazing at sex? Does he have some kind of divinely perfect arse? No — stop it, you jealous troll, get your mind out of their bed…
‘Yeah, you don’t have to have everything in common,’ I offered. ‘I’m sure you overlap on other things! Taste-wise.’
Tjálvi stared ahead with a dark frown. ‘I mean, not really. It’s the same with music. I took him to a Bon Iver concert one time, and by the end I was, like, crying, and all he had to say was, like, why is his voice so high?’
I snorted. ‘Well, what kind of music does he like?’
‘I don’t know. He’ll just talk to his Alexa — we have an Alexa; I didn’t want it, I refuse to use it — but yeah, he’ll ask Alexa to… play something upbeat, or whatever.’
‘Really? Ew! That’s so gross.’ I paused. ‘I’m sorry, I just called your boyfriend gross.’
‘No, no, it’s fine.’
We both burst out laughing at the absurdity of the exchange. Then, Tjálvi added softly: ‘Maybe I’m just too pretentious. It’s probably good that I have someone grounded to… keep me tethered.’
‘No! Untether yourself! Find someone to, I don’t know, float into the sky with… Sorry, I just realised I’m — telling you to dump him. I shouldn’t. I don’t know what I’m saying. Blah, blah, blah.’ I laughed a throaty, fake-sounding laugh.
Tjálvi eyed me steadily.
Then, for some reason, I decided to put my foot even further in it. ‘But — and I hope this isn’t too intimate to ask; I’m just fascinated with relationships because I haven’t been in one, but — do you love him? Do you say I-love-you? Are you on I-love-you terms?’
He looked ahead. We were approaching an exit to the street.
‘I’m sorry, I don’t know why I asked that. That’s really personal, you don’t have to… ‘
‘Yes.’ He said it so quietly, it almost drowned in the bustle. ‘But only… very occasionally. He kind of has to be drunk to say it.’ He gave a little scoff. ‘Usually if he’s being affectionate, he’ll say, lovely boy, lovely Tjálvi, in that… cosy British way of his.’
‘Ah.’
I stared down at the pavement, tucking my hands in my jacket pockets. I wondered what I was meant to read between the lines. That Tjálvi wished he could get something more out of Ryan? A louder, prouder declaration. I wondered what kinds of declarations Tjálvi made, when he felt passionately about someone. I was sure they would be different from what he’d just described. I felt there was something strong roiling inside of him.
‘Do you want to come back to mine for a cup of tea?’ he asked when we reached the street. The flat was nearby, in Chalk Farm.
‘Yeah. I’d love to.’
***
I sat on the sofa while he rummaged in the kitchen. The flat was bright and airy, windows open to the heat, which had only increased, along with the noise of traffic, as the sun began to set. There was a large flat-screen TV — Ryan’s purchase, I guessed — and in the windowsill, a gold Buddha — Tjálvi’s, I sensed. Opposite this sat the much-maligned Alexa. Framed black-and-white photographs and film posters decorated the walls. Boys in the Sand. Blonde Death. Pink Flamingos.
‘Do you know any of those?’ asked Tjálvi as he returned with our cups of chai tea and sat down beside me.
I shook my head. ‘Only Pink Flamingos.’
‘Boys in the Sand is the first gay porno ever made. You have to see it. It’s… dream-like.’
‘Oh, cool!’ I grinned at the shirtless hunk in jeans glowering, black-and-white, on the poster. ‘What’s that one?’ I turned to indicate the French-language poster above the sofa. It showed simply a man and a woman, staring, amazed, at something in the distance.
‘Oh, Le rayon vert? That’s, like, my favourite film.’
‘What’s it about?’
‘It’s hard to explain. It’s very simple, and yet… not, you know?’ A bright smile crept over his face. I blew on my tea and sipped. ‘It’s about this woman who’s on her summer vacation; she’s had a breakup. So she travels around, and guys try to pick her up, but she doesn’t want that; she’s not sure what she wants, even, like, physically, she can’t decide where she wants to be. And she hates playing the games of, you know, being single and being seduced… all that. At one point, she hears about the green ray, which is the title of the film — the green ray that appears sometimes when the sun sets.’
I nodded. I’d heard about this. I remembered looking out for it with my family, on holidays on the west coast of Jutland as a kid.
‘And towards the very end of the film, she meets this guy and she goes with him to watch the sunset, and they see the green ray. And that’s it. Just… life, in all its randomness.’
‘Wow.’ I set my cup of tea down. ‘Thanks for spoiling it.’
‘No, I’m sorry!’ Tjálvi laughed, smacking a hand to his forehead. ‘I’m sorry. I did, didn’t I? I just get carried away… ‘
‘No, it’s nice. Don’t apologise.’ I smiled, holding his gaze. Behind him, the dying sun shone in the windowpanes. We wouldn’t be able to see the green ray here. Too many buildings.
‘I was enjoying… listening to you,’ I added. ‘It’s rare that you meet someone who’s really passionate about something, and who doesn’t feel the need to hide it.’
He smiled back. ‘Thanks. It is, isn’t it?’
We both fell silent. Traffic hummed. A breeze rustled the leaves of a potted plant in the windowsill. I opened my mouth. I should leave, I should find the words to say I was leaving.
A key turned in the lock.
The front door opened. Heavy steps shuffled in. ‘Hey,’ said Ryan’s voice.
We both rose and went out into the hallway.
‘Hey,’ said Tjálvi, crossing his arms. ‘Mal’s just over for a cup of tea. He made the mistake of asking about my film posters, so I was giving him a big lecture… ‘
‘Oh, okay,’ said Ryan with an absent smile as he hung up his coat. ‘Good to see you, Mal.’ He hugged me, stiffly.
‘Yeah, good to see you,’ I said. ‘Thank you again for coming to see me perform.’
‘Oh, of course, yeah. It was fun.’
The small talk lasted only a miserable minute or so longer, then died its natural death. I said my goodbyes and left, hugging them both with equal brevity and lightness. I took the stairs two at a time like a kid, then burst onto the street, unsure how to get home from here. In my head, a single word flashed. Taken, taken, taken.
