The Stranger's Child - Alan Hollinghurst [183]
Jake walked him to the door of the office and they stood talking there a little longer, but had to move aside for a big fat boy in jeans and a T-shirt pushing a trolley stacked high with tightly bound bales of newsprint; he threw one down with a pleasant thump on to the floor. “Read all about it!” he said, and watched with a curious cynical smile as they reacted.
“Ah, yes … now …,” said Jake, showing off, but charmingly, to entertain his guest. One or two others got up and circled, looking for scissors, a sharp knife, and ignoring the delivery boy, who wheeled back into the corridor, still smiling thinly. In a moment the plastic tape was snipped, and the top copy plucked up and turned and presented to Paul with a casual flourish: “For you!”—the new TLS—Friday’s TLS, ready two days early, “hot off the press” someone said, enjoying his reactions, though in fact the paper was cool to the touch, even slightly damp. There was a cursory checking, in which Paul politely shared—that pictures had come out, that a last-minute correction had been made—while an enviable sense of professional satisfaction seemed to fill the air and then (since this momentous occurrence was a weekly routine) to fade almost at once as people went back to their desks and focused again on issues weeks and months ahead. Paul said goodbye to Jake, and went away with the clear idea of more such meetings already in his mind.
On the way along the dreary corridor he turned off into the Gents and had only just unzipped when he heard the yawn of the door behind him and a second later a half-pleased, half-embarrassed “Aha …!” He glanced round. Slightly disconcertingly, Robin Gray didn’t follow the normal etiquette but came to the urinal right next to Paul’s, leaving three further stalls untenanted. There was a droll murmur and frowning fidget as he got himself going, a certain sturdiness of stance, as if on a rolling ship, and a quick candid gaze, friendly but businesslike, at Paul’s own progress on the other side of the porcelain partition. Then looking ahead, he said, “You were quite right, by the way, in what you said earlier.”
“Oh … really?” said Paul, glancing at him, a little confused. “What was that?”
“About Cecil Valance and boys.”
Now it was Paul’s turn to say, “Aha! … Well, I thought it must be.”
Robin tucked in his chin, with his air of heavily flagged discretion. “Not for now, I think.” He gave a cough of a laugh. “But I believe you’ll find it amusing. Well, I’ll tell you all about it when we meet.” And with that plump promise he zipped himself up and went back to the office.
Paul sauntered down the broad stairs and into the lobby of the Times building with a smile on his face. He had A Funny Kind of Friendship in his briefcase and a feeling of something much funnier—the first sense of a welcome from the literary family, of curtains held back, doors opening into half-seen rooms full of oddities and treasures that seemed virtually normal to the people who lived in them. In the long lobby, belatedly gleaming with afternoon light, low tables between leather armchairs were spread with copies of today’s Times, and Sun, and the three Times supplements, thrilling evidence of what went on upstairs. He nodded goodbye as he passed the uniformed receptionist. The revolving door from the street brought in a courier in helmet and whistling leggings, red URGENT stickers on the packet in his hand; Paul stepped into the still-revolving quadrant and emerged on to the pavement with a graciously busy half-smile at the passers-by who would never have access to these mysteries. He kept his copy of the day-after-tomorrow’s TLS under his arm, which he wanted very much to be seen with. He didn’t think the people in the street here were getting the point of it—but back in the North Reading-Room of the British Library he felt it might stir a good deal of envy and conjecture.
6
PAUL TROTTED DOWN the long stone staircase and out into the quad with a preoccupied frown and a curious feeling of imposture. Though old enough to be a don, he was visited in waves by the