It was hard to be sick quietly. Felicity groped upwards for the little radio that usually hung next to the shower and fumbled to switch it on, hoping that the sounds of Capital FM on a Saturday morning would drown the noise of her own retching. Why was this starting now? She reckoned she must be six weeks pregnant. She had thought that if you were going to get morning sickness, you got it from the word go. Clearly not. She stared dizzily at the white interior of the lavatory, then sat back. At the sound of Vince’s feet outside she pulled herself to her feet and flushed the lavatory quickly.
Vince appeared in his boxer shorts, scratching his chest. ‘Was that you throwin’ up?’ he asked conversationally.
Felicity nodded, giving him a pained little look and going to the sink to splash water on her mouth. ‘It must have been that curry we had last night,’ she said, patting her face with a towel.
Vince leant against the door jamb. ‘Na, can’t have been. We both had the same and there’s nothin’ wrong with my insides.’ He looked at Felicity speculatively as she brushed her teeth. Felicity studiously avoided his eye. Light dawned slowly. ‘Here - are you pregnant? Is that what it is?’ Felicity brushed her teeth harder and debated briefly within herself whether to try and deny it and talk her way out of it. One glance at Vince’s face told her there was no point. She gave a little sigh and let him hug her. As she rubbed her face slowly against his bare muscled shoulder, she was aware of an inner sense of relief, tinged with fear.
‘You are, aren’t you? Aw, bloody brilliant!’ He put an affectionate arm round her shoulder and gave her a squeeze, almost pulling her off balance. ‘I thought your tits was looking a bit on the bouncy side these days. And you’ve been off your drink.’ He pulled away and looked into her face. ‘How come you never told me?’
‘I’ve only just found out. I wanted to be certain.’
‘Fantastic.’ he murmured proudly, and hugged her gently again.
‘Vince,’ she said, pulling away, ‘it’s not as though it’s something we planned. I don’t know why you’re so pleased. Look, come through and have some coffee. I think we have to talk about this.’
Vince made coffee while Felicity sat at the kitchen table, shoulders slightly hunched, hardly listening as he talked. He’d be choosing names next. The horrible thing about morning sickness, she realised, was that, unlike ordinary sickness, you didn’t feel better afterwards. Hadn’t she read somewhere that you should try to eat something dry, like a cracker? What a disgusting thought. Vince put a mug of coffee in front of her and she shook her head. ‘Vince,’ she said, as he sat down opposite her with his coffee, ‘stop going on as though everything’s wonderful. I don’t think you’ve thought any of this through.’
‘What? Course I haven’t. I’ve only just found out, haven’t I? I’m reacting, aren’t I? Anyway, what’s to think through? You’re having a baby, bingo.’ He took a sip of his coffee. ‘We’re having a baby. Fuckin’ great.’
She sighed. ‘I’m not so sure about that. I mean, it’s not exactly an ideal time, is it? You’re still doing your knowledge - and will be for the next two years, if what you said the other night is right. I’m just starting to earn really good money … I mean, what’s going to happen if I have to give up work?’
Vince shrugged. ‘We’ll manage. My mum did. So did yours. It’s only a job. You can always get another one, like when the kids start school, an’ that.’
The kids. Vince had already painted the picture of her future. Not an ambitious man himself, content with enough money for booze and the most basic standard of living, he would be happy to see her life turn into the kind his own mother had led, and hers. Tied to the house, three or four kids to yell at and pick up after, washing, cooking, shopping, ironing, the days turning into months, the months to years. Occasional holidays, family celebrations, eventually the arrival of grandchildren. That would do for Vince. She studied him as he drank his coffee and wondered if he really had any idea of what she did all day. Probably not. He thought of the people in chambers as a ponced-up set of lawyers, nothing to do with him, just Fliss’s bosses. If he thought about them too hard, his monumental chip would probably appear. By the same token, she guessed that his mind shied away from the thought that her job might in any way be important, valuable. Leaving aside the money she earned, he probably liked to think of her as a kind of secretary. In fact, he doubtless consoled himself with the notion that he could do Felicity’s job any day, if he had a mind to.
‘What if I don’t want to give up my job?’ she asked.
Vince looked up at her. ‘Well, come on, girl, you can’t have a baby and work. I mean, not straight away. Anyway, it won’t be much fun for it all on its own. Gotta have another, to keep it company, like. A proper family.’
‘Vince, Vince.’ Felicity gave a small, despairing laugh.
‘What?’
‘Oh, I dunno … You talk like it’s easy, like we’ll be able to afford things, that everything will go on as before. But it won’t. What are we going to do without my money?’
‘Manage. I told you. It’s just a matter of months.’
She thought for a moment. ‘What would you say if I suggested that I go back to work after the baby’s born and you look after it?’ This was rather more hypothetical than anything else; Felicity was curious to know his reaction.
‘What? Me?’ He laughed. ‘You are joking, aren’t you? How could I do me knowledge and look after a baby? Strap ‘im on the pillion, or something? I don’t see it. Anyway, that’s what mothers are for. Gotta have your mum.’ He shook his head. ‘I just can’t believe it. Me, a dad.’
‘Yeah,’ sighed Felicity. ‘You, a dad.’
Leo woke early on Saturday, his mind as tormented by thoughts of Joshua as when he had fallen asleep. He shaved, showered and dressed. He could eat nothing. He went out and drove to Earl’s Court. There he parked and began to walk the streets. They were only beginning to come to life at nine o’clock. By lunchtime, when Leo was still walking, they were crowded. People spilled in and out of the tube station; the shops and supermarkets were teeming. Part of his mind was suspended in disbelief at what he was doing - the futility, the stupidity of it. But the other part was too filled with feeble hope to care, too busy scanning the faces, the random knots of young men passing by. The merest glimpse of hair the same colour as Joshua’s set his heart racing. But nowhere, nowhere did he see the face he longed for. The hours drifted by, his heart and mind were sick and weary with it all, but still he looked and walked and hoped. What else could he do? All he knew was that Joshua lived in Earl’s Court. That was as much as he had told Leo. And Earl’s Court, of course, was thronged with itinerant young people, moving from job to job, bedsit to bedsit, country to country. What hope had he of finding him? None. None, he knew, none. But even the most minuscule possibility seemed, in Leo’s state of mind, too precious to abandon.
By two thirty he gave up. Heartsore, hungry, savagely ashamed of himself, he drove to the Galleria where Joshua had worked. Maybe there was some chance … He ordered a ham and cheese croissant and coffee, eating and drinking mindlessly, his eyes moving to the door every time it opened. He had no idea why he was there. After a while he noticed the Australian girl behind the bar, polishing glasses. She was big, rather plain, wearing a shapeless black T-shirt, her hair tied back. Leo paid the bill and went to the bar. ‘You had a boy called Joshua working here, I believe?’
She looked up, her expression indifferent. ‘Yeah. For a few months. He left last week.’
‘I need to find him. I’m a friend of his.’
‘Yeah?’ The girl shrugged. ‘Can’t help you. Sorry. I didn’t know him that well.’
‘Did he have any friends - people who used to come and see him here?’ The girl looked infinitely bored, and Leo added, ‘It’s really very important that I find him.’
She began sliding the clean glasses into the rack above the bar. ‘Well, he had this mate who used to come when we were closing up. They’d go off together. Damien, his name was.’ She gave a little smirk at what she clearly thought was a daft name.
‘Anything else? I mean, could I find this Damien?’
‘All I know is that he worked at some art cinema. Camden, I think it was. Don’t know the name. He sold tickets and coffee and stuff like that.’
‘Thank you,’ said Leo. ‘Thank you.’
Leo left the Galleria and went to the nearest newsagent’s and bought a copy of Time Out. In his car he riffled through the pages, conscious of a disproportionate nervous excitement. Camden, Camden … There was only one cinema that he could see listed - the Odeon. The girl had said an art cinema, though. Still, maybe she had made a mistake. Or maybe she had meant around the Camden area. That could include Hampstead, Swiss Cottage, even Islington. He glanced through the Hampstead listings. There were three that he could see, two of which looked more promising - the Everyman and Screen on the Hill. They were roughly what one might call art cinemas. A Pasolini double bill presumably ranked as art. There was the ABC, of course, and the Swiss Cottage Odeon, and the Screen on the Green in Islington. He would try them all.
Leo threw the magazine on to the passenger seat and started the car. As he checked in the rear-view mirror before pulling out, his own eyes looked back at him. For a moment he paused, appalled. What was he doing? What did he hope to gain from all this? Suppose he did track down this Damien. Was he likely to tell him where Joshua was? Leo had no idea. None at all. He only knew that he felt for the young man who had slipped in and out of his life something bordering on obsession. If there was the faintest hope that he might find him, just to talk to him and look at him, and perhaps persuade him to come back, then it was worth it. What else was he to do with his time, anyway?
There was no Damien to be found at any cinema. Leo tried them all. After drawing a final blank at the Swiss Cottage Odeon, he got back into his car and picked up the copy of Time Out again. Maybe the girl had got it wrong. Maybe the cinema was in another part of London altogether. He began to go through the listings, then stopped. He couldn’t go on with this. It was more than pride and reason could bear. Defeated, Leo flung the magazine aside and drove home.
On his answering machine, Leo found three messages, all from Melissa Angelicos. The first had been left at twelve, inviting him to an impromptu dinner party she was having that evening. Short notice, she knew, and Leo was probably already busy, but if he could give her a call … The second had been left later in the afternoon, just calling to see if he had got her first message, she did so hope he could make it, waiting to hear from him, bye. The third, which had been left just shortly before Leo got in, was short. Melissa. Still hoping to see you. Call if you can.
Leo played back the messages as he mixed himself a drink, moving from drawing room to kitchen and back again, the sound of her cultured, slightly rasping tones following him. How the hell had she got his home number? He had known the other night that she was attracted to him, but hadn’t expected her to make her next move quite so quickly. At Melissa’s age, perhaps you couldn’t afford to hang around. He had no intention of going to her dinner party. Under other circumstances, and purely for the amusement value, he might have gone as a means of passing the evening and escaping thoughts. Melissa’s friends were possibly worth meeting. But he had no wish to escape his thoughts, painful as they were. His feelings for Joshua were so deep and so new that he simply wished to contemplate them, to nurse them. He wasn’t fit for company. Besides, he had no desire to give Ms Angelicos the slightest encouragement. Rude though it doubtless was, he didn’t even intend to answer her calls.
Throughout the evening Leo sat watching television, drinking Scotch, the answer phone switched on. It rang three times. Each time the caller hung up and left no message. Perhaps it was Melissa, perhaps not. His heart gave a little flip of fear. What if it had been Joshua? But it couldn’t have been. Joshua didn’t know his number, had no means of finding it out. More depressed than he had felt in his life, Leo switched off the television and began to read, conscious of a dull, whisky-induced headache. He mustn’t drink any more. He had told Rachel he would pick Oliver up around ten, so he would have to be up early.
Just before midnight the phone rang once more. Leo hesitated, about to cross the room and pick it up before the answering machine cut in. But he left it and went to bed.
Joshua put the phone down and crossed the lobby of the club to where Damien was waiting for him.
‘I don’t know why you keep ringing him. What’s the point?’
Joshua shrugged. ‘I don’t know … feel a bit bad about the whole thing. Maybe I should have left him a note. I don’t know what he expects.’
‘I’d forget it, if I were you. That kind of thing is seriously bad news. I reckon you should try pulling some girl tonight. That’ll take your mind off it.’
‘Yeah, maybe you’re right.’ He put the piece of paper back in his pocket, the one on which he’d copied down Leo’s phone number from the bill which he had come across when riffling through the contents of the hall table the morning before he’d left. What Damien said could be true. Maybe it was bad news. But he’d got nothing out of it. He’d thought he hadn’t wanted anything - money, that is. Leo had plenty to spare, Joshua had seen that from going through his drawers. It was just that he couldn’t get Leo out of his mind.
Melissa closed the door on the last of her dinner party guests and let the smile slip from her face. She sighed and slid on the chain bolt, then went back through to the dining room, where the remains of the meal scattered the table and the air was pungent with cigar smoke. Melissa pulled back the curtains and opened a window, letting the air billow in. She stood there for a moment, breathing in the chilly freshness of it. He hadn’t even rung back. Bastard. Something small and dark and very close to hatred crept from her soul and nestled next to all her mixed-up desires and hopes. She liked him. She liked him too much. And if he was going to let her down like this, then it was all going to get very painful. Of course, she had plenty of men friends. Friends were fine, in their way. But in Leo Davies she had detected something for which she longed, lusted. Now she had her sights fixed on him she could not let him elude her. It did not cross her mind for a moment that perhaps Leo had been out all day and all evening, or that he might be away for the weekend. In the scenario she had constructed he had become, from the first moment when he had cold-shouldered her, an object, a target, a being whose motives and strategies must be bound up with hers, in order to make the game worth playing. She was convinced he had received her messages and ignored them. The cold air made her shiver. She closed the window, drew the curtain again slowly, and went to pour herself a small brandy. Then she sat in an armchair, thinking, for a long time.
Rachel plucked Oliver from his high chair, wiped jam from around his mouth with a damp flannel and set him down on the floor, where he staggered purposefully towards the back door. Outside, Charles was cutting back a tangle of overgrown clematis from an apple tree. Rachel watched as Oliver squatted down next to Charles and began to fill one of his tipper trucks with handfuls of gravel. She turned back to the heap of things which she had prepared for Oliver’s day out, and checked through them. Baby car seat, juice, bib, banana just in case he got hungry and fretful before they got to Stanton, nappies, change of clothing … How long until she was packing pyjamas, too, and his velvet elephant that he took to bed? Perhaps sooner than she wished. Rachel knew Leo. When he wanted something he could be totally ruthless. He would fight for this shared residence order. If he succeeded, Oliver would be away from her every other weekend. It wasn’t that Rachel didn’t want Leo to see Oliver regularly. Of course he should. But not every other weekend, while he was still so little. Rachel did not think she could bear for Oliver, who eclipsed everything else in her life, to be away so often. There seemed to be no room for compromise. The last thing she wanted was an acrimonious legal dispute, but it seemed there was no alternative. If she and Leo couldn’t agree, they would just have to let a court do it for them.
At the faint sound of a car engine she glanced up and saw Leo’s Aston Martin turning in through the gateway. Oliver stood up and began to run towards it, and as Rachel’s heart leapt a little in fear, Charles loped after him and scooped him up. There had been no danger, Leo’s car had already stopped, but the flicker of a few seconds’ anxiety didn’t help Rachel’s already disturbed mood.
Leo sat behind the wheel for a moment, watching as Charles lifted a laughing Oliver on to his shoulders, where he sat, chubby legs dangling down over Charles’s chest. He felt jealous. No question about it. Charles had an intimacy with Oliver that he could not have, not even with his own son. Well, perhaps that was his own fault, seeing the child so infrequently over the past few months, but he was going to change that. His solicitor was already seeing to it.
He got out of the car and came towards Charles, who suddenly looked faintly apologetic and lifted Oliver from his shoulders. Beecham, you’re a tactless sod, Charles told himself. The two men shook hands, trying to appear at ease with one another, then Oliver, after a moment’s hesitation, let Leo pick him up and kiss him.
‘Rachel’s inside, getting his stuff ready. Like equipping an overseas task force, so far as I can see,’ said Charles. ‘Want some coffee?’
Leo shook his head. ‘I won’t hang about, thanks.’ Oliver wriggled out of his arms and headed for the house.
‘Fair turn of speed on him,’ remarked Charles, watching him. ‘Four minute mile material, I’d say.’
‘Not if he’s anything like his father,’ said Leo. Why had he said that, used that word? Was he trying to tell Charles something?
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ replied Charles. ‘As I recall, you’re pretty nippy round a squash court.’
There was a brief, uneasy pause. The relationship, which had been so unforced and friendly just a year ago, had quite changed. Rachel put a distance between them. It had to be that way, thought Charles. Even though he hadn’t exactly pinched Leo’s wife, the situation was awkward. ‘Right, come inside and get his gear,’ he said. They walked towards the house, chatting about Charles’s latest documentary to try to ease the vague tension.
Rachel stood in the kitchen, putting things methodically into Oliver’s baby bag. Even the sight of his stupid car can do it to me, she thought. Indifference, that’s what I want to feel. I want to look at him and feel nothing. She heard their voices as they approached the back door and turned to greet Leo with a polite smile, bracing herself for the tumbling sensation she always felt in her heart when she saw him.
Ten minutes later, as Charles stowed Oliver’s things in the boot of the Aston Martin, Leo was struggling to put the baby seat in.
‘Here, let me,’ said Charles. ‘It’s a bit of a knack.’ Leo stood back and watched as Charles expertly threaded belts and tightened straps. ‘The thing goes round the front and then through, not the other way round. Had me completely baffled the day we first got it.’ Just this casual reference made Leo feel marginalised. Charles and Rachel and Oliver were a happy little unit, one which he, Leo, by his mere presence today, was threatening to destabilise.
‘What are you going to do with him?’ asked Rachel. She stood a few feet away from the car watching operations, her arms folded. Leo had sensed from the moment he arrived the brittle state of her mood. He put it down to anxiety over Oliver’s day out. It did not occur to him that her apparent aloofness was an attempt to stifle any betrayal of the feelings she still had for him. He was unaware that they existed. It had never been his habit to consult too closely the state of Rachel’s mind or heart. She belonged to Charles now. ‘Don’t worry. I’m not going to smuggle him out of the country. I’ve got a hearing tomorrow.’
‘Leo—’
He cut in, holding up an apologetic hand: ‘Sorry. I’m going to take him to the house, make him some lunch and then, if the weather holds out, I thought he might like a ride on the narrow-gauge steam railway. Would you like that? A ride on a train?’ Leo asked Oliver, as he picked him up and put him gently into his car seat.
Gratifyingly, Oliver smiled and said ‘train’ three times.
As Leo searched for the straps, Charles stepped forward to help, but Leo said, ‘Thanks - I can do it. I have got a little experience.’
Charles stepped back again. Poor bastard, he thought. What a rotten situation, having to come here and take his own son out for the day. He could see Rachel’s point of view about Oliver’s age, but it seemed to Charles it might be more sensible to let the child go to his father every other weekend. Might as well establish a regular relationship now. Better for Oliver. Better for Charles, too.
‘What time will you be back?’ asked Rachel. She stepped forward to stroke Oliver’s hair and absently tuck down the label of his jumper.
‘About half six?’
Rachel nodded, bent to kiss Oliver, and Leo closed the car door. She watched with a small pain in her heart as they drove away.
‘Cheer up,’ said Charles, putting an arm around her. ‘I’m taking you to lunch in a couple of hours. I’ve booked a very special place on the river. Then we have the whole afternoon to ourselves to do exactly as we like.’
‘Are you glad?’ she asked, unable to keep the resentment out of her voice. ‘I mean, you seem relieved that he’s gone off for the day.’
‘I’m not glad,’ replied Charles carefully. ‘But it’s only for a few hours.’
The tension within Rachel gave way and she began to cry. Charles held her against him, wondering. After a few moments he lifted her face to his and kissed her. ‘We have two whole hours,’ he murmured. ‘And nothing to interrupt them. I suggest, unless you can think of anything better to do, that we go to bed. Unless, of course, you want to listen to the omnibus edition of The Archers. Or do both at the same time.’
Rachel gave a little laugh through her tears and kissed him. ‘Just you.’
When they made love, Rachel was conscious that she was searching her heart and mind for some elusive feeling. She badly wanted to be able to dwell on the wonderful fact that Charles loved her so generously and so completely, to let the comfort of that flood her and make her want him as much as he did her. But even as he entered her, and she gave a gasp of pleasure at the familiar sensation, Rachel knew that she wished, in spite of everything, that it could be Leo, and she had to fight the temptation to close her eyes and pretend that it was.
When they reached the house, Leo took Oliver out of his car seat and carried him and his belongings to the house. He hadn’t been there since late spring, and the air was close and musty, despite the fact that Mrs Lee from the village came in every two weeks to water the plants and keep the place dusted. Leo went from room to room, opening windows. When he came back downstairs he found that Oliver had taken all the logs out of the log basket and was filling it with books from the lower shelves.
Scooping him up, Leo glanced round the room. There wasn’t much damage Oliver could do to the room or himself, but there wasn’t really anything for him to play with either. Although Leo had brought Oliver’s high chair from London, he hadn’t thought to bring any of his toys. They would have to go into Oxford after lunch and see what they could find. He wanted there to be things here, familiar things, which Oliver would look forward to playing with, and which would make it a home for him, as much as the flat in London.
‘Let’s get the shopping out of the car and make you some lunch,’ he said and kissed Oliver.
While Leo ate a ham sandwich and glanced through the Sunday Times, Oliver worked his way steadily through a plateful of bread and Marmite fingers. When he had eaten as many of these as he wanted, he rolled up the remaining three, mashed them between his fingers and dropped them over the side of his high chair, glancing candidly at his father for his reaction. Leo sat watching him as he did this, marvelling as he always did at the texture of the boy’s skin, the silkiness of his hair, and at his ability to spread food in all directions. There were glistening little lumps of mashed banana adhering to the floor and to the wall, where they had flown after Oliver had wrested the spoon from Leo’s grasp while Leo tried to feed him. Leo hadn’t realised that Oliver fed himself these days and clearly found his father’s attempts to spoon stuff into his mouth pretty patronising and offensive. Leo went to the sink for a cloth, and as he came back Oliver began to batter the table of his high chair with his beaker of juice, showering himself and Leo with sizeable splashes of baby Ribena. The expression of exuberant delight on his son’s face made Leo laugh aloud, and at this Oliver began to laugh too and bang his beaker harder.
‘Right, enough of that.’ Leo took the beaker and guided it towards Oliver’s mouth. As he watched the toddler drink, Leo realised that there was a quality to this time with Oliver that had not existed when he and Rachel had lived together. She had always been possessive of Oliver in a way which Leo had assumed was naturally maternal, but it had meant that Rachel did most things for Oliver. While he had not felt exactly excluded, Leo hadn’t had the chance to spend sustained periods of time with the baby, doing everything for him as he was now. He liked this intimacy, the way that he and Oliver could concentrate on one another without any distractions.
As soon as he saw that Oliver had quenched his thirst and was about to embark on another bout of beaker battering, Leo took it away and wiped him comprehensively with the damp end of a towel. Then he released him from the high chair and let him lurch into the living room while Leo cleared up the mess of lunch.
In Oxford that afternoon they bought a little tractor which Oliver could sit on and push along with his feet, a cart filled with coloured building blocks, a very basic Thomas The Tank Engine train set, and a variety of little cars and farm and zoo animals. By the time he and Oliver had pootled up and down on the narrow-gauge steam railway, which Oliver loved to distraction, Leo realised that it was four thirty, and that he would barely have time to get him back to the house and give him tea before taking him home to Rachel.
After a messy meal of scrambled egg and toast, Oliver insisted on playing with each one of the toys which he and Leo had bought that afternoon. Leo had not the heart to refuse him, realising that he would actually rather capitulate to most of his son’s demands than be subjected to the ear-splitting wailing which Oliver was capable of setting up when thwarted. At six o’clock, while Oliver, who was now grizzly with tiredness, pushed Thomas The Tank Engine round and round the plastic track for yet another time, Leo tried to call Rachel to say he would be late. There was no answer.
Clearly she and Charles had gone out for the afternoon and were late themselves. Fine. Oliver could play with his new toys until he dropped, which wouldn’t be long now, and then he would take him back.
In the barn at the far end of the garden, Rachel and Charles were sorting books on to shelves. Charles had decided to turn the barn into a proper work place, and now that the builders had finished he was moving in the contents of his study, plus a new computer system.
‘Was that the phone?’ said Rachel, pausing with a book in hand.
‘I don’t know,’ said Charles. ‘I think I’m growing progressively deaf.’
‘When is the phone line going to be installed here, anyway?’
‘Tuesday, I hope. It’s not going to be much of a work place without one.’
‘Look, d’you mind if I leave you to it?’ sighed Rachel. ‘Oliver’s going to be back in half an hour and I’ve got a few things to do in the house.’
Like wait for Oliver, thought Charles. All day she had been distracted, clearly occupied with thoughts of Oliver and what he was doing. ‘No, off you go. I won’t be much longer myself.’
Rachel went back up to the house, thinking, as she had done all day, of Leo and Oliver together, wondering if her desire to be with them both was born out of jealousy, or some other emotion.
The next hour and a half dragged by. Six-thirty came and went, and still there was no sign of Oliver and Leo. Charles came back from the barn and found Rachel pacing round the kitchen in an agitated manner, and did his best to soothe her.
‘But it’s seven-thirty! They were meant to be back an hour ago!’ Rachel was close to tears.
‘It is only an hour,’ pointed out Charles. ‘Leo was probably late back from wherever it was they went. He said something about a steam railway and they always take far longer than you think they will. He probably didn’t realise where the time was going. A few hours go very quickly with a small child. Or slowly, depending. I mean—’
‘Charles, stop babbling!’ Rachel groaned and sat down at the kitchen table. ‘Anything could have happened to them! An accident … Leo and those fast cars of his. God, I feel sick with worry.’
‘Well, don’t,’ said Charles. He went over to the drinks cupboard. ‘What I suggest is a large gin and tonic—’
‘Charles, why does alcohol always have to be your answer to everything?’ snapped Rachel.
Charles, a little hurt by this remark, but conscious of its essential truthfulness, poured himself a hefty slug of gin. ‘I don’t know,’ he murmured. ‘It just is. It always has been. Maybe I’m just lucky that way.’ God, he hoped Leo would get the child here soon. Normally a man of placid, unruffled temperament, he found the atmosphere created by Rachel’s tense fretting distinctly unsettling. He didn’t feel he could decently switch on the television, or sit down and yawn over the Sunday papers, in case it looked callous in the face of Rachel’s vision of Leo and Oliver splattered all over the M4. Charles was pacing round the kitchen with his drink, trying to think of something encouraging to say, when headlights gleamed in an arc across the kitchen and they heard the sound of a car drawing to a halt outside.
Rachel was on her feet in an instant and through the back door, before Charles had the chance to tell her to stay calm. He was about to follow her when he heard the beginnings of an angry tirade outside, thought better of it, sighed and sat down with his drink. It was nothing to do with him, anyway. Let them sort it out. He suddenly found himself remembering, quite unexpectedly, the cosy solitude of his house before he had met Rachel, the Sunday evenings of peace, with nothing more to do than go down to the pub …
Rachel came back angrily into the kitchen clutching a drowsy Oliver, Leo in her wake. ‘You didn’t even change him before you set off, did you? He’s sodden! Honestly … I’m taking him straight upstairs to bed.’
She left the kitchen. Leo stood in the doorway, Oliver’s baby bag in his hand.
‘Hi,’ said Charles, and raised his glass.
On the journey back to London, filled with late Sunday depression, Leo had nothing to do but think. He thought, as usual these days, about himself. These last few months he had felt fragmented, with no cohesion to his life. The various roles he played had no connection. Now that his day with Oliver had come to an end, his thoughts began to drift back to Joshua. One was many things to different people. How could he be a good father to Oliver, and the lover of young men? It had never been Leo’s way to impose any moral order on his life, and even now he would not admit of any contradiction in its various facets. It was a question of practicality. Loving Joshua, and young men like him, was simply an aspect of his life which he could not deny. The answer was to keep things separate. Rachel had touched a nerve when, during their argument in the pub about Oliver, she had raised the threat of bringing his personal life into question if he should pursue the matter of access. That worried him. He must be careful, very careful where Oliver was concerned. Not that there seemed to be any present scope for concern. Joshua had come into his life, wrought unlooked-for emotional havoc and left it. Perhaps just as well. At least it should be easier to get over such fresh, slight wounds. Better than the pain of a prolonged love affair. And yet that was what it should have been. He knew himself to be capable of such passion, and Joshua would have been, could have been …
He decided he would think no more about it. Instead, he turned his mind to the call he intended to make later that evening, to a dealer friend in Copenhagen who might have some works of interest to the museum. Leo switched on some music and concentrated on driving and keeping his thoughts off Joshua.
As soon as he slipped his key in the front door and opened it, Leo saw the light from the living room. He walked slowly, edgily, up the hall, not daring to allow the hope in his heart to expand. He stopped in the doorway. Joshua glanced up and saw Leo standing there, looking tired, dressed in jeans and open-necked shirt, and a battered leather jacket that looked as though it had once been very expensive. Joshua noticed that there were small purple stains on Leo’s shirt and that the faint stubble on his face was dark, in contrast to his hair. It made him look younger. He couldn’t read the expression in Leo’s eyes, so he just sat there, the book he had pulled from a shelf still in his lap, one leg hooked over the side of the armchair. Perhaps Leo didn’t want him there. Perhaps that night had been all he wanted, and this was a mistake. Still, he had had to come back. Leo had played too much on his mind, kept invading his thoughts. He had wanted to be with him again, be in this place, in this quiet. To find out.
Leo closed his eyes briefly, as though very weary, then opened them again. ‘Where did you go?’ he asked. His voice was slightly hoarse. ‘You do realise …’
‘What?’
There was a silence. ‘I thought I might never see you again.’
Joshua said nothing for a few seconds. The depth of feeling in Leo’s voice, in those simple words, astounded him. He felt his own eyes brighten unexpectedly with tears and he looked away quickly. This wasn’t what it was all about. ‘Yeah, well … I’m sorry.’ After a moment the wetness in his eyes cleared and he could look directly at Leo again.
Leo crossed the room to where Joshua sat and knelt down. He put his face in Joshua’s lap and Joshua, astonished, uncertain, put out a hand to stroke Leo’s head. Then Leo looked up, drew Joshua down to him and kissed him. ‘Don’t,’ he said. ‘Don’t ever do that again.’
Some hours later, lying in bed, Leo asked, ‘Do you have a friend called Damien?’
‘Yes. How do you know?’
‘The Australian girl at the Galleria told me. I went there when I was looking for you.’
‘Looking for me?’ Joshua lay with his chin propped on his hand, gazing at Leo.
Leo said nothing for a moment, tracing a line with his finger from Joshua’s neck and down his shoulder. ‘Where does he work?’
‘Damien? The Ritzy Cinema, in Brixton.’
‘Oh.’
‘Why?’
Leo sighed and smiled. ‘I was just curious.’