Arnold exhaled.He folded forward over the table, breath stillleaving him in a long, whooshing sigh.To Laurie’s alarm, he beganto bang his forehead off the woodwork.“Ifyou accept,” he echoed, looking up atlength, his face a shade of puce not normally attained by humanskin.“Ifyou...Laurence.Darling boy.Make your press release.Marry yourboyfriend—at St Paul’s if you want—I’ll ring the fucking bellsmyself.Do any fucking thing you want to do, but take...this...part.”
Lauriesat with folded arms, his attention fixed on Sasha.“You knowwhat?”he said quietly after a moment.“There’s been more drama inthis kitchen this morning than the Queen’s and the Barbican puttogether.Arnold, don’t you have somewhere else you need tobe?”
“What?Oh!”Arnold sprang to his feet.“Yes, of course.Youwant to be alone, to talk about...hell, I don’t know.Weddingfavours.Guest lists.I’m out of here.Gone.”
***
Lauriereturned cautiously to the kitchen.He’d locked the outer dooragainst further traffic.His palms were damp, his chest tight.Sasha was there where he had left him.The Sunday morning world wasthe same, and yet Laurie knew that if he’d done anything to hurt ordisplease him, the sunlight and the birdsong would fall intoshadows and dust.He leaned against the wall: said, experimentally,“I do believe I might fire Arnie Hamlin.”
Sashalooked up.They seldom fought, he and Laurie.Sasha had lived fortoo long on the streets to be precious about interior decor,restaurant choices, any of the things their friends would squabbleover, and to pick a fight with Laurie—Sasha had never tried, buthe’d seen others do it—was like attempting to provoke agood-humoured chameleon.As for their serious issues, these hadbeen resolved amid bloodshed and gunfire two years before.They hadsimply lived together.Their peace and mutual devotion had madethem the wonder of those same quarrelsome friends.Theirs was anage for restlessness, playing the field, wild oats.“Don’t dothat.”Sasha cleared his throat, which seemed to have got cloggedwith London summer dust, or pollen from the plane trees outside.“At least—do whatever’s right, but not because of any effect youthink he might have had on me.”
“Didn’t he have one?I’ve been trying to ignore the fact, buthe’s a homophobe.”Laurie looked back over the scene.“Fire him?Ishould’ve slung him out the window.”
“You’d have had to pick him up first.By the time you’d found afork-lift truck, the spontaneity would’ve been gone.”
“Don’t make me laugh.I’m angry.How dare he talk about us—ourrelationship—like that?”
“I don’t care how he talks about it.I care about howyoudo.”Sasha got up.The movement was as quiet as his words, but still Laurie’s bloodran cold.“Don’t throw it around like that again.Not about usgetting married.”
“Fuck.”Laurie pressed his fingers to his lips.“I didn’t meananything by it, Sash.”
“Does that make it better?If you were joking—”
“I wasn’t.I wouldn’t.”
“Well, if you were serious, that’s the last way I’d ever wantto hear about it.Okay?”
Shamebroke over Laurie in a cold wave.He replied in a whisper, tearsrising.“Okay.”
Sasha almost knocked the table over in the rush to get to him.Laurie sprang forward from his refuge by the wall and they met in abone-bruising clutch.Laurie knew enough Romani now to understandthat he was being called every kind of sweet beloved idiot in theworld, and if he could have talked he would have returned that toSasha, or thebelovedpart anyway, the soft, roughves’tachathat melted the pain outfrom around his heart, slackened his joints and made him want toweep like a kid.But his mouth had got him into enough troublealready.He pressed it to the side of Sasha’s neck, passionatelygrateful when Sash too fell silent, words breaking up into frantickisses.
It wasSunday.Both could yield to the impulse to take this rare conflictand wear it away in the bedroom.Sasha detached himself after amoment, smiling weakly.“Wait a minute.Arnie gives me the coldsweats—I think I need another shower.”
Laurie watched him go.The kitchen was reverberant with thepeople and passions that had swept through it that morning.Distractedly he began to gather up the debris of newspapers andpost.TheStar—Arnie’s copy and the one pushed through his door by whicheverkindly wellwisher it had been—he consigned to the recycling bin,wishing he could chuck it on a fire.TheGuardianhe would keep, to clip outClara’s review and read it in more detail.
Reviews.There was the page Sasha had been reading from.Laurie knew better than to look, but a pleasing scatter ofsuperlatives gleamed up at him, and he scanned the article.Therewas another, shorter one beneath it—theOpposition Viewthe paperoccasionally ran, when someone in the public eye was garnering morethan his fair share of praise and approval.
Laurie had never anticipated being sufficiently popular toqualify.It took him a long moment to realise that the three briefparagraphs referred to him.Fitzroycontinues to cast his inexplicable spell over the West End.Inexplicable to this critic, at any rate, who last night satthrough yet another forced, overwrought performance by thehothoused darling of...
“Laurie?
Heflipped the paper closed.There in the doorway was Sasha.Theshadows of the hall did not conceal that he was naked.He had beensuch a frail, skinny lad when Laurie had first known him, and neverwould carry much weight.He was healthy now, though.His skin wasthe same warm brown that had entranced Laurie from his first sightof it, the colour of wet sand in sun.His cock was erect, hisnipples taut, and he was dusky, damson-shaded in these places, asif the blood under the fine tissues there was richer than wine.“Laurie.Come back to bed with me.”
Laurie tore his shirt off over his head.Wardrobe assistantsloved him: no-one got more deftly out of one costume ready for thenext.He unfastened his belt, stripped off his jeans, lithelykicking out of them between long strides across the kitchen floorto reach his lover.The briefs went next, unhooked with a thumb,pulled down and tossed over his shoulder.Sasha broke into joyouslyscandalised laughter and caught him, tangling with him, capturingtheir stiff shafts between their bodies.“Do I take it that’sayes,then?”
“Yes.For God’s sake, yes.And let’s never open the door toanybody else ever again.”
Chapter Five
DrOlivia Matthews was running late.That was fine with Sasha: thewaiting room was the best part of his visits here.It was sopeaceful.Heavy wisteria blossoms shifted in the breeze outside theopen window.The carpets were plain but thick, the colours neutral.Everything costly, designed to soothe...Fragrant coffee waswaiting on the hob, freely offered along with a pile of freshcroissants and Danish pastries.
Nowonder Sasha felt as if he spent his time here in a kind of dream.The existence of such places would have been beyond his imaginationif he had never met Laurie.He remembered the mobile clinic set upin the mahala by the few brave souls willing to come and doctor therabble there.Sasha had been there because he’d drunk pollutedwater and was racked with enteritis.A baby had died in itsmother’s arms while he’d waited.She’d wept, but not with shock.Only a dull resignation.
Yes, itwas peaceful here.Sasha could work.He spread his papers out onthe polished-oak table.His mobile flashed—a text from Laurie, alsorunning late; apologetic and amusingly misspelled.Apparently hisTub had stopped at South Ken for no bloody goddamned reason at all.Sasha texted him back, sympathetic to the vagaries of Tubbehaviour, telling him not to rush, and have a wash while he was atit.
Very funny.Sasha, can’t we get a car?
No.It’s London.We don’t need one.
