And is spotted in return, and holds eye contact all through the lord’s leisurely release, and the scene kicks off a series of voyeuristic exchanges culminating in the cleaner being fucked up against one of the largest windows.
Alan found his fingers curled around the edge of the desk, and made them uncurl.
Hawthorn’s eyebrows rose. “There’s that memory again. That was an early one, I believe. Must be nearly a decade ago. Are you a collector as well as a purveyor? Or were you a startlingly precocious boy?”
In a conversation that began with the mention of blackmail, it would be radiantly stupid of Alan to tell him. But his nerves still refused to shout danger. And powerful men were always more comfortable dealing with you if they had something to hold over your head.
That wasn’t the reason, though. Alan wanted to knock that superior look clean off his lordship’s face.
He reached out and touched his fingertips to the crook of Hawthorn’s elbow. The man’s pupils twitched. How had Alan known? For fuck’s sake. This man had wanted for nothing in his life, and had never had to hide how much he wanted a thing when he looked at it. Alan had known from the first time they spoke, even if he had been held at the business end of a pistol at the time.
“Why, m’lord Hawthorn,” he said, as obnoxiously common as possible. “I wrote ’em.”
Hawthorn jerked his arm back, then looked equal parts furious and surprised. The expression melted almost at once into one of flat, dubious uncaring; too late. Alan was back under this lord’s skin.
“You’re the Roman?”
“My pa’s parents came from nearer Naples, actually, but why split hairs?”
Another delicious moment of silence. Hawthorn’s right hand formed a fist. Opened again.
“Nice try, but I don’t believe you. You’re too young. The Roman’s been putting out work for ten years.”
“Nine. You never thought it might be a group of people? Or an inherited pen name, passed on from man to man? Woman to woman?”
That got a blink. “Woman?”
“You’d be surprised,” said Alan. “But no. All me, I’m afraid. The first one was published when I was eighteen. And now I’m twenty-seven. Do you need an abacus, my lord, or did you manage to fit in some arithmetic around all the Latin?”
Alan was going to become greedy for these off-balance silences. Finally Lord Hawthorn rubbed his forehead and said, sounding plaintive enough that he was almost a real person: “Twenty-seven.”
“Why, what was your guess?”
A short bark of a laugh. “Very well, Ross. I believe you.”
“If it helps, I was a sallow, weedy thing when I was actually twenty.”
“And you’re such a vigorous specimen of manhood now.” Hawthorn’s eyes flicked down to Alan’s feet and back up. All five and a half feet of him.
“Not as vigorous as the boys I write about, but I do try.”
He’d overshot that one, perhaps. He couldn’t help it. The longed-for fight was refusing to manifest properly. Instead, there was this game of catch and thorns, and Alan was enjoying it too much. He needed Hawthorn to do something to put a firm end to his enjoyment. To push too hard; to take advantage, as powerful men always did.
To prove that Alan had been right about him after all.
But Hawthorn stepped back, not forward. Looked amused, instead of angry. More air and more sound began to trickle in around them.
“Very well. You’re the Roman and I’m a Liberal. Are we square?”
“Not even close,” said Alan. “But I suppose it’s a start.”
5
There were probably many working men in London who made their way home, at the end of the day, thinking about the oasis of relative peace that would be their own house. Perhaps some chatter of children, or the crackle of fire. But in general: a respite from the noise of the workplace and the city streets.
Alan let himself into the small Clerkenwell house and smiled when the first shouts hit his ears. It was suppertime. Food in the Rossi household waited for no man.
“Who’ll guess where I went today?” he shouted, stepping into the kitchen’s warmth. He reached up to absently touch the doorframe as he did so, an adopted habit of his mother’s that travelled from house to house and created a shiny-smooth patch in any place that the Rossi family inhabited for long enough. For the first time he was aware of the fact that a tall man would have to duck to pass under that frame. Houses here weren’t built for men of Lord Hawthorn’s proportions.
The noise dipped for a mere half a moment at his question, then redoubled.
“Paris!” called Bella, and “Circus!” came from Tom, who had lived and breathed circuses since he saw a poster for one the previous week. The suggestions escalated in volume and absurdity until—“The moon!” screeched Emily, who then fell to cackling breathlessly around a mouthful of bread.
“All wrong! I live in a house of ignorant fools!”
“Speak English, Alanzo,” said his ma reprovingly. She swept an illustrative hand at the children and then—an afterthought—at Carolina’s husband, Dick, who came from pure Spitalfields stock.
Alan grinned and sat down in the narrow space formed by Carolina ordering her two eldest to squash together on the bench. He and his siblings—the two sisters in this room, and precious oldest son Emilio—had grown up hearing and speaking both tongues. His ma had insisted that they sound as English as possible so they’d have more choices than working within the tiny Italian-London communities like those of Clerkenwell.
And it had only taken one overheard comment about lazy dago brats, when Alan was fifteen and first trying to get work, for him to change his name. Alan Ross was a sharp, careful Londoner with an employable accent, who just happened to turn a nice burnished colour in the sun. Alanzo Rossi now existed only under this roof, with these people.
So yes: Alanzo Rossi slipped into Italian when he could, if only to savour the feel of it in his mouth.
“Al’right, mate,” said Dick. He pushed a bowl of cold potatoes in Alan’s direction. Alan began to fill his plate.
“Haven’t chopped it off yet?” He nodded to Dick’s leg, wrapped and propped up on a stool.
“Nah. Waiting for pork chops to pass a shilling the pound. Caro will hack it off herself, then, out of thrift, and serve it up for supper.”
Alan laughed; the children went into spasms of gleeful disgust at the prospect of eating their father’s leg; Caro said, “Oi,” and tossed a crust at her husband’s face. Maria Rossi broke into overlapping complaint about how pork chops had been ten pence at the markets last Friday, and shocking quality for the price, according to Tatiana—
Alan smiled to himself and ate. At least Emilio and his wife, Eva, who’d been dubiously blessed with two sets of twins, had their own place. They only added the extra noise of their six children to the household on Sundays when they all piled in for dinner after morning Mass.
“Where did you go today, then?” asked Bella. “You never said.”
“The Houses of Parliament.”
Bella rolled her eyes. She’d have preferred the moon too. Nobody in Alan’s family had energy to spare for politics, though Dick had started to pay attention when Alan read him some pamphlets on workers’ rights. He’d been away from his construction job longer than expected after breaking his leg, and then laid off entirely; he had the makings of a staunch unionist.