The Stranger's Child - Alan Hollinghurst [145]
The final dance, the watch showing five past twelve, and the two policemen standing genially by the open door in the bright light there, talking to the woman that took the coats. They looked in, across the floor, now sparsely occupied by the dancers who felt the lonely space expanding about them, the night air flowing in, Jenny and Julian locked together in a stiff experimental way, his chin heavy on her shoulder, Paul and Peter now leaning by the wall, swaying in time but a few feet apart, their faces in fixed smiles of uncertain pleasure, and out in the middle, Wilfrid and his new friend, who’d adjusted herself imaginatively to her partner’s rhythms and was making up a kind of military twostep with him to the tune of “The Green, Green Grass of Home.”
6
PETER ROARED along Oxford Street, so very different from its famous namesake, the few shops here with their blinds down in the early torpor of the summer evening, and just before he came into the square he wondered with disconcerting coolness if he did fancy Paul, and what he would feel when he saw him again. He wasn’t exactly sure what he looked like. In the days since he’d kissed him at the Keepings’ party his face had become a blur of glimpses, pallor and blushes, eyes … grey, surely, hair with red in it under the light, a strange little person to be so excited by, young for his age, slight but hard and smooth under his shirt, in fact rather fierce, though extremely drunk of course on that occasion—well, there he was, standing by the market-hall, oh yes, that’s right … Peter thought it would be all right. He saw him in strange close focus against the insubstantial background, the person waiting who is also the person you are waiting for. Peter was a little late—in the four or five seconds as the car slowed and neared he saw Paul glance at the watch on his inside wrist, and then up at the Midland Bank opposite, as if he was keen to get away from it, then saw him take in the car and with a little shiver pretend he hadn’t, and then, as Peter came alongside, his jump of surprise. He’d changed after work into clean snug jeans, a red pullover slung round his shoulders; the attempt to look nice was more touching than sexy. Peter stopped and jumped out, grinning—he wanted to kiss him at once, but of course all that would have to keep. “Your Imp awaits!” he said, and tugged open the passenger door, which made a terrible squawking sound. He saw perhaps he could have tidied the car up a bit more; he shifted a pile of papers off the floor, half-obstructed Paul with his tidying hands as he got in. Paul was one of those lean young men with a bum as fetchingly round and hard as a cyclist’s. Peter got in himself, and when he put the car in gear he let his hand rest on Paul’s knee for two seconds, and felt it shiver with tension and the instant desire to disguise it. “Ready for Cecil?” he said, since this was the pretext for the visit. It seemed Cecil had already become their codeword.
“Mm, I’ve never been to a boarding-school before,” said Paul, as if this were his main worry.
“Oh, really?” said Peter. “Well, I hope you’ll like it,” and they swept off round the square, the car making its unavoidable coarse noise. It was something a bit comic about a rear-engined car, the departing fart, not the advancing roar.
“So how was your day?” said Peter, as they went back up Oxford Street. It was three miles to Corley, and he felt Paul’s self-consciousness threatening him too as he smiled ahead over the wheel. It was something he would have to override from the start.
“Oh, fine,” said Paul. “We’ve got the inspectors in, so everyone’s a bit jumpy.”
“Oh my dear. Do they ever catch you out?”
“I don’t think they have yet,” said Paul, rather circumspectly; and then, “Actually I was a bit distracted today because of tonight, you know.”
“Oh, I know,” said Peter, pleased by this and glancing at Paul, who was half-turned away from him, as if abashed by his own remark.
“I’ll be interested to see the tomb.”
“Oh, well, of course, that too,” said Peter.
Outside the town a dusty breeze blew