Sweet Agony (7 page)

‘I want to hear it even more now. Is it somewhere amongst all of these tomes? Is there one from your childhood, saying, “Property of little Rupert Ignatius Sebastian Harcroft”?’

He makes the irritated sound he did when we had our little interview.

He behaves just as I thought he would, down to the hand wave and the frustration.

‘I hate you for thinking it might be Rupert.’

‘But not for Ignatius.’

‘I wish it
were
Ignatius. At least that has the honour of being a real name.’

‘So your name is so posh it sounds made-up.’

‘I am not about to indulge in a guessing game with you, Molly.’

‘You called me Molly. I think a guessing game is on the table,’ I say, and this time he breaks. He really, really breaks. ‘Damn you,’ he says, and actually brings a frustrated fist up to his mouth. Apparently, whatever this game is, I am winning it.

And by quite a wide margin.

‘Tell me. You’ve told me everything else.’

‘Have I? I feel as though I barely said a word.’

‘Apparently you didn’t need to.’

‘No, I suppose not,’ he says, with just the barest hint of bitterness. It soon fades, however, and gives way to something so cool it makes my heart thump. ‘You are very good, you know. Not as good as me but then few people are. Honestly, you have no idea how many people I turned away – it must have been hundreds.’

He sounds like he might be marvelling a little.

Marvelling over someone as small and insignificant as me.

‘They had no idea what they were missing, Augustus.’

‘Your guesses are terrible – which leads me to think you are making them terrible on purpose. A sloppy tactic that somewhat belies the praise I just lavished on you.’

‘Was that lavishing? Crikey, what are you like when you really let go?’

‘I never really let go. Or had you missed that fault in my personality, my little Sherlock? Perhaps I should downgrade you again to Watson.’

‘You can if you want. But you will look silly when I finally make you crack and confess. As far as I know Watson never made anyone do that.’

‘Actually Watson was almost as clever as Sherlock in the original –’

‘Now you’re just trying to change the subject.’

‘I know but you are backing me into a corner,’ he says, and I don’t know what I like more. That he admits it, or that he speaks from behind gritted teeth.

‘I apologise, Bartholomew Huntley Harcroft the Third,’ I say, then delight when he rolls his eyes. He has great eyes to roll, despite what he thinks of them.

And he has a great name, despite what he thinks of that.

‘My name is Cyrian, for the love of God,’ he says finally, furious at finding himself trapped between my awful guesses and the truth, but almost relieved once the thing is out. Now, at least, he can lay down the ground rules. ‘But I swear if you ever call me it I will tell you tired old jokes about mother-in-laws while playing easy listening elevator music at full volume in a caravan at Butlins that has only a copy of
Maxim
in the toilet with the crossword puzzle solved…
wrongly
,’ he says, that one word on the end so packed with dark menace that I shiver. His voice could make the Teletubbies sound like an international terrorist ring.

‘That was a really vicious threat, even for you.’

‘I will take that as a compliment.’

‘It was intended as one,’ I say, but he just shakes his head.

‘You give me entirely too many of them.’

‘Now who is the one who thinks they’re undeserving?’

‘Some people genuinely are. You really have no idea about me,’ he says.

Though I can see I’ve caught him off-guard.

A little more, I think, and he could cave completely.

‘Then tell me all the things I should know.’

‘I can scarcely think of a worse way to pass the time.’

‘So maybe I should just come up with more things myself.’

‘Oh, no. Wait, I can think of something worse. Well done.’

‘I promise I will be gentle.’

‘That is the
reason
it is worse. Sympathy is for fools and morons and people who are unable to cope with the rigours of everyday life. I have no need of it.’

‘Then you want me to be harsh? You are a massive buffoon,’ I say, intending it as a joke yet somehow not expecting him to react to it as one. In fact I thought he might be incapable of displaying real amusement at anything – least of all my attempts at humour.

Yet he proves me wrong about that.

He proves me wrong in startling and glorious fashion. So startling and glorious, in fact, that at first I wonder what on earth he’s doing. A sound comes out of him and his features shift around and all of it is so completely not him that I just don’t recognise it for what it is.

It takes me a full minute, and even then I have to ask.

‘Did you just laugh?’

‘I know. I am as surprised as you are to discover I can do that.’

‘You get these lovely lines around your eyes,’ I burst out, but only because I want to say something else. It makes you look even more beautiful, I think. It makes you look warm and human and like one day you might let me be more to you than just a person you know,
I think. Then thank God that I manage to keep it inside.

He barely accepts what I do say.

Lord knows what he would make of that.

‘That might be because I am ancient and decrepit.’

‘I somehow doubt you are more than thirty-five.’

‘Now I know you are just coddling me. I am thirty-four and appear forty-five, a fact that I am well aware of. My own fault, of course – I had a love affair with cigarettes until a year ago and it left me the ruin you see before you. To this day I still crave the sweet embrace of Benson and Hedges,’ he says and now it’s my turn to giggle – much to his irritation.

‘I fail to see how that is amusing. My lungs are most likely blacker than Hades.’

‘It’s amusing because of how you put it. God, I love the way you put things. I love the words you use and the way you put them together in sentences. You almost never speak like a normal person and it’s thrilling to me. Absolutely and in every way. I could listen to you talk all day,’ I say, and only realise at the end that I’ve gone way, way too far. I missed the bullet of telling him I want him to be warm and my friend and all of that other stuff, and shoot myself with this one instead.

Luckily for me, however, he doesn’t seem to notice.

Or not in any way that matters.

‘You are the strangest creature.’

‘Said the man who thinks his gorgeous face is ugly and tries to drive people away with duets and letters and books and magical dresses.’

‘I have good reasons for all of those things.’

‘And for the aversion to touch, too?’

‘It is not really what it appears,’ he says, but immediately seems to know he should not have. Now he has left a little door open, and I just have to casually step through.

‘Is it a germ thing?’

‘That guess was beneath you, Molly.’

‘You called me Molly again.’

‘Slip of the tongue.’

‘Or an attempt at distracting me.’

‘As though I would utilise such a feeble gambit.’

‘Then we can go on talking about it?’

‘I suppose so, if your tiny mind is so easily occupied.’

‘That was a good effort at stopping me before we can get to the good stuff.’

‘Thank you. It took quite a bit of effort to do it,’ he says, the words so throwaway I could almost miss the meaning behind them. Maybe if I were not his Sherlock Holmes I would have, but even I can see that I am. I have a talent for guessing the hidden parts of people – a talent I had no idea was so pronounced, until I applied it to him.

But now that I have, I can hardly deny it.

I see his suggestion as clear as if he had written it in the sky:

It pains me to insult you
.

And that just about takes my breath away. I need a second to process, and then accept, and finally offer the only thing I can.

‘We can stop if you want.’

‘If I say yes you will only wonder.’

‘Quite possibly, but I would never ask again.’

‘Not really the point – I would know you were thinking about it.’

‘And that will drive you mad, then?’

‘It already is driving me mad,’ he says.

I almost turn back. I really don’t want to push him. If he wants his secrets he is entitled to them. I have no claim on him and even if I did I doubt I would act on it. I want him to be at peace. I want him to laugh again.

I hate the thought of him struggling with anything.

Yet at the same time I am suspicious of what he is really doing here. I have been for a while. After all, he is as sharp as anything. He has to see what result that last comment will produce. He wants me to ask almost as much as he doesn’t.

‘Do you hate all kinds of touching?’

‘Oh, Lord, this is a sex question.’

‘I was thinking more of shaking hands.’

‘Ah. Well. In that case I prefer not to. I prefer not to do anything that involves any bodily contact,’ he says, and then I have to come clean.

My face is red and I feel found out, but I need to be honest.

After all, I’m expecting him to be.

‘It was really a sex question.’

‘You are appalling. Honestly – why does everything have to be about that?’

‘Because everything
is
about that. Wars are fought over it. People sing songs and write books and make movies about it. Human beings need sex.’

‘Then I must be something else, for I find precious little use for the stuff,’ he says, and I don’t know what I like more: that he says ‘precious little’ or that he refers to sex as
stuff
. He even makes an odd little gesture in the air when he does, like his fingers are covered in something sticky.

And that just about drives me crazy.

It’s as much as I can do to keep my next enquiry PG-13.

‘So I guess you must be asexual or maybe –’

‘I am not about to lay claim to an identity I do not possess. The trappings of sexual congress have simply never appealed to me – I find them repugnant and irrational and against most of the principles I hold dear. The human mind was meant to be ruled by logic and reason, not a morass of sloppy hormones.’

‘It sounds like you have no idea what sex is, to be honest.’

‘I have a perfectly good idea of what sex is.’

‘If you did, you would never refer to it as a sloppy morass.’

‘I fail to see how my description is in any way inaccurate.’

‘How can you possibly know that if you’ve never?’ I ask, intending only an innocent question but understanding at the same time why I do it. I want to know. It could well be that I
burn
to know, in a way that seems strange even to me. I always thought I was the kind of girl to be fascinated by lotharios who fuck everything that walks, and yet somehow, as soon as I come across the idea of the opposite, I am greedy for details.

And even greedier after he supplies some.

‘There are these things called books. I believe we are currently surrounded by them.’

‘Yes, but I doubt
Jane Eyre
is explicit about irrational fucking.’

‘Ah, so you believe my only source of information is a
Bildungsroman
from the nineteenth century about an orphan girl who marries a gigantic arse.’

‘I believe all of your sources of information are
Bildungsromans
from the nineteenth century about orphan girls who marry gigantic arses,’ I say, then wait in an agony of anticipation for him to take the bait. He’s going to tell me more now, I feel sure of it. I feel so sure that I don’t even see the danger when he answers.

‘Then I would be delighted to give you an example of the kind of thorough research I have undertaken. Have a seat,’ he says, and all I feel is glee. I sit without thinking and say ‘yes’ like a fool, and only realise at the last second what a mistake I might have made. I see it in a flash. I can hardly believe I let this happen.

I asked a man I can never have to tell me all the things he knows about sex.

And now I have to sit here and listen.

Chapter Six

I know as soon as he sits down that I am in trouble. He crosses one leg over the other, in a way I would describe as louche if I could stand to. At the very least I have to admit it shows off how long his limbs are, and how much more muscular than they had initially seemed. At first glance, he always appears rail-thin.

But then you see something flex and tighten in his thigh, and all is lost.

There is no going back, after this. Whatever pretence I made of not fancying him dissolves, the moment he sits there and just
looks
at me. Then, just when I think it can’t get any more intense, he reaches inside his dressing gown.

And draws out a bloody book.

God, I should have known there would be a book involved. I should have stopped before I asked him a single thing about who he is sexually, because, however rough I thought this was going to be, it is almost definitely going to be rougher now. I love books more than people. His speaking voice sends me straight to sex hell. How am I supposed to cope with him reading stuff to me? I can barely stand to see him riffle through the pages.

Those long pianist’s fingers practically stroke each one. He pauses only to lick his forefinger, which just makes everything far worse. By the time he finds a passage he likes, I am on the edge of my seat. The only things that seem to be holding me there are the muscles in my shins, but even they are starting to tremble.

Another second of this and I will end up sprawled on the floor.

I’m almost there now. My knees feel very close to the ground. Every part of me seems to be sagging, and that’s
before
he says, ‘Here we are. This should do.’ Then reads aloud from the book, in an even more sonorous and sin-riddled voice than any he has used before. And if that was not bad enough, in case the sound didn’t do the trick, this is what he says to illustrate whatever fucking point he thinks he’s making: