Page 36 of Rhymes with Metaphor
“It’s too bright,” said Joel.
“Try this one.”Reg handed him a grasshopper green one.
“That’s even brighter.”
“You can’t know you don’t like it unless you’ve tried it on.”
Joel laboriously took off the blue shirt and put on and buttoned up the green one.A blackbird sang in the tree outside.
“Well?”said Reg.
“It’s too bright.I told you.”
Joel tried and rejected, in succession, the raspberry red, the aquamarine, the lemon, the amethyst, the lilac, and the lime, by which time, he’d acquired a very put-upon demeanour.By the eighth shirt, Joel had to sit on the bed because, as he admitted, he was too weary to keep standing.He needed jollying along, but Reg’s generous patience was wearing thin.
Reg picked out a tangerine orange shirt, one that had made him think of Joel particularly when he’d purchased it.“This one.”
“No, Reg, it’s—”
“It’ll suit you.Trust me.”
Joel accepted it and buttoned it up.Clothed in this new plumage, he looked exceptional, putting Reg in mind of an oriole, handsome, fine-boned, and elegant.
Joel looked at himself, and for once, a ripple of a hopeful expression crossed his face, though it was gone a moment later.“It’s too much.”
Reg had conceded to buying a pearlescent white silk shirt, but before he surrendered that to Joel, he pulled out a mulberry-coloured one.
“One last time,” said Reg.“Indulge me.”
Joel sighed and put it on.In that moment, Reg remembered the bowl of mouldy mulberries he’d found on the day they cleaned out his grandmother’s house after she died.She’d probably been planning to eat them for tea in a bowl with cream but never had the chance to enjoy them.But with this shirt, the shining gleam of the fabric, black in shadow, red in the sun, hint of colour in darkness, Reg felt like he had halted Joel on the cusp of losing himself.Reg felt a lump in his throat.Mulberries always gave him that bittersweet feeling.
“I like it,” said Joel.
Reg felt a rush of elation.“It’s yours, then.”
Joel looked at it, felt the soft material between his finger and thumb.“It’s expensive.I haven’t done anything to deserve this.”
“Rather ask what wonderful thing that shirt has done to deserve you inside it,” said Reg.
“But...”Joel looked at him, and for the first time, Reg sensed he was silent not out of his usual reticence but because he didn’t know what to say.
“I’ve got trousers for you as well.Don’t worry.I won’t ask you to undress in front of me.You shouldn’t find them too bright as they’re cream.”And opaque.Reg had checked.
Reg gave him privacy to change, and when Joel emerged from his room a few minutes later, Reg presented him with a pair of boat shoes.“Don’t you dare wear socks with them.”
When Joel came downstairs with Reg, Martin and Juliet were in the kitchen.
“You’re up at last!”said Juliet.
“Aren’t you looking smart, Joel,” said Martin.
“I got him some clothes,” said Reg.
“That shirt’s too flamboyant for Joel,” said Juliet.
“Let Joel decide,” said Reg.
“You’re spoiling him,” said Juliet.
