Flash Fiction by Richard Rooney

‘Granddad!, look what I’ve found in the attic,’ Charlie woke from a slumber and Christine thrust a photograph into his hand. ‘Is that you as a schoolboy?’ He studied it through heavy eyelids. It was a portrait of a beautiful young man: fair skinned, full lips, heavy eyelids, dressed in blazer and grey trousers.

No, this isn’t me,’ he said tartly and thrust the photo back. Christine stood confounded as tears welled in the old man’s eyes.

It was Graham, Charlie’s best pal at school. Best pal? No, more than that, much more. Peter and Charlie: Charlie and Peter, inseparable as only children could be. Children? No, not children. Adults then? No, not that either, just a pair of daft adolescents.

Charlie hadn’t thought about Graham in fifty years and he wanted to leave it like that. They were both in the school’s rugger team (it was a posh boys’ grammar). The heat of the scrum, sweaty shirts, jockstraps, naked bodies in showers. A tsunami of images flooded back.

It got out of hand. Just stuff and nonsense, nobody knew owt about owt, despite their classical education.

A summer’s night; hot and muggy. Graham’s parents away. The two of them alone in the house. Lust. Bodies out of control. Declarations of love. Why did Charlie tell Graham those things? They were only words; he didn’t mean any of it.

Charlie went away to university, Graham stayed home. They couldn’t meet again because Graham stepped in front of the London-bound express.

Text © Richard Rooney