Geoff Ryman - Lust Or No Harm Done

Henry spoke, his soft voice echoing oddly off the hangar-shaped roof. 'The new work is really very good. You'll be proud of him.'

Michael felt a surge of longing towards both of them. This was a kind and calm household, and though Michael wanted both of them, he also felt sad. What could bring this beautiful way of life to a halt?

Philip was dropping the tea bags into the cups as if it were a game. He's different, Michael thought. He moves differently. He used to shake and shiver all the time, and look angry, and dart about the place. As if sensing his thought, Philip said, 'Henry's taught me a lot.' And he looked at Henry with real affection. He looked back at Michael. 'Thank you,' he said. To Michael.

Michael pretended not to understand.

Philip was still looking at him. 'It was a very kind thing to do.'

'Whuh what was?'

Philip's eyes rolled slightly towards the ceiling. 'You know very well what.'

Henry stepped forward. 'He knows, Michael. I told him. I told him a long time ago. I have to keep telling him or he forgets. But that's good too.' He turned to look at Philip's face. 'It means we keep talking.'

Suddenly Michael felt awkward. 'I… it wasn't something I knew I was doing.'

Henry's voice was quiet. 'He knows that too.'

Philip stood in the sunlight, and his voice was as still as Henry's. 'It really is all right, Michael. Sit down.' He passed Michael his tea. 'Would you like some Christmas cake with that?'

Michael said yes, though his appetite had gone. He lowered himself rather shakily down onto the sofa. 'Is it why you broke up?'

Philip was slicing cake. 'Well, it's hardly a permanent solution, is it? But no, that's not the reason. Here you go.'

On the white rippled plate that Michael knew so well was the same old Christmas cake that Philip always cooked. Only now they didn't live with each other and had only the mildest, most friendly connection with each other. This felt like another reality as well.

Philip sat next to Henry, and the two of them hunkered down together on the futon sofa. 'Philip's found someone,' said Henry, smiling. He nearly pulled it off. He nearly did look entirely pleased, almost without a trace of wistfulness. He looked back towards Philip and his face seemed to open up like a rose. It was a look like a mother gives when she knows she has to let go. He's done it because he knows he won't be here for ever. 'Tell him about Lee,' said Henry.

'Well, you'll meet him later.' Philip was shy.

'Lee's lovely,' said Henry, regaining all his poise.

I'm not going to have either one of them, Michael realized. It was his turn for good behaviour. 'Tell me about him,' Michael asked.

A little smile of delight played around the corner of Philip's mouth. 'Well. Lee's from China. Communist China. Near Shanghai. He's over here to study computing. And he's… very handsome.'

'Very handsome indeed,' said Henry.

'And he says that after his course is over that it would be possible for me to live in China. And… I've said yes.' Philip chuckled at his own unexpected courage.

'I'll miss you,' said Michael.

Philip looked cheerful. 'Well, I won't be going for a few years yet.'

Henry was full of love for him, real love, the love that works to lose the thing it most wants. 'Phil's doing very well learning Chinese.'

'I figured it might take a while, so I might as well start now.'

Michael occupied himself pressing bits of Philip's cake together in order to eat it. Philip's Christmas cake was always too crumbly. Well, Michael, it never turns out the way you expect. You'd better start adjusting now. There's nothing else to do.

'Can I see the paintings now?' Michael asked.

They were very good portraits, done in a slightly impressionistic style. The paint was liberally applied, a little bit as if someone were making mud pies. They told you things about the people. There were several pictures of Henry. Then one dreamlike painting, all sunlight in this flat with a slim broad-shouldered man looking away. 'That's Lee,' said Philip.

The sun was lower. The light was golden, on the paintings, on the faces.

You can't go back, Michael. Like Time, love flows in one direction only. You'll stay friends with Philip. You'll write e-mails. You might even visit him in China. And Henry?

Suddenly, there was the painting of Henry, the one on the card.

'What… what will happen when Henry goes?' Philip asked.

'I wonder that too,' said Michael. 'You'll have the painting. I don't know if you'll remember who it was. But,' he sighed, 'you won't feel any regret or loss. You won't be in the same reality. That's all.'

'Make up a nice story for me,' said Philip. 'How I came to paint this. About who he was. What he was like.' He looked back up at Michael, and his eyes had something of iron in them.

The other friends started to arrive about seven o'clock. The thought of them had caused Michael trepidation too, but these were different friends. There was no Jimmy Banter, no Guardian film critics, and no arts journalists.

One was a somewhat too precise, but sweetly quiet mathematician. Another was a small middle-aged guy with an earring, bald, with a calm kind manner and an East London accent. He was called Declan. He repaired cars in Limehouse. He apologized because Lorraine couldn't make it. Lorraine worked in computing. She was his girlfriend.

'Declan travels,' said Henry. It was true. Declan had no money but seemed to have spent his life going to Peru or the Andaman Isles.

Nice people.

The world is full of nice people.

Philip's new boyfriend arrived. Lee was tall and muscular and was as handsome as promised. Michael couldn't stop himself looking back at Philip: my God, Philip, you have done yourself proud.

Henry and Philip brought in the satay and sweet potatoes. People ate on their laps from paper plates, and drank tiny amounts of wine. It was a well-behaved gay conversation: everyone was involved, there was no splitting off into anxious, moody tete-a-tetes. People talked in turn, lightly, pleasantly, and they listened in turn. Henry told a story about barracking a cat-breeding farm through a megaphone only to discover it was a nudist colony instead. Michael told the story about the time that he and Philip were both locked out of the flat. He didn't realize until halfway through that the story embodied the simple fact of their long marriage together. Lee laughed.

At one point, mysteriously, Henry said to Philip, 'He's not coming.'

At midnight, the fireworks went off over the river. The seven friends, a modest number, clustered around the one west-facing window. Synchronized flowers of light bloomed and sparkled, reflecting on the canal. To Michael they seemed to come erupting out the imagination, from the potential of the people who had designed them. He imagined them in their timeless aspect, forever a blurring of sequinned light, moving and still at the same moment. The fireworks looked like the self.

Someone, completely naturally, placed a hand on his shoulder and left it there. It was padded and hot. Michael turned around and it was Lee.

They toasted the New Year. They toasted absent friends: the mathematician had lost his partner two years before.

Michael liked them all. He hadn't known one of them, but before the end of the evening, he passed around his card, and got three in return, including Lee's. About one in the morning, the first guest stood up to go. Michael remembered the tubes, and was thinking about leaving as well, when the doorbell rang.

Philip and Henry each cocked an eyebrow. A voice barked up the answer phone. It sounded sinewy and smooth and reassuring. Philip looked back at Henry, his eyes wide and gleaming, and Philip nodded quickly, yes. He waited at the top of the stairs. 'Hello, hello!' he said.