On Beauty Read online

  That evening, when Howard returned home at dinner-time, there was no dinner – it was one of those nights when everybody was heading out. The search was on for keys, hairpins, coats, bath towels, cocoa butter, bottles of perfume, wallets, those five dollars that were on the sideboard earlier, a birthday card, an envelope. Howard, who intended to head back out in the suit he had on, sat on the kitchen stool like a dying sun his family were orbiting. Even though Jerome had returned to Brown two days earlier, the noisy clamour had not lessened, nor had the populated feel of the hallways and stairs. Here was his family and they were legion.

  ‘Five dollars,’ said Levi, suddenly addressing his father. ‘It was on the sideboard.’

  ‘I’m sorry – I haven’t seen it.’

  ‘So what am I meant to do?’ demanded Levi.

  Kiki swept into the kitchen. She looked lovely in a green silk suit with a Nehru collar. The bottom half of her long plait had been unwound and oiled so the free curls fell separately. In each ear she wore the only gems Howard had ever been able to give her: two simple emerald drops that had belonged to his mother.

  ‘You look great,’ said Howard genuinely.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing. You look great.’

  Kiki frowned and shook her head, dismissing this unexpected break in her chain of thought.

  ‘Look, I need you to sign this card. It’s for Theresa from the hospital. It’s her birthday – I don’t know which birthday but Carlos is leaving her and she’s feeling awful. Me and some of the girls are taking her out for drinks. You know Theresa, Howard – she’s one of the people who exist on this planet who isn’t you. Thank you. Levi, you too. Just sign, you don’t have to write anything. And it’s ten thirty for you – no later. School night. Where’s Zora? She better sign this too. Levi, have you put money in that phone yet?’

  ‘How can I put money in it if people keep on stealing my greens from the counter? Tell me that!’

  ‘Just leave a number where I can find you, OK?’

  ‘I’m going out with my friend. He ain’t got no phone.’

  ‘Levi, what kind of friend doesn’t have a phone? Who are these people?’

  ‘Mom, be honest,’ said Zora, walking backwards into the room in electric blue satin with her hands above her head. ‘What’s the ass situation in this dress?’

  Fifteen minutes later, possible rides and buses and taxis were being discussed. Howard quietly slipped off his stool and put his overcoat on. This surprised his family.

  ‘Where’re you going?’ asked Levi.

  ‘College thing,’ said Howard. ‘Dinner in one of the club halls.’

  ‘One of the dinners?’ said Zora quizzically. ‘You never said. I thought you weren’t going this year. Which hall?’ She was pulling a long pair of debutante’s elbow-length gloves on to her hands.

  ‘Emerson,’ said Howard haltingly. ‘But I won’t see you, will I? You’re going to Fleming.’

  ‘Why are you going to Emerson? You never go to Emerson.’

  It seemed to Howard that all of his family were overly interested in this question. They stood in a semicircle, putting on their coats, awaiting his reply.

  ‘Some ex-students of mine wanted –’ began Howard but Zora was talking over him.

  ‘Well, I’m head of table – I asked Jamie Anderson. I’m late, actually – I gotta run.’ She came forward to kiss her father on the cheek, but Howard drew back from her.

  ‘Why would you ask Anderson? Why wouldn’t you ask me?’

  ‘Dad, I went with you last year.’

  ‘Anderson? Zora, he’s a complete fraud. He’s barely post-adolescent. He’s moronic, actually, that’s what he is.’

  Zora smiled – she was flattered by this show of jealousy.

  ‘He’s really not that bad.’

  ‘He’s ridiculous – you told me how ridiculous that class is. Post-Native American protest pamphlets or whatever it is. I just don’t understand why you would want to –’

  ‘Dad, he’s OK. He’s . . . fresh – he’s got new ideas. I’m taking Carl too – Jamie’s interested in oral ethnicity.’

  ‘I bet he is.’

  ‘Dad, I have to go.’

  She kissed him gently on his cheek. No hug. No rubbing of his head.

  ‘Wait up!’ said Levi. ‘I need a ride!’ and followed his sister to the door.

  And now Kiki was to abandon him too, without a goodbye. But then, on the threshold, she turned back and came towards Howard and held his arm at the slack bicep. She pulled his ear close to her mouth.

  ‘Howard, Zoor adores you. Don’t be dumb about this. She wanted to go with you, but people in the class have been suggesting she gets some kind of . . . I don’t know . . . favourable treatment.’

  Howard opened his mouth to protest, but Kiki patted his shoulder. ‘I know – but they don’t need an excuse. I think some people are being pretty nasty. She’s been upset by it. She mentioned it in London.’

  ‘But why didn’t she talk about it with me?’

  ‘Honey, to be honest, you seemed a little self-absorbed in London. And you were writing, and she likes it when you’re working – she didn’t want to hassle you with it. No matter what you think,’ said Kiki, giving his arm a little squeeze, ‘we all want you to work well. Look, I’ve got to go.’

  She kissed him on the cheek as Zora had, nostalgically. A reference to earlier affection.

  7

  In January, at the first formal of the year, the tremendous will-power of Wellington’s female students is revealed. Unfortunately for the young women, this demonstration of pure will is accredited to ‘femininity’ – that most passive of virtues – and, as a result, does not contribute to their Grade Point Average. It is unfair. Why are there are no awards for the girl who starves herself through the Christmas period – refusing all sweetmeats, roasts and liqueurs offered to her – so that she might appear at the January formal in a backless dress and toeless shoes, although the temperature is near to freezing and the snow is heavy upon the ground? Howard, who wore a floor-length overcoat, gloves, leather shoes and a thick college scarf, stood by Emerson’s front gate and watched with real awe the mist of white flakes falling upon bare shoulders and hands, the clothed men holding their near-naked, decorative partners as together they stepped around puddles and snowdrifts like ballroom dancers on an assault course. They all looked like princesses – but what steel must lurk within!

  ‘Evening, Belsey,’ said an old historian of Howard’s acquaintance. Howard nodded his greeting and let the man pass. The historian’s companion for the evening was a young man. Howard thought they both looked happier than the mixed-sex student–faculty partners passing intermittently through the gateway. It was an old tradition, this dinner, but it was not quite a comfortable one. It was never the same teaching the student in question after seeing them in their glad rags – though of course, in Howard’s case, that line had already been crossed and then some. Howard heard the first dinner bell go. This was the call for people to take their seats. He kept his hands in his pockets and waited. It was too cold even to smoke a cigarette. He looked up and across at Wellington Square, at the glinting white spires of the college and the evergreen trees still strung with Christmas lights. In this bitter weather Howard’s eyes watered incessantly. For him, all electric light spread and twinkled; streetlamps sent out fountains of sparks; traffic signals transformed into natural phenomena, glowing and pulsing like the aurora borealis. She was ten minutes late now. A wind was blowing the snow up off the ground in horizontal sweeps. The quad behind him looked like an arctic tundra. Another five minutes. Howard wandered across to Emerson Hall itself, and stationed himself just inside the doors, where he would not miss her. With everybody already seated, he was left with the waiting staff, so black in their white shirts, holding high those trays of Wellington shrimp that always looked much better than they tasted. They were informal back here, laughing and whistling, speaking their boisterous Creole, touching each other.
Nothing like the silent docile servers they became in hall. Now a queue of them lined up just near Howard with their platters, jiggling impatiently like footballers in a tunnel, ready to run on to the pitch. A loud clatter of a side door made everyone turn to look at the same time, Howard included. Fifteen white young men in matching black suits and gold waistcoats walked into the hallway. They quickly arranged themselves in a staggered formation on the main stairs. The fattest of them now sang a clear, steady note with which the rest harmonized, until there was an almost unbearably pleasant chord in the air. It vibrated so brutally that Howard felt it in his body, like standing beside a loud sound system. The front door opened.

  ‘Shit! Sorry I’m late – sorry. Clothes crisis.’

  Victoria, dressed in a very long overcoat, brushed the snow from her shoulders. The young men, apparently satisfied with their sound check, stopped singing and trooped back into the room from which they had come. A spatter of applause – which sounded distinctly ironic – came from the waiters.

  ‘You’re very late,’ said Howard, frowning after the retreating singers, but Victoria did not answer. She was busy taking off her coat. Howard turned back round.

  ‘What do you think?’ she asked, although there could be no question of the answer. She wore a shimmering white trouser suit, cut low. Apparently there was nothing underneath it. The waist was as neat as neat could be; her backside was impertinent. Her hair had changed again. This time it was parted on the side and slicked down with pomade like in those old photos of Josephine Baker. Her lashes appeared longer than usual. Every man and woman in the line of waiters fixed their eyes upon her.

  ‘You look –’ attempted Howard.

  ‘Yeah, well . . . I thought one of us should wear a nice suit.’

  They walked into the hall at the same time as the servers and were thankfully obscured by them. Howard feared all activity and conversation in this room would cease if these diners were squarely confronted with this impossible beauty walking beside him. They took their seats at a long table that ran along the east wall. There were four professors at this table with their Emerson student dates, the rest of the places being taken by freshmen from other halls who had paid for their tickets. This pattern was repeated throughout the hall. At a table near the front stage, Howard spotted Monty. He was sitting with a black girl who wore her hair in a similar style to Victoria’s. She and all the other students at the table were focused on Monty, presently speechifying in familiar style.

  ‘Your father’s here?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Victoria innocently, spreading her white napkin over her white lap. ‘He’s Emerson – didn’t you know?’

  For the first time it occurred to Howard that this gorgeous, single nineteen-year-old giving her attention to a 57-year-old married man (albeit with a full head of hair) might have other motives besides pure animal passion. Was he – as Levi would put it – being played? But Howard was disrupted from further thought on this subject by an old man in cap and gown who rose, welcomed them all and then said something long in Latin. The bell rang again. The servers entered. The overhead lights dimmed, allowing the table candles to offer their flickering illumination. The wine waiters went round, bending delicately over the diners’ left shoulders, and finishing each pour with an elegant twist of the bottle. The starter followed. This consisted of two of the shrimp Howard had spotted in the hall laid next to a bowl of clam chowder with its accompanying packet of croutons. Howard had spent ten years wrestling with these little packets of Wellington Town Croutons and had learned to leave them alone. Victoria ripped hers open and sent three flying into Howard’s chest. This made her laugh. Her laugh was charming – she was off-duty somehow when she laughed. But then the performance continued; she broke open her bread roll and spoke to him in that arch, satirical style she seemed to think was flirtatious. On his other side, a shy, plain girl visiting from M.I.T. was attempting to explain to him the kind of experimental physics she did. As he ate, Howard tried to listen. He made a point of asking her many interested questions; he hoped this would lessen the effect of Victoria’s frank disinterest. But after ten minutes he ran out of viable questions. Physicist and Art Historian met their match in technical terms that could not be translated, in two worlds that would not coalesce. Howard drank down his second glass of wine and excused himself to go to the toilet.

  ‘Howard! Hahahahaha! A nice place to meet. God, these things, eh? These fucking things. Once a year and it’s still too bloody often!’

  It was Erskine, drunk, swaying. He came and stood beside Howard, unzipped himself. Howard could not piss next to people he knew. He pretended he had just finished and moved to the sink.

  ‘You look like you’re coping. Ersk, how did you manage to get that much drink down your neck already?’

  ‘I’ve been drinking for an hour just to prepare myself. John Flanders – know him?’

  ‘Don’t think so.’

  ‘You are lucky. My most boring, ugliest, stupidest pupil. Why? Why is it always the students you least want to spend time with who want to spend time with you?’

  ‘It’s passive-aggressive,’ joked Howard, soaping his hands. ‘They know you don’t like them. And they’re trying to catch you out – get you off your guard and tight enough, so you’ll admit it.’

  Erskine finished his strenuous piss with a sigh, zipped up and joined Howard at the sinks. ‘And you?’

  Howard looked up at his own image in the mirror. ‘Victoria Kipps.’

  Erskine whistled lasciviously, and Howard knew what was coming. Talk of attractive women always stripped Erskine’s mask of charm from his face. It was a side of him Howard had always known but chosen not to dwell upon. Drink made it worse. ‘That girl,’ Erskine whispered, shaking his head. ‘She makes my eyes sting. You have to have your cock strapped to your leg when you pass that girl in a corridor. Don’t you roll your eyes at me. Come on – you’re not such an angel, Howard, we all know that now. She is something! You’d have to be blind not to see it. How she can be related to a walrus like Monty!’

  ‘She’s a good-looking girl,’ agreed Howard. He put his hands under the dryer, hoping the noise would shut Erskine up.

  ‘Boys these days – they’re lucky. Do you know that? Their generation of girls know how to use their bodies. They understand their own power. When I married Caroline, she was beautiful, yes, of course. Like a Southern schoolgirl in bed. Like a child. And now we’re too old. We dream, but we can’t touch. To have Miss Kipps! But those days are gone!’

  Erskine hung his head in cod misery, and followed Howard out of the restroom. It took some restraint on Howard’s part not to tell Erskine that he had touched, that his day was not yet over. He quickened his step a little, eager to return to his table. Hearing another man speak of Victoria that way had made him want her again.

  ‘Once more into the breach,’ said Erskine at the door to the hall, rubbed his hands together and left Howard for his own table. A stream of servers was leaving as they came in. Howard felt his whiteness as they all pressed past him; he was like a tourist making his way through a crowded Caribbean alleyway. At last he made his seat. He had a passing pornographic thought, as he sat down, of slipping his fingers into Vee under this table, of bringing her in this way to climax. Reality asserted itself. She was wearing trousers. And she was busy, speaking very loudly, addressing the shy girl, the boy next to her, and the boy next to him. Their faces suggested to Howard that Victoria had not stopped speaking since he left the table.

  ‘But then, that’s just the kind of person I am,’ she was saying. ‘I’m the kind of person who feels that kind of behaviour is beyond the pale, that’s just the way I am. I don’t make any apologies. I feel I deserve that respect. I’m very clear about my boundaries . . .’

  Howard picked up the piece of card in front of him to find out what was to follow on the menu.

  Singing

  Corn-fed chicken wrapped in parma ham on a bed of sweet-pea risotto

  The compan
y is addressed by Dr Emily Hartman

  Key Lime Pie

  Of course, Howard had known it was coming. But he had not known it would come so soon. He felt he had not had the chance to compose himself properly. It was too late now to leave again; the bell was ringing. And here they came, those boys in their gold waistcoats with their F. Scott Fitzgerald heritage haircuts and ruddy faces. They made their way to the stage amid much applause – one might say they jogged towards it. Once again they arranged themselves in staggered formation, tallest at the back, blonds in the middle and the fat guy front and centre. The fat guy opened his mouth and let out that bell-like note, alive with Old Boston money. His fellows harmonized perfectly. Howard felt the familiar trouble coming on, behind his eyes, which had instantly filled with water. He bit his lip and pressed his knees together. This was all going to be made much worse by the fact he had not emptied his bladder. Around his table, nine perfectly straight faces directed themselves to the stage, awaiting entertainment. The room was silent apart from the tremulous chord. Howard felt Victoria touch his knee under the table. He removed her hand. He had to concentrate all his energies now into bringing his overdeveloped sense of the ridiculous under the control of his will. How strong was his will?

  There are two different kinds of glee club in this world. The first type sing barbershop favourites and Gershwin tunes, they swing gently, moving from side to side and sometimes clicking their fingers and winking. Howard could basically deal with that type. He had got through occasions graced by glee clubs of that type. But these boys were not of that type. Swaying and clicking and winking were just how they got warmed up. Tonight this glee club had chosen as their opener ‘Pride (In the Name of Love)’ by U2, which they had taken the trouble to transform into a samba. They swayed, they clicked, they winked. They did coordinated spins. They switched places with each other. They moved forward, they moved back – always retaining their formation. They smiled the kind of smile you might employ when trying to convince a lunatic to quit holding a gun to your mother’s head. One of the boys, with his lungs, began to reproduce the bass line on the record. And now Howard could hold out no longer. He began to shudder, and, making a choice between tears and noise, he chose tears. In a few seconds his face was soaked. His shoulders were rolling. The effort of not making noise was turning his face purple. One of the boys stepped out of his formation to do the moonwalk. Howard held a thick cotton serviette to his face.