The Line of Beauty - Alan Hollinghurst [138]
He woke again and took a long distracted moment to see that this hadn't happened. He'd been lying in the richly coloured recall of the minutes before sleep and the holiday story had slipped and run with its own fast current into an anecdote odder than the afternoon they had lived through, Wani's bright fixated attempt to pick up the boy who roamed through the gardens with a bucket shouting "Pepsi!"—his astonishment that he couldn't be bought. Nick turned his pillow, and coughed and settled again. He sank through backlit clouds, pink and grey, the landing at Bordeaux airport that morning. There had been a storm, but it was turning aside, and they saw suddenly how close the ground was, the sunlight passing in a crawling wink across ponds, glasshouses and canals, seams of gold flashing through the vapour in fiery collusion.
(ii)
On Monday morning Wani asked if he could make some phone calls. Rachel said, "Absolutely!" and Gerald said, "Please . . . my dear fellow!" with a gesture towards the cupboard-like room where the phone and the expectant new fax machine were.
"It's just these business things I've got to deal with," Wani sighed, cleverly apologizing for what Gerald liked best about him. He went into the room and rather awkwardly, since everyone was watching him, closed the door. He had told them last night about the property he'd just bought in Clerkenwell, and had asked for Gerald's advice on aspects of the sale and the planned redevelopment: a wall had come down, and they'd suddenly seen how they might get on. When Wani emerged from the phone room he asked him if he could borrow the Range Rover to go into Perigueux, and this time it was vaguer magazine "business" that he mentioned. Nick knew that frown of pretended vexation, the bold contempt for obstacles on the path to pleasure, and it made him nervous. But Gerald, clearing his throat and as it were waking up to his own kindness and reasonableness, said, "Well yes . . . why not!—feel free . . . " And then added, "Anything for business!"
"It's just that I can meet a very good photographer there, and after the fascinating things you were saying about the cathedral . . ."
"Oh, St Front," said Gerald, warily flattered. "Yes indeed . . ."
Nick almost said, "Oh, but you know it's all a nineteenth-century rehash . . ."
"Will you be back for lunch?" said Rachel. Wani promised he would. He didn't suggest taking Nick, and Nick felt both jealous and relieved. They stood at the front door and watched the car disappear from the forecourt. It was the sort of moment when in London they would have begun a bold and funny family inquest into the absent person; but today that didn't feel right.
They went out onto the terrace, and Gerald nodded several times at Nick and said, "Charming fellow, your friend."
"He certainly is," said Nick, seeing that Gerald wanted reassurance, and noting that Wani was now properly his friend rather than Toby's.
"One doesn't quite know whether to mention the fiancee," Gerald said.
"Oh, well I did," said Rachel. "And it's all right. He told me all about it. Apparently they're getting married next spring."
"Ah, fine," said Gerald, while Nick turned away with a protesting thump of the heart to look at