The Line of Beauty - Alan Hollinghurst [193]
A few seconds later Nick followed, frowning down at the floor, giving a brisk nod to Fabio's cool "Signore?" In the black marble lavatory there were two cubicles, and in one of them, with the door still ajar, Wani was stooping and vomiting. Nick came in behind him and stood there for a moment before laying a hand on his side. Wani flinched, whispered, "Oh fuck . . ." and crouched and shuddered as he threw up again. There seemed to be far more coming out than the invalidish meal that had gone in. Nick touched him lightly, wanting to help him and discourage him at the same time. He looked over his shoulder into the bowl, with a certain resolve, and saw the bits of chicken and greens in the pool of the promptly regurgitated ice cream. He plucked out sheets of paper from the dispenser and wondered if he should wipe Wani's face for him; then he stood and waited, which Wani didn't object to. He thought with bleak hilarity that this was their most intimate moment for many months. He looked at the streaky black walls and found himself thinking of nights here the year before, both cubicles sometimes carelessly busy with the crackle of paper and patter of credit card. There was a useful shiny ledge above the cistern, and they would go in in turn. The nights sped by in unrememberable brilliance. "Well," said Wani, grasping his stick and giving Nick a fearful smile, "no more parfait for Antoine."
Wani had brought the car to Gusto, and Nick drove him back in it to Lowndes Square. "Thanks very much," said Wani, in a whispery drawl.
"That's all right, old chap," said Nick. He parked opposite the house and they sat for a minute. Wani was taking deep breaths, as if to ready himself for a race or plunge. He didn't try to help Nick by explaining himself—well, he never had, he was his own law and his own licence. If Nick asked him how he felt he was drily impatient with him, both for not knowing and for wanting to know. It was the unfair prerogative of illness. Nick reached a hand over the steering wheel and swept the thin dust off the black leather hood of the dashboard. How cars themselves changed as they aged; at first they were possibilities made solid and fast, agents of dreams that kept a glint of dreams about them, a keen narcotic smell; then slowly they disclosed their unguessed quaintness and clumsiness, they seemed to fade into the dim disgrace between one fashion and another.
"I really must get a new car," said Wani.
"I know, it's frightfully dusty."
"It's a fucking antique."
Nick peered over his shoulder into the cramped back seat, and remembered Pdcky, the stupid genius of the old days (which was to say, last summer), sitting there with his legs wide apart. "I suppose you'll keep the number plate."
"God, yes. It's worth a thousand pounds."
"Dear old WHO 6."
"OK . . ." said Wani, cold at any touch of sentiment.
Nick glanced up and saw Lady Ouradi looking down from one of the drawing-room windows. She held the net curtain aside and gazed out into the browning leaves of the plane trees, the long dull chasm of the square. Nick waved, but she seemed not to have seen them; or perhaps she had already seen them but let her gaze wander, as it was clearly prone to, down the imagined vista of the past or future. He noted her austere wool dress, the single string of pearls. To Nick she was a creature of indoors, of unimaginable exiled mornings and measured afternoons; her gesture as she held the white curtain back was like the parting of a medium through which she wasn't quite supposed to see or be seen.
"You're OK for money?" Wani said.
"Darling, I'm fine." Nick turned and smiled at him, with the mischievous tenderness of a year ago.