The defenceless man lay with his arms flung out, legs apart, face turned towards Ben, eyes so lightly closed he seemed to be watching Ben. Ben could kill him as he lay and Alex would never know it. Ben could feel the rage, fed by sorrow, strengthening in his shoulders, his arms, his fists. He could lean forward and bite hard into that throat that was presented to him there . But Ben knew he must not, must control himself. Even while rage darkened his eyes, another voice was telling him, 'Stop. You must not. It's dangerous. They could kill you for it.'
But Ben sat on there, letting the sorrowful rage sink down while his fists unclenched.
He was thinking of Richard: now it seemed to him that Richard had been a real friend, and that he liked him.
Ben sat a long time, legs apart, fists on his knees, leaning forward, looking. Once he held out an arm, the thick arm with big fists, and put it close to Alex's arm, that was lying loose there, so close. Alex's legs were hidden inside his jeans, but Ben knew that his own legs were like tree trunks in comparison, filling trouser legs. That face there: compared to his own it was so small and so fine; the chest visible in the carelessly closed shirt had little hair on it. They were so similar, this Alex and he, and yet so different . For one thing, he could crush Alex in his two arms and Alex would not be able even to move.
Ben stood at the window. It hurt to look into the glittering caverns of the sky, so he looked down. Five storeys up, they were. Not as high as the old woman. Down there people were moving about, and they were using the new language, a slushy slurry way of talking, like sugar in the mouth.
The telephone rang. Alex did not stir. It went on ringing. Ben picked up the receiver and said in English, 'Alex is asleep.' A voice, a woman's voice, said that she had heard Alex was in town and she was coming over. Alex woke. Ben said that a woman called Teresa was coming. Alex, though he was still deep in tiredness, jumped up saying, 'Oh, Teresa, wonderful, that's just great.' He showered and came back in clean clothes. It was about six. Alex took Ben down to the foyer, and there people came, more and more, until eleven of them set off to the restaurant that Alex said Ben would like, because it served mostly meat.
All of them tried to talk to Ben. Where are you from? Are you working with Alex? Have you worked on film or in the theatre? — that kind of thing, and Ben's replies silenced them because they were not to the point. For instance, asked where he was from he said, from the Excelsior Hotel in Nice, and when this friendly and curious person persisted, said he wasn't from Scotland, but didn't know the name of his home town. So they all treated Ben carefully, though kindly, trying not to stare at him. But Teresa, Ben knew, was really kind: he could feel she was.
It was the kind of restaurant they have in Rio where on the tables are already waiting plates of tomato, pickles, sauces, but it was meat that people went there for, with haunches and joints of every kind of meat, but mostly beef, displayed on platters or on skewers. Ben had never seen such a variety and amount of meat, and he was pleased, but his unhappiness was too strong for him really to enjoy himself. He felt out of things, the chattering, the embraces, the talk he did not understand, when it was in Portuguese, and even the English was mutilated and hard to follow. Soon it was over, and then he was in a car with Alex and some of the others. They were sweeping along the sea front, with the moonlight moving on the waves, and tall buildings pouring out light. At the hotel he heard arrangements being made for the days ahead: all these people were happy Alex was here, and it was as if they were expecting a holiday.
In the hotel room Ben took off his clothes, remembered to put them on hangers, and climbed, as usual, naked into bed. He watched Alex putting on pyjamas: clothes to go to bed in. Like his parents. Like himself when he was very small, but he had hated them. He fell asleep.
Now Alex did what Ben had, earlier. He sat on his bed's edge and bent forward to stare. He even held out an arm, as Ben had, and pulled up his pyjama leg to match it with Ben's, that lay outside the bedclothes, because it was so hot. Ben had a sheet pulled across his middle. Alex thought, So he has an instinct to hide his private parts — that's strange for an animal. But he's not an animal. But if he is not an animal then ... This soliloquy seemed in danger of repeating itself, as it did, far too often, in Alex's head — and in most people's.
Alex slept. Ben slept. In the morning they ate fruit and more fruit at the hotel breakfast, and then they took their things and went to the flat Alex had rented, in a street not far from the sea front. In the lift Alex explained their flat was on 3 — not too high up: Ben still didn't like lifts. Two good-sized rooms, bedrooms, separated by a larger room that was the sitting room. A kitchen, not large; bathroom with shower and lavatory. Ben was to have his own room. Alex thought this was possibly dangerous, but he needed a room to himself: for one thing, he had a girlfriend here, Teresa. This was the first room Ben had had to himself since he had been at home with his family, and he was instinctively looking for bars in the windows: no bars. But he was feeling confined: kept testing the door — yes, he could go out and come back, he had a key. This was no trap . But this room, with its single bed, the big windows, was like the room he had when he was a child. It was midday. Alex said he was jet-lagged and Ben thought this meant Alex was ill: he himself did not remember being ill. Alex went to his room, saying there would be a lot of people coming around later, and that when he woke he would take Ben out and they would buy food to prepare in the kitchen. Ben was restless in his room . looked down into the street from where he could just hear voices talking that slushy language . looked across at windows opposite, where he could see people moving about there, but not know what they did. He went to the sitting room. There were some magazines there, but pictures and photographs were always of kinds of people that were not his friends, and he knew could never be. I want to go home, he was repeating, silently, in his head. Home, home.
To test if he was a prisoner he let himself out, managed to remain calm in the old, noisy lift, walked to the end of the street and back. Not many people in this side street. They all looked at him, and one followed, a young boy with a sharp angry face. Ben did not run — he knew better, but returned fast to the building where his room and safety were, and waited at the lift knowing the boy was creeping in behind him, staring, in a crouch Ben understood very well. He must not turn and grip that boy by the shoulders ... The lift rattled down as the boy had almost reached him — what did he want? — and Ben was in the lift, and then fitting his key into the flat door, which opened, and Alex was there. 'Oh, there you are ... I was wondering Alex smiled, but Ben knew he had not liked finding Ben gone. Then Alex asked if he wanted to go back to the pavement outside the hotel where the tables were, and Ben said yes, he would. They sat there eating sandwiches and drinking juice, watching people of all colours, black and brown and pale brown and white, go wandering past. A lot of girls, some of them with hardly any clothes on. There were girls at these tables, sometimes in pairs, or by themselves. Ben could not stop himself watching them, and wanting. He was thinking of Rita, and how she liked him. Alex told him to be careful, because the girls usually had men who protected them. 'Like Johnston,' Ben said, adding another ingredient to Alex's view of this Johnston. 'Did he take her money?' he asked. 'She never asked me for money,' said Ben. 'She liked me.' 'I think you'd find these girls would ask for quite a lot of money.'