She drew her finger from his mouth, supporting herself now on both hands, her breasts high on her chest; they had seemed so presented to him, she realised, so brazenly offered; she had looked down at herself, her small, pointed breasts with their hardened nipples; she looked down and saw how hard he was, his cock risen against his flat belly. She had expected him to be more boyish, a virgin boy who would be milder and less rankly male; but his cock was thick, and he closed his hand around it, to hide himself from her perhaps, even as his balls brushed against her body. He closed his eyes.
Matthew had closed his eyes, tilting back his head, not virginal at all but ecstatic, so yes, perhaps virginal then – one of those types of flawless martyrs the Romans would have fucked to death. Dirty, violent stories, wasn’t her head full of them – wasn’t everyone’s head full of such profanity? Maybe not, maybe she was the only one, wrong in the head, like him, and he was shutting her out, his eyes closed against her so that she reached up to him, pulling him down on top of her, taking his hand, guiding it although he resisted, guiding it more forcefully between her legs.
And she was soft and wet, too soft, too wet, she should have known, should have realised, but the blood was too soon in showing itself, too soon, too painless; it was the shock of him, she thought, the shock of his unexpected lust. But she shouldn’t have been shocked by him – wasn’t he a man like any other? The same as any man, until his fingers hooked inside her and were still, his face still, keeping its ecstasy fixed for a moment in his eyes and mouth, not realising at first, perhaps never knowing at all how ordinary blood was.
But when he realised, it was as though a spell had been broken and he had scrambled away from her, moving quick as a wild animal to crouch in the corner of her room, his hands clasping his head, his forearms covering his face. He became a squat bundle of hands, of arms and elbows and knees, of shins and feet, hairy, a creature from the pages of a dark fairy tale, weeping. And she was naked too, although she should have covered herself, only didn’t think to, there was no time, no time except to jump from her bed, to go to him. Matthew. He was still Matthew even then. Matthew, flailing at her so that she smelt him even more strongly, that smell men have when they want you very badly; and there was her smell too, the blood on her thighs, unexpected but still nothing, only blood after all, her blood on his fingers and smeared on his face.
All this was her fault; hadn’t she been warned? Silly girl fucking around with a madman, making him madder, making him cry; daft girl thinking there’d be no consequences, none; thinking she could be free to do as she pleased away from home, away from her daddy and her brothers, from her mother and sisters who had shown her how to wash the bloody rags each month, secretly, furtively, away from the eyes of the men, the shame coming as naturally as the blood itself. But Matthew had made her feel her shame as though it was a living, vicious thing, so how could she go on loving him as she did? She couldn’t be right in the head to carry a burden of love like this.
She swallowed the last of the brandy. She would go out into the gallery and put on a show for Lawrence, flirt with this friend of his – this Roddie. Lawrence would see that she didn’t care; he would be relieved that she was still his best, flighty girl. Later she would tell him that there was no baby and that they’d both been mistaken. He might guess that she’d been testing him and be ashamed.
Chapter Twenty-nine
PATRICK STOOD ACROSS THE road from the Python Gallery. He thought how smart it was, brightly lit – the rest of the street was in darkness, and the gallery was an oasis of light and noise – it seemed there was a party going on, but it was small for a place that had taken up so much space in his imagination.
The party seemed to be coming to an end; Patrick had to step to one side to allow people out on to the street before he could go in. Inside, small groups were breaking into smaller groups, making their goodbyes and heading for the door. A man stood with his arm around a girl. The girl caught his eye and smiled a little drunkenly at him as the man said, ‘Hello. I think you may be very late, we’re just about to close – but look around –’
‘I’m looking for an artist called Francis Law. I believe he had an exhibition here?’ Patrick glanced at the pictures hanging around the walls. None was Paul’s.
Another man said, ‘Law isn’t here.’
The man with his arm around the girl said, ‘May I introduce you to Joseph Day – the artist. This is his show tonight, but don’t mind him. I’m afraid the talented Mr Law isn’t here.’
‘Talented!’ Day laughed harshly. ‘Aye. We all know what he’s talented at! Can you tell us why you were looking for him Mr …?’ He frowned at him. He peered more closely and laughed. ‘Jesus. You’re the one in that picture! Well, you’ll know all about his talents, eh?’
Patrick made to turn away but Day caught his arm. ‘Fucking queer – don’t turn your back on me!’
‘Let go.’
‘Or else?’
The first man stepped forward. ‘Or else, Day, I’ll throw you out on to the street and all your unsold paintings after you.’ He held out his hand to Patrick. ‘Lawrence Hawker. Come through to the back – it’s a little bit more civilized.’
This was Hawker, then, the man he’d worried about most, who might flatter Paul, who would understand his work far better than he did, perhaps take him out to dinner and listen to him talk about painting – something he never talked to him about. A bond would grow quickly between them; he imagined the two of them walking back from the restaurant together, through London’s more knowing, blasé streets, to Hawker’s rooms where he lived the kind of life Paul wanted to live: alone. And there would be works of art on the walls and books everywhere and there would be an Englishness about the place, the smell of coal fires, a damp dusk settling against the windows, the sound of rain against the glass. Hawker would have been an officer, of course, served in Gallipoli, not France – there had to be some little difference between Paul and him. Or perhaps he had served in Palestine, in Egypt, and they would talk about those countries, the pyramids that had so impressed Paul that for once he didn’t care about the heat or the flies or that he was so far from home. You’re home now, Hawker would say. Paul would nod, realising it at last, such a sweet realisation: home.
Patrick sat down on the chair Hawker pulled out for him. He heard the man laugh nervously. ‘You look rather shattered.’ He went to a cupboard, brought out two glasses and a bottle of brandy. ‘Here,’ he handed him a glass. ‘Sorry about that lout out there.’
Patrick took a sip of the brandy; it was expensive – the brandy they would serve in the officers’ mess. He should look at Hawker properly, not sideways, not snatching quick, reluctant glances. He should know what he was really up against. Meeting his gaze he said, ‘Do you know where Francis is?’
‘Paul – sorry – I know him as Paul … Does he prefer Francis? He never said –’
‘Do you know where he is?’
The man held his gaze; he seemed to be sizing him up; certain officers would do this: look him up and down, up and down, speculating as if he was a bull in a cattle market. Are you a sound man, sergeant? Able to get the job done, what? Tossers. He swallowed his drink, put down his glass and stood up. ‘I’ll go back to the hotel, wait for him there.’
He swayed, lack of sleep, of food, the brandy coursing through him, made him hold on to the back of the chair, flimsy under his weight. He felt Hawker’s hand on his arm.
‘Whoa. Steady. Don’t want you breaking anything … Sit down, sit down, for pity’s sake. You look done in to me. Get your breath back, eh? Good man.’
‘Don’t good man me!’
Hawker held up his hands. ‘All right – sit down.’ He shook his head. ‘Figure of speech – perhaps you aren’t a good man – who knows?’ He smiled at him, a joker; the worst type of officer was the type who made jokes.
Patrick sat, all the exhaustion, all the worry and jealousy bowing him. Another glass of brandy was put into his hands, Hawker’
s voice more gentle as he said, ‘Paul – Francis – is fine. No doubt he’ll be delighted to see you.’
Hawker sat down behind his desk. He lit a cigarette and pushed the box and lighter towards him. ‘Francis sold out on the night. Great success.’
Patrick thought of his own portrait, how Paul had made him look bolder than he was: idealised, although Paul had argued with him over this. It’s just how I see you, Patrick, just how you are. But he was wrong; it was as though Paul didn’t know him at all because he didn’t see how scared he was, how angry and jealous and scared: wasn’t an artist supposed to see more, understand more?
He looked down at his drink, swirling it around and around like some connoisseur warming the alcohol between his hands, releasing the brandy’s aroma; this is what he’d seen other men do, at home in Tangiers, in houses where Paul was the little star to be remarked on, marvelled at; where he was Paul’s guard, watching him, watching him, never more than a few steps away from him. He tasted the brandy, a sip, he could get drunk, falling-down drunk, something he rarely did, drunk with this man, this ex-officer with his mess voice, his lightness and jokes, his straightness. This man would be a welcome change of company: he’d had enough of bent men who looked at Paul, looked and looked and whispered behind their hands to each other, smirking, wondering which of them would get to him first.
Patrick reached for a cigarette and his hands trembled over the lighter. All the time he knew Hawker was watching him, wondering who this man was sitting trembling in his office. But Hawker knew who he was – he’d seen the picture: Paul’s lover. He felt ashamed, even though he wasn’t ashamed, not of himself: of Paul, perhaps that was it: Paul’s bad behaviour shamed him. His only compensation was that he would never have to see that bloody picture again.
Hawker said, ‘You didn’t tell me your name.’
‘Morgan.’
‘Is that it? Come on – we’re not on parade.’
‘Patrick.’
‘He told me you have a beautiful home in Tangiers, a haven he called it. I very much liked his pictures of the birds and the fountain, the fig tree … They’re not sold, didn’t go in the exhibition, I’m saving them for another kind of show … I do hope there will be another show, more of the fountain, more of the flora and fauna, if you will – very decorative, very lovely.’ After a moment he said, ‘Those other pictures of the soldiers – the ones I did sell – have a market. I can sell those kind of paintings easily. Not sure it’s what he should be doing, though. Perhaps it was something he needed to get out of his system, eh?’
Patrick made to stand, but couldn’t find the strength. ‘I should be back at the hotel.’
‘Plenty of time. Perhaps you should eat first. There’s quite a decent little place round the corner. If I were you I’d get a good meal inside me, get some rest. In the morning –’
‘The morning? I’ll see him before then – he’ll be back at the hotel.’
‘Yes, of course.’
Patrick saw how awkward Hawker was, unable to look at him now. Flatly he said, ‘He’s with someone.’
Hawker shook his head as though all at once exasperated by him and everyone else in the world. ‘I don’t know if he is with someone. I don’t know – and even if I did know … Listen, he may be back at the hotel, it’s really none of my business.’
Hawker saw him out. At the door on to the street he said, ‘I’m pleased to have met you.’ He shook his hand. ‘Tell Paul – Francis – about the bird pictures. Remind him, would you?’
Patrick walked back in the direction of the hotel, buttoning his coat, pulling on his gloves – May, but England was cold, the drizzling rain meeting his expectations. The street was filthy; the wind rolled an empty beer bottle into the gutter where there was a kind of black soil, slimy-looking, stinking. On the side of a pawn shop was an advertisement hoarding for Hovis Bread – golden wheat, blue skies and yellow sun, the colours garish and ugly in the greyness and making everything else uglier. This country! This bloody hole he’d almost got himself killed for, for nothing – nothing! This country was nothing but weather and cold and hatred and spite, nothing but men spitting out wog, queer, don’t-turn-your-back-on-me-fucking-queer.
He heard footsteps running behind him and turned, instinctively ready to fight; but it was the young woman from the gallery. She put her hand to her chest, gasping for breath. She was blonde and pale, frail-looking, as though she needed the sun, some warmth in her bones. Breathlessly she said, ‘Patrick?’
He stepped back from her because the momentum of her running seemed to have brought her to a stop too close to him and because she had that smell English women had: cheap perfume hiding a faint whiff of sweat. Kohl was smudged around her eyes and her wispy hair was escaping from its grips; there was that hint of drunkenness he’d noticed in the gallery. No more than a child, he thought, a waif. He put out his hand to steady her because she looked as though she might collapse.
‘Patrick?’
‘Yes.’
On a rush she said, ‘I know where Paul is.’
Patrick wanted to walk away, to have nothing to do with this girl and her tales. But she was shivering; he couldn’t help but think he should take off his coat and put it around her shoulders, but it would swamp her and trail to the filthy pavement. A few doors away a pub cast an oblong of stencilled light on to the street. She glanced towards it, repeating, ‘I know where he is.’
‘All right,’ he said. ‘Let’s get out of this cold.’
The pub was like those in Thorp, one pub in particular, all dark wood and dimly lit corners, where he would meet Paul from time to time, as though they were two old comrades out sharing reminiscences; and who would suspect them of anything else: Morgan, the big, burly butcher, Mr Harris, schoolmaster, with a wife and a baby on the way. You’d have to be a suspicious bugger to suspect anything, but all the same they’d had to keep to themselves, pretend. The pretending was a waste of their precious time, it got so they didn’t bother with the pub any more, got so that their lives became only the flat above his butcher’s shop, only its bedroom, the bed, the dip in the mattress where they rolled together, so close, so close, not a breath between them.
At the bar, Patrick glanced back at the girl, Ann, settling herself in a seat in the far corner by the fire, blindly pinning back a strand of her hair, dabbing at her eyes as though she guessed the black had ran. She’d asked for a port and lemon, reminding him of his mother, a sweet drink for a sweet drinking woman. His mother had had the same vulnerable look this girl had, too. He sighed, taking out his wallet and handing the barman his money. He looked along the bar where meat pies were arranged under a glass dome, pale, lardy-looking, a hole in the centre of each one where the gravy had bubbled through burnt and sticky. He wondered if he was hungry enough and decided he was. He bought two and another for the girl because she looked half-starved.
Settled with their drinks, the pies on plates in front of them, Patrick took out his cigarettes and lit one, offering the packet to the girl as an afterthought. She shook her head shyly like one of those little girls who would hold his hand in the school playground when he was a child.
Quickly she said, ‘Lawrence told me you were looking for Paul. I know where he is. I know who he’s with.’
Patrick picked up his drink only to put it down again; he should eat first. There was no knife to cut the pie, no napkin; this was a pub in England, what did he expect? The girl shifted beside him, so awkward in his presence he could hardly bear to look at her; he wondered what her motivation could be for chasing after him like this, only to make sense of it, only wondering at how slow-witted he was: Paul had snatched away some boy she loved.
He pulled the pie towards him, pushed it away again, thinking he should go to the bar and ask for a knife and fork or would they have him drip gravy down his chin, down his shirt? And then how would he appear to Paul, who was so neat and precise?
The girl said, ‘Did you hear me? I know where Paul is.’
He turned to her; she was pretty, more than pretty; even with her eyes smudged and red from crying he could see that she was delicately beautiful, with no breasts to speak of, no soft curves, the kind of girl certain types of men would be attracted to. She dropped her gaze from his. Making trouble obviously didn’t come naturally to her because it seemed to him that she was regretting this, afraid of him and what he might do. Perhaps she had expected him to be the mincing nancy-boy of happy imagination, not someone who was capable of smashing her lover’s face to a pulp.
His cigarette had burnt down almost to nothing, most of it wasted, forgotten. He stubbed it out, saying, ‘Are you hungry? I’ll fetch some knives and forks. Do you think they have napkins? Maybe that’s too much to ask.’
‘I’m not hungry.’
He looked at the pies; it had been a long time since he had eaten English food. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I don’t think I’m hungry, either.’ He sipped his beer, piss-poor London beer, but all the same he could drain it in one, return to the bar for another. He wondered if it would be better to be drunk when he finally faced Paul, better to rage and throw his fists about and put an end to the tension that had grown between them since Paul had decided to come here. And if he did behave so badly Paul might decide to stay. Best not to be drunk, then, but to behave properly and with dignity; his dignity had always been his best weapon.
He said, ‘You’re from Belfast, aren’t you? My mother came from Belfast. She’d take me to see my grandmother for the summer holidays and I’d come back with the same accent you have.’
She glanced at him, only to look away as though even meeting his eye was inappropriately familiar. Quickly she said, ‘What will you do?’
‘About what?’
‘Paul.’
He laughed shortly. ‘Take him home.’
‘Do you want me to tell you where he is?’
‘Maybe he’s back at his hotel, eh?’
All the Beauty of the Sun Page 25
