The Line of Beauty - Alan Hollinghurst [19]
Later Nick sat for a minute on a bench by the gravel walk, while Leo took a piss on the lawn. It wasn't clear whether the tall stooping figure in wlnte shirtsleeves had seen this. Leo sat down beside Nick and there was a sense that some last, more formal part of their date was to be enacted. Nick felt abruptly heavy-hearted, and thought perhaps he had been silly to let Leo see how happy he was—he couldn't stifle his sense of achievement, and his love-starved mind and body wanted more and more of Leo. The air seemed to jostle with nothing but the presence and names of Nick and Leo, which hung in a sad sharp chemical tang of knowledge among the sleeping laurels and azaleas. The tall man walked past them, hesitated, and turned.
"You do know it's keyholders only."
"I'm sorry?"
The mingled light from the backs of the houses revealed a flushed summer-holiday face, soft and weak-chinned, perched at an altitude under thin grey hair. "Only this is a private garden."
"Oh, yes—we're keyholders," the phrase subsuming Leo, who made a little grunt, not of lust this time but of indignant confirmation. He set his hands on his knees in a proprietary attitude, his knees wide apart, sexy and insolent too.
"Ah, fine . . . " The man gave a squinting half-smile. "I didn't think I'd seen you before." He avoided looking at Leo, who was obviously the cause of this edgy exchange—and that for Nick was another of the commonplace revelations of the evening, of being out with a black man.
"I'm often here, actually," Nick said. He gestured away behind him towards the Feddens' garden gate. "I live at number 48."
"Fine . . . fine . . ."—the man walked on a couple of steps, then looked back, doubtful but eager. "But then you must mean at the Feddens' . . ."
Nick said quietly, "Yes, that's right."
The news affected the man visibly—in the softly blotted glare, which reminded Nick for a moment of plays put on in college gardens, he seemed to melt into excited intimacy. "Goodness. . . you're living there. Well, isn't it all splendid! We couldn't be more delighted. I'm Geoffrey Titchfield, by the way, number 52—though we only have the garden flat, unlike . . . unlike some!"
Nick nodded, and smiled noncommittally. "I'm Nick Guest." Some solidarity with Leo kept him from standing up, shaking hands. Of course it was Geoffrey's voice he had heard from the balcony on the night he had put Leo off, and Geoffrey's guests whose regular tireless laughter had heightened his loneliness, and now here he was in person and Nick felt he'd got one past him, he'd fucked Leo in the keyholders' garden, it was a secret victory.
"Aah . . . aah . . . " went Geoffrey. "It's such good news. We're on the local association, and we couldn't be more thrilled. Good old Gerald."
"I'm really just a friend of Toby's," Nick said.
"We were saying only the other night, Gerald Fedden will be in the Cabinet by Christmas. He knows me, by the way, you must give him all the very best from both of us, from Geoffrey and Trudi." Nick seemed to shrug in acquiescence. "He's just the sort of Tory we need. A splendid neighbour, I should say at once, and I fancy a splendid parliamentarian." This last word was played out with a proud, fond rise and fall and almost whimsical rubato in its full seven syllables.
"He's certainly a very nice man," Nick said, and added briskly, to finish the conversation, "I'm really more a friend of Toby and Catherine."
After Geoffrey had wandered off Leo stood up and took command of his bike. Nick