It was. Worse. In his red shirt and blue jeans Wilt looked out of place.
‘Darling Eva,’ said Sally, when they finally found her talking to a man in a loincloth made out of a kitchen towel advertising Irish cheeses, ‘you look great. The twenties suit you. And so this is Henry.’ Henry didn’t feel Henry at all. ‘In period costume too. Henry meet Raphael.’
The man in the loincloth studied Wilt’s jeans. ‘The fifties are back,’ he said languidly, ‘I suppose it was bound to happen.’
Wilt looked pointedly at a Connemara Cheddar and tried to smile.
‘Help yourself, Henry,’ said Sally, and took Eva off to meet the freest but the most liberated woman who was simply dying to meet booby baby. Wilt went into the garden and put his bottle on the table and looked for a corkscrew. There wasn’t one. In the end he looked into a large bucket with a ladle in it. Half an orange and segments of bruised peach floated in a purple liquid. He poured himself a paper cup and tried it. As he had anticipated, it tasted like cider with wood alcohol and orange squash. Wilt looked round the garden. In one corner a man in a chef’s hat and a jockstrap was cooking, was burning sausages over a charcoal grill. In another corner a dozen people were lying in a circle listening to the Watergate tapes. There was a sprinkling of couples talking earnestly and a number of individuals standing by themselves looking supercilious and remote. Wilt recognised himself among them and selected the least attractive girl on the theory that he might just as well jump in the deep end and get it over with. He’d end up with her anyway.
‘Hi,’ he said, conscious that already he was slipping into the Americanese that Eva had succumbed to. The girl looked at him blankly and moved away.
‘Charming,’ said Wilt, and finished his drink. Ten minutes and two drinks later he was discussing Rapid Reading with a small round man who seemed deeply interested in the subject.
In the kitchen Eva was cutting up French bread while Sally stood with a drink and talked about Levi-Strauss with an Ethiopian who had just got back from New Guinea.
I’ve always felt that L-S was all wrong on the woman’s front,’ she said, languidly studying Eva’s rear, ‘I mean he disregards the essential similarity…’ She stopped and stared out of the window. ‘Excuse me a moment she said, and went out to rescue Dr Scheimacher from the clutches of Henry Wilt. ‘Ernst is such a sweetie,’ she said, when she came back ‘you’d never guess he got the Nobel prize for spermatology.’
Wilt stood in the middle of the garden and finished his third drink he poured himself a fourth and went to listen to the Watergate tapes. He got there in time to hear the end.
‘You get a much clearer insight into Tricky Dick’s character quadraphonically,’ someone said as the group brake up.
‘With the highly gifted child one has to develop a special relationship. Roger and I find that Tonio responds best to constructional approach.’
‘It’s a lead of bull. Take what he says about quasars for example…’
‘I can’t honestly see what’s wrong with buggery…’
‘I don’t care what Marcuse thinks about tolerance. What I’m saying is…’
‘At minus two-fifty nitrogen…’
‘Bach does have his moments I suppose but he has his limitations…’
‘We’ve got this place at St Trop…’
‘I still think Kaldor had the answer…’
Wilt finished his fourth drink and went to look for Eva. He’d had enough. He was halted by a yell from the man in the chef’s hat.
‘Burgers up. Come and get it.’
Wilt staggered off and got it. Two sausages, a burnt beefburger and a slosh of coleslaw
