The oldest, yet the latest thing (Part 2) IX
Jimmy is about to get up from his piano stool and leave them to it when Wright suddenly clears his throat again. “Must be nice to finally own the roof one lives under and the bedroom one sleeps in. To come home to a place where nobody can disturb you or burst into your room, unannounced. A place that’s all yours.”
‘Yes, yes, I get it. I’m off, and you can chat about ‘bedrooms’ all you want,’ Jimmy thinks, forcing himself not give in to the screaming inside his head and biting his lips until he tastes blood. He's pressing his fingers into his palms so hard that by now his entire body is shaking. And he is about to get up when suddenly Barrow says something that stops him in his tracks.
“Yes, quite … It’s an old vicarage, you know. And I do love even the mere idea of living in that house because you can practically feel the presence of God in there.”
At that, Jimmy freezes in his seat, feeling his eyebrows shoot up in consternation. ‘What?!’
From the way Wright’s brown eyes widen fractionally behind his spectacles, it’s obvious he’s thinking the same thing.
Meanwhile, Barrow manages to top it all by saying, “You see, Mr Wright, I’m a very spiritual man, me.”
‘What a pile of rubbish,’ Jimmy thinks, narrowing his eyes at the underbutler. ‘Since when are you ‘spiritual’?’
And then Barrow actually adds, “To know that, this way, I’ll be closer to the Lord makes me ever so grateful.”
‘And here I thought that was the only man you never wanted to get close to,’ Jimmy snorts inwardly, realising more and more that Barrow is lying through his teeth.
Men of their age don’t talk like that. Granted, there are quite a few upper-class ladies who love to constantly stress their connection with the powers above, especially the sighing, swooning and fainting kind. But Jimmy has yet to see a man going to church of his own volition (instead of being dragged into it by his wife because of ‘what the neighbours might think’) or a boy willingly attending a service and not just because his mother has laid out his Sunday best for him, standing over him with a rolling pin in her hand as he dresses. It’s just not something you hear men talk about all that much unless the bloke in question is a religious loony or American.
The latter being rather unlikely, what with Barrow’s accent, Wright has apparently settled for the former. For a moment, it even seems as if the valet were considering some third option (namely that Barrow is giving him the brush-off for some odd reason), and his bespectacled eyes dart suspiciously back and forth between Jimmy and Barrow again - though what the man is thinking exactly Jimmy can’t quite work out.
“W-well, that’s, erm, good … Good for you, Mr Barrow,” Wright stammers finally. “That you’re such a spiritual man, I mean.”
‘Spiritual, my arse!’ Jimmy thinks, still watching the two men from his corner. ‘Is that what they’re calling it these days?’
Barrow has shot the man down; that's as plain as a pikestaff. And he has done so rather cruelly, all things considered. He has deliberately led the poor lad to believe that he belongs to the sort of crowd that would come after his sort with a Bible in hand and a fire-and-brimstone-sermon on their lips.
“Ooh,” Wright suddenly exclaims faux-surprised, “look at the time!” He then proceeds to take a long, exaggerated look at his wrist. (Ever since the war, people have begun to wear their watches around the wrist of all places. Personally, Jimmy thinks these wristlets look a bit girlish and silly. But then, Wright is essentially one of this ever-so-fashionable crowd; so it seems quite fitting.) “It’s getting really late,” the poor valet splutters. “I must be going … Should probably … er … turn in for the night … We've really got to talking and lost track of time. Er, goodnight …” And then he practically flees the room.
Jimmy waits a few breathless moments until the sound of the man’s footsteps has died down in the hall, then turns to Barrow. “Why did you have to crush his hopes like that?” he hisses. “There was no need to be quite so unkind,” he then suddenly adds in defence of the man whom he has spent so much time hating over the last few days, surprising himself most of all with this fervent statement.
Barrow doesn’t look at Jimmy, just continues to smoke and stare ahead unblinkingly.
Ah, right. They’re not talking about this topic.
“Did you have to do that?” Jimmy repeats his question with that particular stubbornness characteristic of him.
“To do what?” Barrow replies rather coldly, extinguishing his cigarette with a too sharp movement of his hand.
“Oh, come on,” Jimmy huffs, feeling his face warm slightly at the thought of what he is about to say, but suddenly realising that he’s not going to back down. He will address this. (Maybe it’s just Barrow’s defensive response, his resistance, that keeps spurring Jimmy on.) “You know what I’m talking about! He likes you. Are you blind?”
It happens very quickly, but Jimmy catches it, anyway: Barrow winces. He winces at that last word Jimmy has just said there.
“Don’t say that. I don’t like that phrase,” the man says quickly, without inflexion. Jimmy is about to ask, ‘What phrase?’ in genuine bewilderment, when Barrow adds, “It’s no laughing matter.”
There is something tense around the man’s eyes all of a sudden, a tiny troubled wrinkle or line, a strangely strained and tight expression around his mouth, and it suddenly looks as if the man were in rather sharp pain for a split second. It’s just a quick fleeting expression, that flickers across his pale face and vanishes again, and yet Jimmy notices it, wondering why Barrow has just spat out these words with such intensity, as if he couldn’t bite them out quickly enough before instantly snapping his mouth shut again, his lips forming a straight white line.
“I just meant … why did you have to lie to him and pretend you were ‘spiritual’ when it’s not true?”
“How do you know it’s not true?”
“Er … I just … Isn’t it obvious, what with your propensiti- … I just assumed.”
“Well, don’t go around assuming things about people,” Barrow replies quietly, reaching for his cigarette pack again.
“But … Are you?” Jimmy asks back incredulously, his mouth agape.
“Well, in the words of the great philosopher James Kent, ‘That’d be telling!’” Barrow snarls a tad nastily and shakes a new cigarette out of the little cardboard box, cigarette card with a picture of Natacha Rambova on it flopping onto the table, unnoticed.
‘Oh, great! Looks like some ginger twit can’t keep his gigantic trap shut,’ Jimmy thinks, watching as the underbutler lights the cigarette with a decisive flick of his hand.
Secretly, he is still wondering if Barrow has just turned Wright down because the poor chap has dared to proposition him right in front of Jimmy or if he’s done so because Jimmy asked him that certain question the other day in the courtyard. Or if maybe there is another reason for Barrow’s behaviour. (There is no way of knowing. It’s not like one can just talk about these kind of things.)
But Jimmy is just hot-headed and stubborn enough to try it one last time, no matter what. “You’ve scared him. That’s what I meant,” he points out. “Was that really necessary?”
“I’m sure he’ll survive it,” Barrow replies coolly, sucking on his new cigarette, the sharp outline of his cheek becoming more pronounced again. The man’s voice is all practised nonchalance, but from the way his left hand keeps clenching into a fist and relaxing again on the tabletop, it’s obvious he isn’t quite as unfazed as he is letting on. The leather of the glove is straining over his knuckles, and Jimmy is suddenly very aware of the fact that he’s never seen the man’s hand without it, has never seen him the way he truly is.
“You shouldn’t have been so unkind,” Jimmy insists.
“Well, what can I say,” Barrow sneers, “he was horace-ing me.”
Jimmy sighs. It’s obvious how much Barrow dislikes their topic of conversation and tries to deflect. (‘It’s because of me,’ something inside of Jimmy whispers. ‘He’s deflecting ‘cause he thinks that otherwise I’d bolt.’ Clearly, there is only one way to show the man how sincere Jimmy is about this - or, at least, how sincere he’s trying to be.)
“I just meant that …” Jimmy trails off, gulping, his throat suddenly too dry. “… that … that you shouldn’t care what I think, or if I’m even in the room, or … or …” He takes a deep breath. “Just do whatever you feel like doing. It’s really none of my business if you’re … you’re …”
Barrow has closed his eyes in irritation, the expression on his face clearly reading, ‘Is he still going on about this?’
“We’re not discussing this, James,” he says in a pressed voice.
Jimmy feels his throat work again. The other man shouldn’t have to keep silent about it all, he muses. Not in front of him, anyway. Not after Jimmy’s confided in him about his son. Not after the man’s been so kind to look after the boy. Not after he’s kept Jimmy’s secret without so much as batting an eyelid, not giving it away to anyone.
Yes, it is illegal, and, yes, Jimmy still feels more than a little queasy thinking about it. But then, lots of things are illegal. And there are even a few very legal things that are much worse than what Barrow does on his own time. Take His Lordship, for example. The man has almost bankrupted himself by being involved in some dodgy business at the stock exchange last year. It has probably cost many people their jobs, yet it is perfectly legal. Even though it has actually harmed people, which cannot be said for whatever an underbutler and a valet can possibly get up to in the bedroom behind closed doors, Jimmy tries to convince himself. And yet, these victimless vices prompt far more revulsion, for some reason, than barbaric acts that actually harm people. What's wrong with a society that glorifies death on the battlefields of the Great War as an honourable and almost romantic endeavour born out of an outdated idea of chivalry and glorious self-sacrifice, yet condemns this relatively minor sin? And what’s wrong with him that he feels the same way society does even though his rationality tells him to feel otherwise?
Maybe it is this thought that suddenly has him spluttering, “I don’t care, you know. I really don’t.”
It’s a lie, of course.
Thinking about it has his stomach in knots in a split second, but it’s not like Barrow needs to know that. The man’s his friend. Yes, his friend, he decides with a renewed vow to further strengthen this friendship, no matter what. For he doesn't want them to be just strangers who are civil around each other, anymore. They have become more, so much more to each other. And that means that Jimmy’s got to learn to ignore what’s bothering him about Barrow. To shrug off these mental images of graceful, pale fingers sliding into Wright’s floppy brown hair and along the man’s impressive chin and defined jawline, ghosting down his long neck and over his too gaudy bow tie. And even worse: the image of Wright’s broad hands tangling in the silk of Barrow’s raven hair, the sickening, heart-wrenching image of the man’s large nose pressed against Barrow’s skin, inhaling his scent with his eyes closed … The images are disturbing to the point where Jimmy starts trembling in his seat, wanting to claw his eyes out for ever having looked at the stranger, wanting to scratch his brain out with his fingernails for producing these images, that make him want to scream because they are both deeply unsettling and inexplicably intriguing …
“I really don’t care,” Jimmy whispers, as if to convince himself.
Barrow doesn’t react, staring off into the distance, not moving a muscle, forgotten cigarette smouldering away between his fingers.
Jimmy is just about to get up from the piano stool and go up to bed - it’s late, it’s cold, and the other man won’t even talk to him - when there is suddenly a quiet reply of sorts.
“There’s … there’s something I wanted to talk to you about,” Barrow says in a voice so low that it's barely discernible, all halting hesitation and awkward pauses.
“Whatever you like,” Jimmy offers, feeling both magnanimous and nervous about what to expect.
The other man turns towards him, setting his cigarette down onto the rim of the ashtray where it keeps glowing for a while, eventually going out entirely and turning into ashes the way they all will. “I wanted to ask you something. And … I’ll absolutely understand if you say no,” he adds quickly.
Jimmy uncrosses his arms, that he doesn’t even remember crossing but has apparently somehow held defensively in front of his body for quite a few minutes already. His curiosity is definitely piqued now.
Continued here