The Line of Beauty

by Alan Hollinghurst

  Leo made a little puff of comic exhaustion. "Yeah . . . yeah, I'm not answering some of them. It's a joke. They don't include a picture, or if they do they look horrible. Or they're ninety-nine years old. I even had a thing from a woman, a lesbian woman admittedly, with a view to would I father her child." Leo frowned indignantly but there was something sly and flattered in his look too. "And some of the stuff they write. It's disgusting! It's not like I'm just looking for a bonk, is it? This is something a bit different."

  "Quite," said Nick—though bonk was a troublingly casual way of referring to something which preoccupied him so much.

  "This dog's been round the block a few times," Leo said, and looked off down the street as if he might spot himself coming home. "Anyway, you looked nice. You've got nice writing."

  "Thanks. So have you."

  Leo took in the compliment with a nod. "And you can spell," he said.

  Nick laughed. "Yes, I'm good at that." He'd been afraid that his own little letter sounded pedantic and virginal, but it seemed he'd got it about right. He didn't remember it calling for any great virtuosity of spelling. "I always have trouble with 'moccasin,'" he said.

  "Ah, there you are . . . " said Leo, with a wary chuckle, before changing the subject. "It's nice where you live," he said.

  "Oh . . . yes . . ." said Nick, as if he couldn't quite remember where it was.

  "I went by there the other day, on the bike. I nearly rang your bell."

  "Mm—you, should have. I've had the place virtually to myself." He felt sick at the thought of the missed chance.

  "Yeah? I saw this girl going in . . ."

  "Oh, that was probably only Catherine."

  Leo nodded. "Catherine. She's your sister, yeah?"

  "No, I don't have a sister. She's actually the sister of my friend Toby." Nick smiled and stared: "It's not my house."

  "Oh . . ." said Leo. "Oh."

  "God, I don't come from that sort of background. No, I just live there. It belongs to Toby's parents. I've just got a tiny little room up in the attic." Nick was rather surprised to hear himself throwing his whole fantasy of belonging there out of the window.

  Leo looked a bit disappointed. He said, "Right . . . " and shook his head slowly.

  "I mean they're very good friends, they're a sort of second family to me, but I probably won't be there for long. It's just to help me out, while I'm getting started at university."

  "And I thought I'd got myself a nice little rich boy," Leo said. And perhaps he meant it, Nick couldn't be sure, they were total strangers after all, though a minute before he'd imagined them naked together in the Feddens' emperor-size bed. Was that why his letter did the trick—the address, the Babylonian notepaper?

  "Sorry," he said, with a hint of humour. He drank some more of the sweet strong rum and Coke, so obviously not his kind of drink. The refined blue of the dusk sky was already showing its old lonely reach.

  Leo laughed. "I'm only kidding you!"

  "I know," Nick said, with a little smile, as Leo reached out and squeezed his shoulder, just by his shirt collar, and slowly let go. Nick reacted with his own quick pat at Leo's side. He was absurdly relieved. A charge passed into him through Leo's fingers, and he saw the two of them kissing passionately, in a rush of imagination that was as palpable as this awkward pavement rendezvous.

  "Still, your friends must be rich," Leo said.

  Nick was careful not to deny this. "Oh, they're rolling in money."

  "Yeah . . . " Leo crooned, with a fixed smile; he might have been savouring the fact or condemning it. Nick saw further questions coming, and decided at once he wouldn't tell him about Gerald. The evening demanded enough courage as it was. A Tory MP would shadow their meeting like an unwelcome chaperon, and Leo would get on his bike and leave them to it. He could say something about Rachel's family, perhaps, if an explanation was called for. But in fact Leo emptied his glass and said, "Same again?"

  Nick hastily finished his own drink, and said, "Thanks. Or maybe this time I'll have a shot of rum in it."

  After half an hour more Nick had slid into a kind of excited trance brought on by his new friend's presence and a feeling, as the sky darkened and the street lamps brightened from pink to gold, that it was going to work out. He felt nervous, slightly breathless, but at the same time buoyant, as if a lonely responsibility had been taken off him. A couple of places came free at the end of a picnic table with fixed benches, and they sat leaning towards each other as though playing, and then half-forgetting, some invisible game. For Nick the ease and comfort of the rum were indistinguishable parts of the intimacy which he felt deepening like the dusk.

  He found himself wondering how they looked and sounded to the people around them, the couple beside them at the table. It was all getting noisier as the evening went on, with a vague sense of heterosexual threat. Nick guessed Leo's other dates would have met him in a gay pub, but he had flunked that further challenge. Now he regretted the freedom he would have had there. He wanted to stroke Leo's cheek and kiss him, with a sigh of surrender.

  Nothing very personal was said. Nick found it hard to interest Leo in his own affairs, and his various modest leads about his family and his background were not picked up. There were things he'd prepared and phrased and turned into jokes that were not to be heard—or not tonight. Once or twice he took Leo with him: into a falsely cheerful dismissal of the idea that Toby, though fairly attractive, was of any real interest to him (Leo would think him a weirdo to have loved so long and pointlessly); into a sketch of Rachel's banking family, which Leo interrupted with a sour smile, as if it was all proof of some general iniquity. He had a certain caustic preoccupation with money, Nick could see; and when he told Leo that his father was an antiques dealer the two words, with the patina of old money and the flash of business, seemed to combine in a dull glare of privilege. Among his smart Oxford friends Nick managed to finesse his elbow-patched old man, with his Volvo estate full of blanket-wrapped mirrors and Windsor chairs, into a more luminous figure, a scholar and friend of the local aristocracy. Now he felt a timid need to humble him. And he was wrong, because Leo's long-time boyfriend, Pete, had been an antiques dealer, on the Portobello Road. "Mainly French work," Leo said. "Ormolu. Boulle." It was the first clear thing he had said about his private past. And then he changed the subject.

  Leo was certainly quite an egotist—Catherine's graphological analysis had been spot on. But he didn't expound his inner feelings. He did something Nick couldn't imagine doing himself, which was to make statements about the sort of person he was. "I'm the sort of guy who needs a lot of sex," he said, and, "I'm like that, I always say what I think." Nick wondered for a moment if he'd inadvertently contradicted him. "I don't bear grudges," Leo said sternly: "I'm not that kind of person." "I'm sure you're not," Nick said, with a quick discountenancing shudder. And perhaps this was a useful skill, or tactic, in the blind-date world, even if Nick's modesty and natural fastidiousness kept him from replying in the same style ("I'm the sort of guy who likes Pope more than Wordsworth," "I'm crazy about sex but I haven't had it yet"). It added to the excitement of the evening. He wasn't here to share quickly matched intuitions with an Oxford friend. He loved the hard self-confidence of his date; and at the same time, in his silent, superior way, he thought he heard how each little brag was the outward denial of an inner doubt.

  With the third drink Nick grew warm and half-aroused and he looked undisguisedly at Leo's lips and neck and imagined unbuttoning the shiny blue short-sleeved shirt that cut so tightly under his arms. Leo hooded his eyes for a second, a signal, secret and ironic, and Nick wondered if it meant he could see he was drunk. He wasn't sure if he should somehow signal back—he grinned and took another quick sip. He had the feeling that Leo had drunk Coke since he was a child, and that it was one of the nearly unnoticed facts of life to him, beyond choice or criticism. Whereas in his family it was one of a thousand things that were frowned on—there had never been a can or bottle of it in the house. L
eo couldn't possibly have imagined it, but the glass of Coke in Nick's hand was a secret sign of submission, and afterwards the biting sweetness of the drink, like flavouring in a medicine, seemed fused with the other experiments of the night in a complex impression of darkness and freedom. Leo yawned and Nick glanced into his mouth, its bright white teeth uncorrupted by all the saccharine and implying, Nick humbly imagined, an almost racial disdain for his own stoppings and slants. He put his hand on Leo's forearm for a moment, and then wished he hadn't—it made Leo look at his watch.

  "Time's getting on," he said. "I can't be late getting back."

  Nick looked down and mumbled, "Do you have to get back?" He tried to smile but he knew his face was stiff with sudden anxiety. He moved his wet glass in circles on the rough-sawn table top. When he glanced up again he found Leo was gazing at him sceptically, one eyebrow arched.

  "I meant back to your place, of course," he said.

  Nick grinned and reddened at the beautiful reversal, like a teased child abruptly reprieved, rewarded. But then he had to say, "I don't think we can . . ."

  Leo looked at him levelly. "Not enough room?"

  Nick winced and waited—the truth was he didn't dare, he just couldn't do that to Rachel and Gerald, it was vulgar and unsafe, the consequences unspooled ahead of him, their happy routines of chortling agreement would wither for ever. "I don't think we can. I don't mind going up to your place."

  Leo shrugged. "It's not practical," he said.

  "I can jump on the bus," said Nick, who had studied the London A-Z in absorbed conjecture about Leo's street, neighbourhood, historic churches, and access to public transport.

  "Nah—" Leo looked away with a reluctant smile and Nick saw that he was embarrassed. "My old lady's at home." This first hint of shyness and shame, and the irony that tried to cover it, cockneyfied and West Indian too, made Nick want to jump on him and kiss him. "She's dead religious," Leo said, with a short defeated chuckle.

  "I know what you mean," said Nick. So there they were, two men on a summer night, with nowhere to call their own. There was a kind of romance to that. "I've got an idea," he said tentatively. "If you don't mind, um, being outside."

  "I don't care," said Leo, and looked lazily over his shoulder. "I'm not dropping my pants in the street."

  "No, no . . ."

  "I'm not that sort of slut."

  Nick laughed anxiously. He wasn't sure what people meant when they said they'd had sex "in the street"—even "on Oxford Street," he'd once heard. In six months' time perhaps he would know, he'd have sorted out the facts from the figures of speech. He watched Leo twist and lift a knee to clamber free of the bench—he looked keen to get on with it, and he acted of course as if Nick knew the procedure. Nick followed him with a baked smile and a teeming inward sense of occasion. He was consenting and powerless in the thrust of the event, the rich foregone conclusion of the half-hour that opened ahead of them: it made his heart race with its daring and originality, though it also seemed, as Leo squatted to unlock his bike, something everyday and inevitable. He ought to tell Leo it was his first time; then he thought it might bore him or put him off. He gazed down at his strictly shaved nape, the back of a stranger's,head, which any minute now he would be allowed to touch. The label of Leo's skimpy blue shirt was turned up at the collar and showed the temp's signature of Miss Selfridge. It was a little secret given away, a vanity exposed—Nick was light-headed, it was so funny and touching and sexy. He saw the long muscles of his back shifting in its sleek grip, and then, as Leo hunkered on his heels and his loose jeans stood away from his waist, the street lamp shining in on the brown divide of his buttocks and the taut low line of his briefs.

  He unlocked the gate and let Leo go in ahead of him. "Cycling isn't permitted in the gardens, but I dare say you can walk your bike."

  Leo hadn't learnt his mock-pompous tone yet. "I dare say bumshoving isn't permitted either," he said. The gate closed behind them, an oiled click, and they were together in the near-darkness of the shrubbery. Nick wanted to hold Leo and kiss him at once; but he wasn't quite certain. Bumshoving was unambiguous, and encouraging, but not romantic exactly . . . They strolled cautiously forward, leaning against each other for a step or two as they steered for the path. There was the slightest chill in the air now, but Nick shivered wildly in a spasm of excitement. His fingers felt oddly stiff, as though he was wearing very tight gloves. Even in the deep shadow he wanted to conceal his weird smirk of apprehension. He did so hope it would be him who got to do the shoving, but didn't know how you arranged that, perhaps it all just became clear. Perhaps they both had to have a go. He led Leo through on to a wide inner lawn, the bike bouncing out beside them, controlled only by a hand on its saddle—it seemed to quiver and explore just ahead of them. To the right rose a semicircle of old planes and a copper beech whose branches plunged to the ground and made a broad bell-tent that was cool and gloomy even at midday. Away to the left ran the gravel walk, and beyond it the tall outline of the terrace, and the long, intermitted rhythm of glowing windows. As they skirted the lawn Nick counted confusedly, searching for the Feddens'. He found the first-floor balcony, the proud brightness of the room beyond the open French windows.

  "Yeah, how far is it?" said Leo.

  "Oh, just over here . . ."—Nick giggled because he didn't know if Leo's grumpiness was real. He went ahead a bit, anxiously responsible. As his eyes adjusted to the semi-darkness nowhere seemed private enough—there was more show-through from the street lights, voices on the pavement were unnervingly close. And of course on a summer night there were keyholders still at large, picnickers charmed into long late reminiscence, walkers of white dogs. He stooped under the copper beech, but the branches were rough and confusing and the mast crackled underfoot. He backed out again, bashing into Leo and gripping his waist for a moment to steady himself. "Sorry . . . " The feel of his warm hard body under the silky shirt was almost worryingly beautiful, a promise too lavish to believe in. He prayed that Led didn't think he was a fool. The other men in Leo's life, anonymous partners, answerers of ads, old boyfriends, old Pete, massed impatiently behind him—as if a match had flared he saw their predatory eyes and moustaches and hardened sex-confidence. He led the way quickly to the little compound of the gardener's hut.

  "All right, this'll do," said Leo, propping his bike against the larch-lap screen. For a moment it seemed he was going to chain it up again, then he stopped himself and left it there with a regretful laugh. Nick tried the door of the hut even though it was padlocked. Beside it there was a shadowy area where a flatbedded barrow was kept, and a broken bench; there were laurels, and a yew tree hanging over; the dusty sour smell of the yew was mixed with the muted sweetness of a huge compost heap, a season's grass cuttings mounded high in a chicken-wire coop. Leo came up to Nick and hesitated for a second, looking away, trailing his fingers over the warm cuttings. "You know, these composts get really hot inside," he said.

  "Yes . . . " Nick had known this all his life.

  "Too hot to touch—like a hundred degrees."

  "Is that right . . . ?" He reached out like a tired child.

  "Anyway," Leo said, letting Nick's hand slide round his waist, putting his arm, his elbow, round Nick's neck to pull him close against him. "Anyway . . . " His face slipped sideways across Nick's as he breathed the word, the unguessed softness of his lips touched his cheeks and neck, while Nick sighed violently and ran his hand up and down on Leo's back. He pushed his mouth towards Leo's, and they met, and hurried into a kiss. To Nick it felt simply like a helpless admission of need, and the shocking thing was the proof of Leo's need, in the force and thoroughness with which he worked on him. They pushed apart, Leo faintly smiling, Nick gasping and tormented just by the hope that they would do it again.

  They kissed for a minute more—two minutes, Nick wasn't counting, half-hypnotized by the luscious rhythm, the generous softness of Leo's lips and the thick insistence of his tongue. He was gasping from the rush of reciprocity, th
e fact of being made love to. Nothing at the pub, in their aimless conversation, had even hinted at it. He'd never seen it described in a book. He was achingly ready and completely unprepared. He felt the coaxing caress of Leo's hand on the back of his head, roaming through the curls there, and then lifted his other hand to stroke Leo's head, so beautifully alien in its hard stubbly angles and the dry dense firmness of his hair. He thought he saw the point of kissing but also its limitations—it was an instinct, a means of expression, of mouthing a passion but not of satisfying it. So his right hand, that was lightly clutching Leo's waist, set off, still doubting its freedom, to dawdle over his plump buttocks and then squeeze them through the soft old denim. The prodding of Leo's angled erection against the top of Nick's thigh seemed to tell him more and more clearly to do what he wanted, and get his hand inside his waistband and inside the stretched little briefs. His middle finger pushed into the deep divide, as smooth as a boy's, his fingertip even pressed a little way into the dry pucker so that Leo let out a happy grunt. "You're a bad boy," he said.

  He moved away from Nick, who clung to him, then let him go with a sulky laugh. "I'm coming back," Leo said, and edged off past the shed. Nick stood for a little while, holding himself and sighing, alone again, aware of the unending soft roar of London and a night breeze hardly dipping the dark leaves of the laurel. What was Leo doing? He was getting something from the slim side pannier of his bike. He was amazing with his habits, he was fabulous, but then Nick's skin prickled for a moment at the thought of himself out here in the dark with a stranger, the risk of it, silly little fool, anything could happen. Leo felt his way back, shadow among shadows. "I think we might be needing this," he said, so that the rush of risk flowed beautifully into the mood of adventure.