‘Darling Eva,’ said Sally, when they finally found her talking to a man in a loincloth made out of a kitchen towel advertising Irish cheeses, ‘you look great. The twenties suit you. And so this is Henry.’ Henry didn’t feel Henry at all. ‘In period costume too. Henry meet Raphael.’
The man in the loincloth studied Wilt’s jeans. ‘The fifties are back,’ he said languidly, ‘I suppose it was bound to happen.’
Wilt looked pointedly at a Connemara Cheddar and tried to smile.
‘Help yourself, Henry,’ said Sally, and took Eva off to meet the freest but the most liberated woman who was simply dying to meet booby baby. Wilt went into the garden and put his bottle on the table and looked for a corkscrew. There wasn’t one. In the end he looked into a large bucket with a ladle in it. Half an orange and segments of bruised peach floated in a purple liquid. He poured himself a paper cup and tried it. As he had anticipated, it tasted like cider with wood alcohol and orange squash. Wilt looked round the garden. In one corner a man in a chef’s hat and a jockstrap was cooking, was burning sausages over a charcoal grill. In another corner a dozen people were lying in a circle listening to the Watergate tapes. There was a sprinkling of couples talking earnestly and a number of individuals standing by themselves looking supercilious and remote. Wilt recognised himself among them and selected the least attractive girl on the theory that he might just as well jump in the deep end and get it over with. He’d end up with her anyway.
‘Hi,’ he said, conscious that already he was slipping into the Americanese that Eva had succumbed to. The girl looked at him blankly and moved away.
‘Charming,’ said Wilt, and finished his drink. Ten minutes and two drinks later he was discussing Rapid Reading with a small round man who seemed deeply interested in the subject.
In the kitchen Eva was cutting up French bread while Sally stood with a drink and talked about Lévi-Strauss with an Ethiopian who had just got back from New Guinea.
I’ve always felt that L-S was all wrong on the woman’s front,’ she said, languidly studying Eva’s rear, ‘I mean he disregards the essential similarity…’ She stopped and stared out of the window. ‘Excuse me a moment she said, and went out to rescue Dr Scheimacher from the clutches of Henry Wilt. ‘Ernst is such a sweetie,’ she said, when she came back ‘you’d never guess he got the Nobel prize for spermatology.’
Wilt stood in the middle of the garden and finished his third drink he poured himself a fourth and went to listen to the Watergate tapes. He got there in time to hear the end.
‘You get a much clearer insight into Tricky Dick’s character quadraphonically,’ someone said as the group brake up.
‘With the highly gifted child one has to develop a special relationship. Roger and I find that Tonio responds best to constructional approach.’
‘It’s a lead of bull. Take what he says about quasars for example…’
‘I can’t honestly see what’s wrong with buggery…’
‘I don’t care what Marcuse thinks about tolerance. What I’m saying is…’
‘At minus two-fifty nitrogen…’
‘Bach does have his moments I suppose but he has his limitations…’
‘We’ve got this place at St Trop…’
‘I still think Kaldor had the answer…’
Wilt finished his fourth drink and went to look for Eva. He’d had enough. He was halted by a yell from the man in the chef’s hat.
‘Burgers up. Come and get it.’
Wilt staggered off and got it. Two sausages, a burnt beefburger and a slosh of coleslaw on a paper plate. There didn’t seem to be any knives or forks.
‘Poor Henry’s looking so forlorn,’ said Sally, ‘I’ll go and transfuse him.’
She went out and took Wilt’s arm.
‘You’re so lucky to have Eva. She’s the babiest baby.’
‘She’s thirty-five,’ said Wilt drunkenly, ‘thirty-five if she’s a day.’
‘It’s marvellous to meet a man who says what he means,’ said Sally, and took a piece of beefburger from his plate. ‘Gaskell just never says anything straightforwardly. I love down to earth people.’ She sat down on the grass and pulled Wilt down with her. ‘I think it’s terribly important for two people to tell one another the truth,’ she went on, breaking off another piece of beefburger and popping it into Wilt’s mouth. She licked her fingers slowly and looked at him with wide eyes. Wilt chewed the bit uneasily and finally swallowed it. It tasted like burnt mincemeat with a soupçon of Lancôme. Or a bouquet.
‘Why two?’ he asked, rinsing his mouth out with coleslaw.
‘Why two what?’
‘Why two people,’ said Wilt, ‘Why is, it so important for two people to tell the truth?’
‘Well I mean…’
‘Why not three? Or four? Or a hundred?’
‘A hundred people can’t have a relationship. Not an intimate one,’ said Sally, ‘not a meaningful one.’
‘I don’t know many twos who can either,’ said Wilt. Sally dabbed her finger in his coleslaw.
‘Oh but you do. You and Eva have this real thing going between you.’
‘Not very often.’ said Wilt. Sally laughed.
‘Oh baby, you’re a truth baby.’ she said, and got up and fetched two more drinks. Wilt looked down into his paper cup doubtfully. He was getting very drunk.
‘If I’m a truth baby, what sort of baby are you, baby?’ he asked, endeavouring to instil the last baby with more than soupçon of contempt. Sally snuggled up to him and whispered in his ear.
‘I’m a body baby,’ she said.
‘I can see that.’ said Wilt. ‘You’ve got a very nice body.’
‘That’s the nicest thing anybody has ever said to me,’ said Sally.
‘In that case.’ said Wilt, picking up a blackened sausage ‘you must have had a deprived childhood’
‘As a matter of fact I did,’ Sally said and plucked the sausage from his fingers. ‘That’s why I need so much loving now. She put most of the sausage in her mouth, drew it slowly out and nibbled the end. Wilt finished off the coleslaw and washed it down with Pringsheim Punch.
‘Aren’t they all awful?’ said Sally, as shouts and laughter came from the corner of the garden by the grill.
Wilt looked, up.
‘As a matter of fact they are,’ he said. ‘Who’s the clown in the jockstrap?’
‘That’s Gaskell. He’s so arrested. He loves playing at things,’ In the States he just loves to ride footplate on a locomotive and he goes to rodeos and last Christmas he insisted on dressing up as Santa Claus and going down to Watts and giving out presents to the black kids at an orphanage. Of course they wouldn’t let him.’
‘If he went in a jockstrap I’m not in the least surprised,’ said Wilt. Sally laughed.
‘You must be an Aries,’ she said. ‘you don’t mind what you say.’ She got to her feet and pulled Wilt up-’I'm going to show you his toy room. It’s ever so droll.’
Wilt put his plate down and they went into the house. In the kitchen Eva was peeling oranges for a fruit salad and talking about circumcision rites with the Ethiopian, who was slicing bananas for her. In the lounge several couples were dancing back to back very vigorously to an LP of Beethoven’s Fifth played at 78.
‘Christ,’ said Wilt as Sally collected a bottle of Vodka from a cupboard. They went upstairs and down a passage to a small bedroom filled with toys. There was a model train set on the floor, a punchbag, an enormous Teddy dear, a rocking horse, a fireman’s helmet and a lifesize inflated doll that looked like a real woman.
‘That’s Judy,’ said Sally. ’she’s got a real cunt. Gaskell is a plastic freak.’ Wilt winced. ‘And here are Gaskell’s toys, puberty baby.’