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The night before they set off for Athens, Tom stays over at Peter’s. He’s installed in the guest bedroom, but neither of them actually make it to bed. They stay up drinking the good wine that Peter has been saving for a special occasion – drinking a little too much, probably, until Peter remembers that they have somewhere to be in the morning and insists on moving them on to ice-water and coffee. Late into the night, they lark about on the piano and talk about everything except for themselves, except for the events that have consumed their lives for the whole time they’ve known each other. It’s almost idyllic. When they wake, they’re sprawled over the sofa in a tangle, Tom’s head on Peter’s shoulder, one of Peter’s legs somehow hooked around the back of Tom’s knee. Tom had cited pure convenience when he suggested that he stay the night, and Peter had not given it a second thought, but now he wonders whether Tom is relieved he did not have to spend the night alone. But saying that wouldn’t help anything, so he just laughs along as they disentangle themselves, ruffles Tom’s hair. If, as he suspects, Tom is reluctant to be left alone, then a boat is just the place for them to be. They’ll have separate berths, of course, but close together. No need to bring it up.
As they dress for the day, it is not his own suspicions he finds himself thinking of. It’s Marge. Privately, he feels more than a little guilty about the way he handled their last real conversation; she has good reason for thinking what she does, and it’s with regret that he realises he must have sounded like Mr Greenleaf, dismissing it all out of hand. He hadn’t meant to, he’d fully intended to hear her out and think everything over rationally, and he tried, he did, to remain impartial. He’d commiserated about Tom having frightened her, promised to have a word with him, but when she’d told him not to, told him never to see Tom again, told him Tom Ripley was dangerous, a killer – he couldn’t bring himself to admit that she was probably right. You can’t see it, she’d said, because you don’t want to. He’d said something vague and noncommittal in response, because it was true. If Marge was right, then Tom Ripley is a double murderer. If Tom Ripley is a double murderer, then he should not be in Peter’s flat, in Peter’s bathroom, looking into Peter’s mirror and holding the razor with which he claimed Marge had cut him. With which she claimed he had meant to kill her. If Tom Ripley is a murderer, then Peter should not feel such an unbearable tenderness in his breast at the sight of him.
Tom is thinking of Marge, too. That much is plain from the uncertain look on his face in the mirror, the unsteadiness of his grip on the razor.
Peter, not wanting to spook him while he’s holding a blade, announces himself with a soft knock on the bathroom’s open door. ‘Not growing that beard, then?’
Tom turns around a little too quickly, plastering a warm smile onto his face which, even knowing it’s put on, makes Peter’s heart skip a beat. ‘Forgot about the safety razor, too, what with – well, everything.’ He’s told Peter about Marge having practically attacked him, unprovoked, when he went to see her off. Peter wonders what really happened. He wants to ring Marge, to ask, but he fears she might not welcome it. They’d parted on friendly enough terms, but it’s clear she feels a little betrayed, and he can’t honestly blame her. He hopes she can forgive him.
He doesn’t say any of that to Tom, though. ‘Your hands are shaking,’ he says instead, because they are.
Tom looks down at his own hands as though surprised by them. ‘Oh,’ he says.
‘Why don’t you let me do it?’
Tom already has shaving cream all over his face. It renders his confusion almost comical. ‘Oh – you don’t have to.’
‘I know. Let me?’ For a moment, Peter thinks about adding that it will be quicker this way, and they have a boat to catch, but instead he just lets the request sit. He isn’t offering because Tom’s hands are shaking, after all. That’s just the excuse.
Wordlessly, Tom holds out the razor, letting Peter pluck it from between his fingers, letting their fingers brush. Peter nudges him to sit on the edge of the bath, and he does so without hesitation. He looks up at Peter, then, lost and expectant.
‘Chin up,’ Peter says, softly.
Tom lifts his chin. He’s smiling again, now, but it’s softer and more real and the ache in Peter’s chest returns full force. But Peter only steadies his hand, and starts to shave Tom Ripley. If, when he lifts the razor to Tom’s cheek, his gaze drifts to the plaster on Tom’s hand, the plaster Peter put there, over a wound whose origin he might never be certain of, he drags it back up before the blade meets the skin, so careful it’s almost a caress. If Tom, ever perceptive, knows what Peter is thinking, he says nothing. Peter puts his hand under Tom’s chin to reposition his head slightly, and he feels Tom lean slightly into the touch before he realises what Peter means by it, and when he follows the unspoken instruction his face is slightly flushed under the shaving cream.
Peter is glad he didn’t tell Tom it would be quicker this way, because he’s not sure it is. He takes his time, partly out of care, and partly because he wants this moment to last forever; Tom Ripley sitting quiescent under Peter’s hands, his face impassive but his eyes always on Peter, glistening with what Peter thinks, what he desperately hopes, is affection. Tom does not tell him to hurry. Tom seems content to sit here, though the bath is a roll-top and its edge can’t be that comfortable to sit on – Peter veers decisively away from that line of thinking before it can even begin to consider turning untoward. He thinks instead about how Marge would rib him about this, if things hadn’t turned out the way they did with her. She was ready enough to tease him that night at the opera, when he’d first met Tom, when it had still seemed like everything might sort itself out with Dickie. He knows it’s horribly selfish of him to miss that easy friendship, which had withstood Dickie once before, but some part of him can’t help it. He wishes for the simplicity of that time, of reassuring his friend that her scoundrel of a fiancé would be back before she knew it, of hanging his head in mock-shame when she reminded him how ridiculous his first words to the beautiful boy at the opera had been, of not really being ashamed at all. Not being ashamed of anything.
He isn’t ashamed now. He might be, later, but for now he sets the cut-throat razor down by the sink, and caresses the beautiful boy’s smooth cheek. ‘There you are – neat as a pin,’ he says. He feels breathless, and only hopes he doesn’t sound it.
‘Thanks.’ Tom’s voice is not breathless, Tom’s voice is never breathless, but Peter is almost sure there’s a softness, a tremor to the word that is not usually there.
He does not move his hand straightaway, and Tom does not move to stand.