“Your… Okay.Who’s Mabel?”
“The housekeeper.”
“You really are like something out of a book, you know.And…theold goat?”
“My father, I suppose.I had no idea they called himthat.”
A snortof laughter escaped Sasha.Laurie, who’d been seriously frightened,made a desperate grab for sobriety, but the sound infected him in aflash, and they fell to their knees together, tangling in thecramped space.“Oh, God!”he choked.“We can’t do this.We can’t dothis, Sash.We’re gonna get caught.We can get away with theclasses maybe, but not the fooling around afterward.”
Hetrailed off, wondering what sort of a spectacle he presented,flushed and sprawled in his corner, erection dying an uncomfortabledeath in his jeans.But however he looked, Sasha didn’t seem tofind it off-putting.Instead he smiled at him as if he were theloveliest sight in the world and said, on a note of rough longing,“I think I’d rather have the fooling around.”
“Oh, me too,” Laurie whispered, embarrassed by the longing inhis voice.Sasha would always look bloody elegant, wouldn’t he?Dying on the pavement in Gyorgy’s arms, he had formed a sort ofpietà in Laurie’s memory, and even now, half in and half out of theborrowed sweater, irresistible.“But that’s not gonna get you ajob, is it?”
“Depends what kind you… Wait, though,” Sasha said, smilingbroadly.“I have one.I meant to tell you.A real one, washing carsat a while-you-wait.I had an address, because of you, so theycould hire me.”
“A…car wash?”Laurie stared at him.He knew the kind of places.They mushroomed up overnight and disappeared just as fast, usuallywhen immigration shut them down.“Sasha, no.They’ll exploit you.What are you doing—ten-hour shifts for fifteen pounds aday?”
“Twenty, actually.It’s not so bad—I can pay some rent on a bedin a van and spend the rest on food and coming here.What more do Ineed?”He reached out to cup Laurie’s face in his hands and kissedhim fervently.“I’m doing fine.I’m doing better than you, mybeautiful captive prince.”
Closinghis eyes, Laurie submitted to the warm mouth exploring hisown—leaving it to brush over his eyelids, his brow, as if trying toerase the marks of his imprisonment—until the touch becameunbearable, threatened to crack him to tears or roll them both downonto the utility room floor and to hell with the consequences.Laurie pushed him reluctantly back.“God, Sasha.Stop.I’m notgonna risk you.”
“All right.But promise me, Laurie, you’ll think about gettingout of here somehow.Run away with the gypsies, if it comes tothat.Anything’s better than a cage.”He took Laurie’s hands.“Isaw how you looked when you thought it was your father coming downthose stairs.”Letting Laurie go, he turned away.
Lauriewatched him getting dressed, slipping out of the beautiful,tailored things and into his street clothes.“Will you come againtomorrow?For the class?”
Zippingup the parka, Sasha nodded.“Yes.For the class.Thank you,Laurie.”
“Thankyou.I’ve spent nearly five years failing trig.Be careful at your carwash, will you?They raid those places.And…” He dug in his jeanspocket, pulled out his wallet.Sasha’s face immediately shadowed,but he forged on, “It must be costing you nearly twenty bloody quidto get here and back.At least buy yourself a fare card for theTube.”
* **
The nextday Sasha was there, and the next, and so they began a strange kindof routine.Sasha would make his dash across the city between hissplit shifts at the car wash, leave his clothes—often damp andsoap-stained, but at least he had more than one set of them now—inthe utility room, and turn up on the top floor, insouciant andsmiling, every inch the foreign prince.Laurie varied the things heleft for him, and if Sanderson ever noticed they shared clothes, henever saw fit to mention it.He seemed only too glad to havesomeone in the class who kept his pupil happy and alert, especiallywhen Clara’s social engagements kept her away.Sanderson alsoseemed genuinely intrigued by his new charge’s ability to transformabstracts into concrete situations that Laurie, who had beenfloundering, would then grasp easily.Within a week, they weresomewhere near the point in the syllabus they should have been twoweeks ago, and catching up rapidly.Laurie could read the relief inSanderson’s face and the set of his shoulders.If Sasha had goneabout his magic arrogantly, it would have humiliated Sandy, but theboy had a gift of presenting his ideas so quietly and obliquelythat he often left Sanderson to think he’d come up with themhimself.Laurie concluded that diplomacy must run in theblood.
ForLaurie, these days were sharp-edged joy.He opened his eyes eachmorning knowing Sasha would come—the dangers of his worldpermitting.That he would be able to sit with Sasha, elbow toelbow, watching his face become intent and pleased as one afteranother of Sanderson’s mysteries opened out before him—and thatthis would be all the contact they would have.That he would walkSasha down the corridor after the class but leave him, with rigiddiscipline, to run down the steps on his own.He could move like aghost, Laurie knew.For all his own grace, Laurie had never had tolearn the skills of prey.If he went with Sasha, he would at leastdouble their noise.
And maketheir partings even harder.
Sometimes Sasha stole a kiss—or bestowed one—on the thresholdof their separate worlds and gave him a look that told Laurieplainly that he would gladly trade their classroom afternoons forone refugee night.Laurie would ease him back, eyes closing inhunger and pain.Although he had no very clear idea of how thistuition would help Sasha out of his car wash and into some betterlife, he was grimly determined that Sasha should have the chance.The tension rose between them.Laurie wondered sometimes that Sandydid not feel it, the crackle in the air, although the two of themsat like demure English gentlemen throughout, only the occasionalbrush of hand to hand flashing off silent sparks.
The daysflowed on, one to the next, shortening as the year got old, untilone freezing, brilliant afternoon, Sanderson announced he had toleave early and would be setting a batch of exercises to becompleted in his absence.Laurie glanced up, caught Sasha’s eye,and quickly looked down at the page once more.Sasha was lookingwell these days.He rippled with energy, and at times his gazewould shine with a pure gypsy glimmer—mischief and promise, strangedark fires.Laurie’s self-control was disintegrating.The obviousoutlet was no longer enough, and he seldom bothered touchinghimself, alone in his room after those silent partings; he couldremember too clearly the real thing.
Nevertheless when Sanderson had gone, Laurie turned hisattention to the task.They both did—Sasha in companionable silenceat his side, occasionally stopping his own work to explain toLaurie what x would do toy/zif these various quantities were weights,measures, cranes, cars, spaceships, instead of inscrutable littleglyphs on a textbook page.Once he was done, he slipped away fromLaurie as if aware of his power to distract him, and went to sitquietly on the window ledge, looking out into the sun.
Laurieslogged on for a while.Sasha made things easier, but Laurie’d hada long morning before he arrived, and his head was pounding dully.Eventually bogging down, he sighed and rubbed his hands across hisface.When he looked up, he saw Sasha had turned and was watchinghim, poised catlike on the ledge, his arms wrapped around one knee.Laurie pushed aside his book and faced him, smiling, waiting withinterest to hear his conclusions.
“Tired,” Sasha said.“Bored, frustrated.And pale, even for agajo.Would you be missed if you vanished for theafternoon?”
Laurie gave it thought—or tried to.His heart had suddenlybumped up into the base of his throat.He said carefully, after awhile, “By Clara, maybe.Otherwise, I don’t think I’d bemissedas such if Ivanished into thin fucking air and never came back.”
Sashanodded, weighing this statement for all its bitter worth.“Allright,” he said.“Come with me.”
Chapter Six
He hadbought a fare card, and Laurie had one too, for the rare occasionswhen he had to use public transport.The tickets took them all theway out on the northwest wing of the Tube network, from the centralzone onto the overground stretch past Finchley Road.Seated besideSasha on the rattling, bumping train, Laurie smiled as the tunnelabruptly disappeared, shooting them out into the light.He’d neverbeen this far out on the Metropolitan before, and the sight ofunknown streets, long terraces, and allotments flashing past—baretrackside trees, factories, the occasional glimpse of water—setinside him a bright sense of freedom.His headache evaporated,leaving him spaced-out, exhilarated, the press of Sasha’s shoulderto his own completing the high.Sasha, too, after making his usualscan of the carriage and platforms, was looking out the window, butLaurie could feel at least as much of his attention smilingly fixedon himself, probably in amusement at his town-boy reactions to newscenes.
Laurie felt an irresistible urge to touch him, to find hishand in the hidden space between their bodies.When he did, Sashaturned to him, silently questioning, eyes full of assent.He drewtheir joined hands out so both were lying on his lap, and Laurie,after flinching in shock, gave thought to the public displays ofintimacy he’d seen on buses, tubes, and London’s streets over theyears.Not just boys with girls, either.Late at night, the clubsemptying, young men too embraced each other.He’d averted his eyes,telling himself it wasn’t right, in the open like that—wondering atthe same time if the grapes were only sour becausehedidn’t have anyone tokiss half to death on a street corner.He looked at his hand, bonyand pale in Sasha’s.His father, as far as he knew, did not own theTube network.The carriage was almost empty at this hour.Only acouple of old ladies sat with their backs to them down at the otherend.Extracting his hand, Laurie took hold of the seat bar behindthem.He hauled himself up onto one knee against the jolting of thecarriage, leaned over Sasha, and kissed him, feeling his head spinat the heat of him, the longed-for returning press of his mouth.Sasha’s hands came up in welcome, steadying him, clasping in hisjacket.Laurie could also feel laughter shaking him and, after amoment, drew back, smiling too.“What?”
“You.Very bold.”
