“I tell him why does he wear his Rolex on business it’s just asking for trouble but he never listens the great lump he never listens to my good advice when I say that…”
“Yes, of course. Now where is that in relation to Chiswick?”
“Trickle-down works—if I wasn’t in this country there’d be at least twenty people who wouldn’t have jobs—at least!—and that’s not even counting the…”
“Theo?”
“…said to the sultan but of course, I mean of course you would and it’s only natural that…”
“I’m very strict there’s just not enough time for me to be involved in the charities and well you do don’t you, you do find that you’re putting other people ahead of yourself!”
“Theo?”
“In Nepal actually and it was incredible the people the people are just well it’s just so you have to be there really you have to be there and afterwards we went sailing round the Med…”
“Theo?”
“Yes?”
“Are you… is this…?”
“Normal? Fairly much. Easier to do business eye to eye sometimes, lubricated by a little champagne. There are people here you need to meet absolutely, come with me your future depends on it now hello, this is my friend he’s doing maths yes lives on the same corridor as me he’s brilliant simply brilliant yes.”
The boy who will be Theo stands on one side of the room and wonders what his friends would think if they could see him now, and for a moment remembers that he hasn’t spoken to Dani for nearly nine months and wonders if she’s okay, and then is given more champagne and some sort of nibbly thing on a penny-size lump of not-really bread, and forgets.
After a little while of watching, he realises that there are nearly as many staff as there are guests at this swirling ball. Not merely waiters, but personal servants—men and women dressed in white frills and black cotton who stand silently behind their masters and hold their champagne glasses, receive and give business cards, answer the mobile phone. It would be a terrible breach of etiquette for a guest to answer their phone during these matters, and when an argument breaks out over some detail of stocks or celebrity scandal, it is a woman with head down and eyes fixed to a point two feet in front of her big toe who checks for an answer on the internet and whispers it into her master’s ear, who may or may not lie about the outcome, depending on where his opinions lie.
The young sweep around the old, and laugh, and hold their own glasses, and are absolutely fascinated by everything that these wonderful people believe and actually yes it’s funny you should say that, I was thinking of going into corporate financing when I graduate did you say you ran a…
The boy does not resent luxury.
At college his meals are cooked for him six days a week. Room cleaned. Shoes polished. He goes to the library and someone else puts the books away if he forgets. At the weekend he has money for drink, or can walk by the river without a care in the world, or take a bicycle out into the countryside and let the sunlight wash away the work, and when he returns to his soft bed
he is better
can work better, do what he needs to do, better, and one day
if he works hard enough, earning through his labours
one day maybe someone else will turn down the duvet in the corner of his bed and someone else will press the smell of cleanliness into his fresh-washed clothes and he need not scrub at dishes and argue with the water company and stand in line for the bus that never comes because these things are fundamentally
not the things he is best at
he can give
so much more to this world
so much more
if he’s just given the opportunity to do it.
This is not an unfair position.
You must live your life first before you can help others, you must have the security so that you are not a burden, must have the space to be free to be able to make a difference to have that freedom—freedom is a thing which must be bought you buy the freedom you buy…
pension house home time learning skills friends
dancing dancing we spin the world spins all things in harmony the harmony of the heavens we are starlight stardust spinning fizz on the tongue kiss on the lips beauty bought at the gym silk and pearl and diamond and
He desires, and possibly—just maybe—he deserves
yes, deserves…
Something clatters in a room next door, a smash loud enough to briefly drown out jazz. Some heads turn; most do not. The boy looks and thinks he sees Theo through an open door. He approaches, weaving through the crowd unnoticed, and yes, there is Theo Miller, laughing in his drunken state, cracked glass and spilt lobster at his feet, a girl crying, a teenager, and three boys staring with no laughter whatsoever in their eyes, and Theo may not be sober
but the boy instantly is.
He knows these faces, though he’s never met the strangers who wear them now. He used to see them sometimes in the snarling boys who liked it when their dogs growled at passing strangers, because the dogs made people scared, and if people were scared of you then you were powerful, and if you were powerful, you mattered. Even if you didn’t know what mattering was good for.
The girl cries, the boys glare, spilt champagne crystallises on the floor as silent, non-reproachful staff rush to clean it up. Theo laughs and doesn’t seem to recognise the danger that he’s in as one of the glaring party snarls:
you stupid fucking bastard why the fuck did you fucking
and another joins in
fuck him fuck him let’s just fucking go can’t fucking believe they let in
and the third stands silent, arms folded, and watches.
“Gentlemen, gentlemen!” chuckles Theo, wiping shattered shards of exploded ice off his sleeves, lifting his feet one at a time to check that he hasn’t stood in anything organic. “It was a perfectly valid thing, I’m sure there’s no harm done, the lady clearly wasn’t interested in your…”
“She’s mine!” snarled the first boy.
“She’s his,” agreed the second boy.
I’m watching, the third offered silently, his eyes skimming the room, meeting the gaze of the boy who would be Theo, recognising for the briefest of moments a sobriety equal only to his own.
“Now I mean clearly this is just…”
“My father sponsored her.”
“His father sponsored her!”
“He paid for her tuition for her dress for her face—for her face—he paid and that means that I…”
“For her face!”
“Sponsored and the deal was very clear…”
“A bargain!”
“A very clear deal and if she…”
“A contract.”
“Fuck you.” The girl, on her feet, the tears still running but her voice holding strong. “Fuck your dad.” She peeled off one elbow-length glove, threw it on the floor, dragged at the other, one finger at a time, hissed in frustration at the slippery silk, got it free, threw it in the first boy’s face. “Fuck you all.”
Tried to run in her high-heeled shoes, wobbled, nearly fell, stumbled against the teetering glass-covered table, gritted her teeth. Raised her left leg so the back of her heel was behind her bum, peeled the shoe away, wobbled again, caught her balance. Raised her right, snatched the shoe off with enough force to break the strap across the top, flung it into the boy’s chest. Raised her head, pulled her shoulders back, walked away through a pool of melting ice and alcohol.