The Taming of Frankie Carrozza

The Forever Tree

Charlie's eyes popped open and he slipped from elsewhere. Groggy from consumption and an uncomfortable sleep, he took a moment to register his surroundings: he appeared to be trapped inside a large grey shell. It soon dawned on him that he was inside a dark cave. The heat of another boy's body thrummed against him—both in the fetal position, their arched spines touching slightly. At some stage through the course of the drunken night—or early morning—they'd both slid down to lay on the floor. Charlie pulled the blanket away from his face, then sat up and looked over his shoulder at the other boy. The boy barely stirred in his sleep, he might have been dead. Hadn't the telltale sign of youth and health shone red on his cheeks, or hadn't there been the infinitesimal—yet, consistent—swell and deflation of his torso, he could have been a beautiful effigy. It was a terrible sight to behold, that this would be how Francesco Carrozza will look in death—handsome, at peace. To reassure himself, Charlie waited for the peaceful lilt of his ribs, the steady rise and gentle fall.
He felt so vile that he pulled his jumper and the rest of his red panda costume off his head and hands and trouser backside, fretting somewhat that Carrozza might rise any minute now and see his face smudged with paint rather unflatteringly. He slowly brought his wrist up to his eyes and brushed his finger over the large red bruise he found there, blooming like a hydrangea underneath his skin. Just as he somehow manages to leave pennies behind in places he's been, Charlie recalled Frankie jokingly saying that he liked printing the mark on bodies to brand his victims with the Carrozza curse: a love bite
Love. Fright wiggled into him and recollection of his confession bore into his mind along with it, causing him to gasp. Oh, shit! He slapped a hand over his mouth.
Satisfied with his serenity and a bellyful of his face, the fear made Charlie rise from their makeshift bed and leave him alone in their makeshift shelter. Upon exiting the cave, he was surprised to find that he hadn't been sleeping for very long because the dawn was still rather dark with dusk. He glanced back inside the cave to catch another glimpse of the sleeping boy inside before he walked down the steps. The clamorous voices of Frankie's pious soldiers grew louder and louder the more he approached. Somebody was banging pots together to wake the rest—this, Charlie believed, was what woke him from his height.
'And just where have you been?' Ciarán demanded, standing by the fresh firelight with hands on his hips like a disapproving mother. He shook a wooden spoon at him. 'I should tan yer backside with this for makin' us wait.'
'I—I slipped off to be sick,' Charlie lied. 'Then I passed out in a ditch.'
'Spoken like a true member of the Dastardly Dozen!' Bradley shouted as he beat a sliotar ball to Cedric with one of Quinn's hurley sticks.
'And when I went off to see if he was okay'—Frankie appeared behind him and slung an arm around his shoulders—'I blacked out beside him.'
'And we all completely believe that, unquestionably, don't we, boys?' Seraphina said as she poured a dollop of whiskey into her mug of tea to ward off her hangover, trying to sound as earnest as possible. As she walked passed, cigarette in hand, fur coat bunched around her shoulders, she paused to pluck a twig from Frankie's hair and brush rubble residue off Charlie's arm. Once she'd returned to her plate of food, she held up a charred sausage between her fingers like another cigarette. 'Have you got any that haven't been burnt beyond belief, Quinn? I haven't had fatty food since 1975 and I'm not wasting it on this demon pecker.'
'You're bein' a tad overdramatic,' he responded.
'Now is not the time for compliments.' She flung the meat over her shoulder and it hit Charlie's chest, leaving a large greasy stain on the front. She soon burst into laughter when she turned to address his dismay. 'Oh, Charlie!' I'm so sorry!' To him only, she whispered, 'Though, you've probably gotten used to having sausages being thrown at you all night.'
'Speak for yourself, Rose!' Charlie nudged his eyebrows towards Cedric before the boy disappeared between the light-starved trees to retrieve the ball. 'From what I hear, you've already had your fill of sausages and cabbages.'
'I'll have you know that nothing of the sort happened—not for the lack of trying! He told me that it felt wrong, that it felt like kissing a prettier and less handsome Frankie.' She shrugged her shoulders. 'Sadly, that makes sense, somewhat; we've known each other since back when we both looked awkward, long before we blossomed beautifully.'
'Oi!' Rupert cried. 'You could've given me that sausage instead of wasting it. We're low on rations because Hugo's greedy gob ate most of them in the middle of the night.'
'Here's your sausage, Roo!' Hugo guffawed, waggling a cylindrical length of meat out of his zipper as he waddled bandy-legged passed Edmund, who was bent over a ditch and brushing his teeth.
'If you put that near me'—Edmund took a mouthful of vodka and spat to wash his mouth out—'I swear I'll bite it off.'
As Ciarán whistled his greetings and chucked tins of beer overhead to his boys, Charlie caught a bottle of water from him and used it to wash the rest of his animal costume off, the remnants pouring into the grass at his feet to mingle with the bits and bobs and coloured puddles of the others' creature guises.
'Hey, you goin' my way?' Ciarán Quinn's sing-song brogue chimed cheerily as he poked the flames. After he dropped a tray of sizzling food down and gestured to it, his arm swung up to tell him to come over. 'You want some grub, don't ye?'
Charlie lifted a plate and tankard. As he approached the Irishman, he breathed in the smoky, autumnal smell of Halloween that was mingling with the crisp November air, the last gasp of smoke still rising from the bonfire until it resembled the aftermath of a battleground.
'What'll it be, sasanach?' Leaning a fist on the table, Ciarán put the other to his hip and grinned. The hand then moved to brush through shaggy hair as black as charcoal, his eyebrows looking like he'd thumbed some soot and smeared two thick dashes across his brow. Whilst Charlie deliberated, he slapped at a dark smudge on the sleeve of his red Cork jersey. 'Are ye a mute or somethin'?
'I'll have the pan-fried chicken in garlic and white wine sauce, Monsieur,' he joked, looking to the blackened pieces of meat.
'I hope yer not a eunuch either 'coz ye'll need some balls between yer legs to swally half of this stuff in yer gob.' Quinn stuck a finger into his ear and wiggled it. 'Today's special is a few slices of rashers and a tin of beer poured over the top.'
As he followed him around the table, Charlie held up his hands in defeat. 'I'll have the chef's recommendation then.'
'Just how drunk were you to be sleepin' on to this ungodly hour?' With a cigarette hanging dangerously out of his mouth, he started to fill Charlie's plate. 'Me mam would be up that road like a shot to drag me to mass by the ear and put the fear of God and some good ole Catholic guilt into me. And here I thought you English lads couldn't even drink dishwater. Wiser things locked in fields.'
'Says you, Ciarán Quinn,' Charlie remarked, 'the drunken Irish riff-raff from the dregs of Dublin city.'
'Says I. And did you just call me a tramp?' Quinn sneered jokingly.
'No, Quinn. I called you riff-raff,' he replied. 'Riff. Raff.'
'Shows how much ye know, Chance. Ye'd need to get your ears tested, Sonny Jim.' Quinn chuckled, prodding his shoulder with the spatula. 'Do I sound at all like a Dub? I'm from Cobh in County Cark, sure.'
'How do you spell your name, Ciarán from County Cork? From what I know of Irish names, with more letters than needs be and too many accents?'
When he'd finished spelling it, he said, 'There's a fada in there somewhere, too.'
Perplexed, Charlie said, 'What, but you're not going to tell me where?'
'Now, why would I go and do a t'ing like that?' He deposited the stub of his cigarette into the remainder of his tin and cracked open another. 'I can't stand here and tell ye all the best t'ings there is about me because that would just be go and make me a bore.'
Charlie laughed. 'At least tell me one best thing about you then.'
'Ciarán would happily do anything for the sake of a good joke,' Vincent commented as he materialised out of the night remnants. 'That one is my favourite most of all.'
'I wouldn't do you, ye dirty hun!' Quinn winked, which he always did by jerking his head quickly to the side as he blinked.
'Hon?' Charlie parroted.
'Hun,' Ciarán corrected as he good-heartedly knocked his tin of drink against Carlyle's before they drained them to curb their hangovers.
'Despite being a rotten Fenian, your jokes are bombing poorly,' said Vincent.
'Jesus, how'd ye get yer arse up through the neck of yer jumper and make it talk?' Ciarán scooped back his neatly cropped coal-black fringe once it spilled lopsided over a complexion that made Charlie think of pine cones. He was a short but burly lad, only an inch or two taller than him. Once he lifted the cooler, Charlie could see that his shoulders were much broader, widened by rugby and his farm back home. As he stooped down to his hunkers to prod the grill again, he noticed in the firelight that he'd great calf muscles too, taut and trained from hurling and Gaelic football to give him a kick as powerful as a horse. As well as the farm, his family also owned a pub that he'd grew up in, where he'd spent Sundays drinking glass bottles of Coke and eating packets of Smith's Bacon Flavour Fries until he was old enough to either serve or get served from behind the bar, which always fell well below the legal age.
'We'll be leaving shortly, won't we?' Charlie asked. 'I remember Edmund saying that he needed to be back by noon before his parents arrived in Eton.'
Quinn whistled. Most of his responses were usually wordless and in some form of a whistle through clenched teeth—a jolly melody, a catchy jingle, a high-pitched tune sighed out like a bomb being dropped from an aircraft. What Charlie liked about him most of all was how he (seemingly) remained admirably unabashed when it came to being on the receiving end of a joke—despite them constantly mocking his heritage. He always seemed so cheery, so pleasant. There was also something quite childlike in him, too—be it his pleasant nature, his toppling giggle as one hand clutched his breast, or his irrational fear of the banshee that he'd spoke of when reiterating old tales from childhood hours before.
'I don't think I've enough stomach for all of this,' said Charlie. Aside from the rashers, fried eggs, white pudding, black pudding, toast, fried tomatoes, sautéed mushrooms, and baked beans on his plate, there were two types of strange bread on the side. He gestured to them. 'What are these?'
'Me Uncle Seamus imported some soda farls and potato bread over from the Emerald Isle. At least try and tackle the mountain; you'll be glad of it when that hangover arrives and yer no longer as steaming as a steamboat. Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dine like a pauper. What I'm tryin' to say is ... stick it in yer bleedin' gob and shut yer mout', for goodness' sake,' Quinn commanded, grinning as he shook his head in disbelief. 'I promise ye, it's tastier than a swig of whiskey when yer standing about on a long winter night and waiting for the bus.'
'Could I trouble you for some water?'
'Water? Are ye havin' a laugh? Never have I ever heard the likes of it. Ye'll be suppin' on this and that'll be the last I hear of it!' Ciarán tittered and thrust a mug full of a strong brew of Barry's Tea and a dash of whiskey. 'Yer lookin' a bit worse for wear, lad. Are ye right? Are ye well?'
Eyes downcast, Charlie nodded, but he was deeply troubled by his confession.
'I've two mottos that I live by,' the Hibernian affirmed. 'First of all, no matter how rough the trouble is the night before, it's worthwhile so long as it makes for a good story to be told for a laugh once the sun comes back 'round again.'
'And the second one?'
'Every single night has its own soundtrack.' Ciarán looked overhead and laughed heartily when a very sickly Jeremy Strudwick hobbled towards them, pasty-faced and shivering violently. 'Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, and the wee donkey, yer looking as pale as milk and as weak as water, Strudwick! What's that yer mutterin' now? Do I've a handkerchief? What do ye need one for, ye big girl's blouse? Get the hair of the dog into ye and ye'll be grand. Here, take a swig of this.' As he grinned, he had a rapscallion's grin like Carrozza, but there was a nurturing warmth to his witticisms, a fondness in him due to his childlike and uncouth sincerity. His fascinatingly symmetrical face and tongue told all you needed to know about him, and both were all too willing to tell exactly what they thought of you. There was no wickedness in him that Charlie could see, a heart weakened with sentiment. He saw only goodness in his well-worn smile, which looked both goofy and cheeky as he bit down on his tongue as though to keep it from true spite. Charlie found the ruggedness of the ruffian to be rather handsome, and he was charmed by how his ears stuck out and wiggled at whim. He'd made bold claims that he'd kissed the Blarney Stone once or twice so as to be blessed with the gift of the gab, and Charlie assumed that this had to be true as he spoke to Chance as if he'd known him all his life. When he did speak, he stared directly at him—perhaps due to his mother drumming it into him that this was proper conversational etiquette before he left for England so that he wouldn't stand out like a sore, grubby thumb. During these moments, it was difficult for Charlie not to notice just how hazel his eyes were; the irises made him think of golden shafts of dusky sunlight shining from behind an eclipse.
Feeling his own eyes encroach, he decided to remove his greasy jumper to hide them. Once he reappeared, he confessed, 'I've never been to Ireland. What's it like?'
'I dunno if I can say for sure.' Quinn scratched the back of his head thoughtfully. 'Everyone from there has their own piece of thought that epitomises it.'
'What's yours when you think of it?'
'Flood lights, pitch-black nights, and a stable full a' harses,' he answered as he pulled on a denim jacket and wiped the sheepskin collar. 'I t'ink it's from when we went on a trip to an equestrian building with the youth club a few years ago.'
'Isn't there trouble over there at the minute?' Charlie said absent-mindedly, bobbing his head to silent music. 'I read something about it in the newspapers smuggled in.'
'Yeh, up narth is in tatters.' Ciarán poured water over the fire and disappeared behind a smog for a second. 'Me mam wanted me out of the sout' quick 'cuz she was feared I'd get involved with the bloody malarkey like the rest of our boyos, so she helped me work extra hard in school and then boated me over here to an elderly great-auntie to get me out of the way of it, like.'
'I'm sorry to hear. It must be very difficult for you to be away from family at a time like this,' Charlie murmured cautiously, careful to keep in mind the sensitivity of the topic. A civil war currently blitzed throughout the country: British military forces and Irish paramilitary units were killing one another with guerrilla warfare in Northern Ireland, resulting in innocent civilians being slaughtered in the streets on both sides of the pond. 'From what I've read in history books, it seems your country has beheld many a struggle and challenge over the centuries. I don't mean to belittle it or offend you by any means, but I hope it truly knows the peace those landscapes reflect and I hope I get to see it one day.'
'Sure, talking about it never brought home the turf. They'll learn of hor starkness yet,' he said proudly as he dried a mug with a rag. 'I've a theory that Ireland's only so emerald because all the blood spilt spills green.'
'Ciarán, is it true that only the boys of Ireland are fortunate on their birthdays?' Vincent struck a match to light the end of his cigarette. 'With poverty being an endemic folkway for the hoi polloi of your country, one must pity the penurious girls. At least the boys have a todger to play with come the morning of.'
Charlie sensed that Carlyle said this only in jest to pluck the seriousness out of the political conversation, but he didn't feel that now was the right time when Quinn's jaw was so set with apparent anger.
'I'd watch what ye say about the girls of Ireland, Carlyle. They're not called blades for nothin'.' Ciarán swung a spatula at him to make him jump back. 'The women are that rough and tough, our battles are usually fought by the mammies and their wooden spoons.'
'I'd often imagined your men's barbarity to be fearsome to behold upon the battlefields, only to discover you are but cowards clinging to the skirts of the mothers you cower behind.' Carlyle swept a hand through his pale red hair as he lit Ciarán's cigarette for him with his own. 'Mind you, if I can judge anything off that punch I got off your cousin Siobhán for trying to seduce her with a bit of suggestive poetry, the one defensive trick and tactic your army has got going for them is that the women are as savage as the men. You really ought to let those valkyries go to war—may there be thrice the work done or twice the amount of warriors to die.'
'There's one t'ing ye got wrong: the only t'ing an Irishman fears more than war and death is a bad word being turned about him in his mam's ear. It's the wrath of the mammy that's more fierce and fearsome than a shower of bloodshed; it would even make a man go to war to get away from it.' Ciarán grinned and took a long sip of his cider. 'Sure enough, it's why we refer first to the woman of the household before goin' to the second-in-command—the man of the house. He becomes no bigger beneath hor than his own children reared upon the same apron strings.'
'Does she open jars and carry him to his marital bed as well?' Vincent rubbed his hands together like a conniving fly as he took a seat. 'Haven't they heard of keeping a bold woman in line with the back of the hand where you come from?'
'You watch yer mout'! Me mam would open you like a jam jar and all if she ever heard ye talkin' like such a gobshite!' Ciarán scratched behind his ear and whacked at midges floating around his head, looking rather solemn and thoughtful for a minute. 'No matter what ye may t'ink, Carlyle, our men aren't poofters. You won't ever get a more patriotic country than Éire, since we're wholeheartedly willin' to die for hor if we ever t'ink she might be in pain. It's our love for hor that has us respectin' our fellow countrymen and countrywomen alike. If a man ever lays a hand on a woman—if he can get the first lick in, that is—then there's no dirtier slick of scum about where I come from. We're taught to treat our women well, just like we do our own mammies. After all, yer mammy's a hor, and ye wouldn't like to see hor be mistreated by yer auld man, would ye? Our country is just like a mam—held in the same regard, too. And if ye t'ink about it, we use all the female pronouns for t'ings we love best—motherlands, motherships, buildings, and cars. Ye know, powerful machines, like.'
'Well, for a country so ill-armed, I must say that you hold your own quite well.' Carlyle inhaled deep and released a jet of smoke towards the aether. 'It must be true what they say about you: the luck of the Irish.'
'What feckin' luck?' Ciarán snorted as he slammed a glass down. He looked down, sighed, shook his head, and then took his hand from the glass and began to pack away the makeshift workspace. 'Ye not ever open a bleedin' book about Irish history, Vincent, or never listen to me chat? There's more luck in the dead.'
'Pardon me, but the origins of the phrase were in no way complimentary,' Carlyle droned. 'It meant that Irishmen could only achieve their accomplishments by sheer luck rather than the use of their brains.'
'You'd t'ink I'd have the cop-on after becomin' mates with an eejit like yerself, cara macree.' He winked and snapped open another tin. 'Ye look like an omen, Vincent Carlyle, hoverin' over shoulders like a crow on a crook.'
'How many of those have you had, Ciarán?' Vincent groaned. 'You're supposed to be driving back today.'
'But the drink is trapped inside, Carlyle—I'm rescuin' 'em.' He beamed, blowing froth off the lid of the can. 'I've only had a couple, I swear. I can drive today, no bother, sure enough as I can walk.'
'The quality of your walk remains yet to be seen.' Since Vincent Carlyle was expressionless as he spoke sardonically, it was very difficult for Charlie—and, presumably, only Charlie—to detect if he was joking or not. 'Although, hitherto, you continue to prevail as the only educated primate to no longer need to propel itself forward on gangly arms.'
'Propel yerself onto this and swivel!' Ciarán threw up his middle finger and index finger. 'I drove a tractor with a broken arm and half a bottle of whiskey in me belly once. It'll be grand, so.'
As Charlie listened to Ciarán Quinn's tipsy and nationalistic reciting of When Erin First Rose by William Drennan, the rest of the boys returned midway through it from fishing and a quick swim to wash away the leavings of the night before. Once a meeting point was decided upon, the company began to leave in droves to return to the vehicles. Standing by the cool ashes of the campfire, Charlie imagined he could see the dust of the cars in the dark mauve-and-beige horizon as the other boys and girl raced the sunrise towards Eton on a head-start.
'What's wrong?' Frankie asked as he stuffed the rest of his belongings into a bag.
'Nothing,' Charlie replied quietly.
'Then tell your face.' Frankie looked down at the t-shirt he was folding. 'If it's about last night—'
'No,' he cut in sharply, then held up his stained jumper. 'It's just—it's just I forgot to take clean clothes out of the car before they left.'
'Here, take mines,' he ordered, throwing the jumper across the campfire to him.
'But what about you?'
'Don't be silly.' Frankie pulled his aviator jacket on over a cricket jumper. 'I don't need that many jumpers to keep me warm.'
'No, but you do need common sense to keep you right.'
'Keep that up and you'll be wearing a hospital gown.'
Charlie exchanged his burgundy jumper for Frankie's mustard-coloured jumper. It swamped to his thighs and engulfed him in the warm smell of him that it had accumulated over the course of the night, reinforcing the scent of the boy that already clung to his skin. The mustard-coloured scarf was a symbol of his crown, his mustard-coloured jumper was his royal robe, and his cigarettes were his sceptre.
When they'd returned to the scooter and climbed aboard, Charlie glanced back one last time at Thor's Cave to savour the sights, but most of it was hidden in the dark dawn. Once Frankie pitched the cigarette behind them so that it streaked like a firework, the two boys chased after the others gone before them, now lost in the distance between and the darkness ahead. With Frankie pushing it to the max, the engine roared as they followed a wide river, sparkling alongside in the shadows of the rising sun like a large encrusted jewel. Charlie held closer to Carrozza than he ever had before, for dear life; and it might have been, for the other boy drove the motor scooter as he rode life: like he stole it. The two cars and the bus might have vanished from view, but Frankie knew the way. It was only them, the wheels, and the road. Once he'd spotted a large Tudor manor upon the edge of a forest from afar, Frankie slowed the scooter on impulse and arced off the road. He rerouted down a thin and bumpy lane that veined towards it, the hard soil ploughed by tractors tottering their way to and fro from nearby farmlands. They rode down the dusty road that lay off the beaten track until heather, gorse, bracken and bramble were replaced with tall trees and rusty gates and rickety fences that sprouted charmingly like crooked teeth on a pretty face. Once he'd spotted the stile near the side of the manor, Frankie arrowed towards it and practically jumped off the scooter with the engine still running. He took his shoes and socks off, rolled up his tight black trousers, and then leapt over the stile and into the gardens.
'What—what are you doing?' Charlie hissed, but Frankie was already running barefooted through the grounds. By the time Chance had dismounted, Carrozza was already looking in through the lightless windows, crouched down like a stealthy shadow on the wall. After a moment of bewilderment, he quickly removed his own socks and shoes and hurried after him through the silvery dawn, mindful of pinecones and conkers and stones as he went. He caught up with Frankie just in time for the pair of them to vanish around the corner of the large building, stirring the early morning mist with their thighs.
Once behind the manor, they ignored a natural path that wove through the vast expanse of grounds. Far from the manor in darkness, they were free to laugh as they mimicked the statues sprouting throughout and raced towards the bottom of the gardens on the other side of a man-made lake. Here, at the very edge of wildwood, they discovered the entrance to a tall hedge maze.
'Have you been here before?' Charlie demanded as he looked around the quintessential English gardens through a multicoloured jungle of flowerbeds. 'Doesn't it look so ... sublime? I never thought I'd ever have the opportunity to use that word in my life.'
'It's heavenly, no doubt,' Frankie said as he stared intently at him. 'And no, I haven't been here before.'
Charlie was pleased. It seemed like some sort of magic that these kind of places called to Frankie Carrozza, a secret garden hidden away from the world behind fields and trees that summoned something akin in his soul.
Frankie kneeled to pick the lock on the gate.
'You're always so aptly supplied, isn't that so?'
He said nothing—only smirked and winked. When he'd jemmied the gate open, the two boys pushed inside and the labyrinth towered over them. Still both drunk and hungover on alcohol and giddiness, they shoved one another into the hedges and dragged one another along by the hand to seek the centre. A ghostly November sunrise gradually began to lighten the virescent passageways until the sky above looked as pale and milky as summer eves and winter morns. By the time they'd found the heart of the garden of the gods, insects were buzzing and morning birds were singing songs like melancholic melodies on harps.
As soon as they stumbled into the middle of the labyrinth, Charlie gasped at the subdued beauty of the heavily shaded garden they found there. He was instantly struck with poignancy by the unkempt pond, overgrown, algae-coated statues and spitters of fairies and cherubs and toads surrounding the edges. However, the main feature drew his eyes most of all: the largest English oak he'd ever set eyes upon rose up to mark the spot like a headstone, its thick branches pouring handsomely, monstrously through the hedges to smother them. It looked like a tree out of a fairy tale or a poem, and it made him feel both gladdened and saddened. It was clear that the maze and garden belonged to the grounds of the manor or hotel surrounding. But it felt like ours, Charlie had thought.
'It's as enchanting as a midsummer's day,' he marvelled.
'As pretty as a dream.' Frankie sighed.
As they hunkered down and put their backs against the grand tree, far from improbity and blinkered attitudes, Charlie thought about the generations that had played here throughout the centuries. He wondered who had come here before them, he wondered what their stories might have been, and he wondered where they'd gone off to.
'Did you sleep well?'
'I slept,' Charlie answered. 'I can't say for sure if it was well since it was a very short sleep inside a very bumpy cave.'
'Sorry, princess, but nobody irons the earth.' His face was encased with subdued grey sunlight as he offered a child's smile—a smile for the sake of it. 'That's just something you're going to have to get used to, isn't it, Charlie boy?'
'Does that mean you want us to go camping with you again?' Charlie tilted his head back to look at his mahogany cheeks. 'I thought we broke up enough group of friends for one sitting.'
'You numpty! I mean for when we both go off to explore the world together, of course.' Frankie chuckled. 'And, by all means, do come next time we go camping, or else the Dastardly Dozen won't be whole.'
'You were drunk.' A searing surge of memories plunged through Charlie like a lightning strike as he recalled the intoxicated oath Frankie had made: to take him along on his adventures when he went off gallivanting to seek and see the world, to run wild into its embrace. 'You were very drunk, in fact. I didn't think that—'
'—that I'd remember? A drunken heart speaks a sober mind,' he replied sagely. 'You haven't changed yours, have you?'
'Of course not!' Charlie beamed. 'And I won't complain about uncomfortable sleeping arrangements, not even once!'
'Promise?'
'To not complain?'
'To come.'
'Promise.'
'Yes,' Frankie sighed longingly. 'One day, we'll just take the scooter on the run and never look back. But first, we must make one quick detour through Ireland so that I can show you the Dark Hedges and all I know of those mystical lands. Since you like fairy tales so much, I'd like to show you a place of folklore where they just might live on yet.'
Charlie looked to the tree, then to Frankie, and then back to the tree. He reached across and slipped his hand into the front pocket of Frankie's jeans. Carrozza obliged by jutting his hips up, raising hopeful eyebrows. When Charlie extracted the penknife, he turned and began to cut into the tree as delicately as an archaeologist would prodding ruins with a hammer, chisel, and duster. Once he'd carefully sliced off a shard of the bark, he then engraved their names and the date into the soft and oval flesh underneath.
'Let it be known that we were both here,' Charlie said, leaning back to get a better look.
'Let it be known that we were both here together.' Frankie took the knife from his hand and carved an "&" between their names, which Charlie had refrained from doing as he didn't want to seem presumptuous. He then patted the tree like it was a wild animal to rub off the residue over the inscription: Frankie Carrozza & Charlie Chance. November 1st, 1983. 'Long after we're both dead and gone, it might still live on in secret here for many, many years.' Frankie rubbed his hands together and leaned back to admire their work, too. 'For forever, even.'
'Forever,' Charlie whispered wistfully, feeling prematurely nostalgic over the bittersweet idea. But nothing lasts forever; eternity is a fleeting concept. Yet, in being so, perhaps that means that we get to determine the measure of evermore.
His melancholic moment dispersed once Frankie turned and chased him around the garden, threatening to put his sap-covered fingers on him. It didn't take the athletic lad long to drag him down into the unruly grass and dig his sticky fingertips into his ribs.
'Still love me?' Frankie demanded, worming his hands into his neck and the back of his knees. When Charlie didn't reply, too blinded by the tears running down his red cheeks, Carrozza grinned and pinned him against the grass and tickled his hips. 'Don't even think about vomiting on me. DO YOU STILL LOVE ME?'
'YES!' Charlie bellowed for all the gods in all the skies to hear. 'Like all the other fools, I do!'
Once freed, Charlie fled again. The pair flouted and flounced around the garden, guffawing as they tumbled over grass that was the same colour as Frankie's eyes. They circled one another before charging like a joist, the smaller boy flinging his body like a cub pouncing the lion as they wrestled, scrapped, and smushed the garden to leave their tracks.
'Come on, then!' Frankie egged once Charlie straddled him, flattening his back against the grass. They swung their arms at each other, trying to get ahold of one another's wrists. 'Your hands are two years younger and two years smaller than mine! I could crush them with just one of mine! What are you going to do to me?'
'I'll kill you with my small hands!' Charlie stuck his knees into the grooves of Frankie's armpits and gently applied pressure to his throat with his thumbs. 'Throttle the life right out of you, smother you dead, and leave you here to rot!'
Frankie swiftly succeeded in slithering out from under Charlie's grasp. When one large veiny hand encompassed both of his wrists, Charlie fell against him and gnawed on his chin until their teeth gnashed together. Flushed with laughter, they didn't care that their clothes and hair were covered in sap as they collapsed beside each other, tasting the sweet blood of the woodlands on their lips and the earthy fragrances filling their nostrils as they kissed beneath the silvery sun, rolling and tumbling as wildly and as feral as the fauna. They pulled away before they got carried away, smirking over a secret shared. Frankie's laugh could've been heard all the way from Eton when Charlie punched him vengefully on the shoulder, before they lay pillowed in the green.
'Are you annoyed that I didn't say it back?' Frankie looked across at him and then glanced skyward. 'Last night, do you remember?'
'No,' Charlie quickly said, and then mused for a very long moment.
'No, you don't remember, or—'
'I didn't need you to say it back; that wasn't the point of why I said it.' Charlie turned on his side to watch him chew a thistle between his teeth, hands behind their heads. 'I just needed you to know.' What's at stake, he thought. 'During all this time I've spent with you, I've tried desperately to dig to your core and find what truly lies there. I wanted to know what makes you ... you. But my arms have grown weary of digging, and I've become content with what offers lie in the shallows of you, where my feet have warmed. What slight headway I've made in these efforts to remove your shuck thus far, unearthing treasures of your essence beneath your impenetrable skin and unreadable face like an archaeologist excavating bits of gold from the broken soil, what I've found is enough. I love you. Not because I need you to love me, but simply because I needed you to know that these parts of you that you've shown are lovable. That's all.'
Their bodies were a second away from one another. They grazed their cheeks together, errantly dishevelling their hair as their faces roved the grooves of their jaws and down their necks. Brushing lips along the outlines of their features and the bulbs pressing from their throats, their mouths didn't come together again just yet. Frankie's hand cupped Charlie's cheek. His thumb tugged at his bottom lip and swiped across the pinkish flesh laid over his facial bones. He followed the touch with the thistle that he'd plucked and gently drew it along the lines of his features as if he was sketching him whole with the stem. His smile was not the habitual one of whimsical misconduct, but warm and wistful and faraway.
Eyes full of July, its emerald forests and golden skies, Frankie asked, 'Where were you when I was still kind?'
When Charlie finally turned to ask him what he meant, it was to find the boy's face smoothened with sleep. Frankie never looked so youthful, like a dozing babe. They say that the Mortal Boy King was the most beloved by the gods, their favour undoubted in their rich blessings: Aphrodite blessed his beauty, ensuring of no other worthy rival for leagues around. Apollo carved his songful voice, his very words all poems and songs. Demeter gave him her vast knowledge of the bucolic realm, until sylvan secrets soaked the very blood in his veins. Dionysus inflicted him with an obsession for revelry, mania and chaos his calling. Athena gifted him with wisdom in warfare, an attempt to drown his insatiable bloodlust for battle from Ares. Hermes imbued him with mischief, which was always foretold in his cunning grin. Hephaestus cursed him with pyromania, a desire to see it all burn and burn far and burn bright. Hestia's hearth bloomed in his heart, where warm comfort could be found beneath the fireplace of his breast. Artemis cherished his loss to wilderness, where he often roamed and romanced. Despite the justices and injustice of his past, Zeus rewarded him with kingly righteousness, the likes never found elsewhere. Poseidon caused his unwavering adventurousness, which he longed for more than anything else in this world. It could also be said that the rustic spirit of Pan swelled behind his ribs and dashed his feet. And perhaps, just perhaps, right there, just beyond the shade in his eyes, hidden in secret behind that wily and disobedient glint, he had Hades' slender shadow of darkness and death, lurking over his shoulder for evermore—until. Charlie reached across and touched the sharp mound in his throat. He followed the skin, trailing his fingertips down from his Adam's apple to the soft thump of his pulse in his wrist. Quietly, as dead red and brown leaves crumpled and fell one by one from the trees to kiss their shoulders, he dared him never to grow older, for his beauty to wither—be that by body or by mind. Content on his fill, Charlie closed his own eyes until dreams took him, too, beneath the drowsy morning sun, the last remnants of the warmer seasons trickling golden curtains as a cool wind blew in from the west and combed through the garden.
Charlie woke around midday when Frankie pressed his nose against his own to ruse him awake.
'I've a brand new theory!' Frankie exclaimed excitedly as he stood. 'I've a theory that our dreams are glimpses into our alternative realities and we visit different ones every night.'
    Charlie smiled fondly. 'What makes you think that theory?'
'The dreams I had just now told me,' he explained. 'In one of them, you were a close equerry to Queen Victoria, and I was the private secretary to the Prime Minister. We fell madly in forbidden love during a fateful trip to India, but then I was accidentally shot dead trying to save the Prime Minister from an assassination attempt back in London. In another, I was an Elizabethan girl in a four-poster bed with another blonde girl, both of us in white nightdresses and throwing our heads back to cackle wildly with glee. In the last, you and I were two modern boys hunting for a mysterious book as we dodged the guns of villainous spies in gabardine trench coats and trilby hats.'
'The last one is most like you,' Charlie commented.
'What are your plans for the short leave?' Frankie asked as he took him by the hand and twirled him towards the exit. When Charlie dived onto his back, he hoisted him up and tucked his legs into his hips. 'Are you going back up north?'
'I'll probably go home, yeah.' Charlie glanced back to steal one last look of the spot where they'd been at peace only mere moments ago, and then looked ahead as they reentered the maze to return to his steed. Without need for permission, his hands touched Frankie's throat, his jaw, his shoulders, the nape of his slender neck, his chin resting on the top of his head like a crown. 'Where else would I go?'
'How about with me?' Frankie remarked. 'Mother wrote me a few days ago to say that they would be returning to the cottage on the coast for a month and she insists I join them as per usual—after all, 'tis the season.' Frankie shook him up his back when his body started to slouch against him. 'So, what do you say, old fellow? Will you come with me?'
'You—' Dumbfounded, Charlie clumsily slid off his back and onto his feet. 'You want me to come stay with you and your family?'
'I want you to come stay with me and my family,' Frankie parroted, before he urgently leapt over weeds to pluck grains out of Charlie's hair. 'And from what you've told me about yours, they shouldn't be too dismayed with only seeing you at Christmas, surely. Forgive me quick if I'm speaking out of turn. Please, save me from my parents.'
'Isn't there anything you forget after drinking alcohol?' he asked. 'Surely there's something that impossible brain won't store?'
'Only the way I feel after I've drunk it.'
Charlie laughed. 'No, I don't think my parents would mind very much. They could attend all the country clubs and soirées they can handle without needing to worry about little ole me.'
'I doubt it's a lack of love for you, surely.' Frankie folded his arms and frowned. 'They've clothed and educated and groomed you well, so I doubt your presence is unwelcome, untoward, or an inconvenience. There must be another reason for what has you come and go unnoticed.'
'It's only that they have granted me freedom beyond reason and supplied me with an absence of boundaries in regards to what I do with my life—for them, there's no turning back now. I thought I told you that.' Charlie sighed thoughtfully. 'They love me, but in their own little way.'
'A strange one, that's for certain.'
'Just one different to what you're used to. Since I was able to care for myself rather sensibly from a very young age, they left me in charge of my own choices.' Charlie shrugged. 'Perhaps this is the advantage of being raised by a series of nannies.'
'Has a governess taught you how to love so well?' Frankie winked suggestively. 'Oi, you haven't told me if you'll come with me yet.'
'I'd be more than happy to go,' Charlie admitted, 'so long as your parents won't mind.'
'Oh, I promise you they won't.' Frankie grinned, his face full of somnolent eyes. 'They've been badgering me for years to bring more friends home from Eton.'
'You'll be wanting your jumper back.' Charlie grabbed the sleeves to remove it, but Frankie stopped him.
'No, you keep it. It looks good on you,' he said. 'Listen, I probably won't be able to see you very much from now until the short leave. Some things might be happening to me shortly.'
'Why? What sort of things?'
'Because ... because of all the work I'll have to do to make up for lost time.' He put a hand on his shoulder and smiled. 'So wear my jumper on the days you miss me most. There's a sense of thrill at the thought of my smell being on your skin.'
'I couldn't agree more.' As they walked on through the labyrinth, Charlie looked back down the passageway towards the secret garden. 'Besides, what does it matter now if we should part for a spell when we've both become perennially carved into something that will be there for always?'