A History of Forgetting (14 page)

‘Then you wouldn't have minded?'

‘No,' said Billy.

Christian plucked a pearl-berried sprig from behind his ear, dangled it and lunged for Alison, catching her on the lips. Billy ducked behind Alison. ‘Billy,' Christian said, leaning around her, ‘I know
everything
about you.' Billy actually blushed. ‘And Ali, you look
radiant.'
He undid the button on her metallic blouse, so the tops of her breasts showed, then sauntered off singing.

They hung up their wet coats, then she steered Billy through the columns wound now with boughs and ribbon, to the gallery where every bust except the Senator was wreathed. She was leading him towards the sinks where Amanda stood with a punch ladle, but now Roxanne, standing close to Jamie, intercepted them.

‘Billy! It must be Billy! Christian's told us all about you!'

Roxanne and Alison kissed, then Roxanne kissed Billy. Jamie, his hair loose for the party, a mass of rag-doll spirals, kissed Alison.

‘Billy. This is Jamie.'

‘You're not going to kiss me, are you?'

‘Don't worry,' said Jamie. ‘I'm not into that.'

‘Jamie brought a date,' Roxanne whispered plaintively to Alison.

‘I'm going to get a drink,' said Alison. She continued on, weaving through to the sinks, three black troughs, one filled with a creamy swill, the others with spoked discs of lime afloat in red wine. ‘Egg-nog or sangria?' asked Amanda, grazing her lips against Alison's cheek.

Two glasses in hand, Alison peeked into the back room, found it on fire, brazenly taken over by smokers refusing to stand out in the rain. People she didn't know she guessed were dates and friends. ‘Hi, John!'

Robert's boyfriend looked up, his face gaunter than ever. The hollows in his cheeks had become caves. ‘Merry Christmas, Ali.' He saluted her with a joint.

She found Billy by the hairdryers with an astringent-faced Donna and her hulking beau, the correct answer to the question: ‘Which of these is not like the others?' At least she had got him into a tie, though he'd been tugging on the knot so, loosened, it looked like a festive noose.

‘Where were you?' he hissed.

‘Getting you a drink.' She handed him the sangria.

‘Have you introduced yourselves?'

Billy nodded. ‘Donna. Scott. Nice meeting you.'

‘Adrian,' said Donna.

‘What?'

‘He's Adrian.'

‘Och,' said Adrian. ‘He can call me Scott if he wants.'

‘Oh?' Donna raised her sculpted eyebrows. ‘Can I call you Jerk?'

Rumour was they were not getting along. He was having his hair cut somewhere else. Alison hadn't heard this from Donna, of course, but Christian.

Billy led Alison away. Out of Donna's earshot, she asked, ‘So? Did you like her?'

‘Who? The Ice Queen?'

The stations were cleared and lined between the busts with caterer's trays. Pine boughs and strings of Christmas lights, multicoloured and blinking, festooned the mirrors. Alison cut into a cheese ball and passed a cracker to Billy who had to yell to ask, ‘Are you actually enjoying this?'

‘It's pretty much like this every day.' She spotted Jamie in the corner; he
had
brought a date. She pointed them out to
Billy. ‘He only goes out with redheads.' This one was a verit
able Rapunzel.

Thi came over and greeted Alison with a kiss. She introduced her husband.

‘Nice to meet you,' said Billy, shaking his hand. ‘You look normal.'

‘Yes,' he said. ‘I'm an accountant.'

Alison asked, ‘Where's Malcolm?' and Thi said, ‘I doubt he'll show. He didn't last year.'

He was coming in the door, in fact, into the reception area, but just then the overhead lights went out in the gallery and the dancing started, so he stopped between the columns. Someone cranked up the music and bodies began spilling from the back. How had they all fitted in? In the semi-darkness, he couldn't see their faces clearly, but knew they were mostly strangers. He didn't know that many young people.

He went over to the sofa and gave Venus's bare shoulder an affectionate pat as he sat. ‘You must be chilly, dear.' In the gallery, they were moving as one tangled, orgiastic mass.
Christian he could make out swinging with the Senator.

A young man came through the columns, stopping short when he saw Malcolm. ‘I thought I'd cop a feel when no one was looking, but you got to her first.'

‘Pardon me?' said Malcolm.

Gesturing to Venus, he took a seat on the other couch.

‘Aren't you dancing?'

‘Are you inviting me?'

He looked so utterly stricken that Malcolm apologized instead of laughing. ‘Who brought you?'

‘My girlfriend. Ali.'

Curious now, Malcolm looked at him more closely. He
had a nice head of brown curls and was wearing the standard uniform of black jeans. In a confessional tone, Malcolm said, ‘Alison is a lovely girl.'

He shrugged. ‘She's okay. What's
he
doing?'

Malcolm looked over to where the boy was pointing and saw that Christian had abandoned the Senator and was now standing alone on the floor, utterly still, arms above his head, wrists crossed, head tilted up—
à la
Saint Sebastian. He was imitating the pose of one of the nudes in the mock fresco on the back wall.

The boy said, ‘I study animal behaviour. That guy is weird.'

‘Are we animals?' asked Malcolm.

‘I am,' the boy said, getting up to leave. ‘I don't know about you.'

 

Billy had given her his peevish permission to go off with Thi and her husband to dance. ‘Just two songs, then I'll be back,' she had promised. Christian had been first on the floor, but now he was at the other end of the room pretending to be nude. ‘Have a Holly, Jolly Christmas' segued into a disco version of ‘Little Drummer Boy' and Alison and Thi wound up for a hip collision—
pa rum pa pa PUM!
On the periphery of the crowd, Robert was guiding John to one of the chairs beneath the hairdryers, tenderly easing him down, then wrapping his arms around him from behind. He swivelled the chair back and forth so they were dancing, too.

Alison looked around for Billy and was surprised to see Malcolm instead, coming back from the sinks with a glass in his hand.

Malcolm saw her, too. And now she was coming over. All at once he felt exposed without a book, unshielded. He would not be able to pick and choose his conversations, or duck in and out of them as he pleased. Backing into the corner, he gave the glass in his hand a nervous little swirl.

‘I asked about you earlier,' Alison told him. ‘Thi said you
never came.' He could smell her perfumed hair when she leaned
close to kiss his cheek. None of them had ever kissed him.

‘Last year Christian called me Scrooge until July.'

She laughed. ‘That's why you came? Are you alone?'

‘Quite alone,' he said. Then he told her. He had not planned to. The words simply spilled out. ‘My partner is in the hospital. “A care facility”, they call it. He's been there for a month.'

‘Oh! I'm sorry!' She reached for his hand, ‘I had no idea!' and for a long, astonishing moment they stood together in the dark, a rap version of ‘Joy to the World' booming out. He felt the dry warmth of her hand around his icy, perspiring one. Then, close to weeping, he pulled his hand away.

‘It's not the dread plague, if that's what you're thinking.'

The girl blushed. ‘I wasn't thinking anything.'

Miserably, he wiped his palm against his blazer, as if he could not tolerate a sympathetic touch. He could see it offended her. ‘I'll introduce you to Billy if l can find him,' she said, but now she was avoiding looking at him.

‘I believe I've met him.'

‘Oh! Where did he get to?'

Malcolm pointed to the reception area and watched her hurry off. Thi stopped her. ‘Ali,' he heard her say, ‘Roxanne's crying in the bathroom. She wants you.'

 

After Alison and Thi had put Roxanne in a cab, Alison found Billy up front. He was talking with, of all people, Christian, leaning back so far that if she'd gone and got the broom he'd have started them all on the limbo. For an expert in reading
motives in body postures, he was no great shakes at con
cealing his own. Then, drawing near, she heard that they were, in fact, discussing this very subject.

‘—what's called, ah, the resident-intruder paradigm. A non-resident is introduced into a resident's enclosure.'

‘Fascinating,' said Christian.

‘We study different pair groupings—male on female, female
on female, male on, ah, et cetera—as well as looking at how
factors influence agonistic behaviours.'

Alison rolled her eyes. But she liked how Billy was the one squirming for a change, could see he was even sweating under Christian's baffling gaze. He had to look away. To his obvious relief, he saw Alison standing there laughing at him, Alison who wouldn't even feign an interest in rats any more.

Christian saw Alison, too, and slumped. Then, suddenly perking, he drew from the Senator's tray a bottle of Black Bush. ‘What a tantalizing paradigm! Go on!' He tempted with the bottle, paused with it poised above Billy's empty glass.

Billy glanced at Alison. ‘Well . . .' He cleared his throat.
‘Things usually get started with an exploration of the enclosure by the intruder—'

Smiling, Christian poured.

‘—which involves locomotion, rearing, sniffing, mark
ing—'

Christian nodded. ‘Checking out the art work, the titles on
the bookshelf, lifting the lid off the pot, spilling the wine . . .'

‘Exactly. Cheers.' He clinked his glass against the bottle.
‘Sometime during this exploration, the resident rat approaches
the intruder.'

Christian lit up. ‘So soon?'

‘Circles him and when they're close enough, both rats usually exhibit what's called “recognition sniffing”.'

‘Ha-ha-ha!' trilled Christian. He leaned into Alison, snuffling her neck until she playfully slapped him off.

‘At this point dominance is usually established.' He threw Alison a plotting smirk just in case she hadn't figured out who was dominant in this conversation now. ‘In most cases the resident is dominant and so exhibits certain characteristic behaviours. Standing over the intruder, for example. Walking over him.'

‘Not
chez moi.
They walk all over
me.'

‘So long as the intruder stays in a submissive crouch, everything's cool.'

‘My
favourite
position.'

‘If he tries to assert himself, the resident will snap to what we call “the aggressive upright posture”.' Billy looked at Alison again, wickedly. ‘This is usually accompanied by a piloerection,' and Christian stepped back with a gasp.

Billy added, ‘In other words, his
fur
stands up.'

Letting go of the Senator, Christian pushed up his green sleeve. ‘Look!
My
fur is standing up just listening to you.'

Alison interrupted. ‘I think we've heard enough about
Ratland.' She would hear about this conversation after­ward, she was sure, and not like what Billy would have to say.

Billy protested, ‘But I haven't even got to genital sniffing!'

A delighted shriek from Christian, so, to change the sub
ject, Alison asked what his plans for Christmas were. For a long moment he didn't answer, just stood staring at Billy with one
eye, then, tilting his head slightly, the other. Billy squirmed. She had to wave her hand in front of Christian's stalled face
before he came to. Leaning into her, he slurred, ‘Oh, Ali. I just
love
him. I really do.'

‘Me too.' She helped him position his hands on the Senator's plaster shoulders again, then sent him back through the columns.

‘Can we go now?' Billy asked.

She took the whisky out of his hand and set it on the desk. ‘Can you drive all right?'

All the way home, Alison stared out of the rain-washed window, thinking that hardly anyone put up Christmas lights any more. There seemed to be, year by year, measurably less light in the world. They didn't speak, Alison sitting inside her sadness. Billy, it turned out, was formulating a stupid joke.

He looked over at her and ho-ho-hoed in a Santa bass. ‘On, Prancer, on, Mincer!'