All the Beauty of the Sun by Marion Husband Read Free Book Online Page A

with the black and blue bruising: his body felt changed too, as though a defter, more imaginative god had remade him.
    When Paul turned to him from closing the hotel room door, even in the dim light Edmund had the impression he’d been crying. But he had been his old self then and had said nothing; besides, of course Harris hadn’t been crying and even if he had it was none of his business. He didn’t even feel concerned, only went to the bed and sat down on its edge without acknowledging Paul, without looking at him, embarrassed in every way, by everything, not least by the shabbiness of the room and of Paul himself. Without his jacket, collar and tie, without his shoes, with his braces hanging at his sides and his sleeves rolled up, Paul looked too ordinary, dishevelled, like nothing, nobody. He wasn’t beautiful – that ridiculous, over-blown word – just a skinny nonentity. Even his voice seemed to have changed, as though he didn’t have to disguise his northern accent now other pretences were done with. Here he was, in the rough, and Edmund could only feel appalled.
    He had imagined standing up, walking to the door, leaving, all without looking at him, without a word. But Paul was standing over him; if he were to leave it would mean an awkward, clumsy business of stepping around him because he was standing so close, so close; he sensed Paul looking at him. He should say something, just some ordinary remark to break this silence. He suspected that Paul was smiling at him, his smile becoming strained as his silence went on, a shame because when he arrived his smile had been so welcoming, flattering because he seemed so pleased that he had come. This man had been unsure of him after all and now he seemed unsure even of himself, gauche, even; and that voice of his – not officer class, not any class at all that he could rank him by. This voice was softer, with none of its earlier, edgy irony that had made Edmund feel so ready to despise him.
    Paul had walked around the bed then and lain down, taking his cigarettes from his pocket and lighting one. It was as though Paul had decided that he could stay or go and it would be just the same to him. Edmund had turned to look at him; outside the clouds had cleared the bright face of a full moon, and this uncommon light made the sculptured quality of his face even starker, like that of a statue on the new war memorials that were being erected everywhere; he thought of his paintings of soldiers and how he had made them look like wistful boys. He thought how he could go on looking at him, mesmerized by his extraordinary beauty.
    Edmund lay down beside him, as close as he dared, shy as he hadn’t been since he’d left school. Paul passed him his cigarette and it went between them until all that remained could be pinched out between his finger and thumb, until there was only the taste left and the thought that in a moment he would light another … in a little while, there was no hurry. Edmund closed his eyes, and felt the bed shift beneath him as Paul began on the buttons of his shirt.
    He thought about stopping him, grasping his wrist and holding it tightly, twisting his flesh, saying that he wasn’t like him, wasn’t sick and perverted like him; yet he was lying on a bed beside him, eyes closed against responsibility because he was like him, really, and he wanted him, all of him; he had never felt so greedy in his life.
    * * *
    Afterwards Edmund had dozed, only to be disturbed by the sound of a tap running. Naked, he had got up. Standing in the bathroom doorway, he had seen Paul holding his false eye beneath the stream of water before returning it to the socket. Catching sight of Edmund’s reflection in the mirror above the sink Paul looked down quickly and turned off the tap.
    Embarrassed, Edmund had said lightly, ‘I didn’t notice your eye when we met, even in the restaurant –’
    â€˜You’re not meant