His Horizon - Con Riley Page 0,29

far from family, he could only marvel at that level of determination. “You know what you said earlier, about us not getting a chance to date?”

“Yeah?”

“They didn’t exactly have much of a chance to spend time together either.”

“No?”

“So they wrote to each other instead. Dad sent Mum postcards from every port his ship called into.” Those postcards had dotted the walls of his parents’ bedrooms his entire childhood, slightly faded reminders that their love conquered the distance. “He told her they’d go back to each country one day, travel when they had all the time in the world to explore. He always said that being apart was hard in the early days, but they were still some of the best years of his life until his contract got cut short.”

“Cut short? Was he injured, or something?” Rob took the photo from Jude’s hands, lifting it close as if looking for why his dad’s stint at sea had ended early.

“No, it was because of this guy.” Jude reached for another photo. In this one, the same smiling man stood with his dad in front of a temple topped with a golden Buddha. Both men shared sunburnt noses, the photographer capturing them laughing together. “If you want to know the reason why I could never come out; why I left as soon as I could and why I wanted to win that contest so badly, this picture is the start of that story.”

Rob asked, “Who is he?”

Jude took a deep breath and told him.

10

“He’s called Trevor Mirren,” Jude started. “He signed up at the same time as Dad. They did pretty much everything together even though their roles were very different.” Jude pointed to another photo, this one of a wedding. “Two years into his contract, Dad and Mum got married and Trevor was Dad’s best man. I never actually knew him.”

“Oh.” Rob’s voice was low. “Did he die?”

“I thought so.” Jude added clarification, the confused furrow in Rob’s brow slowly smoothing. “The whole time I was growing up, Dad would always go quiet if anyone asked about these photos, and Mum would change the subject. He’d actually look in pain, so I knew something really bad must have happened to his friend.” Jude watched Rob slide one of the framed photos into a cardboard box, placing it carefully with some others. “You’d think that Dad keeping these up on his wall meant he remembered Trevor fondly, but I guessed pretty soon that wasn’t the case. Not one bit.”

For someone so nosy, Rob was quiet, leaving Jude to fill the silence. He set the Buddha photo aside. “Tell me, what do you know about being gay in the navy?”

“Not much,” Rob admitted. “I know it isn’t against the rules, these days. I don’t know how well that works in practice. I imagine no one’s too interested, as long as you keep things private.”

“That’s for the Royal Navy. The conduct laws for the armed forces started to change in the 1960s and 70s, but do you know when the law finally changed for merchant seamen?”

Rob shook his head.

“2017.”

“You’re kidding me.”

Jude wished he was. An earlier relaxation of the rules might have meant his dad would have been less uptight. “To be honest, I don’t know how strictly the conduct rules were applied over the last few years, but thirty or forty years ago, even a hint of being gay had consequences.”

“Like…?”

“Like Dad losing his job as well as that big end-of-contract bonus he’d banked on to buy this place.” He reached for another photo. Rob caught his arm before he could grasp it.

“Jude? Are you telling me your dad and this guy had a thing together?”

“No.” He shook his head swiftly. “Jesus, no, I absolutely know Dad wouldn’t have done anything like that. Not ever.” His dad’s silence had said a whole lot about his feelings on that subject. Jude tapped on the glass with the tip of a finger. “Only that didn’t matter when this guy was caught in the act.”

“But not with your dad.”

“No.”

“So what did him getting caught with his pants down have to do with your dad losing his job?”

“I never found out, beyond Dad being a witness in whatever the shipboard version of a court-martial was called. I didn’t even know Trevor’s name for the longest time. Dad never called him by name, even though he kept all these photos. If pushed, he said it was just someone he sailed with, but I found out.” He picked up