The Line of Beauty

Catherine, who could have sulked or asked an awkward question, shaking hands with a bright 'Hello!' and gazing at the PM like a child at a conjuror. 'Oh, and this is my boyfriend,' she said, producing Jasper but forgetting to name him. 'Hello,' said the Prime Minister, in a tone just dry enough to suggest that by now she deserved a drink: which Tristao, with his doe eyes and nerveless smile, was at hand to provide.

Nick trotted downstairs from a quick refresher and caught Wani coming out of Gerald and Rachel's bedroom. 'God, careful, darling,' he said.

'I was just using the lav,' said Wani.

'Mm,' said Nick. He was too drunk and high himself to take the danger at all seriously. 'Do use my lav if you need to.'

'The stairs,' said Wani.

Nick loved the way the coke took off the blur of champagne, claret, Sautemes, and more champagne. It totted up the points and carried them over as credit in a new account of pleasure. It brought clarity, like a cure-almost, at first, like sobriety. He put an arm round Wani's shoulders, and asked him if he was having a good time. 'We see so little of each other,' he said. They started to go downstairs and something caught Nick's eye at the third or fourth step, someone else moving in the great white bedroom that Wani had come out of. His instinct as guardian of the house, preventer of trouble, quickened. Jasper came out, businesslike, as if he had the keys and was showing the place to a buyer. He gave Nick a nod and a wink. 'Just going up to Cat's room,' he said.

'So,' said Nick, as he and Wani went on down, with a pensive hesitation each step or two, as though they might stop completely in the charm of a shared thought, 'you've been running the house tart up the hill… '

'It's got to be climbed, old chap, it's got to be climbed.'

'Yeah,' said Nick, with a sniff and a sour turning down of the mouth. He looked for guilt in Wani's oddly rosy face; he glimpsed, like shuffled cards, the two of them together in the bathroom, Wani's love of corruption, all the licence that went with the latest line. 'So it's not our secret any more,' he said. Wani gave him a look that was scornful but not aggressive. Nick might be in the clear, clever phase, but Wani was much further on, in the phase where high spirits reel and stall and blink at a barely recognized room or friend. Nick let him go, and the high heartbeat of the coke became a short sprint of panic. He smiled defensively, and the smile seemed to search and find a happier subject, in the opening bloom of the drug. It was hard to know what mattered. There was certainly no point in thinking about it now. Out in the marquee the music had started, and everything had the air of an escapade.

He found Catherine in a corner of the drawing room being chatted up by toothy old Jonty Stafford, the retired ambassador, who stooped over her like a convivial Jabberwock. 'No, I think you'd like Dubrovnik,' he was saying, with a suggestive hooding of the eyes. 'The Hotel Diocletian, enormous charm.'

'Oh,' said Catherine.

'They always gave us the bridal suite, you know… which has the most enormous bed. You could have had an orgy in there.'

'Not on your wedding night, presumably.'

'Hello, Sir Jonty.'

'Ah, now here's your handsome young beau, now I'm for it, now I'm done for!' said SirJonty, and lurched off after another passing female bottom, which happened to be that of the PM. He looked back for a moment with a shake of the head: 'Marvellous, you know… the Prime Minister… '

'I think you've just been propositioned by a very drunk old man,' said Nick.

'Well, it's nice to be noticed by someone,' said Catherine, dropping onto a sofa. 'Sit here. Do you know where Jaz is?'

'Haven't seen him,' said Nick.

The photographer was at large, and his flash gleamed in the mirrors. He slipped and lingered among the guests, approached with a smile, like a vaguely remembered bore, in his bow tie and dinner jacket, and then poufl-he'd got them. Later he came back, he came around, because most shots catch a bleary blink or a turned shoulder, and got them again. Now they bunched and faced him, or they pretended they hadn't seen him and acted themselves with careless magnificence. Nick dropped onto the sofa beside Catherine, lounged with one leg curled under him and a grin on his face at his own elegance. He felt he could act himself all night. He felt fabulous, he loved these nights, and whilst it would have been good to top the thing off with sex it seemed hardly to matter if he didn't. It made the absolute best of not having sex.

'Mm, you smell nice,' said Catherine.

'Oh, it's just the old 'Je Promets,' ' said Nick, and shook his cufflinks at her. 'Have you had your twelve seconds with the PM yet?'

'I was just about to, but Gerald put a stop to it.'

'I heard a bit of her talk at dinner. She does that Great Person thing of being very homely and self- indulgent.'

'Greedy,' said Catherine.

'They all love it, they breathe sighs of relief, they'd talk about marge versus butter all night, and then suddenly she's on them with the Common Agricultural Policy.'

'You've not given her your own thoughts on it.'

'Not yet…' said Nick. 'She's quite closely managed, isn't she? She's in charge, but she goes where she's told.'

'Well, she's not in charge here,' said Catherine, beckoning boldly to Tristao. 'What do you want to drink?'

'What do I want?'.' said Nick, matching Tristao's formal smile with a sly one, and running his eyes up the waiter's body. 'What would I like best?'

'Champagne, sir? Or something stronger?'

'Champagne for now,' Nick drawled, 'and something stronger later.' The view of pleasure deepened in front of him, the lovely teamwork of drugs and drink, the sense of risk nonsensically heightening the sense of security, the new conviction he could do what he wanted with Tristao, after all these years. Tristao himself merely nodded, but as he stooped to reach an empty glass he leant quickly and heavily on Nick's knee. Nick watched him going away through the crowded room and for several long seconds it was all one perspective, here and Hawkeswood, the gilt, the mirrors, room after room, the glimpsed coat-tails of a fugitive idea: which then came to you, by itself, and it was what you wanted. The pursuit was nothing but a restless way of waiting. All shall have prizes: Gerald was right. When Tristao came back and bowed the drinks on their tray towards them, Nick plucked up his glass in a toast that was both general and secret. 'To us,' he said.

'To us,' said Catherine. 'Do stop flirting with that waiter.'

A minute later she said, 'Fedden seems pretty lively tonight. Most unlike himself, I must say.' They looked across to where Toby was sprawled on the PM's sofa and telling some unimaginable joke. Just beside the PM the wide dented seat cushion was a reception zone on which supplicants perched for an audience of a minute or two before being amicably dislodged-though Toby, trading perhaps on the triumph of his speech after dinner, had been there rather longer.

'I wouldn't be surprised,' said Nick, 'if Wani hadn't given him a bit of laughing powder to get him through.'

'Oh, god,' said Catherine disparagingly, before smiling at the idea of it. 'You know what he's like, he'll offer her a poke or whatever it's called.'

'She's had a lot to drink, hasn't she. But it doesn't seem to have any effect.'

'It's so funny watching the men with her. They come up with their wives but you can see they're an embarrassment-look at that one now, yes, shakes hands, 'Yes, Prime Minister, yes, yes,' can't quite get round to introducing his wife… obviously longing for her to get lost so he can have a hot date with the Lady himself-now she's got to sit on the sofa, he's furious… but yes! she's got him-he's squatting down… he's kneeling on the carpet…'

'Maybe she'll make him kiss her, um…'

'Oh, surely not…'

'Her ring, darling!'

'Oh, maybe. It's a very big one.'

'Well, she's quite queenly, isn't she, in that outfit.'