Page 102 of Bare
His body knew before his brain caught up. The hands went first.
‘Neil.’ Rory’s voice. Close. His hand came to the small of Neil’s back, light, the habitual touch of eight months. Neil shifted. Half a centimetre. Away from the hand.
He didn’t decide to do it. Subcortical; the body’s oldest programme, the one that predated Rory, predated the studio, predated the card, went back to Malcolm’s living room and the channel change and the word disgraceful dropped into a weeknight dinner. The programme that said: when people are watching, close.
Rory’s hand withdrew.
The half-centimetre was the loudest thing in the room.
Rory heard it.
‘The whole sequence. Really impressive work,’ Neil said. He heard his own voice. Level. Controlled. The voice he used at parents’ evenings when a mother asked if her son was gifted and the son had spelled definitely wrong six times in three pages. Polite and empty.
Rory’s face changed. Worse than hurt: recognition. He’d spent eight months painting this man. The face, the posture, the voice that said really impressive work from a mouth that had, ninety seconds ago, been breathing.
‘Neil…’
‘I need some air.’ Calm. Reasonable. The reasonable man taking a reasonable break from a crowded gallery. Nothing to see. ‘Back in a minute.’
He walked out steadily. He didn’t look back. Absolutely fine. Needing nothing from anyone. Hands in his pockets because pockets existed. Face set because faces were set and the loading dock entrance was right there and the street was right there and the car was right there.
In the car park, sitting in the driver’s seat key still in his pocket, his phone vibrated once against his thigh. Tess.
He’s in the back. He hasn’t said a word since you left. Patrick’s with him.
Neil read it. Read it again. Did not answer.
He sat in the car. Hands on the wheel. The grip. Same steering wheel. Same white-knuckle grip. The same man who’d sat in this same seat in October unable to enter a flat and who’d sat in this car two hours ago marking the moment. Except two hours ago the hands had been steady and now they trembled and the trembling was the truth the gallery couldn’t hold.
Panic had a direction. This wasn’t that. The old operating system, the one Malcolm had installed, running its programme. You are being seen. You are being looked at. You are being compared to the thing on the wall that shows what you are.
He’d said yes. In the studio, meaning it. And his body had overruled the yes.
Twenty minutes. The dashboard clock. The April dark settling outside. Blossom on the windscreen, pale against the glass.
A knock on the passenger window. Quiet. Knuckles, not palm.
Rory.
His face in the streetlight: wrecked. The kind that reached the bone. The kind that happened when you showed someone the most important thing you’d ever made and the someone walked out.
Neil reached across. Unlocked the door.
Rory got in. The passenger seat received him, too high, the seat adjusted for Freddie’s height. He didn’t adjust it.
Silence. The ticking of the engine cooling.
‘I said yes,’ Neil said. ‘In the studio. I meant it.’
‘I know you did.’
‘My body didn’t get the memo.’
Rory’s hands were on his thighs. Flat, open.
‘What happened?’
‘The woman in the red scarf. She looked at the painting and then she looked at me. Her head tilted. Like she was… checking.Matching the canvas to the man. And I could feel every person in that room doing the same calculation and my chest closed and I was fifteen again and Malcolm was changing the channel.’
