Charlie

Charlie is Patrick Hazlewood’s old friend, confidant, and London companion. Their relationship gives Patrick a place to speak about desire that he cannot easily find in Brighton, where even approaching a discreet venue carries the risk of being recognized. Charlie’s own household with Jim offers a sharp contrast when Patrick finally tells him about his policeman: Charlie is settled enough to describe his arrangement as mutually satisfactory, while Patrick is exhilarated by a relationship whose risks he has not yet taken seriously.

Identity and Longstanding Friendship

Charlie has known Patrick since school, and their friendship includes a longstanding exchange of confidences about men and sex. Patrick remembers Charlie as the one who used to recount the attraction of a boy’s shoulders, the way a young man looked up to him, and the satisfaction he could provide in bed. When Patrick’s new relationship gives him comparable material to share, he recognizes a reversal in their usual roles: for once, Charlie is not the only one with a thrilling story. Patrick’s wish to describe the policeman is part boast, part need to talk, and part effort to make the absent man vivid by speaking about him to someone who knows him well.

Charlie also knows Patrick’s habits. Patrick does not announce his visits to London, and Charlie is not surprised when he turns up late. Their ease is evident in the brief negotiation at the front door: Charlie initially asks Patrick to return the next day because someone is with him, but Patrick says work makes that impossible, so Charlie invites him in to meet Jim. The exchange presents a friendship sufficiently familiar for spontaneity and mild inconvenience to be ordinary rather than a rupture.

London as a Private Meeting Ground

For Patrick, London nights with Charlie are easier than life in Brighton. The larger city offers anonymity, whereas Brighton’s cosmopolitan appearance cannot disguise its small-town intimacy: people from the museum or Patrick’s professional circle might see him near a bar. His account of going out describes the precautions attached to such places—going after dark and alone, avoiding eye contact, and not choosing an establishment too close to home. Against that atmosphere of surveillance, Charlie’s London company represents not simply recreation but a safer setting in which Patrick can speak and feel less exposed.

Patrick’s recollection of Michael further clarifies the difference between kinds of intimacy and concealment. He says that he and Michael rarely went out together; their Wednesday night was reserved for the two of them, and Michael wanted Patrick out of his room by eight in case the landlady became suspicious. Charlie belongs to another part of Patrick’s social life: a friend with whom he can share the story of a lover, rather than a lover whose presence must itself be hidden. The contrast makes Charlie’s importance practical as well as emotional. He gives Patrick a listener and a measure of companionship in a world organized around secrecy.

Charlie and Jim

When Patrick enters, Jim is already with Charlie. Patrick’s surprised question about whether Jim is his valet prompts Charlie to explain that Jim is whatever Charlie wants him to be, and that Jim understands this. Charlie calls the arrangement mutually satisfactory. The description establishes a domestic and intimate arrangement without specifying its terms more narrowly; its significance in the scene lies in Charlie’s relaxed assurance and in the fact that Jim is present in his home when Patrick arrives.

Charlie’s physical appearance also registers the passage of time in a friendship reaching back to school. His hair remains thick and black, though Patrick notices flecks of grey. Patrick recalls Charlie’s old boast that his hair could blunt scissors and judges that it may well have been true. The detail joins affectionate memory to present observation: Charlie has changed, but a familiar feature and the remembered schoolboy boast make his continuity recognizable. He is not a distant confidant summoned only for a crisis; he is someone whose habits, jokes, and earlier claims are part of Patrick’s long knowledge of him.

Patrick’s Confession and Charlie’s Warning

Charlie asks for the policeman’s name, and Patrick tells him, adding that the man is a policeman. Charlie reacts with disbelief at Patrick’s departure from his former caution. Patrick’s exhilaration breaks through any attempt at understatement: he insists that this is really happening. For him, naming the relationship to Charlie makes it shareable, even as the policeman’s occupation marks the danger attached to it.

Charlie’s response shifts from amusement to concern. He tells Patrick to go easy and be careful, adopting what he calls a parental stance. Patrick resists the warning and points to the apparent inconsistency: Charlie himself lives with Jim. Charlie answers that his situation is different. The exchange does not resolve the difference or explain it in detail; instead, it reveals that Charlie recognizes a distinction between his own established household and Patrick’s newly disclosed relationship with a policeman. His caution is therefore a meaningful counterpoint to Patrick’s excitement, not a rejection of the confidence between them.

Narrative Role

Charlie’s scenes show Patrick’s private life through the friend he chooses as a witness. In London, Patrick can speak openly enough to boast, give the policeman’s name, and test his own excitement against Charlie’s judgment. Charlie’s teasing and warning make visible both the pleasure Patrick takes in this new attachment and the risks he is not yet prepared to acknowledge. His own arrangement with Jim supplies a contrast, but the text leaves its limits unexplained; Charlie’s role is not to provide a complete model for Patrick, but to make the differences between their circumstances audible.

The friendship also reverses an old pattern. Charlie once supplied the stories Patrick listened to; now Patrick arrives with a story of his own, eager to tell it before the memory of the evening fades. That change gives the visit its emotional charge. Charlie is at once an amused audience, a longstanding confidant, and the friend willing to caution Patrick when exhilaration threatens to outrun prudence.