When they got their breath back, Vince said, ‘You never came.’
Andy shrugged. ‘Doesn’t matter.’
‘That used to make you all bothered.’
‘I was reading something that said it did you good not to.’
‘Yeah?’ Vince was sceptical. ‘Here.’ And he started to kiss Andy again, trying to replicate the moment before. He reached for his own cock and found it still as hard, and started to pull at it, wanking just as Andy had shown him, the way he did himself. And then Vince felt a bit ridiculous, found himself faking his own excitement now that his own moment had passed. Andy beneath him was delirious, however, soaked with sweat and falling back on to the sheet, tossing his head as if in fever. Vince was losing his grip, getting cramp, found himself muttering encouragement. Next thing he knew Andy had slipped his own hand down, taken his own cock from Vince, and was doing himself. He left Vince braced between his knees, watching with a smile as suddenly Andy seemed to break something inside; his eyes went wide, and then he shot spunk all over his chest in copious amounts. Its first lucid stream laced down the side of his face. Sudden as it had begun, his fever subsided and he wanted another hug.
‘I think,’ he said groggily, some moments later, ‘this place puts people off.’
‘Yeah?’ Vince tried to get up, wanting to be up and about now. But Andy was holding him down, tender but strong.
‘A few months ago I was seeing an older man. House of his own. Good job. He would never come here. Made me feel I had no life of my own.’
‘I can see that,’ Vince murmured.
Andy turned to look right at him. ‘Are you staying tonight?’
Vince clasped him, the once familiar, everyday weight of him. ‘I don’t see why not.’
Andy grinned. Tasting his own saltiness down the side of his face, he wiped at it. ‘We’ll have a night out then. We’ll go out on the town. We’ll dress you up nice.’
Penny walked into the living room just as Liz finished preparing herself to face the day. She was doing her eyeliner and ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ was playing, not quite loud enough to drown out the telly. She took great care with her make-up every day, even those days when she wouldn’t be seeing anyone. As if to keep her vigilant, mirrors were everywhere in the house, except in her bedroom. Liz felt that if she slackened the effort at keeping herself perfect it might make her ill again, and she didn’t want that. Now everything had to be in its right place, her eyes drawn in exactly, and then it would be all right.
She turned to smile at Penny. ‘Good morning!’ she said loudly.
Penny was shrugging herself into her cardigan. She scowled. ‘You look gorgeous as usual, for this time in the morning.’
‘I’m a morning person.’
‘You never used to be.’ Penny made for the kitchen. ‘Can you turn the music down?’
Liz followed her. ‘As of this week, I am a morning person. I’m changing all the old things I don’t like. And wasting time being grumpy and looking a fright until eleven is the first thing to go.’
Penny tutted. ‘Thanks a lot.’
‘I wasn’t talking about you. You look lovely in the morning no matter how you feel because you’re so young. You couldn’t look horrible if you tried.’
Penny thought her mother was pushing the Julie Andrews routine a bit. She had already seen herself this morning and she looked a hag, no matter how young she was.
Liz banged the grill pan into the oven, cheerfully making toast. ‘I have to make more of an effort to be for ever young these days.’
Sometimes Penny thought Liz had what bordered on a mania to do with age and ageing. They had already talked at length about what ages Penny thought Fran, Jane, Frank, everyone round here was. It was as if Liz was always competing to look better for her age than everyone else.
‘Is that why you do your make-up with the Stones playing?’ Penny teased. ‘So that you’ll look as fresh as they do?’
‘Tell you what,’ Liz said, ‘I admire them for still going. They could look like skeletons and they’d still sound marvellous. It does me good to see people hanging in there.’ Penny was making coffee, sluicing the cafetiere under the tap. ‘I admire John Lennon for being dead. Before he could get too old. Before he could make a show of himself.’
‘That’s a terrible thing to say!’
‘It’s true, though! People are embarrassing when they get old. He got out the right way.’
‘So I should just lie down and die now, then? Is that what you mean?’ Two red spots had appeared high on Liz’s dusted cheekbones.
‘Oh, get away, Mam! I’m talking about pop stars, how they should give up the ghost. Like Rod Stewart. Or Cliff Richard. Take off their long hair and underneath they’d just be like any other scraggy bloke of fifty. Like some old bloke off the bins.’ Still Liz was looking stung, taking the toast out from under the grill. The sides weren’t equally done and she had to scrape all the slices over the sink.
Penny tried to make it better. ‘I think you’re lovely for your age. You know that.’
‘Hm.’
‘And you’ve said the same thing about Cliff Richard’s turkey neck.’
‘Hm.’
‘It’s just like the whole world is full of people wanting to be teenagers. And most of the time I feel about sixty.’
Liz looked at her. She decided to abandon the toast. ‘Someone isn’t happy
