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By Root 1102 0

at moving for him again; but stopped and got talking to the man from the Y, boldly but inattentively. He knew he had a bluebird tattooed on his left buttock, and he'd seen him with a sensible erection in the showers, but these cute memories seemed steadily more meaningless. He knocked back his drink in distracted gulps. Then he went downstairs to the Gents, and found, when he peeped sideways along the reeking trough, that the man had followed him; so they stood there for a bit, in a tense delay whilst other people came and went, until the man nodded towards the empty lock-up. Nick said it was too risky, felt almost annoyed that this was happening, yet curiously timid and grateful too. The man said he lived in Soho, they could go there, five minutes' walk, and Nick said OK. It was a kind of shield. Actually it was a brilliant quick success, a fantasy granted, but Nick couldn't feel it. "We'll go out the side way," said the man, who also gave his name, Joe. "Oh, OK," said Nick. They went through the back bar, Nick with his hand on Joe's broad shoulder, sticking cheerfully close to him and turning a blank gaze across the room to find the little woolly-hatted figure, utterly unknown to Joe, who had once been his lover.

15

"OH MY!" said Treat. "Pansy salad!" "It's really rather good," said Nick.

Treat watched him, over his cocktail glass, to see if he was joking. "Is it all pansies?"

"What's that?" said Brad.

"It's mostly rather butch lettuce," said Nick. "They just put one or two pansies on top."

"Butch lettuce . . . !" said Treat, full of flirty reproach.

"They're token pansies," said Nick.

"I'm going to have to try it," said Treat.

"You should certainly have it once," said Nick.

"What's that?" said Brad.

"Treat wants to try the pansy salad," said Nick.

"Oh . . . oh, I see, 'pansy salad': oh my!"

"I just said that," said Treat.

Nick smiled round the restaurant, relieved to see two famous writers at one table, and a famous actress at another. Brad Craft and Treat Rush, till now mere muscular spondees of American suggestion, had turned out to be a socially hungry pair. Brad was indeed big and muscular, handsome and pleasant, if rather slow on the uptake. Treat was the talker, about Nick's height, with a shiny blond fringe that he kept in line with a pointed little finger. They had come over for Nat Hanmer's wedding, and were spending the whole of October in England ("Anything to escape the New England fall!" said Treat). Today there was the film to talk about, but they were clearly working, with one eye always on the square beyond, at a thorough penetration of London, and were full of slapdash questions about people and titles. The point seemed to be to ask questions; they didn't bother much with the answers. They held out the threat of being easily bored. Nick hoped Gusto would amuse them. He saw Treat watching the kitchen through the blue glass wall, which turned the chef and his sweating minions into a faintly erotic cabaret of hard work.

"Do you know this guy Julius Money?" said Brad.

"Well, I've met him," said Nick.

"Isn't that a great name? And kind of appropriate, I guess, right?"

"Oh yes," said Nick. "They have this huge Jacobean house in Norfolk, with a fabulous collection of paintings. Actually, I've always thought —"

"Oh, what about Pomona Brinkley!" said Treat. "We met her. Now what's she all about?"

"I don't know her," said Nick.

"She was great," said Treat.

"Oh, yeah, we met this guy Lord John . . . Fanshaw?" said Brad. "He knows all about you! He said you were the most charming man in London."

"Yeah," said Treat, and looked lingeringly at Nick again.

"I feel he must have been thinking of someone else," said Nick coyly, and didn't come clean that he'd never heard of his lordship.

"You know Nat really well, right?" said Treat.

"Oh yes," said Nick, with suaver confidence. "We were at Oxford together. Though these days I suppose I see more of his mother than him.

She's a great friend of my friend Rachel Fedden." He watched the name make its frail bid for recognition.

"He's so sweet."