Read Online The Spell by Alan Hollinghurst - Free Book Online Page B

and wrote nothing down at all, as if stumped by politeness and anxious responsibility for the game.
    When they were all ready they put their efforts into a bowl, and Robin drew a grid to record the marks according to his own system. Justin felt confident of winning, and knew the mixture of vanity and acuity required. He wasn’t sure how the Woodfields would play; as it happened the first two entries read out, “Devoted to Drink” and “Architect to Aristos,” were by Danny, and showed a rather bald approach. Justin took a chance on “Homage to Industry” being a gibe at himself, and had no doubts about “Beautiful to Behold,” since he had written it, though Alex incautiously said he thought it referred to Danny. Overall Alex’s contributions were embarrassingly candid: “Irresistible to Justin” (Robin), “Slow to Understand” (himself) and “Hard to Improve (on”), which sweetly turned out to allude to Justin; “Born to Disco” presumably encapsulated the one thing he had yet found out for sure about Danny. He looked a little crestfallen at Danny’s tepid compliment, “Interesting to Know,” and thought that “Far to Go” must be about himself (it was Danny’s lonely self-description); it chimed somehow with Robin’s blandly distant attempt at Alex, “Ready to Travel.”
    The mischief was short-lived but left them all feeling tender and stupid. They sat for a while picking through the discarded papers, wondering what Justin had been getting at with his palm-reader’s “Prelude to Romance” (for Danny) and his inscrutable “Made to Measure” (for Alex). Robin did a recount of the scores, because Justin had won by such a large margin, while he had tied annoyingly with Alex. “I thought my “Pillar to Post” was rather good,” he said. He doodled heavily over the grid, until it looked like the plan of a herb-garden.
    “That’s enough games,” said Danny, and stood up to do something.
    “Have you got a boyfriend at the moment, darling?” asked Justin.
    Danny turned and looked at him, with hands on hips. “I’ve got quite enough trouble with my dad’s boyfriend, without getting one of my own, thanks very much,” he said; though as he came past he leant over Justin and gave him a squeeze, hand into shirt-front – and Justin thought he had a nice cosy way with him after all, with his unplanned, almost meaningless little clinches. He reached up to him as he slipped away, and again caught something more than mere noticing on Alex’s face, an involuntary interest, a protesting glance. He said,
    “Alex would make you a super boyfriend.”
    “I’m sure he would,” said Danny, breezily but not impolitely.
    “You’re like me, darling, you need someone older to look after you. I know Alex is rather shy and sensitive, but he’s got plenty of money and a comfortable house and a sports car -and in bed…well-”
    “Please!” murmured Alex.
    “It’s the leverage he gets with those long legs…”
    There was a knock at the door-frame. “Am I interrupting?” A broad-faced young man with slicked-back dark hair came hesitantly out of the night. He wore painter’s dungarees over a blue T-shirt, with the bib unbuttoned on one side, and scruffy old gym-shoes. The effect was authentic, but you felt he was exploiting it. “I’m just on my way to my mum’s,” he said, with the distinctive vowels of the place.
    “Come in, Terry,” said Robin; and Danny ambled over to him and squeezed his arm.
    “Have a drink, Terry,” said Justin gruffly. And so a chair was found for him and a glass, and the bottles were lifted to the light and tilted to see if any wine was left.
    “I’m surprised you’re not busy on a Saturday night,” said Robin, in what seemed to Justin an equivocal way. Terry was a local factotum and Romeo, with a family interest in the Broad Down caravan park, a famous eyesore on the other side of Bridport, as well as a vaguer association with the pretentious Bride Mill