The Orchestra - Sinfónia Lifsins - 7. Questions

Aunt Margrét was waiting for us in her front garden. I immediately recognised her as the person standing behind Eiri in the old family photo I had seen in his kitchen. She was obviously older now, but her severe demeanour was the same. There was not even a shadow of a smile when she made eye contact with her son, and when she turned to me the hair on the back of my neck shot up. Her eyes were green like mine and mum’s, but were cold and almost angry. I wanted to turn around and run all the way back to Eiri’s, but my cousin put a hand on my shoulder and I stepped forward.

“Hi,mum.” Eiri smiled even as he looked directly at his mother’s bitter gaze. “This is Gunni. He’s grown up a lot, hasn’t he?” Aunt Margrét’s attention turned to me then, and I felt her eyes scan my entire body. I tried to smile too, but all I managed was to take half a step back.

“He looks like his mother.” She finally said. Her voice was dry, reminding me ofevil witches from children’s cartoons. “He needs to man up.” She left it at that, turning towards the house and motioning for us to follow. I felt my face heat up; it was the first time someone saw my resemblance to mum as a bad thing. Eiri smiled apologetically.

“Dinner will be served soon. Eiri, I need to talk to you for a bit. Come with me to the kitchen. Gunni, find yourself a seat in the living room and wait until I call. Don’t touch anything. It won’t take long.”

My aunt and cousin left, and I did as I was told. Her couch was less comfortable than Eiri’s, with seats for two people instead of three, and protected by a cover of huge, bright red flowers. She had a TV set near the window and a dresser with a mirror. While Eiri’s living room had pictures of many family and friends, Aunt Margrét’s room was covered in pictures of the same blond child in smart clothes and polite smile in various formal situations. I saw pictures of Eiri as a baby on his mother’s lap, as a young child displaying a trophy of some kind, as a teenager riding a horse and as an adult posing in front of a modern building in an expensive suit and tie. Eiri’s entire life was displayed in this living room. I had not had time to look at all the pictures when I heard Aunt Margrét’s voice calling me from the dining room.

Our dinner was remarkably simple compared to the meals prepared by Jó: fish with some potatoes. No vegetables or fruits. “In this house we do not drink alcohol”. Aunt Margrét announced, and she offered no other drinks. I wanted to ask why, but I didn’t dare, in case I made her angry. It was probably safer to ask Eiri at home.

“This is very good, mum.” Eiri said after eating his first mouthful. His mother nodded approvingly, and I felt an urge to do the same thing.

“Yes, this is very good. Thank you.” I said, hoping it would please her. Aunt Margrét turned her full attention to me then, like she had finally realised she was supposed to interact with me properly.

“Have you been settling in well, Gunni?” She asked, ignoring my comment about her food. “I’m afraid I was not informed of your arrival until yesterday afternoon. Had someone bothered to tell me, I could have arranged for you to stay in Eiri’s old room. I could save you from having to share with that poor excuse of a house mate my son took pity on.”

I looked at Eiri, searching for a clue of what to say. I knew she was not happy with my situation, but I was not expecting her to lash out at Jó so aggressively and so soon. I saw Eiri tensed for a second, took a deep breathe and shook his head. Thankfully his mother had been focusing on her meal and didn’t see any of it.

“It’s fine, really. The room is big enough for both of us.” I finally answered, remembering what my cousin had asked me to say. I kept my head down, not daring to look directly at her.

“A celebrity like you should not be forced to accept this sort of deal. Sharing spaces is for small children. You need to grow up. Besides, God knows what that man can do to you. I don’t want to scare you, Gunni, but I do not trust that man to keep to himself if there is another male in his close proximities.”

“Ah… I…” I had no idea what to say to that. More than that, I was having trouble believing what I had just heard. How could she say such a thing? Thankfully Eiri saved me from having to find an answer.

“It was his mother’s wish that he stays with me, mum. We already discussed that.” Eiri was impossibly calm and controlled, sounding like he was repeating a well-rehearsed line from a play he had been performing for years.

“But does Lilla know about the despicable scum you keep in the house?” I was beginning to feel sick at their exchange. Sick not only because of her words, of her venomous tone, but sick because Eiri acted like it was not affecting him at all, like he had heard it so many times before; like he knew it would be pointless to fight against it.

“Yes, she knows. I told her about Jónas when she asked if Gunni could stay with me.” Jó’s full name coming out of Eiri’s mouth sounded so wrong. Listening to him speak about his partner with such coldness was almost as hurtful as listening to Aunt Margrét.

“Then she is a very bad mother. I will have to talk to her. She doesn’t know what she is doing.”

“She trusts me, mum. She thinks it will be better for Gunni to stay with people closer to his age, and she trusts that I will not let anything bad happen to him.”

“Oh, I’m sure you will do your best, dear…” There was a dangerous smile playing in her lips then, but it quickly changed back to the unnerving scowl she had been putting on since this conversation began. “But you can never be too careful with his kind.”

“Excuse me, I… I need the loo…”

“First door on the left, dear.” She answered automatically, without looking at me.

I almost ran from the table, stopping only after I was safely inside the loo with the door locked behind me. My whole body was shaking, the little food I had eaten was threatening to make its way back to my throat, and my eyes were stinging, though no tears came out. I felt suffocated. I needed to get away from this house. Aunt Margrét was worse than even my nightmares had anticipated.

I didn’t know how long I stayed there, sitting on the ground with my back to the door feeling the need to be sick, but not having the will to move my body all the way to the toilet. Aunt Margrét’s words echoed in my head, making my chest hurt and my heart beat faster with every insult, every lie about Jó and ‘his kind’, which was also ‘my kind’ and ‘Eiri’s kind’. How could she hate him so much? Had they even spoken properly?

After a while I heard soft knocks on the door. “Gunni, are you ok there?” It was Eiri. Answering him turned out to be a lot more difficult than I expected, mostly due to the feeling that I would throw up if I opened my mouth.

“I… Yes…”

“I told mum you were still recovering from yesterday’s trip and that you were probably very tired. We can go home now if you want.”

“Yeah, that would be good”. I took my time to get up, not yet trusting my legs to support my weight. When I opened the door, Eiri hugged me tightly, in the sort of display of affection I had come to associate with Jó. We were about the same height. He put his hand on the back of my head, making my face rest against his shoulder, and caressed my hair much like mum used to do when I was upset.

“It’s all right now. We’re going home. It’s all right.”

We stayed like this for a while. I felt really safe under Eiri’s strong embrace, and slowly calmed down. When the bad feelings were gone I felt like crying with relief, but I made an effort to hold on at least until we were back home. I couldn’t cry at Aunt Margrét’s house, it was not over yet.

“Let’s say good-bye and get out.” Eiri let go of me and we both returned to the dinning room. Aunt Margrét was still sitting at the table, finishing her food as if nothing had happened. “Mum, I will take Gunni home. I will be back tomorrow if you need me.”

“Yes, yes. I will need you. And Gunni…” She finally lifted her head from her meal to look directly into my eyes. “I will see you at your concert on Thursday. And I was partially wrong about you. You may look like your mother, but you are much of a sensitive coward as your father was, so I really can’t expect you to man up anytime soon.”

Not sure of what to answer, I just nodded. Eiri and I were out of the house fairly quickly after that, and the walk home took just two minutes.

“Gunni, are you all right? Did she do something to you? Why are you back so early?” We had barely closed the front door when Jó came running towards us. Soon he had both his hands on my shoulders and was looking intensely at my face. Eiri replied before I had a chance to think. Now that he didn’t have to put up a façade for his mother, he looked completely worn out.

“The usual, Jó, the usual. She tried to warn Gunni about you.”

“Oh,right.” There was tingle of pain in my shoulders as Jó tightened his grip for one millisecond. Then he hugged me like Eiri had done, though because he was considerably taller than me my head ended up resting against his chest. “Don’t worry, Gunni, she can’t hurt you. If she says those things again you can mentally kick her ass. Eiri and I won’t object to that.”

“Why does she say those things?” The question was out before I realised it. I felt Jó tense around me, but then he was caressing my hair and Eiri was answering and I knew it was the moment to ask the questions building up in my mind since the previous night.

“She was just trying to protect you. She grew up hearing those sorts of things and she doesn’t want you to get hurt.”

“But can’t we tell her she’s wrong?”

“She won’t listen. She’s very proud, doesn’t like to admit she can be wrong about something.”

“But then Jó…”

“It’s ok, Gunni, I don’t mind the things she says about me.” Jó interrupted, speaking softly as he let go of me. “We should finish this conversation in the living room; I think we will be more comfortable there.”

We followed him in silence. Eiri told me to sit on the couch while Jó ran upstairs. He sat beside me and motioned for me to lie against him. Jó didn’t take long to join us, sitting on my other side on the couch. He was carrying a picture frame.

“How can you not mind what she says? Did you ever hear her talk about you?” I asked once the three of us were comfortable in the couch. Jó was right, I felt a lot better asking questions in this sort of environment.

“Yes, I’ve heard my fair share of Margrét’s rants.” He was almost smiling as he spoke. “Nowadays I find them amusing. I’ve learned to live with them. I know that Eiri doesn’t think like her, and that is all that matters.”

“When we first got together I felt just like you did, Gunni, and I would come back home and tell Jó all about it so he could help me feel better.” Eiri added.

“I still don’t understand how you can just go along with it.”

“Margrét is Eiri’s mother, Gunni. The only thing I would hate more than break up with him is to cause the two of them to never speak to each other again.” Jó’s smile suddenly seemed not so happy anymore. Eiri’s hand, which had been resting over the top of the couch, found Jó’s hand and squeezed it. Jó smiled to his boyfriend and approached me, revealing the picture he was holding. “This is my mother.”

The woman smiling in the photograph had flaming red hair that reached the middle of her back. Her eyes were closed as she smiled for the photographer. Three children posed in the photo with her, two red-haired boys and a baby girl.

“She is really beautiful.” I said, feeling a comfortable warmth surround my body as I focused on her smile. “Are you in the picture?”

“I’m the little guy holding mum’s skirt.” He pointed to the child in question. “The big boy is my brother Jóhannes…” He pointed to the boy standing beside his mother “...and the baby is my sister Júlíana. Dad took this picture, so we obviously can’t see him.”

“So you have red hair?” I asked suddenly, surprising my cousins with the sudden change of subject. Part of me felt we should be talking about more important things than Jó’s real hair colour, but I felt that if I didn’t ask about it now, I would never have another chance.

“Yes, I do, but dad and Júlí have blond hair, and since I’m the middle child I thought I should be half-half so that we would have the same number of red-heads and blond heads in the family.”

“That is interesting.” I smiled, looking closely at his hair to try see the ginger roots.

“And expensive. His dye costs a fortune.” Jó made a face at Eiri’s comment, smacking his hand away as if he was deeply hurt.

“But back on topic!” He called us back to reality, turning his gaze to the frame in his hands. Eiri straightened his posture, and the room was silent for a few moments. Jó seemed to be thinking about what to say next. “Well, there is no nice way of putting it, so I’ll be blunt.” I mentally prepared for what was to come. I had a feeling I knew what it would be, though I could not see how it would relate to Eiri’s situation with his mother. “Mum died when I was fourteen and it was the worst time of my life. Long story short, I was extremely depressed for three years afterwards. The reason I can’t let Eiri fight with his mum is because it is not right for someone to lose a parent when they are still alive and can be there for them.”

“And there’s another reason, though that is more to do with me.” His partner added, drawing my attention to him.

“What is it?”

“My father left us when I was fifteen. He was tired of our family and said he was going to start over with another woman. Needless to say, mum didn’t take that very well.”

As Eiri spoke, I tried to remember if anyone had ever mentioned his father to me before. I would have been five when he left, so I should have known him. Yet, I couldn’t even remember the feeling of having an uncle. No one had ever talked about him, like no one talked much about my father, so I had assumed just that my cousin was like me, that his father had died before I was able to register his presence.

“Oh, I’m sorry… I…”

“There’s no need to be sorry, Gunni. It’s all in the past now. As far as I can remember, my father was drunk most of the time anyway.” Eiri squeezed my shoulder. “He didn’t like family gatherings much. You probably met him once or twice, when you were still a baby. He stopped going to our Christmas parties a few years before he left.” Eiri shrugged. Jó snorted. Neither seemed very affected by Eiri’s story.

“So you don’t really mind your father not being around?”

“Not anymore. It was hard at first because mum still loved him despite everything. She was depressed for a while. She would tell me that I was the only family she had and that she would die if I ever left her.”

“And so Eiri doesn’t want to fight with his mother, and I understand him.” Jó carried on when Eiri’s smirk slipped into a frown. “As much as I hate that woman, I don’t want her to die. Eiri loves her despite everything.” He was grinning broadly, though Eiri seemed to be making an effort to keep smiling.

“I think I understand. Thank you for telling me all this.”

“Don’t worry, it’s the least we could do after all that happened tonight.” Jó motioned for me to get closer to him, then hugged me and made me lie with my back on him, facing Eiri. His hands toyed with my hair. I was beginning to process all the things they told me when a new thought occurred to me.

“So all three of us lost a parent. It’s a bit…”

“Creepy?” Jó completed my thoughts.

“It might be an indication that single-parent families inevitably raise gay children.” Eiri added, seemingly very serious. Jó tried to keep a straight face too, but I felt his body shaking in concealed laughter. “If mum knew that, she would probably have married again.” Eiri and Jó were still smiling, so I lifted the corner of my lips too, even though I wasn’t sure it was really ok to laugh about something like this.

“Aunt Margrét said my father was a sensitive coward.” I remembered suddenly. “Why would she…?”

“Your father was a good man, Gunni. He played with me when I was bored at grandpa’s and let me eat candy when the other adults weren’t looking.” Eiri was smiling, his eyes focusing on something far, far away, that neither Jó or I would ever be able to see. “He was not the best example of a ‘masculine’ man, but he was caring and compassionate, just like you.”

Coming from Eiri, the comparison between my father and I made me feel a lot better. I could imagine dad doing the things my cousin described, and for a while I was lost in those thoughts. It took a painful effort to focus on Aunt Margrét again and finish the conversation. “Do you think she knows I’m gay?”

“I think she thought you look younger than you really are, and she doesn’t like it.” Eiri shrugged nonchalantly.

“She’s not the only one, then.” I mumbled, letting my body sink against Jó’s and pointedly avoid my cousins’ gaze.

“What do you mean?” Jó asked, his voice sounding higher than usual. “Did something happen at your rehearsal today? Were they mean to you?” He hugged me tightly in his panic mode.

“Well…” I felt Jó and Eiri’s gaze burning on me as Siggi’s words echoed in my head. Replacement. Go cry to mama. I saw his face, felt his cold eyes freezing my body.

“Well?” Eiri asked, leaning towards me. Jó had rested his head on my shoulder.

“They were really nice to me. They didn’t mind me being late and they liked my playing.”

“Then what’s the problem?” Jó asked, his voice much softer and quieter.

“There’s one person who thinks I’m too young to be there. I don’t think he likes me much.” In my mind Siggi was standing beside Aunt Margrét, both telling me to go back to school and stop pretending to be a grown-up.

“Is he bullying you?” Eiri’s eyes shone dangerously for a second.

“No. Gummi stopped him when he tried, and I think the others would do the same.”

“That’s good.” The relief in his voice was clear. Jó also seemed more relaxed. I felt bad for carrying on talking then, but I had already touched the subject, I couldn’t just pretend nothing was happening, particularly after they had answered all my questions earlier.

“I think I have a crush on him, though. I can’t really help it.” Bombshell dropped, Eiri and Jó exchanged worried glances. I couldn’t blame them. I felt Jó’s arms close around my body, and Eiri was trying to smile.

“It happens in the best of families. Don’t worry too much about it for now. If it’s only a crush, it will fade with time.” Eiri said. Jó nodded to his boyfriend, and his voice was decidedly too cheerful when he spoke again.

“Yes, believe me, I’ve had my fair share of bad-boys crushes. It’ll pass and you’ll find someone who actually deserves you.”

The three of us sat together for some time afterwards. I didn’t talk about Siggi anymore; my cousins seemed happy enough to just sit in silence around me. As much as I hoped they were right about my feelings for the cellist, there was a small, and probably sadistic, part of me that wanted them to be wrong.

Thanks for reading all the way through here. I feel kind of bad because last week I posted another homophobia-themed chapter for Be Myself!. I hope people don't hate me now. 
(It wasn't intentional either.)
Next chapter is finally about Gunni's first concert, though it's through Siggi's point of view. Expect lots of bitching. =P