The Line of Beauty - Alan Hollinghurst [56]
"Ah, hotline," said Badger, whose scandal-sensors were warming to something awkward in the air. Though as Nick went down the hall what struck him was that Rachel knew what was going on, and was protecting him. Gerald never really noticed anything about other people, they were moving parts in a social process, they agreed with him or they thwarted him, his famous hospitality disguised an odd lack of particular, personal skills—all this came clear to Nick in a liberating rush as he pushed open the study door. After which it was beautifully surreal to stand and talk in sexy murmurs beside his desk, to hear Leo's voice in the one room in the house which expressed Gerald's own taste, which was a vacuum of taste, green leather armchairs, upholstered fender, brass lamps, the stage set for his own kind of male conspiracy.
"Well, that was very jolly," said Leo, with a half-teasing, half-aspiring use of a Nick word. "Very jolly indeed."
"Did you enjoy it, darling?" said Nick.
"I didn't mind it," said Leo.
Nick glowed and grinned. "I thought it was bearable."
"I expect you can bear it," said Leo. "You don't have to ride a bike."
Nick looked around at the half-open door. "Was it too much for you?" he said wonderingly, and with a sense that recurred and recurred these weeks—of enormous freedom claimed through tiny details, of everything he said being welcome.
"You're a very bad boy," said Leo.
"Mm, so you keep saying."
"So what are you doing?"
"Well . . . " said Nick. It was lovely to be talking to Leo, but he wasn't quite sure why he had rung, and as it was the first time he had ever done so it made Nick uneasily expectant; until it struck him that probably Leo himself was only claiming the simple pleasure of talking to his lover, of talking, as he said he loved to fuck, for the sake of it. "I'm sitting behind Gerald's desk with a most tremendous hard-on," said Nick.
There was a pause and Leo murmured, "Now don't get me going. My old lady's here."
It was shadowy already in the room, and Nick pulled the chain that switched on the desk lamp. Gerald, like an uxorious bigamist, had photos of both Rachel and the Prime Minister in silver frames. A large desk diary was open at the "Notes" pages at the back, where Gerald had written, "Barwick: Agent (Manning)—wife Veronica NOT Janet (Parker's wife)." With his breezily asking Parker how Veronica was and Manning how Janet was, he had got some very confused looks. Nick knew Janet Parker, of course, she was a manager at Rackhams and sang in the Operatic. "So what are you doing later?" Leo wanted to know.
"Oh, we've got a big dinner party," Nick said. He noticed that he hoped to impress Leo with their life at Kensington Park Gardens and at the same time was ready to repudiate it. "It'll probably be very tedious—they only really ask me to make up the numbers."
"Oh," said Leo doubtfully.
"It'll be a lot of horrible old Tories," Nick said, in an attempt at Leo's language and point of view, and sniggered.
"Oh, is Grandma coming, then?"
"She certainly is," said Nick.
"Old bitch," said Leo; the passing insult of their doorstep meeting, unregistered at the time, had risen later like a bruise. "You ought to ask me over, to continue our fascinating conversation," he said.
The theme of Leo's coining over had cropped up several times since their first date, and hung and faded. Nick said, "Look, I'm sure I can get out of this." And really it did seem as if the logic of the evening—the numbers, the etiquette, the superstition—was only an expression of a deeper natural force, a love logic, pulling him out of the house and back into Leo's arms. "I'm sure I can get out of it," he said again. Though as he did so he felt there was also a lightness in not seeing