by Caro Fraser
Rachel put the phone down and went into the kitchen, where Charles, in his Wallace and Gromit apron, was attending to supper. She leant against the door frame, her arms folded.
When Charles glanced at her he saw that her expression was oddly cold and triumphant. ‘What? Why are you looking like that?’ he asked.
‘I just rang Leo’s flat. And guess who answered?’
‘Who?’
‘Some young man. He said that Leo wasn’t home yet, but that he usually got back about seven. Doesn’t that imply more than just a passing acquaintance? It’s obvious that Leo’s got someone living with him. He had affairs with men when he was married to me and I don’t see why he should change. Now do you believe me when I say I’m right to be concerned about the kind of life Leo leads and how it might affect Oliver?’
Charles gave a heavy sigh and shoved his casserole back into the oven. ‘I suppose so.’ The phone rang and Rachel turned and disappeared into the living room to answer it. Charles could hear cold, clipped snatches of Rachel’s voice and knew she was talking to Leo. Bang went Saturday night. Charles closed the oven. He felt fed up with the whole thing. After this, he decided, he was going to keep well out of it. No more trying to act as helpful intermediary. From now on, this was up to Leo and Rachel.
Leo slammed down the phone in his bedroom, infuriated by his brief conversation with Rachel. The main thrust of it had been that he couldn’t have Oliver on Saturday night, but she hadn’t been able to resist referring to Joshua as ‘the young man of yours who answered the phone’. And she had been angry. Very angry. There was no hope now that she wouldn’t say something to the welfare people.
He went back through to the drawing room and poured himself another Scotch. Joshua, sensing Leo’s mood, switched off the television. After a few seconds’ silence he asked, ‘Something up?’ He didn’t particularly want to know what had been said between Leo and Rachel to make Leo so upset, but he felt he should be doing his caring, sharing bit.
‘It was my ex-wife,’ said Leo. ‘Just something to do with Oliver.’ He sipped his drink. ‘By the way, I won’t be here on Saturday. I’m going to take Oliver out for the day. I’ll probably spend Saturday night at Stanton.’
That was cool, thought Joshua. A night of freedom. ‘Okay.’
Leo glanced at his watch. ‘That’s another thing - sorry, I should have rung to tell you - we’re going to look at the collection that this woman Cole is letting the museum have this evening. Chay’s arranged it. I thought I would take you along, introduce you to some people, see about getting you some work.’
Thanks for asking, thought Joshua, feeling a prickle of resentment. He debated briefly whether he should say to Leo that he was going out, sorry and all that, but decided against it. After all, he had agreed to do some work for the museum if it could be arranged, and it would just piss Leo off if he didn’t go along this evening. Wouldn’t do to piss off the old golden goose. There was always Saturday night. He would have the flat all to himself. That was worth flunking about. Anyway, if this thing didn’t go on for too long this evening, maybe he could still go out. Leo couldn’t expect him to stay in all the time. So he nodded and said, ‘Fine.’ He glanced at the glass in Leo’s hand. ‘That’s the second drink you’ve had in ten minutes. You’d better let me drive us there.’
Leo put down the glass and smiled. He liked Joshua’s rare flashes of concern, reproof. They made Leo feel wanted, protected. Every token of a balanced domestic arrangement, where each looked out for the other and the interests of both, was precious to him. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘You drive.’ Whatever the outcome of the custody dispute, there was still the consolation of Joshua. After a couple of Scotches, it was easy to feel completely secure and happy about all that.
It took Leo and Joshua some time to find the warehouse in Whitechapel and, when they arrived, Chay, Melissa and Derek Harvey were already waiting in the office with Mrs Cole, a diminutive figure dressed in black, wearing a vast, swirling cape and a close-fitting hat pulled down over her head. She gave an imperious, unsrniling little nod as Chay introduced them.
‘We have to sign in,’ said Chay, and handed Leo and Joshua name tags. A member of staff led the little party down through the warehouse. The air was cool and still from the climate control, and vast numbers of works of art were ranged round the storage space. They passed through a series of bolted doors, opened by pass keys, and eventually reached the viewing area. It was completely bare and starkly lit, the size of a small gallery. At Mrs Cole’s clipped request, two white-gloved technicians lifted the first of the exhibits on to foam blocks and the viewing began.
Even as some of the finest pieces of contemporary art passed before her eyes, Melissa found she could barely concentrate. She had been keyed up to Leo’s arrival, but the sight of Joshua had entirely thrown her. Why should he have some young man in tow? She had hoped that she might be able to persuade Leo to go for a drink with her after the viewing was over, to find some way of spending time alone with him. She had thought about him on and off for the past few weeks, hoping to devise some scheme for seeing him, but without success. Tonight had seemed to present the best possibility, but this Joshua person was - well, what was he? Covertly Melissa studied him as he stood, arms folded, close to Leo, watching as the paintings were put on view, remaining silent while Chay, Leo and Derek Harvey murmuringly discussed each one. He was very young, she saw, and quite beautiful. The realisation of what Joshua might be to Leo suddenly hit her and she felt a pang of sheer disbelief. This could not possibly be Leo’s lover. Every sense had told her, on the night he had driven her home, that he was a woman’s man, nothing else. Joshua suddenly turned his head in her direction, possibly sensing her scrutiny, and she looked away, picking up the thread of the conversation, trying to concentrate on the works before her and offer her own views.
When the viewing was over, the party went back to the office to sign out. On the way up, Chay chatted to Joshua. ‘Leo tells me you’re interested in helping out at the museum. Says you know a bit about the kind of work we’ll be exhibiting.’
Joshua nodded. ‘Yes, I’m not working at the moment. Well, only on my paintings.’
‘Okay. We’re a bit short-staffed on the publicity side. Why don’t you give my assistant at the museum a ring in the morning? Her name’s Sandra. Here’s her number. Then you can go along at the beginning of next week and see what she can find for you to do.’
‘Thanks.’
Chay scribbled down the number on a piece of paper and Joshua took it.
Chay turned to speak to Mrs Cole and Joshua went over to Leo. ‘Listen, I’ve talked to Chay and he thinks he can find some work for me. I’m going along to the museum next week.’
‘Good.’ Leo smiled warmly at Joshua. As soon as this was over they could drive back to Belgravia and spend the evening together. Evenings were the happiest, most complete times in Leo’s day, when he could be with Joshua, eat with him, talk to him and make love to him. At such times he wanted nothing more from life.
‘The thing is,’ went on Joshua, ‘I did tell Damien I’d see him for a drink tonight. Would you mind if I went off now? I’ve done the stuff with Chay and I don’t really know these other people.’
For a few seconds Leo said nothing. Why, when Joshua made such an innocent request, did he feel as though his insides had been washed down with ice? Because he didn’t want Joshua to need other people, or other interests. He wanted to be everything to Joshua. That was the reality. Masking all that he felt, Leo gave a shrug and said, ‘Sure. I can get a cab back. I’ll probably go for a drink with the rest of them, anyway.’
Joshua’s relief was palpable. ‘Great. I won’t be late. See you.’ He wondered whether he should kiss Leo goodbye, but decided against it.
Leo watched from the office window as Joshua went out into the night, pulling his car keys and his mobile phone from his pocket, already in another world where Leo did not belong.
Melissa, as she conversed w
ith Anthea Cole about the collection, registered this brief exchange between Leo and Joshua even as she talked. She couldn’t hear what was said, but her heart rose as she saw Joshua leave. She had gathered from Chay that the boy wanted some work at the museum, so that was probably all it was. He was just a friend whom Leo was helping out, probably someone’s son. After a few moments she went over to Leo. ‘I don’t know about you, but I’m positively in need of a drink.’
Something in Leo’s system had already kicked into alcoholic gear; he needed a drink, too, more than one to blunt the keen edge of his feelings of insecurity. It was the same every time that Joshua went away. Would he ever come back and, if he did, in what altered frame of mind? Everything was so fragile … Yes, a couple of hours in the pub was just what he needed. Presumably the others would be joining them. ‘Good idea. What about everyone else?’
But it turned out that Chay had other arrangements, and Derek had a deadline to meet and a column to finish. Anthea Cole, bidding them all goodnight, was on her way out to her chauffeur-driven car.
Melissa raised her shoulders in a helpless shrug. ‘Oh dear, just you and me.’
Leo could do nothing. He had already said yes and the fact was, he didn’t much care. The alternative was to go home and brood alone, pretending to fill up the waiting hours with trivia until Joshua came back. At least Melissa was company, someone to get moderately drunk with. She clearly had a thing about him, too, and that went for something. His self-esteem was such these days that it could do with a bit of shoring up.
They went round the corner to a pub and ordered drinks. Leo ordered doubles. The pub, set in a part of Whitechapel which was an up-and-coming artists’ colony, was lively and noisy. After the first couple of drinks, Leo found he had reached a state of pleasant detachment. Melissa was amusing company, the practised flirtatiousness with which she had previously behaved now replaced by a light, unthreatening, casual tone. The persona was that of a woman with no pretensions about herself, prepared to say what she felt and damn the consequences. She told Leo about the highs and lows of her job in a self-deprecating way, and she had a rich store of gossip about semi-celebrities, which Leo enjoyed. He found it all undemanding stuff, rather like reading a tabloid newspaper while moderately stoned. He told her a little about his marriage and about Oliver. He deliberately tried not to think about Joshua.
Melissa gauged Leo’s behaviour carefully. She was surprised by the amount he was drinking. Still, maybe it helped. The conversation was moving along nicely enough, but what was needed was something to create a climate of intimacy and she knew just the thing. Argument. Nothing like a bit of provocation, a bit of friction, to bring people together. She recalled some remarks he had made driving back on the first evening they had met and decided to capitalise on those. She began to enthuse about a recent exhibition of work by Serrano which she had seen in New York, describing the works in graphic detail, knowing that the grotesqueries would prove too much for Leo.
After a few moments they did. ‘You’re not seriously suggesting that that kind of studied perversity deserves the name of art, are you?’ Leo put down his glass, banging it slightly harder than he had intended, so that the whisky slopped a little, on to the table. ‘It’s depressing - this urge to outrage, to do anything to win attention, no matter how grotesque and depraved. How many extreme gestures does an artist have to make in order to be noticed, for God’s sake?’
‘Good art has to be dangerous,’ observed Melissa, pleased with the warmth of Leo’s response.
‘Rubbish,’ replied Leo. ‘What you’re talking about is an addiction to extremity. It’s a natural corollary to the obsession with novelty. This desperate search to say or do something new. It’s the worst kind of cultural huckstering and it’s bad for artists. You of all people must see that. What kind of message does a young, unestablished artist get from an exhibition like Serrano’s? That the more promiscuous and offensive your art can be, the better its chance of succeeding. They’re all scrambling for recognition in an atmosphere in which the last thing that matters is artistic excellence.’ Leo drained his glass. He gestured to Melissa’s. ‘Another?’
She shook her head. ‘You go ahead.’
Leo bought himself another drink and the argument continued. Melissa was careful to keep her end of it easy and good-humoured, and after a while it became jokey and idle, Leo’s earlier vehemence dwindling away.
‘I’m finding it very smoky in here,’ remarked Melissa. ‘I don’t think I can take much more of it.’
‘You’re right,’ replied Leo. ‘It’s getting too noisy as well. I think I’ll have to be getting back.’
Outside, the cold October air struck Leo, filling his lungs and making him realise that he was rather drunk. He felt pleasantly high, in a way which he needed to feel more and more these days. The argument with Melissa had left him with a spurious feeling of camaraderie. He suddenly had no wish to be alone. The pub, the warmth of Melissa’s company, all at once seemed like a haven of safety.
‘Shall we share a cab?’ Leo asked. ‘We live in the same direction, as I recall.’ He pulled up the collar of his coat, realising he was very slightly unsteady on his feet.
In the half-darkness of the street Melissa smiled. ‘Why not?’
They spoke little on the way back, but as the cab drew up to Melissa’s door, she said, ‘Why don’t you come in for coffee? It’s not particularly late.’
Leo thought momentarily of the darkness of his own flat, the sense of emptiness that awaited him, the uncertainty of the hours until Joshua came home. He couldn’t face it. Sometimes, without Joshua there, he hated the place. Besides, he was drunk, and it was better to be drunk in company than alone. He could have some coffee, chat for a while, then get a cab back. That way the hours until Joshua’s return would be shortened. ‘I’d like to. Thank you.’ The words did not come out as coherently as he had intended.
On the pavement he stood fumbling for some moments in his pockets until he found money to pay the cab.
Leo didn’t take much stock of his surroundings as he came into Melissa’s flat, except to notice that the front door opened straight into a large, low-ceilinged living room. Gratefully he shrugged off his overcoat and sat down heavily on a sofa, loosening his tie.
‘Coffee, or another drink?’ asked Melissa, moving around the room, switching on a series of lamps, so that the light was muted and intimate.
Leo stifled a yawn. What the hell … ‘Scotch, if you have it. Just a small one, please.’
Melissa was careful to keep it small. She didn’t want Leo passing out on her. That wouldn’t exactly serve her purposes.
‘Here.’ She handed him his drink. Leo raised it to her in a sloppy toast and sipped. He was aware that she had put on some music, unfamiliar, but pleasantly gentle. He leant back and closed his eyes.
‘I’ll be back in a moment,’ said Melissa and left the room.
Leo lay back on the sofa, his thoughts ebbing and flowing tipsily, his mind now numb to any depressing thoughts. Roused out of something approaching a light sleep, he became aware that Melissa had sat down next to him on the sofa. He opened his eyes, shaking his head a little to clear it.
He stared at the glass in his hand. ‘Perhaps coffee would have been a better idea,’ he murmured, then turned to glance at Melissa. She was sitting quite close to him and he noticed that she had untied her blonde hair, so that it fell over her shoulders, and that she had changed into something loose and flowing, a robe of some kind. His mind was too slow to make much of these details, beyond observing them. He had begun to wonder, in a fumbling way, what time it was, when he felt a soft hand laid against his cheek. Melissa gently turned his face towards hers and he drunkenly registered her faint smile as she leant over to kiss him. He closed his eyes and let her kiss him, because he felt too inert to do anything else, and because it was rather pleasant. Her touch felt kind and healing, and he did not think beyond this, but began to kiss her back in instinctive response. Meliss
a guided his hand inside her robe and he felt the touch of her naked breast with only vague surprise. Slowly he took his mouth away from hers, feeling as though he were standing outside himself, watching himself take up a role like an actor, and with both hands slid the robe from her shoulders. For a few seconds he gazed at her nakedness, at the low light burnishing her breasts, and ran thoughtful fingers over her skin, the hardness of her nipples, making her shiver with pleasure. Then he lifted his eyes to her face. Drunk as he was, he scrutinised her soft, hungry features with detachment. For Leo, sex had always been in a realm of its own, an art beyond emotion, the pleasures of the body removed to a level that was almost clinical. There was a practised sensuality about this situation, a calculation in the manner in which she offered herself to him, which he found irresistibly erotic. He lowered his mouth to one of her breasts, pushing her gently back against the cushions, aware that he was, in spite of the amount he had drunk, hard and aroused. It would be as dispassionate and enjoyable a sexual consummation as any other, performed with neither love nor meaning, but for the pure pleasure of the moment. He had known many such encounters in the past, with men and women, and at least this one might give him brief respite from his feelings of isolation and weakness.
Just as his hand traced its way down across her body, parting her legs, the delicacy of the moment suddenly erupted into a fever, on Melissa’s part, of urgent, hungry action. She pushed herself up from the cushions and threw herself against Leo, moaning, pressing her mouth to his, her hands tearing at his shirt, then at the waistband of his trousers. The sudden disturbance of the equilibrium took Leo completely by surprise. As she thrust him back on to the sofa, her breath hot and panting, her limbs threshing against his, the absurdity of the whole thing suddenly welled up in his mind through the fog of whisky and he began to laugh. He couldn’t help himself. He pulled his mouth away from her hectic, insistent kisses to let the laughter escape, feeling his body grow weak. Jesus Christ, thought Leo, I’m being raped. She was unfastening his shirt buttons with shaking fingers and, still laughing, he pushed her away, having to do it quite roughly in order to move her. Melissa, still gasping, sat back, strands of hair sticking to her damp face and lips, staring at Leo uncomprehendingly. Awareness of his helpless laughter dawned upon her. It had come to all this, she had been so close to having him, and he just lay there, holding his shirt together, giggling. She dragged her robe across her naked body, pushing her hair back from her face.