Rupert Thomson - Dreams of Leaving

Mrs Violet de Light, a shivery woman of forty-fivish with a bell of grey hair and darting eyes (her husband was a publisher, Moses remembered Heather telling him, and she worked on several committees), leaned against the wall in the space between two paintings, her scrawny body twisting sideways and upwards towards Christian Persson like a lightning-struck tree, her ear no more than an inch from his blond Don Quixote beard and his mauve lips as he told her that, no, it wasn’t so much religion that mattered in his work as morality. Mrs de Light quivered with fascination at the word.

Ronald, a journalist, stood by the bookcase. He was gulping neat vodka and casting long shadowy glances in the direction of a girl called Phoebe (whose professional name, Moses had heard someone bitch earlier on, was Dolores). Phoebe was being clutched from behind by the tanned Prince Oleander. His rugged face nuzzled her neck. One of his hands steadied her hip; the other gripped her wrist and guided it smoothly this way and that. Some kind of impromptu tennis-lesson, presumably. A backhand pass. Prince Oleander was having trouble keeping his eye on the imaginary ball. He seemed more interested in the way Phoebe’s breasts were plunging against the two flimsy strips of pink material that made up the top half of her dress. Moses saw Ronald’s grey face sag. This was one game the journalist would never win.

John Dream, meanwhile, was leafing through a book in the comfort of an armchair. He occasionally lifted a hand to pat the crinkly greying waves of his hair. He patted them very carefully as if they were priceless or easily frightened.

The Very Reverend Cloth stood in the middle of the room, transferring his vacant pulpit gaze from one passing guest to the next. Nobody stopped to talk to him, with the exception of Heather who might have been a puppeteer the way she brought sudden jittery life to those rather wooden limbs.

Now and then Moses caught a glimpse of Gloria threading her way through the gathering, as sharp and bright as a needle. He saw her walk up to a young American who looked like Paul Newman. He watched Gloria listen to Paul Newman talking. She seemed to be listening with her whole body. She radiated interest like light. Paul Newman slipped an arm round her shoulders and slid a few droll words out of the corner of his mouth. They both laughed. Those few moments hauled him back to the first time he ever saw her, talking to those two men at the party in Holland Park, and suddenly it was as if the gap between them — there then, there now — had never closed, as if that first impression had stained the way he looked at her, stained it with some bitter resin that nothing they ever did together, no amount of closeness, could remove, and suddenly he wanted to be John Dream, buried in the pages of a book, oblivious, content, or home alone, pouring milk into a dish for Bird — anything but this. And Gloria chose that moment to notice him. She detached herself from the American — rather too abruptly, Moses thought — and moved towards him through the crowd. The smile she was carrying looked forced somehow, artificial. It was like watching an air stewardess moving from first class to economy, her pleasantness no longer natural but obligatory. It was like being back at the orphanage. He felt condescended to.

She sat down next to him.

‘Are you all right?’ she said.

She touched his arm. An afterthought.

He didn’t look at her.

She tightened her grip on his arm. ‘What’s wrong, Moses?’

‘Nothing,’ he said.

His arm felt pressurised. He moved it away from her.

‘You were having a better time over there,’ he said. ‘Maybe you’d better go back.’

He wanted her to understand this simple unreasonable jealousy of his, but when he lifted his eyes to meet hers, he saw that she had taken a different turning somewhere. Suddenly they were miles apart and travelling in opposite directions.

‘Is that what you want?’ she said.

He shrugged.

She got up and walked away.

He didn’t watch her go.

Herr and Frau von Weltraum, the German astrologers, took her place on the settee.

‘Do you, by any chance, speak German?’ Hermann asked, pushing his spectacles a little higher on his inquisitive pink nose.

‘ Nein ,’ Moses said.

Hermann found this tremendously funny, and turned to relate it to his wife. His wife leaned forwards so as to smile at the humorous Englishman.

But the humorous Englishman had left.

*

Out on the patio Moses almost tripped over Ronald the journalist. Ronald lay against the wall, legs splayed, hair plastered over his forehead.

‘What are you doing down there?’ Moses asked.

‘Drinking.’

‘What are you drinking?’

A bottle rose into the air. Moonlight silvered the transparent glass. ‘Vodka. Have some.’

‘Thank you.’ Moses swallowed a mouthful and handed the bottle back.

‘I’m Ronald,’ Ronald said. ‘Who are you?’

‘Moses.’

‘Christ.’

‘Yeah, I know.’ Moses studied the journalist with some curiosity. ‘So what are you really doing out here?’

Ronald mauled his face with his free hand. ‘I’m pissed off. Bloody pissed off.’

He had been looking for Phoebe, he explained. You know, Phoebe. The girl with the incredible tits. He had looked all over the house. No dice. So he tried the garden, didn’t he. He was just crossing the lawn when he heard this moan. Coming from the shrubbery, it was. He got down on his hands and knees and crawled the last few yards. And there she was, kneeling in the bushes, her dress pushed down to her waist, her fat breasts erotically tattooed in light and shade. Bloody marvellous sight. Except she wasn’t alone, of course. How did he know? He saw this pair of hands appear on her shoulders, didn’t he. He watched them sort of slide downwards until they were — oh Christ –

‘Prince Oleander,’ Moses said. ‘Giving her another tennis lesson.’

The journalist’s head slumped on to his chest. Then he lifted the bottle to his mouth and swallowed twice, fiercely. He had watched, he told Moses. He hadn’t wanted to. He just had to. He had watched them fucking in the shrubbery. Shuddering rubbery fucking in the shrubbery. He had watched them for ever. Well, until Phoebe started coming, anyway. That he couldn’t take. So he had dragged himself back to the patio and hit the bottle. He wanted to get shit-faced. Best way to be.

‘Are they still out there?’ Moses asked, cocking an ear.

‘I don’t know. Don’t fucking care. Thought I was in with a chance, you see. But I don’t come from Calibloodyfornia, do I.’

The vodka bottle lunged at Moses again. He shook his head this time.

‘Californication,’ Ronald said. He laughed bitterly.

Moses climbed to his feet. ‘Thanks for the drink.’

‘You going?’

Moses nodded. ‘Got to find someone.’

‘Fucking women,’ Ronald said.

*

The day was catching up on Moses. Moving back indoors, shaky now, a little brittle too, he suddenly understood that the setting for the party, though extravagant and dreamlike, was at the same time perfectly stable. Cushioned on the surface, rock-solid underneath. Everything running along preordained and well-oiled lines. Crossing the living area, he saw the discreet glances of shared amusement that passed between Mr and Mrs Wood, he saw their confidence in each other, the strength of their attachment. They could invite strangers, frauds, drunks, vicars, tarts — all potential spanners in the works — to their parties, they could mix them together like some giant human cocktail, they could flirt with other people’s chaos because they knew it would never happen to them. The spanners in the works might make a pleasant tinkling sound, but they would never damage the machinery. How could he, Moses, match a performance like theirs?