The Line of Beauty (49 page)

During lunch Brad, like Wani, drank only water, and Nick and Treat shared a bottle of Chablis. Treat touched Nick's arm a
lot, and involved him in quiet side-chats about what they might do later. Nick tried to keep general conversation going. Wani's
presiding coolness made them all hesitate. He seemed to play with their anxiety about him. Brad and Treat asked questions,
and marvelled at their luck in having Wani to answer them.

If Nick answered a question Wani listened to him and then gave a flat little codicil or correction. His technique was to hold
a subject up and show his command of it, and then to throw it away in smiling contempt for their interest in it. He ate very
little, and a sense of his disgust at the expensive food, and at himself for being unable to eat it, seeped into the conversation.
He looked at the slivers of chicken and translucent courgettes as pitiful tokens of the world of pleasure, and clutched the
table as though to resist a slow tug at the cloth that would sweep the whole vision away.

The question of the film was slow to come up, and Nick was shy to mention it, just because it was his own project. He'd spent
months writing a script, and it was almost as if he'd written the book it was based on: all he wanted was praise. He often
imagined watching the film, in the steep circle of the Curzon cinema—absorbing the grateful unanimous sigh of the audience
at the exact enactment of what he'd written; in fact he seemed to have directed the film as well. He lay awake in the bliss
of Philip French's review. Somehow another James film,
The Bostonians,
had come up, and the crazy thing that the actor who played Superman starred in it.

"One can imagine," said Nick, "only too well, the Master's irony, not to speak of his covert excitement, at
that
idea . . ."; though the others perhaps imagined it less vividly than he did.

"Oh, we loved your letters, by the way," said Treat, with another squeeze of his arm: "so
Britishl"

"Well, I guess we should talk about. . .
our
film," said Brad. Just then the desserts, mere bonnes bouches in foot-wide puddles of pink coulis, were set in front of them.
Wani looked at his plate as if it and the film were equally unlikely confections. "Or we could talk about it next week . .
."

"I don't mind," said Nick, his heart thumping. He was suddenly incredulous that his beautiful plan, the best fruit of his
passion for Henry James, depended on the cooperation of these two stupid people. He sensed already that it wasn't a question
of changes, it was some larger defection from the plan.

"I mean we love what you've done, Nick."

"Yeah, it's great," said Treat.

Brad hesitated, peering at the grid of spun sugar that jutted from his loganberry parfait. "You know, we've talked about this
in the letter a certain amount. It's just the problem of the story where the guy doesn't get the girl, and then the stuff
they're all fighting over—the Spoils, right?—goes up in flames. It kinda sucks."

"Does it . . . ?" said Nick; and, trying to be charming, "It's just like life, though, isn't it—maybe too like life for a
. . . conventional movie. It's about someone who loves things more than people. And who ends up with nothing, of course. I
know it's bleak, but then I think it's probably a very bleak book, even though it's essentially a comedy."

"Yeah, I haven't read the book," said Treat.

"Oh . . . " said Nick, and coloured with proxy embarrassment, with the shame Treat should have been feeling. His loose idea
of getting some time alone with him vanished in a sigh and a shrug.

"You've read the book, Antoine?" said Treat.

Wani was rose-lipped, popping in quarter-spoonfuls of ice cream, sucking them from the spoon and letting them slip down in
luxurious spasms like a child with tonsillitis; he said, "No, I haven't. I pay Nick to do that for me."

"I don't know what you think," said Brad, "about the idea of including just a short love scene for Owen and . . . I'm sorry
. . ."

"Fleda," said Nick. "Fleda Vetch."

"Fleda Vetchl"
said Treat, with a brief blare of a laugh. "What sort of a name is that? Doesn't she sound like the ugliest girl in the school?"

"I think it's rather a touching name," said Nick; and Brad looked reprovingly across the table.

"She sounds like a witch," muttered Treat, as if agreeing to shut up; but then went on, "I mean, can I imagine asking Meryl
Streep, 'Oh, Miss Streep, we've got this really great role for you, will you please, please play the lovely
Fleda Vetch?'
She'd think I'd just thrown up all over the phone."

They all laughed except Wani, who said, very quiet and superior, as if she was someone else they would see at Nat Hanmer's
wedding, "Fleda Vetch is what she is called."

"Yeah, I don't care overly what she's called," said Brad. "But. . . Owen and Fleda—we need to see them together more. We need
some . . . passion!"

"We need him getting all hot," said Treat, flicking his glance towards Jamie's table. Then he winked at Nick. "Did he ever
. . . you know . . ." lowering his voice and looking coyly away, "at Oxford . . . like, with other guys—I'm sure I heard someone
say—"

"He's straight," said Wani.

"Oh, OK," said Treat, with a wobble of the head, as if to say, who's talking about straight here? But there was something
bleaker than impatience in Wani's tone. He was pale and motionless, gazing at the far rim of his plate but clearly caught
by some unpostponable inner reckoning. He jerked his chair back a little, and his stick, swinging off from the back of it,
fell on the marble with a ringing clatter: he groped round for it, bending down, and Brad jumped up to help him, and reclaimed
the stick and managed to absorb the blame and reassure the restaurant with his friendly bulk. Wani's mouth was held shut and
he had an intensely private expression of imminent surrender. It made Nick think for a second of the bedroom. He stood and
went off at a hobbling lurch among the tables.

A few seconds later Nick followed, frowning down at the floor, giving a brisk nod to Fabio's cool "Signore?" In the black
marble lavatory there were two cubicles, and in one of them, with the door still ajar, Wani was stooping and vomiting. Nick
came in behind him and stood there for a moment before laying a hand on his side. Wani flinched, whispered, "Oh fuck . . ."
and crouched and shuddered as he threw up again. There seemed to be far more coming out than the invalidish meal that had
gone in. Nick touched him lightly, wanting to help him and discourage him at the same time. He looked over his shoulder into
the bowl, with a certain resolve, and saw the bits of chicken and greens in the pool of the promptly regurgitated ice cream.
He plucked out sheets of paper from the dispenser and wondered if he should wipe Wani's face for him; then he stood and waited,
which Wani didn't object to. He thought with bleak hilarity that this was their most intimate moment for many months. He looked
at the streaky black walls and found himself thinking of nights here the year before, both cubicles sometimes carelessly busy
with the crackle of paper and patter of credit card. There was a useful shiny ledge above the cistern, and they would go in
in turn. The nights sped by in unrememberable brilliance. "Well," said Wani, grasping his stick and giving Nick a fearful
smile, "no more parfait for Antoine."

Wani had brought the car to Gusto, and Nick drove him back in it to Lowndes Square. "Thanks very much," said Wani, in a whispery
drawl.

"That's all right, old chap," said Nick. He parked opposite the house and they sat for a minute. Wani was taking deep breaths,
as if to ready himself for a race or plunge. He didn't try to help Nick by explaining himself—well, he never had, he was his
own law and his own licence. If Nick asked him how he felt he was drily impatient with him, both for not knowing and for wanting
to know. It was the unfair prerogative of illness. Nick reached a hand over the steering wheel and swept the thin dust off
the black leather hood of the dashboard. How cars themselves changed as they aged; at first they were possibilities made solid
and fast, agents of dreams that kept a glint of dreams about them, a keen narcotic smell; then slowly they disclosed their
unguessed quaintness and clumsiness, they seemed to fade into the dim disgrace between one fashion and another.

"I really must get a new car," said Wani.

"I know, it's frightfully dusty."

"It's a fucking antique."

Nick peered over his shoulder into the cramped back seat, and remembered Pdcky, the stupid genius of the old days (which was
to say, last summer), sitting there with his legs wide apart. "I suppose you'll keep the number plate."

"God, yes. It's worth a thousand pounds."

"Dear old WHO 6."

"OK . . ." said Wani, cold at any touch of sentiment.

Nick glanced up and saw Lady Ouradi looking down from one of the drawing-room windows. She held the net curtain aside and
gazed out into the browning leaves of the plane trees, the long dull chasm of the square. Nick waved, but she seemed not to
have seen them; or perhaps she had already seen them but let her gaze wander, as it was clearly prone to, down the imagined
vista of the past or future. He noted her austere wool dress, the single string of pearls. To Nick she was a creature of indoors,
of unimaginable exiled mornings and measured afternoons; her gesture as she held the white curtain back was like the parting
of a medium through which she wasn't quite supposed to see or be seen.

"You're OK for money?" Wani said.

"Darling, I'm fine." Nick turned and smiled at him, with the mischievous tenderness of a year ago. "Your little start-up present
has grown and grown, you know." He put his hand discreetly into Wani's, where it lay on his thigh. A few seconds later Wani
withdrew his hand, so as to get out his handkerchief. There was a question in the air, all this week, since he had come back
from Paris, and it was only his pride which kept it from being asked: which it wouldn't be in words, but in some brave melting
gesture. Instead he said, "You should really move out of the Feddens'. Get a place of your own."

"I know," said Nick, "it is rather dotty. But we muddle along somehow. . . . I'm not at all sure they could manage without
me."

"One never knows. . ." said Wani. He turned his head away and looked out at the pavement, the ugly concrete planters in the
square gardens, a bicycle frame chained to the railings. "I was thinking I might leave you the Clerkenwell building."

"Oh . . . " Nick glanced at him and then away, almost scowling in shock and reproach.

"Of course I don't mean you should live there."

"Well, no, that's not the point . . ."

"I suppose it's a bit odd leaving you something unfinished."

After a couple of breaths, Nick said, "Let's not talk about you leaving things." And went on, with awful delicacy, "Anyway,
it will be finished by then." It was impossible to say the right thing. Wani grinned at him coldly for a second. Until now
he had only had the story of Wani being ill; he had taken the news about with him and brought off the sombre but thrilling
effect, once or twice, of saying, "I'm afraid he's dying," or "He nearly died." It had been his own drama, in which he'd felt,
as well as the horror and pity of it, the thump of a kind of self-importance. Now, sitting beside him and being offered buildings,
he felt humbled and surprisingly angry.

"Well, we'll see," said Wani. "I mean, I'm assuming you'd like it."

"I don't find it easy to think about," said Nick.

"I need to get this sorted out, Nick. I'm seeing the lawyers on Friday."

"What would I do with the Clerkenwell building?" said Nick sulkily.

"You'd own it," said Wani. "It'll have thirty thousand square feet of office space. You can get someone to manage it for you
and you can live on the rent for the rest of your life."

Nick didn't ask how he was supposed to go about finding a manager. Possibly Sam Zeman could help him with that. The phrase
"the rest of your life" had come out pat, almost weightless, a futurity Wani wasn't going to bother imagining. For Nick it
was very strange to find it attached to an office block near Smithfield Market. Wani knew he hated the design of the building;
there was a sharp tease in the gift, even a kind of lesson. "What are you going to do about Martine?" said Nick.

"Oh, just the same. She'll carry on getting her allowance, at least until she marries. Then she gets a lump sum."

"Oh . . . " Nick nodded dimly at the wisdom of this, but then had to say, "I didn't know you gave her an allowance."

Wani slid him the smile that had once been slyly grand but now had something vicious in it. "Well, not me," he said. "I assumed
you'd worked it out. Mamma's always paid her. Or kept her, rather."

"I see . . . " said Nick, after a moment, thinking how little Wani had taught him about Lebanese customs. He seemed to search
for the discreet transaction in the tilted mantelpiece mirror. He glanced at the house again, but Wani's mother had dropped
the curtain and absolute discretion reigned: the black front door, the veiled windows, the eggshell sheen of property.

"What a charming arrangement, to keep your son's girlfriend."

"For god's sake," murmured Wani, looking away. "She was never my girlfriend."

"No, of course not, I see . . ." said Nick, blushing and hurrying to cover his own foolishness, and also feeling absurdly
relieved.

"Of course you must never tell Papa. It's his last illusion."

Nick didn't imagine seeing much of Bertrand in "the rest of his life." The little aesthete already felt the prohibition of
that closed black door: which opened as he looked at it, to reveal Monique and the old servant woman, dressed in black, ready
but not coming forward. "They're expecting you," Nick said quietly.

Wani looked across and then almost closed his eyes in droll disdain. All his old habits were there, and the beat of his lashes
brought back occasions in the past when Nick had basked in his selfishness. He reached beside the seat for his stick. "How
are you getting back?"