climb out over me; and lastly myself. I had been instructed in all this: there were ways of doing things as there had been in the nursery. When Uncle Bill was on the pavement he appeared not quite to know where he was: as if he had been dumped there like a genie out of his bottle. Thus he could appear somewhat half-witted as well as magical; so people would not envy him. Then he seemed to remember to put ahand out for Aunt Mavis, to express solidarity. When it was my turn to emerge from the car the photographers were paying no attention to me: I was thankful, then sorry: after all, everyone has primitive gratifications. I had never been able to get an answer to the question of what clothes I should wear for the party, so I had on an old brown suit of my fatherâs. I seemed to come out of it in tufts like celery. Uncle Bill and Aunt Mavis were posing on the pavement with their arms entwined like wisteria. Then we were going through that door and across the hall and down the corridor and it seemed as if it might be proper for us to act a bit dazed like Uncle Bill; banging off furniture as if we were balls on a pin-table; protecting ourselves like schizophrenics from the eyes that they insist are watching them.
Each time I went to Downing Street I meant to notice more of what it was like inside: but the place was so powerful; you wanted to keep your eyes down so the portraits on the walls would not get you. We went up the stairs. There were so many pictures of men in wigs it was like a brothel. Uncle Bill walked ahead with his feet turned out and that peculiar rolling gait that had made him be so often portrayed in cartoons as a sea-captain: or perhaps more, I thought, like Sheila with no clothes on. He held his hands in his pockets with his thumbs pointing forward; his elbows ready to ward off things like knobs and springs or transvestites that he might bump into on his pin-table.
The reception was in a drawing-room on the first floor where there were gilt chairs and pillars and Mrs Washbourne at the door in front of us. I thought we had left her in Cowley Street. Mrs Washbourne did in fact sometimes seem to be able to be in two places at once; as if she were a witch, or a part played by two actresses.
In the blue-and-gilt drawing-room there were about a hundred people, mostly in dinner jackets and evening dress but some rather ostentatiously not: they were standing in twos and threes and looking round, it seemed, to see if they should be part of any group more important than their own; as if this was their job, to be always ready for some aggrandisement. They were talking as if to the group of people they were withbut with their eyes and mouths turned towards the door; as if, like adventists, they were waiting for their messiah.
I thoughtâBut what if God, like Godot, only ever sends a child?
I took a glass of champagne and drank it quickly and grabbed another as it went past Then I went to a fireplace and put a foot up on the fender and stared down at glowing coals as if I were concentrating on some alchemical experiment there that might make me immune from intruders.
Proust had made use of this terrible world of grand people who come to parties to rub their legs together and keep themselves polished; who make noises like crickets not for the passing of information nor for love but for the sake of establishing status and location; their calling-songs being those to attract other important insects, their courting songs those to bemuse the opposite sex, their fighting songs those to scare off rivals. By becoming part of this scene and yet standing back from it Proust had made out of it his marvellous work of art: yet what did he feel about the whole activity, did he or did he not love it? Standing by my ring of fire in the gilded drawing-room I thoughtâWith even such a work of art, is it more than protecting yourself against something you dislike yet are attracted to?
I had once told Dr Anders a story of how