Rupert Thomson - Dreams of Leaving

Moses took a deep breath. ‘Nice,’ he said.

Heather smiled. ‘Introductions,’ she said and, taking him gently by the arm, guided him down the steps. Her hand was elegant, tanned, and uncluttered by rings, except for the one that bound her, presumably, to Mr Wood.

Thirty or forty people stood about in different parts of the room. Heather steered Moses from one clique to another, supplying him with names and, where appropriate, pieces of information, gossip or scandal to fix the names in his mind. She was an accomplished hostess, but Moses’s mind, bombarded by an afternoon of Vince, took in less than it might have done.

He remembered meeting a barrister called John Dream, though, because John Dream looked exactly like Bernard Levin. Heather, laughingly, agreed.

He remembered ‘Prince’ Hudson Oleander too. ‘Prince’ Hudson Oleander was a tennis pro from Famoso, California. He had a lecherous sunburnt face with cracks in it, like wood. Apparently he had won the title ‘Prince’ at a tournament in Forest Hills on account of his extraordinary graciousness on court. ‘Apparently,’ Heather whispered behind her hand, ‘it’s the only title he’s ever won.’

Then there was Hermann von Weltraum and his wife, Lottie. (‘Astrologers,’ Heather explained, ‘from Munich.’ Moses thought momentarily, almost wistfully, of Madame Zola, Famous Clairvoyant. He wondered if the Germans were Famous Astrologers. Looking at Hermann’s prissy pink face he doubted it somehow.) And Romeo Pelz, a clothes designer, and his male assistant, Derek. (‘Romeo,’ Heather lowered her eyes, ‘lives up to his name.’) And Christian Persson, a member of the Swedish delegation for human rights and a man, Moses saw, with absolutely no sense of humour. Christian Persson introduced Moses to the Very Reverend William Cloth, vicar of the parish. Heather moved away to fetch Moses a drink. He would need one, the glimmer in her eyes seemed to say.

The religious atmosphere of the group was quickly dispelled by the apparition of a short muscular woman with glazed brown eyes. She had dark curly hair and wore a caftan. If she had had a beard as well as a moustache, she could have passed for Demis Roussos. She was, in fact, Margaux Kampf, an actress.

‘I’m Margaux,’ she purred. ‘With an x.’

Moses looked puzzled. ‘I didn’t hear an x. Did you hear an x, Mr Persson?’

The Swede’s pale-blue eyes opened wide. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t understand.’

‘It’s on the end, lovey,’ Margaux growled. ‘It’s a silent one.’

Jesus, Moses thought. He looked across at the Reverend. The Reverend was also thinking Jesus, by the look of it.

‘I’m Moses,’ Moses said. ‘No x.’

‘That’s cute,’ said Margaux. ‘What do you do?’

‘I’m an escape-artist,’ Moses said. ‘Watch.’ And he turned round and walked away.

Heather moved towards him with a glass of champagne. ‘Is this all right, Moses? Or would you prefer something stronger?’

Moses assured her that champagne was quite strong enough for him.

Heather smiled past him. ‘Here’s someone I don’t need to introduce you to.’

‘Champagne’s quite strong enough for me.’ Gloria was mimicking him. ‘What’re you up to, Moses?’

She was all lit up tonight with the thrill of being on her own ground. She wore a bottle-green turtleneck, a black moiré skirt, black tights. Jet earrings swung against her pale neck. Her dark eyes trained on his face like search-lights, scanning him for signs of misbehaviour.

He smiled. ‘I’m trying to make a good impression.’

‘You’re full of shit, Moses,’ she said.

He held up a finger. ‘Not completely. I’ve got some news for you. You’re singing at The Bunker. I’ve fixed it up with Elliot.’

‘I take back everything I said.’ She took his face between her hands and kissed the tip of his nose. Then pulled away laughing. ‘I know what you’ve been doing. You’ve been taking speed.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘I just tasted it. On the end of your nose.’

They were still laughing when a man in a pale grey suit appeared at Gloria’s elbow. ‘May I be introduced?’

‘Dad,’ Gloria said, ‘I’d like you to meet Moses. Moses, this is my father.’

The two men shook hands.

Mr Wood had a way of looking at you from under his eyelids that made you feel as if you were testing his patience. He doesn’t like me, Moses thought. He watched Gloria move away, and it seemed as if she was taking his joy and spontaneity with her. He didn’t want to be left alone with Mr Wood. There was only one way to talk to this manicured man, he sensed, and that was politely. The prospect of having to be polite depressed him.

‘This house is amazing,’ he blurted out and instantly regretted it; Mr Wood looked like the kind of man who expected precision not superlatives.

‘I suppose a lot of people say that,’ he added, trying to salvage something from the wreckage of his opening remark.

The ice squeaked in Mr Wood’s glass, but didn’t quite break. Moses felt like the Titanic. Sinking fast.

‘Yes,’ Mr Wood said. ‘Most people say that.’

Perhaps he felt, during the brief silence that followed, that he had been a little too abrupt or uncharitable because he then offered to show Moses the plans of the house, if he was interested, that is.

Moses said he was. I suppose most people say that, he thought.

Mr Wood took him over to the far side of the room. He unrolled a giant scroll of paper, spread it flat on the table, and pinned the corners down with glass weights. Then he began to talk quietly about the juxtaposition of planes, the distribution of space, and so on. Moses now remembered Gloria mentioning her father and architecture in the same breath, and suddenly all the pieces fell into place.

‘So you designed this house yourself?’

‘That’s right,’ Mr Wood said, as if Moses had finally found the answer to an extremely simple riddle, as if Moses’s surprise was, in itself, surprising.

Mr Wood was an attractive man. Very attractive. He was one of those people who look ten years younger than their age, even though you don’t know how old they are. But Moses had one problem with him. He behaved like one of his own technical drawings. He was what he did. He was too designed. The neatness of his features and his suit. The efficiency of his gestures. The measured way he used words — the way you might use bricks. And his smile, a ruled line across his face that, even now, seemed to be disclaiming any beauty the building might have achieved over and above its functional perfection. That’s all very well, Moses thought, but where does Mrs Wood fit in? He had instantly picked up on the playful streak in her, yet the only thing he had noticed in the house so far that in any way resembled her or might be seen as her doing was the vase of wild grasses on the coffee-table. And there couldn’t be much room in a technical drawing, he imagined, for a vase of wild grasses. He suddenly felt the urge to rescue her from all this. To ride into the white house on a black horse. To snatch her up from under her husband’s perfect nose. To save her from sterility, these expensive chains, this rich death. A rustling distracted him. Mr Wood was rolling up his plans with brisk dry movements of his hands.

*

Moses subsided on to a settee with a fresh glass of champagne. He had wanted to speak to Gloria, but she was tied up with friends of her mother’s. Disconsolate, he faced into the room, watched the guests manoeuvring.

Romeo Pelz, for instance, whose eyes were black except for one tiny silver point at the centre of each pupil, had his arm round Derek’s narrow shoulders and was extracting, by the look of it, some kind of promise or assurance. Derek listened, eyes half-closed, mouth widened like a cat’s, and revolved his head, first clockwise, then anti-clockwise.