The Nick of Time

by Francis King

  Two weekends later, Adrian drove Mehmet down to what he called the cottage, though in fact it was a former Georgian rectory with a lot of clumsy Victorian and Edwardian additions and improvements. Mehmet was delighted with the BMW, from time to time stroking the mahogany dashboard in front of him, as one might a dog or cat; and, as they progressed up the long, serpentine drive, the gravel crunching under the wheels, he at once remarked on the size of the ‘cottage’ and the grounds – ‘Big, big, big.’

  Igor could be tricky with guests like Mehmet, either snapping at them or ignoring them all together. ‘Don’t worry about him,’ Adrian would say. ‘He’s really terribly sweet but he suffers from this insecurity.’ The two of them had met when, a refugee from the Soviet Union, Igor was dancing with a small, often insolvent ballet company that spent most of its time on tour. Adrian, because he was in love with him, would often tell him that it was a disgrace that he was not snapped up by the Royal Ballet, the Festival Ballet or the Rambert. But Igor, being slight and narrow-shouldered, had difficulties with lifts, and in any case his sort of graceful, winsome dancing was already out of fashion for men. A fall on an uneven stage in Avignon during a British Council tour resulted in a broken ankle and the end of a career that, in any case, he had never seemed really either to want or to enjoy. Adrian had urged him to take up choreography, or teaching, but Igor had preferred to retire to the ‘cottage’, where he lovingly tended Adrian’s growing accumulation of largely art nouveau objects and less lovingly (he had a passion for hacking and hewing) the woodland garden. He and Adrian had long since ceased to be lovers, Igor having now opted for life of chastity; but they had been through so much together for so long that the bond between them was tough.

  Fortunately, instead of instantly taking against Mehmet, as Adrian had been gloomily fearing, Igor fell for him at a first glance. As the car drew up at the front door, he happened to be coming round the house carrying a pail of grain for the chickens. He was wearing Wellingtons, a worn green Barbour jacket, and soiled jeans, rubbed thin at the knees. A red and green scarf was twisted round his head, pirate-wise, and from it a long white-and-grey ponytail descended down his back. Two front teeth were missing. Adrian, who was irritated by their absence, had more than once offered to pay for a bridge. But Igor could no longer be bothered with appearances.

  Igor put down the pail and stared at Mehmet as he got out of the car.

  Adrian knew at once that everything was going to be all right.

  ‘Mehmet, this is Igor. Igor – I told you about Mehmet. Mehmet is from Albania.’

  Igor insisted on carrying Mehmet’s smart and obviously new or nearly new holdall up to the guest-room next to the room occupied by Adrian. Mehmet went to the window and looked out on to the tennis court, mown the previous day by Igor, and the trees beyond it. Side by side, the other two watched him, bemused with admiration for the muscular line of his shoulders, the tilt of his neck and the swell of his buttocks. ‘Beautiful!’ Mehmet finally exhaled to the view beyond the open window. Apart from the comment about the size of the house, it was the first time that Adrian had known him to express any enthusiasm about anything. It was a wonderful moment.

  Throughout the visit Igor was at his best, whereas, on other such visits, he had so often been at his worst. He was totally self-effacing, never attempting to come with them on their walks through the grounds or to the village, never joining them before the television set, hardly taking part in the conversations, saying that, Oh, no, he was too busy with weeding the raspberry cage to accompany them to Brighton. But when they needed something, he seemed miraculously to intuit it and was always on hand. Paradoxically, behaviour so angelic irritated Adrian and made him feel uneasy, whereas Igor’s often diabolical behaviour to other of Adrian’s ‘treeks’ (as the Russian would refer to them) had always been reassuring, perhaps because expected.

  Adrian had feared that he might, over such a long period, find Mehmet boring and even difficult. But, to his surprise, this guest, unlike many others, was never anything other than amusing and amusable. He appeared to enjoy their visit to the Pavilion at Brighton. Although he was totally devoid of any knowledge of architecture or art, he had the intelligence to ask the right questions and to make the right comments. He had never played tennis before but, rushing about the court (high up above, and unseen by the two players, Igor was standing at an attic window and watching intently), he managed to get in an astonishing amount of returns and even soon learned how to produce an adequate serve.

  On the Saturday night, the two of them watched television on the sofa side by side, with Mehmet passively suffering the arm that had been thrown round his shoulder and the hand that from time to time brushed against his cheek or felt his biceps. Later, Adrian padded into Mehmet’s next-door bedroom in silk pyjamas and Japanese kimono. Because he had taken off his glasses, his small green eyes were screwed up, so that they looked even smaller. Mehmet was sitting up in bed, his chest bare, glancing with puzzled distaste at the illustrations in an ancient copy of Boyz, left on the bedside table by some previous guest.

  Saying nothing, Adrian clambered into the bed and gave him a hug. There was no response other than a sigh and a turning over of a page. But when, greatly daring, Adrian lowered his hand, the erection was there. ‘Oh, God!’ Adrian groaned, with a combination of amazement and delight. There was the same refusal to accept a kiss on the mouth, the head jerked aside, and the same reluctance to accept a kiss anywhere else; there was the same impression that he was indifferently going through a routine. But on this occasion, having demanded a condom – Adrian tweaked one out of the drawer of the bedside table and then agitatedly fumbled to open it until Mehmet took it from him with an irritable frown – Mehmet fucked him with cool ferocity, an arm round his neck, so that, at the delirious climax, Adrian thought that this heaving, grunting animal would throttle him, and almost wished that he would.

  After it was all over, Adrian wanted to stay there beside him. But Mehmet said firmly: ‘ Please, Adrian’ and gave him a little push. ‘Now I sleep. Too much walk, too much tennis, too much Brighton.’ He laughed. ‘Too much drink. Too much eat. Too much fuck.’

  As Adrian was padding out of the room, he was astonished to hear Mehmet’s feet thud behind him and then to feel his arms encircling him. ‘Thank you, Adrian. You make me good time.’ At that Adrian felt Mehmet’s lips briefly on the nape of his neck. Amazing! He turned, preparatory to taking him in his arms. But Mehmet was already returning to the bed.

  Adrian gazed down at him in unbounded gratitude. ‘ Thanks, Mehmet. That was – that was really terrific.’ He was thanking him as much for that perfunctory kiss as for the violent fucking. ‘Thanks.’

  Mehmet waved a hand and reached down for the copy of Boyz, which had fallen to the floor.

  ‘How did you sleep?’

  ‘Beautiful. It is so quiet, quiet here. Only birds. I sleep, sleep, sleep. Not like London.’

  ‘And Igor brought you some early morning tea?’

  ‘Yes. Why you tell him do that? He not servant, your friend, no?’

  The two of them were at the breakfast table. Having set out everything for them, Igor had disappeared, saying that he must get back to that weeding.

  ‘Oh, he likes doing that. I didn’t tell him. He – he likes to look after people. Truly. It’s not a job for him. It’s a pleasure.’

  ‘He your boyfriend?’

  ‘Oh, no! Once. Once. Ages ago. Now – we’re friends.’

  ‘Partners?’

  ‘In a sense. Yes. We’re close.’

  ‘He good man, I think.’

  Adrian had never once felt jealous of Igor. He did now. ‘Yes, very good. He makes domestic life so easy for me. The only problem is that he hates London and stays in the flat only once in a blue moon. He – he has this love for the country.’

  ‘Good.’ Mehmet nodded.

  After breakfast, Mehmet wandered off, without saying anything, into the garden. The Sunday Telegraph books and revi
ew section trailing from one hand, Adrian watched him through the open French windows of the sitting-room. Mehmet plonked himself down on to a plastic chair, fake rustic in design, by the tennis-court and began to smoke a cigarette. Each time that he exhaled smoke, he tipped up his head and, in the still, summer air, blew out smoke ring after smoke ring, each perfect in shape and each disintegrating with extraordinary slowness. For some reason, Adrian found the bare white throat against the dark-blue of his open-neck shirt amazingly erotic and he began to get a hard-on.

  Chucking the cigarette, only half-smoked, into a clump of rhododendrons, Mehmet got up and moved off, whistling some jaunty little tune which Adrian could not recognize, round the house and so out of sight. Was he seeking out Igor? Again Adrian felt that momentary pang of jealousy. Then he told himself: Ridiculous! Who would want anything with him?

  Eventually Mehmet returned to the tennis-court and, when he saw Adrian beckoning to him, walked up to the open french windows.

  ‘You so lucky,’ he said. ‘My home Albania so small. Flat. Mother, brother, three sisters, four room. Top of house.’

  ‘Yes, I am lucky.’ Adrian suddenly experienced a sweet, yearning sorrow for this man who was so much worse off than he was and who was stranded all alone in a foreign country. ‘Come, sit down.’

  Mehmet hesitated. ‘I wish smoke.’

  ‘Well, smoke then! No problem. You can smoke here.’

  Mehmet shook his head. ‘No cigarette. Cigarette finished.’

  Adrian jumped to his feet. ‘ I think I have some cigarettes somewhere. A guest left some on the dining-room table only last weekend. Igor found them too late, by then he’d gone. Let me have a look.’ He returned a short while later, with a half-smoked box of multicoloured cigarettes. He opened it and held it out to Mehmet.

  ‘What this?’ Mehmet looked at the cigarettes in disgust, wrinkling his nose.

  Adrian tipped the box up towards himself, to see what was written on it. He squinted down, head tilted to one side. ‘They’re called Cocktail Cigarettes. They’re more expensive than other ones,’ he added, thinking that that might reconcile Mehmet to them. ‘Apart from their colour, they’re no different from any others.’

  Grudgingly, Mehmet took one and lit it. He drew on it deeply and then slowly shook his head. ‘Different. Not good.’ But he continued to smoke it.

  On the Sunday morning Igor announced that he was off to the little Roman Catholic church. It was more than two miles away but he preferred to walk than to borrow Adrian’s BMW – which he was always nervous of handling – or to get atop his ancient bicycle, bought off their cleaner when she had acquired a car, and therefore without a bar.

  ‘Maybe I go too,’ Mehmet said.

  ‘Oh, no!’ Adrian was affronted. ‘Why should you want to do that? You’re not a Christian are you?’

  Mehmet laughed. ‘ I am nothing. But – Christian church – maybe interesting.’

  ‘No, no. Let’s have another game of tennis. I want to improve that serve of yours.’

  When Mehmet had been taking a shower after their last game, Adrian had gone into his room and, with beating heart, had raised the sweat-saturated cotton shirt that he had lent him, and had deliriously sniffed at it again and again.

  Mehmet hesitated and then, to Adrian’s vast relief, said ‘OK.’

  ‘See you,’ Igor said forlornly, leaving the room.

  Neither of them answered.

  All that afternoon, having cleared up the lunch, Igor began to prepare for the evening dinner. As always on a Sunday, there would be guests. Adrian was surprised when Mehmet said to him: ‘ Maybe I help him? He has so much to do.’ ‘Oh, no, no!’ he answered. ‘He much prefers to be left to himself. I’d give him a hand myself if I felt that he really wanted one. But he doesn’t – ever. What you have to understand about him is that he’s a loner.’

  Mehmet considered that. ‘Maybe I am loner too.’

  ‘I don’t think so. You’re far too sociable.’ But Adrian thought that the claim was probably true. There was something secret and inviolable about Mehmet; he gave nothing essential away – not his heart, not his past, not even his address or telephone number.

  There were five guests: two couples, each composed of a middle-aged man and a young one, and an elderly man by himself, an Egyptian art dealer on a visit to England on business, who had had an introduction to Adrian from a mutual American acquaintance. The Egyptian had arrived in a large hired Mercedes, driven by a man in uniform and peaked cap, because, so he confided to the company, he had lost his licence ‘through being silly once too often’ and so could not risk driving himself. Everyone was clearly taken with Mehmet, who, without being asked, constantly jumped up to help Adrian with the champagne or to hand round the canapés prepared by Igor. When Mehmet wanted to smoke yet another cigarette, Adrian noticed that he went out through the french windows to do so. Before, he had puffed away even when Adrian was seated no more than a yard or so away from him. Twice the art dealer, who was not a smoker, joined Mehmet in the late evening sunshine. Adrian listened for what they were saying to each other, but he could catch nothing, so noisily were the others chattering away and laughing around him.

  Igor did not sit down to dinner with them, but was a constant presence, bringing in or taking away plates, filling up glasses, even picking up a fallen napkin. Neither he nor Adrian was aware that these guests – and other guests – would refer to him among themselves as ‘the dumb waiter’. Sometimes someone, with a transitory feeling of guilt, would turn round as he held out a dish and ask him: ‘How are the hens laying, Igor?’ or ‘What sort of apples are you likely to have this year?’ and he would then answer politely but briefly in that heavy accent which, after almost twenty years with Adrian, he had still not managed to modify, let alone lose.

  Over both dinner and the coffee and liqueurs that followed, there was a lot of gossip about mutual friends in the neighbourhood and a lot of argument about plays, operas and concerts. Adrian feared that all this would bore Mehmet, but he seemed perfectly contented, though playing so little part. From time to time one of them would explain to him ‘Harold Pinter writes plays, some people think them works of genius, others a total con,’ or ‘Britten was gay, you know, homosexual, and that opera of his was the closest that he ever got to coming out in his work.’ Mehmet would nod and smile; but Adrian could only guess how much of this he was taking in and how much of it interested him.

  Night had by now fallen, and Mehmet yet again went out through the french windows for a cigarette. A little later, the art dealer, who was called Harry, despite his nationality, and who wore a slim gold Longines watch and a number of obtrusive rings, wandered out too. Mehmet had already walked out over the tennis lawn and seated himself on one of the plastic chairs on the farther side of it. His chin was resting on his hand, so that his cigarette glowed close to his cheek.

  Adrian reached out for his glasses, abandoned on the table before him, and twisted one earpiece over an ear and then the other. He squinted out. Harry was now also crossing the lawn. He went over to a corner of the garden to fetch another chair for himself and then set it down close to Mehmet’s. Mehmet held out the box of cocktail cigarettes. To Adrian’s amazement, Harry took one, although he had earlier said that he never smoked.

  At that point one of the young men, who worked in the menswear department of Harrods, said: ‘ Oh, Adrian, have you heard the latest story about Al Fayed? It was going all round the shop,’ and Adrian was forced to pay attention to him instead of to the two out beyond the tennis-court.

  When he did look again, he realized that both of them had disappeared. He hesitated. He must not make it too obvious, the others must not know. Then he said: ‘Is that that stray torn again? He’s far too interested in the hens. I’d better have a look,’ and hurried out through the french windows. No such torn existed.

  In no time at all, having rounded the house, he saw the two shapes beside the raspberry cage. They were so close that it was difficult
to differentiate between them, and they were swaying first back and forth and then from side to side. No, they were not having sex or even preparing to have sex. As, feet silent on the long grass, Adrian drew closer, he realized that Harry was trying to put his arms round Mehmet and that Mehmet was pushing him away. Both of them were laughing, Mehmet clearly in no way upset by the advance and Harry in no way upset at having it rejected.

  ‘Oh, so here you both are!’

  On other occasions, when friends had similarly made passes at his lovers, Adrian had always been furious, though subsequently forgiving. ‘Where friends of friends are concerned, I have the equivalent of an incest taboo – I’m just not interested,’ he would loftily tell people, forgetting that more than once he had used his greater wealth to prise away the friend of a friend. But now, to his amazement, he felt no fury at all. That someone invited to his house merely because of an introduction from an acquaintance should have at once blatantly attempted to appropriate his lover, was like being handed a document that authenticated an only just acquired work of art as a masterpiece.

  ‘Yes, we are here,’ Harry replied, totally unfazed. He scratched one eyebrow with the long, lacquered nail of a forefinger. ‘I was asking your charming friend when is the best time to visit Albania. I only wish that he could come as my guide.’

  ‘I’m sure you’ll have no difficulty in attaching one to yourself as soon as you get there. If I may say so, my dear, I can see that you have a remarkable knack for striking up immediate friendships. You must be one of those fortunate people to whom, for reasons no one can fathom, other people at once get stuck like flies to flypaper.’

  There was no ill-feeling in the banter. Harry merely pulled a face and then gave a squeal of laughter, hand to mouth.

  Later that evening everyone but Adrian and Mehmet danced frenetically. The young man who worked in Harrods had previously been smoking a joint with another of the young men. Now, suddenly leaping to his feet, he decided to do a striptease, to raucous cheers and jeers and cries of ‘ Come on, get it all off!’ When he was totally naked, he sashayed over to Adrian, turned his back, bent over, and waggled his ample bottom at him.