Page 99 of For Real

“You like your verses rather rough and rugged.”

“Like I like my men.”

Laurie chokes.

“I just like it when the way it sounds is part of how it looks, y’know?”

“I do know,” Jasper tells me gravely. And I think he means it.

“I like Wilfred Owen too. And Mina Loy, she’s the only modernist I can stand. And Brenda Shaughnessy, and Li-Young Lee, and Eduardo C. Corral.” I’m starting to feel a bit self-conscious now. Like bits of my insides are suddenly on the outside. “Oh, and Don Marquis.”

Jasper laughs, but it’s so gentle I’m kind of shocked. “‘Toujours gai, Archy, toujours gai.’”

I guess I lose track of the time a bit, because the next thing I know that isn’t poetry or the soft rhythm of Jasper’s voice is Laurie tugging at my elbow.

As we get to our feet, the rest of the room stands up as well. And it just goes to show how quickly things get normal because I don’t even blink. Soon I’ll be expecting people to jump up and down depending on what I do.

I can tell Laurie’s tense, but I don’t know why.

“The next bit is also a tradition.” He sounds a bit snappy as he yanks me through the side door. “We’ll all sit in a circle and drinks will be handed round. Always pour to the right and pass to the left. The drinks will be served until you don’t replenish your glass, so for God’s sake, remember to stop or we’ll be there forever.”

“Okay. Pass left. Stop drinking. Got it.” I smile up at him, but he doesn’t smile back.

“And I’m afraid we won’t be sitting together.”

“What? Why?”

“I don’t know. It’s just how it works.”

I hope he’s pissy because he’s not going to be able to drink brandy and hold my hand, but I’m not sure. I don’t think I’ve done anything to embarrass him.

We all huddle into another room—not oak-panelled for a change, but it’s got a chandelier. All the chairs have been arranged in a horseshoe round the fire, and as we come in we’re sort of funnelled off in different directions like passengers on the Titanic.

I really want to cling to Laurie, but I can’t. I’ll look like a knob.

I think it’s meant to be some sort of special social alchemy thing, because I’m shown my place like it’s supposed to be awesome. There’s a guy already settled into the seat next to me and he shakes my hand as I sit down, telling me his name is Harrison Whitwell.

He’s another American, which I could have guessed from the interchangeable first name/surname thing he’s got going on. Why do they do that over there? I mean, really, why? Turns out he’s a lawyer and an honorary fellow. I’m not sure what this means, but he seems pretty pleased about it. And he’s wearing a different cape to everyone else—it’s got some hardcore scarlet trim.

At first I’m a little bit…not shy of him, exactly, but uncertain. It’s kind of scary to just be given to someone you don’t know with the expectation they’ll want to talk to you. Except he does want to talk to me—or, at least, he gives a very good impression of it. He’s really nice, not too intense, and he seems happy he got me. He asks lots of questions, and tells a lot of stories that make me laugh. He looks after me when the decanters come round, pours out little glasses of sweet white wine and ruby-red port. I remember what Laurie told me, though. I remember to stop and I pass to the left.

The best thing, though, is when the bottles reach the far side of the horseshoe. There’s actually this…machine thing that slides them back across.

The decanters rattle on the wooden rails, and I’m fascinated. “It totally boggles me that somebody actually sat down and, y’know, invented that.”

His eyes twinkle at me. “Considering where we are, it doesn’t surprise me at all.”

We laugh and then his hand sort of drifts onto my knee. I wonder if I’m being sexually harassed, which is kind of exciting, honestly. I’m not used to thinking of myself as the sort of person someone would want to sexually harass. I guess Harris (as I’m allowed to call him) is flirting with me a bit, but in this really gentle, courtly kind of way that…I, uh, really like. I don’t feel threatened at all. I just feel special. Not the same way Laurie makes me feel (sometimes anyway, when he forgets I’m not supposed to be special to him), but it’s still good.

So his hand stays, and we keep talking, and the decanters go round, and the whole thing is sort of hypnotic. We talk about everything, and I kind of play up to him. He’s older than Laurie, and it’s not as if I’ve got an age-inappropriate fetish or anything—which Laurie isn’t, he’s just Laurie—but there’s a lot about Harris I like. Confidence and warmth and interest in me.

I guess I’m kind of a total slut for that last one.

They send round fruit and chocolate as well as the booze, and near the end, a pretty box Harris flips open for me. “Snuff?”

“Oh my God, for real?” I guess that had come out louder than I meant, because there’s kind of a lull in conversation.

“You want to try?”

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