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Authors: Alan Hollinghurst
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is.’
‘Ooh, you don’t want to go cleaning everything,’ Nantwich assured me. ‘Most pictures would be better if they were a damned sight dirtier.’ Mildly dismayed, I treated it as a joke. ‘Bah!’ he went on. ‘You get these fellows—women mostly—doing all the old pictures up. No knowing what they’ll find. And then they look like fakes afterwards.’
I saw he was dribbling gin from his glass onto the carpet. He touched my outstretched hand. ‘Whoopsy!’ he said, as if I were being a nuisance. His gaze drifted into the middle distance and I too looked about, a little at a loss for talk.
‘Actually, I love art,’ he announced. ‘One day, if we get on quite well, I’ll show you my house. You’re keen on art, I should say?’
‘I do have quite a lot of time for it,’ I conceded; then, fearing he might think my tone was rude, I enlarged a figure of speechinto an observation. ‘I mean, I don’t have a job, and I have plenty of time to go to galleries and look at pictures.’
‘You’re not married or anything are you?’
‘No, nothing,’ I assured him.
‘Too young, I know. You’ve been up to university, of course?’
‘I was at Oxford, yes—at Corpus—reading History.’
He drank this in with some more gin. ‘Do you like girls at all?’ he asked.
‘Yes, I like them quite a lot really,’ I insisted.
‘There are chaps who don’t care for them, you know. Simply can’t abide them. Can’t stand the sight of them, their titties and their big sit-upons, even the smell of them.’ He looked down the room authoritatively to where Percy was dispensing Sanatogen to a striking likeness of the older Gladstone. ‘Andrews, for instance, cannot tolerate them.’
It took me a moment to work this out. ‘In the gym?’ I said. ‘Yes, I’m not surprised—he seems very much a man’s man. You must know Andrews then,’ I lamely concluded. But I had lost my host already; I saw that he attacked questions with excitement but abandoned them within seconds. Or perhaps they abandoned him.
‘If you’ll give me a hand I do think we might go through now, so that we can get a good seat. They’re like hyenas here. They eat everything up if you’re not in there quick.’ I lifted one of his elbows as he pushed himself up with the other, his whole frame shaking with the effort. ‘Let’s have a look at the Library,’ he said, as if speaking to someone who was very deaf, winking at me in a musical-comedy way. ‘That’ll fool them,’ he explained, in a voice only slightly quieter. Then, returning the stare of a nonagenarian wild-dog in the chair nearest the door, ‘We have a history of self-abuse in duodecimo—but it’s probably
out.
’
The dining-room was a far finer place. There was a long collegiate table in the middle, and smaller tables, set for two or four, allowed for more private talk around the walls. Contemporary copies of Hogarth’s
Rake’s Progress
hung in a double rank opposite the windows, and the famous full-length Batoni of Sir Humphry Clay, Roman statuary behind him and garlands of dead game at his feet, dominated the end wall. Beneath it the dining-roomstaff were arranging plates, tureens and cheeses at an immense funerary sideboard. The ceiling had an Adamish rosette at its centre, and from it hung a fairly elaborate crystal chandelier which had been conspicuously converted to electricity. Yet despite the tarnished brilliance of the room, some residual public-school thing, quintessential to Clubs, infected the atmosphere. The air retained a smell of cabbage and bad cooking that made me apprehensive about lunch.
‘Here we are, splendid, splendid,’ whistled Lord Nantwich as he chose the corner table which was most sequestered and afforded the best view. ‘Not quite the first, I see; or are they still having breakfast? You can get a good breakfast here: kidneys. For me they do a black pudding—though they won’t often do it for all the old farts in here. I enjoy a good
‘Ooh, you don’t want to go cleaning everything,’ Nantwich assured me. ‘Most pictures would be better if they were a damned sight dirtier.’ Mildly dismayed, I treated it as a joke. ‘Bah!’ he went on. ‘You get these fellows—women mostly—doing all the old pictures up. No knowing what they’ll find. And then they look like fakes afterwards.’
I saw he was dribbling gin from his glass onto the carpet. He touched my outstretched hand. ‘Whoopsy!’ he said, as if I were being a nuisance. His gaze drifted into the middle distance and I too looked about, a little at a loss for talk.
‘Actually, I love art,’ he announced. ‘One day, if we get on quite well, I’ll show you my house. You’re keen on art, I should say?’
‘I do have quite a lot of time for it,’ I conceded; then, fearing he might think my tone was rude, I enlarged a figure of speechinto an observation. ‘I mean, I don’t have a job, and I have plenty of time to go to galleries and look at pictures.’
‘You’re not married or anything are you?’
‘No, nothing,’ I assured him.
‘Too young, I know. You’ve been up to university, of course?’
‘I was at Oxford, yes—at Corpus—reading History.’
He drank this in with some more gin. ‘Do you like girls at all?’ he asked.
‘Yes, I like them quite a lot really,’ I insisted.
‘There are chaps who don’t care for them, you know. Simply can’t abide them. Can’t stand the sight of them, their titties and their big sit-upons, even the smell of them.’ He looked down the room authoritatively to where Percy was dispensing Sanatogen to a striking likeness of the older Gladstone. ‘Andrews, for instance, cannot tolerate them.’
It took me a moment to work this out. ‘In the gym?’ I said. ‘Yes, I’m not surprised—he seems very much a man’s man. You must know Andrews then,’ I lamely concluded. But I had lost my host already; I saw that he attacked questions with excitement but abandoned them within seconds. Or perhaps they abandoned him.
‘If you’ll give me a hand I do think we might go through now, so that we can get a good seat. They’re like hyenas here. They eat everything up if you’re not in there quick.’ I lifted one of his elbows as he pushed himself up with the other, his whole frame shaking with the effort. ‘Let’s have a look at the Library,’ he said, as if speaking to someone who was very deaf, winking at me in a musical-comedy way. ‘That’ll fool them,’ he explained, in a voice only slightly quieter. Then, returning the stare of a nonagenarian wild-dog in the chair nearest the door, ‘We have a history of self-abuse in duodecimo—but it’s probably
out.
’
The dining-room was a far finer place. There was a long collegiate table in the middle, and smaller tables, set for two or four, allowed for more private talk around the walls. Contemporary copies of Hogarth’s
Rake’s Progress
hung in a double rank opposite the windows, and the famous full-length Batoni of Sir Humphry Clay, Roman statuary behind him and garlands of dead game at his feet, dominated the end wall. Beneath it the dining-roomstaff were arranging plates, tureens and cheeses at an immense funerary sideboard. The ceiling had an Adamish rosette at its centre, and from it hung a fairly elaborate crystal chandelier which had been conspicuously converted to electricity. Yet despite the tarnished brilliance of the room, some residual public-school thing, quintessential to Clubs, infected the atmosphere. The air retained a smell of cabbage and bad cooking that made me apprehensive about lunch.
‘Here we are, splendid, splendid,’ whistled Lord Nantwich as he chose the corner table which was most sequestered and afforded the best view. ‘Not quite the first, I see; or are they still having breakfast? You can get a good breakfast here: kidneys. For me they do a black pudding—though they won’t often do it for all the old farts in here. I enjoy a good
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