The Line of Beauty - Alan Hollinghurst [163]
Geoffrey was pointing at the front door, the eternally green front door, which Gerald had just had repainted a fierce Tory blue. It was the moment when Nick had first caught the pitch of Gerald's mania. Catherine, in a vein of wild but focused fantasy, had said that the PM would be shocked by a green door and that she'd read an article which said all Cabinet ministers had blue ones; even Geoffrey Titchfield, who was only the chairman of the local association, had a blue front door. Gerald scoffed at this, but a little later strolled out to the Mira Foodhall for some water biscuits and came back looking troubled. "What do you think about this, Nick?" he said. "The Titchfields have only got the garden flat, but their front door is unquestionably blue." Nick said he doubted it mattered, as drolly as possible, and feeling his own nostalgic fervour for the grand dull green. But the following day Gerald came back to it. "You know, I wonder if the Cat's right about that door," he said. "The Lady might very well think it's a bit off. She might think we're trying to save the fucking rainforest or something!" He laughed nervily. "She might think she's been taken to Greenham Common, by mistake," he went on, in a tone somewhere between lampoon and genuine derangement. At which point Nick knew, since the colour of the door had become a token of Gerald's success, that Mr Duke would be set to work with a can of conference-blue gloss.
Now Penny came out, with her briefcase of papers, and Nick watched from his window seat as she spoke to the two men. She had been typing up the diary which Gerald dictated each day onto tape, and which the family resented even more since her busy week with them in France, when she'd made it quite plain that none of them was in it: it was strictly the record of his political life, a kind of "archive," she said, "an important historical resource." Penny carried out the diary duty with a smug devotion which only added to their annoyance.
Catherine drifted into the drawing room, and came to sit with Nick behind the roped-back curtains. "I hate it when we have everyone in," she said. There was something invalidish, semi-secret, about the window seats, the houses of children's games, spying on the room and the street.
"I know, isn't it awful," said Nick absent-mindedly.
"Look, there's Gerald showing off outside."
"I think he's just having a chat with old Titch. You know it's his big day."
"It's always his big day these days. He hardly has a small one. Anyway, it's also Ma's big day. And she's got to spend it with a whole lot of empees," said Catherine, for whom the two syllables were now a mantra of tedium and absurdity. "Plus she's got to play hostess to the Other Woman in her own house, to cap it all. You can tell he's longing to put up a big sign, 'Tonight! Special Appearance!'"
" 'One Night Only' . . ."
"God I hope so. That Titch man worships Gerald. Have you noticed, every time he walks past the house he sort of smirks at it fondly, just in case someone's looking out."
"Does he . . . ?" said Nick, not quite forgetting that he had once done the same. He said, "I thought the party was originally going to be at Hawkeswood."
"Oh, well that was Gerald's idea, you bet. But of course Uncle Lionel won't have the Other Woman there."
"Right . . ."
"It's rather funny," said Catherine coldly. "He's had this dream of getting her there. It's almost what's kept him going. And it's the one thing which simply can't happen."
"I don't quite see why Lionel . . ."
"Oh, it's all the vandalism she's done to everything. Anyway, that's why he's having this rewiring done, so that no one can get in the house."
Nick laughed protestingly,