‘Oskar Kokoschka used to live around the corner from us,’ he told Billy, realizing too late how fatuous the remark must seem.
‘Really?’ said Billy. ‘Well, well.’
They stopped at a line drawing of Ezra Pound.
‘That’s where I got the name for Mowbray,’ said Billy. ‘Mauberley is a character created by Pound.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yes, old Pound was a bit of a fascist. Mad, too. Wrote some of his best stuff after the Allies had declared him insane.’
‘That probably says quite a lot about poetry,’ said Miles.
‘I agree. What is it Shakespeare says? “The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, are of imagination all compact.” Something like that.’
‘Speaking of madmen and lovers,’ said Miles, ‘I know about you and Sheila.’
Billy, studying the catalog with preternatural interest, glanced up at a large canvas that appeared to contain millions of tiny nuts and bolts, twisted together into a vaguely human shape.
‘Ah,’ he said at last, ‘so that’s what this is all about. What do you want me to say?’
‘Nothing.’
‘What did Sheila say?’
‘Sheila doesn’t know. And I’m not going to tell her. You are.’ Billy looked ready to protest. ‘I’ve already moved a few things out of the house. I’m going to stay away for a while, to give us all time to make decisions.’
‘But, Miles, it wasn’t like that,’ hissed Billy. ‘I mean, there’s no need for—’
‘I don’t want to hear it, not any of it, not now.’ Miles checked his watch. ‘There’s just one more thing — I think you are the most complete bastard I’ve ever met. Knowing you, you’ll take that as a compliment. It’s not meant as one, believe me.’ He made to move away, but Billy clawed at his sleeve. Miles turned back toward him.
‘Oh,’ he said, ‘and I forgot this.’
The catalog was heavy, and it hit Billy Monmouth’s jaw with a deafening crack. He staggered against the nuts and bolts painting, several visitors looking on in horror as blood began to ooze from his lip and his gum. Miles was walking away, and he did not look invisible at all now. He looked like the watched, not the watchman, while Billy Monmouth fumbled for a handkerchief and some self-esteem.
2
Billy’s Jaw
Thirteen
He detested avocado dip, always had, always would. The very color was an insult to him, and so many parties these days seemed to find a bowl of such sludge de rigueur. What else was there? The smiling minion who had thrust a plate and a napkin (paper) into his hand hovered behind the table, awaiting his selection. The plate, he noted, had one of those plastic rings clipped onto its rim. He was supposed to keep his glass of vile white wine in this venerated halo, and didn’t all the guests look such complete pricks as they did so, not trusting the dreaded ring enough not to leave one hand hovering close to it? This meant that they had no free hand anyway, and so the ring did not fulfill its one and only function. Bloody thing. Sizewell ripped his from the plate and threw it, with a plop, into the avocado dip, where it sank majestically. The waitress, the only observer of this, looked at Sizewell in horror while he smiled at her, happy with life once more, and asked her quite politely for a piece of the spinach quiche and a vol-au-vent or three.
He was ravenous, having just come from a lengthy and painstaking sitting of the committee, where just about all they had thrashed out were their legitimate and non-legitimate claims for expenses incurred thus far. But the Smythsons’ party had promised lots of food, and so he had not bothered to eat beforehand. For his sin, he was consigned to function on a stomach half full of pastry.
‘Harry, old boy.’
‘Tanya!’
‘Good to see you.’
‘Tanya, how are you?’
‘Can’t complain, you know.’
No, she couldn’t complain. Only those landed with her interminable company could complain. Tanya Smythson, the unmarried (and unmarriable) elder daughter of the family, had a way of seeking Sizewell out and carving a territory between the rest of the world and them so that no one interrupted and no one came to save Sizewell from his misery.
Tanya, formidable, buxom Tanya. To be honest, he had taken quite a shine to her on their first meeting. She had seemed game for anything, but now, of course, he knew why: men were her game, and she was becoming frantic as the years progressed and they would not let her into their magic circle. One quick session, he thought, one session with a young thoroughbred would see you straight, would rearrange your metabolism and make you a calmer, less formidable figure. But where was the young man who would give Tanya what she wanted from life? He was nowhere. Certainly he was not Harry Sizewell.
But now, and to Sizewell’s astonishment, someone was coming toward them, holding out a hand of friendship, smiling.
‘Hello, Mr. Sizewell.’
‘Mr. Partridge, how very good to see you. Tanya, meet Mr. Partridge, one of the Home Office mandarins.’
Tanya looked ready to breathe fire and brimstone. Nevertheless, she produced a smile from somewhere deep within her.
‘Tanya,’ began Partridge winningly, ‘would you excuse us for just one minute, please? I have to discuss something with Mr. Sizewell.’
As Tanya moved off, peering into Sizewell’s soul to try to fathom just how put out he was by this interruption, he shrugged his shoulders and promised to see her again later.
‘Thank you, thank you, thank you,’ he whispered from one side of his mouth. ‘You’ve made an old man very happy.’
‘Well,’ said Partridge, his face soft but his voice as hard as steel, ‘I did want to have a word actually.’
‘Oh?’
‘How’s the committee progressing?’
‘Slowly, of course, how else would a committee progress?’ Sizewell bit into the spinach quiche, feeling it drip water onto his plate. Defrosted then, rather than fresh. He should have known.
‘Good, good. And that other matter?’
‘Hmm? Oh, the threats. Well, he’s been fairly quiet.’
But Partridge’s attention had already been diverted. ‘That man over there, do you know him?’
‘The bulbous chap? Seen him around. Why?’
‘Well, before I came to your rescue, I couldn’t help noticing that he was keeping an eye on you.’
‘Or on Tanya?’
‘I shouldn’t think so, would you? No, our man was definitely keeping an eye on you. Do you have a name?’
‘A name?’
‘For him. The bulbous man. Does he have a name?’
‘Probably, but I’m damned if I know what it is.’ Sizewell seemed already to have forgotten that he was speaking to the man who had saved him from the agonies of Tanya Smythson. He was irritated by Partridge’s forceful questions. One just did not treat an MP that way, and he would say so.
‘Look here—’
But Partridge stopped him cold.
‘How can we protect you from threats if you don’t tell us everything there is to know?’
‘You mean about that chap over there? I know nothing at all about him.’
‘I mean about this mysterious committee of yours.’
‘Oh.’ The spinach lost whatever flavor it had possessed, and Sizewell seemed to be remembering the slap he had been given by Partridge.
‘I mean,’ continued Partridge, ‘I hear your committee isn’t just looking into defense spending, but into security spending, and, moreover, into security links between the NATO countries and their possible strengthening.’