Read The Weekend: A Novel Online
Authors: Peter Cameron
Tags: #Gay & Lesbian, #Literature & Fiction, #Fiction, #Gay, #Romance, #Literary, #United States, #Gay Romance, #Genre Fiction, #Lgbt, #Gay Fiction, #Literary Fiction
The Weekend: A Novel (10 page)
ROBERT FELL ASLEEP ON the lawn, his face pressed against the magazine he had been reading, so that when he awoke, he found the page blurred. Some of the ink had rubbed off—a smudged moist tattoo—onto his cheek. He noticed that Marian had left her paints and pad behind, and he couldn’t resist doing a few sketches: one of an Adirondack chair and its sharp dark shadow on the green lawn, one of the table ensconced beneath the mulberry tree, and one of the pile of croquet balls and mallets. By then the water in the glass had turned a pearly gray, and he poured it onto the lawn.
He walked down to the edge of the river, squatted, and tested the water with his hands. It was cold. Somewhere beyond the bend of the river he could hear people laughing and splashing,
and a dog barking. Then it was quiet and he could actually hear the flow of the water. He could hear John singing to himself beyond the hedge. And a rustling, high in the trees. After a few minutes he walked up to the house. He selected a peach from the bowl on the kitchen table and ate it. The juice ran down his hands and when he was finished eating the peach he sucked his fingers and then rinsed them beneath the faucet. It was very quiet in the house. He walked through the kitchen into the front hall and then into a cool shuttered room with a low beamed ceiling. A grand piano stood near the window. It was opened and there was some music on the stand. Bookshelves were built along every wall, and a traveling ladder was connected to them via a copper tube. There was a terra-cotta urn of what looked like sea glass in the empty fireplace. A round table stood before the fireplace with an enormous vase crowded with flowers at its center. Spread out around the vase were magazines and a few stacks of books—new books. There were five copies of Lyle’s
Neo This, Neo That
in their own little pile. Robert opened one and glanced through it. It was inscribed:
To Granger and Derek with Love from Lyle.
He looked at the photograph of Lyle in the back: Lyle was standing against the stone wall of the house, a shadow of leaves across his face. The credit was Marian Richardson Kerr. Robert put the book down.
and a dog barking. Then it was quiet and he could actually hear the flow of the water. He could hear John singing to himself beyond the hedge. And a rustling, high in the trees. After a few minutes he walked up to the house. He selected a peach from the bowl on the kitchen table and ate it. The juice ran down his hands and when he was finished eating the peach he sucked his fingers and then rinsed them beneath the faucet. It was very quiet in the house. He walked through the kitchen into the front hall and then into a cool shuttered room with a low beamed ceiling. A grand piano stood near the window. It was opened and there was some music on the stand. Bookshelves were built along every wall, and a traveling ladder was connected to them via a copper tube. There was a terra-cotta urn of what looked like sea glass in the empty fireplace. A round table stood before the fireplace with an enormous vase crowded with flowers at its center. Spread out around the vase were magazines and a few stacks of books—new books. There were five copies of Lyle’s
Neo This, Neo That
in their own little pile. Robert opened one and glanced through it. It was inscribed:
To Granger and Derek with Love from Lyle.
He looked at the photograph of Lyle in the back: Lyle was standing against the stone wall of the house, a shadow of leaves across his face. The credit was Marian Richardson Kerr. Robert put the book down.
He looked at the photographs on the mantelpiece: there was one of John and Marian as a very beautiful bride and groom, one of John holding an ugly baby Robert assumed was Roland, one of an old lady sitting in an easy chair with two small dogs with jeweled collars poised alertly on her lap, and one of Lyle and Tony standing on a balcony, a city that looked like Paris spread out behind them. Robert took this picture down and studied it. Tony had his arm around Lyle and was looking directly at the camera;
Lyle was looking a little bit up and away. Tony’s bare wrist touched Lyle’s neck, and the cigarette he held looked about to drop its cylinder of ash on Lyle’s shoulder. Tony was very handsome. His beautiful face was muscular and intent, sculpted, and his gaze was direct but not confronting. It was seen as easily as it saw. Both Lyle and Tony were smiling. They looked happy. It was Paris, Robert noticed—a distant silhouette of the Eiffel Tower. He wondered if he would ever travel anywhere with Lyle. And then he reminded himself that was what he was doing. I am traveling with Lyle. I am here with Lyle. He put the picture carefully back on the mantel, trying to refit it to its pattern in the dust.
Lyle was looking a little bit up and away. Tony’s bare wrist touched Lyle’s neck, and the cigarette he held looked about to drop its cylinder of ash on Lyle’s shoulder. Tony was very handsome. His beautiful face was muscular and intent, sculpted, and his gaze was direct but not confronting. It was seen as easily as it saw. Both Lyle and Tony were smiling. They looked happy. It was Paris, Robert noticed—a distant silhouette of the Eiffel Tower. He wondered if he would ever travel anywhere with Lyle. And then he reminded himself that was what he was doing. I am traveling with Lyle. I am here with Lyle. He put the picture carefully back on the mantel, trying to refit it to its pattern in the dust.
I am here with Lyle.
He climbed the back stairs and walked along the hall. He didn’t realize he was headed in the wrong direction until he passed a room where Marian sat in a rocking chair before an open window nursing Roland. They were both asleep. Roland’s mouth had slipped off Marian’s nipple but he continued to pulse his lips. Marian’s head lolled to one side and her mouth was open. Her face looked different to Robert: as if a veil of tension had been lifted, something you could not notice until it was gone. Robert watched for a moment and then turned around and walked, past the stairs, to the opposite end of the house.
When he turned into the hall of photographs he saw that the door to the yellow room was closed. It seemed closed in a way that discouraged one from opening or knocking on it: it was the only door closed on a long hall of many doors. Trapezoids of sunlight fell through the open doors onto the wooden floor of the hall. Robert stood for a moment, wondering what to do. He looked at the wall of photographs beside him and noticed a strange thing: a space, in the middle of the wall, where a photograph had been
removed. He knew it was the photograph of Lyle and Tony in Egypt because beside it was the photograph of Lyle dressed as a pirate. Robert looked at the empty space.
removed. He knew it was the photograph of Lyle and Tony in Egypt because beside it was the photograph of Lyle dressed as a pirate. Robert looked at the empty space.
He walked down the hall and opened the door of the yellow room. The afternoon light poured, like weak honeyed tea, through the paper shades. He could hear an insect whirring and whining, batting itself against a screen. Lyle was sleeping naked, facedown, on the bed. His limbs were splayed in a way that suggested he had been dropped from the sky.
Robert sat on the bed. He looked at Lyle. It was odd how Lyle’s body—large, hairy, white—could flicker in and out of beauty. He had been attracted to Lyle when he first saw him at Skowhegan, in an abstract, unacknowledged way. And the more he got to know Lyle, the more beautiful Lyle’s body seemed to him: this vessel for the contents that were Lyle. Now, stilled on the bed, shaking quietly with breath, it seemed like one of those sculptures smoothed from rock that insist on being touched. Lyle’s back was sweating. Robert resisted the urge to bend over and lick it. He was scared of how sexy he found Lyle, afraid of alienating Lyle with his desire. He found almost everything about Lyle sexy: his body, his mind, his talk, the way he climbed stairs, the way his fingers gripped a fork, blushing with tension, the way he smelled and tasted, the impossibly soft way his back and neck and shoulders congregated, the spot there, the crux of him, naked and lick-able.
Robert traced the corrugated route of Lyle’s spine down toward the tight valley of his buttocks. This motion, though intended to, did not rouse Lyle. And then Robert realized that Lyle was awake, and pretending to sleep. The skin across his shoulders gave him away—it was suddenly elastic with tension. It was not the skin of a sleeper. Robert removed his hand and got up. He stood beside
the bed for a moment, looking down at Lyle, who continued to feign sleep. Neither of them spoke. And then Robert saw the photograph of Lyle and Tony and the camel and the pyramids on the table beside the bed.
the bed for a moment, looking down at Lyle, who continued to feign sleep. Neither of them spoke. And then Robert saw the photograph of Lyle and Tony and the camel and the pyramids on the table beside the bed.
He left the room. He went outside and stood in the front yard for a moment, and then walked up the long dirt driveway. The paved road it adjoined was surprisingly heavily traveled. The cars sped by noisily, blowing up hot storms of wind and dust as they passed. Robert began to walk along the side of the road, on the shoulder of a gulch. The gulch was full of stagnant water and soda cans; on its other side was a field of tall corn. Robert jumped across the ditch and walked between two rows of corn, far enough into the field so that he could not see the traffic. He sat on the ground and pulled his knees up against his chest and rested his forehead on them. It felt cool and peaceful in the corn. He could see the ground between his legs and watched some ants drag a piece of corn husk across his field of vision. Maybe I was wrong, he thought: maybe Lyle really was sleeping. I should have woken him up. I should have spoken to him. I shouldn’t have just left. I love Lyle, he thought.
He got up and retraced his steps, but instead of going back along the driveway, he veered off into the woods. He thought that would be the quickest way to get back to Lyle.
After Robert left, Lyle lay on the bed for a while. For a moment after he awoke he had thought the hand on his back was Tony’s. And as quickly as he thought that—it wasn’t even as deliberate as thinking: the hand, for an instant, was Tony’s—he realized it was Robert’s hand. Tony is dead, he told himself. It was strange that the most momentous event of his life—the death of his lover—
seemed sometimes to be so tentatively attached to his consciousness. He often awoke to, or dreamed of, a world where Tony was alive. Not a world in which Tony had come back to life, but a world in which Tony existed, as he had existed, where his existence was more often tolerated than appreciated. For Tony and Lyle had not always loved each other very well, and this fact made Lyle’s mourning all the more complicated. His sadness at losing Tony was ornamented with guilt.
seemed sometimes to be so tentatively attached to his consciousness. He often awoke to, or dreamed of, a world where Tony was alive. Not a world in which Tony had come back to life, but a world in which Tony existed, as he had existed, where his existence was more often tolerated than appreciated. For Tony and Lyle had not always loved each other very well, and this fact made Lyle’s mourning all the more complicated. His sadness at losing Tony was ornamented with guilt.
Lyle sat up. I need a swim, he thought. I’ll go find Robert and we’ll have a swim. He could imagine the cold clean water of the river around him. He called Robert’s name, softly, as if he might be waiting just outside the door. But of course there was no answer. Lyle put on his bathing suit and a T-shirt and a pair of sandals and went downstairs. He walked through the house and saw no one. He went out the back door and down the lawn, through a chink in the hedge, and stopped beside the garden. John was doing something fierce with a hoe: thrusting it into the ground, wriggling it, and removing it. Lyle stood outside the gate for a moment, watching John, and then he said, “Have you seen Robert?”
John poked the hoe into the ground and turned around. He wiped his brow with the back of his hand. “No,” he said. “Are you going for a swim?”
“Yes,” said Lyle. “But I was looking for Robert.”
“Where’s Marian?”
“I don’t know. She’s disappeared, too.”
“I doubt they’ve run off together,” said John. He wiggled the hoe, and then reinserted it, more firmly, into the earth. “Well, I’m through gardening. Let’s swim. Robert will find us, I’m sure.” He took off his T-shirt and wiped the sweat from his body with it and then carefully hung it over the garden fence, to air in the sun. “Let’s go,” he said to Lyle.
They began to walk down toward the river. “I like Robert,” said John. “He seems awfully nice.”
“Yes,” said Lyle. “He is.”
Robert’s watercolor sketches lay on the arm of an Adirondack chair. They paused to look at them.
“Who did those?” asked John.
“Marian,” said Lyle. “She was going to paint Robert and me, but I went inside. They’re awfully good.” He picked up the one of the croquet apparatus and looked at it more closely. “They shouldn’t be here in the sun,” he said. He put the sketches down on the lawn in the chair’s shadow. “They’re really very nice. Remind me to bring them into the house.”
“O.K.,” said John.
They reached the bank of the river and walked to the end of the dock, carefully avoiding the planks that had lost their grips. They loitered there, as if they had intended to walk across the river and were surprised to find the dock extended only this far.
John knelt and dangled his fingers in the water. “What do you think of Roland?” he asked.
“Roland? What do you mean?”
“Marian’s worried about him. She thinks—I don’t know, that he’s slow. That maybe there’s something wrong with him, developmentally.”
“I’m hardly the person to consult,” said Lyle.
“I know,” said John. “I just wondered how he struck you.”
“He seemed normal enough to me. He sleeps a lot.”
“All babies sleep a lot.”
“Well, then, he seems very normal. When is he supposed to start walking?”
“Anytime about now. He doesn’t really crawl yet. And he’s not very responsive.”
“What does the doctor say?”
“That he has low scores in certain areas but we shouldn’t worry about it. That low means low, not abnormal.”
“Then you shouldn’t worry.”
“Marian does. She’s—I don’t know. She won’t let herself be reassured. If you think of it, say something to her. I think if you said something it would mean a lot to her.”
“Like what?”
John shrugged. He flicked the water from his fingers into the river, and stood up. “I don’t know. Just something reassuring. I mean, you haven’t seen Roland since he was tiny. Surely he’s changed in some ways.”
Things must be very bad, Lyle thought, for John to ask me to do that.
John bent over and unlaced his sneakers and took off his shorts and underwear. He stood for a moment, naked, his toes curled around the edge of the final plank. From behind he looked very much like Tony. From behind he almost could have been Tony. John stood still for a moment, as if he knew that Lyle was studying him, and then he dove, neatly, into the river. He didn’t resurface until the stain of his entrance had been absorbed. He had swum out very far. John motioned for Lyle to join him. Lyle considered for a moment shedding his bathing suit, but did not. His dive was less exact.
Robert got lost in the woods and found himself on the bank of the river. Lyle and John were swimming out in the middle. Or not swimming—treading water, being slowly carried downstream with the current. Robert stood for a moment, watching them, and then took off his clothes and waded into the river. The mud
was slimy and unpleasant beneath his feet. He held his arms up in the air and felt the chill ascend his body. He dove into the water with enough noise and force so that when he surfaced both John and Lyle were looking toward him. He tried to wave at them while he swam but the movement was awkward. He was a mediocre swimmer and the distance to them was greater than he had thought. He arrived at their side breathless.
was slimy and unpleasant beneath his feet. He held his arms up in the air and felt the chill ascend his body. He dove into the water with enough noise and force so that when he surfaced both John and Lyle were looking toward him. He tried to wave at them while he swam but the movement was awkward. He was a mediocre swimmer and the distance to them was greater than he had thought. He arrived at their side breathless.
“There you are,” said Lyle. “I was wondering where you were.”
“I went for a walk,” Robert said, between gasps.
They were all three silent for a moment. Robert had the feeling he had interrupted something. “I think I’ll swim to that rock,” he said.
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