The Weekend: A Novel by Peter Cameron

Author:Peter Cameron [Cameron, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Gay & Lesbian, Literature & Fiction, Fiction, Gay, Romance, Literary, United States, Gay Romance, Genre Fiction, Lgbt, Gay Fiction, Literary Fiction
Amazon: B004UZRNME
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Published: 2009-03-30T07:00:00+00:00

11

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.

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.

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