The Line of Beauty

genteelisms any use? She had an air of being ready to take things on, and simultaneously an air of puzzled and frightened offence. 'That's what he'd been doing, had he, I suppose, your friend the actor? Humping?'

'Almost undoubtedly,' said Nick. Sir Maurice made a rough, dyspeptic sound, as if chewing a mint. 'But as we all know,' Nick went on flatteringly, and with a sort of weary zeal now the moment had come, 'there are other things one can do. I mean there's oral sex, which may be dangerous, but is certainly less so.'

Sally received this stoically. 'Kissing, you mean.'

Sir Maurice looked at him sharply and said, 'I'm afraid what you're saying fills me with a physical revulsion,' and seemed to be laughing in his distaste. 'I just don't see why anyone's remotely surprised. The whole thing had got completely out of hand. They had it coming to them.'

Sally, enlightened for a minute by her unusual talk with Nick, said wildly, 'Oh, Maurice is medieval on this one, he's like Queen Victoria!' It was a little shot at freedom, her silliness of tone almost invited correction.

'I'm not ashamed of what I think,' said Sir Maurice.

'Of course you're not, darling,' said Sally.

'No, well nor am I, as a matter of fact,' said Nick.

'What do you think, Wani,' said Sally, 'as a younger person, you know, on the other side of the picture?'

Wani had been watching Nick with mischievous patience. 'I suppose Nick must be right, you know… everyone's going to have to be more careful. There's really no excuse for getting the thing now.' He smiled wisely. 'I think it's so sad with little children having it-babies born with it, even.'

'That is awfully sad,' said Sally.

'I'm probably just old-fashioned on these things, but actually I was brought up to believe in no sex before marriage.'

'My own view entirely,' said Sir Maurice, as fiercely as if he was contradicting him.

Nick, tingling with ironies and astonishment, said merely, 'But if we're never going to get married…'

'Sort of sex-mad, isn't it, the world we live in,' said Sally, as if that was their general conclusion.

'I know… ' said Wani.

(v)

Next morning there was a briefbit of shouting between Gerald and Catherine, down by the pool. Nick couldn't quite hear what it was about. He was surprised by it, so soon after Pat's death, when Gerald might have bothered to tread carefully; but it seemed also to make a kind of sense, as an awkward aftershock of that event. Nothing more was said about it in the day.

When Nick went upstairs in the afternoon Catherine came too, a little behind him, so that it wasn't clear if she was following him; he glanced back in the long passageway and saw her plotting expression. He left his door open, and a few moments later she came wandering in. 'Hello, darling,' said Nick.

'Mm, hello again, darling,' said Catherine, looking quickly at him, and then peering mysteriously around the room.

'Are you OK?'

'Oh, yes… fine. I'm fine.'

Nick smiled tenderly, but she seemed almost irritated by the question, and he thought perhaps she'd got over Pat, with her odd emotional economy, of feelings fiercely inhabited and then discarded. She was wearing tight white shorts and a grey tank top of Jasper's, in which her small breasts moved alertly. No one had come to his room before, and it felt intimate, and pleasantly tense, like a first date. She sat on the bed and tested the springs.

'Poor old Nick, you always get the worst room.'

'I love my room,' said Nick, gazing to left and right.

'This used to be my room. It's where they put the children. God, I remember those creepy pictures.'

'They are a bit spooky, aren't they.' They were the little German paintings on glass: Autumn, where a woman with an aigrette filled a girl's apron with easily reached fruit, and Winter, where men in red coats shot and skated and a bird sang on a bare branch. It was hard to put your finger on it, but they had a sort of sinister geniality.

'Still, you're nice and near your friend.'

'I can hear old Ouradi snoring, yes,' said Nick, rather heartily, and sat down at the table.

'Actually I don't mind old Ouradi,' said Catherine.

'He's all right, isn't he.'

'I always thought he was just a spoilt little ponce, but there's a wee bit more to him than that. He can even be quite funny.'

'I know…' said Nick, who thought of himself as much funnier than Wani.

'I mean he's bloody moody. Sometimes he's just not there, he's like a shop dummy going charming… duchess… et cetera; and sometimes he's the life and soul.'

'I know what you mean,' said Nick, with a wary laugh at her mimicry. 'You get used to that.'

Catherine leaned back on her arms and swung her legs. 'I'm quite glad I'm not his fiancee, I must say.'

'I think she's probably used to that too.'

'She's certainly had time to get used to it…'

Nick looked down, realigned the books on his table, his notebooks, Henry James's memoirs covering the Spartacus gay guide to the world. He assumed Catherine had come here with a purpose. She glanced round, and then got up and closed the door, in the abstracted way of someone already working on the next thing.

'I must say I'm beginning to wonder about old Wani,' she said.

'How do you mean…?'

'He's rather brilliant, actually.'

'Oh…?'

'He's completely pulled the wool over your blue eyes.'

Nick smiled dimly, with anxiety and a vague sense of a compliment. 'Quite probably,' he said.

Catherine sat down and said, 'My little Jaz has got a theory.'

'Oh, yes?' said Nick. 'I wouldn't automatically credit a theory of little Jaz's.'

Catherine carried on as if she didn't mind him sounding like her father. 'Perhaps not, but…Jasper's very observant, you know, well, you probably don't believe me… anyway, he thinks he's a fag.'

'Oh!' Nick tutted disappointedly. 'Yeah, people are always saying that. It's just because he bathes so often and wears see-through trousers.' The odd thing, Nick thought, was that people said it so rarely.

'Jasper says he follows him round all the time trying to get a look at his knob.'

'Mm… It sounds to me a bit like vanity, darling. Jasper's always following me round trying to show me his knob.' Perhaps this was too frank. 'You must admit, he can be a bit of a flirt.' Nick was surprised by his own presence of mind, but still he sniggered, and crossed his legs in complex discomfort.

'Wani hasn't said anything at all, then? About Jaz? I suppose he would be extra careful to keep it from you, wouldn't he-in case you got the wrong idea! Wouldn't do at all!' said Catherine, perhaps not convinced by her own theory.

Nick was blushing, but he looked at her levelly. 'I don't know, darling,' he said, and bit his lower lip. 'Aren't they alone together down at the pool right now? Who knows what might be happening?'

'At least he's not wearing his thong today,' said Catherine.

'No, quite…' Nick pushed on defensively with his rough joke. 'Though once they get into the pool-house together…'

Catherine gave him a bothered stare, and coloured a little herself. She knew of course that Nick knew that Jasper fucked her in the pool-house, it was a silent brag; but of course she didn't know that Nick had fucked Wani there last night, after the awful dinner, in a storm of pent-up anger. She said, 'Oh, god, don't mention the pool- house.'

'What…?'

'Gerald was on to me about it this morning, and behaving broadly like an ape, I must say.'