Assembly(12)

‘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.

‘That’s a pretty dress.’

The mother looks over at me, from across the kitchen. We’re awash in sweet light. A wall of bifold French doors accordions open, spilling the kitchen out on to a vast garden and rushing us with crisp morning air. Beyond, four men in nondescript white uniforms inspect spots around the lawn. Metal poles, bundles of white fabric and coiled rope are set out around them. They don’t look over.

The mother takes a mug down from a cabinet, and fills it from a gently steaming tea pot. She slides it along the counter towards me.

‘Rosemary, from the garden.’

Pinpricks flush my arms as I touch my fingertips to the hot sides of the cup. She details the day’s plan. Casual, she emphasizes. A finger buffet, a little music.

‘That’s the marquee, they’re setting up.’ She nods towards the men. ‘Christine – our caterer – recommended it. Can’t trust this weather to hold up!’

She stands a little to my side, still looking out at the garden.

It’ll be quite the party.

‘Well, we wanted to mark the occasion, yes. Forty years. But really, it’s just a good excuse to bring everyone together. Family, friends of the family.’ She smiles at me again, with sympathetic brows. Her face is squarish, only finely lined, and softened with a white, peachy fuzz.