Gavin spent a good deal of Saturday trying to think of legitimate ways of getting out of Harry’s party. In his private Court of Law (where petty cases against Gavin Lamb were tried from morning till night practically every day of the week) there was really no case at all. He had committed himself to going to the party because he had told Muriel that he was going out, and his brand of honesty precluded his staying at home after that. Unless he was ill; but he wasn’t ill. On the other hand, he hadn’t actually said where he was going, so wouldn’t simply going out somewhere – anywhere – do? But that didn’t feel right: if he didn’t go to Harry’s party, he could have had supper with Muriel. Never mind whether he wanted to or not – the court didn’t care in the least about want, it was only concerned with the rights and wrongs of the matter. And, as usual, there was evidence of the accused evading an issue to the point of dishonesty. Sentence passed was that he go to Harry’s party unless he cared to ring Muriel and tell her that he could make it after all. Options presented by the court were usually of the kind that made him feel mild guilt for choosing the lesser evil.
Otherwise, Saturday was much as usual. He got up later, had a boiled egg for breakfast, got through his mother doing his room – ‘Books are very dirty things, you know – they collect the dirt, I don’t know why you want so many of them’; went to the cleaners to collect his best brown trousers and spring jacket; collected the new records he’d ordered; and bought a bunch of tulips for his mother. For lunch, there was boiled beef and carrots and dumplings – followed by Castle puddings which, since he’d mentioned them only the night before, he had to eat in quantity.
The meal was demolished fast because Mr Lamb wanted to watch an old war film and Mrs Lamb wanted to get the washing-up done. There was nearly a disaster about one Castle pudding being left; before either Mr Lamb or Gavin could conceal or dispose of it, Mrs Lamb flitted in from the kitchen where she had been washing their beef plates.
‘Which of you is going to eat that?’ she commanded. Mr Lamb shrugged, but he met Gavin’s eye uneasily. ‘Three’s my lot,’ he said; ‘and very nice they were too.’
‘Well, I’ve had four. Wouldn’t it warm up, Mum?’
‘Warm up? Warm up? Since when have you known me serve warmed up food? In this house,’ she added, as though she might do it anywhere else. ‘Cold food’s one thing – warmed up is quite another. A lot of elderly people drop dead from warmed up food: they may think it’s easier but they soon find out their mistake.’
The wildness of this lie warned Gavin and his father that, if they didn’t want things to go too far, they’d better recognize that they’d gone quite far enough.
‘We’ll share it,’ Mr Lamb said. Taking the initiative meant that he could divide it and take the smaller piece.
‘All that fuss about one Castle pudding,’ Mrs Lamb scolded as she poured all the rest of the golden syrup on to their plates. ‘I’ll bring your tea into the front room if you want to watch the match.’ She popped back into the kitchen.
‘“People have been known to drop dead!” Where does she get it all from?’
‘I don’t know, Dad.’
‘If you ask me, it’s the women’s magazines – all those books she reads every week. They’re always putting people into classes and full of all that do-it-yourself nonsense. The trouble we get with that! And fancy meals. And there’s another thing about them. Don’t tell your mother, ’cos I don’t think she’s noticed, but they’re full of sex. What good is that? They may call it romance but it’s nothing of the kind. It’s dressed up sex . . .’
‘Dad, if you want to watch the match – ’
‘It says, “You may be presented with a difficult choice and if you continue to be in doubt you should do nothing – let events speak for themselves.” Here’s your tea.’
‘All right, Mother.’ He took the tea, winked at Gavin and went into the front room. ‘It’ was their horoscopes in the Mirror; Mrs Lamb read them every day and seemed always to know them by heart. They were allowed to wink or smile about them – to tease her very gently in return for seeming to believe them.
‘What about mine then, Mum?’
‘“You will have a quiet, socially rewarding day, but beware of rash impulses that could result in embarrassment.” Going to take your tea up for a nice read, are you?’
‘I thought I’d mow the lawn first.’
She liked the lawn mown within an inch of its life, so this suggestion found favour. While he marched up and down, he wondered anxiously about the rash impulses. Whatever they were, he determined to beware of them since he could certainly count on the embarrassment. Ordinarily he would, metaphorically speaking, have winked (one did not wink at Mrs Lamb), would have risked a little nudging pat on her shoulder, but the threat of rash impulses froze him. Perhaps it was rash to go to Harry’s party, but if it was, the impulse had been yesterday’s.
The rectangular garden had wallflowers, pink tulips, and forget-me-nots planted in the two beds which contained standard roses of peculiarly fluorescent colours – not in flower yet, but once they started they went on and on. They were the pride of both his parents: Mr Lamb pruned and fed them with ferocious care; Mrs Lamb sprayed them repeatedly against every known pest. The wallflowers and forget-me-nots were a concession to him: they really preferred bare, weedless beds symmetrically planted with staked and regimented dahlias and chrysanths. At the far end there was a small greenhouse where Mr Lamb grew tomatoes and cucumbers, and, outside it, two rows of runner beans behind which was the compost heap. Gavin only had to go there twice with the mowings. When he had finished, he wondered whether to get a chair and his book to read out of doors, but the rather fitful morning sun had given up, the sky was a pale, dense uniform grey and the neighbour who had recently embarked upon learning the electric guitar was well away with his explosive and irregular tonic dominant chords. Mowing the lawn had helped to get his lunch down anyway.
He watered his plants, and after wandering round his room picking at books to see what he felt like, took one of his favourite catalogues – of an exhibition he had seen years before in Paris – on to his bed. It was beautifully produced and he was easily plunged into the lyric composition of early summers, of sunlit waters and orchard greens, and pieces of domestic behaviour caught with brilliant intimacy. It was the girls he loved: girls brushing out their hair, cutting their toenails, putting on their stockings; cast in languor upon grass, upon chaises-longues, upon orientally coverletted beds; sitting self-consciously erect upon small severe chairs in a café, one girl sewing the collar on to a flowered dress, one washing cherries at a wooden table, one reclining in a white basket chair nursing a baby whose head, round and brown like a hazelnut, pushed against her breast. If those girls existed now he would be in love: there was something both festive and gentle about them whereas he felt that most girls today were as joyless and difficult as Everest – to be conquered by anyone who did not mind discomfort and recognized that they were there. He let the catalogue lie and closed his eyes . . .
He was walking up a very short, straight drive edged with young poplars towards a white house with green shutters whose door was open. The sun was hot and the house marvellously cool and still, except for the sound of a large walnut clock ticking. A straw hat trimmed with daisies and narrow green velvet ribbon lay on the chest below it and he knew this meant that he could go up. Her door was also open, but the shutters were closed, making bars of aqueous light across the white bed. She wore a muslin wrapper of pale green and white so that the bed was a marvellous confusion of stripes and her white skin was blossomed with green and gold reflections. She lay half on her side with her face resting in the palm of one hand: at affectionate ease with herself, she was asleep. On the bed beside her lay a painted paper fan open as it had fallen from her hand. (He remained quite still to watch and enjoy her – to store and print the detail of her in his mind so that it would be easier to return to her in the future.) Her heavy dark hair, cut short on her forehead, was long and undressed – tied back with a piece of white braid; a thin gold chain with a cross on it lay slanted on her neck. Her ankles were negligently crossed, her feet were bare. How should he wake her, and what might happen when he did? She would speak French, he realized with sudden panic: he would not understand her. No – she would speak just enough English; or perhaps they need not speak. He put out his hand to touch her forehead . . .
There was a banging on his door.
‘You never drank your tea after dinner.’ Before he could sit up, she was in the room with a tray, and stood over the bed waiting for him to clear the bedside table of books so that she could deposit it. She wore her spectacles and three rollers at strategic points in her hair and he could see her darting professional glances round the room to see whether he had managed to untidy anything since this morning.
‘You shouldn’t have bothered.’
She took this as a compliment. ‘It will be a fine time when I can’t bring my own son some tea. There’s those shop cakes you like. You can bring the tray down when you’re done with it. Don’t let it get cold.’ And she went.
The tray was a round tin one with a cat crouching in some buttercups printed on it. The teapot was encased in a knitted cosy the alternating colours of a ripe banana. There were three cupcakes arranged on a paper doily on a plate. The milk jug was shaped like a yellow chick from whose beak the milk was supposed to pour (Marge had given it to his mother at Easter), the cup was one of her best square ones whose handle was too modern to have a hole in it. Even before he lifted the shrouded teapot he knew it would be the one with feet – amusing china boots upon it. The whole tray was crowded with her affection – never expressed in words but in countless domestic deeds of this nature. He got up from the bed and fetched his secret cup and saucer from a cupboard. It was a piece of early Copeland with painted violas and butterflies, the rims richly gilded. He drank his tea out of it and wondered whether he could ever get his mother to believe that he liked China tea. She would give it to him if he asked for it, but she refused utterly to count it as tea, so if he had it, it simply meant that he had to drink twice as much. He still felt so stuffed with food that the cupcakes were a problem. In the end he wrapped them in a handkerchief to take to work. He started to feel nervous about the party as he was washing his cup in the bathroom, and decided to have a bath and listen to some music while he catalogued his newest batch of records to take his mind off the evening.
He had a long bath, washed his hair – did some Bates work on his eyes and had a thorough inspection of his face and neck. His face wasn’t too bad, but there was a corker coming up on his neck – too high to be concealed even with a scarf round it. He scowled at himself in the glass so that he could see how much better he looked when he stopped. Not much better, really. The bathroom now smelled of bad eggs from his dandruff treatment and he was glad to leave it. He opened the window, tucked the curtain out of the way to air the room, and padded upstairs back to his room.
The catalogue lay on the bed where he had left it – open at a luminous Vuillard interior of a girl in a rocking chair looking out of a window. He shut the catalogue and put it away. She was always interrupting him: the only long privacy he could count on was at night.
He decided that Chopin would be good music to play while he did his catalogue, and opted for the mazurkas. It had to be music that he knew extremely well, but not of a kind that required intellectual attention: Chopin he could now – from love and familiarity – absorb through his skin. His cataloguing was a simple but ingenious affair. A loose-leaf book indexed under composers with each record numbered as he collected them and then entered in the book with its number and details about performance. Thus he could turn to ’S’ to find Schubert, or Strauss or Scarlatti – look for songs or operas or sonatas – find the number of, say, Ariadne auf Naxos and then seek it from the records on the shelves as they would be arranged purely in numerical order. He had taught Harry this system and Harry took every opportunity of praising it to friends in front of Gavin until he felt quite embarrassed. He had got to record three hundred and thirty-two, and with the new song cycle he had bought of Somervell’s ‘Maud’, and the reissue of Rachmaninov playing an assortment of piano pieces, and Tuckwell doing the Mozart horn concertos, he was going to get nearly to the forties. The problem was soon going to be one of space: he would have to shift things round a good deal in order to build a new record shelf. If only he wasn’t going out! He was longing to play the new records. Well, this time tomorrow he’d be safely back from lunch with Marge and have time to himself.
At half-past six he was dressed: cream shirt, brown trousers, brown and coffee-coloured Indian scarf failing to conceal newest eruption, brown windcheater unzipped (it was quite warm) and the faint feeling of malaise he associated strictly with going to parties. His parents were both in the front room. Dad was asleep in front of an earnest programme about New Towns; Mum was making a jockey cap for the bear out of scarlet felt.
‘I’m off now.’
‘Got your key?’
‘Yes.’
‘I hope you have a good time.’ But she said it as though this would be very unlikely.
‘I’ll do my best.’
‘Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.’ Dad had opened his eyes.
‘Of course he won’t. Anyway, why shouldn’t he? You enjoy yourself,’ she advised.
‘Going to Town, are you?’
‘I don’t know. I’m going to a party with Harry.’
‘Leave him alone! He’s got a right to his own life, hasn’t he?’
‘I never said he hadn’t. I only asked.’
‘If you was all dressed up for a party, you wouldn’t thank people for prying into your affairs. Now would you?’
‘I ought to go really. Mustn’t be late.’
‘See what you’ve done? Driven the boy out with your nasty inquisitive questions.’
‘It’s all right, Mum. I don’t mind him asking. It’s just I don’t know where the party is.’
‘You see?’ A thought struck her. ‘You’re going to a party and you don’t know where it is? How can you do that? What sort of party can that be?’
‘I don’t know, Mum. Harry asked me to go with them.’
‘Them? Who’s them?’
‘Winthrop, Mum.’
‘And who’s them beside Winthrop?’
‘Harry. Winthrop and Harry.’
‘No need to raise your voice with me.’
‘Who’s asking questions now?’ Mr Lamb was enjoying the turned tables. He should have known better. She rounded on him. ‘I only wanted to know. And who started it? Gavin didn’t mind me asking, did you, Gavin? I only asked. Don’t you take that tone with me. You surprise me sometimes, you really do, with your nasty nature, I wonder where it all comes from.’
Gavin met his father’s eye warningly. Then he leant down and gave his mother a quick kiss. She jumped.
‘Now look what you’ve made me do!’ She held out a little horny thumb on which a bead of scarlet blood was forming. ‘Two inches further down and a bit to the left and I might have had lockjaw! Where are you off to?’ Mr Lamb had levered himself to his feet.
‘Get the iodine.’
‘Sorry, Mum.’
‘All this fuss about a little prick.’ But she was appeased, and Gavin was able to make his escape.
On his scooter, he reflected that really his mother was an excitable person who was short of excitement. She could do all that she had to do with one hand tied behind her back, in half of her day, and then she was left with solitary hours that neither her upbringing nor her intellect had equipped her to fill. He wondered how many people were bored without realizing it. Because surely anybody who recognized their boredom could do something about it? Perhaps that was much more difficult than it seemed. Boredom might be a kind of evil, ubiquitous secret that people called by any other name that suited their nature and view of themselves. Discontent, dissatisfaction, being a square peg in a round hole, envy – wanting, while still themselves, to lead someone else’s life, unhappiness . . . he felt less sure of unhappiness as he did not know enough about it. His knowledge was gleaned chiefly from reading – from opera and the theatre, and again none of that was exactly like life: although, if good, it gave the appearance of it, at the same time confirming that it did not matter so much what you did, or even what happened to you, so much as it mattered how you felt about it. Unhappiness in real life must be largely a matter of feeling that you were struck and caught by some circumstance that you were unable to escape from or resist. And he supposed that if you went on being unhappy about the same thing in the same way some kind of boredom would ensue. Boredom, in fact, seemed to have something to do with lack of movement. But then, people could have what seemed to be very boring lives and not be bored by them. Look at him, for instance. He was just a hairdresser still living at home with his parents with two weeks’ holiday – well, three now – a year – nobody could say that his was a very exciting life. He wasn’t bored. On the other hand not enough happened for him to be unhappy in any sense that he understood what was meant by that. He wondered whether he could bear it if he was, but he was approaching Havergal Heights, and all the known – and, worse, unknown – possibilities that attached to a party were really upon him now. He dismounted his bike with a dry mouth and the feeling that he had lost the knack of breathing properly.
He felt momentarily comforted by the sight of Harry who was looking friendly and smart in his purple shirt with a pale pink scarf round his neck and his hair sleeked back.
‘Welcome, dear boy. The others haven’t arrived yet and Winthrop’s had trouble with his jeans. I told him they were too tight when he bought them. “You’ll do yourself an injury,” I said when he tried them on, but his Lordship’s vanity prevailed so we shall all have to hope for the best.’
The room looked very tidy with bowls of peanuts and Twiglets on the black glass table and all the cushions carefully askew on the chesterfield.
‘You’re looking very good, if I may say so. Sit down, dear boy, I’m going to get us a little drink.’
Gavin sat down and ate a peanut to take his mind off things. The windows on to the balcony were open, but the curtains, that looked as though they were made of yellow fishing nets, hung motionless. Another thing about parties, he recalled, was that he nearly always felt too hot at them.
‘Close, isn’t it? Thunder about, I think. Now, you can have whisky, or my little concoction. Winthrop and I got rather attached to it when we were in the South of France.’
‘What is it?’
‘It’s called Kir. Have a go and see how you like it.’ He poured a faintly pink liquid from a jug. Gavin tasted it. It was cool, a bit fruity and rather nice.
‘It’s just white wine with a spot of blackcurrant cordial. Like it?’
Gavin nodded, decided to have a Wilhelm II to calm himself and asked who were the others.
‘Just Stephen and Noel.’
‘Is the party here then?’ He began to feel better at the prospect.
‘No, no. They’re coming to pick us up – give us a lift. The party’s in some flat that belongs to someone who’s a friend of one of Winthrop’s friends but he’s away. Somewhere off the Cromwell Road,’ he added as though this pinpointed it. ‘It’s a mixed party – it’s not just us. The field will be wide open, dear boy.’
Gavin tried to smile, but he began quite wildly to wish that he was getting ‘flu, or, better still, was an asthmatic with an incontrovertible attack coming on.
‘Perhaps I’d better take my bike?’ This would mean that he had at least the means of escape. But before Harry could reply the buzzer went and Harry rushed to answer it.
Winthrop emerged from the bedroom while Harry was dealing with the door. He wore a black T-shirt with GET LOST in green on it, and the tightest pair of white jeans that Gavin had ever seen. This made him move rather stiffly – like Frankenstein’s monster – and when he sat down, which he did at once, it did not seem possible for him to bend his knees. His auburn hair was wet and hung in tight shiny ringlets.
‘Hi,’ he said amiably. ‘How’s tricks?’
Wondering what Winthrop might think his would be, Gavin said they were fine. Winthrop heaved himself into a position that enabled him to pour himself a drink. To Gavin’s surprise he chose whisky – about two inches of it. He caught Gavin’s eye, and winked.
‘Barnet’s wet,’ he said: ‘don’t want to catch cold.’ He downed the drink just as Harry returned with the newcomers. There were three of them.
‘Bloody door’s gone wrong again.’ He looked flustered. ‘This is Stephen and Noel – and Spiro – from Greece. Gavin.’
‘And fucking little me,’ said Winthrop. He looked ominously at Harry. Harry blushed. ‘You know Stephen and Noel. I don’t have to introduce you.’
‘I don’t know Spiro. Do I, Spiro?’
Spiro, who was extraordinarily young and extraordinarily good looking, smiled so that Gavin could see that his teeth matched the whites of his eyes, tripped over to the chesterfield and shook Winthrop’s hand.
‘Is British to shake,’ he said.
Stephen, who was short and rather bald, but wore sideburns and a moustache said: ‘He’s only been here a week, hasn’t he, Noel?’
‘Six days, Stephen, actually.’ Noel was Australian. He was wiry and with a crew cut and huge, pale blue eyes whose expression was alternately vacant and sardonic. There was a rather wary silence while Harry got everybody drinks, and Gavin wondered how on earth he would be able to think of things to say when conversation did break out. Spiro had perched himself on the arm of the chesterfield looking around him with frank curiosity and smiling if anyone looked his way. His mouth, when he wasn’t smiling, was curved and chiselled like the best Greek sculpture. Indeed, Gavin thought, he was more than good looking, he was handsome to the point of beauty – probably the most beautiful creature that he had ever met in the flesh. He became aware of Noel observing him.
‘Staggering, isn’t he?’ This remark seemed most unfortunately to focus everyone’s attention upon Gavin, and he felt his face getting hot. He mumbled something about Spiro being very good looking, and Spiro, hearing his name, stood up, moved gracefully over to Gavin, and shook his hand. ‘Ello – Havin,’ he said, and there was a friendly murmur of approval from the others. Gavin felt that he was being propelled along what could only turn out to be a sexual cul-de-sac and that they would all turn on him when they realized his dishonesty, but he also felt that there was nothing he could say to explain himself that would not sound wrong. Kind Harry rescued him.
‘Gavin’s not quite sure where he is, so don’t upset him: he’s one of my oldest friends. How about this party, then? Stephen, over to you.’
Stephen, who had also looked kindly at Gavin, said that he’d got his car and he thought they could all fit in, but Winthrop said that he was taking his bike. ‘And I know who’s going with me,’ whereupon Spiro positioned himself behind Winthrop, bent his knees and went ‘vroom vroom!’ This delighted him, and he repeated it several times until Winthrop turned round suddenly and put his hand under Spiro’s chin, tilting his face upwards. There was a very short, loaded silence, and then Winthrop said, more gently than Gavin had ever heard him speak: ‘Come on then,’ and they left the flat. Gavin looked at Harry, who wore an expression of stalwart gaiety, but all he said was: ‘I suppose he knows where the party is?’ and Stephen said yes, he did, he knew the owner of the flat.
‘He knows Joan. He doesn’t know Dmitri, Stephen, actually.’
Gavin sat in front of the car with Stephen, who was driving, and Harry in the back with Noel. Gavin nerved himself eventually to ask Stephen what kind of party it was going to be.
‘Well, it’s a beautiful flat – a penthouse – and when Dmitri’s in town he throws pretty good parties, but he’s away, and Joan, that’s his wife, told John to invite whoever he liked. They’re very generous – ’
‘They’re loaded.’
‘Yes, but they’re also generous, Noel. You have to admit that. People can be loaded and mean as hell, but Dmitri’s not like that – ’
‘It isn’t his money. It’s Joan’s money, Stephen, actually.’
‘Well anyway, they spend it. They’ve got a fabulous place in the country. Noel and I went for a weekend once. It was amazing. They’ve got an indoor pool and sauna, squash court, colour TV in all bedrooms – the lot.’
Harry asked: ‘What does Dmitri do then, when he’s not at home?’
‘Something to do with interior design, isn’t it, Noel?’
‘That was Joan’s idea. She thought it would keep him at home more, but he got the idea of doing yachts so it hasn’t really worked. He’s always popping off to Monte or St Trop and he’s away for weeks.’
Noel’s voice sounded as though the situation amused him, and Gavin felt uncomfortable. Stephen, who seemed to sense this, said: ‘Joan’s all right. She knew what she was in for. She married him with her eyes open.’
‘She’s had to keep them shut ever since, Stephen.’
‘That’ll do, Noel. If you dislike her so much, you shouldn’t go to her parties.’
‘I like her all right. She’s a bit of a cow, but I don’t mind her.’
‘She’s a good cook.’
Harry said: ‘You should know. Stephen’s a chef,’ he added for Gavin’s benefit.
In the silence that ensued, Gavin wished desperately that he hadn’t just weakly suggested that he should take his bike; he should have told them he was going to; then he would have been able to escape whenever he wanted, which, given his present feelings, would be about thirty seconds after he arrived.
‘Here we are,’ Stephen announced – quite suddenly.
It was a large, modern block of flats. Stephen pressed the buzzer and a voice instantly answered. They were through the plate glass doors into a carpeted hall and facing two lifts with heavy bronze doors. Stephen pressed the top button and, without any sense of movement, presumably up they went. Harry gave him an encouraging grin, and Gavin tried to grin back.
The noise of the party – like human surf – burst upon them as the lift doors opened. The doors to the flat were open. Someone, the stature of a child, but with a doll’s face and dressed in maid’s uniform flitted towards them to take their coats. Gavin parted with his windcheater; his anxiety had reached the point of recklessness; he felt he might never see it again, but that that would be a small price to pay for not being too hot until the imminent instant flight that he knew might become necessary. Harry took his arm, and following Stephen and Noel propelled him into the main room which seemed to be absolutely full already of people – of both sexes – although with a preponderance of men. A tray of drinks was offered them by a tiny little man in a white jacket who looked as though he might be some relative of the person who had taken their coats. Both looked vaguely foreign, but Gavin could not place them at all. He saw that the room, which seemed to be very large indeed, had glass doors that were open on to a terrace: there were people on that, but at least it would be cooler.
‘. . . Harry King, and this is Gavin – ’fraid I don’t know your other name. Gavin, this is our hostess, Joan.’
Immediately in front of and well above him was a vertical tube of silver lamé on top of which was a flaming head – like a shaggy chrysanthemum – of the most blatantly orange hair even he had ever seen in his life. Orange lips were smiling from above (she must be well over six feet, he thought), and a pair of diamanté spectacles that seemed to be glazed with plate glass were beaming down at him.
‘Why, Gavin, it’s wonderful to have you here,’ she said, in a throaty voice whose accent reminded him of someone out of a play by Tennessee Williams. At least she wasn’t young: at least he wasn’t alone with her. He had spoken too soon. She linked an amazingly muscular arm in his and saying simply, ‘Come with me,’ bore him off – away from Harry and Stephen, and even Noel – anyone he knew at all.
‘Have you a drink? Oh dear! Where are those Filipinos? I have them for big parties, because they can burrow through the crowd more easily. Either you have to be small, or else like me, and I’ve never found any decent waiters my size. Anyway, we’re heading in the right direction for a proper drink.’
They had reached the hall again, which Gavin now saw was extensive with a great many doors leading off it. Joan steered him through one of them into what looked like some kind of study. A regiment of bottles stood on a table at one end of a sofa. She shut the door.
‘Now: you can have anything you like, but I’m going to have a brandy and ginger ale on the rocks.’ As she moved away from him, Gavin saw that she really was tubular: she seemed to be corseted from just below the neck to just above her knees. She had long rather elegant masculine legs (Barry Humphries as Dame Edna came to mind) and long, pointed court shoes with very high heels that seemed to be made of multi-coloured sequins. When she had poured her drink, she opened what looked like a pineapple made of solid silver and put three blocks of ice into her glass. Then she turned to him. ‘Now – and this is going to force you to speak – what will you have?’
‘Perhaps I could try what you’re having. I’ve never had it.’
‘A pioneer drinker: I like that. You have this; I’ll make another. Then we can sit soft for a while and you can tell me things. Or,’ she added, as she turned back to the bottles, ‘if you think that idea devastating, I’ll tell you things. I always find that general conversation is a bit of a strain with a stranger.’
There was another sofa near a second open door in the room and she went and sat upon it. It was clear that she intended Gavin to join her, and after a moment’s hesitation (but what else could he do?) he joined her. She took a swig of her drink and motioned him to do the same. Then she said: ‘You don’t like parties, do you?’
Mesmerized by her directness, he said no, they made him nervous . . . The moment he had said that, he felt slightly – but not much – more at ease.
‘How’s the drink?’
‘Very good. Pretty strong, though, isn’t it?’
‘I hope so. Let it steal through your veins, as they say in adventure stories.’
Gavin drank some more: it managed to taste exactly half of brandy and half of the ginger ale and it was certainly true that he could feel it warming him inside.
‘Have you ever played a game called Secrets?’
He shook his head, and something of his alarm must have shown, because she smiled and said: ‘Oh, it’s risky all right, but there’s a kind of balance of power about the risk and that lowers the price.’
This didn’t strike him as reassuring. ‘Look – it’s very kind of you to take so much trouble about me, but won’t the others miss you? I mean, it is your party – ‘
‘Oh – they’re all as happy as clams! They don’t come to see me: nobody in their senses would do that more than once. I picked you because I was watching you because you were the only person I could see who clearly wasn’t enjoying himself. I’m a hostess and you struck me as something of a challenge. Have another swig, because we’re going to play, and I’ll begin. The rules are that I have to share one secret about myself, and one secret about you.’ There was a brief silence during which, as she did not look at him, he felt able to look at her. Her hands, folded round her glass, were trembling.
‘I weigh nearly fifteen stone. When I first saw you, I thought you were homosexual.’
There was another pause, and she said gently: ‘It’s better to play fast.’
‘I’m thirty-one and I’ve never been to bed with anybody.’ To his own amazement, as he said this, it was as though he had released some vociferous prisoner trapped and gabbling from within; somebody who was much better out. They had turned towards each other and she was gazing at him with impassive attention. He said: ‘I thought you were terrifying.’ With an effort, he added: ‘I mean I thought you might be a man in drag.’
She lifted her glass to him and they both drank. Then she said: ‘The only sex I’ve had in my life I’ve paid for. I thought: I suppose you’re another hanger-on. I wonder what lies you’ll tell.’
‘I pretend that no one’s good enough for me because I’m such a coward. I get spots all the time and I’m afraid that she would laugh at me. Is that too much?’
She shrugged, but her attention did not waver. ‘Feel free.’
‘I do.’ It was a discovery. ‘I pass about you,’ he said.
‘You can’t do that, rules.’
‘Orange hair. Why on earth do you have orange hair?’
‘It’s a wig. When I’m very unhappy I drink so much I’m sick. Or I buy things. You may be a prig.’
‘I don’t think you should say I might be; I think you should say I am.’
‘Right. I think you are.’
He finished his drink. Then, with a final effort, he said: ‘I invent girls who are in love with me. Girls who’ll do anything I want. You’re the kind of person that, in a different way, I’m afraid I am.’
‘I’m grotesque. I underline it, so that everybody else will know that I know I’m grotesque. I make the most of a bad job. I love men – particularly beautiful men – and I’m sorry for myself. When I saw you, I wondered what you’d cost.’
There was a silence between them during which Gavin became conscious of his total absence of fear. He could look at the figure before him – at the orange hair and orange mouth painted on to a dead white face, the plate-glass diamanté spectacles, the corseted bulk of the silver lamé – simply as part of the pieces of declared truth about her which neither of them felt the need to judge or disclaim. It was as though she had made herself transparent; as though what ordinarily constituted the brick walls of personality had become like glass – or even clear water. Had he become like that for her? Had she accepted those fragments of truth about him, and if she had, what might happen next? Some of his exhilaration ebbed and he felt a familiar spasm of fear.
She seemed to sense where he had got to, as she said: ‘It’s your turn, but we can stop if you like. Would you get me another drink?’
He took her glass. While he looked for and found the right bottles, he asked: ‘Do you mind if I ask you a question?’
‘I forgot to tell you the other rule: no post-mortem.’
‘I don’t think that what I want to ask would be that. If it turns out to be, you needn’t answer.’
‘I don’t mind,’ she said, ‘and I shan’t, if it is.’
‘You’ve played before?’
‘Once or twice.’
‘Well – ’ but, before he could find the right way to ask, she said: ‘But it’s odd – it’s never in the least the same. It’s more as though certain kinds of truth attract one another. Was that what you meant?’
‘Yes.’
‘Otherwise it wouldn’t be fair on the new player.’ She accepted her drink and added: ‘It isn’t a game you can play with anybody.’ It was difficult to see her expression behind the glasses, but her voice sounded weary, as she went on: ‘Most of the people here, for instance.’
He thought of Noel in the car, what seemed like hours ago.
‘Don’t you want another drink? There’s a lot of food laid out in some of the rooms. I’m not trying to get you to go away and eat it: I just thought you might like to know.’
Before he could reply, there was a frenzy of tapping on the door and one of the Filipinos appeared. He looked very agitated. ‘Please, Madame, come,’ he said.
She got to her feet. ‘I shall have to, because he hasn’t enough English to tell me why.’
‘Is there a bathroom somewhere?’
‘Dozens. The nearest is through there.’ She indicated the door behind them: the sounds of the party – like distant good-natured roaring – were again to be heard, making him realize that he had forgotten that there was one. Joan had gone, but she had left the door open. After a moment’s thought, he went and closed it. He did not feel like rejoining the party yet, and leaving the door open might mean that some of it would join him. He looked at the room. It was furnished as a kind of study/library in a rather theatrical manner more as though it had been designed to suit its name than its calling. There were books – on the whole of one wall – but they seemed all to be sets bound in leather with gilded lettering. His own books that he used and read did not look at all like that. Apart from the two sofas, one each side of a fireplace where no fire would be likely to burn, there was a large leather-topped kneehole desk, empty, except for silver and leather desk-furniture upon it – a blotter, writing paper holder, ink stand, a pair of lamps with green glass shades and a large photograph in a silver frame. He looked at the photograph. It was a head and shoulders studio portrait of a man whose swashbuckling good looks made him think of Errol Flynn playing one of the Three Musketeers. It was inscribed in writing like an exuberant spider with spurting black ink: ‘Joan – all my affection – D M I T R I’. The ‘Dmitri’ was twice as large as the rest of the writing. He went through the door that she had indicated led to a bathroom.
It didn’t seem to, at first. It was obviously her bedroom and smelled of chocolates and flowers. It was decorated all in rose and white; again the theatrical decor for a romantic young girl’s bedroom – he thought of Spectre de la Rose. The lights were shrouded and very low, but he had a general impression of drifts of white muslin – round the dressing table and the window; a rose-coloured carpet stretching in all directions; bowls of white pinks, a very long striped day bed, what looked (could it be?) like a Marie Laurencin in an alcove between two doors or cupboards and, in the far corner, an enormous bed – a four poster with elaborate hangings – swags of pink silk curtains edged with white fringe and an immense rose-coloured coverlet in considerable disarray. Indeed, the bed looked as though it had been romped in and abandoned – bedclothes humped, pillows scattered. Perhaps the doors weren’t cupboards: he went to see. The left-hand door opened and he walked into a palatial bathroom – with black marble and silver walls, taps shaped like dolphins and a carpet that seemed to be embroidered with them. This, too, had two doors (he began to realize that the flat must occupy the whole of the top of the block – was probably two, or even three, apartments thrown into one). Again he chose the left-hand door, and there was a lavatory – entirely black: luckily, he never had to search for any lights as they were always on. When he had relieved himself, he decided to wash his hands and put a comb through his hair. This was partly because he had never been in such a bathroom before in his life and felt it would be a pity not to make some use of it. He wasn’t sure if his face looked the same, but he felt different about it. His eyes looked very bright, and his newly washed hair actually shone. From somewhere inside him, a voice muttered: ‘You’re all right.’ It was unusual – and encouraging. Exhilaration – a touch of excitement and finding himself where he was and feeling all right about it – gave him the courage to explore. He tried the second, right-hand door. It opened on to a yet more amazing bathroom, whose floor, walls and ceiling were all of glass. In the middle of it was an oval sunken bath, and in the bath were Winthrop and Spiro, Winthrop lay on his front and Spiro was astride him soaping his back. With the glass this scene was repeated all over the room with variations of angle that gave the impression of a piece of film. Their heads were both turned in his direction, and, seeing him, Spiro smiled his smile betokening angelic jolly mischief and said: ‘Ello, Havin! Vroom, vroom!’ and then collapsed laughing.
Gavin said: ‘Sorry! Sorry to have barged in – ’ He couldn’t think of anything more to say.
Winthrop smiled amiably: ‘Think nothing of it. We got a bit sweaty, one way and another, and Dmitri’s bathroom is always good for a wash and brush up.’
Gavin reiterated some muttered apology and retreated, shutting the door behind him. Back in Joan’s bathroom, he sat on the edge of the bath a moment to recover. They had given him a fright as well as a shock. Then he thought of Harry and his fright turned to anger with Winthrop – going to a party with Harry and behaving like that. Anybody might have gone through the door: Harry might have! He had an obscure feeling that, since they could so easily have locked it, they must have left it unlocked on purpose. They hadn’t looked shocked when he walked in. They’d looked almost as though they’d liked it! He found himself wondering what Joan would think; then he wondered whether, by any chance, she had returned to the study/library to find him. If she hadn’t he supposed he ought to join the fray. He went back to the rosy, scented bedroom, thinking – rather defiantly – that he might as well see if it was a Laurencin – well, of course it would be that, but whether it was a reproduction or the real thing – but as soon as he got into the bedroom, he realized that something else, disturbing, but quite different, was going on. Somebody, unmistakably feminine, was sobbing. The sobbing came from the bed. As he turned round from the Laurencin to face it, the hump of disarranged bedclothes moved and a girl sat up holding a good deal of rose silk coverlet round her. When she saw him, she gave a little wail of disappointment – it almost sounded like rage – and cast herself back on to the bed. Gavin suddenly felt that this was too much. Men cavorting in Dmitri’s bathroom was one thing, but girls in poor old Joan’s actual bed was surely another.
‘Look here,’ he said – unable to recognize his own voice and proud of it, ‘what on earth do you think you’re doing?’
‘Shut up! Mind your own business – go away!’ There was a second’s pause, while Gavin battled with his reflexes, and then she said: ‘Actually – don’t.’ She sat up again.
‘I might need you.’
In spite of himself, he took a step nearer the bed. ‘What for?’ He felt wary and sounded sullen.
‘I’m not supposed to be here.’
‘I should think not.’
‘I don’t mean here,’ she patted the bed, and the coverlet slipped, revealing bare, very bony shoulders the background to which was a lot of dark tangled hair. ‘I mean at this party.’
‘Why did you come then?’
‘Love,’ she said resentfully. ‘It’s so awful – that the quite awful things one does because of it don’t seem so bad, don’t you find?’
‘Don’t they?’ He had the sensation of being treated as though he was somebody whom he hadn’t even begun to be. ‘I don’t know,’ he finished more honestly.
‘Don’t know?’ Her high, rather childish voice rose to a squeak, and he moved towards her again making a movement of his hand to quieten her.
‘There are some people in there.’
‘I know! That’s why I’m here. I sent a message to him. I wrote it because those Filipinos can’t take messages. I told him to meet me in here and then I hid, to be a lovely surprise for him. But then he came with – with someone else – ’ her voice tailed off: ‘and they had an awful time on this bed for ages, and then they went in there.’ To Gavin’s dismay, large pear-shaped tears began slipping down her face. After a moment, he said: ‘But why are you in bed? I mean you can’t have hidden in it, surely?’ The thought appalled him.
But she retorted: ‘Of course not! What an idiotic idea! I got into bed to cry. I can’t cry properly unless I’m lying down. My heart was broken,’ she added as an afterthought. He noticed that she looked at him intently as she said this. Her eyes were pale blue, wide apart and nearly round. He also noticed that the coverlet had slipped so that one very small naked breast with an apricot nipple showed; he noticed the apricot because of the pink coverlet. Wondering how on earth young she was, he said accusingly: ‘Aren’t you wearing anything?’
She looked defiant. ‘Of course not. It’s dirty to get into people’s beds in your clothes. How would you like it?’
‘I wasn’t wearing much, anyway,’ she added. ‘And when I heard you come in – of course I didn’t know it was you. I hid under the bedclothes. I stifled my sobs.’
She was looking at him again – again intent. When, because he couldn’t think of anything to say, he said nothing, she said: ‘Well, you couldn’t hear them, could you? So they must have been stifled . . .’
‘I think you’d better get dressed.’
‘All right.’ She replied – almost gaily. Then, without any warning, she threw herself face downwards on the bed and wailed: ‘You’re taking my mind off it!’
‘Off what?’ One incredibly thin arm – well, skinny, really – was clutching the top of her head, and she moaned: ‘It’s hopeless! He’s the most beautiful man I’ve ever met in my life. When he smiles! I thought, if you really loved somebody, the fact that you don’t speak the same language doesn’t matter. They automatically loved you back! You bet they don’t. All the things you read about let you down when you come to the point. But he didn’t even give me a chance! It’s juvenile to go thrashing about with a stupid common jerk when there’s a perfectly good girl. That’s what it is – juvenile!’ She said this last as though it was an unanswerable insult that gave her some satisfaction. ‘He ought to grow up. High time,’ she finished, but as she seemed to have done, Gavin decided to be brisk.
‘If you’ll tell me where your clothes are, I’ll give them to you, and wait next door while you put them on,’ he said. He had decided that if it was Spiro she thought she loved, and the smile and lack of language seemed to indicate that, the sooner she got over him the better.
‘I want to wait till he comes out.’
‘That’s up to you, but I’m not going to wait with you.’
‘Please do. I beg you to.’ She put a bony little hand on his arm, and he noticed that she bit her nails. ‘He’s got some awful olive-skinned boy with him; it’s two to one; I won’t stand a chance on my own.’
‘Look here, if it’s Winthrop you’re so keen on, you won’t get anywhere.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because the person he lives with is a friend of mine. Honestly. He’s not interested in girls at all.’
‘You might be telling frightful lies: people do, if it’s worth their onions.’
‘Well, I’m not,’ he said, too anxious now to take her up on the onions. ‘Where’s your dress?’
‘Under the bed,’ she said sulkily.
He bent down and it was. A rather skimpy dress of red cheesecloth.
‘Stay while I put it on.’
‘All right.’ If he didn’t stay, she might not dress, and he still felt that he owed it to Joan to get her out of the bed.
He walked over to the Laurencin – the heads of three doe-eyed girls.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Gavin,’ he said, without turning round.
‘Gavin what?’
‘Lamb.’
‘How old are you?’
He told her.
‘What do you do?’
‘I’m a hairdresser.’
‘Oh good.’ She seemed mysteriously pleased. ‘Okay, I’m dressed.’ She giggled, an unexpectedly pleasing sound, and said: ‘It’s quite easy, because I don’t wear knickers.’
When he turned round, she was sitting on the side of the bed fastening her very high-heeled red sandals. Then she stood up and held out her hand. ‘I’m Minerva Munday; how do you do? Lady,’ she added. She was looking straight at him again – to see if he was impressed, he thought. What did impress him about her was her thinness; she was about the thinnest person he’d ever seen in his life – far thinner than Jenny at work whom he had always thought too thin for her own good. He remembered that Joan had said there was a lot of food laid out somewhere, and then he remembered that Minerva (Goddess of Wisdom, his foot; she seemed to him no Goddess, and ridden with folly) had not been asked to the party at all – was a gate-crasher – still, perhaps with all those people, she would not be noticed . . .
‘. . . seem to be rather impressed. Haven’t you ever met a Lady before?’
‘I cut their hair from time to time; I don’t suppose you’d call that meeting them. Anyway,’ he ended kindly, ‘of course I’m impressed.’ He was moving towards the study/library door having considered making the bed – nicer for Joan – and discarding the idea on the grounds that Winthrop and Spiro might make an appearance, and a scene ensue – nastier for Joan.
‘Where are we going?’
‘To find some food.’
‘How do you know I want any?’ But they were safely out of the bedroom and he had shut the door.
‘I do,’ he said in his new, firm voice.
‘Oh – all right.’
‘Don’t you think you’d better comb your hair?’
‘Haven’t got a comb.’ She turned back to the bedroom.
‘You can borrow mine.’
She seized it, and dragged it through her hair so violently that it broke. She held a piece in each hand and made a hideous – and very funny – face at him. ‘Some comb,’ she said.
He took the larger broken piece and started to deal with the tangled mass. Even with her heels, she was not taller than he, but they were so high that, however gently he combed, she seemed to be in danger of losing her balance. ‘You’ll have to sit.’
She perched on the arm of the sofa he had sat on with Joan a hundred years ago. ‘Pity you didn’t let me do this in the first place,’ he said after a bit. ‘You’ve got very thick hair and you’ve got it in a right old mess.’
‘I forgot you were a hairdresser. Are you really one?’
‘I told you I was.’
‘You might have been making it up.’
‘I’m not given to that kind of thing.’
‘Oh, nor am I. But what actually happens is much duller than it need be a lot of the time, don’t you think?’
While he was still thinking that, this evening, no, it certainly wasn’t, she said: ‘Or are you frightfully grownup about it – contented with your lot and all that?’
‘I’m not bored, if that’s what you mean.’
‘I am. And I’m never sure what my lot is, but I must say I dread finding out.’
‘Why?’
‘Because then I’d be stuck with it, wouldn’t I? Ow!’
‘Sorry.’ He’d been combing the full weight of her now untangled hair back from her forehead where it grew in a sharply defined widow’s peak a little off centre.
‘It’s all right; you’re pretty good, really. I once bit somebody who combed my hair. I was much younger, of course. My nursemaid – ’
The door opened and three people, two men and a woman, came into the room carrying plates of food and glasses of wine. ‘Plenty of room here,’ one of them – the one who opened the door – said. They smiled guardedly at Gavin and Minerva as a way, Gavin felt, of not having to do anything else about them, and the woman said earnestly: ‘But can’t somebody tell Christopher that that sort of behaviour simply isn’t on?’
‘My dear Mollie, he’s got Production behind him!’
The second man said: ‘Well I just hope I’ll be on location before Jake finds out – that’s all.’
As Gavin reached the door, Minerva put her hand in his and said:
‘Do you know a lot of people at this party?’
‘No.’
‘Let’s just go; let’s not eat.’
But Gavin had started worrying about Harry, and whether he knew about Winthrop and Spiro, and whether he was feeling awful about it and needed support. ‘I can’t go until I’ve seen one person I do know,’ he said, ‘and they’ll probably be eating.’ Harry was anyway fond of food, and he invariably ate when he was anxious which was the least Gavin expected him to be.
It was quite clear where all the food was, since a trickle of people was emerging from a room down the passage, and each of them held a plate or was eating something, so he – very mildly – dragged her in the right direction (he was surprised to find himself doing this, and surprised also that he could do it).
The dining room – if that was what it was – had a long table down one side of it covered with bowls and dishes and plates of food. A good many people seemed to have eaten (there were about a dozen still in the room) and the food had that wrecked and plundered air: cold birds like shipwrecks; semi-spectral fish, ravaged mousses, a chocolate cake like some bombed building – crumbling brown rubble pocked with cream; and various salads fainting gaily in their bowls. Gavin saw Harry at once – sitting in the corner with a plate piled high and talking earnestly to an elderly man with a pointed beard. Harry registered Gavin’s arrival instantly and Gavin realized that this was because he was very much on the watch – had positioned himself so that he could see whoever came into the room.
Minerva said:
‘He’s not here.’
‘Who isn’t?’
‘Winthrop.’
‘Never mind. You get yourself a plate of food. You could get me some too, if you like,’ he added, hoping to keep her busy. He had decided that it would be better if she and Harry did not meet.
‘All right.’ She turned obediently to the table and he went over towards Harry. He was still talking.
‘. . . and when the 1945 Government nationalized the railways what they didn’t seem to recognize for quite some time was that they automatically took over thirty-five per cent of the canal system, much of it of course unnavigable, and a lot they cared, since fifty per cent of navigable waterway in the British Isles had fallen into complete desuetude and it had become fashionable to regard them as an outmoded form of transport. Oh, hullo, Gavin – you haven’t seen Winthrop, have you, by any chance?’ – his nose was twitching and he was elaborately casual.
‘Not for some time. I know he’s here, though.’
‘Oh. Oh well, that’s all right, then. This is Eustace Parker, my friend Gavin Lamb. Eustace makes documentaries on popular holidays. At least, I don’t suppose he does that all his life, but that’s what he’s doing at the moment. I was boring him a bit about canals – ’
‘Eustace! Good Lord!’ A squat and gnomic lady, in one springy pounce, had settled herself plum in front of Eustace, and by sitting cross-legged, and placing both her hands upon his shrinking knees, made it impossible for him not to notice that she was there. He looked at her with alarm and distaste.
‘Biddy! Long time no see.’
‘Oh my dove, I know! Auntie keeps sending me all over the place doing these filthy programmes that I told you in Manchester I was afraid Cyril was going to wish on to me; I’ve got contemporary poetry coming out of my ears! I feel if I have to record another poet, I’ll go out of my mind. I do hope neither of you are poets,’ she added, including Harry and Gavin a bit. They said they weren’t and she turned her full attention back on to Eustace whose continuous smile, Gavin thought, was not unlike a cat’s purr – it seemed effortless and he couldn’t think how on earth he could breathe at the same time. Harry telegraphed his desire to get away, but Gavin pretended not to understand him: he still shrank from the idea of Harry and Minerva meeting. On the other hand, unless he escaped altogether, he began not to see how this could be avoided . . . unless he could manoeuvre the girl and the food to somewhere else pretty quickly. He walked briskly over to Minerva who had assembled two plates, on one of which was a drumstick and a piece of the chocolate cake and on the other some of what looked like very nearly everything on the table.
‘I thought you were never coming; I thought you were trying to ditch me.’ She did not sound accusing when she said this, but rather surprisingly humble.
‘Let’s go and eat it on the terrace,’ he said.
In the passage they met Noel and Stephen having a muted row. Noel seemed drunk as he looked at Gavin with no sign of recognition, but Stephen gave him an apologetic smile. But this meeting renewed Gavin’s fears about uncomfortable encounters. They might meet Winthrop and Spiro anywhere, at any moment, and while Minerva seemed to have calmed down remarkably quickly about them, there was no knowing how she might respond if they did. He led the way through the first large room he had been in, the one which had the open doors on to the terrace, and found a relatively dark corner where they could sit.
‘Which was your friend; the one with the beard or the one with the spikey hair?’
‘Spikey hair?’
‘Is he working class, like you?’
‘He’s like me, but I don’t think we’re working class – we’re more bourgeois than that.’
‘Sort of lower middle?’
‘More or less. I don’t know about Harry’s dad, but I suppose mine was working class – at any rate until he got his own business.’
‘So you’ve moved up a class then. Are you going to keep your accent?’
‘Why not?’ It was odd; he’d never thought of it like that.
‘I want to move down,’ she said.
He felt she was looking at him again and said: ‘I think you say a lot of things just for effect, don’t you?’
‘Not only for that. But it would be pretty stupid if everything I said wasn’t meant to have any effect at all. There are people like that but they’re ghastly dull.’
He decided to drop that for the time being.
‘Why aren’t you eating?’
‘I don’t like eating much. I mean, I don’t much like eating anything. But I rather go for bones. I like gnawing.’
‘Gnaw it up then,’ he said.
It was cool on the terrace: there was a pleasant background of music – Billie Holiday – unmistakable even at such low volume, and the dwindling numbers on the terrace were leaving them in peace. He discovered after a few mouthfuls that he was very hungry and was tackling some very good fish with cucumber round it and also watching Minerva stripping the skin off her drumstick with her small, white teeth, when he felt a hand on his shoulder, looked up with a start to see Stephen’s face looming down at him.
‘Sorry to interrupt, but there’s a minor crisis and I told Joan I’d find you. It’s just a touch urgent.’
He put his plate on the tiled ground, got to his feet and said to the girl – who looked as though she was poised to come with him: ‘You stay, I’ll be back.’
Stephen held his elbow, almost as though he expected Gavin to escape or lose his way, while they went through the big room, and into the passage.
‘What’s up?’
‘It’s Winthrop.’
‘Why didn’t you get Harry?’
‘He wouldn’t be enough. Anyway, I don’t want him to get hurt.’
They had, predictably, Gavin felt, reached the study/library door which was shut.
Stephen said: ‘The thing is to be perfectly calm, but firm. And tough,’ he added: he was trembling. He opened the door, shoving Gavin ahead of him into the room.
The room – although it had other people in it – seemed to be full of Winthrop. He stood, at one end of the big chesterfield, leaning slightly forward, with a hand on the end of its arm and its back; he stood easily poised on the balls of his feet, and his gaze, menacingly intent, was fixed upon Spiro, who seemed to have shrunk, to be much smaller than Gavin remembered him and who was half crouching at the other end of the sofa with his hands also upon its arm. His eyes, which looked enormous in his ashy face were fixed upon Winthrop and at irregular but fairly frequent intervals he uttered a strange little grunt – half conciliatory, half denying – which sometimes exploded into a high-pitched nervous giggle. Seated at the huge desk, wielding the gold telephone, was Joan whose voice sounded almost brazenly calm.
‘No, darling, just one of the usual parties. No, I told you, it was a lamp falling over. They were playing some weird acting game, I think: listen, supposing I call you back, I’m so longing to hear how the plans are going for Bobby’s yacht – ’ here Spiro’s giggle ended in a shriek of terror as Winthrop made a move towards him. ‘Sorry, I didn’t absolutely hear what you said. No, darling, I told you – they’re playing that silly acting game – hold on a minute I’m going to talk to you from my bedroom – much quieter – ’ She motioned to Gavin to come and hold the receiver for her, saying: ‘It’s Dmitri: he hardly ever calls me, and I must at least find out where he is. Put it back when you hear me,’ and went into her bedroom, shutting the door behind her.
Gavin did as he was asked. This meant going either round Winthrop or round Spiro. He chose Winthrop, whose attention flickered from Spiro for the split second while he registered that Gavin was, in fact, simply going to the telephone. It was, however, long enough for Spiro to make a lunge round the sofa towards the door – a fatal error since the moment that there was less than the length of the sofa between them Winthrop sprang upon him and with the powerful certainty of a leopard seized him by the throat. Spiro’s voice was cut off in mid-shriek, and Gavin, aware of Stephen’s plaintively ineffectual protests, moved instinctively to try to stop Winthrop. This was no use at all; Winthrop simply removed one of his hands from Spiro’s throat to send Gavin spinning across the room until he fell against the cornice of the mantelpiece and collapsed among the artificial logs in the fireplace. Although he was not knocked out, pain and shock overwhelmed him; his eye felt as though he had been hit by a cricket ball; his darkened vision doubled and a display of fireworks seemed to be set off from inside his head; his mouth tasted of thick salt and surges of pain, as dazzling as the beam of a lighthouse, regularly swept his right shoulder. He made an attempt to heave himself into a sitting position and as he did so, his shoulder thrilled with a pain so sudden and sickening that he was on the edge of fainting, but at the end of it, through the cold sweat and distance, he was aware that something that had been put out by his fall was now back. Gingerly, he made a second effort to sit up.
Things had changed; they had probably changed very quickly, but he had not seen them happening. Winthrop now had Spiro by the scruff of his jacket collar and had literally turned him upside down. Spangled on the maroon carpet were what looked like pieces of jewellery and, as Gavin watched, Winthrop gave Spiro yet another experienced little shake and a couple of coffee spoons, gold, with enamelled backs, fell from his pockets. Gavin became aware that Winthrop through clenched teeth was emitting a stream of imprecatory abuse.
‘. . . you fucking little fly-blown piece of shit, where are your morals? Answer me that! Dirty little crap-ridden wog, didn’t your arse-holing bitch of a mother teach you anything? I’m surprised at you – ’ he went on but not more mildly, his surprise simply galvanized him into starting to beat Spiro up – ‘think you can come to this country and waltz about sticking your filthy fingers into the private belongings of a lady who’s kind enough to have you to a party – you got no morals you fucking little reptile – and what’s more – you mother-fucking little creep – you got no more integrity than a louse.’ He shook him again, but this time nothing fell out, and Winthrop let go of his ankle, at the same time kicking him sharply in the midriff so that Spiro lay winded, his intermittent wailing gasps stopped. In the silence that very briefly followed, Gavin became aware the audience no longer consisted of Stephen and himself. Harry, his arms tightly folded, stood by the door, and Minerva, still holding the turkey drumstick, beside him. Stephen, clucking, had edged forward and, on his knees, was picking up the various pieces – a charm bracelet, a gold watch, earrings and the spoons.
Before anyone seemed to have a chance to move or speak Minerva rushed over to Winthrop and threw her arms round him.
‘Oh, darling, I could have told you he was a creep!’ she cried. ‘I never take things out of people’s houses! I knew you’d see through him!’
Winthrop made some brushing movements to get her off him as though she was a fly, but she wasn’t a fly and – in spite of the drumstick in one hand – she clung.
Then he said: ‘Piss off – whoever you are.’ He picked her arm off him like a bramble; then leaned over Spiro who had been lying in a foetal position moaning softly, but who was beginning to show signs of movement. Before he could do or not do anything, Minerva bent down and rapped him smartly on the head with the drumstick and, like a clown in a silent film, Spiro instantly fell back motionless, as though knocked out. ‘I hate you – you cringing little queer!’
‘Who do you think you’re speaking to?’
‘Oh, not you, darling Winthrop. I expect he blackmailed you, isn’t that what awful people like that are always doing? Look at me! Don’t you remember?’
Gavin, who felt that things were managing to take a turn for the worse, noticed that Joan had come back into the room and was towering quietly by the bedroom door and that Stephen was rearranging all the objects he had picked up on to an enormous black glass ashtray.
‘That ad we did where you weren’t ever alone because of your pipe. I was one of the girls who got locked out, don’t you remember? And afterwards we met at the coffee machine and you were talking to somebody else about this party, so I thought I’d come to it, and when I said I’d see you there you said okay. So here I fucking am.’
‘Don’t you use that language to me. It’s disgusting: it’s not right.’
‘You use it. It’s what you say.’
‘That’s different.’
‘I don’t think you are in at all a good position to criticize other people’s behaviour. Gavin and I were jolly shocked at what you did with Spiro in there.’ She indicated the bedroom, and was momentarily disconcerted to see Joan.
‘Do you mind?’
‘No, I don’t – well, of course I mind that. I thought that was disgusting. Unnecessary,’ she added with an attempt at loftiness, which collapsed the moment Winthrop turned on her, which he did at once.
‘You mean you were actually in there? Fucking hiding in there?’
She nodded, but she backed away from him.
‘You ought to be locked up! I think you are, without exception, the most disgusting person I’ve ever met in my life! You’re a vulgar, nasty little bitch!’
She stood rigidly beside him, rubbing her eyes with her knuckles, in spite of the fact that she’d still got hold of the drumstick, and Gavin began to feel that everything was going to go on for ever, when Joan, who had been silent up to now, said:
‘I have a sort of feeling that we’ve rather lost the party atmosphere, and so perhaps we should call it a day. Thanks for collecting the loot, Stephen; no, leave it there. The only thing I ask, really, is that you shouldn’t leave anybody behind.’
Stephen nodded and went to Spiro, bending down to pick up one end of him, but Winthrop interrupted: ‘Don’t bother with that; he can stand, all right.’ He gave Spiro a casual kick on the bottom and Spiro shot to his feet, and fell against Stephen, who fielded him with a nice blend of arrest and protection.
Winthrop said: ‘Where’s Noel?’
‘He went down to the car. He’s not quite himself, I’m afraid.’
‘Can you manage him on your own, or shall I come down with you?’
‘I can manage.’
‘If you give Stephen any trouble, I’ll have your balls for research.’
Spiro rolled his eyes and muttered: ‘Ello – no,’ and Stephen took him away.
Winthrop walked over to Joan, put his arms on her shoulders and gave her a kiss. ‘Sorry about all that, my love,’ he said, and Gavin noticed that he really did seem to be and that Joan knew that and liked it. ‘That’s okay,’ she said. Winthrop turned to Harry who, with his arms still folded, had been staring at the carpet for a long time.
‘My bike’s outside. You coming?’ He took no notice of Gavin as well as pointedly ignoring Minerva. Harry’s face quivered; he nodded and, without looking at Joan, said with a kind of clumsy brusqueness: ‘Thanks for having me.’ Then he looked at Gavin, but before he could say anything Winthrop intervened: ‘Don’t worry about him: he’s ganged up with that tonto little tart – he can take her with him. Come to think of it, Joan said everyone out, and it’s her place – so, everyone out.’ He moved over to Minerva, placed a hand in the small of her back and steered her straight at Gavin: ‘Go on, then, out!’ As the girl almost fell against him, he felt Winthrop’s grip on his forearm, and, awful seconds later, they were all four in the lift, out of it, through the plate glass doors and into the street. Harry broke the silence. ‘How’s Gavin going to get home?’
‘That’s up to him, isn’t it?’
‘He came in Stephen’s car. Perhaps it hasn’t gone.’
But it had. Gavin, who felt as though his personality had been seized and held under some black water by Winthrop’s unpredictable hatred, found his voice and said he’d be all right, don’t worry about him.
‘Night then.’ Harry said it as clumsily as he’d thanked Joan and followed Winthrop to the bike. They had roared off into the night before he realized that he still had hold of Minerva’s arm.