Alan Hollinghurst - The Line of Beauty

Under the fringed canopy of a stall he saw the down-turned profile of Sophie Tipper, studying a lot of old rings and bracelets pinned on a ramp of black velvet. His first thought was to ignore her or avoid her. He felt his old envy of her. But then Toby rolled into view behind her, leaning forward with a little pursed smile of vacant interest-very like a husband. He rested his chin on her shoulder for a moment, and she murmured something to him, so that Nick had the uncomfortable feeling of peering at their own heedless self-content. They made a necessarily beautiful couple, somehow luminous against the dark jumble of the market, like models in a subtle but artificial glare. Nick turned away and looked for something he could buy for Leo; he longed to do that. He saw all the reasons the impending social encounter might not be a success. "Hey, Guest!" said Toby, loping round the stall, grabbing him and giving him a firm kiss on the cheek.

"Hi-Toby… " Their kissing was a new thing, since the party, somehow made possible and indemnified by the presence of Sophie. And it seemed almost a relief to Toby, as if it erased some old low-level embarrassment about their not kissing. To Nick himself it was lovely, all the warmth of Toby for a moment against him, but unignorably sad too, since it was clearly the limit of concessions, granted in the certainty that nothing more intimate would ever follow.

"Hello, Nick!" said Sophie, coming round and kissing him on both cheeks with beaming goodwill, which he put down to her being such an up-and-coming actress. He wanted to introduce Leo, but he thought something wrong might be said, based on his excited gabble at Hawkeswood, when he was stoned. It was one of those inevitable but still surprising moments when mere wishful thinking was held to account by the truth. He said,

"You're going to be late for lunch," and thought he sounded rather rude.

"I know," said Toby. "Gran wants one of her sessions with Sophie. So we're keeping it as short as possible."

"Well, I love your grandmother," Sophie said, with mock petulance.

"No, she's a marvellous old girl," said Toby; and it reminded Nick of second-hand things he used to say at Oxford, sagacious remarks about his parents' famous friends. He smiled vaguely at Leo. If Sophie hadn't been there, Nick thought, then he could have shown Toby off to Leo as a glamorous accessory to his own past, perhaps something more… But like this Toby was hopelessly claimed and placed.

Nick said, "Sophie Tipper, Toby Fedden: Leo Charles," and Leo said "Leo" both times as he shook hands.

"Right," said Toby, "fantastic… We know all about you," and he gave an encouraging grin.

"Oh, do you," said Leo, drily doubtful at the return of his own phrase.

"Leo's Nick's new boyfriend," Toby said to Sophie. "Yah, it's really great."

Nick only took a quick agonized peep at Leo, whose expression was scarily blank, as if to dramatize his unrelinquished power of choice. The welling confidence of a few minutes before looked a foolish thing. Nick said, "Well, we don't want to jump the gun."

"But that's wonderful," said Sophie, as though Nick's welfare, his unhappy heart, had long been her concern. He saw her reaching wide to bless the double triumph of boyfriend and black.

"He's been keeping you very much to himself," said Toby. "But now we've caught you at it. So to speak!" And he blushed.

"We're just going for a little toddle," said Leo.

"That's marvellous." Toby seemed as thrilled as Sophie by what they imagined was happening, and Nick had a sad clear sighting of his deeper, perhaps even unconscious reason: that an obscure pressure, a sense of unvoiced expectations, might be lifted from him by the transference of Nick's adoration to another man. As Gerald might have said of something quite different, it was hugely to be encouraged. And maybe Sophie sensed that too. They'd probably even talked about it, before sleep, as a vague problem-just for a moment, before it shrank into irrelevance like shoes kicked off at the end of the bed…"So you're not joining us for lunch?" Toby went on.

"Not invited," said Leo, but with a cheerful shake of the head. Nick raced away from the mere idea of it, as a nexus of every snobbery and worry, scene of tortured intercessions between different departments of his own life: Leo-Gerald-Toby-Sophie-Lady Partridge…

"Well, another time," said Toby. "We must be going, Pips. But let's all meet up soon?"

"I knew we wouldn't find my ring," said Sophie, with the crossness that hides a sweetness that hides a toughness.

"We'll come back after lunch. The girl's got to have a ring," Toby explained, which Nick didn't like the sound of.

Leo had kept up an attitude of steady ironic contemplation of the young couple, but then he said, "I know I've seen you," and looked faintly embarrassed by his own gambit. Sophie's face was a lesson in hesitant delight.

"Oh…"

"I may be completely wrong," said Leo. "Weren't you in English Rose?"

Disappointed, she seemed to struggle to remember. "Oh, no… Clever you, but no, I wasn't in that one."

"That was Betsy Tilden," said Nick.

"Right, oh yeah, Betsy… No, I know I've seen you…"

Nick wanted to say that she'd only been in two things, an episode of Bergerac and a student-made film of The White Devil, bankrolled by her father, which had had a single late-night screening at the Gate.

"I was in a film that was called The White Devil," said Sophie, as though speaking to a child.

"That was it!" said Leo. "Yes! That was a fantastic film. I love that film."

"I'm so glad," said Sophie. "You are kind!"

Leo was smiling and staring, as if the scenes were spooling through his head again, miraculously matched by the woman in front of him. "Yeah, when he poisons him, and… Did you see this film, Nick, White Devil …?"

"Stupidly, I missed it," Nick said; though he had a clear recollection of undergraduates acting at being film-makers, bouncing round in jeeps and wearing dark glasses at night; the Flamineo, Jamie Stallard, a drawling Martyrs' Club twit, was one of his favourite betes noires.

"I've got to tell you, that guy-Jamie, is it?-ooh-ooh…"

"I know," said Sophie. "I thought you'd like him."

"You're not wrong, girl," laughed Leo, so lit up with sassy excitement that Nick thought he might be teasing Sophie. "But he's not, though-you'd better tell me-he's not. .. is he…?"

"Oh…! I'm afraid he isn't, no. A lot of people ask that," Sophie admitted.

Leo took it philosophically. "Well, when it comes on again I'm definitely taking him," he said, tutting as if they both thought cultivated, first-class Nick, still heavy-headed with exam knowledge, steeped to the chaps in revenge tragedy, was a bit of a slob.

"All right," said Nick, seeing it at least as a couple of hours in the warm dark together, rather than behind a bush. "And I can tell you all about Jamie Stallard," he added.

But Leo's real interest was in Sophie. "So what are you doing next?" he said. Nick raised his eyebrows apologetically to Toby, who shook his head kindly, as if to say that going out with a promising actress he was bound to find himself in an attendant role. Sophie herself looked slightly overexcited, partly at the praise but partly because she wasn't used to talking to anyone like Leo, and it seemed to be going really well. "I'll let you know," she was saying. "I can get your number off Nick!"

Nick wished he could match Toby's confidence. He felt snubbed by Leo's attentions to Sophie, but perhaps it was only because he felt foolish, childish at having put it about that they were boyfriends. Toby said, "Really, we must go, Pips," and there was something so silly about this nickname that it helped Nick not to care.