Lust. Geoff Ryman
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The eyes seemed to say I know this can’t be easy for you, but hi anyway. They shook hands, and Henry chuckled. God, he was handsome. His smile was sweet and broad and his skin was perfect, very pale but with flushed pink cheeks and a complexion as unblemished as shaving foam.
‘Nice to meet you, Henry,’ Michael said. ‘Congratulations.’
‘Why?’ Henry asked. His voice was surprisingly resonant, rumbling.
‘For not being bullied into thinking you’ve got to keep up with the rich and outrageous.’
‘I don’t have any money,’ Henry said, and smiled and shrugged. Educated, Michael decided, old family, possibly dropped out. At a guess, I’d say you were the son of someone landed with a big farm in Norfolk, that you live in the country and possibly have a pair of tame jackdaws that sit on your shoulder.
Michael liked him. ‘I don’t think you’re the type that would dress up anyway.’
Henry gave a very gentle bow of acknowledgement. ‘Probably not, no.’
Michael fancied him. It was the same old mystery. Even Michael didn’t think Philip was good-looking, but his boyfriends were always gorgeous. I’m forever fancying your boyfriends, Phil. Michael felt a thin strain of regret for his old marriage.
‘Are you going to introduce me?’ Phil asked, nodding towards Johnny.
‘Him Tarzan,’ said Michael. ‘Me Boy.’
‘Is Tarzan a paedophile then?’
‘He’s my lover, if that’s what you’re asking.’ Michael kept his gaze steady and open. He found how little it mattered to him.
‘Does he speak?’ asked Phil, who suddenly looked frail.
‘Not much. He’s Romanian.’
Tarzan spoke. ‘Tarzan loves Mikey.’
‘I hope you and Mikey are very happy. Maybe you’ll have a chimp together. Incidentally, Mikey, Henry is my lover too.’
‘You couldn’t find a nicer one,’ said Michael. ‘Really. Lucky old you.’ Michael couldn’t help reaching out and clasping Henry’s arm. ‘He’s very nice.’
Philip stared back at him with the strangest expression in his eyes, ringed round with red: tense, resolved, heartstricken, angry. ‘Henry is an animal rights activist, Michael.’ He swept off.
Henry walked away backwards, holding out his arms as if to say sorry. Michael apologized to him. ‘Sorry if we embarrassed you.’ Henry shrugged his shoulders, which could have meant anything from nothing embarrasses me to sorry, I can’t hear you.
‘Tarzan not understand,’ said Tarzan, standing alone.
‘Angels wouldn’t,’ said Michael.
Well, he had come here in order to assist Phil in the wrecking of their marriage. If that was accomplished, was there any other reason for him to stay?
He worked his way slowly through the crowd to where the booze was being served. A woman in a beige dress, with beige hair and beige fingernails said, as he passed, ‘I found the colour scheme of that film so irritating. All those reds.’ Her eyes trailed off to Michael’s left.
‘But Monica, it was in black and white!’
‘Oh, you know what I mean.’
It was strange. People looked distracted, even slightly out of balance, looking past him or around him. Michael began to be aware of something out of kilter, beyond his own unease.
The barman wore a turban and tossed the glass up in the air and caught it, like Tom Cruise, except that his eyes were fixed on something just to Michael’s left. Michael followed the barman’s gaze and finally understood.
People were staring past Michael at the same object. They were staring at Tarzan. The beige woman was intent, a cuddly woman carrying a tray kept turning in their direction, even the mango woman kept glancing through him. Michael himself was vapourware, but he was with the most overwhelming man in the room.
Right behind Johnny stood an old man. He was intent and pale and looked shaken as if he had seen a traffic accident. Cords of loose sinew hung down his neck. He wore a glass bow tie, blue with mirrors and a blue eye where the knot should be. He didn’t move, transfixed.
‘Hello,’ Michel said to him.
The old man’s face quavered like a flower in a breeze. Someone else out of balance. ‘It’s a miracle,’ the man insisted, as if someone had contradicted him.
Michael felt careless. ‘It is,’ he agreed.
‘It really is him,’ the old man said, in the hushed voice of someone visiting Chartres.
‘They’re both Romanian,’ said Michael. ‘Family resemblance.’ He realized he knew the old man from somewhere. Some old actor; some old impresario.
Very suddenly the old man wilted. He seemed to sink from the knees, and Michael had to catch him. There were further steps, a spiral staircase up to another floor. The old man shifted awkwardly like a collapsing ironing board. Michael lowered him down to sit on the steps. The old man took out an embroidered handkerchief.
‘Do you want some water?’ Michael asked.
‘Please,’ said the old man.
The turbaned bartender already had a glass of water ready. ‘Is your friend OK?’ he asked, American, concerned.
‘I don’t know. I think so,’ said Michael.
The old man was sweaty, his elegance outraged. He mopped his brow. Elegance was what he had left.
He took the water and sipped it, and sighed. ‘You keep thinking, you can just turn a corner, and you’ll find us all there, like we were.’ His rumpled old eyes suddenly went clear as if made out of glass. ‘Beautiful and at the height of our powers. Like all of you now. Tuh. It seems more real to me than this.’ He held up his hands. They were blue and crisp in patches and looked like melted candles. Eighty? Michael thought. Ninety?
The old eyes strayed back to Johnny. Johnny was standing tall, and still and distant, forgetful of himself. He was staring at the fig tree behind the glass wall.
‘Did you know him?’ Michael asked. ‘I mean, the real one?’
The old man shook his head, without moving his eyes. ‘Oh no. No. But I wanted to. People of my generation, you know we had never seen anything like it. For only a very few years, he was … It. A sensation. People don’t remember that now.’
He closed his eyes and shuddered. ‘The past is a chasm it’s as well not to look down,’ he said.
Michael sat next to him on the steps. ‘How old were you then?’
The old man’s eyes looked as if they ached. ‘I was twenty-two when I saw the first of his films. Of course in those days you thought you were the only one in the world, and so you dreamed. You know what I mean, I don’t have to spell it out. You lived in dreams, because you knew that you were a good person, or good enough, but you wanted things that everyone else said were evil. It was difficult. You ended up loving dreams.’
He shivered, gathering himself up. ‘You’ve been very kind,’ he said, and offered a hand. ‘I’m so sorry to have a been a nuisance. I used not to be. But age hits you, you know.’
‘Perhaps you’d like to meet him. His name is Johnny.’
A pause for about a beat. ‘It won’t embarrass him?’
‘I think you’ll find he is beyond embarrassment.’
Michael helped him stand up. The old man rose with a sudden fluidity that hinted at what he had been when young. ‘The terrible thing,’ he said, casually, as if making a general observation, ‘is that we feel more as we get older. Not less. The heart really ought to diminish