Chapter 75
Clare was standing at the far end of the gallery, surrounded by several young men with expensive haircuts and loud voices. As I threaded my way through the crowd I could make out her familiar braying laugh above the general din. Her hair was heavily pomaded and slicked back, and she wore huge paste diamond earrings, making her look vulnerable and decadent at the same time. I suspected that she had already drunk a great deal; one set of eyelashes was slightly askew and her voice had that happy, careless slur that marked one of the final stages in her well-charted march towards inebriation. When she saw me she crashed through the wall of double-breasted testosterone surrounding her and fell into my arms. "I'm so glad you're here, I'm absolutely suicidal with boredom."
I held her at arm's length and studied her face, her silly crushed velvet dress with the diving neckline, the whole vulnerable, dangerous mess of her. "You look pretty happy to me," I said.
She appeared almost hurt but I wasn’t fooled; it was part of the performance. "Those Hoorays keep fetching me drinks," she protested, jerking her head back towards her coterie of admirers. "What's a girl to do?"
"Poor you."
"Go to hell," she said laughingly.
"I wish one of the Henrys would fetch a drink for me. Where's the bar?"
"Come along, you're hopelessly sober," she said, grasping my hand and plowing through the crowd.
It was a Victorian art opening at a commercial gallery on Bury Street in St. James. Victorian painting was all the rage at the moment, but its attractions tended to elude me; I found much of it ponderous and self-conscious. There were exceptions, of course--the Pre-Raphaelites were often quite marvelous—but for the most part I steered clear of British art after Turner. And yet when Clare had invited me a few days earlier I'd accepted enthusiastically. Now, of course, when it was time to be stylish and shiny I wished I were anywhere but here.
The large and boisterous crowd was crammed into a relatively small space. As far as I could tell only a very few guests were actually looking at the pictures, which had been hung and brilliantly spotlighted around the room's perimeter; though to be fair, even those who had attended as connoisseurs would have been hard pressed to make out more than the corner of a face or the edge of a rose bower through the crush of bodies.
The throng's focus instead was on one another. Many of them seemed to be old friends, but of course it was hard to tell when everyone kissed everyone with a ferociousness that would have made Hollywood (or Paris) blush. There was indisputably something new and vaguely unpleasant in the air, a barking self-confidence that I suspected had more than a little to do with Mrs. Thatcher's ascendancy, and with the air of implacable entitlement she and her acolytes carried before them like a sword.
I spotted a few familiar faces, including Eric Hebborn, of whom I resolved to steer as clear as possible. Also, I caught a glimpse of Francis Haskell, Anthony's erstwhile friend from Oxford, holding forth to a group of sporty looking ladies who were rewarding his efforts with peals of hectic laughter. Clare had successfully carved a path through to the drinks table and now she was ordering for us both. "Martinis, up, very dry, olives," she said, covering all the bases with almost military precision.
"Could you remind me why we're here?" I said once we'd got our drinks and painstakingly migrated away from the bar to a relatively quiet corner near the plate glass window at the front of the gallery.
Clare assumed an air of mock surprise. "But darling I told you. Our friend Henry is the manager. You remember Henry, the stunning American with porridge for brains. Trip's kept boy."
I immediately flashed to the image of Henry and Nick dancing in the pulsing club. "You didn't tell me that, I would've remembered."
She shot me a pitying look. "Of course I did. You've been so preoccupied with Blunt lately I'm afraid you've missed out on quite a lot."
Her words sounded an ominous note. "Is Nick here?" I asked without quite knowing why.
Clare took a long hit on her drink. "I doubt it seriously. I'm guessing he's otherwise occupied."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, darling, he's probably with Trip, wouldn't you guess?"
I looked past Clare towards my distorted reflection in the gallery window. "Why would he be with Trip?" I asked in a purposefully calm voice, a slim cord of doubt twisting inside me.
Before answering Clare placed her empty martini glass on a passing tray and lit up a cigarette. "So this is all news to you?"
"I heard a rumor, that's all, but I didn't believe it."
"Nick hasn't told you anything? I just assumed..."
"Told me what?"
Visibly pulling herself together, Clare took me by the elbow and led me out the open gallery door onto the sidewalk. I began taking off my jacket to cover her bare arms but she shrugged it away. "Don't be gallant, Paul, you know how I hate that. Anyway," she went on in a silly accent, "the vodka's got me warmed up a treat."
I wasn't sure what was happening. "So what's this about Nick and Trip?"
She leant against the building and folded her arms, clutching her little beaded handbag. "I thought you knew. How stupid I am sometimes."
I braced myself. "Knew what?"
She looked miserable, as if it caused her real pain to share these unpleasant tidings. "Trip's had his eye on Nick for some time, even before you boys went to Cazine, but that weekend sealed the deal. They've been seeing each other for quite a while now."
I felt like I'd just stepped off a cliff into the void. I was aware that Nick had been preoccupied lately but such a thing had never crossed my mind. "But if you knew Nick was fooling around why didn't you tell me?"
Just then a rotund figure emerged from the bright clamor of the gallery and scuttled towards us. My heart sank when I saw that it was Eric Hebborn. "I knew I'd seen you before," he said to me in a loud voice. "Haskell just told me who you are. Blunt's protégé. I'll wager you're sorry you ever got involved with that tatty old queen."
"Actually it's been fascinating," I said as evenly as possible.
"Oh come off it," Hebborn all but screamed. "You've been chumming around with a spy. Can you say you're proud of that?"
I looked at Clare, who was staring with loathing at Hebborn. "Are you proud of being an art forger?" I shot back, recalling Anthony's accusations that fateful afternoon at the Athenaeum Club.
Hebborn took a step towards me. "You smug little fag, I'll show you what I'm proud of."
But Clare, quite loyally, rose to my defense. "Oh fuck off," she intoned to Hebborn with the quiet but rattling authority of breeding and accustomed power.
Hebborn pivoted aggressively to face her. "And who the hell are you?"
Clare took a cigarette out of her clutch purse but didn't light it. "I'm your absolute worst nightmare if you don't fuck off RIGHT NOW!" she screamed, lunging towards him.
Hebborn regarded her with an expression that mingled fear and distaste and then backed down, retreating without another word. If he had possessed a tail, it would have been tucked firmly between his legs. I was impressed by Clare's ferocity, though shamed on some level to have been defended by her. "That was impressive," I said. "Thank you."
"Common little twit," Clare laughed nervously, watching Hebborn slink away.
There was a brief, charged silence between us. "Why didn't you tell me about Nick?" I said after a while, picking up the thread of our conversation before Hebborn's appearance.
"You must be joking," she said, lighting the cigarette she had been holding in her hand for some time. "If you saw Frank skulking about with a cocktail waitress would you tell me?"
"Are you and Frank still an item?" I asked, grasping at a moment's distraction from my pain.
She smiled unpleasantly. "You go first."
I considered her question. "Maybe. Probably not."
"Well then."
I felt like another drink. "Are you guys still together?"
"Oh god, yes, but he does get on my nerves."
We seemed to have reached an impasse. "What should I do?" I said, utterly bereft.
She stared down the nearly deserted street, hugging herself against the cold. "Move on. It's a lost cause."
"That's ridiculous," I said indignantly. "He loves me."
Clare eyed me warily. "I'm sorry, Paul, but your boyfriend has been co-opted by a very rich man who's used to getting exactly what he wants. Unless you're prepared to hang around until Trip gets tired of him—which of course he will—I'd advise you to make other plans."
"I'll get him back."
She shook her head slowly. "I doubt that, at least in the short term. Their arrangement is pretty far advanced, you know. Trip even bought a gallery for Henry to manage, just to get him out of the way." She jerked her head to the right. "This gallery. He's in there right now, pretending to know all about Victorian painting. It's quite a good joke when you think about it."
But I didn't think it was a joke at all. I looked at Clare, at her firm breasts encased in her ridiculously opulent dress, at her faux-glam earrings and slightly molten mascara. I had grown fond of her, but my mind also flashed back to the many times she had led me into uncomfortable or compromising situations, whether by design or carelessness.
I was tired. I felt shattered by Nick's faithlessness. "Take care. I'll see you around.”
“But darling,” she said.