A warm, anxious mouth brushed his.“Laurie.I wish I could tell you everyfucked-up thing that had happened in my life.But I can’t.Some ofit hurts too much, and the rest…”
Laurieopened his eyes.He was wide-awake now.He shook his head, denyingto Sash the necessity.Laurie seized him as he leaned to kiss himagain, and they went at one another fiercely, hard enough to driveoff this new demon.It was just the frantic shove of cock tocock—echo of their first encounter, in a bed as strange to Sasha asthis one now was to Laurie—but the fire leaped high, running hotterfor their moment’s discord.
The bedbegan to creak rhythmically beneath them, forcing both to brieflaughter.Sasha shoved the one thin pillow behind the headboard toprevent it from slamming.He twisted back down into the bed androlled under, dragging Laurie on top.Laurie felt the intoxicatinglift of Sasha’s thighs, embracing his hips and then his waist, andsuddenly understood how they could fuck like this.But that was foranother time, if God sent them one, and from now on he was makingno assumptions.Sasha was emitting choked cries, writhing upagainst him.He clasped at Laurie’s backside, pulling him intoplace.Laurie thought they would come over straightaway, but on newinstinct both of them held off, gasping and struggling, clinging tothe safe side of climax, where thought was impossible and the worlda dream.
* **
Lauriebegan life in this real world.On the first morning, he had barelytaken his jacket off in the spotlit dark of the Empire before Mr.Jacobs appeared at his side, expression anxious.“Well?”he said toLaurie, trailing him down the aisle.“Mrs.J nearly had meconvinced last night that I’d hired a fluke who just happened tohave learned a few good lines.And, incidentally, rejected half ofnorthwest London’s real young acting talent.”
Lauriecame to a halt.He loved the smell of velvet and dust that filledold playhouses like this.He thought of all the time he had spent,breathing this natural atmosphere, the only one that really fedhim, hiding in the shadows.He wondered at the transfiguring forceof necessity.He turned to Mr.Jacobs, one eyebrow on the rise, notat all minding his qualms.“Is that what you think?”hesaid.
“Well, you did get a tiny bit of warning yesterday of where toshine in.”Jacobs shrugged half-apologetically.“But suppose I wereto say to you now—oh, I don’t know—the ghost scene, for example,or—”
“The ghost scene.”Laurie smiled.Already he could feel thechill in the air, the shiver in the roots of his hair as Elsinore’sbleak halls prepared to unveil their secret.He put out a courteoushand, gesturing to Jacobs to sit down, then dodged through theorchestra pit and vaulted up onto the stage.Mr.Barnes, retiredaccountant, was leaning on a crate in the wings, drinking hiscoffee and having a glance at theGuardian.Laurie seized him gently byboth shoulders.He was meant to be Claudius, but Horatio’s lines atthis point were short and memorable, and Laurie was willing to bethe’d have a go.He swung the man out onto the stage, coffee mug andall.“Angels and ministers of grace defend us!”he cried, pointingto an empty space in the air with such utter conviction that Barnesgave a genuine shudder.Laurie skipped and abridged through to theend of Hamlet’s horrified observations on the ghost—reducedShakespeare again—and delivered Barnes his prompt line, clutchinghim in terror, as if both their lives depended on it.“It beckonsyou to go away with it,” Barnes gasped, pointing too, kneesbuckling a little, “as if it some impartment did desire to youalone!”He stopped and looked at Laurie, plainly pleased withhimself.“I didn’t know I knew that.”
“You probably know it all,” Laurie told him, grinning.“It’sjust a case of being passionate—or scared—enough to get it out.”Heglanced around to Jacobs and saw that half a dozen actors and alady with a mop had also arrived to stare in apprehension at theapparition he’d called up.Jacobs gave him a small bow, which hebriefly returned.If they had been soldiers, Laurie thought, theywould have exchanged a salute, one to another.He released Mr.Barnes and stood quietly.“What would you like me todo?”
Jacobs set him to work for the next three days with thosewhose personalities did not unfathomably hive off into separateShakespearean entities upon demand.Laurie knew how it felt, to befrozen with terror in the wings, and, aware that his own gift forlearning dialogue was almost preternatural, was willing to passlong hours on the prompter’s stool, showing his talented buthigh-strung little Ophelia how best to string concept to concept,line to line, to get herself through her scenes.Even such noblesas Gertrude and Claudius—hairdressers and solicitors by day—werenot too proud to drop by for these lessons, and Mr.Jacobs watchedin wonder as his hard-worked troupe began to give him back sonearly accurate a version ofHamletas to make him believe they might actually beready for their opening night.
Eachnight Laurie made his way back to the flat.He walked.Bus faresacross even that distance were expensive, and he was spinning outthe remains of his advance.Sasha had been right.Twenty pounds wasnot broke at all, and something in the action of walking home beganto reconcile him to the street, the approach to it through the mazeof others just like it a route that could only be learned byexperience.Now he was part of the crowd that forged up and downits pavements.Each night he told himself that he was not expectingSasha to appear, and this became his talisman, a silent mantra.Ifhe did not expect, he could not be disappointed, and his solitudewould not get the chance to consume him.He wouldn’t expect.Hewouldn’t push.
On thefirst night, the faint, hesitant tap at the door came after he’dbeen home for half an hour, diligently warming the place up andcooking himself a sensible meal from a recipe suggested on the ricepack.Sasha stood outside, a rucksack over his shoulder, whichturned out to contain more groceries, as well as the dried herbsfrom which Mama Luna made her poultice.Laurie tried to pay but wasonly too happy to accept Sasha’s suggestion that they sharewhatever he was cooking up instead.There was certainly plenty.Laurie tried to tell himself that the excess was only down to hisincompetence, not a hopeful doubling up of ingredients.Sashastayed till late that night but, just after eleven, broke fromtheir heated tangle on the sofa and excused himself to catch hislast bus with a fierce restraint that Laurie did not darequestion.
Did notwant to question, he told himself.Sasha was a free agent.He hadnever promised Laurie anything.And Laurie—or at least he toldhimself so, settling alone into the chilly single bed—had neverexpected Sasha to make himself responsible for him.Sasha had urgedhim to leave home, but the decision to do so—or at any rate, not toreturn—had been Laurie’s alone.
They hadnever talked about what they were to one another.Laurie had nevereven thought about it, till loneliness and fear had begun to makehim yearn to have some tangible thing to call his own—a boyfriend,a lover, whatever labels the world might choose.He could see theworld’s need for them now, and he was ashamed.On the second night,he made even less of an assumption and did not start cooking atall.He was fine, tired enough to sprawl on the sofa and not mindone way or the other if he did so all night alone.He was doingwell, he thought, and that illusion lasted him until the soft rapat the door brought him off the sofa and upright in one barelyvoluntary pounce, convinced it was almost midnight, dismayed to seethat only one bloody hour had passed since he had sat down.Thistime Sasha had clothes in the rucksack—T-shirts, underwear, and thecashmere sweater Laurie had given him.Being asked to accept thisdisturbed Laurie’s composure; it had been a gift.But he could seethe sense.He had been getting by in the shirt and jeans he’d lefthome in, washing out his boxers and leaving them to dry by the fireeach night.Sasha, reading his face, kissed him and told him thesweater was only a loan—he’d never owned anything so lovely in hislife and damn well wanted it back—and Laurie’s ice melted in a rushthat knocked them both to the mildewed carpet.
Butoutside of passion, he would not push.Over breakfast that morning,he offered Sasha one of the free tickets he’d been given for thatnight’s opening performance.Sasha went pale and told himhesitantly that large crowds in enclosed places scared him.Laurieonly nodded.They were elbow to elbow at the little kitchen table.Sasha said, “Laurie, if ever I…needed to go away, if I wasn’there…you’d be okay, wouldn’t you?”
Laurieswallowed.He looked around the room.Sasha had brought a pottedplant along with his supplies the day before.It sat on the kitchenwindowsill, a green splash in the gray morning light.He didn’tknow if it was just habituation, but the place didn’t seem sosordid to him anymore.It had begun, in some plangent, sharp-edgedway he had never known before, to look like home.“It wouldn’t befor long,” Sasha said, “and I’d come back to you, I promise.Canyou trust me?”
“Yes,” Laurie whispered.He locked his hands together under thetable, where Sasha would not see.He wouldn’t even ask a question.“Yes.”
* **
The opening night ofHamletbrought a fair crowd to the Empire.Jacobs had areputation for getting a good show out of his semi-amateur troupe,and the area was in that state of gentrification which could bringlarge numbers conscientiously away from their TV sets on a coldnight for a new show.
Padding about in the wings, automatically helping out withprops and backgrounds despite Mr.Jacobs’s efforts to make himbehave a bit more like his lead actor, Laurie watched them gather.They were not like the languid little groups that used toaccumulate in the Twilight, all cocktail frocks and tuxedos, ontheir way to late suppers at the Ivy.Earnestwas the best word Lauriecould think of to describe the crowd filtering through to theirseats now.Middle-class, well-intentioned, determined to supportcommunity drama.Dressed much as they would be for the office, andmost of them probably came straight from there.A lot of them hadkids in tow, something Laurie seldom saw in the West End, forShakespeare at least.
He sawhis fellow cast members watching their arrival too, and noted palefaces and nervous sweats with compassion.For himself, he wasn’tbothered.He had a kingdom in the balance.His mother had barelywaited till his father’s corpse was cold in its grave before takingup with that noble creature’s shuffling toad of a brother,something that struck him as bordering on incest.He was filledwith unease and disgust and wonder at the strangeness of theworld.
Mr.Jacobs, watching his makeup artist begin work on Laurie, hadstopped her after the first few dabs of greasepaint.Whoever he hadhired on the off chance four days ago, the man sitting in the chairsurrounded by glaring bulbs and mirrors now was, apparently, theyoung prince of Denmark, and to paint him would be the gilding ofthe strangest lily Jacobs had ever seen.As for the bruising—well,the director had always found Hamlet a sufficiently annoying youngman that he might well have got in a ruck with the other Wittenbergstudents before returning to Elsinore.Budget restraints keptcostume to a minimum too, and so when Hamlet took the stage withClaudius and Gertrude for his first scene, he was simply Laurie inblack shirt and jeans, nobility suggested by a thin gold coronetthat was one of the Empire’s few authentic and valuable props.ButLaurie was gone.Hamlet walked quietly to the stone bench, satdown, and delivered his first line, and the audience, still alittle restive with arrivals, coats, and cough drops, fellsilent.
Only forone instant did he return to his flesh.He had given his sparetickets to Ophelia, and her proud parents were beaming at her fromthe second row.Laurie understood Sasha could not have sat there,damp from the car wash, all on his own amid the doctors and socialworkers.What he had not predicted was that he would look up andsee him standing in the back, at the auditorium’s farthest reach,leaning on a pillar and smiling.Hamlet muffed his line—just one,and a kind of sympathetic exhalation left the crowd’s collectivelungs, a relief that this eerily good unknown was human after all,just a boy, not the reincarnation of a prince they had been broughtup to believe was fictional.Laurie smiled back at Sasha—one brightflash—and picked up the beat.
* **
Hesearched for Sasha after the show.Throwing a jacket on over hisshirt, he ran down the back steps into the car park, then up againto see if he was in the foyer or caught in the crowd on the mainsteps.He saw occasional faces flash surprised recognition athim—felt his sleeve caught, kindly words he could hardly rememberdeserving following him in the air.“It’s him, Mum.Look, it’sHamlet.”He paused to throw a smile back at a little girl whoseresemblance to Clara placed a new knife in his heart, but he didnot stop.Only when the theatre and its surrounding streets werealmost empty did he come to a ragged, breathless halt by the boxoffice, wrapping his arms over his chest.
Softfootsteps approached him from behind, and he whipped around.But itwas only the director’s assistant, Alison, her sweet face creasedin a puzzled smile.“Laurie!What are you doing outhere?”
“Nothing.Er…looking for someone.Why?”
“Because he wants to see you.They all do.”
“Who?”Laurie asked stupidly.His mind tried to twist theuniverse into the shape where Sasha had somehow made his waybackstage to find him.Sent the cast and crew out tolook…
“Mr.Jacobs,” Alison said.“He’s bouncing off the walls.You’dbetter come on.”
