On Beauty (15 page)

‘For Godssake, why would you want to meet
him
?'

‘Warren's interested in him. And actually so am I. I think public intellectuals are incredibly weird and interesting . . . It's got to be a kind of pathological tension, and then he has the race thing to contend with . . . But I just
adore
his
dapperness
. He's terribly
dapper
.'

‘Terribly dapper fascist.'

Claire frowned. ‘He's so
compelling
, though. Like what they say about Clinton – charisma overdose. It's probably entirely pheromonal, you know, like
nasal
, in some way Warren could explain –'

‘Nasal, anal – it's definitely coming out one orifice or another.' Howard now brought his glass to his mouth so that the next thing he said might be slightly muffled. ‘Congratulations, by the way. I hear they're in order.'

‘We're very happy,' she said placidly. ‘God, I am
so
fascinated by him –' Howard thought for a moment that she meant Warren. ‘See how he works the room? He's everywhere, somehow.'

‘Yeah, like the plague.'

Claire turned to Howard with an impish face. He saw that she had thought it would be all right now to look at him, now the ironic pace of their conversation had been set. The affair, after all, was so long in the past, had remained undiscovered for so long. In the interim Claire had got married! And that imaginary night at a Michigan conference was now the accepted reality; the three-week affair between Howard and Claire Malcolm in Wellington had never happened. Why shouldn't they talk to each other again, look at each other? But in fact to look was lethal, and the moment she turned they both knew it. Claire did her best to continue, everything grotesquely exaggerated now by fear.

‘
I
think,' she began in a ludicrous teasing voice, ‘I think you'd quite like to be like him.'

‘How much have you drunk?'

He had a cruel wish at that moment that Claire Malcolm might
be gone from the planet. Without his doing anything at all – just gone.

‘All your silly ideological battles . . .' she said, and then grinned at him foolishly, her lips pulling away from her rosy gums to reveal her expensive American teeth. ‘You both know they don't really matter. The country's got bigger fish to fry now. Bigger ideas,' she whispered, ‘are
afoot
. Aren't they? Sometimes I don't even know why I stay here.'

‘What are we talking about exactly – state of the nation or the state of you?'

‘Don't be a wise-ass,' she said sourly. ‘I mean all of us, not just me. There's just no point.'

‘You sound like you're fifteen. You sound like my kids.'

‘Bigger ideas than
these
. It's got down to fundamentals, out there, in the world.
Fundamentals
. We've let down your kids, we've let down
everybody's
kids. Looking at this country the way it is now, I'm
thankful
I never had any kids myself.' Howard, who doubted the veracity of this, hid his disbelief by making a study of the yellowing oak floorboards beneath them. ‘God, when I think of this next semester I just feel
sick
. Nobody gives a fuck about
Rembrandt
, Howard–' She stopped herself and began to laugh sadly. ‘Or Wallace Stevens. Bigger ideas,' she repeated, finished her wine and nodded.

‘It's all interconnected,' said Howard dully, tracing the toe of his shoe around a wood-wormed gap in the flooring. ‘We produce new ways of thinking, then other people think it.'

‘You don't believe that.'

‘Define
believe
,' said Howard and, as he said it, felt shattered. There was almost not enough breath even to complete the sentence. Why wouldn't she go away?

‘Oh, dear
God
–' huffed Claire, stamping her little foot and laying a hand flat against his chest, priming up for one of their age-old battles. Essence versus theory. Belief versus power. Art versus cultural systems. Claire versus Howard. Howard felt one of her fingers thoughtlessly, drunkenly, slip under a gap in his shirt to his skin. Just then, they were interrupted.

‘What are you two gossiping about?'

Too quickly, Claire removed her hand from Howard's body. But Kiki wasn't looking at Claire; she was looking at Howard. You're married to someone for thirty years: you know their face like you know your own name. It was so quick and yet so absolute – the deception was over. Howard realized it at once, but how could Claire pick up on that tiny piece of tight skin on the left side of his wife's mouth, or know what it meant? In her innocence, thinking she was rescuing the situation, Claire enclosed both of Kiki's hands in her own.

‘I want to meet
Sir
Montague Kipps. Howard's being tricky about it.'

‘Howard's always tricky,' said Kiki, flashing him a second steely, confirmatory glance that put the matter beyond doubt. ‘He thinks it makes him look clever.'

‘God, you look great, Keeks. You should be in a fountain in Rome.'

Howard expected that this flattery of his wife's appearance by Claire was compulsive. All he wanted to do was to stop her saying another word. Wild, violent fantasies took hold of him.

‘Oh, you too, honey,' said Kiki calmly, dampening down this false enthusiasm. So there wasn't going to be a scene. Howard had always loved this about his wife, her ability to play things cool – but at this moment he would have been happier to hear her scream. She stood like a zombie, her eyes quite dead to any appeal from him, her smile nailed on. And still they were stuck in this ludicrous conversation.

‘Look, I need an opening salvo,' continued Claire. ‘I don't want him to have the satisfaction of knowing I actually want to talk to him. What can I get him on?'

‘He's got a finger in every pie,' said Howard, converting his personal desperation into anger. ‘Take your pick. State of Britain, state of the Caribbean, states of blackness, state of art, state of women, state of the States – you hum it, he'll play it. Oh, and he thinks affirmative action is the work of the devil – he's a charmer, he's a . . .'

Howard stopped. All the drink in his body had turned against him; his sentences were beginning to rush away from him like rabbits down their holes; soon neither the white tip of a thought nor the black hole into which it was vanishing would be visible to him.

‘Howie – you're making yourself ridiculous,' said Kiki precisely and bit her lip. Howard could see the battle going on inside her. He saw how determined she was. She would not scream, she would not cry.

‘He's anti-affirmative action? That's unusual, isn't it?' asked Claire, watching Monty's nodding head.

‘Not really,' replied Kiki. ‘He's just a black conservative – thinks it's demeaning for African-American kids to be told they need special treatment to succeed, etcetera. It's terrible timing for Wellington, having him here – there's an Anti-Affirmative Action bill working its way through the Senate and it's gonna cause trouble. We need to stand firm on the issue right now. Well, as you know. You and Howard did all that work together.' Kiki's eyes widened at the end of this, taking in her own realization.

‘Ah . . .' said Claire, twirling the stem of her empty wine glass. Small-scale politics bored her. She had served six months, a year and a half ago, as Howard's titular deputy in Wellington's Affirmative Action Committee – this was indeed how the whole thing between them had begun – but her interest had been minimal and her attendance patchy. She'd taken the job because Howard (desperate to avoid the appointment of another despised colleague) had begged her. Claire was only truly excited by the apocalyptic on the world stage: WMD, autocratic presidents, mass death. She detested committees and meetings. She liked to go on marches and to sign petitions.

‘You should talk to him about art – I mean, he's a collector, apparently. Caribbean art,' continued Kiki bravely.

‘I'm
fascinated
by the children too. They're glorious.'

Howard snorted repulsively. He was desperately drunk now.

‘Jerome fell in love with the daughter briefly,' explained Kiki tersely. ‘Last year. Her family freaked out a little – Howard made
it all a hell of a lot worse than it needed to be. The whole thing was so stupid.'

‘What drama you all live in,' said Claire happily. ‘I don't blame him – I mean, I don't blame Jerome – I saw her, she's so amazing, looks like Nefertiti. Didn't you think so, Howard? Like one of those statuaries in the bottom of the Fitzwilliam, in Cambridge. You've seen those, right? Such an
anciently wonderful
face. Didn't you think?'

Howard closed his eyes and drank deep from his glass.

‘Howard, the music –' said Kiki, turning to Howard at last. It was amazing to see her words and her eyes entirely unconnected to each other, like a bad actress. ‘I can't take any more of this hip-hop. I don't know how it even got on there. People can't stand it – Albert Konig just left because of it, I think. Put on some Al Green or something – something everybody can enjoy.'

Claire had already taken a few steps towards Monty. Kiki joined her, but then paused and came back towards Howard and spoke in his ear. Her voice was shaky, but her grip on his wrist was not. She said one name and put a disbelieving question mark at the end of it. Howard felt his stomach fall away.

‘You can stay in the house,' continued Kiki, her voice cracking, ‘but that's it. Don't you come near me. Don't you come
near
me. I'll kill you if you do.'

Then she calmly drew away and got in step with Claire Malcolm once more. Howard watched his wife walk away with his great mistake.

Initially, he was quite certain he was about to be sick. He walked purposefully into the hallway towards the bathroom. Then he remembered Kiki's errand and perversely determined to complete it. He paused in the doorway of the empty second living room. There was only one person in there, kneeling by the stereo, surrounded by CDs. That narrow, expressive back he had seen once before was exposed to the night: a clever top, tied up at the neck. One expected her to unfurl and dance the dying swan.

‘Oh, all right,' she said, turning her head. Howard had the queer sense that this was a reply to his silent thought. ‘Having a good one?'

‘Not really.'

‘Bummer.'

‘It's Victoria, isn't it.'

‘
Vee
.'

‘Yes.'

She was right back on her heels, with only her top half turned to him. They smiled at each other. Howard's heart spontaneously went out in sympathy to his eldest son. Mysteries of the past year resolved themselves.

‘So you're the DJ,' said Howard. Was there a new word for that now?

‘Looks like it – you don't mind?'

‘No, no . . . although a few of our senior guests were finding the selection . . . maybe a little bit hectic.'

‘Right. You've been sent to sort me out.'

It was strange to hear this English phrase said in such an English way.

‘To confer, I think. Whose music is this, anyway?'

“ ‘Levi's Mix”,' she read from a sticker on the CD case. She shook her head at him sadly. ‘Looks like the enemy's within,' she said.

Of course she was bright. Jerome wouldn't be able to stand a stupid girl, not even one this gorgeous. This was a problem Howard had never had in his own youth. It was only later that brains began to mean something to him.

‘What was wrong with what was on before?'

She stared at him. ‘Were you listening?'

‘Kraftwerk . . . nothing wrong with Kraftwerk.'

‘Two
hours
of Kraftwerk?'

‘There's other stuff, surely.'

‘Have you
seen
this collection?'

‘Well, yes – it's mine.'

She laughed and shook her hair out. It was new hair, pulled back into a pony-tail and then falling down her back in a cascade of synthetic curls. She shifted her position to face him and then sat down on her heels again. The shiny purple material pulled tight
across her chest. She seemed to have large nipples, like the old tenpence coins. Howard looked to the floor, feigning shame.

‘Like, how did you come by this one, exactly?' She held up a CD of lyric-less electronica.

‘I bought it.'

‘You bought it under duress. Gunman leading you to the counter.' She mimed this. She had a dirty, cackling laugh, pitched low like her voice. Howard shrugged. He was annoyed by the lack of deference.

‘So we're sticking with hectic?'

‘ 'Fraid so, Professor.'

She winked. The eyelid came down in slow motion. The lashes were extravagant. Howard wondered whether she was drunk.

‘I'll report back,' he said, and turned to go. He almost tripped over a lifted ridge in the rug, but his second step righted him.

‘Whoa, there.'

‘Whoa . . . there,' repeated Howard.

‘Tell them to calm themselves. It's only hip-hop. It won't kill them.'

‘Right,' said Howard.

‘Yet,' he heard her say as he left the room.

the anatomy lesson

To misstate, or even merely understate, the relation of the universities to beauty is one kind of error that can be made. A university is among the precious things that can be destroyed
.

Elaine Scarry