It is 1993 when the faithful couple of this story meet in a youth hostel in San Diego. Both English, both graduates, both in their early 20s, they are homogenous only to the casual American bystander. To those versed in the nuances of the English class system, they come from different worlds. Also, they are both men.
While Neil tries to chat up a pretty girl in a sarong, it is Adam, sitting in a corner with a magazine, whom he finds distracting. Adam has the "shaggy dirty-blond hair in the low-rent Romantic poet style that, Neil knew, was fashionable among a certain breed of public schoolboy". Neil, meanwhile, is his polar opposite: "His features suited the half-light: wideset, almost-black eyes, long, feminine eyelashes, lipstick pink lips that sometimes appeared theatrical against his luminous skin."
They have both left London to bum around California for the summer. Adam, freshly graduated in history from Durham, was due to travel with his girlfriend until she dumped him. Neil (economics, Sheffield), recently sacked from his job as a soap salesman, hopes the trip will inspire his next move. There is none of the usual gladiatorial menace in how these men appraise each other. Instead, Adam simply smiles, and Neil smiles back.
There follows your basic modern courtship ritual: drinks, confidences, the "tipsy communion" of karaoke. When Adam talks to other men, Neil feels jealous. After a midnight swim, Adam propositions Neil - why not continue north along the coast together?
By Elena Seymenliyska
www.telegraph.co.uk
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