All the Beauty of the Sun Read Online Free

of the gallery window, Paul remembered the sweet, lousy smell of those men – his own smell at the time – how they held out their grimy, mittened hands to the brazier’s warmth and how their laughter followed him along the sandbagged trench. A still, cold, cloudless afternoon in early winter and quiet, not much doing, time enough to write letters and surprise the men with his odd little talent for caricature. Walking through that trench, bowed a little to keep his head well below the sandbags, he’d had an idea of using his talent, that if he survived he would make a record of the war that included men like Cooper struggling to reply to a mother’s anxious letters, and there would be no pity or sentiment, there would only be the truth.
    The truth. Should that have a capital T? Cooper’s portrait was hanging behind him and he couldn’t bear to turn around and look at it; he had failed. Somehow, disastrously, he had failed, and the portrait of Cooper was as sentimental as anything on the lid of a chocolate box. Cooper was too pretty, his expression too wistful: sentiment had crept in, despite his best efforts; he should try for a living illustrating greeting cards or advertisements for soap because all the paintings in this series he privately thought of as Letters Home had this same mawkish softness.
    Only his portrait of Patrick had any merit at all. Patrick, on their bed at home, naked but for a sheet strategically draped at his groin – Pat had insisted on this modesty. Patrick, gazing back at him frankly and not uncritically. Paul was pleased at least by how he had managed to capture this tension between them, as if Patrick was about to say that he could always leave if he was so unhappy: Go back to England, Paul, see how you get on without me.
    Lawrence Hawker came back, sipping at a large glass of Scotch. Raising the glass, he nodded towards a group of people approaching the gallery’s door. ‘Here they come. Looks as though we’re on.’ He grinned at him. ‘All right?’
    Yes, he was all right: he was home; Hawker had liked his work enough to show it and there were people coming through the door to see it. The rain was letting up and the evening sky was turning pink and gold as the sun set. He would buck up, behave; there would be no more maudlin self-pity. Besides, a handsome boy was coming through the door, catching his eye and smiling at him politely before turning his attention back to the girl he was with. Tall, blond, powerfully built, he would be the evening’s interest; having someone to look at, however discreetly, always helped an evening along. He heard the boy laugh the confident, privileged laugh of a well-off, well-mannered Englishman, and he smiled to himself. He was home.

Chapter Three
    J OSEPH D AY GROANED . ‘A NN , sweetheart, tell me again what you see in that bloody English bastard?’
    â€˜Is he a bloody bastard?’
    â€˜Yes.’ He groaned again. ‘Oh Annie … come back with me tonight.’
    â€˜No, not tonight.’
    Ahead of them, Edmund walked with Andrew in animated conversation. She heard Andrew laugh. Edmund had a knack of making others laugh: no one was immune to his charm, his easy light-heartedness, no one except Joseph, who believed that Edmund had robbed him of her. As if she didn’t have any say in it, as if Edmund had come along and told him, It’s my turn, now. In a way, that’s just what he had done: he only pretended to be shambolic, pretended to follow her lead, pretended to be flattered. Actually, Edmund was what he was: an educated boy who had an unassailable belief in his own entitlement. Really, she should hate him.
    Joseph grabbed her arm, stopping her. ‘Ann – I can’t work without you, you know that. I’m going mad here … The thought of you and him –’
    â€˜He’s my bit of fun, that’s all.’
    â€˜Why do you have to be