He turned his dulled attention to the wall-hung pieces. They were more impressive then the stuff on the shelves but they were still far from complete. He couldn’t see why anyone would want to look at such broken things; what was the fascination? The stone reliefs mounted on the wall were pitted and eroded, so that the skins of the figures looked leprous, and the Latin inscriptions were almost wiped out. There was nothing beautiful about them: too spoiled for beauty. They made him feel dirty somehow, as though their condition was contagious.
Only one of the exhibits struck him as interesting: a tombstone, or what looked to him to be a tombstone, which was larger than the other reliefs and in slightly better condition. A man on a horse, carrying a sword, loomed over his headless enemy. Under the picture, a few words in Latin. The front legs of the horse had been broken off, and the pillars that bounded the design were badly defaced by age, otherwise the image made sense. There was even a trace of personality in the crudely made face: a long nose, a wide mouth; an individual.
Gavin reached to touch the inscription, but withdrew his ringers as he heard Reynolds enter.
‘No, please touch it,’ said his host. ‘It’s there to take pleasure in. Touch away.’
Now that he’d been invited to touch the thing, the desire had melted away. He felt embarrassed; caught in the act.
‘Go on,’ Reynolds insisted.
Gavin touched the carving. Cold stone, gritty under his finger-tips.
‘It’s Roman,’ said Reynolds.
Tombstone?’
‘Yes. Found near Newcastle.’
‘Who was he?’
‘His name was Flavinus. He was a regimental standard-bearer.’ What Gavin had assumed to be a sword was, on closer inspection, a standard. It ended in an almost erased motif: maybe a bee, a flower, a wheel.
‘You an archaeologist, then?’
‘That’s part of my business. I research sites, occasionally oversee digs; but most of the time I restore artefacts.’ ‘Like these?’
‘Roman Britain’s my personal obsession.’ He put down the glasses he was carrying and crossed to the pottery-laden shelves.
This is stuff I’ve collected over the years. I’ve never quite got over the thrill of handling objects that haven’t seen the light of day for centuries. It’s like plugging into history. You know what I mean?’ ‘Yeah.’
Reynolds picked a fragment of pottery off the shelf. ‘Of course all the best finds are claimed by the major collections. But if one’s canny, one manages to keep a few pieces back. They were an incredible influence, the Romans. Civil engineers, road-layers, bridge builders.’
Reynolds gave a sudden laugh at his burst of enthusiasm. ‘Oh hell,’ he said, ‘Reynolds is lecturing again. Sorry. I get carried away.’
Replacing the pottery-shard in its niche on the shelf, he returned to the glasses, and started pouring drinks. With his back to Gavin, he managed to say: ‘Are you expensive?’
Gavin hesitated. The man’s nervousness was catching and the sudden tilt of the conversation from the Romans to the price of a blow-job took some adjustment. ‘It depends,’ he flannelled.
‘Ah . . .’ said the other, still busying himself with the glasses, ‘you mean what is the precise nature of my – er – requirement?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Of course.’
He turned and handed Gavin a healthy-sized glass of vodka. No ice.
‘I won’t be demanding of you,’ he said. ‘I don’t come cheap.’ ‘I’m sure you don’t,’ Reynolds tried a smile, but it wouldn’t
stick to his face, ‘and I’m prepared to pay you well. Will you be able to stay the night?’
‘Do you want me to?’
Reynolds frowned into his glass.
‘I suppose I do.’
Then yes.’
The host’s mood seemed to change, suddenly: indecision was replaced by a spun of conviction.
‘Cheers,’ he said, clinking his whisky-filled glass against Gavin’s. ‘To love and life and anything else that’s worth paying for.’
The double-edged remark didn’t escape Gavin: the guy was obviously tied up in knots about what he was doing. I’ll drink to that,’ said Gavin and took a gulp of the vodka. The drinks came fast after that, and just about his third vodka Gavin began to feel mellower than he’d felt in a hell of a long time, content to listen to Reynolds’ talk of excavations and the glories of Rome with only one ear. His mind was drifting, an easy feeling. Obviously he was going to be here for the night, or at least until the early hours of the morning, so why not drink the punter’s vodka and enjoy the experience for what it offered? Later, probably much later to judge by the way the guy was rambling, there’d be some drink-slurred sex in a darkened room, and that would be that. He’d had customers like this before. They were lonely, perhaps between lovers, and usually simple to please. It wasn’t sex this guy was buying, it was company, another body to share his space awhile; easy money.