Alan Hollinghurst - The Line of Beauty

"You've not given her your own thoughts on it."

"Not yet…" said Nick. "She's quite closely managed, isn't she? She's in charge, but she goes where she's told."

"Well, she's not in charge here," said Catherine, beckoning boldly to Tristao. "What do you want to drink?"

"What do I want?'.' said Nick, matching Tristao's formal smile with a sly one, and running his eyes up the waiter's body. "What would I like best?"

"Champagne, sir? Or something stronger?"

"Champagne for now," Nick drawled, "and something stronger later." The view of pleasure deepened in front of him, the lovely teamwork of drugs and drink, the sense of risk nonsensically heightening the sense of security, the new conviction he could do what he wanted with Tristao, after all these years. Tristao himself merely nodded, but as he stooped to reach an empty glass he leant quickly and heavily on Nick's knee. Nick watched him going away through the crowded room and for several long seconds it was all one perspective, here and Hawkeswood, the gilt, the mirrors, room after room, the glimpsed coat-tails of a fugitive idea: which then came to you, by itself, and it was what you wanted. The pursuit was nothing but a restless way of waiting. All shall have prizes: Gerald was right. When Tristao came back and bowed the drinks on their tray towards them, Nick plucked up his glass in a toast that was both general and secret. "To us," he said.

"To us," said Catherine. "Do stop flirting with that waiter."

A minute later she said, "Fedden seems pretty lively tonight. Most unlike himself, I must say." They looked across to where Toby was sprawled on the PM's sofa and telling some unimaginable joke. Just beside the PM the wide dented seat cushion was a reception zone on which supplicants perched for an audience of a minute or two before being amicably dislodged-though Toby, trading perhaps on the triumph of his speech after dinner, had been there rather longer.

"I wouldn't be surprised," said Nick, "if Wani hadn't given him a bit of laughing powder to get him through."

"Oh, god," said Catherine disparagingly, before smiling at the idea of it. "You know what he's like, he'll offer her a poke or whatever it's called."

"She's had a lot to drink, hasn't she. But it doesn't seem to have any effect."

"It's so funny watching the men with her. They come up with their wives but you can see they're an embarrassment-look at that one now, yes, shakes hands, 'Yes, Prime Minister, yes, yes,' can't quite get round to introducing his wife… obviously longing for her to get lost so he can have a hot date with the Lady himself-now she's got to sit on the sofa, he's furious… but yes! she's got him-he's squatting down… he's kneeling on the carpet…"

"Maybe she'll make him kiss her, um…"

"Oh, surely not…"

"Her ring, darling!"

"Oh, maybe. It's a very big one."

"Well, she's quite queenly, isn't she, in that outfit."

"Queenly?… Darling, she looks like a country and western singer."

Catherine gave a brief screech, so that people turned round with varying degrees of humour and irritation. She had a look of running on quite fast inside. She held her trembling glass in front of her face. "These champagne flutes are simply enormous!" she said.

"I know, they're sort of champagne tubas, aren't they," said Nick.

Some very loud fireworks started going off in the communal gardens, mortars and thunderclaps. The windows rattled and the bangs echoed off the houses. People shouted cheerfully and flinched, but the Prime Minister didn't flinch, she fortified her voice with a firm diapason as if rising to the challenge of a rowdy Chamber. Around her her courtiers started like pheasants.

"Actually what amazes me," Nick said, "is the fantastic queenery of the men. The heterosexual queenery."

"I sort of expect that," said Catherine. "You know, having Gerald…"

"Darling, Gerald's like a navvy in overalls, he's a miner on a picket line compared to some of these people. Look at old, um, the Minister for… what is he the Minister for?"

"I don't know, he's the Monster for something. With the pink face. I've seen him on telly."

It was one of the men standing directly behind the PM, like a showman, both protecting and exhibiting her. From time to time he cast covetous glances at her hair. His own grey curls were oiled back in deep crinkly waves, over which he passed a hand that barely touched. He was one of the few men who were wearing a white tuxedo, and his posture was a superb denial of a possible gaffe. The jacket had swooping lapels, with cream silk facings; a line of flashing blue dress studs climbed to a lolling, surely purple, velvet bow tie. His wing collar kept his head framed at a haughty angle, and a tight silk cummerbund kept him erect and deepened the dyspeptic flush on his face.

Catherine said, "I can see no self-respecting homosexual would dress like that."

"Oh, I wouldn't go that far," said Nick, uncertain which of them was being more ironic. "It's just the licensed vanity…"

"He's the Monster of Vanity, darling!" said Catherine with another whoop.

He went to the first-floor lavatory and had a quick line there. It seemed a bit unnecessary to go all furtively upstairs. He snorted with a thumb against each nostril in turn, and smirked back at Gerald shaking hands with Ronald Reagan. You never felt the old boy knew who Gerald was-he had that look of medium-level benevolence. From outside the music was thumping, it had been Big Band jazz and now it was earlyish rock 'n' roll, such as Rachel and Gerald might conceivably have danced to twenty-five years ago. Fireworks popped and screeched. Beyond the locked door the collective boom of the party could be heard, with its undertone of secret opportunities: there were two men here that he wanted. The door handle rattled, he tidied, checked, flushed, tweaked his bow tie in the mirror, and sauntered out, hardly seeing the policeman waiting.

The Duchess had taken his place next to Catherine, so he looked about. The crowded drawing room was his playground. He found himself lounging intently towards the PM's sofa. Toby came away like an actor into the wings, still smiling; he couldn't say what she'd said. Lady Partridge had been hovering, and bent and clasped the Prime Minister's hand. She seemed nearly as speechless as Nick would have been on meeting a revered writer. "I love your work" was really all one could say. But in this case, as Lady Partridge was an old woman, a crinkle of wisdom and maternal pride could be seen beside the childlike awe and submission. Nick couldn't quite hear what she was saying… something about the litter problem?… and he was pretty sure that she herself couldn't hear the PM-but it didn't matter, they hung on to each other's hands, in an act of homage or even of healing which for Judy was a thrilling novelty and for the PM a deeply familiar routine. They were both fairly sozzled, and might almost have been having an argument as they tugged their hands backwards and forwards and raised their voices. There was something in the PM that seemed to say she'd have preferred an argument, it was what she was best at, and as Judy withdrew, crouching blindly backwards, she picked up her empty whisky glass and banged it against the leg of the Monster of Vanity.

It was the simplest thing to do-Nick came forward and sat, half-kneeling, on the sofa's edge, like someone proposing in a play. He gazed delightedly at the Prime Minister's face, at her whole head, beaked and crowned, which he saw was a fine if improbable fusion of the Vorticist and the Baroque. She smiled back with a certain animal quickness, a bright blue challenge. There was the soft glare of the flash-twice-three times-a gleaming sense of occasion, the gleam floating in the eye as a blot of shadow, his heart running fast with no particular need of courage as he grinned and said, "Prime Minister, would you like to dance?"