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By Root 1078 0

"Your little start-up present has grown and grown, you know." He put his hand discreetly into Wani's, where it lay on his thigh. A few seconds later Wani withdrew his hand, so as to get out his handkerchief. There was a question in the air, all this week, since he had come back from Paris, and it was only his pride which kept it from being asked: which it wouldn't be in words, but in some brave melting gesture. Instead he said, "You should really move out of the Feddens'. Get a place of your own."

"I know," said Nick, "it is rather dotty. But we muddle along somehow. . . . I'm not at all sure they could manage without me."

"One never knows. . ." said Wani. He turned his head away and looked out at the pavement, the ugly concrete planters in the square gardens, a bicycle frame chained to the railings. "I was thinking I might leave you the Clerkenwell building."

"Oh . . . " Nick glanced at him and then away, almost scowling in shock and reproach.

"Of course I don't mean you should live there."

"Well, no, that's not the point . . ."

"I suppose it's a bit odd leaving you something unfinished."

After a couple of breaths, Nick said, "Let's not talk about you leaving things." And went on, with awful delicacy, "Anyway, it will be finished by then." It was impossible to say the right thing. Wani grinned at him coldly for a second. Until now he had only had the story of Wani being ill; he had taken the news about with him and brought off the sombre but thrilling effect, once or twice, of saying, "I'm afraid he's dying," or "He nearly died." It had been his own drama, in which he'd felt, as well as the horror and pity of it, the thump of a kind of self-importance. Now, sitting beside him and being offered buildings, he felt humbled and surprisingly angry.

"Well, we'll see," said Wani. "I mean, I'm assuming you'd like it."

"I don't find it easy to think about," said Nick.

"I need to get this sorted out, Nick. I'm seeing the lawyers on Friday."

"What would I do with the Clerkenwell building?" said Nick sulkily.

"You'd own it," said Wani. "It'll have thirty thousand square feet of office space. You can get someone to manage it for you and you can live on the rent for the rest of your life."

Nick didn't ask how he was supposed to go about finding a manager. Possibly Sam Zeman could help him with that. The phrase "the rest of your life" had come out pat, almost weightless, a futurity Wani wasn't going to bother imagining. For Nick it was very strange to find it attached to an office block near Smithfield Market. Wani knew he hated the design of the building; there was a sharp tease in the gift, even a kind of lesson. "What are you going to do about Martine?" said Nick.

"Oh, just the same. She'll carry on getting her allowance, at least until she marries. Then she gets a lump sum."

"Oh . . . " Nick nodded dimly at the wisdom of this, but then had to say, "I didn't know you gave her an allowance."

Wani slid him the smile that had once been slyly grand but now had something vicious in it. "Well, not me," he said. "I assumed you'd worked it out. Mamma's always paid her. Or kept her, rather."

"I see . . . " said Nick, after a moment, thinking how little Wani had taught him about Lebanese customs. He seemed to search for the discreet transaction in the tilted mantelpiece mirror. He glanced at the house again, but Wani's mother had dropped the curtain and absolute discretion reigned: the black front door, the veiled windows, the eggshell sheen of property.

"What a charming arrangement, to keep your son's girlfriend."

"For god's sake," murmured Wani, looking away. "She was never my girlfriend."

"No, of course not, I see . . ." said Nick, blushing and hurrying to cover his own foolishness, and also feeling absurdly relieved.

"Of course you must never tell Papa. It's his last illusion."

Nick didn't imagine seeing much of Bertrand in "the rest of his life." The little aesthete already felt the prohibition of that closed black door: which opened as he looked at it, to reveal Monique and the old servant woman, dressed in black,