Tarnished Knight

Chapter One

There’s always a back-story

‘That must be very difficult for you?’

Jake looked across at his counsellor. Her blatant understatement did not sit well with him and her thick Welsh accent made the statement seem, at least to him, almost mocking. Her melodic tone caused her words to dance, which Jake felt made them somehow lose any sense of sincerity. 

‘Well, yeah, it’s certainly difficult. When I think about it, I’m in a strange place, I guess. I’m thirty, gay, and single for the first time in eleven years.  I’ve spent my entire adult life in two relationships, with no gap between them. In fact, the one just ending overlapped the first by some time. Not something I’m proud of, it just happened.

‘So now I am here, living in a different country and for the first time in my life, I feel truly alone.’

Jake gritted his teeth and looked at the floor; he was doing his best not to cry. He had done far too much crying lately and he wanted this session to be about moving forward, not grieving for the past.

Jake thought about the idea of being in a different country. In fact, in the past he had never viewed Wales as a different country, at least not when he was back in England looking in. Wales had always struck him as part of the UK. Now, after two months of living here, and a week of being single, he felt a long way from home.

Jake’s thoughts paused.

The idea of being alone, all alone, in this strange place where he could barely understand a word anyone was saying. And worse still, they couldn’t understand him – Yorkshire being an equally difficult accent as any of the Welsh ones he had come across. The loneliness left him feeling empty, this in turn made him give in and cry.

Ariana, his counsellor, gave him a caring, yet practised, look.

The counselling room was warm and relaxing, the late summer sun bounced off the cream walls and filled the space with its presence. Ariana had dressed accordingly. The yellow and orange flowers that adorned her matching blouse and skirt gave Ariana a quiet, yet professional look – unimposing and unobtrusive. 

Tears rolled down Jake’s face, his emotions free-flowing in the relaxed setting. Ariana leant forward and pushed a box of tissues across the small coffee table that divided their chairs. Odd, Jake thought, if he had been sitting in front of a power-suited psychologist, he couldn’t imagine sharing his innermost secrets, for fear of what they would do with them. Yet Ariana’s bright, caring smile and flowery composure had set him at ease, even with an accent he struggled to comprehend and found slightly insincere. 

‘I’m not usually the crying type’, said Jake after a good ten minutes and almost the whole box of tissues later. ‘It’s just that everything seems so hard at the minute.’

‘But then everything is hard at the minute’, the therapist explained.

It was not an answer Jake was expecting, or wanting for that matter. He wanted to hear that everything would be fine, that it just looked bad today and would be better tomorrow. He wanted her to say that just because he’d moved hundreds of miles away from family and friends, away from his partner of ten years – to be with someone who turned out to be a bastard – that he hadn’t made the biggest mistake of his life and that, yes, everything would be fine.

Jake looked round the room, lost for a reaction, hoping that his silence would provoke some of the bolstering remarks he was hoping to hear.

Jake worked as a business trainer for a specialist project within the Welsh Assembly Government; his general remit was to work with the voluntary sector offering their staff a range of business and management training. He had delivered countless sessions on motivational interviewing and for some reason he had got it into his head that counselling would be like one of those interviews. He would get asked a number of questions, which he would answer and there would be lots of positive feedback. Jake really wanted some positive feedback right now. He slumped in his chair.

Noticing the look of bemusement on Jake’s face, Ariana offered an answer.

‘I’m sorry if that seems harsh, and I would love to tell you that life was easy, that life can be easy, but sadly it’s not. You are in a dark place at the minute and unless you start to take action, life will not get any better.’

Jake watched the counsellor’s face change from the fixed, caring expression, which she had worn for the first half-hour of the session, while he was telling her his woes. Now her face was far more animated.  He could tell this was the part she felt most passionate about. Again it came across as slightly practised but now Jake got the impression that she really believed in what she was saying.

This was the first of Jake’s counselling sessions; one of six that he had been given free through work. Other than thinking it might be like motivational interviewing, Jake wasn’t sure what to expect from the sessions.

If nothing else he expected to do a lot of talking, get asked some open questions and be allowed to let all his feelings out. It wasn’t something he thought he would have a problem with. Jake knew all too well that one of his defining character traits was a need to share his emotions with anyone who would stand still long enough to listen. He really just expected tea and sympathy. So far he hadn’t felt like he’d had either and he would gladly kill for some caffeine.

Ariana was far more direct in her manner than he had imagined she would be.  ‘I thought counsellors were just meant to listen?’ Jake blurted and then he cursed himself when he realised he’d said that thought out loud.

Over the years working as a trainer for a variety of social care bodies, Jake had known several colleagues who were required to undertake some form of counselling as part of their jobs.  And the standard complaint was always that the counsellor never actually said anything to help, they just listened and waited for you to come up with your own solutions. The question didn’t faze Ariana however, and with a fluidity that gave the impression she had heard this many times before, she answered the question.

‘That really depends on your counsellor’s theoretical style. There are many different approaches. But as your work is providing these sessions through its Employee Assistance Program, they need to know that the counsellors work to a brief therapy model, given that they only provide six sessions free.’

Jake wondered if he could pay for more sessions at the end, just in case fixing his emotions required more than the briefest of work. He was about to ask, when the therapist continued. 

‘So, personally, I’m an Existential Psychotherapist, which is only a posh way of saying that life is harsh but we do have to get on with it if we are to have any chance of finding happiness.

‘You have a choice: you can carry on dwelling on the past or you can accept that life is about what’s going on now and that what we do in the present decides our future.’

Jake watched Ariana as she sat forward to make her point. He listened for the classic raise in vocal level that often took place when people spoke about their subject area. Jake liked her passion and listened intently as she continued. 

‘It isn’t that the past doesn’t have a major impact on who you are, as we are, of course, a product of what has led us to this point. But that doesn’t mean it has to rule us. We can take life from this point onwards and look for ways to make our own future better.’

The words hit their target and Jake felt that they made sense.

He had spent the first thirty minutes of the session talking about his life. He’d felt stupid and pathetic for giving everything up to follow someone here. He felt stupid for putting another man’s dreams above his own.

It was something he’d first done eleven years ago with his first real boyfriend, Chris, and then had carried on doing for all the time he had been with him.

They had lived together in Yorkshire for almost a decade, before he had fallen in love with someone else. And then he had repeated the same mistake, sacrificing his own ambitions and following those of his new boyfriend, Aaron, who had the opportunity of a shiny new job in Cardiff.

At the time it had made sense. Aaron and he had lived hundreds of miles apart, and it was a pain taking it in turns driving all those miles every weekend. They had been doing that for six months, as they had been waiting for Aaron’s new employers to finish setting up their Welsh office. Aaron worked in a specialist area of film processing with only a few possible bases in the UK, whereas Jake worked in training, which made it easier for him to find a job anywhere and thus to follow Aaron.

He had felt that it was the right decision at the time.  He had done what he felt was right and made the choice with the information he had available.  But it turned out that in trying to escape from one set of problems, he had only made the same mistakes again, and now perhaps, on an even larger scale. Explaining all this to his new therapist had felt degrading.

He was thirty, and at that age surely he should have been able to realise that, chances are, the relationship wouldn’t last and would leave him far from home and alone. But Jake was a romantic, someone who always hoped for the best, yet regardless of how much effort he put in to hoping, he knew it wouldn’t stop the fact that back at his house Aaron was packing a bag. He was going to spend the weekend with his parents – leaving Jake in the house by himself, with no family or friends for 250 miles in any direction.

After giving Jake time to take in her words, Ariana continued, ‘so if we are dealing with what you need in the here and now, what would you say that was?’

Jake thought for a minute and then answered.

‘I guess what I need right now are a few friends in Cardiff. I don’t know anyone, just the odd person at work, but no one I chat to outside work. My nearest friends are hundreds of miles away and I’ve yet to tell most of them that Aaron and I have split up. But, if I’m going to be single again I need people to go out with, yeah, I really do have to make some new friends.’

‘I agree, and more than that you, will need friends’ for purpose’, Ariana said.

Jake moved around the padded counselling chair, he was trying to get comfortable but the overstuffed cushions made this a difficult task. His fidgeting allowed him a few seconds to try to work out what Ariana had meant by ‘friends for purpose’. 

Looking up at the clock told him he had fifteen minutes till the end of the session. This was handy because his bum had started to go numb.

‘Friends for purpose, not sure I know what you mean. Sorry’, he said after he was in a slightly more comfortable position.

‘Well, so far I know you need friends to go to pubs and clubs with, and you’ve said that you spend a fair amount of time at the gym. So I’d guess having a gym training partner would be useful?’

‘Yeah a gym buddy would be great. I’m still training with Aaron for the minute, but that really can’t last, not given the arguments,’ Jake said. Getting the idea he added, ‘and then maybe friends to go to the cinema with or for coffee after work.’

Ariana smiled.

‘That’s the idea, if you think about it, different types of people like different things. Not everyone will want to go clubbing or to the pictures, or for that matter, not everyone would make a good gym partner. So maybe what you need to think about is where would the different kinds of people come from? Does that make sense?’

Jake nodded. He was starting to warm to his counsellor and he decided that even with her almost indecipherable accent he felt better for having the session.

‘So you need friends, what else?’

‘I guess I need to decide what I’m going to do about still living with my ex. And how I deal with still loving him!’

‘That’s a more difficult one’, Ariana acknowledged. ‘And as it’s coming to the end of our time; let me leave you with a few questions to ponder before next week’s session.

‘If you are in love with him, is he worth fighting for? If he isn’t and it’s really over, can you move on and make a life for yourself if you carry on living together?’


**************************

Jake drove back towards the marina that had been his home for the last two months. It was late on Friday afternoon. He had chosen to have the counselling session at the end the day so he didn’t have to go back into work feeling like a freak for needing it in the first place.

He remembered the first day he had driven over the top of the hill that looked onto Penarth Marina. It was a lovely place on the west side of Cardiff, the other side of the water from Cardiff’s much touted and imaginatively titled Cardiff Bay.
The first time he had seen the place it had heralded a fresh start for him. He was moving to a stunning location, a place he never dreamt he would live.

For the previous ten years Jake had lived with Chris in a tired end terrace back in Yorkshire. Chris had not seen the point in moving house, it had all the room they needed. Plus, it had been very cheap; they had bought it before the housing boom. Even when they both had jobs that paid more than the house’s mortgage, Chris still had been against moving. So Jake had remained, tied to bricks and mortar that may well have seen him to retirement if he had stayed with Chris.

Jake had moved out from his parents and in with Chris when he was just nineteen. And Chris had taken care of him for ten years.  Chris was only eighteen months older, but they were different in so many ways. Chris was ridiculously intelligent. Not for a second would plain old ‘smart’ apply to Chris. He was like a walking encyclopaedia.

He had been a perfect mentor for Jake, who, at best, was brilliant, but most of the time was just plain lazy.  Of course, what you need at nineteen is rarely what you want at 29 and as Jake had matured and moved away from needing Chris’s constant support, they had grown apart from each other.

It had not helped that they had never gelled on a sexual level. There had never been that spark, no wanton passion and no fire that makes you burn from the inside out. This was the main reason why, when Aaron had come along, Jake had become attached so quickly – everything with Aaron had seemed so new, so passionate.

Aaron had arrived at the right time. Jake’s relationship with Chris should have ended years before; unfortunately neither of them had had the strength to say, ‘enough is enough’, and to make the break.

Aaron had appeared and had given Jake the support he needed.  His long-awaited knight rode into view and offered salvation. Well, more said hello on an internet site.  Then on the 28th of December, eight months ago, Jake had walked out of Chris’s life and promised himself that he would not look back.

Back in the terrace, on the ex-mining estate, if someone had suggested to Jake that he would live with this man of his dreams. In a place where he could look out over the water and watch happy people play with their boats, he would have thought them crazy.  The idea was too far-fetched.  Yet that was what he believed he had found when he first arrived at the bay.

With Aaron, for the first time in a long time Jake felt passionate about someone, and they felt passionate in return. Somehow Jake had believed this lust for each other was enough for a successful relationship. It was so different in fact to what it had been like with Chris that Jake had become confused. He hadn’t realised, and still wasn’t fully aware how one-sided Aaron and his sex life was. The passion was there, hurried, wanton, yet Aaron would always have his balls emptied, mostly very quickly, and half the time Jake’s would remain full. 

However, Aaron was fit, and did set off some intense feelings within Jake, feelings that until now were only stirred by the men on the covers of fitness magazines. Jake had never felt like this for someone real before, he had never believed that he could want someone so badly and it was this intensity that had blinkered him to Aaron’s constantly selfish behaviour.

Sadly, the last two months had proved him wrong and shown how life would be with Aaron. Aaron had turned out to be good over the phone and great on the internet. Even when they were meeting only at weekends, things had seemed fine, exciting and unplanned. But any more than a few days in his company and Aaron’s vast ego became too much to bear.

Moving in together had proved a strain, Aaron seemed unable to compromise and Jake’s life was again built around someone else’s.

A couple of weeks ago things had taken a decided turn for the worse, when Aaron, after only ever being in relationships with women, said that he couldn’t imagine Jake being the only man he ever had sex with. However, he hadn’t left it there, he had gone on to ask that if he did sleep with someone else, and then didn’t tell Jake about it, would that be ok?

It was not the fairytale Jake had deluded himself into thinking it would be, nor was Aaron the knight in shining armour whom he had been dreaming about since a child growing up in a small mining village. Not once in his dreams did the handsome knight ride up, save his prince in distress and then turn and say, ‘oh by the way, do you mind if I sleep with other people?’

Sadly, that is how Jake had viewed Aaron – as his knight in shining armour. Sadly because he had put Aaron on a pedestal that could never hold him. 

And now, despite his promise to himself, he was looking back.  He had to.  The knight had fallen from his horse and his armour had turned out to be rusty and corroded. It left Jake wondering if he had done the right thing, if this was all a big mistake, and was it too late to go running back to Chris, ego in tatters. The marina coming into sight brought Jake back to reality.

As Jake took the road that ran around the side of the marina’s edge, the sight of the water’s slivery ripples reflecting onto the array of flats and townhouses, which usually bolstered his spirit, this time filled him with a sense of dread. Aaron wouldn’t be there all weekend, leaving Jake alone. Jake hated the idea of being in this strange place by himself, with no friends to turn to. Even if they were no longer a couple, Jake preferred it when Aaron was around; if nothing else it saved him from the emptiness. Jake clenched his teeth, doing his best to hold back the tears. He felt empty, full of fear at the thought of not having the vaguest idea how his life would turn out or if this feeling of dread would ever pass. 

Jake got out of his car and walked up the small garden path. The scent of summer roses hung in the air. He paused for a second to take in the smell of the jasmine that grew along the fence.

The house was warm from the remains of the late summer’s sun. Jake unloaded his pockets into the amber glass bowl he had placed on the table for just this purpose. He had a quick look at his mobile phone, checking for messages and then put that, along with his wallet and change, all neatly in the one place.

He always liked knowing where everything was, no fretting in the morning then when he was leaving for work. This was the opposite approach to Aaron’s; he dotted his various possessions around the house – then ran around like crazy the next morning looking for his stuff, and then wondered why he was always late.

In the back of his mind, Jake knew this was only partly why he was late. It was more to do with Aaron’s general disregard for other people. If he was late, it didn’t affect him, he would just smile and say sorry. What did it matter to him if he had kept people waiting? Caring was not one of Aaron’s strong points.

At this thought Jake stopped and took stock, he had done enough thinking about Aaron for today and he could feel himself growing bitter and this was not a feeling with which he wanted to spend any time.

Jake clicked on the TV for company, not that he intended to watch it, but he hated the silence. He flicked through to a music channel, opened his laptop and walked through to the kitchen to make a coffee while his entertainment for the evening booted into life.