How quick was he now, really? As if Leon could see him, judge him, from the other side of the front door.
When David opened the door, Leon was standing back from it on the sidewalk. He had one foot on the portico step, one hand on his thigh, slouching. He seemed huge, black, his face in shadow, his hair glinting yellow, lit from behind. David heard the creaking of his biker’s leathers as Leon stood up to his full six feet four inches, and he felt a coolness between them, a sudden sense of uncertainty, then Leon closed the space between them in a stride and wrapped David in his arms.
David slapped Leon on the back, punched him in the biceps.
‘Christ, it’s good to see you!’
‘Look at you, Dave, still a fucking preppy, in your little navyblue sweater and your khakis. You’ll never change!’
Leon seemed to fill the hallway. His hair was cropped now, and as he smoothed it, David saw how sleek, how sharp he looked. The massive square jaw shaved clean, shining, and underneath the husky black leather jacket was a tight-fitting dark green turtleneck made of something stretchy, a Mr Spock job without the insignia of the Starship Enterprise on the chest. The padded leather trousers fit snugly up to the rib cage.
‘Aren’t you hot in that gear?’
‘England’s never hot. Come on!’
They looked at each other, smiling. David crossed his arms, nodding at the floor, then gripped his elbows hard, kneading them.
‘You look just a little older, Dave, and a little wiser maybe where the flesh has worn away. You are definitely thinner, man. Not a lot of gray, though. How are you?’ Leon put a hand on either side of David’s chest and shoved him backwards ever so slightly.
David went on smiling. ‘Well, I don’t know. Fine, I guess. Or maybe you’re going to tell me how I am. You never looked better, Leon, that’s for sure.’
Leon danced his hips from side to side and laughed. ‘You should try wearing leather, man; what are you waiting for?’
As he closed the door, David saw Francine hanging around in the back of the hall with her loaded tray.
‘Beer?’ he said to Leon. ‘I have nothing else to offer, at least I don’t think I do. I don’t even have chairs.’
Francine’s hands trembled ever so slightly as Leon lifted his mug from the tray.
‘Cheers, David! It’s been too long.’ He swallowed half the mug on the spot. ‘So let’s go out. Let’s go somewhere and eat, or drink anyway. We can take the bike.’
David felt a little surge of adrenalin. He studied his beer, waiting for Francine to start down the stairs. ‘I haven’t been on a motorcycle in twenty years,’ he said, smiling, ‘and hardly ever then.’
‘Nothing to it if you’re the passenger. I won’t dump you in the road, Dave. It’s a gorgeous night. If we get wasted, you can take a cab home.’
‘Let me shut the doors upstairs.’ His heart was leaping at it. ‘It’ll just take a second.’
Leon followed him up to the drawing-room. When the French doors were bolted, Leon said, ‘Would you look at that fucking picture of Lizzie. When did you have that done for her?’
‘She had it done for me. She and the kids. For our last wedding anniversary.’ David felt embarrassed explaining, and, sure enough, Leon threw back his head and roared.
Then he raised an eyebrow at David. ‘Elizabeth Ruel had that done for you? No way, man! Elizabeth Ruel had that done for Elizabeth Ruel!’
David felt even more embarrassed. Not so much about the picture, and all it seemed to represent, but at the fact that, even after so many years, Leon knew everything about him. There was no escaping it. You couldn’t bullshit Leon. He could look like a thug, act like a fool if he felt like it, but Leon was a chameleon and he knew all the moves—his own, and everybody else’s, too. That was why David loved him. It came over him now in a wave, that he had always trusted Leon completely because there was no alternative. You couldn’t hide from him and you couldn’t run from him either. And for all his strength—of mind and body—Leon had never done David any harm.
There and then, as if reading David’s mood and his thoughts, Leon pulled a classic stunt. He put his arm around David and hugged him warmly to his side.
‘It’s an amazing picture, Dave, seriously. Beats the hell out of all her magazine covers.’ He raised his free hand toward the picture. ‘This takes her right out of time; shows her as the beauty of the ages. Forget Helen of Troy. Lizzie knows exactly what she’s up to with visual effects, doesn’t she?’ He dropped both arms. ‘So how old are your kids now?’
‘Gordon is seven; Hope is four.’
‘They look pretty happy. A little stir-crazy, maybe. You think they belong in America?’
David shrugged. ‘Elizabeth thinks so.’
‘How can she? If she’s having them painted like that? That’s nothing to do with America, that painting!’
‘Well, maybe that’s why she left it behind. Or maybe it just marks the end of something. A souvenir.’
‘That’s a huge painting, Dave! They’re lost in it, the three of them—as if they didn’t belong anywhere at all. I mean not anywhere real.’
David just looked for a while. The figures were about life-sized, he thought, but the drawing-room around them had no distinct edge to it. The blue and red oriental carpet flowed away over an endless floor, the walls soared out of sight as if to the sky. There was the great swag of dove-colored silk at the back, curtaining one of the French doors, but none of the other furniture that used to be in the room was shown.
Finally he said, ‘Yeah, well, there’s nothing Elizabeth likes more than empty space, I guess. Big houses, big rooms, open fields, long driveways.’
Leon looked at David. ‘Still trying to get away from everyone, is she?’
They both laughed.
‘Is that a real dog?’ Leon pointed.
David laughed. ‘That’s Puck.’
‘Puck? I hope not! One face-off and his brains would be all over the ice. Jeez, David!’
‘It’s hockey for me; Shakespeare for Elizabeth. A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The children thought it was funny. Well, I think it’s funny anyway. Maybe the children don’t even know. I can’t remember.’
The grilled chicken and the rice had grown cold by the time the door slammed behind them and the bike started up. Francine went into the dining-room and looked at the two untouched plates of food she had put out, the bowl of salad, and the bottle of white wine on the little round table. Then she went back into the hall, walked to the front door, opened it, and looked out in the street. She could still hear the bike, maybe half a block away. She shut the door, went back to the dining-room, and sat down in the second chair she had carried up from the kitchen. Quietly, contentedly, she ate Leon’s plateful of dinner; that plateful had been her own to begin with anyway.
David and Leon went to the top of the Oxo Tower because David couldn’t possibly get enough, now, of the London night. The restaurant was noisy and smoky; the city twinkled and floated just out of arm’s reach on the other side of the glass walls, its invisible depths landmarked by the familiar dome of St Paul’s, the carnivalesque Millennium Wheel, the glinting black Thames snaking through it.
There were certain things that had to be established between them; David thought the best way to start was by ordering margaritas. They ordered food, too, scallops, steak. The staring emptiness of David’s house had made them both self-conscious, and they began to recover from it only after their second drink.
Still, they carried on a businesslike series of questions and answers. When was the last time they had seen each other? Why had it been