by Caro Fraser
‘I’ll walk with you, if I may,’ said Leo indolently, coming down the steps and falling in beside her. Julia smiled into the darkness in delight. She never doubted her powers of seduction, and had spent most of the evening determining to work her charms on this most fascinating and desirable of men. With the selfishness of all true hedonists, she cared for nothing but the moment and the game. Anthony was all but forgotten.
They walked slowly across the grass and under the dark trees. This was not a thing he should be doing, Leo knew. He glanced at Julia from time to time, amused by the transparency of her intentions. What a conceited little flirt, he thought. She was very pretty, he knew. Most men would find her completely desirable. He reflected that she must have kissed the mouth he hungered for a hundred times. She would know every muscle of Anthony’s young body. She knew nothing of anything.
When she lifted up her face to be kissed, it was half in Leo’s mind to take her by the hand and walk her firmly back to the marquee. But in that instant he saw Anthony’s figure as he approached them under the trees. He saw him stop. Without thought or desire, Leo pulled Julia to him and kissed her fiercely and thoroughly, wanting Anthony to watch and care.
Anthony stood for a few seconds. He saw Leo’s arms around Julia as she gave herself up to his kiss, and his heart sickened. He turned quietly away, wretched with jealousy – of whom, he could not, in that moment, comprehend. And Julia had, for a few seconds, her empty heart’s desire.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The following morning, Edward came and groaned theatrically at Anthony. He had, as usual, drunk far too much and said he didn’t think Hermione would ever speak to him again.
‘Why?’ asked Anthony, smiling at Edward’s condition in spite of himself.
‘Oh, I don’t know. I tore her dress, or something. Stepped on it. Christ, d’you have any Alka-Seltzer? I think my head’s going to fall off.’ Sitting opposite Anthony, Edward laid his arms on the desk and rested his chin on them, gazing as Anthony resumed writing. ‘How on earth can you bear to work?’ he moaned.
‘Takes my mind off things,’ replied Anthony, not looking up. Fortunately, Edward did not ask him what the ‘things’ were, but gazed vacantly at the shelves behind Anthony.
‘I don’t think I can stand this lark,’ he said after a moment or two, his eyes still scanning the shelves unseeingly. He groaned and put his head on his arms.
‘What d’you mean?’ asked Anthony. Edward looked up and ran his fingers through his thick blonde hair.
‘Law. I don’t think I’m cut out for it.’ He mused for a moment, Anthony’s eyes on his face. ‘Don’t tell my flaming uncle that, mind. He’d have a fit.’
Anthony felt, with surprise, that that which would have come as welcome news months ago did not even move him now. It was as though he were incapable of feeling any more. The events of last night had been more bruising and confusing than he had thought possible. He welcomed work, and even Edward’s hungover company, as diversions from thinking.
Edward’s bleary eyes shifted from the bookshelves to Anthony’s face.
‘Where did you get to last night, anyway? You just disappeared. Julia was looking for you everywhere. She was trying not to look upset, but she was.’ He sat up and leant back.
‘Was she?’ asked Anthony without interest. ‘I got fed up and went home.’
‘You’re a funny bugger, Tony,’ said Edward kindly, folding a piece of paper carefully into a dart.
‘Thanks,’ said Anthony.
‘Well, you could have taken her home. I mean, not quite the thing, is it?’
Anthony sighed and leant back. ‘No, you’re right. But it’s impossible to explain …’ He thought briefly, painfully of Julia, lovely, amoral Julia. Maybe it shouldn’t be any wonder to him that Leo should find her as desirable as other men did. He did not, he realised, understand anything. ‘Just don’t worry about it,’ he added at last to Edward.
‘OK,’ said Edward, launching his dart across the room. ‘Concorde!’ Michael’s footsteps sounded on the stair. ‘See you at lunchtime,’ said Edward and left, greeting Michael airily as he went.
Leo sat in an unexpected traffic jam on Westminster Bridge and cursed, eyeing Big Ben from time to time. He had cut his neck shaving that morning, bled on the collar of his only freshly ironed shirt, and was now late for his conference at ten o’clock. Why couldn’t that bloody woman iron more than two shirts when she came? And what was it that she did to them in the washing machine that made the collar of a new Turnbull & Asser shirt fray after three months? The traffic moved forward a yard or two.
He should have gone home when Alice had, he told himself for the thousandth time. Or he shouldn’t have taken a stroll with that wretched little tart. His car radio told him brightly of a hold-up on Westminster Bridge, and he thanked it and switched it off. God, the things your emotions got you into. He had not handled it well. But then, he did not handle women well.
He recalled Julia’s face in the half-darkness as he had said unkindly, ‘I think we’d better get you back to your boyfriend. I’m afraid he just saw that.’
‘I don’t care,’ she had said, wanting Leo to kiss her again.
‘I think you should,’ he had replied. ‘Because I do not care in the least for you. I think you are a particularly vain and silly girl. And I do not enjoy kissing you.’
No, that had not been necessary, such unkindness. He watched as the lights changed up ahead from red to green.
‘Come on, come on,’ he muttered, as the traffic moved at a crawl over the bridge. The lights changed back again. It was impossible that he, at forty-two, should be behaving in such a fashion, besotted with some near-schoolboy, wasting his emotions on someone who could not begin to understand or appreciate them. He would not behave as though he were helpless. To do so would be to allow every conceivable humiliation and hurt to plague him. Too much expense of spirit. The determination he had formed last night as he had walked away from Anthony across the grass had hardened now. He must guard against his susceptibilities when he saw him, and make sure that he saw as little of him as possible. Had he not learnt that there was to be no return of his love? Love! He felt something like contempt for himself, for his weakness. Perhaps it would be best, after all, if Anthony looked for a tenancy somewhere else. Even as he thought this, it was with a pang. Yes, he resolved savagely, pushing the car into gear as the traffic ahead of him began to pick up, the thing must stop. Let Edward Choke plant his useless backside at 5 Caper Court for the next forty years.
Julia sat in chambers, trying to attend to her work, her mind veering between rage, misery and anxiety. Several times she had been about to pick up the telephone and call Anthony, but each time fear bit at her. Her humiliation at the hands of Leo had left her hurt and vulnerable. She wanted Anthony and his comfort. She detested that bastard Leo. No one, no one, had ever spoken to her like that before! She could not, in truth, bear the idea that any man should kiss her without wanting to and without liking it. It was too demeaning. And then to speak to her as he had done. A rage of hurt came over her again. She told herself that she had found him detestable, refusing to acknowledge that kissing him had been in any way delightful. That was the worst of it, to have liked it. Not, she told herself, that she had. He was a bastard, and he had tasted of cigars and stale coffee.
When she had worked up a sufficient hatred for Leo and for herself, Julia fell to the business of hating men generally. There was Piers. He had behaved like a creep ever since that time when she and Anthony had broken up. He’d never been around at the weekends (here she was forced to recall the ignominy of telephoning him several times, after he had failed to get in touch with her), and he barely gave her more than two minutes’ worth of conversation when she did see him. So much for his protestations of adoration and devotion. Not that she cared for him, but she had become used to basking in the pleasant warmth of his admiration. Another rotten bastard.
And Anthony. He could be pretty unbearable,
too. Sometimes. The money thing was still a problem, of course. Well, she tried not to want to go out in the evenings, but it was jolly difficult when all your friends were going to smart restaurants and seeing new films. It was a bore, his never having any money. She tried to feel sorry for him, but half the time she didn’t really see what he was going on about. But, no – he was impossible to hate. He loved her. Or rather, she reflected miserably, he had before he’d seen her with Leo last night. Anxiety returned to eat at her. That would probably be the last straw for him. Piers was one thing – and anyway, Anthony had believed her that time when she said she was a bit drunk – but an older member of his chambers whom she’d just met for the first time that evening? Well, that was something else. But what if he hadn’t seen them? She had only Leo’s word for it – she hadn’t seen Anthony anywhere near. Maybe Leo had just said it as an excuse to stop kissing her. (It was unpleasant for Julia even to contemplate this possibility, but she was forced to.) But then, Anthony hadn’t been there when she’d got back to the marquee, after she had watched in astonishment as Leo walked away from her across the lawn. He must have seen them. Why else would he have gone off without a word? She should ring him, try to explain it to him. What on earth was she going to tell him? It wouldn’t be easy, but Julia had great faith in her powers of appeasement. Her hand hovered uncertainly over the phone, her stomach churning with nervousness.
‘I thought you had a summons before the Master at ten-thirty?’ said her pupilmaster, suddenly glancing up from his work.
‘Gosh, you’re right!’ she exclaimed, and gathered up her papers and fled in relief.
When Julia rang Anthony after lunch, he was uncertain whether or not to take the call. Better to take it, he decided, glad that Michael was in the room. That might make it easier, in a way.
‘Hello, Anthony?’ Her voice sounded nervous, without any affectation of casualness.
‘Yes?’ he said shortly. There was a pause. She had worked out beforehand what she was going to say, but it was still a bit difficult.
‘I wondered where you’d got to last night. At the Ball, I mean.’
‘Oh?’
‘Well … I thought maybe it was because of me and Leo.’ There, better to get it out and over with. She waited for him to say something, but he remained silent. He picked up his pen and started writing. She carried on. ‘I mean, it must have looked a bit bad, but I wish you’d waited and let me explain.’
‘Go on, then.’
‘Well, it was awful, really. I met him outside after I’d been to the loo, you know, and he said he wanted a bit of air and would I go for a walk with him. So I said all right.’ Her voice had become hurried but casual, as though she were recounting some silly story of no importance. ‘And we were just chatting away quite innocently, as I thought, when he suddenly just, you know, grabbed me. It was awful, really. And I suppose that’s when you saw us,’ she finished lamely, waiting for his response.
‘Yes,’ replied Anthony, the word devoid of any meaning. I don’t believe it, he thought suddenly, remembering Leo in the grey light of his flat, the touch of his hand upon Anthony’s wrist, the look in his eyes. But anything was possible, he supposed. What did he know, after all?
‘Look, are you very cross?’ Julia was saying. ‘Please don’t be. It wasn’t my fault, really; I didn’t know you were there.’ She paused and then recovered herself rapidly. ‘What I mean is – I think maybe he just did it to make you jealous. I mean, I don’t see why he should want to do that—’ She became confused, annoyed at Anthony’s laconic responses.
‘Neither do I,’ said Anthony, still writing. And then it occurred to him, so vividly that it almost flashed upon his brain, that he did see why. Leo had wanted to make Anthony jealous, but not in the way that Julia meant. He had wanted to hurt him and spite him, so that Anthony would see and know the wretchedness of his heart’s condition. He had said: see, I am kissing someone, and it is not you. He heard Julia’s voice chattering and wheedling on, but her words did not register. Seeing all as he did, Anthony suddenly felt an intolerable wave of love and pity for Leo. God, what a hideous, hopeless situation. How had he ever got into this? Well, it must stop. It was getting too intense and complex. Please, thought Anthony, let everything be sane and straightforward. He tried to listen to what Julia was saying.
‘… and I know it looked bad, but it was just a kiss, after all, and that sort of thing happens all the time at Balls, doesn’t it? I mean, everyone has a bit too much to drink and things get out of hand …’
‘Yes, they do,’ said Anthony, and sighed. He felt tired and confused. She thought she heard his voice relent.
‘So please don’t be angry. I felt awful when I got back and you weren’t there. I positively ran back, I can tell you. It’s not particularly pleasant being mauled about by someone twice your age, you know.’ Oh, no? thought Anthony. She paused, testing. ‘You’re not saying a lot. Is Michael there?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you forgive me?’ She tried not to make her voice sound too small.
Anthony said nothing. I don’t want to arouse that kind of feeling in any man, he thought. I’m me, Anthony, an ordinary heterosexual male with a girlfriend and an uncomplicated life. I don’t want to know about some old bloke who’s got a crush on me. He drummed it into himself, lie upon lie. He was tired of excessive thought and feeling. The kind of emotional responses that Leo had provoked in him over the past twenty-four hours had proved extremely wearing.
‘I’ve said I’m sorry,’ said Julia petulantly, feeling that she really had apologised sufficiently.
‘All right,’ said Anthony thoughtfully. ‘It’s all right.’
Julia felt relief slip into her heart. She did not think that her vanity could have borne another rejection. And she did not want to lose Anthony – not someone so clever and beautiful and lovely in bed. She really must be a little more careful. Happily she said, ‘I knew you’d understand.’ When he said nothing, she added, ‘Look, I can’t see you tonight, but what about tomorrow? We don’t have to go out. We could just stay in, the two of us. What do you say?’
That, thought Anthony, sounded nice and normal. He was going to be nice and normal, and remain that way. He did not want any more flashes of emotional lightning zigzagging across his sky. Leo was simply a man that he had liked very much – perhaps too much – and the thing had got a little beyond itself. Well, no more.
‘That sounds OK,’ he said. ‘I’ll call you tomorrow.’
Standing at the bus stop that evening, Anthony pulled from his pocket the piece of paper on which he had copied out the sonnet. He crumpled it into a ball and threw it into the nearest bin without reading it again. He did not have to read it. He knew it by heart.
Anthony got back that evening to find his mother and Barry sitting at the kitchen table with a folder of drawings and sketches spread out in front of them.
‘Get a load of these,’ said Barry, turning as Anthony came in. ‘The great man’s early work.’ Anthony came closer to look.
‘Well, I wouldn’t say great,’ murmured Judith into the fist upon which her chin was resting.
‘Mum dug them out from the attic,’ said Barry, getting up and going to root in the fridge. ‘Have we got any tomatoes, Mum?’
‘In the brown bag,’ said Judith. ‘These are the ones I told you about,’ she said to Anthony, as he sat down in Barry’s chair and pulled some of the drawings towards him. They reminded him of the drawings in A Spaniard in the Works. Cross out of Lennon out of Milligan out of Lear. There were some cartoons, some sketches of Judith, and what looked to him like very bad still-life drawings. Anthony picked up a drawing of Judith, much younger, with long dark hair parted in the middle, sitting on a chair.
‘Crap, isn’t it?’ said Barry over his shoulder.
‘Do you know,’ said Anthony, staring at it briefly and then picking up another of Judith wearing nothing except what appeared to be a thermal vest, ‘I wouldn’t say they were good exac
tly, but at least you can tell what they’re meant to be about.’
‘Our mother in her knickers. Anyway, that’s probably not a good thing, is it?’ said Barry, returning to the table with three tomatoes on a plate and a piece of cheese. ‘That’s my chair.’
Anthony got up and went to put on the kettle. ‘I mean,’ continued Barry, sitting down, ‘it’s obviously only his inscrutable stuff that people feel they have to like. People may suspect it’s junk, but they can’t prove it. They can look at this and say, “Oh, that’s not a very good drawing, is it? Her arm’s all wrong.”’ He bit into his cheese.
‘You have a point there,’ remarked Anthony, taking off his jacket as he waited for the kettle to boil.
‘I remember when he did this one,’ said Judith without any particular expression in her voice, picking up a small comic drawing of someone in an Afghan coat with long hair and flared trousers. She paused and then said, glancing up at Anthony as if slightly embarrassed, ‘I was wondering if it might be worth anything.’ Barry guffawed unattractively, his mouth full of tomato. ‘I mean, now that he seems to be actually making a commercial sucess of it. Barry, do you have to eat like that? Cut them up, or something.’ She gazed at the pieces of paper spread out before her and added, a little more distantly, ‘It was just a thought. You know, if he becomes really rich, we’re never likely to see a penny of it. I was thinking, if we could sell these …’
‘Why don’t you hang on to them?’ said Anthony, bringing his mug of tea and a third chair over to the table. ‘They might be worth even more in ten years or so.’ He sipped his tea and glanced through them. Judith smiled a little sideways smile.
‘I doubt it. These things never last. We might hold on to them and find they’re completely worthless in a few years’ time. But they must be worth something now.’