And yet, I thought, those who do still look at people in the way Bertram Tupra does, those who focus clearly and at the right height, which is the height of a man; those who catch or capture or, rather, absorb the image before them gain a great deal, especially as regards knowledge and the things that knowledge permits: to persuade and to influence, to make yourself indispensable and to be missed when you step aside or leave or even pretend to, to dissuade and convince and appropriate, to insinuate and to conquer. Tupra had that in common with Toby Rylands, whose student he had been, that warm, enveloping attention; and he had something in common with Wheeler too, except that Wheeler's gaze was wary, watchful, and his eyes seemed to be forming opinions even when they were merely reflective or distracted or sleepy, thinking on their own without the intervention of the brain, judging when there was no need to form a judgement, not even for his own purposes. Tupra, on the other hand, was not initially intimidating, he did not give that impression, and you did not, therefore, feel it necessary to be on your guard, rather, he invited you to lower your shield and take off your helmet, to allow him to get a better look at you. They all had something in common, and he, as nexus, made me aware of more similarities between the two older men, the dead friend and the living friend: links of character, no, links of ability. Or perhaps it was a gift that all three of them shared.
Tupra, I thought, would prove irresistible to women (I thought this often, I saw it) regardless of class, profession, experience, degree of conceit or age, even though he was getting on for fifty and not exactly handsome, but he was attractive in himself, despite the odd feature that might prove repellent to the objective eye: not so much his rather coarse nose which looked as if it had been broken by a blow once or by several more since; not so much his skin, disturbingly lustrous and firm for a man of his years and which was the lovely golden colour of beer (not a wrinkle in sight, and without recourse to artificial aids); not so much his eyebrows like black smudges and with a tendency to grow together (he probably plucked the space between them with tweezers now and then); it was more his overly soft and fleshy mouth, as lacking in consistency as it was over-endowed in breadth, lips that were rather African or perhaps Hindu or Slavic, and which, when they kissed, would give and spread like pliable, well-kneaded plasticine, at least that is how they would feel, with a touch like a sucker, a touch of always renewed and inextinguishable dampness. And yet, I told myself, he would still captivate whoever he chose to captivate, because nothing is so short-lived as the objective eye, and then almost nothing repels, once it has gone or once you have perhaps got rid of it in order to be able to live. Besides, there would be no shortage of people whom that mouth would please and inflame. As an adult, and even as my younger, more uncertain self, only very rarely have I felt convinced, in the presence of another man, that, whatever the situation, I would not stand a chance against him; and that if that fellow or individual looked at the woman beside me, there would be no way of keeping her there. But I had no woman beside me, not at Wheeler's buffet supper nor during most of the time I was under contract to Tupra as his assistant. Thank heavens Luisa isn't with me, I thought; she isn't here and so I have nothing to fear (I thought this often, I saw it). This man would amuse and flatter and understand her, he would take her out on the town every night and expose her to the most appropriate and most fruitful of dangers, he would be solicitous and supportive and would listen to her story from start to finish, and he would isolate her too and quietly feed her his demands and his prohibitions, all at once or within a very brief space of time, and he would not have to dig an inch deeper to send me down to the very depths of hell, nor have to make the slightest move to despatch me to limbo, me and my memory, as well as any occasional, improbable nostalgia she might feel for me.
This conviction made his new girlfriend's attitude towards him even stranger in my eyes, for she seemed more like someone who had made the whole journey with him some time ago, indeed, had done so long enough to grow weary of their shared trajectory and weary too, therefore, of Tupra, who, one would have said, she treated with familiar affection and in a conciliatory – and perhaps adulatory – spirit, rather than pursuing him enthusiastically about the large living-room or clinging to him like the brand-new lover who can, still not believe his or her good fortune (this man loves me, this woman loves me, what a blessing) and confuses it with predestination or some other such uplifting piffle. Not that she did not seem dependent on Tupra, but this was more because he was her companion and the person who had dragged or led her to Wheeler's house to be with these people, half university types and half diplomatic or financial or political or business types, or perhaps literary or professional – it's harder to distinguish amongst smartly dressed people in another country with an archaic etiquette, even when one has lived there; also present was a vast, drunken nobleman, Lord Rymer, an old Oxford acquaintance of mine and now the retired warden of All Souls – than out of inclination or submission or desire or love, or out of the natural impatience for novelties which conceal for the moment the inevitable end of their condition, and which, deep down, we all want to accelerate (the new is so tiring, for it has to be tamed and has no established course to follow). Peter had introduced her to me as just plain Beryl. 'Mr Deza, an old Spanish friend of mine,' he had said in English when they arrived and I was already there, thus giving them natural preeminence by mentioning my name first, it may simply have been deference to the lady's presence or there may have been more to it; and then: 'Mr Tupra, whose friendship goes back even further. And this is Beryl.' And that was all.