Alan Hollinghurst - The Line of Beauty

He moved away with it, spoke to someone he knew, glancing off to check his own looks in one of the pub's many mirrors, and saw the black man in profile, turning briefly, unconsciously, to full face, and turning back again to answer his friend. Even then, the nostalgic idea that he was like Leo held off for a second or two the recognition that he was Leo. The greying beard hid the gauntness of his features, and the hat was rolled down to his eyebrows. Even after that Nick shunned the possibility, looked away, in case the man should meet his eye in the mirror with an answering slide into shock, and then glanced back, already hardened in the fiction that he hadn't recognized him. He pressed through into the other room. There was a party of French boys, there was a man he'd fancied at the Y, the whole bar was a fierce collective roar, and he edged and smiled politely through it like a sober late arrival at a wild party. His heart was thumping, and the expectant glow in his chest had become some neighbouring sensation, a clench of guilt and regret. It was simply an instinct, a reflex, that had made him turn away. A minute later he saw it could just as easily have thrown him towards Leo; but he was a coward. He was frightened of him-afraid of being rebuffed and full of grim doubts about what was happening to him. Perhaps he should go back in and check that it really was him-he was suddenly happy at the thought that it couldn't have been. He shouldered back through the crowd, sensing their vague annoyance at moving for him again; but stopped and got talking to the man from the Y, boldly but inattentively. He knew he had a bluebird tattooed on his left buttock, and he'd seen him with a sensible erection in the showers, but these cute memories seemed steadily more meaningless. He knocked back his drink in distracted gulps. Then he went downstairs to the Gents, and found, when he peeped sideways along the reeking trough, that the man had followed him; so they stood there for a bit, in a tense delay whilst other people came and went, until the man nodded towards the empty lock-up. Nick said it was too risky, felt almost annoyed that this was happening, yet curiously timid and grateful too. The man said he lived in Soho, they could go there, five minutes' walk, and Nick said OK. It was a kind of shield. Actually it was a brilliant quick success, a fantasy granted, but Nick couldn't feel it. "We'll go out the side way," said the man, who also gave his name, Joe. "Oh, OK," said Nick. They went through the back bar, Nick with his hand on Joe's broad shoulder, sticking cheerfully close to him and turning a blank gaze across the room to find the little woolly-hatted figure, utterly unknown to Joe, who had once been his lover.

"OH MY!" said Treat. "Pansy salad!" "It's really rather good," said Nick.

Treat watched him, over his cocktail glass, to see if he was joking. "Is it all pansies?"

"What's that?" said Brad.

"It's mostly rather butch lettuce," said Nick. "They just put one or two pansies on top."

"Butch lettuce…!" said Treat, full of flirty reproach.

"They're token pansies," said Nick.

"I'm going to have to try it," said Treat.

"You should certainly have it once," said Nick.

"What's that?" said Brad.

"Treat wants to try the pansy salad," said Nick.

"Oh… oh, I see, 'pansy salad': oh my!"

"I just said that," said Treat.

Nick smiled round the restaurant, relieved to see two famous writers at one table, and a famous actress at another. Brad Craft and Treat Rush, till now mere muscular spondees of American suggestion, had turned out to be a socially hungry pair. Brad was indeed big and muscular, handsome and pleasant, if rather slow on the uptake. Treat was the talker, about Nick's height, with a shiny blond fringe that he kept in line with a pointed little finger. They had come over for Nat Hanmer's wedding, and were spending the whole of October in England ("Anything to escape the New England fall!" said Treat). Today there was the film to talk about, but they were clearly working, with one eye always on the square beyond, at a thorough penetration of London, and were full of slapdash questions about people and titles. The point seemed to be to ask questions; they didn't bother much with the answers. They held out the threat of being easily bored. Nick hoped Gusto would amuse them. He saw Treat watching the kitchen through the blue glass wall, which turned the chef and his sweating minions into a faintly erotic cabaret of hard work.

"Do you know this guy Julius Money?" said Brad.

"Well, I've met him," said Nick.

"Isn't that a great name? And kind of appropriate, I guess, right?"

"Oh yes," said Nick. "They have this huge Jacobean house in Norfolk, with a fabulous collection of paintings. Actually, I've always thought -"

"Oh, what about Pomona Brinkley!" said Treat. "We met her. Now what's she all about?"

"I don't know her," said Nick.

"She was great," said Treat.

"Oh, yeah, we met this guy Lord John… Fanshaw?" said Brad. "He knows all about you! He said you were the most charming man in London."

"Yeah," said Treat, and looked lingeringly at Nick again.

"I feel he must have been thinking of someone else," said Nick coyly, and didn't come clean that he'd never heard of his lordship.

"You know Nat really well, right?" said Treat.

"Oh yes," said Nick, with suaver confidence. "We were at Oxford together. Though these days I suppose I see more of his mother than him.

She's a great friend of my friend Rachel Fedden." He watched the name make its frail bid for recognition.

"He's so sweet."

"No, he's lovely. He's had, you know, he's had a lot of problems."

"Yeah…?" said Treat. "It's such a shame he's not family."

"Well…" said Nick. "Where did you two meet him?"

"Oh, we met him at the Rosenheims' last fall, in East Hampton? Which of course is when we also met… Antoine."

"And Martina," said Brad.

"Yes, Martine," said Nick.

"Yes, Brad loved Antoine," said Treat. He put the straw to his lips and sucked pointedly at the reddish brown liquid.

Brad said, "Yeah, what a lovely guy."

"So you haven't seen him since?" Nick knew he should warn them, but didn't know how to start.

"So Nat's some kind of lord, right?" said Brad.

"Yes," said Nick. "He's a marquess."

"Oh my god…!" said Treat under his breath.

"What, so he's Marquess… is it Chirk?"

"Chirk is the family name. His title is Marquess of Hanmer."

"Brad…? You see who's over there?"

"So what do we call his old man?" said Brad, shaking his head as he turned in his chair.

"His father's the Duke of Flintshire. I should just call him sir."

"Treat, my god, you're right… it's Betsy!"

"I want her to be in my film," said Treat. "She's such a great British actress."

"I don't know if you will meet the Duke," Nick went on, uncertain how much pomp he was borrowing from mere use of the word. He aimed to speak of the aristocracy in a factual tone, because of his shame at his father's tally of earls. "I've only met him once. He never leaves the Castle. You know he's a cripple."

"You British… " said Treat, only half-relinquishing his childlike gaze at Betsy Tilden. She seemed to loom for him as a marvel and a dare, and Nick could see him going over to her. She was much too young for Mrs Gereth, and quite wrong for Fleda Vetch. "You're so brutal!"

"Mm…?" said Nick.

"You know, 'he's a cripple'-really."

"Oh… " said Nick, and blushed as if it was his lurking snobbery that had been criticized and not whatever this was. "I'm sorry, but that's actually what the Duke calls himself. He hasn't walked since he was a boy." He was slightly winded to be called on a point of delicacy-and one that impinged, obliquely but perceptibly, on their lunch. He cleared his throat and said, "You know, there's something I should tell you… Ah, here we are." He raised a hand as Wani appeared at the desk by the door, and as he got up he heard both Americans murmuring, "Oh my god…"