The Line of Beauty - Alan Hollinghurst [166]
"Have you . . . ?" said Toby, startled but interested.
And Nick murmured to him that he'd managed to get hold of a bit of charlie.
"God, amazing, thanks a lot!" said Toby, and then smiled round guiltily.
They sent a waiter to the drawing room with champagne, and went on up, with a little flutter about "rehearsing." For Nick the flutter was that of sharing the secret. They went into Toby's old bedroom, and locked the door. "The place is crawling with fuzz," Toby said.
"So what are you going to say in your speech?" said Nick, tipping out some powder on the bedside table. The room had a special mood of desertion, not the mute patience of a spare bedroom but the stillness of a place a boy has grown up in and abandoned, with everything settling into silence just as it was. There was a chest of drawers in mahogany and a gilt-framed mirror, very nice pieces, and Toby's school and team photos, a young unguarded class sense to everything; and the wardrobe of clothes Nick had once daringly dressed up in, which had lost their meaning, even to him.
"I thought I might make a joke about the Conference," said Toby. "You know, the Next Move Forward, and Mum and Dad going on for ever, like the Lady."
"Mm." Nick frowned over the busy credit card. "I think the thing is, darling, you should make the speech just as if the Lady wasn't there. And everything you say should be about . . . your father and your mother. It's their day, not hers, and not just Gerald's."
"Oh," said Toby.
"You might even make it more about Rachel."
"Right. . . God, I wish you'd write it." Toby slouched anxiously about the room. From downstairs the doorbell was heard and the first guests arriving. "I mean, what can you say about the old girl?"
"You could say what a lot she's had to put up with in Gerald," said Nick, with a dark sense of her not knowing the half of it. "Actually, don't say that," he added prudently; "just keep it short." He pictured Toby standing and speaking, his anxiety grinning through to a crowd that would be warmed with drink into roughness as well as affection. "Remember, everyone loves you," he said, to help him overlook the various monsters who were coming.
Toby stooped and sniffed up his line and stood back; Nick waited and watched for the amorous dissolve, not knowing quite what colour it would take in him. "Haven't done this for yonks," Toby said, half protest, half apology. Then, "Mm, that's very nice . . ." And a minute later, in beaming surrender, "This is great stuff, Nick, I must say. Where the hell did you get it?"
Nick snorted briskly and wiped the table with the flat of his finger. "Oh, I got it off Ouradi, actually."
"Right," said Toby. "Yah, Ouradi always gets great stuff."
"You used to do it with him in the old days."
"I know, we did once or twice. I didn't know you ever did it, though." Toby pranced towards him, and it was all Nick could do not to kiss him and feel for his dick, as he would have done with Wani himself. Instead he said, "Here, why don't you take the rest of this." It was about a third of a gram.
"God, no, I couldn't," said Toby, with the gleam of possession at once in his face.
"Yeah, go on," said Nick. "I've had enough, but you might need some more." He held out the tiny billet-doux, which as always with Ronnie was made from a page of a girlie mag; a magnified nipple covered it like a seal. Toby took it and put it, after a moment's thought, deep in his breast pocket. "God, that's fantastic!" he said. "Yah, I think tonight'll be all right, you know, I'm just going to keep it short," and he went prattling on in the simple high spirits of a first hit of cocaine. On the way downstairs he said, "Of course, darling, tell me if you want some more—I won't use all this."
"I'll be fine," said Nick.
They sashayed into the drawing room,