Before I could reply, I caught sight of Maurice entering the room at last, locked deep in conversation with a lady novelist, a previous winner of The Prize, and as they stood there, she squeezing his hand tightly as they conversed with passionate intent, I felt a surge of jealousy. I longed to grab him by the arm and make a quick exit from the Prado but of course such a thing would have insulted my hosts.
‘There he is,’ said Dash, turning around now and following the direction of my eyes. ‘Where did you pick him up, anyway? He’s pretty as a peach but also very street, don’t you think?’
‘I didn’t pick him up anywhere,’ I replied, trying to control my irritation at his vulgarity. ‘He’s simply a young writer who helps me out from time to time, that’s all.’
He seemed to enjoy my discomfort. ‘You remind me of my Aunt Gloria,’ he said. ‘She’s long dead now, of course. The poor dear couldn’t bear any talk of sex. She had a stroke halfway through reading my first novel and ended up in hospital for the rest of her life. I don’t know if it was the book that brought it on but I’ve always rather hoped that it was. But tell me, Erich, is he submissive, this young assistant of yours, or dominant?’
I looked at him again, longing for the lunch to begin in order that it might sooner come to an end, and claimed not to understand what he meant.
‘Oh, don’t be disingenuous,’ he said. ‘You know perfectly well what I’m talking about. What’s his name?’
‘Maurice,’ I said, and he threw back his head and laughed.
‘Of course it is! You couldn’t make it up! What a shame your name isn’t Clive. And does he charge you by the day or is he one of those agreeable boys who’s happy to give you everything he has as long as you open enough doors for him? You’ve certainly brought him to the right place, that’s for sure,’ he added, looking around at a room that had by now filled with writers, editors and literary taste-makers. ‘I imagine he’ll be very grateful tonight.’
‘You couldn’t be more wrong,’ I told him. ‘For heaven’s sake, he’s just a boy. We’re friends, that’s all.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he said. ‘You’re at least forty years older than him. You can’t possibly be friends. If he’s not giving you what you want, then you should throw him back where you found him and find someone who will. Creative-writing courses are full of accommodating boys who have no scruples when it comes to such things. Believe me, I should know.’
A moment later, lunch was called and to my further annoyance I found myself seated at some distance from Maurice, sandwiched instead between the marketing director from my publishing house and the editor of a literary magazine. He, on the other hand, was placed next to a handsome young Spanish writer who had published three novels in three years, the most recent of which had been a major international success. They spent almost the entire meal locked in conversation, laughing fitfully from time to time, but he never turned in my direction once. And when he took his ever-present notebook from his bag and started to scribble something down that his companion had said, it was all I could do not to pick up the salt cellar and fling it in his direction.
Later that evening, as was our custom, we spent an hour in the hotel bar, where I tried not to allow my dark mood to overshadow our time together, although perhaps it was obvious that I was annoyed for he asked whether anything was wrong.
‘Why should it be?’ I said. ‘It’s been a perfectly pleasant day.’
‘You just seem a little out of sorts, that’s all.’
‘It’s tiredness, nothing more. You enjoyed yourself, though? You seemed to be having a wonderful time at lunch.’
‘I loved it,’ he said enthusiastically. ‘All those writers! I felt like I was one myself.’
‘You are one,’ I insisted, despite the fact that he had given me nothing new to read in some time.
‘I’m not,’ he said. ‘Not until I finish my novel. Actually, not until I publish my novel.’
‘Well, you have to start one to finish one,’ I said.
‘Oh, but I have!’ he told me. ‘Didn’t I mention it? An idea came at last. A plot. And I just sat down and began writing.’
‘I see,’ I replied. ‘And are you going to tell me what it’s about?’
‘Not just yet,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘The thing is, I’m superstitious about things like that. Do you mind if I just keep going and don’t say too much about it for now?’
‘I don’t mind at all,’ I said, even though I minded a great deal. ‘Do whatever makes you happy. And your companion at lunch, the Spanish novelist. Did he offer you any advice?’
‘We weren’t really talking about books,’ he said.
‘Then what were you talking about?’
‘His wife, mostly. And his mistresses. He has a number of them.’
‘I’m surprised you could bear to listen to all of that.’
‘He gave me his card and told me to look him up if I’m ever back here.’
‘You certainly know how to collect us, don’t you?’ I asked. ‘Writers, I mean. Don’t you ever long for someone a little less accomplished? A friend your own age, perhaps? Although I suppose it would be unwise to let yourself be distracted from your work.’
‘I’m happiest on my own,’ he told me. ‘And if I wanted companionship—’ He broke off and pointed over my shoulder towards the foyer. ‘Oh!’ he said. ‘Look who’s just walked in.’
I turned around and saw Dash Hardy standing in the lobby, looking around in search of someone who might recognize him and pay him the requisite adoration. He must have been staying in the same hotel as us and my heart sank, sure that he would notice us too and spoil our evening by insisting on joining our table, then flirting shamelessly with Maurice while making the offensive double entendres that seemed specifically designed to discomfit me. Indeed, I was certain that he did see us for he smiled in our direction, raising a hand in a half-wave, but then, to my surprise and relief, he turned away and walked towards the elevators.
‘Thank God for that,’ I said. ‘I can’t bear that man.’
‘You said my attention should be solely devoted to my work,’ said Maurice, ignoring this remark. ‘But you allowed yourself to get distracted at the start of your career, didn’t you? By Oskar, I mean. So perhaps a little distraction is a good thing.’
‘I don’t understand,’ I said.
‘When we were in Rome you told me how you two met. You weren’t focussed on your writing then but on your desires, right? How did they develop after that, anyway?’
They developed as these things do, I told him. Two teenage boys with much in common, living in dread of war, feigning a loyalty to a Fatherland towards which we felt no particular attachment. Something struck between Oskar and me that evening in the Böttcher Tavern, perhaps because we got so drunk, perhaps because we both had artistic ambitions, but whatever the reason, we very quickly became fast friends. Outside those times when he was in his father’s café, at home painting or we were attending meetings of the Hitlerjugend we were mostly together, sharing ideas with each other, discussing novels and painters, planning what we hoped would be our extraordinary futures. His own work developed considerably during this period and he trusted me now with studies of the girl I had seen in his sketchbook on that first evening. In his drawings, she was always looking away from him and always nude, but there was nothing prurient about the manner in which he drew or talked about her. Certain that I could not bear for him to tell me whether she was real or imagined, I never asked her name, nor did he offer it, but it was obvious that if she was real, then whatever intimacy he shared with her had been recreated in his work, which just got better and better. Mine, on the other hand, was suffering, as I found myself unable to concentrate on fiction when my thoughts were devoted to him. Perhaps it seems unusual, I told Maurice, that we never talked of romance, either of us, but boys were different in those days than they are today. I did not pry into his affaires de cœur and he did not enquire into mine. To do so would have served only to embarrass us both.