Bart shook his head. ‘The stage.’
A great cracking sound went off somewhere in the near-distance – a firework, possibly – and both turned to look. The sky was clear. Bart glanced at the strained cord in George’s neck – he had a thing about necks. Necks, armpits and the dip in the back just above the buttocks.
He took Jonathan’s vial out of his pocket. ‘Want some?’
George held up his hand. ‘Hell no. That shit’ll put you in the ground.’
‘It’s not opium, if that’s what you’re thinking.’
George shrugged. ‘Even so. Same applies.’
‘Mind if I partake?’
‘It’s a free country. Supposedly.’
Bart tapped some powder onto the back of his hand and snorted it up, George watching with a show of nonchalance crossing over into boredom. He put the vial back in his pocket. Glanced back up at the house. ‘Just to be clear so as to avoid any embarrassment,’ he said to George, ‘I am about to suck you off. Yes?’
George did a taken-aback laugh, his hand flying involuntarily to the side of his face. ‘Uh… wow. Wow.’ He composed himself, leaning back and looking down at Bart through his lashes, a nervous smirk twisting his mouth. ‘Like I said, it’s a free country.’
‘We’re actually a pair of hypocrites if you stop to think about it,’ said Bettina, passing Étienne the jazz joint (as he kept calling it).
‘Non. No. I don’t think so.’
They were lying on Bettina’s bed, the door closed to all the chaos outside.
‘Bart, he takes these nasty powders, these stimulations – stimu… I don’t know the English for it,’ continued Étienne. ‘They magnify anger and fear. Which are the same things, I think. They bring out his negative qualities. But this’ – he lifted the joint, upsetting its creamy trail of smoke – ‘this is not like that. And it is medicine for your teeth.’
Her wisdom teeth were coming through – earlier, it had felt like every molar in the back of her mouth was screaming; an awful, tinfoil screaming. ‘It’s worked, too,’ she said.
Footsteps going past the door, outside. They froze, their ears cocked. The footsteps faded. Someone looking for the bathroom, perhaps. Or snooping. Or looking for a spare room to smooch in. Snooping. Smooching. Such silly words.
Bettina let her head tilt back and sighed. ‘I feel bad.’
‘Don’t feel bad. Why?’
‘He put this party on for me. And here I am, hiding from him.’
Étienne exhaled smoke from his nose, his facial muscles taut. ‘He must learn that he cannot get away with this behaviour. Or it will get worse. I know men like this. They always have indulgent mothers. “You are a special little king,” these mothers say, “and you can do whatever you want.” And so the little king does whatever he wants. And you know what I am going to say next?’
‘The rich ones are the worst?’
‘Très bien!’
‘You’re turning me into a Bolshevik.’ She twisted around onto her back and started picking a spot on her chin. Bart hadn’t even been that awful tonight – she had indeed been flirting publicly with a man, and that was indeed inconsiderate of her. But his grabbing her roughly and shouting into her face, well, she couldn’t forgive that. Because last month, at a similar kind of party, Bart had slapped her. She couldn’t even remember why; they’d both been so very drunk. But she could remember the slap, the clean, perfect smack; the jolting, mortifying shock of it; and his snarling, proud face, just like her father’s.
She’d slapped him back, repeatedly, crazed, her hands flying out at his face and head. And in an ideal world, that would be the end of it – he erred and she punished. But he’d hit her first, and he was a man. She hated him viciously for it. A whole week of leaving rooms when he entered them and taking all her meals in the garden, and he was repentant of course, full of hand-wringing self-loathing. He slipped a letter under her door admitting his recent narcotic use. ‘It wasn’t me, Betts. I would never do something like that, not the real me.’ How boring. How predictable.
But she’d forgiven him, or at least tried to, because he promised to stop using the cocaine. And then this afternoon, he’d come practically skipping out of the bathroom, sniffing like a bloodhound, his eyes sprung open and a frenetic energy about him.
Étienne passed back the joint with a lazy arm. She propped herself up on her pillow and had a small puff. Her mouth was horribly dry. She tapped Étienne’s shoulder. ‘Look at this.’ She tucked her lips in, upper and lower, and they remained stuck there, showing all her teeth and gums.
He dropped his head back onto the bed, laughing. ‘That is gruesome! Oh, why would you—’
She tapped his shoulder again. ‘Etts. Look.’ He raised his head, eyes pink and puffy. She stuck out her tongue and wiggled it.
‘Stop it!’He shook his head weakly, his body racked with painful laughter. ‘You make yourself ugly. Why?’
She smirked and unstuck her lips. ‘I need a drink. My mouth is so dry. Shall we return to the fray?’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t want to see him.’
‘Well, nor do I, frankly. Or bloody Trude. But we can’t stay up here all night. God, my mouth is so dry.’ She smacked his shoulder. ‘Hey. Let’s sneak down to the buffet and collect all the grub we can carry as well as a lovely big bottle of ice-cold bubbly. And bring them back up here.’
He opened his eyes. ‘Now you have mentioned food.’
He pushed himself to an upright position with huge effort. ‘Let’s go.’
The band had stopped playing, except for one man, a bald honky-tonk player with a lumpy nose and a sheen of sweat on his conker of a head. He was hunched over the piano playing slow mournful tunes with slow mournful hands, his eyes closed. Couples danced crotch to crotch and hands were creeping towards buttocks. Bettina noticed what looked like vomit in the potted money tree. Dear God.
They passed the games room and Bettina’s heart sped up. Bart was probably in there sniffing and fidgeting and thinking himself a small god. Étienne poked his head in, then clamped a hand to his mouth to hold in laughter. He pulled her to the doorway. The black drag king was playing strip poker with Cousin Tuna and several of Bart’s stage chums from the Pygmalion show. Tuna was in a salmon-pink petticoat, one stocking on, one off, her frizzy red hair like a burning bush. The drag king was in only a pair of trousers, and her great fatheaded breasts hung to the tabletop, the purplish nipples grazing the surface. She looked up at Bettina. ‘Wanna join us, birthday girl?’
‘I want food,’ said Bettina dumbly, and carried on down the hall. Étienne was hanging on her arm, laughing. ‘They were enormous,’ she said.
‘They were beautiful! I would like to do this to them.’ He buried his face in Bettina’s cleavage and jiggled his face back and forth.
‘You’re off your head!’ she said, pushing him away. He stumbled backwards and tripped, landing on his back, legs kicking the air like an unfortunate beetle. He curled up into a ball – now a woodlouse – and giggled uncontrollably.
Trude appeared in the hall. Her lipstick was smeared around her maw and a false eyelash stuck to her cheek. ‘It’s the birthday girl!’ she said, spreading her arms wide and sashaying over with slinking hips and wobbling arm flesh. She clung onto Bettina’s neck and breathed hot ethanol fumes into her face. ‘Darling! What a perfect riot! What sheer debauch’ry! You scandalous little slag, I love it. Love, love, love it.’ Her skin was hot. Bettina placed a hand on her waist, spreading her fingers and squeezing. ‘Thanks for coming,’ she said. Coming. Thanks for coming. She smiled down into the woman’s car wreck of a face. Coming. Trude, coming. Teeth bared, thighs spread wide—