Alan Hollinghurst - The Line of Beauty

"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 again, 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."