“I don’t know what your point is.”
“I’m saying you respect it too much. This party. These people. These sophisticated people.”
“I’ve got no respect for them at all. They’re smug. They’re bourgeois.”
“You’re lying, Chris. You want them to love you. You follow all their rules. Politeness, acceptable behavior. My mother would adore you.”
“What rules? And I still don’t understand what your problem is. We’re both at this party. We’ve both chosen to come here. It’s just a party.”
“The difference is that you couldn’t step outside it, if you chose. Look at these people. Look at them, Chris. They’re blind. They’re happy to ignore everything around them, just pleased to be having a good time. And, as far as I’m concerned, that makes them culpable. It makes them complicit in everything they’re ignoring. Vietnam, the lot. It makes them pigs.”
“So what? You want to leave? I agree. Let’s get out of here.” “Run away?”
“Christ, Anna! Run away from what?”
“Why not confront them? If they’re pigs, why not tell them to their faces?”
“If they piss you off so much, why don’t you?”
Without a word, Anna went over to a middle-aged man in a velvet jacket, who was talking to the host. As she approached, he smiled reflexively, wondering if he knew her. She leaned forward and tightened his tie until it started to constrict his neck. Then, as he scrabbled ineffectually at his collar, she dashed the wineglass out of his hand and screamed at him, “You pig! You fucking baby-killing pig!” The music was quite loud and not everyone could hear, but the room was instantly energized.
People stared. The man cowered, his hands up, ready to ward off another attack.
Anna turned to me and inclined her head. The blood was pumping in my ears. I felt sick, as if there was a physical weight on my chest. She was right. I was scared of those people. I valued their good opinion. I envied their confidence, their social position.
I took a step forward. Then another. In front of me was the BBC woman. I batted a bowl out of her hand, spraying rice salad over the people around her. I screamed at her, “Pig! Fucking pig!” Anna went up to another woman, spilling wine onto her blouse. I pushed the actor who was dancing with Ursula. For the next few minutes we shouldered through the party performing small acts of transgression, breaking things, screaming obscenities and feeling people up, until the place was in a state of uproar. People shouted at us. One man slapped Anna’s face, the macho movie hero dealing with the hysteric.
I remember Miles’s horrified expression as we were pushed out of the door.
On the street, taxis streamed past, carrying people back to the suburbs. The host was apparently calling the police. We ran off toward the tube station.
When we clattered down the stairs, we found the platform was deserted, and since she was laughing and I was on a high, I pushed her against a pillar and put my face close to hers. I could feel her back, slick with perspiration under her thin T-shirt. She didn’t pull away. When I kissed her, she responded passionately, or so it seemed to me, until I tried to slip my hand between her thighs, at which point she pushed me off and held me at arm’s length, smiling and shaking her head. “Fuck off, Chris,” she panted. “You don’t get to drag me back to your cave. I’m not your reward, your gold star.” Then, while I tried to digest what had just happened, she playfully slapped my cheek and hopped onto a train, waving to me as the carriage doors closed. I watched her take a seat and fish a book out of her jacket pocket as it pulled away.
Was that party the turning point, the most important moment
of my summer? Or was it when Jay came to find me in the pub? I remember he’d acquired a large fedora hat from somewhere. It made him look like a theatrical villain, off for a touch of opium and some white slavery, then home in time for tea.
“There’s a guy in the living room,” he whispered ominously. “You’ve got to come and deal with him. He’s fucking awful, mate. Harshing the vibe. Says he’s your brother.”
By the time I arrived, Brian had been there almost an hour. He’d refused tea. He’d refused to sit down. Fear of contamination? It was hard to say why. Maybe he thought he’d get spiked, believe he could fly. I found him standing at attention by the living room door, like a furious standard lamp.
“Where the hell have you been?” was his greeting. It was months since we’d seen each other.
It wasn’t merely that I hadn’t thought about Brian for a while. I’d blocked him out. But there he was, a presence from another life, a scowling, sandy-haired man whose meaty back and shoulders were hunched inside a shiny gray suit jacket, a tie knotted under his jowl like a big floral noose. My brother. Make the sounds with your mouth and see if they conjure up a feeling.
“Hello, Brian.”
“Christ almighty, it’s taken me three days to track you down.” “I see.”
“What are you doing here? This house is revolting.”
I’d already had enough. “You spent three days looking for me just to tell me you don’t like where I live? If you can’t be friendly, just go, OK?”
“Don’t give me any of your lip. Of course I didn’t come for that.”
“You’re sure, Brian? You always had strong opinions about décor.”
I heard Jay snicker behind me. Among other things, Brian lacked a sense of humor and, like most humorless people, he was always watching out beadily for perceived slights, the jokes he knew he wasn’t getting.
“Don’t talk to me that way. I’m your elder brother.”
“Fuck off, Brian. I didn’t ask you to come here.”
“Is there somewhere private we can talk?” He gestured at Jay, who was hovering in the doorway. Matthias was in the background, wrapped in a blanket. I think he was hoping Brian would leave so he could go back to sleep. My brother adopted an air of high seriousness. “I don’t want to discuss family business in front of people like that.”
“Like what?” asked Jay, mock-innocently.
“You know exactly what,” growled Brian.
“Right,” I told him. “Get out. I don’t know why you came here, but now I want you to piss off back to your office. Haven’t you got customers to rob or something?”
I didn’t think it was possible for his color to deepen any further. “You’re so bloody arrogant,” he spat. “Look at yourself. Got up in those wretched clothes, hair all over the place.”
“Don’t know if it’s a boy or a girl,” tutted Jay. Brian turned on him. “Just helping you with your lines,” Jay offered.
At that point Brian almost lost control. I had to step between them. “Don’t you dare.”
“Get that — creature out of here.”
“Jay, I’m sorry. Leave it to me. I’ll get rid of him.”
Brian put his face very close to mine. “I don’t know what Dad’s going to say when he sees you.”
“I don’t give a damn what he says. And I don’t give a damn what you say either. Fuck off, Brian. Fuck off and leave me in peace.” “So you’re going to force me to do this in public?”
“Force you? What the hell are you on about? What are you doing here?”
“Mum’s dead.”
Brian’s little triumph. You could see the poorly concealed pleasure on his face. Living the scene as if it were some ghastly Victorian genre painting. The prodigal brother chastised. The extent of his self-righteousness rolled out in front of me like a carpet. I was furious. The way he’d come: unasked, wreathed in sanctimony.
I bet he’d spent three days looking for me, the sick bastard. I bet it was worth it to him.
“How?” I asked, making my voice as flat as I could.
“The hospital says she had a stroke. I thought maybe you still cared enough to want to come to the funeral.”