All the Beauty of the Sun (4 page)

Chapter Five

T
HE NEXT MORNING IN
the bookshop Edmund hung back in the storeroom, unwilling to show his face to the few customers who ventured in out of the rain. Occasionally, if there was more than one customer waiting, Barnes would call him in his brisk shop voice, only to make no comment when he slunk back into the storeroom after the shop had emptied again.

Pretending to catalogue books, most of the time he stared out of the storeroom window overlooking the back yard. He watched a cat stalk a fat pigeon and when his breath misted the glass he rubbed it away only for it to mist again, so he drew a smiling face in the condensation and then watched as the smile slowly trickled out of shape. He listened to Barnes moving about the shop, jumped a little each time the bell on the shop door rang, dreading Barnes' call. Barnes was behaving with great discretion, and he was grateful for this. But it was also as if he knew what had happened last night, as though he could smell it on him; if this was so, all Barnes had been was sympathetic. But it was this sympathy he couldn't stand: men like Barnes weren't supposed to pity men like him.

Late morning, Barnes appeared in the storeroom doorway. ‘I'm having a cup of tea, if you'd like one?'

‘No, thank you.'

Barnes gazed at him. ‘Would you like to go home?'

‘No.'

‘Are you sure?'

‘Yes, I'm fine.'

The older man nodded. Touching his own eye, he said, ‘It looks painful.' He sighed. ‘If it was down to me you could stay in here all day if you wished, and I'm sure even the customers you've served hardly noticed – they barely see us at the best of times – but Mr Graham is coming in this afternoon to do the banking and if he saw you with that black eye …'

‘I should go then, shouldn't I?'

‘Yes, I think so. I'll tell him you were taken ill.'

Edmund fetched his coat. Following him to the door, Barnes said, ‘Stay out of trouble, eh? I'd like to see you back here, when you feel you can face it.'

He went to a Lyon's Corner House and, although the waitress looked at him sideways, no one else took any notice of him. He was a young man with a black eye, a common enough sight he supposed on a Saturday morning. He touched his eye gingerly; the swelling had gone down a little. When the waitress brought his tea he caught sight of his contorted reflection in the metal teapot and touched his face again. He had a feeling that he had become someone else; this face was not the one he was used to. This feeling had nothing to do with the black and blue bruising: his body felt changed too, as though a defter, more imaginative god had remade him.

When Paul turned to him from closing the hotel room door, even in the dim light Edmund had the impression he'd been crying. But he had been his old self then and had said nothing; besides, of course Harris hadn't been crying and even if he had it was none of his business. He didn't even feel concerned, only went to the bed and sat down on its edge without acknowledging Paul, without looking at him, embarrassed in every way, by everything, not least by the shabbiness of the room and of Paul himself. Without his jacket, collar and tie, without his shoes, with his braces hanging at his sides and his sleeves rolled up, Paul looked too ordinary, dishevelled, like nothing, nobody. He wasn't beautiful – that ridiculous, over-blown word – just a skinny nonentity. Even his voice seemed to have changed, as though he didn't have to disguise his northern accent now other pretences were done with. Here he was, in the rough, and Edmund could only feel appalled.

He had imagined standing up, walking to the door, leaving, all without looking at him, without a word. But Paul was standing over him; if he were to leave it would mean an awkward, clumsy business of stepping around him because he was standing so close, so close; he sensed Paul looking at him. He should say something, just some ordinary remark to break this silence. He suspected that Paul was smiling at him, his smile becoming strained as his silence went on, a shame because when he arrived his smile had been so welcoming, flattering because he seemed so pleased that he had come. This man had been unsure of him after all and now he seemed unsure even of himself, gauche, even; and that voice of his – not officer class, not any class at all that he could rank him by. This voice was softer, with none of its earlier, edgy irony that had made Edmund feel so ready to despise him.

Paul had walked around the bed then and lain down, taking his cigarettes from his pocket and lighting one. It was as though Paul had decided that he could stay or go and it would be just the same to him. Edmund had turned to look at him; outside the clouds had cleared the bright face of a full moon, and this uncommon light made the sculptured quality of his face even starker, like that of a statue on the new war memorials that were being erected everywhere; he thought of his paintings of soldiers and how he had made them look like wistful boys. He thought how he could go on looking at him, mesmerized by his extraordinary beauty.

Edmund lay down beside him, as close as he dared, shy as he hadn't been since he'd left school. Paul passed him his cigarette and it went between them until all that remained could be pinched out between his finger and thumb, until there was only the taste left and the thought that in a moment he would light another … in a little while, there was no hurry. Edmund closed his eyes, and felt the bed shift beneath him as Paul began on the buttons of his shirt.

He thought about stopping him, grasping his wrist and holding it tightly, twisting his flesh, saying that he wasn't like him, wasn't sick and perverted like him; yet he was lying on a bed beside him, eyes closed against responsibility because he was like him, really, and he wanted him, all of him; he had never felt so greedy in his life.

* * *

Afterwards Edmund had dozed, only to be disturbed by the sound of a tap running. Naked, he had got up. Standing in the bathroom doorway, he had seen Paul holding his false eye beneath the stream of water before returning it to the socket. Catching sight of Edmund's reflection in the mirror above the sink Paul looked down quickly and turned off the tap.

Embarrassed, Edmund had said lightly, ‘I didn't notice your eye when we met, even in the restaurant –'

‘You're not meant to notice.' He had glanced at Edmund's reflection in the mirror and it seemed as though he didn't want him there, that he had angered him in some way. He had certainly sounded angry as he'd said, ‘But now you can't take your eyes off it.' Brushing past him into the bedroom, naked too and seeming to take care not to touch him at all, Paul snapped, ‘Are you staying or going?'

‘Staying, if that's all right.'

‘Then for God's sake get back into bed.'

In the café, Edmund remembered that it was then that Paul had seemed ordinary again, and not only ordinary but awkward and angry, his too-thin body repellent. As though he had sensed his repulsion, Paul got into bed quickly, covering himself with the sheet before reaching for his cigarettes and lighting two at once, wordlessly holding one out to him. Edmund got into bed too, taking the cigarette although he hadn't wanted another. He allowed it to waste away between his fingers, all the time wondering what he might say to a man who seemed to him to be at turns ugly and breathtaking, as though Paul was two men and he could only see one of them at a time. Perhaps the duality was his own, a sudden schizophrenia triggered by too sudden feeling.

In the café Edmund poured his tea and wished he had ordered toast as his stomach growled hungrily, surprisingly – shouldn't he be robbed of his appetite? Stirring sugar into his cup he remembered how Paul had turned to him, seeming to make an effort to suppress the anger that had come over him so abruptly and finally breaking the silence Edmund hadn't known how to end.

‘Have you always lived in London, Edmund?'

Edmund had laughed; it seemed such a facile question, given the circumstances, as though they were strangers meeting at a dull party. Smiling, he turned to look at him, intending to ask if he would like a potted biography, but found that he could only look at him, and that nothing he might say could matter less. He supposed he was dumbstruck, ridiculous, because Paul laughed self-consciously as he said, ‘Don't look at me like that.'

He had looked away at once. ‘Sorry.'

‘It's disturbing.'

‘Sorry.'

Another silence expanded between them, one that this time grew until it seemed possible he would never be able to bring himself to speak to this man again, knowing what an idiot he had been with that look of his. He could imagine just
how
he had looked: his eyes all wide with amazement that he could want another person so badly. Desperately trying to think of something to say that would be light-hearted and not at all disturbing, he failed and so he repeated, ‘Sorry,' and then, out of masochistic politeness, asked, ‘Would you like me to go?'

‘No. I'd like you to stay. And you didn't answer my question. Have you always lived in London?'

‘Yes.'

Paul lit another cigarette. Exhaling smoke, he said, ‘And how old are you? Twenty-one? Twenty-two?'

Edmund laughed uncomfortably. ‘Why?'

‘Just wondering.'

Too quickly Edmund said, ‘Twenty-two next month.'

‘And what do you do? To earn a living, I mean.'

‘I work in a bookshop.'

‘Do you like it?'

‘Yes. Yes, actually I do.'

‘And you walk out with Ann.'

‘Walk out?'

‘I don't want to presume anything.'

‘Yes, we
walk out
.'

‘And what about your work, your painting – was she right about that? Have you given up?'

‘That's enough.' Agitated, Edmund had got up and begun to dress, hunting around the bed for his clothes. He sensed Paul watching him and wondered which Paul he would see if he dared to meet his gaze: a skinny, disfigured
queer,
he supposed, an impertinent queer who asked too many questions, one who must be some kind of magician to have made him imagine he was anything but ordinarily vile. This nasty little trickster had made him vile, too; he wondered how he would ever be able to hold his head up again.

He hadn't been able to find his socks. In the café, as he drank his tea, he wondered what would have happened if he had found them; no doubt he would have put them on quickly, shoved his feet into his shoes, run out the door. Odd that it hadn't occurred to him to put on his shoes
without
his socks. But looking for the socks had given him an excuse not to look at him, an excuse, he supposed, to be watched; it gave Paul an excuse to say something, perhaps even to ask him to stay.

But Paul had said nothing and finally Edmund had said, ‘Can you see my blasted socks?'

‘Were they thrown out the window in the heat of lust?'

‘Don't talk rot.'

‘Wear mine if you can find them.'

‘I don't want to wear your bloody socks!'

‘Then come back to bed.' After a moment he said less impatiently, ‘If you'd like me to help you look for your socks, I will, if you feel you really need to go.'

He had found himself standing at the end of the bed, half dressed, the cracked lino cold beneath his bare feet, his shirt hanging open to reveal his vest. The room stank of cigarettes and sex; he could still taste Paul. Remembering the feel of him in his mouth he closed his eyes, groaning with lust. ‘Oh, Christ.'

‘Come back to bed.'

‘I'm not like you.'

‘No, all right.'

‘I don't know if I can stand the sight of you.'

‘I could take out your eyes, if you like.'

Edmund had finally met his gaze. ‘I don't know what to do.'

‘Then perhaps it's best you go.'

‘No. I'll stay.'

His tea had grown cold. He caught the waitress's eye and asked for a jug of hot water and a round of toast. He watched her walk away, neat in her black dress and frilled white apron, although the cap she wore had slipped a little, one of her hair pins hanging redundantly beside her ear. She seemed a common little thing, really, the way she had made eyes at him, pert, easy to fuck and forget. He thought of Ann, who often took waitressing jobs, and was ashamed of himself.

He had climbed back into the bed and Paul had fucked him and he had realised how strong he was, hard and aggressive, not as gentle as he had been with Paul. He had been gentle because Paul had seemed so slight and easy to damage. No, that hadn't been gentleness; he had just been inept and shy, distracted by the inhibiting, amazed voice in his head asking what he thought he was doing.

There was no commentating voice when Paul broke into him. There was no thought of anything at all. He was nothing but flesh and breath and pain; he had not expected such exquisite pain, as though Paul would annihilate him, as though he would tear him apart if only he could be ruthless enough. Not so ruthless, though; he slowed, he murmured to him,
there, there, all right, all right, relax
,
relax
; there had been laughter in his voice; he stroked the back of his neck, his hair, whispered in his ear
there, there
as he became ruthless again, the bed banging against the wall so hard and fast that flakes of plaster fell down on their heads.

Edmund had tried to hold back, and it seemed that Paul had sensed this, slowing again, but he had already reached the edge, there was no control, no trick Edmund could play to keep from falling, no matter how much he wanted to stay teetering on the brink. Paul came too, allowing his weight to pin him down only for a moment before rolling on to his back, panting; Edmund could hear his triumph even in his breathlessness; he waited to hear him laugh, sure that he would.

Paul only reached for his hand and squeezed it. ‘All right?'

Too breathless to speak, Edmund shook his head. Eventually he managed, ‘Yes.'