James pictured his boyfriend, pushing forty and filling out, in his best jacket with one of those expensive shirts that he always turned the collar up on, flirting in that defensive way when someone was coming on to him. He did it with women, and with men, and when James was there it always ended with Dylan’s hand coming to rest around his waist, or on his shoulder, or through the spaces in James’s fingers. It always left the other party smiling; but while it was funny, it also made things very clear.

‘Other guys are always going to try it on. I don’t mind, as long as you always come home to me, and look me in the eye.’

‘Sorry,’ James said.

‘Don’t be. Why do you think I want to marry you?’

‘I don’t know. So you can keep me off the market?’

‘Well, there is that. Maybe I don’t have a very good reason,’ his partner added, suddenly serious. ‘Maybe I just want the same chance to fuck it up, like straight people do. I don’t know. It isn’t legal anyway...’

‘One day, surely we’ll be able to.’

‘Maybe I don’t want to be forty and alone, still fooling myself that I look twenty-five,’ Dylan added.

They both breathed through a silence. ‘I imagined all sorts of things, when I couldn’t get you on the phone. Don’t go hanging around places like that, Jamie. It only validates the closet cases.’

‘I know,’ James said.

‘Just come home. We can fix it all from here.’

‘Could you please let work know I won’t be in for one more day?’ James asked. ‘I have to do something for Tony, then I’ll ring you.’

‘As long as you do.’

James knew how to take Dylan’s worries away. ‘The funny part is, I seem to have inherited two farms on this trip,’ he said.

Unflappable whenever a conversation turned humorous, Dylan said, ‘Goodo.’

‘Well, in my family, when you get married, you usually get a place set up for you. There’s a house. My grandparents used to live there,’ James said.

‘What’s it like?’ Dylan asked. James sensed that he’d left the club and was waiting for a taxi.

‘It’s a farm. They’re all sure I’ll just sell it, but if I don’t, they expect me to fill the place with children.’

‘Those farmers should know you can’t get a calf out of two bulls,’ Dylan said, laughing.

James laughed too. ‘There’s a beautiful view.’

‘Describe it for me.’

James closed his eyes, shutting out the night, and painted the beautiful skies and slopes of Brandt Lane across his vision.