It was not quite how he thought, things are never as you think they are going to be, not exactly, for on the day she forgot the red light bulbs and it was too late now because the shops were closed, and the recipe for punch was in an envelope, no time to look for it now, instead Mina bought a crate of bottles, mostly wine, she said, because nearly everybody likes wine, and two flagons of cider for those who did not. It was not a tape recorder, Henry had never seen one of those, it was the old record player borrowed from Mrs Simpson’s son and the old records borrowed from Mrs Simpson. In anticipation, acting out the party in his mind, the house was bigger, the rooms were halls, the guests dwarfed by the height of the ceilings, music pounding at them from all sides, the disguises exotic, foreign princes, ghouls, sea captains and the like, and him with the mask. But now it was near the time for the first guest to arrive, the rooms were the same size as always, and why not, the music was from one corner, scratchy and dull, and here were the first guests, Henry opening the door to them in his thirty-shilling face with a startled look, here were the guests disguised as ordinary people, was it a disguise at all? had they read the card closely? He stood by the door holding it open, silent, as they streamed past him, nodded, seemed to think there was nothing special about his mask, just someone’s little boy holding open the door, they streamed in in twos and fours, laughing and talking with restraint, poured their own drinks and laughed and talked with less restraint, men in grey suits and black suits and their hands deep in their pockets swaying towards and away from their neighbour as they talked, the women with grey hair piled up, fingering their glasses, they all looked the same. Mina was upstairs planning to drift down, fuse unnoticed and disguised with her guests, he looked about, she could be here already, there was no woman here who looked like her, or man. He wandered between the talking groups, there was something about the men, something about the women, the hips of one, the shoulders of the others, a short man, bald and scented, his neck was too thin for his shirt, the tie knot the size of his fist, he leaned over Henry as he passed by looking for Mina, ‘You must be Henry,’ his voice was thin and rasped, ‘you must be, I can tell by the look on your face.’ He straightened out to laugh, turning to see if any of the others had heard his good joke, Henry waited, it was like this in the shop waiting on other people’s jokes. The bald short man turned back to him, wanted to reconcile him, in a lower voice, ‘I knew it was you of course by your height, dear. Do you know who I am?’ Henry shook his head, watching the man place his fingers on his pate, lift the skin between forefinger and thumb to show not brain or bone but hair, frizzy black hair in waves, which he covered back now with the skin of his head, ‘Can you guess now? No?’ He was pleased, obviously pleased, he bent lower to whisper in Henry’s ear, ‘It’s your Aunt Lucy,’ and then walked away. Lucy, one of those aunts not an aunt, a friend of Mina’s who came to coffee in the mornings and wanted Henry in her small theatre company, always wanted him to join and was not put off by his refusals, Mina, jealous perhaps, did not want him to join, there was no danger. But Mina, which of these wide-hipped men, which of these stout women was she? or was she still waiting for them all to drink more wine? He drank wine through his mask, remembering his last first time, his dress soaking in a bucket afterwards, where was it now? He pushed the wine quickly down his throat, avoiding the taste, the furriness on his teeth unmoved by his tongue, looking for Mina, waiting for Linda who was to come soon, undisguised, he told her there was no need because she was not known, she was a stranger and all strangers are in disguise. But was this a party, where they all stood around, talked, made jokes, moved from one group to another, no one listening to the record player which could not be heard above the voices, no one changed the record, was this how it was at parties? He changed the record himself, reached out for the record cover, a peeling remnant of shredded cardboard, when a hand took his wrist, an old hand, and looking up he saw an old man, a very old man, stooped over one shoulder, cocked round a hump bulging just slightly under his jacket and a scrub of beard about his face with the hairs far apart, and above his lips an oily patch where it did not grow at all, this man took his wrist, gripped it then let his hand fall, ‘Wouldn’t bother, no one can hear it anyway.’ Henry faced the man, picked up for his defence his wine glass, ‘Are you someone in disguise, is everyone in disguise?’ The man pointed over his shoulder, he was not hurt, ‘How do you get to disguise this?’ ‘It could be all part of it, I mean padding or something …’ Henry trailed away, lost his voice in the din, the man was turning his back to him and calling out, ‘Feel it, go on you feel it and tell me if that’s padding or not.’ Like the wine these things can be done if done quickly, push it quickly down your stomach, he reached out and touched the man’s back, withdrew his hand, and again when the man said that was not enough to tell if it was padding or not, this time he fingered the hump, Henry in his smiling horror face, the hair in all directions, the coloured lips drenched in wine, this small grinning monster fingered the old man’s hump at once hard and yielding, till the man was satisfied and turned round, ‘You can’t hide a thing like that,’ and walked to the other side of the room, standing there alone grinning at the people and drinking from his glass. Henry filled his glass and drank from it too, wandering between the circles of talkers, their voices rose and fell about him, wailing organ stops that made him dizzy, needed to lean by the table for support, waiting, where was Mina, where was Linda? They were none of them baffled by each other, these talkers and drinkers, assuming they were in some disguise they knew who they were, found it easy to talk, there was no question of being able to do what you want, when you are not yourself you are still someone, and someone has to take the blame, blame, blame for what? Henry held the table tighter by the edge with both hands, what blame? what was he thinking just now? More wine more wine, something nervous made him bring the glass to his mouth every ten seconds, for not being noticed, for being no one at a grownups’ party, some small boy who held the door open when they came in, for it not being crisp, as he had imagined it, for all this he took in four glasses of wine. On the far side of the room a man came away from a group, tottering backwards with a glass in his hand, he fell into the large chair behind him, and lay there laughing up at his friends laughing down at him. Henry’s words staggered on in his head like big numbers on a board, occurring to him slowly, if he left the table he would fall on the ground. Was it the monster who fell to the ground or Henry, who was to blame? it came back to him now, dressed like somebody else and pretending to be them you took their blame for what they did, or what you as them do … did? the big numbers were so slow, there was something in all this, when Mina dressed for dinner who did she think she was when she did what she did? The dress in the bucket like a rare sea animal, they stood in the deserted playground and made a joke about what you could do in disguise and Claire was walking towards them looking old and young, and the military officer who wiped his leg with a towel, the man in the bed, the black behind Rembrandt’s head, Linda over there said she preferred, Linda over there, there was Linda on the other side of the room, her back to him, her waterfall of hair like Alice in Wonderland, there were too many other voices for her to hear him calling, he could not let go of the table. And she was talking to the man who fell in the chair, the man in the chair, the man in the chair, these big numbers, the man in the chair was pulling Linda on to his lap, Linda and Henry, he stood in front of his bedroom mirror feeling free, made a little dance as Henry and Linda, was pulling Linda on to his lap held her tight there behind her head, she was too frightened to move, terrified and could not make her tongue move and who would hear her in all these voices? was unbuttoning his shirt with one hand the man in the chair, the voices made a crescendo this dissonant choir, no one could see, the man in the chair pressed her face tight against him, would not let her go, Henry thought who was to blame? letting go of the table he began, but unsteadily and very slowly and the wine rising from his stomach, began to move towards them across the crowded room.
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Ian Mcewan, First Love, Last Rites
(Series: # )
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