Chapter 35

Chapter 35

I told Rob everything when I arrived at his the next day.

"Well, that's one of us in the clear at least," he said. "Happy birthday. Was that the best present ever, then?"

It certainly wasn't a bad one, although really, it was the bare minimum anyone deserves, of course. Funny, how when you're conditioned to expect so little, you can be happy with any scrap you get thrown, rather than saying, "Hey, do you know what? I should be able to have whatever you're having!"

"Have you heard from your dad?" I asked.

Rob shook his head. "He'll probably phone at some point. Prenton left a message on the answering machine yesterday, while we were out."

My eyes widened in fear for him.

"Relax, Jay. I just erased it."

I watched him, pulling absent-mindedly at the chain around his neck.

"She'll call again, though. When your dad doesn't phone her back."

"No doubt. She'll probably call his office too – I bet she gets off thinking about how much trouble she can get me in." He sniffed. "Have to cross that bridge when it happens. No point in worrying."

"I'm worrying!"

He stopped playing with his chain. "Well, don't. It's your birthday. No worrying today. OK?"

I nodded vaguely, but I wasn't happy.

He sighed, gave me a wry smile and shook his head. "What you need is something big to look forward to. Something fun. Take your mind off things." He met my eyes. "There's a club in Lincoln. A gay club. We could go sometime."

"They'll never let us in."

"Worth a try?"

"I dunno. What if—"

"Worst case, they'll turn us away. Best case – we have an amazing night. Think about it. Maybe in a few weeks, when all of this has blown over. Nice way to celebrate."

He gave me one of his smiles, and I already knew I'd agree to it.

"Now! What shall we do today, birthday boy?!"

Yesterday had all been about me, and OK, today was my birthday, but I wanted nothing more than to do something Rob chose. Just getting to know him, the stuff he liked, the music, the films, anything, was a joy to me.

He took some persuasion to come round to that idea, but after a lot of sulking, and insistence, he finally acquiesced.

And that's how I found myself there.

"OK, of all the things, I did not imagine this."

"You did give me the choice," he said.

I nodded.

"Do you hate it?"

"I'm intrigued."

He smiled and held his hand out to help me over the fence. "Let's get closer then."

We'd driven to the highest point on the Lincolnshire Wolds – a place called Stenigot, where there used to be an RAF base during the Second World War. Bordered on all sides by regular-looking fields of corn and some pasture land, was a more unkempt area, covered in rubble and wild grass, protected by broken-down fencing, and even an old sign which read: "This is a prohibited place within the meaning of the Official Secrets Act."

"Don't worry about that," Rob said, clocking me reading it. "The site was decommissioned a few years ago."

The site in question had a huge radio transmitter at one end, and at the other, four vast radar dishes, resting on their sides, like felled giants. And, jeez, it was creepy. While the hairs on the back of my neck were standing up, Rob seemed to be in his element as he led me over to one of the dishes.

"So, the transmitter at the far end," he said, "that was from the Second World War. It was part of what was called the Chain Home system – providing early warning of enemy aircraft. This was one of twenty sites across the east coast of Britain. There were actually four transmitters at this site originally, but only that one remains now."

"And the dishes?"

His eyes lit up. "Ah. So in 1959, everything was upgraded as part of the NATO ACE High Program. Those are tropospheric scatter dishes. They used to be upright, obviously, but, like I said, they've decommissioned it all now."

We reached one of the dishes, rusting in the field. So huge. I ran my fingers over some writing on one edge: NATO Equipment. Rob hopped up and stood on it. "These were literally from the Cold War, when they thought Russia was going to nuke us any second."

The cold prickled through me again and I shivered.

"It's weird to think, isn't it?" he said.

I swallowed. "Why did you pick to come here?"

He jumped down from the dish. "Do you hate it?"

"No. I mean, it's … a bit…"

He nodded. "It's kind of eerie, isn't it? Knowing what these were here for. I sometimes come here, and it fascinates me … these dishes, just standing here, waiting … for oblivion." He gave me a small smile. "Happy birthday, Jamie."

"Fucking hell!" I chuckled.

"But seriously," he said, "there is a reason. You know what we were talking about yesterday? About whether the world is a bad place? Well, here's the bad, Jay. Here's war and hate and fear, right here. This is paranoia. Nuclear armageddon. This is secrets and underground bunkers, and plans about what would happen if Russia had launched a nuke that none of us normal people even knew about. But what I think is exciting, is that in all that terror, there can still be love." He reached into his rucksack and pulled out a small penknife, flicking one of the blades out. He smiled at me again, then cocked his head towards the radar dish, where he started scratching the knife into the rusting metal. Eventually, he took a step back and I could admire his work:

RW loves JH

"Doesn't seem like much," Rob said. "But then, maybe it is. Maybe it's a bigger statement than these Cold War dishes ever were. Or maybe it just slightly rebalances all the hate and fear. Either way, fuck hate, fuck fear, right?" He kissed me on the lips. "Happy birthday. Do you wish we'd just gone bowling?"

"No. I'm glad we did this." And I was. It felt like this meant something to him. And that meant a lot to me.

"Shall we take some photos?" Rob said.

"Yeah, OK."

Rob pulled his camera from his rucksack – a nice one too, an SLR, with a lens you could twist off and replace with others – professional really, proper rich-kid kit, you know, they don't really need it, it's not a passion or anything, but they have the best gear money can buy anyway. Still, we didn't have any photographs of us yet, and I wanted to at least chart the first day of being seventeen. Rob took one of me first, probably looking awkward and goofy, in my jeans and a grey T-shirt, standing next to the inscription on the radar dish. We swapped places, so I could take one of him. I studied him through the viewfinder of the camera. He was so natural, so relaxed, and so handsome in his khaki shorts and white short-sleeved shirt that I took two. Then, for good measure, I took a close-up of the words he'd etched into the metal.*

"Let's go back to the car," he said. "This is a good time to tell you we're actually trespassing."

"Oh god!"

"I knew that would be your reaction. It's why I didn't tell you. No harm done though, huh?" He patted my bottom and strode back towards the fence, me scrambling after him, fully expecting to be shot by the SAS any second.

Safely back in the car, Rob rewound the film in the camera, unclipped the back and took it out, handing me the roll. "Can you get this developed? I can't risk Dad getting hold of them."

I nodded and pocketed the film. Meanwhile, he produced a flask of tea, two plastic beakers, and a Swiss roll which he stuck seventeen candles into the top of – a feat of engineering that resulted in an impressive, if incredibly dangerous, amount of flames. "Blow them out, make a wish, and make it a good one," he told me.

I closed my eyes, blew, and wished, keeping my eyes squeezed shut to wish as hard as I could. When I opened them, he was smiling at me. "I wonder what you wished for?"

"I wonder."

He balanced the cake on his knee, pulled out the candles, then using another blade of his penknife, he cut two large chunks off, handing me a piece, along with a tissue, which was the sort of caring attention to detail I adored. He might be a bit of a livewire, but he didn't want you to have sticky fingers.

I glanced back towards the radar dishes. "Why aren't you taking history?" I asked. "You seem to know a lot about it."

"Oh," he said, munching cake, "history frustrates me."

"Yeah?"

He swallowed. "Someone, I can't remember who, it might even have been my gran, but someone said: you have to know the past to understand the present."

"It was Carl Sagan," I said. "I use that quote a lot in history essays when they make us justify studying history."

"History must be one of the few subjects where you have to justify studying it."

"Probably."

"So, my issue is: we do know the past. We know it, we ignore it, and we screw the present up regardless. History does my head in – it's all there, most of it's happened before, but we insist on repeating the same mistakes."

"Like?"

"Everyone knows they burned and banned books in Nazi Germany. No one thinks that was a good thing. Yet, here we are – basically doing it again. And when you boil it down, whether it's that, or McCarthy wanting books banned in the 1950s, or section 28, it's the same reason: people in power are threatened by anyone who dares to think differently. I think history is interesting, it just reminds me how disappointing we are as a species." He polished off the last of his cake. "Tea, dear?"

"Thanks, dear."

Rob decanted two plastic mugs of steaming tea. "It's a shame you have to be at home tonight. Are you free tomorrow, though?"

"Yes. What's the plan?"

"It's a surprise, birthday boy. Come round to mine. Shall I give you your present then, or do you want it now?"

"Depends what it is." I smirked at him.

"Cheeky." He kissed me on the lips. "I think tomorrow. Nice to spread things out so the birthday fun lasts more than one day, right? Why shouldn't you have a birthday week?"

"I like it."

He took a sip of tea and gazed out of the window. "Oh, and … if you like … why don't you bring your toothbrush?*"

*Good job I did. In 2020 Rob sent me a Facebook message telling me they'd taken the dishes away and sold them for scrap, and with them, our eternal love message, of course.

*Boom!