The Line of Beauty - Alan Hollinghurst [190]
Treat laughed brightly and said, "That's old enough for me. That'll do just fine."
Nick said, "It was really Sharon who saved the day—the Duchess . . ." and offered the story to Wani.
"Yes, a life-saving transfusion of vinegar," said Wani; they all laughed loudly, as at the joke of a tyrant; and there did seem to be a trace of cruelty in the remark, against himself and thus obscurely against them. "Shall we order straight away." Wani turned and raised a hand to Fabio and as he did so Brad and Treat looked at each other with expressionless clarity for three or four seconds. Fabio was with them at once, and as always seemed to guess and applaud their decisions, to echo and confide to memory each item they mentioned; and perhaps it was only Nick who felt the new briskness in his tone and the quick decay of his laugh. Brad asked about the pansy salad and Fabio obliged with a noncommittal joke, and moved round the table holding the reclaimed menus flat against his chest. Nick said how well the restaurant was doing and smiled to insist on their part in its success, since Wani and he had been guests at its opening last year and had made it their local; and Fabio said, "We can't complain . . . er, Nick, we can't complain," just glancing at Wani on the second complain with something cold in his eyes, and then at the new arrivals at the door, who typically were the Stallards. Nick watched Fabio go to greet them and the coldness had gone—he heard the usual mutual primping of head waiter and fashionable customers. Well, Fabio must have been shaken to see Wani so changed; but there was something else in his reaction, fear and displeasure, as if Wani's presence was no longer good for business.
Sophie and Jamie came over, Jamie slapping Wani on the shoulder and Sophie wrinkling her nose across the table rather than kissing him. Jamie had just played the romantic lead in a low-budget Hollywood comedy, and had been praised for his uncanny re-creation of a dim but handsome Old Etonian with floppy hair. Sophie was pregnant, and thus resting, though thick packets that could well have been film scripts lay in the cradle-like basket she was carrying. Treat and Brad were thrilled to meet them, since Jamie was still a possible for Owen Gereth in Spoils; cards were exchanged, and social visits that were never going to happen were delightedly agreed on. Nothing was said about Wani's health, though Sophie, as they went off to their table, looked back with a finger-wave and a cringing smile of condolence.
"Wow, what a sweet guy," said Brad.
Nick, taking praise for the introduction, said, "Old Jamie . . . ?Yeah. . ."
"You guys go way back?"
"Yes—well, again we were all at Oxford together. He's really much more a friend of Wani's."
But Wani seemed to disown any further intimacy. He sat very still, with his slender hands on the tablecloth. His square-shouldered jacket was buttoned but stood forward like a loose coat. He commanded attention now by pity and respect as he once had by beauty and charm. The claim to attention was constant, but it had turned fiercer and quieter. Nick thought he still looked wonderful in a way, though to admit it was to make an unbearable comparison. He was twenty-five years old. He said, "Stallard has always been an absurd figure, and he's found the perfect partner in the lovely Miss Tipper."
"Oh . . ." said Brad. "Is she . . . er . . ."
"It was a good match for him. She's the daughter of the ninth richest man in Britain, and he's the son of a bishop."
"Bishops don't make that much, I guess," said Treat, and took another pull on his cocktail straw.
"Bishops make absolutely nothing," said Wani; and after a second he flashed a smile round the table at the imbecility of bishops. Everyone else smiled too, in nervous collusion. Wani's face, gaunt and blotched, had taken on new possibilities of expression—the repertoire of someone not only older but quite different, someone passed unknown in the street, was unexpectedly his. He must have looked at himself in the mirror, winced and raised his eyebrows,