The shadowy figure hung over him for a brief moment before he realised he was at home.
“Oh hello there!”
Brendan smiled down at Drew, before continuing to move his hands through the pile of old books that seemed to go forever. Seemingly satisfied, he leaned over Drew one more to kiss him promptly on his forehead, before flopping back onto the bed.
“Still having a go at the German, can’t really make head nor tail of it but ignore me, you must be feeling a bit fragile as well.”
Drew wasn’t, surprisingly, his mouth was dry and his eyes felt a tad irate as the sun had risen over them but his head was light, a slight buzz if anything. “I’m fine actually”, he replied, with a slight strain, as he reached out of bed to retrieve his shirt from the floor.
Brendan made an inquiring noise as flickered through Kultur in der DDR, trying to remember where he’d left off.
“All the endorphins I suppose!” Drew declared, before jumping on top of Brendan, causing his partner to burst into laughter and lose his place once again, as Drew rolled back he got up, laughter turning to yawning as he stretched out his arms. Giving up on five year jokes for the morning, Brendan put the book down and wandered into the kitchen.
Drew adjusted the radio to its selected station on the window sill before removing his tablet from its charger.
“This is Radio Free Territory, bringing you the news of the class struggle across the British isles.”
As Brendan popped tea bags into two cups, he rolled his eyes for no-one to see, it was obvious what was coming next, even as the kettle boiled over the broadcast he felt as if he could paraphrase without even hearing what he was parodying. Handing his love a cup, the full litany of atrocity was still going on.
“G4S mercenaries dealt the people’s justice today during slum clearance in the Merseyside area when nail bombs were set off at identified locations of oligarchy activity. Britain First street march met with barricades and mortar fire in Newcastle Chinatown.”
“Please, not this morning,” Brendan whined as he began to fiddle about with the radio himself.
“The people are putting up fierce resistance to the population relocations across the north. Even high school students are learning to make and throw molot…se…a…gu… Réalisant mon espoir, je me lance vers la gloire...
As the New Wave drifted in, it became clear Talking Heads perhaps wasn’t a morning band, Brendan had noticed that Drew certainly didn’t think so, he’d turned his tablet around and had begun scrolling down his the twitter feed to the blood soaked collages that were the unofficial correspondence from the Long Term Economic Plan.
“For someone involved in politics, you always seem rather eager to ignore what’s going on in the world”, Drew’s tone wasn’t entirely humorous. Having noted said tone, Brendan shrugged in a manner that was possibly too relaxed.
“It’s not going on up here.”
“Except I’m from down there.” Drew was perhaps a bit too awake for this time in the morning, but his partner’s negligent attitude wasn’t helping his long lie.
“But you’re up here now,” Brendan smiled, “up here’s my remit. You’re my remit, and not just politically. I’d like to think I’m doing well for both.”
The politics was certainly going well, Drew could reflect, their partying the night before had been partly in reaction to the National List winning 98% of the vote, 100% of the members of the folk chamber, partly because Brendan could have a rest from getting the vote out. It would mean more time for the two of them, yet here they were bickering. Drew loved that smile, and he smiled right back.
“Look, honestly, I’m not trying to start a fight but this is genuinely important, I’ve got family down there, mates.”
“All in areas outwith the aggro between G4S and the Free Territory, yes?”
“Almost all, still…”
“It’s just every single day” Brendan moaned in mock protest, “weans with mines attached rolling under buses full of Nazi’s wearing bin bags, ATOS goons making elderly people live in huts on the brown belts because the new ghettoes for the vast slave force aren’t ready yet. All this misery and suffering just isn’t very appealing when we live in such a brilliant wee part of the world.” Brendan had a distance in his eye, though he was trying not to betray it.
“There’s still too many problems here but we have the power to fix them, we can do things here, as well as, y’know…other things.” Drew probably was better where he was in that regard, the scars from the Britain First march through the Pink Triangle would never truly go away, he liked to think Brendan was only accidentally reminding him of them.
“But your media, your rhetoric, don’t you ever feel it’s just a tad self-congratulatory, like your worried that if you don’t keep repeating the fact that you’re marching towards a utopia every single that moment then you’ll realise that you’re really just stumbling around in circles.”
“Our media’s vibrant, it’s new, it’s far fresher than some despot rambling in a scouser version of the fuhrer bunker. There’s genuine ideas there, hope!”
“It’s a broken record, a self perpetuating one, you share and like and retweet your way out of genuine criticism and only give an ear to the most incoherent and unpalatable opponents, only so you can share and retweet with added comments about how terrible they are so that your friends can like it.”
“Your?!” Brendan exclaimed.
“Our?!” Drew replied in a mocking impression.
“Yes “Our”, we’re together now, up here. You can stay as long as you like, I hope you stay forever, but that involves looking at the picture here not longingly at a past you hated and a present you’d hate even more.”
Drew’s life hadn’t been happy when he’d first met Brendan, though they were both children when Cameron resigned over losing the Scottish vote, the May premiership had already began its worst excesses by the time he’d become politically aware. The triumph of the greed and selfishness over romance, a youth without any of the redeeming features. A land of hedonism for the rich and misery and religious fundamentalism for the poor. To be the latter in areas of initial Britain First activity, to be penniless as well as a pervert to the bin bag and flat cap clad thugs, had been a nightmare. His injuries were relatively light compared to those of many of his friends.
It had been a long weekend at the Glasgow Fair where he’d first bumped into Brendan on the Polo dancefloor, by then a move north had already seemed attractive. After the nights it became clear he wasn’t safe, Brendan had taken him in without question.
“I want to think about whether to marry, whether to move to a different housing co-op, whether to adopt, these are decisions I want to make here, with you!”
Drew took a long sip of his tea.
“The milks off.”
Sirens began to wail outside, Brendan cranked up the radio before walked out of the room, bumping into the door and pushing it violently. Drew could smell his cigarette smoke as New Wave became Progressive Rock.
Waiting,
To weed out the weaklings.
Waiting,
To smash in their windows and kick in their doors.
Waiting,
For the final solution to strengthen the strain.
To weed out the weaklings.
Waiting,
To smash in their windows and kick in their doors.
Waiting,
For the final solution to strengthen the strain.
Brendan re-emerged and turned the radio down to a near silence, his eyes were red.
“Look I’m sorry, really I am, I’m just so happy that you’re here, really. Anything I might want, anything I have, belongs to you as much as it does for me.”
“Of course it does”, Drew consoled, taking his man in his arms “but I thought everyone belonged to everyone now?”
Brendan snorted, wiping a few tears away,
“Nice one Zamyatin.”
“I thought it was Huxley?”
“Huxley stole it off Zamyatin.”
“Rather missing the point of the two of them belonging to each other, no?”
“Well we’re not quite here,” Brendan loosed himself from the embrace to wink and tap his nose with Drew in full view, “not just yet.” Drew rolled his eyes.
“So what are we doing today? Because to be honest I’d be happy to stay in this room…” Drew was only half joking, despit the fact he could see other things were afoot in his man’s mind.
“Tempting, but I need to head out for a bit, a bunch of loyalists have started to gather in Goerge Square, they’re not happy about the result and we need to go and shout back at them, let them know they’re not welcome. Want to come with? Pub after!”
Brendan’s face lit up as Drew agreed.
They were soon walking towards the square, their hands gently bumping together before clasping, an indulgence from when they were both far younger. Crowds already beginning to thicken in the midst of St Vincent street, as loudspeakers and ridiculously inappropriate music became increasingly audible, ”Welcome to the Muppet Show!”
A placard that simply stated ‘AGAINST!’ lay discarded as they approached, Brendan made a dramatic gesture of snapping it over his knee.
“This is how they define themselves you know? It’s always “Against” something, against the folks coalition, against equality, against Catholics, against immigrants, against us.” Brendan almost spat the last the last of his mini-rant.
“But isn’t that just their option on the ballot, ‘Against’?”
“Aye, but it’s not meant to be a position of pride, it’s a way of showing that you’re a bastard, and the bastards are certainly showing themselves up now!”
They could now see several more of the ‘AGAINST!’ placards, their owners lifting them proudly amongst several larger banners, “The Constitution is the Supreme Authority”, “Scottish Network of Unemployed Workers”, “Oppose Children’s Indoctrination”, “Christian Workers Alliance”. “Scottish Society of Friends”. It was a puzzling spectacle.
“Not exactly King Billy is it?” Drew noted, before realising that Brendan had moved off to speak with several others, some of whom he knew, some Brendan had only referred to as “not particularly close to” or “work mates”, he blew Drew a kiss as he disappeared into the crowd along with them, apparently gesturing to a loitering police officer to look the other away.
Soon Drew couldn’t see his love, or indeed the sharp piece of stick he’d snapped from the placard. All he could hear where the sirens as he too chose to look away.
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