The Line of Beauty - Alan Hollinghurst [170]
"Oh, god," said Catherine disparagingly, before smiling at the idea of it. "You know what he's like, he'll offer her a poke or whatever it's called."
"She's had a lot to drink, hasn't she. But it doesn't seem to have any effect."
"It's so funny watching the men with her. They come up with their wives but you can see they're an embarrassment—look at that one now, yes, shakes hands, 'Yes, Prime Minister, yes, yes,' can't quite get round to introducing his wife . . . obviously longing for her to get lost so he can have a hot date with the Lady himself—now she's got to sit on the sofa, he's furious . . . but yes! she's got him—he's squatting down . . . he's kneeling on the carpet . . ."
"Maybe she'll make him kiss her, um . . ."
"Oh, surely not . . ."
"Her ring, darling!"
"Oh, maybe. It's a very big one."
"Well, she's quite queenly, isn't she, in that outfit."
"Queenly? . . . Darling, she looks like a country and western singer."
Catherine gave a brief screech, so that people turned round with varying degrees of humour and irritation. She had a look of running on quite fast inside. She held her trembling glass in front of her face. "These champagne flutes are simply enormous!" she said.
"I know, they're sort of champagne tubas, aren't they," said Nick.
Some very loud fireworks started going off in the communal gardens, mortars and thunderclaps. The windows rattled and the bangs echoed off the houses. People shouted cheerfully and flinched, but the Prime Minister didn't flinch, she fortified her voice with a firm diapason as if rising to the challenge of a rowdy Chamber. Around her her courtiers started like pheasants.
"Actually what amazes me," Nick said, "is the fantastic queenery of the men. The heterosexual queenery."
"I sort of expect that," said Catherine. "You know, having Gerald . . ."
"Darling, Gerald's like a navvy in overalls, he's a miner on a picket line compared to some of these people. Look at old, um, the Minister for . . . what is he the Minister for?"
"I don't know, he's the Monster for something. With the pink face. I've seen him on telly."
It was one of the men standing directly behind the PM, like a showman, both protecting and exhibiting her. From time to time he cast covetous glances at her hair. His own grey curls were oiled back in deep crinkly waves, over which he passed a hand that barely touched. He was one of the few men who were wearing a white tuxedo, and his posture was a superb denial of a possible gaffe. The jacket had swooping lapels, with cream silk facings; a line of flashing blue dress studs climbed to a lolling, surely purple, velvet bow tie. His wing collar kept his head framed at a haughty angle, and a tight silk cummerbund kept him erect and deepened the dyspeptic flush on his face.
Catherine said, "I can see no self-respecting homosexual would dress like that."
"Oh, I wouldn't go that far," said Nick, uncertain which of them was being more ironic. "It's just the licensed vanity . . ."
"He's the Monster of Vanity, darling!" said Catherine with another whoop.
He went to the first-floor lavatory and had a quick line there. It seemed a bit unnecessary to go all furtively upstairs. He snorted with a thumb against each nostril in turn, and smirked back at Gerald shaking hands with Ronald Reagan. You never felt the old boy knew who Gerald was—he had that look of medium-level benevolence. From outside the music was thumping, it had been Big Band jazz and now it was earlyish rock 'n' roll, such as Rachel and Gerald might conceivably have danced to twenty-five years ago. Fireworks popped and screeched. Beyond the locked door the collective boom of the party could be heard, with its undertone of secret opportunities: there were two men here that he wanted. The door handle rattled, he tidied, checked, flushed, tweaked his bow tie in the mirror, and sauntered out, hardly seeing the policeman waiting.
The Duchess had taken his place next to Catherine, so he looked about. The crowded drawing room was his playground. He found himself