“Stormy Weather”

“Stormy Weather” links two moments in Patrick’s account of an evening out: its performance at the Argyle Hotel and his uncertain recollection of whistling it on the way to the Black Lion. Its recurrence carries the scene’s mood beyond the bar, where he is preparing to seek an encounter after a long interval without one.

Performance at the Argyle Hotel

On a wet, mild night, Patrick enters the Argyle Hotel and finds a candlelit bar, a log fire, leather armchairs, and fresh roses. The pianist is playing “Stormy Weather”; Patrick notes the claim that the musician had played at the Raffles Hotel in Singapore. The song belongs to an atmosphere of deliberate warmth and discreet appraisal: more than a dozen men register Patrick’s arrival, while he has taken care over his appearance and imagines himself an artist about to begin a daring portraiture project.

Recurrence on the Way to the Black Lion

After paying the bill and leaving the hotel, Patrick crosses the road and enters the alley leading to Black Lion cottage. The rain has stopped; alcohol has left him light on his feet, and he walks quickly without feeling exertion. In that buoyant interval, he may even have whistled “Stormy Weather.” The melody thus recurs not as another performance but as part of Patrick’s uncertain recollection of his own movement through the night.

That lightness accompanies a sharp admission: since he and Michael became a regular pair, Patrick has had little contact with another man, and he now recognizes how much he has missed it. As he starts down to the cottage, a man coming up mutters a homophobic insult. The song’s return therefore sits between renewed anticipation and the hostility that shadows the encounter; the text does not establish that the melody itself expresses either feeling, but its recurrence marks the transition from the hotel’s charged social atmosphere to Patrick’s more exposed pursuit of intimacy.