The Chimney Sweeper's Boy (54 page)

John remembered he hadn't had anything to eat. Or, rather, his mother remembered for him and brought him Spam and scrambled eggs and tea and he had a piece of Mary's cake. The wireless was on again, someone reading a story, but Desmond couldn't stand that and started fiddling with the knobs, looking for dance music. The girls had given Mary nail polish—she would never use it—and Evening in Paris scent—she just might use that—and she had had fifteen cards. She arranged all her cards and presents on the little table by the window. It was crowded, a squeeze, because the things that had been on the table had to go somewhere else. But everything in that house was a squeeze. It didn't seem to matter.

John had a quiet chat with Joseph about the post office and the way things were changing, and a word with Desmond. He was glad Desmond wasn't going out that night, but staying home with the rest of them and maybe even going to bed when Stephen went. Of course he knew it was outrageous of him to make even silent criticisms of Desmond, which was what that was, but just the same, he couldn't help being glad when he witnessed peace and order. Then, about to leave, he told his mother he'd be in again on Wednesday, when he thought he'd have something to tell her, some news.

Everybody was agog for his news, but he didn't intend to say any more at this stage. Mothers only thought about one thing when told a son had something to tell them: that he was getting married. He laughed.

“I'm not getting married,” he said.

He kissed the girls good night and he kissed his mother. Joseph shook hands with him; he did that sometimes, gravely approving of him. The beauty and the other one had gone home; it was after half past ten. They all crowded into the little hall to “see him off the premises,” as Joseph put it, and then Joseph said, as he always did, “God bless you.”

John turned back and waved. When he looked around again, they had all gone in and the door was closed. The night was chilly for July and he had to wait quite a long time for his bus.

9

Breaking the ice doesn't break it forever. It freezes over again, and the freezing seals over the cracks. John learned that on Tuesday evening. The familiarity with the place was half-gone and he was going to have to start afresh. If he had come last Thursday …

He went into the café and asked for a cup of tea. He sat by the window and watched the baths, seeing things he hadn't noticed before, the concrete portico, the recessed columns on either side of the front entrance, a broad crack in one of the steps. The sky above was blue, with white tumbling clouds. Seven-thirty and still as bright as at noon.

A man went up the steps, and then another. The second one was as different from the first as that friend of Mary's had been from an ordinary schoolgirl. The second one looked like the lion man at the zoo, as tall and straight and beautiful, as young. It might even have been the lion man. The sun shone on his mane of golden hair. John was afraid and excited at one and the same time.

A different middle-aged woman was selling tickets. He asked for the steam bath, and this time he didn't need directions. But there was no one ahead for him to follow. He felt almost more self-conscious than he had that first time. He took off his clothes and put them in the basket, put his cigarettes and lighter into one of his shoes and his change into the other. A man came in and looked at him, gave him a pleasant, friendly smile, and John began to feel better. He fastened the wristband with the tag around his wrist, helped himself to towels, one to be worn sarong-fashion, the other draped across his head and shoulders.

This time, he didn't dally; he went straight to the steam room. The old men sat on the lowest level. He scarcely glanced at them; he was looking for the golden man he had seen come in. It seemed darker in here today—dimmer, rather. He had a memory of a bright whiteness, but the room this time seemed more mysteriously veiled. Last week, he hadn't noticed the light fitting, but now he did and saw, too, that someone had hung a towel over it.

Someone was sitting on the fourth level, at the far end. John couldn't see him at all clearly—he could see nothing clearly—but he saw enough to know this man was young and that he sat in a revealing pose, his knees apart, his arms resting lightly on them. If the golden man came in now, he wouldn't recognize him. Not in this mist, this soft, hot vapor. Was that what the old men relied on, hopefully, yearningly, that in the mist all cats were gray?

No one reached for him this time as he climbed the levels. The steam itself touched his chest, his shoulders, his thighs, like a hot hand, but there was no hand of flesh and bone extended. The seated young man disappeared in the steam. The light was all behind John now, ahead and above him almost impenetrable white fume.

He was at the top now, on the fifth level. As he had done that first time, he spread out his towel. Down below, he heard the door open and close again.

He could see nothing and now, with one leg resting on the fourth level and the other bent at the knee, one arm across his chest and the other upraised behind his head, he lay down and closed his eyes.

The steam room was silent, hot, and still. The old men sitting down there didn't talk to one another. John thought of what it would be to him to meet someone like that lion man, to be with him, be touched by him
, go all the way
with him. His body was moved by his imaginings; he turned a little, twisted, relaxed again into the sensuous heat. Then he felt the presence of someone else. His eyes were closed and he felt no compulsion to open them, but he let himself sink even further into passivity. Tension seemed to trickle away from his legs, his arms, the muscles of his body, to pour out through his hanging fingertips.

Someone was there. Someone was walking along the fourth level in the hot cotton-wool whiteness, walking and slowing to stand beside him. Not to look, he sensed, beyond the first appraisal of a young delectable body, as desirable as his own. To sit down below him. Cross-legged—how did John know that? His eyes were closed as if he were asleep and dreaming. To sit down and brush John's leg with his shoulder. John could hear his breathing, slow, steady.

There was no urgency. There was all the time in the world. The head, the shoulders, leaned back against the side of his body, rested there. John did open his eyes then, turning his neck languorously, and saw the back of a dark head, the hair all wet and matted but silky-soft, beautiful shoulders like honey-colored marble. His eyes closed again. He preferred it that way now that he knew his companion was young and fine to look at.

He wanted to touch that hair, stroke it, but he was afraid. Best to accept his own passive receptiveness, wait, let the other make the running. A hand touched the calf of his leg. He held his breath. What must he do to offer himself, to make things plain?

It was as if a voice told him, but there was no voice. He reached for the towel that covered him and took it off, dropped it onto the level below. My lover, he thought, this man will be my lover. They were close now; another body would join with his. He felt its slippery-soft hardness. A mouth closed on him, warm and strong, but tender as a flower.

The heat was wonderful and terrible. Almost unbearable. John had no
thoughts, his intellect was gone, he was only flesh and dream and sensation. And something he had never felt before but which he thought might be passion, a kind of painful joy that swelled and opened and unfolded and spilled happiness. He kissed, too, giving back what he had received, receiving again, exchanging liquid pleasure, while the hot fog, which was both wet as water and dry as sunshine, pressed thick and caressing on his skin.

My lover, he thought. For a moment, he was one person with his lover, his own identity was lost, and the other's, too, merged with his. Then a deep peace descended. His lover kissed his cheek, a gentle, sweet kiss. John waited a moment before opening his eyes. His lover had turned away, had his back to him and had begun to descend the levels. And now, as the ordinary usages of life began to return, John was afraid of losing him, that he would go down there into the mist and out of the door and disappear.

That must be prevented. This was someone he had to see again. A warm, passionate joy rose in him. He had never seen the man's face, but he was in love. He followed him, down through the mist, ignoring the old men, the hand that reached. John knew so much more now, was already so much more experienced. Close behind his lover now, he laid one hand on the golden marble shoulder, an intimate gesture, almost proprietorial. He followed him out through the door, out of the heat and the fog and the obscuring whiteness, and there in the next room, where the tables were and more old men and the tea lady, he lowered the towel and looked, and his lover turned to face him.

It was Desmond, his brother.

John gave a low cry of terror. He ran through the room, sliding on the slippery floor. He didn't stay to shower, but dressed, gasping, sobbing, fumbling with his clothes the way one does in dreams. He ran out of the building into the warm, still evening, the change he had taken from his shoe still jingling in his hand. Another wave of heat broke over and released another gush of sweat. For a moment, he had stopped, but now he began to run again. He ran and ran.

Joseph's voice came to him, saying, “God bless you.” It rang in his ears. Memories of the past hour unreeled themselves on the screen of his mind. After that, he could never go back home, never see any of them again, not
after that, the ultimate sin. Alone, he had broken the family, as if smashing with his fist a room full of glass. Outside was an empty, distant, foreign world and he was heading for it. People turned to stare at this running man, who cried as he ran, stared and turned away, embarrassed.

He had died back there in the mist. But hours were to pass, a night and half a day of agony and disbelief, before he recognized that life as he had known it was over and he must undergo a rebirth.

There will be no sleep for me tonight, thought Robert. But he went to bed and lay there with his eyes closed until the pictures which took shape in the darkness became too disturbing. At the window, watching the dawn come, he began to consider ways of telling Sarah Candless and Titus Romney what he had discovered.