‘Just with rather a lot of books!’
A few, he points out, were written by his father. Others, older, pertain to individuals from or aspects relating to his meticulously documented ancestral history. A couple, newer, make reference to the father – if only obliquely. Some are just books.
‘My father made a name for himself in this room,’ he says. The line sounds rehearsed. His father had started at a conservative think tank, then advised policy makers. Bigger and bigger names, morphing his own into a talisman of shadowy political influence. Who knows how much of it is true? I have no way to verify the father’s grandiose anecdotes. Still, those shadows loom over the son. He chases after them. But wouldn’t he rather do something else?
‘What else is as important as this?’ he says. Irritation, or perhaps anger, flashes across his eyes. He leans back against the desk, hugs his arms over his chest. Says: he wishes he could be like me. Take up a soulless City job, make a metric shit ton of money. But all this – he waves an obligatory arm at the musty shelves around him – it demands more of him. There’s a legacy to uphold. It’s a compulsion, he says. He has a compulsion to make his mark on this world! It’s been bred into him. He allows himself a sour chuckle at that last quip.
It’s late. We should go to bed.
He tells me I’m easy to talk to. That we’re honest with each other. He says he loves that about me. Okay, he says. He’s going to tell me something. Something honest. Something he’s never told anyone. He keeps a – no, not a journal, it’s a sort of biography, he’s continually writing, crafting it. His story, his life, he’s penning it over and over, every day, in his mind. Everything he does, before he does it, he tries it against the pages of that biography. Does it fit, does it meet the standard? Could it sit on these shelves? He needs a yes, or it doesn’t happen.
That’s how he lives, he says.
I can’t see much in the shallow dark of his bedroom. It’s strange to have ventured into the place that shaped him years ago. I can make out the blocky silhouette of a bookcase, well stocked and serious from his teen-aged reading. A few dim stars glow-in-the-dark against the ceiling.
Beside me, sleeping, he is formless as water. Unperturbed by the day’s anxieties. He breathes steadily. With him, I have become more tolerable to the Lous and Merricks of this world. His acceptance of me encourages theirs. His presence vouches for mine, assures them that I’m the right sort of diversity. In turn, I offer him a certain liberal credibility. Negate some of his old-money political baggage. Assure his position left of centre.
I turn my phone to silent. Perhaps he doesn’t recognize the pragmatism of our coupling as I do, or Rach would. As his father surely must. But it’s there. In his imagined autobiography, this relationship will ultimately reduce to a sentence – maybe two. Thin evidence of his open-mindedness, his knack for cultural bridge-building.
Everything is a trade.
Lou slides on to my screen. The PA’s offline, his email says, and we need Monday-morning flights to New York. Merrick wants us at the Americas onsite. I close my eyes – exhale – at the implication. I want to tell him no, tell him to get his own fucking ticket. The screen’s rectangular echo remains, luminous against my eyelids. Now isn’t the time to be difficult, I know, and I’ll have to book my own ticket anyway （inhale）。 What’s one more? He’s included his passport number, expiry date and a smiley-face at the end.
Exhale,
inhale.
Booked, I reply, after. 7.35 a.m. LHR. Boarding pass attached.
I almost start scrolling, down to where I know I’ll find my sister’s name, with the link she sent me yesterday to some show or other we’ve both been wanting to see. Instead, I let the screen dim, then flick, to nothing.
Absent my phone’s glow, the dark is perfect. My eyes are slow to adjust. The quiet here is absolute. I feel unobserved. Though I know what is to come, and what is expected of me, at tomorrow’s party. I understand the function I’m here to perform. There’s a promise of enfranchisement and belonging, yes. A narrative peak in the story of my social ascent. Of course, they – the family, even the guests – knew I could not turn down such an invitation.
I will be watched, that’s the price of admission. They’ll want to see my reactions to their abundance: polite restraint, concealed outrage, and a base, desirous hunger beneath. I must play this part with a veneer of new-millennial-money coolness; serving up savage witticisms alongside the hors d’oeuvres. It’s a fictionalization of who I am, but my engagement transforms the fiction into truth. My thoughts, my ideas – even my identity – can only exist as a response to the partygoers’ words and actions. Articulated along the perimeter of their form. Reinforcing both their self-hood, and its centrality to mine. How else can they be certain of who they are, and what they aren’t? Delineation requires a sharp, black outline.