At that moment, the room was quite hushed, and even the lady instrumentalists put down flute and cello and violin. The Mighty Marmaduke disdainfully released the cords which stayed his costume, and it peeled downward from his broad, coarse-haired chest, until the black girl seized it and tugged it right to his knees. There was another cello chord, and the Mighty Marmaduke stood magnificently revealed.

Henry and Nathan clapped loudly, and Henry even whistled between his teeth, but Collis found himself strangely disinclined to applaud. He was stimulated by what was happening before him, he admitted that much. But somehow the stimulation seemed unconvincing, as if he was becoming awkwardly aware that everything he was seeing, and therefore everything he was feeling, was an erotic charade.

Collis sat for a moment staring at the sexual tableau in front of him, biting his thumbnail. Then, almost as if he had been urgently paged, he drained his champagne glass and stood up.

‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘it’s been a remarkable evening, in more ways than one, but now I must leave you.’

Henry caught at his sleeve. ‘You can’t go, my dear boy. You haven’t seen the best part yet! Look — look at what they’re doing now!’

Collis wouldn’t look, and shook his head. ‘I’ve had enough, Henry. Perhaps just for this evening, maybe for good. It’s beginning to strike me, all this pornographic gimcrackery, as pretty stale stuff.’

‘Oh, come on, now,’ said Jack. ‘Just because you’re jealous of the Mighty Marmaduke, there’s no need to rush out in a huff.’

Collis turned to him. ‘I don’t think I need to be jealous. I expect he’s jealous of me, being able to leave whenever I like. Don’t you think he gets bored, doing that?’

‘What a let-down!’ said Lewis. ‘Where’s the Collis we know and admire?’

‘He’s still here,’ said Collis quietly. ‘Now, don’t let me spoil the exhibition for you. I’ll see you tomorrow, maybe, if anybody fancies a drink and some dinner.’

Henry paused, nodded, and then let go of Collis’s sleeve. He was beginning to understand what was disturbing his friend. It wasn’t so much his father, and his self-centred mother, nor even the plunge that Kathleen Mary had taken off the parapet. Henry knew that Collis had been made to think about himself and his future by what had happened in the past twelve hours; and that, having thought, he was slowly lifting his head from the nightly slough of drinking and gambling and whoring, and scenting the clear, cold wind of something else.

It was something that stimulated more than erotic circus shows, and something that intoxicated quicker than drink. It was ambition.

‘Take care, Collis. Let’s talk tomorrow,’ was all Henry said, but that was all that was needed.

Chapter Two