The Line of Beauty - Alan Hollinghurst [81]
"Mm, very primitive," Wani said, as if the place confirmed a suspicion he had about Nick.
Nick said, "I know," and grinned—it was just what he loved about it.
"Where do we put our things?"
"Just leave them here, they'll be fine."
But Wani flinched at this. He had the keys to the Mercedes in his jeans pocket, and his watch, as he had told Nick more than once, cost a thousand pounds. "Yah, maybe I won't go in." And maybe Nick, who had never owned anything, was guilty of failing to imagine the worries of a millionaire.
"Really, it'll be fine. Put your stuff in here," he said, offering him the Tesco carrier bag which had held his towel and trunks.
"This watch cost a thousand pounds," said Wani.
"Perhaps don't tell everyone about it," Nick said.
There was an old man drying near them, squat and bandy and brown all over, and Nick remembered him from last year, an occupant of the place, of the compound and the jetty and the pond, and more especially of the screened inner yard where on a hot day men sunbathed naked, hip to hip. He was lined but handsome, and Nick felt that smoothed and uniformed, in vigilant half-profile, his picture could well have accompanied the obituary of a general or air vice-marshal. He nodded amiably at him, as a leathery embodiment of the spirit of the place, and the old man said, "George has gone, then. Steve's just told me, went last night."
"Oh," said Nick, "I'm sorry. No, I didn't know George," but assuming that by "gone" the old boy didn't mean gone on holiday. It was George who needed the obituary.
"You knew George." He looked at Wani as well, who was undressing in a slow, abstracted way, with pauses for thought before each sock, each button. "He was always here. He was only thirty-one."
"I've never been here before," Wani said, courteous but cold. The old man frowned back and nodded, accepting his mistake, but perhaps thinking less of them for not knowing George.
After a pause Nick said, "How's the water?" and held his stomach in as he took his shirt off because he wanted the man to admire him. But he didn't reply, and perhaps he hadn't heard the question.
Out on the jetty Nick strode ahead again, in his blue Speedos, and opened his arms to meet the embrace of the view, the green and silver expanse of the pond, young willows and hawthorns all round it, and the Heath behind, glimpsed only as patches of sunlit hillside. Nick was pleased with his own body, and he preened in pardonable ways, stretching and flicking his feet up against his buttocks as he ran on the spot. Across the surface of the water moved the dotted heads of swimmers. There was something sociable and inquisitive about them. Out in the middle of the pond was the old wooden raft, the site of endless easy contacts, and the floating platform of some of Nick's steadiest fantasies. Half a dozen men were on it now, and soon he would be with them. He turned round and grinned to encourage Wani, who was dawdling by the curved downward rail of the ladder, and gazing at the distant heads of the swimmers as if wondering how they'd ever got there. It seemed swimming was a rare omission from the list of things he did beautifully. There was a mild and interesting cruelty in bringing him here, so far out of his element. "You've got to jump in," he said. "You'll find it torture going in slowly." He smiled at Wani's tight black trunks, the smoothness and delicacy of his pale brown