1 Chapter 1

He broke the neck of the first swan the day after her funeral. By the following weekend he had destroyed them all.

* * * *

The younger of the two men stopped to linger in front of the huge sepia print. Richard didn’t need to see, the image forever fresh in his memory.

“Who is she?” Neil’s voice, subdued, the man spoke almost as though they stood in a church or a library. A mausoleum more like, although Richard detested where the thought led.

Richard breathed in, and, for the first time, accepted how stale and stuffy the house smelled. Made him think of little old ladies soaked in lavender, cats curled up on their laps amid coloured skeins of wool knitting jumpers given to sons with set grimaces they hoped would be mistaken for smiles. He didn’t know where the vision came from. His Gloria was never like that. Nor his mother. Perhaps the view was a recollection of his grandmother, but he struggled to recall. Two of his fingers pressed against the spot of tension forming between his eyes while Neil stood awaiting his reply.

Neil shouldn’t need to be so patient with him.

The thought increased his irritation, but found no outlet. He had no reason to feel so vexed with Neil, or with Gloria, which left a single candidate, and he despised people who wallowed in self-recrimination. He hated people who indulged in self-pity more.

“It’s Gloria Swanson. The real one. That is…I mean, the American actress.” His statement had implied his Gloria hadn’t been real. Though gone, he didn’t want to forget her. She deserved better. The other Gloria Swanson’s career went into decline with the advent of talkies. She died in 1983. His Gloria passed away more recently.

With lips stretched a little as though he dithered over whether to smile, Neil turned back to regard the picture. “I think she had a fine sense of humour, your Gloria.”

“Do you?” The pronouncement confounded Richard for a moment before he recollected the times Gloria made him laugh. Made the years spent with her easier to bear, the fact he wed a good woman. “I suppose she did.”

Neil moved through the room, his presence alternating between intrusive and comforting. Anger spiked in Richard, pushing back the sorrow. The emotion made him feel better, but for a fleeting moment only. He battled to hold on to his emotions for any length of time these days, often existing in a state of numbness. Why did Neil put up with him?

The other man stopped walking, stood in front of a pile of black garbage bags. He gave Richard a questioning glance.

“Her…clothes,” Richard whispered. In the house’s stillness, he did not need to speak louder for Neil to hear.

“You’re chucking them at last?”

“I’m dropping them into a charity shop next week. You said…”

Neil shot him a glance which made him fall silent. The man’s expression declared, ‘I shouldn’t need to say, should I?’ He waited, breath bated, until Neil’s face relaxed.

“Everything else?” Neil asked.

“Cleared it all, except those things I want to keep. Several items are going to her sister. Some I had taken away. This,” he nodded to the heap in the corner, “is almost the last.”

“You changed the bedding like I said?”

He couldn’t get any air. Imagination took him by the hand to lying in a silk-lined coffin, straining to breathe through six feet of earth. Closing his eyes gave him no relief, only darkness. Eyes ached with the force of unshed sorrow, a sensation too like grief and yet he’d shed his tears for Gloria.

“Richard?”

Hard to be sure if Neil said his name first, or brushed the delicate touch of fingers against his face. He couldn’t be certain which came foremost, or if they arrived together; shouldn’t matter, but it did. He opened his eyes and blinked, dismayed to find them moist. He lifted a hand to wipe those teardrops away, but Neil caught hold of his wrist. Prevention.

Richard gazed around, gave a light snigger. “I thought I’d cried all I needed to for her.”

Neil’s green eyes stared at him the way they always did, seeing far too much. “These tears aren’t for her. You are allowed to cry for yourself.”

Vexation rushed in, and Richard pulled back. He must, or he would shove Neil away. The bigger of the two, he might hurt Neil. Blind faith he wouldn’t might give Neil courage in the face of his wrath, but Richard wanted to tell Neil not to believe in him. Sometimes, Richard longed to strike him. He’d wished to hit him the night when Neil first shoved his tongue into his mouth. Gloria dead three months at the time, people kept telling Richard he needed to get out of the house. The party given by a mutual friend had been in full swing as Neil dragged Richard into the back garden, both of them oblivious to the cold. In the kiss’s heat, Richard hardly noticed the bitter wind. He scarcely remembered agreeing to leave, to follow Neil back to his place, setting all thoughts of violence aside until later the same night.