Private House by Anthony Hyde Page B

women!”
    â€œAre there nuns?”
    She laughed. “Yes, though I don’t know where they come from nowadays. But you mustn’t mistake me. That was never a choice for me. I was young once too, you know.”
    â€œDon’t worry! You don’t strike me as old.”
    Lorraine didn’t, if it came to that, think she was old herself; in fact, she was sixty. She went on, “I’m sure Murray considered becoming a priest. He might have been happier if he had.”
    But she stopped there; to explain more would have required revealing that Murray was gay and that becoming a priest would have been impossible just because it represented a certain kind of solution to that problem: one that he refused, because it tended to define his whole life around it. That’s what he’d never wanted; she knew he’d once considered celibacy—“The Catholics have it easier, in a way,” he’d once said—but even if he could have practised it, he would have found it impossible for just that reason: “All I would be is not-queer”— queer being the word Murray had always used. But having balked here, Lorraine now found herself confused because it had seemed the natural place to bring out this fact, and now it would grow to have an awkward importance. But in fact, as Lorraine had been talking, something had occurred to Mathilde. It came into her mind unannounced, but perfectly clearly. Adamaris was gay . It was obvious, once you saw it. There was no doubt in her mind. Yes, you could never be sure about that sort of thing, but she was sure. Adamaris was gay, and she was wondering whether I was, too . . . there’d been a moment, looking at the quinces girl . . . For a second, Mathilde was entirely absorbed by this revelation: and only then did she try to account for it, why it had occurred to her at precisely that moment.But then she saw that, too. It had been the detail of the money : the money that Murray was leaving to . . .
    â€œAlmado? That’s this man’s name?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œAnd he was . . . Murray’s lover?”
    Lorraine blushed; not at the suggestion, but at her own reticence—which hadn’t been necessary. She felt caught out. “Yes. I’m sorry. I didn’t know how to say it. But yes . . . It was very conventional, a handsome young man, an older, well-off norteamericano . . . you know. I think Murray’s sex life largely happened on his holidays. He once said that to me, ‘Sex should be a holiday.’”
    â€œBut it wasn’t just sex . . . would you say? Because he left him the money—he must have loved him.”
    â€œWell, he once told me, ‘Almado represents everything I do love, but I’m not sure I love him .’ I must say, I’d feel a lot better—running around like this—if I could be sure.” But these revelations, though they left her content, had also exhausted her, and now Lorraine decisively changed the subject. “You’re letting me do all the talking. I somehow doubt that you’re in Havana for a holiday.”
    Mathilde accepted this gracefully, and smiled. “You’re right about that. I’m a journalist. I’m a freelance but I have a contract with a magazine to do a story on Cuba as Castro fades away. It’s to be done through the eyes of a Black Panther . . . you must remember them?”
    â€œOf course.” She smiled. “I remember, but I’d completely forgotten. They hijacked planes and came here. It seemed to happen every night on the news. Huey Newton.”
    Mathilde nodded; she’d come across this name. “They’re still here. They can’t go anywhere.”
    â€œYou mean, a sort of colony?”
    â€œSomething like that, yes. Not only them, all sorts of exiles.”
    â€œThat’s amazing. What are they like?”
    â€œI don’t really know yet. There’s one in France I spoke to