The Quirk (7 page)

“I know who I want to be with.”

“Thanks. I like you, you know, in spite of–well, the unmentionable.” He chuckled and gave the shoulder a pat. “You’re such a little monkey.”

Patrice fled from his touch and, caught between idiotic tears and ecstatic laughter, returned to the bedroom and dressed quickly. He could do with some pulling together himself. He was close to insanity. To be in love with a boy who liked girls made it hopeless insanity but exciting. Rod might like girls, but he also liked sex, pure and simple. He might get used to a little monkey as a convenience when a girl wasn’t available. Meanwhile, he would keep his body hidden except under the covers–if he was lucky enough to get him to bed again. No small physical contacts. Let him do the touching.

He went to the bed and pulled the covers back to air them. The dreams that filled his mind were the most virulent aspect of his insanity. He thought of himself as being armed with cynicism, but irrepressible optimism kept coming to the surface. He believed in old-fashioned things like human decency (a legacy from his father?) although he hadn’t seen much of it. If love turned out to be a good thing, as some people believed it to be, then he could live for it and learn to do without sex. Insanity. How did he expect to fit Gérard into this romantic vision? Even if he broke all the rules and kept Rod a secret, he would be defying a destructive force that he had good reason to fear.

At the same moment he and Rod reentered the living room from opposite doors. Patrice was as jolted by his appearance as if he were seeing him for the first time. That he had shared the ecstasy of this superb young athlete, long hair combed, a towel hitched around his waist, lithe and virile, became a wild improbability. Despite an overnight growth of beard, Rod looked fresh and alert, his intent eyes giving him the look of maturity that he touchingly lost in his sleep. Patrice approached him but stayed out of reach.

“You wish to get dressed?” he asked in a businesslike way. “I hung everything up.”

Rod smiled at him with a small residue of reticence that he regretted. This clever-looking youth in a stylish suit delighted him. Once he forgot the rest, he would be able to treat him with the friendliness he felt. “I must’ve been an awful nuisance last night. I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ll clear out and leave you in peace.”

“And when will you show me your work?”

“I’m afraid I talked an awful lot too. Did I say I’d show you my work? OK. I apparently didn’t let you get a word in edgewise. What do you do?”

“I manage a rather important antique shop. You might also call it a gallery.”

“So young?”

“My training has been a bit–special.”

Rod saw playful irony come dancing into his eyes. He felt his own smile broaden with uncomplicated pleasure. “I believe it. Your English is remarkable. This place …” He looked around at it, coveting it once more. The sky was gray, but the skylight pulled the day into the room. He had already decided where he would place his easel if it were his. “Marvelous space. The light makes me green with envy.”

“It is better for work than your hotel?” Patrice asked, making a point of great importance to him.

“Oh, lord. Wait till you see. When do you want to come? It’ll have to be during the day.”

“Today at lunchtime? I could be there by one.”

“Perfect. We’ll have lunch together?”

“I would like that very much.”

“It’ll be on me to make up for last night.” Patrice’s eyes met his straightforwardly, but Rod was aware that they were being constantly tugged to other parts of himself. If they were going to be friends, they might as well get everything out in the open. “You like to look at me don’t you?” he asked easily.

“Yes,” Patrice blurted, rendered almost speechless by the unexpected question.

“I understand. I know my body’s pretty good. It should be. A lot of money’s been spent on it I like to look at people too. It seems so silly to be shy about it Hell, I don’t
have
to wear this towel.” He gave it a tug and let it drop to his side.

Patrice’s eyes flew to accept the offer of a dispassionate inspection of the body he wanted insanely. He was being given a chance to demonstrate that he could look at it without flinging himself on it. The gentle swell of the sex was a startling contrast to the soaring power it had so recently possessed. He didn’t know which way he preferred it. The whole body was so beautifully put together that that part of it, in repose, became an almost irrelevant adjunct to the graceful lines of the limbs and torso. He thought again of beautiful swift animals. He looked up and laughed. “Your guardian angel has a great deal to guard.”

“OK, monkey? We don’t have to be shy with each other. Your face fascinates me. I’m trying to discover why it makes me want to laugh. I’ll sketch you later and find out. Now how about showing me where my clothes are?”

They returned to the bedroom, and Rod dressed haphazardly. Patrice watched the glory being obliterated by expensive cloth, perhaps forever as far as he was concerned. Rod folded his tie into a pocket and turned to him.

“Right I’ll expect you at one? You know where I am don’t you? Yes, I remember. It’s the top floor. Number 19.

They went along the corridor once more, and Patrice helped him on with his coat and opened the door. They shook hands French-fashion and smiled at each other with a lurking acknowledgment of what had taken place between them.

“See you shortly,” Rod said and turned and clattered down rickety stairs. He remembered the courtyard and the big door. It was odd going out onto an unfamiliar street in broad daylight, his body still holding the imprint of passion on it. He hadn’t been much of a partner, but he supposed it counted as a homosexual experience. Now that he was alone he was a bit ashamed of himself for having allowed it, but he thought he would recover. Hydrangeas and rolling lawns and precious Roderick carefully isolated from the big bad world. Guys had been known to have sex together. If it could happen to others, it could happen to him.

Within minutes he was hunched down again in his attic room. He shed his good clothes and put on his paint-stained jeans and an old sweater and was eager to get back to work to prove to himself that he hadn’t been thrown off balance by his adventure. It went well, but there was a strange little twitch of special alertness kicking around in the back of his mind. He had rejected guilt, so it couldn’t be that. It wasn’t anticipation of further unorthodox pleasures. He felt no inclination to explore that terrain, and at the end Patrice has seemed content to drop it too. Perhaps it was simply an enlarged awareness of himself. He had felt in Patrice something he had never known or known that he wanted, an exclusive preoccupation with, almost an adoration of his person. It was very comforting after all the disapproval he had recently had to face.

It wasn’t yet 1 o’clock when he felt that he had almost mastered his current canvas and was ready for a break. He began to clean up his work area and himself. He considered shaving but decided he didn’t have to make himself presentable for Patrice. The less presentable the better. He flicked over the canvases that were lined up face to the wall and picked out half a dozen that he was ready to show. He remembered that he had invited Nicole for lunch today and tried to convince himself that he was lucky not to have to go through a big social effort. Aside from the sexual nonsense Patrice was awfully easy to be with.

He was checking his brushes for the afternoon’s work when there was a knock on the door. In three strides he had opened it. Patrice entered, cape swinging, the little beret on the back of his head. He was brought to an abrupt halt by the dimensions of the room and looked up merrily. “You didn’t tell me you lived in a closet.”

Rod stood in front of him feeling that his welcoming smile was inadequate, wondering how you greeted a guy you’d been to bed with. It was almost far enough removed in time for him to be able to act as if it were part of a forgotten past–but not quite. Some small intimate gesture seemed called for. He settled for a pat on the convenient shoulder. Patrice ignored it and moved past him. That finished it. They needn’t give it anymore thought. “Throw your things on the bed if you want,” Rod said. He pulled the chair over to the window. “The only place you can see the pictures properly is here.”

“You’re amazing. You look as if your head is about to go through the roof. You’re actually able to work here?”

“It’s not easy. I’m soon going to have to decide what to do with the things that are finished.” He had taken his work-in-progress from the easel that he moved back a few feet as Patrice seated himself. “You can say anything you like, you know. I don’t expect everybody to be crazy about what I’m doing.”

“They are yours. I will try not to like them too much.” They exchanged a look of affectionate complicity.

“OK. Here we go. This won’t take long.” He picked up a canvas from the floor and put it on the easel and moved around beside Patrice to see if the light was right. He narrowed his eyes, verifying color and form, looking for the quality that he called tension but might be architectonic solidity for all he knew. He always saw a picture with a fresh eye when sharing someone else’s first look at it. He glanced down at Patrice. He was leaning forward, his lips slightly parted, his eyes wide and active. He was no longer a bright, funny kid but a man with the single-minded attention of authority. Rod gave him a minute for a good look and then moved back to the easel and reached for the canvas.

Patrice lifted a restraining hand. “Not so fast,” he said almost peremptorily without taking his eyes off the picture. He studied it for another few minutes and then nodded. Rod lifted it off and replaced it with another. The process was repeated, with Patrice taking longer for each picture. The atmosphere in the small room became dense with wordless communication. Rod felt as if his young friend were absorbing some essence of him from his work. By the time he had shown the six pieces, he was too keyed up to stop.

“Would you like to see a few of the things that aren’t finished?” he asked in a muted tone so that he wouldn’t break Patrice’s concentration. He was amazed by himself. Not since his early art-class days had he allowed anybody to look at anything that was still in the formative stage.

“Please.” Patrice was undergoing what seemed to him close to a religious experience. Years ago he had felt something similar, with adolescent confusion, for Gérard. But the older man had only used it to exploit his weaker nature. Seeing Rod in this tiny room so dedicated to creation, Patrice sensed a purity and goodness in him that reflected his own highest and most impossible aspirations. The pictures were thrilling–bold and virile yet evoking transcendent balance in a world Patrice had dreamed of but had never been allowed to believe existed. He watched Rod moving along the canvases stacked against the wall, bending, squatting, selecting, and all of his body and spirit seemed to converge in worship of agile strength and sensitive male beauty. A small flame of hope had been kindled in him far more precious than the roaring blaze of his passion.

Rod turned back to the easel holding a picture in front of him. “There’s three or four that I think are far enough along for you to at least get an idea. Do you always look at pictures this way?”

“I see very much in the ones I like. It takes time.”

“Of course. Still, you’re amazing. I love to show them to you. I feel almost as if nobody’s ever looked at then before.”

“I don’t think that could be true. You’re very good. A friend of mine says that if a painter is good, there’s no reason to say more.”

“He sounds sensible.”

“He knows a great deal about art. Of course, I want to say much more but only when you’ve shown me all that you want me to see.”

They spent another half-hour looking at a few of the unfinished pieces and Patrice asking an occasional perceptive question about his intentions.

“I hope you have a long lunch break,” Rod said finally. “We’ve been here for more than an hour already.”

“I had almost forgotten lunch.”

“I won’t be able to do that sketch I want to do of you. We’ll make it another day.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Sure. Why not?” Rod said with a little laugh.

Patrice was on his feet. “Maybe by then I’ll be able to tell you how much I love your pictures. I can come at the same time, but we will have lunch first so that I don’t keep you starving to death. I will take you to a special place near here that is very good.”

“Wonderful. You inspire me. Tonight I’ll do penance. I’ll go to the Grande Chaumière and sketch all evening. Come on. I hope you don’t mind going to a place where they’ll let me in looking like this.”

“You look very interesting. For you to need a shave is intriguing because you look like a person who never needs a shave.

Patrice dropped the beret onto the back of his head and swung the cape around him. Rod opened the door and remembered in time not to put a hand on his shoulder as they went out.

He was ready for Patrice at one the next day. He had even got around to shaving. By 1:30 he was getting nervous and impatient. By 2 o’clock he was alarmed. It was inconceivable that the kid would simply not show up. It had been too important to him. Something must have happened. Was he sick? He would have called–the hotel was pretty good about passing on messages–unless he didn’t have a telephone. Lots of people here didn’t. Some sort of shortage. He abandoned the long wait and went down and left word where he was and went next door and had his usual lunch of beer and a sandwich (a yard or so of crisp French bread with a suspicion of ham concealed in it) at a workingman’s bar. It was impossible for him to imagine a situation that might cause Patrice to break their date. Of course, his being queer might make a difference. He had heard that queers were promiscuous and therefore fickle. Perhaps he was already caught up in a new infatuation. Rod couldn’t believe it. The boy had as good as pledged himself to him. An accident or sudden sickness …