Close to Hugh Read Online Free Page B

wine.”
    Hugh looks back at Jasper’s window. The old guy seems not to have heard that Pavlovian wine bell; his stiff arm comes up to salute again, waving the cheque in thanks.
    Turning away, Hugh quickens stride to catch Newell on the doorstep of the new wine shop, a fancy place people still eye with suspicion.
    “You okay?” Newell’s attention, a strong beam, focuses on Hugh.
    Hugh shakes his head, then nods. “Squandering my inheritance.”
    “Slipping Jasper some cash?”
    “Tell me, does money fix everything?”
    “Physician, fix thyself. That Largely woman is not answering my lawyer’s calls.”
    Hugh does not want to talk about all that. “Late for a wine run. Emptied the cellar again?”
    “What are you doing for dinner? Come eat with us.”
    Newell puts an arm round Hugh as they duck through the door, hung with blinking pumpkin lights and mini-nooses. Friday is Hallowe’en. How often does it fall on a weekend? Never, that Hugh can remember.
    “Yes?” Newell checks the stacked cartons, the specials, waiting for an answer.
    Hugh’s been stalling. He hates— hates —Newell’s current houseguest and old mentor, Ansel Burton, a plump and aging queen who hates Hugh right back in spades, doubled and redoubled. But Hugh loves Newell, his oldest friend, and derives comfort from his company. He could use somecomfort. And a good bottle of wine, since he’s spending all his money anyway. If Newell will let him buy.
    “Pinot,” Hugh says. Clarity, that’s what he needs this evening, and a decent meal. “And if you’re cooking, yes.” Burton’s cooking is ghastly, all veal and cream.
    Ten thousand was too much to give to Jasper, but it will get the curio shop through till Christmas, maybe prevent him selling his half of the building to Lise Largely. So you had, Hugh had, an ulterior motive. It was only going into the RRSP anyway, to lose value in a sinking line. Jasper can be the bad investment this year.
    Newell breezes around the store, chats up the pretentious clerk, charms the girl restocking the beer fridge, finds a thirty-year-old port. Spreads his effluence effortlessly to make the world a better, more flowing place. And buys the wine. He always, always buys.
    Hugh watches this performance, not at all for the first time, and compares it to some of Newell’s best work. Not Blitzed Craig or Catastrophe , that’s just formula TV stuff. But earlier, when he was a smart, hilarious japester kid in New York. Or Henry V, the years at Stratford before he went to pieces. Once more into the breach, dear liquor store girl! A little touch of Newell in the night  … An older king, these days. Now when Newell stops smiling, lines still fold his eyes, skid down from nose to mouth.
    They climb the single long flight to Newell’s condo in Deer Park, the new building on the river. There is an elevator, of course, but Newell has outside stairs as well, up to a rooftop patio with a glossy border of dark green hedge. A tree up there. Money is its own reward.
    From Newell’s open black-lacquered kitchen bulges a great white toad, bulbous head squatting on a pair of drooping Victorian ladyshoulders cased in mauve cashmere. As always, Burton combines the gross and the dainty.
    Hugh knows his physical revulsion has always been plain to Burton, and causes most of Burton’s hatred for him. Honestly, why has he come? He can’t be that lonely. He pauses on the threshold, thrown into gloom by Burton’s rich vowels.
    “Why, Boy! You didn’t tell me we were having guests—I have not made my toilette!”
    He is meticulously dressed, as always. The archness, if not soured by such sharp dislike, might be funny. Some people do like Burton. DoesNewell? Not really, Hugh believes. Is indebted to him, tied to him by a purple string of mutual obligation and shame.
    “Hey there, Burton.” Hugh makes a small production of wiping his clean shoes on the coir mat. “You’re in town?”
    “ Patent -ly,” Burton says, an