The Line of Beauty - Alan Hollinghurst [110]
"I know . . . " said Lady Kimbolton, her square practical face tilting this way and that to see what was on the table.
"Nigel must be chuffed," Sir Maurice said.
"Maurice and I have been to a number of concerts at friends' houses lately, it's an excellent move," said Lady Tipper, who was known to be artistic.
"I know, there seems to be an absolute mania for concerts," Lady Kimbolton said. "This is the second one I've been to this year."
"I hear Lionel Kessler, you know . . . ? had the Medici Quartet at Hawkeswood for a marvellous evening with Giscard d'Estaing."
"I think that's really what gave Gerald the idea," said Nick, joshing in between them as they got to the table.
"Oh, hello . . ."
"Hello, Dolly," said Nick. He knew he could do quite a funny sketch about Gerald's growing preoccupation with the concert idea, which had come to a peak of competitive angst when Denis Beckwith, a handsome old saurian of the right enjoying fresh acclaim these days, had hired Kiri te Kanawa to sing Mozart and Strauss at his eighty-fifth birthday party. But something made him tread carefully. "You know how competitive he is," he said.
"We're all for competition!" said Dolly Kimbolton, claiming her plate of salmon from the waiter.
"Jolly good, jolly good . . . " said Gerald, weaving through behind them. "Clever you to introduce us to a new artiste," said Sally Tipper.
"I liked that last thing she played," said Sir Maurice.
Gerald looked round to see where Nina was. "We thought rather than going for a big name . . ."
The "Badminton" lady was darting in for a bread roll. "You're so right," she said. "I hear Michael's hiring the Royal Philharmonic for their summer party."
"Michael . . . ?" said Gerald.
"Oh? . . . Heseltine? Yup . . . yup . . . " She hunched in fake apology as she backed away. "Yup, the whole blinking RPO. What it must be costing.
But they've had a good year," she added, in a tenderly defiant tone.
"I thought we'd had a pretty good year," Gerald muttered.
Nick had been avoiding Bertrand Ouradi, but as he turned from the table with his plate there Bertrand was. "Aha, my friend the aesthete!" he said, and Nick was reminded of an annoying foreign waiter, perhaps, or taxi driver, for whom he was identified by a single joke. But he was able to say excitedly,
"How are you?"
Bertrand didn't answer—he seemed to suggest the question was both trivial and impertinent. He looked around the room, where people were grouping on the sofas and at little tables brought in by the staff and swiftly covered with white cloths. He didn't know where to settle, among these braying English snobs; his expression was proud and wary. "Bloody hot, isn't it," he said to Nick. "Come and talk to me"; and he led him, again like a waiter, with half-impatient glances over his shoulder, among the dotted supper tables—not to the cool of the great rear balcony but to a window seat at the front, looking onto the street. Perching there, knee to knee, partly screened by the roped-back curtains, they had a worrying degree of privacy. "Bloody hot," said Bertrand again. "Thank god that beast has got bloody air conditioning": he nodded at the maroon Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow parked at the kerb below.
"Ah," said Nick, unable to rise to such a wretched brag. In the back window of the car shiny white cushions were neatly aligned; he couldn't see the number plate but the thought that it must be BO something made him smirk—he pressed the smirk a little harder into a ghastly smile of admiration. One of Catherine's neuroses was a horror of maroon; it outdid her phobia of the au sound, or augmented it perhaps, with some worse intimation. Nick saw what she meant.
Bertrand asked him a few questions about the recital, and paid attention to the answers as though at a useful professional briefing. "Amazing technique," he repeated. "Still very young," he said, and shook his head and dissected his salmon. High and capable though he was, Nick hesitated to play the aesthete very thoroughly, hesitated to be himself, in case his tone was too intimate and revealing. The