Christmas At Leo's - Memoirs Of A Houseboy by Gillibran Brown

then took my leave with hugs and wishes for a Happy Christmas.
    I went on to visit Dot and Alma, delivering their gifts. It was heading towards noon. Both of them wanted to share a Christmas drink with me, and not tea or coffee. I made excuses about needing to keep a clear head for visiting my mother, joking about not wanting to fall off the train and onto live track. I left their respective houses feelings I’d somehow disappointed them. In all likelihood the sense of disappointment was something I generated within myself and imposed on the situation. Whatever the source, it left me feeling restless and conflicted, something I was beginning to experience a lot of lately.
    The train I’d planned to get was running a few minutes late. I sat in the station waiting room in preference to waiting on the cold platform. I’d forgotten to pick up my iPod before leaving home, so had to put up with the festive tunes being piped out of the tannoy system in between train announcements. Shane MacGowan and Kirsty MacColl sparred their way through ‘Fairytale of New York’ the signature song of Christmas pissheads everywhere.
    The person responsible for choosing the music compilation was obviously a raging alcoholic because next up was Cliff Richard warbling sentimental slop about ‘Mistletoe and Wine.’ The corny lyric about gifts on the tree aggravates me beyond all reason. Gifts on the tree, my arse. No one puts gifts on the tree, under it maybe, but not ON it, not unless the tree is the size of the one Norway sends to London for war services every year. Your average household Chrissy tree would keel over if you tried to hang a bottle of wine on it, never mind a PlayStation, a new bike or a big telly.
    To my relief, Cliff was cut short by the announcement my train was approaching platform two.
    Red Alert: the boy is about to leap aboard his preacher soapbox yet again: I don’t care much for Cliff at the best of times, and not just because his songs make me want to simultaneously perforate both eardrums with sharpened chopsticks. There’s a lot of evidence to suggest he’s gay. If he is, then it’s a shame he’s never found the courage to come out. As a prominent Christian he could do a lot of good if he had the balls to stand up and be counted. The role played by religion in continuing to vilify GLBT people and make them third-class citizens is a wicked disgrace. It needs to be challenged and folks like Sir Cliff Richard could help do it. (I am houseboy, hear me rant.)
    Shane says I’m far too idealistic. I need to keep my nose out of other folk’s business and remember everyone has the right to deal with their sexuality in their own way and time. He says it’s CR’s business and his alone as to when and if he ever comes out. I suppose he’s right.
    It was freezing cold on the train. I huddled down in my seat, tucking my hands under my pits to try and keep them warm. I stared through the grimy window as the train rattled from station to station. The urban landscape soon gave way to open fields. I tried to focus my mind on the view, but it kept returning to the conversation I’d had with Eileen. It had stirred up a host of memories. They were whirling in my mind like particles in a shaken snow globe.
    My fourteenth year wasn’t an easy one. I don’t think fourteen is an easy age for any of us. It’s an intersection. You’re full of raging hormones, caught on the thorn between childhood and young adulthood. In my case it was the year I contracted meningitis, which in turn triggered the epilepsy. It would have been a hard enough time if I’d been straight, but I knew I wasn’t. I was terrified. I felt like a child of the damned and was unhappy in every sense. My mates were discovering girls and could talk openly about it. It was tits with everything. My attractions lay elsewhere and were not blessed with the same legitimacy.
    Of course, if homosexuality had been a part of the sex education curriculum in schools it