At the head of the table Gerald was perceptibly distracted by his mother's talk. Nick knew that Jack Partridge had gone bust not long after getting his knighthood, in one of the funny reversals of these recent years; it was a subject which might seem to tarnish his stepson by association. Gerald made a firm intervention and said, "So, Morden, I was absolutely gripped by your paper on SDL"
"Ah . . . " said Lipscomb, with a smile that showed he wasn't so easily flattered. "I wasn't sure that you'd agree with my conclusions."
"Oh, absolutely," said Gerald, with a surprising mocking smile which confirmed to Nick that he hadn't read beyond those first few pages. "How could one not!"
"Well . . . you'd be surprised," said Lipscomb.
"Is this the telephones?" said Lady Partridge.
"It's missile defence, Ma," said Gerald loudly.
"You know, Gran, Star Wars," said Toby.
"You're thinking of STD, Judy," said Badger.
"Ah," said Lady Partridge, and chuckled, not in embarrassment but at the attention she'd won for herself.
"The President announced the Strategic Defence Initiative six months ago," said Morden Lipscomb, gravely but a little impatiently. "It aims to protect the United States from any attack by guided missile systems. In effect a defensive shield will be created to repel and destroy nuclear weapons before they can reach us."
"Delightful idea," said Lady Partridge. This sounded satirical, and the plan had indeed been greeted with derision as well as dismay; but then Nick thought, no, the old lady would take pleasure in weaponry, and arms budgets generally.
"It is, I believe, an irresistible one," said Lipscomb, laying his left hand commandingly on the table. He wore a signet ring on his little finger, but no wedding ring. Of course that didn't mean much; Nick's own father and his father's male friends didn't wear wedding rings, they were thought, for all their symbolism, to be vaguely effeminate. He thought of the card, "From the Desk of Morden Lipscomb"—it made one wonder where else it might have come from: "the Back-burner," "the Rest-room," "From the Closet of Morden Lipscomb" . . . well, it was an idea. He was clearly a man with his own defensive systems.
After pudding the ladies withdrew. Nick's thoughts went with them as they climbed the stairs; he stood with one knee on his chair, hoping he might somehow be allowed to join them. "Slide along, Nick," said Gerald. The men all closed up together at Gerald's end of the table, in a grimly convivial movement, occupying the absent women's places. Nick handed Lady Partridge's lipstick-daubed napkin to Elena, who had come through to sort them out. There were many all-male occasions that he liked, but now he missed the buffer of a female, even Jenny Groom, whose general impatience he'd decided was a sad flower of her hatred of her husband. Now Barry Groom was sitting down opposite him with a scowl, as if familiar to the point of weariness with the etiquette of such occasions. Nick looked across to Toby for help, but he was laying out a box of cigars and the cigar cutter; Gerald was setting the decanters off on their circuit. Nick pictured Leo, as he had left him today, walking his bike away, and the love-chord sounded, warily now—he didn't want the others to hear it. How could he describe it, even to himself, Leo's step, his bounce, his beautiful half-knowing, half-unconscious deployment of his own effects? "I'll give you one piece of advice," said Barry Groom, choosing imperiously between the unmarked port and claret decanters.
"Oh, yes," said Nick, and felt his erection begin to subside. "Never speculate with more than twelve per cent of your capital."
"Oh . . ." Nick gasped humorously, but seeing Barry Groom was almost angrily in earnest he went on, "Twelve per cent. Right . . . I'll try and remember that. No, that sounds like good advice."
"Twelve per cent," said Barry Groom: "it's the best advice I can give you." He slid the decanters over to him, since they formed the bridge, furthest from Gerald. Nick took some port and passed it on to Morden Lipscomb, with a little show of promptness and charm. Lipscomb was just clipping a cigar, and his thin mouth, turned down in concentration, seemed to brood on some disdain, not of the cigar, but of the company he found himself in. This was presumably the moment when he should be made way for, in the solemn but disinhibiting absence of the women, but he was cagey, or sulky. Nick felt sorry for Gerald, but didn't see how he could help. His own way of getting on terms with people was through the sudden intimacy of talk about art and music, a show of sensibility; but he felt Lipscomb would rebuff him, as though refusing intimacy of another kind. He wondered again what Leo would have said and done: he had such clear, sarcastic opinions about things.
"So, Derek," said Barry Groom, in his cuttingly casual tone, "how long are you staying here?"
Badger puffed coaxingly for a second or two, and then let out a roguish cloud of smoke. "As long as the old Banger'll have me," he said, jerking his head towards Gerald.
"Ah, that's what you call him, is it?" said Barry, with a rivalrous twitch.
Badger grunted, took a quick suck on his cigar, and said, "Oxford days . . ." knowing how easy Barry was to tease. "No, I'm having a place done up at the moment, that's why I'm here."
"Oh, really? Where is it?" said Barry suspiciously.
Badger was deaf to this question, so Barry repeated it and he said at length, as if conceding a clue to a slow guesser, "Well, it's quite near your place of work, actually." The secrecy was presumably a further tease, though it fitted with something seedily hush-hush about Badger. "It's just a little flat—a little pied-a-terre."
"A fuck-flat in other words," said Barry, sharply, to make sure the illusionless phrase, and his offensiveness in using it, struck home. Even Badger looked slightly abashed. Gerald gave a disparaging gasp and plunged as if confidentially into new talk with John Timms and his old mentor about the genius of the Prime Minister. Nick glanced across at Toby, who half closed his eyes at him in general if unfocused solidarity.
"I had wondered whether the Prime Minister might be with us this evening," said Lipscomb. "But I see of course it's not that kind of party."
"Oh . . ." said Gerald, looking slightly guilty. "I'm so sorry. I'm afraid she wasn't free. But if you'd like me to bring you together . . ."
Lipscomb gave a rare smile. "We're lunching on Tuesday, so it's not at all necessary."
"Oh, you are?" said Gerald, and smiled too, in a genial little mask of envy.
And so it went on for ten or fifteen minutes, Nick perching at the corner of two conversations, the "odd man," as Gerald had briskly predicted. He passed the decanters appreciatively, and sat smiling faintly at the reflections of the candelabra in the table top or at a disengaged space just above Barry Groom's head. He grunted noncommittally at some of Badger's jokes, Badger appearing in the candlelight and its mollifications as almost a friend among the other guests. He nodded thoughtfully, without following the thread, at one or two of Lipscomb's remarks that caused general pauses of respect. The cigar stench was the whole atmosphere, but the alcohol was a secret security. There was something so irksome about Barry Groom that he had a fascination: you longed for him to annoy you again. He was incredibly chippy, was that the thing?—all his longings came out as a kind of disdain for what he longed for. And yet he got on with Gerald, they were business partners, they saw a use for each other; and that perhaps was the imponderable truth behind this adult gathering.
Barry said, "The way you Oxford fuckers go on about the Martyrs' Club," and frowned sharply as he swallowed some claret. "What were you martyrs to, that's what I'd like to know."
"Ooh . . . hangovers," said Badger.
"Yes, drink," Toby put in, and nodded frankly.
"Overdrafts and class distinctions," said Nick drolly.
Barry stared at him, "What, were you a member?"
"No, no . . ." said Nick.
"I didn't think so!"
And then there was a rattle in the hall as the front door was opened and the bang of it slamming shut. Then immediately the bell rang, in three urgent bursts. There was a shout of vexation, the door was jerked open a
gain, and Catherine, it must have been, was talking—from the dining room they heard only the hurried shape of her talk. Nick's eyes slid round the faces of the others at the table, who looked puzzled, displeased, or even lightly titillated. John Timms stared unblinking towards the closed door of the room; Badger sat back in a curl of smoke. "All right!" It was Catherine.
"That child would try the patience of an oyster," said Gerald, with evident feeling but also a snuffle of amusement, a darting glance to judge the effect of his allusion.
Then the front door closed again, more thoughtfully, and a man's voice was heard—"You need to be careful, girl . . . " Nick gave a little snigger, trying to commute it into Russell's voice, but Gerald had set down his cigar and stood up: "Sorry . . ."he murmured, and walked towards the door with a dwindling smile. "That's my sis," said Toby. "As I was saying . . . " said Morden Lipscomb. When Gerald opened the door, the man was going on quietly but urgently, "You need to calm down, Cathy, I don't like it, I don't like seeing you like this at all . . ." and Nick's heart went out to the Caribbean accent, in instant sentimental allegiance—he felt himself float out towards it from the cigar-choked huddle at the table, the Oxonian burble and Barry's whine.
"Who are you?" said Gerald.
"Oh, Christ, Dad!" said Catherine, and it was clear she was crying, the last word broke as she raised her voice.
"And are you Cathy's father, then . . ."
Nick got up and went into the hall, with the feeling he must try to curb Gerald's unhelpful sharpness, and an anxious sense of the things Gerald didn't know, that might now have to be named and negotiated. He was half in the dark himself. If someone told you they were OK, was it wrong to believe them? She was standing at the foot of the stairs, gripping the gold chain of her bag in both hands and looking both angry and vulnerable: Nick almost laughed, as you do for a second at the latest catastrophe of a child, and seem to mock it when you mean to reassure it; though he was frightened too. There was quite a chance he'd have to do something. He peered at her, with the frank curiosity allowed in a crisis—it really was childlike, the quick fall; she had only gone out two hours ago. Her mouth quivered, as if with accusation. She was tiny in her high heels. Nick knew the man, he was the minicab driver she'd been friendly with, the one she'd had back to the house when Gerald and Rachel were away, fiftyish, grizzled at the temples, heavy-built, a sweet hint of ganja about him: well, all the Orbis drivers sold the stuff. He was completely and critically different from everything else in the house. Nick said, "Hi!" under his breath, and rested a hand on his shoulder.
"What's happened, darling?" he said.
"Who is this man?" said Gerald.
"I'm called Brentford, since you're asking," the man said slowly. "I brought Cathy home."
"That's really kind of you," said Nick.
"How do you know my daughter?" said Gerald.
"She needs taking care of," said Brentford. "I can't help her tonight, I got a job."
"He's the minicab driver," said Nick.
"Does he need paying?" said Gerald.
"I don't charge her," said Brentford. "She call me when he dump her."
"Is this true?" said Gerald.
"It's really kind of you," said Nick.
Catherine made a little scream of disbelief, and came and took Brentford's arm, but he kept a wary dignity with her too and didn't hold her: he pushed her gently towards Nick, and she leaned against him, wailing but not holding on to him. She was in her own distress, she wasn't seeking solace from Nick, just somewhere to stand; still he put a cautious arm round her. "Is it Russell?" he said. But she couldn't begin to answer.
"What is it, darling?" said Rachel, hurrying downstairs.
Gerald explained, "That bloody little shit's dumped her," clearly saying, through pretended indignation, what he most hoped had happened. "Poor old Puss."
Rachel looked at the three men, and there was a hint of fear in her face, as if Brentford had brought some threat much larger than Catherine's tantrum into the house. "Come upstairs, darling," she said.
Barry Groom had come out into the hall, staring and twitching his head, and so drunk suddenly that there were unconscious delays to his aggression. "Look here, you!" he shouted at Brentford. "I don't know who you are. You fucker!"
Gerald put a hand on his wrist. "It's all right, Barry."
"You keep your hands off her, you . . ."
"Oh, shut up . . . you arsehole!" said Nick, without planning to, and shaken by the sound of his own raised voice.
"Yes, shut up, you wanker!" said Catherine, through her tears.
"Now, now!" said Barry, and then something awful, a sly smile, slid on to his face.
"God, I'm really sorry . . . " said Nick to Brentford.
"Why are we all standing here?" said Gerald.
"Darling, come up," said Rachel.
"Let's finish our port and cigars," said Gerald, turning his back on Brentford. He had to show, for the sake of the party, that he took scenes like this with habitual good humour. "Will you take her up, darling?" he said, as if there were really a chance he might do it himself.
Catherine moved away and started up the stairs, and Rachel tried to put an arm round her, but she shook it off. Nick took Brentford to the door. "Are you sure we can't pay you?" he said, though he doubted he had the price of a fare from Stoke Newington himself. He wanted Brentford to know he wasn't guilty of the thing the whole house stood accused of.
"He's a bad man," said Brentford, on the doorstep.
"Oh . . . " said Nick, "yes . . . " He wasn't certain which man was being referred to, and Brentford's shake of the head and flap of the arm seemed to write them all off.
Nick stood on the pavement for a while after the Sierra had gone, and heard the laughter of the women from an open window above. It was good to be out of the house, in the night air. He was trembling a little from having shouted at someone he hated. He thought of Leo, and smiled, and hugged his hands under his armpits. He wondered what Leo was doing, the afternoon flared up again and warmed him with amazement; then the thought of Pete came over it like the chill of a cloud. He went in and slowed as he passed by the half-open door of the dining room: " . . . the beggar stank of pot!" Gerald was saying, to odd humourless laughter. Now perhaps he could really go upstairs, and taste the freedom of being the odd man. He didn't have a place in either of the two parties. It was bad form to go away, it admitted a prior desire to do so; but he couldn't go back and sit with Barry Groom. He thought Gerald might be angry with him too, but he would surely be glad of his taking an interest in Catherine. It couldn't be called a shirking of responsibility. Nick started to climb the stone stairs, and had hummed several bright anticipatory bars from Schumann's Fourth Symphony before he stopped himself.
6
"GOD YOU'RE A twit," said Leo. He looked fretfully at different parts of Nick, unable to place his dissatisfaction exactly. In the end he licked his thumb and rubbed his cheek, as if Nick was a child. This word twit, a tiny sting, had come up before, and signalled some complex of minor reproaches, class envy, or pity, the obvious frustrations of having a boy like Nick to teach. As always Nick searched for something else in it too, which was Leo's tutting indulgence of his pupil; he still longed for flawless tenderness, but he forgave Leo, who for once was nervous himself. They were on the Willesden pavement, ten yards from his front gate. "You're so fucking preppy," said Leo.
"I don't know what that means."
Leo shook his head. "What am I going to do with you?"
They had met after work, across the road from the Council offices, and Leo was wearing a dark grey suit with square shoulders and a white shirt and a wide but sober tie. It was the first time Nick had seen this beautiful everyday metamorphosis, and he couldn't help smiling. He was in love to the point of idolatry, but the smiles, the appreciative glances, seemed to strike Leo like a kind of sarcasm. "You look so handsome," Nick said.
"Yeah, and so do you," said Leo. "Right, we're going in. Now what di
d I tell you, don't take the name of the Lord in vain. Don't say, 'Oh my god!' Don't even say, 'Good Lord!' " (Leo fluted these phrases in the way that was his puzzling imitation of Nick.) "Don't say, 'Jesus fucking bollocks.' "
"I'll try not."
Nick was always a favourite with mothers, he was known to be a nice young man, and he liked the unthreatening company of older people. He liked to be charming, and hardly noticed when he drifted excitedly into insincerity. But he also knew the state of suspense, the faked insouciance, of bringing friends home, the playful vigilance with which certain subjects had to be headed off even before they had arisen; you took only a distracted, irrelevant part in the conversation because you were thirty seconds, a minute, ten minutes ahead of it, detecting those magnetic embarrassments towards which it would always twitch and bend.
"My sister sort of knows," said Leo. "You wrant to watch her."
"Rosemary."
"She's pretty."
Nick followed him up the short concrete path and said in his ear, "Not as pretty as you, I bet," one of his light flirty jokes that he watched swoop to earth under its own weight of adoration.
Mrs Charles and her son and daughter lived on the ground floor of a small red-brick terrace house; there were two front doors side by side in the shallow recess of the porch. Leo applied himself to the right-hand one, and it was one of those locks that require tender probings and tuggings, infinitesimal withdrawals, to get the key to turn. Nick reflected briefly on the coloured glass in the inset window and the old Palm Sunday cross pinned above the doorbell. He pictured Leo going through this routine every day; and he noted his own small effort of adjustment, his disguised shock at the sight of the street and the house—perhaps he was a twit after all. When he stepped inside he had a memory, as sharp as the cooking smell in the hall, of school afternoons of community service, going into the homes of the old and disabled, each charitable visit a lesson in life and also—to Nick at least—in the subtle snobbery of aesthetics.