Not just another Summer - 24. Gray is busy & Vince is more open

Matt had contacted Sacha, his photographer friend. The man was at least interested in collaborating. More than that, he seemed to have practical ideas about who might publish a book that combined large-scale landscape and nature photos with my poetic texts. He was going to put together a portfolio, so I needed to go through my poems, published and unpublished, to see what might or might not work with the selected images.

Simon emailed to say that he was expecting samples of the cards back from the printer this week. So if I cared to pop in on Friday, I could see them and comment. And I had another big article to write, which would entail a deep dive into a whole pile of poetry books. Was I going to be busy!

Tuesday I was sitting in the garden when Freddie appeared. I hadn’t realised he’d been around.

“There’s been a delivery for you, a huge box!” He was young enough to find such a prospect exciting.

“Can you manage it? Or shall I come?”

“Nah, it’s OK”. He grinned. “Are you going to open it?”

I laughed. “Of course! Though it’s only books.”

“How d’you know?”

“I’m being sent a whole pile to read for an article, so I put two and two together.”

“To make five! What kind of books?”

“Poetry, I’m afraid. I’m writing an article and need to read them.”

His face was a picture. I smiled. “If you’re really lucky, I’ll let you read them too.”

“Nah, I’m cool.” He turned to go, but then turned back. “But thanks.”

So far, my books were in piles and boxes in my sitting room. Not ideal. I had accumulated more than I’d realised in Norwich, and had retrieved some more that had been parked with Bas. Vince had brought a bookcase with him, and this sat in the hall. But Dad’s study remained half empty. Vince didn’t really use the room; I couldn’t blame him. Vince said he preferred to work at his office in town, even if it meant going in early or staying late. That made sense. So the study still remained imbued with Dad’s spirit. I had an idea.

Vince was late that evening; he’d had court and then had to return to the office. Freddie and I had shared a take-away in front of the television and the lad had helped me with my idea. When Vince returned, I was waiting for him.

“You OK, Gray? Sitting here all alone?”

“I wanted to be sure to catch you.”

“What? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. It’s just, I had some books delivered today for a new article, and I decided to organise my existing ones.”

I led him to the study, where one of the bays of the built-in units was now taken up with my books.”

“You had all those delivered?”

“Not at all, just those on the bottom shelf. The rest were in my sitting room.”

“Those piles hidden behind the sofa.”

“More than I’d realised. Mind, there are some I wished I’d hung onto but let go.”

“Why didn’t you keep them?”

“Space. Moving. Travelling lightly.”

He nodded. “And Dad wouldn’t give them house room. You should have asked.”

“Would you have really, if I’d asked three years ago?”

He gave an embarrassed laugh. “I’d like to think that I would have but…” He shook his head. “We’ve come a long way since then.”

And to my great surprise he hugged me. “Thanks for all the support, Gray. It means a lot.”

Wednesday afternoon I got a message from Vince, checking that I was going to be around that evening and saying he was bringing supper. What was the occasion, I wondered. We could hardly be celebrating Freddie’s first day back at school for the new school year, could we?

I had dressed tidily and was doing some of my background reading when Vince tapped on my door to say he was in the hall with Freddie.

“I’ve two bits of news. First, I’ve spoken to the other trustees and I’m going to step down as a trustee of the Centre.”

“Dad! Why?”

“There’s nothing that actually forbids Peter’ and my relationship, but Peter is employed by the trustees.”

“Oh! So, you’re Peter’s boss.”

“Something like that. I’ve said that I will up my volunteering hours, and there are bound to be things that I can keep on doing.”

“Fair enough, Dad.”

I peered at Vince. “So, the other news is about the practice.”

“I spoke to the partners today. We had our regular monthly meeting.”

“You told them!” I smiled.

“Well, strictly speaking I told them that Carly and Gustave knew about my relationship.” Vince gave a grin.

“And?”

“Dad?”

“Neither was shocked. I think Lance is genuinely relaxed about it. As you said, Gray, the issue wasn’t so much Peter’s sex as who he was.”

“His reputation?”

“Peter is seen as a credit to the Centre.”

I gave a dry laugh. “And therefore someone that it’s suitable for one of the partners to be seeing.”

Vince shrugged. “That’s about it.”

“Take what you can get, I suppose.”

“Mind, Francis is sufficiently an old fogey that privately he thinks all shirt-lifters are suspect.”

“What’s a shirt-lifter, Dad?”

“Come on, think, Freddie. It’s a very old-fashioned term.”

“Oh! I see. But Francis is old, isn’t he?”

“But sufficiently in tune to keep his thoughts private. Besides”, Vince grinned, “wife number three is half his age and nothing to be proud of.”

“Except her tits, and they’re not real.”

“Freddie!”

Freddie grinned. “Well, that’s what you said.” Vince responded with a snort.

I smiled. “So good news then.”

“There’s more! I have agreed to take on a trainee, something I have long fought against. I am taking the trainee on the understanding that they will help with the pro bono work.”

“Makes economic sense.”

“It means that I can do some of the more complex cases, and the firm is starting a fund so we can take a limited number of deserving clients on reduced fees.”

My eyes widened. “Will that work?”

“I’m pressing for some sort of sliding scale.”

“Pay what you can afford?”

“Yeah. So watch this space.”

“Will you be doing any LGBTQ stuff, Dad?”

“Not sure. I don’t know much about that area, but I wondered whether we might get a trainee who did.”

I grinned. “Makes sense.”

Vince went into the kitchen and opened the fridge, but kept on talking. “I know there are going to be plenty of bumps in the road. To a certain extent, Lance and Francis only agreed to keep me sweet. But I mean to keep them to it.”

He appeared with a bottle of champagne and some glasses. “M&S had an offer on these as I was buying our supper. So I thought we should celebrate.”

“Can I, Dad?”

“Of course, a small one. After all it’s a new school year too.”

Freddie rolled his eyes at this remembrance.

After dinner, when Freddie had gone upstairs, Vince continued his thoughts. “I think Francis will do his damnedest to keep the status quo.”

“Agree to change but put obstacles in the way?”

“Something like that. But I think Lance is on board. And I told them about your idea.”

“My idea?”

“Go out on my own”. He gave a grimace. “They didn’t like that.”

“I bet! Could you afford it?”

He shrugged. “Tighten our belts a bit. Live here. I’ve spoken to Freddie, and he’s comfortable with me selling the old house or renting it long-term.”

“Not wanting to go back?”

“Liking the space here.” Vince smiled. “After all, he’s got his own sitting room upstairs.”

“He’s colonised one of the guest bedrooms and you’ve got a den in my old one.” I smiled at the thought.

“Yeah. So… We’re planning to move forward. Look… I was chatting to Lance.”

“Your partner. What about?”

“Dad’s will. As long as you keep this as one of your residences, no-one’s going to check.”

“So I could go off on a residency or something and come back at weekends.”

He shrugged. “Like all sorts of guys do.”

“Works for me.”

“We’ve also found out that Dad had outline planning permission for the paddock and those fields beyond.”

“I thought he didn’t want them built on.”

“Old sod was hedging his bets.”

“Or making sure that if it was built on, it was done his way. So what does that actually mean?”

“Price per square metre goes up.”

“That’s no good to us, is it?”

His crafty expression reminded me of Dad. “Now we’d have to check, but Lance reckons we could sell the land and use it to endow a new charity in Dad’s name.”

“The Mac Philpott Trust.”

“Yep. You and me as trustees. Giving money to those deserving blokes we talked about.”

“Bloody hell, Vince! You have been busy!”

“It’s been going around in my head. It would need to be set up properly. The Charity Commissioners are hot on things like that, but it would do the things we talked about.”

“You’d need to work out how to select deserving cases.”

“Yeah. As I said, lots to be set up.”

“How much money would we be talking about.”

He wrinkled his nose. “Seven figures, maybe more. There isn’t much land like it.”

“With planning permission.”

“What do you think?”

“I’m in.”

“It won’t help your friend Matt.”

“Because of the time it will take to get things set up?”

“Mmm. But I’ve had an idea.”

“What now?” I smiled.

“Lance says that the terms of Dad’s will mean the contents are ours.”

“To sell if we wanted.”

“Yes.”

“So we can have a garage sale when we move out?“

He grinned. “Or dump those bloody sofas. But the contents included Dad’s car.”

I rolled my eyes. “One elderly Daimler.”

“Worth maybe 20 grand.”

“You’ve got to be kidding! And you were suggesting I swan around in it?”

He was clearly amused. “I’ve only just found out. But I wouldn’t feel comfortable selling it and pocketing the money, would you?”

“Hell no! It would feel …” I frowned. “Unsatisfactory. Dirty, even. So, … what?”

“Sell it and create a little private trust for your friend, Matt. Pay his wages for volunteering at the Reserve. Nothing luxurious.”

“Would it work?”

“Simples. And we could anticipate a little until the car’s sold.”

“If he’d accept.”

“Would he?”

I shrugged.

“I have a thought. Freddie’s been on at me about the Fish Shack in West Seaward ever since you told him about last Friday. We were thinking of going this Friday. If you two would join us, I or we could speak to Matt about it. What do you think?”

“We were going to do something on Friday, so perhaps. I’d need to ask him.”

“I’m not treading on toes, am I? You said you and he aren’t…”

“Thanks. It’s cool. We’re friends.”

I phoned Matt, it seemed easier, and he was cool with joining Vince and Freddie on Friday. Wary too. But I said that Vince had a proposal to do with the Reserve and birds. Which was true, in a way.

---

“I had it all out with Lance and Francis yesterday.”

“And…?” Dawn leaned forward eagerly.

“I don’t think either of them is going to make a big deal of it. Lance is cool, and Francis is going to toe the line.”

“In public, at least.”

“Yes. I expect him to be awkward in private. But I can’t see them finding too much fault with Peter.”

Dawn laughed. “Certainly as compared to Francis’ latest!”

“Precisely. Oh, and I brought up something that Gray suggested.”

“Gray? About the practice?” Dawn was intrigued now.

“That I might go out on my own, do a lot more of the worthwhile stuff.”

Dawn raised an eyebrow. “Make a lot less money.”

Vince smiled. “Enjoy what I’m doing more.”

“There is that. What was the response?”

“Francis huffed and puffed and suggested I’d be destitute. Lance had a plan.”

“Of course. Lance always has a plan.”

“He had one rather suspiciously up his sleeve.”

“Why am I not surprised?”

“I’m getting a trainee.”

“Now isn’t it a strange time of year to do that? Posts have all been sorted ages ago.”

“Seems the young man had a bit of trouble at his previous firm.”

“As in…?”

“Prejudice, I gather. Given the young man is black and gay, I suspect it’s the latter.”

“Unless they were particularly blind.”

“Got told not to be so flamboyant.”

“Oh, please! What century are they living in?”

“The young man’s mother trained with Lance.”

“Ah! So some sort of background.”

“And he comes highly recommended.”

“So… are you? You were never keen.”

“We’ll get to do more pro bono. And the young man, Jacob, is keen to take on my LGBT issues, which can’t be bad.”

“So, progress of a sort, and the sky didn’t fall in.”

“No. Though I’m going to have to step down as a trustee of the Centre. It was pointed out to me that the trustees are effectively Peter’s boss.”

Dawn smiled. “I wondered when that was going to occur to someone. What will you do instead?”

Vince shrugged. “Volunteer a bit more, stay useful.”

“By the way, did your lunch go well?”

“Surprisingly. A strange mix of people, but it worked.”

“And Gray?”

“Seemed in his element. His twitcher friend came.”

“Oh, and how was he?”

“Quite a character, I think. Reticent, but there’s a strength there too. From what I gather, life has not treated him too well. But he seems genuinely fond of Gray.”

“And Gray?”

“Is developing a taste for friendship, which seems to be unusual in his life.”

“But Gray has friends?”

“Scattered around, people he’s linked up with through work or Uni. But he’s not been one for creating a group of friends around him.”

Dawn stared at Vince. “Ring any bells?”

Vince sighed. “I know. That’s me too. Maybe Dad’s relentless cultivation of folk who would be useful to him rather rubbed us both the wrong way.”

“Or Philpotts tend to be self-sufficient.”

“I’m trying not to be, to enjoy having Peter around much more.”

“But…?”

“Well, we see more of each other, so we argue more. Well, ‘discuss’, I suppose.”

“Lively discussions!” Dawn laughed. “Welcome to married life. Anyway, I’m sorry we missed the lunch. We will have to get together sometime. And I’m not sure I’ve ever met Gray.”

“You must have, surely?”

“Come on, Vince! I was hardly a regular visitor at your dad’s, and definitely wasn’t there when Gray was staying. Usually I was invited to one of his big parties.”

Vince snorted. “And Gray avoided those like the plague at the best of times; during the Cold War you wouldn’t see him for dust. Well, that’s a bit embarrassing. Sorry, I sort of assumed.”

“Don’t worry. I’ve rather been enjoying getting to know him by proxy. But let’s fix some dates. Arnold is just as intrigued to meet Peter and Gray.” She fixed him with a piercing glance. “You were planning to invite us, weren’t you?”

“Yes. I’m so used to pigeonholing. That was the thing about Sunday, it mixed and matched.”

“And the sky didn’t fall in.”

“Not a bit. The Rowena woman…”

“The one Venetia was trying to fix you up with?”

“Yes, her. She’s fascinating, she’s got some interesting ideas on prison reform and prisoner rehabilitation. We found we had lots to talk about and feel strongly about the same issues.”

“So Venetia Murray was right after all?”

“Oh, don’t! We got talking about the Centre, and Rowena had some useful thoughts. I was trying to get her interested in getting involved, but she’s too busy.”

Dawn smiled. “Two lively ten-year-olds rather do that do you. I imagine, however, that it wasn’t quite what Venetia imagined.”

“Whispering sweet nothings about prison reform.”