A Circle of Friends Read online

  ‘Was I right?’ said Henrietta. ‘Do they match?’

  ‘Sort of,’ said Adam, rubbing his nose with a long finger. ‘When are you going to come and see?’

  ‘When are you going to ask me?’

  ‘I’m asking you now.’

  ‘All right, then, let’s go.’ She put down her drink and smiled at him. ‘I’m ready.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Adam, still rubbing his nose, ‘you do take one at his word, don’t you dear?’

  ‘Of course.’ She still smiled at him.

  He looked at her his head on one side for a moment, then said, ‘Well, why not? I’m tired of this party. Percy won’t bite again tonight.’

  ‘Good,’ said Henrietta. ‘I’ll get my coat.’

  ‘Won’t you come, too?’ said Adam.

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Who else? You just said you’d never seen my apartment.’

  ‘Well, it’s extremely kind of you——’

  ‘Good, then you’ll come.’

  Henrietta sucked in her underlip and gazed round. ‘Do you suppose I ought to tell Freddy we’re going?’

  ‘I’m afraid I——’

  ‘Oh, there’s nothing to be afraid of. Where is he?’

  The room was full, but Freddy’s mosquito whine could be heard needling the blood-groups round the drink-table.

  ‘Why don’t you go and tell him where we’re going, while I get my coat,’ said Henrietta. ‘Say that Adam’s taking us in his car, but why doesn’t he come on up when he’s ready, if he wants to.’ I must have hesitated, because she gave me a little push as she turned away. ‘Go on. I’ll meet you in the hall.’

  Freddie was winding up what seemed a carefully rehearsed assault on certain aspects of American academic life.

  ‘So what do you get?’ he was saying as I approached. ‘The buttoned-down theatre, that’s what, all trim and tailored and shoe, with the bad guy a heartbroken professor who lets his hand touch a student’s ass in class one hot afternoon, and she tells on him, and the president of the university is an old-fashioned liberal who stands up for freedom in public but, shucks, fellas, when I have to talk to that board of regents, oh boy, is that something! And the hero is the guy who’s read Freud, right? And he stands for a load of Ivy League, basset-hound and station-wagon, wife and two-point-four kids, all-electric kitchen crap.’

  Salvesen, at whom this tirade seemed to be directed, grinned.

  ‘You can keep all that for canned television,’ said Freddy. ‘And you can keep those goddam writers of yours in their goddam residences. Just keep them out of the theatre, that’s all. Theatre’s a living art still. Just about. And we don’t want a single bachelor of arts within ten blocks of us.’

  ‘Not even in the audience?’ said Salvesen.

  ‘Not even in the audience.’

  There was something too fine about Freddy’s rhetoric for it to sound honest. It was more like one of those ‘spontaneous’ outbursts one sometimes saw on television, than a genuinely felt protest against something real.

  ‘Hi,’ said Salvesen to me. ‘If you’ve got a BA, you’re to get a clear ten blocks away.’

  ‘Actually, I was just going to. Er—Mr Grigson, your wife said to tell you that she and Adam Livingstone and I are all going to look at his bathroom, and if you feel like coming on later, why don’t you?’

  ‘Going off with my wife, huh?’ said Freddy. ‘That’s more like drama, Mike. She sends me this kid to tell me she’s going to commit adultery up in Morningside Heights.’

  ‘She didn’t say anything about adultery,’ I said, nervously trying to make a joke.

  ‘She will,’ said Freddy. ‘She will.’

  Salvesen said, ‘I’d sure hate to commit adultery in a bathtub.’

  ‘It would depend on whether the water was clean or not,’ said Freddy.

  I edged away as they began to develop this topic. When I got to the door Henrietta had her coat on. It was cherry pink and protested strongly against her hair.

  ‘Is Freddy coming?’ she said.

  ‘I don’t think so. He didn’t actually say.’

  ‘Oh, this city,’ said Adam. ‘The things it does to people. When I first knew Freddy he was a quiet little mouse from Batavia, New York, who’d never heard of Noel Coward, let alone Bertholt Brecht, and now look at him—an imitation intellectual hoodlum.’

  ‘Freddy’s all right,’ said Henrietta. ‘It’s only me that sets him off. He hates England so much.’

  ‘Well, that’s worrying in a man who’s supposed to be intelligent, isn’t it? Surely the time’s over when Americans need to feel the urge to punch the Queen of England on the nose?’

  ‘It may be for Americans,’ said Henrietta. ‘It’s certainly not for the English.’

  ‘What’s not for the English?’ said Howard, emerging from the party with a jug of martinis.

  ‘This party,’ said Henrietta, wrapping the coat round her and offering her face for a kiss. ‘It was lovely till all the Americans arrived, so now we’re going.’

  Howard kissed her and said, ‘I didn’t know you were anti-American. That makes two of us.’

  ‘Howard,’ said Adam, ‘you do give the best parties in Manhattan.’

  ‘I just try to give people what they want,’ said Howard, his eyes rolling sideways. ‘I don’t always succeed.’ The end of his cigarette drooped almost to his chin, and he seemed amused about something which escaped me. It was as though Adam had his flies undone and Howard was wondering whether it would be funnier to tell him or to say nothing.

  ‘Tell Freddy we’ve gone to El Morocco,’ said Henrietta.

  ‘But I told him——’

  ‘That’s just what we call my apartment,’ said Adam. ‘You have to get used to the language in this set. Never take anything at its face value.’

  ‘I’ll say not,’ said Howard.

  ‘It was really most enjoyable,’ I heard myself saying.

  ‘Oh, you English.’ He flapped a hand and we let ourselves out.

  The elevator was just issuing new guests.

  ‘They’re too late,’ said Henrietta, as the doors closed on us. ‘They’ve missed the fun.’

  ‘Really, dear, there can be fun without us.’

  ‘Not much.’ She laughed.

  ‘Her vanity,’ said Adam. ‘Have you ever heard anything like it? Mind you, it’s true.’

  I grinned and looked at my shoes. They were filthy again. I don’t know what it was about my feet, but they led my shoes to the dirtiest places. Once I had had an electric buffing-machine, but it gave up trying after the third day. If there was a drawing-pin or a piece of chewing-gum lying about, my shoes latched on to it. If there was a stone to trip on, they tripped.

  I tripped getting out of the elevator, and Adam caught my arm.

  ‘You want to watch your step,’ he said. ‘People will think you’ve been drinking.’

  The Negro porter touched his cap as we went out. I felt strangely elated and said, ‘I wish I was the sort of person who always got caps touched.’

  ‘What was that?’ said Henrietta. Adam had taken her arm and we were walking down the street.

  ‘I meant that I’m not the sort of person whom porters usually touch their caps to, and I should like to be. It would make me feel more real.’ I expressed myself with rare clarity.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know about that. It makes me feel rather unreal.’

  ‘I never notice,’ said Adam. ‘You’re both so terribly British. You’re so vilely class-conscious.’

  ‘No, no, it’s not that. It’s—you see, it means he’s seen you. I don’t often feel people have seen me.

  Adam unlocked a car. ‘Come on. In you get. Henrietta you’d better sit in the middle. The Invisible Man might feel he wasn’t there if we talked across him.’

  I was glad to be on the edge. I never knew where to put my knees when I sat between people. Knees could be so voluble, and it made me very tense guessing whether or not they meant it. Also I used to worr
y about my body-odour. I had nightmares about my body-odour.

  Henrietta was bulkier than she looked. As Adam manoeuvred the car out of the parking space, I held tightly to the door-handle. I was enjoying myself, and I didn’t want to give offence at sharp corners. I tucked my knees well over and tried not to sweat.

  *

  Some time later I was sitting on a deep sofa in Adam’s apartment listening to someone playing an unaccompanied violin inside Adam’s large mahogany record-player. There was a tall glass of light brown liquid in my left hand; the glass was very cold, presumably because of the ice-cubes that floated in it. From the fingers of my right hand a cigarette was sending impassioned smoke-signals. I watched them with interest for a while, remarking the singular beauty of the abstract patterns they made in the air. Then I noticed that my fingers were about to catch fire, and a voice I recognised vaguely as my own deferentially suggested I should dab the cigarette in a convenient sea-shell. While doing this I became aware of the astonishing beauty of the whorls of the shell, the shades and patternings and textures. The violin was making sounds of quite incredible beauty, too; I seemed never to have listened to music so acutely before. It was remarkable, I thought, how days could go by without me even being aware of the weather, and then suddenly, sufficiently prompted, my ears and eyes could renovate the whole sensible world. I was childishly pleased with myself for being so extraordinarily perceptive.

  When I came to again I was less happy. The drug had worn off, leaving the world drab and my ears buzzing. I had a slight headache. The drink, now warm, was still in my hand. I tasted it gratefully; whisky, Scotch whisky.

  ‘Are you with us again?’ said Adam, bending over me. ‘Would you like some ice-cubes in that drink?’

  ‘Please,’ I tried to say, but my throat was very dry. I nodded instead and handed my glass.

  He patted me on the side of the head and went away. A last spurt of perception made his ears look like chips of pumice-stone from a lava-bed. When he came back again I was feeling better and managed a ‘Thank you’.

  ‘You are a fool,’ he said, dropping on the sofa beside me. ‘Why on earth didn’t you say you hadn’t tried it before? I’d’ve given you a smaller charge.’

  ‘It was quite an interesting experience.’

  ‘The first time usually is.’

  I felt guilt rising in me like vomit. ‘Are you an addict?’

  He roared with laughter. ‘Addict! Good heavens, no. I blast off once in a while, that’s all. Everyone does.’

  ‘Everyone?’

  ‘One’s friends.’

  I must have looked very aghast, because he laughed again. ‘It’s all right, it’s not habit-forming. You’re not hooked for life.’

  ‘I thought it was supposed to be, in spite of what people said.’

  ‘Oh, you believe all that police propaganda.’

  ‘No. But isn’t it, even a little?’

  ‘Well, what isn’t? Sex is habit-forming, isn’t it? Cigarettes are, drink is. But you’re not an alcoholic just because you have a few drinks.’

  ‘It was nice,’ I said, trying to recall the sensation. It had completely evaporated. I looked at the sea-shell; it was just an ash-tray that needed emptying.

  ‘How old are you?’ said Adam.

  ‘Twenty-five.’

  ‘Twenty-five! It’s immoral,’ said Henrietta. I raised my head and she swam back into my ken.

  ‘I expect it’s rather nice, really, isn’t it?’ said Adam.

  I thought about it and said ‘I don’t think so. Nothing very much seems to happen.’

  Henrietta laughed. ‘He gets high for the first time and then he complains that nothing happens!’

  ‘When I was young,’ I said, ‘I used——’ I got no further because they were both laughing at me. I dipped my blush in Scotch. I was definitely drunk, apart from anything else.

  ‘Go on,’ said Adam.

  ‘What I mean is, I always used to think that when I grew up, became adult—you know—I used to think that something would happen. I’d do things like everyone else. Be part of things. But it’s just the same as it always was. I still don’t know what’s going on.’

  ‘Who does?’ said Adam. ‘Oh, I know exactly what you mean. I used to think that once I’d got my driver’s licence, the whole world would open up ahead of me. But all that happened was my mother sent me to pick up the groceries.’

  ‘You all live in——’ I groped for words and spilt whisky. ‘I don’t seem to get inside, I’m always looking on, I mean in. Real life is somewhere else.’

  ‘Over the rainbow,’ said Henrietta.

  ‘I want to be old,’ I said. ‘Terribly, terribly old.’

  ‘You will be,’ said Adam, ‘don’t worry.’

  ‘You poor thing,’ said Henrietta. ‘What a horrible time you must be having.’

  I found that I had nothing further to say that could be mustered into coherent sentences. I reached for a cigarette.

  ‘I understand it all so well,’ said Adam. ‘Oh God, the years I spent not knowing why I didn’t seem to be living the way other people were.’

  ‘You still aren’t, dear,’ said Henrietta.

  ‘No, be serious now.’ He looked at me very kindly. ‘Don’t worry. One day you’ll wake up and find that there isn’t any difference between you and other people. They’re all just as puzzled as you are.’

  ‘I’m puzzled about where Freddy is,’ said Henrietta.

  Adam just looked at her, and she avoided his eye.

  ‘Come on, Martin, you’re going to have to take me home. It’s two o’clock.’

  I was amazed. I thought it was still about eleven. The drug, I decided, had been more timeless than I’d realised. I staggered to my feet, and swayed.

  ‘You can stay on the couch, if you like,’ said Adam.

  ‘No, I can manage.’

  When the taxi arrived we were waiting in the lobby of the apartment-house.

  ‘See you again soon, I hope,’ said Adam.

  ‘It was terribly kind of you,’ I said.

  Adam gave Henrietta a big hug. She wrapped her pink coat round her face like a spy.

  ‘Good night.’

  In the back of the taxi I said, ‘That was an excellent evening, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Lovely.’ I was holding her hand, for no reason that I could recall. I decided she must be holding mine. ‘You must come and have a drink with us soon. How long are you staying here?’

  ‘About a month.’

  ‘Goodness, is that all? Why don’t you come tomorrow, then? Do you know where we live?’

  ‘No. I don’t think I’ve met you before, actually.’

  ‘Really? I thought we were old friends.’ She squeezed my hand and laughed. ‘What about tomorrow? Are you free?’

  ‘I’m always free.’

  When I got back to my own apartment-house it took me some time to distinguish the outer door key from the inner door key and the key of the mail-box. I felt very tired as I climbed the stairs. I wondered how much of what I was remembering of the evening had happened and how much was hallucination. I didn’t approve of myself having taken a drug; it wasn’t the sort of thing I did.

  The red-haired giant was sprawled across the landing, groaning rhythmically in his sleep; Vida Nellermoe was in her most uncompromising mood. I stepped carefully over him and unlocked my door. He stirred and whimpered, but didn’t wake.

  My window was still open, and it was cold in the apartment. I leaned out and looked at the ladies’ hotel. A ghostly pair of panties shone like a lover’s signal in the moonlight from the seventh floor. I stared at it for a while, but it flapped no message for me. There were a few lights on in the tall building, but I heard no sound. Craning out and up, I saw that Gina Coleridge’s window was dark. It should be a quiet night. I went to bed.

  Towards ten o’clock next morning I dreamed I was back at school. A malodorous adolescent, I was known as Pongo, and my cleverness at lessons did nothing to make me mo
re popular. In my dream I was a new boy again, though my real age. I was being shown round the school by Broad Minor, whose duty this had been in 1949. He was telling me the slang names of each building, the complex rules which governed boys’ relationships, who was and who wasn’t allowed to wear his coat unbuttoned, and the colours of the various house and school teams. We were walking down an avenue of trees which led to the school sanatorium and I was in a panic because I knew that when I got there I would have to answer to an examination about all these names and colours and buttons and I could remember nothing. Broad Minor was angry with me; if I failed the examination, he too would be punished. ‘Plum, green, plum is what house?’ he said. ‘Quickly—plum, green, plum.’ My heart was beating furiously and I couldn’t speak. He hit me on the arm and I began to cry. ‘You stink!’ he shouted. ‘Pongo, Pongo, stinks like the Congo!’ Other boys joined him and gathered round me, jeering. ‘Pongo, Pongo, stinks like the Congo!’ Suddenly we were all in the changing-room, and I was struggling in the grasp of several large boys while others stripped me. Then I was carried, still struggling, to the bathroom. Boys with towels round their waists were waiting in line for their turns in the six zinc tubs which were all my house boasted. When they saw me they shrieked with pleasure and came capering over the slippery floor to mock me. They were all very pink and pubescent and hairless, and I was desperately ashamed of my adult genitals and thick body-hair. Someone turned on the shower and I was held beneath it, the water jetting fiercely in my face. I began to choke and scream, and then I was standing, fully clothed, in front of Hayes, the senior prefect, and he was saying, ‘You’re a disgrace to the house and a disgrace to the school, Bannister,’ and he held his nose and made a farting noise, and I wanted to pee very badly, and I said, ‘Yes, Hayes, yes, Hayes,’ and then I woke up.

  I stumbled to the bathroom and shed my bursting load of guilt. I had a terrible hangover. I took four aspirins and went back to bed.

  Two

  A sandstorm in an hour-glass stops the clock. Instead of following each other in an orderly procession through the narrow slot of hours and days, the grains whirl dervishly about, taking time off from time. After the order and desert stillness of the previous months, my last few weeks in New York were thick with flying sand and stopped clocks. Suddenly I was seeing people all the time—the Grigsons, Adam, Howard, even Mrs Van Dieman—where before I had been lucky to be invited out so much as twice a month. There were no more drugs, but then there were no more visits to the thar, either. I’d been adopted by a circle of friends whose club-rule was never to stay away from each other for more than a few hours at a time. The phone rang so often that I began to trust it. There were parties, shopping trips, expeditions to the country, to art galleries, to theatres, to strange bars, to movies, to Harlem clubs. Henrietta liked to move, as Howard put it, like Queen Elizabeth the First on a royal progress, with a shoal of fools for tenders. The happiest of her fools, used only to solitariness, I became intoxicated with company. Also frequently intoxicated. I began to believe that what Adam had said was true: perhaps other people weren’t all that different from me after all. I began to leave my cigarettes unsmoked, to speak almost volubly, not to care what time it was when I arrived anywhere. It was an enchanted month. I slept peacefully and woke feeling well. The chemical air had been zestfully spiked for spring. Even the casual brusqueness of New Yorkers seemed no more than a plastic bag around their genuine friendliness, easily punctured. I began to wonder if I might not be really living at last.