Alex walked about, watched by Justin, who seemed keen for a favourable verdict. When the phone rang Justin left him to look at the pictures. There were brown oils of Georgian children, which might have been inherited, and a number of just competent watercolours, signed “RW”, showing the cottage itself. “No, I’m sorry, Tony, he’s not here,” Justin was saying. “That’s right, he’s out. Yes, I’ll get him to ring you…I’ll ask him to ring you…Yes, don’t worry, I’ll ask him to ring you.” Robin’s paintings made the place look impenetrably private, in its circuit of trees and high old walls; leaves and petals in the foreground half-obscured the lower windows of the house, the rounded bulk of the thatch was shadowed by the bosomy beeches above it.
On a side-table there was a framed black-and-white photo of a young man in white shorts and a singlet, standing with an upright oar, like a lance, on which he seemed to lean. When Justin rang off Alex said at once, “Who’s this in the picture?”
His ex-lover wandered across with a little “Mm?” of feigned uncertainty and slipped an arm round his shoulder. “That’s him,” he said – and Alex, who knew the whole repertoire of Justin’s tones, heard in the two quiet syllables a rare tremor of pride and anxiety. It was a kind of introduction.
“He’s very good-looking,” said Alex, in his own tone of dry fair-mindedness. They stood, in their loose embrace, sipping at their drinks, as if assessing this judgement on the big English boy with his wavy hair and rower’s shoulders and beautiful long legs. The wide smile conveyed the certainty of success in some imminent struggle, and so seemed to invite curiosity as to how it had in fact turned out.