USUK Summer Camp

June 26
If I Didn't Have You
watch?v=PfFepOnARFA

Arthur and Alfred Kirkland-Jones are unable to remember exactly how they met, but are able to give it their best shot. They both have a consensus that they met at a party, but that is where there stories begin to become slightly differentiated. Alfred seems to recall that, in true hero fashion, he saved Arthur from talking to someone whom was painfully obviously interested in the smaller man, but had no feelings being returned. Arthur on the other hand nearly cries with laughter as he recalls the accident of the martini glasses that lead to their "unfortunate"(as he dubs it) meeting. In which Alfred fell over his own feet whilst walking with two glasses full of alcohol and covered Arthur with them.

Alfred smiles and looks to his aged lover, a hint of realisation playing about his wrinkled face. To this day, a whole fifty years since they met, he could have sworn he fell in love with just that laugh; not the man, but the laugh that was so rare, and so each time it would appear, he would cradle it like a baby that would break. Nurture the sound to grow into a memory that would last even until nowadays when there was little that the two remembered. Although they do not like to talk about their age, or the problems they have faced in natures cursed plan, they know it is there. An inevitable truth for all sentient beings.

They can never discuss their first date; even when they were younger, when they had been dating for very few years, they could never recall what they did, where they went or what happened. They just remember that the kiss that took place outside the American's house sealed the deal that was their future that still plays out to this day, both nervous, and both going toward each other at the same angle. Bumping heads before throwing a finger to the act and promising to see each other again soon. And they never broke that promise. Date after date, things just kept going wrong. Tripping the waiter at a restaurant, getting drunk enough to spill the darkest secrets in a pub, or bar, depending on whom you were talking to, once or twice while at bowling, they would crush a foot with the ball.

But these imperfections of the perfect relationship are what make Alfred's eyes tear up even now, and he brushes them aside. He knows they are no longer able to do all the things that he wanted, but as they hide in their pair late at night—forever now just holding one another—their eyelids play out their lives like a movie screen. The fights, the drama, the fear, the tears and of course every single smile and laugh and overall good memories that the two had ever had; and forgotten. They always forget they forget. Just as they did bypass the thought that not everybody thought the same way about homosexuality as the two of them did.

He talks about those times with a solemn face; when they had to actually protest the right to love one another, walking through the streets of London, and at times New York, with banners and yelling catchphrases to gain attention. To gain awareness the love is blind to all factors; they themselves had fallen in love despite their sexes and even their geographical differences, and despite all odds, they found themselves acting more in love than supposedly 'stable' heterosexual couples. Something they scoffed at, particularly as they fought with their hearts and souls in the country of divorce. Eventually, the English government subsided with the secular society, and made it so that they were allowed to marry; and that was where they stayed. Alfred and Arthur smile silently as they fantasize about the day where they were both in white suits, standing in a Georgian hall with their friends and family, making a vow to protect one another even if it meant that they would put their own lives in danger; and at night they celebrated finally being able to spend the rest of their lives together in a way that they wished in a small apartment just outside of London.

Each day Alfred would go to meetings in order to know what his client wanted in his job as a graphic designer, and each day Arthur would wake at six in the morning to commute to the capital of England to write and edit for the newspaper. They were well off to say the least; both in terms of financial security and the love that filled their house to the brim. That was what made them decide to have a baby; their first choice was a surrogate, but as they talked over and over, night after night, there was always one issue that came up; who would be the biological father? Never being able to choose had led them to the choice of adoption.

The first heartbreak would occur just after they had made this drastic decision; where they were denied the access to have a child due to the "unstable family home that they would be providing". They returned home, and stared into the second bedroom that should have held their new son, or daughter. Maybe it would have been easier to just find some pregnant teenager who wanted to abort and take their child, but instead, they decided to go on their second cause to protest. And with every molecule in their body, did they fight. Not resting until it was proclaimed that they were allowed to take home their child. Their own daughter, which they named Liberta. Arthur rolls his eyes as Alfred digs out a picture, explaining that the patriotic side of him was missing his own country and so wanted to name her after the one thing that reminded him of home: freedom and liberty.

The young girl looks as if she was made up of the two of them; her hair is the same colour as Arthur's once was, with the annoyingly unmanageable mess that they usually found it in. Her eyesight had gotten bad from a young age, and ended up wearing glasses for the rest of her life. And with a hard sigh, Alfred recalls that he cannot remember the last time an adult Liberta had visited, but makes it known that it is probably due to her having her own family, and wanting to be the best wife she can be. Arthur beams with pride; the hidden maternal instincts that are hidden by a want to be masculine makes his heart swell—Alfred makes a joke about how it probably is and they should get him to the hospital, and the room is laughing again.

They tell how everything in between then and now are in the attic; the photographs, the videos, every single picture that they had been drawn, everything you could imagine a child doing for their parents, the old men have kept. They laugh to themselves, being caught in their own conversation; anyone would have thought they had not seen each other in years for how long they are able to give different interpretations of the same tale. But no one argues. They truly cannot remember a time without the other, and know that they are but one half of a person, and if they did not have each other, then they would never be able to process correctly, or even survive.

While the two talk, no one who hears this story has the heart to tell the truth. Alfred Kirkland-Jones sits alone in his armchair, next to the one in which Arthur used to sit, holding the air like it was the small hand he once loved. Behind him, on the mantelpiece of the fireplace, there sits his husband. Cremated after his death just six months prior to our prying of his life. He sits, blissfully unaware at the laughing at the apparition of his love; of his soul mate. Subconsciously, he counts down the days until they are reunited once more.

Is not even sorry. ;)

Word count—1,300