Chapter Thirty-One
His parents were renting a brownstone on the Upper West Side. For all of Bryn’s fantasies about being close to the heartland of sixties beatniks, his desire to be near Columbia University was even stronger. Jim had only been here a handful of times before; Bryn and Elizabeth had adopted the Manhattan standard of socialising away from home, although the house was the sort of thing someone who had grown up in the fifties would want from New York: elegance, poor air con and the sense that Dorothy Parker might pop in at any moment.
He paused before he rang the bell, all the words that he had carefully crafted in his head on the way over here suddenly forgotten.
Bryn answered the door, and Jim had to resist the urge to swing at him. Keep calm, he told himself as his father, looking surprised, asked him to come in.
‘I didn’t think anyone just popped in any more,’ he said as Jim followed him through to the kitchen.
‘Where’s Mum?’ asked Jim. He didn’t want any confrontation to be in front of her.
‘Gone down to the venue. I gather the chocolate truffles haven’t arrived. I have no idea what we need truffles for at a party at my age. Half the guests are going to be diabetic.’
Bryn got two glasses from the cupboard and put them next to a bottle of wine on the counter. ‘I’ve opened a nice claret to get me in the mood. Do you want to help me get rid of it before your mother comes back?’
‘It’s fine,’ said Jim, holding up a hand.
Bryn poured two glasses anyway and passed him one.
‘Apparently there’s a couple of hundred people coming tonight, which I think is fairly impressive seeing as we’ve only been in the city two minutes. I’ve invited a few people from the faculty. Salman’s coming, I think.’
‘I saw Saul yesterday,’ said Jim finally.
‘How is he? You know he’s not coming tonight?’ Bryn added with a note of indignation.
‘He’s about to move into a home. He wanted me to give you this.’ Jim reached into his bag and placed the envelope on the bar. His father eyed it suspiciously.
‘What is it?’
‘The first draft of College.’
A smile played on Bryn’s face.
‘Still got that? Sentimental bugger.’ He reached out and touched it with one finger, as if worried it might disintegrate. ‘What’s he given it back for? To display at the party?’
‘I need to ask you something,’ said Jim.
He didn’t want to ask. Didn’t want to edge nearer the truth.
‘Who was the inspiration for Cecile?’
Bryn shrugged slightly, taking a mouthful of his wine.
‘What’s this about? You sound like a reviewer for the TLS.’
‘And if I was, what would you say?’
Bryn topped up his glass.
‘The same thing that I did tell a writer from the TLS. That she was a glorious figment of my bourbon-soaked imagination.’
‘She has a diamond-shaped mole at the base of her spine.’
Bryn frowned. ‘A mole? Who?’
‘Cecile. In the first draft she had a mo
le at the base of her spine. She doesn’t in the version that got published.’