The Line of Beauty - Alan Hollinghurst [151]
Toby looked a bit shame-faced. "I didn't know Pat, you know, slept around."
"Well . . . " said Nick. He knew very well, because Catherine was indiscreet, that Pat had liked very rough sex. "Don't believe everything Catherine says. She lives in a world of her own hyperbole."
"Yah, but she was pretty close to Pat, Nick—he took her out to dinner quite often. She stayed at Haslemere three or four times. If she says he liked anonymous sex—"
Nick saw that the Tippers had come in. They'd been up to their room and now they'd come down, tight-lipped and close together, as though they felt obliged to put in another half-hour. Maurice had clearly been very displeased by the scene at dinner, and a suspicion of deviancy seemed to hang for him now over the whole party. The boys all stood up, and Nick set his book, face down, on the arm of his chair. Sally Tipper peered at it, to deflect her discomfort on to a neutral object, and said, "Ah, that's Maurice's book, I see."
"Um . . . oh," said Nick, sure of himself but confused as to her reasoning; it was a study of the poetry of John Berryman. "I don't think . . ."
"Do you see that, darling?"
Maurice brought his gleaming lenses to bear on it. "What? Oh yes," he said. He went towards Wani, who was quickly refolding the FT.
"You're very welcome to read it," Nick said, with a frank little laugh, "but it's actually mine—it was sent on to me this morning. I'm reviewing it for the THES."
"Oh I see, no, no," said Sally, with a coldly tactful smile. "No, Maurice owns Pegasus—I just noticed they publish it."
"I didn't know that."
"I've bought it," said Sir Maurice. "I've bought the whole group. It's in the paper." And he sat down and glared at the vase of thistles and dried honesty in the grate.
"I'm just going up to see if my sis is OK," said Toby, as though all this had decided him.
Nick didn't feel he could go out after him. He sat down again, opposite Sally, but not quite in relation with her, like guests in a hotel lounge. He said, "I'm afraid this news has rather spoilt the evening."
"Yes," said Sally, "it's most unfortunate."
"Awful losing an old friend," said Nick.
"Mm," said Sally, with a twitch, as if to say her meaning had been twisted. "So you knew him too, did you, the man?"
"Pat—yes, a bit," said Nick. "He was a great charmer." He smiled and the word seemed to linger and insist, like a piece of code.
Sally said, "As I say, we never saw him." She took up a copy of Country Life, and sat staring at the estate agents' advertisements. Her expression was tough, as if she was arguing the prices down; but also self-conscious, so that it seemed just possible she wanted to talk about what had happened. She looked up, and said with a great twitch, "I mean, they must have seen it coming."
"Oh . . ." said Nick, "I see. I don't know. Perhaps. One always hopes that it won't be the case. And even if you know it's going to happen, it doesn't make it any less awful when it does." It had become unclear to him whether she knew that he was gay; he'd always assumed it was the cause for her coldness, her way of not paying attention to him, but now he'd started to suspect she was blind to it. He felt the large subject massing, with its logic and momentum. There would be the social strain of coming out to such people in such a place, and the wider matter of AIDS concerning them all, more or less. He said, "I think I heard you say your mother had a long final illness."
"That was utterly different," Sir Maurice put in curtly.
"It was a blessed relief," said Sally, "when she finally went."
"She hadn't brought it on herself," said Sir Maurice.
"No, that's true," Sally sighed. "I mean, they're going to have to learn, aren't they, the . . . homosexuals."
"It's a hard way to have to learn," said Nick, "but yes, we are learning to be safe."
Sally Tipper stared at him. "Right . . . " she said.
Sir Maurice seemed not to notice this, but in her there was a little spectacle of