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By Root 1193 0

Sir Maurice said a lot of faxes would be coming through for him, and could they be sure there was enough paper in the machine. He was clearly looking forward to the arrival of the faxes above all. Wani sucked up to him and said he was expecting some faxes too, meaning that he would keep an eye on the machine, but Sir Maurice gave him a sharp look and said he hoped they wouldn't impede his own faxes. It was only four thirty but Gerald was marking his guests' arrival with a Pimm's, and Lady Partridge, with her son as her licence, accompanied him in a gin and Dubonnet. The Tippers asked for tea, and sat under the awning, glancing mistrustfully at the view. When Liliane, slow, stoical, and clearly unwell, came out with the tray, Sally Tipper gave her instructions about different pillows she needed. Sir Maurice talked to Gerald about a takeover they were both interested in, though Gerald didn't look quite serious with a fruit-choked tumbler in his fist. Lady Tipper complained to Rachel about the smell of hot dogs in the Royal Festival Hall. Rachel said surely that would all change now they'd got rid of Red Ken, but Lady Tipper shook her head as if deaf to any such comfort. Nick tried naively to interest Maurice Tipper in local beauty spots which he hadn't yet seen himself. "You're a fine one to talk!" said Sir Maurice—grinning quickly at Gerald and Toby to show he wasn't so easily taken in. He was used to total deference, and mere pleasantness aroused his suspicion. The democracy of house-party life wasn't going to come naturally to him. Nick looked at his smooth clerical face and gold rimmed glasses in the light of a new idea, that the ownership of immense wealth might not be associated with pleasure—at least as pleasure was sought and unconsciously defined by the rest of them here.

Sally Tipper had a lot of blonde hair in expensive confusion, and a lot of clicking, rattling, sliding jewellery. She shook and nodded her head a good deal. It was virtually a twitch—of annoyance, or of almost more exasperated agreement. She had a smile that came all at once and went all at once, with no humorous gradations. She said before dinner she'd like to have drinks indoors, which, since the whole point and fetish of the manoir for the Feddens was to do everything possible outside, didn't promise well. They sat in the drawing room with all the overhead lights on, like a waiting room. Nick had seen the names "Sir Maurice and Lady Tipper" in gold letters on the donors' board at Covent Garden, and had seen her there in person, sometimes with Sophie, but never with her husband. He thought they might have a theme for the week, and said quietly that the recent Tannhduser hadn't been very good.

"Very good . . . I know . . . I thought . . . " said Lady Tipper, and shook her head in wounded defiance of all the carpers and whiners. "Now, Judy, that you really should see," she went on loudly. "You'll know that one, the Pilgrims' Chorus."

Lady Partridge, fortified by being enfamille and half-tight, said, "It's no use asking me, dear. I've never set foot in an opera house, except once, and that was thirty years ago, when . . . my son took me," and she nodded abstrusely at Gerald.

"What did you see, Judy?" said Nick.

"I think it was Salome," Lady Partridge said after a minute.

"How marvellous!" said Lady Tipper.

"I know, ghastly," said Lady Partridge.

"Oh, Ma!" said Gerald, who was listening in with a distracted smile from a chat about shares with Sir Maurice.

"I applaud your taste, Judy," said Nick, with the necessary emphasis to get through, and heard what a twit he sounded.

"Mm, I think it was by Stravinsky."

"No, no," said Nick, "it's by the dreaded . . . : Richard Strauss. Oh, by the way, Gerald, I've found the most marvellous quote, by Stravinsky, in fact, about the dreaded."

"Sorry, Maurice . . . " murmured Gerald.

"Robert Craft asks him, 'Do you now admit any of the operas of Richard Strauss?' and Stravinsky says"—and Nick beat it out, conducted it, in the weird overexcitement of the Strauss feud—" T would like to admit