All the Beauty of the Sun (13 page)

Chapter Fourteen

A
NN CLIMBED INTO
L
AWRENCE'S
bed and he rolled on his side, opening one eye to look at her. ‘Are you angry with me?'

‘Yes.' She sighed. ‘No. Except you promised you wouldn't drink during the day.'

‘I know. Bad, bad boy, eh?'

‘I worry.'

‘Do you?' He sat up, groping on the bedside table for his cigarettes. Lighting one he asked, ‘Will you stay here tonight?'

‘Yes.'

‘Good.' He got up. ‘I'm going to bathe and then I'm taking you out for supper. Share the bath with me?'

‘Yes, all right.'

He ran the bath, singing
All the Nice Girls Love a Sailor
, happy because he was usually happy; ‘I never lose my temper,' he'd once told her. He did lose it, especially when he was drunk. She didn't believe that he had never lost his temper when he was sober: how could anyone not get angry, not want to scream and shout and jump with rage and frustration? Even if you suppressed that rage, how could you not feel it getting big inside you so that you couldn't keep still but had to pace or throw a vase at the wall or say something vicious so that another person had to step back, away from you and your nasty, vicious tongue, as though you'd spat in their face?

Paul Harris had stepped back. He'd said, ‘What a foul mouth you have.' He'd sounded astonished.

‘Not as foul as yours,' she'd said.

Earlier that day, in the pub's back room, Harris had shaken his head as if trying to clear it of the names she'd called him, as if his ears were ringing, although she hadn't shouted, aware of Fred's thin walls, of the drinkers just beyond them in the bar who had watched her lead Paul into Fred's private living room, who were listening now, she could sense their straining to listen. Paul glanced over his shoulder as though he sensed them, too. He turned to her and she saw how white he looked, as though she'd shocked all the blood out of him. ‘Would you mind if I sat down?'

Too angry to speak, she gestured towards one of the two easy chairs in front of the banked-down fire. He sat on its edge, fumbling through his pockets for his cigarette case. His hands shook. Finally, with his cigarette lit and the case and lighter returned to his pocket, he said, ‘Sorry. I just need to catch my breath and then I'll go.'

They were mirroring each other, each on the edge of their seat, their bodies angled towards the door.

He drew on the cigarette and looked around for an ashtray. There was one on the mantelpiece and he got up, taking it back to the chair, sitting down on its edge again, his awkwardness showing in every movement. Unable to look at him, she looked around the room instead. She had only been properly inside this room once before, on the night she met Matthew: there were the two white pug dogs facing out on the mantelpiece, the thin line of gold paint around their necks that couldn't be seen from the door. There on the sideboard was a bowl of wax fruit with Fred's
Racing Post
folded beside it, on the wall a picture of the Virgin, blue and white, the same shades of virgin on her daddy's wall. Beside Paul's chair was Susie's sewing box, a darning mushroom rolling on top of it; he had kicked the box as he'd got up, surprising her because she hadn't imagined such a man would be clumsy. Then she remembered the glass eye, that lack of peripheral vision. The wooden mushroom made a peculiar noise on the sewing box's tin lid and he reached down blindly and stilled it.

Unable to tolerate him any more she stood up. ‘I have to get back to work. The pub's busy.'

She had held the door open for him and he had got to his feet. Quickly he said, ‘I've been a fool – it's only just occurred to me – you're Ann McNamara, aren't you? Matthew Purcell's friend? He wrote to me about you. He wrote that you worked in a pub called –'

‘What of it?'

‘I went to see him yesterday …' He paused; more hesitantly he went on, ‘You are his friend, aren't you? Ann McNamara? You do know about that place he's in?'

She nodded.

‘He's very poorly, isn't he?' Harris's voice was pained. ‘I don't know what you think but he seems so ill … more ill than I've known him to be for a while, and I've been wondering if anything happened before he was committed this time … I know there isn't always a cause, only sometimes …' Despairingly he said, ‘It's just I've never seen him quite like that before … Ann?'

She had looked away, wanting him to be quiet because the pain in his voice was too much, as though he loved Matthew, properly loved and cared for him, making her ashamed and frightened. She saw Matthew crouched like a troll in the corner of her room and her hand tightened around the door handle.

‘I have to get back to work. The pub's busy.'

‘Please –'

‘I don't know anything.' She felt her face colour, the heat spreading to her chest; she needed to get away from him looking at her like that, like a nice, kind man; she didn't want him to be any of those things, she only wanted him to go away and not care about any of this.

‘All right,' he said, ‘you need to get back to the bar.' Quickly he added, ‘Matthew did write a lot about you, for a time – I was so pleased he'd found such a good friend.'

She had held the door open for him and he had stepped past her into the corridor that led to the public bar. He turned back. ‘I hope you can forgive me.'

She couldn't help herself, the words were too easy to say, and she said them harshly. ‘You
hope
so, do you?'

He held out his hand. ‘Goodbye, Ann. Thank you for seeing me.'

* * *

In Lawrence's bed she remembered how hard and cool his hand was, but still she had wiped her own hand down her skirt when he let her go, not caring if he saw her do this and immediately ashamed that he had. She watched him walk through the pub – all eyes were on him, everyone curious, speculating. She'd had an urge to run after him and say that she was sorry, but sorry often led to the truth and at that moment she had felt as if she would rather die than tell Paul Harris the truth.

Lawrence's bed was warm and soft and she wished she could sleep; she wanted oblivion from herself, from her anger and guilt.

A smell of roses seeped in hot water came from the bathroom along the passage. Lawrence stood in the doorway, a towel wrapped around his waist. He had stopped singing and was gazing at her, such a look on his face. All at once he was beside her, pulling her into his arms, rocking and hushing her as she wept.

Chapter Fifteen

‘I
WANT TO TAKE
you somewhere,' Edmund had said. ‘I want to be seen with you.'

Paul had taken some persuading, but he had persuaded him, cajoled and teased him into coming to this club – he supposed he could call it that: a room above a warehouse with a bar and a dance floor, a discreet, half-guarded staircase leading up, barely lit, barely noticeable. Edmund knew about this place because he
knew
; knowing came from looking and listening, from walking the streets at night alone; he didn't have to go that far, a few streets, that was all, and he would be hanging about outside the door, watching the men come and go, afraid to go in because what would he do once he was inside? Now he was inside, all he wanted to do was leave, to take Paul home with him.

To take Paul home with him, to have him follow him up the stairs to his room, to stand back to allow him in first when he opened the door, to say, this is where I live – these are my pictures, my books, this is where I sleep alone – no one else has ever been here with me. He would make him tea on the gas ring. Perhaps the baby upstairs would not, for once, be crying and his downstairs neighbours would not be having one of their alarming fights. His room was neat and clean, he always kept it so, and perhaps Paul would take him seriously if he saw that he lived in this self-contained way.

He imagined showing him some of his drawings, how Paul would stand beside him, some careful expression on his face; how Paul might say this is not quite right or this could be improved if you did this, changed that. He might say nothing at all and there would be an awkwardness between them unlike any other, because Paul would know that there was some pretence going on, that he was seeking the opinion of a man whose work he didn't respect, and what was the point in that, other than a desperate kind of showing off?

Edmund glanced at Paul, who was watching the dancers on the tightly packed floor, his face wreathed in smoke so that he could barely be seen. The lights were very dim – although there were many: lamps on the table in front of them, on every table, all darkly shaded in purple and trimmed with silky bobbles that frayed and unravelled to show dull brown cork. Cigarette smoke seemed to rise from these lamps as though they were chimneys, a trick of the light because the smoke was everywhere; every man in the place seemed to be smoking except him. Behind the bar a row of Tiffany lamps, their purple dragonflies spreading their glass wings wide, was reflected in a wall of mirrors. He could watch the two young barmen both front and back as they moved deftly, gracefully, stepping around each other like dancers, the only dancers not touching, not so close that they seemed to be melding into each other's bodies, their hands down and down one another's backs so that they moved still closer, grinding close, crushing close in the heat of pressed tight bodies. Not dancers, then, not truly, nothing so decorous. He watched Paul watching them behind his smoke screen.

Paul had said, ‘I've been to those types of clubs, Edmund. They're places you go to
find
sex. We've no need –'

He repeated, ‘I want to be seen with you.'

‘Why? Besides, in those places no one looks at anyone except themselves and their victim.'

‘
Victim?'

‘Target, then. You know what I mean.' Exasperated he'd said, ‘I'm surprised at you.'

But Edmund had persuaded him, and here they were, and Paul had been right when he'd talked of victims and targets; there were men sitting at the bar who stared at him or smiled at him or pursed their mouths and blew kisses at him; men who wore lipstick and eye liner, who made Paul smile and whisper,
‘I'd have that one on a charge: gross misuse of the powder compact,'
Paul's lips so close to his ear sending a shock through him so that he'd actually jerked away – this was too much intimacy in such a public place, even a place like this, even especially in a place like this that was so serious with intent. He'd realised that Paul was very comfortable here, despite his earlier protestations. Paul would grope and be groped on the dance floor; Paul would grasp another man's head and shove his tongue down his throat, backing him against the wall, just like the pair they had passed on the stairs; they'd had to edge past them sideways; Paul had grinned at him over his shoulder. He had wanted to go home from that moment.

Paul turned to him. ‘Don't you like your cocktail?'

‘What is it?'

‘Vodka, mainly.' Paul smiled slowly, and again his lips were close to Edmund's ear as he said, ‘Thought I'd get you drunk.' The smile in his voice, the warmth of his breath, sent that same shock through Edmund, and this time he didn't jerk away, the dancers had had their effect on him, and Paul could be as intimate as he liked, press his hand to his erection and unbutton his flies if he wished. But Paul only took his hand and squeezed it tightly. ‘Would you like to go back to my hotel?'

‘Soon.'

‘Not seen enough?'

‘We could dance.'

Paul gazed at him, such a long, long look, his expression softening his features so that he almost seemed like someone else; no, not someone else, only Paul without Paul's experience, as though a kinder hand had written his fate. Edmund felt himself unable to look away, he wanted to touch his face and feel this transformation, but he thought how that might disrupt the process and bring the other Paul back, the man who should go away for a while.

He was about to speak, to explain more convincingly than he had before how much he loved him, when Paul stood up and led him on to the floor.

And the little band plays, and the singer sings some forlorn chanson, and he is held in the boy's awkward embrace because he is too tall for him, just as Patrick is too tall, and he shouldn't think of Patrick, not here, not as he rests his head on the boy's shoulder and feels his arms tighten around him, feels the smooth, fine wool of his jacket against his cheek and thinks of the body beneath it, beneath the evening shirt and vest, the pale, smooth firm skin of him, the soft belly and gold-blond hair tapering from his navel to become luxurious again. He had taken the boy in his mouth and he didn't believe that anyone else had ever done this for him because he had bucked and groaned so extravagantly, his big hand too heavy on his head as if he might not ever let him go: he would suffocate him in that lush gold hair. Such a memory this one's becoming, one that will stay with him until death, the smell of him too, the taste and the silkiness of him, and the way he'd cried
Oh Christ, my God, sweet Christ
, like a martyr in the flames. He'd had to swallow and swallow, held down, all of his mouth, his throat, his sinuses, all his soft tissues, all full of the scent and taste and feel of him, his ears full of blasphemy.

He hadn't realised he was such an accomplished cock sucker.

Now, why have such a thought? Why not concentrate, keep the memory sweet: no irony, no bitterness or distrust – no thinking that the boy is someone other than he is: guileless and innocent, like a child really. No, not a child, an adolescent. Old enough, just. Older than he was when he'd first … Concentrate now, on the shuffling steps, on his warmth, the tenderness of his embrace. The singer is singing about love; the singer is a man dressed as a woman, convincingly: he is fine boned and slim as a girl in his lovely satin dress, but singing about love in an experienced woman's voice; how strange this is, complicated, he needs to concentrate to make sense of it; the vodka has gone to his head. The boy is stroking his hair.
Edmund
. Use his name; he hates it when he is
boy.

Bodies nudge them, deliberately he thinks; there may be hands other than Edmund's on him, quick, speculative, nothing-ventured-nothing-gained hands. He keeps his eyes closed and pictures Edmund's face, tries to, but it's elusive; there is only this warmth and tenderness and that's enough. His smile is extraordinarily warm, strong in his memory, a light he can turn on when other memories crowd him; those memories scuttle back into the dark when he thinks of Edmund's smile. Sunny boy, sunny and untroubled and fine. Edmund has told him he loves him; he should be troubled by this, but not now. Not as Edmund is stroking his hair, not when he is being soothed. He needs to be soothed, smoothed out, straightened and put right by this boy.
Edmund.
Edmund. He has an old, old name, the name of a Dark Age king, one that brought light to the nation, peace and goodwill; a king that lived to a great, great age.
In fifty years' time,
Edmund said; if they aren't dead; they may not be. They may not be. Edmund is an optimist; the sun rises day after day, and he won't think of Matthew, who is not a prophet, only a deranged man, a sick man; he won't think of Jenkins weeping; most of all he won't think of Patrick, who deserves more from him, that faithfulness he hasn't until now been able to find in his heart; he imagines being faithful to Edmund; yes, he must think only of Edmund, who is nowhere in his past, only in his future.

The song ends and segues into another; the man/girl/woman hardly pauses for breath. Edmund steps away from him a little and says softly, ‘Come back with me. Not to the hotel …'

He nods; this is the right thing to do; he is brittle in that hotel room, a man he loathes but can't help being. In Edmund's room he will be someone else; he will keep his temper, his impatience and brittleness to himself. Edmund kisses him, long and deep and slow, grasping his head with both his hands. When he breaks from this kiss, Edmund touches his mouth so that he can't answer back when he says, ‘I love you.'

Edmund fumbled with his key in the lock; the lock had always been awkward and there was a knack to it – lifting the key a little and turning it sharply; sometimes he can do this easily and the spring of the yielding lock is satisfying, but not now. Paul was too quiet beside him, like a child woken from a deep sleep and made to walk to another room. Perhaps he had drunk too much, although he didn't think so. He was tired, perhaps. They both were. He imagined Paul falling asleep on his feet, heavy against his shoulder as he struggled with the lock. But the key turned at last; he opened the door and his voice was much too bright and loud as he said, ‘Here we are, then,' like the sleepy child's older, braver brother.

He lit a lamp and his enormous shadow played on the wall. He turned to Paul. ‘Would you like some tea? Or cocoa? I've nothing stronger, I'm afraid.'

Paul sat down on his bed; he seemed not to have heard him. A print of Canaletto's
Return of the
Bucintoro
to the
Molo
on
Ascension Day
was on the wall in Paul's eye line, a picture Edmund had bought on the Portobello Road, one of his first buys after leaving home, a picture that he had thought serious, full of detailed life. Now he hardly saw it at all, its busyness lost amongst all his other pictures.

Looking at this print, Paul said absently, ‘I've been to Venice. We stayed for a day and a night, in winter … January, I think, cold and damp – we didn't think Italy could be so cold.'

He didn't want to ask whom he was with in Venice; that
we
: said twice, so painfully, as though a confession was being tortured from him. Perhaps he was referring to his father, the nice, courteous man who had looked at Paul with such a mixture of concern and exasperation, the same expression he saw too often on Paul's face. In his heart, though, he knew that he was talking about a lover; he suspected the man Paul had painted naked on a bed, the painting many of the men at the exhibition had gathered around as though under some compulsion; there was something in the man's face they recognised, something he himself had recognised; he remembered how he had avoided that portrait, and how he had looked with such contempt at the man who had bought it. Now his contempt seemed extraordinary in its arrogance, an adolescent ignorance.

Edmund turned back to the lamp, the kettle beside it on the gas ring; he had filled the kettle earlier in anticipation, not wanting to have to leave Paul alone even for the little time this took, hoping that such foresight wasn't tempting fate. He shouldn't be superstitious, although it was hard not to be since he'd met Paul; he needed to touch wood, to cross his fingers, to not walk under ladders or on cracks in the pavement because Paul-who-was-sometimes-called-Francis was unreliable, he knew this in his heart, too. Paul would go away to be Francis, never to be seen again. He tried to ignore this knowledge; it wasn't certain, after all, and he was doing away with certainties.

He made tea, sweetening Paul's without asking because he had noticed how Paul spooned sugar into his tea, how he always seemed to have sweets in his pocket, humbugs and mint imperials, so that the taste of mint had become erotic for him over the last few days. He handed Paul his cup and sat down beside him, keeping a little distance, not wanting to proceed too quickly as they always seemed to. They should drink their tea, talk about nothing very much, like normal people. He thought that perhaps he should have sat on the chair – his only chair – but couldn't bring himself to; it was always difficult not to touch him, not to keep touching him, and that was not how a normal person behaved.

Paul sipped his tea then placed the cup and saucer on the floor and took out his cigarettes. Edmund had the idea that he should ask him not to smoke – he didn't smoke in his room, didn't like the smell that lingered and stained the walls and ceiling. But he hardly ever saw Paul without a cigarette; his fingers were yellow from tobacco, the only thing about him that he found disgusting – an admission that seemed to him should have the correlation he would inevitably find him disgusting because of what they did together, acts he had never, ever done before. His life could be said to be divided in two, now: BP and AP. He smiled to himself and Paul caught his eye as he lit his cigarette.

‘What are you smiling at?'