Alan Hollinghurst - The Line of Beauty

"I had a call from Sam Zeman earlier."

"Right," said Nick, slightly jealous. "I must give him a ring."

They got out of the car, and Nick dawdled across the road, finding it hard to go at Wani's pace. He kissed Monique and explained that Wani had brought up his lunch; she nodded, pursed her lips and swallowed in a funny mimetic reflex. She was dignified and withdrawn, but as she touched her son's upper arm the glow of a long-surrendered power over him came into her face, the animal solace of being allowed to love and protect him, even against such hopeless odds. Wani himself, with the women at each elbow, seemed to shrink into their keeping; the sustaining social malice of the past two hours abandoned him at the threshold. They forgot their manners, and the door was closed again without anyone saying goodbye.

NICK CROSSED KNIGHTSBRIDGE and went through Albert Gate into the Park. He swung his arms, and his calves and thighs ached with guilty vigour. There was so much to think about, and the Park itself seemed pensive, the chestnuts standing in pools of their shed leaves, the great planes, slower to change, still towering tan and gold; but all he wanted to do was march along. A group of young women on horseback came trotting down Rotten Row, and he crossed behind them, over the damp, crusted sand. He didn't mind the north-easterly breeze. It was the time of year when the atmosphere streamed with unexpected hints and memories, and a paradoxical sense of renewal. He thought of meeting Leo after work, always early, the chill of promise in the air. Once or twice they met at the bandstand, away over there, with the copper ogee roof: strange that that particular shape should have floated on its slender pillars above the quick kiss, quick touch, odd nervous avoidance of their meetings. He took the long diagonal that went past Watts's monument to, or of, Physical Energy: the huge-thighed horseman reining back and gazing, in a ferment of discovery, towards Kensington Palace. Nick gave it the smug glance which showed that as a critic he noticed it and as a Londoner he took it for granted.

He thought about the Clerkenwell building. What Wani had bought was three narrow Victorian properties making a corner block, one extending deep behind the others into a high iron-and-glass-roofed workshop. They were solidly built, of blackened brick which showed up plum red when they were knocked down. There were doorbells of moribund trades, a glass beveller, a "Church and Legal" printer. There were boarded-up windows, industrial wiring, the light vandalism of use. Wani had taken Nick to see them, and Nick's whole impulse was to do them up and live in them. He went into the cellars and attics, heaved open trapdoors, climbed onto the leads, and looked down through the steep glass roof into the workshop where Wani was pacing around in his beautiful suit, flipping his car keys in his hand. Nick saw their friends coming to parties and dancing in that room.

Something in Wani's impatient, unseeing manner told him this was never going to happen. He felt like a child whose desperate visionary plea has no chance of persuading a parent. And of course the buildings came down-for a month or two the backs of other buildings not seen for a century felt the common sunlight, and then Baalbek House, named by Wani as if he'd written a poem, started to go up. Nick cast about but really he'd never seen a more meretricious design than that of Baalbek House. His own ideas were discounted with the grunting chuckle of someone wedded to another vision of success and defiantly following cheaper advice. And now this monster Lego house, with its mirror windows and maroon marble cladding, was to be Nick's for life.

When he turned into Kensington Park Gardens Nick remembered what Wani had said about Gerald, and started walking more slowly, as if to resist a strange acceleration of trouble. He was shy about meeting Gerald, who could be aggressive when in the wrong and sarcastic when he needed support. The Range Rover was parked outside the house, which might mean he'd come back early from Parliament. It looked significant. As so often, Nick didn't know what he was supposed to know-or indeed what he did know, since creative accounting was just a jocular phrase to him. Behind the Range Rover a man in a reddish leather jacket was leaning on the roof of a parked car and talking to another man sitting at the wheel. He looked up as Nick approached, and carried on talking while his eyes, in one fluent sequence, seemed to find him, hold him, scan him and dismiss him. Nick turned in at No. 48, and glanced back while he felt for his keys: the man was staring at him, and raised his chin as though about to call out, but then said nothing. He smiled unnervingly. His friend in the car passed him a camera through the window and he put it to his eye and took three pictures in two seconds-Nick was mesmerized by the lazy precision of the clicks; and too surprised to know what he felt. He felt victimized, and flattered, pretty important and utterly insignificant, since they clearly had no idea who he was. He thought in dignity he shouldn't answer questions, and was confused by their not asking him any. It took him an age to open the blue door.

In the hall everything seemed calm. Elena was in the kitchen and Nick said hello and waited for a sign from her. She was preparing the "meal and a half," the separate portion, like a child's or an invalid's, that was made for Gerald when he was going to be late at the House. "Have you seen what's going on outside?" said Nick. Elena thumbed her pastry expressively, but only said,

"I don't know."

"Is Gerald here?"

"Is gone to work."

"Oh good…"

"Miz Fed upstairs with his Lord." Elena radiated resentment, and Nick didn't risk exploring its cause, whether it was Gerald or what was being done to him: it felt large enough to include everyone. "You take the tray?" she said.

The kettle was coming to the boil, and the tray was ready with two teacups and the little sweet lebkuchen that Rachel liked. Nick warmed the pot and put in two spoonfuls of lapsang. It was the set with a pink Petit Trianon in a wreath on each cup and saucer, dull and pale now from the fury of the dishwasher. He poured on the water, gave it a good stir, dropped the lid on, and picked up the tray. Elena looked at him more amiably but shook her head. "Is Street of Shame," she said. "Is Street of Shame, Nick." It was the Private Eye phrase for Fleet Street, which Gerald had once teased Toby with, but Nick wasn't sure if she meant that or if she meant that Kensington Park Gardens itself had been brought down.

The drawing-room door was open, and Nick slowed again before going in. Lionel was saying, "If he has been a bloody fool then he'll have to face the consequences. If he hasn't, then we have infinite resources to demonstrate the fact." His manner was as quiet as ever, but without its usual cordiality: he sounded as if he expected the former option, and the stain it would bring on the family. Nick rattled the tray and went in. Rachel was standing by the mantelpiece, Lionel sitting in an armchair, and for a second Nick thought of the scene in The Portrait of a Lady when Isabel discovers her husband sitting while Mme Merle is standing, and sees at once that they are more intimate than she had realized. "Ah, my dear… " said Rachel, as Nick came forward with a slight mime of servility, which wasn't spotted as a joke. Lionel greeted him with his eyes, and went on, "When's he due back?" "He's got a late division," Rachel murmured. And Nick, setting down the tray, saw that though he hadn't chanced in on a secret he had caught the note of an older, more unguarded friendship than he'd heard before, the shared intelligence of brother and sister.

"Thanks so much," said Rachel.

"Did you have your picture taken?" said Lionel.