The Line of Beauty - Alan Hollinghurst [65]
"The President announced the Strategic Defence Initiative six months ago," said Morden Lipscomb, gravely but a little impatiently. "It aims to protect the United States from any attack by guided missile systems. In effect a defensive shield will be created to repel and destroy nuclear weapons before they can reach us."
"Delightful idea," said Lady Partridge. This sounded satirical, and the plan had indeed been greeted with derision as well as dismay; but then Nick thought, no, the old lady would take pleasure in weaponry, and arms budgets generally.
"It is, I believe, an irresistible one," said Lipscomb, laying his left hand commandingly on the table. He wore a signet ring on his little finger, but no wedding ring. Of course that didn't mean much; Nick's own father and his father's male friends didn't wear wedding rings, they were thought, for all their symbolism, to be vaguely effeminate. He thought of the card, "From the Desk of Morden Lipscomb"—it made one wonder where else it might have come from: "the Back-burner," "the Rest-room," "From the Closet of Morden Lipscomb" . . . well, it was an idea. He was clearly a man with his own defensive systems.
After pudding the ladies withdrew. Nick's thoughts went with them as they climbed the stairs; he stood with one knee on his chair, hoping he might somehow be allowed to join them. "Slide along, Nick," said Gerald. The men all closed up together at Gerald's end of the table, in a grimly convivial movement, occupying the absent women's places. Nick handed Lady Partridge's lipstick-daubed napkin to Elena, who had come through to sort them out. There were many all-male occasions that he liked, but now he missed the buffer of a female, even Jenny Groom, whose general impatience he'd decided was a sad flower of her hatred of her husband. Now Barry Groom was sitting down opposite him with a scowl, as if familiar to the point of weariness with the etiquette of such occasions. Nick looked across to Toby for help, but he was laying out a box of cigars and the cigar cutter; Gerald was setting the decanters off on their circuit. Nick pictured Leo, as he had left him today, walking his bike away, and the love-chord sounded, warily now—he didn't want the others to hear it. How could he describe it, even to himself, Leo's step, his bounce, his beautiful half-knowing, half-unconscious deployment of his own effects? "I'll give you one piece of advice," said Barry Groom, choosing imperiously between the unmarked port and claret decanters.
"Oh, yes," said Nick, and felt his erection begin to subside. "Never speculate with more than twelve per cent of your capital."
"Oh . . ." Nick gasped humorously, but seeing Barry Groom was almost angrily in earnest he went on, "Twelve per cent. Right . . . I'll try and remember that. No, that sounds like good advice."
"Twelve per cent," said Barry Groom: "it's the best advice I can give you." He slid the decanters over to him, since they formed the bridge, furthest from Gerald. Nick took some port and passed it on to Morden Lipscomb, with a little show of promptness and charm. Lipscomb was just clipping a cigar, and his thin mouth, turned down in concentration, seemed to brood on some disdain, not of the cigar, but of the company he found himself in. This was presumably the moment when he should be made way for, in the solemn but disinhibiting absence of the women, but he was cagey, or sulky. Nick felt sorry for Gerald, but didn't see how he could help. His own way of getting on terms with people was through the sudden intimacy of talk about art and music, a show of sensibility; but he felt Lipscomb would rebuff him, as though refusing intimacy of another kind. He wondered again what Leo would have said and done: he had such clear, sarcastic opinions about things.
"So, Derek," said Barry Groom, in his cuttingly casual tone, "how long are you staying here?"
Badger puffed coaxingly for a second or two, and then let out a roguish cloud of smoke. "As long as the old Banger'll have me," he said, jerking his head towards Gerald.
"Ah, that's what you call