The Line of Beauty - Alan Hollinghurst [204]
She was wearing a red-and-black wool suit, a necklace, four or five rings, and would certainly have looked good in a photograph. Nick glanced past her into the shadowy white room. There was the first door, into a small anteroom with the bathroom opening off it, and then the second door, which had always sealed the couple away in a grandeur of privacy. Nick saw the end of the bed, a round table with silver-framed pictures of the children. He had hardly ever been in there, since his first summer, when he had walked around noiselessly, with his hands behind his back, an intruder in the temple of marital love; his own love fantasies had taken envious possession of it, like squatters, in the married couple's absence.
"Mm, strange times," said Rachel, again as if talking to someone barely known, and instinctively disapproved of, whom a crisis had thrust her together with: Nick felt for the tender irony which always lined their little phrases, but he wasn't sure he found it. Perhaps she knew that he had known all along about Gerald and Penny, and her dryness was a form of bitter embarrassment.
He said, "I know . . ." He was painfully sorry for her, but didn't see how to say so; it was a strange inhibition. In a way it was the moment for a new intimacy, and he hoped to bring her round to it. He glimpsed something beautiful for both of them emerging from the wreckage of the marriage: their old alliance, running rings of secret mockery round Gerald's pompous head, would flourish and be a strength to her. He hesitated, but he was ready.
She looked at him, her lips firming and relenting; then she turned away.
She went unnoticing past Norman Kent's portrait of Catherine, though to Nick it played its part in the unfolding moment. "I wish you would go and get Catherine," she said, as she started downstairs.
"Oh . . . " said Nick, following behind, with a nervous laugh that he regretted.
"She ought to be here with her family," Rachel said, not turning round. "She needs care. I can't tell you how worried I am about her with that man."
"Of course you are," said Nick promptly, "of course you are," feeling he needed a new tone to console a woman twice his age. He felt he learned as he spoke, and saw how all her worries found an outlet in this one worry. He said, "I'm sure she's safe with him, but if you want me to, I'll go over there, gladly," pressing and then faltering behind her in anxious support and respect. The truth was he was frightened of the reporters and photographers: he didn't know how to deal with them, or with anyone who didn't show support and respect. And he was very wary of Russell, who seemed to have brought about his longed-for exposure of Gerald almost by chance, and now was "looking after Cath" in his Brixton flat, and declining to let anyone see her.
Rachel reached the first-floor landing. "I mean, I can't go over there; I'd have the whole press pack at my heels." It was as if she was in danger even coming down to this level. The world outside her door had revealed itself as not only alien but hostile. And her world within doors had abruptly been robbed of comfort. She turned and her face was stiff apart from her moving lips; Nick thought she might be going to cry, and in a way he hoped she would, because it would be a natural thing to do, as well as a sign of trust—he could hold her, which he'd never done before. He saw the quick sensual crush of his chin against the shoulder of her wool suit, her grey-streaked hair across his mouth; she would clutch him, with a shudder of acceptance and release, and after a while he would lead her into the drawing room, where they would sit down and decide what to do about Gerald.
"No, you mustn't . . ." he said. "Obviously."
He watched her blink rapidly and choose a different sort of release: "I mean, since you're so good at winkling people out!"
Nick didn't counter this gibe, the first he'd ever had from her. He said, "Oh . . . " almost modestly, looking away at the carpet, the legs of the Sheraton table, the polished threshold of the drawing room. He felt very low, and