The Aftermath: Chapter Six
Wherein Hugo contemplates his first post-lockdown dinner invitation and Amory despairs about the state of the world
Six
The invitation to supper came about three weeks later, after the restaurants had begun to reopen as the lockdown started to ease. Until then, Hugo hadn’t heard anything from anyone, and if Amory had, she kept it to herself. In the intervening days and weeks since the facemask party, Hugo and Amory settled into a quiet if not exactly fulfilling co-existence in the townhouse off the King’s Road. Hugo’s publisher got in touch about a week after his release to tell him that his hours were being cut but that he wasn’t being furloughed and could he please give his impression on a slew of pandemic-related short novels that were cluttering up his publisher’s slush pile.
Hugo was grateful for something to do and even found the work itself less arduous than he might normally have done, although he couldn’t help but take some umbrage to the fact that others who hadn’t gone through what he’d gone through were now trying to cash in on the virus for their own creative and professional self-aggrandizement. But such was the world, he figured, and tried not to hold a grudge. He did consider for a moment writing his own narrative about what had happened to him, but he quickly talked himself out of it and never thought about it again.
Mostly though he thought about Amory and what they had talked about in the wee hours of morning after the party. She went out a lot. She always came home but she rarely told him where she’d been. She said she once got abused on the Circle line by some middle-aged woman who didn’t like that she wasn’t wearing a mask, so Amory said she was excused because of a prior health condition and then coughed in the woman’s face, which almost caused a ruckus with the TFL but somehow Amory had managed to get off without even a fine. Amory was good at things like that, of getting herself out of difficult situations that, frankly, she should never have been in in the first place. Hugo couldn’t help but admire her.
He wondered whom she went to see. No one came to the townhouse. He wondered if she was having an affair with Clothilde. Or with Fitz. Or with both of them. Hugo found himself thinking about Fitz, perhaps more than he would have liked. Hugo often pondered why he’d more or less told Amory that he fancied Fitz when he wasn’t sure himself whether that was the case at all or whether he’d just said it to get at Amory for more or less saying she fancied Clothilde. He didn’t think he particularly liked Fitz, as a person rather. And as for being attracted to him, well, that took some considering, more than Hugo had the energy for.
Nonetheless, when Fitz’s rather formal invitation arrived via Royal Mail two days prior to the date of the reservation, Hugo found himself rather chuffed. It was something to look forward to, a break from the mundane, a portal perhaps into whatever lay in store for him beyond the dwindling days of the lockdown. Amory seemed to have found a rhythm, what with her comings and goings every day without a word to him about her life outside the confines of the townhouse. Not that Hugo was overly inquisitive either. He knew that whatever secret existence she enjoyed probably didn’t include him for a reason, and while Hugo was certainly more prone to self-reflection than Amory, he knew of himself that whatever secrets Amory chose to keep from him, he’d rather they remain secret than brought out into the open. Too much truth-telling only made everything that much more onerous.
But he did tell Amory when the invitation arrived. He even showed it to her – the gilt-edged calligraphic, antiquated pomposity of it all. Hugo considered having it framed. Amory betrayed not even the slightest iota of interest. In all fairness, he didn’t know what he expected from her. The invitation rather conspicuously didn’t include her and Hugo knew from experience that Amory was utterly disinterested in anything that didn’t have her name attached to it. Yet still he had wanted her to see it. Whatever had or hadn’t happened between Amory and Fitz while he’d been in hospital had never been properly investigated. And for his part, Hugo preferred to keep it that way – something to do with letting bygones be bygones. But it did delight him – just a bit – that whatever it had been, it obviously hadn’t merited much in Fitz’s estimation that he’d think to include her in his rather decadent invitation for a night on the town. Well, perhaps not a night on the town exactly – dinner at Brasserie Zedel, the Ritz still not having reopened – but the closest thing to a proper night out that Hugo had experienced since his illness and confinement. Whatever the occasion – or company – he intended to get drunk and thoroughly enjoy himself.
“Chloe’s invited me to a seat on the board,” Amory said by way of reply, lighting a cigarette and waving the invitation away as she went straight to the bar trolley and poured herself a gin. She’d been out all day. It was late, twenty minutes or so before midnight. Hugo thought he detected a whiff of something on her breath that vaguely reminded him of something he recognized but gave him no pleasure to recall.
“The board?”
“At S.A.S.S. I obviously did something right the other night at that fucking facemask fiasco or else she wouldn’t have asked.”
He couldn’t tell whether or not this was a cause for celebration. Since that night, Hugo had rather had the impression that there had been a bit of a falling out between Amory and the redoubtable Lady Templeton. But a seat on the board seemed to put any such rift to rest.
“Congratulations?”
“Premature. I haven’t decided yet whether to accept.” Amory sucked hard on her cigarette and knocked back the gin in a single gulp before pouring another. Hugo had always thought Amory smoked and drank like a man. He supposed this made him sound sexist or something.
“It’s a big deal though, right? It’s fucking Lady Templeton!” Hugo didn’t mind swearing but he didn’t particularly care to do so himself and he hated manuscripts he read by young wannabe literary hotshots who dropped f-bombs every other word because they thought it made them sound edgy and contemporary and cool. Amory swore though. When they’d first known each other at uni, Amory had sworn like a sailor. God how she used to swear! It had been kind of sexy back then, when they’d been young. But now that they were both pushing thirty – getting old, in other words – the edge had lost its appeal. Now Hugo thought it made Amory sound like she was trying too hard to sound relevant. Like those young authors. But sometimes, in order for him to feel he and Amory operated on a somewhat similar plane, sometimes Hugo dropped an f-bomb or two himself. It really made him sound like he was trying too hard. Sometimes Amory would smile in acknowledgment of his effort. No such acknowledgment tonight. She just hit the bottle and pretended as though she hadn’t heard him.
“It’s just her way of controlling me,” Amory said. “That’s what Clothilde says anyway.”
“Clothilde?”
Amory shrugged.
“So you’ve been seeing Clothilde? Fitz’s girlfriend?”
“They have an arrangement.”
“An arrangement?”
Amory looked at him like she thought he was mental.
“It works for them. Why?”
“It’s just that.”
“What?”
Hugo shook his head. He wasn’t in the mood. He took the bottle of gin from Amory and helped himself.
But the idea of it still nagged at him: “I thought we’d agreed.”
“Agreed what? Like most things with you, Hugo, it’s all talk. We talk about doing this. We talk about doing that. We talk about going somewhere, of getting away, but then weeks and then months and then years go by and nothing happens. We’re still in London. We’re still in this fucking townhouse.”
“And we’re still not fucking, right?” The rage. Hugo had to knock back another shot of gin to keep himself under control. “That’s what you were going to say, wasn’t it? Are you fucking Clothilde?”
“This isn’t about Clothilde anyway,” Amory said. She turned on her heel while blowing a stream of smoke in his face, kicked off her shoes, and went to her bedroom, all the while trailing cigarette smoke behind her.
Hugo followed at an urgent but measurably safe distance.
“What is it about then?” he asked.
Amory threw herself down among the cushions on her bed and closed her eyes so she wouldn’t have to look at him.
“When are you meeting up with Fitz?” she deflected.
“Thursday evening. I showed you the invitation.”
“It’s not like I looked at it.”
“You’re not invited.”
“Why do you think Fitz wants to have dinner with you?”
“Why wouldn’t he want to have dinner with me? We’re kindred spirits. We both like art.”
“Just don’t get your hopes up.”
“What the fuck do you mean by that?”
“And don’t swear at me. It’s unbecoming. And vaguely abusive.”
Hugo forced himself to take a breath, to take a step back, or else he’d have punched the wall.
“I’m just saying you’re gullible is all,” she said. “It comes across as a bit thick.”
“Fitz thinks I’m thick?”
“That’s not what I said. But Fitz…I don’t think Fitz is a good person.”
“Are any of us good people?” Hugo challenged. He wasn’t typically someone who sought confrontation but – perhaps it was the gin talking – in that moment, he found himself itching for a fight. “Are you a good person?”
Amory opened one eye and squinted at him, closed it, then opened the other. “Do you seriously want me to answer that, or are you just being annoyingly rhetorical? If it’s the former, the question is too boring to answer. And if it’s the latter, well, obviously you’ve already made up your mind so I’m not going to bother with a reply.”
“I just don’t think any of us are in a position to judge.”
“You’re right. We’ve all fallen from somewhere.” Amory lurched up to a seated position in the middle of the bed, sending pillows and stuffed animals asunder. “We’re all lost – hence the state of the world right now. Civilization as we’ve known it since at least the Second World War will never be the same again. It’s fucked and it’s probably been fucked for years but now we’re only just starting to realize how truly fucked it is. And there’s nothing any of us can do about it except disengage and disinfect.”
The anger had gone out of him. Hugo had never been able to stay angry at Amory for long, or at anyone for that matter. He supposed it made him seem weak. Maybe that’s why Amory had said he was gullible? Or thick, or whatever it was that she’d said. It hardly mattered now. He knew she wasn’t good for him. He knew they were doomed but at least she was familiar to him, and sometimes a little familiarity was a good thing. Hugo took a hesitant step into the room, paused, and waited for Amory to tell him to go away. Now that the rage had vanished he felt safe again. He trusted himself once more.
“Disengage and disinfect,” he repeated with a laugh that was meant to sound ironic. “You should send that to the PM or Public Health England. They’re about due for a new slogan.”
It got a smile out of her, barely a flicker of an upturn at the corners of her mouth – and begrudging at that – but it was a still a smile. Hugo cautiously sat down on the edge of Amory’s bed. He looked at her. She looked at him. He wanted to kiss her but held back. She didn’t move toward him or encourage him. But her eyes were soft and Hugo thought she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
“We’re all fucked,” she said. Her bottom lip trembled. Her eyes now welled with tears.
“Well, at least we’ll be fucked together,” he said.
Hugo held his arms open to her, welcoming her into him if she so desired, praying that she wouldn’t reject him while steeling his reserve in the event that she did. He held his breath and fixed her with his most winning smile. He hoped it didn’t make him look like he was trying too hard. Amory looked away. She sucked in her cheeks so the rather rigid infrastructure of her face stood out stark against her skin. She’d lost weight, Hugo thought. Too much weight, but it was hardly the time to question her eating habits, not when he desperately wanted at that moment for her to let him stay the night in her room, in her bed. He didn’t expect anything more. He wasn’t even all that bothered that he’d identified the smell she’d carried with her from wherever she’d been before. Clothilde. He wondered what was wrong with him.
He’d been cured of the virus but it was still unclear whether sex was safe. Amory could have had the virus herself and not known. She hadn’t been tested. No one had in the early days. But it wasn’t sex he was after. It was something else, something more intimate than sex, at least Hugo thought so after nearly two months in isolation.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
“Is this all there is now? I mean, you can’t really call it living, can you? Every time I go out I worry that I’m going to touch something or someone is going to breathe on me and I’ll end up like you. Even with Clothilde, I…”
Amory broke off. He traced his thumb gently across her hand.
“It’s okay,” he said. It was and it wasn’t. Hugo wasn’t sure.
“Can we please go somewhere?” she asked. “I feel like I’m suffocating here.”
She pulled her hand away. Her rejection of him was subtle but complete.
Hugo got up from the bed.
“Can we please bring Clothilde when we go?”
He paused at the door and turned. Tears streamed down her face, rivulets of mascara on her cheeks.
“She’s my soulmate,” Amory said. “She affirms me.”
Hugo nodded, went out, and closed the door.