8

I GOT TO know Michael better during this time, and even to like him, though I always felt too self-conscious to adopt the nickname the others had given him. He was initially stung by the success I had with his friends, but quickly conceded his monopoly and repositioned himself as a kind of interpreter – my social patron. I did not wish to risk alienating him, so I accepted his advice and interference with good grace, even managing a show of gratitude. Despite his girth he was immensely physically fit, and his vitality was part of his charm. He played every sport. He would tackle and punt, vault, volley and vie with amazing strength and stamina, and what he lacked in grace and coordination he made up for with a dogged unwillingness to lose. The Union shook with the thunder of his opinions, and from his vantage point on the podium he eyed the spires of Westminster. The more I understood of his plans, the more I saw how, despite all his bluff and bluster, he must have been genuinely frightened on the night I rescued him from the porters. Had he been caught, he almost certainly would have been sent down. Such a black mark on his CV might have been fatal to his ambitions.

He had two much older siblings, both in their thirties with families of their own, and Jessica would sometimes mock him for being a mistake. He was well educated, and witty in the erudite fashion more common to literature than to real life. His laughter and joking did not mitigate against the meaner elements of his personality; rather it manifested them in a more acceptable form. His humour was a matter of profit and loss: someone, whether it was a stammering lecturer, an oddly dressed stranger or one of his friends inadvertently mispronouncing a name on a menu, would always pay for the increase in his own status with a little portion of their self-respect. I used to envy him for being able to get away with the things he said and did, but it was perhaps a kind of curse to him to be able to make people cry with laughter at his cruellest exploits. It denied him the public condemnation that might otherwise have curbed his impulses. Rather than criticizing him on the spot, people tended to wait until he was out of the room, to wipe their eyes with their fingers as their laughter subsided into chuckles and then to say, ‘No, my God that was funny, but I think Falstaff went a little far that time.’ From time to time he would mock me about my painting, when he saw dirt under my nails or spatters on my jeans, using the pieces he had seen around the easel on the night of our meeting as a guide for his derision. These were the moments when I found it hardest to deal with him.