The Line of Beauty - Alan Hollinghurst [186]
Old Arthur State was saying, extremely slowly, "I, Arthur Henry State, being the returning officer for the parliamentary constituency of Barwick in the county of Northamptonshire . . . " and surely expanding his text with various quaint heraldic clauses, while Catherine eyed her father on the podium behind him. Nick glanced at her in profile. She had a look of exhaustion, as at an object constantly but inexplicably in her way; but a twitch of excitement too: she was powerless, but tonight there were other powers stirring. Something might happen. The Labour man was called Brown and so came first—he'd got eight thousand, three hundred and twenty-one votes ("that's more than three thousand up on last time"), and was cheered defiantly. Next was Muriel Day, and her vote too was well up on that of her predecessor, two and a half thousand up, at eleven thousand, five hundred and seven. She took the applause with a grateful but distracted smile, almost hushing her supporters to let them hear the rest—since Arthur always waited for total silence, and went back to the start of any sentence that was interrupted. It was a serious figure, and Gerald had a look Nick knew well, the condescending simper that covered a process of mental arithmetic. The suspense was made worse by the unignorable but somehow forgotten figure of Ethelred Egg ("Monster Raving Loony Party"), who'd only polled thirty-one votes but seemed to have a hall-full of supporters. He plucked off and waved his green top hat and capered about in his clown's suit. You couldn't help seeing some slight kinship between him and Gerald, whose white collar and pink tie were half hidden by a vast blue rosette with long tabs or streamers below and the breast-pocket handkerchief struggling above. "Oh lose, lose . . ." muttered Catherine. "Fedden," said Arthur State, "Gerald John" ("Conservative . . ."), and because there was a klaxon squawk he repeated it, the strange momentary levelling and exposure of the cited second name, "eleven thousand, eight hundred and ninety-three"—so that Gerald grinned and coloured for a second, and perhaps thought he'd lost after all. The cheer that followed was a funny sound, because it had a loud "Woo-oo" mixed in with it, at the luck of a man who had just got away with something.
Nick topped up his drink and went out onto the balcony. He rallied to the surprising chill out there. Gerald's close shave at the ballot box was a drama and an embarrassment, and it was going to be hard to know what to say when he got home. Congratulations might sound sarcastic or unduly blithe, even to Gerald. Anyway, he was in, and everything could go on as planned. His gleaming grin floated against the dark trees for a while, and then faded, as perishable as all news. Slowly the trees themselves took on shape and detail in the light from the houses and from the softly reflecting night clouds. Nick loved the gardens; when he strolled between the house and the gardens through the private gate he seemed to glance up at his own good luck, in the towering planes on one side and the white-stuccoed cliff on the other. It would be good to be out there now; but it was too dripping and cold. There were wonderful expanses of summer ahead, no need to panic.
He remembered taking Leo there, in a jitter of nerves and shadows, the night they'd finally met; and quite a few other men too, the summer before last, on the sand path behind the workmen's hut—it had been his trick, done confidently, dwindling a little in charm and danger. Something basic and unsocial about it, no giving them a drink or a shower: it was good. And perhaps it had been a secret tribute to Leo, a memory honoured and scuffed over in each careless encounter. Leo never knew how much Nick had imagined him, before he'd met him; or how the first kiss, the first feel of his body, had staggered a boy who till then had lived all in his mind. Leo wasn't imaginative: that was part of the point and the beauty