The Line of Beauty - Alan Hollinghurst [57]
"No, you enjoy yourself," said Leo, wise perhaps with the same instinct. "Have a glass of wine."
"Yes, I expect I'll do that. Unless you've got a better idea . . . " Nick swivelled in the desk chair with a tensely mischievous smile—the red phone cord stretched and bounced. The chair was a high-backed scoop of black leather, a spaceship commander's.
"You're insatiable, you are," said Leo.
"That's because I love you," said Nick, singsong with the truth.
Leo took in this chance for an echoing avowal; it was a brief deep silence, as tactical as it was undiscussable. He said, "That's what you tell all the boys"—a phrase of lustreless backchat that Nick could only bear as a form of shyness. He turned it inside out in his mind and found what he needed in it. He said quietly, "No, only you."
"Yeah," said Leo, all relaxed-sounding, and gave a big fake yawn. "Yeah, I'll probably pop down to old Pete's a bit later, see how he's getting on."
"Right," said Nick quickly. "Well—give him my best!" It was a sting of worry—hidden, unexpected.
"Will do," said Leo.
"How is old Pete?" said Nick.
"Well, he's a bit low. This illness has taken all the life out of him."
"Oh dear," said Nick, but felt he couldn't enquire any further, out of delicacy for his own feelings. He looked about on the desk, to focus his thoughts on where he was rather than on imagined intimacies at Pete's flat. There was a thick typescript with a printed card, "From the Desk of Morden Lipscomb," on "National Security in a Nuclear Age," which Gerald had marked with ticks and underlinings on the first two pages. "NB: nuclear threat," he had written.
"OK, babe," Leo said quietly. "Well, I'll see you soon. We'll get it together at the weekend, yeah? I've got to go—my mum wants the phone."
"I'll ring you tomorrow . . ."
"Yeah, well, lovely to chat."
And in the silence of the room afterwards, shaken, tight-lipped, Nick clutched at that cosy but cynical cockney lovely. Of course Leo was inhibited by being at home, he wanted to say more. Just think of this afternoon. It was terribly sweet that he'd rung at all. The chat was a romantic bonus, but nothing was certain when it came to words, there were nettles among the poppies. For a minute or two Nick felt their separation like a tragedy, a drama of the thickening dusk—he saw Leo at large on his bike while he stood in this awful office with its filing cabinets, its decanters, and the enlarged photograph, just back from the framers, of the hundred and one new Tory MPs.
In the kitchen he found that people had dispersed to bathe and change, and these further unstoppable rhythms made him feel like a ghost. Rachel was sitting at the table writing place cards with her italic fountain pen. She glanced up at him, and there was a slight tension in her manner as well as obvious solicitude, a desire not to offend in a moment of kindness. She said, "All well?"
"Yes, thank you—fine . . ." said Nick, shaking himself into seeing that of course life was pretty wonderful, it was just that there was more to it than he expected—and less as well.
"Now should I put Badger or Derek, do you think? I think I'll put Derek, just to put him in his place."
"Well, they are place cards," said Nick.
"Exactly!" said Rachel, and blew on the ink. She looked up at him again briefly. "You know, my dear, you can always bring friends here if you want to."
"Oh, yes . . . thank you . . ."
"I mean we would absolutely hate it if you were to feel you couldn't do that. This is your home for however long you are with us." And it was the "we," the general benevolence, that struck him and upset him; and then the practical acknowledgement that he wouldn't be there for ever.
"I know, you're very kind. I will, of course."
"I don't know . . . Catherine says you have a . . . a special new friend," and she was stern for a second, magnanimous but at a disadvantage: