The Line of Beauty - Alan Hollinghurst [164]
"I don't know. You mean, to make up for it," said Nick, considering the idea, which did make sense of his earlier rough impression, that Gerald hadn't liked being given the Gauguin. Perhaps he saw it as the confirmation of a mysterious snub.
"God, that Miss Moneypenny's a pain," said Catherine, for whom the lens of the drawing-room window seemed to focus a world of irritants.
Penny was now taking some impromptu dictation from Gerald, while clutching her briefcase between her knees. "I suppose she must be madly in love with him, mustn't she?"
"Oh, in the noblest, purest way," said Nick.
"She'd have to be, darling, to type all that tripe."
"Some people just live for their work. Norman's an obsessive worker, as we know all too well, and she's got it from him. They're happiest when they're hard at it."
Catherine snorted. "God, the idea . . ."
"Mm . . . ?"
"Well—Gerald and Penny hard at it."
"Oh . . . " Nick tutted and coloured.
"Now I've shocked you," Catherine said.
"Hardly," said Nick.
"Actually, she's got herself a boyfriend, you know."
"Really?" murmured Nick, with a dart of treacherous sympathy for Gerald, the doomed older man. "Have you met him?"
"No, but she told me all about him."
"Ah, I see . . ."
Geoffrey Titchfield moved off, and as Gerald called some friendly command to him he looked back and gave a half-serious salute. Penny and Gerald were left alone. It was a moment when Nick saw they might do something incautious—kiss, or touch in a light but revealing way that would give Catherine's scurrilous joke the chill of reality. It was another of the secrets of the house that he kept, like a sleepy conscience. Gerald looked up as he talked, from floor to floor, and Nick waved to show him they were being watched.
In the hours before the party the atmosphere thickened uncomfortably. The caterers had taken over the kitchen, and made faces behind Elena's back as she went stubbornly about her business; loud squawks and whines came out of the marquee in the garden, where the sound system was being tested; in the dining room the chairs were clustered knee to knee, waiting for orders. Gerald's manner became bright and fixed, and he mocked others for their nervousness. Catherine said she couldn't bear the sight of a cardboard box in a room, and went out to "look at properties" with Jasper. Even Rachel, who delegated with aristocratic confidence, was biting her cheek as Gerald described to her where the Lady would sit, whom she would talk to, and how much she would have to drink. He almost let it seem that the climax of the evening would be when he danced with the Prime Minister. Rachel said, "But you and I will lead off the dancing, won't we, Gerald," so that he said to her, from a rapidly covered distance, "But my love of course we will!" and gave her a blushing hug, and stumbled her through a few unexpected steps.
About six Nick slipped out for a walk. The evening was gloomy and damp. Wet leaves smeared the pavement. He was infected with the house nerves about the PM, wondering what to say to her, and already imagining tomorrow morning, when the party was over, and the enjoyable phase of remembering it and analysing it could begin. The shrieks and bangs of fireworks sounded from the neighbourhood gardens. Sometimes a rocket streaked up over the housetops and shed its stars into the low-hanging cloud. Duffel-coated children were hurried through the murk. Nick's route was an improvised zigzag, an intention glimpsed and disowned; no one watching him could have guessed it, and when he turned the corner and trotted down the steps into the station Gents he wore a frown as if the whole thing was a surprise and a nuisance even to himself.
Walking briskly back down Kensington Park Road he was frowning again, at having done something so vulgar and unsafe—it was suddenly late, the waiting and wondering and then the intent speechless action swallowed