William Boyd - Stars and bars

“You were saying,” he turned to Halfacre, “something about total honesty.”

“Pruitt, your table’s ready.” It was the waiter.

“Thatcher, hi.” Halfacre and Thatcher hugged manfully, with much clapping of hands on shoulders. “I heard you were here. How’s it going?”

“Not so bad. I’m working on a novel.”

“Great!..Hey, Jesus. Sorry about Muffy. I heard. I guess she couldn’t hack it.”

“You win some—”

“You lose some. Bastard, man.” Halfacre spent a second deep in thought. “Thatcher, this is a colleague, Henderson. Thatcher and I were at school together.”

“Good to know you, Henderson.” Thatcher’s grip was knuckle-grinding.

“How do you do?” Henderson muttered, entirely unmanned by now. Thatcher led them through the shining throng to their table. Henderson felt as if his neck had disappeared and his shoulders were about to meet in front of his chin. He sat down with a sigh of relief. Halfacre seemed to have forgotten about their projected conversation so Henderson happily let it ride for a moment. He studied the menu and studied Halfacre above its uppermost edge. He looked at Half acre’s plain, lean face, his sharp jaw, his short hair, his — just donned — modish tortoiseshell spectacles. He considered his Harvard Ph. D., his ‘old’ family, his modest but comfortable private income. Here was the paradigm, the Platonic ideal. American man, late-twentieth-century model. Look how easily he wore his clothes, how at home he was in this smart restaurant. Consider the masterful aplomb with which he could initiate and terminate casual conversations. Listen to the rigidity and reasonableness of his opinions. What was more, this man was engaged to an intelligent and beautiful girl. And what was even more, Henderson thought, this man is eleven years younger than me.

Thatcher reappeared to take their orders.

“Chicken omelette,” Halfacre said. “Grilled plaice, side salad, no dressing. Sancerre OK for you, Henderson?”

“Lovely.” Henderson’s eyes skittered desperately over the menu searching first for something he liked, then for something he recognized. Halfacre’s requests didn’t even seem to be listed here. This sort of man ordered what he wanted, not what was offered.

“I’ll, um, start with the, ah, crevettes fumees aux framboises . Followed by…” Jesus Christ. “Followed by…Filet Mignon with butterscotch sauce.”

“Vegetables, sir?”

Henderson looked. Salsify, fenugreek, root ginger. What were these things? He saw one that was familiar. “Braised radishes.”

The menus were removed.

“Sorry, Pruitt,” he said, flapping out his napkin. “There was something you wanted to talk to me about.”

Pruitt was drawing furrows on the thick white linen of the tablecloth with the tines of his fork.

“That’s right.” He paused. “How would you react, Henderson, if I said…if I said that the one word I associate with you is ‘hostel’?”

“‘Hostel?’”

His mind raced. “As in ‘Youth Hostel’?”

“No, for God’s sake. As in hostel aircraft, hostel country, as in ‘The Soviets are hostel to American policy’.”

“Oh. Got you. We say ‘style’. ‘Hostyle’.”

“Why,” Pruitt now held his fork with both hands as if he might bend it, “why do you hate me, Henderson? Why do I sense this incredible aggression coming from you?”

♦

It took the whole of the unsatisfactory lunch (Henderson had been agog at his lurid shrimps and managed one mouthful of his candied steak) to convince Halfacre that, far from disliking him, Henderson on the contrary both admired and respected his colleague. That he was, moreover, an ideal confederate and a brilliant mind. Halfacre took twenty minutes to travel from scepticism through grudging apologies to overt gratitude. Henderson’s quizzing established that the misconception had arisen a week before when Halfacre had called a greeting down a corridor and Henderson — so Halfacre had thought — had rather curtly returned it.

“And you thought it meant I disliked you?”

“God, Henderson, I just didn’t know. It was so…you know, implicit with…with…What was I meant to think?”

“You said: ‘Hi there, Henderson’ and I said: ‘Hello’ back?”

“But it was the way you said it.”

“Hello.”

“‘Hello.’ There is only one way.”

“There you go again. ‘ Hler, hler .’”

“But that’s the way I talk , Pruitt.”

“But I felt that you…Look, OK, so I’m a little paranoid. I know. I’ve got problems of self-alignment. I worry about these things. The aggression in this city, Henderson. The competitiveness…I mean, there are guys I was at school with, guys I grew up with — dentists, brokers — earning twelve times what I do. Twelve .” He went on listing his complaints and fears. Henderson watched him light a thick cigar to go with his ‘black tea’, and wondered what Halfacre really had to worry about. If only he had Halfacre’s problems…Then it struck him that perhaps all that was important to the Halfacres of this world was actually to be in a state of worry — about something, about anything. I worry, ergo sum .

“I think it’s good for us to talk this way,” Halfacre said round his cigar. “You know if we — you and I — can get that sort of supportive holistic flow,” pushing motion with both hands, “God, could we generate and strengthen…We internalize, Henderson. I internalize. All the time, I know. It’s my fault. My hamartia , hah.” He frowned. “And that can’t be good, can it?”

“Well, no. I suppose. But on the other hand—”

“You’re right. You’re so right.”

They walked slowly up Fifth Avenue, the huge Park on their left, back towards the office.

“I’m very grateful, Henderson,” Halfacre said.

“Don’t mention it.”

“I want you to know how I value our friendship. How much I admire your books, and your learning.”

“Don’t give it another thought.” Henderson broke out in a sweat of embarrassment.

“No, I feel—”

“Let’s go to the Frick,” he said suddenly, inspired.

They paid their dollar each and entered the dim cool gallery. The splash of water from the courtyard, the solid grey stone and marble and the immaculate plants exuded a green tranquillity and worked their usual spell. Henderson relaxed. If only I could set my bed up here, he thought, I know I could sleep.

They moved slowly through a roomful of Goya, Lorrain and Van Dyck, then into another large room. Halfacre was silenced at last, looking at the paintings. Henderson’s mind wandered, pondering the logistics of his trip South. He decided to drive, spend a couple of days on the road. See Kentucky, Virginia…one night in Washington, perhaps. Irene could give him a guided tour round the capital. He smiled at the prospect. Stay in really nice hotels. Find somewhere near this Luxora Beach. Irene could swim and sunbathe while he worked at the Gage house during the day. Spend the evenings with Irene, just the two of them, Melissa and his conscience back in New York.

He paused. That was not exactly the sort of attitude one should develop towards one’s future wife. He grimaced slightly. He wondered why he persisted in being so divided, so untrue to his best instincts, so wayward in regard to his duty? Perhaps Pruitt would say that was his tragic flaw…

He looked round. Halfacre had gone on ahead. Henderson wheeled left and cut across the courtyard into another room. On the walls were Romneys, Gainsboroughs and Constables. For an instant he felt a tremor of homesickness for England. He thought dreamily of English landscapes, the reality behind the images hanging there. Now it was April the leaves would be well advanced, and in the fields…The enormous, hedgerowless fields would be loud prairies of brutal shouting yellow; some Common Market incentive having encouraged the farmers to sow every available acre with rape. And then in the autumn it was like driving through a wartorn country, vast columns of smoke from the burning stubble rising into the sky, the sky itself finely sedimented with flakes of ash. One weekend last summer, sitting outside a friend’s cottage in the Cotswolds reading the Sunday papers, he was driven indoors by a fragile rain of cinders that drifted softly but steadily down upon him from an apparently clear sky.