The Line of Beauty (50 page)

"I think I'll walk," said Nick, unthinkingly fit. "I could do with some exercise."

Wani pulled back the handle and the door cracked open onto the cold blue afternoon.

"You know I love you very much, don't you," said Nick, not meaning it in the second before he said it, but moved by saying
it into feeling it might still be true. It seemed a way of covering his ungraciousness about Wani's will, of showing he was
groping for a sense of scale. Wani snuffled, looked across the road at his mother, but didn't echo Nick's words. He had never
told him he loved him. But it seemed possible to Nick that he might mean it without saying it. He said,

"By the way, I should warn you that Gerald seems to be in a bit of trouble."

"Oh, really?" said Nick.

"I don't know exactly what's happened, but it's something to do with the Fedray takeover last year. A spot of creative accounting."

"Really? What, you mean the Maurice Tipper thing."

"I think you can be pretty sure Maurice has covered his back. And Gerald will probably be all right. But there may be a bit
of a fuss."

"Goodness . . . " Nick thought of Rachel first of all, and then of Catherine, who for the past few weeks had been in a wildly
excitable state. "How do you know about this?"

"I had a call from Sam Zeman earlier."

"Right," said Nick, slightly jealous. "I must give him a ring."

They got out of the car, and Nick dawdled across the road, finding it hard to go at Wani's pace. He kissed Monique and explained
that Wani had brought up his lunch; she nodded, pursed her lips and swallowed in a funny mimetic reflex. She was dignified
and withdrawn, but as she touched her son's upper arm the glow of a long-surrendered power over him came into her face, the
animal solace of being allowed to love and protect him, even against such hopeless odds. Wani himself, with the women at each
elbow, seemed to shrink into their keeping; the sustaining social malice of the past two hours abandoned him at the threshold.
They forgot their manners, and the door was closed again without anyone saying goodbye.

16

N
ICK CROSSED KNIGHTSBRIDGE
and went through Albert Gate into the Park. He swung his arms, and his calves and thighs ached
with guilty vigour. There was so much to think about, and the Park itself seemed pensive, the chestnuts standing in pools
of their shed leaves, the great planes, slower to change, still towering tan and gold; but all he wanted to do was march along.
A group of young women on horseback came trotting down Rotten Row, and he crossed behind them, over the damp, crusted sand.
He didn't mind the north-easterly breeze. It was the time of year when the atmosphere streamed with unexpected hints and memories,
and a paradoxical sense of renewal. He thought of meeting Leo after work, always early, the chill of promise in the air. Once
or twice they met at the bandstand, away over there, with the copper ogee roof: strange that that particular shape should
have floated on its slender pillars above the quick kiss, quick touch, odd nervous avoidance of their meetings. He took the
long diagonal that went past Watts's monument to, or of, Physical Energy: the huge-thighed horseman reining back and gazing,
in a ferment of discovery, towards Kensington Palace. Nick gave it the smug glance which showed that as a critic he noticed
it and as a Londoner he took it for granted.

He thought about the Clerkenwell building. What Wani had bought was three narrow Victorian properties making a corner block,
one extending deep behind the others into a high iron-and-glass-roofed workshop. They were solidly built, of blackened brick
which showed up plum red when they were knocked down. There were doorbells of moribund trades, a glass beveller, a "Church
and Legal" printer. There were boarded-up windows, industrial wiring, the light vandalism of use. Wani had taken Nick to see
them, and Nick's whole impulse was to do them up and live in them. He went into the cellars and attics, heaved open trapdoors,
climbed onto the leads, and looked down through the steep glass roof into the workshop where Wani was pacing around in his
beautiful suit, flipping his car keys in his hand. Nick saw their friends coming to parties and dancing in that room.

Something in Wani's impatient, unseeing manner told him this was never going to happen. He felt like a child whose desperate
visionary plea has no chance of persuading a parent. And of course the buildings came down—for a month or two the backs of
other buildings not seen for a century felt the common sunlight, and then Baalbek House, named by Wani as if he'd written
a poem, started to go up. Nick cast about but really he'd never seen a more meretricious design than that of Baalbek House.
His own ideas were discounted with the grunting chuckle of someone wedded to another vision of success and defiantly following
cheaper advice. And now this monster Lego house, with its mirror windows and maroon marble cladding, was to be Nick's for
life.

When he turned into Kensington Park Gardens Nick remembered what Wani had said about Gerald, and started walking more slowly,
as if to resist a strange acceleration of trouble. He was shy about meeting Gerald, who could be aggressive when in the wrong
and sarcastic when he needed support. The Range Rover was parked outside the house, which might mean he'd come back early
from Parliament. It looked significant. As so often, Nick didn't know what he was supposed to know—or indeed what he did know,
since creative accounting was just a jocular phrase to him. Behind the Range Rover a man in a reddish leather jacket was leaning
on the roof of a parked car and talking to another man sitting at the wheel. He looked up as Nick approached, and carried
on talking while his eyes, in one fluent sequence, seemed to find him, hold him, scan him and dismiss him. Nick turned in
at No. 48, and glanced back while he felt for his keys: the man was staring at him, and raised his chin as though about to
call out, but then said nothing. He smiled unnervingly. His friend in the car passed him a camera through the window and he
put it to his eye and took three pictures in two seconds—Nick was mesmerized by the lazy precision of the clicks; and too
surprised to know what he felt. He felt victimized, and flattered, pretty important and utterly insignificant, since they
clearly had no idea who he was. He thought in dignity he shouldn't answer questions, and was confused by their not asking
him any. It took him an age to open the blue door.

In the hall everything seemed calm. Elena was in the kitchen and Nick said hello and waited for a sign from her. She was preparing
the "meal and a half," the separate portion, like a child's or an invalid's, that was made for Gerald when he was going to
be late at the House. "Have you seen what's going on outside?" said Nick. Elena thumbed her pastry expressively, but only
said,

"I don't know."

"Is Gerald here?"

"Is gone to work."

"Oh good . . ."

"Miz Fed upstairs with his Lord." Elena radiated resentment, and Nick didn't risk exploring its cause, whether it was Gerald
or what was being done to him: it felt large enough to include everyone. "You take the tray?" she said.

The kettle was coming to the boil, and the tray was ready with two teacups and the little sweet
lebkuchen
that Rachel liked. Nick warmed the pot and put in two spoonfuls of lapsang. It was the set with a pink Petit Trianon in a
wreath on each cup and saucer, dull and pale now from the fury of the dishwasher. He poured on the water, gave it a good stir,
dropped the lid on, and picked up the tray. Elena looked at him more amiably but shook her head. "Is Street of Shame," she
said. "Is Street of Shame, Nick." It was the
Private Eye
phrase for Fleet Street, which Gerald had once teased Toby with, but Nick wasn't sure if she meant that or if she meant that
Kensington Park Gardens itself had been brought down.

The drawing-room door was open, and Nick slowed again before going in. Lionel was saying, "If he has been a bloody fool then
he'll have to face the consequences. If he hasn't, then we have infinite resources to demonstrate the fact." His manner was
as quiet as ever, but without its usual cordiality: he sounded as if he expected the former option, and the stain it would
bring on the family. Nick rattled the tray and went in. Rachel was standing by the mantelpiece, Lionel sitting in an armchair,
and for a second Nick thought of the scene in
The Portrait of a Lady
when Isabel discovers her husband sitting while Mme Merle is standing, and sees at once that they are more intimate than
she had realized. "Ah, my dear . . . " said Rachel, as Nick came forward with a slight mime of servility, which wasn't spotted
as a joke. Lionel greeted him with his eyes, and went on, "When's he due back?" "He's got a late division," Rachel murmured.
And Nick, setting down the tray, saw that though he hadn't chanced in on a secret he had caught the note of an older, more
unguarded friendship than he'd heard before, the shared intelligence of brother and sister.

"Thanks so much," said Rachel.

"Did you have your picture taken?" said Lionel.

"I did," said Nick; and for some reason went on, "Not my best side, I'm afraid."

"No, they're awful about that," said Lionel, clearly resolving to show by his humour and by sitting down squarely and comfortably
that there was nothing to worry about. "I was tipped off, so I came through the gardens."

"Thank heavens for the gardens," said Rachel. "With four exits they really can't keep it covered."

Nick smiled and hesitated. There wasn't a cup for him, but he longed to be included. He said tactfully, "Is there anything
I can do?"

"Oh . . . " Lionel and Rachel looked at each other, searching for an answer among their own proprieties and uncertainties.
Perhaps it was too shaming, even with the press outside, for Rachel to talk about. "Some rather awful things are being said
about Gerald," she said, in her tellingly passive fashion.

Nick bit his cheek and said, "Wani . . . Ouradi told me something about it."

"Oh, well it's out, then," said Rachel.

"It will come out, darling," said Lionel.

Rachel poured the tea, and seemed lost in this sombre idea, passing Lionel a cup and the plate of
lebkuchen.
"And what about Maurice Tipper?" she said.

Lionel sat scrunching his biscuit in a vigilant squirrel-like way, and licked the sugar from his lips before saying, "Maurice
Tipper is a cold-blooded thug."

"That's certainly true," said Rachel.

"My guess is that he'll only help Gerald if doing so helps himself."

"Mm . . . I saw Sophie at lunchtime," Nick offered. "I thought she was rather evasive."

"Thank god Tobias didn't marry that false little girl!" said Rachel, clutching at this out-of-date consolation and laughing
with new bitterness and relief.

"Quite!" said Nick.

"Two things you can do," said Lionel. "Obviously, don't talk to anyone. And could you bear to pop out and buy the
Standard?"

"Of course," said Nick, suddenly more nervous of the photographers.

"And a third thing," said Rachel. "Could you try and find my daughter?"

"Ah, yes . . . " said Lionel.

"She's frightfully
up
at the moment," Rachel said. "You've no idea what she'll do."

"Well, I'll try," said Nick.

"Isn't she taking the pills?" said Lionel, firm and vague at once.

"They can't quite get it right," said Rachel. "Two months ago she could barely speak—now she can barely stop speaking. It
is a strain."

They both looked at Nick and he said, "I'll see what I can do." He sensed a certain hardness towards himself, a request that
he should prove his usefulness to the family. Then he thought briskness might be a mark of confidence. A structure of command,
long laid away in velvet, had been rapidly reassembled.

Catherine came home about six. She was thinking of buying a house in Barbados, and had been having a long talk with Brentford
about it. Nick could tell from the smell of her hair when she kissed him that she'd been smoking pot; she seemed both elated
and spaced out. Flashes went off as she opened the front door, but she treated them almost as natural phenomena, the meteors
of her own atmosphere. "What was all that about?" she said, hardly waiting for an answer. "Another visit from the Prime Minister?"

"Not exactly," said Nick, following her upstairs and thinking that whatever was going on made another visit from the PM very
unlikely. "We've been wondering where you were," he said. Rachel was on the phone in the drawing room, talking to Gerald in
Westminster, and seemed to be getting the reassurances she needed; she was oddly placable. She smiled indulgently at Toby's
portrait and said, "Of course, darling, just carry on as normal. We'll try . . . ! We'll see you . . . Yup, yup." Nick went
to the front windows, which looked very large and shiny in the early dusk. It was unsettling to know there were men waiting
outside, their patience barely tested. The curtains were never closed, and when freed from the brocaded bands that held them
back they still curved stiffly apart. Nick leant in to close the shutters, seldom used, which unfolded with alarming cracks.

When Rachel explained what was going on, Catherine seemed distantly enthusiastic. "Extraordinary . . . " she said.

"It could be quite serious actually," said Nick.

"Not prison, you mean?" It was the pot perhaps that gave her this smile of benign speculation.

"No," said Rachel crossly. "Besides, he's done absolutely nothing wrong. It's clearly all to do with that hateful man Tipper."

"Then Tipper can go to prison," said Catherine. "Or both the Tippers, better still."

Rachel gave a twitch of a smile to show the subject of the joke touched her a little too nearly. "They're only making investigations.
No one's been arrested, much less charged."

"Right."

"Uncle Lionel's been here, and he was very reassuring."

Nick murmured endorsingly and said, "Would anyone like a drink?"

"Anyway, darling, you know your father would never do a thing like that. He's far too experienced. Not to mention dead honest!"
Rachel coloured slightly at this affirmation.

"So is it in the paper?"

"It's not in the
Standard
tonight. And Toby says they won't touch it at the
Telegraph
—he's spoken to Gordon. Daddy says it's just the sort of thing the
Guardian
would love to blow out of all proportion."

"I'll have um . . . " Catherine said, bearing down on the drinks table with a fascinated smile but in the end only managing
to think of a gin-and-tonic. Nick mixed her one, juniper lost in quinine: when she was on the up curve it was best to be careful
with alcohol, annoyance, laughter—any cause of excitement. They stood with their glasses at their chins and nodded "Cheers!"
in a meaningful way.

"The thing is, darling," said Rachel, "we simply mustn't talk to anybody at the moment. Oath of silence, Daddy says."

"I don't know anything about stocks and shares, so you needn't worry."

"It's what they make you say, though . . . Darling, or they twist your words. They've got no principles."

"They're not your friend," said Nick, which had been Lionel's dry way of putting it.

"They've got the morals of rattlesnakes," said Rachel.

Catherine sat on a sofa, swayed her head over her glass, and looked from one to the other of them. She started to smile and
they flinched, with the feeling they were being mocked; but the smile spread and they saw it was to do with something else,
the flowering of a clear belief, just touched with playful calculation, that they would share her happiness. "I've had such
a thrilling day," she said.

They sat down to dinner in the kitchen. Normally Nick enjoyed the nights when Gerald was kept late at Westminster—the mood
of snug reduction and humorously tolerated crisis; if they had guests, or if Gerald and Rachel were due out, there was even
a thrill to Gerald's absence: it was a wing-brush of power, the sign of demands and decisions greater than dinner. Tonight
his absence was more critical. It was odd that he hadn't come home. Clearly he attached great importance to carrying on normally.